Another "professional" reviewer pierces their heart and idealism its back, on the arrogance of gullible gamers and this very much so undistinguished game--manipulated by the cynical-- "story" system of tor and the corrupt gaming companeis that produce trite unimaginativfe games.

Originally posted by Distopia

What I find humorous is people act as though every single professional reviewer is a paid shill, until they say bad things about a game they hate, then that reviewer is speaking the truth. Can go the other way as well... with fans...

Yeah.  If PC Gamer had given it a bad review then the same people calling them shills would be praising them for "speaking the truth".

Originally posted by Ginaz

Originally posted by Distopia

What I find humorous is people act as though every single professional reviewer is a paid shill, until they say bad things about a game they hate, then that reviewer is speaking the truth. Can go the other way as well... with fans...

Yeah.  If PC Gamer had given it a bad review then the same people calling them shills would be praising them for "speaking the truth".

Maybe, probably... certainly!

As a "hater" I'd probably post the link to that review myself and praise it for "integrity and objectivity."

That just goes to show, trust no one but yourself but read everything with an open mind...

Originally posted by Razeron
58 hours 1-50? How is this possibly worth a monthly fee? I'd be happy to jump on board, but there's no point in $60 up front to be done and out of content before the trial expires.

I had a look at your history of posting its mostly in World of Warcraft so its fair ro assume you subsribe to that game or have done in the past . Seeing as you can go from 1-85 in WoW in a similar amount of time and you obviously kept playing after that the question I have for you is why do you keep playing the monthly fee to a game you can level in just as fast if not faster ?

Originally posted by Ginaz

Originally posted by Meridion

This just backs the (actually) common knowledge that "professional" reviewers just rate anything up there at 75%+, if it comes to megabudget game releases they always rate 80%+ to 85%+, especially some sites like eurogamer.

Why? - Because they don't benefit from talking a game down. At all. They have no interest in smashing a game; For one, relations to publishers/developers DO suffer from disastrous reviews and no medium has any interest to damage PR; Stellar reviews will maybe even get printed on the box. Plus, while haters will just "rolleyes" the vast majority of honeymoon-freemonth players will cheer and confirm their own judgement that they have invested in a quality piece of software. So the site itself gets positive rep.

BTW. Common knowledge should also be that user reviews are characerized by large amounts of outliers. Most players vote games/movies/whatever with 0 for "didn't like it" and 10 for "liked it". In this particular case the reasons why its 5.9 on metacritic are crystal clear to me: SWG. TOR isnt SWG II and people just won't forget.

I would never rely on metacritic or any user-review summary. The most reliable source for judgement for me are reviews, preferably youtube-guys I know and know they have taste and common sense. For me this is TotalBiscuit, but I generally recommend looking for a youtuber you prefer for reliable help on purchase decisions.

M

Really?  Maybe you missed one of my previous posts where I mentioned PC Gamer gave Black Ops a 64%.  In fact here it is  http://www.pcgamer.com/review/call-of-duty-black-ops-review/.

Lets see what other "megabudget" games got low scores:

Assassin's Creed Revelations: 71% http://www.pcgamer.com/review/assassins-creed-revelations-review/

Black Ops: First Strike: 46% http://www.pcgamer.com/review/black-ops-first-strike-review/

Call of Duty: MW3: 79% http://www.pcgamer.com/review/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-review/

Darkspore: 60% http://www.pcgamer.com/review/darkspore-review-2/

Fable 3: 65% http://www.pcgamer.com/review/fable-3-review/

Theres many examples of PC Gamer giving big budget games and developers low scores.  By and large, I still trust PC Gamer more than video game reviewers to give me an honest impression of what a game is like.

what are you talking about? CLEARLY if any game gets a good score that they dont think should they were paid off, you dont know what your talking about.

Originally posted by Ginaz

Originally posted by Distopia

What I find humorous is people act as though every single professional reviewer is a paid shill, until they say bad things about a game they hate, then that reviewer is speaking the truth. Can go the other way as well... with fans...

Yeah.  If PC Gamer had given it a bad review then the same people calling them shills would be praising them for "speaking the truth".

That's just not true. 

For example Fallen Earth is 71% on metacritic. Though I really loved the game. Would I argue that it's top notch cream of the crops? Never. 

Or Wrath of the Lich King. I HATED WotLK for various reasons. But would I go on telling people how overrated it was when everyone and their mom churned out 90+%s? No.

Example: Missing AA in SWTOR: Personal preference. I don't care. At all. It doesn't bother me one bit. Effort towards an objective opinion: It's an essential feature missing in a AAA game. *raised brow*

Example: Extremely standard fare collect-2/10-quests. Personal preference: Sucks big time. Like really bad. In fact, I groan every time I see one of the counters. Mainly because I've been collecting rat tails for almost 12 years now.  Objectively: It's not innovative, but a working and bug-free feature prevalent in most MMORPGs. Therefore, it can't be critizised for having it.

See what I did there? I tried to detach personal preference from objective criteria. Now you can argue about "what an MMORPG or RPG or FPS is supposed to deliver to be considered a breakthrough and justify stellar reviews" all day long. All I say is that many 'professional' reviewers don't even TRY to objectively put seperate parts of a game (engine, quest design, mechanics, etc) into perspective and context. They just pour some praise over it, say something like "well the variety in saber crystals isn't all that broad, but they'll probably patch this" for good measure and call it a review.

There are reviews I read that don't even mention the severe lack of graphical customization options for example (agein, I don't care, but compared to ANY other AAA MMORPG, this is a huge  miss)

M

Wow, looking at the forums, and the comments on metacrtic, are we playing the same game?  I just reached level 30 last night, with around 5 days play time.  I've had some extra time for the holidays, and I have been sinking it into SW:ToR.  So far, this game is exactly what I have been looking for.  Amazing, fun, engaging, STAR WARS... I wish SW:ToR was "the game"  for all you mmo-less tramps running amok on the forums, posting your negitivity.  Your game will come, or not... regardless you all will keep bitching  :P

Originally posted by Meridion

Originally posted by Ginaz

Originally posted by Distopia

What I find humorous is people act as though every single professional reviewer is a paid shill, until they say bad things about a game they hate, then that reviewer is speaking the truth. Can go the other way as well... with fans...

Yeah.  If PC Gamer had given it a bad review then the same people calling them shills would be praising them for "speaking the truth".

That's just not true. 

 

It might not be true for you, but then, you're assuming everyone is as reasonable.

Originally posted by Meridion

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by Meridion

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by BlackUhuru

(...)

(...)

if you skip every single dialogue and cutscene then yeah, you can probably hit 50 in less than 80 hours. HOWEVER, you would be missing the ENTIRE POINT OF THE GAME.

(...)

so basically what you just said is this:

"take away the main gameplay mechanic that the devs put their entire focus on, which is very well done and keeps me playing, and you are left with a very standard MMO"

do you not see a problem with this?

example:

take the open world out of skyrim. you are left with a very generic adventure game.

take the raiding out of wow. you are left with a very generic MMO

take the story out of final fantasy. you are left with a very generic RPG (a lot of proof of that recently)

take the multiplayer out of Call of Duty. you are left with a very generic FPS.

Finally:

take the dialogue, story, and cutscenes out of SWTOR. you are left with a pretty generic MMO

THIS HAPPENS WITH EVERY GAME. each game has a specific focus and design choice that drives the entire experience. it is what takes a game from being just a standard game to being something truely special. in TORs case, it is the story and cutscenes.

you cant have coke with the flavor, you cant have a jet without the engines, you cant have a toyota without brakes that fail and cause people to die.... OK, im pretty sure my point has been made.

That's not true.

Skyrim, as an example, had a lot of features that made it unique (dynamic dragon fights, concept of shouts/words of power, conquerable territory/cities), on top of Elder Scrolls that are unique anyways (1st person, skillset leveling, thievery, etc.pp.)

WoW, as another example, featured at its release a large, seamless game world (unique at the time), easy accesibility/soloability (unique at the time), responsive, fast-paced combat (unique at the time, even DaoC was more sluggish back then).

And yes, you're right, cutscenes and combat dynamics stand out, but are these two enough to justify a stellar rating? Are they enough to justify a stellar rating taking into account the subpar graphical performance (and I'm not talking about style, I'm talking about shadow draw distance, object count, lacking AA, lacking HD texture options) the relatively low number of open space world-zones, the to-date mediocre crafting depth? 

Don't get me wrong, it's very far from a bad game. I'd consider a 85% rating completely reasonable. It's fun, it works. But it's just not quite the dam-breaker other games were at their time.

M

dear god.... it is true and you know it.

there is nothing new about skyrim's "dynamic" dragon fights.... dynamic events have been in games for a loooooong time. same goes for conquerable territories, this has been done time and time again in dozens of games, online and off. Why is skyrim so popular? same reason as WOW... it takes a bunch of stuff that has been done in other games dozens of times, puts them in one game, and does them REALLY well.

nothing WOW did at release in terms of gameplay was unique. dozens of MMOs before it had seamless game worlds (Ultima, EQ, Asherons Call, DAOC....) and i would not BY ANY MEANS have called vanilla wows combat "fast paced". it was SLOW. slow and methodical. vanilla wow had some of the slowest combat seen in an MMO since EQ, which is appropriate considering it was designed around the same principles. what it did that made it so popular was polish and accessibility. no MMO before it was so well designed and easy to get into.

Originally posted by Drachonis

Wow, looking at the forums, and the comments on metacrtic, are we playing the same game?  I just reached level 30 last night, with around 5 days play time.  I've had some extra time for the holidays, and I have been sinking it into SW:ToR.  So far, this game is exactly what I have been looking for.  Amazing, fun, engaging, STAR WARS... I wish SW:ToR was "the game"  for all you mmo-less tramps running amok on the forums, posting your negitivity.  Your game will come, or not... regardless you all will keep bitching  :P

Your quote is not updated, SS or your lvl30 didn't happen... ;)

---

Originally posted by Verterdegete
It's honestly hard for me to accept that they reated this higher than BF3 and only 1% lower than Skyrim. But again, they rated Dragon Age 2 and Skyrim the same.

---

PC Gamer's number score is always overly positive.

Their write ups are generally pretty truthful. I've not read this one, because I'm not interested.

But this isn't something new for them. They're generally diabetically optimistic. They have been for a long time now, and I think it stems from a time when PC gaming wasn't always as consistently a positive experience.

---

Originally posted by Ashlinde

---

And yes, you're right, cutscenes and combat dynamics stand out, but are these two enough to justify a stellar rating? Are they enough to justify a stellar rating taking into account the subpar graphical performance (and I'm not talking about style, I'm talking about shadow draw distance, object count, lacking AA, lacking HD texture options) the relatively low number of open space world-zones, the to-date mediocre crafting depth? 
Don't get me wrong, it's very far from a bad game. I'd consider a 85% rating completely reasonable. It's fun, it works. But it's just not quite the dam-breaker other games were at their time.
M

---

dear god.... it is true and you know it.
there is nothing new about skyrim's "dynamic" dragon fights.... dynamic events have been in games for a loooooong time. same goes for conquerable territories, this has been done time and time again in dozens of games, online and off. Why is skyrim so popular? same reason as WOW... it takes a bunch of stuff that has been done in other games dozens of times, puts them in one game, and does them REALLY well.
nothing WOW did at release in terms of gameplay was unique. dozens of MMOs before it had seamless game worlds (Ultima, EQ, Asherons Call, DAOC....) and i would not BY ANY MEANS have called vanilla wows combat "fast paced". it was SLOW. slow and methodical. vanilla wow had some of the slowest combat seen in an MMO since EQ, which is appropriate considering it was designed around the same principles. what it did that made it so popular was polish and accessibility. no MMO before it was so well designed and easy to get into.
 

---

Hyperbole. Before WoW it was overly acceptable that when you hit an action bar key that you had to wait to see the result, or it fired off without affecting the on screen animation in the slightest. EQ2 was really note of that where the mo-cap action had nothing to do with the keys being pressed in combat.

WoW snapped it up and it's became the standard.

Trying to say otherwise is an outlandish and foolish lie.

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by Meridion

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by Meridion

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by BlackUhuru

(...)

(...)

if you skip every single dialogue and cutscene then yeah, you can probably hit 50 in less than 80 hours. HOWEVER, you would be missing the ENTIRE POINT OF THE GAME.

(...)

so basically what you just said is this:

"take away the main gameplay mechanic that the devs put their entire focus on, which is very well done and keeps me playing, and you are left with a very standard MMO"

do you not see a problem with this?

example:

take the open world out of skyrim. you are left with a very generic adventure game.

take the raiding out of wow. you are left with a very generic MMO

take the story out of final fantasy. you are left with a very generic RPG (a lot of proof of that recently)

take the multiplayer out of Call of Duty. you are left with a very generic FPS.

Finally:

take the dialogue, story, and cutscenes out of SWTOR. you are left with a pretty generic MMO

THIS HAPPENS WITH EVERY GAME. each game has a specific focus and design choice that drives the entire experience. it is what takes a game from being just a standard game to being something truely special. in TORs case, it is the story and cutscenes.

you cant have coke with the flavor, you cant have a jet without the engines, you cant have a toyota without brakes that fail and cause people to die.... OK, im pretty sure my point has been made.

That's not true.

Skyrim, as an example, had a lot of features that made it unique (dynamic dragon fights, concept of shouts/words of power, conquerable territory/cities), on top of Elder Scrolls that are unique anyways (1st person, skillset leveling, thievery, etc.pp.)

WoW, as another example, featured at its release a large, seamless game world (unique at the time), easy accesibility/soloability (unique at the time), responsive, fast-paced combat (unique at the time, even DaoC was more sluggish back then).

And yes, you're right, cutscenes and combat dynamics stand out, but are these two enough to justify a stellar rating? Are they enough to justify a stellar rating taking into account the subpar graphical performance (and I'm not talking about style, I'm talking about shadow draw distance, object count, lacking AA, lacking HD texture options) the relatively low number of open space world-zones, the to-date mediocre crafting depth? 

Don't get me wrong, it's very far from a bad game. I'd consider a 85% rating completely reasonable. It's fun, it works. But it's just not quite the dam-breaker other games were at their time.

M

dear god.... it is true and you know it.

there is nothing new about skyrim's "dynamic" dragon fights.... dynamic events have been in games for a loooooong time. same goes for conquerable territories, this has been done time and time again in dozens of games, online and off. Why is skyrim so popular? same reason as WOW... it takes a bunch of stuff that has been done in other games dozens of times, puts them in one game, and does them REALLY well.

nothing WOW did at release in terms of gameplay was unique. dozens of MMOs before it had seamless game worlds (Ultima, EQ, Asherons Call, DAOC....) and i would not BY ANY MEANS have called vanilla wows combat "fast paced". it was SLOW. slow and methodical. vanilla wow had some of the slowest combat seen in an MMO since EQ, which is appropriate considering it was designed around the same principles. what it did that made it so popular was polish and accessibility. no MMO before it was so well designed and easy to get into.

 

At this point, it doesn't really make sense to discuss this further as we obviously have different memory of those games. I came directly from DaoC in Feb 2005 when WoW released and was blown of my feet at how fast my warrior-gameplay was. 

I personally have never experienced anything remotely as dynamic and of the scale of the dragon fights in Skyrim, that maybe due to games I've missed (I never play asian MMOs or RPGs with the exception of a short trip to Aion) but even then, it's something that stands out a lot compared to other titles and especially compared to former Bethesda games like Fallout 3 or Oblivion whereas SWTOR features dragon age cutscenes with WoW gameplay, in space.

I'm not even taking the whole "what an MMORPG once had and nowadays don't has anymore" into account (like housing, thievery, socializing alternate advancements, etc.) because I realize that these days MMORPGs work by different standards.

M

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by Drachonis

Wow, looking at the forums, and the comments on metacrtic, are we playing the same game?  I just reached level 30 last night, with around 5 days play time.  I've had some extra time for the holidays, and I have been sinking it into SW:ToR.  So far, this game is exactly what I have been looking for.  Amazing, fun, engaging, STAR WARS... I wish SW:ToR was "the game"  for all you mmo-less tramps running amok on the forums, posting your negitivity.  Your game will come, or not... regardless you all will keep bitching  :P

it wont, because the ones that are complaining about SWTOR are the jaded section of gamers that really arent gamers anymore, and will never be happy with any product.

i have come to the conclusion that there are a LOT of "gamers" out there that have actually grown out of games at this point, and thus can never be satisfied. they WANT to keep playing games but dont realize that they just arent fun for them anymore. Thus, with their years of experience playing games, they think they can descend on forums and proclaim every game they have played horrible because they had no fun with it.

my suggestion, get a book, start skiing, get some exercise, start cooking, or find some other hobby that makes you happy, because gaming clearly isnt it if you continue to troll forums and tell everyone how every game is horrible.

Uh huh.

Or, perhaps I just didn't like SWTOR. *gasp*

Originally posted by PukeBucket

 

---

Originally posted by Ashlinde

---

And yes, you're right, cutscenes and combat dynamics stand out, but are these two enough to justify a stellar rating? Are they enough to justify a stellar rating taking into account the subpar graphical performance (and I'm not talking about style, I'm talking about shadow draw distance, object count, lacking AA, lacking HD texture options) the relatively low number of open space world-zones, the to-date mediocre crafting depth? 
Don't get me wrong, it's very far from a bad game. I'd consider a 85% rating completely reasonable. It's fun, it works. But it's just not quite the dam-breaker other games were at their time.
M

---

dear god.... it is true and you know it.
there is nothing new about skyrim's "dynamic" dragon fights.... dynamic events have been in games for a loooooong time. same goes for conquerable territories, this has been done time and time again in dozens of games, online and off. Why is skyrim so popular? same reason as WOW... it takes a bunch of stuff that has been done in other games dozens of times, puts them in one game, and does them REALLY well.
nothing WOW did at release in terms of gameplay was unique. dozens of MMOs before it had seamless game worlds (Ultima, EQ, Asherons Call, DAOC....) and i would not BY ANY MEANS have called vanilla wows combat "fast paced". it was SLOW. slow and methodical. vanilla wow had some of the slowest combat seen in an MMO since EQ, which is appropriate considering it was designed around the same principles. what it did that made it so popular was polish and accessibility. no MMO before it was so well designed and easy to get into.
 

---

Hyperbole. Before WoW it was overly acceptable that when you hit an action bar key that you had to wait to see the result, or it fired off without affecting the on screen animation in the slightest. EQ2 was really note of that where the mo-cap action had nothing to do with the keys being pressed in combat.

WoW snapped it up and it's became the standard.

Trying to say otherwise is an outlandish and foolish lie.

im pretty sure every time i hit a key in DAOC to do a skill, something happened as a result, typically right away. played the game for years, i think i would know.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by Drachonis

Wow, looking at the forums, and the comments on metacrtic, are we playing the same game?  I just reached level 30 last night, with around 5 days play time.  I've had some extra time for the holidays, and I have been sinking it into SW:ToR.  So far, this game is exactly what I have been looking for.  Amazing, fun, engaging, STAR WARS... I wish SW:ToR was "the game"  for all you mmo-less tramps running amok on the forums, posting your negitivity.  Your game will come, or not... regardless you all will keep bitching  :P

it wont, because the ones that are complaining about SWTOR are the jaded section of gamers that really arent gamers anymore, and will never be happy with any product.

i have come to the conclusion that there are a LOT of "gamers" out there that have actually grown out of games at this point, and thus can never be satisfied. they WANT to keep playing games but dont realize that they just arent fun for them anymore. Thus, with their years of experience playing games, they think they can descend on forums and proclaim every game they have played horrible because they had no fun with it.

my suggestion, get a book, start skiing, get some exercise, start cooking, or find some other hobby that makes you happy, because gaming clearly isnt it if you continue to troll forums and tell everyone how every game is horrible.

Hehe.

Amen to that.

There's a difference between critizising and not-enjoying. I'd dare to critizise SWTOR quite a bit, but I still enjoy playing it. I've played Cataclysm and enjoyed it while heavily critizising it.

M

Jaded with the MMO genre, yes.

To say I'm jaded with all games, no longer a gamer, or will never be satisfied with any product, is false.

In fact, I'm about to spend the rest of my day playing a backlog of games I've been meaning to fire up and try out.

Originally posted by Ashlinde

im pretty sure every time i hit a key in DAOC to do a skill, something happened as a result, typically right away. played the game for years, i think i would know.

Not exactly.  DAOC would attack immediately, if you weren't currently attacking.  If you were in mid-swing though, it would queue the attack to go off next.  It even had backup attack, so that you could press two keys, and they'd both queue - such as a reactionary, and if the reactionary failed, the regular attack would go off, instead.  That wouldn't work if attacks went off as soon as you made the keypress.

That said, I actually liked the system.  We're only talking a queue of like half a second, and I think it worked pretty well.  I especially liked how well blocking, parrying, and reacting worked in that game.  Because of the way animations worked, they were able to give each attack, or block, a visceral feel of impact, instead of blurring it all together like most MMOs these days do.

Originally posted by Vhaln

Originally posted by Ashlinde

im pretty sure every time i hit a key in DAOC to do a skill, something happened as a result, typically right away. played the game for years, i think i would know.

 

Not exactly.  DAOC would attack immediately, if you weren't currently attacking.  If you were in mid-swing though, it would queue the attack to go off next.  It even had backup attack, so that you could press two keys, and they'd both queue - such as a reactionary, and if the reactionary failed, the regular attack would go off, instead.  That wouldn't work if attacks went off as soon as you made the keypress.

 

That said, I actually liked the system.  We're only talking a queue of like half a second, and I think it worked pretty well.  I especially liked how well blocking, parrying, and reacting worked in that game.  Because of the way animations worked, they were able to give each attack, or block, a visceral feel of impact, instead of blurring it all together like most MMOs these days do.

Yeah loved that in both DAOC and SWG.

Originally posted by Meridion

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by Ashlinde

Originally posted by Drachonis

Wow, looking at the forums, and the comments on metacrtic, are we playing the same game?  I just reached level 30 last night, with around 5 days play time.  I've had some extra time for the holidays, and I have been sinking it into SW:ToR.  So far, this game is exactly what I have been looking for.  Amazing, fun, engaging, STAR WARS... I wish SW:ToR was "the game"  for all you mmo-less tramps running amok on the forums, posting your negitivity.  Your game will come, or not... regardless you all will keep bitching  :P

it wont, because the ones that are complaining about SWTOR are the jaded section of gamers that really arent gamers anymore, and will never be happy with any product.

i have come to the conclusion that there are a LOT of "gamers" out there that have actually grown out of games at this point, and thus can never be satisfied. they WANT to keep playing games but dont realize that they just arent fun for them anymore. Thus, with their years of experience playing games, they think they can descend on forums and proclaim every game they have played horrible because they had no fun with it.

my suggestion, get a book, start skiing, get some exercise, start cooking, or find some other hobby that makes you happy, because gaming clearly isnt it if you continue to troll forums and tell everyone how every game is horrible.

Hehe.

Amen to that.

There's a difference between critizising and not-enjoying. I'd dare to critizise SWTOR quite a bit, but I still enjoy playing it. I've played Cataclysm and enjoyed it while heavily critizising it.

M

i agree, there is a difference... i have said so regularly. however, there is a difference between criticism, and what you have done.

what you have done, is call a game bad. that is not crticism, that is a finalized opinion. by saying all there is to SWTOR minus the cutscenes and story is a generic MMO without much merit, you are finalizing your opinion.

criticism would be "i dont like this because of these reasons." a finalized opinion is "this is bad, i dont like it." fundimental difference in the two statements.