Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
How do they make you feel?
They immerse, thats obvious. But they are memmorable, they stand out so much you cannot just be in the specific zone and forget the music is there. Unique notes repeat in each of this zone giving both unique vibe and setting - should I feel enchanted, scared, in awe?
How important are music and ambiance to you, and what examples from your favorite games demonstrate this best?
It is extremely important for reasons explained in previous question.
There's so much to learn from that OST, I can't dive into it all. I'll just mention one little thing that I've noticed a lot: The songs with vocals tend to be the most epic/enjoyable even when the vocals are indecipherable or literally nonsesnse (because they use some made-up language for some songs). Even if I'm not paying attention to the words (because I'm in the middle of a fight or something), the vocals still manage to convey a lot more feeling than instrumentals can do alone.
So don't shy away from using vocals, even for generic battle music or ambient zone music, even if it's nonsense vocals or humming or whatever, as long as it helps to enhance the tone/feeling that is intended by the music.
And when it comes to epic boss fights, you can't beat Stormblood's Triumph:
And the Worm's Tail:
FF14 does this thing where they interweave the main theme of an expac in most of the tracks for that expac. Its really well done. If we take the example of Triumph above, you will hear parts of that in several tracks that play within Stormblood:
Via its music, it keeps the overall theme of the Expac, which is about Rebellion from an Colonizing force. OF Resistance. Their is plenty for Ashes to learn by looking at what FF14 does with its music.
Also I really like this Dawntrail "Mid" boss theme:
And I don't know if this one would fit for Ashes, but when it comes to a more Mechanical boss, I really like this "Locus" theme for the Alexander fights in FF14:
For nodes BGM my idea is to make the music matches the race it follows. For example in this game the town is kinda elf style, and its BGM is in elf language which is so great.
And for another city which let's say is connected to a heavy reach story you can make it has a BGM that tells you the story in some kind. Check this one
I swear i never caried for BGM but when i enter these towns i stay for the music
Skyrim's Dragonborn certainly does make me feel like I am going to battle. I don't know; there is something very epic about that song.
This one was from a dungeon where players had to kill waves of monsters and protect an NPC from said monsters. It was pretty cool for that specific dungeon. This one would not go with AOC, but it still is a song I used to like in that dungeon, especially in a game where I would turn all music off; yet, once entering this dungeon, I will enable music only to hear that song while butchering mobs. Felt appropriate
Now, I have to admit i play most games with no music. AOC is one of the (or the only game) I am playing with music and full sound effects.