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Helloooo... where is everybody? <.< >.> <.<
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im on there as tibit .. send a msg anytime
/thread
My issue with Bill's review was his giddy, school gril enthusiasm for the game, both in the review and in several articles he did prior to that. It just came across as unprofessional and made his review not credible to me. I played DCU and it was nowhere near an 8. Maybe, being generous, a 6 at most. Its great that he had fun mashing buttons, but this is an MMO that had to be evaluated on being an MMO, not just a "game". Bill, IMO, failed to do that and thats why he's taking heat. To put it in a brutaly honest way, it was simply a piss poor review, something I would have expected from some random dude on the internet, not someone doing a professional review.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
Well, a lot of gaming magazines and sites gave DCUO high grades AND a lot of actual players - players like you and me - gave DCUO high grades, so Bill wasn't alone in his view about DCUO. In fact, the majority of professional reviewers and players of the game felt the same, they liked DCUO and had fun with it.
You might fault Bill for giving a review that you don't agree with and saying he wasn't objective bc of his 'giddy enthusiasm': but according to you all those professional reviewers and players were giving DCUO a 'piss poor' review, was all their high grades 'giddy enthusiasm' too?
As for evaluating DCUO as an MMO: if an MMO offers 60-100 hours of solid, enjoyable content before the repetitiveness and the lack of varied endgame content becomes prevalent, then it's hard to review an MMORPG for the value it'll give in the longterm. So a review will reflect upon how someone feels about the gameplay of a game in the first 50 hours or so.
Personally, I think an MMORPG review should be given in 2 stages: first the initial-impressions 'launch review', that talks about the gameplay and issues the reviewer encounters in the first 50-80 hours - usually the leveling experience and gameplay content encountered while leveling. And then after a month or two a final review, that focuses on the longterm value of an MMORPG and its overall content it offers, including the endgame content and longterm entertainment options.
The second would bring to light whether there are content gaps while leveling, whether it becomes a grind or whether the content is relatively little before reaching level cap, and how varied the options for gaming fun are at that stage.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I wonder if the people complaining so much here even read Bill's review. It's pretty spot on imo. The only reason i'm not still playing is lack of content and there monthly updates aren't as big as i had hoped. I've got close to 300 hours in the game and it was well worth the money.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/350/view/reviews/load/132/page/3
Wrapping Up
As stated at the outset, DCUO is most definitely a game that will divide MMO players. Some will adore it for what it sets out to do, and others will deplore it for what it does not do. Some will decry its lack of crafting, while others will spend hours scouring Metropolis for the game’s collections. Some will be happy for the brisk leveling pace and rise to end-game, while others will cry foul and say there’s not enough meat to chew. The reality, in this reviewer’s opinion, is that DC Universe Online is an exceedingly fun game held back from greatness by only a handful of extremely annoying neglects. Where it triumphs, it does so with grand aplomb. When it fails, it crashes with a resonating thud. I struggled with assigning a score to the game, because some of its flaws are absolutely enraging. But ultimately, the fun of the title still outweighs the missteps for me. SOE’s latest effort is absolutely one of the most entertaining MMOs to come out in years. I haven’t had this much fun in an online game in I can’t remember how long. DCUO is a great way to start a release-packed 2011 and is only going to get better with age.
If DCU got such a good score why arent people playing the game? Or maybe its just developers that voted?
Was looking for a trial for the game, could not find any. So I bought the game played it for 3 days then I stoped, due to boredom.
This is it in a nutshell...if DCUO was just more of the same its relative score would be easy to assess...but its different, its not directly comparable in the traditional sense but it does break more than a few moulds and has a creativity and conviction that really elevate aspects that would otherwise be a problem. The content shortage is something shared by all recent releases, the grind aspect is shared with all mmo's young and old, but the involving combat and immersive gameworld that consume 75% of your time are rare if not unique...hence the ability to overshadow some of the game's issues. Any score is based on the balance of good and bad, but that is modified by what a person feels is most influential to the experience and that is personal and subjective to everyone.
All reviews of creative material such as books, films, Shows and games are opinions, its naive to suggest otherwise as the massive weight of evidence in internet sites, magazines, review shows and newspapers all clearly demonstrate. But the score is less important than the justification behind it and this is open and honest in the most real and applaudable sense.
Because the people who voted high for this game are short sighted. They look at the exciting combat and sparkling GFX and think it is awesome. They dont realise the minimal content this game offers and does not rate the game based on that but rather what they see in their first week of playing the game.
For single player, one time pay, games that is ok but for MMORPG you need to have a longer perspective. I predicted this game to fail back before it was released due to the extremely fast leveling and thin content and lo and behold...
My gaming blog
dcu was one of the best mmos i started the last 2 years. and the worst...
i left after playing it like a tard for a month because sony didnt fix any pvp-exploit and the exploiter/cheater were still there. they don't give a shit about the community.
Don't presume you know me, or what I am interested in because you don't. Many of us here can make the distinction between opinion, critical evaluation, and facts/reality -- you're clearly struggling with this though and spinning stuff. All I see is you adding a lot of words to my post that aren't there, really just random speculatory fluff, for whatever your agenda is....
Yeah, that's one of the funny disconnects -- it seems like people didn't realize how much you played it before release and after. You already level-capped a villain by the time you wrote that review....less than 3 weeks...... / ' :
I do want to give you (and Jon) props for coming back in to respond to this thread. Ultimately, I think there are some ideological differences that your team has with some of the more critical posters in this thread (like myself) and the release of DCUO has become the focal point of it. Please don't take any of it personally. ( ' :
Here's a question to focus on for your future column: Do you review it just as a video game, i.e.simply is it fun to play? Or do you review it as an MMORPG in which the various factors of MMORPG's are taken into account (mmo specific ui, playability over time, community, end-game, rp, immersion, etc...) Because a video game can be a blast to play but a horrible MMO.
One would think that if Bill could level-cap a villain by the time he wrote his review (less than 3 weeks after release), that it would send up some sort of red flag about how little content there was. And falling back on the notion of "promised monthly content" to fill the gaps is simply preposterous -- generating ongoing new content is the biggest challenge every developer faces. You don't need a super, critical eye to realize people would burn through it far faster than other mmo's -- just common sense. That the "press" (not just mmorpg.com, but many reviews) did not focus on this was (and still is) truly a disservice to all consumers (and likely a lof of them if Smedley could claim it was the fastest selling SOE game ever).
I was so hoping that this game would be worth playing since I like to mix things up with my gaming but it seems that the other superhero games have more going on than dcuo. While CO is is cartoony COH is better and has nore going on with the population although I don't really like having all instanced content. Not sure if it is because it is older but then EQ is older and suffers from many issues as well. Maybe it is just an SOE thing? SO glad I didn't put any money down on this game yet. Looks like I will have to wait for my alternative to sword/sorcery mmo fix.
Well the metacritic score is 72 which translates to mixed or average score and I dont think this game deserves better than that. Personally, for an MMORPG, I would give it below average as the game has virtually zero longetivity but still does has some innovative elements such as the combat.
In any case, scoring this game as GREAT, shows to me as an inexperienced MMORPG reviewer. One that looks at only the first impression and does not take a critical approach about the viability of this game as a subscriber.
My gaming blog
I honestly don't have any agenda and I apologise if my post is in any way personalised or harsh. The distinction between opinion, critical evaluation and fact is the real point I was hoping to make. While many do grasp the differences there are still clearly some who do not...maybe I am one but doesn't that simply prove the point? Bill's review was honestly qualified as biased by his opnion, the accusation that he like others had quietly departed has been proven inaccurate, he is still playing and enjoying the game and so are some others - for them there is no call for a reality check because their reality has not changed from the one previously stated, for others the need for a reality check, as given by someone else, is questionable since they are already assured as to what it should say.
Here is the crux of the matter. A reviewer has certain responsibilities to those who read their reviews. If you find that their reviews are inaccurate or lacking in vital info, they loose credibility with you, the readers. Credibility is what seperates sucessful reviewers from the hacks. Being a good/successful reviewer is hard, and they must evaluate even their own reviews to see if it was fair and balanced.
On the other hand, if you want to be a blogger or opinion writer, that is easy. Spew out of your keyboard whatever you like. You don't have to be fair, hell you don't have to be right to state your opinion. But be warned that the facts may come back to bite you in the ass over your opinion. Stating that "reviews are opinions" is a completely wrong and shows that those stating that don't know the difference between the two. And if a reviewer claims that his or her reviews are "just their opinions" doesn't know the difference either....
Yep, you're right, you're the professional.
Oh wait a minute, you're not?
Oh, I'm sorry, I was thinking of Bill.
It must really pain you to know everything there is to know and not get paid for it. Yikes.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Apparently we can't get this back on topic then. Locked.
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