The alert noises

This might be personal, but I'd really appreciate an option or something to switch between the current beeping alert noises and different announcer-style alerts.
The beeping noises really get on my nerves, and while they are a bit more distinctive now they are still not immediately indicative of anything. Only after playing for a long time can you kind of figure out what they mean, and that's not very good. But the noise they make is like nails across a chalkboard to me, too.

I'd prefer an option to have a metallic voice or something like that just tells the player straight up what is going on: "You are being attacked" or "The commander is under attack", stuff like that.
I don't know all the variations and different situations these sounds occur in, but it would help very much to have stuff like that. Even stuff like "You are being fired on from orbit" would be very nice to have, because you immediately know where to start looking or what to pay attention to instead of scrolling around the planet to see what the hell is going on where.
It's immediately clear to you what's going on even as a new player, which is important. Right now I've played for a while (got in during the beta) but I still haven't figured out what the annoying beeping noises mean. That's simply not good.

Voice? Get John Patrick Lowrie.

I have only played Gamma once yet, but in Beta (from the top of my head) there were beeps for Commander under attack, unit lost and economy stalled.
In the Gamma livestream I noticed a bunch of bleeping and booping (some with and some without notifications) that I'm not totally sure yet what they mean.
An option menu, where you can assign sounds (or mp3s) to events and hear a preview, would be helpful.

I would be absolutely, perfectly happy with John's (Scathis) voice. It sounds so cool to me. Maybe the eventual motivational chime, e.g. when winning a fight, of "You are being awesome".

I like them. I actually notice them this way.

I'd like for it to be a sequence of beeps - so one beep for scout destroyed, two for units, three for buildings, and four for your comm.

That would make it less cluttersome than the current four beeps.

So two beeps can mean either 2 scouts dead or one unit.
But different beeps for lots of different events are a really good idea in general.

Once the game stabilizes a little it might be a good idea to let people customize the sound with a mod.

Pretty sure you could do tthat right now.

It's possible, but I'm not quite as superhuman as you are when it comes to maintaining mods. I know that if I made this I would feel obligated to maintain it, and these mods add up.

personally, I like the new gamma sounds a lot - they sound great, give a very polished feel to the game.

but I gotta agree - i'm still totally confused about what they mean! the go off, and i look to the top of the screen for an explanation, and there's nothing. i scroll around a bit and usually just shrug my shoulders and go on with my day.

maybe an option to have a visual (clickable) alert pop up at the top of the screen to go with every beep alert? or perhaps a setting for several levels; visual alert explaining 1)all 2)important 3)none aural alerts.

You can use alerts manager to show all alerts. In fact I am doing that now. Will see if it is not too much. But hearing the warning sound without a way to tell what died where is an issue as well.

Yeah I'm not lobbying for their removal. I'd like there to be an option to choose a different set of alert sounds that specifically tell you what is going on. So there would be what there is right now, and an extra set on top of those.
Because these beeps are really annoying to me, and they don't give any specific information, making them utterly useless too untill you figure out what beep means what. It's bad design in my honest opinion, but for whoever figured them out and likes them they would still be there.

But personally I like the way Starcraft 2 does it for instance. When I play as the Zerg I will be told specifically that I ran out of vespene gas or minerals, or that I need to spawn more Overlords.
By hearing this I don't have to search through the UI to figure out what is going on, and I can quickly resolve the issue. But now I hear this nerve-grating beep and I have to search through UI or the planet, or even multiple planets. PIP is helping out with it a bit but it could be so much better.

Also maybe GLaDOS as well.

Sounds are fine, but some of them are a bit long. Half the "being attacked" one and I'd be happy. Mind, I think the devs know about this as even some of them were commenting on the annoying sounds

The new "unit lost" noise is pretty darn annoying.

First off, I personally agree some of the noises are annoying. Howard hasn't had a ton of time on the sound FX side because he was mixing the score. He has a bit more work to do there for the soundtrack release but will be able to spend more time on sound FX.

Secondly we are going to do some announcer recording soon. Hopefully some time in the next few weeks or so. This means we will be able to have spoken alerts that are more contextual.

Alert noises are super annoying. It screams pre beta of the beta. I beg you please get rid of them.

That is awesome. Thanks for your reply!

Yes some noises are annoying but overall a big big improvement towards having none at all.

I can wait.

So we will get John Patrick Lowrie tell us "Commander under attack" finally?