A Couple Questions

[Ragin_Caucasion]

So having just gotten Blitz and loving it (after figuring out how to get more than just the demo songs), I just have a few lingering questions.

1) I play offline due to not being able to get an ethernet cable out to my living room, am I completely locked out from power-ups, even the basic ones?

2) Is it possible/feasible to get 5 stars without power-ups? I may just suck at the game, but it is surprising when I can only get 4 stars max so far.

Thanks for any help!

[Doc_SoCal]

1) No Rock Central means no coins and no RBB cred so I don't think you can level up to power ups at all.

2) I am pretty sure I have 5 starred songs with no power ups.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

It's possible but quite difficult. You basically have to be in Blitz mode the whole song, or very nearly the whole song.

I'm not good enough for that

I take it you have a hookup elsewhere (else, how did you download the game). Do be aware that ridonkulously long ethernet cables exist (and plenty of lengths shorter than this one too). So, keep that in mind if you want to go online.

[Dangimarocker]

So having just gotten Blitz and loving it (after figuring out how to get more than just the demo songs), I just have a few lingering questions.

1) I play offline due to not being able to get an ethernet cable out to my living room, am I completely locked out from power-ups, even the basic ones?

2) Is it possible/feasible to get 5 stars without power-ups? I may just suck at the game, but it is surprising when I can only get 4 stars max so far.

Thanks for any help!

i got my Ethernet cable going from my dining room (which is a computer room now upstairs, all the way down to my basement.. ) so i'm 100% sure you can get an ethernet cable to a room in the same level *of course put it under flooring if possible?*

[lazyhoboguy]

1) No Rock Central means no coins and no RBB cred so I don't think you can level up to power ups at all.

2) I am pretty sure I have 5 starred songs with no power ups.

Wow. I really really hate when games rely on internet connections in order for parts of the game to work. They need to make this game work fully even if you are offline. What happens if the rockband servers go down temporarily, or when they inevitably go down for good years down the road?. You can't earn powerups basically unless connected to the internet? That is awful. If I am paying you guys for a game. It better work offline as well as online. I am not completely sure as I've jut bought the game, but it seems as if you have to buy each powerup once before you can use it. So if you cant earn coins or rockband cred while offline, the game is broken really. If you want high scores it seems you need to have a powerup equipped in each slot.

Correct me if I am wrong then, but it appears as you don't need to re-buy the same powerups to use them each song, so I guess if you played the game long enough to earn enough coins/blitz cred to unlock all the powerups once and then you were offline forever after that you'd have no problem? But still, a dumb dumb system if you cannot unlock the full game that you paid money for if you aren't online.

[Bront20]

To address your cable issues, either long cables (I've got a 1000' spool of Cat 5 cable in my garage. You can make some pretty long cables if you need to), or wifi (either get a wireless adapter, or a second router if your device is not wifi capable, or just get a wifi router if that's your issue). It's ultimately not that expensive. I use wireless for my PS3 for everything and have no issues (I even tried wired, didn't reduce lag on any games that tracked it).

[Magnet]

Wow. I really really hate when games rely on internet connections in order for parts of the game to work. They need to make this game work fully even if you are offline. What happens if the rockband servers go down temporarily, or when they inevitably go down for good years down the road?. You can't earn powerups basically unless connected to the internet? That is awful. If I am paying you guys for a game. It better work offline as well as online. I am not completely sure as I've jut bought the game, but it seems as if you have to buy each powerup once before you can use it. So if you cant earn coins or rockband cred while offline, the game is broken really. If you want high scores it seems you need to have a powerup equipped in each slot.

Correct me if I am wrong then, but it appears as you don't need to re-buy the same powerups to use them each song, so I guess if you played the game long enough to earn enough coins/blitz cred to unlock all the powerups once and then you were offline forever after that you'd have no problem? But still, a dumb dumb system if you cannot unlock the full game that you paid money for if you aren't online.

In offline mode, you can't use coins or power-ups. I agree that they should have just let all the power-ups be used in offline mode since the scores don't count online anyway, but unfortunately that's not how it was designed. Hopefully the servers will stay up for a long, long, long, long, long, long time because playing the game without power-ups is not nearly as fun.

[lazyhoboguy]

In offline mode, you can't use coins or power-ups. I agree that they should have just let all the power-ups be used in offline mode since the scores don't count online anyway, but unfortunately that's not how it was designed. Hopefully the servers will stay up for a long, long, long, long, long, long time because playing the game without power-ups is not nearly as fun.

If I had know this is how the game works before I bought it, I probably wouldn't have bought the game. I really hope they patch this and fix it. I was pretty excited for this game, as I am a big fan of Amplitude and Frequency, Harmonix's early controller only rhythm games on the PS2, so I was happy to buy Rock Band BLitz to support this type of game. But now I am feeling as if I am being ripped off since a core part of the gameplay is broken offline. They should make it so if you are offline you still earn coins and blitz cred. Why not? There is no reason to make this tied to an internet connection.

[lazyhoboguy]

It's even worse than I thought previously. I thought perhaps you only had to buy powerups once after you unlocked them, but that is not the case. You need to rebuy powerups each song. You can only earn coins to buy them by playing while online.... See the problem here? If you want to play the game as it was meant to be played, with all 3 powerup slots equipped with a powerup, you have to be online so you can replenish the coins needed to buy powerups before you play each song. Once the servers for this game go offline then, the game is broken and you cannot use powerups eventually, since you will not be able to restock your supply of coins which are for buying powerups.

This is really disappointing me, as I am really liking the gameplay. I typically avoid digital downloads as I am not happy not getting a physical copy of something I paid money for. I made an exception for this game since its similar to Amplitude and Frequency and I wanted to support Harmonix for bringing out a game like this.

In its current state though, Rock Band Blitz is nothing more than a long term rental. Once the servers for this game inevitably go offline The game will basically cease to function. It might be years before that happens, but it's unacceptable. It's like paying for a movie that stops working after a few years or buying a car, but after a few years the dealer comes and steals your engine. Unless a patch is made for this game that lets you earn coins/powerups offline, I cannot recommend this game to anyone who isn't alright with the reality that they aren't buying a game but are just renting one for a few years.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

I understand where you're coming from. It's certainly a discouraging trend.

The silver lining of sorts is getting the songs for RB3. Even after the seventh-generation servers are mothballed altogether (I put it at 5 to 7 years until that happens), you'll still be able to play RB3 to heart's content locally. Which is not the same, no, but it's something.