How loud should sounds be?

[alexgleason]

One thing I don't quite understand, is how loud to make each of my sounds/music so it meets the user's expectation based on the volume they've set on their computer.

For example, sometimes I'll mute my game while working and be listening to other music. Then when I unmute my game, I have to turn the volume down. This is because the music in my game is louder than the other music I'm listening to. The other music is usually an album played with VLC, or a YouTube video.

I'm aware of "the loudness wars." Where did we ever end up with that? Is there any sort of standard for loudness? Ideally, I want users to not have to turn the volume up or down when switching from other software to my game.

[Diarandor]

IMO, the only important thing is that all your sounds have the same volume (with respect to the other sounds and to the musics).
Also, you can add a menu to change the global volume.