About two months ago I ordered an audio disc of music from Blizzard's RPG and strategy games. Generally this is good music, and I'm especially impressed by the score from the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. So when I heard that Blizzard had commissioned a symphony recording of the best of its game music, I pre-ordered the two-disc set. Not the "collector's edition" -- just the normal one. It just now arrived, after having been delayed nearly three weeks, and taking two weeks to ship.
What a huge disappointment! I wasted my money on a collection of music that is not at all newly interpreted from what's already in World of Warcraft, and the Starcraft and Diablo music is not really worth much to me. I really wanted to hear the fully explored Lich King theme that is hinted at in the Acherus background music, the Warcraft 3 ending cinematic, and visitied briefly in the Wrath of the Lich King intro movie. That theme is nowhere on these discs! All it is is an orchestral recording of the same old music from the login screens; there is nothing new and exciting here. I want my money back...
This is not the first time I've been disappointed by a soundtrack. With few exceptions, if there is a really awesome standout piece in a film or game score, it will not be on the overpriced soundtrack CD. What the fuck?
After a few listens
I got over my initial anger at a lack of new music on the discs, and have given them a few listens. Basically, Echoes of War amounts to the same music you already know from the various Blizzard games, except it's played a little slower. Sometimes conductors think that slow means epic because you have more time to consider the notes, but more often than not, the result ends up being dirge-like. This is the Blizzard funeral procession, not the victory march. Too fast can be a problem, too, though. Crappy local bands that play in bars for a few dollars a night are notorious for playing cover songs too fast. Because they have no personal style to add, the only options left to them are tempo and volume.
World of Warcraft stores all of its constituent game files in large properietary archives. A while ago I tried to figure out how to extract the MP3s of the game music from those archives, but I never found an extraction tool that worked well. Someday I'll find one, and then overpriced CD sets like Echoes of War won't be at all necessary.
I'm still a little pissed that that there was no new music! I wanted a full Arthas theme, I wanted a symphony that expressed the full emotional impact of the fall of Lordaeron, the deaths of Saurfang and Bolvar Fordragon, and the defeat of the Lich King. Blizzard's composers are capable of these things from time to time, as evidenced by the ending cinematic from Warcraft 3.. Now that is epic! But it's not on the discs.
