Say what you will about Bon Jovi, they have done what they do very well for a very long time. And with such a keys-heavy sound, it’s no surprise they’re one of the first artists to appear as Rock Band 3 DLC. Alas, contrary to previous rumors, the lineup isn’t quite as huge as their entire greatest-hits album, but it’s a pretty solid collection nonetheless. Sure, it includes repackaged versions of tunes already available in the Rock Band library. But it also has “Runaway.” I consider that a net win.
| Bon Jovi | Bad Medicine |   |
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| Jon Bon Jovi | Blaze of Glory | |
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| Bon Jovi | Have a Nice Day | |
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| Bon Jovi | I’ll Be There for You | |
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| Bon Jovi | It’s My Life | |
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| Bon Jovi | Lay Your Hands on Me | |
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| Bon Jovi | Livin’ on a Prayer (RB3 Version) | |
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| Bon Jovi | Runaway | |
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| Bon Jovi | Wanted Dead or Alive (RB3 Version) | |
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| Bon Jovi | We Weren’t Born to Follow | |
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| Bon Jovi | Who Says You Can’t Go Home (w/ Jennifer Nettles) | |
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| Bon Jovi | You Give Love a Bad Name (RB3 Version) | |
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And that’s not all that’s coming on Tuesday. Those of us who didn’t preorder from GameStop also get those three previously exclusive singles:
| Deftones | My Own Summer |  |
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| New Order | Blue Monday |  |
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| Talking Heads | Burning Down the House |  |
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Pricing for the Bon Jovi pack will be $19.99, 1600 Microsoft Points, or 2000 Wii Points. Each track can be purchased individually for $2 or the equivalent. And the GameStop tracks, the three “RB3 Version” tunes, and “Runaway” all offer Pro guitar/bass upgrades for a buck.
Might I interest you in a playlist? You can find it after the break.
I’m just going to say what I said on ScoreHero already.
Look at it this way. They had to go back and basically do them as new DLC in order to update them. That’s a lot of work. Furthermore, including them in the pack like this makes it a little easier to swallow, because you’re essentially buying the 9 new tracks for the normal DLC price and paying $0.66 for each upgrade. I imagine the stuff they will be updating will also be mostly in large packs (Queen/Boston obviously).
Personally, I don’t mind. I believe that they made an honest effort to figure out a way to take into account people who bought the previous tracks, but it’s just impossible with the way the console marketplaces work. They would have to have some sort of hidden DLC that is cheaper and control access through codes or something, and that could easily be gamed and is a lot of extra effort. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. If the only way to get the back catalogue updated with the new features (due to technical and/or legal reasons) is to literally relicense, remix, and rechart as new DLC, then I will take it. Queen, Boston, Bon Jovi, this is some of my absolute favourite shit to play in this game and I want them updated. Badly. I am willing to essentially buy them again for the update of new features. The fact that we’re even getting them upgraded at all makes me happy as fuck.
If you already have the existing versions and you’re happy with them, then don’t buy the new ones. Easy. They have to remain separate tracks for online play, because how else are we supposed to differentiate between updated and non-updated versions of the same track? At least this way, I can play the non-updated version online with people who don’t have the updated version, because it exists separately.
How many songs do you have Dorkmaster?
I have close to 1,900.
Hardcore fans like me who bought every track are sure as hell not gonna pay two dollars for keyboards in old songs (I could take or leave harmony..and the pro guitar and bass is extra dollar anyway) and too many great songs came out that are missing it that I won’t mind paying extra for.
But not two dollars.
If it’s one dollar for the guitar stuff…then it sure as hell ain’t the same value we’re getting for their work to add a keyboard and backing vocal line.
Anyway…these were ondisc songs. Updated DLC songs hopefully might have a cheaper way to go.
No matter how much you want to spin shit….this is less work for them…and if there is absolutely no way to patch in this stuff…then they could easily come up with a way to charge you half price (the same dollar they are charging extra for much more work that they have to do) if you already bought the track before.
I don’t mind paying…but two bucks per track is too much. They could also fashion packs solely around redos and offer a discount.
Anyway…I’m psyched for Runaway, Blaze of Glory, Wanted Dead Or Alive and Living On Prayer and I’ll hold my taste buds and play the rest of the soon to be lamest Rock And Roll Hall of Fame member tracks.
“At least this way, I can play the non-updated version online with people who don’t have the updated version, because it exists separately”
That’s… actually not a bad point. I was planning on getting rid of those three repeats as soon as I purchased the updated versions, but I think you gave a really good reason to keep ‘em. Fortunately, we can 1 Star ‘em so they will rarely show in random setlists.
As for the $2 for updated songs… I’m going to be very stingy regardless. Besides Bon Jovi, the only band I can think of that I’ll consider buying updated tracks for is Queen. That’s not really a defense for or against the price, obviously, but it’s where I’m standing.
The new policy is awful
http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?207069-So-is-this-how-updating-tracks-going-to-work/page8
It’s bullshit that keyboard players get fucked. I’m particularly mad I got suckered into buying stuff like Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix.
I should have been like others and boycotted until RB3.
PS Harmonix needs to hire someone who can spend ten minutes to tell us stuff properly to begin with…instead of the half ass way this jerk has done it the last few years.
Henry, the jerk, banned me from the forums or I’d write this there…but I’m really, really pissed about this…I’ve spent thousands on this game and it’s BS that they took my money the last few months knowing that they would soon ask for it again.
Why the hell didn’t they delay Bob Marley and other top DLC until after RB3….
I’ve been buying DLC for months on the hopes that it would be backdated for pro keys…
If they knew this months ago they should have told us.
It’s really really bullshit.
It seems a little like they’re all too willing to share the good news as soon as they can, but if it’s not-so-good news, they’ll let you find out for yourself, sometimes after you’ve already spent your money. Stage Kit incompatibility, lost export songs, lost past export songs, lost DLC, “upgrades” for past songs, Score Duel removed…
I can appreciate that they might genuinely not know some of this stuff ahead of time, but I think they could do a better job of clearing things up more effectively, and sooner.
This is why I haven’t bought any DLC since news of major new features came out. (Except for LIVEapalooza, which got me pretty good. x_x ) If I’d bought a whole whack of Queen for $16, and then got told I’d have to pay it again to get a proper treatment with Keys and Harmonies… I’d be kinda disgruntled. I’m sure I’ve gotten $10 worth of fun out of the Boston pack, but if they ask me to pay it again, ignoring my previous patronage… again, some disgruntlement.
Pertaining to score duel and all the VS stuff dropped…
Hurr durr casual player here. :B
I’ve never played much at all in the competitive modes, especially not online in RB2, but I can see why it’s gone. It’s not necessary now. Every time you play a song in RB3 on any instrument on a system signed into an online network, it’s you VS all the world on a scoreboard for that instrument on that song.
“I’ve been buying DLC for months on the hopes that it would be backdated for pro keys…”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t we told that none of the pre-RB3 DLC would have RB3 features like keys (harmonies excluded, which was definitely a surprise)?
We were told exactly that.
I’ve been selective with most of the DLC, so I may not mind grabbing a few RB3 versions. :3c
I think over the post-E3 weeks where we saw artists like Bob Marley, Neon Trees, and songs like “Straight Lines”, “Bulletproof”, “Welcome to the Black Parade”, there was some thought of “Why would these piano/keyboard/synth-heavy songs be released now, if they weren’t planning to make it keys-compatible for RB3?” This, in spite of what they told us was true. Some people may have gone ahead and taken this wishful thinking into an expectation, and an eventual letdown as a result.
In contrast to that, shortly after E3, Dan Teasdale said that the Stage Kit would work in RB3. Presuming the lead designer was not mistaken in this statement, somewhere along the way, a decision was made to not support the SK, and as far as I know, nobody said anything about it.
For Score Duel–not getting into whether it should or shouldn’t be there–it probably should have come up at some point that it wouldn’t be there. I’m pretty sure Harmonix had done head-to-head modes going all the way back to Frequency, so why would anyone even ask them the question? It wasn’t until the game was in people’s hands that the news came out. Most people probably won’t find out until after they’ve bought the game. A lot of people might not care, but for some, it might be a key feature of the game.
I’m really disappointed with the price of updating songs you’ve already bought. It piles on cost for people who have been their best customers from the beginning.
How much DLC would they have sold if from day one they said “each song will cost you $4.99″?
Oh, please.
We were never told anything like that officially. I’m sick of people spinning for Harmonix.
This is wrong what they are doing..especially the way they deliver the news.
You people think that harmonix guys saying something in an interview counts as official news etc. that customers who buy games are expected to be as web savvy as us when they buy their products.
No. They ABSOLUTELY DID NOT say what you claimed they did in a black and white manner on their website. And heck they said the exact opposite in countless interviews. The difference is that they didn’t tell us that the stuff that they would update…and would probably be discounted they hinted… would just be for pro guitar not keyboards.
I also don’t freaking appreciate having to read 100 pages on the forums to see other tidbits H tells us about shit he should tell us straight up first (for instance why keyboards can’t be added in cheap manner like guitar…why they have to update the whole track…..and why they can’t discount to users…stuff you have to find on multiple pages or interviews with blogs…why the heck is henry telling a game site that songs on particular date cant be played in rb3 by anvil etc but they’re going to make a patch….that’s info that should be on the damn announcements page…he’s a lazy sob that can’t even do his job….at least the blogs want to score interviews…the commenters are just asskissers
I’m sick of people defending the way they release info….it’s terrible. I’m sick of hearing excuses about why they can’t tell us stuff when it takes five seconds to tweet etc. The fact is the worst thing about harmonix is the jerk way they feed us info….why the heck are we left in suspense on weeks when only one song is coming out for instance? a smart pr person would realize that making people wait till friday..and its funny how crappy dlc announcements are always late, too…when you have crap DLC is stupid.
Why is it so hard for someone at Harmonix to figure out that keyboard players are curious what bon jovi songs they’ll get to play next week?
That info isn’t in the post…I think all the songs have keyboads but I’m not entirely sure…again that’s stuff that someone who actually cared mostly about informing the public should work to deliver.
Compare Major Nelson to that schmo. I’ve never seen Major Nelson insult people or ban them.
@Rab, This is all post-RB3 DLC, so all of it has keys and harmonies, if the song has them. Everything going forward from this point does. They’ve said this already. With regards to your first post, I have over 1000 songs. Not as many as you, I admit, but I have a very big library and I have spent lots of money on RB over the past three years. I’m simply pragmatic about it.
I understand perfectly well why they can’t add keys to the existing DLC files because I understand how the charts work from a technical perspective. You should go read the RBN documentation, as it gives a great insight into how the DLC actually works. If you understand this, it becomes immediately clear that the mixing of the audio tracks is the primary problem with updating old DLC. Not only does the audio mix have to be completely redone, but if we’re going to re-release it anyway, we should sure as hell go back and update the other instruments with new features such as HOPO chords and the trill/roll mechanic. I’m looking forward to having an actual snare roll at the beginning of Wanted Dead or Alive.
Now given that they basically have to be counted as new songs, both from a technical and (apparently) from a licensing perspective too, the question becomes how to deal with people who bought the previous versions of the songs. Since they’re taking the opportunity to basically rechart the entire song, re-releasing it as technically new DLC and charging the normal price for it suddenly doesn’t sound as ridiculous as everyone makes it out to be.
I agree that the idea solution would be to find a way to give a discounted version of it to people who already bought the previous version, but this is problematic for a few reasons. For one thing, this depends on MS and Sony and Nintendo having a mechanism built into the marketplace to perform the operation “if this user bought DLC X, then they get DLC Y for this price instead”. They simply don’t have that capability.
Now they could have a different, hidden version of the DLC instead that has a different price, but that would require controlling access to it via some sort of code. How would they manage these codes? Well they would have to do it via your gamertag, probably typing it into their site and interfacing with MS/Sony/Nintendo to find out if this profile bought said DLC in the past. The code would have to be generated specifically for said gamertag/console, and it would have to be secure enough in design to prevent misuse. Is this even possible? I have no idea, but I highly doubt that MS/Sony have this capability in place, or that they even have the motivation to do so in the first place. I can’t even imagine the amount of headaches involved in creating a system like this.
No, what they did was the absolute simplest and most straightforward thing to do. This is a new version of the song. If it’s not worth buying it again to you, then simply don’t buy it. It’s not perfect, but RB3 has unfortunately created a schism between old DLC and new DLC. Bringing existing DLC across that schism takes time and money, period.
bleah bleah bleah
Do they pay you to troll on all the sites or is this your idea of fun?
Who cares what you think…
I’m entitled to complain.
And anyone who buys any old DLC now is a moron…Harmonix is telling all its customers that their old content might be redone.
They are complete scoundrels for not warning customers months ago.
You completely ignore that.
If you’re not getting paid to go across gaming sites to argue against complaining people then you should requestion your priorities in life. People like you are the reason why the Rock Band forums suck. Who cares what you have to say….let the company speak for itself…and not only will I not buy any DLC that doesn’t have keyboards anymore I’ll continue to make noise about it…so get stuffed if you don’t like it for some bizarre reason…unless again it’s your job to do this.
That’s enough, Rab. I get that you’re pissed about the situation, but I’m not going to have people getting personal here. You’re entitled to your opinion, but keep it civil if you’re going to be expressing it here.
As far as I can tell, there won’t be any more DLC without keyboards at all — not unless the song doesn’t have keys at all. Sounds to me like this is just for new versions of old tunes. Judging from the reactions, they may be reconsidering how often they’ll be doing that sort of thing.
They absolutely could do a better job of keeping people informed. For a game and “platform” as deep and complex as Rock Band, there isn’t an easily-accessible FAQ on the RockBand.com site, as far as I can tell. You pretty much have to keep on top of things by visiting third-party sites like here, and RockBandAide, and maybe some of the bigger sites (GameSpot, IGN, Joystiq) for bigger announcements. Then there’s following multiple Harmonix employees’ Twitter feeds, which isn’t exclusively about Harmonix business, and often has a lot of IN JOKES IN CAPS which many people might not care about. And the occasional reply in a giant forum thread on the official site. For the bigger news, the info will probably get around… if you’re paying attention. A lot of people don’t want to put that much effort into it.
As far as re-release/upgraded DLC discounts for current owners, they could maybe do them exclusively in the in-game Music Store. RB3 recognizes every song in your library now (RB2 only recognized individual tracks and packs you’d bought, ignoring things like the Harmonix 01 pack from the OXM demo disc, Track Pack disc exports, etc.). Considering that the launch week Doors packs were only available there, discounted/free, it would seem as though there might be some way to make this happen.
I’m sure a lot of people have all 3 Bon Jovi songs, but no doubt there’s people with only 1 or 2. From a singles standpoint, it’s a little simpler. But what if you want to buy the full pack? Do you get $1 bumped off the price for every song you already own? Will any or all of Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo let them do this sort of discounting?
Rab, you are absolutely entitled to complain about it, and not buy the upgraded DLC if you choose. But please don’t go questioning my motives or integrity on the subject. That’s just insulting, and that’s what I was trying to respond to.
You asked how many songs I have for RB, presumably because you thought that I only have a small number and therefore the implication was that your opinion on the matter is more valid than mine because you have a bigger investment. Would it interest you to know that, outside of DLC, I now own an electronic drum kit worth several thousand dollars precisely because of RB? I wanted to start playing a real kit, and RB was the reason why. Technically, that’s not money spent “on RB”, but it’s money spent because of RB, and yes, I can’t wait to go drop $300 on the Squier in March and try to learn some actual guitar skills. My investment in this franchise is significant too.
I’m not paid by HMX or anyone else. I’m just a person who spends a lot of time and money on RB because I love it. It’s easily the most fulfilling game I’ve ever played in my life, especially with the pro mode stuff teaching you real skills. I’m having a blast with the keyboards and singing vocal harmonies with my wife. We played the hell out of the Beatles RB for that. There are amazing artists in the back catalogue that would really benefit from these upgrades, and Bon Jovi is one of them. My personal big hit list is Queen, Boston, Kansas and Journey (in that order of priority) if you’re interested.
My worry is exactly what Joe said above; that they may be re-evaluating whether it’s worth it to re-release other old DLC now because of the reaction. My motivation which you question is simply trying to counteract the extreme negative reaction to this because I don’t want them to simply throw their hands up and go “Okay, it’s not worth updating the old songs because of this”. I really want certain artists upgraded, and I’m willing to pay for it and I want them to know that. It’s that simple. And come to think of it, I guess it’s just as simple as going to the marketplace next week and buying the Bon Jovi pack. Vote with your wallet.
And Broccoli, I agree with you 100% that they need to do a better job communicating this stuff to the community. It shouldn’t take a 100 page shitstorm on the forums to coax this info out of them. They absolutely should have announced exactly how they were going to handle updating the back catalogue before they started doing so. I’m not defending their communication on the matter, I’m just defending the way they’re actually doing the upgrades.
There is no perfect way to do it that will please everybody involved, and is actually doable from a technical and business sense. Why would they bother to upgrade these tracks if they’re going to lose money on doing so? They had to know they would get this kind of reaction, and it will most definitely hurt sales of older DLC if people were thinking about going back and picking it up. It was a risk for them to even do this in the first place.
Yes, people who are buying the upgraded DLC now will pay less in the long run because they only had to buy it once. But it’s same with people who buy an iPhone several years later when the price has dropped, for example. Early adopters pay more to get things first. That’s always how it works.
As for the free Doors songs, that was much, much simpler. They’re simply available for free to anyone through the RB3 music store in the game directly for the first week. They don’t have to worry about figuring out whether you bought certain DLC in the past. I really think people are severely underestimating both the time and money required to do these upgrades in the first place, and the difficulty in implementing some kind of system to allow for discounts for certain people only based on what they bought in the past in an easy automated fashion. I’m a software developer myself. These things are often more complex than they first appear on the surface, that’s all I’m saying.
Derp derp I just watch G4 derp. B)
But yeah… I’m in no way surprised nor offended by any of what Harmonix has done regarding old DLC. I saw and heard directly (through mah TV bawx) from a HMX mouth that legacy DLC will not be able to pick up any of the new functionality in RB3. Many things could have been inferred from that, including “Oh! If we really want this old track in RB3, we’ll have to mix this track again and code it into the RB3-specific file type.”
Cry moar or save up. :3
I bought No More Tears and I’ll sure as hell buy it again if it means keyboards, same with Rust in Peace. =D
Well, Rust In Peace doesn’t have any keyboards, so I doubt that would get upgraded.
At best, you might see pro guitar/bass addons for it some time down the road.
That’s another thing people seem to be completely flipping out about. “Oh sure, it’s just $2 now, but we have 2000 songs in the catalogue!” Uh, do you seriously think the entire back catalogue is going to be upgraded? Hell no. I’d be amazed if even 5% of it gets upgraded. Most of it doesn’t have any keys to begin with, and even the stuff that does have keys usually has so little keys as to not be worth it to re-release it.
The only stuff we’ll likely be seeing “RB3 Version” for is big name acts like Queen and Boston. I’m hoping Journey and Kansas get the Bon Jovi treatment as well with a big greatest hits pack and the few songs we already have being upgraded.
Lots of songs with harmonies need the upgrade, though. Don’t forget us vocalists!
Oh I’m not, believe me. My wife sings pretty much exclusively, and I love doing harmonies. There are lots of songs in the back catalogue that have some harmonies. Things like chiming in during the chorus and such. This is actually quite common, and a lot of fun when I’m playing another instrument at the same time (mental note: get some mic stands…). But there aren’t very many songs that have really strong harmonies all over the place, like Queen does for example. These are the songs that would most likely get updated.
I don’t think it’s going to be worth it to go back and re-release an upgraded version of a song by a smaller band just to get a little bit of harmonies in the chorus, especially if the song doesn’t have any keys. And even if it does, the question is whether it’s worth it for the number of people that will buy it again. I’m willing to bet most people would say Queen and Boston and the like are worth it. Whether we see smaller artists updated will depend on how the bigger artists do, which is why I’m all the more concerned about the ridiculously negative reaction to this so far.
This is the last time I ever come here.
Again…I have nothing to say to fanboys who take days and days before they admit anything they initially said was wrong. I think that people like that are what make video game blogs and websites terrible. They attack complainers and defend the company. And then when customers get mad…the trolls don’t even get wet noodled.
I’ve been a regular reader. Not a troll copying and pasting defense of Harmonix across the web so see ya, joe.
But if I leave too many mean comments about Harmonix maybe there won’t be exclusive info given here.
Why not write instead about how Harmonix implied in August that they could update legacy tracks with keyboards…
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?pager.offset=1&cId=3180908&p=
But none of the older songs, at the game’s launch anyway, will be compatible with the Pro keys difficulty. According to Sussman, “That doesn’t mean that we won’t make that something in the future. Through the DLC pipepline, we have the facility to add those parts to existing songs. We have to figure that out. There’s certainly a lot of stuff in that back catalog that’s ripe for keys and even Pro mode in general, whether it’s the guitar or the keyboard. We want to encourage people in the media and also our fans to be vocal about what they want on RockBand.com, and be specific. We want to know what songs people what for Pro, for keyboard.”
Rab — and this goes for everyone else — you’re welcome to rant about Harmonix as much as you want here, or anywhere else. But when you attack other readers and commenters, that’s where I draw the line.
There are places on the internet where you can have arguments that can get as personal and uncivil as you want. This isn’t one of them.
If you can have disagreements without saying things like this: “…you should requestion your priorities in life. People like you are the reason why the Rock Band forums suck. Who cares what you have to say…get stuffed” (or “derp derp…cry moar,” Diaboros) …then you are welcome to stay here as long as you like and make as much noise as you care to about Harmonix or anyone else.
But if you can’t, then you’re right, you probably shouldn’t come back.
Sure got serious in here. :3
[Edit] Yes yes, I’m sorry. Kind of like an immune system I just tend to naturally take up drama control, be it usually in poisonous ways. >:3
Yes, DLC upgrades are serious business.
Seriously though, I get why people are upset. It’s a contentious issue. But Joe is right; we can discuss it without resorting to personal attacks which add nothing to the debate and just piss people off.