WTF is this review ?

Is that writer an "official" MMORPG.com jurnalist ?

I've been reading MMORPG.com since its beginnings and allways took everything i rad in here with extreme caution but damn this is now going too far...

May I quote ?

"Speaking of levelling up, in WO, depending on your class, some of your stats may go down as you gain levels. I have no idea what purpose my fighter getting stupid is supposed to serve, but I don’t like it."

... Wow... Dood has a stat' lowering in a game and doesn't even try to understand why but still state that it is plain stupid ?! Impressives jurnalisms skills !

WTF MMORPG.com ?

It would seem as if some people are upset at the messenger.

A bad game is a bad game. Kinda silly blaming the reviewer.

In the end it comes down to different strokes for different folks.

Originally posted by thark

As a previous poster noted , MANY of WIzardrys great features in not even mentioned in this text, multiclassing beiing one of the bigger ones. Others is the bandits and the system much  like the one in Ultima Online, and the Bounty System..She mentioned some of this but didnt really explain it ..ganking is part of almost any game today , yet the PvP system in Wizardry is something not seen since well...Ultima Online, Lineage 2 had something similar, but only partly.

agree - i find the review lacking because it doesnt talk about noteable features in the game

Originally posted by thark

It seems to me by reading this that the reviewer Lisa Jonte only did dabble with Wizardry Online in the beginning, nothing in the text indicates that she actually played more than the tutorial and a few swings in the dungeon after the tutorial, and did a review of that..Infact it is more of a proof that she only did this since so much is left out.

This in itself is really bad because the tutorial and characther creation  in this game is REALLY bad, It's bad because it shows Wizardrys shortcommings more than anywhere else in the game, all from the poor dialogues to the slow scrolling conversation text and mediocre cut scenes..Even the tutorial dungeon is bad and only gives you a confusing idea what Wizardry is all about, sure there are some combat in it, but the critters in this dungeon is so weak that it really never picks up in pace to give you a real clue about combat either.

Some other negatives is the asian influences from say older Final Fantasy games, like the race Porkul, It's not even funny..If you do deceide to make a game based on a old IP namely Sir-Tech's Wizardry, why not indicate this more and skip the odd manga/anime style races for just a second. Porkuls are just horrible. And this together with the crappy totorial and consolish asian RPG style dialogues does more bad than good to this game, they SHOULD have changed this when they westernised it.

The better parts :)

As a previous poster noted , MANY of WIzardrys great features in not even mentioned in this text, multiclassing beiing one of the bigger ones. Others is the bandits and the system much  like the one in Ultima Online, and the Bounty System..She mentioned some of this but didnt really explain it ..ganking is part of almost any game today , yet the PvP system in Wizardry is something not seen since well...Ultima Online, Lineage 2 had something similar, but only partly.

I even had problems to recommending this game to friends , since I knew what would happen once they started to play the tutorial, they would quit before the real game even started..I told one friend , that usually not is picky, but he played a few minutes and then stated he would never play this game..Yet I had told him to NOT to judge the game based on the beginning and the tutorial, and yet he did..I even gave up on this game myself when I played it for the first time, but I got curious for some reason after reading some other players posts about it., and I didnt regret it, and even became a royal member (subscriber)

The game that  picks up, slowly ...Is good even close to great, It's a rather good mix between Dark Souls and Dungeons and Dragons Online, If you like a good dungeon crawler game with a good group to team up with, well than Wizardry Online is that game, rather well designed dungeons with traps and small puzzles, the puzzles is not hard as far as I have played in the game atleast. The combat is not as good as in Dark Souls, but well close, It will still give you a rather good idea how the game plays out.

Disregard the ugly tutorial and really try this game..You won't regret it :)

Ill give the game a 7/10 and would probably get higher if the beginning wasn't so bad.

 

I agree. It seems like the reviewer never made it past the first level of Caligrase, if she even made it out of the tutorial at all.

While it's clear she has little familiarity with the game and zero familiarity with the IP itself, her review accentuates the glaring problem with the new user experience in Wizardry Online - in short, it sucks.

The first 15 minutes of a game have to grab the user. Many of us that played beyond the first hour of the game have found much more engaging gameplay within. Most people aren't going to give Wizardry Online, or any game for that matter, that much time. I don't know how the Japanese play through that first half hour, especially since their version has cutscenes and narrative that can't be bypassed (ESC/Skip was added during western beta).

I enjoy Wizardry Online a lot. I think it's a great game. That said,

• The review is horrible in that it doesn't do the game justice.
• The review is spot on in that her experience more than likely reflects the experience most will have when they try the game.

I fault the game's new user experience for the former and commend the reviewer for the latter.

^ To each their own. An hour is kinda hard to really judge a game that's meant to last months and months if not years, but you gave it a more honest try than the crappy half-assed attempt than the official mmorpg.com reviewer did. Kudos.

OH, also the game isn't really true 1 death = perma game over deleted destroyed rated X forever death if that's something holding anyone back.

If anyone is asking "why the f*ck would anyone want to play something with such a frustrating mechanic gosh only retards and idiots and probably terrorists/satanists what losers", the risk-reward concept is very similar to what you'd find in a Roguelike rpg and delivers a huge adrenaline rush and fun for some.

It's worse if you're left handed.

Had weapons break unexpectedly in combat, where you switch to unarmed which was only doing 1 point of damage, often death unless the opponent was already nearly dead.  Didn't have warning that it would break before the combats it did, and it's apparent damage was acceptable, so you can randomly lose points very quickly.  Let's face it, a noob that can't afford new gear, having it break on the 3rd opponent is insane. As a side note, it's rather random, I've had others break after around 10 or 12 combats, and one that never broke for some reason.

As to the lousy color pallette and everpresent fog, I hate you.

I knew it wasn't going to be like a real Wizardry game (those made by Sir-Tech), but I really wanted to like it anyhow. I tried for weeks. (Yes, I was in the beta.)  It fails on many basic points, some of which this article covered.

:(

Man you guys are harsh. I thought the game was actually pretty good. If you tried to play it solo like a WoW clone, and gave up on it after your first quest where u didn't get an epic item, then I can see the hate. 

For some people, who are sick of the current joke MMORPGs, it was a nice change of pace.

Not saying I'd pay 15/mo for it, but it's a nice back up game. Reminds me of a 3d Hardcore D2.

Originally posted by Vindicar

WTF is this review ?

Is that writer an "official" MMORPG.com jurnalist ?

I've been reading MMORPG.com since its beginnings and allways took everything i rad in here with extreme caution but damn this is now going too far...

May I quote ?

"Speaking of levelling up, in WO, depending on your class, some of your stats may go down as you gain levels. I have no idea what purpose my fighter getting stupid is supposed to serve, but I don’t like it."

... Wow... Dood has a stat' lowering in a game and doesn't even try to understand why but still state that it is plain stupid ?! Impressives jurnalisms skills !

WTF MMORPG.com ?

I wouldn't even comment here because she really only did a 2 hours play and call ita  review,(though they put D3 in high regard....)

problem nowadays, people don't even know the basics of the wizardry rules and most don't even care, till wizardry 6(I think 5 its like this i'm sure) you can enver get more then 10 points on your base stats, so if your base is 8 it will be at max of 18(you can still get bonus to it since it out of the this total), also perma death can happen, but lvling your soul lvl, who pretty much like save all you do in game(aka story quests and permit for zones) it also give s you a bonus to xp for lower lvl chars, also changing classes is a must like in all wizardry games though it don't have the classes who mix 2 basic ones(lords, samurais, ninja, bishops) you can and will change to get a more powerfull char, also I notice no one mentioned(well I don't even get atht far to even try to see it in the game now) the old spell system you learn by being a priest or mage, you know the 7 spell circles with the limit of 9 casts on each circle.

the game can be far from perfect, pretty much i'm guessing all the fail use of skills, and sometimes the attacks won't conect for lag(since its a soe server hoping for it work without internet problems is always asking too much)

The solution is to wait until there are a lot of other reviews out there, and then compare what she wrote to what others have written.

I remember when FFXIV came out, and the very first horrible reviews started to seep out.  People bashed the reviewers, over and over until the shear number of horrific reviews was just too much for the fanbois to fight....and you know what?  Those reviewers were right, the game tanked and even the developers agreed with the reviewers.

Could the same thing happen here but on a much smaller scale because no one cares about the wizardry franchise like they care about the final fantasy franchise.

To me, the game just looks like something from 10 years ago.  Every game I have ever played, and that is a lot of games, it took me about 10 minutes to decide whether or not I liked it.  It wasn't a case of the game being hard to understand or complicated, it was whether or not it struck a chord.

I played EQ in 1999 and immediately realized it was a great game, and lept on playing it.  I played Horizons for about 5 minutes....heh, I want that 5 minutes back.

A crappy game is a crappy game.  Sometimes an inn is just an inn.

Originally posted by Karteli

Finally an honest review that doesn't try to decorate a mediocre game with false praise just for advertising endorsements ..  and people are upset over this?

 

I'd rather hear an honest opinion.  I wish other games had honest reviews.

 

 I also like honest game reviews and opinions. Who doesn't..?

But based on reading this review , I'ts rather obvious that this was based upon a very short attempt to play this game..The problem is not that she is wrong in what she tells us, but she really only reviewed the starting experience and maybe a dungeon after that.. BUt she's right the tutorial and the following starter dungeon is horrible.

But as everyone knows a poor start of a game makes or breaks it, unfortunatly this is so true in regards to Wizardry Online, It has one of the worst tutorials and starts of a game I have seen in a very long time,

With that said, If you are going to do a review and not actually play the game, then atleast make sure you do some research about the game so you do not fall in the obvious trap that she did with this review, you see, It only talks of things from the tutorial or from the starter dungeon(also part of the tutorial)

She missed alot of it's real features, features that gives this game an edge and makes it good.

The dualclassing system, a lighter dual class system that let's you take a few skills from your prvious class..

The bandit and karma system ...Do things like steal or murder and you will end up with bad karma in form of red glow..While beiing a bandit you cant spend time in town without beiing chased by town guards or other players , to get rid of the red status you have to do time in jail and or the slums.

The bounty system, much releated to the above bandit and murder system

The permadeath system is mentioned, but what she doesnt say is that the permadeath is by design less in the beginning(not at all in the start)...The risk goes up the higher level you are, and it will get harder and harder to avoid as the cost to sacrifice things is greater and the actuall revival rate drops more and more, and even more if you are captured by the "grim reaper"(this isnt mentioned either) most likely because he doesnt show up until much later. But..If you are smart or as also mentioned buy things from the ingame store that lessens the effect.

 It reminds me alot of what happened to a review of Darkfall after release, since that game didnt even have a start tutorial It was also obvious that the reviewer actually never even played the game for more than a couple of hours..That reviewer had to apologuise to Aventureine, even thou the manager Tassos did it with a poor looser style rather than the professional he could have been..

Originally posted by koboldfodder

The solution is to wait until there are a lot of other reviews out there, and then compare what she wrote to what others have written.

gamespy gave a mediocre review

but gamespy at least covered many the games features (unlike the mmorpg.com review)

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/wizardry-online/1227380p1.html

herein lies much of the fun of Wizardry. Angry at that punk who keeps ganking you and your friends? Put a bounty on his head and send an army of high-level players running after him.

Permadeath in these cases becomes a case of revenge; with so many players out to kill the intended target, there's a good chance that he or she will fail one of the resurrection attempts and fade away to ash forever. Considering the potential for non-stop ganking Wizardry Online's template brings with it, that's a remarkable way to keep it balanced.

Originally posted by Dorrian

After reading this It seems like 

1. You didnt give the game a fair shot from the start.

2. You didnt play any class long enough to get a more accurate idea of how they play.

The game has a learning curve and its not forgiving. Your not being spoon fed they way they do now in almost every other mmo.

This game is a great change of pace from the same ol WoW clones.

 

I played the beta also and left after a short time never to return. How long do you have to roll around in shit before you know you don't like it? This game just under-performs on so many levels. If it was 1985 this game would have felt like the next best thing, BUT it is not and this game failed.

Its 2013, and this is the type of game that is till being released, and i o dont see any advancement in play, animation, theme, world, ideas in general, all hail the developers that have an original thought, all praise the producers that incourage that idea, give us world to get lost in, ( literaly) and a character to build as our own,.

   oh well

Originally posted by Ghern

It would seem as if some people are upset at the messenger.

A bad game is a bad game. Kinda silly blaming the reviewer.

In the end it comes down to different strokes for different folks.

Different strokes for different folks, yes.   You can have a different opinion on the game, yes.  But, writing a review for a game with hundreds of hours of gameplay after only playing about 30min of content is what is silly.   The messenger has no idea about the game in which she is reviewing.  Because yes the tutorial was retarded, so are 90% of MMO's tutorials.  But the game really opens up for the type of players it targets.   No sense in defending the game to others because it is more of a niche audience.   However it is rather sad that a reviewer  can rate a game after only playing a small fraction of one percent of the game.  And rather unproffesional.   I come here for good thorough reviews from professional writers who are avid gamers, and I was sorely let down this time.   Luckily I tend not to listen to any reviews that arn't done by Bill Murphy.