Rock Band Recall??

[sven nilson]

OK, so at what point does HMX/EA/whoever say, "well, the game has been out for 10 days and there is obviously MAJOR MAJOR problems with our software and hardware . . . a recall of the product is in order here"?

This is extremely frustrating to say the least. Not only do I have a major lag problem with my drums and mic that I cannot get resolved, haven't seen a reply from HMX here, CS hasn't replied to my email. Now I have to worry about my strummer failing because it is obviously loose, my drum is having a tough time picking up beats, and now I have to play like an angel with this extremely fragile bass pedal.

I truly have enjoyed the game, at least what can be played and enjoyed, but these issues, which are all big-time issues, should have been hatched out before the product was rushed to the shelves for the Xmas shopping season.

Since I am not getting a response from HMX support, does anyone have any advice for fixing the lag issue? Will there be a patch in the works for this?

As far as the actual hardware, I will be sending it all back for replacements, but from what I have seen here, this is an issue in itself in getting the product replaced. Argh! Happy Holidays?!?!

-frustrated-

[ilikecheetos]

welcome to the club. frustrations all around.

[admanimal]

There are major problems with the software? That's news to me.

[Crouching Tiger]

There are definite software and hardware issues with the Rockband. I have been on the forums all day long and trying to get the game somewhat playable. Everything is off and I tried just about every suggested out there. At this point, I and totally frustrated and ready to throw the whole game out. I have a Samsung DLP 48in with a Yamaha htr-6030 home theater system.

My son and I are total gamers; we have every platform (xbox 360, ps3, wii) and are dedicated guitar hero players 1-3 and 80's and very devoted EA and harmonix fans; however I can tell you that with release, they totally lost our confidence and will most likely lose us as a customer - now and in the future. I cannot believe they did not know of the these problems prior to release - these are pretty significant problems and just about everyone that I know who brought this product has also expressed frustration. I think they need get back to customers with an fix ASAP or do a product recall.

Frustrated and Disappointed !
Crouching Tiger

[sven nilson]

Some sort of announcement on the main site would be nice. I think as customers paying top dollar for one of the most expensive games ever released to date, we are entitled to have some idea of what is going on.

I'm scared to play the thing anymore because it seems so fragile. Good thing I dont have kids playing the game, it would already be completely broken probably.

Major Sheesh!!!

[spblat]

[Harmonix] totally lost our confidence and will most likely lose us as a customer - now and in the future.
Nah. You'll buy the next HMX title as breathlessly as the rest of us, because no one else comes close to scratching your music video game itch as they do. I've been an HMX fan since Amplitude, and I'm frustrated too (with guitar quality and drum fill lag) but I'm sure within a few weeks or maybe a couple months this will have blown over.

One suggestion which has helped me (I have DLP too): don't go into options and simply tell it you have a DLP TV. Set the two calibration parameters manually. My settings are 0ms and 14ms and the single player drum lag is tolerable.

Don't get me wrong: I insist that HMX/MTV/EA sort this out by improving hardware quality, extending hardware warranty and issuing a software update. But even with these problems, this game is unbelievably awesome.

[admanimal]

Some sort of announcement on the main site would be nice.

How about in the Announcements section of this forum?...cause that's where they put an announcement about the hardware problems.

[Lucent Beam]

Nah. You'll buy the next HMX title as breathlessly as the rest of us, because no one else comes close to scratching your music video game itch as they do. I've been an HMX fan since Amplitude, and I'm frustrated too (with guitar quality and drum fill lag) but I'm sure within a few weeks or maybe a couple months this will have blown over. .

Yeah, same here.
So there's hardware problem... big deal, as long as we get replacements and can eventually play as we are supposed to. I love Harmonix and maybe I'm being too brand loyal, but Harmoix can do no wrong in my book.

[Crouching Tiger]

Hey, I'm a resonably patient person and willing to give EA/HMX a fair chance but really, the products are cheap and they needed a lot more QA before the release. All I'm asking for is a product that is reliable and with some decent support! I feel like we are part of a "beta program" and we actually paid $200 to be part of it. I am an engineer and can self support with just about anything electronic but after 2 days of frustration and basically no support other then "just give us your credit card and we'll expedite your replacement" before they even know what the problem is - is hardly what I expected from this company. It's amazing that there hasn't been a recall on this product, the 3 friends that I know who purchased this (waiting in line for over 1 hour) basically all told me the same thing, they could not get the game to reliably work. I suspect there will be a lot of unhappy customers and they basically said they will cancel their orders on the CC since they cannot return it back to the store and the warranty program is really nonsense because they are going to send you the same cheap product that's going to fail. That's 3 for 3 of the friends that I know who purchased Rockband. I'm considering trashing the whole system with a sledge hammer and video taping it and putting it on youtube so at least I get some satisfaction out of this whole transaction and hopefully send a message to other potential "beta users" out there before they shell out $200 of their hard earned money.

[Adamalicious]

The fact that you think the game costs $200 casts serious aspersions on your credibility. Regardless, I don't think a recall is appropriate at this point - it doesn't make sense unless they can identify a range of batch numbers that have certain problems. At this point we have no idea what percentage of controllers even have problems - of course it seems high because if you go on the internet talk about it it's probably not because everything is rosy and you just wanted to make sure everyone knows. I know two people other than myself personally that got the game on day one and between the three of us there is one bad guitar. My is sometimes too sensitive in turning on Overdrive, but that's it for me - and at this point we don't have any confirmation that that is a defect.

I know I would be pissed if I was having the sort of problems that I'm hearing about, but I think they are handling it as best they can.

[Crouching Tiger]

Hey you can think whatever you what, I actually paid more over considering it cost $183.16 with CA tax and it cost over $20 for parking to get to the mall to purchase it. So I rounded it off to $200 - what's the big deal. The fact of the matter is the product is cheap and it doesn't work and the support is bad. So, you can think whatever; but the product is not worth $200 and if they want to have some credibility in the market place, the sooner they communicate and respond to a bad product, the better. They can only stick their heads in the sand for so long. If you want to support such a company- go for it, as for myself and my friends, we're done.

Crouching Tiger

[sven nilson]

. . . and between the three of us there is one bad guitar.

That's a 33% failure rate. That is NOT good or acceptable from a retail corportaion.

[rayman147]

Unfortunately, I totally agree with the OP. I rarely register for forums and I only did so here so I can voice my complete disappointment with my purchase of Rock Band. Here's my story – I talked the game up with friends, waited for it, and eagerly put my $170 down. Worked fine for about 2 days, then the yellow pad on the drums crapped out – I was able to verify that it was a poor connection to the piezo sensor (bad solder connection), which I was able to fix myself (temporarily) by gently moving the wire connected to the sensor. Didn't matter, though – a day later the blue pad died, and no such luck in identifying the problem. Most likely it would require removing the sensor to re-solder, which I am unwilling to do (voiding my warranty).

Okay, no problem. Bad stuff happens. So I (optimistically) called EA to arrange for a replacement, and was happy when I was told that they would 2-day ship out a replacement with a ~$100.00 hold on my credit card. Despite missing several planned game parties with friends, 2 business days didn't seem too bad – that's a very good and very fair replacement program. However, here it is, over 5 business days later, and UPS still shows no package received (basically, a shipping label was printed but I am SOL).

I love HMX and their games, they are superior to GH3 in almost every regard – but these peripherals are •awful•. It IS the holiday season, and I've already missed several key opportunities to play the game with friends at Thanksgiving and since (I have 2 X-plorer guitars and can play the guitar/singing parts, but I bought this for the drums primarily). From reading these forums I have no real hope that the replacements being sent out right now are improved in any meaningful way. I've also experienced the audio lag problems mentioned in a couple of the threads here.

I am going to try to take this back to the retailer – and unless you are a much more optimistic person than me, I'd suggest you try to do the same if you are having these problems. A 60 day warranty isn't enough. When (if?) my replacement drums arrive, I'll be sending them right back. I tried to call EA support to request it be cancelled but was disconnected (within the voice mail system) 6 times in a row.

When there has been a meaningful revision to the peripherals, which I have no doubt there will be, I'll be right there to re-purchase Rock Band. :/ It is a terrific game, but QC should have caught these peripheral issues first; the fact that those pink "STOP - don't return" slips were in the packaging only reinforces my belief that these were shipped to stores with some knowledge of the manufacturing flaws. It sucks because I truly think that this is a platform that (when working) provides more fun than I've ever had playing video games. I hope HMX/MTV/EA can weather this storm, and has the sense to at least consider a recall. Perhaps I'm actually in the minority, and most folks' peripherals are fine – I'm broad-minded enough to concede that it might be the case. However, I can only imagine the bad PR storm which would result if a significant number of these RB bundles are defective when opened at Christmas.

[Eman311]

Yea there are issues with the hardware, but I wouldn't call it major.

[jaredstokes]

I am ready for a recall.

[HPLabonte]

yeah, the software issues are terrible. they made the game... um.. too perfect softwareside. where the hell ate the glitches that I can exploit to get 100 million fans!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[sven nilson]

Again, I think the game (when working properly) is awesome . . . there is no other to compare it to. But with as many flaws as are being reported (and those thousands that haven't or those hundreds of thousands that wont be realized until Xmas morn and after), something of this magnitude really deserves HMX/EA to step up to the plate, admit the error, initiate a recall, and save their face. A decision of some sort needs to be made fast because alot of people are getting angry; it seems there are big-time communication/blame issues going on internally among HMX/EA. Someone needs to man up, and that party will be the one that gains alot of folks' respect back. Time is running out though. There are going to be alot of unhappy campers Xmas day and shortly after.

Oh, and after 3 days of emails and phone calls, I still haven't gotten a reply or spoken to a real person yet regarding the lag issue with the drums/mic. I'm sure their support team is absolutely overwhelmed, thus even more the reason they should make an announcement and initiate the recall. And no, there is nothing posted in the announcements forum regarding any of this.

[Melkite445]

Poor pooch, he got screwed so bad..

Oh, and so did we outta 169.99 + tax !

FIX OUR ****!

[Delmonte]

Yea there are issues with the hardware, but I wouldn't call it major.

Several people I work with have purchased Rock band and every one of them has had to go through the warranty process on at least one peripheral already. Myself I've received (so far) three non-working drum kits. How is that not major? Are we all just "really unlucky"? How many people does it take to make it major? There have been dozens just on this forum. And how many sets purchased haven't even been opened yet (i.e. Christmas gifts) and so those units sold don't even know IF they have problems yet.

This reminds me of the wide-spread issues when the xbox 360 first came out. Was that not major either just because some people didn't have issues (I didn't have issues with mine so I should have called it minor right?)? How long did it take Microsoft to admit there were problems and extend their warranty? A long freaking time.

[Baroo]

I took mine back to best buy after the bass drum pedal snapped, now my drum pads aren't registering all of my hits.

So I traded out a perfectly good set of drums to replace a defectivily designed drum pedal.

If you truly believe there is "no big issues" with this plastic garbage they call a bass drum pedal, I feel sorry for you.

Trying playing the drums on expert on any of the hardest level songs, and see how long your flimsy plastic bass pedal will last.

Try having a few friends over to play, and watch how fast they break it.

Even if it is "only a toy" it was never built to with stand the punishment that the game dishes out in the harder difficulties. I guarantee after 6 months if you play the drums with any skill at all, your drum pedals WILL be broken if you don't modify them in some way shape or form.

So now I'm going to just send these drums back if the continue to miss beats.

I was scoring 98% + with my old set, now on the exact same songs I'm lucky to get 90% because the freaking hits don't register.

I barely touched my last guitar and th strum bar was already feeling loose.

1 word explains this hardware "CHEAP" !!!!

:mad: