There's very good reason why he gave such low scores to games like Roma Victor and Dream Lords.
I played both Roma Victor and Dream Lords in beta and after release and agree with his reviews for those two games completely and they are also just as amusing as the Darkfall one.
I think the reason why some people don't get the joke is that its at their expense, but that has been a big problem for years with the Darkfall community.
I have not played Darkfall yet but I'm sure there's also very good reasons why he also gave it such a low score similar to both those other games.
If this review is totally unfair just wait until the re-review or other mainstream gaming websites start reviewing Darkfall and give it the super high scores some people complaining about this one think it deserves.
Be careful what you wish for though, because this nerd rage internet smear campaign to publicize the injustice of a 2/10 review is really self defeating and if the re-review is also another low score which it almost inevitably will be it will just be even more devastating for this poor game.
Why are you people still arguing? That reviewer guy has probably already lost his part time job. Making such a bad review on a game lots of people seem to enjoy was not a good idea. Regardless if you love or hate DFO, anyone with half a brain would not be caught defending that guy.We all play MMO's and we know that to see how good an MMO is , it takes playing it for more than 100 hours. Otherwise AoC would have been the MMO to end all MMO's.
Actually I disagree. You can get a good feel for an MMO in the first few hours. Given a MMO makes money by retaining subscriptions and is often missing high end content .. its probably wise to savour the first few hours. Oh that and some MMO releases nowadays are so feature hyped and yet feature lacking that the first few hours is pretty much it... (cough cough... update yer website Mr Tasos)
Face it ... its all about retention. If the new player experience sucks then nothnig else bodes well. But IMHO ... everything bodes badly with AV. It veers from facepalm to a complete farce. Ah if this game was not pullnig the PvP FFA Full Loot Types in and promises the moon on a stick... well it be dead already. Ed told the truth for the most part. Objectivity is a joke for DF anyways or jsut translates to suck up the Tasos hype.
BTW... @OP... is AV really indy ? I seriously doubt it. They just low scale and incompetant.
Apparently Red Bedlam sent logs to pczone regarding Ed Zitron giving Roma victor a 8% after just few hours of gameplay as well (to be noted, those who read the PCZONE review say DF review was pretty much copy&paste from his roma victor review)
Then later he reviewed Dreamlords, giving it 17% causing major uproar from Dreamlords fanbase and...you guessed it! Dreamlords devs giving out logs of him barely touching the game! ...shortly after this the guy "disappeared" from PC Zones review crew.
This guy has been caught red handed while writing "reviews" out of his arse three times now...it's miracle anyone gives him any credibility anymore.
Giving the exapmles of Dreamlords and Roma Victor getting low scores is a great endorsement of Ed Zitron. My guess is that with ample hindsight, his Darkfall review will look just as accurate as the spot on RV review he did when it came out. All three of these games do in fact suck... and I am a little tired of the standard video game review scale of 7 - 10.
The guy calls them like he sees them... hell, he calls them like I see them. He may be the only game reviewer worth reading. I'd certainly trust his opinion over someone that gave Roma Victor, Dreamlords or darkfall a good review.
As a member of the Greater Troll Community, I feel proud to have Ed in the press. Keep up the good work, Ed! At last someone who presents games as they should be presented and does not lick the balls of the devs.
Gamespot would say something along the lines of "Although the game is new and has all the maturity problems every MMO has near launch, it nevertheless has a great potential to fill a hard-core niche part of the market. Just as EVE-Online did a couple of years ago." No, Gamespot and Gamespot-lookalikes, DF has no maturity problems. It just is a bad, low quality game made as a side-job by people that were experimenting - and unfortunately were not good at it. And you do not need more that 10 minutes with the game to realize this. Actually, I think that Eurogamer wasted too much time with DF. 2 hours! This is what I call patience and proffesionalism.
Keep up the good work Ed. We need to spend our money wisely!
Seems you prefer reviewers that doesn't do his job in a professional way.
People playing Darkfall rate if btw 6-8 on a 10 scale.
That is fair ratings for Darkfall and making reviews based on nothing as this joke of a reviewer Ed did is hurting the gaming industry.
HAHA ofcourse people playing the game gives it good/decent reviews. People usually play games they LIKE so what the hell is that supposed to prove?
I have playED Darkfall and uninstalled it after 2-3 days, much for the reasons he stated in this review. The game is that poorly done. Gfx, sound, controls, movement, the works. It's a pile of crap that maybe was ok if it was released 5 years ago, if even that.
Hang on... weren't all you DF boys complaining vehemently a few weeks ago about how all negative posts were being systematically removed from the official game forums and what a travesty this was?
I've no idea whether DF is a pot of gold or a crock of shit (never played it, couldn't care less), but the fact that some guy on a website you never heard of until about 8 hours ago slagged off your game shouldn't make YOU care. Go play Darkfall if you want to play Darkfall.
All you (and more importantly Adventurine) are doing is giving mass publicity to the review you hate so much.
Like I said before, a bad game is still a bad game wether you've played it 2 hours or 200 hours. If a game doesn't grab me right away what makes me think its going to later on.
All you DF lovers need to get over this, maybe Ed thought all those games were so horrid that he couln't stand to play another second of those games. But no you just say he gave a bad review because of the lack ot time he played. Just face it not everyone is going to like this game, no matter how much time played.
After all its just his opinion is he not entitled to his own opinion because its negative towards Darkfall?....... I guess not.
Actually, will have to disagree with you on one point. In single player MMORPG's, it used to be the policy of most reputable magazines to not publish a review until the reviewer had completed the game.
Times changed and people demanded info faster and faster and we started getting previews, so that things could go to press quicker.
And while an MMORPG can't be played until the end, to make a decent review I think the reviewer has an obligation to approach the game with an open mind (Ed didn't seem to) and make a decent attempt to master the game controls and play through the basic content.
Sure, they can't be expected to get through level 20, (and I realize that there's no levels in DF) however Ed and any other review could at least make sure they skilled up through middle level spells, combat abilities and did a decent job of exploring the world.
Might have helped to approach a major clan and asked to be included in some raids or ship combat as well.
What is tireing is reading endless reviews about games that basically cover the "noob" experience, because that's not always positive.
Take DAOC. I first played a Paladin in that game up to level 6, and thought, this isn't very fun. I rerolled a Sorcerer and got him up to level 17 or so..and thought, better, but still not that fun. So then I made an Infiltrator, and finally hit my stride. Took him all the way to level 50 in the next 3 months, however I had spent a good month of hard game time on the first two characters before finding my way.
WOW was another example. Played a Druid in open Beta...didni't really care for the game. Come launch I rolled a Palladin, had much more fun and even ended up with a level 60 Druid later on in the game.
Point is, you really can't tell if a game totally blows in an hour or two of game time. Sure, if its you and your own personal gaming experience, feel free to give up after an hour or less. I've done so with several games including EQ, DDO and some others, but I suspect I might have missed some fun gaming experiences because I did so.
But reviewers have an obligation to do more than that, and should perform due dilligence when accepting the task of reviewing a game.
Also, reviewers should like the games they play. By that I mean, if you're favorite game style is WOW and LotRO, then DF is never going to be for you. Neither is EVE, which is always bashed by people who don't understand how to play it, nor is it their type of game.
I'm not saying only fanbois should review a game, but the person should at least have a chance at liking it based on past experience. I don't think Ed's that sort of player, especially since folks tell me he's a huge fan of LotRO, which is a decent enough game but worth no more than an 8 in my book. (I don't give many games a score much above an 8 though)
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
LALALALA IM NOT LISTENING! ITS A BAD GAME!!! BAAAAAD GAME!!! LALALALA
Fixed.
/sigh
If you look back at the original discussion about this you'll see I rallied pretty heavily against this review. You will also see that very few people understand that it isn't about the score it's about the game not being given a fair chance by the reviewer.
A lot of people here don't understand the argument for professional integrity.
MMO's like Darkfall are a sure bet for players like me, whereas LOTRO has nothing that attracts me. 8 weeks of fun in Darkfall (i feel like found a second love after SWG Pre CU) , 3 hours of pain in LOTRO.
MMO's like Darkfall are a sure bet for players like me, whereas LOTRO has nothing that attracts me. 8 weeks of fun in Darkfall (i feel like found a second love after SWG Pre CU) , 3 hours of pain in LOTRO.
Like I said before, a bad game is still a bad game wether you've played it 2 hours or 200 hours. If a game doesn't grab me right away what makes me think its going to later on.
All you DF lovers need to get over this, maybe Ed thought all those games were so horrid that he couln't stand to play another second of those games. But no you just say he gave a bad review because of the lack ot time he played. Just face it not everyone is going to like this game, no matter how much time played.
After all its just his opinion is he not entitled to his own opinion because its negative towards Darkfall?....... I guess not.
Actually, will have to disagree with you on one point. In single player MMORPG's, it used to be the policy of most reputable magazines to not publish a review until the reviewer had completed the game.
Times changed and people demanded info faster and faster and we started getting previews, so that things could go to press quicker.
And while an MMORPG can't be played until the end, to make a decent review I think the reviewer has an obligation to approach the game with an open mind (Ed didn't seem to) and make a decent attempt to master the game controls and play through the basic content.
Sure, they can't be expected to get through level 20, (and I realize that there's no levels in DF) however Ed and any other review could at least make sure they skilled up through middle level spells, combat abilities and did a decent job of exploring the world.
Might have helped to approach a major clan and asked to be included in some raids or ship combat as well.
What is tireing is reading endless reviews about games that basically cover the "noob" experience, because that's not always positive.
Take DAOC. I first played a Paladin in that game up to level 6, and thought, this isn't very fun. I rerolled a Sorcerer and got him up to level 17 or so..and thought, better, but still not that fun. So then I made an Infiltrator, and finally hit my stride. Took him all the way to level 50 in the next 3 months, however I had spent a good month of hard game time on the first two characters before finding my way.
WOW was another example. Played a Druid in open Beta...didni't really care for the game. Come launch I rolled a Palladin, had much more fun and even ended up with a level 60 Druid later on in the game.
Point is, you really can't tell if a game totally blows in an hour or two of game time. Sure, if its you and your own personal gaming experience, feel free to give up after an hour or less. I've done so with several games including EQ, DDO and some others, but I suspect I might have missed some fun gaming experiences because I did so.
But reviewers have an obligation to do more than that, and should perform due dilligence when accepting the task of reviewing a game.
Also, reviewers should like the games they play. By that I mean, if you're favorite game style is WOW and LotRO, then DF is never going to be for you. Neither is EVE, which is always bashed by people who don't understand how to play it, nor is it their type of game.
I'm not saying only fanbois should review a game, but the person should at least have a chance at liking it based on past experience. I don't think Ed's that sort of player, especially since folks tell me he's a huge fan of LotRO, which is a decent enough game but worth no more than an 8 in my book. (I don't give many games a score much above an 8 though)
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
The outdated gfx
The empty continent and lack of content
The crappy controls (activating, sheating, right click to get in and out of modes etc)
The excessive ganking by children with stupid juvenile names. Observe that I want FFA PvP games and the best such I have played is AC 1: Darktide but when a game is so horribly boring that there is so much excessive ganking of noobs then one needs to ask themselves if this game really has much to offer.
The mispelled quest descriptions. Minor thing but shows how unproffesional this game has been developed. How much does it cost to hire someone fluent in english to read the quest descriptions?
The constant macroing that is going on because the skill grind is so slow.
Poor mob AI. Same with all MMORPGs I guess but Tasos has repeteadly, in the past, said how good their monster AI will be.
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
Aa a reveiwer he is expected to be objective not opinionated. It is naive to expect every reviewer to keep his opinion out of the way, it's simply unrealistic, which is why if you are the kind of person that puts any stock in a review then you need to find someone with similar tastes to yourself. However there should be a minimum standard and it is the responsabilty of his editor to mantain it. On the other hand EG has probably had record hits since his review wether for the right reasns or not.
I think it's fairly safe to assume that the guy spent an innordably small amount of time in game. Now a lot will say that he has spent as long as he could stand, as long as his patience would let him. However he is supposed to be doing this for a living, this is his job ffs, I wish I could just do 2 hrs work and decide thats as long as I could stomach for the week and bugger off. Sorry, but if this is his defence then he is in the wrong line of work.
All that said, I am not saying I dissagree with his score overall, for the most part that's irrelavent. I don't feel I've explored the game enough or spent enough time on it. But I guess it all depends on what level of proffessionalism, detail and work you expect a from someone whose opinion you are going to take seriously.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Also, reviewers should like the games they play. By that I mean, if you're favorite game style is WOW and LotRO, then DF is never going to be for you.
No they shouldn't. Reviewers should try to make an unbiased review.
Ed should have been a lot more specific and rated stuff like graphics, controls sounds and so on loose but Eorogamer is not forced to find someone that like DFO for the review, you need someone that never played tha game and like computergames just.
I think the scores sounds a little low but I never played the game myself. It is clear however that this game is released way to early and need a lot more polish if it is going to do as well as Eve.
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
The outdated gfx - This is a matter of opinion not fact. However if you know you share the tastes of the reviewer it can be a good indicator
The empty continent and lack of content - If he genuinely spent 2 hours in game making chars how could he possible cast judgement on this? Unless he was taking the opinion of someone else, but then we don't know who that is.
The crappy controls (activating, sheating, right click to get in and out of modes etc) - Again, due to the time in game is he really in a possition to judge or balance the inconveniences (designed into all games in one way or another) with their reasons.
The excessive ganking by children with stupid juvenile names. Observe that I want FFA PvP games and the best such I have played is AC 1: Darktide but when a game is so horribly boring that there is so much excessive ganking of noobs then one needs to ask themselves if this game really has much to offer. - If you log into a FFAPvP full loot game expecting not to get ganked, you made a mistake. What is excessive? for me once tbh.
The mispelled quest descriptions. Minor thing but shows how unproffesional this game has been developed. How much does it cost to hire someone fluent in english to read the quest descriptions? - Show me a game without spelling mistakes in quests and I'll show you a liar, unless maybe we're talking about LotR here, wait a minute do you know Ed?!?!?!
The constant macroing that is going on because the skill grind is so slow. - I'll kind of agree here but surely it would have been more relavent to mention the HACKING.
Poor mob AI. Same with all MMORPGs I guess but Tasos has repeteadly, in the past, said how good their monster AI will be. - Tell me are we marking mob AI down because Taco said it was better and was only on par or because it's worse. If the former do we mark down all mmo's AI?
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
This is what is meant by a poor review. I'm not deliberately pointing out your post but simply stating that a good review would already have answered the critique that would be made towards it.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Just goes to show you how much of a nobody this Zitron is. Also, if your going to get paid to do the job, especially one in which you get to play video games, actually do your job. Copy pasting is not doing your job. Zitron is doing the gaming community a disservice.
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
The outdated gfx - This is a matter of opinion not fact. However if you know you share the tastes of the reviewer it can be a good indicator
The empty continent and lack of content - If he genuinely spent 2 hours in game making chars how could he possible cast judgement on this? Unless he was taking the opinion of someone else, but then we don't know who that is.
The crappy controls (activating, sheating, right click to get in and out of modes etc) - Again, due to the time in game is he really in a possition to judge or balance the inconveniences (designed into all games in one way or another) with their reasons.
The excessive ganking by children with stupid juvenile names. Observe that I want FFA PvP games and the best such I have played is AC 1: Darktide but when a game is so horribly boring that there is so much excessive ganking of noobs then one needs to ask themselves if this game really has much to offer. - If you log into a FFAPvP full loot game expecting not to get ganked, you made a mistake. What is excessive? for me once tbh.
The mispelled quest descriptions. Minor thing but shows how unproffesional this game has been developed. How much does it cost to hire someone fluent in english to read the quest descriptions? - Show me a game without spelling mistakes in quests and I'll show you a liar, unless maybe we're talking about LotR here, wait a minute do you know Ed?!?!?!
The constant macroing that is going on because the skill grind is so slow. - I'll kind of agree here but surely it would have been more relavent to mention the HACKING.
Poor mob AI. Same with all MMORPGs I guess but Tasos has repeteadly, in the past, said how good their monster AI will be. - Tell me are we marking mob AI down because Taco said it was better and was only on par or because it's worse. If the former do we mark down all mmo's AI?
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
This is what is meant by a poor review. I'm not deliberately pointing out your post but simply stating that a good review would already have answered the critique that would be made towards it.
I was not making a review but rather pointing out that the review did bring up specific points for why he thinks the game is no good. Journalism and reviews are subjective so really dont understand your argument that they should not be.
But to answer your specific points:
The outdated gfx engine is a fact. No person who is up to date on current gfx engines out there today can say it is not. They can say that they like the gfx regardless of the fact that it is outdated but it IS outdated and that IS a fact.
That 2 hours drivel is something Tasos have said and is based on some "server logs" that he provided. That is in no way proof that the reviewer spent only 2 hours in character screen. Tasos has been known to lie alot so I am not believing anything he says unless I get unrefutable, independant proof for it.
The controls of a game can quickly be seen if they are good or not. It does not take hours to do that. It may take hours, or even days, to master the controls but that is more indictive that it is bad rather than good. This game claims FPS type combat yet I have never played an FPS, worth its name, with this bad control.
When did I say I expect not to be ganked? Are the only options not to be ganked or excessive ganking by children with stupid juvenile names too bored to do anything else? WAR has possibility, on O-RvR server, to gank the opposing side everywhere yet very few people do it because there are much more other options for PvP than ganking noobs. So creating a server that lets you kill anyone, anytime is not enough to be a GOOD FFA PvP game. There needs to be options and things to do which there is lack of in Darkfall due to lack of content.
The mispelled quest descriptions is excessive and I have only seen worse when Lineage 2 was ported to english and in that case it is understandable since it was ported from a vastly different language. What is Darkfalls excuse? Let me guess. FFA PvP right? That is the excuse for everything wrong with this game.
I was not aware of any hacking so therefore I could obviously not mention it but macroing was rampant and evident even after a couple of days play. But still, how does that invalidate the excessive macro argument? Two wrong does not make one right.
We are marking down mob AI because Tasos repeteadly said how great it would be and better than other MMORPGs yet it turned out to be crap, like in other MMORPGs. Don't promise things that you know is not true.
Also, reviewers should like the games they play. By that I mean, if you're favorite game style is WOW and LotRO, then DF is never going to be for you.
No they shouldn't. Reviewers should try to make an unbiased review.
Ed should have been a lot more specific and rated stuff like graphics, controls sounds and so on loose but Eorogamer is not forced to find someone that like DFO for the review, you need someone that never played tha game and like computergames just.
I think the scores sounds a little low but I never played the game myself. It is clear however that this game is released way to early and need a lot more polish if it is going to do as well as Eve.
It is imposible and bad to write unbiased reviews. I read a review becouse I want to know someone opinion about the game and now what the game is about. I can read that myself on the games website. While I agree that the DF review is lacking a bit and seems incomplete. It is still just a one mans opinion.
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
The outdated gfx - This is a matter of opinion not fact. However if you know you share the tastes of the reviewer it can be a good indicator
The empty continent and lack of content - If he genuinely spent 2 hours in game making chars how could he possible cast judgement on this? Unless he was taking the opinion of someone else, but then we don't know who that is.
The crappy controls (activating, sheating, right click to get in and out of modes etc) - Again, due to the time in game is he really in a possition to judge or balance the inconveniences (designed into all games in one way or another) with their reasons.
The excessive ganking by children with stupid juvenile names. Observe that I want FFA PvP games and the best such I have played is AC 1: Darktide but when a game is so horribly boring that there is so much excessive ganking of noobs then one needs to ask themselves if this game really has much to offer. - If you log into a FFAPvP full loot game expecting not to get ganked, you made a mistake. What is excessive? for me once tbh.
The mispelled quest descriptions. Minor thing but shows how unproffesional this game has been developed. How much does it cost to hire someone fluent in english to read the quest descriptions? - Show me a game without spelling mistakes in quests and I'll show you a liar, unless maybe we're talking about LotR here, wait a minute do you know Ed?!?!?!
The constant macroing that is going on because the skill grind is so slow. - I'll kind of agree here but surely it would have been more relavent to mention the HACKING.
Poor mob AI. Same with all MMORPGs I guess but Tasos has repeteadly, in the past, said how good their monster AI will be. - Tell me are we marking mob AI down because Taco said it was better and was only on par or because it's worse. If the former do we mark down all mmo's AI?
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
This is what is meant by a poor review. I'm not deliberately pointing out your post but simply stating that a good review would already have answered the critique that would be made towards it.
I was not making a review but rather pointing out that the review did bring up specific points for why he thinks the game is no good. Journalism and reviews are subjective so really dont understand your argument that they should not be.
But to answer your specific points:
The outdated gfx engine is a fact. No person who is up to date on current gfx engines out there today can say it is not. They can say that they like the gfx regardless of the fact that it is outdated but it IS outdated and that IS a fact.
That 2 hours drivel is something Tasos have said and is based on some "server logs" that he provided. That is in no way proof that the reviewer spent only 2 hours in character screen. Tasos has been known to lie alot so I am not believing anything he says unless I get unrefutable, independant proof for it.
The controls of a game can quickly be seen if they are good or not. It does not take hours to do that. It may take hours, or even days, to master the controls but that is more indictive that it is bad rather than good. This game claims FPS type combat yet I have never played an FPS, worth its name, with this bad control.
When did I say I expect not to be ganked? Are the only options not to be ganked or excessive ganking by children with stupid juvenile names too bored to do anything else? WAR has possibility, on O-RvR server, to gank the opposing side everywhere yet very few people do it because there are much more other options for PvP than ganking noobs. So creating a server that lets you kill anyone, anytime is not enough to be a GOOD FFA PvP game. There needs to be options and things to do which there is lack of in Darkfall due to lack of content.
The mispelled quest descriptions is excessive and I have only seen worse when Lineage 2 was ported to english and in that case it is understandable since it was ported from a vastly different language. What is Darkfalls excuse? Let me guess. FFA PvP right? That is the excuse for everything wrong with this game.
I was not aware of any hacking so therefore I could obviously not mention it but macroing was rampant and evident even after a couple of days play. But still, how does that invalidate the excessive macro argument? Two wrong does not make one right.
We are marking down mob AI because Tasos repeteadly said how great it would be and better than other MMORPGs yet it turned out to be crap, like in other MMORPGs. Don't promise things that you know is not true.
Holy crap. You actually believe the shit your spouting.
Just goes to show you how much of a nobody this Zitron is. Also, if your going to get paid to do the job, especially one in which you get to play video games, actually do your job. Copy pasting is not doing your job. Zitron is doing the gaming community a disservice.
He has done the gaming community a great service by putting up red flags about a poor game in a poor state. If I have read his review, rather than MMORPG.com "review", I would never have bought the game and this would have saved me 50 euro. Then if the game deserved 3/10 or 4/10 is irrelevant, the important thing is that it says to gamers. STAY AWAY.
This whole fiasco is really turning into a great example of the unintended law of cause and effect. By that let's take a second to review:
Random Review Guy writes a negative review of an indy game that caters to a niche market and does not have open sales.
Developer questions credibility of Random Review Guy.
Second, more respected reviewer, pretty much agrees with Random Review Guy.
Discussion/Debate continues into a second day.
So, that's the over simplified version.
For a second day now, the reviewer is getting free press from an admittedly niche market that he likely doesn't consider his target audience anyhow. If these are not his target audience, then alienating them does nothing to his readership. Alternately, the overreaction by the developer and fans are likely doing more to secure a larger readership for the reviewer then if they just let it fade away.
A secondary beneficiary of this is the EG site. As was mentioned previously, many people hadn't heard about it until yesterday and now, I am sure there membership has spiked. Once those who signed up just to state disagreement are filtered out, they will still likely see a net gain in readership.
Finally, the last participant in this whole thing, DF, really doesn't have a way to "win" this. If a second review gives higher marks, it will be torn apart as EG selling out or any other reason. If the review generally agrees with the first, DF gains nothing. If the fans keep crying they will just further alienate potential players and could even drive off some of the existing player base. The continued obsession with this review can be analagous to digging a hole. Eventually, the hole becomes deep enough you can't get out.
Maybe that raises a question; What do people hope to gain from attacking the reviewer and his review at this point? It's been picked over and the arguments are just going in circles at this point. So, what is to gain from keeping the review at the top of the page?
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
When I read the correspondant from here (sorry forget the name and how to spell it) discribe the game I get the impression you really need to be into the whole FFA full loot premise of the game to see what lies beneath the problems the game has. Knowing this what the heck were Tasos and crew smoking when they decided to hand out a free press pass to some random journalist? What other result could they have possibly expected? Dude your game is in paid Beta stages it's not ready for reviews. If you hand out a free pass to a member of the press no matter their credentials your not going to get a free pass just because your an indie company.
Basicly it's the companys own damn fault for giving a member of the press access to the game they call released that in reality is still Beta. While I'm willing to admit 2 out of 10 is probably being overly harsh and needs to be taken with a grain of salt I would also throw a similar amount of salt at anything that rated it over a 6 out of 10 as being overly generous.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
There is nothing more dangerous than a true believer.
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There's very good reason why he gave such low scores to games like Roma Victor and Dream Lords.
I played both Roma Victor and Dream Lords in beta and after release and agree with his reviews for those two games completely and they are also just as amusing as the Darkfall one.
I think the reason why some people don't get the joke is that its at their expense, but that has been a big problem for years with the Darkfall community.
I have not played Darkfall yet but I'm sure there's also very good reasons why he also gave it such a low score similar to both those other games.
If this review is totally unfair just wait until the re-review or other mainstream gaming websites start reviewing Darkfall and give it the super high scores some people complaining about this one think it deserves.
Be careful what you wish for though, because this nerd rage internet smear campaign to publicize the injustice of a 2/10 review is really self defeating and if the re-review is also another low score which it almost inevitably will be it will just be even more devastating for this poor game.
Actually I disagree. You can get a good feel for an MMO in the first few hours. Given a MMO makes money by retaining subscriptions and is often missing high end content .. its probably wise to savour the first few hours. Oh that and some MMO releases nowadays are so feature hyped and yet feature lacking that the first few hours is pretty much it... (cough cough... update yer website Mr Tasos)
Face it ... its all about retention. If the new player experience sucks then nothnig else bodes well. But IMHO ... everything bodes badly with AV. It veers from facepalm to a complete farce. Ah if this game was not pullnig the PvP FFA Full Loot Types in and promises the moon on a stick... well it be dead already. Ed told the truth for the most part. Objectivity is a joke for DF anyways or jsut translates to suck up the Tasos hype.
BTW... @OP... is AV really indy ? I seriously doubt it. They just low scale and incompetant.
Giving the exapmles of Dreamlords and Roma Victor getting low scores is a great endorsement of Ed Zitron. My guess is that with ample hindsight, his Darkfall review will look just as accurate as the spot on RV review he did when it came out. All three of these games do in fact suck... and I am a little tired of the standard video game review scale of 7 - 10.
The guy calls them like he sees them... hell, he calls them like I see them. He may be the only game reviewer worth reading. I'd certainly trust his opinion over someone that gave Roma Victor, Dreamlords or darkfall a good review.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
Seems you prefer reviewers that doesn't do his job in a professional way.
People playing Darkfall rate if btw 6-8 on a 10 scale.
That is fair ratings for Darkfall and making reviews based on nothing as this joke of a reviewer Ed did is hurting the gaming industry.
HAHA ofcourse people playing the game gives it good/decent reviews. People usually play games they LIKE so what the hell is that supposed to prove?
I have playED Darkfall and uninstalled it after 2-3 days, much for the reasons he stated in this review. The game is that poorly done. Gfx, sound, controls, movement, the works. It's a pile of crap that maybe was ok if it was released 5 years ago, if even that.
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Hang on... weren't all you DF boys complaining vehemently a few weeks ago about how all negative posts were being systematically removed from the official game forums and what a travesty this was?
I've no idea whether DF is a pot of gold or a crock of shit (never played it, couldn't care less), but the fact that some guy on a website you never heard of until about 8 hours ago slagged off your game shouldn't make YOU care. Go play Darkfall if you want to play Darkfall.
All you (and more importantly Adventurine) are doing is giving mass publicity to the review you hate so much.
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Actually, will have to disagree with you on one point. In single player MMORPG's, it used to be the policy of most reputable magazines to not publish a review until the reviewer had completed the game.
Times changed and people demanded info faster and faster and we started getting previews, so that things could go to press quicker.
And while an MMORPG can't be played until the end, to make a decent review I think the reviewer has an obligation to approach the game with an open mind (Ed didn't seem to) and make a decent attempt to master the game controls and play through the basic content.
Sure, they can't be expected to get through level 20, (and I realize that there's no levels in DF) however Ed and any other review could at least make sure they skilled up through middle level spells, combat abilities and did a decent job of exploring the world.
Might have helped to approach a major clan and asked to be included in some raids or ship combat as well.
What is tireing is reading endless reviews about games that basically cover the "noob" experience, because that's not always positive.
Take DAOC. I first played a Paladin in that game up to level 6, and thought, this isn't very fun. I rerolled a Sorcerer and got him up to level 17 or so..and thought, better, but still not that fun. So then I made an Infiltrator, and finally hit my stride. Took him all the way to level 50 in the next 3 months, however I had spent a good month of hard game time on the first two characters before finding my way.
WOW was another example. Played a Druid in open Beta...didni't really care for the game. Come launch I rolled a Palladin, had much more fun and even ended up with a level 60 Druid later on in the game.
Point is, you really can't tell if a game totally blows in an hour or two of game time. Sure, if its you and your own personal gaming experience, feel free to give up after an hour or less. I've done so with several games including EQ, DDO and some others, but I suspect I might have missed some fun gaming experiences because I did so.
But reviewers have an obligation to do more than that, and should perform due dilligence when accepting the task of reviewing a game.
Also, reviewers should like the games they play. By that I mean, if you're favorite game style is WOW and LotRO, then DF is never going to be for you. Neither is EVE, which is always bashed by people who don't understand how to play it, nor is it their type of game.
I'm not saying only fanbois should review a game, but the person should at least have a chance at liking it based on past experience. I don't think Ed's that sort of player, especially since folks tell me he's a huge fan of LotRO, which is a decent enough game but worth no more than an 8 in my book. (I don't give many games a score much above an 8 though)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"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
Both of those games have constantly gotten bad reviews.
So......ya
Out of curiosity I have to ask as well. Why is the Guitar Hero review link there?
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Fixed.
/sigh
If you look back at the original discussion about this you'll see I rallied pretty heavily against this review. You will also see that very few people understand that it isn't about the score it's about the game not being given a fair chance by the reviewer.
A lot of people here don't understand the argument for professional integrity.
Good job making stuff up. Darkfall only has one official review. From eurogamer.
Edit: I'm not going to delete this post. I was however over zelous in my response. I am corrected below, and as pointed out below, was wrong.
Wow reading compherhsion?
This thread is not about darkfall its about 2 games that he gave bad reviews to....
Hehe,
did you just "review" LOTRO in 3 hours?
Hehe,
did you just "review" LOTRO in 3 hours?
Fatality
Actually, will have to disagree with you on one point. In single player MMORPG's, it used to be the policy of most reputable magazines to not publish a review until the reviewer had completed the game.
Times changed and people demanded info faster and faster and we started getting previews, so that things could go to press quicker.
And while an MMORPG can't be played until the end, to make a decent review I think the reviewer has an obligation to approach the game with an open mind (Ed didn't seem to) and make a decent attempt to master the game controls and play through the basic content.
Sure, they can't be expected to get through level 20, (and I realize that there's no levels in DF) however Ed and any other review could at least make sure they skilled up through middle level spells, combat abilities and did a decent job of exploring the world.
Might have helped to approach a major clan and asked to be included in some raids or ship combat as well.
What is tireing is reading endless reviews about games that basically cover the "noob" experience, because that's not always positive.
Take DAOC. I first played a Paladin in that game up to level 6, and thought, this isn't very fun. I rerolled a Sorcerer and got him up to level 17 or so..and thought, better, but still not that fun. So then I made an Infiltrator, and finally hit my stride. Took him all the way to level 50 in the next 3 months, however I had spent a good month of hard game time on the first two characters before finding my way.
WOW was another example. Played a Druid in open Beta...didni't really care for the game. Come launch I rolled a Palladin, had much more fun and even ended up with a level 60 Druid later on in the game.
Point is, you really can't tell if a game totally blows in an hour or two of game time. Sure, if its you and your own personal gaming experience, feel free to give up after an hour or less. I've done so with several games including EQ, DDO and some others, but I suspect I might have missed some fun gaming experiences because I did so.
But reviewers have an obligation to do more than that, and should perform due dilligence when accepting the task of reviewing a game.
Also, reviewers should like the games they play. By that I mean, if you're favorite game style is WOW and LotRO, then DF is never going to be for you. Neither is EVE, which is always bashed by people who don't understand how to play it, nor is it their type of game.
I'm not saying only fanbois should review a game, but the person should at least have a chance at liking it based on past experience. I don't think Ed's that sort of player, especially since folks tell me he's a huge fan of LotRO, which is a decent enough game but worth no more than an 8 in my book. (I don't give many games a score much above an 8 though)
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
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Aa a reveiwer he is expected to be objective not opinionated. It is naive to expect every reviewer to keep his opinion out of the way, it's simply unrealistic, which is why if you are the kind of person that puts any stock in a review then you need to find someone with similar tastes to yourself. However there should be a minimum standard and it is the responsabilty of his editor to mantain it. On the other hand EG has probably had record hits since his review wether for the right reasns or not.
I think it's fairly safe to assume that the guy spent an innordably small amount of time in game. Now a lot will say that he has spent as long as he could stand, as long as his patience would let him. However he is supposed to be doing this for a living, this is his job ffs, I wish I could just do 2 hrs work and decide thats as long as I could stomach for the week and bugger off. Sorry, but if this is his defence then he is in the wrong line of work.
All that said, I am not saying I dissagree with his score overall, for the most part that's irrelavent. I don't feel I've explored the game enough or spent enough time on it. But I guess it all depends on what level of proffessionalism, detail and work you expect a from someone whose opinion you are going to take seriously.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I don't know what the intent was... but when I read it, it was just one more review where I agree totally with Ed.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
No they shouldn't. Reviewers should try to make an unbiased review.
Ed should have been a lot more specific and rated stuff like graphics, controls sounds and so on loose but Eorogamer is not forced to find someone that like DFO for the review, you need someone that never played tha game and like computergames just.
I think the scores sounds a little low but I never played the game myself. It is clear however that this game is released way to early and need a lot more polish if it is going to do as well as Eve.
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
This is what is meant by a poor review. I'm not deliberately pointing out your post but simply stating that a good review would already have answered the critique that would be made towards it.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Just goes to show you how much of a nobody this Zitron is. Also, if your going to get paid to do the job, especially one in which you get to play video games, actually do your job. Copy pasting is not doing your job. Zitron is doing the gaming community a disservice.
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
This is what is meant by a poor review. I'm not deliberately pointing out your post but simply stating that a good review would already have answered the critique that would be made towards it.
I was not making a review but rather pointing out that the review did bring up specific points for why he thinks the game is no good. Journalism and reviews are subjective so really dont understand your argument that they should not be.
But to answer your specific points:
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No they shouldn't. Reviewers should try to make an unbiased review.
Ed should have been a lot more specific and rated stuff like graphics, controls sounds and so on loose but Eorogamer is not forced to find someone that like DFO for the review, you need someone that never played tha game and like computergames just.
I think the scores sounds a little low but I never played the game myself. It is clear however that this game is released way to early and need a lot more polish if it is going to do as well as Eve.
It is imposible and bad to write unbiased reviews. I read a review becouse I want to know someone opinion about the game and now what the game is about. I can read that myself on the games website. While I agree that the DF review is lacking a bit and seems incomplete. It is still just a one mans opinion.
This wall of text basically says nothing because the review took up specific points on why this game sucks so bad.
And since I have tried this game and seen that all of these things are in the game it is a factual and proper review.And these are the reasons why this game is crap. The fact that it is FFA PvP game is irrelevant because that is not an excuse to have outdated gfx, sloppy/unresponsive/unintuitive controls and lack of content.
This is what is meant by a poor review. I'm not deliberately pointing out your post but simply stating that a good review would already have answered the critique that would be made towards it.
I was not making a review but rather pointing out that the review did bring up specific points for why he thinks the game is no good. Journalism and reviews are subjective so really dont understand your argument that they should not be.
But to answer your specific points:
Holy crap. You actually believe the shit your spouting.
He has done the gaming community a great service by putting up red flags about a poor game in a poor state. If I have read his review, rather than MMORPG.com "review", I would never have bought the game and this would have saved me 50 euro. Then if the game deserved 3/10 or 4/10 is irrelevant, the important thing is that it says to gamers. STAY AWAY.
And that the article does in a very good way.
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This whole fiasco is really turning into a great example of the unintended law of cause and effect. By that let's take a second to review:
So, that's the over simplified version.
For a second day now, the reviewer is getting free press from an admittedly niche market that he likely doesn't consider his target audience anyhow. If these are not his target audience, then alienating them does nothing to his readership. Alternately, the overreaction by the developer and fans are likely doing more to secure a larger readership for the reviewer then if they just let it fade away.
A secondary beneficiary of this is the EG site. As was mentioned previously, many people hadn't heard about it until yesterday and now, I am sure there membership has spiked. Once those who signed up just to state disagreement are filtered out, they will still likely see a net gain in readership.
Finally, the last participant in this whole thing, DF, really doesn't have a way to "win" this. If a second review gives higher marks, it will be torn apart as EG selling out or any other reason. If the review generally agrees with the first, DF gains nothing. If the fans keep crying they will just further alienate potential players and could even drive off some of the existing player base. The continued obsession with this review can be analagous to digging a hole. Eventually, the hole becomes deep enough you can't get out.
Maybe that raises a question; What do people hope to gain from attacking the reviewer and his review at this point? It's been picked over and the arguments are just going in circles at this point. So, what is to gain from keeping the review at the top of the page?
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
When I read the correspondant from here (sorry forget the name and how to spell it) discribe the game I get the impression you really need to be into the whole FFA full loot premise of the game to see what lies beneath the problems the game has. Knowing this what the heck were Tasos and crew smoking when they decided to hand out a free press pass to some random journalist? What other result could they have possibly expected? Dude your game is in paid Beta stages it's not ready for reviews. If you hand out a free pass to a member of the press no matter their credentials your not going to get a free pass just because your an indie company.
Basicly it's the companys own damn fault for giving a member of the press access to the game they call released that in reality is still Beta. While I'm willing to admit 2 out of 10 is probably being overly harsh and needs to be taken with a grain of salt I would also throw a similar amount of salt at anything that rated it over a 6 out of 10 as being overly generous.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
There is nothing more dangerous than a true believer.