rM Community

Will we have any music?

If not, vote what YOU want.

Music is great in RTS games, but not so great in FPS games, I personally like to hear whats around me when im playing from the point of view of the PC and music gets in the way of that. On the RTS side music is awesome, especially if there is a way to make it dynamic so that when fighting starts the music picks up to an epic level, im talking Ride of the Valkaries, Exodus, or Requiem crap here, not some want to be no talent metal music.

I think music can play a very important role in any game, as long as it fits. We definitely want to have music in Overwatch, for both sides. Hopefully, we'll be able to put together something interesting. And yes, we've discussed dynamic music, it's a great idea if done right.

I think music can contribute heavily to a gaming experience, but it can also break it if you shoehorn it in and demand people listen to it. There should be some way to mute the sounds so you can listen to the ingame world, or simply so you can listen to your own music.

If there is going to be dynamic music, I hope it doesn't provide vital information, such as "Strider spawned" or "Combine soldiers in the area". Well, maybe play specific pieces for the larger "boss"-like units, ala L4D1&2 and the Tank; but assuming you want the FPS players to be on the watch for combine forces potentially appearing from anywhere, if you play a piece when there're no enemies around they'll disregard paying attention in lue of just running wherever they needed to go, only ficking back when the action music hits.

Halsh, on 03 July 2010 - 12:18 PM, said:

You have the ability to disable music (or lower its volume to 0) in every game on the Source engine; we're not going to prevent players from doing that. We obviously have no reason to force the player to listen to our music if he doesn't want to.

Without getting into too much detail, I personally don't see a reason in giving everyone a "shared" music experience. In other words, if we are to implement dynamic music, it should be uniquely dynamic to each player. If one player encounters a big strider, but others don't, the game should recognize that and cue a different music sequence for that player alone.

Internally, we haven't discussed this in too much detail yet, but as soon as it's time for it, we'll definitely be asking for some community input on the subject.

Oh that sounds really cool. So if they split up into 2 groups and group 1 encounters a strider they'll get a drastically different piece of music than the group that decided to go vent diving? Sounds awesome. Perhaps if you're the last FPS player left you could get a little more jumpy music in the background, looks like it opens up a world of possibilities. I think I read somewhere about that used in a game, and also if you viewed them in spectator mode you'd be able to hear the music they hear; would that be planned along with it?

AndY, on 03 July 2010 - 12:45 PM, said:

Sounds sexy.

AndY, on 03 July 2010 - 12:45 PM, said:

This sounds awsome.

I've actualy yet to play an game online that has even music let alone dynamic music.

Keep up the awsome work

Do you have a headset or speakers? If so then you must just play those games where the music fits so well you don't even really notice it, almost every single game I have ever played has music of some kind, maybe not ambience music that plays all the time, but situational type music at least i.e. you win yay (cue the music). As for the dynamic music, I agree completely, at the very least combine and rebels/resistance should have different music, but situational dynamic music on a character to character basis would be awesome, the only downside I could think of is that it would prob have to be done server side which means it would be a lot more information going over any servers lines, on the other hand, I believe you said it was 8 max players so it shouldnt be a problem as most HL2 servers support at least 16 players. Or you could have the music cued server side, and the command for changing tones client side? Oh well I'm sure you guys can figure it out, but that is pretty awesome.

Yep, i would like some half-lifeish music.

Is there going to be any custom music rather than the standard HL2 ones? I mean, the HL2 ones are good, but variety in ear candy is nice too.

Firespray, on 03 July 2010 - 10:37 PM, said:

Yes, we'll definitely be working on custom tracks.

AndY, on 04 July 2010 - 10:08 AM, said:

So that means you already have a composer

May i ask who he is? Maybe i heard some of his work.
(maybe on newgrounds or some sort, i'm also a newgrounds artist)

Whitebird, on 04 July 2010 - 03:48 PM, said:

Nope, we don't have one yet. We'll be posting for candidates soon.

Personally I think the soundtrack is one of the most important and underrated elements of a game, as it is the element that plays with your subconcious the most. You can be playing a horror game and not realise that the background ambience is making you more scared than you should be. You can be engrossed in an action game and not realise that the soundtrack is pressurising you into wanting to win. Dynamic soundtracks are a brilliant idea too, especially when it comes to fully immersing the player in the games atmosphere. So yeah, I figure it'll play an important part of Overwatch.

Hire "mess" in moddb, he made great half-lifeish track!

Would you use any of the already Valve-made Hl2 tracks? Because some of those are pretty awesome anyway, such as Sector Sweep, Vortal Combat, Guard Down etc.

Eric Fong, on 05 July 2010 - 02:54 AM, said:

I've worked with this fine gentlemen before and I'm sure he'd be happy to help us out.

I have a sample, it's dirty techno so please note that it may not be your style:
Sample

Twitwi, on 10 July 2010 - 05:53 AM, said:

I listened to it, that sounds really neat. Not really HL2ish but awesome in general.