Last week, Harmonix sent out a pretty major software update for Rock Band. Most of the gaming blogs I’ve read have focused on how great the new
online music store is, but have glossed over or completely ignored what I think is the real news in this update: Harmonix has address and fixed two issues that almost broke the game for many players.
When I wrote my Rock Band review for the Geek in Review last year, I said:
To unlock new venues, your band must amass a certain number of fans.
The number of fans you gain each gig is determined by the difficulty
level of each member of your band, so you reach “fan caps” where the
game comes to a halt until you can successfully play at a higher
difficulty level. For some players, this isn’t bad at all, and is a
good motivator to try harder levels. For casual players, though, it
totally sucks. I know plenty of people who love to play on Hard, but
have no interest in playing on Expert. The way I understand this,
unless Harmonix removes the fan cap (which I think they’ll have to do,
eventually) some people won’t ever be able to experience the entire
game. That’s just fucking retarded. Not everyone wants to play the game
on Hard or Expert settings, and preventing those people from enjoying
the game the same way Hard and Expert players do is stupid and wrong.There is an even bigger problem, though, that almost breaks the game
for me: it’s infuriatingly repetitive in multiplayer career mode,
especially at the beginning. As you advance through different cities
and unlock new gigs, you’ll be faced with challenges, where the
audience randomly picks songs for you to play. The RNG that decides the
songs is thoroughly fucked, and frequently results in forcing you to
play the same song three times in 30 minutes. If it’s a song you love,
not such a big deal; but if it’s a song you hate – like Wanted, Dead or
Alive, for instance – you’re screwed. If you’re trying to introduce new players to the game who are used to
Guitar Hero’s “one and done” approach to playing songs, it can be a
massive turn off.
The new online store is great and all, but I don’t know why more gaming blogs and media haven’t made this front-page news: Harmonix has fixed the stupid fan cap, and they’ve made the game much less repetitive in World Tour mode.
Check it out:
Revised Fan Caps: To allow Easy, Medium, and Hard players to progress further in the Band World Tour, we’ve increased the number of fans that you can earn before hitting the cap. Easy players can now travel across the Atlantic, Medium players have a wider range of venues they can play at, and Hard players on the Xbox 360 are now able to unlock the “One Million Fans” achievement.
More diverse songs in Band World Tour: If you’ve ever cursed about having to play “Say it Ain’t So” or a Metallica track multiple times in the same hour, then you’ll be glad to know that we’ve tracked down and fixed the issues that triggered these very repetitive moments in Band World Tour.
Awesome and awesome. Thank you, Harmonix! I think my bands, Zombitis and Mr Snüggles, are about to hit the road again.
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Wait, Rock Band allows umlauts in band names?
On the 360 version, Rock Band allows just about every symbol you could ever want. Click on “symbols” when you’re naming your band, character, etc.
wil,
Love your blog and your work. Question, there was a rumor going around GDC that you gave the Rock Band folks the high hat when they contacted you about doing Still Alive from Portal. It was around the time of your surgery so maybe there were some crossed wires… It would have been great to see you rock out with GLADOS.
Jonathan Coulton asked me if I could come play with them at GDC.
I hadn’t been cleared for travel by my doctor, though, so I couldn’t commit. As it turned out, the day before I would have gone up to SF for the show, I was ordered by my doctor to reduce myself to absolute minimal activity, because of swelling in one of my sinuses.
It’s not that I didn’t want to go, it’s that I just couldn’t go.
I like “wanted dead or alive”.
Mr MrSpock and I picked up Rock Band on Friday, based on your advise only, because I thought it looked pretty damn lame just looking at it, I must admit. So of course, I have to say the words any woman dread to say: You were right. Hell yeah! I’m quitting my day job and leaving on tour with my new band! That’s if I ever make it passed easy level on *any* song… Yeah, I suck, but I have fun at it, so that counts for something, right? BTW, according to the Rock Band Gods, our band name wasn’t “classy” enough, doh!
Hey Wil, can you get even more awesome in your geekiness? 🙂
You know if you came to visit us in Wichita for the Anime Festival in August, you could participate in our Rock Band tournament and get your geek on in front of an audience. 🙂
Go check your email! 😉
While this is awesome that the cap has been lifted in Band World Tour mode, there does exist another problem . . .
I’m not able to do ANYTHING in BWT mode, because my wife doesn’t like to sing rock songs, and I never have anyone over to my house to play the game. The only other solution is to sing AND play guitar — which I’m not talented enough to do 🙁
So, until they let you play through BWT mode with CPU players (or go online w/ BWT), I’ll be missing out on a huge part of the game.
Does the band name selector let you put umlauts in unnatural places?
Because if I could have a band called Fridge Magnet (with umlauts over all the CONSONANTS), I would actually buy a game console and quit my job tour managing a real rock band, so I could play Rock Band. 🙂
The fan cap was never that big a deal. You could finish the game and unlock every song on medium. About all you could not do is open some of the bigger venues, but since Tokyo and Rio were both playable for DLC and bonus content, the biggest venues were still available to everyone.
The store and the change in phoneme recognition are the biggies in our practice space (ok, living room).
I just cut through the FOG and headed straight for the comment box! Wil Wheaton is ONLINE with Rock Band!!??
I have the PS3 Game too and need to know your user name! We need to jam bro!
Holy crap, the fan cap raise is awesome! I hadn’t heard about that. Looks like The Robot Overloards and our other band, The McLovin Spoonful (with umlats over both Os) will be going on tour again soon!
you know what would be a really awesome update for this game? if they actually released the damn game in Europe already! We don’t even have a release date yet, just vague promises of “sometime in 2008”. Not since GH1 have I been this frustrated waiting for a videogame that had been out for months already in the US.
It would be nice if the random setlist generator paid attention to the relative experience level of one’s band before picking songs, so that it doesn’t give you “Won’t Get Fooled Again” followed by “Ride the Lightning” when you’ve only played the drums once or twice before. (That didn’t work out so great for Röckwëasel when it happened to us.)
Best 3 words in the history of Rock Band: BOSTON SIX PACK!!!!!
SakuraCon in Seattle is next weekend and they’re having a Rock Band: Battle of the Bands …. ROFLcopter (my band) rides again!
Great, too bad that apparently didn’t take effect by last Thursday, when I last played it. I guess by finalized they did not mean released yet. Hopefully they will do it soon (DLing the latest PS3 system update before I put in rock band) – although the Boston Track Pack looks cool. Not sure If I have enough to get it, but I hope so. Wait a miinute – six pack? The little promo played three songs and gave no other info. Now I really wonder if I can afford it.
Of course, being Boston, how could I not afford it. I’ll sell Plasma!
Damn, well this bites. Apparently I have no update. How the heck are we supposed to know about this. The website just said it was, well, finalized. Anyone know when it will be out, or else why I missed it. Most games update automatically when the disc is loaded.
(reason I am not asking this at the rockband forums is that my password keeps getting rejected, and I’m tired of playing that game. I went through the same thing earlier, elsewhere, when it finally took the exact same password and ID on the fifth try.
Nevermind, I went ahead and got through the whole “go to your email, Idiot!” bit and posted a message there, although if anyone knows and still wants to post, Thanks anyway.
Wait….MtaF is coming out as DLC for RB!?!? awwww man that’s just rubbing salt into my wounds over the EU release. Of all the GH songs that’s the one I wanted above all others. I just hope all the US DLC will be available for purchase at the EU launch (whenever that bloody happens).
So, I’ve only played Rock Band once. I absolutely loved it. But I am not terribly familiar with all the songs. I don’t recall what system we were playing on, but it was a “new” game, so we didn’t have access to many songs. Since it was my first time, I played on Easy as the singer. That was fine for songs I’d literally never heard before, i.e. “Waves of Mutilation.” But for songs that I knew, I wanted to change my level to Hard, i.e. “Foreplay/Long Time,” a “Tier 9” song. Do you think they’ll ever allow you to change your level after seeing the title of the song?
How’s it feel to change the world, Wil?
Odd that some haven’t seen this update. My PS3 was updated when I got home from work last Thursday ~6pm Pacific time…. ALso saw x-boxers on the rockband forums with the patch on Saturday.
Clay – for my part, other games that update tell you when you need an update, and then they install it. Rockband did not do that – apparently it did update, because I saw this “music store” at the bottom. This didn’t happen Thursday for some reason, as we can’t recall that being there. It would be nice if they would say “hey, there is an update” within the program, rather than leave it to the internet to try and find out. If I hadn’t seen this post, I would never have known about the update.
SAme here, usually. I guess I started the game up In flagrante, as it were, as I watched it update.
Glad you got the update… Has made all the difference in some talky songs and that damned Timmy.
Timmy Rocks!
I do want to hear the brown-noise bit put into rockband style, or do like they did in Guitar Hero and give us some Deathklok to try to follow.
Sweet! Finally The Vicious Muffins can earn fans again!