posted
As one of my school's music teachers, my principal thinks I should host a guitar hero/rock band tournament. I do not know where to get started. Here are some questions to get this discussion started?
Which gaming platform? Which game? How should I organize the competition? Prizes?
Thanks for any input!
Posts: 468 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
Where's the funding for this coming from? If you need to acquire a getup for the school and you're not borrowing it, you're talking a $400 console, $150-350 for the gameplay gear and the games themselves, etc.
Rock Band and Rock Band 2 would be the most appropriate getup for a contest. You could have singles and 4-person band contests. You would want to split the HD output so that the band could be facing a karaoke-style placement forward television, while the audience watches them and a projected display of the screen behind the band. Otherwise, the audience gets stuck having to watch the backs of the players.
There is also the possibility that content may need to be pruned for 12-14 year olds. prudes the world over may object to things like their 13 year old watching a contest where Judas Priest is played or whatever.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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How many places still rent out game consoles? As far as I knew, that practice has been dead here for far too long. Way too much liability involved.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
An XBox 360, PS3, or Wii, a minimum of one microphone*, one guitar**, a drumset, and a copy of Beatles Rockband.
*two or three microphones would be better.
**two guitars would be better, so that you can have both a guitar player and a bass player at the same time.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Once you have the console and the instruments, the purchase of the games themselves give you access to the tracks on that disk.
IMPORTANT: Typically if on a 'fresh' console without a user account that has unlocked all the songs for use, you want to be prepared with an unlock code so that the students can do whatever song they want.
ALSO IMPORTANT: consoles are expensive things that plenty of people want to nab. Keep 'em under lock and key.
Song lists for each game should be available on wikipedia.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Rock Band and Rock Band 2 would be the most appropriate getup for a contest. You could have singles and 4-person band contests. You would want to split the HD output so that the band could be facing a karaoke-style placement forward television, while the audience watches them and a projected display of the screen behind the band. Otherwise, the audience gets stuck having to watch the backs of the players.
There is also the possibility that content may need to be pruned for 12-14 year olds. prudes the world over may object to things like their 13 year old watching a contest where Judas Priest is played or whatever.
All great input! I was thinking that 4-person bands would be a neat way to get as many people involved as possible.
A few years ago I was a high school teacher and was the faculty sponsor of the Anime Club. The club officers thought it would be neat to have a tournament for both one of the Dragon Ball Z games that was out and also for DDR. So, though I don't know now if it was such a great idea having put nothing in writing that would have covered possible damage to equipment not belonging to the school, some of the club members brought in their systems and games and I just borrowed three or four televisions the school had for that particular afternoon. All the prizes in this case were anime-related. We contacted Bandai, I believe, and got a few DVDs for free as awards as well as picking up some small posters from a local store that sold only anime and manga related stuff using funds the club had collected.
Beatles Rock Band, by the way, is TOTALLY AWESOME. Posts: 691 | Registered: Nov 2008
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Good Lord. Have you never played the game? Or run a tournament bracket?
Seriously, RR, I think you need to at least play a couple rounds of the game before you even consider the rest of this. I'm absolutely serious about that.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I think you may find 2 hours is not nearly enough time to hold a tournament.
quote: Beatles Rock Band, by the way, is TOTALLY AWESOME.
It really is. Wish we could have afforded the special edition instruments, too, but even with RB1 gear it's awesome.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by rollainm: It really is. Wish we could have afforded the special edition instruments, too, but even with RB1 gear it's awesome.
Yeah, we had to do the same thing and hold back from buying the special edition. It turned out that for the same price as the special edition, you could get the value pack plus some extra things (you know, so reals fans could sing and play at the same time) for roughly the same price).
Agreed that you really should play it before attempting to set the whole thing up. It's the best way to get an idea of how the game itself works so you know what it is you're working with. You'll be able to determine the best way to judge between one team and another (by stars? fans? points?) and will learn invaluable things about the difficulty ratings for each song and instrument.
(Edited because I hit "Add Reply" before actually finishing.)
Posts: 691 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
One factor that will help determine the best judging method is the number of people/groups that will be competing. If there are only a few groups, for instance, then you could give each group a set amount of time (say 20 minutes) in Story mode to rack up as many points, stars, fans, or whatever as possible - maybe multiply all these together to get a final score.
You could also have a Tug-of-War competition.
The problem with open choice in Quickplay, of course, would be the differences in difficulty. I'm sure you could work something out (such as limiting the choices to similarly rated songs), but that seems like it would be overly cumbersome.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by rollainm: [QB] I think you may find 2 hours is not nearly enough time to hold a tournament.
It depends. I've run Rock Band events for my program before, and as a result I'm familiar with how things usually go down.
Think of it this way: each song will average 3-4 minutes long. However, you need to add 2-3 minutes of prep time prior to each song (previous players vacating their instruments, new players getting set up, song selection, difficulty mode selection, loading time). Therefore, you actually need to budget 5-7 minutes per song. Assuming that you don't run into any snags during initial setup, that means a maximum of 24 songs played over 2 hours (and then if players only choose short songs). More likely, you'll only be able to run through ~20 songs in that time due to variations in song length.
Because Rock Band is a cooperative game (i.e. a given song is played by one team working together), presumably you will determine a winner in a given bracket by comparing the scores of the two teams on one song. For example, if Bobby's team finishes "Orange Crush" with 4,000,000 points, and Erin's team finishes the same song with 4,200,000 points, then Erin's team advances to the next round. Of course, that means each pair of competing teams will use up two songs per "game." So you're looking at a total of ~10 two-song games in two hours.
A normal single-elimination bracket tournament with 4 teams has 7 games. Therefore, if you have 4 teams or fewer, you should actually be able to pull this off. Since each team can have up to 4 players, that gives you 16 players total. So if you have 16 players or less, two hours should be sufficient.
Any more than four teams, though, and you will almost certainly run out of time.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
What if I had an entry round, and I take either the 2 or 4 highest scores out of all of the bands. From there have the playoff as mentioned above?
Also, would be a good entry fee and prize format?
Posts: 468 | Registered: Mar 2008
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Two brackets: one for solo play, one for band play. No difficulty tiering; if someone wants to play on Medium and someone else wants to play on Hard or Expert, that's their choice.
3 XBox 360s, with Rock Band 1 or 2 (or Guitar Hero: World Tour) installed and all songs unlocked, each attached to a HD projector. (If you played either game, you could also identify downloadable songs that you consider must-haves. There are a few.) You should ask around and get this equipment from people who already own it; you want to keep your expenses down. The school should already have projectors. Since there will be two brackets, the third XBox will be mainly used to handle excess capacity or as a "free play" machine to entertain people (including visitors) between their scheduled matches. Frankly, I would try to obtain five XBoxes if I really wanted to make this an event.
Each match consists of two songs played by the competing individuals or contestants; I'd recommend allowing them each to choose one song, and then determine the order of the songs randomly.
You'll want to have the final rounds of the tournament in an auditorium. The early rounds of the two brackets I'm proposing should happen in separate rooms.
The final round should offer something special -- perhaps a specially-downloaded new song that none of the contestants would have seen before, or a particularly hot version of the game (Beatles: Rock Band springs to mind, but serious players will have already run through it).
No entry fees or cash prizes, not given the small size of the event. If you're determined to do prizes, check with a local Target or Best Buy to see if they'd be willing to donate gift cards to you. Sell concessions. Award silly titles, like "Best Stage Show" or "Craziest Drummer" or "Best Imitation of Pat Benatar by a Male Singer," as well as the actual bracket prizes.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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If you decide to go with Beatles Rock Band and want to do multi-part vocals I can get you a copy of Lips (a karaoke game) with two wireless mics that works with Beatles Rock Band (but not other Rock Band games yet - patch is supposedly on the way) for $35+shipping with my employee discount. Send me an email if you're interested.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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