Rock Band Making Believers out of Skeptics

[capitalfn9]

I told 4 of my friends who thought that guitar hero was superior to Rock Band to watch that streaming video last night as soon as it was over all 4 of them called/im'd me and asked if they could still preorder. Needless to say they will be camping out with me. As soon as they saw GG&HT on expert they were believers. All the songs from the stream looked like a blast though.

[lowlyspartan789]

I wish someone had saved the stream. Come on guys. Really?

[capitalfn9]

people are scorehero have been asking if he saved it or not but he hasnt answered... im sure hes sleeping since he was up playing till almost 7am est

[Xenoburst]

I wish someone had saved the stream. Come on guys. Really?

Half way through Ballroom Blitz I thought to myself "I should save this".

Needless to say I didn't, but I blame that entirely on my wandering mind at 2am.

[Apples]

Hey, its not only making believers out of skeptics... it's making the believers into downright crazy holy-praise-Jesus zealots. :D

More seriously, it's satisfying to be vindiciated in the face of the early RB critics. And it's also satisfying for us all here who had the foresight and vision to understand this awesome concept from its inception.

[Eman311]

It will pop up again soon I bet.

[capitalfn9]

Hey, its not only making believers out of skeptics... it's making the believers into downright crazy holy-praise-Jesus zealots. :D

can't argue with that quote.... for anyone who was watching last night, WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAAM

[ThePaska]

It will pop up again soon I bet.

I hope so, I sadly missed it.

Rock Band has that power over people, no one could possibly dislike it. Unless they're crazy of course.

[Pandacon]

What is this stream ya'll be talking about, I feel like I missed something.

edit: nm, found the thread.

[Xenoburst]

can't argue with that quote.... for anyone who was watching last night, WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAAM

I still like when he activated Overdrive by going "Bebelybebely bebebebebly" better, but yeah that Wham bam part became a running joke that was hilarious.

[bounchfx]

the fact that anyone could still believe GH is superior at all is just downright confusing.

[capitalfn9]

(for those who missed it, he accidentally forgot to do the wham bam line in suffragette city so to make up for it he started activating overdrive with it on random songs and it was hilarious)

[DannyBoy]

What are you guys talking about?

[Xenoburst]

What are you guys talking about?

A dude that did like 2 hours of live feed while playing Rock Band. It was awesome.

Almost a spiritual experience.

[DannyBoy]

Damn, that would've been great to watch. Where was the stream?

[HeXcoda]

the fact that anyone could still believe GH is superior at all is just downright confusing.

Well, there's two things you can attribute this to.

1. Misinformation. The typical internet slang for Rock Band is "it's too easy", despite US knowing that it's pretty much on par with Guitar Hero for difficulty. For the hardcore, score-chasing Guitar Hero fans, that'd make Rock Band look inferior.

2. Pricing and desire. This one's a bit more legitimate; some people just aren't interested in the mics, the drums, or the multiplayer aspects. Again, the hardcore, score-chasing GH fan would fall in this camp. If they don't have the cash or the interest, it's easy to say GH is superior... because it is, for what THEY want out of a game.

But I firmly believe if you show someone a session with four people jamming and having a good time, the rest sorts itself out. It won't convince people who hate people or hate drums or something, but everybody else will be on board fast.

[Electric_Zen]

I wish Harmonix would stop locking threads where people answer questions about the game.

What's the point? People are going to talk about it anyway, so you would think that Harmonix would rather have the discussion occur on boards they operate, instead of ScoreHero and Something Awful.

[stiper327b]

I think Rock Band is gonna interest a lot of people the same way the original GH did. Regular mainstream folks aren't gonna be sold by watching videos, or watching other people play. They're gonna have to play it for themselves, hopefully as part of an ensemble, before they're gonna "get" it.

The first GH worked the same way. I would see the demo stations at Best Buy or whatever, and invariably there'd be some kid flailing through easy and my roommate at the time would just scoff, and I wasn't quite sold either. But after playing a demo myself, and then buying it, and playing it non-stop for about 2 months, I not only fell in love with it, but I convinced nearly everyone around me about its inherent awesomeness. Now, all of my friends, and a good chunk of my family, are GH fans.

RB will work the same way, and I'm making it my own personal mission to re-convert everyone into RB fanatics. Which shouldn't be too hard because once they get their mitts on it, it really shouldn't be that hard at all.

[NotorietyH]

It won't convince people who hate people...

Lol, you never know, Rock Band could be the key to curing many a sociopath, leading many of people to wistfully think "If only Ted Bundy had Rock Band..."

[tbradshaw]

I wish Harmonix would stop locking threads where people answer questions about the game.

What's the point? People are going to talk about it anyway, so you would think that Harmonix would rather have the discussion occur on boards they operate, instead of ScoreHero and Something Awful.

I don't know for sure, but I imagine that there might be a liability issue. Harmonix can't support the breakage of release dates with the terms of their distribution agreement(s), and allowing conversation on the issue in their own forums might constitute that.

That's my guess anyway. They aren't banning or anything, but making an honest effort to avoid that until the release (only 3ish days away!! yiyeah!) is the safer bet.

[SmokaCola]

I saw a good ammount of songs last night on expert, let me tell you man. Even though that kid did vocals and guitar hard/expert and expert/expert. The guitar parts aren't easy. It's certainly not a ****ed up charting as GH3, but it will definitely give you a challenge but also be fun. And Green Grass & High Tides... Well last night someone said it was the equivalent of Jordan raping Freebird and GG&HT would be the baby, They were right.

[MdubMedia]

so...I'm pissed I missed the stream. Did anyone save it????

[BodhiWolff]

Description is good. Watching is better. Experience is best.

I remember when GH came out. I described it to my wife. She thought it was a nifty idea. I watched a clip of it on TV with my wife, on a game-review show. She thought it looked pretty fun. A friend brought it over to play. He left, and she *immediately* started researching the cost of PS2's, with every intention to buy.

After a long, ridiculously convoluted story (involving the purchase of a Wii to be "next generation", in anticipation of GH2, which turned out to be GH3, which we bailed on in order to get Rock Band, which meant we had to pick up an Xbox 360) we find ourselves with a new system, a new game, and on the threshold of being the ones ready to showcase it to our friends.

I've described it to my friends. They thought it was interesting.
I've had them look up videos on Youtube. They thought it looked pretty fun.

Just wait until I get them to play it ...

////////

Now, for the Guitar Hero Fanbois out there, who are only interested in (a) Guitar, or (b) Scores, or (c) competition, then rockband simply won't cut it. They won't see the point. They really, truly won't understand why anybody would pay that much money, why they'd take a step *down* in difficulty (arguable) and a step away from the hardcore guitar-thrash music (agreed) to try to please everybody. You can't *win* if you can't score higher than the other guy! You can't compare scores if you're playing different instruments! How do you tell if drums are harder than guitar! It isn't fair that vocalists are *born* with the ability to sing, 'cause I had to practice to be able to play this well! Once you get 100% on a song, why play it again? You beat it! Buying a game where you're more likely to beat the songs more quickly than ones where you'll need to work at it for weeks longer is just silly, 'cause once you're done, then what is the point?!

For these people, there will be no convincing. Don't bother.

And also, don't worry about it. I mean, realistically, would *you* want one of them to be in your band? Would you want your lead guitarist to be that uptight if you mess up the lyrics, or if you screw up on the drums? Could you do an *entire* BWT, all the way to the point where you're in front of millions of international fans after getting off your private jet, if the entire way you had to practice, and work, and worry?

Fun is defined differently for different people, and it is best if you don't try to "cross the streams" too much.

So let the Guitar Hero 3 fans compete on the leaderboards, and knock each other out and break each other's guitar strings, and enjoy their fun. Let them drink the blood of their enemies, and carve the name of their vanquished foes into their amps as they sit on a throne of broken Rock Dreams. That's their thing.

For the rest of us, we have RockBand.

So what if we don't have hand-crampingly difficult chords that make little-to-no sense. So what if the song choices actually (gasp!) reflect a realistic cross-section of rock music in the past 4 decades! So what if you can't actually empirically compare the difficulty between instruments, and just have to "go with the flow", and agree that everybody's instrument scores its own way, and you work together within the system to get a group score total. Oh yeah ... and that the score in the song itself is only *part* of the game, 'cause BWT is, like, an actual game, y'know?

We'll have more of our type of fun than they'll have of their type of fun ... I am *sure* of it!

[deepbluevibes]

I'm still getting rock band, but to be honest, it still kinda sucks that there's not anything hard on drums outside of DLC.

(before you say yes, there is, i've talked to a few people who've seen the expert drum charts and they know my skill at drum music games like drummania, they've confirmed there's nothing extremely hard).

So i'm still sorta skeptical but it's still going to be fun; hopefully in the future they'll put out some drum charts on equal difficulty with Green Grass's guitar notes.

[Electric_Zen]

Harmonix can't support the breakage of release dates with the terms of their distribution agreement(s), and allowing conversation on the issue in their own forums might constitute that.

Fortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case. Apples has set up a sanctioned topic for this type of discussion:

http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=7850

[espher]

And Green Grass & High Tides... Well last night someone said it was the equivalent of Jordan raping Freebird and GG&HT would be the baby, They were right.

I'm pretty sure I could call Maury and get him to run the DNA tests and we all know that Jordan would be the father.

[InsaneGame]

And Green Grass & High Tides... Well last night someone said it was the equivalent of Jordan raping Freebird and GG&HT would be the baby, They were right.

What the hell did I miss last night by going to bed!? I feel alittle dead inside now...

[espher]

What the hell did I miss last night by going to bed!? I feel alittle dead inside now...

You missed all of the difficulty critics getting bent over, that's what you missed.

[InsaneGame]

You missed all of the difficulty critics getting bent over, that's what you missed.

SO expert is actually a challenge?

[espher]

SO expert is actually a challenge?

The upper tier definitely so, and definitely not artificially so.

[tmanrocks]

What streamed?

[bumbousdude25]

Man, somebody had BETTER have saved this... wait, what am I saying? I can wait 3 more days... maybe... :rolleyes:

[R0ck3r]

Man, somebody had BETTER have saved this... wait, what am I saying? I can wait 3 more days... maybe... :rolleyes:

Wow... I am going to be up for a long long time. Not too long ago I ordered a guitar (off of eBay) because it was $100 cheaper than normal and they said it was used. When the guitar came in, it was brand new and I had got it for $100 cheaper. Anyway... on the day it was supposed to be coming in (and did) I basically lived in front of the door waiting for it to come in. FedEx came first by like 40 minutes and then UPS got here by 8 pm and I finally got the guitar. Also I too want to see this video. Thursdays are boring for me so I just watched a little TV, went outside, played GH3.

[hardyfoster]

i get tired of reading people complaining about the difficulty.

1. harmonix choose easy songs through challenging songs.

2. THE POINT isn't to make a hard song, the POINT is to duplicate a song via the notechart.
if you want something that is hard and doesn't make any sense, you can have a program generate random note charts for that purpose.

it's like someone mentioned before,
some people only want difficulty
while others want to enjoy the music