I have to give kudos to Harmonix.  They took their experience from making the Guitar Hero series, and brought it to the next level.  Rock Band is a solid game and about as polished as it could be, given the time constraints the development team was working with.  That being said, there are a few areas where Rock Band is in dire need of improvement, and hopefully these problems are addressed whenever Rock Band 2.0 is eventually announced.

Now that Harmonix has a solid foundation in place, we at TrustyGamer have a few suggestions for taking Rock Band into gaming nirvana.  We are breaking this up into two sections.  The first section outlines potential gameplay improvements, and the second section deals with hardware improvements.

Gaming improvements:

1)  Online World Tour Mode.  The whole point of playing Rock Band is for this mode, yet it is completely absent online.  Yes, it is arguably more fun to play this game with everybody in the same room, but how feasible is that for most gamers?  Harmonix has stated that figuring out how to bring World Tour online was just too complicated for the initial release.  Fair enough.  That still doesn't excuse why there are no band multiplayer modes that have some sort of goal, or challenge.  Tug-of-war and one-on-one modes aside, if you want to play with a complete band, all you can do is play individual songs with other people.  One at a time.  That's it.  "Hmmmm, what song should we play next?"  Boring.  Here's to hoping that Harmonix has figured out how to implement World Tour mode for the next version, but just in case they haven't, we have some suggestions.

The complication in implementing World Tour online might be stemming from the fact that they are trying to solve the problem of having an online campaign persist across 4 player accounts.  I say, who cares? 

Whoever hosts the game should keep the save-data.  It would require the same person to host every time, but I think this is a fair trade-off.  It would theoretically plug right in to the data-saving model that is currently in use by Rock Band, and it would be the exact same as playing the game locally.  Playing locally, the Band Leader is the only account that matters, so why not keep it simple and use the same model online? 

Currently, when you create a band for World Tour, the band requires a Band Leader (whom cannot change, nor can you change the instrument for this person), and this person must always be present to continue a World Tour.  Why should it be any different online?  Make the Band Leader the "host" over Xbox Live, and dump all progression and stat tracking for the other players (outside of personal achievements).  Of course it would be nice to have persistent campaign and complete stats, but honestly, I'd rather not track anything and just be able to play the damn mode.

If this is still impossible, we present our last resort:  Put in a multiplayer mode that has some sort of goal.  For example, this mode could be as simple as playing a random 10 song set, with the difficulty increasing as you play through the set.  Just give us something to work toward when playing in a band online!  Please?!

2)  Playing the bass guitar is too easy (and it's gimped).  Don't get me wrong, I love playing bass, but how many times do you get 2 experts in the room and they have to fight over who plays guitar?  There are a few ways you could tackle this problem, but probably only one realistic solution. 

For one, you could give the bass player the option of playing rhythm guitar instead, but of course not all songs feature two guitars, and this has zero backward compatibility with older songs.  Another option would be to add in another microphone for singing backup and harmony.  That way, the bass player can double up on duties and sing harmony or backup while playing bass.  But of course, not all people like singing, and this solution is still not backward compatible.

I think the most realistic way to solve this problem is to further increase the reward and punishment for playing bass, and remove the gimp if you have a bass groove going.  Currently, if you play the bass well, your multiplier goes up to 6x (rather than staying capped at 4x, like other instruments).  The 6x multiplier is called a "Bass Groove", and that is when your screen starts glowing blue.  The problem is, once you have a base groove going, your Overdrive power no longer doubles your multiplier, you merely stay at 6x.  The guitar, drums, and mic can go up to 8x, but bass is gimped at 6x.  I see the point... if you are a great bass player, you can keep the 6x multiplier through the entire song, but it would still be nice to turbo up to 12x to make your overdrive worth something (other than just saving another player).  Also, it seems like you can miss a lot of notes with the bass guitar on expert before you get into trouble, whereas guitar or drums are almost instantly out if they screw up.  The punishment for missing notes with the bass should be a bit harsher, especially since there are so fewer notes than either the guitar or drums. 

Since many players ignore the fact that bass groove is even there to begin with, further enhancing its abilities with a 12x overdrive would give gamers more incentive for playing the bass (because of the potential scoring bonus), and this solution would also make the bass harder to play (because of the harsher penalty for missed notes).  This potentially solves the problem of the bass being boring, without changing the nature of the role.

3)  Don't make everybody buy the same song just to play online.  Use the catalog of whomever is hosting.  Think about it.  If I host a local multiplayer match, everybody who is in the room benefits from my single purchase.   If they haven't bought the content on their own system at home, they don't get to play it, but if I am hosting it at my house, they do.  Shouldn't it be that way online too?  I understand their are technical hurdles.  Everybody has to have the content on their system for the game to work... I get it.  But at least give people the option to have the content downloaded locally, but inactive if they are hosting (or playing solo).  That way they can at least play with people online who have purchased the content.  Yes, there is a certain mooch factor there, but selling 4 copies of the same song just to be able to play online the same way you play locally seems wrong.  And wouldn't this model give more people incentive to purchase songs if they knew they could play them online (if they hosted)?  Obviously there are two sides to the coin on this one, and there is a debate in there somewhere.  (How would you tackle this problem?  Leave comments below...)

4)  Consider releasing genre packs on disc.  Imagine buying Rock Band: Grunge Expansion.  50 songs from Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, etc., for the price of $50.  Wouldn't that be sweet?  Yes, but what would be sweeter is getting a discount on a whole genre of music on a tangible disc, rather than paying $2 a track for a digital copy.  Obviously we can't dictate the economics of it all, but it would be nice to see something like this.

Hardware improvements:

1)  The drums are FUCKING LOUD, use rubber next time!  Some of us live in condos or apartments, and can't just turn up the volume at midnight to solve this problem.  The drums are distractingly loud.   Between the singer, and the annoying CLACK CLACK CLACK of the drums, this game can be pretty unbearable sometimes.  While turning up the volume can be a good solution, it is hardly optimal.

As is clearly evident by all of the fly-by-night companies and online mod tutorials that have formed to tackle this problem, the drums are in need of serious work.  For the love of all things holy, please put a frickin mouse pad on them, or at least coat them in rubber next time.  Even rubber sticks would help... something... anything... PLEASE!?

2)  Make all the instruments wireless, or at least lengthen the cords.  Did anybody else buy the Special Edition of Rock Band for the Xbox 360, thinking that it came with a wireless guitar?  Yeah, I missed the memo that it was PS3 only, too.  Thanks Harmonix.  For the next version, please make everything wireless.  If this isn't possible, at least make the cords longer!  The microphone is the only instrument that has a proper cord... everything else is just too short.  And please give us a more robust usb hub.  The hub that comes with the game is a piece of shit.

3)  The guitar strumming switch needs improvement.  I love the Rock Band guitar.  For the 2 weeks that mine actually worked (I'm still waiting for EA to ship me my replacement), I really enjoyed it.  The only thing that seemed messed up on it (and consequently the part that wound up breaking) was the strumming switch.  This is where Guitar Hero has Rock Band beat.  The strumming switches on Guitar Hero guitars feel solid, and you know when you are "strumming" as there is good tactile feedback.  There is no feedback on the Rock Band guitar, and if you open the guitar and look at what is going on under the hood, it isn't pretty.  The strumming switch mechanism is cheap, flimsy, and prone to breaking.  Please rework this instrument and put in solid switches so we know the difference between when we suck at playing guitar, and when the guitar is broken.  Thanks.

All things considered, Rock Band is obviously a great game (if you are playing local multiplayer, or by yourself, anyway).  It is a pity that Rock Band wasn't everything it could be right out of the gate, but these problems are fixable.  Hopefully Harmonix does do another version of this game with these fixes in place (as opposed to doing 80's Band, with some cheap ass synthesizer as a new instrument  - although I would shit my pants with joy if this were to happen). 

But enough from us...  What do you think?  What would you change about Rock Band?