Originally posted by rr2real

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Azrile

I think it's more about insider access then it is about paid advertisments.

Look at the big 'fanboy' on this site.   He hung out with the devs, was bought dinner and drinks and generally has a personal relationship with the devs because of his status here.  I think every situation where a 'reporter' is given inside access, of course they are going to bias their public opinions because of that access and also because they want to keep that access.  There is nothing different in the gaming industry then there is with political reporting.  Do you think Bob Novac would be able to call Dick Cheney whenever he wanted if he ever actually criticized the administration?

 

Oops, I forgot to actually address what was said here:

The whole "insider access" thing. I think you're referring to one user in particular with this post, but I've heard this applied to journalists as well. The fact of the matter is that yes, we do know many of the devs in the industry. We have eaten and shared drinks with them, etc. That doesn't make us incapable of being objective and doing our jobs. Am I friends with some of the developers that I've met? Yes. Would that stop me from ripping into them professionally? No, and they understand that as much as I do.

Pleasure is one thing and business is another. Some company buying me a drink or flying me to a press event doesn't impress me. It's part of their operating costs. I don't feel flattered or like I've been given anything that's worth my professional integrity. 

I would rather be blacklisted by a company for telling the truth than lie to stay in someone's good graces. Besides, if I were to get blacklisted (which has never happened to me), I, as a reporter, and all of my journalistic colleagues would be in a very unique position to write about that fact, and the reason behind it. Nothing drives traffic like a scandal folks :) Stuff like that makes our professional day. :)

 

when you reviewed Conan you only did 1-20 and gave it a 7.9

what would you give the game as a whole now?

i'd say no higher than a 4.5

I dont think you will get an answer to that question because THAT would be bad business for them... to reveal their true opinion about a game a few month after the newbie area review...

AOC does a good job of wowing a player through those first 20 or so levels.  All of the bugs and flaws don't stand out as much when you have so much content and detail within those first 20 levels.  so the scores it got do make sense, if they are by a person who only did about 15 levels worth of gameplay.

However reviewers are supposed to be experts in testing out games and giving their opinion.  The fact that so many reviewers bypassed the glitchy interface, and many more didn't even pay past level 20 is kind of saddening to me.

But then agian, most games have the same level of consistancy throughout the game while AOC did not.

call me crazy, but I like Conan. Sure alot of the gameplay is Crap, and the end game content is not there. Sounds like most other mmo's Ive played.

The graphics are awsome though!

Bring on Aion.

You have to realize the people that write game reviews and work for the major game fansites like ten Ton hammer stratics, Warrcry and so on are almost always not game players.  At best they are casual players with little knowledge of the games they write about other than the talking points the games marketing departments give them.  They simply do not play the games or level up.  Thier job is simply to hype the games they write about it and get you to click on their links for mroe page views.  These reviews you see about AoC are from people that played to lvl 10-20 and no more.  AoC is a fine game 1-20.  But afetr 20 it starts showing tis flaws in game design and its awful simplistic combat system.  Higehr levels is an area even in a game as easy as AoC that most fo these reviewers will never get to as they simply do not play the games they write about except under the most extreme definition of casual player.

I voted yes but I want to elaborate a little .My sentiments have been echoed in some other posts

Firstly I don't blame MMORPG.COM for the inflated initial review , the game was released almost perfect for the first 1-20 levels and the high score was accurate .I appreciate  the post where Jon  explained the reasoning behind the review and how the dynamics work behind the whole reviewing process at MMORPG.COM.As we all know almost every game website gave AOC high reviews ...and so did we . Lets take a step back and think of the whole AOC phenomena and the hype .For years people waited for this game ,websites existed where people spent hundreds of hours discussing the game  and the new revolutionary features. People were saying how this the first true WOW killer and the Funcom marketing machine really did a good job.Almost everyone really believed this game was going to be amazing ...we all got pulled into this .Funcom then disingenuously made sure that the first 20 levels were perfect ..so anyone playing it or reviewing thought ..." amazing game ..awesome "

I remember the first real shock I got that not everything was as polished outside the starting area was the voice cuts being non-existent . Now we all know  the game started showing serious issues and imbalances the more you advanced ..to the point for many where it was almost unplayable .

AOC set a precedent ,no game company  ,IMO,invested as much into marketing as Funcom.It reminded me of the great Enron scandal ...a seriously dysfunctional system that no one really new about until later.

I don't blame the game companies for high reviews as we all believed that initially ...or I can hope for is that the next time there is another "AOC " ..reviews are done as objectively as the can be..and when the faults are apparent then the game websites highlight that so newbies to the game can be made aware

This disaster of AOC lies with Funcom end of the day ..they must be judged ...not gaming websites

Originally posted by Stradden

Anyway, sorry for the rant, this subject just really irks me. The bottom line is that it isn't even in my or the site's best interest to take any kind of bribe for a good review and I don't like hearing people talking about how we (or my colleagues at other gaming sites) do.

I don't think anybody is insinuating that it happens on mmorpg.com. That's not to say that it doesn't happen though. After the Kane and Lynch scandal people became aware that this kind of practice did go on, certainly made me more cynical in regards to gaming sites.

Edit: Without sounding like I'm contradicting myself I believe the man above me hit the nail on the head. Though, surely if reviewing a game (certainly a mmorpg) you can not base a review on the first ~10 hours of the game? I think the gaming sites are guilty to an extent as well. There probably weren't any conspiracies or anything but reviewing tortage is hardly a definitive representation of the state of the game. Oh well, i think everybody has learnt a lesson from AoC.

I voted: "no, they did reasonable".

How could they possibly have known that the game would turn bad after the introduction area? It's not like they were given enough time to play to experience the boring part of the game.

Originally posted by TalRasha

I voted: "no, they did reasonable".

 

How could they possibly have known that the game would turn bad after the introduction area? It's not like they were given enough time to play to experience the boring part of the game.

Which is the whole point of the poll? The review system needs to be revamped.

Originally posted by TalRasha

I voted: "no, they did reasonable".

 

How could they possibly have known that the game would turn bad after the introduction area? It's not like they were given enough time to play to experience the boring part of the game.

I agree in the respect that they can only review but so much of the game before they have to go to print, and reviews of hot games sell units and they don't want to lag behind the competition. I still voted yes tho because the complaints about the game were almost immediate regarding network issues, community and bugs and even a few weeks after release some were still giving it good reviews. Btw, if people think receiving a large check from a gamemaker doesn't buy good reviews or at least better ones I'd say think again. Maybe not at a big popular website like mmorpg.com, but some of those mid level ones that really need the cash and wanna please their advertiser's to keep it flowing.Consider the fact the laws and policies of this country (the U.S.) are manipulated to benefit the richest 1% over the interests of the 99% using lobbyists. Essentially legalized bribery, its how things like Nutrasweet, which is the product name of a deadly poison called aspertame, got passed by the FDA and resulted in the largest increase in central nervous system malidies in the history of medical research in just the 6 months after its release in 1983 because it breaks down into, among other things, methanol which causes various types of brain diseases and can essentially turn it to mush.

As a business owner its been my experience that "conspiracy "and collusion is how things work, its called "networking" and "cutting deals". That's why many times its who you know, not what you know that counts. So it seems more than just possible some of these review were a result of , yes ignorance, but also greed. Believe you me, a lot of these big wigs in these corporations see the consumers as cattle, a resource from which to extract money, and had no qualms in paying a bit more to generate more positive reviews if so inclined because they knew they would probably never be held truly accountable for doing so. With AoC burned at the stake and then drawn and quartered its put fear in the hearts of some of these companies, and by association some of these gamer sites no doubt, but only the future will show for sure whether they have truly taken heed.

100% yes, the current gutless, unobjective state of the major reviewing sites is appalling and is closer to advertising than journalism.

Originally posted by bcrankshaw

I voted yes but I want to elaborate a little .My sentiments have been echoed in some other posts

Firstly I don't blame MMORPG.COM for the inflated initial review , the game was released almost perfect for the first 1-20 levels and the high score was accurate .I appreciate  the post where Jon  explained the reasoning behind the review and how the dynamics work behind the whole reviewing process at MMORPG.COM.As we all know almost every game website gave AOC high reviews ...and so did we . Lets take a step back and think of the whole AOC phenomena and the hype .For years people waited for this game ,websites existed where people spent hundreds of hours discussing the game  and the new revolutionary features. People were saying how this the first true WOW killer and the Funcom marketing machine really did a good job.Almost everyone really believed this game was going to be amazing ...we all got pulled into this .Funcom then disingenuously made sure that the first 20 levels were perfect ..so anyone playing it or reviewing thought ..." amazing game ..awesome "

I remember the first real shock I got that not everything was as polished outside the starting area was the voice cuts being non-existent . Now we all know  the game started showing serious issues and imbalances the more you advanced ..to the point for many where it was almost unplayable .

AOC set a precedent ,no game company  ,IMO,invested as much into marketing as Funcom.It reminded me of the great Enron scandal ...a seriously dysfunctional system that no one really new about until later.

I don't blame the game companies for high reviews as we all believed that initially ...or I can hope for is that the next time there is another "AOC " ..reviews are done as objectively as the can be..and when the faults are apparent then the game websites highlight that so newbies to the game can be made aware

This disaster of AOC lies with Funcom end of the day ..they must be judged ...not gaming websites

Well then these reviews are a worthless waste of time done by amateurish monkies if it is so easy for a company like Funcom to just throw a party and make 1/4 of the game look good.

Yet if someone calls them what they are, worthless and lacking in any real inisght or information, people bust out the "they are professionals are you a professional?" card.  Well guess what the professionals do a worse job than most of us on these boars apparently.  Heck even the crazies seem to be right more often.

You can't have it both ways.  Either they are well meaning fools or they are corrupt.

Because almost no one thinks they get things right.  Even Tal Rasha comment above doesn't say they did a good job.  Merely that they were unequipped to do the job right.

Well guess what?  Incompetence or inability is not an excuse.  You can't do the job right t hen write that in your article and make that company look bad for hiding things.

Excuse after excuse that is all there is.  And that is all they are is excuses because there are obvious and easy solutions possible.

sigh......okie, I give a quick review. After years of hype and fan boy drooling over screen shotsof  Age of Conan I am here to tell you it's not worth playing..........

The game is slow, boring and unimaginative. The graphics are decent at higher levels, but when turned up that high the game slows to an unplayable crawl. Though my system far exceeds the requirements of the game, I can only play at the "Low" settings, which means textures that look like Quake 2 and boring effects. For a game that consumes 24GB of hard disk space you'd really expect more on the visual side. Even when set at "Low" I frequently have to stop moving to let things "catch up".

Even worse, I can never play for more than an hour before the game crashes. This is such a common issue that they even address it in a recent survey. Though it is common, it hasn't been fixed.

The fighting system, which is supposed to be revolutionary, feels just like a hundred other button mashers found mostly on consoles. It is more tedious than fun, and adds nothing to the game. On top of that it just doesn't work very well.

The quests are all cookie cutter - go kill this guy, go fetch this, go tell this person something for me, etc. You have done all this before in better MMOs. Yawn.

Small annoying problems abound in AoC. Hiding doesn't work very well - you never know when they AI will see you. You can only sprint for a few seconds at a time because your stamina drains at an alarming rate. Loads times are still horrible, although they have improved over the development of the game. The world that has been created isn't very visually appealing, though it isn't for a lack of content. The NPC's are all the same type of character - all weathered old soldiers who are angry at something but need you to run some lame errand for them because they are too busy .

This game gets boring fast. If this were a real review I'd tear into it further, but it's not worth the time. Just don't waste yours!

Reading so called "professional" reviews is mostly a waste of time.

People will try and claim "theres no conspiracy",but they are just putting forth a bad argument and then defeating it.

Its not about some organized conspiracy.its about self interest.

Games get bad reviews, they sell less, they spend less on advertising , both parties lose.

No conspiracy needed.No direct open exchange of bribes needed.Its just self interest.

No need to even consider the effect of  the mindset of fans writing reviews.Because even that boils down to self interest.

You want to get an accurate picture of a game,put the time into reading what  its players say about it.And for the love of every myth that man embraces,wait til the product is out for a while before leaping.

The relationship between print advertising and reviews is known and as old as the hills. I personally experienced it when I released a game in 1992 and bought advertising. Back then it was more a matter of will your game get reviewed at all, than about the score. It was print media or no media back at the time.

Is the above an indictment of the "game reviewing industry?" No, I don't think any jounalists lied about what they saw in Age of Conan. However at the time any new game is released, the whole story may not be available to be told.

The problem as I see it is that it's unfeasible for any individual reviewer to spend enough time in an MMORPG to really know it. Too many aspects of an MMORPG don't become apparent until you are part of a community playing. I suspect most game reviews are written after a relatively short solo examination of a game. In the case of AoC, I think most writers wrote their reviews based on the Tortage experience. That experience was awesome. I remember being floored myself.

Back in 1992 the reporters who reviewed my game played maybe 20 hours each--one of them a bit more because he genuinely liked the game. In AoC I played 4 to 6 hours daily for weeks. I didn't start getting unhappy in AoC until about level 50 when content got thin. I didn't angry until I hit the end game and began to realize the extent of the problems. That was a full 60 days into the game--almost the entire lead time for a print publication between putting an issue to bed and when it's available on the stands.

Reporters for print publications reviewing AoC could have only seen whatever pre-beta dog and pony show Funcom gave them. Is this  an indictment of the "game reviewing industry?" No but it's another example why print media is less and less relevant--especially for MMORPGs.

I have SEVERAL thoughts regarding this particular issue.

I'd like to start off by posting my original review here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/186176

Now, I wrote that within a month of purchasing and playing Age of Conan, and it is what I felt to be a hard-hitting review. I touched on numerous points that I felt were specific to those playing at the time, as well as general concerns to the population of the game. I would not consider myself a biased person at all, either.

The problem with reviewing MMO's is that, as the reviewer, you have to generally make an educated guess at the future of the game, while still highlighting the pros and cons of the present state of the game. At the time that was written, I felt the game was lacking in many areas, HOWEVER, Funcom is a company with a large customer base, experience in the MMO field, and some deep pockets. I felt that, given those variables, all the problems I mentioned in my initial review would be quickly remedied over the next few months. Hence, why I warned people against buying the game until I felt an appropriate amount of time had passed.

What a reviewer can not do is account for the general incompetence/unwillingness of the game's company. I would never have guessed Funcom to hire volunteer fanboy-GM's on their boards, such as Lufkin. I didn't think Funcom would allow rampant exploiting and duping to go unpunished for such a long period of time. I expected patches would be tested before hitting the live server, and tested thoroughly. All of my personal mistakes in assessing this game were based on basic observations and calculations that led me to believe the game would dramatically improve over time.

Sometimes, you're right, and you're praised as a king. Other times, you're wrong, and you're flamed like a troll. As the reviewer, as a GOOD reviewer, it's your job to put personal feelings aside, to look at the facts, to highlight relevant information that the consumers would like to know about, and to do the best you can to give a balanced view of the game.

In my opinion, you can't do that easily unless you can dedicate LOADS of time to the game. I disagree with the remark about the whole "Just give me a level 50 and let me see the game" remark. By doing so, all you'd have done is seen the worst part of the game (especially at the time of release; Field of the Dead was a total nightmare). Jon's review got a lot of criticism, but there was no way to know that 1-25 were nearly flawless at the time. It's just like how, when I hit 80 and prepared to raid and siege and everything else that is AoC end-game, there was no way for me to know Yahkmar's Cave was 100% exploitable, or that Sieges improperly ejected people from one team to balance out the number of competitors in the zone. We couldn't have guessed that cities weren't providing bonuses, or that raid gear was wholly pitiful, or that Kylikki's Krypt has an epic zoning problem. However, I wouldn't have been able to see this if I hadn't gotten there on my own, with my guild.

On the other hand, I can't help but agree in many senses regarding the industry as a whole.

I'll add more to this post a little later. I want to make sure my thoughts are organized for part 2 of this post.

I believe game reviewers should only be ex-game developers. They know the ins and outs of the games and the industry, and therefore will most likely not compare the recent game review to a World of Warcraft wet dream.

It would be like a group of judges instead of a LaN PaRtAy.

The reason AoC got such good reviews, was because Funcom knew the content being reviewed was almost flawless.

'Tortage' will become the new gaming term for 'scamming' and 'duping'.

GM: Greetings! How may I be of assistance today?'

Player:  Hi, some noob just tortaged me :(

GM:  Omg, really?!  Don't worry, this lowlife will be contacted and expunged.  We do not want this kind of trash in OUR game!

Player:  Great, glad to see you care about your customers :D

GM:  You guys are our family!  Tortaging will NOT  be tolerated - who do you think we are?  Failcom?!?  Have a great day!1!one..

     I never use a reviewer to decide whether to buy a game or not....They are often given freebies by companies and often either play for a very short time, get a short demo from a company rep, or get some otehr representation that makes the game look better than it is......If I want info on a game I'll look it up online and go with actual users......Yeah the public can be brutal at times but overall I find they are much more in depth and will be more honest about the state of a game.......

Originally posted by Cymdai

I have SEVERAL thoughts regarding this particular issue.

I'd like to start off by posting my original review here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/186176

Now, I wrote that within a month of purchasing and playing Age of Conan, and it is what I felt to be a hard-hitting review. I touched on numerous points that I felt were specific to those playing at the time, as well as general concerns to the population of the game. I would not consider myself a biased person at all, either.

The problem with reviewing MMO's is that, as the reviewer, you have to generally make an educated guess at the future of the game, while still highlighting the pros and cons of the present state of the game. At the time that was written, I felt the game was lacking in many areas, HOWEVER, Funcom is a company with a large customer base, experience in the MMO field, and some deep pockets. I felt that, given those variables, all the problems I mentioned in my initial review would be quickly remedied over the next few months. Hence, why I warned people against buying the game until I felt an appropriate amount of time had passed.

What a reviewer can not do is account for the general incompetence/unwillingness of the game's company. I would never have guessed Funcom to hire volunteer fanboy-GM's on their boards, such as Lufkin. I didn't think Funcom would allow rampant exploiting and duping to go unpunished for such a long period of time. I expected patches would be tested before hitting the live server, and tested thoroughly. All of my personal mistakes in assessing this game were based on basic observations and calculations that led me to believe the game would dramatically improve over time.

Sometimes, you're right, and you're praised as a king. Other times, you're wrong, and you're flamed like a troll. As the reviewer, as a GOOD reviewer, it's your job to put personal feelings aside, to look at the facts, to highlight relevant information that the consumers would like to know about, and to do the best you can to give a balanced view of the game.

In my opinion, you can't do that easily unless you can dedicate LOADS of time to the game. I disagree with the remark about the whole "Just give me a level 50 and let me see the game" remark. By doing so, all you'd have done is seen the worst part of the game (especially at the time of release; Field of the Dead was a total nightmare). Jon's review got a lot of criticism, but there was no way to know that 1-25 were nearly flawless at the time. It's just like how, when I hit 80 and prepared to raid and siege and everything else that is AoC end-game, there was no way for me to know Yahkmar's Cave was 100% exploitable, or that Sieges improperly ejected people from one team to balance out the number of competitors in the zone. We couldn't have guessed that cities weren't providing bonuses, or that raid gear was wholly pitiful, or that Kylikki's Krypt has an epic zoning problem. However, I wouldn't have been able to see this if I hadn't gotten there on my own, with my guild.

On the other hand, I can't help but agree in many senses regarding the industry as a whole.

I'll add more to this post a little later. I want to make sure my thoughts are organized for part 2 of this post.

That might be true if they only gave you a level 50.

But if you had created your account on the first day with 1 level 1, 1 level 20, 1 level 40, 1 level 60, and 1 level 80.  And then played each for 2 days.

Then you would have had a much better idea of what the game was like in a much much shorter time.  No one is claiming you can have an intimate knowledge of a game in 5 minutes or without a decent play through.  But at the very least the content issues at level 60 could have been fleshed out in a days worth of playing.

The only major issue there is there may be no one around at level 80 when you are there.  And in that case for AoC you still could not have done the sieges.

But so what?  Funcom could have created a fake guild of pre-mades to show off their seiging.  But they didn't to that.  Nor wouldthey because thier seiging was broken.

As journalists you should assume the worst.  And then prove that its the best.  Not assume its ok and see what happens.  Until these guys prove that what they have is good you should act like it is probably crap but you don't have enough information to say so.

Seiging was and still has many barriers for the normal player.  And that is fine.  Funcom is under no obligation to change that and in fact it would be a bad idea.  But you as a reviewer have a responsibility to NOT take them at their word that it actually works and if you want to give a verdict on say sieging then you need to have done it. 

You do not need to have worked through all the crap and barries they put in to give a verdict on the seiging itself.  You would need to do so tell us what its like to run a guild that wants to siege.

BUT you do not need to do this to tell us how buggy and laggy the first seiges were.  That can be ascertained in less than one day's worth of play time.

Yes it is true that certain things, mainly social and community based things, will always take time.  But there are a host of other things that can be ascertained and AND WERE NOT that can be done very quickly if the developers actually wished to do so.

You and Enigma wrote very good and comprehensive reviews.  It took both of you about a month.  That is fine.  But 80% of the stuff you wrote could have been figured out in the first week if various barriers had been lifted.

Yes it would be impossible to write your actual review without that month of gameplay with a real guild.  But that is not really the issue.  We do not need 100% comprehensive review.  What we need is a good survey of the entire game.  Which we are not getting anywhere close to and which is feasible.

Again these are excuses or at least partial excuses.  There may be some valid points to be made about what can't be done quickly or easily.  But there are TONS things that can be done and are not.  And in the case of AoC it shows just how badly not doing those things is mesleading people.  And causing scores to be WILDLY inaccurate.

Most us who are fairly reasonable do not expect a reviewer to be able to give us a good picture of what a community will be like or how guild interact or other extended social things.  Most people know that the seiging and whether it worked well was a real "wait and see" tyoe deal. 

But come on, there is no excuse for not having some idea about performance and bugginess.  Any objective party could have figured that out very quickly and reported on it.  But that didn't happen and does not happen.  Well that is just plain negligent.

But if they can't tell us the content dries up half way through the game?  Seriously wtf?

You told us that.  It took you a month and as a normal player and a non-official reviewer kudos to you, man.  But a professional reviewer with the weight of the press behind them and the driving desire of the companies for good reviews.  All they needed was to a get a survey of what was avaialbe at each tier and then do the normal play through to have some idea of what was in store.

Again that is not the full picture but there are a whole list of things you do not know from playing 1-25 in AoC and if a person as a professional reviewer is not aware of those things then they are incompetent.  And as a professional they should try to shore those things up.  And if they can get the developers to give them a shortcut to at least have some idea what that is like then they should.  And if there are strings attached on that shortcut they should think long and hard about whether they even use that data.

No one expects every little bit to be fleshed out in a review.  But the stratling lack of any real information about things that are simply trivial to find out like the amount of content at level 60. 

That is why AoC reviews are such an obvious epic failure.  The only reason that anyone can give for the lack of such an easy to obtain bit of information is MMO's take time.  Oh really?  Come on I can do to MMODB and tell you exactly how many quest sare in LOTRO at level 50.

Obviously that resource won't be avialable on release day but the point is you really do not need to play an MMO for months to find out the sort of important information that was lacking in so many reviews.

Basically Tortage took long enough that it messed with deadlines and the reviewers cut corners and got played.  Its that simple.

If all the reviewers had a level 60 as well and tried to quest for a day.  And they all had a level 80 in a premade sieging guild what would have happened?

They would at least have known content was much different and probably been appaled when they tried a siege.

yeah they could not have given an informed opinion about what it would be like to run that actual guild.  But they certainly would have had more information and had it in a reasonable time.  And that information is pretty darn important.

But no.  They just take what is shoveled at them and ignore the rest.  Anyone familiar with politics and how to lie well knows that what you DO NOT SAY is as important or more important than what you DO SAY.

The reviewers are not truly guilty of lying.  They are however being unintentionally misleading through laziness and venality  (I use venal in the sense of refusing to be virtuous rather than being for sale, ie. passivity and weakness).

The sad thing is they cannot really admit to the parts they don't ahve good enough information on because they are so broad that the worthlessness of their review would be made evident.

If we sat down and ticked off each of the key features in AoC that most of the early reviews failed to examine or garner meaningful information about, how many people would take them seriously?  Not many people.

Now if 80% of those features could have been examined in a reasonable amount time would that change?  Yes it would.  The key factor is the devs would have to give you access for it to be a reasonable amount of time.  Because as we all know MMO are fraught with time sinks.

Originally posted by Cymdai

I have SEVERAL thoughts regarding this particular issue.

I'd like to start off by posting my original review here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/186176

Now, I wrote that within a month of purchasing and playing Age of Conan, and it is what I felt to be a hard-hitting review. I touched on numerous points that I felt were specific to those playing at the time, as well as general concerns to the population of the game. I would not consider myself a biased person at all, either.

The problem with reviewing MMO's is that, as the reviewer, you have to generally make an educated guess at the future of the game, while still highlighting the pros and cons of the present state of the game. At the time that was written, I felt the game was lacking in many areas, HOWEVER, Funcom is a company with a large customer base, experience in the MMO field, and some deep pockets. I felt that, given those variables, all the problems I mentioned in my initial review would be quickly remedied over the next few months. Hence, why I warned people against buying the game until I felt an appropriate amount of time had passed.

What a reviewer can not do is account for the general incompetence/unwillingness of the game's company. I would never have guessed Funcom to hire volunteer fanboy-GM's on their boards, such as Lufkin. I didn't think Funcom would allow rampant exploiting and duping to go unpunished for such a long period of time. I expected patches would be tested before hitting the live server, and tested thoroughly. All of my personal mistakes in assessing this game were based on basic observations and calculations that led me to believe the game would dramatically improve over time.

Sometimes, you're right, and you're praised as a king. Other times, you're wrong, and you're flamed like a troll. As the reviewer, as a GOOD reviewer, it's your job to put personal feelings aside, to look at the facts, to highlight relevant information that the consumers would like to know about, and to do the best you can to give a balanced view of the game.

In my opinion, you can't do that easily unless you can dedicate LOADS of time to the game. I disagree with the remark about the whole "Just give me a level 50 and let me see the game" remark. By doing so, all you'd have done is seen the worst part of the game (especially at the time of release; Field of the Dead was a total nightmare). Jon's review got a lot of criticism, but there was no way to know that 1-25 were nearly flawless at the time. It's just like how, when I hit 80 and prepared to raid and siege and everything else that is AoC end-game, there was no way for me to know Yahkmar's Cave was 100% exploitable, or that Sieges improperly ejected people from one team to balance out the number of competitors in the zone. We couldn't have guessed that cities weren't providing bonuses, or that raid gear was wholly pitiful, or that Kylikki's Krypt has an epic zoning problem. However, I wouldn't have been able to see this if I hadn't gotten there on my own, with my guild.

On the other hand, I can't help but agree in many senses regarding the industry as a whole.

I'll add more to this post a little later. I want to make sure my thoughts are organized for part 2 of this post.

I think your review was objective and fair.I also agree with the above post ,I look forward to Part 2