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Lord of the Rings Online: New Music Track Available
GFulls
Member Posts: 478
Lord of the Rings Online allows us to listen to a new music track from Middle Earth.
At last, we've got a new music clip from LOTRO for your listening pleasure! This one comes from LOTRO's Character Creation sequence.
Read more about Lord of the Rings Online here.
Comments
Its ok =/ Heard the same tune like a thousand times though in other mmo's. It can get a little repetative about 1 minute into it when you hear the repeated beat. Its probably adequette enough for an mmo, but it doesn't hold a flicker of a candle to the music in this game that has 3 preview BGMs on the site.
Ragnarok Online 2 with Yokko Kanno composing music
Its too bad mmorpg.com hasn't said anything at all about this game, even when the official site went up. Also to preview the other 2 BGM click on the next button in the player on the top right of the page.
I agree, it's too repetitive. Of course, all it has to do is set the mood, but still, it could have a bit more variation.
Also, strings are brought in but I'm not sure they are worth it as they just provide a bit of "padding" or "Color". They should have either used the strings a bit more or just not had them.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I am in shock, awe, and amazement at Turbine's ability to read the beta feedback forums and fulfill the requests of the beta testers! I have posted a number of items of feedback as a beta tester, and replacing the character creation sequence music was one of my items of feedback. They addressed every element of that tidbit of feedback ("get rid of the synth trumpets and synth timpanis," etc).
I really like the new music. It is indeed a litle bit repetitive but that is the ingredient of a hook, and it's subtle and gentle enough as ambient music that repetition won't be a noticeable annoyance. Definitely sets the right mood for a classic RPG theme such as LOTR.
I have to disagree with the other posts in this thread, that music clip was hideous.
It sounded like some New Age wanna-be track. They said this is supposed to be for the character creation screen - the very FIRST music of the game you hear.
You're creating a hero who is about to enter Middle-freaking-Earth and help save it from the forces of the Dark Lord. And Turbine decides 'moody' elevator music is the best choice for this? Dark and moody doesn't cut it. You need epic, you need majestic. You need something that makes you feel like you're creating someone who will do something more than mope around and be a Middle Earth Emo-victim.
The goofy songs from that Rankin & Bass animated version of The Hobbit were better than this, my anticipation for this game is not improving.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. LOTR isn't Guild Wars. There are a lot of beta testers who say that they really wish they could just live in the game, begging for allowing players to own houses, etc.
This song is a great improvement over the preview (current) tune in the beta that was "epic" and "majestic", but was also, frankly, a cheesy sounding recording of a MIDI sequence. It is definitely not "new age" unless everything under the sun that's gentle and ambient is "new age"; the trademark of "new age" is the synth pad, so thank goodness it isn't "new age"! Rather, it's folk music from a different era.
As for the mood, dark and moody certainly cuts it. You don't start the game as a hero, you start the game as Joe Schmoe of The Shire who has to work his way up. If they threw loud hero music at you for five minutes you'd be worn out before you even get into the game.
The music actually reminds me a lot of Diablo while you're in the starting villiage. That music in Diablo always impressed me of how very appropriate the music was, since it was setting the mood.... and the mood was, this is me, a townsman in a town I love, about to confront a threat I have not yet discovered and that hasn't threatened me personally directly yet.
Really, did LOTR the first movie start off with blaring trumpets and percussion to make you feel like this was a great and majestic experience? No, it started off almost silent, with a soft narration from a woman. And the character development sequences during the first thirty minutes of the movie were not loud and majestic, they were very "uppity" and happy and bright, to help you bond with these characters being developed at a more personal level than just "this is the brave, action-packed hero".
Good to see someone else noticed the music sounded much like the DIablo 1 town music, I was going to post that same thing myself! (BTW - this is not a good thing when one of the first impressions from a music track makes people think of another game)
The D1 town music fit perfectly with the dark and grim world of Diablo but it does NOT fit for Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had beauty and wonder in his world as well as grimness, Diablo had only the darker side of fantasy. (That's what made it cool in it's way)
We can argue back and forth, but I don't think we're ever going to see eye to eye if you think the mood in Diablo started you out as a 'happy townsman'. Diablo started you out in a town that had been overtaken by demons and was on the edge of falling into darkness. There was little to be happy about in it.
But maybe by 'happy' you meant an ignorant townsman unaware of the horror looming, which I will agree. And while ignorance fits many of the denizens of Middle Earth at the outset of the War, I still maintain that Tolkien's world was one of beauty that was in danger of being lost if the heroes failed. If you don't want a heroic theme, then the beginning music could represent that beauty and majesty, something the players should experience before anything else to make the darkness destroying the good in the world all that more terrible.
As for the examples you gave from the movie, ANY of those would have been better choices. Soft, haunting, elvish music in the background of narration would work. Uppity, happy and bright pastoral music would work.
Cheesy, brooding, NEW AGE music doesn't.
(Regardless of your private definitions I can go to Best Buy and find lots of examples in the New Age section that sound just like this)
Heck, forget the music, how about someone singing one of the countless Elvish songs Tolkein wrote? The Lay of Beren and Luthien would have been a great choice, something the hardcore fans would love and it would bring to mind the haunting beauty that is a core trademark of Middle Earth.
Would that be harder to do than this cheesy music? Yes. Would it be worth the effort? Yes.
The point of the music is to give the player a sense of character appreciation, not world fascination. Since the character hasn't yet become a hero, warrior-like music isn't fitting. Since the player hasn't yet discovered the world, majestic music isn't fitting. If Frodo in the movie had been characterized from the get-go as a hero, it would have been a terribly cheesy movie.
I like the idea of an elvish song written by Tolkien. But then, that's not going to be majestic and warrior-like as you had originally described. My disagreement with you is on that specific idea. If you don't like this particular tune, that's much mroe of a personal matter of taste and opinion, and heck if they are intent on keeping on trying different tunes for the character screen, more power to them. I'm just saying that this tune is a heckuvalot better than the previous tune. Actually, if the theme became majestic and warrior-like but was not MIDI-ish but rather was much more high quality, I would probably not complain.