Can you hear party/raid members sound effects when in instanced content?

Community General Discussion
1

Hi. Just curious.

I’ve had this problem for several months, pretty much since Dragonflight released.

When I am in any sort of instanced content, I simply cannot hear the sound effects, or even emotes, of anyone other than myself.

I can hear myself, the enemy, and the ambience/environment. That’s it.

I’ve not been able to fix this issue, despite having about 50 posts on the forums and several gm tickets, even spoke to customer service on the phone and had them issue an escalated ticket (aka did nothing - this was FOUR MONTHS ago).

I’ve done everything I can think of.

Uninstall all addons
Delete WTF
Delete Config
Delete Cache
Uninstall the game → Reinstall the game
Uninstalled → Reinstalled audio drivers
Used different audio drivers
Changed audio settings 1000 different configurations.
/console cvar_default
New speakers.
New audio connection, using Optical instead of 3.5mm aux jack.
New SSD.
New install of Windows on said SSD.
Upgraded to Windows 11.

So, have any of you noticed whether or not you can/can’t hear other players when in dungeons or whatever? I’m losing my mind here. It would be great to hear (ahaha…) whether or not it’s working for you, if you would mind keeping an ear out next time you log in.

Ordered parts for a completely new pc, will be here Monday. New everything, other than case and cpu cooler… If this doesn’t work I’m just down with WoW. Can’t play this game without audio. (I can hear everything perfectly fine in Classic Era/Wrath, it’s only on Retail that this problem arises).

2

Is there not an option for this? I know I’ve seen a graphics option for player-only physics interactions. Either way, idk. I can’t remember the last time I played with actual sound effects (outside of fishing). Most I use is dialogue/music when content first comes out, until it gets old and I just go back to having something playing on another monitor.

3

You aren’t the only one. Pretty much after Dragon Flight launched I just couldn’t hear anyone else’s characters or spell effects anymore. They do make sounds, but they are so quiet I hardly notice them.

I had a friend of mine test this with me in a party and just did /silly over and over we just couldn’t hardly hear each others characters.

Now if you log into classic you can still hear everything just fine. So idk what they did with DF.

4

Most of these are represented by options in Audio menu, but you could get the Advanced Interface Options addon and mess with those that aren’t:

“ListenerAtCharacter” seems like it could be a culprit. /shrug

5

That’s exactly about the time I noticed this as well.

Game is unplayable without audio for me.