Rock Band 2 Harmonix Interview

On a cold Thursday morning (seriously, there was even snow on my way there) I headed to central London and a bar above a brewery (which boded well) to try out a couple of new titles heading to Europe over the next month; Rock Band 2 and Rock Band ACDC. To be completely honest, both Rock Band 2 and AC/DC play very similarly to the original game, and since RB2 is already released in the US, there is little point in me concentrating on the differences, when you could probably just YouTube the title and see for yourself. Let’s just say that the upgrades to the game itself including online band world tour, challenges, and a much more interesting single player have tweaked the game to the pinnacle of the music genre. Oh, and a lot of great tracks can’t hurt, despite many of them being chord based on guitar.

It was a pleasure to be able to sit down and have a chat with Lead Designer Dan Teasdale, who still seemed genuinely excited about the game and John Drake, PR, who still seemed genuinely excited about making sure Dan didn’t reveal too many secrets to me. I started by asking about the upcoming release of Rock Band 2.

Well Rock Band 2 ships on the 14th and it’ll be out by the 21st November Dan revealed, as if we didn’t already know, and went on to clarify that Harmonix really has no problem with game stores selling it as soon as it comes in, hence the release ‘by the 21st November’.

We’ll be getting the 20 free bonus songs as a redeemable code that comes with the game, much like the US versions, and should be available to us immediately, since they are officially released on the 4th November.

The Platform

The new instruments are coming out in December. We’re releasing the game first because we want to get the new stuff in your hands as soon as possible continued Dan, you’ve got to remember Rock Band was the first major international release for MTV Games. We had to build new buildings to store everything, set up the infrastructure for downloads on multiple platforms, but now it’s already in place. We even became the largest manufacturer of drum sticks!

While it is a definite improvement on Rock Band’s release schedule, it seems that Harmonix is working to decrease the time between international releases and it is only going to get better. With the release of the European version of the original Rock Band however, the developer learnt a lot about their audience.

What we noticed was that when we released Rock Band in Europe with the European bonus songs, everyone outside Europe loved them, so we’re really looking to keep adding that kind of material to the platform explained Dan.

And it’s clear that they do consider Rock Band a platform. Dan and John reinforced their statements on future compatibility, so in theory, multiple games down the line you’ll still be able to use your downloadable content in the new games. Speaking about the DLC and variety of tracks available, I asked about how often they get the licences they want.

Since we were acquired by MTV the scale of licences we have available is insane. We get most of what we want boasted Dan. But we’re still taking requests. If you have an account on the Rock Band forums, you can put music in your DLC wishlist in your profile, and it goes into a database that we check through.

Song Requests

Apparently, the more people that put a song in, the quicker they are likely to notice it, so consider this an official Boomtown call for everyone to add ‘Rainbow – Since You’ve Been Gone’ to their profiles. After a brief discussion between the two, there was a suggestion that Foo Fighters – The Colour and the Shape could be the next album released for the games. While at the press event I had a good chance to try out the new instruments, and the expensive Harmonix approved ‘Ion drum kit’.

The US release of Rock Band 2 has had no major problems and we believe we have the most reliable equipment available Dan reassured me.

And it’s not hard to see why. The guitar itself looks much the same beyond the different colouration, but the start button is nicely embedded into the guitar to stop any accidental pausing on the guitar account. The fret buttons and strum bar are far improved however, with a near silent operation without compromising the feel of playing. Frets still feel clicky whether or not you can really hear them, so you are sure when you are holding them down. The strum bar seems slightly more resistant than the first iteration too, rather than the questionable mushy feeling which didn’t really lend itself to an obvious strum, Rock Band 2’s Stratocaster feels much better defined when playing.

The new drum kit feels much the same, however with a metal reinforced drum pedal and more attractive black drum pads. They are bouncier in feel, more like real drums and definitely hurt my wrists less than the originals. While they are velocity sensitive, it was difficult to get a good feel for that in the loud room where we were playing (three sets at once). Then there’s the Ion drum kit which retails at around £200; an expensive addition to an already expensive game experience, but (as expected) a vast improvement on the comparatively flimsy feeling other game instruments. Of course Rock Band isn’t just for the hardcore Ion Drum kit gamer.

Rock Band is a success with casual gamers because it’s a shared fantasy. Everyone wants to play in a Rock Band. The struggle was getting people to play Rock Band for the first time, but the Harmonix vision is very much to enable non musicians to experience and create music, Dan offered philosophically.

Making the Magic Happen

Since Harmonix’s other baby, Guitar Hero, now a competitor features a music creation studio as part of the newest entry in the franchise, Dan’s comment on creating music made my ears prick up. He must be so used to the question by now that he didn’t even have to look over at John for whether he was able to say anything concrete about whether Harmonix are looking to add in music creation tools in the next version and what future features are planned.

I can’t tell you anything yet, but we are interested in ‘doing it right’, Dan sidetracked. It’s all about supporting the platform. We are always looking into adding new things, such as being able to hear vocals online, but that hasn’t made it because we never want to compromise gameplay.

Staggering the start of a song to prioritise the vocals so that the lag could be taken into account was my suggestion, however the lag on activating overdrive at the right time is the issue they do not want to compromise. I asked about what was next on the agenda… adding new instruments? Features?

We want to focus on the core Rock Band experience, and adding, say, new instruments would fundamentally change that. We’d like to keep it with Vocals, Bass, Lead and Drums rather than overcomplicate things said Dan confidently.

Understandably so considering the fun we were all having in the next room with the games. A lot of negativity surrounds Neversoft and their ‘overcharting’, especially when compared to Rock Band, which they attribute to almost all being musicians. Coyly I asked why they decided to pair that with gaming.

Because we need to feed ourselves. We’re not all successful musicians, John chipped in.

Friends of Bill

While PS3 owners have had to suffer delays between the 360 and PS3 release of the previous game, Harmonix still haven’t given a release date for Rock Band 2 PS3 in Europe.

It’ll be soon after the Xbox 360 date. Microsoft have been working with us incredibly closely, as part of the team and have been pushing hard themselves to get features working like Rock Band song export into Rock Band 2. We don’t have that kind of support from Sony. I would love to get a stronger relationship with Sony though explained Dan. We are aware of the PS3 issue of deleting individual songs and that’s really a Sony issue.

So now we know whom to blame for that, it was nice to see that Harmonix do listen to their customers’ requests and comments. While I invited them to be a bit more liberal with their communications, especially to their most hardcore fanbase on the official forums, even if just to state that they are aware of problems and issues, Dan and John agreed that it is the right thing to keep your customers informed. At the same time as our event, Harmonix sent out a press release revealing a Beatles game, and naturally John’s watchful eye made it difficult to squeeze any solid details from Dan.

It’s not a Rock Band game, not by name. It’s more a chronicle of the lifestyle of the Beatles Dan teased.

While they haven’t announced anything further, the material could end up in Rock Band as playable content, perhaps through exporting the content much like Rock Band and Rock Band ACDC, though the game itself is not tied in beyond the platform of playing music as a band. Clutching at straws I begged them for some more exclusive information that could possibly appease my Editor, even something untrue I could post as a rumour.

Well, Dan’s a useless idiot perked up John.

Dan laughed at the joke.

John finished Oh no wait, he wanted something untrue.

Rock Band 2 will be released ‘by’ the 21st of November on the Xbox 360 in Europe. Thanks to Dan Teasdale and John Drake for their time, and especially John for offering me his business card multiple times.