Rocksmith discussion thread - New real guitar game.

[raynebc]

What Rock Band does, score you for playing notes and chords a specific way instead of just any way you like, cannot be done except with a method similar to what Harmonix chose with the Squier. Could Rock Band 4 ease up and do something like Rocksmith? Sure, but they can then no longer force you to play the song authentically, ie. the way that the song's artists do. They could display the suggested tablature though, and just score you on the pitches you actually produce from the guitar.

[mikeyts]

For those looking for an alternative to the Epiphone Les Paul or other cheap 'name brand' guitars, when I was looking into buying a Telecaster style guitar (before I got my MIM on craigslist) I read lots of good reviews about the SX and Agile guitars from Rondo Music. They supposedly have a very good value to price ratio. I think the SX teles you can get for something like $110 and the Agiles are a bit nicer and are in the low $200 range. From what I read, if you're looking for a Les Paul style guitar, the agiles are the best way to go, but if you want a tele, the cheaper SXs will do just fine.

Thanks for the tip--these guys make an amazing array of styles for even their least expensive models. I will definitely consider them.

[Doc_SoCal]

what's a djent?

Its a sound a guitar makes.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=djent

[tnevaker]

well, RB needs to expand it's audience or it will keep shrinking as it has been. i think the pro instruments, and pro guitar in particular, was an attempt to expand the appeal of RB beyond just the party game crowd or the hardcore button mashers, to people who actually want to learn instruments. that might be too small a niche to significantly enhance the game's appeal, but if it had been implemented better, we'd have a better idea of whether it could have succeeded or not. whatever RB's excuse for implementing pro guitar the way they did (and i don't buy the lag thing, RS seems to have proven the lag issue could be overcome, but who knows if HMX was even aware of or looked into licensing the technology that UBI licensed for RS?), i think the end result is that RB3 pro guitar ended up, at best, as a relatively insignificant niche that may well be overshadowed by this new game, and i can't think that's what they had in mind for it when they decided to put it in RB3.

[Funk-n-stein]

Thanks for the tip--these guys make an amazing array of styles for even their least expensive models. I will definitely consider them.

Yeah, I still get tempted to get one of their guitars even though I REALLY don't need another guitar. I'd do some research on various web forums for the styles you are interested in, I only looked into the Tele and Les Paul styles. Additionally, I've mostly heard about the SX and Agile lines, but not much about the Douglas line that is kind of in the middle of those two. I've heard that the owner of Rondo Music is pretty good with customer service and taking care of issues if there are any.

They have an e-bay store in addition to their website, sometimes you can find different colors on ebay than they have available on their site.


Edit: when bass support becomes available for Rocksmith, I will definitely be taking a close look at their Basses.

Edit #2: It's also worth noting that the Agile Les Paul and SG derivatives have set necks vs the bolt-on necks of the epiphones

[folkeye]

HMX knew only a small crowd would go for the guitar learning, and they tried it out. In all honesty I don't know if they can expand the audience anymore. RB3 to many felt like a big tech demo instead of solid game overall.

They don't always need something wildly different to attract people, but that's apparently how they're thinking in terms of RB. In that manner it's hit and miss. Those returning/continuing for something familiar won't find it... and if it keeps going the unregognizeable route it'll loose more if it goes further and further away. And unless the 'new' thing is the bestest thing ever, it'll be hard to get new players too.

As for Rocksmiths' popularity in the long run. Wait and see what happens. Don't worry too much about it totally covering up something in another game. Besides RS isn't going to compare itself to RB3, it's like buying a Lexus and them outright telling you the Toyota Avalon is a Lexus in disguise....business would probably drop.

[tnevaker]

What Rock Band does, score you for playing notes and chords a specific way instead of just any way you like, cannot be done except with a method similar to what Harmonix chose with the Squier. Could Rock Band 4 ease up and do something like Rocksmith? Sure, but they can then no longer force you to play the song authentically, ie. the way that the song's artists do. They could display the suggested tablature though, and just score you on the pitches you actually produce from the guitar.

requiring the player to play notes/chords in a specific position is overrated. with pro mode, we're dealing with actual music now, not just pressing buttons to get a score. who cares if the note gets played on a B string or an E string? does anyone ever listen to a song and say "that B chord played in 7th position sounded terrible, but if he'd played it at the 2nd fret instead it would've been AWESOME!"? nevermind the fact that pro mode itself is so lax that you can usually get away with only playing a few notes of a chord instead of the whole thing, not muting strings or chords that are supposed to be muted, etc. so in lots of ways, RB3 lets you get away with more "wrong" playing than RS, which scores you based on how you sound and not how you choose to produce that sound, does. and by forcing you to fret harmonics and not allowing you to bend notes, RB3 actually forces you to play the wrong notes a lot of the time as well.

[mikeyts]

What Rock Band does, score you for playing notes and chords a specific way instead of just any way you like, cannot be done except with a method similar to what Harmonix chose with the Squier. Could Rock Band 4 ease up and do something like Rocksmith? Sure, but they can then no longer force you to play the song authentically, ie. the way that the song's artists do. They could display the suggested tablature though, and just score you on the pitches you actually produce from the guitar.

It has been stated that RS can tell the difference between the open A string and the A produced at the 5th fret of the low E string, etc. Has anyone said that it will accept the open G chord when it asked for the barre chord that sounds similar?

RB3 pro guitar is a brilliant acheivement (and I think that the position wave notation is particularly cool), but it falls flat in terms of teaching people to play. You can do things while holding strings down at all the frets it's asking you to which will sound like crap if played aloud; you can get through an entire song playing in a fashion that would render the tune unrecognizable if you'd performed it out loud. Since you can't play out loud while playing the game for a score the player isn't encouraged to listen to himself play, whereas in RS he can't avoid it. To my mind, RS has far higher potential as a teaching tool. It gives me minigames and a slew of technique challenges; drills like these are something that I was looking for in RB3 which it largely failed to deliver.

On the other hand, RB3 ***** slaps RS in terms of presentation. Navigation through RS is bizarre and annoying. Dealing with its song list is hard now--I can't imagine what it'll be like when there are even 100 songs in my library, much less the 650-and-growing RB songs that I have now.

[selurevad]

On the other hand, RB3 ***** slaps RS in terms of presentation. Navigation through RS is bizarre and annoying. Dealing with its song list is hard now--I can't imagine what it'll be like when there are even 100 songs in my library, much less the 650-and-growing RB songs that I have now.

I'm sure the 3rd iteration of RS would be much improved here as well. Just hope its commercially successful and we get that far. Remember RB2 before the dlc cache (think it was RB2) ... those of us with a lot of RB DLC will never forget.

[raynebc]

It has been stated that RS can tell the difference between the open A string and the A produced at the 5th fret of the low E string, etc.

Generally, this has been said, but one of the many reviews I've read so far implied that this wasn't the case. Of course, that person may have needed to correct his/her guitar's intonation.

In terms of what the Squier is capable of, I do feel that RB3's pro guitar system leans toward the side of simulation instead of authentically playing the songs or learning guitar. I do love pro guitar as a whole though and don't see how Harmonix could have done it very differently without making the game largely unfamiliar to existing RB gamers. Screen space for multiplayer is one example. If Harmonix didn't have to keep the game playable for so many people at once, pro keys could have easily accepted six octaves and allowed for two handed keys charting.