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Roja

Music

About the in game music  

145 members have voted

  1. 1. Game Music Usage

    • I never listen to it.
      48
    • I put it on sometimes.
      62
    • I always have it on.
      7
    • I never even downloaded it.
      28
  2. 2. How to change the music set up

    • Just get rid of it, I never listen to it.
      26
    • Put it only on a select few special maps.
      5
    • Make it play many different songs in the same map, instead of repeating the same one all the time.
      99
    • Keep it as is.
      15


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Please read all before posting!

 

I'd like to have your input on what you think about the Eternal Lands music for the game. I know that it needs revising, but I'm not sure how it should be done.

We've got a lot of good songs, but if you're sitting in one map for a while, it gets very repetative hearing the same song :icon13:

 

So I'd like your input and ideas on this subject. If you have an idea of how we can better manage the music playing in the game, please write out a detailed post about it!

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I'd like a little more variety, but you've been talking about more sound effects too. I'm sure more sounds will help keep the music from being to repetitive.

 

Just don't change the tavern tune, that's my favorite! :icon13::)

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The "Make it play many different songs in the same map, instead of repeating the same one all the time." option would suit me just fine :icon13:

 

Long songs with non repeativeness music would be very nice to have too, then it wont seem so annoying.

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I downloaded the music loooooooong ago. It was kind of nice and added to the play, I guess. But I just prefer my own music over it. So I don't really listen to it anymore.

 

Altho, I think it was quite nice except that the same song kept playing over and over.

 

I'd say all maps can have music, that'd be nice. And if you can have more songs playing, maybe I'll even consider to put it on again sometimes. :)

 

-Blee

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I would prefer more sound effects to the music. At the moment when I play I tend to listen to my own music or nothing at all, it really depends how you want to take it, for example when I played WoW you couldn't really listen to your own music because the sound effects were an integral part of the game...if you heard a big growl there was a big dragon somewhere! and I would tend to have the music still on but set to a lower level, but the sound effects turn up to full, as it felt a bit more 'realistic'

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I like the idea of putting many different songs in 1 map, so its less boring.

In eL when u mix/train its often long time in the same map so 1 song all the time bores u very fast and u eventually turn it off.

 

mp

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Maybe it is possible to make sets of music that compare with the map type ? Not 1 set per map (or even 1 "song" as it is now)

 

That way you get a feeling with the map type you are on.

 

it would be great also if some creatures get sound too. If i look at a cockatrice i get the feeling they are screaming, but too bad without the thrilling sound you would espect

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Actualy, the best option would be having the music composed just for the purpose of Eternal Lands. Each map should have a main theme with some varations for specific regions. That's why I've voted for the "Many different songs" option in second part of the poll.

As we do not have anything like this I would suppose that for each map a very discreet pieces of music should be chosen, preferably very long and easy to loop. I don't think that playing randomly (or even carefully) chosen short songs in one map may work good. I'm afraid that such, very eclectic, set may lead to complete loss of game character.

Personally, I used to have EL music at some point of my gaming, but I've decided not to use it. Too few songs, not on every map, and I had WinAmp.

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Maybe it is possible to make sets of music that compare with the map type ? Not 1 set per map (or even 1 "song" as it is now)

 

That way you get a feeling with the map type you are on.

 

it would be great also if some creatures get sound too. If i look at a cockatrice i get the feeling they are screaming, but too bad without the thrilling sound you would espect

 

I agree on all counts. The perfect setup would be:

 

1. songs fitting in with the maps' cultural/geographic settings: f.i. you could have oriental-type songs in desertic maps, celtic-like in elven/forest maps, etc.;

 

2. building-related songs;

 

3. sound effects for animals and natural sounds (rain, lightning, wind, etc.);

 

4. battle-songs kicking in when you start fighting: martial but not too loud;

 

5. a sort of automatic balancing of music and sound effects depending on the nearness of particular sound origins: it would be quite cool, for instance, if music died slowly when approaching to a dragon's lair, with dragon roars increasing in volume at the same time (same for other dangerous creatures, of course);

 

6. possibly some sort of human-related sounds: at the moment would concern only the bots, I suspect, as there are no NPCs working/talking in the background (think about farmers, etc., currently not implemented in the game); and possibly not everyone would like to listen to bots announcements ("Swords! Selling swords! Excellent swords! Who's gonna buy my swords?" :devlish: )

 

There's a good base to start from, I'm confident music/effects will improve nicely with the next client!

 

Rehdon

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All good ideas here, thanks :)

 

Actually there will be soundFX for the next client update, and they GREATLY improve the atmosphere of the game, I'm sure you guys will like them a lot!

I for instance generally just sit on one map for long periods of time, and I had the soundFX playing in the background and they didn't bother me at all.

 

It would be a good idea to have music tailored to each map-we have that somewhat now, and even some songs were made specifically for some maps. But you're right in that if we don't have others of the same theme or style it may get too random sounding, and out of place.

Of course, this means we need a musician to help us achieve that :devlish:

 

Any other ideas/thoughts?

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The music, in my opinion, is excellent, although it would be nice to have a little more variety for each map. One thing, however, that would be awesome (at least for me), would be if guild's could choose 1 or 2 songs to play while people visit their maps. Obviously, Death Metal playing on a guild map might not be desirable, but being able to choose from a pre-constructed list of songs to add to your guild map would be a sweet addition.

 

Just my two cents though,

Shuj

 

P.S. felt a need to respond to this:

when I played WoW you couldn't really listen to your own music because the sound effects were an integral part of the game

 

I don't know what resources Ent and Roja use for the music, but i do happen to know that Blizzard has 2 in-house composers and numerous audio technicians to create the music and effects for WoW...it may be a little hard to compare...

Edited by Shujral

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One thing, however, that would be awesome (at least for me), would be if guild's could choose 1 or 2 songs to play while people visit their maps.

 

That is possible. All you have to do is create a play list file (.pll) and stick it in the music folder.

Make sure all your guildmembers have it for people to hear it.

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I agree with the suggestion from many people in this thread that maybe the areas should be given a "type" and the music should rotate through a playlist relative to that type.

(Depending on how we want to implement this, it might be worth tieing this system into the new sound effects map definition system.)

 

That is possible. All you have to do is create a play list file (.pll) and stick it in the music folder.

Make sure all your guildmembers have it for people to hear it.

I think he meant for distribution with the client (hence the probable restriction of choosing from a list of songs).

 

I quite like the EL music. I would like to hear it fade in and out better though. I listen to streaming radio for the most part.
I don't really understand this one. How do you mean fade in and out better??

At the moment, the music is defined by area. There is a single song defined for different areas of the map and in theory it should already fade in and out when you walk around the map between those areas.

 

I don't know what resources Ent and Roja use for the music, but i do happen to know that Blizzard has 2 in-house composers and numerous audio technicians to create the music and effects for WoW...it may be a little hard to compare...
Well everything in the client is basically volunteer work, so Ent and Roja rely on people wanting to help out and improve this aspect of the game. Up until now the problem has been not being people to make the sounds, or music... it has been the lack of a decent sound effects engine programmed into the client. This has recently changed. There is now a very extensive sound effects engine being finished and tested, and so we are now moving into needing people to help make the sounds and music again (which is why that forum has been reopened).

 

As for the sound effects for the game. As Roja said, there are going to be a huge number of sound effects added to the next release of the client. Some of these include sounds for actions (fighting, walking etc), inventory actions, spell effects, environmental objects (teleports, fountains, waterfalls) as well as background sounds depending on the section of the map you are on and sounds for crowds of people (getting louder with more people around).

 

3. sound effects for animals and natural sounds (rain, lightning, wind, etc.);
These sounds are coming...

 

4. battle-songs kicking in when you start fighting: martial but not too loud;
Hmmm, interesting concept. It would take more coding (and hence possibly more bugs), but it should be fairly simple as most of the code is already done for the sound effects.

 

5. a sort of automatic balancing of music and sound effects depending on the nearness of particular sound origins: it would be quite cool, for instance, if music died slowly when approaching to a dragon's lair, with dragon roars increasing in volume at the same time (same for other dangerous creatures, of course);
Well to some extent this should already happen. The music changes based on the area of the map you are located in, and when you leave an area it should slowly fade down. Combine that with some of the coming background sounds and you have that sort of effect.

 

6. possibly some sort of human-related sounds: at the moment would concern only the bots, I suspect, as there are no NPCs working/talking in the background (think about farmers, etc., currently not implemented in the game); and possibly not everyone would like to listen to bots announcements ("Swords! Selling swords! Excellent swords! Who's gonna buy my swords?" :hiya: )
Hmmmm. Another interesting idea. It would be quite cool to eventually see NPC's working away at something. In that case, adding sounds would be relatively trivial, but for now it would be quite complex.

Unfortunatly there isn't really any automatic way to establish what sound/message an bot should make. That could be manually created, but it could be difficult to coordinate, and would be rather inaccurate as bots change relatively frequently.

 

The second problem with this idea is just the large number of long sounds needed for this. You would want some variety which increases the number of sounds (and size of the download), and you wouldn't want them to repeat too frequently so either the sound needs to be long, or only play for a short time, with a long pause in-between playback... which actually isn't such a bad idea.

 

I don't really see the benefit from having sounds for bots. NPC's would be cool however, but is a way off yet.

 

 

 

Anyway, this is all currently being developed so if you would like to help with making sounds (must be very high quality), testing the system (must know how to compile the client), or even just have some more ideas, then please have a look for the respective threads in the music and programming forums.

 

 

/edit: Damn typos

Edited by Torg

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I don't really understand this one. How do you mean fade in and out better??

At the moment, the music is defined by area. There is a single song defined for different areas of the map and in theory it should already fade in and out when you walk around the map between those areas.

 

Volume wise. When you enter a new map its like.. BOOM :P

Edited by Nintenduh

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Volume wise. When you enter a new map its like.. BOOM :P

Hmmmm, yeah ok. I'll have a listen and see what its like with all the new changes, but definitely something to watch out for.

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The ultimate solution would be to convert all the current music to a popular format and allow us to select from a playlist for each map, including out own tracks.

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Looks like "A Little Night Music" is turning into the "William Tell Overture", complete with 11 cannons!

 

It is up to us as EL players to bring the music to Roja by suggestion, not tell her how many channels of equalized magnificence we want while we harvest! The music ingame is already well written, arranged and computerized. We should use it as an example of what can be done and tip our helms to the creators who are listed on the EL website (http://www.eternal-lands.com/page/music.php) go to the bottom.

 

These composers have been doing the work, Roja is trying to implementing it and we should be maybe a little less demanding and more supportive.

 

For instance, I'm hot stuff on the kazoo and slide whistle, oh and washboard... :)

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I like the music, though I tend to turn it off and listen to my own when it repeats...

 

Question: do you need compositions? 'cuz if so I could try to get off my squishy armchair and attempt to write something... :) although I am not exactly reliable when it comes to these things, I could definately try :blush:

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Question: do you need compositions?

If we spread the music out a bit more by playing different songs in the same place, then I'm sure Roja can use more songs.

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Yes but as mentioned earlier in this thread, it won't help much to have more and more totally different songs, it will help more to have songs on the same theme for the maps, so it sounds like it's all from the same place. If that makes sense.

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I still crash anyway always if change music on..NVOpenGlPBuffer...application error with xp..maybe my problem only though it says i have all future features in use

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