A very important area of the immerssiveness of a game is being completely confused and ignored by developers. EQ use to be the king of this, but since PoP, this has been lost. Remember back in the day, when you leveled up your character in Misty thicket, or EC, or the Karanas and you didn't hear music. You heard the environment. The sounds of owls hooting, crickets, ect. This was initially what got me hooked to begin with. Because of the sounds of the environment, I was deeply immersed into the game. Music was used for Cities or to move you into an exciting area, not to be looped over and over throughout the whole zone. Think of Karana for example. You hear the environment, which makes you feel like your really there, part of your surroundings, but when you get close the wizard spires, to cross the bridge music would play to make that part of the journey exciting. Likewise, you hear the environment, but when you move closer to the KFC camp, music would start to build excitement for transitioning into that area. Now, every zone just has music on a loop, which completely takes away the immersiveness. Much of the old Luclin zones now has music turned on, whereas originally, sony had scrapped that idea, and for good reason. I would much rather hear the annoying chains and the environment in PC than that horrid music that now plays over the whole zone. Games now days, including EQ are not thinking about the little things that subtly draw people into the experience. Everything is so freaking cookie cutter. It's such a simple concept, yet so powerful and yet so lost on developers.
Immersiveness is essential and it used to be one of Everquest's strongest points. The music plays a very important role in that part. I wouldn't say the current music is horrid but I don't think it has been working very well in the latest expansions. In my opinion, Lauterwasser is a good composer and the songs are fine when listened once. When you turn them into an endless loop though, they quickly become predictable and repetitive. If music is meant to constantly loop throughout the whole zone, it must lean towards being more atmospheric. Otherwise, It'd be much better if it only played in specific areas or situations.
Audio was always the weakest aspect of EQ and a largely wasted potential. I am sure that thousands of potential customers got alienated by just that. When Jay Barbeau left SOE it was getting worse. His well balanced melodic songs were a trendsetter and characterized the early game. PoP to DoN had famous and good composers but many songs were still annoying. They might be good for concerts but not for gaming. With Laura Karpman (EQ + EQ II) the bad music period started. Some of her songs were amazing like the Crescent Reach one but others were a total fail. Corathus Creep is the zone with the worst sound ever and does give the whole expansion a bad taste. All in all many songs are annoying and all composers had their fail moments, even popular songs like the Steamfont Mountains theme (Jay Barbeau) do drive the players nuts after just a few minutes. The game does need soft and rather slow unimpressive atmosphere music and not gnome rap beats. The sound quality control did a bad job in about all expansions. While I don't agree with everything in your post hein, you are basically right. The game does need more audio trigger fields like at the aviak tree in South Karana and Kelethin. I don't think that everything in the outdoor wilderness has to be without music but the music there should be softened and blend with nature sounds. Some places could be totally without music if they do offer an ambient sound floor instead. A few examples of ambient sound without music: The componists: EverQuest: Jay Barbeau The Ruins of Kunark: Jay Barbeau The Scars of Velious: Jay Barbeau The Shadows of Luclin: Jay Barbeau The Planes of Power: Paul Romero & Rob King The Legacy of Ykesha: Paul Romero & Rob King Lost Dungeons of Norrath: Paul Romero & Rob King Gates of Discord: Paul Romero & Rob King Omens of War: Paul Romero & Rob King Dragons of Norrath: Paul Romero & Rob King Depths of Darkhollow: Laura Karpman Prophecy of Ro: Laura Karpman The Serpent's Spine: Laura Karpman The Buried Sea: Laura Karpman Secrets of Faydwer: Chad Mossholder Seeds of Destruction: Chad Mossholder Underfoot: Inon Zur House of Thule: Inon Zur Veil of Alaris: Inon Zur Rain of Fear: Inon Zur Call of the Forsaken: Inon Zur The Darkened Sea: Inon Zur The Broken Mirror: Inon Zur & Mark MacBride Empires of Kunark: Mark MacBride Ring of Scale: Mark MacBride The Burning Lands: Mark MacBride Torment of Velious: Mark MacBride Claws of Veeshan: Jay Lauterwasser Terror of Luclin: Jay Lauterwasser Night of Shadows: Jay Lauterwasser
See, I think the music that goes with The Ruins of Illsalin (Corathus Creep --> Undershore --> RoI), is some of the best in game. I usually don't even play with sound on, but when I was leveling my Paladin, I turned my sound on and stayed there longer than I needed to, simply for the music of that zone <3
I like the music too, but some of it starts to "strain" a bit, when you have been listening to it for many hours in a row. Its good music, but not all of it is good enough for endless looping(admittedly, "endless looping" is asking A LOT from a music piece). I think having separate music for separate areas in a zone is good idea, They did that in the older expansions. As for sound, I think EQ1 has failed completely. As a caster I can't hear the mobs Im fighting, at all! So the only sound I get, are the ATs I provide my self. (except for my co-raiders noisy mounts, but those don't impress either). When the players have to bring their own sound-effects to get useful audio feedback in a game, you have failed as a sound-dev imho. I still can't figure out why they don't provide real SFX for all the important raid-emotes, it seems like such a no-brainer! Just having text(either on-screen and/or in a chat window) seems like such a lazy/cheap choice.
It would be cool if Daybreak got Jay Barbeau to do an expansion again. No offense to our current composer.
I think they tried that for Ka Vethan and possibly Basilica but it's kind of haywire and doesn't happen smoothly or the music can turn off/restart or something. I didn't test it. But if you look at the music files, it's clear, and the music definitely cuts out/restarts during the run from Maiden's Eye to Shadow Valley. I like the Grand Kirkhope technique. (Edit: Actually, I see he credits Secret of Monkey Island for the idea.) He uses it a ton to the point I recognized he did the Castle of Illusion remaster's music. In many/most/all of the games he's done music for, different parts of the music fade in or out dynamically depending on where you go, like when underwater or in a more spooky section, etc. Like the Yoshi drums in many Mario games but on a much more intricate level.
I wish the music boxes worked as clickies. They played a limited time unless clicked again and played around the player using them. Bards would get to quest songs of the cities and then pick a song that played when they were twisting songs. City music would play from areas like pubs and etc only. Music wouldn't play by default anywhere that music should be generated based on the environment. This feature would be default on, opt out.
