The concept of Guitar Hero in Minecraft, on paper, sounded unique and innovative enough to earn it a place on one of the biggest Minecraft servers in the world. That is, disregarding the fact that rhythm-based video games died nearly a decade ago. Yet in execution, Blockband totally failed, and there are numerous reasons for this. Some of these have simple solutions, whereas others cannot be fixed so easily, so below I have comprised a list of all of the gamemode's shortcomings, and how I believe they can be resolved.
The game is absolutely pointless
Title says it all - there is no point in playing this gamemode. The reason for this, is because while it is unique to Minecraft, it isn't unique to the internet in general. There are countless rip-off flash games of Guitar Hero that play better music, and run a lot smoother than Blockband does. You need to provide some draw, or reason to play it on Cubecraft. This could be something minor, such as a cool cosmetic, or perhaps points, cubelets and experience. To be rewarded with absolutely nothing in return for your efforts is the equivalent of a slap in the face, given that everything else on the server provides some reward at the end of it. Not to mention that this is one of the most unstable games on the server.
Lag
The lag is another issue that this gamemode has, and it's especially damaging because it alienates a huge portion of the game's potential playerbase. If you have ever played this gamemode yourself, you know how frustrating it is to be close to completing a song, only for it to lag out and cause you to miss four consecutive notes. All that I can suggest to counteract this, is to allow people to spectate other people, thus giving them something to do in Blockband that doesn't involve punching their monitors out of frustration. What'd be cool, is if you could venture around the environment of the player whose game you've just joined, and donate them a number of points that correlates with their performance. Perhaps you could also donate Juice/Star Power to them, or perhaps cheer for them, thus giving them bonus points, and they could pay you for your kindness once the song has finished.
Lack of multiplayer is a big issue
This game could've been fun, if it were an actual "Block BAND" as is proclaimed. Since when did bands consist of only a single instrumentalist? If we were able to create parties to try and collectively achieve a high score, or perhaps go head-to-head against one another or against another band, this game would feel a lot more rewarding overall. This is because as it's single-player only, and offers no rewards, nobody gets to see the time or work that you've invested into the game.
The fact that gamemode is strictly single-player only is what really holds it back, and is why it can only remain a short-lived novelty in its current state. Adding a multiplayer aspect to it would likely boost player-counts.
Cosmetic items & price gouging
Let's be honest - People were complaining about having nothing to spend their vanity points on, so these backgrounds were introduced solely to shut said people up. 60,000 vanity points for a background that is completely void of impact on the gameplay itself, and can only be seen by the user who's playing? Let's assume that you're an iron rank, and therefore receive 500 vanity points every week. Assuming that you log in at the same time every seventh day, it'll take you 120 weeks, or over two years, to acquire this theme.
What would be cool, is if you could unlock cosmetics that people actually want through playing the game, say, a jukebox pet that is literally a tiny jukebox that follows you around, that can be purchased for vanity points after earning a certain amount of stars. This would spark people's interests, because pets are rare and often can only be purchased as miniatures. The pet could have a set name, such as Stardust or Blockstar, and people who see the pet in the lobbies will feel inclined to play this gamemode to also get their hands on the pet. If you give pets a stigma of rarity, then people will play content to unlock them.
Games like Runescape have used this strategy to fantastic avail. You have players killing the same bosses for hundreds of hours straight, even bosses that are otherwise not worth killing such as the Chaos Elemental of Kalphite Queen, solely to acquire the pet. Sure it’s a minority of the playerbase that do this, but the playtimes of said playerbase has increased drastically because of a rewarding incentive, locked behind a difficulty wall. Just look at how many people have asked for advice on the ‘True Challenge’ achievement in Tower Defenders.
Cosmetics and advantageous perks are a good way to spike the interests of players, and increase their playtimes substantially. Of all approaches that could be taken this is one that I would recommend the most, due to its high resource to playtime ratio, and also because Blockband will always be a lesser-played gamemode regardless. Adding new cosmetics takes almost no developer time at all, and yet could boost interests in a particular gamemode massively, if said perks are interesting or rewarding enough to warrant the time spent playing to acquire them.
What are your opinions on these suggestions? Feel free to suggest your own, or disagree and call me an idiot. Also, this isn’t the suggestion that I alluded to last week. I’ll finish that one… eventually.
The game is absolutely pointless
Title says it all - there is no point in playing this gamemode. The reason for this, is because while it is unique to Minecraft, it isn't unique to the internet in general. There are countless rip-off flash games of Guitar Hero that play better music, and run a lot smoother than Blockband does. You need to provide some draw, or reason to play it on Cubecraft. This could be something minor, such as a cool cosmetic, or perhaps points, cubelets and experience. To be rewarded with absolutely nothing in return for your efforts is the equivalent of a slap in the face, given that everything else on the server provides some reward at the end of it. Not to mention that this is one of the most unstable games on the server.
Lag
The lag is another issue that this gamemode has, and it's especially damaging because it alienates a huge portion of the game's potential playerbase. If you have ever played this gamemode yourself, you know how frustrating it is to be close to completing a song, only for it to lag out and cause you to miss four consecutive notes. All that I can suggest to counteract this, is to allow people to spectate other people, thus giving them something to do in Blockband that doesn't involve punching their monitors out of frustration. What'd be cool, is if you could venture around the environment of the player whose game you've just joined, and donate them a number of points that correlates with their performance. Perhaps you could also donate Juice/Star Power to them, or perhaps cheer for them, thus giving them bonus points, and they could pay you for your kindness once the song has finished.
Lack of multiplayer is a big issue
This game could've been fun, if it were an actual "Block BAND" as is proclaimed. Since when did bands consist of only a single instrumentalist? If we were able to create parties to try and collectively achieve a high score, or perhaps go head-to-head against one another or against another band, this game would feel a lot more rewarding overall. This is because as it's single-player only, and offers no rewards, nobody gets to see the time or work that you've invested into the game.
The fact that gamemode is strictly single-player only is what really holds it back, and is why it can only remain a short-lived novelty in its current state. Adding a multiplayer aspect to it would likely boost player-counts.
Cosmetic items & price gouging
Let's be honest - People were complaining about having nothing to spend their vanity points on, so these backgrounds were introduced solely to shut said people up. 60,000 vanity points for a background that is completely void of impact on the gameplay itself, and can only be seen by the user who's playing? Let's assume that you're an iron rank, and therefore receive 500 vanity points every week. Assuming that you log in at the same time every seventh day, it'll take you 120 weeks, or over two years, to acquire this theme.
What would be cool, is if you could unlock cosmetics that people actually want through playing the game, say, a jukebox pet that is literally a tiny jukebox that follows you around, that can be purchased for vanity points after earning a certain amount of stars. This would spark people's interests, because pets are rare and often can only be purchased as miniatures. The pet could have a set name, such as Stardust or Blockstar, and people who see the pet in the lobbies will feel inclined to play this gamemode to also get their hands on the pet. If you give pets a stigma of rarity, then people will play content to unlock them.
Games like Runescape have used this strategy to fantastic avail. You have players killing the same bosses for hundreds of hours straight, even bosses that are otherwise not worth killing such as the Chaos Elemental of Kalphite Queen, solely to acquire the pet. Sure it’s a minority of the playerbase that do this, but the playtimes of said playerbase has increased drastically because of a rewarding incentive, locked behind a difficulty wall. Just look at how many people have asked for advice on the ‘True Challenge’ achievement in Tower Defenders.
Cosmetics and advantageous perks are a good way to spike the interests of players, and increase their playtimes substantially. Of all approaches that could be taken this is one that I would recommend the most, due to its high resource to playtime ratio, and also because Blockband will always be a lesser-played gamemode regardless. Adding new cosmetics takes almost no developer time at all, and yet could boost interests in a particular gamemode massively, if said perks are interesting or rewarding enough to warrant the time spent playing to acquire them.
What are your opinions on these suggestions? Feel free to suggest your own, or disagree and call me an idiot. Also, this isn’t the suggestion that I alluded to last week. I’ll finish that one… eventually.
