Decline There's nothing more immersive than music

[Ontopoly]

yes, when I'm walking through a forest I expect to hear 'doot doot doo' coming from a mysterious piano somewhere. Anyone else mute music when given the option?

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

I kinda have the opposite attitude. I often find myself completely muting the music in first-person RPGs in favor of the ambient soundscape.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Music in RPGs is almost always extremely bad and generic.

You all know the exceptions.

 

[†††]

"muh immershun" fags need to fuck off already. Imagine muting the music of Arcanum...

 

[Ol' Willy]

Imagine muting the music of Arcanum...

I always do that.

 

[Ontopoly]

I kinda have the opposite attitude. I often find myself completely muting the music in first-person RPGs in favor of the ambient soundscape.

I was being cheeky in the first post. This is was I do too.

 

[pakoito]

Most soundtracks are a straight miss tho. As is the writing, but the music seems to get an easier time.

 

[DalekFlay]

I definitely think game (and movie) soundtracks are way more important than a lot of people think. Would wandering out in Morrowind have been as fun without the soundtrack? Would Deus Ex's Hong Kong be as memorable? Not saying it's the most important thing, but it's a big deal.

Movies (and games sometimes) going more for ambient sound nowadays is a travesty.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Unless the game has great ambient sounds turning off the music only hurts the experience. Sure if you really walked through a forest, you wouldn't hear a piano, but then you'd feel the sun and the breeze. Smell the mostly lovely smells. There's a lot to actually being someplace that game developers can't mimic properly and the proper music is the closest they're going to get to doing it right for a while.

 

[Semiurge]

When I'm walking through a forest I expect to hear Eric Brosious coming from a mysterious speaker somewhere.

 

[Lemming42]

Said it on here before but RuneScape's soundtrack is fucking legendary. You can say what you will about the game (and many have), but it's easily one of the most underrated video game soundtracks of all time. Literally hundreds of memorable tunes, and so much variance in style, tone, instruments used, and all that. One of the most evocative soundtracks ever in making you vividly remember the game when you hear the music, even if you've not played in over a decade.

The trend towards orchestral and ambient music in recent games sucks, probably done as part of an attempt to make games more like movies, and in a completely mistaken belief that a fantastic soundtrack with memorable hooks and melodies would distract from the action.

 

[Ghulgothas]

A soundtrack needs to provide atmosphere and mood first, contributions to your sense of immersion should stay a byproduct rather than the explicit goal.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Ambient tracks're great when they're made to fit a mood, they're redundant when there's no mood to be had.

 

[Casual Hero]

Music has always been one of the best parts of my gaming experience in life, and the music is usually what sticks with me the longest after playing a game.

Breath of the Wild took a pretty neat approach; the overworld music was incorporated into the sound design of the game itself, and takes kind of a back seat to the sounds around the player. Of course, each town gets its own theme still, which makes the music that the game does explicitly play all the more memorable.

I'm always a bit surprised when I hear someone say they mute music in every game they play, and I hadn't really heard about that until i came here.
Maybe it's more comforting to people to have music turned off if they grew up with nothing but a PC speaker that beeped and booped? :p

Edit: In all seriousness, I would say that for me personally there is nothing more immersive than music. The music can tell you so much about the tone and feeling of the area that you can interpret almost instantly as the player. It's not secret that we get a lot of emotional response from music, and so when used properly, music totally enhances the "feeling" you can get from an area in a game.
I hate to bring it up, but in Skyrim walking up a wooded hill and looking out across a starry lit sky while hearing Jeremy Soule's strings welling in the distance is just something else.
I suppose that you could argue that music is decline because it "railroads" players' emotions, but that is getting a little too meta, lol.

 

[Ontopoly]

I definitely think game (and movie) soundtracks are way more important than a lot of people think. Would wandering out in Morrowind have been as fun without the soundtrack? Would Deus Ex's Hong Kong be as memorable? Not saying it's the most important thing, but it's a big deal.

Movies (and games sometimes) going more for ambient sound nowadays is a travesty.

I played all of morrowind without sound. Have no idea what the music is like in that game. I didn't enjoy it though, so who knows. I doubt adding music would make that game half decent.

 

[Ontopoly]

Here's a tip. Instead of listening to music while playing a game, why not listen to a history podcast? Dan Carlin currently has a ~24 hour podcast about world war 1.

 

[J_C]

Good music is hugely important in games, more so than graphics. It can create fantastic atmosphere and really draw you in the game. So yes, music is very immersive.

I'm always a bit surprised when I hear someone say they mute music in every game they play, and I hadn't really heard about that until i came here.

Well some people here tend to be a bit retarded.

 

[Ontopoly]

Good music is hugely important in games, more so than graphics. It can create fantastic atmosphere and really draw you in the game. So yes, music is very immersive.

I'm always a bit surprised when I hear someone say they mute music in every game they play, and I hadn't really heard about that until i came here.

Well some people here tend to be a bit retarded.

Sound can be very immersive. Music coming out of the air is only immersive if you're in a fantasy world in which the air happens to be a well-trained musician that can play multiple instruments at once.

 

[J_C]

Good music is hugely important in games, more so than graphics. It can create fantastic atmosphere and really draw you in the game. So yes, music is very immersive.

I'm always a bit surprised when I hear someone say they mute music in every game they play, and I hadn't really heard about that until i came here.

Well some people here tend to be a bit retarded.

Sound can be very immersive. Music coming out of the air is only immersive if you're in a fantasy world in which the air happens to be a well-trained musician that can play multiple instruments at once.

Well, technically yes but it is really overthinking it. This way films shouldn't have music either. Good music puts you in the mood and helps you get immersed. I'm not saying a game can't be immersive without music, but at least for me, music helps a lot.

 

[soulburner]

I disable music in most first person perspective games. I liked it in Morrowind and Oblivion, but disliked it in Skyrim and modern Fallouts.
Even though I love the soundtrack to Quake 2 I never played it with music on. I could not play nuDooms with it enabled. I recall playing one installment of Call of Duty where the option to disable music wasn't available in the menu, because they hired some AAA composer or something like that. Didn't finish it.

I cannot imagine FO, BG, IWD, P:T or Divinity series without the music.

 

[rado907]

Music matters, but graphics, art direction, and dialogue also help.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Need I say more.

 

[Ontopoly]

This isn't a music appreciation thread. Stop posting your immersion-breaking soundtracks. This thread is specifically for the expression of the anti music stance.

 

[NJClaw]

When playing a game for the first time, you should always try to go through it with sound on, since sometimes the soundtrack can do a lot to improve the experience. If you play through Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 without listening to the main theme and other key tracks, you won't get the full experience:

 

[Ontopoly]

IWD music is pretty good... when I'm not playing IWD. I'll listen to it afterwards when I'm trying to force myself to sleep but during gameplay it only gets in the way. Skeleton of a town is one of my favourites.