I don’t see how putting popular songs on a disc for a lower cost per song is screwing the customers. You’re getting 80-90 (relatively) good songs and a likely interface update for $60. I’d be more annoyed if they just said to hell with RB3 and announced that all future game content will be DLC for the RB2 platform.
Also, DLC is not as accessible to the general consumer base. If you put all the great songs out as DLC, you’re sort of alienating a significant portion of your customers.
Really? I would love that. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with crap like Lazy Eye and Shackler’s Revenge coming up in random sets. I understand why they won’t do that, but I would still prefer it.
As far as the RB2 issue, I’m happy with the way they did it. They improved enough stuff to make it worth buying, regardless of the setlist, and we only lost three songs from RB1 in the process (one of which is now available as DLC). As long as they keep releasing new songs every week and don’t switch to the GH model of flooding the shelves with non-interoperable song packs, I don’t mind if they put out a new iteration every year.
It would be a good feature to be able to turn off songs you don’t like, but that’s a separate issue entirely. For me, there aren’t enough songs in the game that I despise, and I think the career mode kind of sucks anyway so I usually play quickplay where I’m not forced to do anything I don’t want to.
Bottom line is I’d rather pay $60 to get 35 songs I love, 35 songs I’m generally neutral on, and 10 songs I hate, rather than pay $70ish for just the 35 songs I love.
That’s a fair point, except there are nowhere near 35 songs I love on either RB disc. More like 10, 60 and 10. And with every DLC song I buy, the ratio of my playtime swings more and more away from on-disc songs.
Like you, I spend most of my time in quickplay, but that’s because they don’t have a proper solo tour anymore and the World Tour is a minefield of aggravation and failure. I’ve been playing challenges recently, but that’s more achievement whoring than anything. If they fixed World Tour so that I mostly played songs I like, perhaps with some sort of iTunes-style play tracking, it would be a lot better.
The_B
3825
Unless you count the song pack disks they release.
I don’t understand why they won’t do it. The only reason I am interested in Rock Band 3 is anticipating that they will fix playlist control in some mode other than quickplay. It’s fine to have a career mode that forces you to experience the content at varying difficulty levels depending on how much you want to invest in a song as GH has been experimenting with lately, but the design of RB world tour (allegedly the heart of the game) is permanently broken until they fix this issue. Challenge mode falls prey to the problem of painfully awkward difficulty modification. All modes have issues with scorekeeping/difficulty levels.
These are all things that can be fixed easily, but the interviews I think you are alluding to where they talk about how forcing you to play shitty music is part of the Rock Star experience do not provide encouragement. They’re still number one, but there’s plenty of room for improvement over RB2. Just by (allegedly) figuring out some way around the pain in the ass that is instrument switching and logging in and out, GH5 is en route to be an interesting addition to the genre. It’s those interface and gameplay touches that make it, since virtually every music game apart from things I am allergic to (GH 80’s, Aerosmith) has had a lot to offer in musical diversity to me.
At the very least, the existence of GH5 should give HMX an incentive to make RB3 better than anything they’ve ever done. (The other Activision releases are just whoring.) HMX, you’re doing something wrong when Neversoft steals all the ideas that RB owners give you on your own forums. At the very least, you’re too damn slow!
THAT, I will agree with. You know you’re in trouble when the biggest innovations in your genre, at least as far as accessibility is concerned, are coming from bloody Activision.
Because they sold over 2 million copies of RB2 and they average about 80,000 downloads per DLC song. There are a huge number of people who bought the game and never downloaded anything. Those people obviously don’t get the download model, and probably wouldn’t shell out for a new game that just lets them play the music they already have with a different interface. And they outnumber us by a lot.
The other thing, which I disagree with Harmonix on, wanting to force people to play songs they don’t like. There were songs I first heard by playing Rock Band that I might not have given a try if they were DLC. But there are also songs that I absolutely loath, and refuse to play. There’s a balance to be struck there, and right now they’re leaning too hard toward pushing stuff at you, to the point that I don’t play World Tour.
If it weren’t “greed” (as defined previously), I’d expect them to release the songs in both RB3 and as DLC for RB1/2. Then people who want to get the “good deal” of 80 songs for $60 can buy RB3, and people who want to buy 15 songs they actually like for $30 can do that.
Since they don’t e.g. offer the RB2 songs both ways, what possible explanations are there? It could be for profit. It could be due to licensing restrictions. Any other plausible reasons? (I’m not accepting “because the new songs target new features in the new game” as a reason, because that begs the question.)
Um, this is a give and take relationship for both sides. Harmonix hooks us up with the most dedicated DLC-release system known to man, and we buy their shit to keep them in business. Sure, they “could” offer us songs as both disc bundle purchase and DLC to make it more convenient for us (and they sort of do, with the track packs), but for plenty of reasons, it doesn’t make sense for them to sell the whole product as DLC.
wumpus
3832
Yes, but I draw the line at SpongeBob and the Naked Brothers.
Sorry Harmonix.
Hey man, don’t look at me that way. I even bought fucking Jimmy Buffett.
Hm … nothing new on the horizon?
There’s a Cookie Monster pack this week! Hardest shit ever but also sounds like shit.
The_B
3835
Most of the time, we don’t find out until the Thursday/Friday of every week. It’s the Green Day stuff this week.
I’ve been practicing my death growl.
Actually, I did buy the Mayhem Pack yesterday, and of the five songs I’ve played out of the bunch, I didn’t five-star any of them. All four stars, so none of the songs are “Rude Mood” difficult, but still really tough, and a huge drain on your strumming hand.
I think it’s funny how even if you’re only on guitar, songs are ranked by how difficult they are to complete as a band. So “Painkiller,” which I can consistently five-star, is still at the very bottom of the list, while all of these insanely difficult metal songs are “easier” because of the singing.
sluggo
3837
I’m totally confused. What the heck are you guys talking about with Cookie Monster?
walTer
3838
Ha I am so glad someone asked. (could it be a poke at Sponge Bob…which sadly I DID get, all due to my 11 year old daughter wanting them…)
