I admit to being saddened by the recent kerfuffle over the Lotro music system, and saddened even more by the fact that the improvements have been now taken away again.
I suppose it's naive to expect a reasonable and mature debate in any online forum, but the shitstorm that blew up over the music changes far exceeded even my pessimistic expectations. I suppose that a lot of people felt very strongly on both sides, but that's no excuse for bad behaviour. The whole episode merely left the music community looking fractured and immature, spoiled and selfish. To the extent that, if I were a Lotro developer, I wouldn't go near it again with a 10-foot pole.
Which means that I predict that none of the nice things we got will ever reappear. I hope I'm wrong.
To be fair, the people who opposed the change had some reasonable points, in that the changes were not perfect and many abcs would have to be adapted to fit. However, one can adapt an abc file to a different balance, but one can't adapt an abc file to a badly tuned clarinet. So the new system had far greater long-term potential, combined with short-term difficulties.
Still, the wrangling provided for a number of amusing moments. My favourite was the poster who claimed that the clarinet (old style) wasn't out of tune, despite that phrase being often used. Real musicians (continued the poster) know this. It's just out of balance (apparently) not out of tune. Comments like this are absolutely priceless, combining, in one neat little package, ignorance, pomposity, self-righteousness, and a total lack of self-awareness. You have to laugh. Well, I did. What I didn't do, of course, was reply.
Anyway, we'll be back soon to the old nasty instruments. Obviously they work OK, and you can do stuff with them. But it would have been so much nicer to have some decent sounds. Ah well. Nothing to be done about it now.
I haven't appeared with BBB for a while now, due to travel and other RL things. I miss the silly buggers. But neither have I composed anything for Lotro for a while, and that needs to change. I need to pull my finger out and get writing for Lotro again.
I suppose it's naive to expect a reasonable and mature debate in any online forum, but the shitstorm that blew up over the music changes far exceeded even my pessimistic expectations. I suppose that a lot of people felt very strongly on both sides, but that's no excuse for bad behaviour. The whole episode merely left the music community looking fractured and immature, spoiled and selfish. To the extent that, if I were a Lotro developer, I wouldn't go near it again with a 10-foot pole.
Which means that I predict that none of the nice things we got will ever reappear. I hope I'm wrong.
To be fair, the people who opposed the change had some reasonable points, in that the changes were not perfect and many abcs would have to be adapted to fit. However, one can adapt an abc file to a different balance, but one can't adapt an abc file to a badly tuned clarinet. So the new system had far greater long-term potential, combined with short-term difficulties.
Still, the wrangling provided for a number of amusing moments. My favourite was the poster who claimed that the clarinet (old style) wasn't out of tune, despite that phrase being often used. Real musicians (continued the poster) know this. It's just out of balance (apparently) not out of tune. Comments like this are absolutely priceless, combining, in one neat little package, ignorance, pomposity, self-righteousness, and a total lack of self-awareness. You have to laugh. Well, I did. What I didn't do, of course, was reply.
Anyway, we'll be back soon to the old nasty instruments. Obviously they work OK, and you can do stuff with them. But it would have been so much nicer to have some decent sounds. Ah well. Nothing to be done about it now.
I haven't appeared with BBB for a while now, due to travel and other RL things. I miss the silly buggers. But neither have I composed anything for Lotro for a while, and that needs to change. I need to pull my finger out and get writing for Lotro again.
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