Custom songs will have a limit of 1,200 notes or 3 minutes, whichever comes first.
That's the most important limiting factor for creating songs in World Tour; your time length is less than the track length for the majority of songs in the game, and the note limit can make the song even shorter for more complex arrangements (especially since that note count is likely eaten up by background instruments as well).
At the end of the day, if you thought you were getting a robust music making tool in this game, you're were going to be disappointed anyways. Activision likes money, and as such they won't release something that could effectively be used to circumvent or directly compete with their DLC or releasing of new games.
And all of that dances around the fact that you won't be able to record voice in it, but I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. The amount of space required to keep the recording from being compressed into shit would probably be too much after a couple recordings.
Neversoft had the gall to call themselves the first music game in which you could play as guitar, bass, drums and vocals months after Rock Band was released.
[Citation needed]
I take my music game rivalries very seriously.
I find that rather unfortunate. It's the same idea with two slightly different packages, and at the end of the day, both developing companies are just interested in rehashing the same concept for more money. Why not just enjoy the experience and different track lists of both?
Now I know the games come with a bunch of songs, but only a handful are actual versions; the majority are covers.
Not anymore. All 86 tracks in Guitar Hero: World Tour are master recordings. All 84 tracks in Rock Band 2 are master recordings as well.
In the age of consoles w/ harddrives and the existence of myriad music downloading services it seems odd to buy an entire game just to get some new songs.
Two things wrong with that. Firstly the PS2, which is still largely popular, doesn't have a hard drive, and the other popular inexpensive console, the Wii, is a joke in terms of storage size. Secondly, with a new game coming out with a consistent set list (of varied tunes), that means that every player of the game who has played it enough will be on the same playing level in terms of experience with songs as any other player. If everyone just downloaded what they wanted, almost no-one would ever be on the same footing in a competition (friendly or otherwise), because they likely wouldn't have downloaded the song.
I realize newer versions allow songs to be downloaded, but I don't believe this is very prevalent.
Baldfaced lies. Every PS3/360 owner I know that has this game for that console also downloads tracks, and I'm a Wii owner who's waiting for this game, and I can't wait to download some new tracks as they arrive. Obviously I won't be able to store much, and it'll take over a third of my Wii's memory to actually be able to play the songs, but I can handle that for a few dozen songs.
If I were Activision I would make a free downloadable version of the game built around downloadable content. An iTunesesque version, if you will. They could also release a SDK* (Song Dev Kit) so artists could sell their tracks via the service (or give them away if the artist is NiN-like). I believe this scheme would create a large song library, making users happy, whilst enable Activision to sit on their asses and light their stogies with $100 dollar bills.
In addition to the player experience issue I stated above, there are still a lot of people in the West who are resistant to "being nickel and dimed" for their entire gaming experience. Also, when the player decides all of the tracks he's going to have, you're a lot less likely to choose songs you don't already like or have heard a lot of good about. This is bad, because it reduces exposure of the player to new songs. One of the greatest things about Guitar Hero (and Rock Band) is that you get exposed to new artists, giving the player a richer experience and the opportunity to discover new favourites.
At this point Blizzard doesn't care about the casual, "inexperienced" gamer; they already know they can sell a boatload of games to the hardcore players.
[...] Also, I suspect they've learned from WoW [...]
You says Blizzard has learned something from WoW, but ignore the disproportionate ratio of casual to hardcore players who subscribe to it?
There are a couple of game developers that are dense enough to cater to the hardcore audience at the expense of the more lucrative and larger casual audience, but I don't count Blizzard among them.
Hell no it isn't. With that many more options, theres that many more ways to break the game with unbalancing skill combos. You'd either release a game with hugely imbalanced combo's or spend a ridiculously longer time balancing.
The idea of the hardcore community finding the more optimized build with such a large array of options is irrelevant. With so many options, new players would become overwhelmed and have no idea how to make an efficient or useful character, and the chance of an inexperienced player creating a poor build increases dramatically.
Blizzard wants their games to be appreciated by as many people as possible. Making their game more intimidating by having so many options from the get-go (instead of saying "your this class, you get to choose from these skills"), goes against their core belief of accessibility.
[...] they really do need most customers to buy the whole game for $150 a pop.
Where did it say that they were charging full price for each one? For all we know, they could charge $50 for the first game, and $20 for each "expansion" campaign you buy (or some other form of arbitrary numbers).
The distinct disadvantage of this, of course, is if they try to stagger the releases of this (easier for development, spread out profits, add in new bug fixes and balances with each release), you might not get to play your favourite race's campaign for quite a while.
On the other hand, if they release it all at once, then you have a huge amount of (awesome) content to play with, but it'll likely feel like they've charged you more than is reasonable for content that should all be in one package.
Wrong. From the Gamasutra article that also reported on this (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20525):
The DSi, however, will be able to play standard Nintendo software from any region, similar to the original Nintendo DS model and the Nintendo DS Lite.
The article is only partly right; the region-free aspect is only going to happen for games. Whatever new shenanigans they come up with for the DSi is what will be region locked.
[Eurogamer understands] that the title is categorically not a replacement for FF: Crystal Bearers, which is still being released.
I'd still take their word with a grain of salt, considering that Square Enix hasn't officially announced the title, but it looks like they're just working on multiple gamers for the same subseries.
What I want to know is what will happen when people start remixing video game themes from Mega Man, Halo, Metal Gear, etc. For me, one of the largest selling points for this game is being able to arrange my own versions of these prominent video game compositions.
Softimage [sic] is a company that makes 3D modeling and animation software. As such, their part of the story isn't related to gameplay at all, which is why only art and related programming was mentioned.
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
Not quite. From TFA:
Microsoft called the planned closure a "fiscally-rooted" decision, while noting that a core Ensemble team will go on to form a new studio to provide support for Halo Wars and work on fresh projects.
Sounds more like Microsoft just wanted an excuse to get rid of everyone but the best and start anew.
Couldn't this become a huge target for hackers/terrorists/people with nothing better to do to try and find out classified secrets? Somehow I think that putting this sort of information on the web (and I don't care how you think you can lock it down) isn't a smart idea.
I believe the reason that idle has been thrown up on the front page has to do with advertiser pressure (holy cow, look at those guys at Digg and stuff! They got craziness, why don't you?..). Just a hunch.
Slashdot Mirror
Custom songs will have a limit of 1,200 notes or 3 minutes, whichever comes first.
That's the most important limiting factor for creating songs in World Tour; your time length is less than the track length for the majority of songs in the game, and the note limit can make the song even shorter for more complex arrangements (especially since that note count is likely eaten up by background instruments as well).
At the end of the day, if you thought you were getting a robust music making tool in this game, you're were going to be disappointed anyways. Activision likes money, and as such they won't release something that could effectively be used to circumvent or directly compete with their DLC or releasing of new games.
And all of that dances around the fact that you won't be able to record voice in it, but I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. The amount of space required to keep the recording from being compressed into shit would probably be too much after a couple recordings.
Neversoft had the gall to call themselves the first music game in which you could play as guitar, bass, drums and vocals months after Rock Band was released.
[Citation needed]
I take my music game rivalries very seriously.
I find that rather unfortunate. It's the same idea with two slightly different packages, and at the end of the day, both developing companies are just interested in rehashing the same concept for more money. Why not just enjoy the experience and different track lists of both?
Now I know the games come with a bunch of songs, but only a handful are actual versions; the majority are covers.
Not anymore. All 86 tracks in Guitar Hero: World Tour are master recordings. All 84 tracks in Rock Band 2 are master recordings as well.
In the age of consoles w/ harddrives and the existence of myriad music downloading services it seems odd to buy an entire game just to get some new songs.
Two things wrong with that. Firstly the PS2, which is still largely popular, doesn't have a hard drive, and the other popular inexpensive console, the Wii, is a joke in terms of storage size. Secondly, with a new game coming out with a consistent set list (of varied tunes), that means that every player of the game who has played it enough will be on the same playing level in terms of experience with songs as any other player. If everyone just downloaded what they wanted, almost no-one would ever be on the same footing in a competition (friendly or otherwise), because they likely wouldn't have downloaded the song.
I realize newer versions allow songs to be downloaded, but I don't believe this is very prevalent.
Baldfaced lies. Every PS3/360 owner I know that has this game for that console also downloads tracks, and I'm a Wii owner who's waiting for this game, and I can't wait to download some new tracks as they arrive. Obviously I won't be able to store much, and it'll take over a third of my Wii's memory to actually be able to play the songs, but I can handle that for a few dozen songs.
If I were Activision I would make a free downloadable version of the game built around downloadable content. An iTunesesque version, if you will. They could also release a SDK* (Song Dev Kit) so artists could sell their tracks via the service (or give them away if the artist is NiN-like). I believe this scheme would create a large song library, making users happy, whilst enable Activision to sit on their asses and light their stogies with $100 dollar bills.
In addition to the player experience issue I stated above, there are still a lot of people in the West who are resistant to "being nickel and dimed" for their entire gaming experience. Also, when the player decides all of the tracks he's going to have, you're a lot less likely to choose songs you don't already like or have heard a lot of good about. This is bad, because it reduces exposure of the player to new songs. One of the greatest things about Guitar Hero (and Rock Band) is that you get exposed to new artists, giving the player a richer experience and the opportunity to discover new favourites.
At this point Blizzard doesn't care about the casual, "inexperienced" gamer; they already know they can sell a boatload of games to the hardcore players.
[...] Also, I suspect they've learned from WoW [...]
You says Blizzard has learned something from WoW, but ignore the disproportionate ratio of casual to hardcore players who subscribe to it?
There are a couple of game developers that are dense enough to cater to the hardcore audience at the expense of the more lucrative and larger casual audience, but I don't count Blizzard among them.
[...] and open ended is always good.
Hell no it isn't. With that many more options, theres that many more ways to break the game with unbalancing skill combos. You'd either release a game with hugely imbalanced combo's or spend a ridiculously longer time balancing.
The idea of the hardcore community finding the more optimized build with such a large array of options is irrelevant. With so many options, new players would become overwhelmed and have no idea how to make an efficient or useful character, and the chance of an inexperienced player creating a poor build increases dramatically.
Blizzard wants their games to be appreciated by as many people as possible. Making their game more intimidating by having so many options from the get-go (instead of saying "your this class, you get to choose from these skills"), goes against their core belief of accessibility.
[...] they really do need most customers to buy the whole game for $150 a pop.
Where did it say that they were charging full price for each one? For all we know, they could charge $50 for the first game, and $20 for each "expansion" campaign you buy (or some other form of arbitrary numbers).
Multiplayer functionality will be in place for all three races from the start.
The distinct disadvantage of this, of course, is if they try to stagger the releases of this (easier for development, spread out profits, add in new bug fixes and balances with each release), you might not get to play your favourite race's campaign for quite a while.
On the other hand, if they release it all at once, then you have a huge amount of (awesome) content to play with, but it'll likely feel like they've charged you more than is reasonable for content that should all be in one package.
The DSi, however, will be able to play standard Nintendo software from any region, similar to the original Nintendo DS model and the Nintendo DS Lite.
The article is only partly right; the region-free aspect is only going to happen for games. Whatever new shenanigans they come up with for the DSi is what will be region locked.
[Eurogamer understands] that the title is categorically not a replacement for FF: Crystal Bearers, which is still being released.
I'd still take their word with a grain of salt, considering that Square Enix hasn't officially announced the title, but it looks like they're just working on multiple gamers for the same subseries.
What I want to know is what will happen when people start remixing video game themes from Mega Man, Halo, Metal Gear, etc. For me, one of the largest selling points for this game is being able to arrange my own versions of these prominent video game compositions.
Read it on Gamasutra this morning. Apparently, the websites of Japanese newspapers Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun both reported this.
We'll probably find out for certain on Thursday, October 2nd, when Nintendo holds it's major press conference: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20284
Softimage [sic] is a company that makes 3D modeling and animation software. As such, their part of the story isn't related to gameplay at all, which is why only art and related programming was mentioned.
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
Not quite. From TFA:
Microsoft called the planned closure a "fiscally-rooted" decision, while noting that a core Ensemble team will go on to form a new studio to provide support for Halo Wars and work on fresh projects.
Sounds more like Microsoft just wanted an excuse to get rid of everyone but the best and start anew.
Couldn't this become a huge target for hackers/terrorists/people with nothing better to do to try and find out classified secrets? Somehow I think that putting this sort of information on the web (and I don't care how you think you can lock it down) isn't a smart idea.
I believe the reason that idle has been thrown up on the front page has to do with advertiser pressure (holy cow, look at those guys at Digg and stuff! They got craziness, why don't you?..). Just a hunch.