Rock Band 2.2 Patch Out!

[Pheran]

Reports are coming in that people on the Xbox 360 are starting to get the long-awaited Rock Band 2.2 patch. There are no official release notes yet, but things it should include are:

Rock Band Network support
Star Tracking
Lips Wireless Microphone support
HOPO chord fix (easier to hit hammer-on chords)
ION drum sensitivity fix (not sure what this is about, I don't have ION drums)

There are probably a few other features as well. This doesn't mean that RBN is completely live yet, just that they are prepping the game for it. Presumably there will be a PS3 release at some point for the star tracking piece.

EDIT: Official Patch Announcement

 

[Pheran]

Update from hmxsean, looks like the PS3 folks have to wait a bit longer.

Hey all,

We'll be tracking patch stuff all day (I am aware of the beating scores thing and have escalated that up the chain - when I get news, and I don't know when that will be, I will post it). As for the PS3 version that won't be coming today. Due to the extra development time involved that will be coming later (and when I have more information on that I will also update you). We will be pounding away at it still and will try to get it out in the most expedient way possible. The Wii version of RB2 won't be getting the patch as the console doesn't allow title updates for games.

If you do have issues or bugs or whatever with the patch on 360 please post in the tech support forums so we can track more easily.

Thanks everyone,
Sean

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Sweet my Lips mics will actually get some use now.

 

[Pheran]

I updated the OP with a link to this official announcement.

Hi! I?m Dan Teasdale, and I?m the Lead Designer on Rock Band 2 (HMXspraynwipe on the forums). On behalf of both the Rock Band 2 and Rock Band Network teams, I?m proud to be able to announce that we?ve finalized a software update for Rock Band 2 that addresses some common requests and adds some great new functionality!

In this latest software update, you?ll find:

* Rock Band Network Audition Mode. Available from the ?Extras? menu on Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band 2, members of the Rock Band Network can now upload songs from their PC?s and audition their songs using our suite of song audition and testing tools. Currently in closed beta, the Rock Band Network will welcome authors to open beta in the coming weeks! Find out more at http://creators.rockband.com

* ?Sort by Stars? in Quickplay. If you hit the ?Sort? button on the Song Select screen, you?ll come to a brand new sort that orders songs by the star ratings that you?ve achieved on each song. Each star rating gets a category, as well as an ?Unplayed? category for songs that don?t have a star rating recorded. Finally, you can record your progress towards gold starring every song in your library!

* Background Downloading in the Music Store. Purchasing songs from the Rock Band Music Store now no longer requires you to wait for a song to download before you can download another song. You can now queue up downloads to your heart?s content, which is going to be incredibly handy with some of the amazing DLC that?s coming out over the next few weeks and months.

* Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone Support. Rock Band 2 now supports Xbox 360 Wireless Microphones, like the Lips microphone. Finally, you can now have a fully wireless Rock Band experience!

* Chord HOPO improvements: If you?ve played The Beatles: Rock Band, you?ll notice much more robust handling of chord hammer-ons and pull-offs. This patch implements those changes in Rock Band 2 to provide a more natural chord hammer-on/pull-off experience.

* Velocity Sensitivity on Ion Drum Kits: Ion Drum kits now support velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and Drum Freestyle mode.


Special thanks needs to go out to the Rock Band Network team for their hard work in building the infrastructure and tools for everybody to be able to submit and sell their songs. Integrating this experience seamlessly into a Rock Band 2 update is no mean feat, and they?ve been toiling away for over a year to provide both authors and players with the best ways to experience the deluge of new songs that will be available very soon.

This update also wouldn?t be possible without the feedback and suggestions that we receive from our community. The Rock Band team reads and considers almost all of the suggestions and requests posted on our forums, and there are many details of this update that wouldn?t have been possible without the well reasoned arguments and discussion that occurs on rockband.com. Thanks again for being an awesome community!

-DanT

 

[R Nilla]

:thumbsup: Nice update. I'm looking forward to seeing the Rockband Network in action in the future.

 

[jdport]

I haven't gotten around to putting in my game and applying this patch yet.... question, does it instantly give you the star view on all your songs, or do you have to re-play them all to get a star value associated with them?

 

[juiio]

Originally posted by: jdport
I haven't gotten around to putting in my game and applying this patch yet.... question, does it instantly give you the star view on all your songs, or do you have to re-play them all to get a star value associated with them?

You have to re-play the songs and you have to beat your existing score. It also only keeps track of one score for a song instead of individual scores for each difficultly level.

After waiting a really long time for this patch, it has turned out to be completely worthless for me since i play on multiple difficulty levels and since it would be a pain to beat a lot of my existing scores.

 

[jdport]

Ugh yes.. that really does suck.. i was hoping to go back and just replay the songs that I hadn't 5 starred.. but now i'll have to actually beat everything I've got. I can' probably beat most of my own scores without that much trouble, but ... there were some I had FC's on and stuff and it's a ton of songs to re-do. That really sucks. I wish they could've just looked at the existing scores and put in the appropriate star values.

 

[Pheran]

The beat your existing score thing is supposed to be a bug, they may fix it later. But the thing that juiio pointed out makes it totally useless for me too - I play on different difficulty levels so I can't tell how many stars I got on which difficulty. Sadly, RB1 did a far better job of this in the solo tour. Oh well, here's hoping for decent star tracking in RB3.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Pheran
The beat your existing score thing is supposed to be a bug, they may fix it later. But the thing that juiio pointed out makes it totally useless for me too - I play on different difficulty levels so I can't tell how many stars I got on which difficulty. Sadly, RB1 did a far better job of this in the solo tour. Oh well, here's hoping for decent star tracking in RB3.

It is good to know that I'm not the only one who noticed this. The solo tour mode in RB1 was far superior to the mess of RB2. I just want a list that has the songs, sorted by difficulty, that shows me my highest score and my star rating, and that I can play to get money to unlock songs. Is that too much to ask?

I also loathe how in RB2, songs are sorted in Tour mode by "Band" difficulty, so you could get an "easy" song early on in playing the guitar solo, but it might only be a one star song, but the guitar could be five stars. Very annoying.

Please, Harmonix, just bring back the Solo Tour mode from RB1! I can't even play my DLC one at a time in RB2's Tour mode...I have to make a setlist and pick at least two every time! :|

 

[jdport]

but people complained endlessly about solo play in RB1.. .everybody wanted the world tour mode for single player. Personally I don't know what's so hard about having both... but if they are only going to have one or the other they will never please everybody.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: jdport
but people complained endlessly about solo play in RB1.. .everybody wanted the world tour mode for single player. Personally I don't know what's so hard about having both... but if they are only going to have one or the other they will never please everybody.

If they kept a separate score for solo play for each instrument in World Tour, allowed me to see my highest solo scores for each instrument in World Tour, and had a location that allowed you to play each DLC song individually, I'd be fine with it.

As it is, World Tour mode sucks for the solo player. I play Band Quickplay most of the time and then pick my custom character for solo play. It works almost like the old solo tour mode, except you can't earn money. :thumbsdown:

 

[AstroManLuca]

I don't play any game mode other than local band quickplay in either RB2 or Beatles Rock Band. Don't really see the point; the gameplay is the same regardless of what you do.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
I don't play any game mode other than local band quickplay in either RB2 or Beatles Rock Band. Don't really see the point; the gameplay is the same regardless of what you do.

I like to play songs to try and beat my high scores. I also like to play to unlock stuff. You could do both in Rock Band 1, but you can't do both in Rock Band 2.