Country Band - game design and set list

[Kilyle]

So it appears that a large group of very determined people want to see country stay as far away from "their" game as possible. Despite the high demand - they say, Get your own game.

This leaves open the door for a Country Band game, functionally similar to Rock Band, but appealing to country fans. That is what this thread is designed to discuss.

Please visit my poll on The Fate of Country Music to vote concerning just how much country ought to enter into Rock Band and whether a Country Band game is even a good idea. In addition, here are some threads for specific Country artists:

1. Kenny Chesney
2. Johnny Cash
3. Taylor Swift
4. Drive-By Truckers
5. Linda Ronstadt
6. Roger Miller

And some for specific songs:

1. More Than a Memory (Garth Brooks)

And some threads for sub-genres:

1. Alt-Country
2. Southern Rock (also Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Also, there's the Comedic Songs thread, in which you could try to suggest amusing Country songs that might make it by virtue of not being entirely serious. I'd post the link, but I can't find it. Will post it when I do.

And here's the old Country thread - please do not post in it. Your post should go on my Fate of Country Music poll if it's about country in general, and on my Country Band thread here if it's a suggestion for country content in the game.

There's also support for a wider range of music in general, so don't forget to pop in there and point to some good country.


(Note: If reading the rest of this text bores you, just skip to the proposed set list in the next post.)

(To those who hate country music: Stay out of my thread. Seriously, unless you have something that's going to help refine this suggestion, you're not doing any good here. This is not a thread to complain about how much you hate country or how much it does not belong in Rock Band. Go make your own anti-country threads.)

Anyway. To avoid stereotypes that lead to misunderstandings: Bear in mind that this is about the modern country fan, who is in his 20's, not his 80's. That "twangy stuff" that killed the Martians is more suited to people too old to care about video games. Garth Brooks just surpassed the Beatles for record sales, becoming #2 (behind Elvis), so there's definitely a huge market for country, and Country Band would want to tap into that.

Given what we have to work with, some details: The graphics will be changed to appeal to country fans. The venues will be changed to appeal to country fans. The audiences will act differently, of course. There will be a major event in Nashville.

We're going to want country characters with a wide selection of country clothing and at least three country-themed attitudes. I would lobby for at least one height/weight combo that allowed us to make stout/overweight aging country stars, as opposed to the range of normal/anorexic/starvedinAfrica that is currently the choice in Rock Band. There will have to be a good selection of hats, boots, and belts. Also embroidered jackets.

Furthermore, I want to see access to the Rock Band character set as well - the ability to make a fully Rock character and use him in the country game. I would want to be able to make a character, assign him the Soulful Country attitude (or whatever), then hand him a cowboy hat, gothic pants and the skeleton shirt, if I so desire. Or have a Gothic attitude for a totally country-looking girl.

Lastly, at least for this quick overview: We'll need access to all downloadable content from Rock Band, so that investing in Country Band does not mean that we can't get the latest Lynrd Skynyrd pack or Alice Cooper's House of Fire. Also, we should be able to purchase (perhaps at a reduced rate, less than one dollar per song) any or all of the Rock Band songs (yay, I can avoid buying the SHOUTING songs - no more Epic for me!).

AND it should be possible to go into the options and make playlists to include or exclude whichever songs we want, so as to affect the list of playable songs and the songs that pop up under random. Sure, I might want to play a lot of rock songs on my own, but at the family reunion, I want to make sure the kiddies don't hit across songs that their parents might object to. Or let my great-grandmother find out that I like Alice Cooper. You know. (Hypothetically, of course. Not the Alice Cooper part - I love Alice Cooper now. But I no longer have grandmothers, let alone great-grandmothers, who might complain about my liking him.)

So... there's the gist. Add in your suggestions, and definitely suggest any songs for the setlist! I'll post a revised setlist in my reserved post once we get going.


ETA: I am now thinking that it would be cool to have a STEEL GUITAR CONTROLLER. I had no idea that a steel guitar was anything other than a normal guitar with, I dunno, steel somewhere in the construction. It's apparently nothing like what I thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_guitar

And just as the drum controller is a gateway instrument to real drums, I think the steel guitar controller would be....

Not that I'm being realistic, because it's a slide thing, and I'm not sure slide instruments would work as controllers in the first place. But it would still be cool.

Come to think of it... a table guitar might work like the vocals - try to follow the sound, hit the right pitch, up and down. That might be REALLY cool.

Sigh... steel guitar controller will never work