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Ticking clock sound in BJ's room (Malta hub) is historically inaccurate

Open superuser-does opened this issue 10 months ago • 0 comments

Brief

The beat rate of the clock sound in BJ's room in Malta is too high. The audio file should be changed.

Long explanation

There are three clock types it could be:

  1. The ticking clock in Malta sounds like a modern quartz clock, which was a lab item at best until the 1960s. Wolfenstein of course isn't a realistic game, but if a quartz clock were common in the alternate universe of Wolfenstein, then the clearly mechanical escapement of the dynamite (indicated by the multiple ticks) would be suspicious, as quartz circuits are cheaper to manufacture.
  2. There were pendulum clocks that had that beatreate, but BJ has a small desk clock so it is very unlikely to be that.If it was a pendulum clock, it would still be very unlikely unless it was specialised to be a regulator. Here are common beatrates - almost all clocks are above 60 ticks per second.
  3. The other common type were electric synchronous clocks, which became the most common consumer clocks between the 1930s and late 1960s. These were plugged into the mains electricity and had smooth seconds hands (example). They would not make a discernible sound.

I would encourage you to change it to the 3rd option and thus remove the sound effect to enhance player immersion - at least, for those of us with an interest in horological history. If you want to go a step further, you could have a small cable coming out from the back of the clock.

superuser-does avatar Mar 02 '25 16:03 superuser-does