Originally posted by BillMurphy

@Faded: I do see what you're saying. Honestly. But our FEATURES are opinion-based. It's as simple as that. Our news is news. And they are separated. 

In regards to Mike's column on SWTOR. I can't really say much other than he's a fan of the game and it'd be hard to find someone who wants to cover it that hates it or isn't playing it.  If you go here, and look through all of his many columns, you will find most of them positive. But you will find the more critical. All I can offer here is that Mike and I will try to shed a more balanced light on the game, but as it's still going to be an Op-Ed piece on the game I can't promise you'll ever agree with the way he sees things.

My point again is that our features, damned near everything but interviews, are driven by opinion. Asking us to remove our own thoughts and opinions towards any one topic would defeat the purpose of a site where the content is fueled by those thoughts and opinions. 

You're argument is that we should just report the news with essentially no personal opinion. We do that, when we report news. But when it comes to reviews, previews, editorials, columns, and everything else in between... we're going to include our opinion. Because that's sort of the point of those features. You may not agree with them, you may think us too soft on games you see in a different light than us. I can appreciate that. But you must appreciate that your bias, does not rule our bias.

I think the more pressing matter would be to seperate "Opinion" pieces from "News" pieces more clearly as quite a few times both end up in that ticker-thing on the front page making them seem like the same thing sometmies, or at least they're too close together perhaps? Either way most of the "Opinion" based articles are given heavier weight than normal user Blogs.

Not sure offhand how you'd deal with the last bit though.

I think you're referring to the fact that the News Discussion forum also picks up the "news feed" for our Features.  Perhaps we can get our code monkeys to find a way to make it clearer when something in that forum is a "feature" and not just news. But it's beyond me. I'll just email Skywise and Meddle and see if they can't use their brainmeats to figure it out.

I really don't see anything wrong...

You have to understand that MMORPG.com is a game fan and news site.  Part of their livelihood depends on them keeping a good relationship with game industry pros.  So they can't just write articles spewing venom as so many posters do.

They can be negative sure, but they have to be balanced and civil.  A developer may still talk to a journalist if they said that their game was a great effort, but fell a bit flat on the PvP side of things.  But I don't really think they would talk to a journalist if they said their game was a steaming pile of crap, and they want a refund for even having been subjected to it.

Originally posted by Razeekster

 

I am kind of tired of coming here and looking at articles that put a positive spin on things that are clearly negative. The latest insult to my mind is how all these articles are being written about SW:TOR going F2P and having the gall to say that it's not because the game is an abject failure. Wake up and smell the humus MMORPG.com. 

 

One has to remember this website has no interest in journalism,accuracy, providing information or helping the MMO genre.  All they care about here is making money.  Their interest is in page hits only.  Nothing more.  Which means they write articles with provactive sexy titles, blindly hype games to create interest and keep people coming back, let fanboys run wild over the forums, censor critical posts, and hire writers with limited MMO expereince who play MMOs only in the most casual of definitions. 

The end result is mainstream MMO websites, especially this one, do a lot of damage to consumers and the genre.  As they hype bad games and allow companies to lie, mislead and get away with selling unfinished games.  They help sell bad games and turn a blind eye to a games faults because their only interest is in making money and being anything close to a legitimate newsite will make them less money and possibly damage the relationships they have with developers. When people talk about the decline in MMOs and ask why and how this has occured,  They need to look no further than mmorpg.com which has been a major contributor behind the simplyifying and "McDonaldization" of the genre.

It is a shame that websites like this sellout for the dollar as there really is a need for a legitmate, honest and accurate MMO website.  One that caters to actual players rather than one that is just used as a vehicle for developers to hype and advertise their games.

Originally posted by Razeekster

I am kind of tired of coming here and looking at articles that put a positive spin on things that are clearly negative. The latest insult to my mind is how all these articles are being written about SW:TOR going F2P and having the gall to say that it's not because the game is an abject failure. Wake up and smell the humus MMORPG.com. 

 

.........*snip*

 

As a writer it hurts me to see that a lot of articles on MMORPG.com are written to hype up a game instead of to write about it with 100% honesty. I still have a ton of respect for MMORPG.com, but I'm definitely starting to lose a bit everytime I see such articles.

While I'm not a writer by trade, I know exactly what you mean.

And while I do read the occasional article on this site, it's been a while since I've really read a good one. As such, I stopped treating this site as a news site long ago.

What I've found is that the best articles on this site are either written by a few of the users, or linked from other sites. Only reason I really still use this site is because it still has some of the best coverage of the genre as a whole. It's nice to ocassionally find an interesting game on this site you haven't heard of. Now if only they'd work on keeping their games list up to date, and revised their stance on trolls, this site would be a lot better.

Originally posted by Creslin321

I really don't see anything wrong...

You have to understand that MMORPG.com is a game fan and news site.  Part of their livelihood depends on them keeping a good relationship with game industry pros.  So they can't just write articles spewing venom as so many posters do.

They can be negative sure, but they have to be balanced and civil.  A developer may still talk to a journalist if they said that their game was a great effort, but fell a bit flat on the PvP side of things.  But I don't really think they would talk to a journalist if they said their game was a steaming pile of crap, and they want a refund for even having been subjected to it.

That's actually precisely the problem.

The relation is setup in such a way where they can't really say anything negative about the developers. Such a relationship really hurts all parties involved in the long run. It raises questions about objectivity, and it prevents many of the developers from getting proper perspective.

I mean, as a creative professional, while it does such to get a really bad review, I also know that it's necessary. I'd much rather have an honest, but scathing review; than a dishonest, but nice one. Part of the problem with MMOs though, is they wait until the very end of the process to take any criticism, and by then it's already way too late.

I get why most sites have to play nice, but it doesn't make for better journalism.

Originally posted by BillMurphy

Actually we fired Danny for his conduct in other forums, posting his entire works in other forums while we also paid for this content, and not his review of SWTOR.  Only one writer was tasked with SWTOR's review, and that was Mike.  And I'll gladly stand by his review of that game, because when he wrote the piece it was his true belief.  

I actually quite liked Danny's writing, but there are better ways to go about presenting yourself to the public than what he was doing. I'll leave it at that.

And we are objective. See the TERA review once more, or any other recent review, all of which are held to the same criteria with writers who try their best to present ups and downs of each title. But as gamers, as fans, and as pundits, we are allowed to also be passionate.  We can an will get excited about something we've been shown while a game's in development, and it's kind of our job to relay both the information we're given and our opinions on it.

Our news feed will give you news as it happens. Our features are almost 100% based on opinions, even previews and reviews. If you don't like that side of our content, than I apologize... but it's not changing. We offer our opinions. It's your choice what you do with them. I hope you can understand that.

This makes me feel better, right here. Knowing that it's mostly opinion I can actually understand why most reviews are what they are on this site. Obviously you're not going to give someone the task of reviewing a game to someone who hates the game. I understand you want some positivity. It's just very hard to see some things as positive the way you guys do.

Originally posted by Razeekster

This makes me feel better, right here. Knowing that it's mostly opinion I can actually understand why most reviews are what they are on this site. Obviously you're not going to give someone the task of reviewing a game to someone who hates the game. I understand you want some positivity. It's just very hard to see some things as positive the way you guys do.

Actually, when it comes to AAA games, we usually assign a person long before we even get into the beta. Suzie has TSW months before it came out, Mike had SWTOR long before it came out, and I had TERA long before it came out. I'll also be reviewing GW2, and had that task ages before I got into any beta event. 

As for the rest of our titles, as we're focusing hard-core on working down our ENTIRE Game List (new and old titles and everything in between), we have a fantastic stable of freelancers who work on one game at a time, and then we pick the next one essentially out of a hat, with little knowledge ahead of time in many case. It's often best for a reviewer to get their assignment before they form an opinion. 

AAA games are difficult to do this with, as we often see them in release candidate states long before we get to play a finished product. But that's also why we say... "Okay, Suzie. TSW has a launch date. Tag, you're it." 

Originally posted by BillMurphy

About the article on topic here, I actually wrote that. I don't see much "spin".  I wrote up exactly what I was told in the interview, and paraphrased the rest. And this line, however you read it, seems to echo STE's sentiment about why SWTOR went F2P:

"But Jeff and Matt both sound superbly optimistic that when the dust settles on the announcement and all is said and done... Star Wars: The Old Republic will be better off and so will the players."

Trust me when I say we're not trying to drum up hype, and neither are we in anyone's pockets. I work two full time jobs (this is one of them).  I wish I had some of the box sales from D3 or SWTOR, believe me. But, what we all are... are gamers. We do get excited. We do get hyped. We try to give you our honest opinions when we feel them, and while you may disagree... they're still our honest opinions.  I'll point at my own TERA review as an example. I loved the game, but saw its flaws as well.

Mike really loves SWTOR, and will stand by the score he gave it until he re-reviews it after the F2P launch (which will happen).  Because at that time, it will deserve a re-review more than ever.

I hope you guys, especially those of you who feel down on our content, will stick around and keep reading. I believe our review process is far better these days than it was before I took over as ME, and I believe we've got a lot of plans for the next year to drive the site in even more openly honest directions. 

The best part of running this site's content? Though some of you might never believe me here, is that our owners handle all advertisements and tell me to never worry one bit about any of them when it comes to content. We keep our writing and our revenue stream entirely separate from one another. Remember the original Earthrise score we doled out and the full-page ads that came out that same day? Let's just say that I don't think anyone bought that score. On average, our Metacritic reviews are lower than the industry's as a whole... though admittedly not by much. I'm just saying.

Tomorrow we will post our TSW score. It's likely higher than some of you would give it. And lower than others would mark it too. I can say it's above the Metacritic curve, and not by a little bit. But it's Suzie's own opinion, and she gives damn good reasoning as to why she scores it higher in some areas and lower in others. I hope, when you read it and all future reviews and editorials here at the site, that you'll take into consideration always one thing: we never hide the fact that the words we present to you are opinion, and opinion only. 

Whether you agree with us is up to you. But are we shills? Not even a little bit. 

Not trying to be mean or out of line. However would it not be better that Mike might let somebody else do the re-review for swtor since he has shown such bias for the game. Just saying it might be conflict of interest. Instead of being a review it might come across as another opinion piece.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Originally posted by BillMurphy

About the article on topic here, I actually wrote that. I don't see much "spin".  I wrote up exactly what I was told in the interview, and paraphrased the rest. And this line, however you read it, seems to echo STE's sentiment about why SWTOR went F2P:

"But Jeff and Matt both sound superbly optimistic that when the dust settles on the announcement and all is said and done... Star Wars: The Old Republic will be better off and so will the players."

Trust me when I say we're not trying to drum up hype, and neither are we in anyone's pockets. I work two full time jobs (this is one of them).  I wish I had some of the box sales from D3 or SWTOR, believe me. But, what we all are... are gamers. We do get excited. We do get hyped. We try to give you our honest opinions when we feel them, and while you may disagree... they're still our honest opinions.  I'll point at my own TERA review as an example. I loved the game, but saw its flaws as well.

Mike really loves SWTOR, and will stand by the score he gave it until he re-reviews it after the F2P launch (which will happen).  Because at that time, it will deserve a re-review more than ever.

I hope you guys, especially those of you who feel down on our content, will stick around and keep reading. I believe our review process is far better these days than it was before I took over as ME, and I believe we've got a lot of plans for the next year to drive the site in even more openly honest directions. 

The best part of running this site's content? Though some of you might never believe me here, is that our owners handle all advertisements and tell me to never worry one bit about any of them when it comes to content. We keep our writing and our revenue stream entirely separate from one another. Remember the original Earthrise score we doled out and the full-page ads that came out that same day? Let's just say that I don't think anyone bought that score. On average, our Metacritic reviews are lower than the industry's as a whole... though admittedly not by much. I'm just saying.

Tomorrow we will post our TSW score. It's likely higher than some of you would give it. And lower than others would mark it too. I can say it's above the Metacritic curve, and not by a little bit. But it's Suzie's own opinion, and she gives damn good reasoning as to why she scores it higher in some areas and lower in others. I hope, when you read it and all future reviews and editorials here at the site, that you'll take into consideration always one thing: we never hide the fact that the words we present to you are opinion, and opinion only. 

Whether you agree with us is up to you. But are we shills? Not even a little bit. 

Not trying to be mean or out of line. However would it not be better that Mike might let somebody else do the re-review for swtor since he has shown such bias for the game. Just saying it might be conflict of interest. Instead of being a review it might come across as another opinion piece.

 

Reviewing an entertainment product should be done so with subjective view points. The only place for objectivity in entertainment reviews IMO are the technical details about said product. The reason why I say this is because games are designed to be fun, or entertaining. Fun is entirely and wholely subjective to the individual. How do you objectively quantify this data? You could try to angle it at multiple audiences but then that would be very cumbersome.

In this case SWTOR seems to push majority of Mike's fun buttons and so it will garner a positive review because well it's just fun! There are obviously many people who would disagree, but they just have a different definition of fun. Now if SWTOR had serious crippling technical issues that were widespread then that is a different story and that portion should be rated objectively.

IMO I think it is the users responsibility to find reviewers that align with their perception of fun or what quality entertainment is. I'm not sure if I have ever seen a catch all review of an entertainment product that will please everyone.

Originally posted by BillMurphy

.

My point again is that our features, damned near everything but interviews, are driven by opinion. Asking us to remove our own thoughts and opinions towards any one topic would defeat the purpose of a site where the content is fueled by those thoughts and opinions. 

 

I remember being banned soley because i pointed out the obvious flaws in DCUO after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

I remember being banned soley because i pointed out the obvious flaws in SWTOR after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

Why cant you let the forums be driven by opinion? I understand that you get paid to hype these games but do you really have to stop people from posting their OPINIONS?

Originally posted by travamars

Originally posted by BillMurphy

.

My point again is that our features, damned near everything but interviews, are driven by opinion. Asking us to remove our own thoughts and opinions towards any one topic would defeat the purpose of a site where the content is fueled by those thoughts and opinions. 

I remember being banned soley because I pointed out the obvious flaws in DCUP after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

I remember being banned soley because i pointed out the obvious flaws in DCUO after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

I remember being banned soley because i pointed out the obvious flaws in SWTOR after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

Why cant you let the forums be driven by opinion? I understand that you get paid to hype these games but do you really have to stop people from posting their OPINIONS?

In this site if you say something negative about a popular game it's considered trolling and unnecessary so they delete your post and ban you, however their "opinion" based reviews are ok in their eyes.

It does seem like every game gets fairly positive press. :(

Originally posted by travamars

Originally posted by BillMurphy

.

My point again is that our features, damned near everything but interviews, are driven by opinion. Asking us to remove our own thoughts and opinions towards any one topic would defeat the purpose of a site where the content is fueled by those thoughts and opinions. 

I remember being banned soley because I pointed out the obvious flaws in DCUP after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

I remember being banned soley because i pointed out the obvious flaws in DCUO after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

I remember being banned soley because i pointed out the obvious flaws in SWTOR after reading a sickening glowing review that avoided those issues.

Why cant you let the forums be driven by opinion? I understand that you get paid to hype these games but do you really have to stop people from posting their OPINIONS?

I'd have to assume the tone or attitude you posted in was less then favorable. There is a ton of negative posts on this website. Hell, you see just pure venom being spit at certain games, yet a lot of the posters are not banned. So again, I'd have to assume you must of been either posted your opinion in a less then civil manner. But who knows I could be wrong.

Originally posted by MumboJumbo

Gotta say for scoring games, pocket gamer is exemplary in it's approach. They use the Edge (Future Publishing aka Edge-Online approach of x/10) and write with verve and context but also soley to nail that final score as it should be.

/just my 2 cents

Originally posted by Razeekster

 

I am kind of tired of coming here and looking at articles that put a positive spin on things that are clearly negative. The latest insult to my mind is how all these articles are being written about SW:TOR going F2P and having the gall to say that it's not because the game is an abject failure. Wake up and smell the humus MMORPG.com. 

 

SW:TOR is not going F2P because EA is being kind or made a financial mistake in making SW:TOR P2P instead of F2P. F2P isn't always the "go to" model. If that was true all those P2P MMORPGs out there would be doing badly, which they clearly aren't. I'm tired of people thinking that if P2P games don't have a ridiculous amount of players in them than they are failures. RIFT is a good example of a game that is doing well with the P2P subscription model and they most certainly don't have millions of players.

 

The reason why SW:TOR is going F2P is because players realized that SW:TOR wasn't as good as many sites (such as this site) hyped it up to be. It's because the atrocious amount of money dumped into SW:TOR still didn't fix the fact that not enough love or patience was put into the game. You can hype a game to kingdom come, but it's the players that play the game and it's their opinions and wallets that matter the most and they've clearly spoken. 

 

As a writer it hurts me to see that a lot of articles on MMORPG.com are written to hype up a game instead of to write about it with 100% honesty. I still have a ton of respect for MMORPG.com, but I'm definitely starting to lose a bit everytime I see such articles.

I understand what your saying and I agree with a lot of things about SWTOR being over-hyped.  But don't blame mmorpg.com.  They are a site dedicated to mmorpgs.  They hype EVERY mmorpg - no matter how shitty or how great they are.  You claim you are a writer, so i'm surprised your would attack their writing.  Is this the first fansite you've been too? 

  SWTOR was a triple A title, despite how disappointing it was.  Of course they will continue to provide coverage on the game during its first year of release.  They did it for Warhammer, they did it for Aion, they did it for EQ2, ect.

Your huge, angry bias is making you blind towards a normal, "news from fans, for fans" type of system. Thats just silly.

Originally posted by BillMurphy

Originally posted by niceguy3978

 

I agree that separating out the press release type news that they post and the actual content written by the sites authors would go a long way in helping what some people here complain about.  

In reference to this, the upcoming "beta" redesign of our site (it IS coming) will hopefully help this. As it is now, though the front page makes it pretty clear that features are in the top carousel, and news is in its own section.  Heck, there's a tab for news, a tab for reviews, columns, and yes features.  The forums do have a small part to play, as the "News" forum also brings in our features that are published to the RSS feeds.  Still, reading the news post of a feature makes it pretty clear that it's one of our articles.

However the redesigned front page should make it clearer what's what... if that's possible.  

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

Originally posted by Badaboom

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

Originally posted by BillMurphy

Originally posted by niceguy3978

 

I agree that separating out the press release type news that they post and the actual content written by the sites authors would go a long way in helping what some people here complain about.  

In reference to this, the upcoming "beta" redesign of our site (it IS coming) will hopefully help this. As it is now, though the front page makes it pretty clear that features are in the top carousel, and news is in its own section.  Heck, there's a tab for news, a tab for reviews, columns, and yes features.  The forums do have a small part to play, as the "News" forum also brings in our features that are published to the RSS feeds.  Still, reading the news post of a feature makes it pretty clear that it's one of our articles.

However the redesigned front page should make it clearer what's what... if that's possible.  

Bill, the problem here is that the Official MMORPG.com Articles have a LOT more weight than say forum threads or user Blogs here.

 

MMORPG.com isn't a fan site, and it isn't treated as such. MMORPG.com is treated as an MMO NEWS SITE, and one of the LARGEST aspects of being a NEWS SITE is that all of your Articles, and Article Writers, should be as close to Objective as humanly possible.

That's what being a Reporter, of a "News Site", is all about...being Objective. My English Professor would probably fail you for more than 9/10 of the Articles you, or anyone else, has written here because you're too Subjective & personally involved.

Not to mention the fact that, again Articles posted here have more weight as announcements and "Officiality", puts them under even larger microscopes than the normal forums.

 

The review, and adamant defending of SWTOR's obvious failure to the industry, is only adding fuel to the fire when it's not a forum topic being posted, but an OFFICIAL Article by MMORPG.com staff.

 

Cut them some slack.  Watch the new HBO series, Newsroom and you will have a better understanding.

Pass, true journalism seems to only be in the Newspaper anymore, or with Online Indie News companies. It's like MMORPG.com is FauxNews for MMOs :/. That's how I feel anyways lol!

In general, you don't pee on your own doorstep. A lot of gaming journalists tend to give positive spins on games as they get 'freebies' like advance info/access/favoritism from companies if they scratch their backs. I've worked in the gaming industry (and couldn't wait to get out partially for this incenstuous reason). With this motivation, they are doing their readers a diservice. Another way of going about it, is to become a ruthlessly objective, respected critic whose option is looked to, thereby generating a huge fanbase so that they are too well liked by customers to be snubbed by companies. Unfortunately, many choose the first option, it's easier. I don't want to be unfair to the staff on this site though, I don't want to second guess their motives.   

Another possibility is that it can be hard as a game lover to totally crap on a huge effort of a game even if it's not as good as tauted because you know beneath that cruel corporate (EA) veneer there's a bunch of well-intentioned artists and writers that put their hearts and souls into something...then some suited (EA) type came to them and said 'right we're releasing this in half the time so you'd better make it good by then' *SLAM* Big money is both the enabler and the curse of modern gaming. 

Originally posted by Zippy

Originally posted by Razeekster

 

I am kind of tired of coming here and looking at articles that put a positive spin on things that are clearly negative. The latest insult to my mind is how all these articles are being written about SW:TOR going F2P and having the gall to say that it's not because the game is an abject failure. Wake up and smell the humus MMORPG.com. 

 

One has to remember this website has no interest in journalism,accuracy, providing information or helping the MMO genre.  All they care about here is making money.  Their interest is in page hits only.  Nothing more.  Which means they write articles with provactive sexy titles, blindly hype games to create interest and keep people coming back, let fanboys run wild over the forums, censor critical posts, and hire writers with limited MMO expereince who play MMOs only in the most casual of definitions. 

The end result is mainstream MMO websites, especially this one, do a lot of damage to consumers and the genre.  As they hype bad games and allow companies to lie, mislead and get away with selling unfinished games.  They help sell bad games and turn a blind eye to a games faults because their only interest is in making money and being anything close to a legitimate newsite will make them less money and possibly damage the relationships they have with developers. When people talk about the decline in MMOs and ask why and how this has occured,  They need to look no further than mmorpg.com which has been a major contributor behind the simplyifying and "McDonaldization" of the genre.

It is a shame that websites like this sellout for the dollar as there really is a need for a legitmate, honest and accurate MMO website.  One that caters to actual players rather than one that is just used as a vehicle for developers to hype and advertise their games.