From Docs // Creators.RockBand.com
This is a high level list of how to use this website to submit, download, comment on, and review RBN songs. If you would like to read an easy to follow guide explaining the RBN process from Uploading a song to Selling a song in the Store, please view the Web Walkthrough for more information! See the FAQ#Website FAQ Doc for all Frequently Asked Questions. Please let us know if there is more information you need, or if something you find here is inaccurate. http://creators.rockband.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=48
Contents |
Playtesting
Here is a guide to playtesting songs. Please view Playtest Process for more information!
Your Dashboard
The dashboard is where you will do the bulk of the critical work on your songs. You’ll see that it’s divided into five tabs – ‘Activity’, ‘My Songs’, ‘Songs I’ve Downloaded,’ ‘Profile’, ‘Messages’, and ‘Account’.
Dashboard: Activity
Activity records the history of your interactions on the site. When you upload a song package, the system uses the Activity tab to keep you informed about its progress. The Activity tab also records the major pipeline events that occur throughout the lifecycle of the song. It’s a handy way to keep an eye on the progress of your songs.
Dashboard: My Songs
‘My Songs’ is a catalog of all of the songs you’ve uploaded to the site. This tab reflects the current state of your song whenever you view it. When your song is in a playtest session, you’ll see it in the ‘In Playtest’ section of the ‘My Songs’ tab. It’s another handy way to keep track of your songs and quickly see their status.
Dashboard: Songs I’ve Downloaded
‘Songs I’ve Downloaded’ simply records all the songs you’ve downloaded. This section only displays songs you’ve downloaded that are in ‘active states’ – songs in playtest, songs in peer review, and approved songs. Songs you’ve downloaded that have failed peer review or have been taken out of playtesting will not appear in ‘Songs I’ve Downloaded.’
This will help you understand whether it’s useful to add feedback for a song you’ve downloaded but haven’t immediately reviewed. NOTE: The system records download events on click, which means that it will mark as downloaded songs which, for whatever reason, may not have downloaded completely to your desktop.
Dashboard: Profile
‘Profile’ contains all the information about yourself that other users can see. When the site is live, this profile information will be identical to the profile information on RockBand.com, but for now the two are separate. It’s not necessary to fill out any of the information on your profile for the Beta period.
Additionally, we are planning on reworking the profile information for creators.rockband.com to better reflect what a song author or reviewer's interests are.
Dashboard: Messages
‘Messages’ contains all of the system’s messages to you. The system sends messages whenever it needs you to confirm a song’s information, when a song fails peer review for any reason, or when a song is approved. These messages are also sent to the email account you registered with, but you can, in your account settings, restrict messaging to the ‘messages’ tab on your dashboard.
Dashboard: Account
‘Account’ contains your personal account settings, information about payment, and information about your record labels. Use the account settings section to change your password and set messaging preferences.
The Payment Information cannot currently be set up. You can set your ‘record label’ value in Magma when you package your song – the record label title will appear in ‘Record Labels.’ You can also add values for ‘Record Label’ in the ‘Record Labels’ section of ‘Account.’
Record Labels
Magma has a "Release Label" field as part of the song information. For a full explanation of what this field is, and how it works, please read Record Label.
Adding a Song to the Pipeline
Uploading a Song
You can add a song from anywhere within your dashboard by clicking the ‘Upload a Song’ button in the upper right of your screen.
When you click this button, the system will display a new page called ‘Add New Song.’ This page contains three fields:
- A field that allows you to browse for the .rba song file on your desktop (Note! You cannot upload .rbs songs. These are intended only for downloading for review, and will not pass Validation on the website).
- A field that allows you to enter notes for your peers. This can consist of any information you want to convey to people who might be playtesting your song. It will not appear as part of your song’s information when it gets approved and enters the Marketplace. So the text you enter here can be casual and conversational, like, ‘Hey everyone – this is my first track. I’m especially nervous about the guitar solo – can you take a look?’
Once you’ve entered this information, click ‘submit for playtesting.’
The system will display a progress bar that lets you know when the song is fully uploaded to the system. Please don’t close your browser window while your song is uploading – wait until the bar completely ‘fills’ and you see the next system message before leaving the session.
When the file uploads completely, the system automatically begins to unpack the many files that make up the song package. The system lets you know it’s performing this action with a message in your Activity tab.
When the system locates the metadata file containing all of the information about your song, it stops unpacking to allow you to confirm the song’s metadata. Why? Because it takes a considerable amount of time for the system to completely validate all of the files in your song package, and if you’ve made a typo in the song’s title, for example, you’ll have to delete the song, make the change on your desktop, and upload again. Confirming the song’s information before the system reads and validates all of the data will save you time in the long run, and it only takes a second. The system will even send you an email when it’s ready for you to confirm the information.
If you don’t confirm the song’s information, it will wait in a sort of limbo until you do so. So the quicker you confirm the information, the sooner the song will enter a playtest session.
Once you confirm the song’s information, the system will complete its analysis and validation of all of the files in the package. Then it will encrypt and send the file to Microsoft, a process that can take anywhere from ten minutes to four hours. But when this process is complete, the system automatically places the song into a playtest session, so you don’t have to do anything further with the song.
Playtesting
Any time you first submit a new song, we require you to go through at least one round of playtesting. Playtest is a state where your song can be downloaded and commented on by creators, but will not ever be approved for sale
Your peers will download the song, check it out on their consoles, and then provide feedback for you using the creators.rockband.com forums. When you uploaded your song, the system automatically created a forum thread specifically for the first version of your song, in this forum:
http://creators.rockband.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=40
Each song has its own thread on these forums. If you playtest a song, and have comments, post them here. There is a handy link on each song page that takes you directly to the Forum thread.
Playtest sessions last for fourteen days. When the session expires, the song automatically enters the ‘Waiting’ state (see below). But you can also end a session early if something’s seriously wrong and you want to fix it, or if feedback indicates that your song is in really good shape and ready for publication. End a playtest session by navigating to the song detail screen and clicking the ‘End Playtest Session’ button. The song will automatically enter the ‘Waiting’ state.
Waiting
‘Waiting’ songs are in a sort of limbo, and they require action on your part. You can do three things with a song in the ‘Waiting’ state:
Delete – if there is a serious problem with the song, or you no longer want to work with it, you can delete the song by clicking the ‘Delete’ button on the song’s detail page.
Add New Release – If you’ve addressed the issues your peers have raised during the playtest session, you can add a second version of the song for playtesting or for peer review by clicking the ‘Add New Release’ button on the song’s detail page.
Adding a new release is like adding a new version of the song, anyone who downloads the song will see a new version number (Release 2, for example), and a new thread will be created on the forums for comments on this version. You can add as many releases as you want to any one song.
Promote to Peer Review – If feedback was generally great, you can promote the current version of your song directly into peer review. You should only do this on the advice of your peers. If you promote a song that is not ready for publication, your peers will fail the song when it enters peer review.
Peer Review
Songs that are in Peer Review are generally expected to be bug-free and ready for public consumption. Your peers will be very thorough in evaluating your song’s readiness so you should be selective about what you promote here. Peer Review feedback occurs via a peer review form that your fellow creators will fill out.
The form consists of three sections: Game Defects, Prohibited Content, and Difficulty. Songs pass or fail depending on how many users agree that a song has a given number of defects, prohibited content violations, and/or difficulty assignation disputes. The system collects a number of peer reviews and compares the values to determine whether a song can be approved for sale.
Approval/Publication
Once your song is approved, it enters a state called ‘Review Closed.’ Songs in the ‘Review Closed’ state are subjected to a 72 hour quarantine, during which administrators will take a look at the song to make sure it is not in violation of any terms, check for copyrighted content, etc.
If the song is not removed from the system by the end of the 72 hour ‘Review Closed’ quarantine period, it’s published to the LIVE Marketplace and to the Rock Band store. Songs submitted during Beta will be published, but the in-game store will be turned off for a portion of the beta period. Additionally, no RBN songs will be available for sale via the Xbox Live Marketplace dashboard purchases, only via our ingame store.
Published Songs
Once songs are approved, they automatically move to the Xbox Live Marketplace for sale. Read more about them here: Published Songs
In-Progress Components
Following is a list of known issues that we’re working to solve for the Closed Beta release. Please check this list first if you notice something wonky. If you don’t see your issue on this list, please tell us about it via the forums.
Docs
The docs will be in a constant state of flux during the Beta period. If you find something wrong, tell us! If you are wiki-literate, and you want to edit something to make it better, go for it!
Dashboard: Account
You cannot access the payment provider information.
