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Jukebox Heroes: WildStar features the MMO soundtrack of the year
Originally I wanted to write a final Jukebox Heroes column for this year that would have ranked all of the soundtrack releases in 2014, but that ran into a couple of snags. Not only am I still in the process of listening and finding all of them, but one game's score was going to thrash the rest of them so badly that it didn't feel fair to stack them up together. That MMO was, of course, WildStar. I started to suspect that Composer Jeff Kurtenacker's score for WildStar was going to be something else when the studio started releasing parts of it over a year ago, but even then I wasn't prepared for the sheer quality and quantity that the full soundtrack presented. Critics and fans of the game alike have been very vocal in praising this game's music since the beta and through launch, and I'm still grooving on it months later. My only complaint is that it still -- still -- has yet to see an official release, free or paid. So even though our yearly awards didn't include a soundtrack category, I'm going to take the initiative and crown WildStar as the soundtrack of the year. Let's listen to six of the OST's highlights and discuss our favorites in the comments section.
Like WildStar music? There's a concert for that
If you happen to be in Poland on September 26th, make sure to grab tickets for the GameOn multimedia show, the first part of which will feature selections from the scores of popular video games, including MMOs like WildStar. Composer Jeff Kurtenacker blogged that he is "absolutely honored to announce that the GameOn concert in Krakow, Poland, will be premiering a new arrangement of Our Perception of Beauty (Drusera's Theme), which [he] composed for the MMO WildStar by Carbine Studios." According to Kurtenacker, this concert will mark "first time WildStar music will be played in a concert setting"; he also notes that flutist Sara Andon, spotlighted throughout the WildStar score, will again perform at the concert. Music from World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and other games will also be featured. Kurtenacker spoke to Massively's resident Jukebox Hero last year about his work on WildStar. He has since released several exclusive and free music tracks for players.
WildStar teases new ambient housing music
Are you a fan of Massively's Jukebox Heroes column? Do you love MMO music so much that you keep it on even when it annoys your voice-chat mates? Good news for you today: WildStar composer Jeff Kurtenacker tweeted that more housing music is on the way for the sci-fantasy space opera and provided a link to a preview... er, pre-listen. More options for housing music... yeah... it's coming!! We've embedded 18 minutes' worth of new tunes via WildStar Center below.
Perfect Ten: Why I'm looking forward to WildStar
Sometimes you just know when a game is going to click for you before you even get much time in it. It has a personality that agrees with your own, visuals that cause your retinas to salivate, features that were probably stolen by devs from your dream journal, and a good balance of comfortable familiarity and exciting newness. That, to me, is why I'm on board the WildStar train. Listen, I'm not one of those people who feels that a game needs to "win" or dominate all of the rest of the landscape. I don't care whether WildStar is more or less popular that the rest of the field or whether it goes free-to-play or not (obviously, I would like it to do well so that it doesn't close up shop!). If it's not your thing, fine, but that won't stop me from being giddy as its release approaches. WildStar is definitely my most anticipated MMO for 2014. Hit the jump and let me tell you 10 reasons why!
Jukebox Heroes: 14 MMO soundtracks you can check out on SoundCloud
I'm a pretty slow adopter of new technology and services, so I've only recently really started paying attention to the music-sharing service that is SoundCloud because I've started to see more and more MMO composers plopping down their work onto the site for the world to enjoy. Now that I've spent some time with SoundCloud, I've got to say just how impressed I am with what it can offer to the soundtrack community. Composers and studios can put their soundtracks up on the site for people to listen through without that annoying arbitrary 30-second limit that certain digital distribution platforms use. In addition to providing music for the ears, musicians have the option to show where these albums can be purchased -- and in some cases, offer the tracks as a free download. In return, listeners can tag portions of the songs and have back-and-forth discussions with the composers. I've done a lot of digging and have discovered quite a few MMO soundtracks that are available on SoundCloud, including some that you can legally download and enjoy today. Here are 14 to get you started, but if you see any more, please let us all know in the comments!
WildStar composer releases several new music tracks
If you're bummed because you haven't gotten one of the golden tickets to WildStar's beta yet, at least you can get an earful of what testers are experiencing. Composer Jeff Kurtenacker has posted 12 tunes from the upcoming MMO on SoundCloud for everyone to enjoy. While some of the tracks have already been heard, quite a few are new. Among these are the Dominion theme, a couple of combat loops, and the Deradune zone theme. Give the tracks a listen and let us know how you like the sound of WildStar is shaping up! While you're at it, check out Massively's interview with Kurtenacker regarding the creation and recording of this score.
Music on the frontier: An interview with WildStar composer Jeff Kurtenacker
A great soundtrack has the ability to raise the mundane to memorable and the wonderful to epic. It's hard to imagine films like Star Wars or Back to the Future without their iconic scores or video games like Super Mario Bros. and Final Fantasy without their catchy tunes. So I'm always keen to hear the soundtracks of up-and-coming MMOs because they give me an indication of how much care is being given to the overall quality of the project. I'm doubly excited for WildStar's score because it's being composed by Jeff Kurtenacker. Kurtenacker produced one of my all-time favorite MMO soundtracks, Pirates of the Burning Sea, which is a playful, exuberant romp through the nautical soundscape. And so far from what we've heard of WildStar's score, we can expect much of the same when we make planetfall on Nexus. On one drizzly afternoon in a country that you've never heard of, Kurtenacker met with us in a small pub to talk about the joys of creating the music that will soon be infecting the brains of thousands (millions?) of gamers worldwide. Read on, space-man or space-woman, and be astounded!
Massively Exclusive: WildStar's character creation music
Get ready to hear the theme that will be burned into your subconscious as you fine-tune your dozens of future WildStar avatars. Carbine Studios sent us a first look, er, listen to the character creation theme for the game. The seven-minute tune is was composed by Jeff Kurtenacker (Pirates of the Burning Sea) and gives you a thematic feel for your first minutes in WildStar. It's a little regal, a little sparkly sci-fi, and all yours to hear after the jump!
Jukebox Heroes: A few of my favorite MMO soundtracks
I could hear some of you thinking in disbelief last week, "If Age of Conan isn't one of your top MMO scores, what is? And just how much am I not sending you a Christmas card this year, you loser?" You were kind enough to just think it and not say it, but I could hear it even so. As we've mentioned countless times in this column, musical tastes are subjective. What's appealing to you may not be for me and vice-versa. What more is that musical tastes -- and favorites -- are always shifting around. I listen back to the jams that I enjoyed in the '90s and absolutely pity my younger self for such a deficiency in his musical diet. So I thought that I'd take a week off our normal soundtrack reviews to bring to you my current top six favorite soundtracks. This list comes with the caveat that it's always subject to future changes as I continue to listen through more soundtracks for this column.
WildStar records score, dishes out free music
This week's WildStar spotlight takes the focus off the look of the game and puts it on the melodious strains of its soundtrack. In it, Carbine Studios Lead Composer Jeff Kurtenacker steps in front of the camera to talk about creating and recording the score for this upcoming MMO. "The recording process is pretty fascinating and pretty complicated, actually," Kurtenacker began. He said that the score starts with his recording basic MIDI tunes for use in the game's early testing. Following that, he assembles musicians to record the proper score, including "cues" (short pieces) and longer tracks. His favorite part of the recording day comes when there's silence right at the beginning and then the first notes fill the air. "That always to me is a fantastically amazing moment," he said. On top of the video, which you can check out after the jump, Carbine's provided two free music tracks to download and enjoy: Enemy Camp Battle and Rescue Mission.
WildStar gives players a taste of the sound of the world
It's hard not to find something familiar in WildStar's fusion of the wild west aesthetic with the exploration of an unfamiliar planet in deep space. That having been said, most people anticipating the game would likely find nothing to fault with that combination in terms of visuals. But what will the game sound like? That's what this week's WildStar Wednesday addresses, with a piece by Jeff Kurtenacker about composing the music you'll hear in-game. As Kurtenacker puts it, the biggest challenge as a composer is to create music that combines the game's diverse thematic points into a unified score, producing the right mixture of wonder, adventure, and a bit of old frontier exploration. But if all the technical discussion of composition is a bit beyond you, the post also includes two sample tracks from the game's soundtrack, a chance for players to get a sense of what to expect from the finished experience. The tracks are brief, but they're certainly the sort of thing that gets you in the mindset of the game -- and that's just what they're there for.
