Originally posted by simplyawful

Originally posted by Trueforral1

I'd say the problem of user-reviews versus professional ones are that amateur users have no real framework through which they can judge the scoring. It's instead just abstract numbers that loosely relates to how much they like they game. For that reason the professional reviews shouldn't really be compared to user ones.

As a general rule:

A 10 from a user means "I liked this game, so I want to increase its average metacritic score."

A 0 from a user means "This game dissapointed me, so I want to decrease its average metacritic score."

Then in the middle of these Tens and Zeros there will be a few people that try to emulate professional reviews and give fair scores, but they will be swept away by the sheer number of people using the 10s and 0s for a "Like" or "Dislike" button.

 

Though interestingly enough you can still statistically test whether or not the general impression was favorable or not due tot the binary nature of the scores by testing:

H0: Sa >= 5

Ha: Sa < 5

or the other way around

Generally, for this particular game, it was unfavorable, though it is probably due to the DRM and other policies..

That's of course if one assumes that the average user considers a score of 5 to be average. Since the "Average" remains subjective, varying from reviewer to reviewer even among professionals, I think one should  probably take the ratings with a gain of salt and instead read what different reviewers are actually saying.

The main revenue for game reviewing websites are the incomes from games advertisement, with EA and Blizzard being the biggest and most precocious customers. Same goes for shelf space in video-game stores and malls by the way, small publishers have pay more for worst placing than the big fishes for top shelves, and are not treated with the same regard. One simply cannot afford to trash a game that was made (or is being published ) by a hand that feeds you... The publishers could write the reviews of their games by themselves actually, there wouldn’t be much difference between thise reviews and those called "professional" (if you can make money on something, it is your profession, therefore those are called "professional". This has nothing to do with objectivity or high level of competence).

Users are not paid by anyone to write about the game, just the opposite, they usual paid for the product they are reviewing. I find metacritic to be a great source of true info about games, you just have to now how to read it right – simply skip all those 0 and 10 one sentence reviews, it is just the regular fanboys/haters war not worth a damn second of attentiion. Find these walls of text that were written by people who revived more than one game. Thise IMO are the most objective reviews you can find out there actually.

Originally posted by Trueforral1

 

That's of course if one assumes that the average user considers a score of 5 to be average. Since the "Average" remains subjective, varying from reviewer to reviewer even among professionals, I think one should  probably take the ratings with a gain of salt and instead read what different reviewers are actually saying.

Nope. The beauty is that you only need to know if there are more 0s than 10s, or vice versa.

There is nothing subjective about there being more 10s than 0s, since somebody who gave the game a 10 liked it and somebody who gave it a 0 didn't.

The people actually only going to one extreme, or the other are actually making the aggregate more accurate than they'd like it to be.

I can only say I entirely disagree that critics are suited to rate a game of any length (which is any mmo, and other quality games).

A professional critic has a set amount of hours to spend on a game, and that amount is barely enough to scratch the surface - The result is the review is superficial and often based on the first 20 hours of gameplay, add to that all marketing bombardment on them and alot are mimicking other reviewers. These guys have a tendency to use their ears too much (marketing on all levels), and their OWN eyes, sense and analysing skills too little.

Well, for alot of players professional reviews can be the thruth because they are also only ever scrathing the surface, but for more dedicated gamers those reviews are .. inaccurate and lacking important (for them) details.

A gamer ^can^ be a much better reviewer for the exact opposite reasons. A gamer has time to test the game for replayability and all kind of corners in a game, but the downside is it will always be done from that gamer's perspective regarding taste and previous experiences. Loads are offcourse just people with broken expectations, blind faith and so on, but still ..

Find the right players review and you find much more truth than most professional reviews.

Rating by number is somewhat meaningless - Read the text, thats where you get some information. professional or user review.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Burntvet

The real difference is that players pay for their copy and professional reviewers don't.

It is a lot easier to be forgiving when you didn't just blow your own $60 for a "meh" game...

 Here's the problem with that line of thinking...it's bias.

You are essentially saying that a game should be rated based on the impact that it has on the reviewer's bank account.  So basically, if you're rich and $60 is nothing to you, then you will be much more forgiving.  On the other hand, if you're poor and a $60 game is a twice a year affair, then you will be extremely harsh.

This is not fair to the game being reviewed.  The game should be reviewed on its merits and in comparison to its peers.  It should NOT be reviewed based on how much you feel it has impacted your pocket book.

Yeah, and I say the other side of the coin is just fine...

Value is a legitimate consideration. So it is part of the equation, both how a game is itself and in relation to similar titles.

"Professional" reviewers, by and large, do not pay for their copies. On top of that, they work for or are paid by sites that advertise these same games (like this site).

So, there is even a bigger bias in that direction, to put their interest over that of the consumer.

This is why I do not trust "professional reviewers" worth a damn anymore, at least normal players/forum posters are "like me" and it is not in their financial interest to promote a game, any game, for reasons other than it was enjoyable to them.

A paid opinion, is more biased on its face, than any other.

5 pages into this thread and I'm not sure if people will ever get it.

Matters not the numbers or reviews unless you've tried it....

Originally posted by Kinchyle

5 pages into this thread and I'm not sure if people will ever get it.

 

Matters not the numbers or reviews unless you've tried it....

Why pay full price for a bad title?

That is rewarding a developer for doing a bad job, and a primary reason the entire MMO genre (of which D3 is not part) is in the shitter right now.

That fact that people will pay for any crap title only encourges the devs/pubs to continue to put out the same, uninspired, half finshed, crap game that everyone has played 5 times before.

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by Kinchyle

5 pages into this thread and I'm not sure if people will ever get it.

 

Matters not the numbers or reviews unless you've tried it....

Why pay full price for a bad title?

That is rewarding a developer for doing a bad job, and a primary reason the entire MMO genre (of which D3 is not part) is in the shitter right now.

That fact that people will pay for any crap title only encourges the devs/pubs to continue to put out the same, uninspired, half finshed, crap game that everyone has played 5 times before.

 

Because it's NOT A BAD TITLE!!!

I don't get some of you people. It's obviously a great title to sell how it has. I played the beta and KNOW it's one of the great title of the year.

I would like to point out that while there are a lot of articulate posts that are negative the entire metacritic score is heavily skewed by the first day when THOUSANDS of people coulden't play in the first twelve hours after the midnight release and rated the game Zero.

And honestly the randomly generated maps and the fact that you get different events and minibosses each time seems to never get mentioned by the negative reviews.........

If a game doesnt score higher than 7.5 metacritic user score, I simply won't buy or play the game.  I trust the opinion of fellow gamers over professional opinions.  That being said, diablo 3 is not on my list of games to play due to being a 4.1.  You can argue against it however you want, however, many players are dissatisfied with their experiences playing this game.  You can dismiss the vocal minority for whatever reason, but it exists to criticize.  Sometimes the majority is wrong, such as support for the nazi party the led to WWII.  Now this is an exteme example, but dismissing the minority is never healthy just becasue they don't share your beliefs.

I  love these types of threads. First I feel vindicated that I'm not alone. Then, I get the entertainment from fanbois saying that gamers don't have perspective, and can't tell if a game is good or not. They come up with all sorts of excuses. From blaming gamers lack of intelligence to "the people who like are playing" to whatever else they can conjure up in their fanboi heads.

Its the same thing over and over. Why don't we have these types discussions with games like Skyrim, or ME or Dragon Age? Where it seems the overwhelming majority are in agreement that those are some amazing games. Answer: because those are actually good games.

Originally posted by Golelorn

I  love these types of threads. First I feel vindicated that I'm not alone. Then, I get the entertainment from fanbois saying that gamers don't have perspective, and can't tell if a game is good or not. They come up with all sorts of excuses. From blaming gamers lack of intelligence to "the people who like are playing" to whatever else they can conjure up in their fanboi heads.

 

Its the same thing over and over. Why don't we have these types discussions with games like Skyrim, or ME or Dragon Age? Where it seems the overwhelming majority are in agreement that those are some amazing games. Answer: because those are actually good games.

 I may be many things, but I am NOT a Diablo III fanboi ;).  Just look at some of my other posts...

I just try to take a more rational view of things instead of painting everything with one brush.  It is possible to have both positive and negative impressions of something you know...

Originally posted by simplyawful

Go to metacritic and notice how the professional reviews differ wildly from the user reviews.

A lot of the complaints mirror the complaints found on the forums and I'm not talking about the DRM necessarily:

 

Replayability (This is the salient point in most reviews/criticism I see)

 

In D2, there were a lot of viable builds in comparison. In this game you have one, two.. for the witchdoctor, sadly, only one and it's weak in comparison.

There is also no meaningful progression beyond gear, since level is capped at 60 and reached readily.

 

Lack of variety in maps and meaningful loot

 

No more randomly generated maps makes it somewhat more dull. Most loot drops are meaningless. Gone are the days when legendary items didn't suck, or uniques for that matter, at least before runes.

Most loot that drops is completely worthless, because of the random stats. You can run inferno multiple times and get nothing but vendor trash. It's very disheartening.

 

Lack of new, interesting mechanics to gameplay

 

D2 was a leap from D1 and it happened within 5 years. The amount of customization, gameplay mechanics and item mechanics added for the time was HUGE.

After playing, D2 and everything else under the sun to hell for <= a decade, it sort of wears on you and you expect Blizzard, the masters of polish, to bring out some innovative idea out that some poor indie company busted their ass to come up with.

Simply not the case. When people say that it's D2 re-skinned, they are half right; the core mechanics are essentially the same, albeit with a few more buttons to press during battle.

 

 

So, my question for dicussion is: How did this game get such good reviews from the major reviewers? Is this game another SWToR, or are the dipleased just the vocal minority?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Took me maybe 8 hours to beat D2 and even less for D1.  Both great games but D3 has trumped it, it does everything better.  More folks are enjoying the game then not... so the nay sayers are a puny miniscule compared to the majority of us that like the game.

There's a single reason why there is such a difference in user reviews and critic reviews and that's because critics are paid to keep their biased opinions out of the equation. It's not because critics are blind or paid to write good reviews for certain companies, but because it's their job. So don't blame the critics for not agreeing with you when they're simply doing their job to report their judgement of the game based on actual evidence and real criticisms rather than simply share their biased opinions, as users tend to do.

This isn't even getting into how wrong some of your statements are, especially the 'customization issues' considering Blizzard just released information that the most played spec is currently played by .7% of the population.

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Burntvet

The real difference is that players pay for their copy and professional reviewers don't.

It is a lot easier to be forgiving when you didn't just blow your own $60 for a "meh" game...

 Here's the problem with that line of thinking...it's bias.

You are essentially saying that a game should be rated based on the impact that it has on the reviewer's bank account.  So basically, if you're rich and $60 is nothing to you, then you will be much more forgiving.  On the other hand, if you're poor and a $60 game is a twice a year affair, then you will be extremely harsh.

This is not fair to the game being reviewed.  The game should be reviewed on its merits and in comparison to its peers.  It should NOT be reviewed based on how much you feel it has impacted your pocket book.

 

Yeah, and I say the other side of the coin is just fine...

Value is a legitimate consideration. So it is part of the equation, both how a game is itself and in relation to similar titles.

"Professional" reviewers, by and large, do not pay for their copies. On top of that, they work for or are paid by sites that advertise these same games (like this site).

So, there is even a bigger bias in that direction, to put their interest over that of the consumer.

This is why I do not trust "professional reviewers" worth a damn anymore, at least normal players/forum posters are "like me" and it is not in their financial interest to promote a game, any game, for reasons other than it was enjoyable to them.

A paid opinion, is more biased on its face, than any other.

 

You're over simplifying the situation from what it really is to make it appear like your point of view is correct.

Yes gaming sites make money of advertisements for games that they review. However, to suggest that the reviewers on those sites are impacted by this is purely speculative and absolutely without merit due to lack of proof. I mean it's not like these guys just simply write a sentence stating the game is great and give it a score. They break down the game and report issues/bugs as well as innovative features. So it's pretty difficult to even try to believe that their reviews are being tampered with by companies paying for good reviews when the reviews themselves are considerably in depth and with rational criticisms/praise. It's one of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories I've ever heard to be honest. 

Even if you do consider that circumstance as being true though I'd take the word of any professional reviewer over any random player who so obviously can't remove their bias when writing a review that it makes them look childish. 

Originally posted by Betaguy

Took me maybe 8 hours to beat D2 and even less for D1.  Both great games but D3 has trumped it, it does everything better.  More folks are enjoying the game then not... so the nay sayers are a puny miniscule compared to the majority of us that like the game.

Why is it the majority always like the game?  SWTOR  is an 8.5 on metacritic from the pros and 5.7 from the users.  SWTOR sold upwards of 2million units and and reporting losses of almosthalf it's player base   6 months after launch.  That feels more like a 5.7 than a 8.5, imo.

Would you as a company pay a source to put up ads that gave  your product a 4/10 review?  One would require iron balls and maybe a willingness to skip a meal or two to bash a major release and be completely honest.

Just my opinion, D3 isn't a terrible game or just a cash grab but it isn't an 8.9 at all.  A 7.9 would be very generous considering the issues the game launched with and the features removed from the game before launch. A 7 would be honest for someone that has a love for the action RPG genre and D3 is most likely a 6 or lower for the vast majority of the people that boughtt it and therefore the 4.1 user review.

Users aren't paid to hype games and therfore much more honest. They aren't always right  either as fun is subjective.

EDIT: and as reference for gams that aren't bad and over hyped.

Tribes: Ascend 87  to 80 

TERA  78 to 75

Postal 3, 24 to 30

Legend of Grimrock  82 to 84

When numbers are way off someone is hiding something.

Originally posted by Clocksimus

Originally posted by Betaguy

Took me maybe 8 hours to beat D2 and even less for D1.  Both great games but D3 has trumped it, it does everything better.  More folks are enjoying the game then not... so the nay sayers are a puny miniscule compared to the majority of us that like the game.

Why is it the majority always like the game?  SWTOR  is an 8.5 on metacritic from the pros and 5.7 from the users.  SWTOR sold upwards of 2million units and and reporting losses of almosthalf it's player base   6 months after launch.  That feels more like a 5.7 than a 8.5, imo.

Would you as a company pay a source to put up ads that gave  your product a 4/10 review?  One would require iron balls and maybe a willingness to skip a meal or two to bash a major release and be completely honest.

Just my opinion, D3 isn't a terrible game or just a cash grab but it isn't an 8.9 at all.  A 7.9 would be very generous considering the issues the game launched with and the features removed from the game before launch. A 7 would be honest for someone that has a love for the action RPG genre and D3 is most likely a 6 or lower for the vast majority of the people that bot it and therefore the 4.1 user review.

Users aren't paid to hype games and therfore much more honest. They aren't always right  either as fun is subjective.

You're right, users aren't paid to hype games, but there's a key component you're overlooking here that effects all users who write reviews about games. They have absolutely nothing to lose. This isn't their job, and their 'internet reputation' when criticizing theyr'e so obsessively biased opinion is hardly worth losing sleep over when they can trash talk a game to oblivion with their biased opinions without fear of losing their job based on writing a poor review. 

They're also the ones who buy the games as well, and as of late the community as a whole is overly critical, especially when it comes to big name companies and games. 

You're also over thinking the whole advertising scheme of gaming companies. I've seen dozens of poorly rated games advertised on gaming sites that have given them poor reviews. If the marketing of a game were only reliant on advertising on sites that praise their game then we'd rarely see any ads on gaming sites at all. This site is a great example. Tera Online received a very average review from this site who has a very critical community when it comes to MMOs, but did that stop the advertising of the game from this site? Of course not, when thousands of people visit it daily it's well worth the advertising regardless of what score they may have given the game. A game's popularity isn't nearly as reliant on critic reviews as it is advertising (obviously not counting independent games), to think otherwise is a bit foolish. 

Users base their opinions on expectations created before playing the game.

Professional reviewers base their reviews on comparisons with other games in the genre.

Sometimes, there are professionals who get paid to write a good review.  Sometimes, professionals add too much personal touch and give a game a worse review than it should have because of their personal expectations.  Generally, though, the two sentences above are true.

TERA  ads have been running here a while before the review was finished. I am still certain that EME will go to the source the game them a higher score  first  given that both soruces are about equal on the exposure they would give them. It makes them look better and it's that simple.

Originally posted by Clocksimus

TERA  ads have been running here a while before the review was finished. I am still certain that EME will go to the source the game them a higher score  first  given that both soruces are about equal on the exposure they would give them. It makes them look better and it's that simple.

Are you implying they paid the owners of this site to produce their review? If so do you have any proof of this ridiculous consipiracy theory?