skeletonbow: Followup post from
my original post.
Normally when I play a game for the first time I leave the music on until I've heard it a few times although I often turn the volume of music down to 1/2 or 1/4 of the default as I find they leave the music too loud in most games. Once I've heard it a few times I usually turn it either off completely or way way down to be very faint so I can hear the sound effects and have more immersion. Some games the music is environmental or movie-like in such a way where if a threat is encountered or near, the music may hint towards it or similar. In those type of games I leave the music on but adjust the volume to be just loud enough to do what it needs to do without saturating the audio field.
Most games I end up turning the music down significantly or off even if I think the music is pretty good, and with enough repetition I get tired of hearing it even if it is good.
Having said that, since I wrote my first post on this topic, I have had the wonderful opportunity to play Mount & Blade for a solid month, and Warband for a much smaller timeframe and both games have the same music soundtrack. The music in these games is absolutely phenomenal, properly fitting and perfectly composed and performed. It fits the game and does not detract or overpower it, and it sounds fantastic hearing it repeated infinitely. It's one of few games that I actually prefer to hear the music constantly and find it adds a lot to the experience for me so much that if I turn it off I feel I am missing something.
Therefore I nominate Mount & Blade for the "best music soundtrack ever" category along with my previously mentioned Warcraft II. :)
I kinda get what you are going with this. In older games I was definitely leaving my music a bit lower, just so it will not overpower the spedciall effects/game sounds.
But I still leave a handsome space when it comes to volume levels, so I can hear some awesome tracks.
Nowadays, it is just like, let us leave it vanilla, let us see what the designers where aiming for. Because some game just don't work without their soundracks (Elder Scrolls games as a primary example). i Just let it go.
I some games however, like Darksiders 2, I smack up the volme level for music, just because it is epic :P
