Ryzom

wicker wrote:This is why I never read gamespots reviews (or IGN for that matter). They are money driven. You would rarely get an absolutely fair review of a game or preview. Do you think they want to promote Ryzom when it means NO money to them? .

Some day you'll realize how ludicrous that assertion is -- reviews are not affected by anything other than the opinions of the reviewer, and cannot be "bought". I don't even work for GameSpot - I am just a freelance writer, who works full-time as a corporate lawyer -- I care so little about the money I get for reviewing games that I typically (as in this instance) don't even bother to ask for a press copy. I write about games just because I'm a gaming addict, like I'm sure a lot of you are.

Mekos wrote:Ug. If they want the scores so closely grouped, why not just remove them and only give out a final x out of x stars score...

It's not that - remember, someone earlier in this thread started comparing my Ryzom review to other GameSpot reviews of MMOs - I think a lot of readers naturally do that, even though the games aren't necessarily reviewed by the same people.

It's the job of the editors to try to ensure that there's some consistency, regardless of the reviewer, since it's the site that gets yelled at when two reviews don't compare sensibly. What that means, in practice, is that they often tweak the review scores by a single point (never more than that) if they've played the game if they think it doesn't match well with how other, similar games have been reviewed. I've reviewed games for CGW, PC Gamer and Gamespot for 7+ years, and never has anyone changed a review score more than a single point (up or down), so it has a very minor effect.

janicki wrote:so it has a very minor effect.

Hmm. My perception has been that there is a vast difference in the quality of games reviewed on gamespot that got a 7 vs an 8 in graphics. But then maybe that's just me.

janicki wrote:Some day you'll realize how ludicrous that assertion is -- reviews are not affected by anything other than the opinions of the reviewer, and cannot be "bought".

I would have to say that, while you might personally not be influenced by money, that does not mean that there are not reviewers out there that are. For example, if I work for, say, the official PlayStation magazine, and my future career is dependant upon people continuing to buy PlayStation games, I would probably be more inclined to give a higher rating and highlight the positive than if I were a freelance writer.

No, I'm not trying to accuse that magazine of anything (don't even read gaming magazines myself), I'm just using it as an example.

lyrah68 wrote:
I think this game is heading in the RIGHT direction, and moving FASTER than ANY other game in the history of the web.

Moving faster than any other game in the history of the web???? I hope you are kidding

janicki wrote:It's not that - remember, someone earlier in this thread started comparing my Ryzom review to other GameSpot reviews of MMOs - I think a lot of readers naturally do that, even though the games aren't necessarily reviewed by the same people.

It's the job of the editors to try to ensure that there's some consistency, regardless of the reviewer, since it's the site that gets yelled at when two reviews don't compare sensibly. What that means, in practice, is that they often tweak the review scores by a single point (never more than that) if they've played the game if they think it doesn't match well with how other, similar games have been reviewed. I've reviewed games for CGW, PC Gamer and Gamespot for 7+ years, and never has anyone changed a review score more than a single point (up or down), so it has a very minor effect.

I think my only real problem with this review (other than the 7 for graphics which you addressed above) is how now centered it is, even when discussing things that the devs are clearly working on (Or have even already fixed, such as the Trainer bug). I can accept that this is a snapshot review, but many times when I've seen reviews of this sort which were based on issues that were in the process of being resolved, the reviewer will indicate their intention to do a follow-up review two-three months down the road.

It's fair to say this game is a grind without quests - it can be. But is seems disingenuous to not mention that a quest system, not to mention a long story arc are planned in the not-so-distant future.

It would be nice to see you come back in a few months and take a second look. Go down the list of issues you have and see if you still feel that way.

If you compare the score obtain by Ryzom to other mmorpgs on Gamespot, you see theres a problem (mentionned in a previous post).

The fact that the review was made by another reviewer is, by no mean, an excuse. Heres why :

Exemple : You make exam A with prof Y, and another guy with prof Z got a better score in exam A (the same exam) but had the exact same mistakes you did. Then you complain to the person in charge of your departement and he will revise your exam. This exemple already happened to me when i was in university.

So what im saying is, according to other score obtain by worse mmorpg, Ryzom score needs to be revised.


A reminder of a few score :

Ryzom got 5.6 / 10

Lineage 2 got 6 / 10 L2 is by far the worse mmorpg ive played, they were lots of balancing issus at release and the castle siege came with Chronicle 1 (patch 1...) about a month after release. The grind is the worst ive seen.

AC2 got 8.3 / 10 Ive tryed the free 14 days and i didnt even played all of them.

FFXI got 8.2 / 10 Its widely known that its one of the most over rated mmorpg. The levelling is slow, it always take 100 hours to get a new thing or a new lvl in harvesting/crafting and after lvl 40, you can wait for 2 hours and dont find any groups (no soloing in FFXI) even if your in a guild.

DaoC got 9 / 10 Truly a great game, but compared to ryzom i dont see why its so good and ryzom so bad.

AC got 8.8 / 10 Same as DaoC

EQ got 8.4 10 Fair review, i dont get why is Ryzom so far away.

Shadowbane got 7.9 / 10 whats so great about shadowbane vs Ryzom ?? ive tested it.... nothing new, usual PVP game with a "dark side".

AO got 7.6 / 10 I liked AO, but again why is Ryzom so far away ?

trcroyle wrote:It would be nice to see you come back in a few months and take a second look. Go down the list of issues you have and see if you still feel that way.

Have to agree with that. The problem IMO with reviewing a persistent world game is that it will change, and for that reason snapshot reviews don't really work all that well, and can be misleading even if the reviewer tries to be as fair as possible.

I like the way GameSpy review MMOGs - they do an 'Out of the Box' review when the game is released, then later do a more in depth review, part of which is to see whether any issues encountered have been fixed. They also do stand alone reviews of expansion packs.

I believe reviews of MMOGs have to be of a long term nature and have to be revisited periodically. This works both ways - if a game sucks at launch but improves with time, people can see that. Conversely, some games had very smooth launches but then go downhill, which is also important to note. A good example of this is L2. Many if not all reviews I've seen praised it for it's smooth launch. Look at it now though and it appears to ne a mess of farming bots and elements of the community with a poor attitutude to other players, with a strong PK/griefing element.

If you only read the first review, you wouldn't know about these issues until it was too late and you'd forked over the cash.

trcroyle wrote: I can accept that this is a snapshot review, but many times when I've seen reviews of this sort which were based on issues that were in the process of being resolved, the reviewer will indicate their intention to do a follow-up review two-three months down the road.

The issue of when to do a follow-up review is a tough one, but constantly debated at publications, and occasionally done when it's apparent that the game has significantly changed. I did mention aspects of the game that are forward looking (like the PvP) to the extent I thought appropriate - I'd rather be cautious than entice someone to buy a game for features that may never appear, or may not work well when included.

Regarding the trainer bug that you specifically - I think the patch that fixed it came out on the last day I played the game -- I didn't create a new character to check out the newbie lands again to verify that the fix worked, but it certainly was an annoying problem during the time I played the game (and being required to log out was a pretty annoying interim solution, given load times), so I thought it was worth mentioning to highlight the type of problems the game has had.

trcroyle wrote:It's fair to say this game is a grind without quests - it can be. But is seems disingenuous to not mention that a quest system, .

Maybe, which is why I did specifically mention it (first line of paragraph 5), heh. Like I said though, you have to be cautious about letting "planned" features influence a review, since you never know how they will actually work out or even if they will ever make it into the game in any meaningful way. I don't think you can do much more than briefly mention the intentions of the developers, as I did, just to give readers additional information.

trcroyle wrote:I think my only real problem with this review (other than the 7 for graphics which you addressed above).

One additional clarification on this point - the value score was actually upped a point, to compensative for the lowering of the graphics score, so the overall rating the game received is exactly as I submitted it.