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Fallen Earth News - Review Retracted
Posted by Dana Massey on Oct 23, 2009 | 254 comments in our forums
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.
Confusing lag with frame rate.
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.
yes because leaving that mistake of a review well alone would have been the right move
/sarcasm off
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.
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.
there's always people that will disagree with a review/rating. the issues here was a review that was overall positive, that briefly mentioned lag as an issue, and then gives a crap rating without any rationale. pretty feeble, and a re-review makes alot of sense. but as you said, hey, it's the internet, rage about something you neither really understand or care about.
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]
You are mistaken. Review was actually in favour of FE but the only downside was lag. As someone noticed reviewer PC don't meet minimum system requirement for running game on Vista (he was using only 2 GB of RAM) and only downside in his review was lag. Pretty obvious review was spoiled by that.
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.
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?
So you have less respect for people who admit their mistakes and rectify them? Strange logic there. I don't see any negatives in the fact that the staff here actually listens to the user-base.
I'm really impressed with the way the handled things and I've got to say that they have re-earned my respect. I can't think of a better way that they could have handled this mess.
Good call guys :)
Not to mention the reviewer changed his spec later to "fit" the minimum reqs but was proven to lie.
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.
THIS
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.
but would you like your favorite movie reviewed by someone who is blind and then says the movie sucks?
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.
Maybe we have different ideas of what a MMORPG Review should be like, it is not a Movie or a Meal its a MMORPG.
You review Playability, Performance, Graphics, Leveling, Crafting, and other things that make a MMORPG a MMORPG.
But you sure as heck dont lie about something get caught in such lie, lie again, and get busted with proof by MMORPG loyalists.
Its ok if you dont like a game but you gotta understand peoples lives are at stake here, people who invested their time and money to make something new and different for that "niche" crowd , and i think if people gave it a chance they would get a wiff of what a MMORPG is supposed to play like and its sure as heck not like WOW or AION.
Oh and its funny that you did not even read the Review or know whats going on, yet feel the need to comment on it, lord have mercy.
Community was justified in their rage, reviewer's machine did not meet minimum specs and much of the score was based on the games performance. Wasn't fair and should be addressed.
Now, if they'd only do something about that ridiculous Aion review.
"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."
While there is certainly a subjective element in reviews as you say, they are supposed to be more than mere opinions. They are supposed to be reasoned judgements based on stable critera and rendered by people whose expertise is trustworthy. The FE reviewer blew it because he tanked the game based on lagginess when in fact he was experiencing frame-rate problems because his system wasn't up to the minimum specs. Perhaps FE really does stink, but when one's main criticism is based on a flaw like this, it's a buggy review, not a buggy game.
I thought the review was spot on. I agreed with it mostly and I am still playing FALLEN EARTH. It is not a great game but good enough to play. IT also might be good to remeber AOC first couple of reviews. Read them, bought the game, and put the game disc in the trash that night. Plus FE has free trail period right now so go play and figure your own opinion out.
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.
Feel an awful lot like John Marshall do you, between a rock and a hard place and instead of backing down and admitting it you come up the third answer that's not really either of the original two but sort of is, Kudos to you sir
Meh whatever. Sure the champions of Fallen Earth may have won a victory for Truth and Justice, but the cruel reality is that the game probably deserved something not too far removed from the score it got. It's a fantastic setting and a great concept for an MMO that is at best averagely executed. The combat is choppy, the animation clunky and amateurish, the progression linear, the layout themepark, the quests (apart from some notable exceptions) generic, the scenery mostly bland (under the convenient excuse that "it's set in the desert")... etc.
There are areas where the game really shines, but on the whole it's pretty obvious that this is an indy effort. That in itself shouldn't count against it, except that they've stepped up and put themselves on a par with all the other major titles in the genre in terms of pricing and sub rates... and for most MMO gamers it's just not worth that. This is a game that will have a solid core of diehard fans who will love playing it, and that's great for them, but howling and jeering at those who don't share their passion for this diamond in the rough is not going to make their opinion any more popular nor any more correct.
There is a fine line between a Review and someones personal opinions on whatever is being reviewed, and like you said a true professional reviewer will distinguish these things clearly for the reader to form his own personal opinion and whether or not to try or not try something out. What transpired here with Fallen Earth was Epic and unless detected by a few would of gone unnoticed and might of caused the demise of Fallen Earth, a game that besides Darkfall and Mortal online was being watched by many.
No reviews are objective. A reviewer will always use his/her experiences as the basis for whether he likes something or not. I don't even look at one reviewer's score anymore. I look at a whole range of reviews before I make a decision, because what one person likes, I wouldn't and vice versa.
The issue with the Joe Iuliano review was that his review wasn't even based on a system that could run the game properly, according to the minimum system specs. When questioned about it, he then goes to say that the 2 gig Corsair Ram reference was to the dual 3850 video cards and not to his actual system RAM, which was quite an obvious lie. It sort of invalidates the results of the entire review. Then, on top of that, the whole criticism gets shoved into Site suggestions, which has no bearing on what the OP was saying as he wasn't suggesting anything for the site. He was rebutting 'Joe Iuliano's' credibility.
Man spot on, couldn't have said it better myself. Kudos MMORPG.
I think for many, it wasn't the actual score or the review for the most part. It was the discrepancy between the two. On one hand, you had a for-the-most part positive write up. On the other hand, you had a fairly negative score (6.9 may be close to 7 but a 6 on this site, and no matter what the decimal value is, will be seen as moderately negative). Combined with the fact that posters removed some credibility from the reviewer, this just wasn't fair to both Icarus and readers.
And I will say this, I remember when I first discovered MMORPG.com years ago, the articles were interesting, well thought, and well written. That quality is becoming less and less evident in the write ups here, and it is both disheartening and sad, frankly. Whether you are a paid staff member or a volunteer for the site, every one of you needs to step it up. The site is seen as a publication and its sad when your featured member blogs are both more informative and more entertaining than the site's own headlining articles. The standards here are low and it is showing.
I'll mention it again(as I did in another thread) as I think its relevant. I remember back when Horizons development had switched gears, I wrote an article about the growing emphasis on community interaction ala the proposed features of both Horizons and AC2. I submitted the article to HorizonsVault at which point I was contacted by the editor there. She wanted to publish the article on the site, but we went through a lengthy yet very informative meeting discussing changes that she felt were necessary. I wasn't even a volunteer staff member and yet I went through a very extensive, detailed editing process. My article was a lot better because of it (and there were only a few seemingly minor yet very important changes made) and received quite a bit of awesome commentary from the community. It may sound tedious but each article should be extensively fine combed so that the goals of the article are achieved.
Not everything here is going to be awesome, that is understandable. Lately, there are more misses than hits (haven't really seen a hit in a long while now). You're writers will benefit from a more strict editing process (is there even one). A true writer and creative in general will appreciate the feedback no matter how harsh it is - it only makes the end product better.
Come on MMORPG.com you can do so so so so so so much better.
Edit:
Dana, I appreciate the retraction as I think it was the appropriate thing to do. I hope you guys put a lot of thought into the review process here as it is one of a number of things that need to shape up a bit. It is encouraging to see that you recognize changes need to be made. I will say that I appreciate the interactivity (good or bad) that goes on between the staff and the community as its the one thing that keeps me coming back. That and controversy is always a good thing :D
It is nice to see MMORPG.com take the appropriate action with this review.
Structuring future reviews in a more uniform manner is something I would also appreciate. Without a common standard it is often hard to gauge how the reviews opinion is relative your own. Knowing how the writer's view align or conflict with your own greatly increase the usefulness of a review beyond what could otherwise seem like an arbitrary number.
Sadly neither the site nor FE's community have come out very clean in this fiasco, but I expect it'll hurt FE a lot more then this site.
The nature of a game's "community" is an important factor for a lot of people, and personally if the response to this review was indicative of the type of community the game has then it is to be avoided.
Sadly neither the site nor FE's community have come out very clean in this fiasco, but I expect it'll hurt FE a lot more then this site.
The nature of a game's "community" is an important factor for a lot of people, and personally if the response to this review was indicative of the type of community the game has then it is to be avoided.
This is what i call shotgun response.
'hey look at me i don't read posts and then make nonsense replies'
Learn to read. Dana explained it well why they retracted the review. it had nothing to do with FE community.
Right but the review did not have anything like what you just wrote...nope, had it had Lag, bad lag, horrible lag...so lets give its a bad score for that..
I do not think it would have been a big deal if the reviewer had things to write that were based on his opinions of the game that had some thing to do with the actual game versus problems from his system.
Then to later come back and possibly lie about his spec later was just a creamy topping, Granted he may have upgraded his spec since his last review but he has the same spec in all his past reviews and in a lot of them complained about the same issue "lag" but was a bit more in depth in his opinions with a heck of a lot less "nashing of teeth n nails" about them from the masses.
Fallen Earth has issues, performance is minor compared to some of them. Did he write that an ATV will get stuck on a pebble? Nope...lol why not, to me that is a pain in the arse of an issue, especially since an ATV is being given out to some download orders...
Clunky Animation? Like how in Aion when I have to talk to someone and sheath my weapon it shadows stutters 2 or 3 times? or did you mean something else? I have not seen clunky animation but my definition of clunky may be different, English is not my primary language.
Choppy Combat - combat is okay to me, other then the AI sniffs glue.. Combat animation, yes needs work, like more of it and more depth.
Progression is linear in 90% of the mmos, cant really complain about it..its just part of the package..
Layout Themepark - not sure what that means, to me it means I get on a ride and scream like a baby...in gaming it means what? That everyone is a crafter / killer / explorer - only if they want I guess.
Quest/Missions generic - same thing - get this, kill that, go there, click it, in every game I have played...etc...etc..ad nauseum
Scenery, yeah I guess you can say its bland, been to the area...looks pretty much the same in the real world...sunsets and sunrises are better and more color..
I played for about two weeks of my month. I concur with the review. Since MMORPG has seen fit to remove the (subjective) review, I don't see any reason to continue to follow MMORPG's "news" or "reviews". I can get my information from a number of other sources, thankyouverymuch.
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.
Like I said, I didn't read the review... but I gathered from the comments here that performance was an issue. While "unplayable" varies from person to person, I had the same experience with this game. I tried it out of all four of the machines here, two close to minimum specs and two well above them. I could make it playable by turning the graphics settings all the way down, but I could not find a reasonable compromise of making the game look good and run an acceptable frame-rate. Granted, this was in beta, but the performance issues persisted all the way through the until the end of beta. And we all know there is never a launch day miracle patch. Maybe it's better, maybe it's not. I understand that some people aren't reporting the same performance issues, but I have certainly seen plenty that do have them. IMO, this game is unplayable on many machines that are well above minimum specs. based on my own experience, I can say that I know for a fact the performance issues were not "just him".
What bothers me is the attitude, held exclusively by fanboys of whatever game just got a bad review, that a review isn't supposed to be subjective. Whenever a game gets a well deserved low score, like the Eurogamer Darkfall review, or just about any early review of vanguard, people come out crying about the reviewer just posting his opinion of the game... that is what a review is supposed to be. It's funny that the thing people get most up in arms about are critiques of a game's performance, which is generally pretty easy to verify.
My question, have YOU played it? What kind of performance did you get? I think this issue could best be put to rest by having the re-review done by one of the senior staff members of the site. I'd be interested in reading it myself. This is a game i was very excited about during development, until I I got a chance to play it and found... you guessed it, unplayable lag.
Well done MORPG.com
I love the smell of justice in the evening!
Good stuff. Curious about the new review system.
Please don't forget that with the player rating system you have an excellent tool already to rate games. (Haters and fanboys cancelling eachother out somewhat and the large amount of scores assuring a proper average). No single reviewer's score will ever be more valued by me than the average opinion of a couple of hundred members.
Kudos. Look forward to the new review process.
I enjoy the game. Your review can't change that. At best, it could deter new people from trying the game. With one big server, and rapidly growing population, I don't care if fewer people start playing. It's a fantastic game that keeps getting better. If you don't feel that way then play somewhere else.
I do appreciate that MMORPG is man enough to fix mistakes.
Community was justified in their rage, reviewer's machine did not meet minimum specs and much of the score was based on the games performance. Wasn't fair and should be addressed.
Now, if they'd only do something about that ridiculous Aion review.
Have to agree here. This a positive step for the site in addressing and acknowledging inconsistencies in one of this sites reviews. But the same needs to be done for the Aion review to further address inconsistencies of reviews on this site lately.
Jon, why no response or comment on the strong arguments brought forth about the inconsistencies in the Aion review? It has been consistently pointed out that the score and tone of the review for Aion do not mesh. Couple this with the score being the highest reviewed MMO on this site ever and we have evidence that there is no uniformity in the review process.
As I've claimed in the Aion thread, along with well-defined criteria for writing a review, the scoring of a review must take into account previous review scores from this site for there to be any long-term relevance to all the reviews on this site.
This reminds me of the Champions Online review. It read like a 6.5 review, but the reviewer gave it an 8.
You do know that the review was a positive one as one have to assume that you actually read it...?
It was the final score that did not match up to what was written in the review.
If you're going to slam us, please check your facts.
Aion was not the highest ever review on the site. It was tied for 4th. However, consistency has been a large issue generally I will grant that. Too many years, too many standards, too many editors and only one scoring system.
And, Champions got 7.5, not 8.
You people that believe the review was retracted because of mass complaints are very ignorant, please get a grip on the situation before flapping your mouths.
Why is this a bigger deal than the potentially over-rated Aion review? Well, a low score from an unfair review on a popular site such as MMORPG.com will greatly hurt a game, and in tihs case, FE as a small independently developed MMO deserves better. Regardless, an unreasonably low score in any game is far more unfair than an unreasonably high score to the individuals reading the reviews. If you buy a game solely based on 1 high score, and don't like it, too bad. But you're much more likely to get a bad vibe from a game with 6.9's out on the internet regardless how good it sounds.
I think the problem with past reviews is that it has been left up to the reviewer as to how to grant the final score. This also creates a problem because even though scores here are on a scale of 1 - 10, most scores end up between 6 - 10. Anything lower is usually reserved for anything so bad that a low score is given for the sake of giving a low score. In fact, I would suggest MMORPG.com move to a 4 or 5 star rating system (being that 5-6 on a 10 pt scale is considered low even though it really is average).
1 star - horrible don't even bother, can't recommend
2 star - heavily flawed and few redeeming qualities, would not recommend
3 star - rough around the edges and may be worth a look for a few redeeming qualities, may or may not recommend depending on the player
4 star - a must try despite a few flaws, would recommend
5 star - a must try, definitely recommend
Don't bother with half stars or decimals. Its either a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. If its not a 5 and not a 3 then its a 4, not a 3.5 or a 4.5, just a 4. Partial scores/points/stars tend to encourage inflation of scores. The final score should reflect the overall experience. I've played many games where an average may put the game at a 3. However, maybe the story was so good and intriguing that it made the overall game experience a 4.
Examples:
For example, I'd give Aion a 4. Its polished, looks great, plays great, but content is bare at higher levels and level design can be bland. It provides an overall positive, yet very standard MMO experience but may grow tiresome as players reach higher levels due to drop off in content and poorly designed/poorly rewarding objectives. It is a game I would recommend to other players to at least try as the pvp, setting, and overall presentation may appeal to many gamers.
Fallen Earth would be given a 3. Overall, the game is rough around the edges. The art is, while pleasing to the eye, is inconsistent with the occasional rough animation, texture or poorly modeled figure. The gameplay isn't as smooth or refined and has a fairly clunky feel to it. Players will either learn to enjoy/accept combat or they will never grasp the controls and fight against the mechanics of it. Crafting is meaningful but because the design encourages players to provide for themselves, the economy is lacking and will continue to do so until players are encouraged to rely on others. The game is more akin to a post-apocolyptic AC in that players will level up but are free to invest in skills that they chose. For that reason, the game will have the open ended/sandbox feeling of UO and SWG but still feel linear as players most level up and advance to level appropriate areas. Because of the inconsistent presentation, awkward combat, and niche appeal, it would be hard to recommend to the mainstream gamer. However, despite it's misgivings players looking for something a little different may find the game both enjoyable and challenging - and would be a "must try" in that case.
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.
Well said, Dana. I think it was a strong move on the part of mmorpg.com. I don't see it as caving to community pressure at all, but rather retracting an injustice in order to establish a new standard that will benefit all future mmo reviews here.
Exactly, you didn't. You, and some others who've commented here, just didn't read the review or the commetns. Instead you've made generalizations about something you don't know and cried fanboy, when you're the one being ignorant and talking out of the wrong hole.
As for MMORPG.com, I'm glad to see that they're going to have it re-reviewed. To be honest though, I think a bit of editing (such as adding the fact that the reviewer was running below the minimum, and fixing the score and blurbs to match the article) would've been better. I think that the more opinions people have to read about a game, especially as a way to warn against older computers attempting to play this game, would've been a good thing.
Although this has been probably said dozens of times already, why should Fallen Earth receive a 6.9 while other cookie cutters receive a higher review? Fallen Earth has many things that other recent launching games did not have, or even current MMO's STILL do not have:
-Very good live customer support
-A different and refreshing crafting system (Similar to EvE's, yes, but it's a good change)
-A different leveling system (not the best, but it works),
-The alpha and beta were actually used for getting rid of problems instead of advertising the bloody game
-A decent launch
-Consistant advertising (Every time I get on this site, I see a Fallen Earth ad)
-The admins actually listen to the players, unlike some games (*cough* Runescape *cough* Pirates of the Burning Sea *cough*)
-Some end game at launch, and these are just to name a few
Although the ideas aren't 100% "fresh", they do take a step in the right direction in breaking this "cookie cutter hold" on the MMO industry. The lag is an issue, and server space could be better, but overall I think It deserves at least a 7.5, and that's being truly modest.
hope this means a lower review this game is horrible and I been playing since closed beta
Good move, hope to never see that reviewer again on mmorpg.com.
If it is horrible, why are you still playing it. Is it that kinda sick hate/love you can't control. The game digusts you, but that sickening turning in your stomach somehow makes you feel alive. You think about Fallen Earth all day and how much you hate it, and can't wait to get home, log on and hate it some more.
Fair enough.
I play this game with 2gb on a Vista (upgrading soon!). I have frame rate issues in some towns as many players have said and admitted to. I DO NOT however have any issues outside of towns as the reviewer stated, nothing even close. It was a weird situation all around, with lots of inconsistencies.
Thank you for your time.
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.
Brillian! You listened, evaluated, understood, and made the right decision.
Please, please please do the testing on my rig :) it is usuall 70-100 FPS on max settings (8x FSAA from driver), and 20-40 in towns.... it's smooth as silk :)
DB
now can you guys pull the Aion review the score for that game was way to high for how crappy the game is
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.
Like I said, I didn't read the review... but I gathered from the comments here that performance was an issue. While "unplayable" varies from person to person, I had the same experience with this game. I tried it out of all four of the machines here, two close to minimum specs and two well above them. I could make it playable by turning the graphics settings all the way down, but I could not find a reasonable compromise of making the game look good and run an acceptable frame-rate. Granted, this was in beta, but the performance issues persisted all the way through the until the end of beta. And we all know there is never a launch day miracle patch. Maybe it's better, maybe it's not. I understand that some people aren't reporting the same performance issues, but I have certainly seen plenty that do have them. IMO, this game is unplayable on many machines that are well above minimum specs. based on my own experience, I can say that I know for a fact the performance issues were not "just him".
What bothers me is the attitude, held exclusively by fanboys of whatever game just got a bad review, that a review isn't supposed to be subjective. Whenever a game gets a well deserved low score, like the Eurogamer Darkfall review, or just about any early review of vanguard, people come out crying about the reviewer just posting his opinion of the game... that is what a review is supposed to be. It's funny that the thing people get most up in arms about are critiques of a game's performance, which is generally pretty easy to verify.
My question, have YOU played it? What kind of performance did you get? I think this issue could best be put to rest by having the re-review done by one of the senior staff members of the site. I'd be interested in reading it myself. This is a game i was very excited about during development, until I I got a chance to play it and found... you guessed it, unplayable lag.
You could not be more wrong. Please check your facts before you're posting walls of nonsense.
The game is very playable, and improved a lot since release. Playing from EU, no issues, and frame rates are excellent.
You think it's rare? Then please explain why this game is #1 currently in mmorpg.com's user ratings list.
DB
Exactly, you didn't. You, and some others who've commented here, just didn't read the review or the commetns. Instead you've made generalizations about something you don't know and cried fanboy, when you're the one being ignorant and talking out of the wrong hole.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
Ive long cancled my account. I tried to give it a second chance when it went live and I couldnt do it.
It's horrible and you have been playing since closed beta? Are you a masochist or something?
Personally I'm loving the game. The only thing that bugs me is the fact that they do major server updates during the USA office times (I can kind of understand that though) and that means you can't play for the whole day if you happen to live in Europe.
Other than that, it's great. I'm playing from Finland and I have not experienced any lag (Other than the apocalypse party madness when the Open Beta ended) and I can run the game on very high on my oldish E4400, 2Gbits of DDR2 (800MHz) and 9800GTX + (1Gbit model) . I'd say that's pretty damn well for any new game. And I'm not a "fanboy" eather. Yes, I pre-ordered the game because I thought it was great. Finally something that's as original, fun and addicting as Neocron was.
I completely agree.
Hooray! This is great news and has definitely renewed my trust in mmorpg.com! Thanks for reaffirming the value of this website!
At the risk of giving a hint... You're operating very close to my brainwave with this post. Please, adjust your dial ;)
If anyone wants to buy the game for me I'll write up a review ^^
Well, then take this as a lesson learned when you post something without knowing what the hell you're talking about. Let me educate you.
The review wasn't harsh, it was just short of glowing. It was an 8.something review, based on what the guy said.
He actually LIKED the graphics, said they were high quality and evocative of the setting.
The only bad thing he said about the game was that it ran like crap on his computer....and his computer was below the minimum system requirements for the game. 2gigs of RAM on Vista 64 isn't a good set up for anything made in the past few years, his issues has nothing to do with Fallen Earth.
So, he gave a game he said was great a 6.9 because it wouldn't run on his below-minimum-specs computer.
The problems with the review had nothing to do with not agreeing with him. It had to do with his score contradicting his own evaluation of the game, because he made a mistake and ran it on a shit computer.
EDIT: Ah. I see the MMORPG.com staff has already tried and failed to do what I'm doing here. Feel free to disregard- if you won't listen to them, no reason to expect you'd listen to me.
Like I said, I didn't read the review... but I gathered from the comments here that performance was an issue. While "unplayable" varies from person to person, I had the same experience with this game. I tried it out of all four of the machines here, two close to minimum specs and two well above them. I could make it playable by turning the graphics settings all the way down, but I could not find a reasonable compromise of making the game look good and run an acceptable frame-rate. Granted, this was in beta, but the performance issues persisted all the way through the until the end of beta. And we all know there is never a launch day miracle patch. Maybe it's better, maybe it's not. I understand that some people aren't reporting the same performance issues, but I have certainly seen plenty that do have them. IMO, this game is unplayable on many machines that are well above minimum specs. based on my own experience, I can say that I know for a fact the performance issues were not "just him".
What bothers me is the attitude, held exclusively by fanboys of whatever game just got a bad review, that a review isn't supposed to be subjective. Whenever a game gets a well deserved low score, like the Eurogamer Darkfall review, or just about any early review of vanguard, people come out crying about the reviewer just posting his opinion of the game... that is what a review is supposed to be. It's funny that the thing people get most up in arms about are critiques of a game's performance, which is generally pretty easy to verify.
My question, have YOU played it? What kind of performance did you get? I think this issue could best be put to rest by having the re-review done by one of the senior staff members of the site. I'd be interested in reading it myself. This is a game i was very excited about during development, until I I got a chance to play it and found... you guessed it, unplayable lag.
You could not be more wrong. Please check your facts before you're posting walls of nonsense.
The game is very playable, and improved a lot since release. Playing from EU, no issues, and frame rates are excellent.
You think it's rare? Then please explain why this game is #1 currently in mmorpg.com's user ratings list.
DB
Ha, yeah, I noticed that when I looking at the game list earlier (I always sort it by user rating), and FE being the #1 on the site kind of caught me off guard for a second.
I think that speaks for itself :).
you know why this is though... for Americans, 12 years of school grading tells us 90-100 is great, 80-90 is good, 70-80 is ok, and anything lower is bad. so we automatically react to scores for anything else the same way. if you want a system where the entire range is useful, drop the stars completely and just go with Definitely Recommended, Highly Recommended, Recommended, Recommended with Reservations, etc.... (as you are more or less suggesting with a 1-5 scale).
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. A subjective review is useless, because the only person it works for is the writer.
A review is -supposed- to be an objective look at the plusses and minuses, what went wrong and what was done right.
There is -room- in a review for the writer's opinion, absolutely, but the main focus of it should never be opinion.
Dana,
As a long time reader of the reviews here (going back 5 or 6 yrs or so), I am pleased to hear of the review of current rating standards. Being a person who has done both movie and table top rpg reviews, I know it is an extremely difficult thing to do. I will say that the hardest part of being a columnist/review online is dealing with the backlash, both warranted and unwarranted. I applaud you and the rest of the reviewers for how you handle it, though I do believe that the reviewer of Fallen Earth should not be allowed to review games again. Lying in a review (not an error, but a lie) is highly unethical, as is going back and modifying the review to hide the lie.
That's NOT a performance issue. If you run a game on a system that floats somewhere between the minimum and reccomended specs, then you get "Hopefully it runs smooth on the lowest graphics settings". That's just how game specs are written up. If you want a game to run smooth AND look nice, then ignore the minimum specs- recommended specs are your effective minimum.
Jeez, you know what? I shouldn't even have to be telling you this. If you don't know, you shouldn't be mouthing off here.
(much less writing reviews. ;) )
Dana, can we now please delete your TOP 10 non WoW MMOs article and put in a better list?
If you're going to slam us, please check your facts.
Aion was not the highest ever review on the site. It was tied for 4th. However, consistency has been a large issue generally I will grant that. Too many years, too many standards, too many editors and only one scoring system.
And, Champions got 7.5, not 8.
I applaud your acknowledgment of the flaws in your current review system and your effort to revamp your review criteria and standards.
That said, I will quibble with your claims that Aion was only the 4th highest review on the site. Technically, you are correct because when you take into account re-reviews and reviews of expansions, then your claim is accurate.
However, the claims that myself and others were making were in reference to "first-time" reviews, i.e. the first review of a game after it was originally released. When this is taken into account, our statements are accurate ... it is 0.2 points higher than the next two highest original reviews (for Eve and Lotro).
FYI ... when you sort reviews in your review section by clicking on the Scores heading it doesn't seem to work quite right. It seems to rank more recent scores (from mid-2008 through 2009) in chronologically descending order but then the rest of the older reviews are lumped into several chronological mini-groups thereafter.
Actually I'd like to see a bit more structured summary information in all the reviews. Like is it skill or class based, what races are available, setting, payment model, crafting available, housing available, mounts available, etc. Basically a snapshot of info at the beginning or on the side of the review that lets you know if it's even a game you might be interested in.
As far as actual reviews go - honestly just let us know if you had fun - do we really need a rating? It's all subjective anyway.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
Having a review by someone who barely has min specs to run vista (2 gig common I know that wont run crap!) is setting up the company reviewed for epicfail! Not fair to the company producing the game... not fair to anyone.... don't you people employ people that are supost to be gammers? My POS system would run rings around his rig and its a piece of crap. I wouldn't jusdge any game on my system and be called fair.. his machine I call that biased and was setting up Icarus for epicfail before he even turned the machine on Tisk Tisk
That's NOT a performance issue. If you run a game on a system that floats somewhere between the minimum and reccomended specs, then you get "Hopefully it runs smooth on the lowest graphics settings". That's just how game specs are written up. If you want a game to run smooth AND look nice, then ignore the minimum specs- recommended specs are your effective minimum.
Jeez, you know what? I shouldn't even have to be telling you this. If you don't know, you shouldn't be mouthing off here.
(much less writing reviews. ;) )
I tried the game on four machines that are above minimum, two that are above recommended. Don't act like I am the only person who ever said this game runs like shit. It has to be, by far, the number one complaint about the game.
Good luck to the next reviewer, hope it pleases the community.
Nicely handled MMORPG.com .....
It is good to see that you guys did the "RIGHT" thing.
~Hairysun
Lol 9 pages already...
Dana and staff:
I enjoy this site very much, feeds my addiction while at work. I think many people miss the big picture. Is it fair to write a review on a game after playing it for 2 weeks? Does someone write a book review after reading 4 chapters? If they did, they would probably be out of a job.
These kinds of "reviews" have affected consumers. Case in point for me was Warhammer, without even having to go into detail about it.
Your "reviews" should be called "First Impressions" or "2 Week review." Only when your "reviewer" has experienced the MMO from beginning to end game activities, then I do believe it can be called an "Official review."
"Wow, this game got high ratings on MMORPG and several forums agreeing. (2 weeks later). "This game suxorz."
Ok, since when is any review of anything not the opinion, or at least skewed by, the writer who wrote it? I have had wonderful dining experiences at restaurants with bad reviews, and I have played some really fun games that got less than a lack luster review.
The survey process by the members here, which have a view point of their own, can be skewed. We just take it with a "grain of salt" and consider the source. Some sources which consistently write reviews we disagree with means we just stop reading them after awhile.
A review, is after all, just one mans (or womans) opinion.
The major problem here was not that people were unhappy with the review as in if they agreed or disagreed with the reviewer's opinion, but that the number rating assigned to the review did not coincide with the review itself. If one sees a '6.9' they presume the contents of the review will reveal how they came up with the mediocre rating. The review itself for this game was greatly positive, almost shining (I'm not sure how much anything can 'shine' in a post-apocalyptic setting). It would (and should) be the same effect if another game was given a rating of 8.9, yet the review gives the impression that "eh, it's ok". It makes the number rating system here pointless and arbitrary.
STANDARDS. We need them here.
I play Fallen Earth, and I would've been much more accepting of this "score", even a more negative score, IF the reviewer could justify how they came to that conclusion. The number rating is typically the first thing your readers will see here. I'm pretty sure not everyone has the time to read every review for every game that comes out, so most will base their judgements of the game off that simple number rating. Reading this review makes me wonder how many other games I may have misjudged b/c I just looked at the rating before passing them off. This is why your readers are upset. Not because the reviewer's overall opinion of the game disagreed with theirs, but that your reviewer was leading us one way and then slapped on a number that didn't correlate with what he was saying.
Don't tell us that everything in a game is horrible, but overall it's good; likewise, don't tell us that a game is 'meh' when everything else you're writing about it says it's great.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
If you read the review.. which you didn't, then you'd know that the game wasn't touted as running like "shit" for the reviewer. Secondly, if you had read the review, you would understand that an overly positive review ending in a strangely negative score doesn't add up. Also, if you you had any sense at all you'd know that this whole thread is dedicated to a review that was retracted for a specific reason, by not reading the review you have no bearing on what that reason was, and furthermore shouldn't really chime in when you can't comment on the original situation in the first place.
Lastly, I commend MMORPG for their efforts. The game is highly recommended on this site, and its clear the playerbase just wants an honest review and I applaud MMORPG for giving it another shot
I think weighting the overall score into a 50/50 split for both a technical side and the reviewer's opinion will help give a much more accurate score. The technical side could be given specific criteria that the game will have to meet and the reviewer's opinion can be open, but should have specific items that should be addressed.
Have to agree here. This a positive step for the site in addressing and acknowledging inconsistencies in one of this sites reviews. But the same needs to be done for the Aion review to further address inconsistencies of reviews on this site lately.
Jon, why no response or comment on the strong arguments brought forth about the inconsistencies in the Aion review? It has been consistently pointed out that the score and tone of the review for Aion do not mesh. Couple this with the score being the highest reviewed MMO on this site ever and we have evidence that there is no uniformity in the review process.
As I've claimed in the Aion thread, along with well-defined criteria for writing a review, the scoring of a review must take into account previous review scores from this site for there to be any long-term relevance to all the reviews on this site.
Would you guys PLEASE STHU about the Aion review. Friggin IGN and Gameplanet and...hell nearly every damn reviewer on gamerankings and others gave it high marks so get the hell off of it already. The score is not that far from what others reviewed the game.
I'm amazed at the number of people who don't seem to grasp the concept of an official (note that word) review. It's a little different than a biased article written by your everyday, average Joe. This author (as well as any other staff member) represents the entire site, and as such, has much more influence on the user-base.
Yes, the writer has every right to give his/her opinion, but that should only attest to a very small portion of the article, if at all. The meat of any noteworthy review is going to be the unbiased, objective look at the game and it's features.
People don't come to review site to read about one person's "opinion", they come to read about the strengths and weaknesses of the game in question. An opinion has little weight in a professional review.
Well I am a fan of the game myself and I do not mind a low score as it is just an opinion and I did believe the review was spot on. However the grade it got did not reflect the review. So either the grade was to low or the review to positive. So I do find it shamefull that the review got take down as it was pretty good, just hoped the way he graded the game would have become a bit more transparent.
Also to the folks saying the fans where complaining. Rightly so. If a review does something wrong people should complain about it (do even not believe it where just fans of the game). I would not mind if the next reviewer give a good review, but is negative and gives a low score. A mistake was made however, whatever it was the reviewer, editor or MMORPG.com policies regarding grading of the MMO's. They learned (and are still learning hopefully) and the site will get better for it.
Would again like to add though that I did like the orginal review and hope that one will get back online!
I disagree. If I wanted to have a sum up of it's features I would read the main site. I read a review for the opinion of the writer about the features. It is imposible to write a objective review, because what person A find a strength in the game (take the zoned PvP) is weakness for person B (A fan of full PvP).
you know why this is though... for Americans, 12 years of school grading tells us 90-100 is great, 80-90 is good, 70-80 is ok, and anything lower is bad. so we automatically react to scores for anything else the same way. if you want a system where the entire range is useful, drop the stars completely and just go with Definitely Recommended, Highly Recommended, Recommended, Recommended with Reservations, etc.... (as you are more or less suggesting with a 1-5 scale).
You know, that makes perfect sense and something I've never thought about. Getting rid of any numeric ranking may be the best way to go - as that is purely the most subjective part of the review. That alone would solve a lot of problems. If the site used such a ranking system, I imagine if the original review was slapped with a "Recommended" we wouldn't be having this conversation (especially considering most level headed fallen earth fans know the game isn't for everyone).
The next reviewer doesnt have to please the community but he/she must be respected by them ie: have the proper computer to handle
the type of game he/she is reviewing.
You know, that makes perfect sense and something I've never thought about. Getting rid of any numeric ranking may be the best way to go - as that is purely the most subjective part of the review. That alone would solve a lot of problems. If the site used such a ranking system, I imagine if the original review was slapped with a "Recommended" we wouldn't be having this conversation (especially considering most level headed fallen earth fans know the game isn't for everyone).
I think Recommended with Reservations would even have fitted the review (and hell that is the advice I would give to anyone for this game even though I love it myself :P)
You know, that makes perfect sense and something I've never thought about. Getting rid of any numeric ranking may be the best way to go - as that is purely the most subjective part of the review. That alone would solve a lot of problems. If the site used such a ranking system, I imagine if the original review was slapped with a "Recommended" we wouldn't be having this conversation (especially considering most level headed fallen earth fans know the game isn't for everyone).
It has nothing to do with the "I disliked the game or I recommend the game" scenario.
So many people posting that have no idea what they are posting about,the guy that made the review was below the spec required to run the game and his only complaint was the lag,which was hardly surprising since he was running the game on Vista with only 2gb RAM,he then tried to cover this by saying he did have more than 2gb RAM but was found out that he lied.
Anyway well done to MMORPG.com for pulling the review,a very good move indeed,hell even if the next review for the game still only get's a 6.9 at least it will be a fair 6.9.
Very nice that MMORPG.com manned up,like I said in previous post's regarding this everyone in life make's mistake's,it is how we go about admitting and sorting the mistake's that matter the most.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
Simply because the guys review of the game said the game was good, the review was in my opinion very positive against Fallen Earth...
So you who have not read the review stated that you believed the reviewed was in the line of this, quoting you.
"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."
You see you assume that the review was negative, pretty harsh, towards FE when in fact it was not. It was not even close to that, the only thing the reviewer really did not like was the lag, when the reviewer ran the game on a computer under the recommendations for the game. All in all it was a positive review, the score did not match the written text.
Do you still think you have all the knowledge needed about this?
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
If you read the review.. which you didn't, then you'd know that the game wasn't touted as running like "shit" for the reviewer. Secondly, if you had read the review, you would understand that an overly positive review ending in a strangely negative score doesn't add up. Also, if you you had any sense at all you'd know that this whole thread is dedicated to a review that was retracted for a specific reason, by not reading the review you have no bearing on what that reason was, and furthermore shouldn't really chime in when you can't comment on the original situation in the first place.
Lastly, I commend MMORPG for their efforts. The game is highly recommended on this site, and its clear the playerbase just wants an honest review and I applaud MMORPG for giving it another shot
I haven't wasted a single word defending either the review in question or the reviewer. My comments were on the nature of reviews in general, and the performance of this game. Since when does unplayable lag not equal shitty performance? You are just arguing semantics because you don't want to discuss the pertinent facts.
You are just a fallen earth fanboy (evidence in your forum signature) trying to silence the critics of this game by telling them they have no right to comment on it. Hey, I like video games too... I have been playing the same one for a year, but I don't feel the need to fanboy for it. I don't have to go around arguing with other people over their opinion of the game, or disputing their reported performance issues. I don't have the time or inclination to try and "disprove" other people's perceptions.
To be honest I would rather they don't.
It would not matter if they'll give it a score of 5 or 8. Or even the same. The only thing that can be done is to get set conditions for reviewing a game so every reviewer stands on the same foundation.
But for Fallen Earth in my opinion that train left the station.
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
If you read the review.. which you didn't, then you'd know that the game wasn't touted as running like "shit" for the reviewer. Secondly, if you had read the review, you would understand that an overly positive review ending in a strangely negative score doesn't add up. Also, if you you had any sense at all you'd know that this whole thread is dedicated to a review that was retracted for a specific reason, by not reading the review you have no bearing on what that reason was, and furthermore shouldn't really chime in when you can't comment on the original situation in the first place.
Lastly, I commend MMORPG for their efforts. The game is highly recommended on this site, and its clear the playerbase just wants an honest review and I applaud MMORPG for giving it another shot
I haven't wasted a single word defending either the review in question or the reviewer. My comments were on the nature of reviews in general, and the performance of this game. Since when does unplayable lag not equal shitty performance? You are just arguing semantics because you don't want to discuss the pertinent facts.
You are just a fallen earth fanboy (evidence in your forum signature) trying to silence the critics of this game by telling them they have no right to comment on it. Hey, I like video games too... I have been playing the same one for a year, but I don't feel the need to fanboy for it. I don't have to go around arguing with other people over their opinion of the game, or disputing their reported performance issues. I don't have the time or inclination to try and "disprove" other people's perceptions.
Like has been said alot in this thread if you care to read it,when the reviewer is reviewing a game that his system cannot run,not the game's fault but his,most if not all player's check the game's requirements before shelling out the money,his post on the lag should not be in the review as it was his shitty pc causing the lag not the game.
Actually the review wasnt harsh but the score was. The review was also poorly writen leeding me to wonder who is proofreading the submissions on this site.
Fallen Earth sucks.
I thought the review was a tab bit modest myself.
:D
You know the review was positive towards the game right?
:D
You know the review was positive towards the game right?
What the hell do I know? I'm just a dumb redneck.
YEEEHAAAW
What the hell do I know? I'm just a dumb redneck.
YEEEHAAAW
I wasn't asking for the color of your neck.
(Yeah, comments like that is fun when it is from someone you know, or someone that you see in real life... but this is teh internets so it's just silly and feels a tab bit anti climax.)
In my mind this review simply exposes a much larger issue for Dana and MMORPG.com to solve with their "official" reviews as a whole. What is the specific purpose of the official review at this site and do the current pieces reflect that goal?
Is the MMORPG.com review supposed to be a guide or introduction to the basic features of the game?
Is it supposed to be an objective benchmark of the game features as measured against common examples of the industry?
Is it supposed to be a subjective report of that specific reviewer's experiences within the first several hours of gameplay?
In my mind, these 3 examples aren't particularily compatible, so jamming them all into the same review piece likely won't work well. Were authors plentiful the ideal solution would be to give every game 3 pieces (AoC has been given a similar treatment I believe) - however given the number of releases I'd suspect that's not a tenable option.
As such, a choice needs to be made and communicated clearly to the audience so they know what the intention of the piece (and all similar ones) is.
My personal thoughts are that the "subjective impressions" style piece is not overly useful or warrented. The internet is infested with opinion, as are these forums. If I want subjective opinions and an aggregate "community" score - I need look no further than the user opinions section. It takes a bit of trolling to get a good idea below all the spin and counter-spin - but it's there.
Similarly, the "guide" type of piece isn't terribly useful if that's the sum of the piece. There is a place for it, but if the whole review simply steps through the systems involved it tends to lead to (yet another) opinion piece.
So I tend to favour the "benchmark" type of review personally. Ideally, I would like to be able to flip to any "official" review on this site and see a common format examining common features, with the review largely focused on objective measures (if possible - i.e. Frames per second) and comparisons to other MMOs of simliar age. Each section gets scored objectively, and the aggregate score is what is reported as the "official" rating.
It would be nice to see a summary at the very top of the article as to the main features of the game (genre, PvP available, subscription model, etc), and it probably wouldn't be out of line to have a brief summary of the reviewer's machine specs as well.
The main downside to having such reviews would be a stifling of the creativeness of the individual writer. To compensate, perhaps the last section of the review could be a clearly labled "subjective impressions" section where the writer can go off on whatever impressions they had. Such a section should have no bearing on the scoring of the review - but could be a useful counterpoint to the more formulaic benchmarking review.
While I don't see anything inherrently wrong with opinion based reviewing, generally they are only useful if one discovers a reviewer that shares similar tastes - and then follows that reviewer exclusively. This is fine for professional reviewers (Roger Ebert and similar) who can generally be expected to review most of the pieces in their field - but this site generally only has one reviewer from a pool of writers on any given game. As such, even if I found an MMORPG.com revewer I agreed with - there would be no guarentee a given game would be reviewed by that person, and so this site's review for that particular game is useless to me.
Just a few thoughts on the issues this situation brought to light in my mind. Withdrawing the review was the right decision regardless, kudos.
Why? I've never been much of a Dana fan (i.e. I've often found myself disagreeing), but his top 10 seems spot on as far as average user ratings go and I could not be more pleased with how the FE review was handled. Way to go, Dana :-)
I don't agree with that point specifically. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. A lot of people have made the same point here, and I just think it's silly. Why is 6 of ten seen as a terrible review? What are 1-5 for?? It seems like most of the people here want the review scale to be 8-10, and that is just absurd to me. 10 is a perfect score, so 8 and 9 are damn near perfect. Very few people think Fallen Earth is anywhere near a perfect, so why should it get anything higher than 6 or 7?
IMO, no number of innovative features can make up for the combination of poor performance and lackluster graphics. If I had 20 positive things to say about this game, and my one negative was that performance was terrible, I would rate the game pretty low. None of the features matter if the game runs like crap.
I could even understand a terrible frame-rate if the graphics were amazing... at least then it would be justified. If other games can manage to produce stunning graphics with a smooth frame-rate, then it's reasonable to expect it, and reasonable to complain when a game doesn't produce those results. I don't judge a game on a curve simply because it's developed by a bunch of armatures with no budget. All i care about is how it plays, looks and runs. If they can't compete with the big boys, that's their problem, not mine.
Again... I am not deafening the review or the reviewer. My comments are based on my personal experience with this game.
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
If you read the review.. which you didn't, then you'd know that the game wasn't touted as running like "shit" for the reviewer. Secondly, if you had read the review, you would understand that an overly positive review ending in a strangely negative score doesn't add up. Also, if you you had any sense at all you'd know that this whole thread is dedicated to a review that was retracted for a specific reason, by not reading the review you have no bearing on what that reason was, and furthermore shouldn't really chime in when you can't comment on the original situation in the first place.
Lastly, I commend MMORPG for their efforts. The game is highly recommended on this site, and its clear the playerbase just wants an honest review and I applaud MMORPG for giving it another shot
I haven't wasted a single word defending either the review in question or the reviewer. My comments were on the nature of reviews in general, and the performance of this game. Since when does unplayable lag not equal shitty performance? You are just arguing semantics because you don't want to discuss the pertinent facts.
You are just a fallen earth fanboy (evidence in your forum signature) trying to silence the critics of this game by telling them they have no right to comment on it. Hey, I like video games too... I have been playing the same one for a year, but I don't feel the need to fanboy for it. I don't have to go around arguing with other people over their opinion of the game, or disputing their reported performance issues. I don't have the time or inclination to try and "disprove" other people's perceptions.
How could I be a fanboy of a game with unplayable lag and shitty performance? Perhaps because I don't experience the same problems. Just because my signature, which denotes a willingness to write creative fiction based on my time in game is not derivative to my stand on the games performance or my liking of all of its features. The game has issues. Unplayable lag is not one that I have. I have mentioned before in many posts that, yes, I do get lag from time to time, and it has been worse lately due to the latest patch where I do have issues in OilVille and Embry to where my FPS drops to 15 FPS when highly populated. I don't find this unplayable.
You may have given a personal view of the nature of reviews, but to say that the score denotes the problems you perceive this game has but not basing that score on the review that was given is ludicrous. If the overall tone of something is good but the end result is bad without an underlying reason then something doesn't add up.
Your opinion on the games performance is as subjective as is the review in question. Its obvious not everyone has the same opinion of the games playability as you do, hence the two things you KNOW as deemed absolute are anything but. Doesn't take a fanboy to point that out.
That is my point exactly.... back at ya. ;)
You think 15 pfs is fine, I do not. We probably have different favorite bands, movies, food... taste and preference are subjective. Reviews are subjective in nature, as they are based on the opinion and experience of the reviewer. If we wanted a list of features without the opinion of a reviewer, we could get that from the developer. If this guy was dishonest in his review, I applaud the decision to take it down.... but taking it down doesn't erase the serious problems this game faces, no matter how much the fanboys wish it would.
I don't agree with that point specifically. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. A lot of people have made the same point here, and I just think it's silly. Why is 6 of ten seen as a terrible review? What are 1-5 for?? It seems like most of the people here want the review scale to be 8-10, and that is just absurd to me. 10 is a perfect score, so 8 and 9 are damn near perfect. Very few people think Fallen Earth is anywhere near a perfect, so why should it get anything higher than 6 or 7?
If you have read the review maybe you'd be more able to grasp why 6.9 was a low score.
IMO, no number of innovative features can make up for the combination of poor performance and lackluster graphics. If I had 20 positive things to say about this game, and my one negative was that performance was terrible, I would rate the game pretty low. None of the features matter if the game runs like crap.
Maybe the game would have ran terrible for the reviewer aswell, but now we will never know as he did not have hardware to test it on. I would be like I fueled up my car with diesel instead of gasoline and said the car doesnt really go that well... yeah the car doesn't go well anyway... But you see, before I start to whine about the god dmn car shouldn't I use the right fuel for it first?
(I am truely sorry for using a car anology.)
I could even understand a terrible frame-rate if the graphics were amazing... at least then it would be justified. If other games can manage to produce stunning graphics with a smooth frame-rate, then it's reasonable to expect it, and reasonable to complain when a game doesn't produce those results. I don't judge a game on a curve simply because it's developed by a bunch of armatures with no budget. All i care about is how it plays, looks and runs. If they can't compete with the big boys, that's their problem, not mine.
Again... I am not deafening the review or the reviewer. My comments are based on my personal experience with this game.
Surely you still should be able to recognise the call for a fair review? Edit: Oh, if it was up to me, I wouldn't do a re-review after all this fuzz.
Good decision to assign another person on the job. The MMORPG staff is now in a very delicate situation: the new reviewer rates the game too high? MMORPG.com loses respect. Is it too low? Same effect. Is it slightly higher? The only way this could work out with only one blue eye. I´m gessing on a 7,5. Its always politics at the end and you try to make every one happy. Too bad, this game deserves a really good and neutral review, where the text undermines the final score too.
That is my point exactly.... back at ya. ;)
You think 15 pfs is fine, I do not. We probably have different favorite bands, movies, food... taste and preference are subjective. Reviews are subjective in nature, as they are based on the opinion and experience of the reviewer. If we wanted a list of features without the opinion of a reviewer, we could get that from the developer. If this guy was dishonest in his review, I applaud the decision to take it down.... but taking it down doesn't erase the serious problems this game faces, no matter how much the fanboys wish it would.
Well, to that I'll agree, as long as we all are aware that at least SOME of the perceived problems of the game are opinion.. then, rock on.
As I added my voice to the descent in the review thread, I would like to say I have absolutely no problem if the next review gives the game 6.9 again or less. I will thoroughly disagree with it and the possition it would put it on mmorpg's review list but I will accept it given the way reviews are done here.
But I would like to say I appreciate the decision to re-review without bias and with a machine that we are sure meets the minimum requirements. It was the right decision and I look forward to the outcome.
I'll say this again, the major point of contention is not that people don't like what the reviewer's opinion says, it's that the review doesn't reflect the overall score that he gave. The number, which is fairly prominently displayed as the official MMORPG rating.
If you're going to give us a score for a game, tell us WHY it achieved that score. What we've seen in this review is that the reviewer told us that Fallen Earth a mediocre game because everything in it is great except for a bit of lag in major cities when playing on an inadequate machine. Does that make any sense? How surprised would we be to find other reviews here with a great overall rating, but nothing in the actual review to back that up?
Can we get some sort of accountability for the reviewers writing for this site?
Maybe in the future, instead of just pulling the review, I would suggest having multiple reviews. Obviously the original reviewer attempted to play the game without meeting minimum system specs, which for most rational people would have explained the issues he had during his time in game.
I think having a mediocre review with comments attached to it pointing out the mistakes the reviewer made would get less backlash than pulling a review down completely. Let Jon post a note saying "Hey we screwed up on this one by not meeting certain standards, but we are going to fix our internal issues and relook it." Then let both reviews speak for themselves.
wierd, i play FE like lots of people atm, and i would give it about a 6.0. Different setting but well, not to special. Has about the worst gfx ive seen in mmo personally in like 3 years. Not the worst game play though. Every time i aproach a car or object and see the level of detail change to its final poop i cringe. The shrubs that ar a X of 2d images lol. But i play it cause im bored as hell. Yes there is frame rate issues also dont let them tell you otherwise. If im on a 4 wheeler and drive in certain areas i drop to about 2 fps. I can deal with it though, but its there.
I wonder if icarus whined so mmorpg decided to buckle under the pressure.
The new review will have a higher score.
Oh and the review should include a comment on the laggy engine.
Wow when was the last time this happened?
I think for an unbiased review the next on should be done by an android! Yes i said it, an android. Im going to call Data right now. He is the only hope we have right now for a unbiased review.
So when is the best ever Aion review retracted?
Or is, that one falling under contractual obligations?
yes agree it was a good idea to double check procedures occasinonally kudos
you do need some grade points to go along with such a review I prefer a 1-10 scale for such things as graphics sound completeness proformance but you must also include some endgame time whenever that is possible as well as some blind ingame opinions so as to paint as CLEAR AND ACCURITE picture as possible
I have a long list of FE holes and gaps that I use to check off at least some of the things I was watching
a few things still on my list...
water ditch in monkeytown water is a non interactable mass and its easy to get stuck between the sides of a ditch and the water
travel times overly long (steam train)
costume clothing / clothing toggles
crafting que
radiation barrier defined more obvious,, with rad meter clicker
vehicles need vehicle physics (jumping)
horse population gonna be a problem after release as in 100+ horses standing in oil
repeatable quests not identified
need grenage physics includes the poisons and acids
need shotgun physics not slug
shotgun damage out of wach 410 is the smallest NOT the bigest (12,20,410)
factions are wattery and have no unique contrast.
no player chat channels
no tiered clan bank security
need more player choice in crafting dyeing or other customizations like a blue mororcycle or green berret or spicy chicken (vs normal chicken)
no /follow command
no /drag command
I would have to say even though steam train and shotguns are important to me,, I would have to say the number 1 thing that needs to be addressed is the vehicle physics
the higher you go the more sparce and chaotic the game content
and the use of a virus diaster makes the environment unremarkable in most places you cant really tell that anything happened
I REALLY wanted to love this game as aftermath is very high on my theme list but it just had too many failings and missing code ,, it really is still a beta game and it looks to be that whay for quite a while,
I will be glad to play once most of the fundamental issues are addressed but the devs dont seem to care and just wanted to dump another money maker on the market
im in "wait and see" mode with this game.
Can you just either read what this topic is about rather than give a review?
This has nothing to do with the score the reviewer gave or anyone's thought's on the matter.
It is about how he went about the review and his system for reviewing the game,I tell you what forget it,if you can not even be bothered to read what you are replying to then why should I help you out.
I really respect this. Its a bold move for a gamers website to retract a review. I hope that this leads to a more unified and objective scoring system and less dependant on a reviewer's taste in gaming. Although I understand that truely objective isnt possible.
Can you just either read what this topic is about rather than give a review?
This has nothing to do with the score the reviewer gave or anyone's thought's on the matter.
It is about how he went about the review and his system for reviewing the game,I tell you what forget it,if you can not even be bothered to read what you are replying to then why should I help you out.
Haha, i guess my point is im not so sure he was wrong in his review. Didnt think it was much of a strech. Its a bad idea to retract it. There, better?
BTW i dont need any help from the likes of you, not like i was requesting it.
Obviously the review was made in error.
Those that disagree are just not that smart.
Haha, i guess my point is im not so sure he was wrong in his review. Didnt think it was much of a strech. Its a bad idea to retract it. There, better?
BTW i dont need any help from the likes of you, not like i was requesting it.
I'll take it you still didnt read the orginal review. The review was a good review except he had terrible lag (because he had a poor computer that didnt meet min spec) and gave it a 6.9. if you read the review you would not agree with his review just the score.
so ya you really do need help, even tho you didnt request it
I can only pray all of this complaining has not lost a man his job. If he felt it was a 6.9 his opinion should not cost his lively hood.
Also guys, a drop in frame rate -is- lag. There are multiple forms of lag and that happens to be one of them. Network lag is another.
Glad to hear FE is getting another review. Even if the review is worse, as long as it's unbiased and has a solid grounding in reality, then I'll have no problem with it.
I still think each full review should be done by multiple people and the end rating should be an aggregate of their individual review results. Another thing I'd like to see would be two additional sections in the reviews: "most like" and "will most liklely be enjoyed by". "Most like" would list a game (or games) that the reviewed game's play seems most similar to, and "will most likely be enjoyed by" would list the demographics deemed to have the highest likelihood of loving the game (i.e. sci-fi buffs, carebears, children, evil griefers, etc.).
I would like to see a system that has set categories (like gameplay, graphics quality/style) and then adds up the total of all of them and then that is the review. It prevents the reviewer from over-obsessing over one detail of the game but still leaves room for that one aspect to bring the whole score down. Also I think a total of other game sites reviews would be good as well. Just so we can see what other sites thing of it. Not every game is on metacritic. That's just what I would like to see though.
This was a very good decision, and it is a pleasure to see a lot of reasonable posts in all three relevant threads, including those from Jon.
One thing that I wonder about though is the history of the reviewer, because it appears the reviewer has been using a computer inadequate for a fair review for quite some time. Someone posted the list of games and quotes where the reviewer repeatedly and consistently encounters severe lag issues with every (?) game he reviewed. My jaw kind of dropped when I saw the strength of the pattern there. It may be worthwhile going back to those other reviews and simply noting somewhere that the lag issues the reviewer drew attention to are likely to be the fault of the reviewer's hardware and not the game.
In a way, it is a testament to Fallen Earth that it was the review of this game that uncovered the mistake. And really, well done to those in the community that realised something was quite wrong and got to the bottom of it.
Those that disagree with the retraction are simply not being reasonable or do not know the facts... you cannot justify a review of any computer game where minimum system requirements are not met by the reviewer. Almost surely the game will run badly to the point of being frustrating to play. I do not understand why other people do not understand this.
A quite separate issue is the gap between the positive tone of the text and the final score. This is a grey area. How one person perceives 6.9 out of 10 is not the same as another. What one *can* do is evaluate the score in the context of review scores found on mmorpg and this is in fact where the gap becomes more clearly a problem and contributed to the retraction.
So, on both counts, I think the retraction and the rethink of the review process are very sensible moves indeed.
It's not the score that would cost him his job, but his incompetence in performing his job. It's like a nuclear engineer claiming he has a doctorate when it turns out he really only has an associates in applied science. He played the game with a system that was below specs then complained about lag issues that were, more than likely, caused by his sub-par system. Then, he went on to correct himself that the 2 gigs he was referring to were his video card RAM, rather than his system RAM, notwithstanding that Corsair doesn't even make video RAM or that he had claimed the same system specs for all of his reviews that he had done. So to compound his incompetence, he lied about it. If he still had a job, he would be quite lucky, as I don't know of very many companies that would support such behavior.
So if 0 is off the charts bad, and 10 is off the charts good, I think 6.whatever is accurate, as in above average, but just barely. That is about the same sentiment I have as well.
The game is just slightly above average. There are no participation trophies here.
Or are there?
So if 0 is off the charts bad, and 10 is off the charts good, I think 6.whatever is accurate, as in above average, but just barely. That is about the same sentiment I have as well.
The game is just slightly above average. There are no participation trophies here.
Or are there?
I rest my case.
I rest my case.
You can't handle the case!
Most people associate a 6/10 as a bad score because if you get a 6 out of 10 on a test, you failed it. People turn it into a percentage rate, and then use that based on what they would expect from, say, a school test.
This is what you get with a fairly shoddy system of what are basically fan reviews. If this guy getting caught out lying about his system specs is what it takes to reform the system, then good. Clearly, at a minimum, reviewers should be heavily vetted for gaming experience, professionalism, objectivity and some degree of technical knowledge as well as the ability to write. I somehow doubt that will shrink the pool of potential free reviewers to nothing.
The specific review in question being right or not doesn't matter; in fact it was fairly close, but anyone could synthesize that from forum threads. The point of a review is to trust that the person actually played and tried the game on a reasonable machine and this guy has blown that trust.
You should also note that it is a comparative score. If bad games were truly rated 1-5, then a 6 may not be so bad. However, a 6 is in the bottom rung of MMOs.
Besides, it wasn't the score that mattered at all. It was reviewing the game with an underspecced machine and then dropping the score because it didn't perform well.
Even from someone who isn't spending time in this game anymore, I thought the review was one of the worse ones ever. The man did not meet the system requirements. That alone makes your website reviews look really really bad.
I don't care if its FE, Aion, Champions, SWKOR, or a re-review. If your not meeting the minimum requirements you:
A: should not be able to review the game
B: not allowed to review anything else
C: as a company that prides itself, should honestly have review machines(I am assuming that is not possible, and if not, then take two reviews to judge performance, one on a high end and one on a minimum requirement.
I think many who are saying they shouldn't do this should look at the picture: You failed to meet the requirements of the game so Framerate of course will be an issue, but that could also be a lag. (I know for a fact up to a week ago(My last login) I had 20-30seconds of lag before I could effectively play) And thus your whole performance article and only complaint on the game as being LAG was invalid.
bad move mmorpg.com seams tears change stuff but in darkfall that dint happen (many ppl whine on darkfall review and said the given score is to big exactly the opposite that happen on FE and mmorpg.com dint retracted) maybe because darkfall dint have any promotion on this site ?
Well i personally thought the review score was ok and could have been lower if it was me i would have gave it a 5/10.
I cant beleave it was retracted seriously what is the point of this website anymore.
If a review isnt liked it get's retracted ?
I didnt like the fact you gave aion a big score can we have that retracted ? no.
Fallen Earth at the end of the day is a sub par game sub par graphics sub par code sub par everything its a complete amature event of a game and isnt even worth the box price and it is fooking laggy and a pile of garbage.
THE REVIEW SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN RETRACTED WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS WEBSITE ANYMORE.
GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS.
Well, yeah. It would have. Now those of us who haven't read it, never can. Post a disclaimer if you wish, but leave it up. If it is flawed, then other posters can point that out quite ably.
Stifling speech is very rarely a good thing. This is a bad precedent.
Admitting that you made a mistake actually requires balls.
If you had read the review then you would have known that is was not about the score but about the argumentation used in the review.
BTW, your failcom avatar is getting REALLY old, it does fit the rest of your post though
Well, yeah. It would have. Now those of us who haven't read it, never can. Post a disclaimer if you wish, but leave it up. If it is flawed, then other posters can point that out quite ably.
Stifling speech is very rarely a good thing. This is a bad precedent.
"Death is just a set back."
This is a fitting quote from the "opening" of the game. I'm glad it was just a set back. If it were any more than that, I'm afraid I wouldn't have proceeded too far into the game. Well nobody said surviving in a post-apocalyptic world would be easy. In fact it can be down right complicated. Fallen Earth is the latest in what seems to be a myriad of both computer and console post-apocalyptic themed games hitting the market these days. Let's face it, folks love the apocalypse, from movies, to comics to games. This game encompasses all the classic elements of this genre: the struggle to survive, the triumph of the human spirit to over come all odds, and the chance to smash some mutants in the head with a giant metal pipe. This time the apocalypse is heralded upon the world courtesy of the Shiva virus. Nobody knows for sure where it came from, OK, well they know where it started. The details of the virus is just one of the mysteries involved in the game. Nevertheless it leaves the world decimated. That's where the player comes in, a ravaged and mutated planet.
Gameplay
The opening of the game begins with your character creation. The developers have done a great job in the amount of detail you can select while creating your character. Give the random selection a shot, you may find some combinations you never thought of trying. Players will be able to create up to four characters. The game starts with a reasonably solid tutorial. It allows those of us who ignore any gaming instruction manuals to jump right into playing the game. The majority of game play basics are covered in this tutorial; movement, advancement points and combat are walked through. Mercifully the tutorial can be skipped when creating multiple characters. I was originally worried about being subjected to the exact same scenario with each new character I created. Once in the game itself, players will have the option of choosing what direction they would like to customize their build. Will you be more combat oriented or more of technical based player? I would suggest that you start off your first character with the combat oriented starting zones, specifically the pistol starting area. Keep those combat skills sharp and keep yourself alive. As you become more adept with the game, you can chose to level up additional characters in a less combat intense method.
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Advancement Points
These are the points players earn through leveling and questing. This is the major point that makes Fallen Earth stand apart from their counterparts. With no classes and no predetermined talent trees, players are free to create whatever type of character they decide.
Players can decide to focus on their physical prowess or to increase their talents. These are not easy decisions. Will you try and be a well rounded character and level all your skills together? Another option is to commit a large of skill points into a single skill. Be careful with this method, you don't want to master any one skill at the complete exclusion of other skills. This is truly an example of where the statement "jack of all trades, master of none" applies. By now I'm sure there exists a number of suggested builds lurking on the web. Have any readers out there found one that works better for them, please share it with us in the comments section.
Crafting
Fallen Earth treats a player right with beginning crafting. A player is supplied with every beginning crafting set needed in the game. What you decide to focus on is up to you. Everybody will have their own opinion on what is the best method of advancement. Do you build weapons first? Or would you focus on medical to keep yourself healed? How about cooking? You can't fight on an empty stomach. Crafting in the game is extremely extensive and worthy of its own article. As boasted on the website and mentioned a numerous times, the best items in game are crafted. Only time will tell exactly what those best items are. Crafting in Fallen Earth works like most crafting systems. Find a recipe, learn the recipe, gather your materials and craft away.
Factions
Fallen Earth has decided to up the ante by boasting six factions rather than the measly two factions found in other games. As if there weren't enough decisions for players to contemplate between advancement points and crafting, now folks need to concentrate on their factions as well. Players will have the option of remaining neutral amongst these six factions. There is no real benefit to following this course of action. Choosing a faction will open a significant amount of the story line. Story not your thing? Well how about that each faction will open new gear and abilities to the players? Players will have a primary faction, two allied factions, one nemesis and two enemy factions (your nemesis's allies). This may seem all very confusing, fortunately there is a built in meter in the game to keep track of where you stand with all the factions. Each of these factions has their own distinct look and feel, which are all clearly outlined in the game and the Fallen Earth website.
Combat
The combat system in Fallen Earth stands apart from the majority of current MMOs on the market. There is no tabbed targeting, and no sticky targeting. Combat is a form of third person shooter. These may take folks some time to become more adept. Many players familiar with first person console shooters won't find the learning curve to be that great. I found it a little unwieldy with a keyboard and mouse rather than console controller. Players enter combat by hitting the tab key. This will bring up the "reticule". This is the targeting mechanism that will decide whether you live or die. Sure, in my case it was mostly die, but I digress. The reticule will allow you target both your melee and ranged weapons. Melee combat is what one would expect from that type of combat. Keep your reticule on your target, and keep on swinging, stabbing, or hacking away. The goal here is try and keep mobile. This is a great assistance in the early levels of the game. More often then not you won't have the luxury of playing "who has more health". Don't trade blows with your opponent. Hit and move. The reticule becomes even more important in ranged combat. Take your time targeting your opponent. Where you hit your opponent will decide on the amount of damage they receive. For example a head shot will cause more damage than a shot to the leg. I'm sure that throughout the game where you shoot for maximum damage will change. So be aware of your opponent's strength and weaknesses. As your ranged weapon skills improve the targeting reticule will improve. The smaller and tighter the reticule, the more damage you will cause. Get those shots in from a safe distance, with luck you'll have killed your target prior to them closing into melee combat.
User Interface
Fallen Earth's interface is fairly standard. You have your generic hotbar, mini map and text box. Nothing really stands out here, nor is it lacking in function. Although there is a nice help bar to the side of your screen which stays hidden. You can opt to turn it off, but it does offer quite a bit of information for the beginning player. A nice function of the interface allows players to have the ability to quickly scroll through their weapons. Either using the CTRL key and corresponding weapon number or through use of the mouse wheel (assuming you have one). Players can control their movement through the used of WASD, arrows keys or the mouse. Since your mouse plays the most significant role in targeting, I found the WASD movement to the most effective method of game play.
Visual/Audio
The player looks great when they have all six weapon slots filled. It adds to the unique character look.
The environmental graphics are clean and crisp, although not particularly earth shattering. It seems to be a draw back that faces most of the more "realistic" games. Players have certain expectation of how the world would look. We know what a building on Earth would look like, so there isn't much room for embellishment. The graphics are very appropriate for the feel of the game. It's a ruined world, and the images and design reflect that. The colors are very dreary. It can get a little depressing. I suppose that's why the game isn't named Happy Fun Time Adventure.
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As with the graphics the score and sound effects match the feel of the game. The score was subtle enough not to overpower the game play. Overall the audio is about the standard of what players have come to expect.
Community
The players of Fallen Earth are certainly passionate about the game. This is evident at first in the amount of scrolling text in the default help chat box. Players seemed more than happy to provide answers to questions posted. Keep an eye out for your answer, this text box moves quickly. Another positive aspect of the community for Fallen Earth was constantly seeing an active GM in chat. For some it may seem a little too Big Brother, but I found it refreshing. They were actually proactive in chat. Whether it was just keeping the peace or redirecting players to a more useful channel. In other games it seems that a GM is a myth or on a perpetual break. It's far from the case here. The game's website has all the information that a player could hope to find. It's a solid source of information for both the novice and veteran alike. Give it a read, I'm more than certain they can fill out many of the gaps that I miss. The folks at Fallen Earth are also hopping on the seasonal event band wagon. Just because it's near the end of civilization as we know it, there's no excuse not to have a little seasonal joy. There have been many contents and promotions over the development of the game and I would assume these types of events will continue through the life of the game. As with most game there is a solid and active forum community. Which quite frankly acts like most forums, there is enough useful information as well as your typical forum gripes.
Performance/Lag
I am running Fallen Earth with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 4 Gigs of RAM and cable modem. The game installed without an issue and looked great. Unfortunately during game play is where I ran into considerable lag. By considerable I mean mind numbing, relentless lag. There were moments I would rather slam a part of me in a car door than try and move in the game. In the spirit of fairness, I tried a variety of Internet speed tests to check my connection, no problem there. From there I tried a couple of the more popular games out there, and they all worked just fine. Maybe it was just a glitch, but after multiple days of play, the lag just wouldn't quit. I pray I am in the minority and with luck perhaps I am the only one afflicted with this issue. Playing the game just became painful after awhile. It may be from the fact that there is only one server for the game. I expect a form of lag in the more populated areas, but not when I am running across a secluded wasteland with nothing more than a mutant chicken for company. I don't mind dying from a superior enemy, or even my inability to play a game. But death from lag is just plain unacceptable. I have to say that the folks at Fallen Earth have been making constant improvements from the game launch. Hopefully this issue will be addressed, or perhaps when the game settles into niche, the game may stabilize.
Closing Opinion
Fallen Earth will certainly find its niche with a particular type of player. The open advancement system certainly holds a great appeal for players tired of being pigeon holed by traditional class systems. The fast paced nature of the combat system is certainly not for everybody. I personally found the game a little difficult to play, perhaps it was the lag. For those looking for a solid challenge, Fallen Earth is for you. There is no cookie cutter format with this type of game play. You are what you make yourself in this game. Do you challenge yourself to be the ultimate warrior or the ultimate crafter? The greater the challenge the greater the reward for players. According to the folks at Fallen Earth, the best items in the game are player created. There is nothing standing between a player and their in game greatness other than the time and effort the player is willing to invest. There is less of a random element involved, but it will be up to the players to figure out what path they should follow.
google cache do the work
Looks perfectly reasonable to me, mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the publishers of Fallen Earth cried about it. Pretty hard to have any faith in the accuracy of anything they publish here in the future.
Ok one more time and im out. The reviewer didn't meet req specs for the game so his review is flawed.
who cares what the review or score was it was flawed from the first word he wrote.
if it gets reviewed again by someone with a high end computer and gives it a 5.2 good its legit and that will be that.
I bet it won't be.
Gaming sites are basically a venue for cheap advertising.
I don't expect any journalistic integrity.
At the risk of giving a hint... You're operating very close to my brainwave with this post. Please, adjust your dial ;)
I fully agree with rwyan.
Although as being done by others web sites you should have a general score form 1-5, and sub scores from 1 to 20 or even 1 to 100 for
Along with each entry you would point at each game that has the best score.
For example let's say you score Fallen earth crafting to 60%, your notation would be viewed very differently by players depending you set WoW or SWG at 100%.
The interest to have sub score is not all players are interested in crafting or PvP or maybe for some, bad characters animations are killing the fun.
I generally like what you all do here at MMORPG.com but I'm going to have to agree with Zzulu, you guys lost some points. :(
Even if you were running the game on a CompuAdd 386? "performance is terrible" isn't an objective thing. You can'r run a game on a shit computer, and dock the review for the performance. That makes zero sense. And "I heard a bunch of other people are having performance issues too" doesn't matter at all. If you were going to consider that, then why even play the game yourself before writing the review? Just compile a list of stuff you heard, and give it a rating based on that; and lose your job, because nobody wants your anecdotal review.
To your first point, WHY 6 out of 10 is taken as bad doesn't matter at all. What matters is that it IS, and that the reviewer (if he deserves his job) knew that when he gave the score. It has nothing to do with the 'people on this forum', or MMORPG, or anything else. It's much bigger than that. Scores under 7.0 are largely negative. If a single reviewer decides in his head that anything over 5 should be positive, and gives rating 6 reviews to good games, then that reviewer is a jackass.
Now I'm starting to wonder if read any reviews at all.
I think the biggest point of contention is the write-up vs the score. It was really cried foul when the two did not meet up.
It would have been the same level of outrage if the writer had said:
Graphics - Not great
Sound - Mediocre
Combat - Vanilla
Community - Mean
Performance - Runs Smooth
Score 8/10
Reviews are subjective. But when the write up does not match the score, then there is something wrong. If he would have trashed the game, then gave it a poor score, there would have been outrage at his opinion, but not the review. In this case, the two things were so far from eachother that they just didn't match.
When you look farther, he gave poor scores based off lag, which is due to his own underperforming system. This added fuel to the fire, but the main point was the write-up/score mismatch.
i dont remember very well but x1300 (min required) have 256 mb like hd 3850(used on the reivew)
i dont remember very well but x1300 (min required) have 256 mb like hd 3850(used on the reivew)
It was his RAM,you posted many replies yet you never even read the review or this thread it would seem.
The reviewer only had 2gb RAM and was using Vista,which do not meet the requirements for the game,also he had reviewed 3 or 4 other game's in the past and always said lag was a problem,which was hardly surprising since he was indeed only using 2gb RAM with Vista.
Now hopefully I mentioned RAM and Vista enough for your eye to catch at least 1 of them as you glance through the thread.
Performance/Lag
I am running Fallen Earth with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 4 Gigs of RAM and cable modem.
that stuff is on review
Performance/Lag
I am running Fallen Earth with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 4 Gigs of RAM and cable modem.
that stuff is on review
It said two gigs originally. Everyone already knows the guy lied about it so there's no point in trying to defend him.
i dint see that IF that is true how come the review was published ??? none check this things before are published ?
i dint see that IF that is true how come the review was published ??? none check this things before are published ?
This has all been spoken about in this thread and the original thread,it was a mistake but a mistake that MMORPG.com have fixed,that is why the review was pulled but still people are going on about it saying it should not have been retracted,though these people have no idea why it was retracted in the 1st place they simply think because it was a low score and people complained that it was retracted,this of course was not the case as has been posted in this thread many many times.
i dint see that IF that is true how come the review was published ??? none check this things before are published ?
It is completely true, Stradden edited the article and changed it from 2GB to 4GB after speaking with his reviewer.
Anyways, it was also proven that the reviewer lied to Stradden to cover his own ass, and that the system he plays with does indeed have 2GB of RAM, not 4GB (as the reviewer attempted to try and claim that the 2GB was a typo and that was actually his video ram, but corsair does not manufacture vram and the model/make of video card he has did not have a 1GB model).
How come the review was published? that's what we've all been trying to find out the entire time, but Stradden just glossed over any of the proof that his reviewer had lied about anything. It would appear that is exactly the problem Cosy, the editors don't seem to have to do much actual editing on this supposed mmo news publication site, they just get a submission and push it to the frontpage without even reviewing the content.
Hence, why I recommend going elsewhere for reviews or pertinent mmo information. TTH and Massively are both one hundred times more reliable and respectable sites than MMORPG.com is. At one point I would have never expected to hear myself say this (I had a great deal of respect for this site and its staff), but unfortunately it has become reality as this site has been sliding down a slippery slope for quite some time now, and it appears it has finally hit the bottom.
It's not the score that would cost him his job, but his incompetence in performing his job. It's like a nuclear engineer claiming he has a doctorate when it turns out he really only has an associates in applied science. He played the game with a system that was below specs then complained about lag issues that were, more than likely, caused by his sub-par system. Then, he went on to correct himself that the 2 gigs he was referring to were his video card RAM, rather than his system RAM, notwithstanding that Corsair doesn't even make video RAM or that he had claimed the same system specs for all of his reviews that he had done. So to compound his incompetence, he lied about it. If he still had a job, he would be quite lucky, as I don't know of very many companies that would support such behavior.
Obviously there was something lost between translation between himself and the person who put the information back up.
He most likely had 4gb of cosair ram set inside of 240 pin slots and separate video
ram inside of each of his cards.
Also, your reference to a Nuclear Engineer is totally unfounded. This review was the equivalent to a man writing a review, which is often a matter of subjectivity on this website, about a game. He spoke of his performance as was often done by others.
However, on this particular day, Mr. Nuclear Engineer Reviewer Man did not account that there would be a wave of fans, or I should say FANATICS because that is what the word means, who would not enjoy that his personal experience had not be worth of anything over a 7.
It is ludacris that people are on this forum complaining about something that is obviously a matter of flavor, of taste, of opinion.
To the man posting above me, you need to learn what proof surrogate is. If you as say "well it's proven this or that!" then you must supply the proof or expect me to accept you with even less credibility then you accept this man's review.
He doesn't have to supply any proof. You need to research just a wee bit. This was big news yesterday.
The mmorpg.com Staff have already informed the community as to what happened and where they stand. So go check it out.
This has gone past the point of being silly. This is not about the score that was given by the reviewer. This is not about the bulk of the review. It is quite simply about one paragraph in the review. This one......
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*from the review
Performance/Lag
I am running Fallen Earth with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 4 Gigs of RAM and cable modem. The game installed without an issue and looked great. Unfortunately during game play is where I ran into considerable lag. By considerable I mean mind numbing, relentless lag. There were moments I would rather slam a part of me in a car door than try and move in the game. In the spirit of fairness, I tried a variety of Internet speed tests to check my connection, no problem there. From there I tried a couple of the more popular games out there, and they all worked just fine. Maybe it was just a glitch, but after multiple days of play, the lag just wouldn't quit. I pray I am in the minority and with luck perhaps I am the only one afflicted with this issue. Playing the game just became painful after awhile. It may be from the fact that there is only one server for the game. I expect a form of lag in the more populated areas, but not when I am running across a secluded wasteland with nothing more than a mutant chicken for company. I don't mind dying from a superior enemy, or even my inability to play a game. But death from lag is just plain unacceptable. I have to say that the folks at Fallen Earth have been making constant improvements from the game launch. Hopefully this issue will be addressed, or perhaps when the game settles into niche, the game may stabilize.
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Initially, the reviewer stated he had (2 Gigs of RAM) on his system. Some folks called him out on the two gigs saying that you can barely run "Windows Vista Ultimate" with two gigs, much less an MMO as well. Which is quite correct. Stradden spoke with the reviewer about this and the reviewer stated that it was a typo and he actually had (4 gigs of RAM.) Stradden promptly changed the review to read that his system had (4 Gigs of RAM). Someone checked into his previous reviews (4-5 of them if I'm not mistaken) and in every one of those he states he had (2 Gigs of RAM). It has been assumed that he was trying to cover his ass to Stradden and lied about the 4 gigs of RAM.
The review really isn't a bad one if you read it ....... except for the above paragraph. MMORPG.com determined that a mistake had been made and based on available information the review would be retracted. Not because fans didn't like the score.
A mistake had been made .....
MMORPG.com acted professionally and did the best thing they could ....... the retracted the review. Hell, I'm about to mail the reviewer a couple more gigs of RAM and ask him how it plays now. As a matter fact, I would have no problem with him simply editing his review after he got his system up to par. The score at this point is irrelevant, it was all about the reviewers sub par machine and the above paragraph.
It's like me saying, I installed WoW on my cell phone and it ran like shit. Heh ........ go figure. Hopefully this will get those that choose not to read through the thread before posting, up to speed.
~Hairysun
I played for 30 minutes and could not stand the game, sorry just not for me
Thanks, Hairy. Nice to see a reasoned post instead of all the people who think it was pulled since the FE devs complained or due to fanbois. It was pulled due to issues with the 'reviewer' who apparently lied and was called out on it, that's all.
I missed it. I didn't read the review because I was too busy playing Fallen Earth despite the widespread bugs, unstable client, unstable servers, and overall bad performance. After the 1.1.0 patch, I finally quit for good. The MOB buff made gray missions impossible to solo and I started spending most of my time running back from the cloner. And forget crafting. It's fun as a secondary thing for your combat character, but after 1.1.0, crafting centered character development makes an unplayable character falls to MOBs half his level.
Without fast travel, and after 1.1.0, Fallen Earth is not for the casual gamer with less than hours at a time on their hands nor for those who like to solo. The way that major combat change was made with no warning and so significantly changing my experience was reminiscent of SWG development. Fallen Earth developers want the game to be hard and to appeal to a small few. Good luck with that. It's a game and has to be fun for me to want to play it.
If the review was retracted due to the sentiments and biased opinions of the remaining rabid fanbois, I hope the next one will stand on the facts. The remaining player base is dedicated to the genre, like I was, and as the game goes down the tubes, they will become more furvent in their opinions, hoping good press will save the game they wish it was.
I'm hoping Bethesda or some experienced company can pull off a post-apocalyptic MMO that has the feel and the fun gameplay to really succeed. Fallen Earth isn't it and the stated plans and demonstrated strategy for gameplay changes has it firmly set on a path similar to SWG. Sad. Very sad.
First of all, how much you personally enjoyed the game has nothing at all to do with this thread subject.
Secondly, that you're whining about the game being too hard to PVE in is just sad. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm no hardcore PVEr myself, and I die in the game sometimes. But seriously- the 'big' complaint on the FE forums is that the PVE content is too easy and there's not enough grouping because the whole game can be soloed, with a few exceptions.
I'm a casual gamer, I solo, and I love FE. It's got a challenge level I enjoy, and fast travel would ruin the feel of the setting. Honestly, it sounds like you're complaining that the character design system allows you to make a character that sucks a combat....and have him actually suck at combat. Yeah.
You're either incompetant, making stuff up, or somehow all the conversation on the FE forums is vastly mis-representing the game. And even if it's the latter, a game with PVE content that's actually CHALLENGING is exactly what the industry needs.
Although I love fallen earth I would like to say this is a bad idea. It sets a precedent that is not a good direction for this website. Now everything will come into question. Yes I disagree with what most of the review said but should have let it stand or just done a second review from a new set of eyes. Instead you are forced to raise the score almost and thats not good.
Anyone else seeing a pattern here?
You know with people responding to a thread without reading it,I mean Hairy just gave a full cap of the story behind the decision to retract the review only 1 page back,yet here is another post ready to start the whole thing yet again....the mind boggle's.
I like his statement about Bethesda or some other experienced company being able to pull it off, when Bethesda has no experience in the MMO realm and even the companies that do still can't get it right. It's always the 'shit will smell good when "hyped game A" comes out', and his will be the voice talking about how it failed and 'shit will smell good when "Hyped game B" comes out', etc.
Odd, while I did notice the increased damage and hit chance of mobs, the buff was nowhere near as dramatic as people claim. Before I could solo enitre camps that aggroed me (same level) with no risc (healing 1-2 times maybe). Now I can still take on 4-6 mobs but I need to watch my health now. Gray quests are not a problem, green quests are still easy and I can still run any normal yellow quests.
So maybe the problem is you and not the buff. Sure if you got used to the extreme easymode PvE now you struggle, but a bit of tactics and knowhow and you can easily make up for the buff. I play a Rifle/Crafter(mid 30s) and have a Melee too (low 20s) and both can hold their own.
Now the review was not retracted because of the score, but because of the fact that the reviewers only qualm with the game (lag - not clear if internet or framerate stutter) has been dismantled due to him playing the game on a PC that did not even meet the minimum requirements for the game. How can a review be fair if you don't even have a system to run the game properly.
Performance/Lag
I am running Fallen Earth with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 4 Gigs of RAM and cable modem.
that stuff is on review
Monthy Python, the MMORPG :D This is a farse, nothing else.
FIrst he stated 2 GB of Corsair RAM just like he has in every second review he have made.
Then he stated that the 2GB was a mistake. He really did mean that the GPU memory was at 2GB... (So for this specific review he had changed the hardware, better remove that [CTRL]+[V] macro huh?)
No ofcourse not, there is no readily avaible 3850 with 1GB VRAM. There is no typo when writing out such a detail on the memory and then change it to 4GB.
You should go and read the book "1984" there they do this all the time... forging the history that is. And there's people believing it, believing the rewritten text in old newspapers so they fit the current day and age, and it's inherant lies. :D
"The Ministry of Truth (google cache in this case) serves an opposing purpose to that which its name would imply, being responsible for the falsification of historical events"
Almost everything you said is not true in anyway.
The Monty Python MMO continues...
Innocent mmorpg.com user: What manner of man are you that can summon up a review without RAM or consistency?
Joe: I... am a gamer
Innocent mmorpg.com user: By what name are you known?
Joe: There are some that call me... 'Joe'...?
Innocent mmorpg.com user: ... greetings, Joe the Gamer
Joe: Greetings, Innocent mmorpg.com user!
Innocent mmorpg.com user: You know my name?
Joe: I do.
[Kapow! impresses everyone by writing yet another amazing review complaining about lag]
You seek the Holy MMO!
Innocent mmorpg.com user: That is our quest. You know much that is hidden, O Joe.
...
Thank you for holding yourselves and your writers accountable. I did'nt even read the article, but it is refreshing to see a site that owns it's actions.
/Cheers.
I didn't even read the piece, but I'm disappointed in this. Tremendously disappointed.
I don't come to this site to read what I want to hear ... I come here to read what people (who MMORPG.COM have vetted as good writers) think. I come here looking for opinion, not new or fanboi news or developer hype.
If the writers opinion is wrong, that's what the comments are for ... to offer a counter point. Not to demand the article be taken down.
Not only is this bad journalism to retract an opinion piece just because the public doesn't like it ... it sets a precedent that MMORPG will spend a loooong time trying to get away from ... because from this day forward, every unfavorable review will be savagely attacked with demands of retraction.
MMORPG just dropped from an 8 to 4 on a scale of 10 for me ... and I didn't even read the opinion.
You don't retract opinion pieces ... you retract news articles that state incorrect facts.
I now know they see their business, the business of printing what they think the readers want to read, instead of what they need to read.
This is simply unbelievable. How many people are going to post this sort of clueless drivel? The review was NOT detracted because people disagreed with the opinion. Zinderin, for crying out loud read the damn thread.
Let me try to put this out there in a way you guys might understand
Just because someone used a system with 2 gigs of ram in the past does not mean that they used it on a game that requires even more. Nor does it mean they are trying to lie and hide something whenever they mention it was a typo. I'd actually suggest that they were more likely to make the typo due to the fact that writing out the same old information was common place for them.
It is a possibility that, yes, this review was conducted on a system below the minimum requirement, but the -only- real evidence we have, the reviewers word, has suggested otherwise.
You are suspicious that because in the past he had used a system with 2 gigs that it was not a mistake and that he is trying to cover his ass but you have no real proof. That, my friends, is proof surrogate. You are stating something without evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt. The only evidence you have is a small voice in the back of your mind that suggests something is not right and that does not serve as real proof.
As far as the reviewers thoughts on lag go, yes indeed there is a lot of it. There is a little, but not enough to cause you to quit, bit of network lag. My Frame Per Second, however, are much lower than what I receive on even Age of Conan and I think we all know which game should be more graphically intensive, it's not Fallen Earth. All of this is likely an issue that will take a few months to remedy but as it stands, even with a system beyond the requirements, I lag.
I think it has to do with all of the horses people can leave around or something.
For the love of f.....
Read the damn thread,you said yourself you never read it but still posted a pointless response,you have no idea what you are replying to but still feel the need to do it.
I would bet my last penny if you read the facts you would not have posted this...just a waste of bandwidth.
I would suggest this thread is closed,the people that actually care and bothered to read the thread and the previous thread now know this info,it is now just dragging in the trolls that have neither the IQ or the know how to read what the thread was about and why the thread was made.
I refer this post to my previous post...read the thread before posting your "wisdom"
I refer this post to my previous post...read the thread before posting your "wisdom"
I read it. All I saw was some people finding a thread to pull upon and attempting to unwrap an entire mystery.
Life does not work that way. Previous reviews listing as 2 gigs and this one mistakenly listing as 2 gigs before being changed does not mean there is a conspiracy within.
On another note, a computer is not entirely based around it's ram. Not when it focuses on games. The GPU is far more important.
fanbois are all up in arms...it is funny...and over a game in beta...*shakes head*
I read it. All I saw was some people finding a thread to pull upon and attempting to unwrap an entire mystery.
Life does not work that way. Previous reviews listing as 2 gigs and this one mistakenly listing as 2 gigs before being changed does not mean there is a conspiracy within.
On another note, a computer is not entirely based around it's ram. Not when it focuses on games. The GPU is far more important.
No you never read the thread,or the previous 1,if you did you would have seen the reviewer tried to cover his mistake by saying he "made a typo" and it is his graphics cards that were 2gb,he listed his cards and the cards(2 cards@1gb) are not even real.
Like I said read the thread and try to keep up,you are defending someone that has been found out..do you honestly think this site would have pulled the review if they were not sure.
Also what do you mean about the GPU is more important than the RAM? are you high?
All the components are as important as the each other,you are saying a guy running high end games with 2gb ram on vista is ok as long as the rest of his pc set up his top notch?
Please do not call Fallen Earth a high end game.
Hmm, this was surprising to see. I didn't expect it to be pulled, though admittedly I'm not sad that it happened.
All I want is a written review that matches with the numerical score given. I believe the game is a 7.5 to 8.5 (I'd give it an 8.0 myself). Will be interested to see this new review. I hope they incorporate some of the ideas being tossed around on the other thread for review suggestions.
So what should it be called?
It takes a decent set up to run and a high end system to run maxed out,what would you prefer it was called,maybe you took the text out of content,that fact remains you will not run this game with a gimped system...as the reviewer found out.
Tbh mate I agree a solid 8,though even if the new reviewer gives it a 6.9(the same as the other reviewer) then that is fair enough.
At least this time it will be a fair 6.9 and I have no problems with that.
And you are here just to fan the fire? you are even worse then the fanbois.
Yes, indeed, I am suggesting that RAM is one of the least important features of a computer. Just above gigs remaining on your harddrive. More is good up until a certain point and at the point no more will help you.
As I have previously said, I have read both this thread and the one before it.
You are essentially saying that because I do not agree with you I must misunderstand the situation or perhaps I have no even begun to read about it.
Show me one ounce of proof beyond the shadow of a doubt that this man is guilty of conducting a review on a faulty system and then, after having been corrected, proceeded to lie about it.
Do this and then I will agree with him losing his job over such a situation, if that is even the actual end result.
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.
So he has made this mistake a few time's it seem's and now he say's he was mixed up with his graphic cards and the RAM?
Come on Jon,do you really buy this?
Like I said far better to admit a mistake,correct it and move on.
Just to add...
Joe Iuliani system specs: aoc re-review
I am running AoC with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 2 Gig Corsair RAM and cable modem.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/15/view/reviews/load/67/World-of-Warcraft-Wrath-of-the-Lich-King-Review.html
Joe Iuliani system specs Wotlk:
Performance/Lag:
I am running the game with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 2 Gig Corsair RAM and cable modem.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/15/view/reviews/load/67/World-of-Warcraft-Wrath-of-the-Lich-King-Review.html
Joe Iuliani Dungeon Runners:
I am running the game with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 2 Gig Corsair RAM and cable modem.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/247/view/reviews/load/59/Dungeon-Runners-Dungeon-Runners-Review.html
Joe Iuliania: Hellgate London
I am running the game with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 2 Gig Corsair RAM and cable modem.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/314/view/reviews/load/60/Hellgate-London-Review.html
Every review he state's LAG! as a con,now tell me you do not find that just a bit strange?
Not all my work but tell me what you think?
Outstanding, to correct a wrong is always a sign of fairness. And that is why I enjoy this site.
Context is everything, my friend, and he stated lag within the context of highly populated areas as a con within those reviews. Not pure lag, which is what he suffered through with Fallen Earth.
RAM is so one of the most important things, at least no less that anything else. If you don't believe this, just take all your ram out, put a 256MB stick in and leave it. If ram doesn't really mean anyhting you should still be able to play all games.
Now, he was running vista, which uses around 400-500mb on it's own. Then trying to play FE, which I have had using over 2GB on it's own.
See, with this set-up, there is just not enough RAM to go around. so there is a lot of page filing going on. Harddrives are incredibly slow compared to ram, so the game lags as it cannot swap data faast enough.
You are kidding me right?
We are done,you never read the review that is for sure and you are just trolling,that is it.
I have taken my ram out and exchanged various parts of my computer a multitude of times and of each part, RAM is by far the most forgiving.
And once more, as before, just because you -think- I did not read the review does not make it true.
This is something you will need to learn in life, everyone has an opinion and they will rarely match your own. That does not mark them as ignorant.
Also, learn what trolling is. Consult the great google.
I have taken my ram out and exchanged various parts of my computer a multitude of times and of each part, RAM is by far the most forgiving.
And once more, as before, just because you -think- I did not read the review does not make it true.
This is something you will need to learn in life, everyone has an opinion and they will rarely match your own. That does not mark them as ignorant.
You have no idea what you are talking about!
What other parts can you go without(as you said more forgiving),you need all parts to make the system work ffs!
Yes you can go lower on RAM and your system will still work...as a gimped out system..again you have no idea what the hell you are talking about!
I am intrigued by how many have come out now that have played Fallen Earth and posted on these new forums about How they feel about the game.With this controversy past us, alot have been saying that they don't like the game or that it is Junk.I have played it and while I don't think its Junk, I don't thing its that good either.WHAT ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO RAVED ABOUT THIS REVIEW BEING CRAP GONNA SAY IF THE NEW REVIEWER GIVES IT AN EVEN LOWER SCORE?
Are you guys gonna leave it alone or try to get that one Thrown out...Hey 3rd time is a charm.
PS i do know there is controversy about the review and the sys req.But I am one that agreed with the score and not the actual review.
I have taken my ram out and exchanged various parts of my computer a multitude of times and of each part, RAM is by far the most forgiving.
And once more, as before, just because you -think- I did not read the review does not make it true.
This is something you will need to learn in life, everyone has an opinion and they will rarely match your own. That does not mark them as ignorant.
Also, learn what trolling is. Consult the great google.
Oh snap! Hit a soft spot did I?
Also, we aren't talk about opinions here, we are talking about fact. Fact that the game will run like shit if you do not have enough ram, just as the reviewer found!
Oh snap! Hit a soft spot did I?
Also, we aren't talk about opinions here, we are talking about fact. Fact that the game will run like shit if you do not ahve enough ram, just as the reviewer found!
I am truly vexxed by how you might believe you have hit a soft spot. I have reacted to your post with very little emotion on only the initial part of my post was dedicated to you.
And I was not suggesting in any way that you could entirely remove a piece of your computer and expect it to run, but rather you could use weaker and lower quality portions in it, which is the same as reducing the amount of RAM, and still run.
Reducing my duo core to a single would have a drastic affect on my over all computing experience. Reducing my ram from 3 to 1? I would hardly feel a bump.
You have three posts since registering in 07.
Hello trolling account.
Not a fact at all.
I run fine with a system that is UNDER min reqs. You are just spouting garbage that you read somewhere, when you have no actual knowledge of how the game performs ingame.
Ridiculous.
Thanks for that...never laughed so much when it came to be would be PC experts..great stuff.
My advice go buy a PS3 or an XBOX..
Not a fact at all.
I run fine with a system that is UNDER min reqs. You are just spouting garbage that you read somewhere, when you have no actual knowledge of how the game performs ingame.
Ridiculous.
Proof please. Don't start making stuff up just to look "cool".
Not a fact at all.
I run fine with a system that is UNDER min reqs. You are just spouting garbage that you read somewhere, when you have no actual knowledge of how the game performs ingame.
Ridiculous.
Not only that, but he is attempting to afflict his words with "Just as the reviewer found!" in order to use emotion to strengthen his non-argument in order to make others feel for and believe what he has to say even though it is a matter of opinion.
Thanks for that...never laughed so much when it came to be would be PC experts..great stuff.
My advice go buy a PS3 or an XBOX..
Please, please, go read more about computer parts before trying to discredit me without stating, in any form, evidence.
You are basically saying... "I don't agree and you are an idiot! Get an xbox!" As a reply to what I said.
Not only that, but he is attempting to afflict his words with "Just as the reviewer found!" in order to use emotion to strengthen his non-argument in order to make others feel for and believe what he has to say even though it is a matter of opinion.
Well, I now know that you are just trolling me. No one with any computer experience could be saying the stuff you are and believe it. Go umm, good day to you, wont be seeing any more of you garbage!
Tbh mate I agree a solid 8,though even if the new reviewer gives it a 6.9(the same as the other reviewer) then that is fair enough.
At least this time it will be a fair 6.9 and I have no problems with that.
Amen brother, amen.
Oh, and it should have a written review baring some teeth to go along with the 6.9 too.
Please, please, go read more about computer parts before trying to discredit me without stating, in any form, evidence.
You are basically saying... "I don't agree and you are an idiot! Get an xbox!" As a reply to what I said.
Well here is the basic requirements needed also do not forget to take any other programs you need memory for,also then look to the game requirements and make sure you have enough spare memory to run the game/program...as you will see 1gb as you stated would jst be enough to run your basic programs never mind the game you are trying to play.
Home Basic
Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
512 MB of system memory
20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
DVD-ROM drive
Audio Output
Internet access (fees may apply)
Additional requirements
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features and edition of Windows Vista will run on your computer.
While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
WDDM Driver
128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
32 bits per pixel
DVD-ROM drive
Audio Output
I swear to god I have never seen any one place filled with as many unsubstantiated claims as I am here today!
"You are an idiot because we aren't agreeing!" Is the main property shared throughout most of your arguments and it is ludacris, pure insanity.
I built my computer from the ground up. I have plenty of computer experience because I have worked extensively with them since I was 8 years old. I am turning 20 on the third of November.
Time of this report: 10/24/2009, 22:10:26
Machine name: ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090804-1435)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: EVGA__
System Model: nForce 750i SLI
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 3070MB RAM
Page File: 1286MB used, 3669MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode
There is my setup and I have worked with it on many different ram configurations ranging from 512 to as you see now, 3070.
Each setup was capable of running and sustaining Age of Conan.
I have 3 1 gig sticks of OCZ inside of it right now.
PC 8500 1066 dual channel memory.
I am not some chump over here trying to short change you people. I am telling you that you cannot run about saying this or that as truth when you have no real evidence. Suspicion does not qualify as evidence and as it stands that is all you have.
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+
Forgot my GPU.
For a start you are using XP not Vista and XP uses alot less RAM and since the reviewer was using Vista I am still not sure you know what you are talking about.
There is no proof of deceit, just the original review, the amendment and a set of posts from the editor about the system used that taken together aren't very convincing. I agree people throwing the word "liar" around need to take it down a notch. The real issue is the doubt that the reviewer *did* use a system that meets the minimum system requirements as set out by Icarus on the FE website. That doubt is definitely there, and fits both the extensive lag that the reviewer reported for FE (in and out of the busy towns) and the pattern of reporting extensive lag for other games reviewed using the same set up.
A second issue is the gap between the text of the review and the final score. This is quite clear too.
So, on both counts, the retraction was a good decision, despite the absence of "proof beyond a shadow of a doubt".
There is no proof of deceit, just the original review, the amendment and a set of posts from the editor about the system used that taken together aren't very convincing. I agree people throwing the word "liar" around need to take it down a notch. The real issue is the doubt that the reviewer *did* use a system that meets the minimum system requirements as set out by Icarus on the FE website. That doubt is definitely there, and fits both the extensive lag that the reviewer reported for FE (in and out of the busy towns) and the pattern of reporting extensive lag for other games reviewed using the same set up.
A second issue is the gap between the text of the review and the final score. This is quite clear too.
So, on both counts, the retraction was a good decision, despite the absence of "proof beyond a shadow of a doubt".
I agree for the most part.
As far as the difference in RAM consumption between both XP and Vista goes, I am well aware of it. I was merely trying to inform you that RAM was not the biggest component in why he had lag.
Regardless, if indeed he was not using the recommended setup for the game the review should be redone and a system of checks set into place so that you know for sure that the Reviewer has, at best, at setup of an average player that the game seeks to draw in.
You have three posts since registering in 07.
Hello trolling account.
Not a trolling account.I just rarely respond to anything on these forums.I think My question here is as valid as any other one here.
As a matter of fact I barely check these forums .When i have spare time to play games I like to play games .Not troll forums.And I have played FE for about 2 weeks , and I am sticking by my guns .It may be a great game to alot of people.But not to myself.If i wanted to play a well done sandboxish style game i would play EvE again.I am really Curious as what the response will be if they give the game a lower score or almost the same score.I mean heck,out of all these post here 90% of them are just repeating what everyone has already witnessed about this review.And the fact is the longer it went on the more people came out saying that the game isn't as good as people are hyping it to be including myself.I think that alot of people are just upset that there Game didn't get the score they wanted.As i read more someone here made an extremely valid point.That there is no real proof that this reviewer is lying.There are alot of things working against him, But its really no ones place to judge him as harsh as they do based on hear say.I didn't agree with the review myself.and I will tell you why.I think he was being overly nice about the game.Maybe he was trying to please people who are fans while still letting them know the game isn't that great.
I mean I have read several reviews on MMO's that have low scores because of ther lack of ability to run smooth.Which in my opinion is a hell of a reason to not like it.the game can be the greatest thing since sliced bread and yet if its subscribers can't even play it in a comfortable manner then all of that means squat.Maybe FE will be great at some point.It does have alot of potential,But more games in the MMO world that have been said to have tons of potential have failed than succeeded.Hell maybe there will be a review after the game works out its kinks and gets an 8.But for now I feel the score is fair.I think the review should have went more in depth than it did though.So if the new reviewer feels the same will you accept it, is my question.
Not a trolling account.I just rarely respond to anything on these forums.I think My question here is as valid as any other one here.
As a matter of fact I barely check these forums .When i have spare time to play games I like to play games .Not troll forums.And I have played FE for about 2 weeks , and I am sticking by my guns .It may be a great game to alot of people.But not to myself.If i wanted to play a well done sandboxish style game i would play EvE again.I am really Curious as what the response will be if they give the game a lower score or almost the same score.I mean heck,out of all these post here 90% of them are just repeating what everyone has already witnessed about this review.And the fact is the longer it went on the more people came out saying that the game isn't as good as people are hyping it to be including myself.I think that alot of people are just upset that there Game didn't get the score they wanted.As i read more someone here made an extremely valid point.That there is no real proof that this reviewer is lying.There are alot of things working against him, But its really no ones place to judge him as harsh as they do based on hear say.I didn't agree with the review myself.and I will tell you why.I think he was being overly nice about the game.Maybe he was trying to please people who are fans while still letting them know the game isn't that great.
I mean I have read several reviews on MMO's that have low scores because of ther lack of ability to run smooth.Which in my opinion is a hell of a reason to not like it.the game can be the greatest thing since sliced bread and yet if its subscribers can't even play it in a comfortable manner then all of that means squat.Maybe FE will be great at some point.It does have alot of potential,But more games in the MMO world that have been said to have tons of potential have failed than succeeded.Hell maybe there will be a review after the game works out its kinks and gets an 8.But for now I feel the score is fair.I think the review should have went more in depth than it did though.So if the new reviewer feels the same will you accept it, is my question.
Yeah, well, apparently you didn't read the review he wrote. The only negative thing he said about the game in the written portion of the review was that he had lag. Then I guess they figured out, by looking at his past reviews and his listing of his sytem specs, that the 2GB Ram he had with Vista was indeed his system setup, and that it's 2 GB short of what FE lists on its website is a requirement. That would explain some lag, yeah.
I have 4GB OCZ ram and Vista -32 and I run FE just fine. I don't have "mindnumbing lag" as the reviewer put it, to where I get killed.
My beef, again, was that the written portion didn't match the number assigned. Plain and simple. If it was to be a 6.9 he'd have to have said many more negative things than just lag. He didn't. If the new reviewer doesn't like it, writes a negative review and gives a low score, so be it. That person just may not like the game that FE is, which is cool. For those that do like this kind of MMO, it's assuredly a 7.5 to 8.5 game. Solid with room for improvement and polish. Certainly no worse than any of the so-called AAA efforts released of late.
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
LMFAO
Excellent move to redo this review and set up a system of how the scores will be done. 10/10
On this one, we're between a rock and a hard place.
Reviews are generally most useful to people making purchasing decisions. Our general policy on big launches is to do a preview within a week of launch based on Beta play, a first impressions a week after launch and then a review 3 to 4 weeks out. This one came out about a month after launch because Aion launched on the same day and that review ran last week.
Is four weeks enough time to give a complete and total opinion on an MMO? Probably not, but it is enough time to let people know whether or not it is worth buying. Normally, the first month of gameplay should be indicative, although that has fallen apart on us in the past. Take Age of Conan, which was awesome for 20 levels, got huge review scores out of the gate and then went all to hell.
Well, yeah. It would have. Now those of us who haven't read it, never can. Post a disclaimer if you wish, but leave it up. If it is flawed, then other posters can point that out quite ably.
Stifling speech is very rarely a good thing. This is a bad precedent.
We took it down because there is no proper way to archive it without it displaying the score all over the site. Had this been a random editorial, we likely would have done as you said, but given the nature of our backend when it comes to review it's an all or nothing proposition.
Plus, we were not trying to hide it. We're not idiots, we know Google remembers everything ;)
Not that anyone who makes this kind of tinfoil hat post will believe this, but I figure I should say it anyway:
Icarus and I never discussed this review prior to me pulling it. Not once.
It stayed up until Friday mostly due to my travel schedule, unfortunately.
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
And yes, it worked well enough, but I couldn't run anything else at the same time and I never participated in the big 80 man keep sieges like that. However, those things could even bog down my system under 3 gigs unless I took the settings way down.
Why are people having a hard time understanding that the review wasn't taken down because of the score but because of the under-performing rig of the reviewer? He simply did not have a computer that matched the minimum specs of the game then complained about issues that were well within the realm of being caused by his under-performing computer.
An analogy might be a book reviewer that has dyslexia and is an ESL. Sure, they might be able to read the book, but do you think it'll be a fair review because they can't understand some of the words and they don't take the effort to research those words, then complain that some sections of the book were incomprehensible and didn't make any sense, though overall the book was ok?
Reviewers are not all objective nor will they agree with popular opinion. All you can do is read many different reviews to get a general feel for the game, user as well as 'professional'. The game isn't for everyone, just as Eve isn't for everyone. Wow is certainly not for everyone and yet is popularly regarded as the best game out there. What it boils down to is that it doesn't matter what other people think, but what /you/ think.
Double Post.
Please, stop making claims when there is no solid evidence to support it. We do not know one way or the other if the man had a proper computer or not. At this point it is all hear say.
I consider this to be a flame. Is it appropriate for a member of staff to be writing things like this?
I consider this to be a flame. Is it appropriate for a member of staff to be writing things like this?
Are you suggesting that they should "retract" the statement?
~Hairysun
It doesn't really matter SO much if you have a killer system to play Fallen Earth on, as it still has its moments with lag and crashes. In my 40 hours of playtime the game crashed about 10 times, for whatever reason (good gaming system, latest drivers and all!). There was also massive lag during my time in the somewhat larger towns/cities and during fighting outside on the plains. I saw lots of things which are server related, like warping players/enemies, non-registering hits, etc.
It's a pretty cool game overall, but in terms of performance it really is not release worthy. When Vanguard released everyone was bragging about the horrible performance, but for Fallen Earth today nobody is, and it's just a tad bit better.
I tried to help the devs by providing them with useful information about the crashes and all, but unfortunately sometimes the game doesn't even create .DMP files...
Great game in terms of options and setting, but still needs a few months of serious engine tuning. The game will survive this however, because it's the only one in its sub-genre and is aimed towards a somewhat more sandboxy community.
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
No, it's a whole lot better than Vanguard which is why so few people are complaining about the performance.
I've played FE since just before the end of beta, initially on my then main machine being a P4 with 2gb RAM (XP 32) and the game was certainly a bit sluggish then on low settings compared to my playing since retail on my new quad core with 8gb RAM (VIsta 64) and incredibly smooth performance on totally max settings. Both times I was running with a 20mbs internet connection from the UK, the game being based in the US.
At no point with either machine have I ever suffered any real lag or had a single CTD.
Last night I was at the first 40 minutes or so of the Massively live event with (I'm guessing) around 100 other players huddled together in a single location (to catch all the local chat), and the server didn't falter once, nor did my character. Many of the players were dancing or riding around on mounts and no-one appeared to be struggling performance-wise. No-one was complaining. You couldn't have done that in VG or a good many other MMOs within a month of launch.
The game runs very well if you have a decent rig, but not surprisingly it doesn't run too well if you have less than the minimum required rig, as the reviewer found out. I don't see how anyone can blame Icarus for that!
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Ok I am going to bite,even though what you ask is very stupid,If like me you always make sure your PSU is well above what is needed both for watts and more importantly the amps on the rails,then if I had to cut 1 thing down that would not cost me for gaming then I would lower my PSU.
My system will still run as it should but I would not have the happy buffer I prefer.
Again I would not do this but since you keep pressing for an answer I thought I would give you 1.
ps
I have big doubts you know anything about pc's except for maybe 1 or 2 words you may have overheard.
Not that anyone who makes this kind of tinfoil hat post will believe this, but I figure I should say it anyway:
Icarus and I never discussed this review prior to me pulling it. Not once.
It stayed up until Friday mostly due to my travel schedule, unfortunately.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
You'd be surprised how many players actually confuse frame rate with lag.
One has to do with latency and the other with your video.
People with choppy frame rates complain about lag a lot in Fallen Earth, although neither of the two are related.
If a reviewer on this site actually confused the two and wrote that in a review, then the review indeeded needed to be retracted.
I did not see the review that was removed, although I do play Fallen Earth, and believe it's a good MMO.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
If the reviewer doesn't even know the difference between lag and frame rate, then he shouldn't have been a reviewer in the first place.
No, it's a whole lot better than Vanguard which is why so few people are complaining about the performance.
I've played FE since just before the end of beta, initially on my then main machine being a P4 with 2gb RAM (XP 32) and the game was certainly a bit sluggish then on low settings compared to my playing since retail on my new quad core with 8gb RAM (VIsta 64) and incredibly smooth performance on totally max settings. Both times I was running with a 20mbs internet connection from the UK, the game being based in the US.
At no point with either machine have I ever suffered any real lag or had a single CTD.
Last night I was at the first 40 minutes or so of the Massively live event with (I'm guessing) around 100 other players huddled together in a single location (to catch all the local chat), and the server didn't falter once, nor did my character. Many of the players were dancing or riding around on mounts and no-one appeared to be struggling performance-wise. No-one was complaining. You couldn't have done that in VG or a good many other MMOs within a month of launch.
The game runs very well if you have a decent rig, but not surprisingly it doesn't run too well if you have less than the minimum required rig, as the reviewer found out. I don't see how anyone can blame Icarus for that!
Well ya it's performance is a ton better than VG i agree.However for very good reason,VG has about 10x the detail and depth in the world,FE is extremely barren and of lower quality.It is just math nothing amazing done by Icarus here,more polys =less performance,less=better performance.
The player/enemy warping, hitching, hits that don't register, 5 to 10 second lag when activating a skill that is ready for deployment, huge lag when entering towns/cities, and similar things are purely server related and have absolutely nothing to do with a system that can't run the game.
However, MMORPG.com is giving the game a second chance because of the fact that the system was not the best in the world, and to make perfectly clear that things are indeed related to lag and not a hogging system. Lots of people are beginning to think that the second opinion on the game will have a much higher score, but I can assure you that this will not happen. At highest this game will get a 7.5, which is more than enough for the state it is currently in. And maybe the review will not change at all, because they will come to the same conclusions in the end.
I too have a pretty good gaming system with some top of the line stuff in it. But even on my system it still runs like a snail at times. And the game has actually crashed many times for unknown reasons. Also the lag is unbearable at times, but this can be related to the fact that I'm connecting from The Netherlands. But that shouldn't be a valid excuse, because at highest the ping should be around 500 or so. But since the game hasn't even got a function to check the ping, I can only speculate about how high it is.
I agree with you. It's a 7.5 kind of game at this point. Actually, 6.9 might even be a correct score. In a couple years when they re-review, who knows? Maybe it's a gem. But right now it is honestly, overall, no higher than 7.5 IMO.
Most people are getting good overall performance. I run WIN XP 32, 8800GT and 3 gigs and it runs absolutely great in or out of cities to be honest. Every once in a while I get the rubber banding and am forced to relog and it goes away. However, there are a pretty noticeable amount of people that are having big problems running a better system than I am.
I can't count the number of times I have had to relog or told someone else they had to relog to fix an in game obvious bug (estimated 10 logouts per 4 hour session). This game is really buggy right now. There are exploits. The combat is extremely stale and uninteresting (more focus on mutations might help IMO). This game looks like it was heading for an old school SWG feel when it comes to combat and crafting. The skill point system doesn't hold a candle to old school SWG. There is one set of best gear for every build. The crafting system doesn't hold a candle to the current SWG system.
I also hear the word sandbox coming from some people. I've played this game a lot and this is the complete opposite of a sandbox. It is moving from quest hub to quest hub. The only difference is you get a limited choice on which quest hub to go to.
Anyway, the game has a lot of potential. I just think that there is no way that it should get a good overall review at this point. I hope they do well with it, because I would love to get into a solid post-apocalyptic MMO.
Many of us do not have these problems while playing Fallen Earth.
I know I don't, and I run 64-bit Win 7 with 8 gigs of RAM.
Very little hitching, and most times, none at all.
People with middle-of-the-road machines have problems, as do people with supposedly high-end machines with a bottleneck.
The game is fine, just higher requirements than a lot of people are used to.
If the reviewer didn't know the difference between frame rate and lag, the review needed scrapped.
If it's the same score with a reviewer that knows what they are talking about, then I see no problem with the same or even a lower score.
The only thing that I think reflects poorly on MMORPG.com's part, is possible lax in vetting when choosing suitable candidates to write reviews.
I think it took balls to pull the review and give it a fresh perspective, and I for one believe it lends credence to future reviews on the site.
I also agree that certain pre-determined criteria be in place in order to keep the personal thoughts and opinions to a minimum in future reviews.
Ow, and let's not forget that a game with around 6000 quests has absolutely nothing to do with sandbox. As someone stated before, you just hop from quest-hub to quest-hub, with almost no reason at all to coming back to the old places again. Yes, there are town events, but that system is currently not in the shape it should be. The quests and missions have some funny dialog overall, but in the end it's just another game with the same 10 or so variations in that regard (collect, bring, destroy, defend, make this or that, etc.). The game also has this thing to show you where to go and what to do, ALL of the time. A game like Final Fantasy XI for that matter, does this completely the other way around. The setting and dialog may be a little more mature, but that falls to pieces with this horrible hand-holding quest and mission system.
At this point the game is severely overrated by its followers. There are lots of people that always complain about other games (mostly high-fantasy) to take you by the hand and walk you through the game, but this game does in essence almost the very same. You can go through the game in a non-linear way, but that still doesn't make it a sandbox. The crafting system is pretty decent at this point though. And let's not forget the player customization in terms of armor and weapons.
I think that the old review was actually pretty honest and should not be changed all that much, and maybe even needs to stay exactly the same.
It's not a sandbox at all, it's just a gigantic roller coaster.
And in Sandbox games you have reasons to come back to old places? do you even know what Sand box means? i played Ryzom for quite sometime and i never had any reason to go to old places or starting areas ever again. In FE you can level without doing any missions, hell you can only craft and progress ahead. You only need to do AP missions (all of them if you want a PVP character).
FE is a hybrid and not a pure sand box but your posts sounds as if you just like to pull stuff out of your butt.
My feelings as well.
FE does not deserve about a 6.9 rating no matter who is doing the review.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. NOT true. Reviews are supposed to give a hint, an idea for everyone. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. NOT true. Check the users's ratings on this site. WHo's# 1?. Would that be possible if the game had issues for the majority? Yeah, nope. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
Facts, maybe in your own virtual world. Try again :)
DB
I have taken my ram out and exchanged various parts of my computer a multitude of times and of each part, RAM is by far the most forgiving.
And once more, as before, just because you -think- I did not read the review does not make it true.
This is something you will need to learn in life, everyone has an opinion and they will rarely match your own. That does not mark them as ignorant.
Also, learn what trolling is. Consult the great google.
We get it. There is absolutely no hope of having any kind of communication with you, since you are absolutely totally clueless about how PC's work :)
Bye!
DB
My feelings as well.
FE does not deserve about a 6.9 rating no matter who is doing the review.
Read the thread. Review was taken back because the reviewer 1)had a poorer config than the minimum specification for the game, 2) lied about this, 3) final score was not related to the overall tone the review.
Ignorance might be bliss, but in this thread, honestly, it only came through stupid and arrogant... many times.
DB
Well attaching the word "sandox" to a game doesn't automatically give a game +2 on it's rating. Saying a game isn't a sandbox doesn't automatically give it a -2 either. Games are rated by how well they execute their design and is that design fun for the majority. FE does get somewhat over rated by it's fans. All games do. Obviously people who enjoy a game will rate it higher. Personal dislike for a game doesn't make it any worse than it is either. Reviews aren't just "this game rules" of this game sucks". You need to have a factual basis and a description of the type of game that will play the game. For good reason I wouldn't have an exclusively RTS gamer review an FPS. Good reviewers usually play, and enjoy, a wide variety of games and rate them for what they are, and how they would be received by the gaming public. Not What they think their personal ideal game would be. There are limitations to making a post apocolyptic game that don't exist for a fantasy game. You may want a game with lots of flashy particle effects but that would be out of place for FE. Personally I think the few the game has are out of place. The same holds true for the setting. Its a post apocolyptic desert. Waterfalls and wading pools with butterfiles dancing on he wind would be out of place. It's a desert. Deserts all look pretty much the same. Sand rocks and scrub vegetation. Performance and a few game design issues exist. Worse for some people than others. However you can't rate a game using a system that doesn't even meet the minimum requiremants for running your OS much less the game itself. It's just silly and has nothing to do with the game. So they need another review.
The reviewer lied.
This shouldn't even be a discussion.
Well said.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
Please refer to Post #20 in this thread.
We brought it back because the article didn't support the ratings it gave and based those ratings off of a mistaken assumption. That assumption being that everyone was having the framerate issues (which the reviewer called lag) they were having.
It took 12 hours to accomplish, and thus let everyone have time to get upset, because I was out of town and not able to see the article until then.
As I said before, there is absolutely no guarantee the new review will have a higher score, a lower score or even the same score. The score and the fans had nothing to do with our decision. The review itself was flawed and we made a mistake in putting it out in the first place. That's the mistake we tried to fix by retracting it, case closed.
My last post on this Thread as I feel I have posted way too much on this anyways.I am not a FE fan , actually dislike the game alil as it doesnt seem to be my style I Guess.But while everyone is raving and saying the review sucked , blah blah blah.While some are genuinely mad that the review sucked cuz it was done on a machine that didn't meet the system req.And that the Review didn't match the score.Also I have noticed tons of people that are actually complaining that the score is too low for this game.And also That Aion was too high and FE should have scored higher than Aion.Well I did some homework to see what other sites thought Compared to this one.Regardless if the score and review was Retracted.In which regardless of what everyone thinks about the specs of the mmorpg.com reviewer machine , His score was almost dead on with the average of scores i seen. Here are the ones i found actual reviews on except Gamespot here was done by critics.
Gameshark.com gave FE a 6.6 no review on Aion yet
Gamespot gave FE a 7.8 and Aion is at 8.2
Gameradar.com Gave FE a 6/10 and also gave aion a 6/10
IGN gave FE a 8.1 and Aion a 8.5.
These are all credible sites and the funny thing is both Aion and FE advertise heavily on all 4 of these sites. If you take the avaerage score of these 4 sites , not counting mmorpg.coms retracted review the average score is 7.1.Making the MMORPG score right on par.And if you actually read the reviews from these other sites .They get brutal. The gameradar one is especially interesting if you check there site and there other reviews on past MMO's and they seem to be right on with the rest of the industry .So Does this mean that all the FE fans are right and all these profesional review sites are all wrong? I doubt it.wanna hear something even funnier is that on everyone of these reviews, They talk about the Lag and fact that the game is hard to play quite often because of that .Even the ones who gave it higher scores.I guess they all must be running machines that don't meet the requirements of the game huh.And it obvious that almost everysingle site out there rates Aion higher than FE except one.and they both are a 6 so the fans definately won't wanna hear that. My point is that even if you are a fan of the game the industry is clearly stating that only fans of this genre will like this game at all.And that based on the average MMO player , the game is only a mediocre one at best.And if you go read some of these reviews they do match there scores .Some being downright nasty about the game failing hard and some being very nice saying if it gets past its problems quick it has a chance.So my point here is that everyone keeps beating a dead horse about this review, and now it just seems like a Fan festival where everyone is gonna wanna lynch mmorpg staff no matter what the next review says.Hell most have already switched off the topic about the actual problem with the reviewer here and started with the "FE deserves way higher than a 6.9 blahblahblah, no way it scored lower than aion.. blah blah blah.Well the entire rest of the industry seems to think Aion is better also.and while most agree that Aion is a good game worthy of a 8+ score the same industry seems to be on the fence on FE .IS the entire industry wrong.I think not.
Well the recent Aion review was just as bad and I don't see you retracting that one at the moment.
I am glad to see you are looking at a better methods of assigning a point score for a review. Granted it will always be subjective, but hopefully you will have a fairer system than the current one.
Didn't see the review, but the game sucks. Why in the world would I play a game with guns that require a full clip to kill someone?
Why in the world you people keep talking about FE in the same thread as Aion is beyond me. They are completely different games the would appeal to different gamers.
/rolls eyes
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
You are going into the extremes... you are not seriously aiming to argue over that the power cord from the computer is the most important thing in your computer setup... please don't reply to that.
If I would change my memory from 4GB to 2GB and compare it to use a Athlon 2400+ and a Athonl X3 (2800)...
* Athlon 2400+, 4GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 4GB RAM
* Athlon 2400+, 4GB RAM
* Athlon 2400+, 2GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 4GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 2GB RAM
Yeah right...
But you are saying that you will have more performance, or atleast that the memory size is the most forgiving part, with going from a single core to dual core than raising the memory from 512MB to 3072MB (taken from your example. That's ignorance.
All in all, a setup with a single core and 512MB is really in the need for? Upgrade?
Memory is forgiving when it is starting from a memory size that already is fine. Geezus. The guy in this review memory size was not ok.
Now I have taken my time to reply to you. Please do me the courtesy and reply to my question.
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
learn2aim?
Yea because we all know a Gnome Wizard with one shot fireballs is much more realistic...right?
{mod edit}
Edit: My reply was harsh but damn ..... it the full clip any worse then having to hit someone with a sword 17 times ????
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
Uhm... Wow. Never once did I ever suggest that you underclock your RAM.
That is pure amusement. You took everything I said and apparently warped it around into... I don't even know what.
I spoke of reducing the bytes of RAM you are using, not reducing the volts.
As far as the 10 percent increase? You misunderstood that as well. I spoke of the difference between different RAMs.
"Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least."
The RAM used, also known as the brand and variety.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
As far as a power cord being important. Are you serious? I mean really. You are going to try to pull a question as lame as that out? I am talking about parts that increase your computers gaming speed. RAM, HD, CPU, GPU.
My order of preference is GPU, CPU, HD, and RAM. Although HD and RAM probably come close together I see speed from a good HD as a better choice than 250 dollar ram. Now, out of curiosity will you please tell me what you would order them in?
I should mention, however, that I agree and mentioned before in this post that RAM is great up until a point. But by your suggestion upgrading his PC with 2 gigs of RAM would take him from unplayable lag to a lag free wonderland?
I don't really agree with it and I say he could stick with 2 gigs and get a killer GPU and do much better. Plus ATI/Crossfire can suck on my chocolate salty balls.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
Uhm... Wow. Never once did I ever suggest that you underclock your RAM.
That is pure amusement. You took everything I said and apparently warped it around into... I don't even know what.
I spoke of reducing the bytes of RAM you are using, not reducing the volts.
As far as the 10 percent increase? You misunderstood that as well. I spoke of the difference between different RAMs.
"Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least."
The RAM used, also known as the brand and variety.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
As far as a power cord being important. Are you serious? I mean really. You are going to try to pull a question as lame as that out? I am talking about parts that increase your computers gaming speed. RAM, HD, CPU, GPU.
My order of preference is GPU, CPU, HD, and RAM. Although HD and RAM probably come close together I see speed from a good HD as a better choice than 250 dollar ram. Now, out of curiosity will you please tell me what you would order them in?
I should mention, however, that I agree and mentioned before in this post that RAM is great up until a point. But by your suggestion upgrading his PC with 2 gigs of RAM would take him from unplayable lag to a lag free wonderland?
I don't really agree with it and I say he could stick with 2 gigs and get a killer GPU and do much better. Plus ATI/Crossfire can suck on my chocolate salty balls.
I'm responding to your quote where you actually say that reducing the 'power' on your GPU would affect how it operates, with power being a ubiquitous term for 'voltage' used, not memory onboard.
Your order of preference is out of scale with reality. For one, GPU/CPU's are already maxed out for the most part on the majority of today's games. They are your bottleneck, meaning that once you hit a certain threshhold, you won't see any more performance gains out of them because your performance is being throttled somewhere else. Your claim of playing AoC with 512MB is pretty much BS. Sure, you could play it, but you wouldn't have gotten abysmally low framerates, like 10-20 range and pretty poor performance, considering that the game was riddled with memory leaks, you would have been crashing left and right with regular frequency. It's quite possible to play with below minimum specs of any game, but your experience is hampered because you're unable to enjoy the full effect of the game and are handicapped with all your settings lowered to bare minimum.
And yes, I am saying that upgrading to 2 gigs of RAM would have helped his lag issues considerably.
My order of upgrade would be RAM, GPU, CPU, Hard drive. Reason being is that RAM is cheaper than the other components, will generally last longer, in terms of upgrade life, and has the best price/performance ratio out of all of those components. I guarantee that by changing your RAM from 512 to 2 gigs would have given you a world of difference in your play experience. Of course, like the GPU/CPU, there is a finite ceiling to performance gains. Once you hit that threshold, then your gain is diminished. Right now, I would probably put that around 4 gig is optimal, since you have Vista. With XP and Windows 7, I'd say it's only 2 gig, though 4 gig would hardly hurt. Of course, if it's 64 bit, then you'd want to go with a higher amount of RAM. With GPUs, you won't see as much of an improvement unless you're running on larger monitors and higher resolutions, especially if you're running SLI, which is pretty much pointless if you're running at 1600X1200 or below. The reason I say this is because the target FPS is 60. While one can argue that you buy the GPU for the future, well, the future is always out there, while right now is here /now/. You're always gonna be 'behind' the curve and with LCD monitors limiting you at 60 visible frames per second anyway, overkill isn't going to help you any. CPU's are generally the most overlooked in the equation, but you're also limited by the form factor of the CPU, with a finite lifetime for what you can use, even moreso than the GPU. Unless you buy the bottom of the barrel when you first purchase it, your CPU should last you the lifetime of your motherboard easily. As far as the hard drive goes, while it does have an impact on performance, it's not as radical as the other components. You don't need that 10K RPM raptor to play a game. A generic 7200 would work just fine and the performance gain of the raptor over the 7200 would be minimal. To put it into perspective, when you use a 10k over a 7200 for your boot disk, you are shaving a few seconds off the boot time. The effect in games is going to be just as little.
So far, you're not showing a very good understanding of how computers work. You may know how to put one together with your eyes closed, but your knowledge of how it all operates together is somewhat lacking. You don't seem to have a concept of bottlenecks, where performance is hampered by it being throttled in one area, ie. your RAM issue in AoC. Your CPU/GPU might have been way overpowered to play, but if your RAM isn't up to spec, then it's not going to do you any good. Likewise, you could have tons of RAM and a great CPU, but if your GPU is dated, then it's going to throttle your performance.
Regardless of anything else, it's all about 'does the increase in performance justify how much I'm paying for it'. RAM is the cheapest component of a system that will give you the most performance increase. Doubling your RAM from 512 to 1gig will give you quite a measurable increase in performance. Likewise from 1 gig to 2 gig. And also 2 gig up to 4 gig. Above that and it can become questionable, depending on what you are doing. On the other hand, upgrading from a 9800GT to a GT260 isn't going to give you as much of a gain, unless you are running at higher resolutions, which most gamers are not. In a year or so, then you might see the performance difference between the two in games, but for right now, you're not, because no games are pushing it /that/ hard. Crysis is an exception, not the norm for games.
And your Nvidia fanboism is misplaced as they are pretty much going out. Intel is developing their own GPU system to work with their chipsets, just as ATI is. The niche gaming performance market has always been small and it's only going to get smaller over time. With the troubles Nvidia has been having in the notebook market and the future is pretty clear to see as Nvidia has no other business other than the GPU and the proprietary physics engines they were trying to push out.
Unless you meant to say DAoC, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. Conan uses about 7-800 megs of memory(check your task manager next time). Your hard drive would explode every time you did an "about face". Not to mention the load screens.
I remember upgrading from 1.5 to 3 gig while playing AoC, and it made a HUGE difference. I think the threshold for AoC is about 2 gigs.
The thing about memory compared to other components, though, is that if you're not lacking memory, buying more won't improve your performance. For example, going from 4 to 8 gigs probably wouldn't make any difference at all. If you got a new processor, or faster GPU however, it will pretty much always improve performance, even if the ones you have are perfectly decent.
If you have a 32 bit OS, 3gigs should do for another year or so. 64 bit, may as well go with 4 gig.
... I lost my entire post, but essentially I said I understand bottlenecks very well, I have already agreed that RAM is pretty important up until the point you remove the bottleneck.
I have mentioned about 4 times now I played AoC with 512 RAM and it was playable. To say it worked well would be a subjective statement, but it held up at about 15 FPS. The rest of my RAM was dead and when it was finally exchanged it did provide a significant difference.
I'm on XP, not Vista.
Removing one gig of RAM from my PC would affect it much less then switching to a weaker graphics card. I am not speaking about reducing the power to any of the parts as you seem to be saying.