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General: MMOWTF: Whats the Score? Music in MMO
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's own Dan Fortier uses his weekly column to discuss music in MMORPGs.
There are elements of a game that are rarely given notice in the feature list and overlooked by players engrossed in the obvious content of most MMOs. One of these unappreciated elements is the game’s musical score. It works behind the scenes to immerse or annoy us, depending on its quality. When used properly and aesthetically it can turn a well designed game into a masterpiece and can inversely mar an otherwise enjoyable product. This week I’m going to go a little soft as I explain some of the reasons why music is underrated and not given the attention it deserves especially in the MMO genre. Get a healthy supply of Compazine so we can get this little one man opera started!
When compared to the fantastic soundtracks of single player games such as The Elder Scrolls and Homeworld, most of the music presented in the modern MMO pales in comparison. Why is quality so much lower for games that players spend more time in than any other? While that cheery symphony in Freeport might sound great the first two hundred hours you spend there, it likely to be less pleasing the next thousand times you hear it. It seems unless a game is being produced by one of the MMO dynasties, the musical score and sound effects are added almost as an afterthought, just to know when you hit a monster or zoned to a new location.
Read it all here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I almost always disable music when playing MMOs. For the reasons already mentioned.
I used to like that heading into stormwind would trigger that one song. It would kinda make you feel like "you've arrived." Each location with it's own song. But those got old fast. And I no longer really miss them.
But out in the wild, you don't expect to hear music while out fighting in a cave, or a forest. It's just not right, and it's distracting.
I think the author is right, why listen to lame music most developers offer in there games when i can throw on my music of choice? I personally throw on some instrumentals when im out grinding/farming, and some inspiring Rock when im in a pvp-ish situation. but i usually do pay attention to the music game devs. decide to throw in once, every once in a while ill listen to the in game music, some times they do a good job fitting music to the setting/suroundings. usually the games that focus on story content have the best music, because the game devs. focus is getting you immersed in the content, especially from indie companies, because they need to throw as many hooks in there game as they can to get their company to take off. grind-fest games like WoW tend to have a pretty lame soundtrack, it gets old fast, but those games are not focusing on attracting the type of crowd thats going to care about the theme music. All though there are obviously some situations in WoW where music can enhance the game play/mood. Just look at the FRAPS phenomenon, people taking cool footage (usually pvp) and smashing it together with their music of choice, odds are its the type of music that those people listen to when they are playing. what ever floats your goat id say!! good topic to write about btw, props.
http://s6.bitefight.org/c.php?uid=67334
I pretty much get my MMO fix playing City of Heroes/Villains. CoX has a... mediocre soundtrack. It got turned off and replaced by a playlist consisting of soundtracks from various superhero movies (The X-Men 1 through 3, Batman Begins, Spider-Man, Superman Returns... There's a whole stack of them). The only beef was that often enough a slow, quiet piece was playing while I and my group were tearing through baddies, or some high-charged action piece would come on while I was hanging at the auction house!
One thought for MMO developers: Sure, put in a soundtrack for the game, but also allow the player to set playlists of their own MP3s (or whatever format might be useful) for different purposes. Maybe three lists: An 'action' playlist for fights and such, a 'suspense' playlist for, for example in a mission or other dangerous area, but not in a fight right now, and a 'quiet' playlist for when you're in a safe area. Maybe even with the ability to add playlists that fit certain activities. Then, as each playlist's conditions are fulfilled, just play them random/repeat through the game's usual sound system, which is more than likely MP3-based, anyway. A reader for a bunch of widely used playlist formats should not be rocket science (speaking as a programmer and software developer myself, here).
I like to have great music in a game myself. It can really set the tone of the game. Just look at Eve, that music really fits that game. SWG probably used their music the best imo, of course look at what they had to work with. I really like the way they used the music at certain times in the game while most of the time it wasn't there. I too eventually turn it off and play my own music, but I think it is an important element when you first start a game to set the mood.
I disable music in all games. Furthermore, I even get ticked off when cutscenes play with music.
I like most of the music in MMO's... the first few times around. The constant looping of the same bloody song the same bloody way gets annoying. Lets face it they use repeated music as a form of torture to break people for a reason.
Over the years that a person that plays an MMO they have to put up with the same droning musicthey did when they started barring a change from an expansion pack or nomadically moving from one area to another.
On another topic, many of the MMO's play music through their own integrated jutebox programs, like EVE Online for example, and theoretically could play users own music in game, and it would not be a stretch to let them pick their own conditional and enviromental music. If they did that they would be more likely to actually use the in game music supplied by the developer as partoftheir mix.
Unfortunately this wont happen because groups like Fraunhaufer, EMI, and the RIAA threatened international game developers a few years back over putting the ability to play the users music inside a game as a "Piracy tool" and a an "uncompensated use of an artists"(record company's)"music to enhance the product". You can imagine what would happen to even a well backedgam if it got tangled in legal proceedings that put off publishing by a few years.
Finally one last point, if they made music more of a dynamic character in the game and not the constant companion that they do, I think it would be much better. Imaging arriving at a city and getting the usual local theme for a certian period of time or while you are at the entrance and haven't mooved. Most of the time walking through the city you get the city soulnds unless you pass by a minstrel or a theater that someone is practicing in. The odd female shopkeep sings to herself and the occasional male one blurts out drinking songs. If you were to approach the park during the day or early night there are musicians playing for a crouwd. Music like that adds to a games character, especially when it is dynamic so it is not the same droning on and on.
Even though Freelancer was not a MMO per say I still feel compelled to bring it up.
While I played Freelancer I enjoyed the sounds and what ambient music there was in the backgrouind. It was especially good when you're flying past a planet or see a nebula in the distance or some Neutron Star and you're flying around it in a wide birth because you know you'll get vaporised if you get too close. At those points the music there was suspenseful and it gave you a feeling of pirates lurking near by, trying to use the neutron star to their advantage as a way to box people in and rob them while they were helpless and hopeless.
Their ambient music/sounds is what I remember most vividly and felt I should bring it up here.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Now, this here will be my very first post..but I've been lurking for quite the long time now..heehee..But anyways, back to the point..
It isn't an MMORPG, in fact its an RTS I'm going to talk about..but Total Annihilation, that godsend of a game from Chris Taylor [the maker of Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander (which is a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation)] Happens to have just that feature you are talking about, even though its extremely ancient..
It has a playlist that alters depending on what is going on, and you can choose which of their songs fit into each type of action, or use their default. I do not think it will play your own music though. The soundtrack in Total Annihilation was absolutely epic, blowing away the other games of the time [In my opinion, of course]..The sad fact though, was that it was so HARD to make the music WORK..if you had two cd drives, chances are it would refuse to play the music..
EVE's soundtrack is great. It gives a great feel to what you're doing, and feels perfect for sci-fi. It's not overwhelming, and doesn't always play. Sometimes when warping into a deadspace complex for a mission, the music will change into something fitting of where you're going. Not a big techno person, but they did a great job with it.
I certainly get the impression that music comes as an afterthought for most if not all MMO developers. They seem to limit their thinking to: "OK, we need area music. Just make it fit and it's done." Are they even considering that the player will probably have to travel countless times through that very same area? Sure, I can like the music, but in the case of an MMO it becomes like hearing the same depth-lacking song time and time again. The interesting part comes when people strap on their own playlists; taking the cue from the poster who talked about guiding yourself into the tastes of people via the music they set up their videos with, I see that many people use bland and repetitive music to make a "cool" statement, or to create an ambient, and if those are the tracks that feed their ears while playing, then MMO composers are doing something wrong. Sure, taste is subjective and all that, but technique and the depth of the process of building a musical piece isn't. Now, we're not asking for William Walton, because then we'd have music that would overshadow the rest of the game, but we could certainly use composers that are conscious of making music that, certainly, serves a purpose, but which doesn't mean it doesn't have to or can't be an artistic achievement. Related to that, we need developer houses to become conscious that this type of game is based on (endless, lol) repetition, and therefore we need the ambient sounds to vary as much as possible to somewhat mask that repetition. I loved all the zany sound effects in City of Heroes, for example, which could clatter battles with a load of different noises that made the combat stylish and frantic. The soundtrack was, on the other hand, abysmal, in variety at least, and at times also in quality. So, I think we need various music tracks for zones and combat situations, along with better quality even when resorting to generic languages to have a wider appeal... like I said, it doesn't mean we can't have art.
I turn off all music, all voice, and ambient sounds when possible - I hate the distractions!
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Players tend to not really care about the music in game. They want the nifty eye candy first and foremost. How many times has someone told you about a game by saying "the graphics were really sweet, you could...." and never mention the music?
CoX does a good thing of playing a bit of music when you enter an area and then it fades after a short while. That way music isn't distracting from the gameplay itself. I do like how they added the Boombox emote, so you can play short clips of music when you want to. WoW does it kind of the same way as well.
EQ1 music was usually ignored. I remember when SOE added the mp3 player I never listened to EQ1 music again. I made my own soundtrack to listen to when I wanted.
I am absolutely CRAZY about video game music. I listen to it at work, at home, everywhere. (I DO listen to other stuff, too...) What I love about it is that it reminds me playing the game. When I hear a song from a boss fight, for example, I can recall the feelings of determination, frustration, and finally success. Or if I hear a song from a dungeon I'm fighting in, I remember the feelings of adventure and caution. When I play games, I am happy, so when I hear fame music, it makes me happy. When my husband and I got married, after the officiant said, "You may kiss the bride," I had them play that famous fanfare from all the Final Fantasy games. And when we entered the reception hall, I had the DJ's playing the opening theme song from EverQuest, since it has that procession feel to it.
I believe music can really add to any gaming experience, including MMO experiences. However, it's tricky with MMO games, since you spend literally hundreds or even thousands of hours in the same environments. That means hearing the SAME SONG for that many hours. NO WAY! That would drive me crazy.
What I usually do is keep music on in the beginning and once I've gotten my fill, I disable it until I've moved on to a new area or an expansion comes out or something. Then I just have my own music in the background on random. Every once in a blue moon, my iTunes will actually play a song from the game I happen to be playing at the time. That makes me smile. 
I prefer to listen to music from games when I'm playing games, but there is no way I could listen to the same thing for that long. Granado Espada does an interesting thing by having multiple songs available for each area. While the four choices (or however many it is) isn't really enough, I do feel that it's a step in the right direction.
I grew up in a very musical family. My real world almost always has music playing, so I expect my virtual worlds to follow suit.
In a linear single player game you know exactely what a person is going to do and the content choices are limited, so you can pick the exact right score for the moment. This is not possible in an MMO.
I can name an MMO with an absolutely AMAZING score.
Final Fantasy XI. I own all 6 discs of the current sound track ( 3 discs for the game, 1 disc for each expansion pack )
And they were worth every penny, i love chilling out to the music from the newbie area cause its so calm and relaxing, and the higher up more dangerous areas whilst all having the feeling of dread manage to come across in a variety of ways.
I think music is really important in games to give some depth and set the scene.
Although, it's a fine art to use the right music in the right places for the right duration.
I like it to maybe fade on when you enter a new zone and just play for maybe 30 seconds just to set the mood for the area and then for it to fade off. Maybe kick in for big bosses, but subtle... not DUM DUM DUMMMMMMMmmmmm.
It certainly shouln't be put on loop or repeat the same groups of notes again and again in the sane play session. And music should be unique...not the same stuff played every time you get into combat.
It should be like ambient sound. You hear the animals, the water and a tune on the wind...
When Rob Zombie cuts tracks for my combat music, I'll turn the sound up.
Damn, that would rock, heh.
Seriously, I don't think MMO music is bad compared to single player stand alone games. But you don't spend thousands of hours playing a single player game.
No matter what music you put into the game, it will get stale after awhile.
I think EQ2 was on the right track, adding the mp3 in game thing.
I'd like to see an option to replace certain cue's with your own music. I.E. replace your combat track with Drowning pool. How cool would it be to enter a big pvp fight and as your blade comes out, instead of whatever played out instrumental you normally hear, out comes....
Let the bodies hit the floor, Let the bodies hit the floor...
And when you got sick of that you could put a different song in. I think that would be pretty cool.
D.
Huh?
There are quite a few MMORPGs that have top-notch music in them, as far as film / TV / video game composing goes. Guild Wars, Lineage II, Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II and WoW all have quality scores. From well-known video game music composers:
Guild Wars' Jeremy Soule is one of the best composers video gaming industry has ever seen. He previously did stuff like Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Unreal II, Total Annihilation games, Dungeon Siege games, Company of Heroes, Prey, Star Wars: KOTOR, both Morrowind *and* Oblivion!
Same goes for Lineage II's Bill Brown, who previously did stuff like Undying, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Rogue Spear, and also does music for CSI: New York.
Final Fantasy series' composer Nobuo Uematsu is practically a legend in the business.
Everquest II's Laura Karpman is a really experienced TV composer who's won the Emmy a few times.
WoW's Jason Hayes is an award-winning video game composer, who did quite good on a few former Blizzard games.
EVE and LOTRO have very fitting, atmospheric scores as well.
Actually, music is one area where the MMORPG genre does not trail behind the singer-player siblings.
So where's this argument coming from?
P.S.: Yes, I'm quite interested in film - TV - video game composers
I'm going to have to go out on a limb here and say that Granado Espada probably has one of the most well constructed music tracks that I've ever listened to. There a few bad eggs, of course, but the majority are just so awesome to listen to and gets your blood pumping.
And not all are just combat tracks, anyone who's listened to 'Aria di Coimbra' can agree with me on this that it CAN be pleasant to listen to music in a game.