Jesus christ, I just read IGNs review of TERA, who the hell is paying them to shoot it down.
Diablo 3 graphics get a 9, SWTOR gets an 8.5 and TERA gets an 8.
Alright IGN, your credibility(if you had any) just official flew out the window.
you know ign is run by news corporation right? (fox news basically for those that dont know. its the parent company that owns all things rupert murdoch)
That said Tera isn't just some game with nothing new going for it that has skated by with excessive marketing like the OP would have you believe. It's still a step forward regardless of how small people think it is.
I don't think its remotely a step forward. Its questing is the worst a AAA MMORPG has seen in a while. Its crafting is horrid. the class customization is a step backward. The game is just so mediocre when doing anything outside of a dungeon or fighting a BAM for the first time. Once you know the BAMs attacks they lose their luster.
Part of it was the whole hype about this skill based total action combat system. And the game was still easy and mindless most of the time. I dont really PvP, maybe I would think its better if I did. But I felt that despite the combat system being different, it was a step backwards as a whole.
That said Tera isn't just some game with nothing new going for it that has skated by with excessive marketing like the OP would have you believe. It's still a step forward regardless of how small people think it is.
I don't think its remotely a step forward. Its questing is the worst a AAA MMORPG has seen in a while. Its crafting is horrid. the class customization is a step backward. The game is just so mediocre when doing anything outside of a dungeon or fighting a BAM for the first time. Once you know the BAMs attacks they lose their luster.
Part of it was the whole hype about this skill based total action combat system. And the game was still easy and mindless most of the time. I dont really PvP, maybe I would think its better if I did. But I felt that despite the combat system being different, it was a step backwards as a whole.
Well we disagree. I think the combat is far more fun than your average MMO even though the game on a whole isn't for me. Even on the negative points that I agree on it still comes down to personal preference. To many people it's an action based World of Warcraft with some political endgame chucked in and even though it doesn't apeal to me I still think it's a step forward to just WoW.
swtor was wayyyyyyyyyyy better than Tera. Tera is horrible imo. I beleive they both deserve worse reveiws than what they are getting but Tera is barely worthy of a reveiw imo
I'm glad a lot of folks pulled out all the stops with their listing off of how their gut wrentches at the mention of TERA or SWTOR.
Yet strangely enough, they can't provide a single reason as to why except they don't like it.
"Its terrible"
I hear it said again and again....
Please go back and learn about how to describe something... simply saying you dont' like it and saying it 4 or 5 different ways still tells us absolutely nothing about why you don't like it.
Just don't pay attention to gamr reviews, really. They always praise the games with the big IPs and big companies behind them. We all know that TERA has better graphics than TOR and yet they rate them lower, it's a clear sign of how much money affects the reviewers' decisions. Just look at Gamespot's score for League of Legends, it got a 6 and it's one of the most popular online games. People really love LoL's PvP and many spend alot on that game.
I'm glad a lot of folks pulled out all the stops with their listing off of how their gut wrentches at the mention of TERA or SWTOR.
Yet strangely enough, they can't provide a single reason as to why except they don't like it.
"Its terrible"
I hear it said again and again....
Please go back and learn about how to describe something... simply saying you dont' like it and saying it 4 or 5 different ways still tells us absolutely nothing about why you don't like it.
Thanks.
or you could read the previous post in this thread where I detailed exactly why i think TERA is mediocre.
The IGN review is actually pretty spot on and fair. You could also go read that.
I'm glad a lot of folks pulled out all the stops with their listing off of how their gut wrentches at the mention of TERA or SWTOR.
Yet strangely enough, they can't provide a single reason as to why except they don't like it.
"Its terrible"
I hear it said again and again....
Please go back and learn about how to describe something... simply saying you dont' like it and saying it 4 or 5 different ways still tells us absolutely nothing about why you don't like it.
Thanks.
or you could read the previous post in this thread where I detailed exactly why i think TERA is mediocre.
The IGN review is actually pretty spot on and fair. You could also go read that.
Ironic, I was speaking directly to you...
All you say is how much you think a system sucks, you repeatedly say something is terrible and you give no quatifyable explanation.
You use no emperical evidence or any relevent data...
Try using things other than your "gut" to judge things.
thanks.
"Its questing is the worst a AAA MMORPG has seen in a while. Its crafting is horrid. the class customization is a step backward. The game is just so mediocre when doing anything outside of a dungeon or fighting a BAM for the first time. Once you know the BAMs attacks they lose their luster."
Question, from this I see that you repeatedly say its the worst, horrid, step backwords, etc, yet then you say its mediocre? This is further evidence you have no scale by which to judge things, you simply throw adjectives at a board and hope some stick. This is bad reviewing. This isn't explaining why you dislike something, its merely throwing negative adjectives around.
Edit: For instance,when you say something is "the worst questing an mmo has seen in a while" you should perhaps explain why its terrible to you... or perhaps go into details as to why you think the crafting is "horrid" WHY is the class customization a step backwords? Anyone can make claims, but from the peanut gallery you just look like you are making a lot of negative statements without any data to back them up, for all we know you've never even bothered to google this game let alone play it.
Who cares about reviews? Every reply here manged to shake the mind control of the reviewers and coem back hating the games. Fact is if you like a game play it if you dont well than dont. I play glitch and DCUO and I love them but I dont care if you play them hate them whatever I am a big boy who can form his own opinions just like all of you. Sure reviews can give you an idea of how good a game is but in the long run if you and the reviewer arent looking for the same things you are going to disagree as simple as that.
Remember everytime you post one of the wall of text hate or love rants your reviewing the game,,,,,,,,,,,,think about it.
Edit: For instance,when you say something is "the worst questing an mmo has seen in a while" you should perhaps explain why its terrible to you... or perhaps go into details as to why you think the crafting is "horrid" WHY is the class customization a step backwords? Anyone can make claims, but from the peanut gallery you just look like you are making a lot of negative statements without any data to back them up, for all we know you've never even bothered to google this game let alone play it.
Because I don't feel like writing a 1,000 word review? Why regurgitate what has been said by countless others? The questing is generic without compelling lore behind it and lacks the presentation of WoW, SWTOR or even EQ2. You rarely give a shit as to why you are doing the quest, and killing normal-mob-with-many-minions over and over with absolutely zero danger gets old. better lore, better presentation, more variety or more challenge would have all made it better. Its like LOTRO but without the great lore behind it (and LOTRO's main quest line is far more interesting than TERA's).
Good enough for you? probably not because I didnt praise TERA.
I described why I didn't think TERA was a good MMO. Just because I didnt take the time to break down each individual piece doesnt mean my opinion is not valid. I said I played until my mid 30s and don't PvP, so its not like I am not giving a frame of reference. I am even leaving room for the 'it gets better in the 40s' or 'but the PvP is what makes it' excuses.
Some people see paying $60 + $30 for 3 months of entertainment as a terrible rip off...other find it as a good deal.
Some people dont buy every mmorpg (like SWTOR per say) with the intentions that the game MUST enterain me for 12 hrs a day for 5 years+ or its a failure...
If a game can survive with 1000 to 100k players who cares if you do or dont like it and think its a success or failure? Its there for the people who like it and theres other stuff for the people who dont...
Its sad that someone would write a long post about the mmorpg industry being dead because they cant find a game to keep them entertained indefinately. Theres other things out there besides mmorpgs and besides videogames.....several billion people dont play mmorpgs and do just fine in life...so i know theres other stuff out there.
Or perhaps you thought you would like a past time indefinately in your life? Remember all that stuff you did as a child that you grew out of? Or that crap you did in college that got old and you moved on? You dont see me raging about how the beer industry is dead because me and my college friends of past no longer enjoy getting shitfaced on beer every weekend...i can still have some beers or get drunk though...when i feel like it.
Think of all this along those lines and it turns out not to be the end of the world or the end of the mmorpg industry.
Perhaps, when all the games are not to your liking...it may be a very strong sign for you to perhaps move on...even if for a little.
Everybody that is interested in a new game before it's out and when it's hyped should be considering that it might be a media stund to get you to sign in.
As a matter of fact a lot of gamers want to believe in before it's even out, most of the people already made up their mind before hand.
Afterward everybody is like meh....
But guess whom just has been helping with the situation at hands?
If nobody would really get involved when they are hyping it, then believe me none of the company would do that.
Look at the situation of the present day with MMO's in general. It's not because of SWTOR but because nobody buy anymore mehmehmo games.
If gamers would consequently only buy quality game, most of the budget would go in develloping the game.
But because so many people buy thing for how the box look and not the content, develloppers/publishers are spending a good deal of that money to hype their games because it will secure a good part of the sell.
Victimising oneself won't ever help anything, surely not yourself.
Your TLDR is really TLDR. You act as if there aren't any developers making good games? You don't have to buy the shitty games you know. If you are an experienced gamer you should be able pick out the ones you like without buying into the hype or marketing. Qualitry control medium...smarter choices...protect us?....ok,
Everybody that is interested in a new game before it's out and when it's hyped should be considering that it might be a media stund to get you to sign in.
As a matter of fact a lot of gamers want to believe in before it's even out, most of the people already made up their mind before hand.
Afterward everybody is like meh....
But guess whom just has been helping with the situation at hands?
If nobody would really get involved when they are hyping it, then believe me none of the company would do that.
Look at the situation of the present day with MMO's in general. It's not because of SWTOR but because nobody buy anymore mehmehmo games.
If gamers would consequently only buy quality game, most of the budget would go in develloping the game.
But because so many people buy thing for how the box look and not the content, develloppers/publishers are spending a good deal of that money to hype their games because it will secure a good part of the sell.
Victimising oneself won't ever help anything, surely not yourself.
The thing with SWTOR is that the initial hype probably got them in a little trouble too. Because there was so much hype and so many wanted to play they had to rush to increase their server count and than after they did people started to not resub. They are probably still in front due to all the box sales but I'm not sure it's such a success story that it would be a model for other companies to aspire to. Infact I'll go as far as to say that even in todays MMO market/climate that big budget games like SWTOR are trying to do more than just sell box copies. They want the subs and they know that means making quality games! To suggest that gaming companies are only out to make "mehmehmo games" and that is why SWTOR isn't doing so great is ridiculous. People just have different ideas of quality.
First a quick history lesson. A long long time ago there was no game reviewers there were just people that made games, and people that brought them. Most games made back then were trash but they sold because they had some IP we liked like Ghost Busters or Ninja Turtles. Eventually people got angry, like the Angry Video Game Nerd and started actually reviewing games. Developers still made trash games but almost nobody brought them because there was a whole media division of Quality Control professional game reviewers that could tell us if a game was good or not before we brought it.
There have been games reviewers pretty much since there have been games. Hell, even Pong was reviewed in it's day. So much for the 'history lesson', which your version of comes across as a bit ridiculous tbh.
That aside...
Yeah, big business has discovered your hobby and they have discovered that you will gratefully pay through the nose for it and that it's worth the effort and cost to hire shills and buy reviews.
I agree this isn't a good thing.
It will also only get worse though as the internet and media becomes ever more controlled and ghettoised, so my advice is to disengage from it and learn to look at information and make judgements for yourself. Rely on facts and not opinions and don't base your purchase on fashion or what some stranger on the internet (who, all else aside, probably has different tastes and requirements froma game to you) tells you is 'good'.
You will still buy some bad games, that's unavoidable, but you will feel less betrayed and get less 'angry' maybe that way.
I used to trust reviews in mags when I was a kid like Crash and CVG, but those days have obviously passed. Buying games in those days though was still a risk... I bought plenty of crap alongside the classics. I never got 'angry' though.
These days I trust no opinion of anyone I read, especially on the internet, unless I personally know that person.
Pretty sure shitty games and regretful buys have existed since the days of Commodore. More people are buying trash today, because more trash exists, and the more of it there is the harder it will be to find the good stuff. But good luck changing that.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
@OP: there have always been reviews, and iirc game reviews have always been higher than average, I don't see at all how that has changed.
As for reviewing MMO's, this has been discussed so many times already, I'm guessing on this site too. An average single player game is about 20-40 hrs of gameplay, sometimes less, sometimes more to finish it. If you've played it for 30-40 hrs, you've seen most of it, and certainly enough to give a solid review since the gameplay won't suddenly change drastically after that.
MMO's are a different beast: 30-40 hours will only get you to the starting stages and at most middle stages of the game. On top of that, for MMO's the gameplay and what keeps players entertained after the first 150-200 hours will be different from how it was the first 150-200 hours. Leveling gameplay is different from level cap/endgame gameplay in MMO's.
For a reviewer to do a solid review of an MMORPG, they have to spend like 200-300 hours in it to give their fair impressions of the leveling as well as level cap content, features and gameplay. For that amount of time, a reviewer would've been able to review like 10 other games easily instead of just 1 MMORPG.
That's why there's such a disconnect often, people simply aren't aware that reviewers only review the first 30-50 hours which is mostly leveling content where as an MMORPG's gameplay after the first 150-200 hours can be very, very different.
I don't get why people are making a big deal of reviews, I thought that everyone'd have learnt how to read them these days: what I do is I read the bad and good reviews, professional and gamer reviews and from there I usually manage to filter a general impression of a game, and how features and gameplay are regarded by people that have different tastes and viewpoints in gaming.
Jesus christ, I just read IGNs review of TERA, who the hell is paying them to shoot it down.
Diablo 3 graphics get a 9, SWTOR gets an 8.5 and TERA gets an 8.
Alright IGN, your credibility(if you had any) just official flew out the window.
AHHHH.......
What? I havent played Tera and I have no interest in it. But graphics an 8 for Tera? 9.5 at worst. Comon....
And D3 gets a 9? And Swtor got higher than Tera? Maybe they hit the wrong numerical key. Maybe they tried playing Tera on an old crusty notebook. Sheesh. I could sneeze on the screen, splat mustard all over it, heck even smash the screen lightly with a hammer thus cracking it and Tera would still probably look great.
I dont know if credibility even applies to reviews anymore. Its been a problem in the movie industry to an extent for years. As games have become more popular and have budgets that actually out do movie budgets by a solid amount, I guess we now have crummy and weird reviews of games too these days.
I'm worried about the general IQ level and skills of understanding of the populace visiting this site.
IGN's TERA, SWTOR and D3 reviews: 3 reviews done by 3 different people.
I don't get it. Is it so hard to grasp that a team of reviewers isn't a group mind, or some communist dictated work force, but just people like everyone of us, with their own tastes and preferences? This isn't some math equation they have to resolve where there's only 1 right answer.
They review games, from their own point of view. Is it so hard to understand that they might rate and feel about games differently from eachother?
Do people think it'll be different on this site? Take 10 people, let them rate 5 games on different aspects - is there anyone who wants to put a bet on that all 10 persons will have rated all aspects of all 5 games with the exact same grades?
Seriously, 3 games reviewed by 3 different persons, and then people wonder that they don't all rate things exactly the same.
Jesus christ, I just read IGNs review of TERA, who the hell is paying them to shoot it down.
Diablo 3 graphics get a 9, SWTOR gets an 8.5 and TERA gets an 8.
Alright IGN, your credibility(if you had any) just official flew out the window.
More and more I am convinced that these sites just copy/paste from each other. So if for one reviewer graphics sucks it must be a fact why should you play the game.
p.s. .. and I am outraged by biased reviews that have no base in reality
I remember buying a computer magazine every 2 weeks that had around 100 reviews for my C-64, and that was back around 1985 so what time was before reviews?
Sure, there were plenty of bad games back then but there were also plenty of good game. In fact every 2 weeks there were about 15 games that sounded interesting and 10 that I liked.
Nowadays there is about one game releasing each month that sounds interesting and maybe 3 or 4 good each year.
But you know what? That had nothing to do with reviews whatsoever. Games back then were made by gamers for gamers. Now big corps are making all games in a factory styled enviroment, and people in suits decide what gamers want. It is kinda like compared a great homemade meal to a cheap TV dinner.
Now and then a game made by real gamers comes out, like Minecraft but those games are few and far between.
TORs review scores had no real impact on how good future games will be, at best it made a few extra people buy it but what the gamers think doesn´t really matter. The CEOs of EA and Activision decide what we like, not you and me.
Sorry, but no I am not outraged. The only reason I read reviews is to get an idea of what the game is like. If I buy a launch mmo it's because I played beta and enjoyed it.
I dont feel ripped off by SWTOR. I don't feel ripped off by Rift. I don't feel ripped off by Perpetuum. I don't feel ripped off by Planetside. I don't feel ripped off by Global Agenda. The list goes on.
There is a simple reason why I fundamentally disagree with this argument. I am an adult. I am responsible for my choices and I am fully capable of making those choices based on my own experience and knowledge.
There are game's I regretted buying and investing time and money in. Wha. I don't need is some pathetic scapegoat excuse as to why I wasted money on those games. Usually reviewers (at this site and others) pointed out the exact things I ended up hating about thegame or explained how super buggy it was. In those cases I SHOULD have listens to the review but bought the game anyway.
OP. If you are old enough to make your own money you are old enough to make your own decisions. Don't go around blaming the fine employees of this site and others for your buyers remorse. They provide you a free service that is a great source of information as well as entertainment.
The reviews and re-reviews on this site are some of the best in the mmo industry. They are in depth, thourough, and entertaining. They aren't here to make decisions for you. That's something you have to do for yourself. In other words, act like an adult.
Sure, there were plenty of bad games back then but there were also plenty of good game. In fact every 2 weeks there were about 15 games that sounded interesting and 10 that I liked.
Nowadays there is about one game releasing each month that sounds interesting and maybe 3 or 4 good each year.
But you know what? That had nothing to do with reviews whatsoever. Games back then were made by gamers for gamers. Now big corps are making all games in a factory styled enviroment, and people in suits decide what gamers want. It is kinda like compared a great homemade meal to a cheap TV dinner.
Don't you think that at least partially that has got something to do that you've grown older and have maybe 30+ yrs of gaming behind you? That for kids that are now at the age you were back then, there still are like 15 games that sound interesting and 10 that they like, or that if you were that kid you were in the '80s but then grown up today, that you also'd have looked upon the current batch of games differently?
Just like maybe how tv shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and The A-Team might have been awesome as a kid or teen, but years later as a grown up just might look silly, the taste of people after years of tv shows having changed in the course of time.
Not saying that games haven't become big business that caters more to a mainstream audience than just the small population of hardcore gamers that it catered to in past decades. But I think jadedness after decades of playing games also plays a role. Just like sex isn't as magical after many years of doing it as it was in the first year(s), same with other things that people've been entertained with for years to decades. I see a lot less jadedness and pickiness among kids and teens regarding games and gaming than among people who've played games for decades.
First a quick history lesson. A long long time ago there was no game reviewers there were just people that made games, and people that brought them. Most games made back then were trash but they sold because they had some IP we liked like Ghost Busters or Ninja Turtles. Eventually people got angry, like the Angry Video Game Nerd and started actually reviewing games. Developers still made trash games but almost nobody brought them because there was a whole media division of Quality Control professional game reviewers that could tell us if a game was good or not before we brought it.
History lesson my arse, pretty much as soon as early computer systems existed there were gaming magazines for them, were you living under a rock or just banned from the newsagents by your parents?
Now I'm not picking on any particular site or blogger, as I know a lot of you guys try your best. But the community is outraged once again at the lack of quality MMOs being released. And players want to blame the developers to stop making bad games, but that's never going to happen because we keep buying them! So why do we keep buying bad games? Because the gaming media bloggers and reviewers tell us these games are GOOD and we should buy them! I'm outraged at the lack of Quality Control that time after time has mislead people into buying completely overhyped, underdeveloped games. It hurts gamers pockets and it helps big developers make money off a bad product.
Newsflash: not everyone thinks in exactly the same way that you do, what things you like are not liked by everyone else & you won't like things others do, centre of the universe you are not.
My case in point is how SW:TOR not only got great reviews but even got called game of the year by many publications despite only being out a few weeks! Fast forward to Tera, a game that majority of players would consider a better then SW:TOR but has a drastically lower score. Now a lot of publications are backpedaling on SW:TOR's outrageous scores, saying stuff like it was fun at the time, and that they didn't know the game wasn't good. Well guess what? It's your JOB to know if a game is good or bad. I don't get paid to play games for a living, and even I could tell that SW:TOR was drastically overhyped. Just like every other AAA MMO that came out after WoW was ridiculously overhyped.
MMO reviews are historically incomplete articles & in the main are only really a "first impression" most veterans would know this from experience & prefer to get personal hands-on experience anyway. Magazines & websites want to attract hits, they want hits to justify their advertising costs so reviews are put out quickly, a big part of why this site has started an experimental "progressive review" system, so that an MMO will be reviewed over a more appropriate span of time. So therefore getting all bent out of shape about reviews that really are very limited in scope is really rather pointless, & scores are even more pointless. A game is only "over-hyped" if you as a consumer allow yourself to become over-enthused, keeping a critical eye & mind is YOUR responsibility, hyping a game is all part of the marketing to drive sales, the alternative is to do no advertising at all & rely purely on word of mouth, if you can't differentiate between hyperbole, grandiose metaphors & accuarate information well, then you sir are a gullible fool.
I'll tell you exactly why Tera got a worse score then SW:TOR. If you look at both reviews of the game you'll see the same issue and that's the fact that the reviewers themselves only played one portion of the game! If you take SW:TOR's leveling and compare it to Tera's leveling portion of the MMO, then the scores make sense, because that's all that was actually taken into account. But if the reviewers actually did their jobs and played both the leveling portion and the endgame portion of the MMOs they would have given an more accurate review.
I get it, you hate SWTOR but you like TERA & you think the scores are all wrong, I personally think TERA is a decent game, but that SWTOR is more to my tastes - what SWTOR does right is a bigger portion of the content for an MMORPG, what TERA did with it's combat was interesting but it falls on it's face in the other areas, that was the deciding factor for me, had I been more of a PvPer I might have chosen TERA over SWTOR. Essentially I think that scores can't ever reflect a game until taken into account alongside hands-on experience so to me they are only a rough guide, nobody can tell you that you absolutely should love Tomato Sauce if you hate the stuff, it's really very similar with games.
TL;DR
Should SW:TOR's score be drastically lower? Would Tera's have been drastically higher? Is the next big MMO going to be more overhyped garbage? We'll never know because there's No longer any Quality Control. The reason why I'm angry and you should be too is because we're back to the bad old days of gaming where developers can make a trash game, slap an IP on it and make millions of dollars because players keep being suckered into buying it. People think that the problem is the industry itself, but my argument is that it's the lack of a reliable Quality Control medium that used to help players make smarter choices, and protect us from big developers that like to rehash a poor product, slap an popular IP on it, and charge full price for it. But what we have now is bad reviewers, overhyping bad games, made by big bad million dollar businesses, which is bad for our pockets, and bad for the industry.
That's your opinion, but I think you are coming at this "issue" all wrong, quality is subjective, I personally think SWTOR was very high quality, it has it's failings in terms of design & there are things it does that will not appeal to everyone, no game on earth could appeal to everyone, but your ideas of Quality Assurance are wrong, you are complaining about design choices that you did not like, something entirely & altogether different from quality.
Sure, there were plenty of bad games back then but there were also plenty of good game. In fact every 2 weeks there were about 15 games that sounded interesting and 10 that I liked.
Nowadays there is about one game releasing each month that sounds interesting and maybe 3 or 4 good each year.
But you know what? That had nothing to do with reviews whatsoever. Games back then were made by gamers for gamers. Now big corps are making all games in a factory styled enviroment, and people in suits decide what gamers want. It is kinda like compared a great homemade meal to a cheap TV dinner.
Don't you think that at least partially that has got something to do that you've grown older and have maybe 30+ yrs of gaming behind you? That for kids that are now at the age you were back then, there still are like 15 games that sound interesting and 10 that they like, or that if you were that kid you were in the '80s but then grown up today, that you also'd have looked upon the current batch of games differently?
Just like maybe how tv shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and The A-Team might have been awesome as a kid or teen, but years later as a grown up just might look silly, the taste of people after years of tv shows having changed in the course of time.
Not saying that games haven't become big business that caters more to a mainstream audience than just the small population of hardcore gamers that it catered to in past decades. But I think jadedness after decades of playing games also plays a role. Just like sex isn't as magical after many years of doing it as it was in the first year(s), same with other things that people've been entertained with for years to decades. I see a lot less jadedness and pickiness among kids and teens regarding games and gaming than among people who've played games for decades.
Of course that have some impact as well, but we are talking about a time when several thousands of very different games released every year compared to maybe 100-200. And the new games are way more similar to eachother than they generally were back then.
Sure, there were copying back then as well as know, but just look on FPS games or MMOs right now, almost all of them are very similar.
Games are more complex to make now and are big business, which mean that gaming companies nowadays are run by business people instead of a few dedicated gamers.
Business people looks on what makes money, gamers makes games they themselves want to play, so it is no wonder that most games are so similar.
Comments
you know ign is run by news corporation right? (fox news basically for those that dont know. its the parent company that owns all things rupert murdoch)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGN
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
I don't think its remotely a step forward. Its questing is the worst a AAA MMORPG has seen in a while. Its crafting is horrid. the class customization is a step backward. The game is just so mediocre when doing anything outside of a dungeon or fighting a BAM for the first time. Once you know the BAMs attacks they lose their luster.
Part of it was the whole hype about this skill based total action combat system. And the game was still easy and mindless most of the time. I dont really PvP, maybe I would think its better if I did. But I felt that despite the combat system being different, it was a step backwards as a whole.
Well we disagree. I think the combat is far more fun than your average MMO even though the game on a whole isn't for me. Even on the negative points that I agree on it still comes down to personal preference. To many people it's an action based World of Warcraft with some political endgame chucked in and even though it doesn't apeal to me I still think it's a step forward to just WoW.
swtor was wayyyyyyyyyyy better than Tera. Tera is horrible imo. I beleive they both deserve worse reveiws than what they are getting but Tera is barely worthy of a reveiw imo
I'm glad a lot of folks pulled out all the stops with their listing off of how their gut wrentches at the mention of TERA or SWTOR.
Yet strangely enough, they can't provide a single reason as to why except they don't like it.
"Its terrible"
I hear it said again and again....
Please go back and learn about how to describe something... simply saying you dont' like it and saying it 4 or 5 different ways still tells us absolutely nothing about why you don't like it.
Thanks.
Just don't pay attention to gamr reviews, really. They always praise the games with the big IPs and big companies behind them. We all know that TERA has better graphics than TOR and yet they rate them lower, it's a clear sign of how much money affects the reviewers' decisions. Just look at Gamespot's score for League of Legends, it got a 6 and it's one of the most popular online games. People really love LoL's PvP and many spend alot on that game.
or you could read the previous post in this thread where I detailed exactly why i think TERA is mediocre.
The IGN review is actually pretty spot on and fair. You could also go read that.
Ironic, I was speaking directly to you...
All you say is how much you think a system sucks, you repeatedly say something is terrible and you give no quatifyable explanation.
You use no emperical evidence or any relevent data...
Try using things other than your "gut" to judge things.
thanks.
"Its questing is the worst a AAA MMORPG has seen in a while. Its crafting is horrid. the class customization is a step backward. The game is just so mediocre when doing anything outside of a dungeon or fighting a BAM for the first time. Once you know the BAMs attacks they lose their luster."
Question, from this I see that you repeatedly say its the worst, horrid, step backwords, etc, yet then you say its mediocre? This is further evidence you have no scale by which to judge things, you simply throw adjectives at a board and hope some stick. This is bad reviewing. This isn't explaining why you dislike something, its merely throwing negative adjectives around.
Edit: For instance,when you say something is "the worst questing an mmo has seen in a while" you should perhaps explain why its terrible to you... or perhaps go into details as to why you think the crafting is "horrid" WHY is the class customization a step backwords? Anyone can make claims, but from the peanut gallery you just look like you are making a lot of negative statements without any data to back them up, for all we know you've never even bothered to google this game let alone play it.
Who cares about reviews? Every reply here manged to shake the mind control of the reviewers and coem back hating the games. Fact is if you like a game play it if you dont well than dont. I play glitch and DCUO and I love them but I dont care if you play them hate them whatever I am a big boy who can form his own opinions just like all of you. Sure reviews can give you an idea of how good a game is but in the long run if you and the reviewer arent looking for the same things you are going to disagree as simple as that.
Remember everytime you post one of the wall of text hate or love rants your reviewing the game,,,,,,,,,,,,think about it.
Because I don't feel like writing a 1,000 word review? Why regurgitate what has been said by countless others? The questing is generic without compelling lore behind it and lacks the presentation of WoW, SWTOR or even EQ2. You rarely give a shit as to why you are doing the quest, and killing normal-mob-with-many-minions over and over with absolutely zero danger gets old. better lore, better presentation, more variety or more challenge would have all made it better. Its like LOTRO but without the great lore behind it (and LOTRO's main quest line is far more interesting than TERA's).
Good enough for you? probably not because I didnt praise TERA.
I described why I didn't think TERA was a good MMO. Just because I didnt take the time to break down each individual piece doesnt mean my opinion is not valid. I said I played until my mid 30s and don't PvP, so its not like I am not giving a frame of reference. I am even leaving room for the 'it gets better in the 40s' or 'but the PvP is what makes it' excuses.
Some people see paying $60 + $30 for 3 months of entertainment as a terrible rip off...other find it as a good deal.
Some people dont buy every mmorpg (like SWTOR per say) with the intentions that the game MUST enterain me for 12 hrs a day for 5 years+ or its a failure...
If a game can survive with 1000 to 100k players who cares if you do or dont like it and think its a success or failure? Its there for the people who like it and theres other stuff for the people who dont...
Its sad that someone would write a long post about the mmorpg industry being dead because they cant find a game to keep them entertained indefinately. Theres other things out there besides mmorpgs and besides videogames.....several billion people dont play mmorpgs and do just fine in life...so i know theres other stuff out there.
Or perhaps you thought you would like a past time indefinately in your life? Remember all that stuff you did as a child that you grew out of? Or that crap you did in college that got old and you moved on? You dont see me raging about how the beer industry is dead because me and my college friends of past no longer enjoy getting shitfaced on beer every weekend...i can still have some beers or get drunk though...when i feel like it.
Think of all this along those lines and it turns out not to be the end of the world or the end of the mmorpg industry.
Perhaps, when all the games are not to your liking...it may be a very strong sign for you to perhaps move on...even if for a little.
There is nobody to blame but yourself my friend.
Everybody that is interested in a new game before it's out and when it's hyped should be considering that it might be a media stund to get you to sign in.
As a matter of fact a lot of gamers want to believe in before it's even out, most of the people already made up their mind before hand.
Afterward everybody is like meh....
But guess whom just has been helping with the situation at hands?
If nobody would really get involved when they are hyping it, then believe me none of the company would do that.
Look at the situation of the present day with MMO's in general. It's not because of SWTOR but because nobody buy anymore mehmehmo games.
If gamers would consequently only buy quality game, most of the budget would go in develloping the game.
But because so many people buy thing for how the box look and not the content, develloppers/publishers are spending a good deal of that money to hype their games because it will secure a good part of the sell.
Victimising oneself won't ever help anything, surely not yourself.
Diablow 3, it sucks ...
Your TLDR is really TLDR. You act as if there aren't any developers making good games? You don't have to buy the shitty games you know. If you are an experienced gamer you should be able pick out the ones you like without buying into the hype or marketing. Qualitry control medium...smarter choices...protect us?....ok,
The thing with SWTOR is that the initial hype probably got them in a little trouble too. Because there was so much hype and so many wanted to play they had to rush to increase their server count and than after they did people started to not resub. They are probably still in front due to all the box sales but I'm not sure it's such a success story that it would be a model for other companies to aspire to. Infact I'll go as far as to say that even in todays MMO market/climate that big budget games like SWTOR are trying to do more than just sell box copies. They want the subs and they know that means making quality games! To suggest that gaming companies are only out to make "mehmehmo games" and that is why SWTOR isn't doing so great is ridiculous. People just have different ideas of quality.
There have been games reviewers pretty much since there have been games. Hell, even Pong was reviewed in it's day. So much for the 'history lesson', which your version of comes across as a bit ridiculous tbh.
That aside...
Yeah, big business has discovered your hobby and they have discovered that you will gratefully pay through the nose for it and that it's worth the effort and cost to hire shills and buy reviews.
I agree this isn't a good thing.
It will also only get worse though as the internet and media becomes ever more controlled and ghettoised, so my advice is to disengage from it and learn to look at information and make judgements for yourself. Rely on facts and not opinions and don't base your purchase on fashion or what some stranger on the internet (who, all else aside, probably has different tastes and requirements froma game to you) tells you is 'good'.
You will still buy some bad games, that's unavoidable, but you will feel less betrayed and get less 'angry' maybe that way.
I used to trust reviews in mags when I was a kid like Crash and CVG, but those days have obviously passed. Buying games in those days though was still a risk... I bought plenty of crap alongside the classics. I never got 'angry' though.
These days I trust no opinion of anyone I read, especially on the internet, unless I personally know that person.
Pretty sure shitty games and regretful buys have existed since the days of Commodore. More people are buying trash today, because more trash exists, and the more of it there is the harder it will be to find the good stuff. But good luck changing that.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
@OP: there have always been reviews, and iirc game reviews have always been higher than average, I don't see at all how that has changed.
As for reviewing MMO's, this has been discussed so many times already, I'm guessing on this site too. An average single player game is about 20-40 hrs of gameplay, sometimes less, sometimes more to finish it. If you've played it for 30-40 hrs, you've seen most of it, and certainly enough to give a solid review since the gameplay won't suddenly change drastically after that.
MMO's are a different beast: 30-40 hours will only get you to the starting stages and at most middle stages of the game. On top of that, for MMO's the gameplay and what keeps players entertained after the first 150-200 hours will be different from how it was the first 150-200 hours. Leveling gameplay is different from level cap/endgame gameplay in MMO's.
For a reviewer to do a solid review of an MMORPG, they have to spend like 200-300 hours in it to give their fair impressions of the leveling as well as level cap content, features and gameplay. For that amount of time, a reviewer would've been able to review like 10 other games easily instead of just 1 MMORPG.
That's why there's such a disconnect often, people simply aren't aware that reviewers only review the first 30-50 hours which is mostly leveling content where as an MMORPG's gameplay after the first 150-200 hours can be very, very different.
I don't get why people are making a big deal of reviews, I thought that everyone'd have learnt how to read them these days: what I do is I read the bad and good reviews, professional and gamer reviews and from there I usually manage to filter a general impression of a game, and how features and gameplay are regarded by people that have different tastes and viewpoints in gaming.
Always works for me.
AHHHH.......
What? I havent played Tera and I have no interest in it. But graphics an 8 for Tera? 9.5 at worst. Comon....
And D3 gets a 9? And Swtor got higher than Tera? Maybe they hit the wrong numerical key. Maybe they tried playing Tera on an old crusty notebook. Sheesh. I could sneeze on the screen, splat mustard all over it, heck even smash the screen lightly with a hammer thus cracking it and Tera would still probably look great.
I dont know if credibility even applies to reviews anymore. Its been a problem in the movie industry to an extent for years. As games have become more popular and have budgets that actually out do movie budgets by a solid amount, I guess we now have crummy and weird reviews of games too these days.
I'm worried about the general IQ level and skills of understanding of the populace visiting this site.
IGN's TERA, SWTOR and D3 reviews: 3 reviews done by 3 different people.
I don't get it. Is it so hard to grasp that a team of reviewers isn't a group mind, or some communist dictated work force, but just people like everyone of us, with their own tastes and preferences? This isn't some math equation they have to resolve where there's only 1 right answer.
They review games, from their own point of view. Is it so hard to understand that they might rate and feel about games differently from eachother?
Do people think it'll be different on this site? Take 10 people, let them rate 5 games on different aspects - is there anyone who wants to put a bet on that all 10 persons will have rated all aspects of all 5 games with the exact same grades?
Seriously, 3 games reviewed by 3 different persons, and then people wonder that they don't all rate things exactly the same.
More and more I am convinced that these sites just copy/paste from each other. So if for one reviewer graphics sucks it must be a fact why should you play the game.
p.s. .. and I am outraged by biased reviews that have no base in reality
I remember buying a computer magazine every 2 weeks that had around 100 reviews for my C-64, and that was back around 1985 so what time was before reviews?
Sure, there were plenty of bad games back then but there were also plenty of good game. In fact every 2 weeks there were about 15 games that sounded interesting and 10 that I liked.
Nowadays there is about one game releasing each month that sounds interesting and maybe 3 or 4 good each year.
But you know what? That had nothing to do with reviews whatsoever. Games back then were made by gamers for gamers. Now big corps are making all games in a factory styled enviroment, and people in suits decide what gamers want. It is kinda like compared a great homemade meal to a cheap TV dinner.
Now and then a game made by real gamers comes out, like Minecraft but those games are few and far between.
TORs review scores had no real impact on how good future games will be, at best it made a few extra people buy it but what the gamers think doesn´t really matter. The CEOs of EA and Activision decide what we like, not you and me.
Sorry, but no I am not outraged. The only reason I read reviews is to get an idea of what the game is like. If I buy a launch mmo it's because I played beta and enjoyed it.
I dont feel ripped off by SWTOR. I don't feel ripped off by Rift. I don't feel ripped off by Perpetuum. I don't feel ripped off by Planetside. I don't feel ripped off by Global Agenda. The list goes on.
There is a simple reason why I fundamentally disagree with this argument. I am an adult. I am responsible for my choices and I am fully capable of making those choices based on my own experience and knowledge.
There are game's I regretted buying and investing time and money in. Wha. I don't need is some pathetic scapegoat excuse as to why I wasted money on those games. Usually reviewers (at this site and others) pointed out the exact things I ended up hating about thegame or explained how super buggy it was. In those cases I SHOULD have listens to the review but bought the game anyway.
OP. If you are old enough to make your own money you are old enough to make your own decisions. Don't go around blaming the fine employees of this site and others for your buyers remorse. They provide you a free service that is a great source of information as well as entertainment.
The reviews and re-reviews on this site are some of the best in the mmo industry. They are in depth, thourough, and entertaining. They aren't here to make decisions for you. That's something you have to do for yourself. In other words, act like an adult.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
Don't you think that at least partially that has got something to do that you've grown older and have maybe 30+ yrs of gaming behind you? That for kids that are now at the age you were back then, there still are like 15 games that sound interesting and 10 that they like, or that if you were that kid you were in the '80s but then grown up today, that you also'd have looked upon the current batch of games differently?
Just like maybe how tv shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and The A-Team might have been awesome as a kid or teen, but years later as a grown up just might look silly, the taste of people after years of tv shows having changed in the course of time.
Not saying that games haven't become big business that caters more to a mainstream audience than just the small population of hardcore gamers that it catered to in past decades. But I think jadedness after decades of playing games also plays a role. Just like sex isn't as magical after many years of doing it as it was in the first year(s), same with other things that people've been entertained with for years to decades. I see a lot less jadedness and pickiness among kids and teens regarding games and gaming than among people who've played games for decades.
Of course that have some impact as well, but we are talking about a time when several thousands of very different games released every year compared to maybe 100-200. And the new games are way more similar to eachother than they generally were back then.
Sure, there were copying back then as well as know, but just look on FPS games or MMOs right now, almost all of them are very similar.
Games are more complex to make now and are big business, which mean that gaming companies nowadays are run by business people instead of a few dedicated gamers.
Business people looks on what makes money, gamers makes games they themselves want to play, so it is no wonder that most games are so similar.