The Mana World Forums

Well it seems us devs are sorta un organized. I think we should at least try to get together a few times a week or more. I would like to set up a meeting with the artists so we can see whats going on. If thats ok post what times you are available.

We already have that. Look under "graphics development."

Magick, just wondering, but are you one of our devs? I've never seen you around in the irc channel on freenode, nor have seen any commit by you.

Magick is one of our composers:

http://themanaworld.homeip.net/music

Here you can listen some of his works

Ah right, didn't know that

Magick: The compositions Elven linked are pretty cool, but sound quality is somewhat...lacking. I know I'm putting the cart before the horse a bit here, but what would you say to the suggestion that the in-game music be live recorded (real musicians) in mp3 format when we get to full release? MIDI has it's uses, but it's highly limited (and frankly most MIDI instruments sound like crap), and I would absolutely love to see what live musicians could do with some of these, not to mention how cool that would be in-game.

Talaroc wrote:and frankly most MIDI instruments sound like crap

yeah. but much depends of hardware synthetiser, mp3 have some licence limitations, so i recomend OGG or FLAC, but i supose we have now OGG suport build in curent client.

In the current cvs there's a doc in the docs folder soundev.txt where I started to define what's need for sound development. Yes we're using ogg for both musics and sfx. About using real music well I think it won't suit a lot a game but we can make a try of course.

Ah yes, didn't think about the restrictions on mp3.

I think that, if done well, live music recordings will work with the game. And speaking as a musician, live recordings will do these compositions way more justice and add a lot more feeling to the music than the crappy MIDI instruments ever could.

Another question on the subject: how is situational game music going to be handled? Say, I'm wandering around the town, and enter the wilderness; how does the music shift from the town music to the wilderness music? And then, while I'm wandering around, I get into a fight; does the music change to fight music for the duration, and how? I'm speaking from the point of view of the user here, as I won't understand any descriptions of code that you throw at me.

What I'm trying to say is that yes I'd prefer live music more than midi instruments, as we have in the intro music (Ivano(de)Jeanette.ogg).

I think at first we will have 2 solutions: Having a single background music which will play indefinitely on both maps, or having 2 musics and when you change map you will have a fade in fade out from one to the other.
About changing the music while fighting? It's possible of course, but why it should change when you need 2 hits to kill a monster, I think it could become annoying on the long run... (just an opinion)

Yes, live music would be sorta good but i think the midi ones would fit a game much better. I could try some real life stuff and switch it but...i like doing midi better.

Im working on some things for the intro screen (if not already made) and i think i sent in a submission for the dessert and some fighting areas.

Apart from being the composser, if elven doesnt know, im also running a little bit of advertisment for the game. Im creating a gaming magazine soon and im just looking for a decent webmaster to get my site looking nice. Anyone interested .

Sorry for the double post but i just re-read elven's last post. Well to solve the music problem i would suggest that when you go into a diffrent town the music fades into something else (like elven said) The thing about going into battle and killing a monster and leaving battle is correct..it would just be annoying. What we could do is have the music for the type of place blend in with the style of the area.

If you are in a dessert and you get into a fight the music gets a little faster. That would not be that hard i dont think..... Tell me what you think.

Mm, I would say just have no musical effect for combat, over changing the tempo. It would just be quite strange, from a player's perspective, and it wouldn't work well in terms of making the music continue to sound good.

Yes, live music would be sorta good but i think the midi ones would fit a game much better. I could try some real life stuff and switch it but...i like doing midi better.

Thing is, the range of expression in live music is so much greater...you can't get a truly, say, creepy, or triumphant, or melancholy sound, when using MIDI instruments; they just don't have the capacity for it. At the same time, although MIDI might be more precisely in line with what the old SNES RPG's had, I don't think we need to be constrained to only using what they used; see all the stuff going on with graphics for more on that. I'd much rather make a game that feels original with obvious references to a certain style or set of games, than one that tries to be one of those games.