PTR Notes: New music in the inns of Azeroth
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 17th 2007 at 1:00PM
After a player says he thought he'd heard something he'd never heard before on the PTR, Hortus says that yes, there is new music in inns all over the world of Azeroth.Which seems like a strange addition to make, and an even stranger change to leave out of the patch notes. Personally, I have music turned off maybe 90% of the time-- while grinding, I'm usually listening to my own music or watching a movie, and while raiding, I'm listening to my guildies on Teamspeak. While I like the Warcraft music as much as the next guy, I can only hear it so many times before I'm ready for something else.
But I supposed after the next patch comes on, I'll have to flip it back on again and have a listen. You have to wonder why they're spending time implementing new music when there seems like so much else to do, but maybe these are leftovers-- music written for Outland or other new content that Blizzard didn't have anywhere else to put.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sylythn Jul 17th 2007 1:07PM
How is it a waste of time to have an Audio Engineer design new music to be swapped in...it's not like they'd be doing bug fixing or tools programming or content development if the weren't working on audio.
Tiago Jul 17th 2007 1:16PM
What do you mean? Audio Engineer?!
Everyone knows it's the Forum CMs that design and code the whole freaking game!!
Don't you start using your Common Sense on me!!1eleven
Shadowisp Jul 17th 2007 1:53PM
Waste of money to pay him to write and code music, he should just focus on cool sound effects. First thing I did in wow, turn off the music urgh!!!
Music in MMOs is always a bad idea, cause its a never-ending game (100s of days played) with looped music... it messes with the brain.
An MMO should only have music when it is in context of the environment sounds... ie A band is playing (ie L70ETC), a bard is playing, a music box has been open, a radio is on, a doof doof car drives past. Not a constant loop background loop!!!
Used to play the MMO City of Heroes, a group of friends in the community agreed with me strongly on this point too (background music was crap) and create an Internet Radio Station for the game... ParagonCityRadio, which later became MMORadio, ran for a few years. Died earlier this year due to royality issues, after like the 2nd change in management.
Now I just listen to Vent, or pull up a stream from my local radio station of Live365.
JackBrown Jul 17th 2007 1:39PM
totally autonomous jobs. no reason they can be creating music as programmers develop more content and fix bugs.
Coherent Jul 17th 2007 1:52PM
I've had music turned off since the first week I played the game. Background music quickly becomes about as interesting as MUZAK. I like music to be meaningful, not omnipresent.
WoW needs a variety of switches to turn various kinds of music off, or limit the frequency that it plays. I wouldn't mind music in Inns, but I hate hearing the same music endlessly while walking around Stormwind. I can't stand meaningless ambient music that endlessly repeats, it quickly makes me hate the area.
Michel Jul 17th 2007 1:53PM
annoying posts...
it's for all theses stuffs I like Wow.
because blizzard always tweaks or improves MANY things !
I don't care about your so new sword+43 of banana or your characters is slayed by whatever guy in whatever pvp situation.
I love wow for the background, for the gags, for the texts, the music, the quest, the raids, the instances, the roleplay with others players, for pvp, arenas, battlegrounds , stupid ingeniering toys, Griftah, and so on
and yeah, it's nice they tweak the inns !
I don't care if you only want a stupid videogame with scores and frags !
Fortunately, it seems blizzard thinks I'm not alone ! many thanks.
Chris Anthony Jul 17th 2007 2:03PM
@4&6: Just in case you haven't noticed, there's a Loop Music checkbox in the Sound Options dialog. If you turn this off, the music plays maybe 50% of the time, in my experience.
@5: I respectfully disagree with you. Music makes or breaks a game for me, and WoW's music makes the game as far as I'm concerned. I've played with the music on from day 1, unless there was something else in the background I needed to hear - and then I turned off all the game sound.
Jeff Sturges Jul 17th 2007 2:13PM
There are several hours of music in the game. Unless you spend all your time in the same zone it's actually quite diverse. It sets a tone and makes it feel much more cinematic.
It's always nice and refreshing to hear new music in the game.
Odas Jul 17th 2007 2:22PM
@#6
Waste of money? Considering Blizzard pulls in roughly $4,000,000 a DAY in subscription fees - not to mention the money they make on the up-front game sales, I think they can afford to pay a guy a few grand to write new music.
Maybe I'm more nerdy than the rest of you - but I love WoW's sound track. It's probably one of the best produced game soundtracks out there and it rivals that of major motion pictures. I've got it in my iTunes library and I'd be lying if I said I didn't listen to it regularly while I'm doing anything but playing WoW.
Bachus Jul 17th 2007 2:34PM
Let me be the first to say, No! The inn music is awesome. It doesn't need to be changed.
Chris Anthony Jul 17th 2007 2:41PM
Oops - I was respectfully disagreeing with #6, not #5. >_>
Dracula Jones Jul 17th 2007 3:11PM
The music is so good in WoW. Felwood, Elwynn Forest, the various Stormwind themes... all really great moodsetters. Certain areas of Hellfire have distinct StarCraft Terran themes.
"Music's good here" is frequently said and heard over Teamspeak when I duo with my friend. We've discussed everything from the drone of Shattrath ("Definitely subliminal messages in there!") to the woodwinds of Winterspring ("George Sr.'s 'Jewish' theme from Arrested Development!").
Pingmeister Jul 17th 2007 3:13PM
I absolutely love the music in-game. It's not like I'm rocking out to it, but I think it sets a specific mood in each zone.
I'd truly miss it if it was gone.
RogueJedi86 Jul 17th 2007 4:31PM
Music afficianado, does anyone know which track it is? Logic tells me it would be "Taverns" from the Burning Crusade soundtrack. But does anyone know for sure? Or is it a brand new, never before heard track?
Sirg Jul 17th 2007 4:48PM
@5 totally agree
I hate it when people don't care about the "feeling" and can't reach it. A role playing game is all about its world and background. The ambient music is very important. Unfortunately some people care only about leveling, gold, and purple items or /played value.
It's great that Blizzard added some more tunes. I think who turned the music off, missed about one half of the game. For me, Honor Hold would be dead without its music, same for Ironforge or Ashenvale.
The only music I found annoying is the Gnomergan/Everlook background music, maybe because it's designed to be that way, lol
Sophie Jul 18th 2007 2:45AM
I think the tavern music is the same as before but enhanced. I have that version, and found it odd that it's not in the game. Nice to know that it is now....however most outland inns (if not all) don't have it playing anyway :(
Theserene Jul 18th 2007 4:42PM
I love the music in-game. If I could find an MP3 of the Tirisfal Glades music I would be such a happy warlock...