New Kickstarter Campaign Can FC Xbox 360 Games for You
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the world’s greatest Rock Band/Guitar Hero guitar player. Sure, I play on expert, and even won a local Guitar Hero night several years ago, but when I compare myself to most of the people that visit the site here, RockBand.com, and ScoreHero, they could probably crush me with their eyes closed. It’s all relative, I guess. And even though I got in on the ground floor of the plastic peripheral games with the original Guitar Hero, I still can’t beat one or two songs on Expert in most of the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games. And with a new Kickstarter campaign, it looks like I may finally be able to get past some of the nightmare songs.
Enter “Guitar Zero,” a programmable circuit created with the explicit purpose of recording, saving, sharing, and replaying Rock Band and Guitar Hero song tracks, or as they describe, “a self-playing Xbox 360 game controller.” A working prototype already exists, but a recent Kickstarter campaign has been initiated to help fund this technology into a “DIY Hobbyist Kit” for the masses (or at least, the masses on the Xbox 360).
Supporters of the campaign can, if fully funded, get a DIY kit or (what appears to be) a fully functional Guitar Hero 3 Les Paul with the module installed. The chipset currently supports the GH2 Xplorer and GH3 Les Paul, with RB Stratocaster functionality expected to be supported “immediately.” The Kickstarter campaign appears to support all of the Xbox 360 Guitar Hero titles (including Band Her), as well as all of the Rock Band titles (although Rock Band 3 is missing, despite mentioning that RB3′s Pro mode is not supported…), and should support all on-disc songs. It is also capable of supporting additional songs from future games (no mention of DLC, but I’m assuming the TTL Serial to USB connection would enable that, as well).
Here are additional videos of the prototype in action, along with more supplementary technical discussion.
Prototype Song Track Replay Operation Demo
Through the Fire and Flames – Expert 100% FC
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Very interesting, and something I was willing to put a bit of money behind.
See, I hate these things. If I can’t manage to perfect a song, I spend the time I need practicing it. (Mind you I only do vocals, but still). This thing reminds me of the reasons I hate online gaming of any kind: Cheaters and douches.
crash53456 Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
I agree, this is lame. Leaderboards will mean nothing.
RickC32 Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Will it kick off OD at the optimal points? If not, the Leaderboards won’t be meaningless. They will show us who is the most skilled at tilt-to-activate!
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Also, isn’t there a vs. mode in Rock Band? It will totally destroy any actual semblance of fair multiplayer too.
crash53456 Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
In RB1 and RB2.
Alexa Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 12:39 pm
well, i also not agree with this product, but Leaderboards just mean nothing since a lot of timeeeeeeee (specially on the GH3 LeaderBoard) cuz seriously! how in the hell does some guys got like 300K on Missisippi Queen? cuz some friends just FC that song and got about like 117K by most! :s
T Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
What I’m curious of is how Microsoft, RedOctane, and Mad Catz feel about somebody essentially selling mods to their hardware on a scale such as this.
It’s one thing to tool around and do this on their own, but they want to eventually sell this product.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
I have a pretty good feeling that they are NOT going to like it.
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
I wouldn’t be shocked if at least Activision catches wind of it and forces them to remove the GH branding. They are attempting to make money off of other people’s IP and that’s baaaad.
PikminGuts92 Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
I like how you said ‘Red Octane’ as if they were still around.
Saeglopur Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 11:31 am
Absolutely agree. This product is terrible! It should be stopped. Who needs this? For what reason should we get such a thing? I mean, great, the leaderboards will be full of cheaters. I seriously hope HMX or Activision or EA or whoever will stop this.
The only reason I would consider this is to get that piece of crap 100% the solo in the Final Countdown achievement.
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
definitely. I might actually consider it for that, since after all these years I’ve never been able to pull it off. And maybe for a couple Beatles acheivements that have eluded me for years.
Let’s skip right to the most important question:
If you use this mod and post scores to the Live leaderboards (as well as unlock achievements), is it considered “cheating” by the XBL user’s agreement?
Because modding the console itself is a permabannable offense, but this is modding a controller to achieve basically the same end.
I’m less interested in the rammifications to the scoreboards and more interested in the rammifications to Microsoft’s modding policy.
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
It should. I know of people getting banned from xbl for using such things on shooters.
lockefox Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 11:24 am
Though definitely against the EULA, this I believe is an unenforceable case.
Many console mods can be detected through hardware detection, and more through various tests of “human possible”. Hunting down hacked guitars is such a low priority, anything short of console modding is probably not policed.
Also, from the looks of the hardware, they have only modded the interface between the inputs (think “turbo button” that bypasses human input). This particular hack would be nearly impossible to detect, and the cost of enforcement is probably unacceptable.
Best analogy is: though speeding is against the law, doing it in the desert won’t get you a ticket. Technically you’re breaking the rules, but I seriously doubt there will be any enforcement
Can I start a kickstarter to get rid of this project? I don’t think Jimi Hendrix modded his guitar after he landed that perfect solo for live shows!
A few years ago, in my frustration that I couldn’t finish Run to the Hills on expert drums, and nab that AN-I-MAL achievement- I had the bright idea that while I couldn’t roll the red as fast as I needed to, I could definitely strum that fast.
So with a broken drumset and guitar, I ended up creating a drumtar- a guitar with the brain of the drumset, which had the YBG pads set to the frets (tapping) the bass pedal plugged in normally, and would have had the red set up to work with the strumbar (if I’d ever found a good way to mount the peizos so that they would be struck by the strumbar accurately). The prototype never was finished and currently resides under my bed’s headboard (soon to be recycled when I get around to doing it).
Three years later, I managed to achieve AN-I-MAL on my own, on an actual drumset. Sure, it took a lot of time, but in the end I did succeed. While I can see myself making some select use of this device (especially if they make one for the drums) to get missing achievements, it just cheapens the leaderboards more than they already are, and that I find rather disappointing.
Wow what the heck is this? I find it disturbing and saddening that people are willing to put money behind it. It is essentially the equivalent of a modded controller that makes a gun in a FPS game shoot at lightning speed or get automatic headshots. This will break the leaderboards more than no fail in RB3 does.
I’m going on a tangent, but I hate how RB3 saves scores when no fail is on because the person didn’t actually beat the song. Sure, I can do pretty well on Beast and the Harlot on X drums, but I always fail at the drum solo. So I’d probably manage a 5 star, but I didn’t actually pass the song.
Anyways, this device shouldn’t be supported at all by anyone. What is the point of a rhythm game if the controller hits all the notes for you?
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
What does it matter if they did or didn’t have no fail on? If they would have failed the song, and you wouldn’t have, chances are your score would be higher than theirs, correct? So what does it matter?
Honestly, I find it more annoying that someone who gets a higher score playing Hard than I do on Expert, gets ranked higher on the leaderboard than I do, regardless of whether No Fail is on or off.
WAWA Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
To me, I see it like if a person failed a song, then there shouldn’t be a recorded score. I also get annoyed about seeing scores on hard higher then my expert scores.
I really hate when I couldn’t beat a song on expert long ago but I could now and my expert score doesn’t show in quickplay, it just shows my hard score. I think their should be a hierarchy system between the difficulties.
Just seems… pointless. Whole point of achievements is that you, you know, achieve them.
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Ya, it’s pretty sickening. Even the creator of the kickstarter is a self-proclaimed “achievement hunter” and is trying to build this monstrosity so he can get the one he’s just not good enough to get naturally. I want to message him and say “It’s called practice, douchenozzle. Learn it, live it, get better on your own”.
Asphyx1ateD Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
There’s a few trophies (I play GH/RB on PS3, everything else on 360) I’m missing, that I’ll probably never be good enough to get, but I certainly wouldn’t cheat for them. I quit playing a few months ago, though, as I really wasn’t getting better. The last trophy I need on Lego RB is the Final Countdown one, which is very frustrating.
Then there’s the obligatory song specific ones on Metallica…
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Oh there’s absolutely a few that I’ll never be able to get (most of the non-vocal ones, tbh lol) but yea, cheating to get them is just lame & pathetic.
291j291j Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 2:11 am
I agree. I really can’t see any merit in this at all. The idea of scoring isnt just to see how you manage to top somebody else. Most of us use it to measure our own efforts to see if we are improving.
Or maybe I’m just missing the point completely here…
This is cheating in it’s most blatant form and risks the future of the Rock Band franchise. If I was the CEO of Harmonix and found that this product got the green light I wouldn’t bother putting any effort into creating RB4 or any other guitar based rhythm game.
Maybe it’s possible to have existing games patched to do some kind of “peripheral test” that can detect this circuit and render either the scores null or disables the controller entirely. Then again, my first paragraph is the easiest and cheapest option for them.
Dein Bär Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 4:13 am
In 1139 Pope Innocent II banned the use of crossbows against Christians, it would be cool if Benedict XVI could ban this device for music games.
Ritchie_Blackmoore Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 5:09 am
Christians still used crossbows against everyone else though.. Hate the damn catholics but that’s another story not appropriate for this site.
I kind of like the idea of saving your own replays. Mentioning that as an afterthought and making petty cheating the main focus of the promotion, not so much.
We all know that rhythm gaming is already a dying genre, but this is just the final nail to the coffin. Pathetic.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Don’t see any correlation or causation between the two.
LAME CHEATERS!!!
WiiDrummer Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
What is the point of even playing the game if you are going to use a cheat mod like this???
This could be useful if you want to post zero-day flawless videos to youtube from your banned Xbox Live account.
My favourite part of the kickstarter page is: “You’ll see who’s backed this project once it has 10 backers. If you just backed, stay tuned! You’ll show up here too. Names will be updated every 10 backers, in no particular order. All names will be listed when the project ends no matter what.”
They aren’t even going to try to make Microsoft work and figuring out who to ban.
Chiok Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Plus they are selling a chip with 2000ish MIDI songs of music. If Microsoft, Activision, or Harmonix don’t shut this down, the music copyright holders will.
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
do the chips actually have MIDI versions of the songs? Or just signals that trigger one of five outputs that correspond to the GRYBO frets in a specified pattern? If its the latter, I’d have a really hard time believing the music copyright holders could manage to actually have a foot to stand on in court (and if they do, the copyright system is even more broken than I already believe it is).
Chiok Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1711
If they include the entire MIDI file, it includes lyrics, GRYBO, and various game information. Lyrics will get them in trouble. GRYBO information must be copyrighted by the game publishers if it is not by the music holders.
It might not stand in court somehow, but would KickStarter be willing to let it go to court?
how does get?
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 5:59 pm
English?
michael henley Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
No clearly that was spanish. Can’t even act like I can’t type without kids acting like they always type perfect.
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Who said I think I type perfect?
The fact is “how does get?” makes no sense, even when attempting to ignore the awful grammar. Can you please elaborate in a manner that actually conveys what you are asking in a way that someone who speaks English might actually understand? You can’t possibly expect to get an answer if what you say is unintelligible. Are you trying to ask how you get one of these? Or how it works? Or something else entirely?
michael henley Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Well the least you could have guessed what it meant, clearly how does get, does not meab how does this device work. That doesn’t even make sense, I could understand it meaning I don’t get it, but how it works, that doesn’t make any sense. Also I got it, and i’d assume most other people got it. And also I mostly meant when I said “type perfectly”, that this is rockbandparts, why should it matter if I use correct grammer, if I offend the less than 1million people I am so sorry. But to be fair as well the arrogance of your typing is something one would expect from young teens on youtube. So stop being such a prick and let me type the way I pleases.
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
I did try to guess, and came up with nothing. That sentence makes no sense and needed a lot more information than those three words that don’t make an English sentence. Although I understand you “got it”, I’m pretty sure most people understand what they themselves say. Also, this is NOT “rockbandparts”, this is “RockBandAide”. It doesn’t matter if you use correct grammar, but you have to at least make an intelligible sentence that someone is capable of figuring out what the hell you are saying. And then come the ad hominem attacks, which I will not bother responding to.
In the end, I STILL have no idea what you were originally asking, and I’m done trying to figure it out by asking you to clarify. You clearly are more interested in getting all butthurt over being asked to clarify than you are in having the question answered.
“Band Her”
But anyways, isn’t this just for recording that one perfect play, and being allowed to capture it later since your moves are saves? Doesn’t sound like cheating.
Nick Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
I’d agree, if it didn’t come pre-loaded with songs, and wasn’t “programmable” based on the extracts of the song files.
Ritchie_Blackmoore Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
No? You better read the article again as it states it’s “a self-playing Xbox 360 game controller.” That doesn’t sound like cheating to you?
HM Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Yeah, I see that now. What’s the point then? What I described seems more honest, yet entirely unnecessary.
Can I anti-donate? Everything about this sounds awful.
Hayden Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 12:45 am
My thoughts exactly. I wish that RockBandAide hadn’t given it publicity.
T Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 7:12 am
No. It needs to get press so that the proper license holders can roll in and shut it down.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:47 am
This site talks about anything related to Rock Band, and considering there are over 60 comments here on a story that went live yesterday, and there are some extremely strong feelings about it, clearly it warrants discussion among the community as something that is news-worthy.
This is an even worse idea than Nickelback Rock Band. I am pleased to see so much revulsion here, as it indicates that it will be very difficult for this crap to get off the ground.
Put yourselves in the shoes of the creators of rock band, they probably can’t play their own game, which has to suck, which this allows them to feel special. I think leaderboards are poorly done anyway, one person can have a 99 and get in front of like 50 people with 100%. It just seems to me like they know that most rock band players played guitar hero a lot before they played rock band. Now to be fair who plays guitar on rock band? I got a lot of perfects on guitar, but i dont want to play all of the easy songs I know I can get a perfect on, which is where this thing would come in use. Also, nowhere does it say it activates overdrive, or star power, which means more than likely your precious leaderboards will be safe.
Numskull Reply:
June 18th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
“Now to be fair who plays guitar on rock band?”
Are you fucking serious?
Ritchie_Blackmoore Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 5:12 am
LOL yeah ignorance is bliss.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:51 am
“Put yourselves in the shoes of the creators of rock band, they probably can’t play their own game…”
You mean the people that created Guitar Hero? The same people who have 15+ years of playing real guitar, graduated from the Berkeley College of Music, and literally invented music game note charting?
Yeah… they probably don’t know how to play.
michael henley Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 7:47 pm
They wrote the code to the game, doesn’t necessarily mean thyey played it all the time. More than likely they hired someone to test it.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
If you’ve ever seen them at a trade show, community event, or industry convention, you know how wrong that assumption is. Some of them are literally on stage for 12 hours at a time playing, filling in on any instrument that people don’t want to play.
Nick Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
You clearly have never developed software. Sure, many software companies have a dedicated QA team, but we all test our own code. And Harmonix is a company of musicians, why wouldn’t they play their own game? They are one of the few companies who does what they love to share with everyone. To think that they don’t play their own game is ridiculous.
I’m taking the stance that if you’re so obsessive about FCing songs or solos that you’d buy this, then you need to sit down and seriously re-evaluate your life.
LCS Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
That or how groups like ERG take 8 hours a day just to FBFC a song and then boast about it. That’s another group that needs to re-evaluate things IMO.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
You can’t fault them if they’re doing things that they are passionate about, though. That’s not something I would want to do, either, but if they enjoy it, more power to them.
Nick Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Who are either of you to judge? I’m sure you do things with your life that I would find a complete waste of time/money/effort, but you find some sort of value in.
NO WAY WOULD I SUPPORT THIS IN ANYWAY.
Isn’t the whole point of a game a challenge. I will not play with anyone using this MOD I will defriend you immediately and that is that…STRAIGHT UP CHEATING. SO STUPID
I wouldn’t really want this – although there were a couple of guitar hero songs (in 1 and 2) that I just could not pass, and had to drop to a lower difficulty and start the game over, then couldn’t get to high difficulty for later songs (which I probably could pass). That too hard song in the middle of a set that stops you cold. I’d use this to just pass that song, and that is it. Never use it in Rock Band – no fail mode, the ability to change difficulty per song makes the only reason I’d use it to be negated.
Why would you even post about this?!
If you want an FC on a song, you f—ing practice!
Goddamn achievement whores.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Go to the top of the page. See the big letters that spell out ROCKBANDAIDE. Read the part below that.
echoindia Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Yes, but you should think of it like a military embedded reporter. Reporting on some things can have grave consequences!
RockBandAide Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Did you just compare military operations with Rock Band?!
echoindia Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Rock Band IS war!
This takes all the fun out of competition. I’ve worked hard and practiced to get some of my FC’s and to be passed up by some auto-FC circuit completely ruins that!
It’s an interesting exercise from an engineering perspective. High scores and 100%s have never been a great concern of mine when it comes to Rock Band though. I’ve bought a lot of kit over the years to play it with, but I wouldn’t buy something that played it for me.
Nick Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 11:57 am
I agree. Like I posted yesterday, the fun engineering challenge is creating a mod yourself- from a purely technical aspect. I’d have a little more respect for the person who created their own auto-FC mod (even if it is cheating), than I do for the dope who buys it from someone else.
This is stupid. I’d rather donate my money to a worthy cause, like, say, charity.
At the risk of being “that guy”, every Kickstarter project includes a “Report this Project to Kickstarter” link at the bottom.
While they do not have a direct policy regarding infringement, they do include rules about the use of third party products in reward bundles. This project violates that by having several reward categories that include distribution of modded Mad Catz and Red Octane guitar controllers.
So if you’d like to make sure this gets shut down, I’d suggest you stop over there and report them for that violation (and mention the patent concerns with the project itself) and see if we can’t get this taken care of.
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 11:42 am
Thanks for that. I was actually trying to figure out exactly what it could be reported for, and the guitars they were trying to bundle seemed like a good avenue, though I hadn’t any idea exactly what that avenue led to.
I 100% agree this is cheating at its grossest… I would not support this in the least.
I have wondered if anyone has bothered trying to hook up a computer to the MIDI adapter. I’ve never tried, but I’ll admit, I have thought about it. I suppose the MIDI adapter has some sort of counter measures in which the device connected to it must be a keyboard/drum set and not a computer…
Dunno. Not going to try it as climbing the leaderboards is the primary thrill of the game. Finding that even though I’m not the best player, I am, according to the FB my various instrument scores range from 58.2 (pro guitar) to 75.0 (basic guitar) (No pro drums).
Anyway, this is the only video game I play with my wife. If I were to use this cheat, it would spoil that, so I would never go there. She’s the one who plays the bass and keys and has far more gold stars than I do.
Athena Hollow Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 11:43 am
Exactly! My husband plays guitar and really, with as frustrated as he gets (which has been “throw guitar across room” frustrated sometimes lol) him seeing that he’s actually doing decent in the leaderboards is what keeps him coming back.
This sucks for those people who care about leaderboards, high scores and that sort of thing. Thankfully, I’m more interested in the fun of the game and how high I can kick my leg while playing a badass guitar riff, so I’m good.
Fuck no! I will NEVER support this! I play Guitar Hero / Rock Band to have fun. I don’t give a shit about Achievements!
Wouldn’t this be sorta bad for online leaderboard and hogging up false space (if inputted) into scorehero?
You know, if people wanna buy this garbage, let them. Just DO NOT ALLOW the scores ONLINE. Guitar Hero and Rock Band will need to have a way of recognizing which guitars are which if these things are gonna be sold. I would never buy it, but if people want to stare at charts being done for them, they can do that. As long as they get no satisfaction out of it by not being able to brag about their high scores, it’s fine with me.
Numskull Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 1:07 am
“Guitar Hero and Rock Band will need to have a way of recognizing which guitars are which if these things are gonna be sold.”
So, you think the onus should be on Activision and Harmonix for finding a way to ensure that these fools don’t post fraudulent scores? It’s “fine with you,” as long as somebody else has to do all the work and spend all the money to keep this crap from tainting the game? What a benevolent soul.
Nathan Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 7:11 am
Whoa now, don’t get mad at me. Things like this get passed through all the time and we can’t do anything about it, kind of like how the NDAA law was passed with nobody knowing about it. It might be hard to figure out a way to block the fake scores, but it’ll be worth it in the end to piss off the creators of kick starter.
I’m very glad to see that this thing is not being welcomed with the open arms the developers were hoping for. As it is, I’ve already been wondering for months how it’s possible that there are scores on the leaderboards that far surpass what is actually attainable on a given song. (have a look at the 360 Pro Drums score for Imagine to see what I mean) I’ve been working pretty hard for a while to climb to #5 overall on Xbox for RB3 (according to Keldon), and while guitar is by far my least proficient instrument, there is no way I would use something like this.
I’ve also been stuck on some goals for a while. But there would be zero satisfaction in having my instruments complete them for me. Now, if they could make a guitar that could do my job for me, I’d be willing to donate to that worthy cause…
Nick Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Interesting. I was kinda questioning why a perfect run on Imagine Pro-Drums netted me a #3 ranking (on drums, a perfect run will usually get you a #1 rank, tied with everyone else, since you can’t squeeze like you do on the guitar/bass). I couldn’t imagine there were exactly two people who figured out a better path on a song everyone has. I didn’t look at the two scores, but it makes sense that they were somehow cheaters who did it. We all know they are out there, even if their methods are generally not very public.
I’m pretty sure this device is a voilation of Xbox LIVE Terms of Use part 12.
“Any attempt to disassemble, decompile, create derivative works of, reverse engineer, modify, further sublicense, distribute, or use for other purposes the Service, any game, application, or other content available or accessible through the Service, or any hardware or software associated with the Service or with an original Xbox or Xbox 360 console is strictly prohibited and may result in cancellation of your account and/or your ability to access the Service, and the pursuit of other legal remedies by Microsoft.”
Nick Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
I’m not sure if that applies. The specific section you are probably referring to is “or any hardware or software associated with the Service…”. But I would interpret that as the system itself, not any of the controllers. On the other hand, IANAL.
Hey Rockbandaide – Thank you for the candid feedback.
Your concerns are valid and well founded. I’ve updated my Kickstarter project with a post addressing most of them here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1695785491/guitar-zero-hardware-mod-for-xbox-360-guitar-contr-0/posts/250959
If you have any more questions I can answer for you, please get with RBA (Tommy) and put together a list of things to address. Maybe he can set up a quick interview to cover the issues.
Steve Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
That was some amazing mental gymnastics to attempt to justify cheating.
Nick Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
While I can’t argue with your points, and actually agree with a lot of them- I do think the main concern really lies with the leaderboards more than anything else. And while you are correct- bots and cheat devices for RB/GH have been around for years, this one is public and will incur the ire of many who want to see the Leaderboards as pure. You say that you plan on checking how many of the tracks on the device are not FCs, and estimate less than half to be- might I make a suggestion?
Coupled with the suggestion that this is for completionists rather than leaderboard cheaters (I consider myself a completionist as well)- would you be averse to going through and making sure that each of the songs are capable of 5 stars, but incapable of a FC (ie. intentionally miss a few in every song, maybe even disable Gold Stars?). As an engineer myself, I abhor the idea of intentionally bugging my software, but I think that given the controversial product you are proposing- it might go a long way to both appeasing your declared target audience, as well as making some of the naysayers at least a little more comfortable with it.
GuitarZero Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
This is a solid suggestion. Would intentionally limiting all song performances to 99% appease any of the upset commenters here?
I cannot make any promises today, but I will look into a script that can remove a few random button presses from each song-file, but still reliably hit 5-stars.
Numskull Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Cheating for a less-than-perfect score is still cheating. You would still be tainting the leaderboards with scores you did not earn. For that reason, no, this is not going to appease the upset commenters here, nor should it.
Numskull Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Cool, I got quoted! Still hope you crash and burn, though.
echoindia Reply:
June 20th, 2012 at 11:58 pm
1. Yay! I got quoted!
2. This is still cheating bullshit.
3. Please, get cancer.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 3:21 pm
NOT cool. You don’t have to like the product, but that last part is completely unacceptable.
I wonder if this could be used with the Performance Mode cheat, if it can, you could use it for machinima music videos. Like, use GH/RB footage for the parts of the video where you want to show the band playing. I support this if you can use it for these legitimate reason, but if you cheat with it, you suck :p
Delibird444 Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 9:22 am
Vocals (with no mic plugged in) + Performance Mode + No-Fail = Perfect view of the onstage band.
I use that method frequently just as kind of a “jukebox” mode. Sure, the audience onscreen gets a little pissed, but mute the crowd and you’ve got a perfect band performance to watch
toshineon Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Thanks, great tip actually. Now I can watch my awesome band just rock out while I sit back and take it easy
Just because something can be done doesn’t always mean it should be done.
This seems like a bad idea all around to me, and is one of those things that brings more negativity than positivity to the franchise that we all know and love.