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Gamespot on Burning Crusade: 9.2/10 "Superb"
Knightblast
Member UncommonPosts: 1,787
The money quotes:
"When it was released in November 2004, World of Warcraft raised the bar for the massively multiplayer genre, and more than two years later, none of its would-be competitors have even come close to matching it."
"This is a superb example of exactly what an expansion pack for any game should be, though, and the gulf between World of Warcraft and the pretenders to its throne is now wider than ever."
Flame on, boys and girls!
"When it was released in November 2004, World of Warcraft raised the bar for the massively multiplayer genre, and more than two years later, none of its would-be competitors have even come close to matching it."
"This is a superb example of exactly what an expansion pack for any game should be, though, and the gulf between World of Warcraft and the pretenders to its throne is now wider than ever."
Flame on, boys and girls!
Comments
damn, I don't think Gamespot is ever going to wash that brown stain off.
They never were much of an authority on online games, and this proves it.
This is of course not to say that WOW and BC don't deserve the attention, but from what I can see of the article, everything is based on what they think the largest portion of gamers would agree with.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Full review here (iinc Video review) uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraftexp1/review.html
So I dont think you can blame GS, maybe... just maybe TBC impressed the reviewers.. just maybe.
Personaly id of given it a 8.5.
So I dont think you can blame GS, maybe... just maybe TBC impressed the reviewers.. just maybe.
Personaly id of given it a 8.5.
Its not just the score, WOW and BC deserve a high score, theres no doubt about that.
The issue lies in essentially calling it the only MMORPG worth playing in the text of its review. The context reminds me of a rabid fanboy paid to express his opinion, and not a proffesional review.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
WoW is not my type of game, but i still congratulate Blizzard with what they have done to the MMO industry. From a relatively small scale industry, they have brought it to the masses.
Keep up the good work!
Well, if your goal was to give players more the same...I'd say the game pretty much was a 10. That's not a slam either....change the game play too much from the target audience and you end with with disasters like SWG/NGE or DAOC/TOA.
I have yet to meet a player who enjoys WOW not tell me that the expansion is wonderful. It had a polished delivery (2 years will do that for you) and added some new content, like flying mounts, new lands to explore and some new instances geared towards smaller groups/guilds..(which has alienated some of their hardcore raiding members...but those people aren't their target market, which they were smart to realize)
But.... how long will it hold peoples interest. My son plays BC about 25-30 hours a week. He is level 69 now, just 3 weeks after the release and already doing the level 70 instances with his friends. He mostly solo'd all of this, and spent almost no time in the BG's. I have another working friend who probably put in same amount of time, and he announced yesterday he is level 70 and now has his flying mount.
So, in 2-3 months....what will these people do?
Sure, the casual gamer (the bulk of WOW's audience, remember) will still be grinding towards 60....
But I predict these more hardcore players are going to tire of the game within 3 months and will be ripe for the new game offerings coming up like WAR, AOC, Vanguard and LOTR:O
Which might leave Blizzard with only 7.8 million subscribers by mid summer
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I play around 20-25 hours a week, and have been splitting my time between my main (now 62), and two new alts, one each of the new races, both of which are now mid-20s. I've also spent time with my main skilling up in tradeskills and secondary skills like fishing and so forth, but that's because I enjoy that, and don't mind taking longer to get that character to 70, and then decide which of my other characters I want to do that on as well.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I dont see a problem with the review. They chose somebody whose been playing the game for a while (out of all the editors) and he scored it accordingly. Yes, perhaps its not up to everybody's standards, but he didnt seem overly fanatical about it and for anybody whose enjoyed World of Warcraft (or still does) its hard not to see the appeal in a highly polished expansion like The Burning Crusade. Overall a solid review, perhaps not with the in-depth analysis some hardened MMO gamers would enjoy but a thorough and fair review none the less.
I don't know whats your personal beef with WOW. But here another gamign website and one of the best gave it 8.8 and press average rating is 9.3.
So i suggest you chill ok? or unless you tell me that even IGN sucks too just like Gamespot. Full review here...
pc.ign.com/articles/759/759779p1.html
Maybe for you it sucks but not for majority of people like me who live in US. Both Gamespot and IGN giving it high scores means that its a good game eventhough haters will never agree even if JESUS himself says WOW is a good game.
Anyways, IGN mostly review quality games and most of the high profile Korean games are not even worth wasting time for, so i am not surprised if IGN pays no attention to those grindfest identical MMO's.
Seems a bit of a high rating, though can't profess to trying it yet. People seem to be quite taken by it, whether its that thirst for new content being met, or whether it actually is quite good I'm not really sure. The features it has besides the flying mounts don't sound overly impressive.
I stopped playing WoiW several months ago but, I still have friends and online friends who play and from what I hear them saying isn't anything close to this review. So, i did an impromtue rating and it averaged out to a 6.7 on a scale of 1 to 10. this was taken from 57 current WoW players. I also would like to note that every single person I polled via phone or email are over the age of 21 and are veteran MMO people who have played more than just WoW.
52 of those 57 people are getting bored with WoW. As one of them said and I quote. "The expansion just wasn't enough really. I mean we waited 2 years for this?"
the 5 who said they weren't bored with WoW yet are very casual players 10 to 14 hours a week.
all 52 people that said they were bored with WoW are looking for a new MMO. Most of them will be picking up a new MMO in the next week or so and canceling their WoW account.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
Review on the GS review:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraftexp1/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-33479580&pid=928901
I think it's deserving of the score. My reasoning is simple:
A non-standalone expansion has to be judged on the criteria of how well it pleases those likely to buy it: those who were fans of the original game. I think BC adds some interesting new features and significant content without changing the formula too much, and it comes with the typical Blizzard polish. It's not revolutionary, but it's a very fine addition to WoW for those who like it.
Honestly, what other MMORPG would get a 9+? I'm not saying that the others are terrible games, but most of them launched with such little content or polish that most gamers would have no patience to play them. Do you think SWG deserved such a score a few months after its launch? Or Anarchy Online? Honestly, if Vanguard had the polish of WoW, I have no doubt that Gamespot would give it a 9. Sadly, given the state it's in at present, it's probably going to get around a 7. I don't think that's undeserved. They have to give ratings useful to 99% of gamers, not something that pleases the most hardcore MMORPG players.
I think publishers and developers have learned the important lesson from WoW: polish counts, and to get that polish, you need to both be patient and have the a development style which encourages QA at all stages. Think about where SWG would be if it had launched with no bugs and fluid, good-looking combat and movement animations. Just imagine that game. Now think about where WoW would be if it had a launch like that of Anarchy Online or Star Wars: Galaxies, riddled with noticeable bugs and performance issues, with crappy animations that make combat look idiotic. So many MMORPG's are filled with dozens of little problems that hardcore MMORPG players can overlook, but those same problems turn off everybody else.
Gamespot not influental? Last time i checked it is one of the biggest online game page. Yes, they are not as focused as IGN, but that is because they are much wider and more akin a online magazine than a fan site.
That's said, you can check their ratings, an avergae of 9.0 from 24 other online sites reviews. So it is not just Gamespot.
And yes, an expansion usually should offer more of the same. Maybe some variations on the theme, but if I want something totally different, i do not expect it from an expansion but from a new game.
From that point of view, TBC is awesome, I was blown away and totally surprised of how good it actually is (didn't have so high expectations of it, good, yes, high? not at the start)
So, to sum it up, YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!! and we weren't.
How long will it last? no idea, but then people were getting to level 60 in original WoW in what? 2 weeks? and years later the game has still enough players to fill a small country or 2... so I'm not concerned of losing players over short top level reaching speed just yet.
Have a nice day.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"