freebird? here’s your freebird, buddy: nn|n,
i just read justin webb’s latest column over at mmorpg.com (full disclosure: i know and like the guy), which ballyhoos the player music system in LOTRO. it’s pretty intriguing (full disclosure: i’ve never played it myself), but i have to say – i’m not convinced.
(oh, if you didn’t read it / haven’t played LOTRO, it boils down to this: another player can walk up to you and bleat out some lady gaga on the bagpipes, or perhaps some attack attack on the lute. mmmm…”community”.)
i understand that meta-game and social activities are critical to the “RP” in “MMORPG”. i understand that new games need to expand the definition of MMO – not by leaps and bounds, but by palatable increments – in order to demonstrate to players that *this* MMO is different / ever-so-slightly-better than all those others that came before. and i understand that the player music system has a bloody huge OFF button (though if you read through all the comments on the article, it’s still not clear if that truly works as advertised). but still. i mean…really?
i don’t mean to come off as a pedigreed music snob, but i am one, so that complicates things. thing is, how could this be anything other than awful / a griefer’s paradise 90% of the time? and it’s not like there’s a suck filter in the UI next to the bloody huge OFF button that could be adjusted to only let the good stuff through. if that was the case, more people might actually leave the feature enabled. but as-is, the first unsolicited shiite serenade likely sends most players scrambling for that OFF button (if they haven’t pushed it already on principle – the “i always turn off game music” principle).
and man, the last thing i need to do is to give players another reason to adhere to that principle.
p.s. the post title is a reference to my old bandmate jamal millner’s friendly retort to rednecks who’d shout “freebird!” during a show. takes a lot of charm / stones for a dreadlock’d brutha to say that to a room full of drunk crackas and have them laugh at the joke instead of storm the stage. but it worked every time. :)
see, i think it’s a great idea to create a “loudest radio on the beach” environment in a MMMMORPG.
Shucks, I would of thought you would have loved that system.
It’s gotta beat everyone /dance-ing on mailboxes, right?
…
“There’s no pleasing some people”
“That’s just what Jesus said.”
hahaha…our sound programmer had that same reaction when he read my bit. “how could you not like it? it’s engaging, it’s fun…it’s music!”
it would seem i have a higher tolerance for /dance-ing than for player-made music. something to do with that “pedigreed music snob” thing i alluded to, to be sure. that, coupled with the insecure fear that players would rather hear some crap version of “single ladies” than something that I, Composer came up with. :)