Rock Band Community: Deep Thoughts (your feedback please!)

[HMXJohnlok]

Sup?!

Over the past few months, I've seen the forums transformed from a small, tightly-knit community of excited fans into a, well, bigger, less tightly-knit yet still awesome community of excited fans. In order to accommodate this surge of growth, we want to make sure that the Rock Band forums are a place where fans can go for information and conversation.

One icky side-effect of the forum growth that we've experienced is that it has added, as Sean put it, "the slightest whiff of anarchy..."

He also mentioned that we're working on clarifying what the "rules" here are. Well, we are working on something a little bit more abstract. Of course, we'll have rules and that sort of thing, but what makes a good forum a good forum isn't necessarily more rules. When I go to a good, fun message board, what I see is a sort of an unspoken agreement amongst the community - an agreement that screams, above all else, "INTERNET: KEEP OUT."

When I see people writing, "you can expect to be flamed - it's the internet!" a little piece of me wants to
TAKE UP THE BANHAMMER and swing it to and fro (In my mind I’m singing some sort of crazy battle-song?), all in the name of internet justice. I mean, I suppose there are *bad* things about the internet that will always be bad, but it's not so dire that we can't all commit to making the Rock Band forums a bit cozier.

Anyway, dispensing with the theatrics, I would like to know what you guys have to say. What has made the communities you've visited particularly enjoyable? Is there anything specifically you want us to keep in mind as we move forward to improve the Rock Band atmosphere?

[Tender-Surrender]

Maybe a more organized Ultimate Setlist section. There really is no need for there to be hundreds of threads requesting Tool, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, GnR, etc. Same goes for all the whiney threads on DLC!

Maybe when a topic is made for an artist, it should be merged into all other topics requesting said artist. Many flames are caused by this! Just a thought! Also some stats on most requested songs and DLC sales... just saying!

[meltphace]

Maybe a more organized Ultimate Setlist section. There really is no need for there to be hundreds of threads requesting Tool, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, GnR, etc.

agreed. not sure how this can be done, but it would be easier/clearer for everyone.

edit: perhaps subforums for genres? also, the same 20 or 30 bands keep coming up over and over and over, dozens of threads... what if there were alphabetical stickies for those? scouring through the forum shows 50 different threads for "Pink Floyd", "System of a Down", "Foo Fighters" etc etc. if those were combined you could really get a clear idea of what people are clamoring for (and users would know where to post their requests if it involves said bands). more obscure requests would be tougher to organize, though.

also, there could be a naming format that the thread titles must follow. band/group name only... extra details (albums, songs) can be listed in the actual posts. thread titles could be organized alphabetically; users would have a clear idea of where to post and it would make for a very organized request forum.

[bill55]

I think one the best things about this forum is that you (HMX) actually post and listen to feedback of the community. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel like you guys actually give a crap what we think about the game and take us into consideration when making decisions about the game, the site, and this community. DLC announcements every week is awesome and appreciated by everyone here!

I guess that isn't really a suggestion, but more of a keep up the good work suggestion.

On the suggestion side don't be too quick with the banhammer, but don't be afraid to use it either. Every forum has guys who come looking to argue and stir things up for no good reason. Let those people find another forum to ruin.

Thanks HMX!
Bill

[Tender-Surrender]

Could I borrow the ban hammer really quick? :P

[barber78]

I think that when dealing with musical tastes, it creates debates. Some of these debates gets ugly and turn into virtual brawls. I think that people need to be more mature but i guess that would be a hard rule to implement.
Having said that, I think this forum has been my most enjoyable forum experience. Maybe cause I love the game so much, but also I think for the most part, the fans of the game all seem to have a nice sense of commadarie among each other.

[kcwcman]

One of the things that did bug looks like it is being fixed. I do check the boards every Monday to find out what the DLC is going to be, but it was really no fun reading "Nothing for me this week" or "I love that one" that showed up with each DLC notice. I like the fact that you are going to start locking the thread after posting the songs because I really don't care who doesn't want to buy the songs or who does. I really only care if I want to buy the songs and I usually don't care to post that information because I don't care if someone likes the songs I buy or not.

Also I'm not a big fan of the BANHAMMER, but sometimes it is needed. Some discussions are quite interesting to read but when things get to the point of people saying "You're stupid for liking ...." or worse, it is probably time to step in and lock the thread and too many of those flame comments should get a person banned. If it is constructive feedback that is one thing but straight out attacks should not be tolerated. I'm not saying it is an everyday occurence because I don't visit that often, but I have seen a couple of posts like that.

Other than that, keep up the good work. It does seem that a good relationship has developed between most of the RB fans and the game developers.

[Johnny Go-Time]

Re: Setlists
Rather than a million posts of "I want band X", how about something similar to an ongoing poll where everybody can submit songs and then give thumbs up/thumbs down. One vote per song per account. Then over time you'd see the popular stuff bubble to the top. Remove a song from the list when it gets included in Rock Band.

Re: Anarchy
Let users promote/demote posts, and set a minimum "quality" level of posts they want to see. See Slashdot for one means of executing this.

How about a more stable & comprehensive list of available/upcoming songs where you pull together all DLC announcements. Why would you want us to have to go to Wikipedia to learn about the March songs announced in OXM? PS: You'd want to disable user responses to such a page and leave that for the forums...

Have a forum filter to show only responses by HMX staff and/or moderators. Ex) I don't care about the 50 different ways people have asked "why is 'Ten Speed' a cover", but I do want to see the one official response (if there is one...I wouldn't know because there was too much noise-to-signal in the "weekly DLC" thread!)

Re: Moving Forward
Leverage your connections to star power and get some celebrities to post their favorite songs to play, what songs they want to see, what level they play on for each instrument, etc. See AICN.com's first Q&A with Sylvester Stallone for what kind of effect this has on a forum community.

[SmashMan]

I'll agree with having the developers of the game posting here makes it more worthwhile than just a random bunch of us arguing or speculating. I'm a member at OperationSports, and hang around the MLB 08 The Show boards most of the time. There's a few of the developers there and they answer tons of questions and are just really hands-on with that part of the fanbase; and it just helps communication.

Having developers on forums is great because we like to know that we're being heard in our complaints.

--

What would clear up the ultimate setlist board is either splitting it up into a bunch of sub-forums for different genres...or having HMX make a post with a list of bands that likely won't be in. I know you never say never, but obviously some bands just aren't going to sign on for this. Letting people know might slow down some of the posts.

Also, there's a lot of arguing about what is and what isn't right for Rock Band. Someone'll request a country song, and ten others will throw the "It's called ROCK band" rebuttal. Just a HMX post with something like "We WILL consider all genres of music, country included." might slow down some of the arguing over that.

[gardz]

love most of the board, especially now that the Canadian "issues" are basically gone, so no more "poor me I'm Canadian" (which I AM) vs. the "shut up, you shouldn't have driven the 3km across the border to buy the game, you should've waited an extra month...etc.." stuff that really made this board a pain for a while. I'd like to see a better organized DLC request section, and I'm glad you'll be locking the DLC announcements thread. I wouldn't mind seeing specific threads somewhere on each song to share ideas on how to beat the song, what makes it a fun/annoying song, etc. Whatever happens, just keep on providing a great place to discuss an amazing, diverse game (who woulda thought we'd see the B-52s and the Monkees?) and some great music!