Hi there, PlayStation fans!
My name is Dan Teasdale. I’m DeliciousBees on the PlayStation Network, but more importantly I’m also the Lead Designer on Rock Band 2!
We’re perfectionists over here at Harmonix, and we want to make sure that everyone’s Rock Band experiences are as awesome as they possibly can be. With that in mind, I’m proud to announce that the Rock Band team has finalized a software update for Rock Band 2 on the PlayStation 3 that addresses some common feature requests from our fans. We’ve also added some great new functionality that we think you’ll be excited to try out when the software update arrives this Thursday.
This update wouldn’t be possible without the feedback and suggestions that we receive from everyone in both the Rock Band and PlayStation communities. Everybody here at Harmonix takes your forum posts and suggestions to heart, and we wouldn’t be able to make our games as awesome as they are without all of the feature requests and feedback that we get from you on a daily basis. So from all of us here at Harmonix, thank you, and please keep letting us know what you’d like to see in future updates and games!
This update includes:
- “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!
- Improved “Sort by Stars” fix: Players will not have to beat a previous high score to record a star rating for their songs.
- 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.
- Rock Band Network Store Support: When the Rock Band Network goes live, select songs will be available for PlayStation 3 users through a new storefront available in game. Stay tuned for more information closer to the launch of RBN!
- SingStar Wireless Microphone Support. Rock Band 2 now supports the SingStar Wireless Microphones currently available through Europe! Finally, you can now have a fully wireless Rock Band experience on your PlayStation 3!
We’re extremely happy to be able to finally release this update for the PlayStation 3 version of Rock Band 2. We know many of you are rabid PlayStation rockers, and it’s a priority for us to make sure that everyone gets the best experience playing Rock Band. On behalf of everyone here at Harmonix, we hope you enjoy the new features!
Rock,
-DanT
Hypercules in game voice chat has been around for quite a while. I know that because I use my blutooth headset all the time. in fact I use my mute button so that they don’t hear me strumming away. WTF are you using text chat for?
GripNRip you can change the cymbals around no problem dude. Just plug them in the order that you want to use them for. I don’t get how it would be an issue if you can change the color of the cymbals by changing the cap and changing the port you plug it into. Makes no sense to me.
The voice chat sucks though. The voices comes out of the TV instead of the mic’s speakers. And I know you can set it to not play over the TV’s speakers, but it still plays it over the speakers. Hope this gets fix.
Add a patch to remove the copy protection from the game saves!!!!!!!! I wish I could play Rock Band 2 again, but I bought a new slim since my (now fixed) 20GB YLOD. Was getting so far, then bam. no more.
@ROLO_ONFIRE
yeah i have tried auto and manual calibrate many many times, still have to strum after the mark passes the point, so its playable if i ignore the song entirely and just focus on timing visually…
It’s great to see that even so long after release you guys are still interested in supporting Rockband 2. You guys have earned some major respect in my book. Also, I’m deffinately looking forward to this update. I haven’t played Rockband in a while, so this will give me a reason to play again.
thats awesome
well, i still play rock band 2 on ps3 and i expected a little bit more after all the time it has taken…
still good stuff though, i guess its better than nothing (like other developers that forget about their games even if they are full of glitches)
Any chance some online multiplayer fixes found their way into this patch? I’ve been able to play online with a buddy once but never again and there seems to be nothing wrong with our configurations as best I can tell; I’ve seen comments from many others online with the same problem. It’d be great to get a patch for some of the connection issues as all other PS3 games work just fine for us.
I appreciate the update. Though the one type of sorting I would really like would be in the music store the ability to sort by price.
So what’s going on with the Nyko Frontman guitar? Mine hasn’t worked for months, nor has anyone elses… Could you update that?
keep up the good work harmonix aand for continuing to support rock band 2 even tho it is now quite old and also congrats for stealing all my money from buyin rock band 2 songs O.O
Will voice chat now come through the headset or still through speakers? Its impossible to hear what people are saying unless the volume is really high, making it way too loud when your playing an actual song.
Sounds great
Is there any way we can have a way to put songs on a do no play list on mystery….I imported RB1 into RB2 and I never want to play Green Grass and High Tides again. Its just tooooooooo long. I dont care how far into a setlist I am If I see that pop up I turn the game off.
Hello and thanks for the constant support your company gives to us, the players.
Anyway, my concern is this: What if I get a new high score with less stars, or a higher star count with a lower score? How would the scores get saved?
Thanks.
Also, more from The Strokes, please :P
Oh yeah, also, I’d reccomend making a small change in the RB store; You could make it so we could see the difficulty of the songs on the store without having to actually select them.
Thanks again.
Well, I guess any questions about the voice chat, or the SAS, aren’t one of the “select” posts you will be answering. Completely ignoring these issues again. So, we’ll see tomorrow if they are ignored for good.
At least you got the RBN implemented, something I have no desire to spend any money on.
Thinking twice before spending any cash on any new games that may contain bugs you refuse to fix as well.
While this software update doesn\’t address those specifically, we\’re still very actively looking into issues like the shaky arrow.
We\’re actually commenting more extensively on things like the shaky vocal arrow over on rockband.com. You should check out this thread here:
http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166278