• "Dr Feelgood" (160 / $2)
• "Slice of Your Pie" (160 / $2)
• "Rattlesnake Shake" (160 / $2)
• "Kickstart My Heart" (160 / $2)
• "Without You" (160 / $2)
• "Same Ol' Situation (SOS)" (160 / $2)
• "Sticky Sweet" (160 / $2)
• "She Goes Down" (160 / $2)
• "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)" (160 / $2)
• "Time for Change" (160 / $2)

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	The Digital Continuum: Rock Band, the MMO I've actually entertained the idea for a long time now, only to shove it aside as a crazy notion. But the thing kept popping back into the forefront of my mind so often that I couldn't discount it as happenstance. I've become enamored with the idea, because let's face it; a Rock Band MMO has the potential to ooze- no, to gush pure liquid awesome.
	Massively's exclusive Mines of Moria dev tour Earlier last month, Massively was invited to get a hands-on look at Mines of Moria, the first-ever expansion for Lord of the Rings Online with Turbine's Adam Mersky and Moria Producer Mike Jablonn. During this special dev tour, we were treated to many of the features of the new environments, new creatures, certain landmarks and the Legendary Item system.
	Is LotRO coming to the console? According to a job posting on Turbine's website, they're looking to hire a Senior User Interface Engineer who "may be refactoring existing user interfaces or implementing completely new user interfaces for systems such as combat, skills, inventory, treasure, and social systems." Does this mean LotRO?

	MMO industry heavyweights outed on political affiliations The Gamepolitics site is a never-ending font of fascinating information. A recent post on donations from games industry notables touches heavily on the MMO industry, with several big names popping off the list. Both sides of the political fence are represented, according to the publicly available records searchable on the Newsmeat.com website.
	Lego Universe could eventually include Star Wars, Indiana Jones Join us as we talk to Seabury and Hansen about the background behind the project, and what kind of worlds we'll be seeing. From Castle to Racers and everything in between, it sounds like whatever kind of kid you are at heart there'll be something there to enjoy. And, of course, the exciting news is that it's definitely possible we'll one day see Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the other licensed Lego products inside of Lego Universe.
	MMOGology: WoW on easy mode When Blizzard announced their Recruit-a-Friend program a tiny seed was planted in the back of his mind. A seed that slowly germinated, wrapping its diminutive roots around his cerebral cortex until every thought in his head screamed, "MUST HAVE TRIPLE XP." And so, after a very small amount of convincing, I joined him to level up yet another alt. Our new goal was to level a couple of spacegoat shammies.
	The Best of Massively: Our most helpful guides In just over one month, Massively will celebrate its first birthday! Last week we started a countdown to the event by kicking off a series of features highlighting the best stuff from the site so far. We started with our ten most important interviews. Today, we're continuing the weekly countdown by listing some of your (and our) favorite guides!
	Massively talks with NCsoft about CoH changes, Austin studio shakeup We've got all the details you want about the NCsoft Austin shakeup, the future of Tabula Rasa, the City of Heroes Issue 13 changeup and the microtransaction initiative the NC NorCal team is ramping up. Check out this roundup of NCsoft posts for everything you need on one of the bigs MMO publishers around.
	Altdorf is burning (Warhammer city siege endgame begun) Despite hopes by the developers that Warhammer's city siege endgame wouldn't begin for at least a month, it appears the siege has already begun. Just a week and a half after the launch of the title Altdorf is burning on the EU server Karak Eight Peaks.
	Warhammer Tier 2 Scenario Guides By now, people who picked up Warhammer Online at launch should have had a chance to play a bit, and many of them will be in Tier 2. This unfortunately means leaving the Tier 1 scenarios behind, but it also means that a whole new set of scenarios is unlocked. As in Tier 1, there is one scenario per racial pairing in Tier 2, totaling three new battlegrounds to visit.
	Massively's WAR Camp: How to get the Tracker set gear This week we're taking a look at the Tracker armor, which is a 3-piece set for Tier 2 players, and offers bonuses if you wear more than one piece. The set is obtained through quests that get you to kill other players, as well as Hero mobs, mixing a bit of PvE and RvR together.
	Massively's complete LotRO Fall Harvest Festival guide The Lord of the Rings Online Fall Harvest festivities are now in full swing, and as promised, we at Massively have created an in-depth guide to help you make the most of your holiday time. This year's event sees the return of many of last year's goodies, plus some new and exciting favorites!
	AoC Game Director declares server merge, previews coming changes Age of Conan players have been curious to see what new Game Director Craig Morrison will bring to the table. He's already proven willing to wade in to the forums and give players clear answers to their questions, and today he's provided a lengthy and frank letter about what will be coming to AoC in the future. There's a lot of information to digest.
	Urban exploration in Age of Conan Free running and urban exploration in virtual worlds have both taken off significantly in recent years. Players can be seen clambering around buildings and jumping between the rooftops in games from World of Warcraft to Everquest 2 and Funcom's Age of Conan is no different.
	The making of EVE Online EVE Online's development path from concept to release has followed a very different path to the MMO norm. Starting from its humble beginnings as one man's dream to build an online space game, EVE has developed into the massively popular game it is today.
	Free server transfers coming to Star Wars Galaxies Another producer's letter from Christopher "Dotanuki" Field brings amazing news to the Star Wars Galaxies faithful: free server transfers are coming!

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• "Gone Away" - The Offspring (160 / $2)
• "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" - The Offspring (160 / $2)
• "Self Esteem" - The Offspring (160 / $2)

• "Stop!" - Against Me! (160 / $2)
• "All Right Now" - Free (160 / $2)
• "Bad to the Bone" - George Thorogood and the Destroyers (160 / $2)
• "Cream & Bastards Rise" - Harvey Danger (160 / $2)
• "Nearly Lost you" - Screaming Trees (160 / $2)
• "Push It" - Static-X (160 / $2)

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After yesterday's announcement of the AC/DC LIVE: Rock Band Track Pack, featuring all the tracks from the Live at the Donington album, Variety got a few more details from MTV's Paul DeGooyer. Most importantly, DeGooyer said the transfer can only be done once per disc, confirming initial indication of a download code printed on the game manual and expectedly void after use. Hear that gurgle? That's the collective sound of all those Blockbuster patrons' sinking hearts.

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• "Thunderstruck"
• "Shoot to Thrill"
• "Back in Black"
• "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be"
• "Heatseeker"
• "Fire Your Guns"
• "Jailbreak"
• "The Jack"
• "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"
• "Moneytalks"
• "Hells Bells"
• "High Voltage"
• "Whole Lotta Rosie"
• "You Shook Me All Night Long"
• "T.N.T."
• "Let There Be Rock"
• "Highway To Hell"
• "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)"

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• "The Power of Equality"
• "If You Have to Ask"
• "Breaking the Girl"
• "Funky Monks"
• "Suck My Kiss"
• "I Could Have Lied"
• "Mellowship Slinky in B Major"
• "The Righteous & The Wicked"
• "Blood Sugar Sex Magik"
• "Under the Bridge"
• "Naked in the Rain"
• "Apache Rose Peacock"
• "The Greeting Song My"
• "Lovely Man Sir"
• "Psycho Sexy"
• "They're Red Hot"

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• "Tom Sawyer" (Original) (160 / $2)
• "Red Barchetta" (160 / $2)
• "YYZ" (160 / $2)
• "Limelight" (Original) (160 / $2)
• "The Camera Eye" (160 / $2)
• "Witch Hunt" (160 / $2)
• "Vital Signs" (160 / $2)

• "Sorrow" - Bad Religion (160 / $2)
• "She Sells Sanctuary" - The Cult (160 / $2)
• "Bandages" - Hot Hot Heat (160 / $2)
• "Shoot the Runner" - Kasabian (160 / $2)
• "You're No Rock N Roll Fun" - Sleater-Kinney (160 / $2)
• "Love Spreads" - Stone Roses (160 / $2)

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Gallery: ION Drum Rocker: Unboxing, Set Up and Impressions

• The ability to adjust your hardware is a double-edged sword. Having the freedom to do so is nice, but you'll spend a lot of time readjusting everything to fit your needs, not to mention if something isn't screwed in tight enough, your whole set might fall apart during a Pixies' song, as ours did. Particularly, the main screw used to keep the cymbals on the hardware needs to be at least another 1-2 mm longer, as it screws in only slightly to the other side and can easily pop out, causing the whole cymbal to slide out.
• It probably goes without saying, but the Drum Rocker will take up a lot more room than your Rock Band set.

Instead of the included ends, use a basic washer with these cymbal clamps.

• As an addendum to our previous post where we complained about the cymbals, ION sent us a new drum brain and that seemed to fix the problem. After some work, we were finally able to incorporate their use into our playing. It took a lot of extra effort, however, and it certainly didn't help our scoring at all. They do work well and are as responsive as the pads. We can't shake the mindset that the cymbals are anything more than a (quite expensive) novelty. The four pads are still there and they still work great.
• Although we are being much less scientific here than with Kyle's experiment, with plastic-tip drum sticks the ION pads are indeed quieter than the Rock Band 1 set. It's worth noting that after about 10 songs with each play sessions, our wrists would start hurting, something that in the last year never happened with the RB1 set. The pads aren't as bouncy as the standard set but are much sturdier.
  
• The pedal is still far superior to the standard set. You can also buy it separately for $50 and get a 1/4"-to-1/8" converter to use it with the standard set. It is a bit noisier than the RB pedal.
  
• As a cheap electronic drum set, let's say this: Someone will find a way to make this work by plugging directly into a computer. Then again, that program will also likely work with the standard RB2 drum set ($90), which also has three cymbal ports and a second pedal port (something the ION set doesn't have without paying $40 for an expansion pedal). Although the cost of accessories are currently unknown, we're wagering the total would be much less than the $300 ION price tag. Alesis offers a drum module you can use for $360, but you'll also have to buy a second pedal for the hi-hat, rendering the total cost around $710.

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Observation
Harmonix has claimed that Rock Band 2 will have "quieter and more natural feeling drum pads" and guitars with "quieter buttons" than their original Rock Band counterparts.

Hypothesis
Rock Band 2 instruments are quieter than their original Rock Band counterparts.

Continue reading for our experimental method and results!

• Light: Gravity pulls the drum stick down to the pad from a set height, with little to no additional force input from the experimenter.
• Medium: The experimenter hits the pad with average force, as he/she would if playing the game.
• Hard: The experimenter hits the pad as hard as possible.

• Light: Each fret is pressed as gently as possible and depressed slowly to control the spring back.
  
• Medium: Each fret is pressed sharply and allowed to spring back freely.
• Hard: Each fret is pressed quickly and distinctly, as during an intense hammer-on section.

Avg. loudness of drum strikes (in dB above baseline)

Intensity			Change
Light	6.00	4.33	1.67
Medium	16.42	9.58	6.84
Hard	24.17	25.08	-0.91
Overall Avg.	15.53	13.00	2.53

The difference in loudness at the light intensity, where the drum stick was simply allowed to fall onto the pad, was minimal. Both sets of drums were relatively quiet at this level, though the Rock Band 2 drums saw much more "bounce back" when the stick was allowed to drop.

The largest difference between the two drums was observed at the medium drum strike intensity, which was designed to emulate normal play conditions. While the difference in loudness is definitely noticeable, the Rock Band 2 drums did still have a noticeable "thwacking" sound at this level.

Surprisingly, the Rock Band 2 drums were actually overall a little louder when struck as hard as possible in our tests. Interestingly, the yellow and blue "inner" pads were louder on the Rock Band 2 set, while the red and green "outer" pads were louder on the original Rock Band set (see appendix below). For all practical purposes, these differences were negligible -- both drum sets are, unsurprisingly, incredibly loud when struck incredibly hard.

It should be noted that the natural springiness of the Rock Band 2 drums makes them much easier to play functionally at a lower intensity level. This means that the actual functional loudness of the drums during actual play may be significantly different than what is shown in these tests.

Guitar

Intensity			Change
Light	10.00	3.00	7.00
Medium	12.4	7.2	7.2
Hard	16	7.4	8.6
Overall Avg.	12.8	5.87	6.93

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