Wurm Online gets LOUD!

April 21, 2009

Wurm Online Gets Loud

Wurm Online, the MMO from OneTooFree
AB has officially released the first phase of its new sound scape. The mix of
sounds and music designed and composed by Joss Sanglier of Dancing Bear has been
created to drag players deeper into the Wurmiverse that is the lands of Wurm,
making them feel part of this world.

The sound track is noticeably noisy
in an attempt to mimic a land stuffed filled with animals and birds and unspoilt
by modern man. Players may find it quite a surprise! The sounds include night
time and day time versions and variations to reduce the feel of looping that can
so easily plague MMO games. The sound will be further developed to add more
specifics to the atmospheres as time goes on and sounds will be occasionally
replaced to keep things fresh.

To accompany this first stage, Rolf
Jannson commissioned Joss to compose numerous music tracks, though Wurm Online
has avoided the constant looped music method which many other games use as this
seems to make no sense in a medieval world of blacksmiths, carpenters, farmers,
and hunters.

Instead, Joss Sanglier has recorded
specific short tracks that accompany particular events like praying, dying,
founding settlements and so on. He has also recorded some longer tracks
(including songs) that are faded into the game on very rare occasions, just to
add something a little different. Joss has composed the music under the name of
his one-man-band, 21st Century Blues.

The music style has been designed to
reflect the game, rather than the MMO genre, players very varied personal
tastes, or to just try and be trendy somehow. Although some orchestral
arrangements have been used (most notably with the Anthems that were release
last year), much of the instrumentation is acoustic lead, with just the odd
electric guitar, giving the idea that it could have been played by a group of
characters in the game – well, more or less.

“I have been composing music and
working as a recording engineer for thirty years,” says Joss. “Much of that time
has been working in fields like film, television, radio drama, commercials, as
well as some game voice-over production. It was important to me to bring to the
game the lessons learned from those very well established areas of the creative
world, as well as embracing the newer interactive systems offered through games.
This is still a work in progress. Like the rest of Wurm, I hope we never get to
the position where we say ‘oh, it is finished.’ That would mean we have nothing
more to offer, and that is very far from reality. There will be much more to
come, both with the sound and in amazing developments from Rolf for the game as
a whole – watch this space!"

So what about voices? In the next
phase, the team will be starting to enhance and expand the spot effects in the
game, working on systems where there is more variety of sounds to address to any
one action, and also replacing the male voice that currently causes much
amusement amongst the players, especially the female players.

“I will be working on new voices for
the next release,” says Joss. “And I promise to make them lighter, more
realistic and have a female set for the female players.”

What about the famous animals in the
games? The Scorpions and Spiders?

“Ah, that is a secret for later.”

Songs can be heard on the flash
player on the front page of Wurm Online and some tracks will be offered for
download soon.

Click here to download the
Wurm
Online Soundtrack Sample