Also regarding those rankings, I think they have now outlived their usefulness for most games. I recently gave RF Online a try - while I found a bunch of stuff I really didn't like, I wouldn't have gone to MMORPG.com and hammered it with a low rating. However, people did just that - effectively giving it a 6 rating IIRC, I would have said 7 maybe myself
It's a shame they even have those polls/ratings IMO, because they rarely reflect an actual view of the game. You have your extremes - the 'fanboy' (I usually avoid it but it was required for the example
), and the 'hater'. Those guys are both going to post a review that is as useful as a chocolate fire guard, one of absolute gaming bliss, and the other of grinding and lag and grinding and lag and not much else - neither review helps the reader in any way.
When people write reviews and comments on "teh intahweb", they lose some control compared to face-to-face conversation and discussion (no I'm not guilty of this.... honest...). Some will type quickly and their ugly thoughts will spew straight out. Others will sit and type, read, edit, and bundle even more in there as they go. I'm "No.2", and if I'm making a positive post that's a good thing. If I'm making a negative one, it can turn out quite evil when I re-read it - not the intention, but just the effect of going back over your points and re-emphasising where you feel you need to.
One of the problems here, is that if these people have a genuinely bad experience - be it the fault of the game, or the fault of the player - they really want to make themselves heard, even if their opinion really isn't worth sharing. Public forums/polls make this possible, with the intention of helping others - more often than not, they help nobody, as everyone should make their own impressions of the game by playing it themselves
A really bad review could stop someone going past the login screen, when in actual fact they needed that last click to allow the game to sell itself. A lot of people who never even try a game based on hearsay would love the game to bits, if only they
tried it
I rarely give much thought to reviews and polls like this, but I do appreciate that some people base all of their buying decisions on reviews, and I think there's little anyone can do to change that, sad as it is. This is particularly avoidable where a trial or demo exists, which in essence is virtually every PC game (demo at least). Whether or not this is bad boils down to Nevrax' point of view - the high influx of new players recently is mainly down to SWG players leaving (hello guys
), and I think under normal circumstances Ryzom is a special case in terms of people picking it up. It's either word of mouth from existing players, or it's players who are looking for something slightly different to the norm, and have chosen Ryzom for reasons of storyline, setting, style etc.
I think, unless Nevrax need to multiply their player base by 2 or 3 times to satisfy their financial requirements, Ryzom will continue to live happily. The game can do without those who blindly follow reviews, for now at least
Of course, we have yet to see the implications of the Spires development, so no quoting me
EDIT: In fact, if I was an 'old quote in forum sig' person, I'd be quoting that part right now 