Guild Wars - Amazing music; badly used

Just a very random thought here.


But Guild Wars has absolutely amazing music once you take the time to listen to the soundtracks.

The problem I have with it? They're so badly used in game.
I can't really touch exactly what makes it so badly used, but the music just doesn't feel as emotional, or noticeable for the most part during the gameplay.
What's more of a shame is some of Guild Wars' most amazing songs are not on the official soundtracks, but I hear apparently an extra CD named "Additional music"?
Tis' really is a shame. I think I recall some of these amazing tracks used in cutscenes, but not for long enough to enjoy the songs.

Where the hell was "The Undercity" used ingame!? Either I didn't recall it, or it might have been a mistake on anet's part. This song is so awesome and fitting for a place like it!!
I'm really curious why it wasn't used if it was created for factions.

I really hope GW2 is an improvement and puts the music to good use. Jeremy Soule really outdid himself!

Reasons why the music "doesn't feel as emotional, or noticeable for the most part"

• The default balance of music to sound effects makes it near impossible to hear any music during battle or when a skill is being activated
• Most of the tracks are heard for hours on end on loop, and get repetitive (think Kaineng city)
• Battle music was added to the game, making the awesome music go in and out
• Most people skip the cutscenes nowadays since they have seem them too many times
• As you mention, not all of the music appears in game. A lot of the cooler music doesn't make an appearance.

I don't recall "The Undercity" anywhere either =(

A lot of environmental areas in Vabbi actually had really catchy music for the explorables that made me want to explore and hunt. But yeah, like you said, battle music was added

Normally I listen to my own music while playing GW, and after a few months of doing just that I turn the GW music on again. Then it sounds amazing and new like it used to. =P

Honestly, after 4 years, you can get bored with the soundtrack. I mean, I love Diablo 2's music, but God knows I won't listen it with the same passion as I did 10 years ago.

Also, I liked only the Factions music. And only because I'm a sucker for the Asian themes.

Good music was completely ruined by generic battle music crap.

GW's music is just there in the background. There aren't any "Darth Vader on the Super-Stardestroyer" moments really. Even if music is played in cutscenes, it does not really fit them or has already been played to death before.

The biggest musical moment of the game was the theme playing when Prophecies started and you saw the campfire. That was something you remembered. Other than that, there aren't really any mental images that stuck.

You can't have the fish and the bear paw (I think its you can't have the cake and eat it too, something)

if you have the good music in the background, you'll never hear it in its entirety because there are so many other sound going about at the same time.

I think the game uses the music very well, in fact every time i hear the traveling music, or the fight music, it makes me wants to kill monsters even more !

I love the GW soundtracks, all the games have wonderful music. the trouble is you need to have your speakers turned up to a high vlume just to hear it,
i know that you wouldn't have classical music playing loud but turning it up to the highest (in game) is still pretty quiet. only if you stop, mute all sounds except music and turn it up in deldrimor war camp, do you realise what a beautiful scene it is.

Jeremy Soule- so generic you'll think you're listening to morrowind's soundtrack while playing GW.

I lol'ed...

Seriously though I started playing with the music turned completely off sometime during NF. There are some nice tracks but by and large GW music is sort of flat in my opinion. A good comparison would be the Veldt music from FF3(FF6), if you have played it you know what I am talking about ZzzzZZzzz. It was really the scenery and not the music that always kept me stimulated while playing GW anyways.

The crystal desert song (Crystal Oasis) I think is perfectly used in the game during the crystal desert part of the game. Listening to this game's music in general reminds me of playing Oblivion/Morrowind, As the same composer made the soundtrack for all these games, its no surprise :P

Most Prophecies music sounds like bland typical mmo ambience music. I did enjoy presearing music though. Factions and Nightfall music seems to have more character because its oriental/exotic. Particularly the kurzick, luxon, istani, and vabbian themes stand out for me. So where is the best music? Hidden away in the Guild Wars Battle Pack One ($5 at DirectSong). It plays during the prophecies campaign and sounds more like a movie soundtrack than anything else, but doesn't feel as 'orchestral' as the stuff you hear in EotN. This is what Prophecies music should have been from the beginning.

I really hate that you have to buy music just to make the game feel better for playing. Talk about failsauce.

Anyway, most of the music in this game is quite passive and I would rather hear a radio station or something else. The only times it ever picks up is in the middle of battle during nightfall or eotn, which makes me wish the dev team would look back on the first two campaigns and somehow re-write just a bit of coding to support this style of playback.

meh, purely opinion based

Mr. Soule should try a bit more of different genres. More variation.
Currently there is only ONE song that has quite more beat.
It's one song that I've never heard in-game, part of the Nightfall pack...
Let's see...
Heeere it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu1eG2BzsMQ
Totally different to the rest.
I wish there was more battle music like this.

Anyone knows Granado Espada (Sword of the New World)?
You get many different styles there... well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...c_music_genres
This many, XDDD.
One of my favourites is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtNUOp3bldI
I edited once the GuildWars.ds to have some Granado Espada music. The Shiro battle changes a lot with some more beat.

But not only electronic music. Also rock, heavy and even arias. The game gets boring after a while and it's a grindfest, but some people stay only for the music and the boobs of the female models (you can hire many NPCs as playable characters), there was even a bug that made female models appear nude once, XDD.


For GW, the music is a little stagnant if you don't have the music packs.
Especially the battle pack. It adds a little of action to music.

Most of my favourite music plays at the crystal desert, pre-searing and shiverpeaks, so when I'm not around there, I usually have a music player or some video playing in the other screen.

Today it was Caprica and Smallville. I don't remember what I was doing in the game, something about the redux... oh, yeah, the EotN quests, XD.
When you play as an experimentalist, it gets so easy that you can burn stuff without watching, XD.

Prophecies has the best music in all of the games imo. It had no battle music either that I recall. I guess its your opinion though, to each his/her own.

Not really. There are a few beautiful songs in it, mostly Factions and a few Prophecies tracks, but that's about it.

I must agree the desert music is perfectly placed IMO. As for the rest Vabbi area is good too. Rest of areas NAAAAA. I mean redo some areas. For example EOTN, try using Devona fight song when engaging the Charr make the music more epic when fighting certain monsters that at least played a big role in the game and story lines.

I've used the GW soundtract multiple times for student projects as background music. The music is really wonderful, but yes it really is poorly used in GW.

Had headphone/speaker troubles for years, when playing guild wars I could tell if my sound was working from waterfall and fire sounds far more often than I could for the music.