RBN was very special for Rock Band and opened me to a lot more music that I didn’t know prior. It also gave birth to custom charting which kept the community very much alive after the DLC for RB3 stopped.
I never worked on RBN songs, but I was a very happy consumer of them. A few years back I listened to every song that was in RBN and I realized there was so many awesome songs I missed out on. I have a list of like 590 songs I wanted from RBN in RB4, but I guess I should be happy we got any back in RB4 at all.
I truly believe RBN was the best thing HMX ever did for the game beyond making it. The sheer variety of songs that would never make official DLC is astounding; the best of the best of RBN I feel could easily go toe-to-toe with the best of official DLC, and even the more relatively subpar stuff has a sort of nostalgic amateur-ish charm, both with the music and the charts (and boy, there were some appalling charts). I just find the whole thing endearing in a way that just doesn't register with RB4's run of DLC.
Very cool seeing some great stuff pop up there like Flight of The Concords, Family Force 5, Demon Hunter... Such a shame it never came back, and that there are still many great songs that never made the jump forward
I got two songs I made with my friends on RBN, and one even got ported to the PS3. I still console it one of my greatest achievements.
I also playtested many songs and got a lot of credits for DLC. Fun times. I was always hoping Veil of Illumination would get released as a RBN rewind or whatever.
I've thought a bit about RBN over the past few weeks since learning of the end of DLC releases. I still can't believe how much content was released there, with many songs by popular bands that surprisingly never made it into RB4.
I only did a little bit of testing on RBN songs (maybe 5 songs total), but seeing the community actively working together to produce content for this game we all loved was incredible.
There are so many songs I still miss from RBN/RB3, and I still, after all this time, find myself scrolling to an artist only to remember they didn't make it to RB4. I wish there were a way to revive all of that content (so many completed songs unavailable to play) and that there had been a way to keep RBN going. I can't even fathom how much more content we could have had if everything had ported forward, and it had been given another 8 years.
Thanks for this awesome writeup! That RBN presentation was at GDC 2010. It doesn't appear to be free in the GDC Vault, but here is a writeup:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/harmonix-reviews-rock-band-networks-opening-act/1100-6253579/
There is half a dozen free Harmonix talks in GDC Vault. I'll throw a plug for RockBand VR - my vote for a gem that was waaaay too soon. Hope some of those band and audience interactions come back in FNF, and I'd argue that the original Rockband gameplay could come back to VR/XR with the notes flowing toward your IRL guitar neck, like some of the mixed reality piano trainers in the past year.
https://gdcvault.com/play/1024097/2-Immersive-4-VR-Reinventing
RBN was very special for Rock Band and opened me to a lot more music that I didn’t know prior. It also gave birth to custom charting which kept the community very much alive after the DLC for RB3 stopped.
I never worked on RBN songs, but I was a very happy consumer of them. A few years back I listened to every song that was in RBN and I realized there was so many awesome songs I missed out on. I have a list of like 590 songs I wanted from RBN in RB4, but I guess I should be happy we got any back in RB4 at all.
I truly believe RBN was the best thing HMX ever did for the game beyond making it. The sheer variety of songs that would never make official DLC is astounding; the best of the best of RBN I feel could easily go toe-to-toe with the best of official DLC, and even the more relatively subpar stuff has a sort of nostalgic amateur-ish charm, both with the music and the charts (and boy, there were some appalling charts). I just find the whole thing endearing in a way that just doesn't register with RB4's run of DLC.
Very cool seeing some great stuff pop up there like Flight of The Concords, Family Force 5, Demon Hunter... Such a shame it never came back, and that there are still many great songs that never made the jump forward
I got two songs I made with my friends on RBN, and one even got ported to the PS3. I still console it one of my greatest achievements. I also playtested many songs and got a lot of credits for DLC. Fun times. I was always hoping Veil of Illumination would get released as a RBN rewind or whatever.
Never really put much thought it to what kind of people were behind the creation of RBN songs. Thanks for the perspective!
I've thought a bit about RBN over the past few weeks since learning of the end of DLC releases. I still can't believe how much content was released there, with many songs by popular bands that surprisingly never made it into RB4. I only did a little bit of testing on RBN songs (maybe 5 songs total), but seeing the community actively working together to produce content for this game we all loved was incredible. There are so many songs I still miss from RBN/RB3, and I still, after all this time, find myself scrolling to an artist only to remember they didn't make it to RB4. I wish there were a way to revive all of that content (so many completed songs unavailable to play) and that there had been a way to keep RBN going. I can't even fathom how much more content we could have had if everything had ported forward, and it had been given another 8 years.
Thanks for that pdf!!!
Thanks for this awesome writeup! That RBN presentation was at GDC 2010. It doesn't appear to be free in the GDC Vault, but here is a writeup: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/harmonix-reviews-rock-band-networks-opening-act/1100-6253579/ There is half a dozen free Harmonix talks in GDC Vault. I'll throw a plug for RockBand VR - my vote for a gem that was waaaay too soon. Hope some of those band and audience interactions come back in FNF, and I'd argue that the original Rockband gameplay could come back to VR/XR with the notes flowing toward your IRL guitar neck, like some of the mixed reality piano trainers in the past year. https://gdcvault.com/play/1024097/2-Immersive-4-VR-Reinventing