Guild Wars 2

It’s time for my semi quarterly music request
Initial requests:

Can you guys at Anet make the magnaminious bell available on the gem store? I’d like to have that on more than one of my accounts and don’t have general access to it. I remember it being like a rare reward from one of the wintersday events.

Barring that can you update the unbreakable choir bell to allow it to do chords?

The above i’d really like to see. There are other general music requests I’ve made before and I’ll do em again.

Easier requests
- Put the flute and trumpet into key of C so they can play with the other instruments (they’re in E right now). Flute would make an excellent substitute for a vocal track.
- Fix the range of the Unbreakable choir bell so that it goes from C3 to C4 (in the default octave) rather than D3 to D4. Do this for all of the octaves so that the numbers align properly.
- Remove the internal cooldown on drum skills to allow more complex beats (the spam filter is fine)
- Reduce the volume of the bass by about 60%, maybe reduce the distortion a bit to bring it in line with the other instruments which are mostly classical instruments.
- Remove the internal cooldown between notes on the Bass (there’s a short cooldown but its noticable when doing bass chords)
- (new request) Raise the spam filter cap on the harp and Mag-bell to allow for solos with fast parts. I can’t do the solo for “Freebird” without it cutting the notes off at times. I want to be able to do at least 2 bars worth of 16th notes at 120bpm.

Harder requests
- Add an upright bass with a clean bass tone. This one doesn’t have to be done if the current Bass sound is changed.
- Change the lute sound to match closer to a modern acoustic guitar (you did a modern guitar for the frog guy in HoT btw)
- Use F1 through F5 to provide semitones. This especially now that F5 is a skill key. Key map would go like this: F1 = C#, F2=D#, F3 = F#, F4 = G#, F5 = A#.
- Make an Asuran synthesizer instrument (looks like the one from Revenge of the Nerds) on the gem store (I’d buy it in a heartbeat). Use a square or sawtooth synth sound for it.
- Add ringing notes to harp, bass, guitar: Holding the note key down will let the note ring until the key is released. Notes should have a realistic maximum ringing time though.

Thanks for reading this. Lastly are there any plans for updates to music instruments in Guildwars?

You can get it from a vendor now in Divinitys Reach – the bell I mean

Cool. I’m going to be paying that guy a visit and making him filthy rich (at least as far as 4 bells are concerned)

They cant freakin do Wintersday properly in LA why they should bother some instrument?

Zabiyaka.2567:

They cant freakin do Wintersday properly in LA why they should bother some instrument?

LA is a multi cultural city. Wintersday is a human festival. They never do it in LA

For me I keep requesting these things because music is the one thing in GW2 I truly like. I liked it enough to write a multibox app to perform with 4 accounts at the same time (1 key 1 press still, just better handling of octaves). Even with the system’s drawbacks (which my requests address) I think its one of the best things going for the game.

The biggest drawback I think for the system is the lack of keys other than C and A Minor. True you have E Major on the Flute though but there aren’t enough instruments in the same key for that to be worth while and you can’t combine the flute with the other instruments.

A lot of music I love IRL is in F and G keys. These require the largest transpose on my keyboard and the songs just don’t sound right. E minor is popular for classic rock. D Minor is popular for Movie songs. The Star Wars theme is in G. Some classic rock I try to play writes the song in one key but accidentals it into another (Rush and U2 do this).

A lot of broadway music uses key changes to denote a change in the character’s attitude during the piece. A character starts singing a song in one state of thought, then the key changes after 2 verses and you feel the character’s ideas changing. A final key change brings a new light to the character’s thought at the end of the song, like a change of heart. There are key changes in rock and pop songs too that can’t be done in GW2. I’m really fond of B Minor and Bb keys.

I tried music in lord of the rings. It was okay. The music system there is complete in the sense of keys and instruments. There was not easy access to bass instruments though. Only C3 through C6 were available on instruments. The flute and clarinet did seem to be an octave apart though so there was a chance different instruments filled the gaps. The game itself was fairly dead and I think the macro loading thing gets in the way of true live music. I come back to Guild Wars 2 with the ease of finding an audience for my performances. I might not be very good at performing yet but that will take time.

I understand how busy Arena Net is with patches and new features so I keep the thing I really want to a bare minimum while providing them an incentive to do it. Making the magnaminious bell available “off season” on the gem store would give them a modest boost in gem sales for minimal effort (probably a few lines of XML). To me it’s not that they “can’t do it right” but that they’re busy. A small change should be easier to fit in the schedule than a big one.