Rock Band's World Tour Mode Confirmed Offline-only; No Online Co-op Campaign Rockage

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To the disappointment of fans, developer Harmonix has confirmed that the Band World Tour campaign mode in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions of the company's upcoming music game Rock Band will not be enabled for online play.

"Band World Tour, and consequently the endless setlist, doesn't have an online mode," wrote Harmonix community manager Sean Baptiste on the official Rock Band forums.

One of the most exciting features of Harmonix's upcoming Guitar Hero follow-up, the Band World Tour mode allows up to four players to form a band, play gigs in over 40 different venues across the world, and complete challenges to earn in-game cash.

"It was something we really wanted in there but the time to do it, and do it right taking into account all sorts of mostly unforeseen but very important things, was seriously prohibitive," continued Baptiste.

Online play via the game's competitive and quickplay modes will still be included. Despite the news, Baptiste assured fans that Harmonix is still very interested in realizing the online campaign in the future.

"It is something we are totally working for in the future as not only do you want to play it but so do we (more than you know)," added Baptiste.

Whether World Tour online play might be implemented via a patch, or is simply a feature that has been pushed back to a potential Rock Band sequel, Baptiste did not know.

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band hit retailers November 23, selling in a $169.99 bundle that includes a guitar, microphone, and drum kit. The PlayStation 2 iteration and its respective bundle are slated to hit December 10 at $159.99. Rumors indicate that separately available instruments and a non-bundled edition of the game may not arrive until 2008.

From The Chatty
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    October 20, 2007 2:47 PM

    Do you guys think this could be some sort of replacement for karaoke at bars? It'd be totally sweet.

    The only downsides I could see are limited choices of music getting repetitious and drunks breaking the hardware. If they add music like it sounds they are going to, perhaps the first problem wouldn't be so much of an issue.

    It will certainly make for awesome Shackmeet drunken shenanigans

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      October 20, 2007 2:57 PM

      there are already some bars around that have Guitar Hero 2 nights, I think Rock Band would work great if the equipment was somewhat taken care of.

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      October 20, 2007 2:58 PM

      GuitarFreaks (the arcade game) seemed fairly robust; bit heavier than GH controllers though.

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        October 20, 2007 3:00 PM

        Man I hate how heavy Guitar Freaks is. Just using the strum bar is like lifting weights.

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      October 20, 2007 3:44 PM

      No reason why not, particularly if they hold up their downloadable content promise.

      Plus, Harmonix made the Karaoke Revolution games and this is their most advance voice recognition yet, tracking both phonemes and pitch.

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