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User votes say that Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and Rift are good?
Quizzical
Member LegendaryPosts: 25,355
I'm not here to argue with the ratings, but only to analyze why they are so high.
When a new heavily-hyped game launches, it often has a bunch of people excited to play it who promptly rate it a 10. That spikes the game to the top of this site's ratings for a while. Then as players get further into the game, they find things they don't like, and more people rate it down. That leads the game's rating to drop as time passes.
Additionally, people who don't play a game see it on the top 7 list and rate it down to make room for their own favorite games. Eventually the game drops off of the top 7 list and people mostly stop rating it. That's why there is a huge mass of games that barely miss this site's top 7 list. It also explains why games that not that many people play can easily be just off of the top 7 list, but can't stay on the list for long.
The real question of a game's rating on this site is not of 8.3 versus 7.8 or anything like that. Rather, it's one of, for how long after launch can a game keep its rating far above the pack? With Age of Conan, the answer was about two days. SWTOR and Warhammer made it a little longer than that, but were off the top 7 list within weeks after launch. Atlantica Online actually got a spike and then came back to the pack several times in what looked like a rather flagrant case of ballot box stuffing.
But Rift is nearly two years past launch and still hasn't quite come back to the pack. That's impressive. Some people like Rift and some don't, of course. But those who dislike it deride it as not the game mechanics they want (e.g., it's a theme park), not as a buggy mess of a game.
The Secret World has been out for more than half a year, and Guild Wars 2 for nearly five months, and they're still way ahead of the pack. That's also impressive. Planetside 2, by contrast, is a far more recent release, yet already trails far behind Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World, and will probably soon fall behind Rift in the ratings as well.
Comments
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I enjoy Rift, it has it's problems, but what games don't? As far as themeparks go, this has been the one to beat for 2 years IMO. The PvP isn't the best, but this is probably the best PvE game out there at this point and time. It really gives you options other games don't have.
GW2 was...not my style of game. I know a lot of people like it, but after about a month I was done with it. Of course everyone is different, and I can see why some people would enjoy it.
As far as TSW...haven't played it. Heard good things about the PvE, heard the PvP was awful however. Keep in mind that's just heresay.
The ratings on this site should be taken with a grain of salt, but there is some truth to them.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Tsw has a good leveling game. But its hampered by a wow style grind instances end game. Also its pvp Is poor, which is a shame it was fun in closed beta when only actual pvpers did it.
Rift is a wow clone. But it addresses two of the biggest problems with wow 1) it has stuff to do other than grind instances at end game and 2) its less kiddy. Just like wow it has bad pvp though.
Gw2 is a decent all rounder. It's not a great game in any particular area, but its a well above average game in most areas. Definetly beats the other 2 for pvp, but it ain't no eve, daoc or planetside.
Add planetside 2 if you want good pvp and aren't bothered about pve at all.
Thems the 5.
Luckily 3 of them have no sub. So there's nothing to stop you playing say tsw for the quests / dungeons / small group play and ps2 for your pvp / large group play.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
EVE launched a long time ago, so I have no idea what its ratings were near launch. Regardless, it's not ahead of the pack in the ratings today.
Planetside 2 is a much more recent release and has already fallen far behind both Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World. It will probably fall the rest of the way back to the pack soon. Taking a few months to fall back to the pack isn't bad, but it's not nearly as impressive as the ratings that Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and Rift have put up. That's why I excluded it from the title of this thread, in spite of it being currently rated higher than Rift.
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Actually, have any of you actually read the original post before replying? This thread isn't here to talk about game mechanics. It's more like someone who doesn't even know how to play golf analyzing scorecards from the past and running statistical techniques on them to try to predict who will win a future tournament.
It's not so much that I didn't read your post as I don't know any more than you do. Thats why I added there is something to the ratings, but always take them lightly. Those are 3 great games, and deserve the ratings they have IMO. Well maybe not GW2, but we are all biased in some ways
Honestly the only one in the top that probably doesn't belong is Vindictus. Seriously guys? It's not even an MMO, and barely even online.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
I think you're right.
Rift definitely stays in the list because it is consistently rated high. You rarely hear anything bad about it in the forums either, nothing on the scale of GW2 or SWTOR hating.
TSW? I saw it jump after it went B2P, I suspect it will drop soon. GW2 is still too early to really tell, but I feel it'll stay up there pretty long, considering the following it has on MMORPG.COM.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
I wonder if there were a ratings page would the ratings change suddenly?
I don't mean the sort option on the games list, but just a page on mmorpg.com dedicated to the game's title and its rating alone. I wonder if that were linked in an obvious spot on the homepage, would we see a sudden shift in game ratings?
I would say a pretty neat and indepth analysis.
If anything, the rating on this site shows "How long will this game stay alive" - with some noteable exceptions like RuneScape.
Don't take the ratings very seriously. Games like GuildWars 2 are inflames greatly and rated far above what its deserving of while games like World of Warcraft are often bashed down below where it deserves (god did I just defend WoW? Damn...) Simply put those numbers aren't trustworthy at all. GW2 on top of SW is quite funny to me personal as, despite how much I'm not huge on SW, I have a lot of respect for their attempt at changing the direction and pushing an 'action combat' sort of system. It deserves the spot far more then GW2 does but its how it goes.
If you want to see how a game is, try it yourself. Don't use ratings to judge for you cause depending on the site/audience, you will find greatly different views. Good luck having an Eastern game up top on this list, no matter how well designed it is due to Xenophobia making it difficult for people to get past it to enjoy a good game.
They had to re-learn their members and find suitable advertising. Any website that allows a 12 year old vote.. when that child has no means to pay for, or sustain a sub.. is flawed.
Now today, most those 12 year olds are 19 and have a taste of work... their opinions about what is good, has differed.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Everything is relative. If you are a hater of those games I can persuade why those games deserver high ratting.
Becaues other game are not as good.
The ratings are bogus, they are tampered with by MMORPG.com and you shouldn't believe anything about them.
I remember TERA dropping like 30 places in one day randomly over a month after release for no reason, either something logs things wrong or EVERYONE decided to vote it down that day for no apparent reason.
^^^ This...
Look what happened to DF:UW recently. User's were pissed because beta/release(forget which but think it was a beta)got pushed back. They retaliated by down voting the game causing it to go from one of the most anticipated to not even in the top 15 or maybe it was 15th. The day that happened i said i will never trust a rating given to a game on this site again. Being able to manipulate a games hype meter that easy is horse shit. The later cooled down and voted it back up but it was a prime example of kids throwing a bitch fit because a game wanted to make sure it was ready to launch instead of rush with a broken product. I guess once they thought about it they voted it back up.
I think it all starts and ends on fact if you believe those ratings are genuine. If you believe noone is tampering with them from "outside", I think those values are quite right.
I like the idea, you can find out if MMO is successful not by how many copies you've sold, but tendency of player base. Normally new game get huge influx of accounts. After some time, many people leave (probably mostly those that gave up to the hype and started playing game even if they don't like that style). The most important moment comes right after that. If you player base starts to slowly die out, you know you're doing something wrong. If your player base is growng slowly, it means your game has lasting power.
I think ratings actually follow this trend quite nicely, too.
The ratings make sense if you don't assume that they have anything to do with a game's popularity. So what are the ratings saying? I think it's more an indicator of how much the people who play the game like the game. An unpopular game like TSW can have a very high rating because the people who play the game really like it. The same for a popular game like GW.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Obviously it is very easy to temper with the user rating on this site.
And we all know that we got enough wow hater on this forum so many people will vote it down.
But beside that, it is not hard to believe why those games are rated so high. Because there isn't enough hater to vote it down, and there just isn't any relative better game on the market now. Beside that 2 of those title is B2P which many people like. Other themepark title isn't relative better. And most sandbox fan can't find a game they are happy with.
This site should be called' hate forum of MMORPG's'. It seems people here do not like certain games, they will post hate until people just put them in their ignore list.
All these games do some things well and others not so well. It is all complromise. No one game can do everything. One has to take the good with the bad and determine what is important. I liked Rift and GW2, not so much TSW BUT I see why gamers would like it.