Feedback on what to change / improve. ADD YOUR VIEWS

Kudos-Rock Legend Rock Legend (General)
81

  1. More re playability. After playing it the first time i didnt realy have any challenge tbh. everything went ok. i went from goal to goal and from bar to bigger bar to massive arena to the last thing. Which was rock valley or something. it would be good to have more places to go. For example you could apply to get to some festivals ect ect. And receve royaltys from that. Glastonbury, project revolution, coachella ect ect.

  2. More verity in what you can play. instrement wise. Ie put option of having someone on the decks or something.

  3. Make things more expensive to increase the time it takes to get things.
    i played up to ten years with my band and after about 5 years nothing changed because i had played in the biggest venue after about 4 years.

  4. Add option to " go on tour " Which requires hotel costs, you need to buy your own plane. Add option of touring different countrys and visiting the dirrerent venues.

  5. Add charts in different countrys. for example " x band has made it to the top of the charts in x countrys " would add another goal to the game.

All of these things could increse the playability of the game and keep your audience playing longer.

82

Suggestion: As your fame increases, I think the cost of going to the bar should increase as well since you’ll be going to the trendy hottest nightspots. Even better, give a choice of bars/clubs to visit and have a chance of failure for the better ones if you are unknowns.

83

indeed, I had thought about maybe doing that, but decided not to overcomplicate that part of the game. If I had modelled ego, it would have been quite funny to ‘risk’ some ego by trying to get into a cooler bar etc.

84

First off, let me just say that IT’S ABOUT TIME!!! To me a game like this is a no brainer (as is one on surgery, but that’s for another discussion). To be fair, there is another game out called Rock Manager, but it sucks big time. I was thrilled to see this one and have enjoyed playing it.

They say that the genius of the U.S. Constitution is that it was left open with the opportunity of changing it if need be. I’d suggest that the genius of this game is it’s ability to be modded (is that a word?). No matter what changes you make to the game, I hope that you always keep this part in tact. I’m not a computer programmer in any way, but have really enjoyed tweaking this part of the game.

That said, below are just a few of the things I’ve been thinking about in relation to an update:

Chart ranks

The option of having both a road manager (reduces stress) and a booking manager. I’d also like the option of having higher ranking managers who can get you even better and more high profile deals.

Larger bands with more instruments (second guitarist, percussionist, back up singers, horn section, dj, string section, etc.) However! And this is important! Adding a band member should mean a cut in pay. Instead of just keeping track of the money made by the band, I would like to know exactly how much money my specific character makes. For each new band member I add, the potential exists for a better sound and a better record, but it also means that profits are split among more people. Make a bad record and the meagre profits become that much more meagre when split among more people. This could also influence motivation.

More of the same instrument. Is there any reason why each guitar (for instance) can’t come in several colors, giving you the option to purchase several of the same guitars? Most top bands have racks of instruments.

More staff. I insist on somebody else to tune my guitars and do my sound check! : ) Also, as the band gets bigger and takes on more equipment, it only makes sense that I would need to hire more roadies.

Is it wrong of me to want drugs and alcohol in the game? Here’s my argument. Some band members may need to turn to drugs/alcohol to keep them happy. The flip side is that they could easily lead to addiction, which would lead to a drop in ability, and would also lead to people missing practices and gigs. I’m not a user myself, but this addition could really add a whole new dimension to the game.

Better ways to get around. First off, there should be something between that crappy van and a tour buss. Something like a nice 15 seater van. Second, there should be several different grades of tour bus. Finally, there should definitely be a plane!

A much better touring system that includes international tours. I’d also like the option of leaving the touring arrangements (booking, etc.) up to my booking manager, leaving the band free to practice, etc. The downside of this is that we’re now at the mercy of the booking manager. These guys often work their bands to death and the band ends up resenting them over it (alah Bon Jovi).

I need MUCH more in the way of merchandise. Glossy photos, key chains, more t-shirt and poster options, and a much better system for ordering. Once I reach a certain level, I really should be able to order stuff in larger quantities.

A much longer game that includes the possibility of getting into the hall of fame once you’ve reached 25 years. As it is, each year goes waaaaaay too fast.

I want fancy plaques to hang on my wall once a record has sold a certain count.

Better interband relationship story lines. For instance, the chance of band members hooking up, breaking up, and splitting the band, alah Fleetwood Mac and pretty much every other band who’s ever had a female in it.

Recognition of my video. Has it been played on Mtv? How was it received?

I’d also like recognition of how many singles there are on each album. I’d further like the option of shooting a video for each single.

Just some thoughts. 8)

85

I like the game quite a lot but I have to honestly say that it feels like it’s missing the last quarter. Everything seems to be set up well for about the first three years and then things get a bit stuck. You can pick up all the bits from the your gig profits and just trundle along and there’s nothing really to do. You shouldn’t overcomplicate the game but it could use some more depth and bit of investment in working out the differences between starting off, beginning to make it big and being a “rock legend”. This sounds pretty harsh so I should reassure you that it is still a good enjoyable game!

There are quite a lot of good suggestions in this thread, I’m impressed!

Feature suggestions

Player character
Why do you have to be the vocalist? As a lot of rock bands are based around three members it would be nicer if you could do one of the other instruments and not be forced to have four members minimum. Alternatively just let you play any instrument but require the normal guitar/bass/drums/vocalist thing.

Music style
Bands change their style and have all kinds of style influences but it seems kinda odd that you don’t ever actually tie down what your bands sound is. It would be cool if you could choose if you were a punk/metal/rock/acoustic/prog band and then things would be based around that. This would be an easy way to add a ton of replayability as different styles could have different gig backdrops, instruments etc… You would still be a rock band so everything else would still fit in place, just different style and options.

Albums
Should have charts. Why no singles? How about a minigame for editing the tracklist rather than just pushing all your best songs on there? More stuff for album promotion. Seems to be very hard to make much money out of albums unless you have a top quality release.

Record company
Deals should be way more important. For some rewards (Free recording studio usage for rehersal, free sound engineer/manager, more PR) you have to meet contractual obligations like recording X many albums which don’t cost you anything to publish but the label takes 40% or so.

Tours/festivals
Real bands tour all the time so it’s pretty crazy you don’t get to do any! This would work great as a long term goal, you start off small playing gigs, eventually get in at a festival, then open for a bigger act and eventually get a tour of your own. Festivals could act like high end gigs and only come at certain times. Tours would work last like a week of game time and require a load of cash to get started, then have several minigames such as organising your setlist (Matching game similar to making a song), doing your sound mix (Like the sound quality for recording a CD) and the FX for your stage show (Matching stuff, related to your setlist putting in certain FX sequences to suit your songs).

Hiatus/solo material
When things start to go pear shaped rather than being stuck on a path to losing you should be able to do what real bands do and put things on hold for a bit. Over this period you can work on solo material and make some money and then the band will come back together after with motivation restored to give you more of a second chance. It shouldn’t be something you want to do so it should really incur a big time penalty but it’s better than being screwed by a motivation problem.

Merchandise
The different merchandise should have different amounts of popularity and profit levels. You should also get more of a choice, a starting out band will only have cheaply made tshirts but rock legends will have diamonite studded logos etc…

Misc tweak suggestions

More cancel buttons
Song writing and store need cancel buttons so you don’t waste a day. I guess the song writing thing would need to give you the same note selection if you go back to it on the same day to avoid people abusing it.

Need more feedback
An overall problem I have is that it isn’t clear what effect some things have:

  • What does getting a van mean?
  • Should you have both a van and a limo? Why should you have a bus instead of a limo?
  • Can I have an eight spotlight rig and coloured lighting?
  • Can I have small and large pyros?
  • How good is each rehearsal venue?

If you hire a sound engineer it’s not really clear what difference it makes outside of the big picture of making you “better”. Similar for masseuse, PR, roadie…

Cash flow
Money is really important but you don’t get a decent summary of your spending. We don’t need loads of spreadsheets and charts but some kind of weekly summary would be helpful, as well as your daily totals and per gig cost.

Staff cost
Most of the staff are pretty expensive until around the end of the third year, it would be nicer if there was some more options of experience (Like how you have normal and expert sound engineer).

86

hey that’s great feedback, cheers!

87

Some thoughts

I like the practice game and the songwriting.

I would prefer it if there were more steps in the song writing.

Generally I would like to add more records and more bands - but I can do that through mods.
I would also like to turn down the inspiration bonus for seeing a band - or better have that drop when you see the same band for a subsequent time.

I would like to be able to create bands with multiple guitarists (Fleetwood Mac had three) ,keyboard players (Greenslade had two as did Squeeze, Jethro Tull (late 80s), Barclay James Harvest (after Woodie left) and Judie Tzuke), drummers (Lynyrd Skynyrd and later 10CC had two), even bassists (I canno think of a pro band with two but a uniersity freind of mine played in one).

Also more brass players and backing vocalists.

Also do I have to be the singer! I am a drummer and lyricist in a pub band - I would like to be the drummer in the game!

I would like more places to relax - ski lodges, the Bahamas. I guess I can add these as mods - though I would need to steel pictures. But perhaps some of these should take more than one day hard to get to the Bahamas and back in a day.

Why can you only by a video once? How come you do not have to spend time making them?
It might be good if they had a screen like the CDs with choice of director etc.
Actualy the ability to hire a producer - who will make the CD mix better (by avariable amount) but charge suitably might be sensible.

I am sure more will come to me.

Another great game - I have wasted too much time on it already you fiend! :slight_smile:

88

I have bought a rider but they still keep whining that they don’t have one. Could you fix that as soon as possible? One of my band members is already leaving. Damn drummer…

89

Hey, Cliff! Do you know about Shady O’Grady’s Rising Star? It’s also a manage-a-rock-band game by an indie developer: gilligames.com/SOGRS/features.htm It has a LOT more features than Rock Legend does, including many of the ones that people have been asking for. Cliff, you might want to listen to some of the suggestions in this thread, because you’ve got some excellent competition out there. :slight_smile:

I’d like to see a patch that lets us edit some of the motivation parameters or that at least makes them make more sense. Handing out flyers advertising their first gig decreases a beginning band’s motivation severely. That just doesn’t make sense to me – it seems like telling people to come see their very first gig would either increase the band’s motivation or be motivation-neutral. I understand that Melissa Etheridge doesn’t want to stand on street corners and hand out flyers, but Beginning No-Name Band should be psyched. Maybe the motivational effect of doing low-level publicity work could vary with the level of fame?

I’ve never been in a band, so maybe all musicians really are whiny babies, but this seems unlikely to me. It seems to me that beginning bands know that making it in the music business is tough, and they are expecting to have to deal with a few hardships. The real musicians I’ve heard of slept in the van when they were first starting out and stuff like that – I can’t imagine that they would have made it if they were constantly whining for stuff.

And boredom. God, they get bored if we spend too much time writing songs or raising our musicianship or whatever. WTF? Don’t real musicians either find it stimulating to write songs or go watch TV if they’re not involved in the writing? Don’t musicians who are serious about making it practice pretty much every day? Sheesh. And these are the optimistic ones!

The musicians in the game are such babies that I have to wonder what your experience of being in a band was like. Really, really bad, judging by the way you’ve set up the game! :slight_smile:

90

handing out flyers is exciting for the first 5 minutes. then its rellay really really depressing, because its almost entirely futile. Most people ignroe you, and half that take them just scrunch them up and throw them in a bin right in front of you. maybe 1 in 100 actually reads it, maybe 1 in a thousand will show up to your gig if you are lucky.
Added to that, in the UK, it was often raining while we stood outside a gig or a nightclub handing these things out, and worse still, not knowing whn the gig would end, so standing there for an hour shivering with a bunch of soggy flyers. It’s not as motivational as you would think :smiley:

The biggest motivation (as in the game) is from doing well attended gigs where you go down well :smiley:.

91

The practice mini game can be a bit of a challenge for those with no real memory. I get lost after 5 notes even when I write them down so needless to say my guys steadily decline in abilities after a certain point in the game. Id suggest 3 short ones and one long one…maybe ‘extra credit’ when we get the long ones right.

On thing that would be helpful is what I’d call a ‘snap shot’ feature. This would allow the player to click a button on the HUD that would capture and summarize key elements about the band and save it for future reference. Kind of like a HALL OF FAME, but this could be done at any time (and multiple times). For me, I would like to capture the band history so I can look back with fond memories on that point 2.5 years into the band history when I had my best lineup before my lead guitarist bolted, followed a few months later by the bassist. The new guys are good, but they are not the same…hehe.

Band name
Picture of band members (like whats on the main HUD)
Their personalities and items they own
List my albums and album stats (records sold and net revenue)
Golden Oldies by name…i love that…hehe
Money, Fame and all those stats listed on the right of the HUD.

Maybe we could post them and show them off to each other :slight_smile:

92

I suppose this is going to be kind of a long post and I imagine some of it has been suggested before so ignore any redundancies. I’ve tried to only list things that I could see easily integrated and, in some cases, suggested ways of approaching it. Anyway, here’s what I’d like to see:

GENERAL “BUGS”
I’ve noticed when you change your album name it stays with the first randomly generated name after the album is created. This may just be my copy.

I’ve noticed the personality ‘lazy’ doesn’t show up in the game. I don’t know whether it actually has an effect.

VERY GENERAL IMPROVEMENT
An option for a longer game where success occurs less rapidly.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

  1. I’d like to see the band and character name’s on the main screen, maybe overlayed across a bitmap that the player chooses to add more flavor. So, at the start of the game, they’d choose a ‘Punk’ or ‘Metal’ styled bitmap to have their band/character name overlayed across. Of course, players should be able to add their own easily.

  2. Instead of having albums listed as possessions, I’d like to have an entirely separate “Discography” screen that lists month/year of release, record label, an out-of-5 star rating based on the quality (instead of a quality meter), billboard sales rank (basically list this instead of the actual units sold). Also, you could have a star next to ‘classic’ tracks to denote the hit singles.

  3. To add another element of difficulty and surprise, I’d like an option to not have personality traits listed on the auditionee screen. In fact, I think this would just be a good feature in general, requiring players to rely more on the advice of the other bandmembers during audition.

  4. When modding, the ability to tie certain song elements to roles in the band. For example, if I had a ‘Synth’ element, I couldn’t actually use it unless I had a keyboard player as a member of the band. Also, the ability to tie song elements to assets, so, I would have to have a ‘horn section’ in my employ to use a ‘Horn Riff’ element or a grand piano to use a ‘Piano Solo’ element. This could also give you a simpler way of giving players the option of more band members/instrument types with distinct benefits.

  5. Give each song element a ‘genre value’ so when you look at the song info, the two most heavily used ‘genre values’ get listed as the genre of a song. Then, when you make an album, the game looks at these ‘top two’ genres for each song and lists the top two genres from those as the genre of the album. So, for example, I write a song with 8 elements: 3 of them are classified as ‘punk’, 2 are classified as ‘new wave’, 2 are classified as ‘jazz’, and 1 is classified as ‘funk’. Now, when the song is created, the game calculates the most heavily used genres: (in this case, it picks punk [3 elements classified as ‘punk’] and randomly chooses either new wave or jazz [since both have 2 elements]), these would then be listed as the genres of the song. Then, when an album is made, it looks at the two genre values for each song, then chooses the top two and lists them as the album’s genres on the aforementioned discography screen. It could also be set up so fans generally reward bands that stick with the same couple of genres. So if you go from punk-metal to folk-electronica, your album sales will take a hit as you alienate some of your fan base. This would also partially model the creative/commercial tension that songwriters face. For example, the player character just KNOWS that reggae trumpet line is an inspired bit of songwriting but, of course, his metal-loving fans would absolutely hate it.

  6. More variability in song quality. Even the most talented/inspired bands churn out a crappy song once in a while.

  7. More ‘fame’ landmarks… you transition from signed band to openers to rock stars to legends.

MORE PERSONALITY TRAITS

  1. Wealthy (adds to ‘Unemployment Benefit’)
  2. Addict (decreases ‘Unemployment Benefit’)
  3. Content (doesn’t make many demands)
  4. Greedy (motivation lowers drastically when sponsorship deals are turned down or band does charity gigs)
  5. Ethical (motivation lowers drastically when sponsorship deals are accepted or charity gigs are turned down)
  6. Jealous (becomes ‘Disruptive’ only if there’s a [separate] Photogenic or Charismatic character in the band)
  7. Impressionable (easily influenced, becomes ‘Destructive’ if there’s another Destructive character in the band)
    8 ) Spiritual (will want to ‘save’ wayward bandmates, becomes ‘Disruptive’ only if there’s a [separate] Greedy or Addict character in the band)
  8. Controlling (wants to control the creative process, becomes ‘Disruptive’ if there’s a [separate] Imaginative character in the band)
  9. Dull (lowers overall interview effectiveness)
  10. Weird (a strange fellow with weird habits, no effect by itself alone but…)
  11. Straight-Laced (likes everything neat and orderly, becomes ‘Disruptive’ if there’s a Weird or Destructive character in the band)
  12. Anxious (becomes stressed more easily)
  13. Family Man (tends to get distracted from the band a lot, there’s a chance he won’t show up to rehearsals and gigs)
  14. Trendy (rules the local club scene, shows up in fashion magazines, helps increase fame)
  15. Traditionalist (just wants to cover his favorite band, lowers inspiration)

MORE RANDOM EVENTS

  1. Equipment Theft (lose possession)
  2. Stalker (raise stress of one character)
  3. Corrupt Manager (money stolen)
  4. Greatest Hits Album (requires at least four albums to occur, but gives you a certain amount of money based on your total number of classics so far)
  5. Disruptive Spouse (adds ‘Disruptive’ to one character, we have to model Yoko!)
  6. Addiction Develops (one character receives the ‘Addiction’ personality listed above)
  7. Solo Career (after a certain amount of fame has been achieved, egotistical band members may just leave)
    8 ) Scandal (“We’re bigger than Jesus” or some such, fame drops)
  8. Personal Revelation (the player has some moment of self-discovery and a huge boost in inspiration)
  9. Film Role (small boost in fame)
  10. Religious Experience (a character receives the ‘Spiritual’ personality listed above)
  11. Tragic Death (very rare event - having a chance to happen maybe only once every eight games or so, but you lose a band member and everyone’s motivation drops - on the upside, your fame increases and you get a huge boost in inspiration)
  12. Big Argument (the band has a random argument about something stupid that reveals a lot of previously unseen tensions, everyone’s motivation drops)
  13. Side Project (a band member is involved in a successful side project, inspiration and fame increases)

LABEL OVERHAUL

  1. Ditch the option of self-releasing albums, make getting/staying signed a far more important element of the game.

  2. If you’re not signed to a label, gigs and rehearsals produce more stress.

  3. ‘Tour CDs’ are added to merch you sell at concerts to model album sales independent of the label.

  4. Label contracts involve releasing a certain number of albums.

  5. Have a difference between “low pressure” and “high pressure” labels with labels adding a gradually increasing level of stress to band members each month you haven’t released a full length album.

  6. Each label sets a ‘Fame’ goal and if you don’t reach it within a certain amount of time, they’ll drop you… resulting in a drop in fame and a drop in motivation across the board.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

  1. World Tour (I know this has already been suggested, but this could basically take up 3 months of game time, add loads of money/fame but have a variable effect ranging from ‘success’ to ‘disastrous’ with the latter putting the band in dire straights with players potentially leaving).

  2. Year-End Top Ten List (at the year-end screen, have a top ten list for that year with a chance of the band’s album showing up being proportional to its quality (minimum four stars). The band receives an increase in fame if an album shows up and a big boost if it’s number one. There would also be a text file in the ‘simulation’ folder where users could input the names of the other bands/albums that show up along with the player’s or, better yet, a separate folder for each year to prevent the same album showing up more than once).

  3. EPs (2 song albums that provide a very small funding/fame boost but don’t count towards your label contract; EPs listed in separate section of aforementioned discography and don’t have a chance of showing up on the top ten list but the songs you use on the EP can’t be used on an LP later).

  4. Professional Talent (the option for auditionees with a lot more beginning ability, this would obviously cost a lot of money and only be realistically available to established bands, professional talent would also have a high daily ‘upkeep’ cost to hammer home that they’re not ‘natural’ members of the band)

  5. As previously mentioned, a more detailed endgame screen and a ranked hall of fame section where you can see your prior band’s discographies and fame/wealth ratings. Having it ranked would give more incentive to play again to beat prior attempts.

  6. Band Expansion Assets: Horn Section, String Section, Second Guitarist, Back-Up Vocalists, Tambourine Player, etc.

93

I’m sorry if this is overly repetitive, I haven’t read the ENTIRE thread, but… I have to add my voice to those begging for some change on the practice/melodies game. I honestly find it almost impossible to do. Even when I write down the numbers, the notes often go far too quickly for me to even register what the number was, much less do so and write it down, and register the next. Between that, the relatively quick skill degradation rate, and the bandmembers complaining when their skills get too low, I’m about to tear my hair out!

Whether the chance would be an option to skip, an added difficulty-of-minigame slider, a general reduction in the difficulty, or someone I can hire to upkeep the musicians’ skills, I honestly don’t care. Maybe an option to bring in a teacher for a one-time lesson, for a price? Or even just having rehearsal give some kind of boost to skill levels?

On a much more general level, I’d love the option to track success over different time-frames. I know you can just keep playing past the 5 years (and I intend to!) but I do like the idea of having a longer range plan. And! It would be nice if we could add personality traits to the singer as well, and maybe choose their initial songwriting options.

Just a few thoughts. Other than that, I really adore this game. One might even say it’s eaten my life. :slight_smile:

94

Maybe a hungarian version… :smiley:

95

Just picked up the game, and I’ve got a couple of comments. So far, it’s enjoyable and I really like the ease of modding. That’s always a good thing!

I think this is a Bug - In the song_elements.csv file, Basic Drums has a music type of “type” instead of MUSIC.

How about another member for the entourage - Motivational Speaker. This person can decrease the rate at which your motivation decreases, or increase the benefit of the motivation from good gigs or rehearsals.

When I am playing in Windowed mode (ie not in Full Screen) and have enough songs so that the screen is filled, I can’t scroll past the bottom of the screen. I noticed that this was supposed to have been fixed in an earlier patch, but was that tested in Windowed mode? I am running version 1.16a.

I’d also like to see the “Hall of Fame,” to compare how you do from one game to the next. Maybe even broken down by Most income, gigs, songs, classics, etc. in addition to a total score.

Something I was going to try adding in a mod was a “Legends of…” concert tour for each of the musical types. It would still unlock the same type of musical chords as the normal concerts, but would raise your inspiration more. These would be far less frequent and more expensive than the typical concerts. I was also going to try adding an even larger stadium (complete with new graphics) that would have about 10K seats.

96

Most of these have been suggested but my tupence worth:

  1. Make the practice mini-game optional. It’s kinda fun but it can also get frustrating. If the mini-game is turned of the musicians would still have to practice but progress would be based on motivation, happiness with the band, etc.

  2. Have playing gigs and rehearsing count towards musicianship. Or at least prevent musicianship from degrading.

  3. It looks like musicianship degrades at a constant rate. It sould degrade less quickly for more experienced musicians.

  4. Once I sign a record deal I should make daily money off CD sales. A bunch when the CD is first released and declining until it is a nominal amount after a few months. Maybe have that replace the $2 per day each musician gets.

  5. Making more music videos. The video should increase hype, improve album sales, etc.

  6. Allow me to do something in addition to just singing. Maybe penalize that by making my musicianship harder to raise if I’m doing 2 things to balance the game. Or let me be just the guitar player and audition a lead singer (or guitarist/bassist/keyboardist who is a lead singer). And other permutations of musicians would be cool. 2 guitars. Or a percusionist. or 2 keyboard players.

  7. Once I can afford a manager, publicist, tour bus, and assorted crew I should be able to go on tour. The hirelings would arrange the gigs, handle advertising, etc. but I still need to make sure there is enough merchandise, my bandmates are not stressed, etc.

  8. Be able to change my avitar. Can I give her a new haircut, or new glasses, or dye her hair green?

  9. Others have made good suggestions for having random events, bad PR, relationships, etc. If that stuff gets added we should be able to pick and choose which ones we want. A config screen where we turn these options on and off and dial them up or down within reasonable limits, rather than have to hack the config file and make guesses as to what the settings will do.

Have I mentioned I really like this game? I look forward to the next version.

97

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this! Only being able to make one video of each type was really bugging me.

Maybe each time you release a new CD, you can make a new video (one of each type?) Maybe even choose which of your songs you want to do a video for? Don’t know if this is possible or not, but it would be nice to be able to do more than one video to get the hype boost…especially when you’re playing in the larger venues and need the Hype boost!

98

I thought this right away when I played the game. Or I’d at least like to be able to choose what insturment my character plays instead only being able to sing. It doesn’t have to be that my character sings AND plays an instrument. I’d just like a choice, since in real life I play guitar and I’d just like to have my character play guitar instead of being lead singer.

99

Just read the whole thread and if the ideas get implemented, the game will rank among the top 10% on the market. Here is one thing I would love to see.

Trends. I want to be able to set the starting year. Let’s say I want to begin in 1973. I make a prog rock album and it sells well. I make another in 1974 and it’s huge. By 1975, I’d have to look at changing the musical style, as the world is moving on. I could continue making prog rock forever, but that will drastically decrease my chances of scoring hit singles and filling stadiums. The game could have a few trends built in for every year, each a certain percentage (ex. 1977 - disco 60%, punk 30%, synth pop 10%, also min values for genres that are considered dated or lame). How your latest album fits the trend, together with quality, will determine the hit potential. The genre of your album is decided by calculating the song snippets used when writing. The flip side is that if you made a rock album in 1976 and your fans loved it, they may not love your 1977 disco album. New fans may come on board, but the old fans may leave you (think David Bowie and Let’s Dance, or the Bee Gees). As it is now, if you write a song above 75%, you’re set. It’s too easy to ‘design’ a great album in the current game. With the trends system, if you write a 90% punk song in 1986, the public may not be interested at all. It may strengthen your core fan base, but not generate a lot of new fans. Do it in 1977 or 1992 and the general public will love it. Do it in 1976, they may not care and you may not sell a lot of albums, but you’ll get a trendsetter status and potentially increased media attention when the genre catches on.

With trends in the game, you could do three things (or combine them during your career).

  • Play the same kind of music forever, never offend your fans but risk losing out in album sales. This would be a safe way to play the game as you can almost count on your core fans, as long as the quality of your records is high enough. Long term effect is low album sales after your genre has lost popularity, but the ability to play medium sized shows (3-5000)indefinitely is almost guaranteed.
  • Follow the trend. Risk losing fans but generate new ones as your new album tops the charts. You may get lots of hit singles, high album sales when things work out, huge tours when you’re in, but a weak fan base. This may have a very bad effect on your later years, but by then you’ll be hanging out in the Bahamas with girls or boys half your age.
  • Be a trendsetter. The moment a music style becomes available, use it. Risk losing fans, but gain prestige and respect by being an innovator. Other band will love you and your songs will be covered often. Your popularity will be boosted when a trendy band covers you.

The above obviously presumes that the game no longer restricts itself to five years. It would become more of a career simulation.

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Cliffsky already did something like that when he worked on The Movies (another fun simulation game) The five main genres of movies had varying degrees of popularity at different times of the simulation, and you could do exactly what you described. I’m guessing that the reason that’s not in this game was a lack of time and staff to get everything he wanted into the game. Please correct me if I’m wrong here!