According to the "Game Informer" preview, the addition of drum functionality came from work initially done towards the "Drum Hero" title. This work was later folded into the "Guitar Hero" series after Neversoft was chosen as developer of the series. Neversoft's Allen Flores stated that with the addition of the existing drum gameplay, the development of "World Tour" took under a year, starting development immediately after the release of "Guitar Hero III". The drum instrument controller was designed to be more realistic, with input from Chad Smith (of Red Hot Chili Peppers), Stewart Copeland (of The Police) and Travis Barker (of Blink-182), all of whom requested the elevated cymbal pads. The ability to open-strum the guitar was a feature that was planned for "Guitar Hero III" but was removed before release, finding that it was too difficult on the guitar tracks. However, they built this feature in from the start of "World Tour" development for the bass guitar tracks.