At MMORPG.com, we are always seeking to improve our users' experience while visiting the site. Further, we realize that we sometimes don't know it all. The thoughts and ideas of our users are important to us. With that in mind, we're introducing User Features and Reviews! MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton has penned a handy dandy guide to get you started. Read on!

Below you’ll find an overview and quick guide to MMORPG.com User Features & Reviews:

The User Features & Reviews system will allow registered MMORPG.com members to create their own feature articles and reviews for any game on our game list. You’ll be able to publish reviews, previews, trial and beta impressions (make sure the NDA is up first!), and even guides.

Read more of Mike Bitton's Introducing MMORPG.com User Features & Reviews and then get started!

Expect the publishers that rely heavily on referral linking and reverse referral linking for their marketing schemes to go hog wild with this.

I think its a good idea in general.. regardless of the PR a game company prefers..

user reviews that can be scored by other users are helpful for somebody just looking at a game without any prior knowledge.

You can get a feel for what a majority of players / prior players feel by the reviews judged the best.

It's also worth noting that we do have final approval of user reviews. Stuff that's obvious junk won't make it through. Also, if we approve something and someone goes in and edits after, the new changes don't go live until we approve them too.

We want this to be a quality service.

Originally posted by grunty

Expect the publishers that rely heavily on referral linking and reverse referral linking for their marketing schemes to go hog wild with this.

 That's my fear as well.  I mean, even the first review which is highlighted in the article was made by a brand new acct created on the day the review was written and not logged back in since.  Perhaps there should be some sort of time limit where new accts cannot write reviews or minimum post count or something?

Originally posted by jado818

 

user reviews that can be scored by other users are helpful for somebody just looking at a game without any prior knowledge.

 

 Agreed.  Once again though I think there needs to be some control over who is allowed to score.  I don't think new accts should be able to score a review.  Not sure how long an acct should be active as you want new folks invested in the community, but without limits this will be abused.

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by jado818

 

user reviews that can be scored by other users are helpful for somebody just looking at a game without any prior knowledge.

 

 Agreed.  Once again though I think there needs to be some control over who is allowed to score.  I don't think new accts should be able to score a review.  Not sure how long an acct should be active as you want new folks invested in the community, but without limits this will be abused.

thats a whole other problem... lots of people on other forums and i'm sure on this one as well have multiple accounts.. and I don't think i've ever seen a 100% or even 90% fool proof system of blocking people who use multiple accounts.

I think one way to limit the problem is to only allow people to rate up or report reviews. That way it limits the damage multiple accounts can do.

Instead of having an account rate up their review and down everybody elses.. it would only be able to rate up their review.

It's half the damage prevented.. not perfect but its a start ;p

This is going to be a hugely time-consuming venture. I'm sure you guys know that, but I don't know is you've quite evaluated the potential scale of the effort. You have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of visitors, if only a fraction of them write a review for more than one game then that alone is a mountain of work to sift through. Then the re-reviews and edits, the rampant trolling and flaming this will create on the forums, and the people complaining that you haven't approved their review yet.

I don't envy the people you have working on this :P I think it's a good idea, I just hope corners don't eventually get cut in effort to approve the reviews faster.

Let us worry about the particulars of dealing with any issues that may arise. We just want you to have a good time with the feature. :)

There are far more pros to us in allowing you guys to do this than there are cons. We have ways of tracking multiple accounts and we'll deal with them and any other issues that arise, we're committed to that by putting out this feature. Ultimately, YOU guys decide which content is "the good stuff" (and we'll likely have additional tools to that end in the future).

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

This is going to be a hugely time-consuming venture. I'm sure you guys know that, but I don't know is you've quite evaluated the potential scale of the effort. You have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of visitors, if only a fraction of them write a review for more than one game then that alone is a mountain of work to sift through. Then the re-reviews and edits, the rampant trolling and flaming this will create on the forums, and the people complaining that you haven't approved their review yet.

I don't envy the people you have working on this :P I think it's a good idea, I just hope corners don't eventually get cut in effort to approve the reviews faster.

 

Let me tell you we'd rather have these problems than not -- it would mean the feature became super popular. :)

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

This is going to be a hugely time-consuming venture. I'm sure you guys know that, but I don't know is you've quite evaluated the potential scale of the effort. You have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of visitors, if only a fraction of them write a review for more than one game then that alone is a mountain of work to sift through. Then the re-reviews and edits, the rampant trolling and flaming this will create on the forums, and the people complaining that you haven't approved their review yet.

I don't envy the people you have working on this :P I think it's a good idea, I just hope corners don't eventually get cut in effort to approve the reviews faster.

 

Let me tell you we'd rather have these problems than not -- it would mean the feature became super popular. :)

 

You've got a point :P I wish you guys the best of luck with it.

Interesting.

Now maybe you can implement a feature to auto ban users who pyramid quote fifteen replies deep just to say one word.  :P

Nice, an addition I'd like to eventually see to this would be opinion pieces as well, not just about games, but about the gaming climate.

Originally posted by Malickie

Nice, an addition I'd like to eventually see to this would be opinion pieces as well, not just about games, but about the gaming climate.

 

You're more than welcome to start up your own MMORPG.com blog where you can do this. :) In fact, as you might imagine, we wholeheartedly encourage it!

IF we get really high approval, will we get paid xD

seems like a nice feature.

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by Malickie

Nice, an addition I'd like to eventually see to this would be opinion pieces as well, not just about games, but about the gaming climate.

 

You're more than welcome to start up your own MMORPG.com blog where you can do this. :) In fact, as you might imagine, we wholeheartedly encourage it!

 Thanks for the suggestion I might have to do that, although I'm not sure a lot of people would be happy to see what I have to say though, lol.

Your score description (still) seems off. Anything from 0-4 is hopeless, 5 poor etc. You should seriously consider to make 5 truly average. Suggestions about such a scale have been provided in the editorial by Jon Wood where he asked for feedback about the rating / review policy.

Any chance you might add a practical review of the games here on MMORPG.com as part of this? Such as: P2P,F2P etc...., Pve/solo/pve-pve combo/pvp centric, combat Fps, TPS, console/arcade style or standard, UI WoW standard or like DCUO (weird). In other words how about the mechanics of the game before we go into descriptions and suddenly find it is PvP centric OWPVP (or vice versus).

Just a suggestion.

Originally posted by gfdhuihhuHi,Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, === XXXXXXXXXXXXX==== Here are the mos

popular, most stylish and avant-garde



shoes,handbags,Tshirts, jacket,Tracksuit w..............

 

I wonder if this was the cause of the site disruption easlier this morning.

Originally posted by Malickie

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by Malickie

Nice, an addition I'd like to eventually see to this would be opinion pieces as well, not just about games, but about the gaming climate.

 

You're more than welcome to start up your own MMORPG.com blog where you can do this. :) In fact, as you might imagine, we wholeheartedly encourage it!

 Thanks for the suggestion I might have to do that, although I'm not sure a lot of people would be happy to see what I have to say though, lol.

 

You'll never know until you try, and as long as it is in line with our Rules of Conduct we'd love to hear what you have to say. Our spotlighted blog section could certainly use some updating. ;)