Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
The PAX 2009 Rock Band Tournament!
Kethenn
Registered User, Administrator, Penny Arcade Staff staff
Registered User, Administrator, Penny Arcade Staff staff
in PAX Archive
The men and women of Console Freeplay are proud to present, for the second year running...
The PAX 2009 Rock Band 2 Tournament!
The deal is basically the same as last year (in fact, this post borrows heavily from its predecessor!), but with a few...optimizations. Here's how it's going down:
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Qualifier Songs
FAQ
What equipment will you have?
Our qualifier stations will most likely be running standard RB2 hardware, incl drum kit, guitars, mic. The Rock Band Stage, which the last two rounds will be played on, will have an Ion Kit with a sweeeeet pedal, stock RB2 guitars, and I believe a tricked out, proper mic. We'd request that you not switch out hardware during the qualifier songs (it's hard to keep track of that shit), but after that you are welcome to swap instruments out (again, no split/double pedals or the like) so long as you offer the use of them to your opponents.
Can we pleeeeease use game modifiers like breakneck speed etc?
Sorry, no.
Can Enforcers participate in this tournament?
Attendees only! Enforcers can cheer their favorite bands on from the sidelines
What about a "performance tournament"?
To be as fair and objective as possible, the tournament is strictly score-based; however, if we see a particularly spectacular performance at any point, we may decide to shower you with glories on the spot
.
Can your band pick the same song more than once in the tournament?
Nope. You can only pick a song once (if your opponent picks a song, you're still free to pick it yourself later in the tournament).
SONGS AND STUFF
Based on suggestions and resulting discussion, we've decided to make the following changes:
ADDED : Alabama Getaway
REMOVED : Hungry Like A Wolf
BARRED UNTIL FINAL ROUND : Green Grass And High Tide, Panic Attack
Post with questions and/or general excitement! We'll see you at the show.
The PAX 2009 Rock Band 2 Tournament!
The deal is basically the same as last year (in fact, this post borrows heavily from its predecessor!), but with a few...optimizations. Here's how it's going down:
Friday:
- Form your own bands. If you need help finding members, you can make use of our LFG (Looking For Group) area to find other drifters. You don't need four people, but all parts must be represented one way or another.
- Once you've formed a band, you can attempt to Qualify. At any time before 2 AM on Saturday (sort of the same day as Friday...), make your way to a Rock Band station. Qualifying means passing a song from the below list on any difficulty. Once you have a score you're happy with, nab a nearby Console Freeplay Enforcer to have your score registered (don't leave the score screen!). EACH BAND MAY ONLY REGISTER ONE SCORE. Only the top 32 qualifying scores will make it into the tournament.
Saturday:
- Bands will be seeded and bracketed based on their qualifying score. Initial matches will be announced Saturday morning at 10 AM at the Console Freeplay checkout desk (southeast corner of 6E, for anyone looking at a map). The first rounds will begin at 11 AM, and will be staggered throughout the day, since we have limited Rock Band sets.
- A match will consist of the following:
- The lower seeded team will have first choice of song. For these rounds, all songs are currently fair game. Subject to change. Both teams will play the song, at whatever difficulty they each prefer. Highest score wins.
- The higher seeded team then gets to pick a song, same deal.
- Ties will be broken by playing a song randomly chosen from a subset of songs by Console Freeplay staff.
- Winners will proceed to the next round. Failure to show up to a scheduled match will result in a loss.
- All scheduling will be announced Saturday morning. Matches will be held on Saturday until four bands are left.
Sunday:
- The final four bands will battle it out on the Rock Band Stage, same style. After the final match, a victor will be declared. The heavens will open up and a host of angels will carry you to your celestial thrones. And probably give you some cool stuff.
Qualifier Songs
- Songs on this list were picked to be in the same approximate score range. It's still up in the air whether we'll be able to get any of the DLC songs. For now, assume that only stock RB1/2 songs are available. I know. Shit's expensive. This may not be a comprehensive list - if you find a song that's in the same score range on Score Hero or whatnot, let me know and I'll check it out.
- Remember, your qualifying score is your absolute band score, regardless of what difficulty you choose to play on.
- THE LIST:
- The Main Drag - A Jagged Gorgeous Winter
- Avenged Sevenfold - Almost Easy
- Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son
- Mastodon - Colony of Birchmen
- Lush - De-Luxe
- Nirvana - Drain You
- Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
- Bon Jovi - Livin on a Prayer
- The Donnas - New Kid in School
- Bang Camaro - Night Lies
- Blondie - One Way or Another
- L7 - Pretend We're Dead
- Elvis Costello - Pump It Up
- Steve Miller Band - Rock'n Me
- Guns n Roses - Shackler's Revenge
- Paramore - That's What You Get
- Jimmy Eat World - The Middle
- Smashing Pumpkins - Today
- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Where'd You Go?
- The Grateful Dead - Alabama Getaway
FAQ
What equipment will you have?
Our qualifier stations will most likely be running standard RB2 hardware, incl drum kit, guitars, mic. The Rock Band Stage, which the last two rounds will be played on, will have an Ion Kit with a sweeeeet pedal, stock RB2 guitars, and I believe a tricked out, proper mic. We'd request that you not switch out hardware during the qualifier songs (it's hard to keep track of that shit), but after that you are welcome to swap instruments out (again, no split/double pedals or the like) so long as you offer the use of them to your opponents.
Can we pleeeeease use game modifiers like breakneck speed etc?
Sorry, no.
Can Enforcers participate in this tournament?
Attendees only! Enforcers can cheer their favorite bands on from the sidelines
What about a "performance tournament"?
To be as fair and objective as possible, the tournament is strictly score-based; however, if we see a particularly spectacular performance at any point, we may decide to shower you with glories on the spot
.Can your band pick the same song more than once in the tournament?
Nope. You can only pick a song once (if your opponent picks a song, you're still free to pick it yourself later in the tournament).
SONGS AND STUFF
Based on suggestions and resulting discussion, we've decided to make the following changes:
ADDED : Alabama Getaway
REMOVED : Hungry Like A Wolf
BARRED UNTIL FINAL ROUND : Green Grass And High Tide, Panic Attack
Post with questions and/or general excitement! We'll see you at the show.
Kethenn on
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
Same here
I know we'll get smoked, but I still love to play!
Ravenclaw Death Eaters Head of House
Pirate, Stormtrooper, Decepticon
Jeppy
Cheers,
motsrun
D: D: D:
You will be sorely missed. That was a hell of a performance, sir.
(1) Can we bring a Destroyer Pedal, Rock Pedal or actual pedal+kickbox if we offer our opponents the chance to use it? Pretty please? With sprinkles and a cherry on top?
(2) Will the guitars have the auto-calibration sensor so we can try to get decent calibration? If not can we bring one?
(3) If there's an upset, do you take over the seed of the higher seeded team? In other words, if in the first round #32 beats #1, in the next round, do they still have to play first against the #16/#17 winner? Or do they now get to play second against all comers, making them in effect the #1 seed?
Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but the hardest qualifier songs you guys picked have the highest possible score. It at least looks well thought out.
"gay" and "rape". You keep on using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
In the meantime- we may be persuaded to set up a UStream to our local play and do a Timmy/Master Exploder set if anyone wants a redux of last year's insanity.
Cheers,
motsrun
It depends on who you get paired with. If you qualify, you deserve to be in the tournament and then it's just a lot of skill and a little luck that determines whether or not you advance. I would highly recommend participating though. This tournament is the best tournament PAX has to offer.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
EDIT: One of my best on the list would have to be Night Lies
I can smoke expert guitar/bass and can handle every song on expert drums save Visions, although I can't guarentee a very high score on the Mastodon on the list.
Couple of questions, what are the rules on using a second pedal w/ splitter and/or breakneck speed?
1) So long as the pedal performs roughly like a basic pedal (no split pedal, etc), it's fair game. You must allow your opponent the opportunity to use it, although they don't have to.
2) Our setups will be calibrated =).
3) Not being especially wise in the way of standard tournament rules, I'm going to say that you keep your original seed regardless. If there's a lot of hubbub over this, I'm open to discussion.
No split pedals, no breakneck/hyper speed or other "cheats".
Thanks guys!
We may also need a new drummer; we're waiting to hear back from the awesome one we had last year (dstalefish where are you man?). Both our guitarists can play drums, so we could take a guitarist instead of a drummer if necessary.
We plan on making it to the stage so you should be good, but personality and fun matter most. We lost our semi-finals game trying to do silly stuff (instrument trading, singer pretending not to show up until later) but it was still a lot of fun. Hopefully we can find a better balance this year.
We'll be on the West Coast PAXTrain, so bonus points if you're going to be on it too.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
By the looks of the abilities of some of the people in this thread, we should have some good competition, and I'm looking forward to it!
I'm a...
* Medium guitarist
* Expert vocals (yeah yeah... who isn't?)... however, if I may be so bold, my particular expertise happens to be one of the qualifying songs, which is why I'm particularly excited (Bon Jovi - Livin on a Prayer), and I know it well enough that I can pretty easily do guitar and vocals if needed at once. I'd be delighted if anyone wanted to accompany me on Bass, Drums, and optionally Guitar... more than just halfway there.
EDIT: So... I dusted off my copy of Rock Band to make sure I've still got some skills, and apparently I'm only expert vocals on songs I know well... it's harder to improvise notes for songs you don't know than I remember it being. =) Just to forewarn anyone who joins... I'm going to need to do some song learning over the next week or so to make sure I'm ready for something other than Livin' on a Prayer. =)
Join the Cookie Brigade Forum for PAX Prime 2011 now! We need your help! If you decide to join, sign up at the Cookie Brigade website!
Awesome news. I was getting so worried when I didn't see a Rock Band or Guitar Hero tournament on the PAX schedule. I knew something was up.
As far as DLC goes you could try talking to the people who did the Sakura-Con Rock Band Tourney. I know a lot of them are also enforcers at PAX.
My set of questions:
1. Can we bring our own instruments? Obviously you will probably have an Ion kit so this really is just about guitar peripherals. I personally can't stand playing on rock band guitars, or really any guitar controller that isn't mine. Haha, it's a weird habit but I just feels weird playing with one that's not mine for some reason.
2. I know it's a bit much during qualifying rounds and first/second rounds, but during the finals may we use Breakneck speed? As a preference it REALLY helps players like myself. I know that unfortunately breakneck speed and hyperspeed have been labeled a cheat by some people but as a prior PAX champion of guitar hero I can say it's simply just a preference and it would be REALLY nice to have the option as it requires only a setting in the extras menu.
3. I have this song for recommendations:
Alive - It's about 70k different than Almost easy's score and I think would be nice to have another song with about the same amount of points or everyone will be picking Almost easy
Conventional Lover - Also in this same score range, and come on, this song is TOTALLY nerdy. Fits in with the PAX crowd like no other (except the PAX pack songs of course. xP) "I'll give you my heart, I'll treat you nice (ooh love long and prosper). And the games that I play only have twenty-sided dice
They're polyhedral!"
Alabama Getaway - a fun quirky song in about the 1.8 million score range, smack dab in the avarage of all the songs you picked.
4. I recommend taking out this song:
A Jagged Gorgeous Winter - It's the lowest scoring song on the list overall (1.5 million high score on it) and, the drums are extremely technical. Not many people will pick it, and definitely not the hard core players because of the drum part.
Cheers to everyone competing this year!
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
Xbox Live - Bob Jackass || Playstation - Cosby__Sweater || Steam - Bob Jackass
Twitter
3)
I have to say I like the fact that the high scoring songs are also the harder songs. Conventional Lover and Alive are much easier than Almost Easy or Colony of the Birchmen. Also I think time seems to have been a factor here, and Alive is longer than every song except Carry On Wayward Son.
However, if the qualifier songs are open for debate, I would suggest taking out Hungry Like the Wolf. it's the 4th highest scoring song, but it's MUCH easier than the one above it (Where'd you Go?) or the ones below it (Carry on Wayward Son, One Way or Another, Go Your Own Way). And I say this as someone who's spent five hours trying (and failing) to find its optimal full band path. Unless you want to leave it there as a bonus for not-as-talented bands with talented pathers ...
If not, swapping out Hungry Like A Wolf for Alabama Getaway seems like a good idea. Maybe also swapping Where'd You Go? for You Oughta Know, but they're probably about even (one's tough on Drums and Bass, the other on Drums and Guitar, prolly about the same).
4)
Actually The Middle and New Kid in School have lower top scores (probably a PS3 band cracked 1.56M for AJGW)
"gay" and "rape". You keep on using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Boomer's Day Off - a Left 4 Dead web series
Kill9 Studios ● My Filmmaker Portfolio ● Blog ● Twitter ● My YouTube ● Kill9's YouTube
Wow good point on number 4, I didn't even check the PS3 scores, just the 360 scores.
Although you have a good point on difficulty of songs. I also think that variety is the spice of life. Remember these are just qualifier songs, not the songs in the main tournament. Besides in rock band tournaments it's always weird for me. I never do as good as I do at home because of the awkward fretboard angles in full band, and the lack of breakneck speed.
The people who pick Almost Easy and Colony will be picking it for one reason, because they know that they can get the high score. So hell, throw in Alive, throw in Conventional lover. It'll be fun to path em.
At the moment it looks like we need, at the very least, another guitar player. We'll have two days on the train to find someone though, so I doubt it'll be a problem. And we get to fight for David's soul too, which is nice.
I play fake plastic guitar.
It's not you, TNTrooper, it's me.
I suggest you play anyway. It doesn't hurt to try and qualify a couple of times and then maybe get crushed by a bunch of experts. The scoring is total score, so playing on Medium might actually take down an all expert band who scrubs their way through a song.
Of course, I love this kind of thing. My Counter Strike Team is awful and yet I participate whenever there isn't a conflict. It's fun just to be part of a team, especially when you have nothing to lose.
Join the Cookie Brigade Forum for PAX Prime 2011 now! We need your help! If you decide to join, sign up at the Cookie Brigade website!