Big Rock Band Update

[RandomFool]

Link

Big news for Rock Band fans today. Harmonix has sent word that a major overhaul of Rock Band is slated to land this week. The patch will include numerous fixes, as well as a full-featured, in-game music store.

Given the ever-increasing amount of content available for the game on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store, Harmonix has opted for an in-game interface which makes the entire process streamlined and easy to navigate. Upon entering the store, users will be greeted with the ability to skim through new releases, full albums, song packs, and finally the full list of available songs. Songs can be sorted by artist, album, genre, pack, and difficulty. After drilling down into a specific artist or song, each track listed in the store includes various details about it: the genre, the date of release, difficulty ratings for each instrument, and the ability to briefly preview the song have all been added. Even the album's cover art will be on display, making the interface much more attractive.

Other fixes in the patch include updated fan cap numbers for the game's World Tour Mode to allow players playing on lower difficulties to advance further, a refined random music selection process during World Tour Mode to reduce the number of repeated songs, improved phoneme recognition for singers, and faster loading of downloadable content. Xbox 360 owners will also enjoy the ability to display Band Logos over Xbox Live, while microphone latency has been improved on the PlayStation 3.

This marks the first significant post-release update for the popular rhythm game, and it's quite a huge step towards realizing the "game as platform" mentality that Harmonix stated was the goal with Rock Band since the start. We'll have some hands on impressions of the store when it launches later this week.

Looks like we're getting some solid changes that will remove some of the bigger problems I've had with the game. A better store (and it looks like it will be quite nice) and faster loading of DLC have both been on my list for a while. I wonder if the fan cap will allow an all hard band to get the 1,000,000 fan achievement or just let an all medium band open most of the venues.

Doesn't look like there's online Band World Tour, though, so my biggest complaint remains unanswered. At least I'll be able to somehow show off the kick ass logo for our fake band "Hedonism Bot".

Horray for song previews.

 

[nycxandy]

Sounds pretty sweet. :thumbsup:

 

[oznerol]

Holy crap, that is glorious.

Edit: I have a feeling this is why the full albums weren't released. They mentioned "technical issues" - so I would expect Who's Next and Nevermind coming soon after this launches.

 

[warcrow]

Thank god they're fixing the fan cap--so awesome! Me, my wife and my friends hit a wall because we just couldnt get past some of the later countries/states. We kind of casually play the game--we're not hardcore or intersted in learning to play better. We didnt want to increase the difficulty to move on because I just couldnt play guitar on hard. I know--I'm terrible at it, and I'm interested in treating this like a video game, not a learning machine and that shouldnt be the point of the game (atleast for everyone). We just want to play and have fun.

The increase in difficulty from Normal to Hard was insane for someone like me. The increase in fret use (additional fret), more timing hits and the notes goes faster (atlteast they appear to do so). It was a bit of a put-off after trying and trying.

I did notice the delay on the mic and figured it was just part of the game or soemthing--glad to hear a patch is coming for that.

Lastly, having an application built into the game is exactly what this game needs.I'm interested in buying future music, and having bascially an iTunes like application makes sense. I hated trying to find the right content on PSN--it was too hard to navigate.

 

[Aikouka]

Previewing sounds pretty darned sweet.

 

[Sadaiyappan]

Hard is pretty easy for me.. Aside form three songs -- Tribe, Enter the Sandman and Suffrage City.. I can play most medium songs at 100%.

Am just now learning to play the drums..

 

[Drekce]

I have had the game since launch and haven't even started band world tour. My wife doesn't like to play (though she sings every once in a while) and when I have friends over we just do free play mode. I have unlocked all of the songs in solo tour, but I really want to get into the band world tour as it seems to be really cool.

 

[blurredvision]

Awesome news! I can't wait for this, and I'm glad they waited to announce it right before it was to release, now we don't have to "look forward" to it. Hell, they could probably charge $10 for this update and I'd pay for it .

 

[Modeps]

This is pretty cool. I like it. Too bad no online world tour yet though. I guess that'll have to wait till RB2.

 

[RandomFool]

Originally posted by: warcrow
Thank god they're fixing the fan cap--so awesome! Me, my wife and my friends hit a wall because we just couldnt get past some of the later countries/states. We kind of casually play the game--we're not hardcore or intersted in learning to play better.

I hit the same wall with my gf and friends. I can manage hard on guitar for some songs but some of them are too ridculous for me to finish.

 

[galperi1]

looks like later this week means today (on the PS3).

I have to say, the preview new songs is awesome!

 

[warcrow]

Originally posted by: RandomFool

Originally posted by: warcrow
Thank god they're fixing the fan cap--so awesome! Me, my wife and my friends hit a wall because we just couldnt get past some of the later countries/states. We kind of casually play the game--we're not hardcore or intersted in learning to play better.

I hit the same wall with my gf and friends. I can manage hard on guitar for some songs but some of them are too ridculous for me to finish.

Enter Sandman

 

[blurredvision]

Anybody getting the title update prompt on the 360 yet?

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: RandomFool

Originally posted by: warcrow
Thank god they're fixing the fan cap--so awesome! Me, my wife and my friends hit a wall because we just couldnt get past some of the later countries/states. We kind of casually play the game--we're not hardcore or intersted in learning to play better.

I hit the same wall with my gf and friends. I can manage hard on guitar for some songs but some of them are too ridculous for me to finish.

I picked up the drums and my mom actually wanted to try the guitar, so we played on easy... in one short 2 hour session, we hit the fan cap for easy. It was kind of annoying.

 

[WraithETC]

Guitar really jumps in difficulty on the last set on expert. Every damn song has rolling hammer ons and pull offs.

 

[JackBurton]

Can't wait for the update!

 

[destrekor]

oi
'bout damn time! This update will be glorious. Previews? Awesome. Difficulty ratings? Awesome. Downloads within the store itself? Kickass!

They are really making sure Rock Band takes it to the next level as a music game. Guitar Hero basically managed to feel like the former Guitar Hero games, and they were happy with that. Harmonix realized if they wanted to sell, they needed to step it up and go all out. Looks like they are taking honoring that initiative for more than just a few months after the game. They seem to be holding true to the idea that they want this to be a major platform. I love the idea that they are keeping in the back of their heads, where they will allow downloads for Rock Band to be used in any future titles in the series.

+

 

[blurredvision]

Well, people are saying the update is already out for the PS3, but last I checked on the 360 about an hour ago, there's not a title update yet. I'm sure once Microsoft gets wind that the PS3 already released it, they'll rush through their certification process and get it up within the next 24 hours.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Oh my..that is an awesome update.

 

[JRich]

Sweet update. Yay for PS3

 

[child of wonder]

I also read that a wireless guitar for the Xbox360 is coming out on April 1. Has anyone heard if they'll update the Rock Band Bundle itself to include a wireless guitar for the 360? I'm thinking of buying the game but if it'll come with a wireless guitar shortly down the road then I'll just wait.

 

[bearxor]

Eventually, I'm sure, but doubtful for the near future.

 

[warcrow]

I checked out the update (PS3 here) and the ingame store is 100X better than the previous process--love the preview feature!

 

[MikeyLSU]

Originally posted by: warcrow
I checked out the update (PS3 here) and the ingame store is 100X better than the previous process--love the preview feature!

store is so much better organized. Love that you can do multiple different sorting. I also love that it gives you the difficulty level for each instrament as I am sick of very easy songs.

Still wish we could getthe GH3 guitar to work on PS3...so crappy of Activision to block it on 1 console.

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: child of wonder
I also read that a wireless guitar for the Xbox360 is coming out on April 1. Has anyone heard if they'll update the Rock Band Bundle itself to include a wireless guitar for the 360? I'm thinking of buying the game but if it'll come with a wireless guitar shortly down the road then I'll just wait.

The reason it wasn't initially included is the additional cost associated with licensing the wireless technology. They wanted the cost of the Xbox bundle to be the same as the PS3 bundle. Not sure what that means for the future bundles, though.