Rock Band 2 Title Update

[Mot Wakorb]

According to the Rock Band forums, Rock Band 2 for the 360 has gone through a title update which includes some new features as well as extensions to old features. Also according to their forums, the PS3 title update is currently undergoing certification and will be released as soon as it passes.

Here is a list from the Rock Band 2 Lead Designer, Dan Teasdale:



Rock Band Network Audition Mode: Available from the “Extras” menu on Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band 2, members of the Rock Band Network can now upload songs from their PC’s and audition their songs using our suite of song audition and testing tools. Currently in closed beta, the Rock Band Network will welcome authors to open beta in the coming weeks! Find out more at http://creators.rockband.com

“Sort by Stars” in Quickplay: If you hit the “Sort” button on the Song Select screen, you’ll come to a brand new sort that orders songs by the star ratings that you’ve achieved on each song. Each star rating gets a category, as well as an “Unplayed” category for songs that don’t have a star rating recorded. Finally, you can record your progress towards gold starring every song in your library!

Background Downloading in the Music Store: Purchasing songs from the Rock Band Music Store now no longer requires you to wait for a song to download before you can download another song. You can now queue up downloads to your heart’s content, which is going to be incredibly handy with some of the amazing DLC that’s coming out over the next few weeks and months.

Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone Support: Rock Band 2 now supports Xbox 360 Wireless Microphones, like the Lips microphone. Finally, you can now have a fully wireless Rock Band experience!

Chord HOPO improvements: If you’ve played The Beatles: Rock Band, you’ll notice much more robust handling of chord hammer-ons and pull-offs. This patch implements those changes in Rock Band 2 to provide a more natural chord hammer-on/pull-off experience.

Velocity Sensitivity on Ion Drum Kits: Ion Drum kits now support velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and Drum Freestyle mode.



The title update is available now for Xbox 360 and is forthcoming for the PS3 - no word on updates for the Wii edition.

Source: Rock Band Forums (http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166278)

[Ink Asylum]

Hooray for background downloading!

One improvement I'd like to see for the Music Store is a "Sort by release date" option, which will list the songs in the store by the date they were released for Rock Band. The "New Releases" only covers the past two weeks or so. I'll fire up Rock Band 2 after not playing for a month or two and then I have to scan through the increasingly large list of songs to see if any new ones were released that I want.

I know there are websites that do this, but it should be part of the in game store.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Hooray for background downloading!

One improvement I'd like to see for the Music Store is a "Sort by release date" option, which will list the songs in the store by the date they were released for Rock Band. The "New Releases" only covers the past two weeks or so. I'll fire up Rock Band 2 after not playing for a month or two and then I have to scan through the increasingly large list of songs to see if any new ones were released that I want.

I know there are websites that do this, but it should be part of the in game store.

Agreed.

Also, it's pretty cool to continue giving support to a game that has been out so long.

[Suave Peanut]

I know what I'm playing when I get home!

Honestly, we all know there was a good chance of that anyway.

[Inverarity]

Also, it's pretty cool to continue giving support to a game that has been out so long.
Indeed. I love their philosophy that RB is a platform, not a game. The DLC and other updates prove that they weren't kidding about that, and I hope it's been as lucrative for them as it appears.

In line with the previous suggestion that the Music Store should sort songs by release date, I'd like to see the same option in the overall song list in Quickplay or Tour mode. It'd make it much easier to find recently downloaded stuff in the list so that I can practice with it or show guests what's new since the last time they played. (The sort-by-stars option would work that way, I guess, but only the first time- after you played new DLC it'd be shuffled into the deck with everything else.)

By the way, the Lips mics work pretty well, but they don't seem to work if a USB mic is already hooked up, and after doing a few songs I suspect they have a significantly longer delay than the wired mics. No surprise there, but for me it was the difference between five-starring a song and gold-starring it. I'll probably stick with the wired mic myself.

[Wolvie]

Wireless mic support? Finally!!!

[Farsight]

Sort by Stars in Quickplay only? Not sure that's really useful at all...

[Mike Kelehan]

Sort by Stars in Quickplay only? Not sure that's really useful at all...

It's very useful. It lets you see what songs you need to work on. I'd much prefer a "sort by leaderboard position," but I think that would be too demanding on their servers.

[Vandabo]

It's very useful. It lets you see what songs you need to work on. I'd much prefer a "sort by leaderboard position," but I think that would be too demanding on their servers.

I agree. I've wanted this feature for a long time. And thank god for background downloading as well.

[Farsight]

It's very useful. It lets you see what songs you need to work on.

To clarify, I expected it to work on a per-band basis. If it's just in Quickplay, it doesn't help when a friend comes over and we'd like to see just what songs we could improve on as a team.

It sounds like a needlessly limited implementation, as all the data is there.

[Ondo]

It sounds like a needlessly limited implementation, as all the data is there.
It actually works outside of Quickplay also. That was the first thing I checked, because it would have been really shitty had it not. Fortunately it's only the description that's broken.

[Farsight]

Good to hear. Crisis averted!