i get bored easily if im not listening to either a good ingame background sound track or my preferred music while playing, but i always pause the music or lower the volume when there's full voice over conversations because i like to listen to the story (GW2 and SWTOR) instead of reading walls of text. I cant digest conversations when my mind is enslaved by music
The only one that music has mattered to me is EvE Online. Mining high sec anyways.
But any other high fantasy MMORPG I could do without it and would prefer more ambient sound. Just gives me more of the feel of being in a world....like Skyrims...although I realize it has music to...it was better without it to hear the world sounds. More immersive.
Personally speaking, music is an incredibly important aspect in any game for me. It usually decides whether I play it for a long time or not. It has to be placed carefully, though, fitting the world adequately.
My favorite example would be FFXI. Some maps are completely music-less, with only ambient sounds. It's incredible how that can enhance the immersion; listening to the ocean, the wind, the sand... etc. It also plays music where it 'feels' right, like in the Sanctuary of the Zi'tah, or Ronfaure. I still listen to those pieces from time to time, as I tend to associate it with the immersive world FFXI was.
In my opinion, you can make a game graphically appealing, have fancy mechanics and captivating story; but all of that is for naught if it doesn't have a good musical score to back it up. For me, a game without music lacks the soul that makes the world alive.
It's a real shame developers don't invest much time in this, as it could really enhance the experience if it's done well.
I usually like it at first, but after a short time it becomes repetitive and I turn it off.
Exceptions:
Guild Wars 1
Star Wars Galaxies
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
i almost always turn off music in a game. in general it's fairly plain, short, and just repeats. there are a few tracks i've enjoyed, but i can't listen to it not stop over and over.
i tend to just listen to the combat, or run pandora in the background.
Good music in a game is always great. Final Fantasy XI comes to mind. You could play any song to me from base game to ToAU and I could name what zone it was played in or during what fight. Very memorable sound track.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Pretty important. I never realised how much it added until I played Age of Conan. Great music. SWTOR is good as well. I also never realised how it can really drive me away from a game until I just played The Wizardry Online beta. Between the droning sickly sweet fairy sweat music pouring over me constantly and the inability to skip through boring..drawn out narratives ...I couldn't even stand to do the beta. I reported those two things and Uninstalled.
I am not a musician, I have zero musical (or any artistic) talent and I only listen to music in the car on my way to work, so guess what, I turn it off as I found it irritating.
for me it does make immersion better aswell, but it is not something i require to enjoy my mmo,,, in fact 99% of mmo's i tend to turn off music completely becouse i dont like it and i still do have fun ingame, the few mmo's i found the music good enough to leave it on were eve online, age of conan and propably some others, but those others i must have not played long enough to remember them,,, those two (aoc and eve) tho, have such epic soundtracks it just feels like a huge waste not to listen to it while playing, perfect examples how a well done music can improve the immersion of a mmo,,,
Games previously played: AO, AoC, Aion, AoW, Eve, SWTor, WaR, STO, TSW, DCUO, FE, BP, ProjectEntropia, FootballSuperstars!
EverQuest II did the best with their music system. They gave their players a /music folder within the EQ2 directory. The music folder had several other folders labeled by each zone. If you wanted to hear a certain song when entering "The Commonlands", you simply put whatever .mp3 into "The Commonlands" folder. This is so much better than changing tracks on the fly via player.
Music soundtracks are way too distracting, I've goitten killed many times cuz, I did not hear the char creap up on me. Blame it on the music, not my reaction times!
It all depends on the situation of what I'm playing. If I'm PvP'ing usually metal/rock/techno, if I'm in VOIP I don't turn on music at all. It pumps me up when I put music on. If its a cutscene=mute temporarily.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
Music can be used to establish pace or embellish a setting or circumstance. I tend to use the ingame music for awhile, but after awhile I turn the music down and let my imagination do those things.
As some others ave already said, for me music in game is also down on the agenda as I also tend to turn all the music off in all games and turn up the other sounds. If I did want to have music I would play my own (MP3, CD/Tape/(cough-records).
So in answer to the question, is music important in a game, I would have to say NO (for myself), graphics take precedence above music. In order of how i personally would place things -
Gameplay - Graphics - Control - Camera/UI design - game sounds - Music.
As you can see, that aspect comes in at the bottom for me.
I leave it on, and generally at default levels. In general when it comes to settings/controls/GUI (although most MMO's I'll generally enable all hotbars) I pretty much run all games on default settings. Graphics are the only thing I tweak in any game.
I generally try to play the game as the developer intended it in the default scenario. After about ten minutes of silence I start to get annoyed. Some games do not have constant BGM, and when I hit those spots of silence I always wonder if its a bug or just a weird design decision.
Personally speaking, music is an incredibly important aspect in any game for me. It usually decides whether I play it for a long time or not. It has to be placed carefully, though, fitting the world adequately.
My favorite example would be FFXI. Some maps are completely music-less, with only ambient sounds. It's incredible how that can enhance the immersion; listening to the ocean, the wind, the sand... etc. It also plays music where it 'feels' right, like in the Sanctuary of the Zi'tah, or Ronfaure. I still listen to those pieces from time to time, as I tend to associate it with the immersive world FFXI was.
In my opinion, you can make a game graphically appealing, have fancy mechanics and captivating story; but all of that is for naught if it doesn't have a good musical score to back it up. For me, a game without music lacks the soul that makes the world alive.
It's a real shame developers don't invest much time in this, as it could really enhance the experience if it's done well.
Exactly how I feel. I couldn't have said it better.
EverQuest II did the best with their music system. They gave their players a /music folder within the EQ2 directory. The music folder had several other folders labeled by each zone. If you wanted to hear a certain song when entering "The Commonlands", you simply put whatever .mp3 into "The Commonlands" folder. This is so much better than changing tracks on the fly via player.
I agree. And after playing it for years, I still say it has one of the best soundtracks. It's one of things, amongst many, that I remember about the game. If I play the opening theme of eq2, the memories of the guild friends I made and the in game adventures we went on all come to mind.
Comments
If an MMO didn't have music, I'd probably not play it, no matter the gameplay. That important.
Sometimes I wonder if I look at MMOs as mere videos for some good ambient music! :P
i get bored easily if im not listening to either a good ingame background sound track or my preferred music while playing, but i always pause the music or lower the volume when there's full voice over conversations because i like to listen to the story (GW2 and SWTOR) instead of reading walls of text. I cant digest conversations when my mind is enslaved by music
Singple player games I leave the in game music on
...
Multiplayer games i turn it off as im on voice comms so dont want music playing as well.
The only one that music has mattered to me is EvE Online. Mining high sec anyways.
But any other high fantasy MMORPG I could do without it and would prefer more ambient sound. Just gives me more of the feel of being in a world....like Skyrims...although I realize it has music to...it was better without it to hear the world sounds. More immersive.
Personally speaking, music is an incredibly important aspect in any game for me. It usually decides whether I play it for a long time or not. It has to be placed carefully, though, fitting the world adequately.
My favorite example would be FFXI. Some maps are completely music-less, with only ambient sounds. It's incredible how that can enhance the immersion; listening to the ocean, the wind, the sand... etc. It also plays music where it 'feels' right, like in the Sanctuary of the Zi'tah, or Ronfaure. I still listen to those pieces from time to time, as I tend to associate it with the immersive world FFXI was.
In my opinion, you can make a game graphically appealing, have fancy mechanics and captivating story; but all of that is for naught if it doesn't have a good musical score to back it up. For me, a game without music lacks the soul that makes the world alive.
It's a real shame developers don't invest much time in this, as it could really enhance the experience if it's done well.
I usually like it at first, but after a short time it becomes repetitive and I turn it off.
Exceptions:
Guild Wars 1
Star Wars Galaxies
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
i almost always turn off music in a game. in general it's fairly plain, short, and just repeats. there are a few tracks i've enjoyed, but i can't listen to it not stop over and over.
i tend to just listen to the combat, or run pandora in the background.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Pretty important. I never realised how much it added until I played Age of Conan. Great music. SWTOR is good as well. I also never realised how it can really drive me away from a game until I just played The Wizardry Online beta. Between the droning sickly sweet fairy sweat music pouring over me constantly and the inability to skip through boring..drawn out narratives ...I couldn't even stand to do the beta. I reported those two things and Uninstalled.
So..yeah..pretty important I guess.
Games previously played: AO, AoC, Aion, AoW, Eve, SWTor, WaR, STO, TSW, DCUO, FE, BP, ProjectEntropia, FootballSuperstars!
It's very important to me.
EverQuest II did the best with their music system. They gave their players a /music folder within the EQ2 directory. The music folder had several other folders labeled by each zone. If you wanted to hear a certain song when entering "The Commonlands", you simply put whatever .mp3 into "The Commonlands" folder. This is so much better than changing tracks on the fly via player.
Very important to me. I nearly always play game music when I play and if it sucks, I usually don't get the game.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
well it depends on the music. My degree is in Compostion so I tend to listen to how it's put together.
I've heard some music that players seem to love but I just can't take it.
Still, sometimes there is music that uses bad synthesizer sounds and those I can't take (looking at you lotro).
If the music intrudes upon the game then I turn it off. If it enhances my experience I leave it on.
How important is it? Not very, I don't really think it's needed. Just like not all movies have to have music.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As some others ave already said, for me music in game is also down on the agenda as I also tend to turn all the music off in all games and turn up the other sounds. If I did want to have music I would play my own (MP3, CD/Tape/(cough-records).
So in answer to the question, is music important in a game, I would have to say NO (for myself), graphics take precedence above music. In order of how i personally would place things -
Gameplay - Graphics - Control - Camera/UI design - game sounds - Music.
As you can see, that aspect comes in at the bottom for me.
I leave it on, and generally at default levels. In general when it comes to settings/controls/GUI (although most MMO's I'll generally enable all hotbars) I pretty much run all games on default settings. Graphics are the only thing I tweak in any game.
I generally try to play the game as the developer intended it in the default scenario. After about ten minutes of silence I start to get annoyed. Some games do not have constant BGM, and when I hit those spots of silence I always wonder if its a bug or just a weird design decision.
Exactly how I feel. I couldn't have said it better.
I agree. And after playing it for years, I still say it has one of the best soundtracks. It's one of things, amongst many, that I remember about the game. If I play the opening theme of eq2, the memories of the guild friends I made and the in game adventures we went on all come to mind.