#wow:bfa

[jupiters-muse]

Yeah, so, they’re gay. 

[jettschae]

Haven’t done much other than play WoW over the past few weeks, gaming-wise.  I’m really enjoying the new expansion and hanging out with my guildies and even getting into Mythic raiding.

[pippindraws]

On the adventurous alt-side, Ralynn and her BFF Tyllumage had a fun excursion into Blackrock Foundry and Dragon Soul. He’s very smug about his new transmog gear. Maybe he should take that into Trial of Style?

[debussy-cat-dolls]

“Before the Storm”: Battle for Azeroth’s theme music, and what it means for the story...

Note that the following is all just speculation from me, a giant geek of a musician, who decided to go off on a ramble late at night immediately after hearing the new title theme for the first time. It's a bit jumbled but I hope I can get my point across in a way that starts a discussion around it.

Video games have some of the best soundtracks, and World of Warcraft continues to be a prime example of phenomenal composition. As a geek and a musician, I could wax poetic about this piece (and WoW's music in general) all night, but I’m going to keep this post as short as possible (sparing specific music theory and rambling as much as I can) and highlight the way it uses composition for storytelling in one particular moment, specifically at the end.

The entire piece is a collection of themes from various points during the story of Battle for Azeroth (presumably), in a very similar fashion to the way the Wrath of the Lich King theme tied together the various sounds of Northrend into one large, heart-wrenching tale. It ends in a heroic fanfare, with blaring horns and a choir chanting about warriors fighting to the death and all that thematic jazz. There is then one final percussive crash – this represents the fight to Icecrown and the defeat of the Lich King. Suddenly, then, everything is soft. Quiet. Urging us to relax. “The fight is over,” it whispers. This is a musical parallel of the whispers of the Old Gods that drove Deathwing mad and lead to the Cataclysm.

"Before the Storm" ends very differently. Structurally it’s similar to the Wrath theme, but toward the end it’s very different. Its last few minutes are filled with tremolo strings and ominous choirs. The last section is SERIOUSLY dark, full of dissonant chords and key changes, lead by the violins creeping along a descending chromatic scale to create a sound that can only be described as SINISTER. And then it… stops. It just stops. Where Glenn Stafford chose to end the title theme is extremely telling.

From a musical perspective, the composition of the last minute or so generally sounds like it’s building toward something. The entire piece is telling a story that has gotten increasingly dark. If I had to speculate I’d say things are not going well for us, the heroes. Everything is tense, chords are constantly diminished, finally it starts to calm down and then it just… ends. The chord doesn’t resolve, we don’t get back to anything even remotely resembling the original key, the melodic and harmonic structures don’t eventually settle back onto a root. While listening, this section is easy to follow but, again, very tense. It’s got good forward motion, the drama is cranked up to eleven, but then that motion doesn’t complete in a way that is satisfying to the ear. It doesn’t go where it’s “supposed” to go… and it doesn’t go where you THINK it’s going.

Using musical structure to directly mirror the story it’s accompanying is not new by any stretch of the imagination. We also know that Blizzard is trying to tell a subtler and more nuanced story. I think the fact that “Before the Storm” ends with tension, without resolution, on a note (both figuratively and literally) that the ear does not expect, and which could fairly be described as uncomfortable, means that the STORY of Battle for Azeroth is not going to go the way WE THE PLAYERS expect.

I think it’s going to be unexpected. Darker. More tragic. More sinister. We’re going to see a change in the way Blizzard chooses to tell this story. It’s going to either hint at or directly introduce a far grander threat to Azeroth. We know that war doesn’t end well and that even if neither the Horde or the Alliance are clear “winners,” it’s going to be bad to fight each other when the Void is already making moves.

We knew it would be bad. But I think it’s going to be much, much worse.

Thoughts? ;)

[iklodiaz]

For whatever reason I keep wanting to call BFA "BoFA"

[pippindraws]

Saphaa, like Illenai, is very much happy to enjoy the peace and quiet that is Stormsong Valley. After a long week helping with the Quillboar invasion, it’s a welcome change of pace to just sit down and enjoy the sunset.

[pippindraws]

Stormsong Valley was an odd questing experience for me. On the one hand, I loved the tranquil atmosphere - rolling hills and windmills and farms spread across creeks and rivers, fields of flowers and peaceful wildlife, was wonderful. On the other hand... As soon as I crossed over to the north-west section of the zone, the whole thing felt like an endless slog. The story quest never takes you to the northwest, only the south-east/east coast area, and it felt like it finished up very quickly compared to the other half of the zone. So I spent maybe two hours doing the actual story of the zone (finding the Kul Tiran fleet, and discovering what happened to Lord Stormsong) and another week dragging myself unwillingly through quillboar, naga, and tortollan quests. So I both loved and hated the zone. The visuals were beautiful, though!

“All of these bees are my new best friends. All of them.” - Illenai

[cjgoblin]

listen not to be rude but blizzard get your shit together

the warchief killing a traitor is literally in the job description, why is everyone bein a little bitch about her fuckin baptizing saurfang into durotarian soil