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MassivelyOP discusses Shroud; Shroud's Community Promptly Goes Bonkers
Aron_Swordmaster
Member UncommonPosts: 181
Over at MassivelyOP, Eliot Lefebvre has been giving his thoughts on Shroud of the Avatar. They've been... lukewarm, to say the least. It's well worth those of you still wondering which side in the increasingly contentious debates around the game is closest to the actual truth of what it's actually like to play spending some time reading his series of Choose My Adventure articles.
That's not the most astounding thing however. What really needs to be seen is that, as outside reality starts to prick at the closed feedback loop within the Shroud cult bubble, they've promptly gone completely bonkers about it.
Here's the thread where they're discussing the article within the bubble.
[mod edit] And the response to feedback on the game is... illuminating to say the least. It includes;
Attacking or attempting to discredit the character of the Reviewer himself.
But despite mocking the above quote and many reporting it... it's still left up on the Shroud forums. This is considered within the realms of acceptable debate in the Shroud Bubble. They know he's a lunatic. They must know it's a sockpuppet account. But they won't touch him as he claims he's defending the game... By demanding a cease and desist against a website for their reviews of the game? Really?
You really do need to read through the entire thread. Despite more and more of the few remaining critics coming in and desperately trying to reason with the bubble, the result is just increasingly "We don't care. He's wrong and ignorant and anyway we like the game as it is and everyone else can bugger off".
If you want to know why Kickstarting Shroud was so unbelievably frustrating and disheartening, this is a perfect example. And it's only going to get worse as more and more media attention comes to Shroud.
That's not the most astounding thing however. What really needs to be seen is that, as outside reality starts to prick at the closed feedback loop within the Shroud cult bubble, they've promptly gone completely bonkers about it.
Here's the thread where they're discussing the article within the bubble.
[mod edit] And the response to feedback on the game is... illuminating to say the least. It includes;
Attacking or attempting to discredit the character of the Reviewer himself.
It reads like someone who never cared to even pay attention and is only
playing because he's being paid to write a review. Couldn't even be
bothered to remember what path he was on? Or to know about SotAMap
which has been integrated into the game? And it seems plainly clear the
writer never had any interest in the game to begin with noting they'd
only 'be around a few weeks'.
When you have the guy acknowledging that he has no interesting in even
bothering to play the quest (which is the purpose of an RPG) it's like
you logging in to Destiny 2 and instead of shooting people, you complain
about the lack slot machines. Yes, there is still a VERY long way to go
before this game is fun in my opinion. But intentionally complaining
about there being no point to the game when you already acknowledge you
are intentionally not doing the point of the game... just don't get it.
If I was still writing for Gamers Nexus I'd never have been able to push
something this obviously lackluster and uninformed through as a
finished product.
You get to page 2 of the shredding the Reviewer before this magnificent comment;
I'm just going to take a moment to quote myself here.
Bubonic said:
↑
Has anyone ever noticed that every single time
anyone releases a review of SotA that isn't stellar, people come on the
forum and attack the reviewer's integrity, character, and intelligence?
Yes Bubonic, yes we have noticed that.
Going Even Further And Attempting To Destroy The Reviewers Career
Is there anyway we can put a cease the desist order out on this website?
It doesn't seem fair that they are making up BLATANT lies about the
game and trying to ruin it before it even truly begins!
Now to be fair, this is almost certainly a sockpuppet of the same sociopath we know as Jammaplaya, who has been harassing critics; yesterday he spotted on Reddit that I've a Battlefield 1 account, so he's been using the email address he continues to try to proxy attack to send password requests to Origin... he's been doing stuff like this for nearly a year now to me alone, he's clearly way, way over the line of normal behaviour. But despite mocking the above quote and many reporting it... it's still left up on the Shroud forums. This is considered within the realms of acceptable debate in the Shroud Bubble. They know he's a lunatic. They must know it's a sockpuppet account. But they won't touch him as he claims he's defending the game... By demanding a cease and desist against a website for their reviews of the game? Really?
You really do need to read through the entire thread. Despite more and more of the few remaining critics coming in and desperately trying to reason with the bubble, the result is just increasingly "We don't care. He's wrong and ignorant and anyway we like the game as it is and everyone else can bugger off".
If you want to know why Kickstarting Shroud was so unbelievably frustrating and disheartening, this is a perfect example. And it's only going to get worse as more and more media attention comes to Shroud.
Post edited by MikeB on
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I backed SOTA, but I have yet to actually play it. I've seen the updates, but I can never figure out if the game was actually ever released or not, or if anything is done with the story. Seeing the crazy fanboys and haters, makes me really not want to even try it though.
Seriously wtf is a preview and what is a review for that matter.A review is ONE maybe a collective of people ,it still by no means carries any weight at all be it positive or negative.
I most likely have more knowledge on game's ,designs and variations than most reviewers whom have nothing more than a portfolio of Blizzard games to draw conclusions on.
There is just a boatload of bull going on in this industry right now and NONE of the people at the top anywhere are downgrading the industry,everything is two thumbs up because they are all cashing in on it.
Example...Does anyone ,even one person think an employee of the Shroud team would ever say anything bad about the game?Never,not happening,not until someone gets fired or something similar.
We also need to start looking at games from a consumer's pov,is a game good enough to buy or support long term.Example Shroud is an ok game,if i worked for a website i could be deceiving in saying,yeah the game is decent enough,but as a consumer,no way in hell would i buy into Shroud.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Let me break it down for you since you like to bring this up on every thread ever.
A preview of a game is an early look that a site or person may have gotten on a game. It is usually not in any state to judge whether or not it will be good so they aren't going to write a review or say anything bad about something during a preview of the game. Simply because, you can't judge it on something that isn't a finalized product.
Reviews do come in with different ratings, including some at very poor ratings, so not every single review is just a glowing positive shill for a company like you seem to think they are. You look at reviews as a whole usually, not by one person but by a lot of people. I don't look at one review and say, dang I'm never touching that game, or dang I am going to go buy that right now. I usually look into multiple peoples opinions, or watch some videos of gameplay to see if I want to play a game. One review doesn't reflect the entire industry, and will never reflect the entire industry.
If you have more knowledge on all of those things, why don't you go make a website, and write about how you feel on all of these subjects for every game you feel you need to. Because at this point you seem to basically just go on each thread and write about how everything is paid sponsorship but not acknowledged (which is illegal by the way).
Also what developer in any game company ever would say something bad about their own game. Why would they want to? It would look bad, and be a bad business practice. That would be like if you were writing something and mid way through decided to include you thought your idea was wrong.
Oh sure, you know what you like, what you want and that's where it ends.
You seem to say that a lot as well "I know more about ... x, y and z" yet I never see this knowledge. I do see you knowing what you want.
There is a difference and I think your great challenge in life is learning this difference.
As far as the original post, those who disagree with the reviewer should be taking on his arguments, not attacking the reviewer.
Go toe to toe with each of the reviewer's points. And of course allow for counter-arguments.
In the end, it has nothing to do with a number or even if the reviewer likes or hates the game. It has to do with what the reviewer points out as features, issues, etc.
If a reviewer says the game has x, y and z and thinks those things are amazing but anyone else thinks they are horrid then duly noted and people can make their own decisions.
I'll also add: Example...Does anyone ,even one person think an employee of the Shroud team would ever say anything bad about the game?Never,not happening,not until someone gets fired or something similar.
Why would they? they are working on the game but have a completely different take on it and see the whole project from a different view point. Why would anyone make something and then just say "oh heck, it's crap" as opposed to "we continually work on it and see where we have challenges but will work hard to fix them".
It's not for them to criticize their game, they just have to acknowledge the issues and vow to work on them.
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The Games industry has been leaning on the media since at least the 8 bit days; you only have to look at classic examples like the Spectrum's version of Nemesis/Gradius, where reviewers got an early build of the game with only one level, designed to be far better than the actual launch release. There should be no excuse for anyone, especially if now employed within the media, to not be aware of this, and be counter-acting it with a far harder, pro-consumer line.
With regards to the question of Employees of the industry, as a former one for Ultima Online, the EA/Broadsword contract I signed forbid me to even mention I was employed by them, let alone what they were like as employers, for 3 years after I left the company. I imagine Portalarium have similarly insane contracts, the whole industry is unbelievably anti-human, which makes the whole fan worship of thinking the people who make your Precious are actually as wonderful as their Precious products make you feel even more insane... we've had EA Spouse, we've had Tales From The Trenches, we've had... and still there's this wilful blindness to reality.
In the case of Portalarium, we know they've had quite a lot of internal turn over. The community moderator used to be FireLotus for instance, but she's quietly been erased from the public profile. I wouldn't expect she's free yet to even talk about what happened, and most former employees often don't because they don't want to burn their last bridges with an industry they still love.
All of which means you, the consumer, are often left having to protect yourselves. The media are often bribed to deceive you, with access or even direct freebies; The industry itself doesn't even care about it's own workers. It's up to you to remain cynical and demand quality because otherwise you just won't get it.
Instead though...
In this case, the author of Choose My Adventure was also bombarded with the predictable attempts to confuse him with malicious reports, false claims etc at their own forums... I managed to get a quick screengrab of MrAdventure's attempts before they were pulled, but fortunately I'd emailed the author during his last article what was about to happen, so they've stayed on top of it.
So the games industry remains one of the very few where your own fellow consumer is out to deceive and distract and deliberately deny information from their own kind. It's excessively weird.
All directed by a team of washed-up game developers who should retire before they can do more damage to the genre. We need new meat with fresh ideas, not these dinosaurs like Garriott, Roberts, McQuaid, Coleman, Jacobs, and Smedley. GTFO.
~~ postlarval ~~
Grab some popcorn and a coke, because when this mess will release, we'll get an awesome show! That should be sometime, this year.
Alas no, they've already pushed "Launch" back again, this time to sometime in Q1/Q2 2018. They may however run out of money long before then...
Meanwhile on the Reddits, the sociopaths and the cultists are melting down even further as Massively runs more articles, all negative, and the comments hammer the game. The blanket they're desperately clinging too? "You're making alts just like we are to manipulate the reviews!!!"
Nope, just making sure we comment when an article goes up, all those new people you see? Those are the people we told you that you'd driven away years ago. We didn't need to make up facts to make ourselves feel better. We simply told the truth. And now the truth has got its boots on and is starting to kick.