oh god the music

It's really nice, as I expected - but it's pretty poorly managed.

The battle music starts sloppily (sometimes well before the battle actually begins), stops very suddenly when the battle has ended, and seems recorded or mastered louder than the environment music.

This is exactly what I was afraid of when I decided not to buy the DirectSong expansion. I find myself shutting the music off until I enter a town. In five years and a dozen MMOs, I have never had to do this.

Please tell me we are getting a DirectSong expansion for free during the preview event, and it won't be like this in the finished game. To have the music rock out during a battle doesn't make the acton more exciting, just less cinematic - especially when it's such a mess.

Actually the music starts when you use a skill.
About the sudden ending, i don't know.

Agreed on the abruptness thing.

...To be honest, I've always found this to be a problem with Mr Soule's work. He puts a few too many frills and fanfares into everything, so you never have any kind of aural "downtime". This is actually a problem in Nightfall, since you're trying to experience wide open savannahs and things - you can't spend the whole game being impressed at its vast majesty, eventually you have to calm down and just cross the rotten thing.

[heresy]Actually, I haven't fully enjoyed anything of his since Icewind Dale...[/heresy]

I've already switched the music off and started Winamp up in the background.

I love how the professions have "theme songs" now.

I hate the login screen music.

But like everything else.

Completely agree, here. His music isn't bad by any means, but he does go a bit overboard with the "sweeping majesty" of his themes. Everything is just a little too buuuuuum BuuuuuuuuM BUUUUUUUUUUUUUM, if you know what I mean.

Agree about it being poorly managed as well. In a game like Guild Wars, where combat is so frequent, trying to have battle music for normal encounters is just a bad idea. It's very jarring to have to constantly stopping and starting. Often, it seems as if it does it every few seconds.

I quite like the music but there does seem to be some kind of timing issue. The battle music seems to kick in when nothing is aggro'd for example. A few times I've ended up thinking something had been aggro'd and had to tab through nearby enemies to see if anything was using skills (i.e. getting ready to attack) only to find they were quietly minding their own buisness...

how do you listen to their theme tunes ?

Anarchy Online had a nice feature where you could set the battle music to play during all fights, only fights with higher level enemies, or never. Then again AO's music scheme was so ambitious that five years on no one has even attempted to copy it.

I do like that they've now made it so the sound stays on while GW is in the background. Tabbing between the game and the wiki while learning what to keep, sell, or salvage could be pretty aggravating without that.

Percisely what I thought today. I personally love having battle music, but keep it for the bosses or specific large spawns, otherwise it might get tiresome.

I have a hard time hearing some of the music despite my volume turned up, and the varous other sound elements turned down. I kind of like it, but would like to hear a lot more.

On a side note, I do like the environmental sounds such as the savannah insects, AND I fully expect A-Net to have lions roaring in the background as I wander the vast open spaces.

Don't disappoint me.