Yesterday, as a quick look at our forums will tell you, we published a review of Fallen Earth that was, shall we say, a tad bit controversial.

Over the last 24 hours, we've taken into account community feedback, the content of the review itself and our own processes and decided that it is only fair we give this game a fresh set of eyes.

Reviews are easily the hardest thing to get right on an MMO website, and sometimes mistakes will be made.

This points to a larger issue that we've been aware of for quite some time with our reviews and how we score them. In the coming weeks, we're going to evaluate this system more carefully and, I believe, provide a solution that meets the needs of the community more fully.

The truth is, no review will ever be liked by everyone in our community. Supporters of a game always want a higher score and detractors want a lower one. We are not out to make everyone happy, we can only trust our writers and provide you with our honest assessment. However, sometimes, things slip through that make virtually no one happy. Unfortunately, this was one of those times and so we've removed the review and assigned a writer to give the game a fresh shake.

good move on your part. hopefully the changes brought about by this will benefit us all and make the site more of a credible resource

You need to implement a system that institutes some kind of uniformity into the review process.  A review can be rife with personal opinion but it is important to remain objective and score a game against a certain criteria.  The same criteria that every game you review should be held up against.

Hello, and kudos on owning up to your mistakes.

However, its not about if everyone will like your reviews, ofcourse its impossible to make everyone happy but in relation to Fallen Earth the main point of controversy was the system specs. The reviewer might get lag even with 6gb of ram but he atleast got to meet the minimum requirements before reviewing the game. it will give some legitimacy to his lag issues. But currently its hard to take 2gb ram vista system seriously which is below Fallen earth minimum requirements.

Never liked mmorpg.com's reviews myself or any of their features, the news is well behind and things like the podcast arn't even running anymore. However people are always gonna whine about reviews cause this is where all the fanbois will come. I thought the score was abit high myself from playing it the graphics and animations were horrible and the combat was just unplayable and the UI was nast ad the world was too barren... not even player housing in the game to make up for it.

Was a horrible game tbh.

Thank you Dana.

You have renewed my confidence in MMORPG.com

I come to this site far too often for needed information on investments in money and time on my part.  I appreciate that you folks have integrity and the desire to meet the needs of the community.

Thank's again for taking another look at Fallen Earth and I look forward to the new Review.

Originally posted by Getalife

Hello, and kudos on owning up to your mistakes.

However, its not about if everyone will like your reviews, ofcourse its impossible to make everyone happy but in relation to Fallen Earth the main point of controversy was the system specs. The reviewer might get lag even with 6gb of ram but he atleast got to meet the minimum requirements before reviewing the game. it will give some legitimacy to his lag issues. But currently its hard to take 2gb ram vista system seriously which is below Fallen earth minimum requirements.

Confusing lag with frame rate.

Originally posted by Varny

Originally posted by Getalife

Hello, and kudos on owning up to your mistakes.

However, its not about if everyone will like your reviews, ofcourse its impossible to make everyone happy but in relation to Fallen Earth the main point of controversy was the system specs. The reviewer might get lag even with 6gb of ram but he atleast got to meet the minimum requirements before reviewing the game. it will give some legitimacy to his lag issues. But currently its hard to take 2gb ram vista system seriously which is below Fallen earth minimum requirements.

 

Confusing lag with frame rate.

Easy to confuse it isn't it? thats why its important to meet minimum specs so that we know for sure what was really causing all the lag.

*writes a review*

*community nerdrages about review*

*retracts review*

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

Thanks guys, yesterday was quite hectic in terms of drama in that FE review thread lol.

The pressure is on the new reviewer not seem like he'st trying to please everyone, haha. However I think if you have someone on it that is open-minded to enjoy the new MMO theme (post-apocalyptic has not been done before) and can take a neutral stance on the pluses and minuses of the game, all will work out. As long as his score reflects the points he makes in his review, and those points are all valid, no one can - legitimately - complain much about whatever the final score may be.

Thank you,

I appreciate the fact that someone will be taking a look, heck I can even agree if someone dislikes the game, and it would not have been an issue if the last reviewer had put into words more of the problems they had encountered then something like lag due to technical problems on the reviewers side.

You may want to pull his reviews from the past and evaluate them from his complaint stand-point and see if they are a true problem or his system problem.

Allowing a person to write reviews when his system is sub-par for the average gamer is a waste of your time and ours.

Thanks again.

Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*

 

*community nerdrages about review*

 

*retracts review*

 

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

yes because leaving that mistake of a review well alone would have been the right move

/sarcasm off

Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*

 

*community nerdrages about review*

 

*retracts review*

 

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

Agreed.  A review is supposed to be subjective.  Have you guys ever read a movie review, or a restaurant review.... it isn't supposed to be a news piece, it's an opinion.  It should tell us what the reviewer thinks of the game, not what the developer or the fanboys want us to believe about the game. 

I didn't read the review before it was taken down, but I can only guess it was pretty harsh.... as it should have been.  This game is turd.  everything they got right is overshadowed by the piss poor performance and lackluster graphics.  I could understand one or the other, but this game manages to look bad and run bad at the same time.  It's an armature attempt at making a video game and it shows.

Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*

 

*community nerdrages about review*

 

*retracts review*

 

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

Hey you are KING OF NERDS, i blame it on you for not controlling them. lol

for someone that has been a loyal follower of MMORPG.com for years this makes me very happy. The events that transpired were long overdue. I only came here to read reviews and such but after a while i was seeing a trend a trend that made me actually create an account and give my opinion. Hopefully things will be set straight once again, and reviewers when posting their personal opinions of a game should actually dedicate a section to it eh? simply put my personal opinion" and go off, so that people know the difference between the review and your personal experience and preferences.

Thank you again MMORPG.

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Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*
 
*community nerdrages about review*
 
*retracts review*
 
Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

---

It's good to see the staff are responsive to the communty's concerns.  A suggestion would be to have 2-3 people perform each review.  I know it is challenging to find 2-3 people that can write in an articulate manner, but if that were possible, the average of the scores could be reported rather than a single reviewers response. 

Anyhow, just a thought.
Cheers

[quote]Originally posted by Salvatoris
[b]

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Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*

*community nerdrages about review*

*retracts review*

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

---

Originally posted by Salvatoris

Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*

 

*community nerdrages about review*

 

*retracts review*

 

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

 

Agreed.  A review is supposed to be subjective.  Have you guys ever read a movie review, or a restaurant review.... it isn't supposed to be a news piece, it's an opinion.  It should tell us what the reviewer thinks of the game, not what the developer or the fanboys want us to believe about the game. 

I didn't read the review before it was taken down, but I can only guess it was pretty harsh.... as it should have been.  This game is turd.  everything they got right is overshadowed by the piss poor performance and lackluster graphics.  I could understand one or the other, but this game manages to look bad and run bad at the same time.  It's an armature attempt at making a video game and it shows.

 

We didn't arrive at this decision because of the score or the community pressure. The community pressure we just a symptom of a flawed review. Honestly, to read it, it came off as a summary of game features that was generally positive, then had one negative thing (which was an error) and whipped out a mediocre score.

The new review could be scored higher or lower, who knows. That will be up to the reviewer, but we have to do a better job vetting to make sure that they arrive at their opinion without issues like this one had. The review's score was largely based on "unplayable lag," which was more of a customer support/hardware issue than something that should have been in a review. If someone experiences unplayable lag, they must do everything they can to figure out if it is "just them." To the degree that it impacted this article, the lag described seems to have been "just him" and we didn't do the due diligence necessary to confirm it.

Thus, it was retracted.

Originally posted by Zzulu

*writes a review*

 

*community nerdrages about review*

 

*retracts review*

 

Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.

What?

Have you even been online before?

Tell me, how many nerdrages has there ever been on this site and other gaming sites during the years?

How many retracted reviews have you EVER heard of?

Personally I have not heard of one but I will take any link.

This "Nerdrage" was by no means worse or more intense then many many others, far from it.

Now tell me, do you think they took this decision lightly, just to appease to the masses?

Like an easy fix?

You speak as if this is what everyone does and as if it is common.

Yet I have not heard of one during my soon 16 years online.

And I bet there are less then 10 from the major gaming sites in the last 10 years, combined.

Do you see the error of your thinking?