Originally posted by korndog22

From a reviewers standpoint , I don't Think Aion deserved a 8.7.But I do agree that FE deserves a mid 6 or so.I Think FE is a great game if compared to games of its likeness.BUt as an MMO overall I think it is kinda mediocre,It didn't grab me and make me want to keep playing.I also have been experiencing some lag a bit , but even when the game is running smooth it doesn't strike me as even close to one of the better games i played.So I say Kudo's to the editor and the reviewer for standing there ground.

So my opinion is for it's style and type it's a great game.But for its actual gameplay,funfactor,and such I would say its mediocre.I have a feeling the reviewer has the same perception as I do.

Yeah man. Nothing better than a review site that has a completely different opinion about games than its own user base. That's sooo useful... 

 This is getting out of control,does anyone at MMORPG.com even proof read these review's now?or are they simply added to the site?

Why someone as a reviewer is using a gimped system for review's is bad enough,I mean come on 2gb RAM with Vista for game play!

But then they complain about the lag..it beg's belief. 

I honestly thought the Aion review was the bottom of the barrel but it seem's not,It would seem this site has become little more than a gossip column and advertising site.

The powers that be(yes Jon I am looking at you) get this sorted or the "delete account" will be getting used,A shameful and woeful review.

 In my humble opinion (though I know it wasn't asked - at least not in this thread)... I think mmorpg.com does need to seriously re-think how they present their reviews.... revise their review criteria, set a standard that every other reviewer has to follow... *something* to inject some kind of consistency into it.

Because, while I can understand when Stradden says "different people review the games and have different opinions than other reviewers"... that's great on its face. But...

Here's the the problem. When people see a review here, they see it as "MMORPG.com's review of XYZ game". When game websites cite reviews and comments and scores given here in their "accolades" section or whatever... It's cited as "MMORPG.COM"... not the name of the reviewer. I've seen ads for games in magazines and there will be quotes from this site (and others), cited as "MMORPG.COM"...

Do you see what's happening here?

Every review that's put out by this site is seen as being the official opinion of mmorpg.com as a whole - not merely the person who wrote it.

I think it's time you people at mmorpg.com realize this site's "grown up". You're not a small, upstart site like you were some years back. Your name (for better or worse) carries weight and anything you put out in terms of reviews is seen as being the collective opinion of the site... just like IGN's, or any gaming magazine. 

I think this is why people react the way they do to such all over the place reviews... You're trying to cling to that "individuals' reviews" approach, but your website has grown way beyond that. Beyond this site, MMORPG.com is a presence unto itself, it's beyond the individuals who edit or write for it. So when you defend the reviews by saying "well that's what those individuals think", it sounds very disingenuous.

Again.. just my thoughts... but I think you guys need to seriously reassess the way you handle reviews and rate games.

A good place to start might be what was suggested.... do away with number scores. Those seem to create the most uproar - unless that's what you're after.

Fire the reviewer, Did you seriously go there expecting some 100million budget game? Btw really nice computer you got there.

Let's put things straight here.

A review should be unbiased (or at least try), I am not getting why people are accepting the reviews are a personal matter.
They should not be a personal matter, in particular when they rappresent the official view of the site/magazine/paper.

The difference between a reviewer and average Joe is that the reviewer should base the review on objective points, and they should not score products based on their preference.

If a reviewer is writing just his opinion then what is the point of the review?
There are already thousands of people posting everyday their opinion in this forums, why should the reviewer opinion be more qualified than mine or the person next to me?

I played every major MMO released since UO, like many of us in this forum.
So why the opinion of this guy should be more valid than mine for example?
The only reason would be because he can discuss the game with more objectivity than most of us with equal if not better experience than him.
If it fails to do so and he bases his review on his opinion, then it defeats the point of the review, since his biased opinion might clash with the view of more experienced people, or people with more common sense than him.

In short reviewer should be able to say they do not like a particular feature, whilst at the same time admitting that the same feature can contribute to other people fun.
When you review Aion you need to put yourself in the shoes of the casual/themepark player, when you review FE you put yourself in the shoes of the sandbox player.
You do not evaluate both games with the same measure.
If you are not able to do so, it means the reviewer is not the job for you.
 

Originally posted by ste2000

Let's put things straight here.

A review should be unbiased (or at least try), I am not getting why people are accepting the reviews are a personal matter.
They should not be a personal matter, in particular when they rappresent the official view of the site/magazine/paper.

The difference between a reviewer and average Joe is that the reviewer should base the review on objective points, and they should not score products based on their preference.

If a reviewer is writing just his opinion then what is the point of the review?
There are already thousands of people posting everyday their opinion in this forums, why should the reviewer opinion be more qualified than mine or the person next to me?

I played every major MMO released since UO, like many of us in this forum.
So why the opinion of this guy should be more valid than mine for example?
The only reason would be because he can discuss the game with more objectivity than most of us with equal if not better experience than him.
If it fails to do so and he bases his review on his opinion, then it defeats the point of the review, since his biased opinion might clash with the view of more experienced people, or people with more common sense than him.

In short reviewer should be able to say they do not like a particular feature, whilst at the same time admitting that the same feature can contribute to other people fun.
When you review Aion you need to put your shoes to the casual/themepark player, when you review FE you put yourself in the shoes of the sandbox player.
You do not evaluate both games with the same measure.
If you are not able to do so, it means the reviewer is not the job for you.
 

STE he should also read the game requirements before he plays,his system is below the game requirements so I ask again why is this review on this site?

A joke it really is,I normally read reviews and see the reviewer's specs are well above the the game's specs,this has to be the 1st time a review has been done with below the game specs...I mean why even bother?

Originally posted by WSIMike

 In my humble opinion (though I know it wasn't asked - at least not in this thread)... I think mmorpg.com does need to seriously re-think how they present their reviews.... revise their review criteria, set a standard that every other reviewer has to follow... *something* to inject some kind of consistency into it.

Because, while I can understand when Stradden says "different people review the games and have different opinions than other reviewers"... that's great on its face. But...

Here's the the problem. When people see a review here, they see it as "MMORPG.com's review of XYZ game". When game websites cite reviews and comments and scores given here in their "accolades" section or whatever... It's cited as "MMORPG.COM"... not the name of the reviewer. I've seen ads for games in magazines and there will be quotes from this site (and others), cited as "MMORPG.COM"...

Do you see what's happening here?

Every review that's put out by this site is seen as being the official opinion of mmorpg.com as a whole - not merely the person who wrote it.

I think it's time you people at mmorpg.com realize this site's "grown up". You're not a small, upstart site like you were some years back. Your name (for better or worse) carries weight and anything you put out in terms of reviews is seen as being the collective opinion of the site... just like IGN's, or any gaming magazine. 

I think this is why people react the way they do to such all over the place reviews... You're trying to cling to that "individuals' reviews" approach, but your website has grown way beyond that. Beyond this site, MMORPG.com is a presence unto itself, it's beyond the individuals who edit or write for it. So when you defend the reviews by saying "well that's what those individuals think", it sounds very disingenuous.

Again.. just my thoughts... but I think you guys need to seriously reassess the way you handle reviews and rate games.

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/256840/Review-Policy-Suggestions.html

Jon (Stradden) put up this forum for such suggestions generated from this discussion. Please do jump on over and add to what is building there. Hopefully we, the site viewers, can provide a few good ideas they can incorporate into the current system. Hey, it's a start, right?

The issue here is not the quality of the reviewer, its the quality of the editor.  If this review had been properly proof read this poorly writen peice would never had made it online.  Bottom line is any low grade moron can write an article and send it to be presented to the public but a publication has Proofreaders and editors whos job it is to sift through all the crap.  Place this firmly in the lap of the editor, my gawd, he didnt even catch the typos.

System specs:

 Stradden, saying stop the conspiracy theories is a weak response to the minimum requirements discussion. Looking at some of the posts regarding the amount of RAMs in your reviewers video cards, his mentioning of his video RAM as being Corsair and all that, it is obvious that something fishy is likely to be going on with that reviewer. 

I am not saying he is definately lying, but if the stars have to align for a person to not be lying then its most likely that lying is indeed whats happening. And the stars would have had to align for all the errors the reviewer made in talking about his system specifications to be true. 

That being said it seems fairly obvious for you to ask him for a dxdiag, check it out, come back here and then either crush the conspiracy part of the discussion with hard evidence that makes sense in regards to his specs, or telling your community that you have terminated your lying employee. Only course of action with regards to the system specs part imo.

Second, the part about the score matching the review, and you wanting to give reviewers totally free hands in determining the score: 

Your scores are interpreted as mmorpg.coms scores even if done by freelancing writers. This means people will come to the site, see a list of games and think they can compare the scores the games in between. This should in my opinion be the case, but if you dont think it should, the lists and everywhere else with scores should definately clearly state that theres is no relationship in between scores. Although this direction would mean that you might aswell not feature scores as they are only usefull to make easy comparisons across a big list about which games are best.

Secondly giving direction and a sort of "scale" to your reviewers does not constitute you influencing the scores as long as every reviewer is given the same directions and scale. What I personally think a reviewer should be trying to do is objectively describe what the different aspects/game design of a game is, and in the end scoring it how the reviewer thinks people who like that kind of game would score it. What I mean here is not that he should give fanboi scores, but that he should write a review describing what type of game you are dealing with and then making a score that sort of sums up how well done the focus of the game is. Meaning that f.ex. if I like a WoW type game and see a review of EvE I should not necessarily think WoW is "better" if WoW got a better score. What I should be able to do though is see that WoW implemented the stuff that blizzard wanted to be the focus of their game better than CCP implemented the stuff that they wanted EvE to focus on. Still meaning that if I liked sandbox player driven content I would be better off choosing EvE even though EvE might have gotten a lower score. I should see this not by the score, but by the review. If however I have reviews of games that are fairly similar in what gameplay is focused on, then I want to be able to use the score to see which game its most likely that I would like the most. Meaning that comparing Aion/WoW/Everquest type  games on score should make sense. 

Meaning that reviewers should be given guidelines saying: Imagine you like PvE questgrinding/raiding whatever types of games, how good does this game cater to what you like ? Using the review text to "box in" the game where its sort of obvious which other games it can resonably be compared with in terms of features and focus, and then using the score to determine how likely it will be for a guy who thinks he will like the kind of game described in the review to actually want to keep plaiying it. Of course you should as a reader not be taken by surprise by the final grade, meaning that the review should match the grade in terms of pros and cons.

Just my points.(Edited for grammar)

Overall review was pretty good.

The score?  LOL I'm not one to 'troll', but Houston we have a problem.

The genre finally gets a different kind of MMO and the 'official' MMORPG.com reviewer has a problem with mouse and keyboard?  Really?  Anybody that has played just about every kind of game on the PC uses the mouse and keyboard...let's name a few shall we?  This list will include only games I've played and will not be indicative of every game I've played, but for example purposes only.  Again these are PC versions not console

Oblivion - check

LOTR - check

COD (any version) - check

Mouse and keyboard is pretty standard now a days and has been for some time for many mainstream games.

The overall review was great on the game but I think the reviewer let his/her personal opinion in, which pretty much seemed to have been getting owned in game and getting bad lagg because of his computer (btw i think they edited out the specs).

Great, now this site is allowing TROLLS to make its reviews? This just can't even make the difference between low FPS and lag. It's just idiot trying to play anything in Windows Vista with just 2 GB os memory. First i was upste becouse this site clearly sold its review to Aion's creators, becouse that game will never deserv 8.7 anyware, and will never be the best mmo released, its just an stupid grind fest.

The note is totally incompatible with the great game FE is, and even with the entire review, that has more good things to say about the game than bad things(the only complaint was the lag, that on truth was low FPS becouse the reviwer's bad system). This game for sure deserves another review, and by some one professional, that knows how to trully review a mmorpg.

Originally posted by Delphos

Great, know this site is allowing TROLLS to make its reviews? This just can't even make the difference between low FPS and lag. It's just idiot trying to play anything in Windows Vista with just 2 GB os memory.  First i was upste becouse this site clearly sold its review to Aion's creators, becouse that game will never deserv 8.7 anyware, and will never be the best mmo released, its just an stupid grind fest.

The note is totally incompatible with the great game FE is, and even with the entire review, that has more good things to say about the game than bad things(the only complaint was the lag, that on truth was low FPS becouse the reviwer's bad system).  This game for sure deserves another review, and by some one professional, that knows how to trully review a mmorpg. 

Agreed.

NVM

Originally posted by WSIMike

 In my humble opinion (though I know it wasn't asked - at least not in this thread)... I think mmorpg.com does need to seriously re-think how they present their reviews.... revise their review criteria, set a standard that every other reviewer has to follow... *something* to inject some kind of consistency into it.

Because, while I can understand when Stradden says "different people review the games and have different opinions than other reviewers"... that's great on its face. But...

Here's the the problem. When people see a review here, they see it as "MMORPG.com's review of XYZ game". When game websites cite reviews and comments and scores given here in their "accolades" section or whatever... It's cited as "MMORPG.COM"... not the name of the reviewer. I've seen ads for games in magazines and there will be quotes from this site (and others), cited as "MMORPG.COM"...

Do you see what's happening here?

Every review that's put out by this site is seen as being the official opinion of mmorpg.com as a whole - not merely the person who wrote it.

I think it's time you people at mmorpg.com realize this site's "grown up". You're not a small, upstart site like you were some years back. Your name (for better or worse) carries weight and anything you put out in terms of reviews is seen as being the collective opinion of the site... just like IGN's, or any gaming magazine. 

I think this is why people react the way they do to such all over the place reviews... You're trying to cling to that "individuals' reviews" approach, but your website has grown way beyond that. Beyond this site, MMORPG.com is a presence unto itself, it's beyond the individuals who edit or write for it. So when you defend the reviews by saying "well that's what those individuals think", it sounds very disingenuous.

Again.. just my thoughts... but I think you guys need to seriously reassess the way you handle reviews and rate games.

A good place to start might be what was suggested.... do away with number scores. Those seem to create the most uproar - unless that's what you're after.

Brilliant post. I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

6.9 is abit too low for this game. Especially compared to how high they rated Aion. But FE is laggy as hell indeed

He stated 2GB of Corsair system RAM in the AoC review in July and again in the WoW review earlier this year and over a year ago in the Hellgate review. Same system, same amount of RAM stated.
Look... I understand the ego and pride of writing a review piece and putting it up on a gaming site, but I don't think it's very fair to mislead. Just accept your system wasn't up to snuff and you made a little mistake. Remove the review and move on. These things can happen. You just learn and keep on going.

Fallen Earth makes the list of top ten since WoW, and the site's official reviewer gives it a 6.9...

Originally posted by Goob

 

An indie company took on the challenge of making an original, sandbox game (which is SO rare) and the game actually had a good launch. This is already quite remarkable. The difference in the community score and the reviewer`s score leaves a bad taste in my mouth, its as if the reviewer didn`t like the game much and scored according to that rather than the relatively neutral review he wrote.

Being an indie company does not excuse a game from the same review from the press that the big games get.  I'm tired of seeing this sentence thrown around.  Taking a chance is risky, but just being glowingly positive about something because it took that chance does more to damage a genre than being critical of it. 

What a JOKE!

Come on... MMORPG.com is a very well known gaming website but the best you can do is hire someone with a below average PC??

You have got to be kidding me... any gamer knows minimum requirements means "don't bother you are not going to have an enjoyable experience." and this guy is going to review the game for the masses?? wtf?

This is just laughable... and to argue oh he did meet minimum by a pubic hair or what not is an even bigger joke. Seriously if someone is going to take a Icarus studio's years of blood, sweat and tears and give it a score to a very commercial website they better have a damn good rig or even several to dispute if it was an actual problem from the user's end or the games.

Like someone else previously posted... MAKE THE REVIEWER send you a DXDIAG because this is some fishy sh!t with him stating oh ya I have 2gb crucial ram... wait I was referring video card ram... and then his model video card never even came in a 1gb model.... yaaaa this is not fishy at all.