Devil's Advocate: Weakest column on mmorpg.com?

VowOfSilence

The Devil's Advocate is a place where the MMO-Loving world can go to hear the unpopular opinion. [...] The Devil's Advocate is an opportunity for the oft-shunned and little discussed “Other Side of the Story” to be heard, promoting open discussion on a heavily contested subject.

 

Well, the Devil's Advocate is imo the weakest series on mmorpg. I expected some good trolling that is challenging and thought provoking - but instead, all of the articles so far were either based on misinterpretations of the community's opinions, or the subject was never "heavily contested" in the first place. Most arguments are either bad or missing the point altogether.

 

Statements in the current article, SWTOR will change/boost the industry:

1) Liking SWTOR is unpopular (not really true anyway, but let's go with it)

2) But it's a themepark MMO with a nice Bioware story (Everybody knows that. What some people dislike are the GAME MECHANICS, because they stick closely to the stale WoW-formula.)

3) And that's why SWTOR will be awesome (Sure - unless you are tired of those game mechanics...)

4) So it will succeed (Wait, what? This claim was only supported by randomly assuming that "hardcore"-players like crafting and housing, and by pointing out that Bioware gets good reviews.)

5) Thus, it will change the industry (It may or may not change story in mmos, but it won't change common gameplay and mechanics. SWTOR can't change anything because it doesn't add much in the first place. If anything, it will further cement the status quo. The article completly ignored the actual issue at hand.)

 

Other articles:

MMOFPS can rival MMORPG (Of course - I wish it was that way! Veterans still love Planetside, Firefall gets decent hype. How is this even a "Devil's Advocate"? The only problem is that most so-called MMOFPS simply aren't MMOs. It's just a cheap marketing ploy.)

The Console MMO is the future (Fine with me, as long they are good and get released on PC as well. So what? The Undead Labs mmo will probably make all PC gamers jealous, but it wasn't even mentioned in the article?)

F2P is the saviour (Good topic, but it turned into another bad article. The main argument is that there are many F2P games that aren't Pay2Win. Which is true, but that doesn't change the fact that many F2P games *are* P2W and have a less dedicated community. And don't even get me started on that EVE newsletter!)

 

So, yeah... the Devil's Advocate is a great concept, but so far, i'm disappointed.

I demand to get properly trolled by a column like that!

Distopia

Why did you have to create a thread to argue with an existing article?

Grunty

Being 'properly trolled' would be against the rules of conduct.

Kalfer

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

The Devil's Advocate is a place where the MMO-Loving world can go to hear the unpopular opinion. [...] The Devil's Advocate is an opportunity for the oft-shunned and little discussed “Other Side of the Story” to be heard, promoting open discussion on a heavily contested subject.

 

Well, the Devil's Advocate is imo the weakest series on mmorpg. I expected some good trolling that is challenging and thought provoking - but instead, all of the articles so far were either based on misinterpretations of the community's opinions, or the subject was never "heavily contested" in the first place. Most arguments are either bad or missing the point altogether.

 

Statements in the current article, SWTOR will change/boost the industry:

1) Liking SWTOR is unpopular (not really true anyway, but let's go with it)

2) But it's a themepark MMO with a nice Bioware story (Everybody knows that. What some people dislike are the GAME MECHANICS, because they stick closely to the stale WoW-formula.)

3) And that's why SWTOR will be awesome (Sure - unless you are tired of those game mechanics...)

4) So it will succeed (Wait, what? This claim was only supported by randomly assuming that "hardcore"-players like crafting and housing, and by pointing out that Bioware gets good reviews.)

5) Thus, it will change the industry (It may or may not change story in mmos, but it won't change common gameplay and mechanics. SWTOR can't change anything because it doesn't add much in the first place. If anything, it will further cement the status quo. The article completly ignored the actual issue at hand.)

 

Other articles:

MMOFPS can rival MMORPG (Of course - I wish it was that way! Veterans still love Planetside, Firefall gets decent hype. How is this even a "Devil's Advocate"? The only problem is that most so-called MMOFPS simply aren't MMOs. It's just a cheap marketing ploy.)

The Console MMO is the future (Fine with me, as long they are good and get released on PC as well. So what? The Undead Labs mmo will probably make all PC gamers jealous, but it wasn't even mentioned in the article?)

F2P is the saviour (Good topic, but it turned into another bad article. The main argument is that there are many F2P games that aren't Pay2Win. Which is true, but that doesn't change the fact that there are many F2P game that *are* P2W and have a less dedicated community. And don't even get me started on that EVE newsletter!)

 

So, yeah... the Devil's Advocate is a great concept, but so far, i'm disappointed.

I demand to get properly trolled by a column like that!

 

 

I hate to say it, but I agree. The console MMO is the future article was not well thought out as it only dealt with one example and sort of ignored all the other problematic areas of console MMOs. I felt it smelled off just writing about something or saying something radical to stir up a discussion, without really having a good base.

In fact I think that a lot of the editioral is out of proportions... so many columns. If I made the site I would go for fewer articles but higher quality. Perhaps have multiple writers on a single discussion. Like with SWTOR right now. So many articles... 5 things SWTOR does right, SWTOR will change the industry, why TOR will make your mother depressed, why Bioware says the sky is blue, and so on...

 

There is a lot of fluff right now. The site content was more condensed.

Kalfer

Originally posted by Malickie

Why did you have to create a thread to argue with an existing article?

Devils Advocate is a series of article. I think he is arguing against the series as a whole, not only the specifics of one article.

Amana

Please respond to the column within the actual comments thread. If you have suggestions for editorial, use the Contact Us link or the Site Suggestions forum.

 

Locking this.