MMORPGs Need Better Music

What do you guys think? I’ve been playing single player RPGs for a
long time and have grown accustomed to having great music in the
background. The background music in most free to play MMORPGs are
pretty bad. Maybe I’m just a bit spoiled after playing games from the
Final Fantasy Series (Loved the music in Final Fantasy X, IX, and XIII)
and the Tales series, but music in MMORPGs definitely have room for
improvement. I can safely say the music in 9/10 MMORPGs are uninspiring
and cheap.

Don’t get me wrong though – not all MMORPG
music is bad. The music in MMORPGs like Sword of
the New World and more recently Aika are downright amazing. Ragnarok
Online, one of oldest and most popular MMORPGs, also has some top
notch music. I actually own the Original Sound Track for Ragnarok
Online, and it’s the only soundtrack I own for an MMORPG (Do other
MMORPGs even have soundtracks?). Games like Allods Online, Fiesta
Online and Gates of Andaron
are quite fun, but they have some lame music. What surprises me most is
that Allods Online is a pretty big budget game. I read somewhere that
it costs some 30 million USD to develop, so you’d imagine they’d have
all their bases covered when it comes to quality, but apparently they
cut some corners in the music department.

MMOs also tend to have low quality music. Most MMOFPS games these
days, even the newer ones like Alliance of
Valiant Arms and K.O.S. Secret
Operations have generic boring music. The only MMO i’ve played that
had genuinely good music that ‘fit’ the theme of the game is Project
Powder. Project Powder is an intense snowboarding MMO by Outspark.
What made the tunes in the game so good was that it actually fit the
game.

Am I the only one who really cares about music in games? I feel that
music is one of the most important aspects of an MMORPG – as if I’m spending 5+ hours a
day ‘grinding’ in a game, I might as well be listening to some catchy
tunes to help pass the time.