Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

just as an heads up, I’m like an “old-school” NES/SNES player from “back in the days”. I started playing videogames when I was like 10 or something, and I’m now 26. As probably everyone at that time, since around that time there was kind of nothing else, I used to play the NES / SNES which gave the whole gaming industry it’s spark, I played games like F-Zero, The Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, Terranigma and much much more games of this kind.

Now I and many of my fellow gamers from back then are by now much older by age of course, but still…

I myself still get the shivers from listening to those “songs” I’m about to show you, those songs BURNT into my memory, I say this without any shame, I literally nearly kitten myself while playing those games listening to this kind of music and playing those games…

So, my Question is, or well it is not an real question since I’m SURE that probably everyone of the Arenanet Devs. knows those games by the music listened below, do you think you will ever be able to to create such an atmosphere? Such an ambiente and story created with Living Story content? Such an piece of musicial artwork to get an player so much involved into the whole thing that a gamer will get so excited and scared by nearly shatting his pants while encountering an dungeon with a group of people to get to the final villain? Do you really think you can do something like this?

Because if you can, you will be my all time hero Arenanet, if you can create such an thing, such an scenario, I’ll be forever yours, because no game ever was able to accomplish this. And I’m telling you, I’ll not be the only one, if you can do such an thing with the Living Story content, many many players will gather to your game, even if it was through the Super Adventure Box.

Long story short:
I don’t give an single scary “crap” about the new tequatl, he might be stronger, hemight be better, he might be more difficult, but for me, he’ll always be Zaithans little kitten and nothing else, not scared at all, even after your trailer, I don’t give a single crap.

Regards
Sir Masao

Attachments:
Secret Of Mana – Lich King: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCUdhcRQMC4
Secret Of Mana – Sunken Continent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwkFixCq9t0
Terranigma – Zombies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9-Zi7lxQgs
Illusion Of Time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0MfgPPE0w

P.S.: There are not only great enemy encounter musics out there of the good old SNES games, but also great victory soundstracks…

Why just old soundtracks? Are there not great boss battle music in modern games?

You’re kidding right?

This franchise, thanks to the input of Jeremy Soule, has some of the best music of the MMO crop.

The problem is that you’ve heard it all before, as no boss has unique music.

Furthermore, the music you’ve listed is decent, but still nothing special in that it sounds like formulaic JRPG battle music.

I loves those games too, but you’re having a nostalgia attack. You want to FEEL like you did when you heard this music, which is why the music is meaningful to you, not because it’s great music.

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re kidding right?

This franchise, thanks to the input of Jeremy Soule, has some of the best music of the MMO crop.

The problem is that you’ve heard it all before, as no boss has unique music.

Furthermore, the music you’ve listed is decent, but still nothing special in that it sounds like formulaic JRPG battle music.

I loves those games too, but you’re having a nostalgia attack. You want to FEEL like you did when you heard this music, which is why the music is meaningful to you, not because it’s great music.

Are you kidding? Jeremy Soule can’t do anything different, I swear I can’t listen to guild wars 2 music as it’s the same thing as the elder scrolls and I’ve gotten sick of that games music. I’d gladly take old jrpg music at this point.

The music in Orr and Southsun Cove can get pretty scary at times. It kind of harkens back to Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

A Massive Headache.1879:

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re kidding right?

This franchise, thanks to the input of Jeremy Soule, has some of the best music of the MMO crop.

The problem is that you’ve heard it all before, as no boss has unique music.

Furthermore, the music you’ve listed is decent, but still nothing special in that it sounds like formulaic JRPG battle music.

I loves those games too, but you’re having a nostalgia attack. You want to FEEL like you did when you heard this music, which is why the music is meaningful to you, not because it’s great music.

Are you kidding? Jeremy Soule can’t do anything different, I swear I can’t listen to guild wars 2 music as it’s the same thing as the elder scrolls and I’ve gotten sick of that games music. I’d gladly take old jrpg music at this point.

I would have to greatly disagree, but you would have to listen to Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, and GW2 in order to see that there is a very wide range of things this composer can do. You are very limited in what you are judging.

still gives me goosebumps after so many years.

Final Fantasy VIII intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09quI356sQ

Sidenote: I like gw2 soundtrack but in my second toon i mostly played Arcana in my PS (after lvl50 story)

Narcemus.1348:

A Massive Headache.1879:

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re kidding right?

This franchise, thanks to the input of Jeremy Soule, has some of the best music of the MMO crop.

The problem is that you’ve heard it all before, as no boss has unique music.

Furthermore, the music you’ve listed is decent, but still nothing special in that it sounds like formulaic JRPG battle music.

I loves those games too, but you’re having a nostalgia attack. You want to FEEL like you did when you heard this music, which is why the music is meaningful to you, not because it’s great music.

Are you kidding? Jeremy Soule can’t do anything different, I swear I can’t listen to guild wars 2 music as it’s the same thing as the elder scrolls and I’ve gotten sick of that games music. I’d gladly take old jrpg music at this point.

I would have to greatly disagree, but you would have to listen to Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, and GW2 in order to see that there is a very wide range of things this composer can do. You are very limited in what you are judging.

I’ll give you that factions was different, been so long since i’ve played them I can’t recall why; however, the rest were all very samey. I would easily mistake prophecies music for some tune somewhere in gw2. I think the only difference nightfall had was that there were noticable drums.

I wonder if any old gamer remembers this theme.
If you heard this you’ve probably either gone up the tower for the first time or died again and restarted at checkpoint.

to be very honest, i don’t like the music style of this game.

it feels very depressing for the most parts.

mmorpgs should in my opinion, be lively and adventurous.

A Massive Headache.1879:

Are you kidding? Jeremy Soule can’t do anything different, I swear I can’t listen to guild wars 2 music as it’s the same thing as the elder scrolls and I’ve gotten sick of that games music. I’d gladly take old jrpg music at this point.

Oh, he can’t do anything different?
Total Annihilation, Unreal Tournament, Otomedius Excellent, Secret of Evermore… Seems pretty diverse to me.

I’ll give you of the games I"ve played, unreal tournament actually stood out from the rest music wise; however, considering oblivion may as well been the same music as skyrim, and guild wars 1 and 2 and some other rpg that I could have sworn he did music for but isn’t on the list I played with music by him, I really wish he would just stop.

EDIT: no, i do distinctly remember morrowinds music, it was definantly nice. and I’m sure KOTOR had distinct music but it was nothing memorable for me.

A Massive Headache.1879:

EDIT: no, i do distinctly remember morrowinds music, it was definantly nice. and I’m sure KOTOR had distinct music but it was nothing memorable for me.

Both also done by Jeremy Soule who does Guild Wars

Lonesamurai.4852:

A Massive Headache.1879:

EDIT: no, i do distinctly remember morrowinds music, it was definantly nice. and I’m sure KOTOR had distinct music but it was nothing memorable for me.

Both also done by Jeremy Soule who does Guild Wars

Yeah… I’ve been aware…

Narcemus.1348:

A Massive Headache.1879:

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re kidding right?

This franchise, thanks to the input of Jeremy Soule, has some of the best music of the MMO crop.

The problem is that you’ve heard it all before, as no boss has unique music.

Furthermore, the music you’ve listed is decent, but still nothing special in that it sounds like formulaic JRPG battle music.

I loves those games too, but you’re having a nostalgia attack. You want to FEEL like you did when you heard this music, which is why the music is meaningful to you, not because it’s great music.

Are you kidding? Jeremy Soule can’t do anything different, I swear I can’t listen to guild wars 2 music as it’s the same thing as the elder scrolls and I’ve gotten sick of that games music. I’d gladly take old jrpg music at this point.

I would have to greatly disagree, but you would have to listen to Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, and GW2 in order to see that there is a very wide range of things this composer can do. You are very limited in what you are judging.

The problem with Jeremy Soule’s music is that he can write amazing main themes, but his open world and battle stuff are extremely generic. Not to mention the games he tends to write for do NOT use his music well. He also seems to avoid using the main theme throughout his pieces, so it’s hard to get that nostalgic feeling from them.

For example, Terra’s Theme from FFVI has that main theme used everywhere and even thrown into other songs minorly. It really helps with building nostalgia.

One question… how much is it the actual song quality, and how much is it nostalgia?

I listened to those songs, for example, and while I do agree they’re very nice songs, can’t say I felt anything special about them in the first place, most likely because I never played those games. Now put me some mechwarrior 2 or wing commander music, for example, and while if they’re analyzed they might be inferior to the ones you linked, but I’m hooked to them, mainly because of the emotions tied to those songs.

For example, watch this video:

Unless you’re latinamerican and about 35+ years old, BTW, that music (and the video itself) won’t do anything for you… but for me I start listening and get goosebumps all the way until it ends.

A few others that have a simmilar effect (just because you got me into a youtube rampage!!!)

(phantasmagoria)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoxWi-9zpA (Monkey Island)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTeF-X4qAiY&list=PLC91456D0EB82E02A (King’s Quest IV.. but goes to a playlist with great music from the sierra on-line classic games)

And some non game ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onGWF8mz1Zw (Conan the Barbarian)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2k8EtGl82Y (Robotech)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4pXUSRxNM&list=PLKjwRpQidz5s6231XaID7-J9nF-XAidKk (Krull: Ride of the Firemares… this song is still what I think of anytime I think of “fantasy adventure”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDUlRKRkaLs (I watched weird stuff as a kid on TV).

And BTW… I still like to crank the music up when doing the claw of jormag, even if I’ve done it lots of times:

A Massive Headache.1879:

I’ll give you of the games I"ve played, unreal tournament actually stood out from the rest music wise; however, considering oblivion may as well been the same music as skyrim, and guild wars 1 and 2 and some other rpg that I could have sworn he did music for but isn’t on the list I played with music by him, I really wish he would just stop.

EDIT: no, i do distinctly remember morrowinds music, it was definantly nice. and I’m sure KOTOR had distinct music but it was nothing memorable for me.

Total Annihilation wasn’t different enough for you? Or did you not play this game? :S
I didn’t notice it was from the same guy before I read his bio. I must say I wish some of the boss music where more like TA battle music. They really do raise the fighting spirit.

The Source of Orr is probably one of the best pieces I’ve heard.

@The Gates Assassin I never really thought about that, but I think you’re right. Fair enough.

@Elidath, no I never played that before

One of the best game themes I’ve ever heard, saying no bosses have unique music is false.
Demon’s Souls – Maiden Astraea Theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9piElENpvmM

Wow, I really didn’t thought that there would be so many replies on this topic, especially since it honestly was just kind of an “rage” topic which was obviously created out of, as already mentioned, an nostalgia attack which just hit me hard that day after browsing through some youtube SNES RPG soundtracks from back in the day while playing GW2 to it.

But I appreciate all your guys comments to this kind of topic with posting your fav. game intros or boss battle soundtracks, I know most of them and some are new to me since also I of course couldn’t have played all the games out there But all in all I liked them all.

And I was never trying to say that Jeremy Soule would write or create bad gaming music at all, he did and still does do some great game soundtracks which I really love, he did also do that for GW2, like the intro song and as mentioned above “The Source of Orr” or well as it is known by probably more people “The Seraph” soundtrack, but unfortunatly those are the only like really good pieces in GW2 for me, and I don’t get any feeling from the Login Screen Music while I had an huge push from the “The Seraph” soundtrack while fighting the Eye of Zaithan, which also happened only the first time, with my first char where I still was very involved with the personal story and such, well, were everything was just new and fresh you could say.

And I also think of course there are other great soundtracks in newer Games (MMORPGs), but they are either miserably placed inside the game, wrong music choices for important moments inside the game, or I was just not personally enough involved with the game, the story or my charackter to get hyped for an important boss fight to save my comrades, the world, whatever. Or sad when a comrade died in the game, something like which happened with Forgal.

So, I guess all I’m trying to say since Arenanet or well GW2 has this great thing called Living Story, I kind of would wish myself they would if they can, write an deeper story with meaning and stuff, just like the personal story, with the sounds, the drama, the first scared and then heroicness feels when encountering an villain and beating him or her, and when they could do all this, it would be even more epic if you can share those moments with your friends, joining a group and doing all this in instances.

I distinctly remember a long time ago an interview about the main theme for Guild Wars, when the original game was still in production (GW1)

A lot of versions were done, and they felt that it was important to put together something that wasn’t just recognizable, but didn’t get really irritating the five millionth time you heard it. Went on to say that this was very important in all of the music compositions, that the BGM should be stage setting, but also relatively low key as it’s background music.

I’ll have to see if I can find that interview. Also, I’m not entirely sure how involve Soule is with the ongoing development, as in, is he responsible for the newer tracks and themes we’ve been hearing come with the LS updates, or is someone else at the helm?

Redname answer on this one?

A Massive Headache.1879:

@Elidath, no I never played that before

For futur reference: Total Annihilation intro theme and some battle musics

A Massive Headache.1879:

I’ll give you that factions was different, been so long since i’ve played them I can’t recall why; however, the rest were all very samey. I would easily mistake prophecies music for some tune somewhere in gw2. I think the only difference nightfall had was that there were noticable drums.

Well there’s a very good reason you’re mistaking some prophecies music for some GW2 music. Anet has reused a lot of tunes from prophecies, much of it due to player request I might add. I still go all nostalgic when I hear the Shiverpeaks Theme start playing in GW2.

Denial Of Service.5732:

still gives me goosebumps after so many years.

Final Fantasy VIII intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09quI356sQ

Sidenote: I like gw2 soundtrack but in my second toon i mostly played Arcana in my PS (after lvl50 story)

All of my yes! FFVIII still holds up as one of the best intro sequences ever for me, despite the rather outdated CGI. Some intros/trailers were just immortal, like GTAIII’s 10th Anniversary Trailer

That said: The Seraph, The Raven Speaks, Wintersday Theme…. I’m pretty sure this game does not lack iconic music. If anything game developers these days have a much bigger appreciation for the value of good music than ever before.

I’d say this is a case of rose tinted nostalgia glasses. I’m pretty sure the reason you remember those musics is more about them having been such an important part of your childhood than them being amazing pieces, their respectful merits aside.

The music from Super Mario Bros. is hardly the most interesting composition on the planet, but everyone and their dog knows it because…. who doesn’t know Super Mario?

Great pieces don’t become great just because you want them to become great. They become great itself only after everything works out meaning everything fitting together magically. And even then, that might just work for you personally. It doesn’t mean someone else will dig it as well.

Making music – as any art – is a little bit like playing lotto – either you have luck or just a little bit this time or none at all. I’m not saying that ‘s all that counts but it ’s an important part aside from talent and the work that has to be put into it. That ’s why they’re special, that ‘s why they are memorable, that ’s why you won’t see them just pop out everywhere after being demanded by someone.

blackysharky.7581:

Long story short:
I don’t give an single scary “crap” about the new tequatl, he might be stronger, hemight be better, he might be more difficult, but for me, he’ll always be Zaithans little kitten and nothing else, not scared at all, even after your trailer, I don’t give a single crap.

Maybe you should rethink about your opinion on calling something they worked for cr*p. You dont know how hard they worked for it, taking aside the fact that the content isn’t even out for you to complain about. Even if you personally don’t seem to value it first, someone else surely does (I for one do). And it certainly won’t put them into a better mood to make more amazing, memorable things like you requested.

Instead it might do the opposite – it might hinder them from moving forward, getting demotivated by such blunt senteces / insults. Don’t get me wrong, maybe you didn’t mean it that way but you should think about it. And yes I for myself made such mistakes as well (as I’m sometimes a little bit pessimisstic), thats why I’m saying you should reconsider your opinion on that part.

TL;DR (kind of, as i’ve read almost every post during the typing, but you don’t care, i know :p )

Jeremy Soule is a really good composer, but I’d say that he is better at creating ambient background music than writing themes. So overall, his music geso well in the game it’s written for, but it won’t last in your memory… Unless you’re a hopeless fanboy like me ^^

Secret of Mana’s music composer, Hiroki Kikuta, is – or WAS – way better at writing stong themes (just listen to Soukaigi OST <3 ). I still keep whistling them today.

Yes, a specific theme for a specific boss would be awesome.

Thanks, OP, for linking Seiken Densetsu 2 themes (2 of my favorite ones) ^^

imaginary.6241:

Great pieces don’t become great just because you want them to become great. They become great itself only after everything works out meaning everything fitting together magically. And even then, that might just work for you personally. It doesn’t mean someone else will dig it as well.

Making music – as any art – is a little bit like playing lotto – either you have luck or just a little bit this time or none at all. I’m not saying that ‘s all that counts but it ’s an important part aside from talent and the work that has to be put into it. That ’s why they’re special, that ‘s why they are memorable, that ’s why you won’t see them just pop out everywhere after being demanded by someone.

blackysharky.7581:

Long story short:
I don’t give an single scary “crap” about the new tequatl, he might be stronger, hemight be better, he might be more difficult, but for me, he’ll always be Zaithans little kitten and nothing else, not scared at all, even after your trailer, I don’t give a single crap.

Maybe you should rethink about your opinion on calling something they worked for cr*p. You dont know how hard they worked for it, taking aside the fact that the content isn’t even out for you to complain about. Even if you personally don’t seem to value it first, someone else surely does (I for one do). And it certainly won’t put them into a better mood to make more amazing, memorable things like you requested.

Instead it might do the opposite – it might hinder them from moving forward, getting demotivated by such blunt senteces / insults. Don’t get me wrong, maybe you didn’t mean it that way but you should think about it. And yes I for myself made such mistakes as well (as I’m sometimes a little bit pessimisstic), thats why I’m saying you should reconsider your opinion on that part.

Hi,

yep you’re right, I was a little to harsh on that part, I thought that too the next day. I didn’t meant in any way to lower the value or well the content they’re putting out with this patch and the sure huge amount of work they’ve put into it. I’m sure it’ll be fun and great, I never said it’d be crap, just that I don’t really care about it and it probably will not matter to me, but we’ll see.

I always have my Radio going in the background so I’d never hear any of this music in the game anyway. … there’s probably even more people doing that with Pandora that it’d be totally wasted on.

Eh, I have like 20gb of video game music that I can go turn to when I want an epic feel.. and I honestly mostly do that. No modern tune is going to scare me as much as “Dancing Mad” because of the nostalgia attached – seriously, a lot of the reason we get attached to these older tunes is because it was one of the first times we felt genuine fear and anxiety in a video game. Modern tunes can still be epic but they’re going to lack that “first time” feel and the nostalgia element.

Just finished the personal story for the second time on one of my alts, it wasn’t the same time as the first time I did it, in fact it was BETTER, mostly because there were less or well none bugs anymore like before, as well as they refined the whole way to Zaithan a little bit more so it didn’t seem to weak, although the end fight still could be done better.

But non the less, the music playing while cleaning the source of orr, just gave me the chills / goosbumps. So I cna only recommend to anyone, todo the personal story once again, and take yourself time and enjoy the music when everything is finished an zaithan is defeated.