The Rock Band Thread

[YellerDog]

That's pretty much correct, actually. Activision and EA are the two biggest sharks out there, in competition with one another. It's not exactly happy flower magic fun sharing time.

It DOES bone the consumer pretty badly, though.

[B-Ri]

because its amazing that redoctane makes these guitars for BOTH games and somehow they can make them NOT work with each other.

i would enjoy redoctane shoving its foot up both asses and making neutral "Rock Hero" guitars.

[jyoung]

Testing out the new pedal right now, it seems like it's pretty much unchanged from the original design. The spring is maybe slightly looser, but still not nearly as loose as it should be.

I think I'm going to try this simple tape mod and see it that helps to keep this one from cracking in the same place that everyone's pedals are breaking.

[epmode]

This is Harmonix/MTV/EA's screw up, why should Activision/Red Octane be expected to help them fix it?

Because as I wrote earlier, there are is no proprietary or encrypted data being transferred between Guitar Hero 3's guitar and the PS3. Legally, Harmonix is completely in the clear by releasing the patch, even without Activision's consent. The gamers are getting fucked over by nothing more than bullshit publisher politics.

Sign me up for the one console future.

[YellerDog]

That is, unless Activision has "Tony Hawk USB^TM 1996" or something built into the coding, ala the old Sega/Tegen debacle.

Tengen?

[Buzzatronic]

Because as I wrote earlier, there are is no proprietary or encrypted data being transferred between Guitar Hero 3's guitar and the PS3. Legally, Harmonix is completely in the clear by releasing the patch, even without Activision's consent. The gamers are getting fucked over by nothing more than bullshit publisher politics.

What I don't get is they got it working out of the box for Xbox 360 owners so the question is, did they just get lucky or did they test the 360 before they shipped to ensure the GH2/3 guitars worked?

If the answer is "they just got lucky", then they get exactly what they deserve for not testing against GH hardware while at the same time releasing defective guitars. If the answer is they did test and made sure the 360 hardware worked, then why didn't they do the same thing for Playstation owners?

The 3rd option is that there is something you don't know about how the Playstation controllers work that prevents the GH controllers from working with Rock Band and that something is proprietary to Activition. Since Guitar Hero came out well before Rock Band, I don't see how it's Activision's responsibility to ensure their guitars work with unreleased games of the future from their competition. Nor should they simply turn over the keys to whatever proprietary doo-dads that exist in their GH controllers just because Harmonix shit the bed on their own guitars via defects and limited/no availability.

Again, if Harmonix hadn't fucked up their own guitars, all this would be a non-issue and Activition would have no control over the Rock Band customer experience.

If this were reversed and EA was in control fixing a problem that prevented Activision's customers from playing Guitar Hero, you can be damn sure that EA wouldn't do anything to *help* Activision and they'd probably go out of their way to make the problem even harder for Activision to fix.

Yes this sucks for the consumer, but the blame for Rock Band not being playable falls squarely on Harmonix/MTV/EA since it was 100% their responsibility to ship a working, playable game and peripheral set ... not Activision's.

[B-Ri]

you do realize that activision is fucking themselves up the ass right?

I probably would have bought GH3 just to have that second guitar on RB, and hell, to play GH3 while im at it. They dont work, i got II to finish and RB and its DLC will keep me more then busy.

Activision wants to play hardball, fine. They lost my sale and harmonix gets another stratocaster sale when they come out.

[Cowdisease]

Testing out the new pedal right now, it seems like it's pretty much unchanged from the original design. The spring is maybe slightly looser, but still not nearly as loose as it should be.

I think I'm going to try this simple tape mod and see it that helps to keep this one from cracking in the same place that everyone's pedals are breaking.

Heh, that's a nice mod. There are other interesting ones like this Rock Band Bass Pedal Reinforcing Plate. And this Woodrock Pedal. And this other low-tech solution.

[epmode]

Yes this sucks for the consumer, but the blame for Rock Band not being playable falls squarely on Harmonix/MTV/EA since it was 100% their responsibility to ship a working, playable game and peripheral set ... not Activision's.

Which is why Harmonix fixed their mistake. Very quickly, even.

Fuck Activision for bitching about the patch in the first place and fuck Sony for giving in.

What I don't get is they got it working out of the box for Xbox 360 owners so the question is, did they just get lucky or did they test the 360 before they shipped to ensure the GH2/3 guitars worked?

The 360's Rock Band guitars work because they were designed to work with Guitar Hero 2, which had already been released on the 360. Since Guitar Hero 3's guitars obviously had to support the previous game in the series, it made it very easy for Harmonix to create a universal guitar.

Guitar Hero 2 was never released for PS3 and I can only imagine that Harmonix got their hands on a retail copy too late to include that guitar at launch.

[bbobb]

LOL Ed is so confused. RB2 and 3 out already?