Now I know that not all of that stuff can be thrown into a patch. Maybe some ideas could be used in a sequel, etc?
I took a few semesters of music business. And I follow how the internet is changing the business, etc. So that’s where a lot of my background and ideas come from.
I’d like to give as much input as possible, so. Yes.
Most of the stuff from the previous five pages, additionally (either for emphasis or because I didn’t see it before) :
-if you change the ‘musicianship’ training thing (matching up notes… I’ve only played the demo of KRL through one time so am not that familiar with the terminology yet), if you add a timer, definitely make that optional
-the band (in this game) seems to dread ‘handing out leaflets’ whereby in reality it adds to hype in my experience (this goes along with the first post to which I replied, originated via cliffski, Re: ‘schmoozing’)
-record your own CDs
-the website thing, with downloadable music (either or both of free or pay; free downloads = +fame, +hype | pay downloads = +fame +money)
-ability to ('specially when the band is just starting out) get ‘free’ help (i.e. “if you come to every show and be our roadie/photog we’ll get you free beer”)
-the interpersonal relationships thing, that’s a really good idea (sorta combine the ‘original Kudos’ with the ‘Rock Legend’ version) Each bandmate can have a romantic partner… or not, other friends can (“should be able to”) go out to the bar with the band (the ‘groupies’ and other ones that come to every show), bandmember spats, etc…
-I didn’t have a chance to get ‘big’ in the demo version but I saw some posts requesting features such as publicity stunts etc. (here’s another ‘yea’ vote)
-Easier access to all the stats from the main screen (as waz mentioned numerous times before)
My full version of this game is done downloading now so I must be off. I’m sure there are other things I’ve thought of already about KRL and I know there’s a lot to write about ‘Kudos - the game’ (I hope you’re still working on that, too - in your spare time - right? )
Thanks Cliffski!
I’ll be back!
Need to add 2 new sounds : 
crowd_large_clap
crowd_large_boo
Odd that crowd_large has, currently, only _cheers 
( using Version 1.0.4 )
Do bands use amplifiers anymore ?
Something else to destruct, eh ? … remember The Who ?
Graphics :
Skins … of the other instruments ?
I was at a concert a few weeks ago with a fantastic rock band named Magtens Korridorer (The Corridors of Power). Really great music. Anyway, it made me think about an important question: “Could they have done the same in Rock Legend as they did in real life?” That is, I think, the definition of a good sim game. Generally, they could. But I did notice two things:
They were drinking beer. Each band member had his own personal six-pack (last year they even threw some of them out to the thirsty audience). I think that would be cool to have in a game. I guess it would increase stage show a bit and lower tiredness at the cost of musicianship being dreased too (I can’t play an instrument but I’m relatively sure that it would be more difficult if I were drunk). Maybe it could also have an effect on chemistry at the show (and after it?), making friends like eachother more and enemies hate eachother more. Drinks should of course be available in different types - from a few beers to bottles of vodka.
In Rock Legend, there are three kinds of music:
hmmm that’s quite a good point. I guess what the game should really do is have old songs bore the band, rather than the fans. hmmmm. there are so many ways it could be changed!
That would actually be interesting. What about adding both? So the band would get bored of old songs and want to play new ones - but the audience feels the exact opposite.
This would also make the use of other bands’ music more interesting. Keeping the songs that you start with might increase your popularity in the beginning at your career, but your band would become very very tired of it.
That reminds me - is there a reason why we can’t simply choose to keep playing other people’s music?
I just remembered another idea I had: Could you make it possible to choose the gender of your new musician when holding an audition? It doesn’t really make any difference, but it would be nice to have the choice. If I want my band to be for men or women only, I have to say no to a lot of good musicians before finding the right one.
And would it be possible to allow the main character to also play an instrument (bass or guitar or something else that doesn’t make it impossible to sing at the same time). I know that we’re already both song writers, lead singers and managers - but if Jack White or Aimee Mann can do it, so can my imaginery musician!
The only problem is how to make this balanced… maybe it could be done by letting the player choose a “special talent” for his lead singer? So you could choose “also guitarist”/“also bassist” or get a bonus to songwriting or singing?
Okay, I’m back. Here’s a rough draft summary of my semi-complete investigation into KRL.
Some of these suggestions may overlap but that’s prob’ly because this list is largely transcribed verbatim from the paper I used while playing the game (sounds like I’m suggesting more than one way to do something utilizing differing methods, repeating myself or I say “change this” but later say “delete this”).
Some of these things may have already been said by others but either I didn’t pore over every post looking for duplicates, I missed them or they’re included here for emphasis… or maybe some other reason:
The list in no apparent order:
-When you load a previous game, the ‘list of special activities’ is unavailable on the first turn
-when done shopping, hover over the ‘finished’ button: “SHOPPINGFINISHTOOLTIP”
-write new song with more measures than fit on one screen: “JIGSAWSCROLLRIGHTTOOLTIP” and “JIGSAWSCROLLLEFTTOOLTIP”
-\data\bitmaps\male_portraits\m_12 – he’s pretty.
-When there are too many icons (i.e. you have too much stuff) they’re “un-re-position-able”
-if you close the game with an organized desktop (e.g. band members at the top, vehicles at the bottom left, lights/effects at the top right etc) everything’s jumbled (moved around with no respect to layers)
“I can’t believe we still get no food at our gigs”
‘I still have a cheap synthesizer’
etc…
(in reference to the same thing that was mentioned before; higher quality assets not recognized unless you first have purchased and/or still have posession of lower quality assets)
“why don’t we just go all the way and practice in the sewer?”
-If you become reasonably accomplished, having continuously upgraded your practice space, then the whole band quits, then you hire some new members, they are used to practicing in a big recording studio even though they never have.
-Money is tight so we practice in the only place we can afford but the motivation degrades anyway. they don’t just wanna make it regardless of the conditions? The collective personality of the current band is ‘ambitious, imaginative, optimistic, photogenic’ but they get disillusioned easily (there must be some settings I can adjust, haven’t thoroughly looked through config yet)
What, if anything, controls how ‘into the band’ other members are? i.e. “I really wanna make this thing work so I’ll practice anywhere I can, deal with cheap food, be satisfied with inexpensive transportation etc…” everybody else gets spoiled and whines “eww, I don’t wanna practice in a $250 studio, we must’ve hit rock bottom. Is this where lousy bands practice?”
-(‘Is there’|‘there should be’) a variable modifier for seasonedness (and bythatimean… 'a band that has been together for 3 years, subject to adjustment of course dependent upon both the individual personalities of the person and the collective property of the band, should be more difficult to get demotivated than a band that’s been together only 3 weeks)
-I changed GAME_DURATION_YEARS to ‘7’ but at the end the screen says ‘Five years over!’ I wasn’t paying attention to this aspect so I don’t know if it actually only let me play 5 years or if it actually played the full 7 years and is hardcoded as ‘Five years over!’
-“RS_MAX_CLASSIC_SONGS = 4” my setlist shows that I have 5
-Song writing: if two measures that are next to each other have long subtitles they overlap i.e.:
_____verse____________chorus
(classical influence()harmony guitars)
-The font on the green bars of track titles on the ‘new album’ page has an unspecified ‘-’ character (Non[]specific Ghost Story)
-What is the reason (a setting I didn’t change yet?) ‘my’ musicianship percentage during practice does not advance as quickly as the rest of the band?
-Other posts here have said ‘the music gets annoying after 5 hours’ (and stuff) but I’ve found that it actually goes off along with the rest of the sound a few minutes after I start the game. (this could be a specific problem with my machine unless others could verify the same) - (WindowsXP-SP2 / GeForce FX5200 / CT4780 SoundBlaster Live!)
-------OTHER STUFF-------
—additional requests/suggestions—
Implement:
-the ability to ‘Cancel’ when you decide to do most anything (there’s never a ‘cancel’ button only ‘continue’ )
If you decide to do a local newspaper interview and see it’s going to be only 4% effective you should be able to cancel it (and it shouldn’t use up that turn)
-more personality traits (beside ‘ambitious, imaginative’ should also be (for example) ‘relaxed, easy-going, quiet’ or ‘stressed, difficult, gregarious’)
-choose title when making CD (title is automatically generated from album_names.txt)
-list of names (when choosing names rather than either ‘random’ or ‘type it in’, have an alphabetical list of all ‘random’ names)
-ability to order tracks when making CD (currently if you want the second track to be the third track you need to remove the second track and the last five before it will be added to the end of the list)
-make the order of the tracks count toward the CD popularity (i.e. it’s a different CD if there are 3 quality tracks followed by 5 mediocre tracks than if the song quality is interspersed throughout)
-allow more than only 8 tracks per CD
-press release, demo releases & other type of self-promotion where you don’t hafta wait 'til they call you (this should add hype as well as motivation)
-ability to see my summary (ability, motivation, live experience, rehearsal, tiredness) in the same format for comparison with other members (in the ‘YOU’ section of the main screen)
-Not have shows always the same distance in advance (should be more random, perhaps from a configurable list; or “either/or” (e.g. either 4 days or 8 days); or configurable as in “between 1-2 weeks”)
This way you could effectively book 3 gigs in one day (as I like to be the case in ‘real’ life)
-you should be able to do more than just one thing per day (either you can do two/three things per day or even that could be variable i.e. “listen to one song = .2/day”, “book gig = .5/day”, “practice = 1 day”, “rehearse = 1/day”
-musicianship (practice experience) should also be gained through rehearsal & gigs (much in the same way as RS_LIVE_REHEARSAL_BOOST)
(maybe it is, I didn’t check it out yet)
-Ability to move CD info box so I don’t hafta close box to look at other CD stats at the same time
-Put some songs on more than 1 CD (especially the ‘classics’)
-‘shopping cart’ to see what you’ve already bought (currently the only affirmation given to indicate a purchase is the cash decrease)
-I’d like to see marketshare info (I.E. before signing an endorsement contract… is Thomson Motorbike a big company with potential fans?)
-The endorsement offer should specify that “$1090” is ‘each time we run the ad with your song you get this much’
-should also be a percentage (maybe it already is? maybe it’s an option?)
-Different choices of staff members (manager,bodyguard,sound guy,light tech - these guys can be changed in ‘assets.csv’) They should have different characteristics too (“this manager has 2 years managing experience and is manipulative”, “this manager has 18 years experience and is businesslike”)
-CD releases could be “pop-out menu” style? (show album title, click to list songs + stats)
-Old CD releases still sell copies (a record store will usually have not only the latest release of a particular band but also that bands first album and their second… people still buy the old ones, sometimes they’re better than the new releases - this should be the same)
-when writing a song - able to remove a measure only by replacing it with another. Make it so double-click removes or just drag it back down to the bin
-don’t prepopulate the measures (whenever I write a song I hafta first remove everything that’s already there)
-more publicity avenues (band says ‘we need to get the word out’ then when you hang posters or do a web interview they say ‘waste of time’ - I still say ‘no publicity is bad’) - (maybe I already covered that before)
-when saving progress from the main menu the name of the game should be prepopulated with the name of the currently loaded instead of ‘default’
-Always be able to see available cash (when booking a gig it should be displayed like in the store) - (even though ‘too expensive’ options are unavailable, I’d still like to see for example: “if I book this gig for $2995 that leaves me with $3 to get through the next week”)
-ability to play as a solo act or just a 2-piece or 3-piece band
-the “singer can also play an instrument” option that’s been mentioned a few times before
-the band can have 2 guitarists or (like some bands) multiple singers and no actual musicians but just a soundtrack
-things should be kept in order more (items in the store in order from cheap to ultimate, etc… especially if you don’t change the ‘must get/keep cheap items before recognizing expensive items’ thing)
-When retiring songs, the window should stay open (i.e. “click songname, song info window opens, click retire, name is removed from list and the next song down is displayed in the window”)
-there should be arrows to progress through the songlist in this manner (or the songlist should be accessible with the arrows from the keyboard - click,click,click,click,click,click)
-sometimes venues call with “our regular act cancelled, we’ll pay $250 if you can come play tonight”
-song writing: notes in some kinda order (consistent; same as with the stuff in the store)
-drop sponsor and get new offers for sponsorship
-when mouseover band members, instead of ‘left click and drag to reposition or double click to see details’ popup should just show details (of course you can still double click to see the details)
-have age on the song (like ‘weeks since release’ on the album)
-after a ‘promo’ offer (RS_CHARITY_GIG_) have a cancel as well as continue (same as before)
-running sales history, finance history etc as well as yearly
-on CD info box, reviews (same as on the individual songs)
“'s second album shows a much more developed style than their first…”
“The third album by and unless you like funky rap you probably won’t find it as intriguing lyrically as the first”
-possibility to get a loan
-produce singles (with less/more than 8 tracks per CD)
-ability to make songs without putting them into rotation (new, never-before heard releases)
-a running list of expenses
"item--------per day-------per gig
bodyguard–$20-------------$9
limo-----------$3----------$130
total---------$23-----------$139
-Main Page stats: instead of ‘YOU’ should be and instead of ‘THE BAND’ should be
-The manager should actually do his job - he should be the one to get gigs.
((depending upon personality/characteristics of the manager) and (status/schedule of the band))
he should announce “hey, guys. we got a gig next Tuesday at the Space Dome.”
Also can you make it possible for us to cancel the song-making process ??
Right now if you click on the wrong icon, you are forced to make a new song.
Wow, there’s tons of good ideas here, I have lots to do, and won’t get around to doing all of this, not in the next patch anywya, but it’s already feeling a much better game.
Thanks, cliffski~
here are some other things (there’s more I haven’t written down and more I’ll come up with, I’m sure)
I don’t expect that you’ll take all my suggestions but I do hope you’ll squash most of those annoying bugs.
-running status as to how much promotion you’ve done:
-------promo----------------amt—fame effect
—website interviews_____2_____+18
—local radio interviews___1_____+12
—local tv shows_________0_____0
—nat’l radio____________1_____+35
—fly posting____________2_____+5
there could also maybe (here, along with some of my other suggestions) be a continuous ratio of ‘promo:money’
-on the ‘year in review’ page, write how many CDs released/sold
-ability to view stats from last concert even after you close the window at the end of a show (even all of concert history; a ‘concerts’ icon on the main screen, just like any other item you own, that brings up a window with a list of concert dates… )
concert__________________cds______t-shirts_______s-shirts_______any other item______variables with asset name
and a list of money earned, as this list grows it should motivate the band -
(maybe with a date and a total, too)
[color=red]how’s that schmooze thing comin’? 
-the drummer waz really sad for a long time but his motivation, ability and rehearsal experience were all very high and he wasn’t tired at all. The band waz in wonderful condition playing $30k gigs twice/week, everything an unsigned band could ask for but he waz always very sad. I kept thinking he would drop out on me at the last minute as had been the case with anybody else that’s very sad for no apparent reason. I shut the game down and when I started again he waz very happy. Why is it that he looked so sad when everything else waz right?
-songs with the same title should not be included at the same time
-members complain about having a cheap instrument even if they own each guitar (there could be more instruments but that’s just a superficial fix… it probably shouldn’t do that… something could be adjusted I’m sure… and other stuff, too; pedals, straps, strings, drumsticks, better stuff that I can’t even think of right now… stuff that would get the band hyped, motivated and to stop thinking about how lousy their instruments are even though they’re the best)
I’ll work on this… I started doing the same thing (additional assets/events/activities etc) for the other Kudos but my ideas got ahead of me. (I’ll still eventually post some files for both games)
-can the ‘FAME’ number also include a scale with degrees? (red->orange->yellow>green)
if you’re red, nobody knows you, orange the local paper interviews, yellow = website, green = nat’l TV etc… somethin’ like that. Just so you can have something to aim for… maybe not. hm.
-there’s other stuff that I forgot temporarily but I’ll keep this list as I go and write again.
-can you make the band stop complaining about things that you can’t control? (the promo thing, for one… “we need to get our name out there!” post flyers cause that’s all you can do “given how big our audience is, that last promo activity was a waste of time”
Yeah, I can help lighten your load on a lot of this perhaps; I’ll do some stuff (if I can ever stop having fun in the game ~ 
)
I think that I may have the same problem as dildur. However, mine shows the band members pictures as white (which makes it difficult to tell if they’re happy or sad 
), and sometimes the practice screen. Actually now that I think about it, the practice screen seems to be the main cause in the video malfunction.
I’m using an Acer Aspire 3000 laptop (which acer’s stupid website says doesn’t exist grr), which I think has a SiS M760GX video card (or its the motherboard? I’m kinda confused). I tried to look up how much ram it has, to preempt the question, but got lost.
I tried updating my drivers, but after updating the problem still happened. Is there anything I can do to stop the problem? Perhaps dropping it to 16 bit, and if so how can I do that?
Thanks!
Elen
download Belarc Advisor (free, 1,428kB) which will show most of the information about your computer anybody would ever ask.
‘control panel’ → display → settings → color quality
(or probably also)
right click desktop and choose properties from the resulting menu then choose settings → color quality
Thanks for the Belarc tip! Its an interesting program
My video card is a SiS M760GX, and has a max of 128 MB video memory.
I’ve managed to fix the problem with dropping it down to 16 bit color.
Thanks you guys!
Elen
Glad to help!
Have fun with the game.
Not sure if this has been mentioned before but a Hall Of Fame would be really cool. Maybe coupled with a score in the same way Pirates! did. Still, I’d like to have a record of what bands I’ve formed and how well they’ve done.
Thanks for the updated version, cliffski. It’s really great.
I just wanted to ask if you have any other changes planned for the next update. I’m working on a list of ideas but there is no reason for me to write about things that you’re already going to change.
no planned changes for the current time, as I’m working on other games for a bit, but I do read all suggestions posted here.
Cheers.
1.I played the new version 3 times to the end and i discovered that all my bassists got a new bass and after that my uncle gave me money… So why doesn’t my guitar player or drum player get a new instrument and is it normal that i have always rich uncle who gives me money:o
I think it would be nice if there could be a warning or something.
"You have a gig tonight, are you sure you want to do a web interview? "
Maybe something like that!
Sry, for my bad English and i hope you understood what i was trying to say
Play it again, Sam 
My rich uncle bought a new set of drums
Book a gig and always play it.