Guild Wars 2

Jeremy Soule is good at composing music , but most of it sounds the same.

If you take a look at the Final Fantasy series and how many tracks are made for each game , more so the FF7-9, you will see that there are over 30 tracks for each game that are all unique.

GW2’s music is just not that catchy. Some of the tracks are even from GW1.

I usually have my sound turned off when playing GW2 because I am playing old music from Final Fantasy. Nobuo Uematsu is a god in composing music compared to the composers here at Anet.

I guess what I am trying to say is that GW2’s music lacks emotion. It just tries to fit the atmosphere and it fails.

You’re comparing a single player rpg to an MMO. That being said…

Zones not having specific themes or variations does hurt this games immersion in my opinion. In World of WarCraft for example, literally every zone had its own unique set theme, and 3-4 variants of it for daytime AND nighttime. Dungeons also had theme variations set within a main theme that really made them stand out. I do love this game, but it’s weakest department is definitely it’s musical presentation.

What does genre have to do with a game’s music? Isn’t GW2 an RPG as well? I don’t see your point in saying that first line. I wasn’t talking about anything other than the music quality. Are you saying that single player RPG’s generally have better music than MMORPGs? Why can’t it be the other way around? I will leave you to answering that one for yourself. That being said…..

Music “can” account for almost half of a game’s success. Music sets the mood for many things. This game has many soundtracks, but they all sound the same. Pretty much what PSY did with “Gentleman” and “Gangnam Style”.

I totally agree with you.
I posted on several different threads about music…the game needs ’’mood’’ and music is just not offering it.
After listening to GW2 soundtrack (4 CD’s) there’s a lot of unused, nice tracks…
But what we lack are more ’’depressing’’/’’moody’’ tracks…which would set the mood regarding what you’re doing in the game.
Jeremy Soule is a great composer, I just think he could have done waaaay better.
Skyrim has epic music and so does Harry Potter!
GW2 has too cheerful music…too heroic and these ’’trumpets’’ are just getting on my nerves…
The music we get while in swamp is moody and you can feel how it affects the atmosphere in game…
“A Land Restored” also affects it greatly…we need more tracks like that…we badly need that.
I appreciate what they did with Southsun Cove music…it’s unique to that area and it finally describes the area a bit.
Let’s hope this gets fixed one day!

I’m pretty sure there are actually only a couple unused tracks. Most obviously being The Tengu Wall. Which I feel should remain unused until the Tengu & Dominion of Winds is added.

In fact, there are several tracks ingame that aren’t on the OST. And I’m not talking about GW1 tracks, there are a lot of new ones for GW2 that have not been released.

That said, many tracks don’t play in the appropriate locations/events.
For instance, “The Seraph” – I’ve heard it a few times ingame, but never in any context that actually relates to the Seraph.
And “Scales of Issormir”… does not play when you fight Issormir.
Why does “Lornar’s Pass” play in Lion’s Arch?
Why is there Echovald music in Southsun Cove?

These are the things that need to be fixed. With all of the tracks from GW2, Prophecies, and EotN available, the track options are all fine. The issue is where the tracks are playing.

I’ve never thought about it that way. But now that I have done so, I have to say that I disagree. The music of the game is great and I really enjoy it. Every once in a while I turn the ingame music off and listen to my own music but just because I am in the mood for something else.

True. GW2’s OST are same rest of the game. No epic at all.
But Skyrim… oh lord… <3

I have to agree with that, personally I feel the game’s lacking when it comes to the musical score; mainly because it seems out of place for the most part. Perhaps it would be nice if the different areas had a distinctive and unique theme, as opposed to playing the same ones in every map.

When our characters venture in a dark, muddy swamp, it doesn’t “feels” right that the same song plays in a cold and snowy mountain later on. There’s no variety, or so it seems.

You know? One of the most memorable moments I’ve had in the game was when Fear Not This Night played in one of the Sylvari missions, where my character had to rescue Tegwen from Orr with the help of the Mother Tree and Carys. It just -felt- right, and it enhanced the experience so much more.

I sincerely hope they can address this in the future. I believe it has a lot of potential to increase the immersion of the game. After all, the things that evokes emotions are the ones we remember the most, and I believe music is precisely the way to achieve that.

I think this comes down to personal opinion really.
As a GW1 player I absolutely love GW2’s soundtrack and I am really glad that it does borrow tracks from GW1 as well as having new tracks.

I agree. The music itself is OK, but it is so disappointing hearing the same tracks in multiple entirely different zones. I’ve played free-to-play MMOs that had music that was specifically designed for each individual zone, which made the zones stand out in my memory much more. In GW2, you can have the same song playing between them. Oh well. Hopefully going forward we hear more unique music introduced with new unique zones.

“Why does music in GW2 suck?”
- It’s a trick question, though, because it really doesn’t. A lot of the great tunes are just placed kind of everywhere, and out of all the tracks there are only a handful which people seem to get in the game.

- I am studying Game Music and such, I will be going to the Music Academy to take a bachelor in Classical Music and then take the Movie Composer (just to give you guys an idea of how much of a nerd in music for movies and games that I am).

I have to agree. Nobuo Uematsu is great at creating melodies and tunes with a lot of emotion. However, he also has a very distinct “sound” to his music. Jeremy Soule does also have a distinct “sound” to his, and the music he has composed is actually quite exquisite.

- I have enhanced my gaming experience by playing different tracks from the GW2 OST in different zones, and I will be delving into it even further and give my suggestions as to which tunes fit certain zones (like, deviding them into Forest, Jungle, Mountains, Plains, Charr, Human, Asura, Sylvari, Norn). I’d like to be able to put a face on tunes, like, “where did I hear this? Oh right, it was at that particular spot in that particular zone.”

- I hope that it can end up enhancing players experience with the game, as it did mine.

I’ve been saying this for months…
JS is good, but he haven’t brought his A game!
In GW2 he completely lack variety, and he fails to build up for any scene, or match the area…

The theme’s in this lie with the races and their struggles.

I did notice the sub standard game music in GW2. Its BLAND…….
Its certainly not on par with WoW’s music experience in game, each zone in WoW really has something in its music piece that amplifies the feeling.

GW2 does not. Imo its the single largest let down of the game and I happen to LOVE gw2.