Online Annoyances (PS3 / Single Player based)

[JShmazzle]

First of all, if this has been posted before, sorry... I don't check the forum every day.

Second, I don't have a headset, and I'm not sure if you can chat pre/post song playing?

Third, I've got a couple buddies with Rock Band on PS3, and while we'll send the occasional invite, I haven't been able to hook up via that, so maybe that would also be easier...


That being said, online play at the moment is super annoying as a single drummer. I'll usually get online sometime later in the night by myself, and since I'm currently into drum playing, that's what I'll enter as.

99% of the time, I end up being the band leader. My guess is (from getting online with other instruments) that everyone is playing drums at the moment. Here's where the annoyances come into play.

As a band leader, I can usually get one guitar player pretty quickly. Once the two of us are in the lobby, most of the time it'll take a bit to get another guitar player, and an extremely long time to try and wait for a vocalist. Half the time, the lone guitar player ends up not wanting to wait, and I have to start over. I'd like to have at least 2 other people playing with me every song (I don't care the combination of instruments), so I like to wait. Is that rude? I don't think so.

A fair amount of time, I'll get a guitar player and vocalist to enter together on the same machine. Fantastic, right? Since you can never know people's music taste, I always hit random right away, and play whatever song comes up. The problem is, as a drummer/leader, the vocalist always gets angry and gets out because they don't want to sing the song.

Even if I end up with a full band and I'm leader, after one or two songs everyone starts dropping out (and no, it's not because I suck, because I don't) and I have to start the process all over again.

I find myself playing as a single guitarist, just so I can get online with a bunch of peeps and they can pick the song (I don't really care what I play, I'm good at everything).


So- it would seem there's a couple solutions to the problem:

1. Play as a single guitarist/vocalist. While guitar playing is fine (I play expert), I'd rather play drums. And I think I'm completely tone deaf, so singing is out, though it is fun... Just need to keep practicing.

2. HARMONIX - PATCH ONLINE PLAY TO BE ABLE TO TRANSFER BAND LEADERSHIP DUTIES (I'm sure that's been suggested before). Playing with my buddies at the house, we always have the singer choose the song, it makes for a better experience.

3. Better friend / chat system - Just some way to figure out what we want to do, so I'm not picking songs everyone hates.

4. Online conventions. Am I missing something here? Or is everyone else? Does everyone need to have some sort of modicum of online etiquette to make the whole thing successful?



I'd like to play online a whole lot more as a single, it just takes too much time to get the right situation. And once I do, the band usually breaks up after just a few songs.

What do you guys think?


p.s. Feel free to add me on your PS3 and we can hook up - PSN ID: JShmazzle

[DesiredFX]

I generally play Guitar/Bass online...sometimes vocals.

The first thing I can tell you is that, yes, there appear to be more drummers out there than anything else--not surprising, since it's the newest aspect of the game.

Vocalists appear to be rare as hen's teeth unless they're playing with someone (generally a drummer...see above).

What I would suggest if you only end up with a guitar/bass player is to give it about 30 seconds, then go play a song with just the two of you. After the song, come back out to the lobby and search for another 30 seconds. Repeat until you've filled out your band.

Most players would rather play with a full complement, so they'll understand why you keep hopping out to the lobby and stick with you while you do it.

The leader thing is kind of unfortunate--it puts the whole online experience in the hands of one person, which can make it difficult for others. I actually broke my own rule of "have patience" the other day when we got to the song list and the leader scrolled up and down it for about 90 seconds without picking anything.

The PS3 definitely needs voice chat integration ASAP.

[milhouse]

Yeah, I agree. I like playing bass online. I usually end up as the leader. I don't care what song we play. I'd gladly let someone else (the singer) pick.

milrog88 on PSN. Find me and we'll be the rhythm section of doom!

[Wanny1]

Hey can you use a bluetooth mic to talk to people on the lobby?

[SSPWOLF]

Ouch on the voice chat thingy.... that sucks if PS3 doesn't support it.

Some advice I have for dealing with it though...

1) singers are pretty rare online. If you get one, and there's no way for you to communicate with them.. I'd stick to singer-friendly songs. It's no fun for an expert guitar player to have to play Creep and Say It Ain't So and Celebrity Skin all night... and the drummers don't wanna play Wanted Dead Or Alive every three minutes... but most people who choose to be vocalists primarily aren't metal heads. They don't wanna do Timmy, Blackened, and Run To The Hills all night long. Singers also probably don't want to do songs like GGaHT and Foreplay every other song either. If you can't communicate with the singer then pick a song like "When You Were Young" and see what difficulty they are on. If they are on medium (which most singers seem to be) you probably don't want to hit them with "So Sick" and stuff like that.

[riginal]

PS3 definitely needs voice chat. I'll pretty much play any of the songs, when I'm the leader I'd like to know what the others want to play. Also, I need to be able to mention when I've got to go, and don't want it to just seem that I randomly leave. Plus I want to know if the others mind waiting for a full band or not.

We also need the ability to add people we meet to an in-game friends list. Alot of the players online suck to play with (either playing on too high of a difficulty and failing or leaving after just one song). When I find someone that I play several songs with I want to be able to easily find and play with them later.

[MaximusDM]

Lobbies. The first game I ever played online on a home console was SOCOM. And that game had lobbies. It is simple thing in logic, but I suppose it is more difficult now because of the different type of connections there are out there but Warhawk ironed them out. Had there been lobbies I think it would less like I am "fishing" for players. I go on to play-- it takes longer with drums-- I get into a room and pick a song everyone picks medium, I either leave or go back to the party screen if I am host and boot everyone and then go fishing again. Yeah, I have a few friends, they mostly play the single player though-- as do I but after I am done I like to play a few games with a full band sometimes they are not online at all and when they are sometimes they can't get into my game anyway.

I wish there were lobbies so I could easily find expert players.

Yeah, and no voice chat is a major pain. I barely feel like I am playing with a band when I can't even communicate. Like what songs they want to play or what DLC they have so I know who to boot so I can play some DLC songs together or what difficulty they are play right before going to the choose difficulty screen. It is a pretty big part of the experience of online gaming and pretty much a standard in many games.

[DesiredFX]

Ouch on the voice chat thingy.... that sucks if PS3 doesn't support it.

Just to clarify: the PS3 does support voice chat--it's part of the base system and several games have it integrated.

Rock Band--probably for reasons related to development time constraints--currently isn't one of those games. Strikes me as odd given that a) the game comes with a microphone and b) they made the choice to only allow one person control over the online set list--that choice makes some form of online chat a necessity.

I've tried a few tricks myself to make up for the lack: I named my guitarist "Share Bass Play" so that people will know that I don't mind playing bass, but I don't want to be the only one playing it. When I have to leave a band I enjoyed playing with, I will take note of at least one of the PSN IDs (another thing RB needs to do is use the PS3's "Players Met" feature to track the people we meet online) and shoot out a friend invitation or just a message saying I had a great time playing but had to take off.

None of the options are ideal, and since the features that RB is missing are already built into the PS3's operating system--which RB uses for player invitations--I'm hoping it's not too long before we see voice chat and the Players Met feature integrated into the game.



I wish there were lobbies so I could easily find expert players.

Based on what I've seen about Home, a "real" lobby isn't that far away...

[stevea1210]

I don't even really play online. It isn't fun. I feel like I'm playing with some AI bots. Without communication between the band, I don't feel like they are real people. I really hope this gets corrected in RB, and we don't have to wait for RB2