I21: Lots of new stuff, but will there be...

...new music? I know that plenty of people have turned the in-game music off. This is mainly due to hearing the same tracks over and over, but partly because some of the music sounds horribly lo-fi and really jars when compared to Jason Graves' stunning Going Rogue soundtrack. The heroside login theme is particularly un-epic when compared to the GR login theme or even the redside login theme.

Given that I21 will bring a new tutorial in Galaxy City and a brand new presentation with Noble Savage's new artwork, I think what would really top it all off would be new, grandiose, epic music. In an act of shameless self promotion I've put together a piece called Galaxy's Last Stand as an idea of the level of epic tunage I feel the game deserves. Some of you have already heard my CoH inspired works, and mine aren't the only ones.

That being said, some of the new music for the itrials has been pretty good. I'd just love to see some of the older stuff brought up to date.

----- Union's finest underachiever -----
Farewell CITY of HEROES
The First, the Last, the One.
Union: @ominousvoice2059

/presigned, with an excerpt from the personal wishlist;

Continuous, dynamic music: As is, most of the music in CoH is limited to short clips that play when entering a new neighborhood. A continuous soundtrack that plays outdoor or in missions would help a lot with immersion. "Action" music that fades in once the fighting starts {characterized either by an NPC aggroing on the player or the player/teammate entering combat mode} would also make the overall experience feel more "super".

An open letter to NCsoft

I hope so - four years in and I still play with the in-game music on.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

The game has music?

I just have 5000 songs or so on random playing in winamp.

Small creatures live in my house, and they require absolute silence. I haven't heard music or sounds in this game for years.

What music?

I am always a fan of new music, and would indeed love for some new stuff to be introduced with CoH Freedom.

Also, nice job on the song, Voice! I gotta say, if that was playing during the character creation process, I would probably end up making a lot of premature decisions because I would be getting too psyched for getting the character into the game

/Signed for new music!

I have a few things to say on the subject:

First and foremost, I agree completely. I've always felt that music adds a LOT to games, especially when it's written as ambient mood music more so than as standalone pieces. Aquaria is a prime example of the power music has in games, and of how much it can influence depth and scope of the experiences that a game can offer.

I turned off the City of Heroes music back in 2004, and I have not looked back. The music we have now is terrible, and though everyone seemed to praise the CoV music and now the GR music, I don't find them sufficiently interesting to keep my music enabled. The GR zone muisc, in fact, is about 10 seconds long. Just as it's starting to get interesting, it ends. If I am to re-enable in-game music, then I want the game to give me REAL music, not just orphaned clips as fleeting as loading screen pictures.

Secondly, I'm not sure the problem with City of Heroes' music is that it's "lo-fi," but more so that it's just not good, not consistently so, anyway. Good music doesn't need to be complex or expensive to make. Like artwork, it needs a good sense of aesthetic much more so than high processing power. In fact, pick any music loop out of Final Fantasy VII and you're likely to hit upon something that's catch, memorable and powerful, helping set the mood of an appropriate scene to a great effect, and all that game's music is pretty much a bunch of midi files.

I don't need an orchestral score or high-powered or famous performers, and I don't need to hear the latest greatest in audio editing technology. Yes, these can make good music so much better, but they can't salvage bad music. What we need are good, moody, appropriate pieces of music on constant loops.

Which brings me to my final point - isolated clip music is a BAD idea. It might as well not even be there. If our game is to have proper music, then the one thing we CANNOT afford to have is dead air. Turn on your music sometimes and go do a mission, but pay attention to how much of the game proceeds in complete silence, punctuated only by obnoxiously loud sound effects.

A game with good music should give me music all the time. Whether I'm fighting, exploring or just sitting at the Market, I should be listening to mood-appropriate music. Sound is part of the experience, and it should be integrated into the game's basic design and thematic choices, not thrown in after the fact just so we're not playing on mute. I don't WANT to mute my music, but it's just not good enough to keep on. We need better music and more of it more often.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Dumpleberry,

Headsets!

I still play with the music on as well, and I think it's a reasonable assumption that we'd get dynamic music; remember the missions in Praetoria? A lot of their instances and even open world encounters had encounter music, so presumably they can bring this into the new tutorial, if it's using the same technology and design that went into Going Rogue.


S.

Unless the music is happening in a place in game where music is supposed to be, Pocket D for example, I don't like music in my games. It breaks my immersion. Ambient sounds, the sounds of the powers of some blaster fighting in the distance...now those are sounds that immerse me in this game.

And on that note: Dear Devs, please allow an option where I can turn on the music in Pocket D, Studio 55, and boomboxes but still have the zone music off. Please, please!

I am not a fan of continuous music, and I've never understood why so many games use it. There's nothing worse, for me, than having to hear, say, "The Song of the Fearsome Lava River" for half an hour because it takes you that long to walk your character across the Fearsome Lava River. Frankly, I'm not a huge of fan of even the "clips," if that's what they are, that we have now; I'd be happy with no in-game music at all, though I've never bothered to turn it off.

I do like Ominous Voice's work, though. I don't think I'd appreciate it as much if it were playing in the background while I blasted things, though. Returning to my original point, the game interferes with my appreciation of the music.

They can add all the music they want but it'll never beat Rebecca Black on repeat - how did we ever play this game before that sweet angel came along?

The GR soundtrack was awesome. The first set of music for entering Atlas Park after you've made your character - awesome.

The rest, including login music, zone music, etc does need an update. This is the perfect time for that (plus, think of it, Black Pebble, another soundtrack to sell via marketing...$$$...)

And btw, Voice, fantastic job on your music! Well done!

????

I like most of the music on villainside, but agree that most of the stuff heroside needs a tuneup with the rare exception of a few neighborhood zones—Grendel's Gulch in the Hollows comes to mind, as well as the various melodies in creepier zones like Croatoa or Dark Astoria. The Rikti War Zone also has some awesome stuff in it the farther north you go (such as the same Grendel's Gulch tune I'm so fond of).

But yeah, the rest of the music is crap and needs replacement.

I used to never notice music in games and movies, myself. Just didn't think it played much of a part. After having played Aquaria, however, I began noticing that good music left me with much better impressions from a game than bad music or dead silence did. I think I finally learned to appreciate it when I finally gave up on Naruto after the show went downhill for a year and the budget seemed to have been cut down to somebody's lunch money. I never realised just how much Toshiro Masuda's amazing score helped elevate what was often a stupid, exaggerated story into absolute awesome until I had to sit through the show without it.

I appreciate that some people just don't like music in their games. That's what the option to turn it off is for. However, if you're going to HAVE music in your game, you can't afford to half-*** it. Bad music is very often WORSE than no music. It still doesn't help set the tone and mood, and often just keeps getting in the way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.