Behind the Scenes with Harmonix and Rockband 37
The folks at XFire passed on a link to their recent interview with the people at Harmonix. Now working on hit of E3, Rock Band, the company's senior designer at Harmonix, Community Developer, and Associate Producer answered questions from the XFire audience about the upcoming title. "shrouded: Can you tell us about the challenges of designing the drumset? ... Answer: The hardest part was satisfying all of the stuff we wanted - we're a company of musicians, including a sizeable chunk of drummers. I think we spent at least half a year making sure that the pedal felt almost exactly like a real drum pedal, and not just some switch. We also had a bunch of non-negotiable things that we had to get in, like using real drumsticks. I could go on forever, but the basic summary is that from day 1 we wanted this to be as close to an electronic kit as possible, with as few compromises as possible."
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So..... (Score:3, Funny)
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Controllers xbox / ps3 (Score:1, Insightful)
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It was wired because they couldn't pay Microsoft anything to use the wireless technology. Microsoft began licensing that only very recently (approximately around the same time that Guitar Hero III announced it would have a wireless guitar). I'm sure Red Octane would've loved to have made a wireless guitar for GH2, but it was simply impossible at the time.
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Re:Efficiency at its best (Score:5, Interesting)
Being a drummer myself, the kit for the game looks passable, but most drummers I'm sure will find it somewhat lacking. Lol, Tom Sawyer on one pedal and 4 pads hehe. You lose a lot when you map all the extra bits down to 5 triggers. The fun for drummers certainly won't come from playing your favorite songs on this kit, that will always be better served on a real kit. However, in the game setting, it should suffice for it's needs.
Tricky controller to develop for a game, has to be extremely cheap while emulating somewhat closely a real kit. Not an easy task!
Re:Efficiency at its best (Score:5, Insightful)
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I bet it's just like playing a 24 fret, 6 string guitar on 5 buttons.
Price (Score:1)
$260 + tax (Score:2)
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Random numbers are right SOMETIMES.
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Re:Price (Score:5, Insightful)
FIXED!
speaking as a guitarist of 6 years and a bassist of 4, I enjoy guitar hero because it is a fun thing to do with my NON-MUSICALLY INCLINED friends without having to spend 6 months teaching them to play real instruments. Not one of them wants to actually learn guitar, they just want to have some fun playing some videogames. GTFO my internet, elitist-troll.
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So really, why play guitar when you can play DDR? Why play videogames when you can play baseball? Why play baseball when you can go bungeejumping? These are very different activities with different methods for entertaining the user. The guitar offers creativity and freedom, the guitar hero game of
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I enjoy playing Guitar Hero instead of air guitar for the same reasons I enjoy playing Halo instead of cowboy-and-indians.
electronic drum adapter... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Fidelity of game experience (Score:3, Insightful)
My point is, you don't have to have an ultra-realistic experience for this game to be fun. It might even help a little if it's a bit less realistic.
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Girl Gamers (Score:2)
Down here in texas i see just about as many girls playing guitar hero as i see guys playing. Still, i'd like to see more and i believe rockband will attract more females. If you buy it they will come.
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Answer: I hope that more and more girls will play. I think the vocals aspect of the game will help. What I secretly wish for is an army of girls to show up and own drums. Or simultaneous singing/playing an instrument. That would rule.
Down here in texas i see j
One question still unanswered (Score:5, Interesting)
In GH 1 and 2, the words were edited to obtain the "T" rating that will naturally help boost the sales of a game of that nature. One glaring example is the removal of ~20 "fuck"s from "Killing in the Name." With the karaoke-style gameplay that Rock Band is adding to the formula, how are they going to handle a similar situation, but where many die-hard fans are going to want to scream the work "fuck" as loud as possible during that moment? Will they edit the word out and count off your points for saying it since it would be akin to a missed note? Will they give you the option to leave the songs intact, curse words and all?
a quip on censorship (Score:1)
You need the German version of the game. (Comes without swastikas, though)
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Well, I don't know the answer, but I have heard that there are to be 'fill' sections where you can just do your own thing. Maybe they could just make all the 'naughty
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"Ewwww no!", I won't do what ya told me!"
"Gosh darnit!", I won't do what ya told ME!"