Why do you play RB? Scoring or Band Simulation/Touring?

[mikeyts]

I didn't mean to in any way imply that people can't improve their game play skills while being more concerned with other aspects on the game. Repeating the term "skill building" in the responses consumed too much space.

I personally enjoy playing the charts and getting better at playing the charts. 99.9% of the time I spend playing this game is solo quickplay and I've never played with more than one other person (my housemate/landlord, who introduced me to it) and I've never played online. Come to think of it, it's exactly the way that I play piano--I never play with or for anyone and actually prefer if no one's around to hear me. I play because I enjoy playing and listening to the music and because it's relaxing, and I play RB the same way and for much the same reasons.

[Obi_Wan_Kenoli]

Thanks for the clarification. The question sounded loaded but you cleared it up.

I think everyone that plays the game enjoys playing the charts. That's just gets thrown around by people that can't understand how others can like different game aspects than they do.

It boils down to approaching the game from a "conquering the song" perspective, and playing the game, conquering the song being a byproduct of that.

It's amazing how fun practice can be if it doesn't feel like it. Whether they realized it or not, players going through World Tour tooling up bands got just as much practice as they would going through practice mode or quickplay.

It's just too bad they couldn't incorporate some of the fun modes and metagame stuff they had going on previously into the latest game. While the pro mode and keys are an innovative victory for entering the series, everything lost makes it more of a pyrrhic victory.

But interacting with the game as you did, you won't miss those aspects, in fact you may even think the experience is better as the game was almost tuned to your playstyle exclusively.

I don't think it's unfair to assume that I was going to get everything the other games had, plus the what was added, as opposed to the new stuff coming at the cost of the main things I enjoyed. So yes, I like playing charts. I just liked the game aspects that surrounded that core of playing charts more.

[J-Roc-Drumz]

I enjoy interacting with the music. It makes me feel like i'm playing it without actually playing it, ya know? Regardless of how hard the chart is. But sometimes that makes it kind of suck not being able to play Expert Guitar too good, so it misses some of that whole interaction thing for me. Though I still try with no-fail on. Unless i'm playing with people, for the sake of them hearing the guitar instead of the noise it makes when missing notes constantly lol. (solos are just too hard for me)

I just recently got into the vocals thing, and it's pretty awesome lol. Though I only like singing songs I like cause I can really get into it then. So I don't really sing online at all.


I like the stuff that comes along with it and whatnot. Creating characters, challenges, getting better scores. But I mainly got into it for feeling like I was playing something. Which was the drums at first. Now i'm having tons of fun playing the other instruments for that same reason. And that's the reason I still play and buy new music i've never heard of, but dig the sound.

[jeccaneko]

Band simulation is mostly it for me. I just want to see my characters and use them the way I want to while I play the game. Skill building/score is important too, but not nearly as much. I'd say the enjoying the music aspect matters much, more more than score or skill.

For "touring", I don't really care. I just want to see my characters. The only reason I hated quickplay in RB2 is I was forced to see randoms for non-player controlled parts. Now I can see my characters all the time in RB3. I love that. But they took away some character options in the process, so it's sort of a bittersweet victory.

[SamStone]

It's 80% about the music, 10% scoring and 10% band simulation.

In other words, I'm rather fond of the characters in my band, and I'll check the leaderboards occasionally when one of my better attempts cracks the top 100 or something, but mostly I'm there to sit back and play along with my favorite tunes.

I used to sit and listen to music in the dark, now I get to play along, and it makes it better. More immersive and more illuminating. When you're playing a plastic guitar or bass or drums, you really get to know the parts well, and hear how they're really interacting with the other instruments in the song.

No, the playing technique is not the same, but you have to actually listen hard to the song in a very specific way, and your brain pulls out information you might otherwise never have heard.

It's fascinating to hear parts emerge out of songs I've been listening to for decades and realize that I'd never really heard what the bass guitar was doing, or that little glockenspiel keeping time way in the background of the mix. It brings enjoyment of the songs to a new level.

And my band has the best name ever: Wondrous Glowing Squid. It's a long story.

[MaRkiSH]

Fun.

[mikeyts]

It's amazing how fun practice can be if it doesn't feel like it. Whether they realized it or not, players going through World Tour tooling up bands got just as much practice as they would going through practice mode or quickplay.

It's just too bad they couldn't incorporate some of the fun modes and metagame stuff they had going on previously into the latest game. While the pro mode and keys are an innovative victory for entering the series, everything lost makes it more of a pyrrhic victory.

But interacting with the game as you did, you won't miss those aspects, in fact you may even think the experience is better as the game was almost tuned to your playstyle exclusively.

I don't think it's unfair to assume that I was going to get everything the other games had, plus the what was added, as opposed to the new stuff coming at the cost of the main things I enjoyed. So yes, I like playing charts. I just liked the game aspects that surrounded that core of playing charts more.

I'm not always about playing for the highest score. Recently I've been playing through the expert bass charts of the RB3 on-disc songs to unlock the related goals. I'm sight reading them once will the sole goal of hitting the required 3 stars. It's been really relaxing and I surprised myself by GS'ing two "Challenging" and one "Nightmare" song on my no-pressure sight read .

The charts of some songs just feel soooo good to play. Currently my favorites are the expert guitar charts of "Blow at High Dough" (love the song) and "Wings of Infinity" (don't love the song, but it's listenable and kind of catchy). I also enjoy "Anna Maria (All We Need)" and "Rain Falls Down" (though I'm a little ashamed to admit liking some We The Kings emo tunes ) and "Get Free" by The Vines (the opening theme of one of my all time favorite video games, the original Top Spin on Xbox, so it takes me back to fond memories of playing that).

For all of those and some other songs it doesn't so much matter how well I score; it just feels good in some undefinable way to play their charts.

I don't think that it's better for the mucking up the stuff that you band-sim/touring people liked so much--I never bother with that stuff and it never got in my way. (I usually create one character to represent me. I do like that now I'm always playing with the stand-ins that I designated and don't ever have to see the more bizarre characters; I don't pay much attention to my band while I'm playing, but I do see them during lulls in the chart, more frequent now that the guitar is never mapped to keys. I never bother to change their clothing or instruments).

[Redskinsrock2689]

bump

DATS IRREGAL BAWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Seriously though, bumping for the sake of bumping is illegal on these forums... I think its a stupid rule too.

[uppyb0t]

I just love music in general. I love the ambience of Rock Band and the feeling of being in a band. I've played shows before and it's a great feeling to be on the stage with people enjoying your music.

Plus playing music is just exciting. It's a really great feeling to play with people and connect.

I also like to always improve and Rock Band features genres and beats you typically wouldn't play or learn on your own time or have a chance to explore. I've learned quire a few techniques from the game.

They're not all completely transferrable, but definately help. I just live for music, period, so this game comes naturally to enjoy.

With it comes high score and I've found myself getting in the top 20 of the leaders quite frequently, so it's also a fun scorebuilding game when you're already enjoying doing it.

[J-Roc-Drumz]

To sum up my lil statement. For me, playing RB is like air drumming/guitaring with a purpose/guidline, lol.