Practicing while on the road

[djr5899]

Just getting back to playing this game after several months away. One of the biggest things this game is missing is the ability to practice while on the road.

I think it would be nice to maybe add a way to rent a house a day at a time (just like a hotel), and be able to practice. Maybe the rental cost is like 5% of the cost to buy the house, or in the 1-3K a day range, or maybe you can only practice 1-3 songs at a time or location, etc.

The beginning of the game is a grind just to make money and build up your reputation to be able to get better gigs and make more money. That's all fine, again, don't want the game to be too easy. But the current phase I am in, generally having 5-10K in funds and around 7 total popularity in the US, the inability to practice anywhere but home seems like a very overly weighted piece against this stage of the game.

My home is in LA, and I'm touring out in Texas. After playing the same 12-15 songs for awhile, all the others lose their play skill. If Attitudes change in the middle of the tour, I'm screwed. If the majority of my tour is 9 songs, and then I suddenly get 12 song sets late in the tour, I'm screwed. Flying home and back when there is 2-3 days in between gigs is a 5K round trip flight, and not enough time to drive.

The other issue is, I can write songs, and I have an album to record. It's impossible to do that if I those songs aren't part of my set, because I cannot practice them and up level the play skill high enough to make it worth recording the songs.

Later in the game, when you are making 10K a gig or more, it becomes much less of an issue because I now have the funds or can easily recover the funds to fly round trip to my one home.

Any chance we might see some way to practice when out of town, where cost and/or limiting the # of songs that one can practice can help add some balance?

[Bohemian Rap City]

This has been repeatedly mentioned by players from the earliest days. Allowing a band to skill up new songs while on the road is a no go area. In a real band, you would need to have a long term rental/lease to do this, AND it would still be in a fixed location.

Currently, you can play the same basic effect by buying a house in a city where you have a stopover, then selling it when you leave. I realize that this does not work if you are a starter band, but how many garage bands can afford to rent a house on 5 consecutive week ends?

[djr5899]

Originally posted by Bohemian Rap City:

This has been repeatedly mentioned by players from the earliest days. Allowing a band to skill up new songs while on the road is a no go area. In a real band, you would need to have a long term rental/lease to do this, AND it would still be in a fixed location.

Currently, you can play the same basic effect by buying a house in a city where you have a stopover, then selling it when you leave. I realize that this does not work if you are a starter band, but how many garage bands can afford to rent a house on 5 consecutive week ends?

Thanks for the feedback. I disagree, but appreciate the response. I would think a band that is playing in 600-3000 seat venues (the stage that I am at) would be able to rent a space for the day to practice. I simply mentioned renting the house, versus creating a whole new sub-system or structure. I have friends in bands that play in the equivalent of the low end bars in the game (50-200 capacity) that simply rent out a storage unit for $200 a month and go practice there.

Again, I appreciate the feedback and not trying to be argumentative. Just trying to voice a different perspective. :)

[Eeyore Donkey Donk]

I've thought that it should be possible to pay the studio recording rate to rent out the studio on an off day to practice, like Sunday during a tour when frequently I'll rent the studio to work on a recording. Just make Practice and option in addition to selecting a song to record.

[SDJ]

Originally posted by Eeyore Donkey Donk:

I've thought that it should be possible to pay the studio recording rate to rent out the studio on an off day to practice, like Sunday during a tour when frequently I'll rent the studio to work on a recording. Just make Practice and option in addition to selecting a song to record.

This is the suggestion I've seen most of the time on this subject. Totally agree, and don't think it would be unreasonably unrealistic.

[Bohemian Rap City]

Originally posted by Eeyore Donkey Donk:

I've thought that it should be possible to pay the studio recording rate to rent out the studio on an off day to practice, like Sunday during a tour when frequently I'll rent the studio to work on a recording. Just make Practice and option in addition to selecting a song to record.

I think that we will never see that happen, for the simple reason that it would make the game easier and shorten the time necessary to get to the end game. From that perspective I see it as a non-starter.

All of the people that bought this game in its original state, remember how fast you rocketed to stardom after the original bumps and challenges. Todd was forced to create new ways to challenge us and flatten the 'success arc' to make it more satisfying as a game.

Things just became too easy too fast in the original game. I don't see that a change like this does anything substantive other than speed the process.

[Uncle Fester]

...and now, we'll return to our program after a word from our sponsors.

[Eeyore Donkey Donk]

you mean force people to actually do some time management and planning? Like I said I thought it should be possible within the existing framework, I did not say it would be an option I'd choose, perhaps something on the Easy Mode that would be removed as you advance to Hard.

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by Eeyore Donkey Donk:

you mean force people to actually do some time management and planning? Like I said I thought it should be possible within the existing framework, I did not say it would be an option I'd choose, perhaps something on the Easy Mode that would be removed as you advance to Hard.

Don't back down so easily from BRC, your suggestion is well thought out and a good idea.
Currently this game is not a challenge as BRC call's it. This game is a Grind those two things are very different.

Grind equals non challenging activities done over and over and over and over again to artificially slow down the pace of the game.

Challenge equals doing something that is going to challenge the player to overcome in the immediate present.

Refusing to implement a good idea because it will make the game less grindy is a terrible idea.

Put in more content to take the place of the grind is far more preferable....

[Eeyore Donkey Donk]

I think the time I would utilize the ability to rent a studio to practice material would be if I was on an extended tour and I was wanting to skill up some new material. As a regular matter of course though I tend to write on the road, and record on off days if they are non-travel, and then do the practicing and working up new songs during breaks.
Typically I schedule a week or so with no gigs other than local hometown for that. What I do is book weekend gigs at my local favorites and then have my manager look for endorsements so he doesn't book me during the week out of town. Downside is when I get him started again on booking gigs they usually start out as 6 or 9 songs for the first week or two before he gets headliners.

[MrShady]

We can already buy a house and sell it the next day, taking a small hit, which I suppose you could consider a "rent" payment.

But in the interest of making it a little more realistic, I don't see why we couldn't officially rent a space or studio to do some practice, This wouldn't really make the game easier or harder since we can already unofficially do this, but buying a house and selling it the next day is not realistic at all.

[Eeyore Donkey Donk]

Additionally buying and selling a house is out of reach for bands that still cannot afford to move out of the janky-ass starting flat, let alone get additional houses.

At the early stages coming up with the couple hundred to thousand or so dollars to get studio time for a day is a hefty ask as is. However it would give one a reason to utilize the cheap studios, and perhaps quality of practice could be factored in, cheap studios less points to go around and so on. Hire a studio as a rehearsal hall with a producer and get a bonus. Again it's a moot point to bands that can buy and sell houses at will, and have a private jet so everywhere in the region is an overnight trip.

[Uncle Fester]

OK, now it is time for the dummy to put in his two-cents. I really could not care less about practicing songs while gigging or touring around the country. Practicing songs to make them worthwhile to play at a show, takes more than a day or even two to make it play-worthy, I am speaking from the standpoint of having a band that has 3 members with 100% playing skills, and the other two are 70%ers, and it takes my band 3 full practices to get a song into the 90 percentile range, actually, they can master a song in 3 practices, usually getting 35% per practice almost 40%.

What I would like to see, is the ability to rent a home or a hotel room in a town for a month at a time, for the sole purpose of visiting bars and clubs in a town to improve my reputation in that town. Why? Because I am of the silly opinion that the more reputation you have in a town, the better the turnout of a crowd you will have for a show. This may not seem like a big deal when you are playing gigs in your home city, but when you start touring and playing theaters on a regular basis, the more crowd you get, the better the draw when you are playing for ticket sales. When I play in home town, I get sellout crowds, or dang near, but when I play a city where I have a rep of 0 or 1, my crowd sizes are half or less. So in a theater that seats 3000 people, I am drawing 1400 or even down as low as 700ish, which is hurting my wallet when I would like to see 2k or better to a 3k size theater expecting $13 or so dollars per ticket. I am sure that improving your rep in a town will increase your draw of people to your shows, as well as giving away t-shirts.

To that end even more, a thought just hit me, what if you could do some charitable event in a city to boost your reputation in that city, like a benefit concert. Hmmm? Ideas or thoughts?

[Eeyore Donkey Donk]

The more I think about the idea of being able to use studio time to practice the more sense it makes, and combined with UF's concept of getting known in a new town, what would help a lot would be the ability to tell your manager not to book you on Friday and Saturday. That way you could work theater gigs during the week, and be able to go watch shows on weekends to get your exposure and local cred.
However I would think if I could do that I'd probably never buy houses in other cities.

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by Uncle Fester:

OK, now it is time for the dummy to put in his two-cents. I really could not care less about practicing songs while gigging or touring around the country. Practicing songs to make them worthwhile to play at a show, takes more than a day or even two to make it play-worthy, I am speaking from the standpoint of having a band that has 3 members with 100% playing skills, and the other two are 70%ers, and it takes my band 3 full practices to get a song into the 90 percentile range, actually, they can master a song in 3 practices, usually getting 35% per practice almost 40%.

What I would like to see, is the ability to rent a home or a hotel room in a town for a month at a time, for the sole purpose of visiting bars and clubs in a town to improve my reputation in that town. Why? Because I am of the silly opinion that the more reputation you have in a town, the better the turnout of a crowd you will have for a show. This may not seem like a big deal when you are playing gigs in your home city, but when you start touring and playing theaters on a regular basis, the more crowd you get, the better the draw when you are playing for ticket sales. When I play in home town, I get sellout crowds, or dang near, but when I play a city where I have a rep of 0 or 1, my crowd sizes are half or less. So in a theater that seats 3000 people, I am drawing 1400 or even down as low as 700ish, which is hurting my wallet when I would like to see 2k or better to a 3k size theater expecting $13 or so dollars per ticket. I am sure that improving your rep in a town will increase your draw of people to your shows, as well as giving away t-shirts.

To that end even more, a thought just hit me, what if you could do some charitable event in a city to boost your reputation in that city, like a benefit concert. Hmmm? Ideas or thoughts?

Renting for a month??? That's kinda the purposes of buying houses.... Just buy a house you cheep-skate...(Meant Jokingly)

[Uncle Fester]

Originally posted by jfoytek:

Renting for a month??? That's kinda the purposes of buying houses.... Just buy a house you cheep-skate...(Meant Jokingly)

Well, yeah, that's what I did. It is my only choice, that or pay for hotel by the day. No offense taken. I am cheap, especially early game. I don't think it unreasonable to rent a house for $5k a month to boost rep in another city, or a motel room for $1000-2000/mo. Todd could put a concession that only one such property could be rented per month.