Rewrite
Not as deep as he thinks
That would be great! Crossing my fingers it's both old RB3 DLC and new RB4 DLC!
Rock Band 4 announced for PS4 and Xbox One
- Thread starter GameE
- Start date
Sounds almost like ion needs to give harmonix some driver support or something.
What has me most worried is the stuff they're talking about with online play... this doesn't confirm at all that they will add online at a later date :
First of all, their online system for Rock Band 3 is horrible and they never patched it with improvements to make it more structured and user friendly. If it was better designed by the developers more people would have stuck with it. Many people who did the survey thought online was a given so they focused on different features which was more likely to be dropped. A tactical choice which backfired.
Dropping online is a HUGE mistake by the developers, and it's going to bite them in the ass. My friendlist is filled with angry people who doesn't even want the game anymore cause they will have no one else to play with but themselves (no pun intended). This is also dedicated fans who have supported Harmonix with 1000 + DLC. Not everyone is privileged with a local party at all times, and many of us are dependent on online to be able to enjoy the game.
Lady Siara
Member
Yep, just going to echo my fears of online never being added. If it's not being added at a later date, I'm not buying it. That pains me greatly to even say but that's how important this feature is to me (and I would imagine many of the hardcore fanbase who are returning).
I know the situation is different now for all parties involved. Just wish it didn't have to be like this.
Slippery In Net
Neo Member
Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Coheed and Cambria - Key Entity Extraction I: Domino the Destitute
Atreyu - Honor
System Of A Down - Sad Statue
Dance Gavin Dance - We Own The Night
Hope I posted this in time, would really love this pack if it was released/included for Rock Band 4. I would also want any other Coheed tracks you want to add, Harmonix.
Coheed and Cambria - Key Entity Extraction I: Domino the Destitute
Atreyu - Honor
System Of A Down - Sad Statue
Dance Gavin Dance - We Own The Night
Hope I posted this in time, would really love this pack if it was released/included for Rock Band 4. I would also want any other Coheed tracks you want to add, Harmonix.
Iorv3th
Member
Is there a drum only bundle or do I have to get the band in the box?
tell me about it.....RBGAF would have been amazing.....now its just post pictures of a high score. whoopy doo.....oh wait, nvm scorehero already does that.
There is the cutoff, quoting this for break when I add the rest of the songs.
I personally didn't use online except for when I was doing Score Duels or when I had a band for The Beatles Rock Band. I'm sad it won't be there at launch and I feel for those that can't do local multiplayer but even if it was there I probably wouldn't use it. I'm more upset about keys not being there than online missing.
I have played online exclusively since Rock Band 2 was released in EU like 6 years ago with both people on my friendlist and with random groups. Through all these years it has been active and full of people, which is the only reason why I've been sticking with the game for so long. It's also why I am finding it so curious Harmonix is treating it as some dead niche thing. Never even after so many years did I have problem finding players during prime time. Not even today.
Harmonix have just never cared about online for RB3. Just with a few tweaks they could've made it a lot more user friendly and our online experience so much more enjoyable.
Here is a few:
- Choosing songs is still a mess. Anyone can add or erase songs at their leisure. It should be locked down to one song for each player. I have no idea how many games have been ruined by people just instantly choosing 100 songs or erasing other peoples songs because they don't want to play it. Now it's basically anarchy. It was much more structured in RB2, but Harmonix dropped it in RB3 for no reason.
- You can't switch guitar/bass after a song so you're stuck with one instrument through the whole setlist. Again a given feature dropped from RB2. People tend to like the guitar the most, and it was always a common courtesy to switch instrument after each song. Now we can only play 1-2 songs each setlist just so we can swap instruments.
- No option to jump over songs the whole band doesn't share. This is very annoying for people with a lot of DLC like me. I must often wade through hundreds of unavailable songs in my library that I can't play because someone in my band didn't buy the song. It would've been a hundred times easier finding a song if it would just skip to the nearest song everyone in the group have.
- No way to name your character. In RB2 people with DLC would often name their character ***** ( 600+ DLC) etc... Making it a lot easier for people with a huge library finding each other.
- In game text communication would make organizing things a lot easier.
Yes......but in rock band 3 I had customs online and that was funny......hovering over every Metallica song and watching people go where the fuck did he get that!
Haha. Actually can't remember a single time I've seen people with custom songs on PS3 so it can't be very common. Get a full library of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd then scroll down and I am sure a lot of people would raise their eyebrows.
Haha. Actually can't remember a single time I've seen people with custom songs on PS3 so it can't be very common. Get a full library of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd then scroll down and I am sure a lot of people would raise their eyebrows.
PS3 I don't think had an easy way to do importing because of file structure without modding the console. Xbox 360.....LOL what a joke, You ran the custom through a import tool on the PC and just through it on a flash drive that was formatted and the game thought it was a RB1 or RB2 import.
So every match I sat on Master of Puppets when we were done selecting songs.
Kor of Memory
Member
What was the purpose of this again? I think I missed it or something.
This.
I'm hoping off the RB4 train, I'll stick with 3 for now, but as a online drummer, this game is worthless to me
aGuyInaBearSuit
Member
With less than 10% of the userbase playing online regularly, I can't say I blame them. Making this game independently is a huge risk for Harmonix and they have to be smart about things like this. Don't want to be yet another company that bit off more than they can chew and end up shuttered within a year of shipping their product.
Pretty much this. I am nearing like 1700 songs I have accumulated over the years just to play with my friends and randoms from all over the world. High chance for me living in the outskirts in Norway mustering a band of local players every time I want to play RB4 lol.
Most of my regular online community with equal amount of DLC are not even going to get the game anymore ( I am still on the fence). This is probably some of the most dedicated core fans who have continuously supported Harmonix and been active for more than half a decade.
After I made my notification to "No Online for RB4
" on my PS3 account comment, people have been whispering me left and right just shocked and disappointed by the news. Some of them refusing to believe me.Impeccable
Member
I've spent a ton of money and never once played online.
Money =/= anything, lol
Money =/= anything, lol
Sometimes it might be just a big a risk throwing away core features as well. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how long this game can sustain itself with local play only, and if people will be just as dedicated in supporting them in the future after RB4 has been released.
TheFurizzlyBear
Member
I mean, this is the definition of being entitled... You feel that because you spent money on something that they OWE YOU more than what you paid for. I'm sure it was not any easy decision for them and I'm willing to bet it will return at some point. We did the survey and they have the data, I really doubt that with this being a big gamble for HMX and MadCatz that they would not take the safe bet.
Just a GAF RB4 wish list,
With rules for adding to it to make it fun!
I think it's more or less, why call it rock band 4 when features were removed(sure some were added). Why not just call it rock band again and reboot. Rock band 1 didn't have online and neither does 4.....for now. But when you get a sequel to something you expect everything before with expansion and refining not to see stuff removed on launch day.
Wait what? Rock Band 1 had online, didn't it?
RB1 wiki:
The only game that didn't have online was LEGO, but you could transfer the whole library to RB3. It has been a core feature for any music rhythm game since Guitar Hero 3.
RB1 has online on 360 and PS3, Not on Wii and PS2, RB2 started the online and DLC on Wii but the PS2 didn't get either
TheFurizzlyBear
Member
Because its the 4th main line RB game. RB3 removed features and added new ones yet was not called a reboot then, why now?
Human Resources
Member
C'mon guys, online multi isn't just throwing a switch, it requires dev time and money. The 90% offline community (like me) will try our best to buy it and make it a hit for you so that Harmonix can consider adding this functionality later. You're welcome. Also:
Offline dudes are just as much whales as online. Probably much more so considering that many like me roped in dudes to be my band, so we've been buying dlc with the buying power of 4 people. I have people who don't even play video games giving me their credit cards so we can play this or that song that they love. We're just as passionate as you about Rock Band.
As for the Ions -- I have a pair, and my band's drummer has his own as well. You don't have to buy a whole new $250 band set to drum. Check Craigslist for some gently used ones. I got a damn near mint Beatles box set for $60 shipped on Goodwill Online, so we can thrash the Ringo kit and add that sexy Hofner bass to the ensemble. You got options.
I'm just happy we're even getting a new Rock Band.
Offline dudes are just as much whales as online. Probably much more so considering that many like me roped in dudes to be my band, so we've been buying dlc with the buying power of 4 people. I have people who don't even play video games giving me their credit cards so we can play this or that song that they love. We're just as passionate as you about Rock Band.
As for the Ions -- I have a pair, and my band's drummer has his own as well. You don't have to buy a whole new $250 band set to drum. Check Craigslist for some gently used ones. I got a damn near mint Beatles box set for $60 shipped on Goodwill Online, so we can thrash the Ringo kit and add that sexy Hofner bass to the ensemble. You got options.
I'm just happy we're even getting a new Rock Band.
EchoChamber
Member
My wish list for rock band 4 is just Moar muse.
Would you be as enthusiastic if you had no one else to play locally with? It's good for you that you are privileged enough with a local band at disposal so dedicated they will even give you their credit card to buy DLC, but for many of us it's either online or playing alone. At least for me that gets boring pretty fast.
I disagree, while four of you are buying DLC on one console, online players were buying each DLC four times per band, the group I played online with own almost every single song released by Hamonix, which off the top of my head is 1970 or so, 1970 2 dollar songs bought by four people each is no small amount and that's probably a lot more than you've all spent combined, people like us were the ones keeping the series afloat all these years
I don't care at all about the price, I don't want to use a crappy stock drum kit when I have a $3/4000 fully functional drum kit available, I went through 5 stock kits, they aren't good enough, the fact the pads were peeling at E3 showed this off
Human Resources
Member
I get it dude. I moved back in with my folks for a year after college, and my hometown wasn't exactly a hotbed of Rock Band activity. This was the year RB3 came out too, so I played it by myself for awhile before moving back out and getting another band together. I was still as enthusiastic about RB3 when it came out, yes.
When it's within the scope of their development, Harmonix will surely look at online, of that I have no doubt, but they're not in a place where they can just spend an extra year in development on the publisher's dime -- heck, the Amplitude kickstarter may have saved them from closing up shop altogether.
Human Resources
Member
All of those guys went on to buy their own systems and a shit-ton of DLC to play at home, because they got the bug. That, and there's a lot more people playing offline (in Harmonix's own words). But we shouldn't separate "them" and "us", we're all Rock Band fans. It just bums me out that people are getting upset about features when the mere existence of the game is teetering on a financial precipice.
I agree about the stock drums not being enough for constant expert level play though. I was just recommending that people look into buying an inexpensive pair while they implement ION functionality. There will be a way to play with Ions, officially or not, once enough people get their hands on the game.
TheFurizzlyBear
Member
Does anybody truly believe HMX chose not to do online at launch because they are lazy or worse as a fuck you to those who could only play with other people online? I don't think anybody here does. I feel bad for you all who can't and its good to make it known but lets not act like you all are the only reason RB exists and you guys kept it afloat by yourselves. We all contributed to Rock Bands success and they chose to work on improving the base game for the majority first. Its not personal, it was an important business decisions and, as cool as all the folks at HMX are, they are a business first. They are probably afraid to commit to anything cus, man alive, this fan base is rabid and will rip them apart for anything and everything. It comes from a place of love but does not always come out that way. If there is a developer who I believe wants to do right by there fans its HMX. Lets not forget what they have done so far with cross-gen DLC and the instruments they have made BC so far. Stuff the people thought might not or even figured would not happen. If they were lazy or trying to fuck anybody it would of already happened. It clearly a matter of time/money at this point and they only have so much to work with.
Six years of experiencing an active and blooming online community...
Eight years of being involved in the legit and not-so-legit parts of the community and gathering plenty of equally anecdotal experience, plus Harmonix's comments about what their legit data collection has shown...
You can have an 'active and blooming online community' in the game of that style with a few hundred regularly active people.
Yet they have the both time and money to develop silly solo gimmicks, but leave out core features like online and ION support. I was ecstatic when RB4 was released. Now hardly none of my friends or band community will buy it. Dedicated people I have played with for over half a decade who have supported Harmonix by buying all the games and thousands of songs.
Considering my purely anecdotal experience in pub play online (since the entire 'counter argument' is hinging on anecdotes), there were far more people on the 19 than the 1970-side of DLC purchases, and I'd put money down on there being an equal number off offline-centric whales as people 'like you' doing it online. I've got twenty or so in my circle alone that are in excess of 2k between DLC/exports and RBN.
But you know what? The theorists are probably right that Harmonix is intentionally and/or maliciously trying to spite a large population of high revenue generators because reasons.
Also, here's my citation for my personal purchases.
I know what a dead community is, and RB is not one of them. Good thing PS3 also records the people you have played with, and the thousands of people I've been in contact with throughout the years does not say dead to me. Harmonix could also have lifted a few fingers to support the online community, in true online is so riddled with bugs and bad features it could be defined as broken. Despite all that I've never had problem finding people through random play during regular hours... even after all these years.
Human Resources
Member
I am sorry you feel this way. I think this is a good example of the adage: You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you cant please all of the people all of the time. All Harmonix can do is look at their audience data and try to please as many fans as they can with the resources and time that they have.
Please know that this thread is filled with people who have all supported Harmonix over the years, and it's a bummer that everyone can't be as excited to play the newest installment. If they ever add online play, I'll be sure to hop on and say hello.
Eh, I'd say we are basically separated at this point, us online players will now even be stuck on a entirely different game.
The problem I have is if the game doesn't support the features I want, and there is another that does all that I want (plus more, considering I have a full pro set up although I'm a drummer primarily) I'm gonna go with that one. Newer isn't better if it doesn't do what i want
First off, let me say I'm really grateful for your work, I use RBHP not only for the harmonies, but for even the chart fixes and RBN upgrades.
With that out the way, I totally know I'm not the majority with all DLC, but I'd say online players in general do buy a lot more DLC, I'm at about 2000 on Xbox, and 600 on PS3. I bought a lot more songs at first etc because people I'd play with wanted to play them, same with the other way around, I'd pick up a track pack and get the others to pick it up to play with me.
Speaking from experience, when I had a local group to play with, we rarely bought DLC and were fine with about 100 or so.
Also, not really saying that Harmonix is intentially doing it to spite us or anything, but if a product isn't fit for my purpose like I said above, I'm not gonna use it
Sorry, maybe you misread my post.
I didn't say it was a dead community. I said a relatively small percentage of players could keep an online community active, especially during 'prime time'.
But yeah, maybe Harmonix is just choosing to ignore this massive, highly active online community in favour of the much smaller non-online community.
What I'm getting at is that this all comes down to anecdotes. Saying "no way nobody plays online, I play online all the time with people that have all kinds of songs so we're clearly the money makers" is a big case of [citation needed].
You can say you've bought songs playing with people online to round out your library, and that you always played with people with tons of songs. Meanwhile, I can say that I played online purely with randoms and more often than not hit people with maybe 250 tracks if I was lucky leaving me with 1,500+ songs dead in the water at any given time, had horrible wait times trying to form bands (which was only the case when I wasn't playing vocals because man finding pub vocalists was a bitch), and ended up clocking far more time in local multiplayer and selling people on buying bundles.
Neither one of us are really qualified to say which of us is truly representative of the population at large - and especially of the people pining for RB4.
I get that people are sour, and I would be too if a prized feature was cut, but people are essentially saying that Harmonix is doing this solely out of spite, because there's no other rationale that can be put forward for a decision like this if you reject the "it's too resource [time/money/developer] expensive to have it ready for launch relative to the sales it would bring at launch or later" business econ decision or the "it polled very poorly" marketing decision. I mean I wasn't happy when head-to-head was cut for RB3 but it was very clearly a $$$ decision and one that made sense, unless I convinced myself Harmonix was just lying about the feature's (lack of) popularity and cutting it because of, uh, something.
Yeah, I get you, Personally, I remember back in the day having huge problems with finding randoms with DLC, but nowadays it's completely different, I tend to get the odd person who hasn't even tried to look at the music store (doesn't have the free songs etc) which is more annoying than anything, but the average random now has at least a couple hundred songs. I found the online vocalist to be similar to my own experience playing locally, no one wants to sing, just play one of the instruments, bundles is a pretty big point, since with online play I know we just typically bought the instrument we were interested in and picked up the other stuff down the line, personally, i'm just bummed that it's looking likely that i'll not buy RB4, I was so hyped when songs came out this year, and then the annoucement and it's sad it came to this
To which I would ask: do we really think that's because there are more whales and/or revenue-generating players online than off, or because only the whales are left?
It's definitely disappointing it's not there because even though I don't play online at all anymore I'm sure I'd play with some of the C3 folks while I had my free months or w/e after I get around to buying an XB1.
Dreamwriter
Member
Just because *you* might think something is silly doesn't make it so. Personally I hated the drum fills the older games had, because I could rarely make them sound good, so it really hurt the song to have them done that way, it was a feature that made the game worse. And guitar's random wailing away at the end of certain songs was crappy too. This is a great new feature to have, I would rather have the base game improved and then online multiplayer added later, then to have the same old game with no changes, but launching with online multiplayer.
And sheesh, people buying 500, 1000, 2000 DLC songs?! That's insane to me to pay over $1000 for DLC for one game. Are you sure those people you are playing online with that many songs didn't pirate them? Because if they did, then of course those people weren't supporting Harmonix, weren't moneymakers at all...
Is it even possible to pirate songs for the PS3? I've never even heard of that, but no, nobody is pirating songs. I have around 1700 songs in total myself that I've accumulated over the years. And me thinking the solo gimmick is silly is my opinion, I never stated otherwise. If budget is so tight as they say, then I would have focused on the core features that has been a part of the series since the first game, not adding totally new ones.