Rock Band Will Receive Day 1 Patch to Fix Stratocaster Issues

[Sophism]

With Rock Band arriving on Tuesday and broken demos abound, many people have been concerned with the build quality of the guitar bundled with the retail set. Several people (http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=8098) lucky enough to score early Rock Band bundles have had issues with the strum bars of the Stratocaster even after only a few hours of play. The issues seem to vary from doubling strums to no recognition of downstrums at all.

To help head off the inevitable "OMG MY GUITAR" threads on Tuesday, Something Awful forum poster and Harmonix developer CptUnderpant made a couple of posts today letting everyone know that a patch has been submitted for both the 360 and PS3 versions to hopefully fix these issues (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2667875&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=75#post336015258):

For the two pre-release people that had issues with their guitar - I'd wait until Tuesday before sending your guitars back. I believe there may be a title update on day 1 that makes things happy for you again. Such is the life of retailers breaking street date and making life hard for us.
We've submitted it for both platforms along with our day 1 DLC, so exact times are now up to Microsoft and Sony. The PS2 version includes the update on the disc.

Hopefully this works as planned, as I know the prospective PS3 Rock Band'ers must already be upset over the incompatibility of the Guitar Hero guitars with their shiny new game.

[Shjinta]

Well that's good. A lot of the reviewers so far have mentioned the guitar as being extremely suck ass

[EyesNoMore]

A PS3 game patch? I don't think I've ever seen one of those with my games? How is it delivered? Is it the same as 360? Just log in and start the game?

Also, this seems like a lame situation because it sounds like the guitar is still faulty, but the patch is hiding the errors. Or maybe I'm wrong... I hope.

[Sophism]

From what I've gathered, the problem IS hardware, but it can at least be partially corrected through software. If anyone remembers the debacle with the GH2 360 guitar whammy bars, that was a hardware problem fixed in the same way.

I am led to believe PS3 patches are a relatively seamless process, didn't Warhawk get one recently?

[Adam Blue]

Yeah, my brother and I checked it out today at Best Buy...it was shit.

[Evil Avatar]

Yeah, my brother and I checked it out today at Best Buy...it was shit.

How is the game?

[Heretic Machine]

The guitar at the local Wal-mart has been fucked since the day after the demo unit was installed, leading to no recognition of down strums. I made a topic about it, actually. This is exactly why I decided against buying Rock Band at launch, and opted instead to buy Mario Galaxy earlier than expected.

[Adam Blue]

How is the game?

Shit as well. But that's not fair coming from me, because I think these games are all shit.

[Mdot23]

Can't wait for Tuesday. Hope I can get my hands on this.

[The Continental]

Got my preorder already paid for. Picking it up at a midnight release tomorrow at Game Stop. Haters be damned, the friends and fam are going to be worshiping at the altar of rock for the entirety of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

[EternalGamer]

Pretty lame the number of games shipping with serious feature problems lately. Sucks for the roughly 50% of the population that still doesn't have their consoles online (whether due to choice or lack of available broadband). They just get a permanently broken game.

[Phanto]

Well hopefully we can expect sometime in the future a Wii version, they will be stupid if they don't release it but we know is coming.

[Sophism]

Well hopefully we can expect sometime in the future a Wii version, they will be stupid if they don't release it but we know is coming.Well, many of the press visitors who came to the Harmonix studios in the last few weeks mentioned the distinct lack of anything Wii-related in their workplace. No Wii peripherals, no dev kits.

[Tempest261]

Do these people actually test this stuff? What the hell?

The GH3 controller works in Rock Band right? I swear, that was the first music "guitar" controller that I've used that felt solid.

[Murtaug]

Well, many of the press visitors who came to the Harmonix studios in the last few weeks mentioned the distinct lack of anything Wii-related in their workplace. No Wii peripherals, no dev kits.

Doesn't mean they didn't farm it out. Seems like the Wii would just be a good fit for these games. Large install base, the system itself is geared towards having multiple people around to play. It baffles me to think that they would exclude it.

[ElfShotTheFood]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.

[The Continental]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.I chuckled.

[carnage11]

Good reason why I'll wait until early '08 before I buy it. Not that I had a choice because I don't want the full bundle, I just want the guitar only bundle. Well it will give 'em time to iron out the kinks anyways.

[vodka_mike]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.

So NICE.

It's like wisdom from above... :cool:

[Wolvie]

Man Harmonix has crappy lucky on getting their guitar controllers working right out of the box. Good to hear they are fixing it before it becomes an issue though.

[Sophism]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.

If I was the type to put quotes in my sig, that'd go in mine. You win my thread.

[Sophism]

Oh, and in case anyone was curious about the whole "PSN updates on Thursday" thing, this week it's Tuesday! (http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/11/15/playstation-store-update-10/#comment-32595)

[jromero]

so is this just a PS3 problem or does it affect both systems?

EDIT: Nevermind, guess I should start reading the entire post. Whoops.

[NinjaSverre]

I'm hoping Guitar Hero 3 gets the same treatment. My guitar is fucking up each time I hold long notes with the green and red fret and strum downwards. If I strum up, its ok. But down is a no-go.

[Wolvie]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.

Your kidding right? I'd lose count of the many PC games that got shipped with bugs and glitches. Star Trek Armada II had a game ending bug that wouldn't even let you play it after download, just to name one. I even remember waaaaaay back in the day Betrayal in Antara had a bug that locked up the game and wouldn't let you play the last level... man I hope your joking... you gotta be joking.

[Evil Avatar]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.

Quite correct, quite correct. These days PC game developers just ship their broken game and never bother to patch it -- or just go out of business totally after the title ships and that also results in it never getting patched.

[OrangePulp]

Your kidding right? I'd lose count of the many PC games that got shipped with bugs and glitches. Star Trek Armada II had a game ending bug that wouldn't even let you play it after download, just to name one. I even remember waaaaaay back in the day Betrayal in Antara had a bug that locked up the game and wouldn't let you play the last level... man I hope your joking... you gotta be joking.

Yes, he was, in fact, joking. I know sarcasm doesn't come across sometimes on the internet, but... wasn't it obvious? No pc gamer would be unaware of the patch issue.

[dirtbag]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.

Well, that takes away one more argument from console elitists. I thought having standardized hardware was supposed to make everything magically easy.:confused:

What we've really learned is that if there is an easy way to patch, the publishers will start hustling unfinished product out the door for a retail beta test.

[dirtbag]

Quite correct, quite correct. These days PC game developers just ship their broken game and never bother to patch it -- or just go out of business totally after the title ships and that also results in it never getting patched.

Has someone been playing Gothic 3?

[CrysDark]

Has someone been playing Gothic 3?

Or VTM: Bloodlines

[Baron Samedi]

Is it just me, or is Rock Band one of the many big games that feel slightly rushed this holiday season?

[Vader582]

The GH3 controller works in Rock Band right? I swear, that was the first music "guitar" controller that I've used that felt solid.Nope. The GH3 controller and RB controller will not play nice with each other's games. However the GH2 contoller will work with both. Go figure...

Is it just me, or is Rock Band one of the many big games that feel slightly rushed this holiday season?Isn't EA distributing this? ;)

[jpc_theoneandonly]

Well, I just received my copy of RockBand today in the mail. Everything seems to be working just fine. Except the microphone. I plug it in and my xbox doesn't even recognize it. Fucking crap. Amazon offered to send me a replacement but they are already out of stock. Then they offered a full refund but I don't want to do that because I am sure the bundles will be hard to find this holiday season. As of right now, the mic and drums do not go on sale seperately until Jan. 31. I am a little pissed but I think I can go without any singing for a few months.

Any one else having issues with the Mic?

[Sophism]

Just use any USB microphone or the 360 headset if you would like to sing. There is nothing special or proprietary about the Rock Band mic.

[carnage11]

I'm glad I play PC games, so I don't have to tolerate this "ship now, patch later" nonsense.



hehe, sorry just had to quote that again, is that the most quoted quote ever in this thread?

[Monc1]

jpc_theoneandonly, I am having the exact same problem and I also got mine from amazon yesterday. There was a flyer that came with the game that said all defective hardware returns were not to go back to the retailer. Said you should go to http:\\support.ea.com\rockband. I am going to check out the website today.