Rockband 4

Christian 71

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Thought it overdue time to create a new thread as speculation is starting that Harmonix have something new up their sleeve.

From what I've seen there is currently no evidence to say Harmonix are even working on a new version. Hopefully that is about to change.

Info of new title
Harmonix bringing something new to PAX East

Interview with Harmonix
The Past, Present, and Future of Harmonix: Part I - Giant Bomb

Official Forum Speculation
New title from hmx confirmed. New rock band or something else? // Rock Band®

Hopefully it's not just another kinect game, but Rockband is what made Harmonix so can't see them letting the competition come in without a fight.
 
I'll only be interested in RB4, if there is one, if it goes down the real instrument route.
 
I'll only be interested in RB4, if there is one, if it goes down the real instrument route.

I still think Rocksmith has a lot of flaws with not detecting you've just strummed, but picking up a previous strum and scoring for that. I like the fact RB picks up individual strums, but then I also like Rocksmith's difficulty changing on the fly as you improve. A combination of these 2 features would be best for me.
 
The number of people who download RB3's ProGuitar DLC worries me. On the other hand, maybe RB4 is needed (widening the field for those without a Squire) to re-ignite it.

RS is a bit of a dead-end for us, I could play but with no drum support so it would strictly be a trainer rather than a fun game we could both play.
 
I wonder if they will split the brand into guitar/keyboard/drums/bass/singing and follow the rocksmith lead. Could concentrate on one aspect at a time and add more lessons, content etc.

Rockband 3 was almost too ambitious so it's a hard act to follow. Still nothing in the market to compete for the whole experience or with drums or bass support. Singstar/lips are also more pop orientated.

Not played on pro drums but I get the impression that this is nearest the real instrument experience, but is limited by the config of the kit. Real guitar, bass and keyboard support is the obvious progression, but keeping current plastic players happy with legacy support would still need to be considered.

Assuming rocksmith is going for a world release around May, announcing a version of Rockband with real guitar support and all pro tracks already converted around the same time would get a lot of free publicity. :D

All purely hypothetical and the announcement in april is probably for a new iOS game.
 
The number of people who download RB3's ProGuitar DLC worries me. On the other hand, maybe RB4 is needed (widening the field for those without a Squire) to re-ignite it.

RS is a bit of a dead-end for us, I could play but with no drum support so it would strictly be a trainer rather than a fun game we could both play.

I agree, my wife can play piano, but playing half a keyboard doesn't really appeal. I also looked at piano tuition software for my daughter a while back and it was quite expensive and didn't look great.

My 7 year old daughter is starting to sing along with a few of the songs and has a few 4 stars on expert now. Wish they would add more of a game element for singing like singstar, a few more pop songs with pro guitar that she recognised would also get the younger audience interested.

The DLC content worries me as well as even some of the more popular songs have a small number of registered scores on pro guitar. I know it's one console and not everyone plays online, but all the same. Still it's nice to regularly get in the top 100 :D
 
I've still got the keyboard gathering dust somewhere, initially I thought it was great, but then you realise, unlike pro guitar, you aren't actually learning anything, which is the whole appeal, for me at least of the pro mode thing. Pro keys, is just five button guitar with extra buttons.

RS is certainly not without faults, but I'm sure as the tech improves if other games use the idea (it works pretty well in Rock Prodigy) and we'll see what Bandfuse works like, it should get better hopefully.

Would be interesting to know if they're making any money out of the pro tracks. While its a great idea, you'd have thought they'd have had either a better deal in place for the Squier, or at least a contingency plan. While the Mustang is great for what it is, I'm sure the whole "it's just another plastic controller" thing puts people off.
 
Hence the reason I think all the pro tracks must have full keyboard and guitar support already (bends etc). This is the approach they took for pro drums so it would make sense.

I love the idea of bandfuse but still not sure what it brings new that Rocksmith hasn't already done. Although marketing the product is a new approach :D

There are times I wish rockband had a tab mode especially when things get faster. Wouldn't fit in with interface for multi instrument though but it would be nice to have the option in the trainer.
 
A guess from US forums but perhaps something to bear in mind for those that are using RB3 on hard drive IF RB4 comes out?

I do believe that I read that you will not be able to export RB3 songs from the digital version of the game purchased from the XBLM, if that's the way you got RB3. You will need a code from the hard copy of the game (the manual).
 
The DLC content worries me as well as even some of the more popular songs have a small number of registered scores on pro guitar. I know it's one console and not everyone plays online, but all the same. Still it's nice to regularly get in the top 100 :D

I played Purple Haze ProG and noticed I'm 13th in the world ... on a Hendrix song. Now that does worry me.
 
Yeah, not knocking your talent Andrew, but that's pretty high, especially for something that's been out a while :)

Makes you wonder though if half the kids that play these sort of games have even heard of Hendrix, or if they have just dismiss it because it's "old"
 
The number of people who download RB3's ProGuitar DLC worries me.

Probably looking at the numbers of Pro Guitar, and (estimating) also from the sales of RockSmith and other games. People may not have bought much DLC, but did buy a "new" game?

Agreed on the keyboard, it was too limited for my piano-playing mate. Maybe if they'd run a full length Pro keyboard track on the bottom of the screen (much like vocals run along the top) it would have improved things?

If i was them i'd really look at improving the online side: it's where you can keep momentum going for core fans, but finding and joining friends just isnt handled well. Allow people to join mid-song (even if they can only spectate) and say server lists, so you can choose and filter, rather than a random "play online" button.
 
Hi Stinja, waiting for your choice for SOTW (part 2), or if you are no longer participating can you let the thread know? Thanks.
 
Christian 71 said:
Wish they would add more of a game element for singing like singstar
What do you mean by that?
 
to me, Rock Band 3 was a massive disappointment and i would only be interested in the 4th if they made it like RB2 again. I was never interested in having "real" instruments, the coloured button ones suffice for me, and it seemed like they removed practically all the social gameplay from the game to make way for the "pro" modes. No more instrument/vocal battles, total disregard for vocals, so far as to actually stop scoring vocals if the rest of the band is playing! It also had a stupid way of doing career mode, so each member of the band's scores only apply to that member, not the band, and the worst part is that on the wii at least, they had no options to change the recording volume of the microphones so they were set too sensitive all the time which made it nigh on impossible to score well while singing as even a whisper overloads the mic. They also started removing DLC for Rock Band 2 from the wii store so purchased songs actually disappeared from your RB2 game and only appeared in RB3!
 
Totally agree with that. Rock Band 2 was the absolute high point for me and the way Harmonix sidelined all the bits that (to me) made it great in favour of the Pro modes was a huge disappointment.

Since I pretty much exclusively play vocals, you can guess what I thought about how it was treated in RB3.
 
you and me both PlexShaw, 90% of my time spent on Rock Band 2 was when i had a friend or two round, and we would use it as a karaoke game instead of Singstar, because despite how many years it's been going, Singstar still has hardly any rock or metal music in its catalog. Since RB3 came out and RB2 on the wii started getting treated like the deformed relative in the attic, I've pretty much given up on it altogether, and just use Ultrastar on my PC instead as i can still do the singing, and there's a much more varied selection of music.
 
I have no interest in vocals, nor do any f my friends. So i thought RB3 was by far the best in the series.

Super slick interface, really easy to jump in and out of friends games and the addition of pro instruments was the icing on top of the cake. But i would still love it even if they werent involved.
 
Aye, I'm with Bamford38 on this one (not always with his taste in music if memories of recent discussions are correct, but that's another entertaining tale! :) ). BUT... I do wish I still had the drum trainer, and the career was more interesting in RB2. I don't think I've even completed the RB3 career yet and never go back to it. And there are certainly other items I'd tweak if I had the opportunity.

I actually sold my RB2 because I realised that without pro-support I was simply NEVER going to play it again. As soon as I realised that I got rid of all my legacy format games as RB3 is my platform of choice. But as mentioned I do miss the drum trainer feature. If that was updated with pro-drums support, I'd be happy.

I tend to do my instrument battles on the leaderboards, as witnessed in the recent Megadeth DLC thread.

None too surprised by the Wii changes given the inherent platform limitations.
 
Aye, I'm with Bamford38 on this one (not always with his taste in music if memories of recent discussions are correct, but that's another entertaining tale! :) )

Yeah, i think weve bumped heads on a few occasions about music tastes.

Hence why i havent posted in your Megadeath thread :D
 
Bamford38 said:
I have no interest in vocals, nor do any f my friends. So i thought RB3 was by far the best in the series.

Just because you have no interest, doesn't make it not important. The simple fact is that one fifth of the game is seriously compromised.

I would also like to see the person at Harmonix who thought that solo scoring in band play was a good idea publicly flogged.
 
Well, if the boot was on the other foot and the parts that you and your friends play were as messed up as the vocals, I'm sure you'd be as cheesed off as I have been about it.
 
Well, if the boot was on the other foot and the parts that you and your friends play were as messed up as the vocals, I'm sure you'd be as cheesed off as I have been about it.

More than likely.

But if vocals were perfect in RB3 would you still prefer RB2?
 
Yes, because I hate the way the multiplayer works in RB3. That's the bit that is in most need of an overhaul IMO.
 

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