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Custom Music
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aderack
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:30 am    Post subject: Custom Music Reply with quote

Hey, what Xbox 360 games actually use the custom soundtrack option, rather than simply permit its use? By which I mean, they sync specific tracks or music changes to specific parts of the game?

Incidentally: why the hell are the voices in all of the cutscenes to Dead Rising counted as music? It's kind of annoying, considering how well the game otherwise lends itself to custom soundtracks.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The only one I know of is Space Giraffe, but I never tried it on that one so even that's just hearsay.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

custom soundtracks should be a mandatory thing in all games, right up there with graphics and sound fx.
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Every Extend Extra Extreme has a custom music mode where you can kinda synch a level with a few minutes of your own music. It has a beat detection thing, which you can fine tune if it gets it wrong, and stuff.

I tried it out once, but it didn't really grab me. Not like the Unlimited mode.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
custom soundtracks should be a mandatory thing in all games, right up there with graphics and sound fx.

Is it ok just to have an option to turn off the music while keeping the sound effects? Every game has to be your CD player?
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why wouldn't it be?
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah, so long as i can turn it down or off, that's cool too.

but for some games - i'm thinking of titan quest recently here, though the music was pretty decent, it could have used some discordance axis.

edit: i know it sort of gets in the way of authorial intent, but that's a pretty dead fucking horse for a category of entertainment that has an entire subset of interactions like speed runs and the like. plus most game music is fucking terrible. i don't know the actual percentage, but it's somewhere between 99.8 and 99.9 percent.
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
yeah, so long as i can turn it down or off, that's cool too.

but for some games - i'm thinking of titan quest recently here, though the music was pretty decent, it could have used some discordance axis.

edit: i know it sort of gets in the way of authorial intent, but that's a pretty dead fucking horse for a category of entertainment that has an entire subset of interactions like speed runs and the like. plus most game music is fucking terrible. i don't know the actual percentage, but it's somewhere between 99.8 and 99.9 percent.


I still don't see what the appeal is. I guess there are interface challenges with it, like how much of a god damn UI do they have to give you to be your personal jukebox, and I'd rather see them spend that kind of effort making a better soundtrack in the first place, not in having an "out" and throwing up their hands and saying play what you want.

I guess I don't find 99.8% as fucking terrible. I'd say 70% gets the job done, 20% is really great, and 10% might be annoying or inappropriate.

I'd argue in a tangent from "authorial intent"; apart from the idea of "art", a decent soundtrack becomes part of the culture of the game, if it's a worthwhile game the music becomes linked to your experience playing it, and there are some interesting memory tricks to be playing with that, from the way Nintendo can harvest its legacy for tunes, to references in other games, to the subjective experience when you hear something similar or in the case of GTA4 ish "real" music when you hear it later.

Plus, I get the feeling most people putting on their own soundtrack have a limited set of songs they're going to use so every game will sound the same, or maybe they'll have certain mood "mixes", but that's only quantitatively better.
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i guess my take on it is "i am a better dj than any game company on earth."

it also depends. i usually disable the soundtrack on fps games unless i really trust the developer not to overuse it. it gets in the way of gun porn and sneaking about.

however, i should be able to play through diablo 3 with a fela kuti soundtrack. in fact, i'm pretty sure that's in the constitution.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok so i was thinking how this would work last night, while fiddling with immortal throne:

you give the user folders under /GAMEDIRECTORY/MUSIC/

goes something like

/BATTLE
/EXPLORATION

and maybe even

/CREDITS

though that's a bit nuts.

then you just dump .mp3 files into the battle music section, and they're randomly chosen from the pool, with deep (3 second?) fades in and out.

i think that would be neat.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
custom soundtracks should be a mandatory thing in all games, right up there with graphics and sound fx.


And all movies, while we're at it!

And I should be able to turn a dial that changes the angle. Also when I go to an art gallery I should be able to choose what's going on in the painting. Why can't The Scream be running away from a Gorilla?

CAN YOU SEE MY SUBTLE POINT
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"BUT GAMES ARE NOT MOVIES OR PAINTINGS"

I posted your counterpoint for you
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 2:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
ok so i was thinking how this would work last night, while fiddling with immortal throne:


Yeah, I think it's just making it more accessible is the key. Seeing as how it's done in damn near every PC game via mods and total conversions, it's not like having or wanting heavy customization in PC titles is all that demanding. The problem is that it often requires knowledge regarding file structure and formats that are learned by extensive tinkering, which involves more time and/or willingness than most people would rather put into it.

I'm not sure how that would work in console games though, outside of having optional hard drive installs and an FTP connection or something, which is pretty messy.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

consoles are outside my frame of consideration. but i do think it makes a lot of sense. i remember an older pc game that would play whatever cd you put in the drive as the music in the game. or perhaps it was several different games, i don't exactly recall.

Quote:
And all movies, while we're at it!


i don't care about movies or authorial intent therein, so if it were up to me i'd make all movies as much fun as tokyo drift. and half as long.

of course, you can actually do that to some degree via editing software, if you're willing to do the work.

but back to my original point again, keep in mind we're talking about a roguelike here. not a lonely game of the trembling wispy mustachioed type, with a single tear filtering through the scraggle. there's no feelings to fuck up. you don't feel guilty killing colossai or whatever and the only message is numbers go up and slash slash loot.

plus the authors never have to know, so everyone wins.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Incidentally, dhex is a Libertarian. If you didn't know.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:

but back to my original point again, keep in mind we're talking about a roguelike here. not a lonely game of the trembling wispy mustachioed type, with a single tear filtering through the scraggle. there's no feelings to fuck up. you don't feel guilty killing colossai or whatever and the only message is numbers go up and slash slash loot.

plus the authors never have to know, so everyone wins.

If you're talking Rogue-likes we're back to my entry point which is just get a damn ipod.

Somewhere here it sounded like the conversation forked a bit...
I see a difference between what modders can change (which can be, or should be, anything) and what are customization options. And I'd say "graphics and sound fx" should be something in the former category. (Actually I was thinking of the latter category when I read that and thought you were being sarastic)

So, if the question is "why shouldn't roll your own music be a standard option in every game", then the second question is, "artistic intent" aside, it's still kind of odd that music is such the odd man out relative to, say, graphics. Maybe it's because humans are by and large visual creatures, and/or that more games would be playable with the speakers off than the screen off, but still it seems like some kind of bias.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure how much you guys know, so I apologize if I'm being "well duh" here, but the 360 has custom soundtracks that can be streamed from your PC and played during any game with the sound effects theoretically left in and which automatically pause during cutscenes (which apparently wasn't the case in Dead Rising). It was an option for game developers on the Xbox and it was only directly from the hard drive you had access. Still, Tony Hawk did it and a few other games too.

The game I want to talk about though is one that none of us probably played. Hell, I never played it so all of my comments are based on hearsay. The 360 version of the 2K sports football game had custom soundtracks set up so that you could set certain songs and certain parts of songs to certain events. Apparently there was a huge option submenu where you could fiddle with all of this stuff until you got it right. I guess it goes along with the rest of the football customization options, but it sounded really neat to me.

Uhh, I guess we could maybe talk about that new iPod jRPG that creates custom characters from your songs and levels them up while you're not playing if you listen to those songs. Sweeeeeeeet.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

in my first post i realized it sounds like everything should be customizable, which isn't what i meant - i meant roll your own soundtrack ability should be standard just like including graphics and sound fx are standard, i.e. really standard.

Quote:
If you're talking Rogue-likes we're back to my entry point which is just get a damn ipod.


alternately, since i've spent a long while ripping my cd collection, my computer is sort of like a less portable ipod.

it would just be neat, you know?

also cowon are a much better value with greater file support and tremendous sound quality.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
custom soundtracks should be a mandatory thing in all games


dhex wrote:

but back to my original point again, keep in mind we're talking about a roguelike here..


OHO
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hey, it would be nice, but even the biggest dreams have to start small.

edit: so why does this, to borrow a british-ism, get on your tits so, harvey? i think game music is, at best, completely forgettable, and generally shit. of course i want to replace it with good music, rather than just turning it off.

unless the sound design is particularly awesome, in which case i'm all for turning off the music.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is it really so hard to just alt-tab out foobar2k?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
The game I want to talk about though is one that none of us probably played. Hell, I never played it so all of my comments are based on hearsay. The 360 version of the 2K sports football game had custom soundtracks set up so that you could set certain songs and certain parts of songs to certain events. Apparently there was a huge option submenu where you could fiddle with all of this stuff until you got it right. I guess it goes along with the rest of the football customization options, but it sounded really neat to me.

Yes, that's what the thread is ostensibly about. Good show! So there's two, then.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a side note: I was really disappointed when I found out that you couldn't set wandering music and combat music in Oblivion (my first 360 custom soundtrack experience). In Morrowind there were two files on the PC which were basically non-combat and combat folders. You could put what ever music you wanted in them and it would grab them randomly based on being in combat or not. I hoped they'd done that with Oblivion considering all the hype put into the custom soundtracks that the 360 can offer around that time.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
i don't care about movies or authorial intent therein, so if it were up to me i'd make all movies as much fun as tokyo drift. and half as long.

Incidentally, dhex, there's the crux of the problem. I know you don't like having anything dictated to you, but that's an element of most forms of artistic expression. There are relatively few books with a Mad Libs chapter, for instance -- and few of those could be mistaken for serious works.

Some games are just made for screwing around, and have no particularly serious expressive intent -- so all right, fine. Let the user mod them as he likes. Sound, music, levels, character models, whatever. Many games (and I would argue most worth playing, but that's the way I come at things) are intended as a discrete range of experience. The whole point is involving yourself with what you're presented, on its own terms. The music is as crucial a part to Silent Hill as the visuals. Take it out, you take out at least half the emotional affect. You're not getting the whole picture.

Which is not to say you're obliged to anything as an audience member, but if you're not willing to take a work on its own terms in the first place, I see no reason why its creators should make an effort to allow you to systemically pick and choose. If you really want only part of the information, you can always take the initiative. Turn off the sound, and play an accordion with your feet. Or just do something else.

I'm not trying to be precious here. Clearly there's a place for custom soundtracks -- thus the thread. You're just one crazy dude, is all.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think lots of movies could be improved if they let me use custom soundtracks.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
The game I want to talk about though is one that none of us probably played. Hell, I never played it so all of my comments are based on hearsay. The 360 version of the 2K sports football game had custom soundtracks set up so that you could set certain songs and certain parts of songs to certain events. Apparently there was a huge option submenu where you could fiddle with all of this stuff until you got it right. I guess it goes along with the rest of the football customization options, but it sounded really neat to me.


Not only did I play this game, I worked on it*.

And this wasn't done in All-Pro Football, which was the only next-gen football game that 2K has worked on. What you're thinking of is the 2K Sports NFL title for the original Xbox -- ESPN NFL 2K5 had a Custom Soundtrack feature where you could assign songs to a plethora of special events, like pregame introductions, scoring a touchdown, when there was a penalty called, getting a safety, etc. It was a big list and it wound up being a very popular feature, with the only major drawback being that you couldn't use it online (for obvious reasons).

This can't be implemented in 360 games, as far as I can tell, because the way soundtracks are handled are different and from what I was told, it was significantly difficult to set it up to the point where it wasn't worth trying. Either that or it was some sort of stipulation of Microsoft's that you're not allowed to access user music in that kind of way, which would be kind of silly; however, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case either.

* - For the curious, I was Assistant Lead Tester for ESPN NFL 2K5 and Project Lead Tester for All-Pro Football.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Then what's going on with Space Giraffe? Or is Minter just being really clever?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, he's not really taking tracks from your hard-drive and allowing you to assign them to specific events in the game (as I understand it, I actually haven't played SG very much). He's taking the built-in play soundtrack feature that's part of the 360 operating system and have it drive some of the graphics in the game, which would be a piece of cake for him considering that he also did the system visualization software in the first place.

There's a serious difference between integrating an existing feature (the system custom soundtrack) and writing your own (have your program code access individual tracks on the 360).
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

He did write his own actually, Microsoft wouldn't let him use the visualiser built into the system.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle wrote:
He did write his own actually, Microsoft wouldn't let him use the visualiser built into the system.


Ha! That's pretty hilarious.

In any case, the point still stands, it doesn't matter whether he rewrote the visualizer or not, he's just taking the audio output of the 360 custom soundtrack and converting it into a graphical effect. The issue is that to actually assign specific tracks to events in-game (in other words, allowing the game program to access system data (i.e. NOT what SG is doing*)) is either

a) really really hard/impossible
or
b) something that MS won't let you do.

* - What he's doing is taking something that the system already implements and does something neat with it**.

** - And no, I'm not saying that he's doing something with the visualizer he wrote for the system software, I'm saying that he's writing an in-game visualizer that takes input from a system function that was written by somebody else that handles playing the user's stored music.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, that's a big clusterfuck on Microsoft's end, isn't it.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
The whole point is involving yourself with what you're presented, on its own terms. The music is as crucial a part to Silent Hill as the visuals. Take it out, you take out at least half the emotional affect. You're not getting the whole picture.


i honestly don't remember the music from silent hill 1 or 2, and it's possible i turned it off. the sound design, however, i do remember, as everyone else who ever played those games remembers.

obviously i don't think it's about meeting game makers halfway or whatever; at least on the pc, the ability to modify things is a selling point, not a bug. nor is it an insult. it's part of the deal. that i think game music is largely terrible is two parted 1) i have specific tastes and 2) it has to be incidental, with a few exceptions, such as intro/credit sequences or non-interactive cutscenes.

there are folks out there who only listen to singles, or who only listen to their mp3s on random shuffle; apple even served that niche of a niche specifically. i can't roll that way, but i don't think it's pooping on a great album to cut a song or two off of it, or using it a variety of ways. once it's out of their hands, and into the world - and this applies to piracy as well as authorial intent - people will use it in a variety of ways.



Quote:
Which is not to say you're obliged to anything as an audience member, but if you're not willing to take a work on its own terms in the first place, I see no reason why its creators should make an effort to allow you to systemically pick and choose.


i don't think this makes a lick of sense, outside of some vaguely cosmic notion of fair play. their decisions are shaped by budget, their backers and whatever internal politics happen to be flying around that particular studio. i no more matter to their choices than a fly. my life or death is immaterial to them.

i just think fela kuti would go really well with diablo 3.

blizzard has to appeal to everyone and i just gotta be me, baby. offshore that work, blizzard. offshore it.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:

there are folks out there who only listen to singles, or who only listen to their mp3s on random shuffle; apple even served that niche of a niche specifically. i can't roll that way, but i don't think it's pooping on a great album to cut a song or two off of it, or using it a variety of ways. once it's out of their hands, and into the world - and this applies to piracy as well as authorial intent - people will use it in a variety of ways.


I never did get the concept of concept albums, or albums as much more than grab bags of songs. I've bought too many $16 CDs where 2 or 3 songs were great and the rest felt like filler (but sometimes what seemed great was B-side-ish stuff anyway)

Songs are atoms. Albums are complex and generally unstable molecules.

Quote:
i don't think this makes a lick of sense, outside of some vaguely cosmic notion of fair play. their decisions are shaped by budget, their backers and whatever internal politics happen to be flying around that particular studio. i no more matter to their choices than a fly. my life or death is immaterial to them.


So first off, clearly not everyone is the masterful Indy Rock Pete you are.

So, there are (roughly) 2 types of games: games you play to experience content, and games you just plain play and the content is fairly set, like retro games where you play for score or multiplayer games where it's about playing against enemies.

Assuming we're not just talking about redoing soundtracks on the latter type of game, it seems a little weird that you're saying "I'm going to pick from a selection of music I know that will go better with this game that I don't know yet, but can guess based on reputation and general expectation."

You like your music. But you want to be catered to so you can like your music while playing their game.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
so why does this, to borrow a british-ism, get on your tits so, harvey? i think game music is, at best, completely forgettable, and generally shit. of course i want to replace it with good music, rather than just turning it off.

unless the sound design is particularly awesome, in which case i'm all for turning off the music.


It's exactly what you said- I think authorial intent should be preserved. Obviously games where music is used the way you'd use your own itunes, like a racing game with liscensed music as a soundtrack- that's fine, we can all come up with a better bunch of songs then the developers could have done.

But, something like a Zelda game has a very specific mood the developers are trying to convey, and that's going to be lost if you replace the cave-exploring music with 'X Gonna Give It To Ya' and the love theme with 'What is a Juggalo''.

It's a hard thing to call because probably no games developer has used music as well as Stanley Kubrick or somebody, where the choice of music is an integral part of the work he's made. But, we have to take it on good faith that someone might, in the future! Imagine if custom soundtracks had existed for films in the 60's. Kubrick would have been like, 'why am I spending all this time sourcing and commissioning the perfect soundtrack for my film when these goddamn hippies are just going to replace it with The Grateful Dead anyway.' The creator should have complete control over the way the viewer sees his work.

So, the developer should have the choice to allow custom sountracks if they want to afford the player that liberty, but they've got the right not to, too. A lot of developers want you to play the game exactly the way they made it- for example Nintendo don't even like to let you turn the music volume down.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mostly agreeing with Dhex in this thread.

Really, most videogame music is really shitty and I'm happy to replace it with my own. Like Dhex, I'm much more interested in sound design. There has some been some great tunes in games, but the sound design of certain games is almost always more memorable if done right.

Not giving a rats about authorial intent itt.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So we agree that the best bet is to ensure every game has an option to turn the music down to off, then he can play more rockin' tunes on his iPod and you can better focus on the sound design.

Basically, I think music is part of the game experience. I don't really morn not being able to replace all the characters heads with heads from art by artists I think are better, or every level with levels from Marathon, and don't see why music should be all that different, except that You Guys REALLY Like Music.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I REALLY like music!

Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Shadow of the Colossus is practically a different fucking GAME if you're going to soundtrack it with heroic, Wagnerian fightin' metal like this douchebag did.

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=0emOLrdRLo8

This is why Donnie Darko starts with The Killing Moon and not I'm Walkin' On Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves.

Cycle wrote:
Not giving a rats about authorial intent itt.


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't contributed to the magazine yet, so that doesn't really apply buddycakes.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah well, GUESS WHY THAT IS

You might be proud of 'not giving a rat's ass about authorial intent' but really, it just makes you sound like a hick!
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not proud, I just don't care!

There are some cases where the music adds to the game, but in most cases I could do a better job with my own music. It reminds me of this time when I was playing STARCRAFT of all games, and there was this moment that coniceded with the song I had playing so well that it has stuck in my mind ever since.

Harvey stop editing your posts before I get to replying to them, thanks

also it's because i'm lazy and never finish my articles.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the problem here is that me and Kirk are talking about games as a medium with the potential to produce great works of art in the future and Cycle and Dhex are thinking about the games they actually play right now. i.e,. mostly FPS shooters, which play pretty much the same whether you're listening to the orginal soundtrack or WHOOMP! There It Is and The Baha Men (this is what I imagine Cycle listens to.)
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pretty much, yeah.

Harveyjames you know I mostly listen to PRINCE, or the artist formally known as.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I didn't know that! What's your favorite album?
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

his name is prince
and he is funky

I'm not taking the full-on artsy stand. More the..I dunno, full experience stance?

I think a lot of worthwhile games might be too team-developed for me to be all in that authorial intent thing.

But it DOES come down into that story/non-story split I described, and if we're just talking FPS or Roguelike or racing or some genre that is mostly just using music to get you pumped, than yeah, sure, why not.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I talked to Cycle on AIM and it transpires that he does not like Prince all that much and was, in fact, mocking me :(
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


PWNED!!!
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

HAHA MY NAME IS CYCLE AND I AM WAY TOO COOL TO LIKE SOMEONE AS PEDESTRIAN AND POPULAR AS PRINCE!
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i like prince.

i can't really think of a game that used music in a way that wasn't done largely with sound design. the only thing i'm grabbing now is the dungeon music in the first zelda. and even then what sticks out is the "beep beep beep yer gonna die, midget" sound.

i should really churn out some kind of piece about all the "it's just a shooter" type conversations i've had over the years, and why it doesn't apply to other genres, including of all things shmmmmmups. (dunno if the word filter is still in effect)

Quote:
The creator should have complete control over the way the viewer sees his work.


recording artists should produce albums which are one long, unbroken track so people have to listen to them all the way through.

not.
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sculptors should leave part of their statues as raw clay, for the viewer to mold as he likes. Painters should provide a sharpie and paint thinner to every potential buyer, etcetera.

Your metaphor is wobbly.
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

Quote:
The creator should have complete control over the way the viewer sees his work.

recording artists should produce albums which are one long, unbroken track so people have to listen to them all the way through.

not.


recording artists should produce songs which are one long, unbroken track so people have to listen to them all the way through.

OH WAIT! THAT'S WHAT THEY DO!

Or... recording artists should release songs in separate tracks so people can put the drum track they like best!!

NO WAIT THATS A TERRIBLE IDEA

Actually, it's not that bad an idea; mashups and your own soundtracks to games can be hella fun.... but they don't need to be the industry standard.
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