I was chatting in game the other day as I was playing around with my level 55 Shadow Priest in Eastern Plaguelands. I got the Sister Pamela quest where you have to go find this ghost, and then find the pieces of her ghost doll in a deserted, haunted town. Anyhow, whenever you enter one of the old buildings, the background music changes to this wonderful, haunting melody.
Background music? What’s that?
Well, you see there were these people called “composers” and they were tasked to put together different themes and melodies to help set off the rich, graphical areas that we find ourselves exploring in WoW.
Perhaps you’re an Itunes user, and you listen to the latest Weezer in the background while you play, maybe you like techno, or country, whatever it is, you don’t listen to the background music of WoW.
Why not? I mean, if you REALLY take the time to listen sometimes, there is some really great stuff, like the aforementioned creepy haunted house music in the EP. Listen to this, and tell me it’s not cool. I dare you. What about some of the music in Kara? Pay special attention to the Opera Harpsichord stuff… I love that!
Think of it this way: do you watch a movie but have the background music removed? Would Star Wars be the same? What about Indiana Jones? Music can REALLY add to the atmosphere in those movies, so you don’t do it. You probably wouldn’t even imagine doing it. So why do so many people do it in WoW? Is Kara really better with Enya playing? (Ok, maybe an extreme example, but you get my drift.)
Heck, one guy said that he didn’t think he had EVER listened to the game background music. What??
I can understand if you’re in SL for the 10th time, maybe you want something different. Maybe you need more uplifting music to get into raiding, that’s fine too. (I’ll never forget the day a guy started playing “Eye of the Tiger” during a boss fight in a heroic Ramparts run over Teamspeak. Epic!) All I ask is that you don’t completely discount the music of WoW. Some of it really is good!
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The funny thing is that I have been playing wow for near 3 years now and have never, listened to anything but the ingame music! I never get tired of it for some reason! I’m not so keen on some of it (Nagrand for instance) but, generally, I find it works well and is immersive.
But I think I may be a minority.
@Brunen
Well, you’re not alone. I think in the almost 4 years I’ve been playing I’ve tried to listen to something else while playing maybe twice. It never worked out. And yes, the Nagrand music is kinda lame!
The only time I dont listen to the ingame music is when I have team speak on and I cant hear the people on Team Speak.
I used to have that problem, Rhene, but then I just messed with the levels in the sound panel in game. That cleared it up, and now I can hear both.
We really need vent, though, it’s so much better than TS!
i love the music in wow. I play on the Horde side, so don’t know much about the alliance music, but the song that plays on one of the blood elf quests (you have to go to this island to steal three nelf scrolls), ie, when you step on the island, this beautiful music box song starts to play. I just paused in the game and stood there for a minute or two listening. Of course, there’s the belf quest where you return Lady Sylvannas’ necklace to her, and she begins to sing the Lament of the Highborne, and the background music of Undercity immediately stops, and every player in the city can hear the lament. beautiful
)
my housemate almost always has the sound off (ie, speakers off). It boggles my mind that he can play with no sound whatsoever, let alone just the music off o.O the atmosphere of the game is heightened so much by the music, I could never have speakers off *lol*