Interactive Instruments & Tunes ? IDEA!! -- (Dev) Replied

I would just like a way to hook up my midi controller and be able to use an actual keyboard to play instruments in game using the MIDI protocol.

 

Its very popular in LOTRO to have kinships that exist to play music (I.e. bands). On my server (Landroval), this would be "The Lonely Mountain Band" as the most noticeable. They do not limit themselves to that however (Ive made a few friends in the guild and they have often invited me on kin only raids when they where shot a person, wanted someone they knew that is not impatient with people that are not full time raiders and may be learning raids, etc). While music is their focus, I have always loved going on a raid with them. They are a close knit group that works well together, are patient with each other and treat each other as family. So having this core interest in the game is a great way to bring people together.

Seeing 20-30 guild members, in matching costumes, with different instruments is not unusual. A Popular plugin for the game (and one I use), is called "songbook". Songbook allows you to switch out your weapons to your instrument with a single click, and has a log of all your abc files so instead of having to execute them with a command line you can choose your song with a single click on a menu interface. More importantly it has a synchronize option that allows you to sync with other players for doing said concerts.

One down side to abc files, is that one written with the idea of it being played on a flute for instance, may not play as well on say the bag pipe. Not being someone who engages in this much in LOTRO I only have about a dozen songs I do on rare occasions, but it is a fun feature. Concerts have HUGE player draws.

 

Id like to see both.

Id like to see something like LOTRO has - but Id also like to see the ability to play midi instruments. I have no skill playing an instrument. Ive often thought about picking up the piano but other hobbies have always prevailed. So for me, id like to not be left out.. to be able to play a .midi file or a .abc file using in game instruments would be something id like to have.

on the other hand I would also love to be able to attend someone(s) concert, in which they are actually playing using a midi device. This way I can appreciate their skills and talents.

I want it all!

 

Most midi based music programs also allow for a computer keyboard map so you can also use your typing keyboard as an instrument. As a musician, I personally find this to be counter-productive, but that's because I am use to playing a piano style keyboard. However, many people, especially people who do electronic music and have not moved to a proper midi keyboard find that feature very useful.

 

I'm really hoping they do something like Mabinogi by nexon. You can create music scrolls with a simple limited coding system.
You can lock your scrolls so people can't copy them but can play them 100times. This way you can sell music scrolls and it
can't be copied unless its done by ear and coding. I've sold 10s of 1000s of scrolls in mabinogi, its one of the best thing about that game . The more experience you get the longer you can make your songs. The ability to make and lock your own scrolls and then sell them in shop is
one of the coolest things I've seen in an mmo and surprisingly no other mmo I can find has done it. Theres nothing like an mmo that allows for real world crafts. Perhaps something could be done for painters too. Its a simple coding system where you can do 3 tracks and play on your lute or many other instruments. They also had a very simple midi like external application for converting midi files or composing songs.

 

Ome, you have a good point. The music that is created will be able to get copyrighted since it is art in physical form. If the player comes up with songs that are quite personal there should be some sort of monetary gain to be had. However, many players will make knock-offs that are not the actual thing and will start a pirated network of songs. Although quite interesting from a gaming standpoint, the issue would arise that the songs could be recreated with little to no effort at the expense of the original creator. Let's say you want to put one of your songs, like The Tavern song in your songlist, into a midi format for the instrument plugin in-game; make a lockable scroll, then start distributing to gold-paying players. Most will appreciate the creativity and absolution obtained from your contribution, although there will be a rare few who wish to monopolize off of your great music, and will recreate it a thousand fold and claim its original. If this way is to be commonplace in SotA, I wish for there to be a way for the music to be key-logged somehow, where if the exact or very similar combination or permutation of keys/notes are used then the scroll is null and void. What does everyone else think?

 

With the .ABC system in LOTRO, you *CAN* actually hook it up via midi player(Keyboard, I would imagine that the guitar would work, as well.) In fact, Ghingeriel(I think is how it's spelled), used to sit in Bree when the game first started and play from a keyboard.(She even became popular enough to publish an album!) Lag was the big issue there.

I've over a thousand songs in my LOTRO library. I think the whole file is 52mb. Songbook, is amazing! We also have Lyrical, which let's you "sing" along with your song by saying one line of text with the press of a button and it scrolls to the next line for you. You just have to insert it all before you start.

Songbook and Lyrical can both be found at lotrointerface.com, if you'd like to "see" what they look like.

Here's a (bad quality) example of me playing/singing "I love this bar."(I converted the words to fit the lore.) I didn't record this or post it.

Something you all should check out it Weatherstock. It's a battle of the bands held yearly on Weathertop. We've seen up to 500+ people from ALL servers come to listen and play. There's several awards given out, that are all voted on BY the audience. I attended a Green Hills Music Concert(Regular every Tuesday, on Landroval) they played 1812 Overture. The audience provided the cannons, via fireworks.

If you search on Youtube, you can see last years Weatherstock, as well as a few of the years past. If you play LOTRO, Weatherstock 2014, will be this Saturday the 20th, on Landroval. It's a great event and people really come together for it. Whether it's helping lowbies get to the top of Weathertop, or loaning them some "nice" clothes to wear to the concert.

(Another thing I'd love in this game from LOTRO is the cosmetic system.)

I'd really love to see this in SOTA. As would most of Landroval server, I'd like to think.

 

I hear your point but strangely none of this was a problem in Mabinogi. Most folk would need basic midi and conversion understanding along with knowing the tricks in mabinogi coding system to copy you.
Or they would need the code from your scroll. Most people don't have the basic midi skills and used automated methods of doing it which created a huge variation of the quality of music.
I don't think I ever saw anyone make an identical version of any of my scrolls. I'm sure how popular the game becomes and how compelled people are to hack scrolls will have a lot to do with it.
But to this day its a solid music scroll system in Mabinogi. That's not to say the same thing will happen with the Ultima crowd. Something awesome about selling or giving people scrolls
they can play with their instruments. How loud you hear the music was based on how far you are from the person playing. And if your not in the mood to hear Nintendo songs all over the place you can turn off bard music or walk further away. If they do a LOTR live play thing I hopes it not all laggy like in LOTR. Maybe they could do scrolls and live play.