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Metacritic Question
I know that many don't believe that Metacritic is a sensible way to measure a game, but it is still used by many who aren't on this website. Steam uses it for general comparisons on their website as well.
My question is why is there such a huge difference between ArcheAge Critic Reviews and User Reviews. Also, in general, who's opinion do you feel matters most?
To me I usually use user reviews, because they are generally least influenced by a "boss's" influence on what they write. I also believe that website reviews can be affected by publisher/developer funding.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Comments
This is a perfect example of why raw user reviews are totally useless and should be ignored: a first time user who starts a metacritic account just to plonk a 0 down next to Archeage as part of a campaign to lower the score (there WAS a well-publicized campaign to do just that by angry "fans" through reddit and even the official forums) counts just as much as a 5 year user with a couple of hundred honest attempts at reviewing games who gives it an 8.
As far as metacritic user scores are concerned, that means it's an 8 + 0 = 4.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I don't use professional reviews much these days, it's too difficult to tell if the person doing the review:
1) Even likes the genre of game they're reviewing, a job is a job, maybe they have to do it
2) Have been paid/received gifts or other preferential treatment in some way for a positive review
3) Knows what they're talking about. Just because they do it for a living doesn't mean they know that particular series or genre very well. I see this too often where a reviewer has clearly not been around long enough to see the progression of a series and so their review is like throwing darts in the dark.
I trust user reviews much more, with a big caveat that the review has to actually say something. If someone rates 10/10 omg I love this game, so good, it's the bestest! I can't really give it any weight. Conversely if someone gives a game a 0/10 I assume that the game is not only a buggy, broken mess, but it also ate their cat because a score of 0 is really an impossible score for any game that isn't horrific.
So I tend to look at well thought out reviews in which the person has clearly played the game and has knowledge of gaming in general. These reviews also tend to have reasonable scores with some evidence to support the score. If a game gets a 7, then it must have sufficient and valid reason that it failed in certain areas and did well in others.
Metacritic is more just voting for what your favorite game is. The problem it has is that it takes very little effort to come in and vote your preference. Popular is not the same thing as quality.
A written review at least puts the writer to the effort of thinking though why they liked it or not. Because your expected to justify your position it presumably weeds out the more emotionally based reasons for liking or disliking a game. I think these reviews could be either professional or not and you would still need to evaluate them individually. Just because someone writes reviews for a living doesn't mean they are being objective in their coverage. And just because someone does a review for free on a forum like this or on a blog doesn't mean they are objective either. Blogs could still be looking for advertising dollars, a pro writer could simply have an axe to grind regarding a style of game or a particular publisher.
I would suggest that you take anyone's review with grain of salt until you get to know that reviewer or the publication as a whole. Figure out who seems to be honest and fair. Try to find reviewers that have a knack for not simply declaring a game good or bad but are skilled at drawing out and explaining which parts of a game are good and which are bad. A good reviewer will also be able to think outside themselves. They will know they have a personal preference and will still be able to discern what certain types of players will enjoy this or that about a game. "This game will likely appeal to casual players."
Most of all, make sure a particular reviewer or publication works for you. If they say something about a game and your experience of that game is completely different then perhaps go look for a reviewer that more matches your tastes. Just remember, you are not the center of the world and not everyone, or every reviewer will like the same things your like.
All die, so die well.
From what I can see, most of the reviews revolve around 4 aspects of the game, one of which is no longer an issue.
The long queues are gone and you can now log in effortlessly, labor points which are a non issue for Patrons(paying players), end game content which for players trying to solo their way through might be an issue and finally hackers and bots which are no fault of Trion. They are in fact dropping the ban hammer on those and are working to make the system tougher to bot or hack.
The game wants you to be more social and using your friends/guildmates, get more from the endgame content.
This game requires you to think about how to play and how to make gold as well as how to make the most of the game. You just need to put in more effort.
Neither. Over 90% of negative user reviews are from people who didn't even install the game which makes them completely worthless.
Critic reviews are not to be trusted either. Take for example this very site: They usually release a review while there are huge ads of that particular game plastered all over the website. Do you really think the amount of money (and the potential future ad money) don't sway their scores? They are human after all. Even if it's only subconsciously it will definitely affect them.
The best way to see if you'll like a game is to go to twitch and watch others stream it. You can trust your own eyes.
DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann
So where Metacritic is concerned, the score reflects initial release votes? I don't follow it to closely, but I'm curious as to if it will level or balance out a bit more like GW2 or even FFXIV:ARR. To me it just makes no sense as to such a huge difference between the two scores.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Website and Magazine reviews generally have a process that they follow. It allows them to attempt some objectivity when doing a review. For instance, they may hate a game's mechanics, but note that the graphics are very well done and the mechanics are executed with few bugs. That sort of thing.
Professional reviews on major sites and in major magazines are also going to focus on things that are relevant to commercial success. A game's setting, content and mechanics are all going to be evaluated in that light. Smaller scale review sites and user reviews are going to focus more on a point of view that isn't nearly as focused on aspects that have to do with commercial success.
If your plan is to use reviews to determine whether or not you're going to buy a game, you need to find a site with reviews you agree with. Metacritic's reviews are interesting, and can often be indicative of the success of a particular game, but you need to find an indicator that agrees with your personal preferences. Whether this is a review site, Youtube review videos, "Let's Play" videos or what doesn't matter. You need to find the ones that agree with you and your preferences. I would suggest ignoring the average user review on Metacritic and reading a sample of the good and bad reviews that give information about the game. Unless you find a set of users you agree with an can follow them in some way where they express their views, reading a sampling seems like the way to go.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The degree of skepticism with which you read reviews is a personal choice. There are two things that make metacritic aggregate review scores much more useful than user reviews:
1. The publication and reviewer's real names are used. It's their real credibility at stake.
2. You can disagree with whether metacritic chooses the right reviewers to include in their aggregate score, but the fact is that they are at least actively attempting to select appropriate reviews.
By contrast, user reviews are anonymous and raw... anyone, for any reason can say whatever they want and never have to be accountable for it.
As far as twitch goes... way too many hours of watching are needed to get a good feel for the game. I'd rather read/watch a well written "executive summary" from someone who seems to have similar tastes to mine.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I think people need to divorce themselves from "numbers" or "ratings" and just read what each reviewer, pro or player, has to say.
THAT is where the real meat of the review lies and is what is going to best inform you about the game.
Keeping that in mind, one must read more than "this game sucks" or "this game is amazing" but look into the "why" of each review.
One persons "this game sucks review might be a grade A positive review to me if his negatives are positives or are complete non-factors.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
'User' opinion isn't even guaranteed to come from actual users for games, as we know, so they are pretty worthless. The dishonesty and general negativity on the internet has had the effect of making every online opinion in gaming pointless.
Plus you have to factor in shills (both negative and hype ones) that have a professional interest in bringing down or hyping a game.
So, yeah, all internet opinion is worthless to be frank. In the end only opinions from friends hold any real weight, or I just take a risk on what's on the box.
It normally works out just fine.
User reviews become useful as they're statistically relevant. It doesn't matter when fans vote 10/10 and people who don't like the game vote 0/10. You'll find that games that are widely considered brilliant have a high score, those that aren't, don't.
There's no weighting on the critic reviews. Anyone can write a review on pretty much any website, and may play the game for 20 minutes before giving a score. That review in itself may be worth more than a random user review, but it only takes 4 critic reviews to get a critic score. There are critic reviews that throw around 90% and above too easily, and I think that is why the critic reviews tend to be higher. No serious critic review should be giving 100% to a game - they're saying it could not be better in any way possible.
Neither score is useful with a small sampling, with a large one, both are. It's as simple as that. That's why the industry pays a lot of attention to it.
I usually check the green and red bars to see how people have reacted initially. If the green bar is much longer than the red bar i can look further and read more about the game.
Then i start to read the average mark posts. They are more often objective and analytic to weight the pros and cons, and give me most of the information why the game rocks / sucks.
This method has almost always worked for me, so those who say metacritic is useless in this sense are wrong.
Critic reviews i ignore completely. They are always like 'this game is nice but needs some tweaking here and there. But even then it's worth buying if you're a fan of this genre'.
Problem is, reviews are just a snapshot in time... everyone's view of a game changes over time.
Take Wildstar... now versus at launch, FFXIARR now versus launch, WoD at launch versus 2 months in... you can put any game in this list and the reviews always change. Always.
The only review that matters is your own. Too many people rely on other people to decide for them what they like and dislike... to their disadvantage I might add. They may choose to skip a game due to a review and it could very well be the game for them. Or, they may buy a game based on the good reviews only to find it's nothing like what they said it was.
I for one don't give a rats ass about reviews... everyone has one... and the only one that is ever right is my own. That is the only absolute certainty.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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The only way any game could get a 0 is if it is unplayable. Which if you did a review of the game for the first few weeks, then yeah it could get a 0 lol. Like any MMO it's better now, but I still wouldn't give it more than a 5. It's an ok game, which what a 5 is. It would get a better rating if it wasn't pay to win. Yes, it's pay to win. There's a guild of pirates will the best ships, gear, and everything that roam the seas. If you see them you die, simple as that. I've been in a group of 3+ raid groups that went after them, and we managed to kill one of them...one...
Then there's Patron status. In order to do anything in this game worthwhile (except mass murder, piracy and thievery lol) you have to have not only Patron status, you also HAVE to buy things from the cash shop. I have 90 days Patron status, and I was always out of Labor Points...always. It costs 100 Labor points to catch a single fish...100 points per fish...Patron players should get like unlimited Labor Points, and the game should be 100% playable no matter what they're doing without restrictions. I've never seen a game where subscribers were still restricted so badly.
You can say that games like AA just got low scores because of disgruntled players or people that hate the game. You can say that user scores are always unreliable and exaggerated. You can say some players have an agenda.
All that does not matter because in the end you have to compare the scores to other games which have the same players and the same percentage of haters and lovers.
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If Skyrim get's a 8.4 User score even though it has also the same % of 0/10 and 10/10 then comparing that to ArchAge shows you that ArchAge really is a very bad game.
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There is no discussion necessary as metacritic user scores are valid even if you don't like them. In the big picture compared to other games the scores are always 100% accurate.
If you look at a lot of early reviews, they mostly detail inability to log in from queues and a few posts about ftp labor costs.
Most of those players have left, leaving the many players who still play to really understand the game and embrace it.
The population has stabilized and any reviews posted at this point from experienced p[layers might be worth looking at for an honest look at the game.
I generally agree here. Look at some of the widely considered best games - Half Life 2, Skyrim, Bioshock, Mass Effect 2, they all have 80-95% user scores. Look at games that were complete disasters - Spore, for example - 8.4 critic, 5.0 user.
When hundreds or even thousands of people are awarding 0s and 10s something useful eventually comes out of it. To disagree with the score does not make it useless.
Also bear in mind that critic reviews are biased upwards. You'll very rarely see published reviews less than 40% - most are awarded around 65-95. There are terrible games released, and 95 should mean something incredibly special.
+1
Mind, It can be hard to find someone with similar tastes.
Seeing as ArcheAge is F2P you can easily see for yourself whether you will like it or not.
EDIT: Just looked at one of the 0 scores for AA. His first sentence The game itself is great.
The difference between critics and users is that "professional" reviewers gives you an objective view of the game while user reviews usually tells you a subjective experience. Both are important, because they tell you if the game is supposed to be good, and it tells you if people are enjoying the game.
The problem with reviews and aggregated scores is that its the text describing the game that is important, and not the arbitrary number that the reviewer gives the product. People are obsessed with those numbers, but its really just numbers.
The reason why AA has an extremely low score on metacritic is because of the insane server queue which ruined a lot of players experience during the launch of the game.
Games with low user reviews really do have problems; it simply isn't true that all games get low review scores. Critic reviews are not useful because they almost never give low scores, regardless of quality. It is certainly true that a game can improve dramatically with patches and bug fixes, so the low user scores at release may not reflect the current quality of the game. (I'd use Total War: Rome 2 as a good current example.) But AA had a objectively awful release, and low user rating were completely justified on those grounds alone. I also think that there are some clear indications of poor design choices, but that's a more subjective call.
Yeah, I know. I have looked at them. That's pretty typical.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
There was a time in the first two weeks when users were creating metacritic accounts just to put a 0 next to AA. So much rage on the forums about headstart, queues, then the land rush, then the goldsellers and hacks...
I'd guess the critic reviews might be a bit more even-handed.
Metacritic is past it's peak. I expect its relevance to wane sharply over the next couple years. It's a great idea, but It's way too easily gamed.