Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3 is a rhythm game by Harmonix released in 2010 and published by EA (and later Mad Catz in 2011) for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. More generic information is available on Wikipedia.
Versions
The game had 5 title updates released over the years for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The Wii version did not receive these updates due to the system's lack of support for updates. In contrast to Rock Band 2, this game is region-free, and the same game files are used between all regions.
Official changelogs were posted by Harmonix employees on the old Rock Band forums, which were often mirrored by game journalists.
TODO: what are PS3 equivalents?
TU2
Official changelog
(source: https://web.archive.org/web/20110222133054/http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210000)
- Arena 12 Freeze (aka The Roadie Amp Loading Screen of Death) – If the amp loading vignette occurred immediately prior to an especially resource heavy venue it had the potential to cause a freeze. Your band should now be able to load their gear uninterrupted.
- Save Data Affected By Especially Long Band Names – Custom / Random Setlists specific to artists with especially long names (most notably Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Honest Bob and the Factory to Dealer Incentives, The Presidents of the United States of America, etc) that were not completed before playing through to the next auto save could result in corrupted save data.
- Iron Man Eyebrow Freeze in Character Creator – The Character Creator would sometimes seize up when reselecting the default eyebrow for the Iron Man pre set face. All eyebrows are now safe.
- Pause Scoring Exploit – To prevent abuse of repeated pausing mid-song to pad a score, we now disable score reporting on any song in which a player repeatedly pauses. Your crowd meter should go grey and you will not be able to complete any goals or achievements tied to score during that play through.
TU3
Official changelog
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
- The audio distortion (also referred to as a buzz, hiss, or squawk) that some PS3 Keyboard players experienced has been addressed.
- For users experiencing trouble deploying Vocal Overdrive in certain audio setups, OD can now be deployed using the Back button on the controller. NOTE: this only works while in a valid Overdrive deploy section.
- Overdrive can now be deployed using a Pedal with both the Mustang Pro Guitar and the Keyboard peripherals.
- Scoring is disabled after a song has been paused multiple times (this prevent players from artificially inflating scores using the pause function).
- The translucency of the track surface has been adjusted to make note gems are easier to see against the venue backgrounds.
- Based on fan feedback, limited functionality for the Stage kit has been added to Rock Band 3. Please note that this 3rd-party peripheral is no longer officially supported, so we cannot guarantee full functionality with every file format (RB3, Pro-DLC), but basic functions should be reenabled.
ONLINE CHANGES
- PS3 Voice Chat not properly working with headsets has been remedied.
- Audio no longer distorts for remote players when whammying sustains in an online session.
- To prevent blank tracks from appearing in online multiplayer, all members in an online multiplayer band must own the Pro upgrades to play a song with DLC pro upgrades.
MUSIC LIBRARY AND STORE CHANGES
- Pro Guitar songs now sort themselves into the correct difficulty tiers.
- Pro upgrade availability will now be more accurately reflected in the Music Store.
- The following songs are now correctly appearing in the Music Library.
- Anvil - 666
- Anvil - Metal on Metal
- Anvil - This is Thirteen
- Dinosaur Jr - Pick Me Up
- Dinosaur Jr - The Wagon
- Guess Who, The - Hand Me Down World
- Guess Who, The - No Time
- Tenacious D - Rock Your Socks
- Avenged Sevenfold – Afterlife
PRACTICE MODE CHANGES
- An issue that prevented holding sustain notes on keys in the trainers has been addressed
- Breakneck Speed now works in Practice Mode.
CRASH FIXES
- Fixed a Character Creator crash related to a particular eyebrow asset or the generation of a random character.
- Fixed assorted minor crashes, as well as minor scoring and text bugs.
TU4
Official changelog
(source: https://rhythmgamingworld.com/forums/topic/title-updates-and-patch-notes/ -- TODO: find official (archived) page or game publication?)
Hello friends and rockers,
We’ve released a new title update today which addresses an issue with how Rock Band 3 scores certain songs with Pro Guitar/Bass parts. There was a discrepancy in how the game dealt with songs using the 17-fret Mustang controller versus the 22-fret Fender Squier controller which resulted in scores posting with no Star values. This has now been resolved with today’s update.
While we don’t have any additional title updates planned for the foreseeable future, we hope this further illustrates our ongoing commitment to supporting the new Pro Guitars as well as you all who make our community so great!
Check below for the full list of affected songs. (note: to avoid redundancies I haven’t listed a song twice if it has an RB3 version in addition to the PRO Upgrade.)
RB3 Disc Songs Affected: 21
- Avenged Sevenfold -- "Beast and the Harlot"
- Jane's Addiction -- "Been Caught Stealing"
- Queen -- "Bohemian Rhapsody"
- Anthrax -- "Caught in a Mosh"
- Foreigner -- "Cold as Ice"
- Ozzy Osbourne -- "Crazy Train"
- Them Crooked Vultures -- "Dead End Friends"
- Def Leppard -- "Foolin'"
- Lynyrd Skynyrd -- "Free Bird"
- Whitesnake -- "Here I Go Again"
- Tokio Hotel -- "Humanoid"
- Big Country -- "In a Big Country"
- Spacehog -- "In the Meantime"
- Primus -- "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver"
- Phish -- "Llama"
- Queens of the Stone Age -- "No One Knows"
- The Muffs -- "Outer Space"
- Rilo Kiley -- "Portions for Foxes"
- Dio -- "Rainbow in the Dark"
- Yes -- "Roundabout"
- Night Ranger -- "Sister Christian"
DLC Songs Affected: 24
- Metallica -- "...And Justice for All"
- The Gracious Few -- "Appetite"
- Santana -- "Black Magic Woman"
- Johnny Cooper -- "Don't Feel Like That Anymore"
- 38 Special -- "Hold On Loosely"
- Queen -- "I Want It All"
- Caesars -- "Jerk It Out"
- Queen -- "Killer Queen"
- The Doors -- "Light My Fire"
- Bon Jovi -- "Livin' on a Prayer"
- Billy Joel -- "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"
- The Knack -- "My Sharona"
- Queen -- "One Vision"
- Queen -- "Play the Game"
- Bon Jovi -- "Runaway"
- Stone Sour -- "Say You'll Haunt Me"
- Lynyrd Skynyrd -- "Simple Man"
- Queen -- "Somebody To Love"
- Queen -- "Tenement Funster"
- Bob Marley and the Wailers -- "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)"
- B.B. King -- "The Thrill Is Gone"
- DragonForce -- "Through the Fire and Flames"
- Bon Jovi -- "Wanted Dead or Alive"
- Queen -- "We Are the Champions"
TU5
Title Update 5 was released in November 2011 for Xbox 360, and has an XEX build timestamp of 02th September 2011 13:11:42 (GMT). This is the update included on discs published by Mad Catz by default, and is the update that infamously fixes the CON Exploit.
Official changelog
(source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120109035357/http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=225612)
While there are several legal and security tweaks going in (which we won’t be able to address specifically, but honestly shouldn’t alter your RB3 experience in any way), there are also a few changes to gameplay that address some requests and comments we’ve received from the community since the last update.
- Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California” will now be available in Rock Band 3. These were songs from the RB1 disc that were not previously available via export, but thanks to some music licensing magic you’ll be able to play these fan favorite tracks in RB3. These songs should be visible to anyone that previously imported RB1, but if you have additional questions related to export you can consult support articles here.
- We’ve corrected an issue where playing combinations of “Surfing with the Alien,” “Satch Boogie,” “The Hockey Theme” and “Caprici di Diablo” in a set list resulted in a crash.
- We’ve added an additional filter option for songs in your library. In addition to sorting by lighter rating, this new option will allow users to hide 1 Lighter rated songs that you don’t want to see in your set list, which should allow for more effective organization of the growing library of RB content.