Discussion VideoGame / RockBAnd

I'd think Wesleys are a form of YMMV anyway. While I don't like Backspacer, I love Ten and its bonus pack, and each pack/album took up a week's worth of DLC at most (the Ten bonus pack, for example, was publically released alongside Warped Tour 2009 and Maroon 5 01; the mini-Nirvana pack with SLTS was released alongside Night Ranger 01).

How can something be called subjective when the numbers objectively state that a certain set of artists in a certain genre have near-unnatural presence on the game? (though by this point Jimi Hendrix has them beat, but that's beside the point). Is it even arguable that a band who receives an album, three packs and three spots on-disc isn't over-represented? The Wesley receives the subjective label because screen-time and plot importance are harder to meaningfully articulate than hard numbers. Dave Grohl's status as a Rock Band Wesley is so heavily acknowledged that it's reached Ascended Meme status.

And I think an average PJ fan would prefer Betterman, Do The Evolution or Daughter over non-singles and deeper cuts. From a marketing standpoint, albums are always a poor representation of an artist's body of work, short of the entire discography. More people on average want greatest hits packs, not albums. I shouldn't even have to say that.

So we move it from The Wesley somewhere else. The fact that Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam (and now Jimi Hendrix, I guess) have three billion tracks are not disputed; it's the fact that they're being branded as The Wesley that is.

First of all, Dave Grohl bands (Nirvana and Foo Fighters) have only had two weeks in which they were the only DLC released (TCatS and most of Nevermind, aka Nirvana 01; it would be three if it weren't for "Fake Friends" being released alongside the Bleach trifecta and Foo 03), so you can't argue that—on a weekly basis, if not on a quantity basis—they take up too much of the RB output). Likewise with Pearl Jam (both albums) and Hendrix (both albums). Altogether six, arguably seven, weeks have been dedicated exclusively to those three groups out of three years and change, of which one of those "groups" is actually two groups with one band member in common.

And if you're doing this by the sheer number of tracks released versus how often they hogged the spotlight over other bands, then Green Day has more tracks than any of these artists, by virtue of having their game export to the main platform, and yet they're not listed as a Wesley.

Not to mention, they're reasonably popular, whereas The Wesley isn't—conceptually, The Wesley is "the fans hate him, the authors like him." Sure, a lot of those songs aren't all-out favorites—as stated, I don't care for Backspacer, and I do believe a best-of consisting of hits from Versus and Vitalogy would be PJ's next best move—but all you have to do to get away from them is not download them and wait for next week (or, for those weeks in which they're not the only artists released, check out what else is available that week).

Dave Grohl's memetic status as being The Rock Band Artist is because he's done so much stuff with so many artists, not because Rock Band is all Foo Fighters and Nirvana (which doesn't even have one album out as of yet). Counting off the bands he's worked with to some degree that happen to be in Rock Band, you have—in addition to the two aforementioned projects—The D, Garbage, NIN, Queens of the Stone Age, and Them Crooked Vultures. That's seven bands.

As I said, I'm not arguing that Foo/Nirvana and PJ don't have a lot of tracks in the game. I'm arguing that they're not Wesleys.

I feel like this has a chance to go in circles.

In the world of Rock Band DLC, 6 weeks is a long time; most can barely receive one. Besides, what does the time an artist takes up have to do with this? Weekly downloads is a set amount, it plays no part in this (because as you said, people can just wait for next week). Quantity is the sensitive subject here: overall 2000 songs is amazing for a game but terribly small for a music platform. Most sensible fans want to see new artists appear. Indeed, to the casual Rock Band player 12 or even 6 songs should be the limit an artist can appear. Naturally when they instead see a stream of repeated artists, knowing the limit of roughly 3-14 songs per week, they can get a bit bothered. Green Day hardly counts for this sort of thing; a standalone product takes up no space in the store to release cycle, it takes up space at retail (which probably explains why you don't see many players online with AC/DC songs).

It's not about musical tastes; something you don't care for becomes the devil incarnate if it starts taking up space where you'd rather find the debut of an unseen artist (especially given the absence of major bands like The Eagles and Coldplay). And don't try to say that PJ is beloved by the vast majority; they've sold 60 million, which in terms of major groups isn't that big (Green Day has them beat with 65 mil). I think I can say with confidence that the vast majority hates seeing so much of them same artist (which as the trope entry brings up, some alternative fans are fine with but their numbers simply don't compare), because the sense of entitlement inherent in that is more pervasive than you'd think (just go to the RB forums).

If you didn't notice, I'm playing devil's advocate here; this is a phenomenon that exists within the Rock Band community. The marketing bias is there and the fans have shown their hostility towards it.

While I understand your point (if you take part of the official Rock Band forums, you'll see that I'm a reasonably active member, particularly in the main forum, so believe me I know all about the entitled whining), I'd still argue that for all the people that vocally moan about "another Foo Fighters week," there are just as many or more people who are straight out not going to download, let's say, Hautewerk.

Really, sometimes the only reason I think people are annoyed at Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam is that they don't have the air of "classic rock" around them the way The Who or Jimi Hendrix (groups or artists who have generations of followers; something neither of the 90's grunge scene and their descendants have made it to) do, and they're not Muse.

I honestly still don't believe that artists can be listed as The Wesley. Author Appeal, maybe. Spotlight-Stealing Squad, also a possibility. The Wesley, I don't think so.

If you find it that offensive then it can be changed. I don't care what the actual trope is, I just want the idea preserved. And to be honest, I don't think that any of your suggestions serve as a better substitute. They would all be a step down in terms of aptness.

Used Spotlight-Stealing Squad, and I figured I'd add the Classic Rock glut from the RB 3 launch period to date as an additional example (since, upon re-reading, The Wesley entry was actually about alternative music in general, although it highlighted Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters as particularly egregious offenders, meaning this debate was not only circular, but besides the point).

"Further, it doesn't matter where you think it would be rated on Rock Band 1 because you can't play the damn song on Rock Band 1 to know for sure."

Actually, to that extent (due to knowledge of the file format that Harmonix themselves published), we can say with absolute certainty that anything that is impossible-tier in Rock Band 2 or 3 would be Impossible-Tier in Rock Band 1. Unfortunately, the inverse is NOT true (Constant Motion WAS impossible-tier on Guitar-Expert in rock band 1, it is now just short of impossible-tier in rock band 2 and 3 - even Afterlife ended up getting dropped a category when the difficulty tier cutoffs changed from Rock Band 1 to Rock Band 2)

Also, you forget another technical point about the difficulty values on the charts which is also in the published file format: they go well over 100. Each chart (Pro Drums notwithstanding due to implementation) carries with it a difficulty value in addition to an overall "band" difficulty completely separate from the chart difficulties. Sorting by difficulty sorts the songs in ascending order of the difficulty value of the chart (in multiplayer, the overall band difficulty is used instead of a chart difficulty). Antibodies's bass chart being as close to the impossible-tier cutoff as it is IS indeed underrating the difficulty.

And? Its still in the highest tier for keyboards and bass. It doesn't matter how it compares to songs in the same toer, nor does it matter how many tiers there were in Rock Band 1. I don't care what technical stuff is behind it, a song CAN'T be undertiered if it's in the highest tier. However, I think the way the entry is now works. It doesn't declare that the bass is undertiered because its not, but rather that the full band is undertiered, which I agree with.

Train Kept A Rollin' is impossible-tier on Guitar in Rock Band 1. Constant Motion on Guitar is rated harder than Train Kept A Rollin'. Constant Motion was released before Rock Band 2 (Constant Motion was released in August 2008. Rock Band 2 was released in September 2008). By your logic, Constant Motion should not be on the list since it's in the highest tier on the only Rock Band game that was available at the time of its release.

Additionally, Tiers are not set in stone. Rock Band 4 (if one is made) could up the Impossible cutoff -again-, causing the bass chart for Antibodies to become ranked at Nightmare instead of Impossible, which would make the bass chart qualify under your (arbitrary) conditions.

I would like to add another follow-up to this and also present some known numbers which illustrate why Antibodies IS considered undertiered on Bass:

First off, the Impossible-Tier cutoffs appear to have been increased from Rock Band 2 to Rock Band 3, which means that if a "7" was Impossible-Tier in Rock Band 2 and an "8" was the (nonexistent) next tier up, 7.175 (Painkiller on bass, by the way) would be the bare minimum needed to classify as Impossible-Tier on Bass.

Run to the Hills (DLC) is a 7.250 on Bass, and it is rated above In a Big Country (which is difficult, but more than passable) and Antibodies, which means that both of those are rated between this 7.250 and Painkiller's 7.175. Souls of Black, which did make the RB 2 export set, is rated at 7.640 on Bass.

And in case you're wondering where all the data is coming from, try this list of every non-Rock Band Network song on the Rock Band platform that was rated Impossible-Tier on Bass in Rock Band 2.

Derp, I forgot about the fact that overdrive isn't allowed in Biggest Show Ever. Silly me. My apologies.

What if we listed the genres avalible out of the box from the first two games, then listed the rest as download content?