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Why critical reviews of MMORPGs are absolute crap.
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
SWTOR metascore = 86%
WAR metascore = 86%
I'm just saying.
I'm not a huge fan of SWTOR...but it's better than WAR. Come on.
It seems like all professional reviews do is get a good "first impression" of an MMORPG and roll with it. There seems to be hardly any correlation between an MMORPGs metascore and its ultimate success.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Comments
no, there really isn't. Best way to judge a game is stay off of here, play the damn thing and make your own opinion. Does it really matter what anyone else thinks? Why do we all let others dictate how we should feel about a game, F em. You're the best judge of and critic of anything you do.
A review of an entertainment product can not be 'objective' as it is just an opinion of said product.
The subject matter is a subjective one as people's taste are different.
I can say 'This album by singer XYZ is bad' but it might be awesome for the guy living next to me.
WAR is still running and according to EA's financials, they are in the black (barely) so in that sense WAR is successful.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Course they are... it would be much more sensible for MMORPG reviews to be made on an "updates" basis vs. a flat out review.
Of course, for MMORPGs, this is not really necessary because if the game stinks, it becomes a ghost town.
But yeah, initial impressions are bogus because of the new MMO smell. AKA the honeymoon phase.
Come to think of it, I don't think I have played an MMO that I have hated outright. I found Aion too grindy, but if I had a group of friends to grind with (the way Asians play their MMOs), I could totally get into the world.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
And why should there be? Its indicative of a good game, but not indicative of a lasting 8 year romp.
To me a successful game is one that I play, and enjoy, and when I'm done with that, I move on.
A successful game to a developer is one that makes them a lot of money.
In that aspect our ideas of what makes a game successful is different. So while SWTOR could be an 8.5 on my personal enjoyment scale, it isn't indicative of my enjoyment of the game 6 months later. No game will consecutively hold my attention for that long, even my most ideal MMO. Maybe a couple months here and there but..
The point is, when you first try a game and make that numeric judgement on it, its based solely around your enjoyment at that time, and not anything that happens or changes 6 months or a year down the road. To that, and that alone, a good score is worthy of your enjoyment for that time spent.
2200+ posts and you are just either, A) Just realizing this fact or
just getting around to posting about it?
(I am guessing A because you've managed time find time for a fair few posts, heh?)
YEAH. The website makes money off a game's hype, not it's death. Fanboys pump it regardless of any warning flags, red lights, or fog horns blow them over. Competitive Fanboys troll it hoping it's death means more fan's for their glossy-eyed dreams that are equally as unsubstantied as those they trash. The rest of us get lost in the shuffle.
WoW = 93
SWTOR= 86
WAR = 86
LOTRO = 86
CoH = 85
Rift = 84
EQ2 = 83
AoC = 80
DCUO = 72
FFXIV = 49 (lol)
To be fair, I think if you remove WAR thats a pretty fair ranking of the games at release. I would bump CoH below both rift and EQ2, but otherwise Id agree.
Indeed.
I think that would be a pretty fair shake... though I'd probably tie CoH with Rift and EQ2 and put WAR at an 82 just over AoC..
For me, its also based on how likely I am to be enjoying the game in 6 months or a year, because I know that is a huge part of why I liked my favorite MMOs as much as I did. In this genre, longevity is vital to me, and very much does play into how highly I rate a game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Let me also add...
Ultima Online - 59% , User score 96% (LOL)
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
i played war longer than swtor, maybe because the pvp in that game was actually fun
Yeah see, that's the thing.
Longevity in MMORPGs is critical not only to many players, but also to the success of the business model. It's a different beast than SP games. SP games, you buy, you play, you're done. MMORPGs are supposed to be played for months or years.
If you try to rate an MMORPG by SP game standards, then you're going to be way off. You're going to rate a game that is amazing for 2 weeks but then crap afterwards very high and a game that "good" for 2 years lower.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
However, nobody can dictate longevity. Personally I thought I would have a very high longevity with DCUO due to the fun I had with the combat system, I didn't forsee so much rampant hacking and exploits on PvP servers within the first month to the point of it being absolutely unplayable. (nor did the developers obviously, as it caused them to go into panic mode instead of "working on the next content update" mode.)
It also has to do with overall enjoyment too, I don't think there is anything that makes SWTOR a bad game at all, I enjoy it immensely, but I seriously doubt I'll be subbed after the second month unless there is a lot of content.
The odd man out being GW2, seeing as how its unlikely I'll be playing it for more than a couple months initially as well, but due to the simple fact its B2P, subscriptions and retention don't matter.
UO only has 6 revews (its well before the metacritic era of course) and I didnt play it 97. I would imagne being the first big attempt at the genre it had some major launch issues. EQ1 got an 85 with 17 reviews
To be fair in it's original incarnation if it had been reviewed in its hay day - I am certain it would have gotten rave reviews. People that are reviing it now are reviwing a game that went from a living world into a cash cow that got milked unto the cow died then the re-animator came by and brought the cow back to unlife and still attempt to milk it to this day.
Before tramel, samurais, elves, ninjas, and neons. That game had the closest thing to a living interwoven world that has been created to date except for MAYBE Star Wars Galaxies.
Welcome to an oversaturated market. When there are too many MMOs around to choose from that all cost the same price then it will come down to critical critques. It's how we are raised to deal with economics. The only way to change that is to change what it costs to get into which is why people don't put B2Ps and F2Ps in the same ranking as P2Ps despite people only play them for as long as they would play a F2P anyway. People will say P2P is always better quality then a B2P or F2P, well, then why are people leaving them? cause P2Ps aren't good enough to be worth box price + sub. Simple as that. If SWTOR came out as B2P or F2P people would consider it the best F2P game of all time instead of complaining about every little thing that it does wrong from WoW or Rift.
Couple of points to make "success" is not and should not be part of the review. It's not only game reviews, take a look at movies, songs, albums etc that win Grammy's and Emmy awards that we go ??? over.
If you don't like a game don't play it, and quit running to MMORPG.com to trash it.
Yeah you are right of course. When UO came out, the reviewers really had no clue what it was supposed to be and just reviewed it like an ordinary game, this of course was a mistake.
Now it seems like they give almost every MMORPG a rating somewhere between 80-88. So it's almost meaningless
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
That's very easy.
When Warhammer came out people were having fun. There were issues of course but I have to admit I loved doing public quests and I loved doing the scenarios. RvR was lackluster but it was yet to be seen how that was going to play out.
There is a difference between reviewing a few first impressions and living with a game for a while.
To use a real life example, why do so many people get divorced? I mean. obviously they wanted to marry the person they were with so they must be pretty awesome?
Well, it's because in the time they knew they they thought getting married to them would be great. But you then live wiht that persson and over a period fo time you start to see the cracks and in some cases those cracks start becoming larger issues.
Same with games. High reviews are a product of the relationship between game and reviewer (whoever that may be) leading to a "marriage".
Then over time we see if that marriage stands up.
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
That's very easy.
When Warhammer came out people were having fun. There were issues of course but I have to admit I loved doing public quests and I loved doing the scenarios. RvR was lackluster but it was yet to be seen how that was going to play out.
There is a difference between reviewing a few first impressions and living with a game for a while.
To use a real life example, why do so many people get divorced? I mean. obviously they wanted to marry the person they were with so they must be pretty awesome?
Well, it's because in the time they knew they they thought getting married to them would be great. But you then live wiht that persson and over a period fo time you start to see the cracks and in some cases those cracks start becoming larger issues.
Same with games. High reviews are a product of the relationship between game and reviewer (whoever that may be) leading to a "marriage".
Then over time we see if that marriage stands up.
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
Really? You consider all these MMOs to be about equal? It's almost like an 8 to 9 scale, with worse scores only if the game is practically worthless.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
for fun, a comparison of the old generation:
DAoC: 88
EQ1: 85
AC: 81
AO: 72
SWG: 71
It was a different era though, Both AO and SWG were plagues with issues at launch, AOs were technical mostly, SWGs were gameplay
Those reviews are actually from UO's release. The reviewers trashed it just because they couldn't get into right away...lag, bugs, whatever. This was 1997, a lot of folks still had modems and lag was a MAJOR problem.
I still think it's a failing on the part of the reviewers. They just didn't understand the genre.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Its a classroom full of B students, with 1 A student and one complete failure. Sounds right to me. And the order of the rating ispretty solid.
When UO launched, it was nearly unplayable, the lag was so bad. I remember literally waiting a minute or two, just to move an inch, or perform an action. In all fairness, the genre was in its infancy, but it was pretty awful.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.