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USA Today: ROCK BAND 3 revealed

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Not as deep as he thinks
EraldoCoil said:
If I can finally play "the final countdown" on keyboard, then I am soooo there!
Well, it's already in LEGO Rock Band so you're going to have to hope that Harmonix somehow adds keyboard support to some of their existing tracks. Although they did chart the intro that plays the keyboard on guitar. That was it though.
 

TheChaos

Member
Are we, like, going to get a keyboard game that doesn't involve variations of Rock 'n Roll? Like, Jazz, Classical, Funk, or anything that's not Goddamn rock music?
 

AMUSIX

Member
TheChaos said:
Are we, like, going to get a keyboard game that doesn't involve variations of Rock 'n Roll? Like, Jazz, Classical, Funk, or anything that's not Goddamn rock music?
OK, I've read this a number of times, and I'm still not understanding it...

you don't like rock?


(but, no, we're not going to see anything like that, because it lacks popularity...you might see some tracks show up on RBN, here and there...and maybe some shovelware?)
 

Mileena

Banned
TheChaos said:
It's not my favorite genre of music, but I don't outright hate it. There are other genres of music that use a keyboard other than rock, you know.
AMUSIX knows much more than you.

just sayin'
 

AMUSIX

Member
corkscrewblow said:
AMUSIX knows much more than you.

just sayin'
whoa! heh, I don't think he meant it like that...


but, Chaos, I am very much aware of other styles of music that use keyboards besides rock...like 80's music and the Billy Joe guy before Green Day...when he did that Piano Man song.
 

rjcc

Member
AMUSIX said:
OK, I've read this a number of times, and I'm still not understanding it...

you don't like rock?


(but, no, we're not going to see anything like that, because it lacks popularity...you might see some tracks show up on RBN, here and there...and maybe some shovelware?)


and this is where harmonix is screwing up.

If by "lacks popularity" you mean loved by millions and millions of people... sure.

releasing three or four questionably selected funk songs and then saying "well no one bought them, see, won't sell"

just means you didn't promote them at all and buried them under everything else.
 

TheChaos

Member
AMUSIX said:
but, Chaos, I am very much aware of other styles of music that use keyboards besides rock...like 80's music and the Billy Joe guy before Green Day...when he did that Piano Man song.

:lol :lol You can't be serious. What's with the hostility?
 

Daigoro

Member
TheChaos said:
Are we, like, going to get a keyboard game that doesn't involve variations of Rock 'n Roll? Like, Jazz, Classical, Funk, or anything that's not Goddamn rock music?


THELONIOUS MONK band. HERBIE HANCOCK band.

id be down.

corkscrewblow said:
AMUSIX knows much more than you.

just sayin'

oh jesus christ. call off the RB thread attack dogs already. pathetic.
 
Keyboard-wise, i'll kill to see a "Use Your Illusions" DLC pack for this. Would totally revitalize all my interest in Rock Band again. Great examples of piano rock
 

123rl

Member
There's 150 million reasons why I'm going to buy this on day one. One thing I haven't seen confirmed though: will the Rock Band 2 songs be exportable to RB3?
 

AMUSIX

Member
rjcc said:
and this is where harmonix is screwing up.

If by "lacks popularity" you mean loved by millions and millions of people... sure.

releasing three or four questionably selected funk songs and then saying "well no one bought them, see, won't sell"

just means you didn't promote them at all and buried them under everything else.
I didn't mean that Harmonix is making this call based on popularity, I meant the industry is. Harmonix has been good at including a variety of music genres in RB, but, of course, their focus is Rock.

But there have been a number of other games to come out in the plastic instrument genre, and almost all of them have been rock-centric. For another genre to be tackled, there must be a perceived market. This is why we have DJ Hero, and, in Japan, there have been a number of techno-related music games.

Unfortunately, we're just not going to see a Symphony Master any time soon, as awesomely ambitious as it might be (and, hey! the songs will be more or less free to license!). Of course, for the most part, individual instruments wouldn't be viable for such a game (unless you're strictly focused on soloists). However, an expansion on the conducting aspect of Nintendo's WiiMusic might work (make it a 'spinning plates' game).
The fact is, the design of the game isn't really the issue. It's that, once made, who is it going to sell to? The average gamer isn't going to want to explore the complexities of Ma Vlast, and the casual won't be drawn into something they consider to be inferior to the soundtrack to LOST.


TheChaos said:
:lol :lol You can't be serious. What's with the hostility?

what hostility? the appropriate response was laughter...which you did...so I'm now confused...



as for the 'attack dogs' I think corkscrew just perceived Chaos' first response to me to be a bit aggressive...which is understandable, since it did have a bit of snark
 

burnfout

Member
Will buy the real guitar, no matter the cost. This will work with all current DLC right?


And yes I do own a real real guitar :)
 

TheChaos

Member
AMUSIX said:
I didn't mean that Harmonix is making this call based on popularity, I meant the industry is. Harmonix has been good at including a variety of music genres in RB, but, of course, their focus is Rock.

But there have been a number of other games to come out in the plastic instrument genre, and almost all of them have been rock-centric. For another genre to be tackled, there must be a perceived market. This is why we have DJ Hero, and, in Japan, there have been a number of techno-related music games.

I disagree. Harmonix will only be sticking to Rock Band from now on. They even slapped a Rock Band skin on Amplitude and tried to pass it off as a new game. I don't agree on the variety. Looking at the setlist, it's all just Rock music. Understandable because the game is called Rock Band, but I wish we had a game over here where we have really cool underground/obscure stuff to pick our interest, like Portishead or something from the Ninja Tunes label.

DJ Hero isn't really a good comparison because you're not actually playing the music. There are two tracks and you're cutting in between them when the game tells you.
what hostility? the appropriate response was laughter...which you did...so I'm now confused...

The laughter wasn't directed at you, but the other guy. Mea culpa.
 

Mileena

Banned
AMUSIX said:
as for the 'attack dogs' I think corkscrew just perceived Chaos' first response to me to be a bit aggressive...which is understandable, since it did have a bit of snark
I did... but then I realized he wasn't being a smartass so I gave a smartass response to his response. Blasphemous.
 

ElNarez

Banned
TheChaos said:
I disagree. Harmonix will only be sticking to Rock Band from now on. They even slapped a Rock Band skin on Amplitude and tried to pass it off as a new game. I don't agree on the variety. Looking at the setlist, it's all just Rock music. Understandable because the game is called Rock Band, but I wish we had a game over here where we have really cool underground/obscure stuff to pick our interest, like Portishead or something from the Ninja Tunes label.
Yeah, but if underground music was popular enough to fuel a video game it wouldn't be underground music now would it ?

Also, just because there's a focus on rock music doesn't mean that other genres are banned forever (see Lady Gaga, James Brown, The Chemical Brothers or Kenny Rogers, all available as DLC)
 

AMUSIX

Member
TheChaos said:
I disagree. Harmonix will only be sticking to Rock Band from now on. They even slapped a Rock Band skin on Amplitude and tried to pass it off as a new game. I don't agree on the variety. Looking at the setlist, it's all just Rock music. Understandable because the game is called Rock Band, but I wish we had a game over here where we have really cool underground/obscure stuff to pick our interest, like Portishead or something from the Ninja Tunes label.

DJ Hero isn't really a good comparison because you're not actually playing the music. There are two tracks and you're cutting in between them when the game tells you.


The laughter wasn't directed at you, but the other guy. Mea culpa.
Oh, sorry, I wasn't clear. I concede that the music in Rock Band is rock-centric, and, since that is Harmonix's big focus, they will, of course, also be focused on Rock.

I meant that, even though the option is there for other companies to do a techno game or a classical game or a jazz game, we're not going to see it because of lack of interest.

As for Rock Band having ONLY Rock, that is a bit of a falsity. Of course, it is a gross majority, but there is variety found in the library. I think, of other genres, Country has the biggest representation, with three dozen tracks, but there also exist dozens of other non-rock tracks ranging from Otis Redding to Chemical Brothers to Lady Gaga to arrangements of classical pieces from Brahms and Mussorgsky.

As for offering underground/obscure stuff, I'd argue that no game will be able to provide such a library and stand on its own. Instead, I think that the RBN delivers exactly this...as long as those artists want to be included.
 

TheChaos

Member
ElNarez said:
Yeah, but if underground music was popular enough to fuel a video game it wouldn't be underground music now would it ?

Yeah. But I think one of the great things about listening to music is being adventurous. I know many people prefer to see music as comforting, but it hurts me to see people not want to listen to new things. People love songs they recognize, look at Glee and American Idol. I was just listening to Janelle Monae for the first time and being sad she isn't more exposed.

Also, just because there's a focus on rock music doesn't mean that other genres are banned forever (see Lady Gaga, James Brown, The Chemical Brothers or Kenny Rogers, all available as DLC)

There's James Brown DLC?! Whoa.

Instead, I think that the RBN delivers exactly this...as long as those artists want to be included.

Unfortunately if you want to add song and you don't have a guitar track you're SOL. Are there any songs without a guitar track on the network?
 

Animator

Member
Is there a picture of the new guitar? How exactly will it teach you to play real guitar? Do they ship a 6 string with rb now?
 

Raide

Member
*weeps* I have too many plastic instruments!

Sounds awesome but the keyboard looks pretty complicated. I wonder if I can use my current Midi keyboard and plus it into RB3?

I also hope they do a Download code for the tracks, though I have RB 1 and 2 + loads of DLC. Damn, too many tracks to choose from!
 
They should do "Light my Fire" for keyboards. They organ in that one acts as both the backup guitar and bass guitar simultaneously.

Or they should've picked Mr. Crowley by Ozzy which has a big keyboard part and isn't that hard to play.
 

AMUSIX

Member
TheChaos said:
There's James Brown DLC?! Whoa.
Just Sex Machine...fun to sing, sort of dull to play, since it stays on the same awesome grooving lick through most of the song.

Unfortunately if you want to add song and you don't have a guitar track you're SOL. Are there any songs without a guitar track on the network?
There are no such restrictions on RBN. You can have a single-instrument song, if you want. In fact, the jazz tune Footloose and Fancy Free originally had just a bass and drum track. During peer review, there was lamenting that the awesome piano work was going to be ignored, so the author went and transposed the piano part to be playable by the guitar. Likewise, you can see what he did with the sax line...which is actually playable with a microphone set up in front of a sax (or trumpet, as I attempted...and failed :).
 

AMUSIX

Member
Animator said:
Is there a picture of the new guitar? How exactly will it teach you to play real guitar? Do they ship a 6 string with rb now?
There are three new guitars, no official pictures of any of them yet.


In order of price and realism they are:
-Standard Rock Band controller, buttons on the fretboard, strum bar, etc, in the shape of a custom Fender Mustang (currently red)
-"Pro" Rock Band controller, every fret has 6 different 'string-like' buttons, teaching you finger placement
-Modified Squire Stratocaster, full guitar, 6 strings, strum to play...the fretboard picks up finger locations, and can be played like a normal Rock Band controller, if needed

Of course, none of these three are absolutely final yet, so expect some changes...
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
I just wanted to mention, and maybe someone else has pointed it out, but the Rilo Kiley song is Portions For Foxes not Portions of Foxes. I do have to admit that the concept behind a song called Portions of Foxes is intriguing.


All of these announcements are awesome. This is what Harmonix needed to do in order to revive this genre, and lets hope they do it well and it works. I know I will be buying the keyboard seeing as it appears to be a fully fleshed out representation of the actual instrument that you can actually learn something from. Not sure about these crazy guitar peripherals, I guess I will have to see all of this in motion before I decide.
 

Daigoro

Member
Synth_floyd said:
They should do "Light my Fire" for keyboards. They organ in that one acts as both the backup guitar and bass guitar simultaneously.

Or they should've picked Mr. Crowley by Ozzy which has a big keyboard part and isn't that hard to play.

Riders On the Storm would be badass too.
 
They say they'll have around 2,000 songs on their platform by the time RB3 comes out, how many of those songs will be able to utilise the keyboard?

It would really suck if we can't use the keyboard on previously released tracks, but I have faith that Harmonix were forward thinking about this and included the charting information for keyboards and the new drums early on. Or they'll patch the most popular keyboard songs that are already out there. Only a small percentage of the 2,000 even have a keyboard in them.

I was really thinking about learning a musical instrument, if RB3 can teach me to play the keyboard or a real guitar, then I can use that extra functionality to justify the higher price over the regular plastic toys. Price is still always an issue though, especially in the holiday period. I hope EA doesn't let us down!

Can't wait!!!
 

Xater

Member
Meh. I really lost all interest in music games.

I also think tha tthe Bombcast guys are right. This might end up being the do or die year for music games.
 
Keyboard has clearly been added for one reason only!

61G2YNXF6RL._SS500_.jpg


MAKE IT SO!
 

Natakuu

Banned
Sounds amazing. I love how the keyboard looks to function, can't wait to try it out. Pro mode on drums? I'm gonna be all over that shit. HYPE!
 
Sold.

Hopefully with the addition of the Keyboard we'll see Harmonix address the disgusting lack of Muse in their games. Although not quite their best work, I would love to see their latest album up for DLC given how piano heavy it is.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
is two octaves too many keys to handle without looking down? Still, this is whats needed for our band to finally be complete and for my wife to join.

Loving the sound of the drums too. Like them already but the cymbals are pointless without knowing when you're supposed to hit them.

Can see myself buying the new drums and keyboard, but keeping my existing guitars. Considering my RB games are US imports, I hope the accessories are all sold separately otherwise it'll cost me a fortune to import drums & keyboard
 

beje

Banned
I checked some prices for a regular Fender Stratocaster and it looks like they don't go below 900€ for a new one so prepare your wallet (and your anus as well).

Edit: not like it's a bad thing if you really really want a real guitar
 
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