Monday, March 10, 2008

God Fucking Damnit.


So this weekend I sat down to play Rock Band for another 3-6 hour stint like I usually do (that's normal, right?), and after a good three hours had gone by, my bass drum pedal snaps. Now let me explain. See, I know all about the billions upon billions of drum pedal and pad issues that people have been having since (it would seem) this game's conception. But my case is totally absurd.

Why, you ask? Well, this is the third time my pedal broke. "Oh, so you've gone through three pedals?" No, Timmy, this is still the same pedal. The first time it broke it was the actual pedal itself, so one of my friends took the damn thing home and had the entire foot pedal surface grafted with diamond-plate steel, then topped with skateboard grip-tape (something I'm seeing more and more often online). It was bolted in at least seven different places, and re-enforced with plastic cement. There was no way that was going to break again.

Oh, but something else did. About a month later, the bottom, support-part snapped in half. That would mean that the back of the pedal's base no longer was attached to the front of the base. So! my dad, being the awesome dad he is, grafted the entire base of the pedal--in five secure places--to particle board. Thus, the bottom was impossible to break. I thought I was in the clear.

But this weekend proved that all forms of structural engineering need not apply to the Rock Band bass drum pedal. The plastic that held the back of the pedal down, thus elevating the front of the pedal, snapped apart. This leaves me now with a pedal that only knows how to half-assly hover horizontal to the base. How retarded.

This isn't unfixable, though. I know what I have to do to get this thing working again. But still. Three times this seemingly unbreakable pedal has managed to prove that theory wrong and wrong again. No amount of returns or warranty exchanges can save the planet from these horribly designed pieces of shit.

Oh, and I'm on my fourth pair or drum pads because they simply haven't worked right since day one. ...And I've had the guitar replaced once (strum bar issue).

I want to know exactly how much money EA or Harmonix or whoever was in charge of this design really saved by making plastic accessories instead of metal. At this point, I would have gladly paid another 10, maybe 15 bucks if the bass pedal were made of solid steel. "Oh, but that would have gotten in the way of the magnet!" No, Timmy. If they wanted to make it work, they could have made it work. Plastic was the just cheapest, easiest option. I'm sure of that.

The supports for the drum pads are metal...so...why not just make the pedal the same way?

Ugh. This has something to do with the retarded value system we have nowadays. I swear, if Rock Band were created in the 1940's (man that would have been awesome), we'd still be able to play on the same equipment now--nothing would have broken. But when a company has a new product today, I think that their design scheme is constructed around the possibility of fault, rather than constructed around the possibility of no fault. No normal, intelligent human being would possibly look at that bass drum pedal design and say "Yes, brilliant. In 150 days of constant use this will be exactly as it was before!" Unless, of course, they were paid to say such a thing. EA (I'll assume it's their fault because they handle the warranties) simply designed and released their product knowing it would probably break, and assumed that through a process of examining the broken exchanges, they could build up to a design that they should have released from the beginning.

How do I know they did that? Well, something about the bright, neon-pink warranty notification sitting right on top of the Rock Band box as soon as you open it gives that away. It's as if EA were declaring, "Hey! You! This is gonna break REALLY fast! But it's okay, cause we knew that already! Here's the long and frustrating path you'll have to take someday!" ..but in a more professional tone. Besides that, the drum pads I'm using now are a totally different design than the ones that shipped with the game originally--no screws on the bottom, and you can't tug off the red and green pads like the previous design (not that I did...).

But like I said, no re-working of the pedal is going to save it. That thing needs fucking metal. Plastic that you're constantly stomping on with your foot is always going to break (unless, of course, you're some kind of fairy drum player that can move the pedal with your awesome levitation powers...maybe that's who designed these at EA...sure would explain how they seem to own everything...hmm...). And really, with the amount of cash they're pulling in just on downloaded songs alone over there, you'd think they'd be more than happy to fix their shit.

Companies need to design products based on perfection first and then, if they need to, work from there. EA could have implemented the exact same warranty plan with a metal pedal instead of the plastic one, and they'd probably have a shit-load-less (is that possible?) of returns. So, their extra fronted money would have paid off in the extremes. But like I said, companies will go with whatever is easier. And cheaper is usually easier. Such a shame. Well, at least this pedal is going to be so indestructible by the time I'm through with it that I'll be able to go 20 hours straight without caring...not that I'd do that... ... . . .

At any rate. I got Super Smash Bros. Brawl yesterday, but only played through a little bit of it as Link. It's a pretty good game so far. I'll probably write up a review for it soon...like, within a week, hopefully. Till next time...

Note: That's not my pedal in the picture above. Obviously.

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