Battle Of The Rock Band's, Q&A for the RB2 tournament Options

[Kane]

Updated 3/12

I am very prowd to announce one of our supprises for you all this year...



Welcome to BATTLE OF THE ROCK BANDS!!!


Info:
Battle of the Rock Bands is ACen's premiere Rock Band 2 tournament. This tourny will be held on a stage, infront of a crowd, and be based on entertainment rather than score. It will take place in Main Programming Beta on Saturday. The exact time is currently TBA, and will be closer to the convention.

Rules & Scoring:
- All Bands MUST have four members.
- Each band will play a set of two songs, their choice. The same song cannot be picked twice.
*EDIT* - See bottom of this post for full details on songlist.
- We have a unique scoring system that rates not only how well you play, but how entertaining you are, and how the crowd reacts.
- Any difficulty may be played, but there is a scoring alogrythm in place to reward playing on harder difficulties.

IE: A 90% is worth 30 points on Easy, where a 90% would be worth 50 points on Medium.
30 and 50 are arbituary numbers, and are NOT results from the scoring system.

- "Bonus Points" will be awarded by the Judges as they see fit. No more explination than that will be given until the tournament is underway.

Band / Crowd Interaction Rules:
- ONLY the band will be allowed on stage
- You cannot intruduce 'foreign instruments' while onstage. (No swapping out w/ real guitar, etc)
- Song lyric changes are ok. Note: All lyrics MUST be rated G, explicit language will get your band D/Qed.
- No crowd surfing / encouraging crowd surfing.
- No mosh pits / encouraging mosh pits.

Sign-Ups:
- There will be a very limited number of spots to sign up. You may ONLY sign up as a full 4-man team.
- In lou of all four members being present when signing up, you MUST provide each members real Full Name, Badge Name, Stage Name (if you have one), and Band Name.
- Sign-up spots are first come, first serve.
- Sign-ups will open at-con, at a time TBA friday.
- No sign-ups prior to the convention.


But My Friends Aren't Attending Acen...:
We will have a "Looking for Bandmate" signup system to try and aid those who don't bring a full band with them to ACen.


Ok, I Found Partners; But We've Never Played Together...:
We've got something for that too! When you sign your band up, you will be put in the que for 30 minutes of practice time. This practice session will take place on the gamesave (and if avilable guitars/drums/mic) that will be used for the tournament. The purpose of all of this is so bands that met up, or get put together at ACen get a chance to play together; and so that all bands can get familiar with the songlist before the tournament.


Misc Info:
There will be a Tv facing the band onstage. The Tv will be on the floor, angled upwards; It is advisable to practice reading (playing) from a similar situation beforehand.

Feel free to ask any questions pertaining to the event here, but please keep the band recruiting to the BOTRB: Looking for Band thread.


Songlist, DLC Content, and Rules:
Below are songs/packs that have been purchased and will be avialable for the tournament. They are listed albums first, then packs, then singles; aside from that they are in no paticular order. If you do not know what is in ____ album or songpack, do not ask about it here; Instead, go look it up.

Non-DLC Rock Band Songs
All RB 1 songs have been imported and will be available.
All RB 2 songs are unlocked and playable.

Albums
Megadeath - Peace Sells album
Rush - Moving Pictures album
RHCP - Blood Sugar Sex Magik album
The Cars album

Song Packs
All That Remains pack 1
Black Sabbith pack 1
Boston pack 1
Disturbed pack 1
Foo Fighters pack 1
Metallica pack 1
Nine Inch Nails pack 1
Nine Inch Nails pack 2
Roadrunner Records pack 1
The Offspring pack 1
The Best of the Who

Singles
3s & 7s
Afterlife
Are you dead yet
Attack
Beethoven's C***
Black Sunshine
Breed
BYOB
Closer to the Heart
Critical Accliam
Dammit
Devour
Earache Thrashback
Electric Crown
Ex-girlfriend
Hammerhead
Hella Good
Hey Baby
Hysteria
Interstate love song
I Dont Care
I Stand Alone
Jesus Christ Pose
Joker and the Theif
Junkies for Fame
Laid To Rest
Little Sister
Megasus
Monkey Wrench
More Human Than Human
Mr Bright Side
My Iron Lung
My Hero
New Wave
Number of the Beast
Promise Land
Pretty Noose
Push it
Sex Type Thing
Shockwave
Sick Sick Sick
Siva
Snow
Sprode
Still Alive
Tenspeed
Tell Me Baby
The Kill
They Say
This Aint A Scene, Its An Arms Race
This Is It
Toxicity
Warzone
Working Man

If you do not see "your song" that you absolutely must have and cannot live without follow these simple steps.
1. First, look up what songs are in the albums & song packs listed above.
2. If after checking the contents of the albums & song packs, your song is still missing, then you can email me about it at videogaming@acen.org with the subject "Battle of the Rock Bands DLC Content".

-> Please keep all Songlist comments and questions STRICTLY to email. <-



We are all looking forward to this Rockfest! Show us your best!

[Sweet Sunshine]

So since you said sign-ups at-con, there will be no sign-ups of any kind before the con?

[Kane]

Correct, absolutely no signing up until you do it in person, at con.

[zerovelocity]

How big of a TV are we talking?

[Kane]

I cannot promise you the exact size it will be; however I can assure you its not going to be a tiny one. Probobly somewhere in the range of 28"-32". If worse comes to worse, we'll drag a tv over from Video Gaming.

But again, at this moment, no promises on the size. When I know for sure, I'll let you know.

[Dark Stranger]

I know you said that the setlist for RB2 will be there. What about RB 1. I know it's technically DLC, but that would be better epically if you are using someone 360 that has both. Oh another thought, If that is the case maybe closer to ACEN you can have a almost exact list of the songs besides for the RB 2 songs. Just a thought.

[Kane]

EDIT: Check origional post for list of songs and related info.

[Dark Stranger]

Hey another question. If someone really can't play as well with a RB guitar and wanna switch for their set can they? Since it doesn't take too long to switch them in and out.

[Kane]

We will have one Guitar Hero (3, i believe) wireless guitar onsite. Shouldn't be a problem.

[zerovelocity]

You should have someone pick up http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FVH6L4 just for fun

[Sweet Sunshine]

You should have someone pick up http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FVH6L4 just for fun

HA. That'd be epic, and a lot less work. XD Lights and smoke synchronize with the music automatically, huh? Impressive.

Also, I have another question. Will the crowd be able to see an image of the screen where Rock Band is playing, or will they just see us playing/singing to it? Tell me if this question's too vague. D: (Cause it's seems vague to me)

This post has been edited by Sweet Sunshine: Feb 25 2009, 12:45 PM

[zerovelocity]

Just to clarify, when you say

"- Each band will play a set of two songs, their choice. The same song cannot be picked twice."

Does that mean no band can play the same song, or does it mean that the same band cant pick the same song twice in a row.

I'm assuming the same band, but just to be on the safe side.

[Kane]

Sunshine - What you see on the tv will be simeltaniously projected onto two large screens, one on each side of the stage. So yes, the crowd will see you playing aside from playing


zero - The same band cannot pick the same song twice. If I didn't put it in the rules, someone is bound to do it.

[Sweet Sunshine]

Sunshine - What you see on the tv will be simeltaniously projected onto two large screens, one on each side of the stage. So yes, the crowd will see you playing aside from playing

Super cool. Just what I was hoping for, since I figured it'd be a little awkward looking if the audience could only see us jamming on plastic instruments and not see the awesomeness Rock Band has to go along with each song. XD

[applekidjosh]

my 4 person band will all be attending, though I don't know if we'll have a chance to get together and practice before Acen. I'll ask if they want to do this, but i'm definitely down for it. Sounds awesome actually.

[GamerPanda]

Sounds awesome, I'm definitely interested.

So, since sign-ups are limited, are you going to give us a little more info on the when/wheres of it?

[Kane]

ALL sign-ups take place in the Video Gaming Room, at the staff table. If you arn't sure, ask someone with a staff badge.


Much like the first post says, sign-ups will start friday. It will not be first thing friday, because not everyone makes it to ACen as we open friday.

We may leave a few spots specifically for those who only attend saturday. However, if we do that, the spots would open first thing saturday.

Again, as the first post says, there are a very limited number of spots available; but the number is for bands, not for participants. So, in example: if I said 99 spots, it would be 99 bands, not 99 players.

Please note the line up top that says you MUST sign up with all four members standing there, or with all four members real names & badge names. We will be checking badge and real names to be sure you didn't ninja a spot without everyones' information, so triple check your spelling.

Hopefully this gave you ever-so-slightly more information, my appologies if it did not.

[zerovelocity]

so just to 100% clarify, this will just be a one shot thing right? Everyone plays and highest score wins? There wont be any tournament structure to it like top 4 move on and such?

[Kane]

Correct. Each band plays their "set", highest overall score wins.

If somehow there is a tie, the bands that are in the tie will go back up for a final encore.

[Sweet Sunshine]

Correct. Each band plays their "set", highest overall score wins.

If somehow there is a tie, the bands that are in the tie will go back up for a final encore.

Would there be any kind of special scoring so that an entire band of expert players wouldn't be bound to win? D: You said there'd be some point value for entertainment~

[zerovelocity]

I was a little curious about that to. Will points be based more on score than entertainment, more on entertainment than score, or equal between both. This will greatly affect peoples song choice/practice methods me thinks XD

[Dark Stranger]

Yeah it's more on entertainment. That's why choosing songs is vital.

[Sweet Sunshine]

Yeah it's more on entertainment. That's why choosing songs is vital.

Indeed, cause if they value entertainment, a band of people who can't all play on expert and earn tons of points could stand a chance as long as they has good showmanship.

[Kane]

Lets try and sort some of this out.

Each bands' total Judge-score is broken up into categorys, one of which is "Scoring".
A bands "Scoring" points are determinded on how well you play, and what difficulty you were playing on.
The "Scoring" section of your total Judge-score only accounts for (roughly) 40% of your total Judge-score points.

Yes, 4-expert players have an advantage. It does not, however, guarentee a win.


This complex scoring system was very carefully made to make it fair to all levels of skill. It has been tested, and works wonderfully.

[applekidjosh]

This might be too much to ask, but maybe whoever's 360 we're using could sign up at dlcquickplay.com? If you don't know, you sign up and select the DLC you have and other people can compare directly to see what you have in common.

Also we've had to make a bassist substitution but The Dick Taters will definitely be tearing up the stage this year!

[Kane]

Yeah 360... no, more like PS3.

Also, if you check the first post, all the songs are listed.

[applekidjosh]

I realize that, but rather than listing it out like that they could just simply link to the songs that are available.

http://dlcquickplay.com/xbox/applekidjosh

like that! The suggestion was to make the first post more condensed and easy to read.

So this is PS3 version, eh? Dumb question but are there any differences between PS3 and 360 I need to know about?

[Kane]

There are no differences in the PS3 version and 360 version of the game whatsoever.

The hardware is slightly different, but if you can play one, you can play either.

[Amylacetate]

There are no differences in the PS3 version and 360 version of the game whatsoever.

The hardware is slightly different, but if you can play one, you can play either.

Are the shaky arrow and high pitch vocal problems fixed on the system being used? I know that these are the biggest problems on the PS3 version of the game.

Also would like to know what controllers will be available seeing as I can no longer use my bass.

[Kane]

I'll work on getting a link to some pics...

We will have (at least):
(1) GH3 guitar, (2) RB1/2 Guitars, RB2 Mic, RB1 drumkit (with custom heads & kick).

RB2 Ion/reg drumkit may be used instead, depending on if we can get them to stop ghost-hitting.


ALL instruments will be tested throughly pre-con, at-con, and immeaditly before BotRB to insure everthing is in working order.