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

[AnonymousMonkey]

Subforums per instrument might help to concentrate useful information.

[iamJoshO]

I think the biggest problem for me (as a longtime reader that never posts) is the disconnect fans feel. What I mean is, like any fan forum, there isn't anything very exclusive to these official forums. Sure, DLC is announced a day early, but every fan forum has that info posted eventually, too. Plus, as mentioned in a few earlier posts, there is not much information as to why a song is chosen or what its merits are, so to speak. The closest we have is rockband.com/life, which really just seems like a PR guy typing some info we already know.

So...to make a long story short, the forums would benefit from some sort of exclusive information, even if it's something as simple as why a particular song was chosen during a week. I realize developers have better things to do, but it would set this forum/community apart and provide something the others can't; a connection from the developers to the fans.

[hootiephish]

Subforums per instrument might help to concentrate useful information.

Some kind of organization of the threads is badly needed. when something is posted, within an hour it gets buried under 100 new posts and threads within an hour, mainly because of all the traffic this forum gets. But Harmonix no doubt knows this and I would rather have them work on their great game rather than mess around with some of the issues here.

What would be cool to see (and I think this was mentioned in an earlier post or else somewhere on the forum) would be a full list of all the requests made for songs and bands, and then everyone could see what has the potential to be worked on by Harmonix in the future. We could then second the requests and if it were set up as a pole type of thing, everyone could vote, however as a forum pole this would have hundreds of songs/bands in it and just be overwhelming and too huge to do in that format (i think).

[Will-san]

I wonder if the Harmonix guys are reluctant to track song / band requests publicly because they don't want to give the wrong impression. Clearly their DLC choices are not a popularity contest. I am sure they are keeping an eye on the boards but it seems like if that if they had an official top 100 most requested songs and then didn't make any of them available for down load we would see even more WTF type threads.

that being said I sure would love to see some more transperency int the DLC decisions. The Blog (mysteriously labeled "life" on the main page) has some great info about the songs that are chosen are and a really nice piece on the care that goes into the remastering but very little on the process of selecting the songs.

[johnnytriplesix]

I'm surprised there wasn't a "Valentine's Theme" or something like that this week. Maybe some Rock Ballads. I'm sure a lot of them would be fun to sing. Skid Row " I Remember You"...etc. I'm sure there are a ton (as long as they aren't TOO *** - we don't need White Lion's "Wait" or anything ). You already seem to have something with Bon Jovi. And while I'm not a big fan of his I'm sure he has a ton of those songs (and Wanted Dead or Alive is really fun to sing so while I may not be buying his CD's anytime soon...i'm sure playing the songs would be fun).

And what about a vocalist pack or something? I don't know if this would make any sense to do. But what about a pack of songs that have great singers/frontmen. While singing the RB songs are fun, I think it would be even more fun if there were better singers (or at least more "passionate" singers) to really get into it.


That was just a request, but I think themed packs (or maybe even an EXTRA themed pack - ie: a double release week: V-day week: The regular DLC pack AND the V-day themed pack). Maybe that would add to a community feel or something. I don't really play MMORPGs but I assume it's pretty cool when they do holiday type things.


And one more idea that i just thought of to include the community. What about an American Idol take on things? Again, from your standpoint I don't know if this makes sense, BUT...I'm sure you have a basic idea of what songs you are working on and will be ready for a certain time period.....so why not list 10 or so songs and have us vote for our top picks. Again, may or may not be good for you as far as your business plan goes...but it's just an idea. I think it would hype the release weeks even more.

[sarjent]

The whole voting thing isn't a bad idea. I personally wouldn't like to see it done all the time but like the first weekend in the month could be the 'Fan Pack of the month'. Based on users choice via polls that ran from the previous month.

Overall the site itself was horrible. I hope the server issues are finally destroyed. The community is extremely helpful for the most part. But realistically, how much can you really talk about Rock Band on a daily basis? I'd like to see some moderation in the whole flaming thing. Rule #1 should be to be coureous to the other members and no flames allowed. Flaming gets you a negative rating and eventually suspended/banned.

[Tender-Surrender]

I'm starting to think the HMX Devs should start telling people what bands they have in the works. This would be a good way to quiet down all the whiners who think they will never get THEIR favorite bands as DLC.

I don't mind not knowing myself, but it is a pain coming onto the forums and all I see is 50 topics on how the DLC sucks. It just ruins the fun on the forums, because all these is happening every day is a giant flamefest, and I more people are jumping in weekly.

Sigh

[oshman187]

I'm starting to think the HMX Devs should start telling people what bands they have in the works. This would be a good way to quiet down all the whiners who think they will never get THEIR favorite bands as DLC.

I don't mind not knowing myself, but it is a pain coming onto the forums and all I see is 50 topics on how the DLC sucks. It just ruins the fun on the forums, because all these is happening every day is a giant flamefest, and I more people are jumping in weekly.

Sigh

YES. There are 100 new posts a day about how the DLC is bad and it really does get pretty annoying. I look around for a good thread to read and all the threads are saying the same thing...

[Abaddon]

Okay, so it sounded like a good idea at the time, but locking the DLC announcement thread has proven to be a very bad move.

- Previously, we'd get hundreds of people in the thread saying they hated the DLC, and then people responding to them, and on and on.
- Now, we have hundreds of people creating new threads in the General forum talking about how they hate the DLC.

This, in my mind, is a clear regression. The original reason to lock the announcements thread was theoretically so people wouldn't have to wade through a lot of posts to see what the DLC was going to be. However, all you have to do is click on the very first post to see it, then just get out and ignore the mess.

Now, you can do the same thing (click on the thread and see the DLC announcement) and not have to see the mess, but instead the mess is spread throughout the General forum instead. I thought the idea was worthwhile at the time but I think it is clear that it is much better to have the ... dissatisfied ... making their voices heard in the DLC announcements thread instead of 10-20 different threads that clutter up the General board.

Of course, people can always create new complaint threads in the General forum but I would bet that at least some of them would be doing it in the Announcements thread if it were not locked.

[oshman187]

Okay, so it sounded like a good idea at the time, but locking the DLC announcement thread has proven to be a very bad move.

- Previously, we'd get hundreds of people in the thread saying they hated the DLC, and then people responding to them, and on and on.
- Now, we have hundreds of people creating new threads in the General forum talking about how they hate the DLC.

This, in my mind, is a clear regression. The original reason to lock the announcements thread was theoretically so people wouldn't have to wade through a lot of posts to see what the DLC was going to be. However, all you have to do is click on the very first post to see it, then just get out and ignore the mess.

Now, you can do the same thing (click on the thread and see the DLC announcement) and not have to see the mess, but instead the mess is spread throughout the General forum instead. I thought the idea was worthwhile at the time but I think it is clear that it is much better to have the ... dissatisfied ... making their voices heard in the DLC announcements thread instead of 10-20 different threads that clutter up the General board.

Of course, people can always create new complaint threads in the General forum but I would bet that at least some of them would be doing it in the Announcements thread if it were not locked.

...agreed...