The Importance of Music

[DHYohko]

Tl:dr: Music needs to re-enforce what is currently happening in the game and go beyond simple background music, otherwise it will be forgotten and ignored

When it comes to video game music many do it right but also many do it wrong in a variety of genres. For this post i will focus on wow and FF XIV for examples, feel free to add your own.

Doing it Wrong
For the last 4 expansions that I played of retail wow as a casual player i can not remember any song from any of them nor any scenario where the music added anything significant to the feeling of what I was doing. Whether it was questing, being in a major city, or doing some raid finder at no point did i suddenly stop to listen to the music. This has been one of wows biggest weaknesses since it launched but at least back in the old days there were still some tracks that stuck with you (examples below). This is still it's biggest weakness as they seem to be focusing on cinematics and cutscenes rather than gameplay these days.

Doing it Right
FF XIV on the other hand seemed to understand the importance of music in it's world and really put focus on it allowing it to help draw you even deeper into it's world. Whether it's standing in a major city to going into a raid a great many of it's music tracks really add to the feeling.

Examples
These are the music tracks that really stick out to me from both games as well as simple comments as to why I think they are done well.

WoW
Whether it's walking through the major gates of stormwind ,orgrimmar, or Silvermoon all of these tracks really help convey the grandness of the city as well as fit in nicely with the theme of each city

FF XIV

When it comes to doing city music right I can't think of any other game that does it this well, they even have a sepparte but very similar theme for when it's night time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evRptEAB808


But when it comes to boss and dungeon themes nothing comes close to them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMBZEHSPyxM
this one is amongst my favourite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gkz0YYrIrc&t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnOKdmAcSP0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAHFZR0D9ss

but it goes even beyond that as Jessy Cox explains in this tweet:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JesseCox/status/1344410247713046529

They even grabbed Nier Automatas music and seemlessly mixed it Final Fantasies iconic theme into it
https://youtu.be/jVAgd9dbYIs?t=429

So yea music is extremely important and can't be treated as just background music any more, it needs to draw us into the world, from the moment we log on into the Home Orbital Station, to the town we are starting to build, to invasions, to exploration, Em8er needs to get it's music right.

 

[Shanie]

Pretty sure dynamic music is the plan?

Saying this, Square Enix has several fantastic musicians, while Em-8er has one. It's a tall order to make them comparable for now.

 

[Wyntyr]

I have a feeling we'll hear more music and such in the KS demo and on the cinematic.

 

[Pandagnome]

I like to add some music from games that i enjoy and get me in the mood for that particular game.

Mgs 2

I love this one imagine something like this in a login screen or Main entrance of the Reaper HQ

This made me feel i was in a movie

hacking got more intense

Even failing sounded good!

This real gives a feeling of Super top secret work hmm

https://youtu.be/NC-xyRM6Cf0
You managed to escape but find some more darker secrets its not over yet!

https://youtu.be/AQ2Vb1t1-Js
This one you just had to go super wooosssh through tunnels in your futuristic bike

Agree music is very important for the game too!

 

[Omnires]

I'm one of the people who use music to think and sometimes to make up stories in my head for fun. For example this is one of the songs I play sometimes when playing games with day-night cycles and dancing emotes. Sometimes I and a few other friends would make a cycle around someone and dance at night time as joke. lol

Now, what if we was to go into some area in the twilight hours and see a group of NPCs doing some kind of ritual?

 

[Drakin5]

 

[Pandagnome]

Now, what if we was to go into some area in the twilight hours and see a group of NPCs doing some kind of ritual?

I think they would appear and disappear but at a certain night you could see them much more clearly.
A rare occurrence when the darkness of the skies is much longer than normal and the blurry images of tsihu in cloaks appear one after another one and a glowing outline of a beast behind, its eyes open for a few moments with nothing but darkness.

Just temporal residual effects of what once was some would say!... or is it the night where the dark energy builds up opening a gateway from near the strange ruins.The hooded tsihu guiding several beasts they appear more different composed and hovering off the ground by a few inches.

They release the beasts "Go my beasts, time for you to play" the beasts would rush off in small packs delighted at the sight of a huge playground and to seek and do some destructive chaos in their path.