So, on Saturday my wife and I headed down to the ocean for a much-needed vacation. We secured a room overlooking the beach, stocked up on gin, whiskey, and wine, brought a huge stash of books and prepared to disconnect for a few days. Before we left, I’d set up a few non-time-sensitive posts to go live on the couple days I’d be away, planning to pop in if anything important showed up but otherwise leave the site to take care of itself. This afternoon we hopped in the car for our longest trip out of the hotel yet, heading up the coast to a sleepy little town to wander around and catch some lunch.
So what does Harmonix do? They go and announce Rock Band 3.
Jerks.
Luckily for me, there isn’t really much to tell: We knew the game was in the works, and while we didn’t know for sure it’d be out by the end of this year, it was a pretty safe assumption all around (especially considering that MTV exec Paul DeGooyer mentioned that Green Day: Rock Band wouldn’t be the company’s “only game this year”). Harmonix does specifically mention that it’ll be distributed by EA, which was in some doubt recently. Aside from that, the announcement is pretty much without detail: Worldwide release, holiday season, “will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band.”
I’m expecting harmonies. What are you expecting?
I know I am vastly in the minority here, and of course I will get RB3 day of release and play it to death. But there’s a part of me that at this point wants U2:RB more…..
To be honest, I’m expecting something unexpected. I think HMX realizes there is some fatigue about the genre, and plan on putting out something new. I don’t know what it will be, but I’m hoping for something cool I haven’t thought of.
i’m hoping for more colorful/trippy dreamscape venues, quicker load times, and more avatar options like clothes and stuff.
I too hope for more create a character options. And the ability to make a band without having to purchase the clothes to do so. A create a character like what you find in the Wrestling games would be most excellent.
And I also hope that one day, in some music game, guitar straps will be used!
And maybe create a stage. That would be fun to do.
Stats.
Stats stats and more stats. That is the ONLY thing I like about GH.
I hope the the Wii version will be SDHC compatible and let us somehow buy/import the songs from RB1, RB2, Lego RB, and most likely RB:Green Day. I am tired of swapping between 5 friggin SD cards. Also let us do the picking of the songs through the DS like Band Hero lets us.
I’d like the choice of playing free-form fills on drums, an option that’d pop up on difficulty selection. Sometimes I actually -do- want to play through and nail some of the fills in a song without having the free-form fill-trigger coming in. That being said, you could play through the drum tracks as they are now, OR turn off the fills and have the overdrive triggers come in TB:RB style.
A longer shot I thought of a good while back would be an option to modify the drum track for people with the ION or cymbal expansions to differentiate what should be a cymbal hit apart from a drum hit. It would be purely cosmetic for training purposes. In fact, it’d be most viable in the drum trainer modes.
@metallichris: But what about the showmanship? :O
The only GH thing I miss in Rock Band is the use of stage encores. Only about 10% of the RB2 stages really have life or style to them. What’s missing is an extra kick, a giant grim reaper or two.
Lots of great ideas here — I’d also love to see some way to add value for those with expanded kits. I’m really curious if they’re going to try to introduce a 5-pad option.