Music and MMOs

As a bit of a disclaimer going into this rather in-depth subject: I can only speak to what I'm familiar with and so any examples I can come up with are from games I've played either extensively or briefly. I've written on this subject before, but it was mainly in the context of what was being done with Vanguard's development. So instead, I'd like to drop all former allegiances and take a broader look at the scope of things.

A few months ago, I was approached with the opportunity to write music for an as-of-yet-unannounced MMO. With just my music samples to back me up, I managed to cut through 60 or so possibles into a short list of 5-6 potentials. Long story short, I didn't get the gig, but I was approached with a good question during a phone interview that is something I've always been pondering: How would you go about creating a score that is both memorable, iconic, unobtrusive, and never gets tiresome (and as a result, turned off)? My answer was a bit long winded and inconclusive... But I went through several games that I thought got things partially right, and proposed something of a compromise between other successful approaches. I suppose this editorial will be somewhat of a more long-winded version of that answer.

What's been done?

Ragnarok Online - Looping area-based bgm, no combat bgm

In an effort to go into these examples from levels of complexity, RO ranks as one of the least complex when it comes to their music implementation. Since every area in the game is split up into zones, each area can have associated with it a separate mp3 that plays in the background and loops once it is over.

Pros

• Very clear identity for each zone
• The possibility to fully develop a piece
• Ability to make custom soundtracks by replacing mp3s with your own.

Cons

• A musical "blanket" that can grow tiresome after repeated loops
• Lack of combat music means battles have less of an identity
• Player detachment from music can occur the easiest

Final Fantasy XI - Looping area-based bgm, looping contextual combat bgm

FFXI takes the blanket concept of RO's music implementation one step further by giving combat an identity within the score. However, the combat music is rather limited in its implementation. For the base game, there are two battle pieces for soloing (outside and inside), and two different ones while in a group (also outside and inside versions). For each additional expansion however, new solo/group bgm's were added to the new zones that were added. Additionally, Burning Circle battles (instanced boss encounters within arenas) had their own special boss musics.

Pros

• Like RO, very clear identity for the zones
• Again, fully developed pieces
• Battle music added to the atmosphere and made fights seem significant

Cons

• More so than the area bgm growing wearisome, the battle pieces have an even larger possibility of wearing thin on a player.
• Every battle (aside from BCs) given the same epic feel - from rabbit to giant dragon.

EverQuest II - Looping area-based bgm, looping randomized combat bgm

Very similar to FFXI's implementation, with the exception of one element: Instead of contextualizing the combat bgm, it is instead put through a randomizer when coming up. As a result, this can lead to its own sets of pros and cons.

Pros

• Combat music is less wearisome on the player, as every battle has its own random accompaniment.

Cons

• The randomized nature and lack of contextualization can be somewhat disorienting. Battles against the same series of creatures can range from moderate to epic depending on the track chosen.

World of Warcraft - Linear area-based stings, no combat music

With WoW, we begin to venture over to the more programming-heavy side of music implementation in MMOs. However, this game's implementation is less complex than most. Essentially, every zone in the game has its own music which is then split up into short sub-minute "stings". Then, each area within a zone is assigned one or more stings that trigger under certain circumstances. Each sub-section of a zone might be assigned a randomized sting from the zone's collection, whereas something more distinct like an orcish camp or human tavern might be assigned its own specific sting. Also, when spending a certain amount of time within an area, the sting gets randomly played from time to time in order to keep the mood going.

Pros

• Strong atmosphere and use of motifs rather than melody to associate themes in the world
• Short lengths and sparse play lessens wear on players' ears

Cons

• Not much time allowed to develop a theme
• Lots of motifs tend to get recycled as they get brought back for similar areas
• Lack of combat music works for menial and short battles, but longer fights and bosses can feel underwhelming

Anarchy Online - Linear area-based stings, evolving combat bgm

Though the game came out years before WoW, a lot of the same techniques were used to implement most of the world music heard in the game. The main difference here was AO's innovative combat music system. At the bleeding edge for its time, the combat music was split up into little chunks that could loop and also transition forward and backwards in intensity. I'm not sure exactly how the technology worked, but essentially as battles got more intense or had a higher challenge rating, the more intense the battle music became.

Pros

• Combat always feels appropriate to the difficulty and significance of the battle.

Cons

• A bit of a double-edged sword where every battle uses the same combat music routine. While there is variety, it's still the same variety for every battle.
• Short loops and segments provides little development aside from the scaling growth of the music intensity.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - Looping randomized area-based bgm, looping randomized area-based combat bgm

Quite possibly the most complex music system designed for a game, Vanguard's music needs a good deal of explanation since it's not apparent to the casual listener. Basically, every area has its own looping composition that lasts about 30 seconds on average and consists of multiple layers and versions. A typical piece will include: 2 drone layers, 3-4 percussion layers, 1-2 melody layers, 1-2 pulse layers (rhythmic instrument playing), and 3-4 instrument layers. The music system then picks several layers from the pool to play at once, randomizing every time the next repetition comes up. The combat music works in exactly the same way, except that the loops are usually much shorter. The system has the capabilities to dynamically mix and choose which layers are played or not based on parameters in gameplay, though at the time of launch not all of that functionality had been used. An additional bit is that the system also allows for one-time stings to occur for various events: Entering a large city, sunrise or sunset etc.

Pros

• Constant music that very rarely repeats itself exactly
• Inclusion of stings allows for fully developed pieces to intermingle with the looping ones.
• Combat music not only ties into the area BGM thematically, but is also different for every area explored.

Cons

• Having music constantly present can get tiresome despite the constant rearrangement.
• After hours of listening, the chunks and loops become extremely present and extremely repetitive. The constantly looping chunks then becomes even more nagging than a 3-4 minute piece that loops.
• Combat music has no context other than physical location. A meaningless fight and an epic fight will have the same accompaniment.

What works?

I think my general consensus about music in MMOs can be summed by saying: it doesn't always need to be there. Which is painful to say from a composer's standpoint, because we love to write and make the best accompaniment for areas... However, from a player's perspective, constantly having a blanket of music is overwhelming and makes you search for the mute music option.

However, there are good times to have music. And there are good and bad ways to write the music that's being implemented in these various fashions.

For area BGM, I think it is generally concensus that large "epic" and sweeping orchestral scores for running around a simple field doesn't work. MMOs aren't movies, where the characters run through a field once and never come back. If you try to make running epic, it won't be epic the 2nd or 3rd time it happens. So instead of emotion, a better approach is to score the atmosphere. One excellent example from classical music is a piece by Smetana called The Moldau. While it clearly is a linear piece depicting a journey, the music itself embodies the river it's named after. The music is the atmosphere, just as much as the sound effects are. If written in this fashion, it doesn't matter if the piece is implemented as a sting or a looping bgm, so long as it suits the atmosphere presented.

Is melody important? For memorability, I would say yes. If a BGM is meant to be iconic, and return in various fashions throughout the game, there's no better way to do it. Well-written melodies grow on a player if they're not used too much. To this day, I can sing from memory a melody from Super Mario RPG from a forest BGM simply because it was well-written and depicted the area it was used in. Would this work in an MMO environment? Certainly, if implemented well. The trick would be arranging it so that it's not played too often and gracefully melds back into the ambient soundscape afterwards.

A lot of composers in games all around are dealing with the issue of environmental BGM and how to present it in more and more cinematic ways. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that memorability is suffering as a result. However, it is true that being as ambient as possible and as unnoticeable as possible is a very effective way to have music be present and not be intrusive to the gamer.

Battle music is an area that there hasn't been a very good consensus on yet. Some composers prefer to have some sort of excitement surrounding battles, others prefer to let the atmosphere persist and leave out combat music altogether. Some, like Final Fantasy XI and the recent Lord of the Rings Online, prefer to score instanced battles with their own BGM. I think there can be a happy medium, but only if the music is involved in the process from early on.

What is yet to be done?

Here's the part where I get to be speculatory. Taking all these approaches into account, what would be the ideal solution from my perspective on how to handle a musical environment in an MMO?

Area Music

The first thing I would define is that looping is bad, and sting-based implementation of linear pieces works very well. However, I would have the stings be much longer than things heard in games like WoW. A well-developed piece with a subtle entrance and exit that is written to the atmosphere of whatever area might be explored at the time. Melodies would be prominent when necessary, and some amount of lore from the world would influence what motifs or ideas are brought back for each area. Is this place a ruin of some ancient civilization that branched off into what is currently the dominant race? How would I go about taking that race's theme and placing it in a different context to reflect the lore?

The other thing to take into consideration is how does this area change? Is there dynamic weather, a day/night system, etc. Ideally, the music should adapt to what is happening in the environment, since it is essentially painting that picture with music.

Travel is one element that has not yet been dealt with in an MMO score. I think there is a vast difference between adventuring/exploring an area, and traveling through it to get to another destination. The game Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess delt with this beautifully in its main overworld area. If you were just exploring and and doing things, one arrangement of the piece would play... And if you started running for more than a few seconds, the music would pick up into a more elaborate arrangement with more rhythmic elements befitting a linear path. And if you were on your horse, elements changed to make it even more apparent you were on a journey. I think an MMO score would make use of system similar to this extremely well. Especially considering how much time one spends in a virtual world going to and fro.

Battle Music

I have an attachment to battle music, since I come from an upbringing of JRPGs with some of the most memorable fighting themes there are. But in an MMO, it needs to be sparse. However, the modern MMO engine has all the right hooks to decide when music is played or not, and how to deal with it. A mob that cons grey to you doesn't give exp. It also shouldn't play any music while you fight it. Anything under your character's level probably doesn't warrant music. However, even-cons up is where things start getting exciting and possibly drawn out.

Everything has to be contextualized. Considering that combat is where a good majority of MMO gameplay is spent, one battle theme is not enough. Five isn't enough. Combat within an area is the same as being in the area, but with its own more intense atmosphere. So therefore combat music within an area should relate to where you are, not just how difficult an enemy is.

Anything a solo player can handle shouldn't be a huge deal, but it should be scored. It doesn't have to be ominous at all, but it can be an upbeat version of elements used in the area's BGM. A good example is the score for Kingdom Hearts. Every area has its own background layer and combat layer, which cross-fade. The music is upbeat and reflective of the area's BGM, but it's not a do-or-die situation. It's simply rhythmic and a bit of a groove to fight to. This is what I'll call intensity level 1, with 0 being mobs that are under your level.

Intensity level 0 should also apply for groups. A group dealing with non-group combat doesn't need music, and so again the difficulty meter compares the group's power versus the mob's power. Exp gain could also be a very effective method of tagging these encounters.

There should also be an additional bit of code that informs the music system if there are other enemies nearby that could possibly be attacked or agro directly after the encounter. If so, the combat music shouldn't cease. If the combat music is constantly starting and stopping during a lot of consecutive combat, that also proves very tiresome for the player.

Intensity level 2 is where things start to get interesting. This should trigger for either A) A solo player entering an encounter he may very well die in (red or purple cons), or B) A group entering a challenging encounter. This could be designated as WoW's "Elite" tagged mobs. The music would then be at a level that could be considered do-or-die. An advanced technique to use would be having the beginning of the piece be less intense than the latter portion, and only have the latter portion loop so that intensity ramps up the longer the battle proceeds.

Finally we have intensity level 3, named boss encounters. This is where the melodic composition can really shine, since boss encounters are often long and challenging. Since the conditions are set, there can be more liberties taken with the music composition. I also would introduce one music system that I've never seen used except for 1 very specific case. In the game Skies of Arcadia, boss battle music had 3 layers associated with it. There was the main layer, used for the majority of the fight... And then there were two related alternate layers. The first was an "oh shit we're going to die" layer where things got extremely chaotic and frantic, and was triggered by the party's average health being generally low. The other layer was a victorious "we're about to win" layer that was triggered by the boss's HP being under a certain percentage. More games really aught to use a system like this, and I think MMOs are the perfect candidate.

Conclusion

So, all in all, a lot of ideas are out there and being used by various games here and there to varying degrees of success... but there are still many left to be explored, tweaked with, and compiled into one excellently-implemented MMO score. The future potential is exciting!