JaggedSac said: ^^I find the Aerosmith and Metallica games to be uncouth. Especially since they do not offer the songs via DLC alongside the disc version. If they did this you could make the argument that they are doing this so that people without hard drives and such can get the new songs. But this forces people who do want DLC to pay for a bunch of songs that they might not want in order to get the ones that they do want. Seems like they are just going for the way that makes the most money instead of the ways that are best for the audience.

No, it's fanservice for Aerosmith and/or Metallica Fans. It also re-works the game so you play as Joe Perry, and so that Steven Tyler is your singer instead of "Mystery Singer X who somehow has the power to change voices", and that Kramer is your drummer instead of "Mystery Drummer X", ect.

L.C.E.C. said: JaggedSac said: ^^I find the Aerosmith and Metallica games to be uncouth. Especially since they do not offer the songs via DLC alongside the disc version. If they did this you could make the argument that they are doing this so that people without hard drives and such can get the new songs. But this forces people who do want DLC to pay for a bunch of songs that they might not want in order to get the ones that they do want. Seems like they are just going for the way that makes the most money instead of the ways that are best for the audience. No, it's fanservice for Aerosmith and/or Metallica Fans. It also re-works the game so you play as Joe Perry, and so that Steven Tyler is your singer instead of "Mystery Singer X who somehow has the power to change voices", and that Kramer is your drummer instead of "Mystery Drummer X", ect.

 

Wow

I play RB and GH2/3 because I enjoy rhythm games.  Those things you mentioned have absolutely nothing to do with the music or the gameplay.  What does matter is songs, and only having the songs available on an expensive disc without new features(besides the 'features' you mentioned) is ball busting.  Put them as DLC and let people pick and choose what songs they want to get.

For the record L.C.E.C. I do believe the spinoff games should cost less, but I won't go creating threads complaining about it or start petitions/boycotts. I don't feel that strongly about it. The only reason I brought it up is to counter his argument that RB2 is really RB1.1 and that RB didn't need a sequel.

You can't seriously complain about Harmonix being greedy and exploiting the fans for money while in the same breath praise GH. Neversoft and Activision have probably announced 5 other GH games while I finished typing this post.

If he is honestly complaining that RB2 is only adding new songs without new features then the same point is valid for the GH spinoffs. Unless you actually consider Steven Tyler being the singer instead of some random guy a "new feature". But if so RB2 supposedly has more options in create a character mode so it should still be a valid sequel with a "new feature".

And concerning FF.... I hate JRPGs personally (actually all RPGS...) so I don't follow them. I don't even know what FFvs.13 is about at all so I really can't comment on it. Sorry.

I'll be picking up Rock Band 2. Screw GH!

azrm2k said: For the record L.C.E.C. I do believe the spinoff games should cost less, but I won't go creating threads complaining about it or start petitions/boycotts. I don't feel that strongly about it. The only reason I brought it up is to counter his argument that RB2 is really RB1.1 and that RB didn't need a sequel. You can't seriously complain about Harmonix being greedy and exploiting the fans for money while in the same breath praise GH. Neversoft and Activision have probably announced 5 other GH games while I finished typing this post. If he is honestly complaining that RB2 is only adding new songs without new features then the same point is valid for the GH spinoffs. Unless you actually consider Steven Tyler being the singer instead of some random guy a "new feature". But if so RB2 supposedly has more options in create a character mode so it should still be a valid sequel with a "new feature". And concerning FF.... I hate JRPGs personally (actually all RPGS...) so I don't follow them. I don't even know what FFvs.13 is about at all so I really can't comment on it. Sorry.

 

I never said I agreed that Harmonix was "being greedy and exploiting the fans for money" completely, but everyone else except for XBOX 360 owners suffer. Wii didn't get ANY effort, and probably won't again. Meanwhile, PS3/2, and/or Wii won't get the game until X months after the game is already out. Now, with The Wii version of RB, and 360's timed exclusivity, tell me they're not after a quick buck.

I kind of do agree with the lack of new Rock Band Features, but as I said before, GH: Aerosmith is only Fan-service. It doesn't really add features that would matter to the average consumer, but would matter to the hardcore Aerosmith fan. Would regular GH players want to play as Joe Perry and have Steven Tyler as the Singer? No. They wouldn't give a damn about it. They would only want the songs, which might or might not come in the form of DLC for future games (most likely not). But would the Hard-core-Aero-fans care? Hell yeah. The new character models would be important, along with the "exclusive Aerosmith storyline". The new RB custom character features are slightly important, but it's directed to the main audience, not as fanservice. You can't compare a full-blown sequel to a Fan-service-spin-off.

Not to mention, the whole DLC pick-what-you-want-over-having-to-buy-all-the-songs argument doesn't really work out in Harmonix's favor with Rock Band: Track Pack Volume 1, when they could've given the Wii version DLC instead of making them buy another whole disc set.

Well, Harmonix obviously does not like the way Wii online stuff is set up. It was probably a port of the PS2 version for some reason or other. It was either, Wii does not get this game, or Wii has to get a gimped version of the game.

L.C.E.C. said: I kind of do agree with the lack of new Rock Band Features, but as I said before, GH: Aerosmith is only Fan-service. It doesn't really add features that would matter to the average consumer, but would matter to the hardcore Aerosmith fan. Would regular GH players want to play as Joe Perry and have Steven Tyler as the Singer? No. They wouldn't give a damn about it. They would only want the songs, which might or might not come in the form of DLC for future games (most likely not). But would the Hard-core-Aero-fans care? Hell yeah. The new character models would be important, along with the "exclusive Aerosmith storyline". The new RB custom character features are slightly important, but it's directed to the main audience, not as fanservice. You can't compare a full-blown sequel to a Fan-service-spin-off.

For the last time the whole reason the GH:Aerosmith and GH:Metallica games were brought up was in response to Valkyria's claim that RB didn't "need a sequel" as in his opinion RB2 wasn't adding anything new to the RB1 formula.  My response to that was to bring up the existence of these games which add nothing to the formula and yet cost the same as RB2 therefore RB2 is nomore of a "ripoff" than the spin-off games.  To me it just seemed like Valkyria has an axe to grind with Harmonix over the Wii port and has decided to bash RB as a whole because of it.

And it's pretty ridiculous to say you can't compare a sequel to a spin-off.  The cost of RB2 = The cost of GH:Aerosmith.  So why does GH:Aerosmith come with 41 songs while RB2 comes with 80 and yet RB2 is being considered a ripoff?  You can argue about the Aerosmith fan service and how it could increase the value to Aerosmith fans but i'm sure there are fans of songs in Rock Band that are hyped for that game due to the announced soundtrack.

L.C.E.C. said: I never said I agreed that Harmonix was "being greedy and exploiting the fans for money" completely, but everyone else except for XBOX 360 owners suffer. Wii didn't get ANY effort, and probably won't again. Meanwhile, PS3/2, and/or Wii won't get the game until X months after the game is already out. Now, with The Wii version of RB, and 360's timed exclusivity, tell me they're not after a quick buck.

Go back and read my post.  I said that you can't call out Harmonix for being greedy while praising GH.  Obviously I don't think Harmonix is a not-for-profit charitable organization.  They're definitely after a quick buck and when MS offered it for time exclusivity they accepted.  I'm pissed since I want to buy RB2 as a PS3 owner but I can understand it and since it's seemingly going to be less than a 3 month delay I can wait.  I'll discuss the Wii port situation in the next paragraph.

L.C.E.C. said: Not to mention, the whole DLC pick-what-you-want-over-having-to-buy-all-the-songs argument doesn't really work out in Harmonix's favor with Rock Band: Track Pack Volume 1, when they could've given the Wii version DLC instead of making them buy another whole disc set.

Ok so regarding the whole Wii port.  It sucked.  Bottom line.  But in the second quote of yours you were implying that that the Wii port shows a lack of effort and therefore meant Harmonix only did it as a quick cash-in.  All reports are that DLC is a massive goldmine for Harmonix and EA with some songs supposedly selling more on RB than iTunes so there is no way that I can see them leaving it out if they had any alternative. I feel the fact that they knowingly are going to lose money by not offering the microtransactions to the biggest userbase of this generation proves the crappy Wii port wasn't entirely their fault.  Like I said before the no online play is BS and can't be excused since GH3 had it. 

But as to the DLC I truly do believe Harmonix wanted it on the Wii but couldn't due to Nintendo's lack of a storage solution.  You can bring up GH:WT all you want but GH3 last year didn't have DLC either so it's more likely that the only reason we finally get DLC on the Wii is because Nintendo is ready to announce their storage solution at E3 and let Vicarious Visions (Wii devs for GH) know about it so they could announce it to build up hype now.  RB2 for the Wii hasn't been talked about at all and i'd bet good money that they will take advantage of whatever Nintendo provides to offer DLC.

I would agree that Rock Band 2 will most benefit the 360 and PS3 versions just because it's was created with DLC and a world tour mode but this stuff wasnt included in the Wii. Wii owners are lucky enough to get GH:WT so hopefully that encourages some sort of competition (competition ownz) so Harmonix can make some better decisions on Wii ports. I bet they would but since its published by EA, it depends if they get it out on time or not during the 2008 holiday season.

Why does it seem like people are just trying to find a reason to hate Harmonix? If anything blame EA for the game being late to the Wii. Everyone was praising Harmonix when Rock Band first came out and now they're the devil.

azrm2k said: Rock band doesnt need a sequel. Harmonix agrees. Therefore you don't have to buy a new bundle since the old instruments will work and you can get just the disc. If you don't care enough to pay the $60 to buy the standalone disc with the 80 master recordings you can still buy RB2 DLC and play it on the first RB game. That's crazy that they are almost making their sequel irrelevant that people don't need to upgrade to play the new DLC. RB2 bundles are moreso for people who haven't jumped on RB1 yet and they get access to all the old DLC so it's a great deal. And let's not try to argue that Harmonix is rushing RB2 to market to milk the consumer. Do I really need to repost that GH vs. RB chart? Activision will put out two GH games for every RB game that gets released. And before anybody yells "But Aerosmith and Metallica are just spinoffs". They cost full price as in buying GH:Aerosmith the standalone disc is the same price as RB2 standalone disc.

All the things their doing to the game coudlve been introduced in an upgrade. You should listen to the latest 1Up yours podcast they explain it well im to lazy to type it all here. but thats basically it. they couldve just updated it all and introduced a major update you could pay for if you really wanted any of the extras. they didnt have to make RB2.

On they GH spin-offs/cash-ins well RB hasnt been out as long as GH so jsut way it'll come and didnt they just announce that dumbass fog machine? btw i wasnt trying to say that Harmonix was rushing RB2 with it coming a month after the wii version. I mean it was stupid to release part 1 of your game on some console only to announce part 2 right after it.