“At ArenaNet, we’re serious about audio. This week we’re going to take a look behind the scenes at the Audio Team that has been working so hard to create a compelling soundscape for Guild Wars 2.”
So begins ArenaNet’s latest blog post looking behind the scenes at various production elements of the game, this time concerning audio.
It isn’t really necessary though. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s splendid to learn that attention to detail is important to ArenaNet throughout all systems of their game, and the insight provided as to how they achieve their results is fascinating. However, I can’t help but feel that this particular effort is a little wasted, because as long as the haunting orchestral chanting of the traditional Guild Wars theme comes blaring out of my speakers (with the option to turn the volume up to Over 9000) as soon as I launch the game, drowning out all else, and never stopping until I logout, then I’ll be perfectly content; the rest of the game’s audio could consist of ArenaNet engineers performing interpretive armpit farts, I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t notice.
Just give me that song and my soul is sold.
well it’s developer hype routine now :) i mean – since WAR and AoC days – developer diaries are common to go over each department and report on more ore less relevant stuff such as motion capture/animations, audio, art etc.
but to be fair – this ANet blog post was kinda meh, i mean – they’ve gathered some shots and materials but no crowning joment – fun or serious
I’m with melmoth 100% on this one… that music is to inspiration what Michael Jordan was to a NBA playoff game. It’s the type of thing that makes you happy you have a full 5.1 speaker system connected to your comp so you can just turn up the volume. Sublime…
To the contrary, I usually turn off my music before long. The efforts of the gw2 sound engineers will not be wasted on me.
I liked the video, it was more fun than the usual po-faced stuff with hyperbole on top. Next week is the serious business of the sylvari reveal, and then PvP at gamescom.
You might be underestimating the power of sound effects, because judging by the gameplay videos the combat appears more visceral than the norm for MMOs, and the sound effects have a lot to do with that, probably more so than the animation.
“You might be underestimating the power of sound effects”
Possibly, but primarily I was trying to overstate how high I hold the theme song in my estimation (while at the same time pointing out an interesting article on audio engineering from ArenaNet).
I just like to add some surrealism to such reports. Interpretive armpit farts are definitely the future, though.
A strong theme song when launching the game is certainly memorable (I can still hum the EQ2 theme song to this day), but in game sound effects in an MMO might be a tad wasted, at least on me. After the first month or so, I completely mute all game sounds, or at the very least, game music.
Depends on the game too, obviously, but yes I’ve turned off the sound in LotRO these days and instead generally listen to podcasts, outside of Monday night where I’m talking (Screaming? Sometimes there’s screaming, oh the screaming…) with friends.