Resource Guide

The Music of Anarchy Online: Creating Music for MMOGs

As mentioned earlier, introducing music when there's nothing happening on-screen can be tricky. The player has been conditioned to respond to music starting up through TV, film and games. Usually, it signifies that something is about to happen or is happening. If the player is standing somewhere inside the game, looking around, and the music starts up, it will peak his interest, because it seems as though we want him to notice something or prepare for something.

So how can we "tell" the player that nothing is happening, but still start up the music?
Our solution was to do it gradually, the music fades in very slowly. As mentioned earlier, the music itself has to be calm, otherwise it's not going to work. Another way of doing it is to start the music up gradually. Start with a single instrument and slowly build on that. Someone said that the best film music is the one you don't notice. The same can be said for this type of music as well.

Starting up the music with percussion or at high volume will certainly make the player sit up and take notice.

Musical Style in Anarchy Online

Nothing has been said about the musical style of AO so far in the article. The reason for this is that it is of no consequence in relation to the ideas behind the music and how it works.

Choice of style is often a product of what we're good at. In Funcom's case, we were three composers with different styles and compositional techniques working together on one project. Instead of nailing down rules, we kept everything pretty open. We were allowed to explore the different sonic facets of AO, and I think, in the end, the game benefited from allowing that kind of variety.

A lot of the music is based around the traditional sound of a film score, using orchestral instruments to pull the player into the setting. With that as a basis, there was still a lot of room for experimentation and adding all kinds of other elements. We used a lot of synthetic elements, a range of different percussive sounds, and even a whistling choir. The end result of this was a patchwork of styles and moods which made every area and time in AO special.

We actually used the ambient sounds for the game for reference during some of the composing, adding the sounds to the compositions to see how they would fit together. This not only allowed us to go back and change certain elements of the music to fit the ambience, but also to go back and change the ambient sounds to fit the music better. Working both ways like that definitely helped establishing both the music and the sounds as a whole, and definitely influenced the style of the music.

Surprises

When working with music for a game, there are certain expectations as to what the end result will be. How it will all work in the end. We had high expectations for the music system in Anarchy Online, and most of the goals we set, were achieved. Everything can't be perfect though.

One problem we had was with the combat music, which was designed to differentiate between large, medium and small opponents. Unfortunately, at launch not all of the monsters in AO had size defined in the code. This resulted in the music sometimes giving the impression that a monster was really hard, even though it was puny, and making large beast seem like they were push-overs. Most of the monsters have have been corrected over time though.

We set out to create varied music by using short pieces of music to avoid repetition. We didn't realize that at some point, these short pieces themselves can be recognized and considered repetitious. We think it's infinitely better than what was before, but it's still something to consider.

What's next?

Certainly there are improvements that can be made to our existing system, and to the way we use music in our games today. Most importantly, we are going to have to look at more advanced systems for identifying player behavior, to more accurately tailor the music to the player's actions and performance.

I'm hoping that this article will spark some ideas about how to present music in an online game, and also, perhaps about how to improve the way music is handled in these kinds of games. I suppose it's all about seeing the possibilities of a system and working with them, rather than focusing on the limitations.

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MMOG Music

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