The Rock Band line was kind of funny. :lol:

Yeah. :) But we're calling it GH On Tour.

Meh. The song list will have to be absolutely killer for me to consider it.

See, this is the area where GH trumps RB. Marketing, promotion and brand recognition. You would think one of the largest game makers out there, EA could trounce Activision in the marketing department.

I plan on picking this up on release date. I bought RB on release date as well, and, upon bringing it home, was completely and utterly bored.

I have a friend who is an even bigger GH fan than I (he can beat it quite deftly on expert, whereas I am only able to get through the first tier on expert), and he was bored with RB. We are both, however, looking foward to GH: WT.

If you don't mind me asking, why were you bored? If it was guitar difficulty, then yes, most of the on-disc songs are easier than a lot of the GH3 songs, but some of the DLC is pretty difficult. Also, there's drums and vocals to do, and a lot of people will tell you that those are fairly difficult (drums more than vocals).

First In-Game Footage
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In my opinion, it looks as shoddy and amateurish as GH3. They've got quite a few months left to polish, but it looks pretty much like GH3 with some added fretboards to me.

The guitar difficulty was the biggest aspect, yes. To me, it actually felt like I was merely standing there, pushing buttons on a plastic guitar. Everything seemed too simplistic, and, to me, appeared to be pandering to make it easier for people. With GH, I could get into the song a bit more, and still have fun playing today.

As far as the drums go, those too were fairly boring. Again, it felt like I was sitting there, playing a game, hitting plastic with sticks.

All this having been said, I am still more than aware that GH: WT could do exactly the same thing as RB, and I will find myself every bit as bored. Basing my experience off of GH3 (I had far more fun with that than with GH2), I believe I will be wrong.

Until October...

That was my issue with GH3. Felt like I was playing a plastic toy instead of an instrument (the super easy hammer ons were a huge problem), an illusion that GH1 and GH2 had in spades. RB didn't capture it as well as GH1 and GH2, but despite the easier guitar charts, still felt more involving.

Expert drums are still fantastic fun to me :shrug:.

Hopefully you will be able to play as Paula Abdul and walk around acting like a completely clueless idiot, that would make for a fun minigame.

Must've been on easy then - try Hard/Expert and you'll have a different game. ;)

I think there was more footage in my video ;-) Convenient how she picked Tony Hawk to play.

I only saw footage come in at about 4:55 or so. Looked like 3 GH3 fretboards together. The fire symbol for a hit note still ticks me off. The "Note Streak" thing was beyond obnoxious with four people playing, and the SingStar-style vocals were pretty bad as well. Did I miss anything. :)

I preferred GH3's presentation to Rock Bands, so its looking decent to me.

they need to fix the vocals on that game. I far prefer Harmonix's Karaoke Revolution/Rock Band style to the static bars.

Yeah, the Rock Band thread is a couple clicks down.

If they fixed a few of the things that ticked me off about GH3, I might be willing to go back. From the looks of that video, it doesn't appear to be the case. I know that is an early build and things could change, so I'll keep my eye on things.

The drumkit is certainly appealing, as Red Octane knows how to make peripherals. However, I would need it to be compatible with Rock Band as I don't have room for two plastic drumkits. I think compatibility might be an option on the 360, where every controller must adhere to the MS standard. Here's hoping. :fc:

If the drumset is not compatible with Rock Band (and if the Rock Band set isn't compatible with GH4) I won't buy it.

Especially given the ridiculous GH3 notecharts, and the overpriced DLC.

I agree with all of this. I really wish Neversoft wasn't involved at all, but since they are, they'll have to really bring GH:WT back to the level of quality of GHII if they want the game to be fun and engaging.

And at this point, with the amount of money most of us have sunk into these games, controller compatibility really should be required. I would gladly replace my RB drums with those GHIV drums if they could work together. Then Activision would make money and Harmonix would still make money off of my DLC purchases. Seems like a win/win. Somehow I don't think the companies see it that way.

Of course but I'm not understanding your logic here.

OK so, GH3 is the first Activision attempt for their devs. Its not perfect.
RB is essentially the fourth attempt for Harmonix's devs.

So why is RB not vastly superior?

It depends on who you ask, imho, it is. The note charts are easier but considering it wasn't going the strictly guitar route, that wasn't a shock.

Getting star power while you have star power was a great move, the game controls more precisely, and it's overall just more fun to play.

GH3 went the other direction and made gameplay much much looser and despite adding a ton of notes to the note chart, somehow made them more mundane (mind you, I only played Hard and Expert on GH3).

RBs big problems was World Band Tour was too limited for people on the easier settings and that some songs were too band oriented -- they weren't focused purely on guitar/bass like the guitar hero songs could be, they had to be balanced on vocals, guitar, bass and drum. Considering it's the first time out trying to balance all that, I think it succeeded in spades.

My understanding is that one is the hi-hat. I understand what youre getting at but I think an actual hi-hat mechanic is too complicated for a game. I believe more people prefer to have an extra pedal for double bass over a hi-hat. Then you'd potentially have three pedals and I think all that would be a little bit much.

But how viable is it that you keep putting out guitar only games? Besides you cant be a Guitar Hero without a band to back you up. A Guitar Hero is part and parcel of a great band.

Yet a rock band may or may not have a guitar hero.

In a game sense, if a band oriented game focused on the guitar element above all the others, it wouldn't be worth the investment for the other instruments. There has to be a balance, and that will knock the guitar hero squarely on his or her ass.

Rock Band wasn't trying to take on Guitar/Drum Mania, it was trying to be Rock Band. GH3 tried it's own take at Guitarmania and wasn't too successful, I just hope GH4 balances it out enough to make it worthwhile.

True. But attention to the details of each instrument should be developed in each one. Not focusing on one or dumbing them down. Building up mastery of the instrument should be apparent as you go up in difficulty without sacrificing the fun factor. Balance is key.

And in these games its all about the experience. If people feel like they are playing a piece of plastic and mashing some buttons then you have failed as a developer.

Its quite apparent that GH has gone to great lengths to make sure the experience is key by bringing in famous drummers and getting their feedback during the development.

Summary:
You said Harmonix needed to do something revolutionary to keep up with Activision. One guy said RB was revolutionary. You said RB was just the natural progression from a guitar-only game (which is silly in and of itself). I said that Harmonix did the first GH games, not Activision.