misterID wrote:

And wasn't Oh My God released without his permission?

Go read the encyclopedia sized meaning of the song he wrote while promoting it for End of Days and saying how great it was.

Then after doing that, go check his excuse after the world hated it.

Why the hell would they need a "test the waters" track

I'm amazed you would even ask that after enduring the 96-08 period.

The band, or the article on www.gunsnroses.com didn't say that "Shackler's Revenge" was tentatively gonna be on Rock Band 2.

Yeah, and the HD ad didn't say Better would "tentatively" be on the commercial.

We got Paradise City instead.

I remember similar hype during that. Fans saying "THIS IT IT!!!", "they're gonna blow our minds with Better as the 1st single!!", and whadda ya know....

We're rocking out to AFD instead, and about to do so again as its getting a vinyl re-re-re-re-release when their full concentration should be Chinese Democracy.

1999: Oh My God/Live Era
2002: re-emerged with a medley consisting of 2 AFD tracks while announcing CD starts now.
2006: Better about to launch/PC instead

Hard to believe I'm the only person detecting a pattern.

No matter what happens, we always wind up with AFD again.

Lets look at the recent happenings.....

Finck looks for relevancy
Two ancient demos go on sale on Itunes
Shackler gets announced
AFD to be released for the thousandth time(why? It never went out of print) with the Rape cover intact.

Forgive me if I'm not 100% convinced that Chinese Democracy starts now.

Hey all,

Let's stat with the basics.

A. That wasn't Ryan Lesser in the video - his voice on his voice mail box @ Harmonix was NOTHING like the guy in the video's voice.  Trust me, I listened to it about 10x just to make sure - definitely not the same individual.

B. The XBox 360 Release of RB II is scheduled for September 14th.  Keep in mind that the game stores typically get the games in 3 - 5 days ahead of schedule (with two weeks ahead not being uncommon) with a requirement to 'street date' at whatever the date is.

C. Playtesters who currently have RB II do NOT have the Shackler's Revenge track, to my understanding.

D. Assuming that the US retailers for Rock Band II get the game the day before release (let's say September 13th, although that's cutting it awful close) - we need to allow about 10 days at the least for packaging, disc duplication, etc, etc.  So that puts us at a 'gold' date of September 3rd at the absolute LATEST (This is assuming the game isn't delayed.. but Harmonix is pretty good about their sticking to release dates)

E. At that time (again, more than likely before, September 3rd is the 'D-Day' I'm throwing up here) review copies will go to press.. probably with a requirement to 'embargo' the details of the story until the release or maybe a few days beforehand.

Because of this - I would suggest the absolute LATEST we'd have a leak of the track would be September 3rd.. although I'm still putting it close to the third week of August or so, knowing how the game industry works. 

Also, keep in mind, if there *ARE* plans to release it as a single, I'd think the single would day / date release with RB II - which means that yes, another source would be out there to source a leak from, again, two weeks or so prior to release.

So - my best guess is we hear the track by August 20th.. with a 'worst case scenario' by September 3rd, if this follows any of the patterns of leaks that have occurred before.  It would not shock me, though, if the thing showed up somewhere as soon as tomorrow - We shall see

Hope you all have a great day,

-darknemus