Another example: a LOT of people hated Sindragosa’s constant roaring on the Wrath of the Lich King title screen. Q: Right! When you hear one of those thundering installation complete sounds, it's like, “ack, did a bookshelf fall over?”Ī: For our Cataclysm update, 4.3, you heard horns when the update was completed-it was a bit more easy-going. People started to install games with the sound off. We found that some people will put headphones on, and after two hours of installing, suddenly the game will go “BOOM!!” when it finishes. Q: Do you find that players get bothered by game sounds with any regularity? Where does that concern stem from?Ī: Well, for example, we’ve had to tone down our auto-playing sounds to be less startling. I feel like that’s a frontier we have yet to conquer, but also, as social gaming continues to put people in closer contact with each other, the challenge of sound to remain immersive is only gonna get tougher. There will always be hardcore players who’ll never have sound on they’re in voice chat, or they need absolute focus. Marty O’Donnell, a good buddy of mine who’s my counterpart at Bungie, has a saying: “the ear does not blink.” Sound is a constant immersion tool-voiceover has to be localized, but music doesn’t, and sound effects don’t-they’re a universal language.Īlso, the team strives to keep people from turning their sound off. It’s the first sense that’s turned on in the womb, and, unless something breaks with your hearing, it’s on for the rest of your life. We’re a visual society we take our hearing for granted unless it’s taken away from us. Sound and music aren’t always an essential part of gameplay, but Blizzard wouldn’t ship a game without them, just like we wouldn’t ship a game without great cinematics. A healthy portion of our players can’t imagine a Blizzard game without what we do. Is there anything you’d like to tell players about what your team does?Ī (Russell Brower): I believe our players already have a great appreciation for the role of sound and music in games.
Q: The role of sound and music in games, even in our games, isn’t always clear. To provide more insight on the development of this auditory (pandaren) feast, we sat down with Senior Director of Audio Russell Brower to talk about the making of the Mists of Pandaria soundtrack and his views on the purpose of music in games. When you visit the page, you’ll be able to read notes from the soundtracks’ composers, listen to song samples, and download albums and individual tracks directly through iTunes. The Blizzard Music section has been updated to include the soundtrack to World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.
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