Next Level Gaming is starting a wishlist for Guitar Hero IV and this is what we would like to see as a part of the new Career Mode called WORLD TOUR MODE. Neversoft, we hope that some of these ideas can be implemented into the next version of Guitar Hero.
1. Classic Career Mode: this would be the classic tier system that would still be a part of the GH franchise which would be there for those looking to just play the series how it has always been played. Plus it gives the game some extra replay value.
2. World Tour Mode: I would just take some of the elements from Rock Band, and start to build a new basis of a game mode off of that approach. World Tour Mode would be setup with a calendar and a map of the world. Let’s take a step-by-step approach as to how this would work:
• First step would be to create your band, there would be an option of having anywhere from 3-5 members.
• Name the band, what city they are from, the type of music that you play (Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, etc.) and their logo (why not use the camera to scan logos) to start the creation process.
• You have 3 choices from the beginning to form the band, 1-you can create each of the band mates, 2-select from a list of pre-defined characters, or 3-mix and match characters from both options.
• The Garage Scene: The game will have you start out in the Garage as part of a “Garage Band” where you have a list of 10-15 songs (this is where some of those bonus songs come into play – since they have been poorly implemented in previous GH’s) that you can choose from. This is where you will choose 4-8 songs as a part of your set list to practice from.
Before you can move on to the next step in your career, depending on the difficulty, there will be a set amount of points that you need to amass to get out of the garage scene. To add to the mix, you will have the option of playing in any of your bands garages. If you have 4 members, there will be 4 different garages, if you have 3 you can only choose from the 3, etc. Reason this is to help bring variety out of playing in 1 garage.
In 1 sitting, you could be in your lead singer’s garage and you choose 4 songs to practice, which say you amass 500,000 total points (ex. on medium) for that day out of the 3,000,000 total points needed to unlock some new songs + get you out of the Garage Scene. This allows you to bring some realism to the new career mode, and it also helps extend the career mode. In the next sitting, you decide to go to your guitarist’s home to jam in their garage, but this time you decide to change up the set list a bit from the previous day and you want to play 6 songs today since your band has more time to play.
**Once you have finished “Garage Scene”, this allows you to open up “Local Gigs” which you have a set of 6 different Bars in your town that you would go to speak with the owner or manager hoping to get the gig. You will also unlock another set of 10 songs now that weren’t available to you before, but it is recommended to always practice new songs in the “Garage Scene” before going out to play.
• Local Gigs: The goal here is to amass enough points and money to not only get out of the local gigs portion of the game, but also get to the next step of recording a demo.
Now a map of your state that you originally chose as the origin of your band will pop up with your city name mapped out and the 6-7 bars will pop up on the map + the Garages of your band. As a side note, even though you completed “Garage Scene”, you can go back to your garage(s) at anytime to practice songs.
Some owner’s might need more convincing than others, since you don’t have money right now for a demo, you have the choice of inviting them to your home so they can hear you play a few tunes in the “Garage Scene”, or some might even allow you to come in with your equipment to play a few songs for them, and others will turn you down until you either have a demo or become more established in the town.
Now we have the 15 songs we practiced in “Garage Scene” + the 10 new ones we just unlocked to give us a total of 25 songs to play with when we are touring the local scene. Each bar will pay differently and the more prestigious the bar is in the town the more money and more points a song will get you. So far it has been an easy road getting here, but not without any penalties. If you play horrible during any of the gigs or even subpar, it ruins the reputation of your band so the less points and money that you will get and it only makes this leg of the game longer to get to the next step. At this point, you will be working harder in the “Garage” and having to stick more to smaller bars at this point to get that rep back up again if your doing poorly.
One good thing with “Local Gig” is that you can get halfway through the mode for amassing points needed to record a demo, but not complete “Local Gig” yet. This would allow you to open up new bars that need a demo before allowing you to play at their bar.
Marketing also comes into play here too, you will need to get your name out there by means of newpaper ads, mailings, local radio ads, etc. This is also very important in drawing the crowd.
Demo Recording – this could be setup in many ways, but I was thinking that you can choose anywhere from 4-6 songs to record in the studio for the demo depending on how much money you have collected so far. You will be able to choose from the list of 25 songs that you have open in the game at this point. The game will calculate your total cost based on how many songs you want to record. If you don’t have enough in your budget for 6 songs, cut it down to 4 or 5, but remember that if you screw up any songs while recording (meaning that if you get less than 95% on a song), you will have to re-record that song costing more money. You will need to make sure you have more than what you were quoted to record the demo, just incase of error. If you don’t have enough money, you can go back and play a few gigs to get the money needed.
Once your demo has been fully recorded, you can start sending the demo to the clubs/bars that wouldn’t give you a chance until they heard some music. This will help open up those bars to play and get more money + allowing you to finish up the “Local Gigs” portion.
Depending on how long it takes you to finish up the “Local Gigs”, there are opportunities that will open up along the way, such as, “Battle of the Bands” at the local High School and “Local” Summer Festivals which will help in attaining a bit more revenue.
To throw a wrench in the whole WTM, we also have band members that are either very happy, content, not satisfied, and downright upset with the direction of the band. It all depends on how your playing and how far you are at certain points, which you may have all happy members or may have just 1 unhappy member. As the lead of the band, you have a few decisions at certain points:
• Try to promise them that things will get better, so you are challenged to meet a certain amount of points by a specific date on the calendar.
• Fire that unhappy band member.
• Let them be and things might change for the better. (Here you risk of the band member quitting on you, if they quit on you it leads to a few choices + the latest addition.)
If you have a 4 or 5 members in your band, you can decide to have someone else play their instrument and try to go slim or decide to:
Audition – as bands are up and coming, things change in lineups with members sometimes coming and going. At this point, when you select auditions after someone has left you can start auditioning for a new band member. You will usually get 3-4 different guys/gals sending you messages to audition, so it is up to you at this point to either, select 1 or 2 songs and invite whichever character to audition. You to can play the songs as the person auditioning or let the AI generate a rating by simming past this. Once you have selected a new member, at this point you have the choice of start playing in the local gigs or go to the “Garage” to practice some with this new member. The advantage to practice with the new band, it helps build their confidence levels.
Record Labels – once you have established yourself on the local gigs market, you will have the opportunity to stay local to build more exp for the band, or take a small tour to Seattle, New York, or Los Angeles where you must tear up any of those scenes for a record label to notice you. This also depends on how much money you have to travel to any of those cities, if you have enough money you can take a plane, if not you can opt to purchase a vehicle to go on a road trip to the city you want to travel to.
Start Touring to get record deal
If you decide to tour Seattle, NY, or LA, it will be in clubs larger than your “local gigs”, so that means that impressions and the stakes will be higher. If this tour gets screwed up in anyway, the consequences will be that you will be heading back to doing “local gigs” and having to hone your skills to re-establish your band. If you feel you are not ready, it might be wise to stay local a bit longer.
Once you select the city you want to tour, you will have a few choices on how you want to travel to that city. This is where you will have more than just people coming to the club to listen to your band, there will also be recording studio agents in attendance. Select your set list wisely for each show and make sure to play your best or else you will be heading back home to work out your kinks, and sometimes getting second chances in this industry are nearly impossible. If you screw up in one city, you must head back home to hit up the local gigs for a short while, but an opportunity will eventually open up in one of the other 2 cities, so make sure to be at your best.
Stay Local a bit longer
If you decide to stay local, this will allow you to build up your money, experience points making your band even better, and it will make you that much better when the next opportunity comes along to go touring out of the local scene. With more money, you can buy better equipment and clothing for your band + you may have enough money to fly to the tours instead of having to take time driving. There are consequences that also come along with staying local over taking that next step, and it could cause a rift with certain band members since they might feel like their being held back. But this won’t be the case all the time; you could have band members that are happy staying local to build your skills. By staying local, it also opens up 7 more clubs/bars in the downtown area of the town you live in. While you can get away with playing original music (the lesser known bonus songs) locally, that may not be the case downtown as the crowd there wants to hear covers (the well known songs). At this point, it is up to you to determine what the crowd likes to listen to before going to the gig by talking to the owner of the club. This helps now for you to determine your set list before going to the club with what you may have already perceived to be the true set list.
Once you stay local, you also have the choice of being able to start selling your demo through a few different options: setup an online website, sell CD’s at the gigs, and the small mom/pop music stores in the local area. This will allow again for another flow of income.
Each club/bar/venue will have a capacity limit, so this plays a huge factor in how many people are coming to your shows and how it affects your prestige level at those places and the overall town. Granted, some of those people may not be fans at a bar or club since they might be there just to drink and socialize, but their still getting charged the cover. It is also very important that when you have the option to do some local marketing before a gig, that you do this to get more people to come to the show. Not only are you getting paid some money from the owner, but you will also get a cut from the owner on the cover charge with higher profile bars/clubs. The lower profile bars that don’t charge a cover, you will only get paid from the owner.
Once in LA, Seattle, or NY if you are good enough, you will have record studio banging down your door to get you to sign a contract for the record label. At this point you can negotiate the terms with the help of your manager on years and money that you will make. Now be wise when doing this because there are things that the record label will also expect of your band, like autograph signings, the number of albums that they want you to record during that contract length, etc. If you don’t meet the # of albums to be released during the contract, you will need to record the album(s) especially if you want to sign with another label or take the risk of promising them an album + sign on with the new label which could bring risks.
Album Recordings – depending on how many years on the contract + how many albums you are expected to record will determine many things. Your manager will work with you and the studio to find out which songs are going to air on the radio and which ads this new album is going to be place in to help promote each album coming out.
The more established that you become in your career, and more money you bring in from concerts + album sales will also determine how much flexibility you get from the studio down the line.
Down the road in your career, you can change labels once a contract runs out, but if you have made enough money you can create your own label and record future albums in the new studio with the new label.
U.S. & International Tour – once you have started getting songs playing on the radio, we finally get to tour either the US or International first, depending where your album is selling like hotcakes. This mode expands upon the local gigs mode.
The boss battles in GH3 have been changed up now, their not battles anymore, but turned into Special Guest Legends that you can invite when you are touring to join you on stage. But it gets important here because depending on if you invite them to 1 concert or a set number of concerts, you will have to pay them for gameplay purposes to make an appearance. Then you will offer them a number of songs you want them to play with you at each concert, you select from 1-4 songs and instead of battling each other, the goal now with the guest legend is to get your score higher for that specific concert. Before the legend comes to the stage, the lead singer will give them a small introduction from a set cue of pre-recorded lines giving you varying phrases.
If you select any songs with females singing on the tracks, to make this more realistic, you will have your lead singer on stage singing with the female vocalist and vice versa making it almost look like a duet.
For gameplay purposes, you can’t change up the set list, once you have pre-determined it before each gig that is the list that you will play. If you play good enough during the gig, the crowd will call for an encore, at this point you will have a choice of 5 songs to choose from with 1 being a mystery song. Knock their socks off with the encore, and be rewarded extra points and money at the end. Play the song perfectly with no errors and expect the crowd to chant for 1 more encore raising the stakes.
I see this new career mode lasting for as long as you make it last by either playing very good as a band or vice versa, very bad. Your band could be almost 55+ years old still jamming if you want, and the ultimate goal is to get them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I haven’t fleshed this out entirely, but this would be a good starting point for a new career mode. New songs will be unlocked along the way of your career + any new songs that you download off XBL can be used in the career mode to add the songs to your set list.
