Switching to the Old Soundtrack

Synthesis league brings an impressively large overhaul of the game's original soundtrack, replacing older tracks with a staggering amount of new arrangements.
However, these newer arrangements seem a lot slower paced, and the instruments have a much less consistent rhythm overall.
This results in a soundtrack with a completely different feel to it, and there's bound to be disagreement on which soundtrack works best.
Personally I'm not enjoying the new music, and I much prefer the faster paced old soundtrack. It would be a real shame to never hear the old tunes in-game again.

It would be great if there was an option to choose between the new and old soundtrack in-game.
That way players could choose which soundtrack they prefer, or simply switch back and forth if they want the variety.
Both soundtracks represent a mountain of work, and it'd be great for players to be able to play the game with both.

Sadly, there is zero chance of this happening as most people who have posted so far on forums / reddit seem to like the changes and GGG is a stickler for change. I don't believe GGG sees any value in preservation of anything in the game really; which I find oddly strange considering the main hobby of the lead developer.

I'm one who is very sad and salty over the music change. I never turned the in-game music off before, but today I did after 3600 hours of play.

I created a character in the new league knowing the change was coming, and tried to go in with an open mind but I hit Lioneye's Watch and couldn't take the jarring disparity for both there and the Twilight strand, so I turned the music off. That wasn't enough to dispel the dissonance, so I logged out of the game and can't bring myself to start back playing (and it's a new league!). I'll have to go find a playlist to put on for the first three Acts.

Since a couple of leagues ago, when the music to the Vaal Ruins was replaced, every time I entered that area since I was annoyed / upset. I don't wish to feel like that for the first three acts of the game every time I play.

In my opinion though, most of the people whom GGG hopes will turn the music on for the new stuff will indeed turn it on, listen to it once; and then turn it back off to go back to their playlists because it is what they are accustomed to. Even if they think it's great.

In my country there is a saying along the lines of "who likes it, likes it and the rest of you can suck salt". That is the reality here.

I am deeply sad over the loss of the original soundtrack. The pieces that played on entering Lioneye's Watch or Prisoner's Gate, the Forest Encampment and the Ancient Pyramid, Sarn and Highgate... these were iconic, atmospheric pieces of music that perfectly summed up the atmosphere of the game.

It's not the same any more. For the first time, I turned off the PoE soundtrack today, and played the originals on WinAmp.

I absolutely love the new soundtrack, to be honest. It would be nice to be able to hear the old tracks too somewhere as an option, but still ... it's gorgeous and I'm happy about it.

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鬼殺し a écrit :

Fairly sure TencentGGG had no choice in the matter -- too many excellent tracks replaced with not-so-excellent tracks for this to be anything but a legal/licensing matter. Solaris Temple, for example.

Legal trouble is both horrifying and understandable, not a fun combination. I hope it isn't that.

It would certainly be nice to get an official word on whether the old soundtrack could ever be usable again, though.

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鬼殺し a écrit :

I can confirm the original Adgio Hutchings OST has been removed from the latest version of the downloadable soundtrack. The numbers add up. Sorry.

Oh wow, it has indeed ....
I find it super strange, that many potentially paid partly to get that soundtrack, and that they changed it, but if it's something that they have no control over ....

Fortunately, I must have it somewhere on some of my drives.


edit : I'm not sure why, but their new quotation system does not like Japanese characters, I have to input your name manually to have a proper quote from this particular browser at least.
Now the unicode points are being put by default, and that does not quite work :x
Not going to be too picky on that, encoding is an awful part of programing for sure ...

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imperiusdamian a écrit :

I am deeply sad over the loss of the original soundtrack. The pieces that played on entering Lioneye's Watch or Prisoner's Gate, the Forest Encampment and the Ancient Pyramid, Sarn and Highgate... these were iconic, atmospheric pieces of music that perfectly summed up the atmosphere of the game.

It's not the same any more. For the first time, I turned off the PoE soundtrack today, and played the originals on WinAmp.

I logged in today as well. Went to hideout and listened the music for a while until I turned off the music completely. Then I was so sad about the old music being gone that I simple logged off :( The original music was so big part of the atmosphere that I don't think GGG even understands that.
I think this is the biggest change in PoE for me ever.

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鬼殺し a écrit :

Kamil Orman-Janowski is the official PoE composer, and it's perhaps only right that his music alone is in the game. There's a matter of pride there. :)

It doesn't hurt that he's really good at it. The music in this game has to be fitting and be able to be listened to dozens of times on loop, and the vast majority of his works succeed at that.

It's one thing to compose new music under a time constraint, it's another to have to make distinct arranges of songs that people have been listening to for years. "Different but the same" is easy to ask for, unreasonable in practice. "Oh also any inconsistency will drive people crazy, good luck!"

So that's probably it. This nasty work load is out of the way, and it's time to catch a breather. The arranges can be inspected some other time.


Funny how this went from "Can we have the old music around," to "Congratulations on getting rid of the old music so quickly, please go take a nap."

TBH, I'm not entirely sold on there being a legal issue here. Unless GGG royally botched their contract with Adgio Hutchings years ago, they should have ownership of his works, or at least perpetual usage rights. (key point: the extended soundtrack still includes his works!)

Not to badmouth Kamil Orman-Janowski, but Hutchings' tracks were better.

Also doesn't help that we didn't even get new music: they just re-arranged extant tracks.

I do actually now wish to modify the client to replace the old music.

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ACGIFT a écrit :

TBH, I'm not entirely sold on there being a legal issue here. Unless GGG royally botched their contract with Adgio Hutchings years ago, they should have ownership of his works, or at least perpetual usage rights.

I wonder about this as well and if a reluctance to burn money to solve the problem was a factor. I think it would have been worth it though. Other than that, the only thing I can think of is that they were ordered by a court / advised by a lawyer to discontinue use of the music for whatever reason.