Posts with tag russell-brower

The Warcraft Twitter account tweeted not one but two pretty cool items of interest yesterday, for those that are fans of Warcraft's music. Zone preview selections for both Nagrand and the Spires of Arak have been made available for listening. While Nagrand's theme is suitably idyllic for the green rollings hills and waterfalls in the zone, it's Arak's preview that is really a standout. I'm not even sure how to describe it, because I haven't heard anything quite like it in Warcraft before. Of course, we've never really seen anything quite like arakkoa civilization before, either.

Both previews are snippets of what players will find on the Warlords of Draenor soundtrack, which is part of the physical Collector's Edition package along with a host of other goodies. Give both tracks a listen, and while you're at it, make sure you're following Warcraft's official Twitter account -- they're apt to post plenty more cool surprises as we wait patiently for the next expansion's arrival.

Adriacraft is at it again, digging up new models and music from the latest build of Warlords of Draenor. One of the more notable datamined pieces is a brand-new login screen track, labelled Siege of Worlds. While it bears resemblance and shares sections with the previous login track found on the beta, this version feels much more complete and includes several sweeping, intriguing themes right along with the now-familiar beat of the Iron Horde's war drums.

But perhaps the coolest part of the soundtrack starts at approximately 11 minutes into the piece. Long-time Warcraft fans should immediately recognize the familiar sounds of the human theme from Warcraft III, beautifully re-done with a triumphant flourish. It's a gorgeous new piece of music, but it's also a fantastic nod to one of Blizzard's beloved classics. Listen to the full theme above, and be sure to check out Adriacraft's channel for more from the Warlords beta.

Several key members of the Blizzard Audio team were interviewed recently over at The Frontliner. This epic-length interview featured Senior Director of Audio Russell Brower, Project Music Director/Composer Derek Duke, Lead Sound Designer Joseph Lawrence, and Casting and Voice Director Andrea Toyias.

This interview hit so many topics, it's hard to list them all out here, but some of the ones that really interested me were the tips for getting into the various artists' fields, along with information on the technology and methods they used. I love hearing about field recordings, for example the engineers holding the huge glass doors open just so at Blizzard HQ to get an awesome wind whistle. It's great, too, to hear about the casting process for voice artists, the difficulties faced and the lengths Blizzard goes to to get great people.

It's an altogether fascinating insight into the world of Blizzard audio, as well as hotspots to hear the best gurgling and popping noises in Southern California!

Blizzard's Community Management team sat down with Russell Brower for an interview on the creation of not only the soundtrack to Mists of Pandaria but other game sound elements as well. Russell talks about the constant immersive properties of music, quoting a friend in saying that "the ear doesn't blink", and linking that to something that I think Blizzard does a great job of, providing music that contributes to an area's feel, atmosphere, and quality. I don't ever play without the game sounds and music switched on, nor do I play with other music playing in the background -- doing all these things affects my enjoyment of the game, and Russell says that his team strive to keep people's game sounds turned on. One thing he added that made me laugh was that the team had to tone down the sound made by the launcher when the game download is finished:

Brower goes on to recall that so many people hated the constant roaring on the Sindragosa fight in Wrath, which I'm sure will resonate with a lot of our readers. What other game sounds would you like to hear toned down? Personally, the noise that mage tables made rates pretty high on my dislike list.

Wondering what your experience in Pandaria is going to sound like? Me, too! I've been happily playing the beta all along with my music turned up -- but unfortunately, most of Pandaria has been absent of any kind of musical track. The few pieces we have been treated to from the Wandering Isle and the login screen had me firmly convinced from the get-go that I wanted the soundtrack, but I've just had a little more convincing. The folks over at MMO-Champion dug up a surprise over the holiday weekend: a full 30 minutes of musical tracks found on a recent beta build.

The track names aren't really spoiler-related, they're just named after various races and zones in Pandaria, so you can feel free to listen without fear of plot spoilers. The Sha piece is particularly haunting, but all of the pieces have a certain beautiful flair to them. And if one of these tracks reminds you of another game, you may be right. Joining the team for Mists of Pandaria is none other than Jeremy Soule, a name you might recognize. His most recent work includes the soundtrack for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

If you're interested in hearing what musical treats Mists has to offer, give the video above a listen. As always, remember this is datamined content, so it may not make it into the official game -- but if the video is any indication, we're in for a treat. I can't wait to hear the rest of the music.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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The latest patch to the beta servers added something interesting for the dataminers, dug up by the folks over at MMO-Champion -- a piece of music titled Heart of Pandaria v4. For anyone who's been playing World of Warcraft since the original iteration of the game, the first few bars should be easily recognizable as the familiar strains of the original login screen for WoW. And elegantly mixed in and around that familiar tune is a wholly new track for Mists of Pandaria.

This suggests this is the track that will play when you're logging into the game, of course. But what I'm wondering is what we're going to see on that login screen? To be perfectly honest, while I liked the screens for Wrath and Cataclysm well enough, I really miss the days in which we were simply presented with the image of a portal to far off and pleasant lands. I'm hoping we'll see something along those lines here. One thing's for certain, though -- it's entirely unlikely we're going to get any kind of dragon, since there doesn't seem to be a plethora of dragons in Mists so far.

I highly recommend giving the entire track a listen, as it has a perfectly wonderful buildup throughout. And if I weren't already convinced that buying the Collector's Edition is a good idea for the possibility of a mount, well, the possibility of a soundtrack on top of that is just icing on the cake.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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If you were planning to go to the Video Games Live performance on April 1st, now you have even more reason to go: Russell Brower, Director of Audio/Video for Blizzard, will be there. It's going to be (hopefully) shown on PBS in July, so if you just can't get down there, you can at least be on the lookout for it. If you like WoW's music (or that of other Blizzard games... I'm a huge sucker for Diablo II's soundtrack) it should be worth catching. If you happen to be in the area, tickets for the show are still available from Ticketmaster.