Ultimate Video Game Music Playlist Requires WoW:

I've played WoW for so long, it's taken years of real playtime.  Like, years of my life are invested in my level 110 World of Warcraft characters.  I have no regrets, it was time well spent.  The game is cheap and extremely fun, and I enjoy all the different classes and races.  I have friends and family on WoW and it's fun hanging out with them.  But what it did mean is that I've heard all the music from these games so many times that I felt no need to listen to the songs ever again.

As such, even as I built up an enormous video game music playlist canvassing all sorts of games, from Mario to Zelda, I never touched the music from World of Warcraft.  However, having been away from the game for over a year, I think it's safe to take another look at this game's music from an objective point of view.

That's right, I'm beginning to miss the wonderful music from Warcraft.  It's been long enough, that I'm no longer revolted by it, I actually find it wistfully beautiful again.

I assume I'll start playing WoW again once the next expansion comes out.  I still have a few months of free playing time saved up.  But until that happens, I don't mind being accompanied by the music again in its lieu.

As such, I downloaded 557 songs from WoW, and am starting to judge them one by one, starting from the very beginning classic soundtrack, onwards to Burning Crusade, and so on.  This is going to be the biggest nostalgia trip on Earth.

I suspect a lot of these songs are going to end up in my hall of fame.  Which means my hall of fame which previously sat at 9 days of continuous music is probably headed for 10 days or even more by the end of this.  But an 'ultimate' video game music collection that leaves out the best video game of all time's music?  That makes no sense.  Especially when the music is genuinely amazing, as you'd expect from anything ranked #1.

A perfect musical Hall of Fame collection is ridiculous without the music from WoW, which has some of the best music of all time.  It also has the deepest personal connection to my life, even more so than Final Fantasy.  It's also music that, very likely, more people around the world have listened to, for longer, than any other songs on Earth.  The Beatles have nothing on this game.  20 million players listened to this music continuously for an average of five years each.  It's unimaginable what could be a more important foundation for any music hall of fame than that.

In hindsight, it seems sort of silly how desperately I avoided including this music for so long, but after being immersed in WoW for so long sometimes you really do just want to get away.  Now that I've had my sabbatical, it's time to give WoW the credit it's due, and create a true ultimate video game playlist and downstream of that a true music Hall of Fame which really does have all the best music the world has to offer.

If 2016 was the year of sports, 2017 was the year of music.  I've spent this entire year gathering and curating music from all fields of life.  It feels like once I finish with Warcraft, there won't be anything left to gather, though.  I may finally be able to sit back on my throne and relax.  With ten days of music to randomize between, I can't imagine getting tired of hearing any of these songs by coming across them too often in a row.  My music Hall of Fame will be a permanent asset in the future, which I can listen to until my dying day.  And as new music bubbles forth from all the various venues I've been collecting it so far, the list will only grow in size and quality.  I see nothing but roses and rainbows from here on out.