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Did MMORPG staff writers contribute to ToR's problems?
crysent
Member UncommonPosts: 841
Hello,
This is something I've been contemplating lately in regards to the woe's of Star Wars: The Old Republic: Did MMORPG staff writers contribute to ToR's problems by over-hypeing the game, inflating not only reviews of the game overall but also of the game's individual aspects (Mainly the legacy system) and by avoiding asking tough questions throughout numerous Q&A's they had with the development team of ToR?
It's become pretty apparent that things are not going smooth for ToR with major population issues. All but the most diehard fanboys acknowledge HUGE drops in population.
I personally participated in the later stages of beta, I (like many) pre-ordered the game and really enjoyed about 4 weeks of play. I had high expectations for ToR for numerous reasons - The studio making the game, the IP being used, the large budget, and, of course, the reviews from sites like MMORPG.
Despite having canceled my sub a few months ago I have continued to follow the game in hopes that things would improve, however, the opposite has seemed to have occured - Personally I blame a lot of this on the legacy system. To me the legacy system is complete fluff and fails to address many of the core issues with the game - End game content. Despite the legacy system adding very little in terms of real, solid content ToR patches have basically centered around legacy since 1.2 - Prior to 1.2. all the ToR staff would talk about was the exciting legacy system that was coming. It seems a large amount of resources and time have gone into a fluff thing like the legacy system while neglecting many of the real problems with the game.
Throughout the population decline and the underhwlmeing patches MMORPG.com has cfontinued to give the game and patches fairly high reviews, throughout interviews or Q&A sessions with ToR developers the MMORPG writers have failed to ask tough questions.
First I will start with MMORPGS official review rating of ToR - Currently it stands at 8.7.
Breaking down their review I find the numbers they give to be extremely high in every single category.
Innovation - 8/10
Polish - 9.5/10
Longevity - 8/10 (This one made me laugh out loud...)
Value - 10/10
Social - 7.5/10 (Wow..)
And a quote from their review "Crafting is fun"...It's hard to argue that any of these reviews are not inflated, some are so absurdly inflated though it's hard to understand why such reviews were given.
One only needs to click on the "News" tab to see article after article by MMORPG staff over-hyping the game and its features at nearly every single stage of release going a long way back...Multiple news articles way over-hypeing 1.2 and the legacy system.
*An interview surronding PvP by Pockett failing to ask even one single question surronding Ilum or open world PvP of any sort (all her questions are purely about Warzones: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/6189/The-Competitive-PVP-Interview.html/page/1 from March 14.
*An article titled " Update 1.2. The Miracle Patch?" : http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/6189/The-Competitive-PVP-Interview.html/page/1 In which Bitton hypes 1.2., notably the Legacy system. March 14
*A video review by Pokket of the guild summit and 1.2: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/6194/Guild-Summit-Impressions-Patch-12.html/page/1 Pokket hypes the new warzone and how fun it is and hypes the legacy system, also noting how you are going to get a "slew of things to unlock in the upcoming legacy system", Also Pokket calls the upcomming addition of a guild banking system "amazing". Pokket notes only one single thing in the upcoming patches that she is not "excited" for.
*A video review by pokket on Novare Coast: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/6224/1st-Impressions-Guide-to-Novare-Coast-.html/page/1. claiming the map is very strategic - March 23
*Article from April 10 by Suzie Ford detailing the legacy system in 1.2, again hypeing the legacy system finishing up with "Ultimately there's a lot of good stuff coming to The Old Republic in this update. Whilst it's a shame much of it didn't make launch, by far the most encouraging thing is the number of features repeatedly asked for by players. It's a promising step for Bioware's MMO and one that looks sure to help it build a long and impressive Legacy of its own." http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/6290/Game-Update-12-Legacy-Preview.html/page/1
*Aticle from April 11th by Bitton, again, another post hypeing Novare coast saying it can be "tons of fun": http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/6298/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-PAX-East-2012-Novare-Coast-Preview.html
The list goes on and on. In nearly every single report by MMORPG staff 1.2 and its various systems are hyped. Very little criticisims or concerns are raised surronding 1.2 and after or various aspects of the game that are lacking. While its highly unlikely that ToR developers or anyone associated with them spend much time reading player post on various message boards I find it likely that they read 'professional' reviews and impressions by sites like mmorpg - does the lack of criticisim by the writers here thus contribute to the problems with ToR?
Do the writers at MMORPG have an obligation to be more critical of ToR for their community? Is their reviews of the game and it's system inflated? and why?
Comments
That's ridiculous.
That's like saying that if a movie critic liked Rocky VI and it tanked on the box office it would be the critics fault.
The all MMORPG.com aversion to hype is ridiculous, are people that insecure of their own opinions that they can't see gameplay vides or test the game and make their own mind?
But comparing movies and mmo's is not a correct analogy. Movies are a one time hit or miss while online games grow and change based on what the community wants. The ToR developers have tried to take the game in a direction they belive to be improving the game. I think some would argue the legacy system has been a complete underhwelmiing addition, despite this mmorpg has given it steller reviews.
It's hard to argue tons of resources and time have been spent dedicated to the legacy system, one must assume this has been at the cost of other areas of the game.
I find it VERY hard to look at their official review of the game and find those numbers realistic for any of the areas..
Well they did not and game is awesome untill you spend some time on level 50. So how they should know in 1-2 weeks how good is the end game
Apparently 8.5 is the new 'average'.
In a way you could be correct in that they helped create unrealistic expectations and thus lead to greater disappointement.(especially when people base a purchase of said reviews)
But they same can be said of fanboys i suppose.
I think they actually enjoyed the game and gave it high marks and wrote numerous articles about it for that reason alone. In fact, I think far more people enjoyed SWTOR than are represented by the relentless hordes of jaded MMO-haters on this website.
And how is that to blame on an internet review?
If anything it's 100% developers fault.
If you own an italian restaurant decide to add kebab to the menu, a food critic finds it a good idea.
One month later no one as touched the kebab, is that the critics fault?
Again, people put too much stock in a random minorities opinion and then blame them for having opinions?
MMorpg over-hyped the game thats for sure but to say they contributed to ToR's problems is just obsurd. The game itself was flawed on so many different levels that it was always doomed no matter what.
But, using your analogy for my OP I would say how ToR has done things is like this - Food critic finds adding a kebab to your menu a good idea, after a month the kebab get's overhwelmingly bad reviews and people are not buying it, the food critic goes out and continues to tell people how good the kebab is.
Does the food critic have some responsibility then for telling people the kebab is good even after the majority of people have said it was bad? I dunno, could be argued either way I guess..
That's ridiculous!
How can someone elses opinion get blamed for your unrealistic expectations?
You had the expectations, you're to blame.
I would give that idea some value if there wasn't thousands of videos, articles and texts about the game, but there are.
I had big expectation for SWTOR, then i read, saw and investigated, the expectations dissapeared.
Then why did not one single staff writer ever bring this up?
If he likes it, why would he state otherwise?
Someone that loves a movie won't change that love because the average rating on IMDB is 2.0.
quite the oposite, it helped hide the game flaws in the eyes of the careless customers...
It's the new philosophy of not accepting personal responsibility for a bad decision. Cheat on your spouse...I'm an addict, I'm sick. Buy a bad game....I'm sick, I ate a spoonful of what a website was offering.
It's not that he would state otherwise, it's that he failed to mention the otherside of the coin, that while he enjoys it a majority of people don't. The job of a food critic is to rate/review food for people, the job of a news agency is to provide unbias news and present both sides,, again though, were getting into territory that there is no right or wrong answer..
The aversion to reading the whole reviews is kind of silly too. I read the reviews and was not surprised by anything in the game. It's not their fault if readers are unable to distinguish the difference between an opinion and a description of a feature.
Saying that crafting is fun is an opinion. Describing the steps involved in crafting is a...well...description of the feature.
But yeah, I like MMORPG.com, but I don't think I would attribute a game's success or failure to this one website.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
No, this is a hyperbole argument...the questions I'm asking I feel go beyond this. Asking if a gaming website is over-inflating reviews is not similar to cheating on your spouse, or any other of your silly analogies..
You have to remember two things. MMorpg.com cares little aboutreporting accurate news or information and second the writers here simply do not play the games they write about.
MMorpg.com is not a news site and they do not care about giving accurate or useful information. They only care about page hits. That means their inetrest generally involves hyping games.
Second MMORPG.Com like all major MMO sites only emplays writers who do not play MMOs except in the most casual of definitions. They write their reviews after playing games for 30 minutes to two hours. They almost never make it out of the starting zone of any game and they will never write about one end game. There are exceptions like in the case of the green haired writer who wrote glowingly about ToR's endgame. But then again if you listen to what she said she knows almost nothing about MMOs. If you watch the videos she puts out you can see she plays awful. Constantly dies to the same things over and over. Is always standing in the fire and then complains on the video after she dies. So she fits in perfectly at this site. I want to be a gamer who has no idea what she is writing about.
The problem simply is these siktes are about money and that does not align with giving us accurate information or emplying actual game players.. Many of these major sites use quotas for their writers where the emphasis is always on the quantity of articles and very rarely on the quality. They want flashy articles that will get them page hits. That generally means they have to hype games to genrate fan interest to keep the fans coming back to read the next article they write containing usefuless hype.
If one wants more accurate info on a game in development one has to lok at independent sites. But keep in mind these sites even more so need to keep a psoitive relationship with the developer to continue to get information. But the information is sually a step up or ahead in what is being asled as independent site writers usually play the games they write about and are much mroe hardcore in playtime and knowledge.
The OP is right that sites like MMORPG.COM have gad a very harmful effect on the MMO genre. they have been a major contributor in the dumbing down of games. of allowing developers to sell millions of boxes o poorly made games that were released years early. Simply because they do not give accurate or useful information and they do not play MMOs enough to have any idea of what the state of any game in development is.
Your also using hyperbole - my question was has their over-hyping contributed to their problems, NOT has their over-hypeing been a keystone in the games success or failure...Twisting little things like that completely changes the point of my OP.
The thing with entertainment is that it's all a matter of opinion.
SWToR to this day is still considered an amazing game for some people, others hate it.
You can't blame an internet site for people's unrealistic expectations of an entertaiment product.
Specially since most sites dedicated to gaming don't even analize the product, but give opinions on it, which is incredibly different and one of the many many issues with todays media.
OP, your logic would work if every game that was overhyped tanked. However, it's just not true. Prime example - GW2, and for me TSW. Both are blowing me away and are making me happy. I went into them with the same mindset that I entered SWTOR with, yet SWTOR completely turned the table due to bad design decisions. Real simple. It's just not a friendly long term game. Not enough freedom, dead planets, linear quest hub progression, shallow MMO game systems and missing half the MMO systems considered staples in the genre, LFG finder being the most obvious of those.
I've had many critics overhype certain games that I found horrible. Halo is one of them. But that's my opinion and doesn't change the design of the game itself. If a game tanks, it's the game itself not the news articles about it.
Even if any reviewer had asked the "tough" questions, it still wouldn't of changed anything with the development of ToR, and to think so is a bit ridiculous. Even if mmorpg.com hadn't been apart of the hype train for ToR the fanbase would've still been present to over-hype the game. It's pretty much the same thing we've seen for nearly every single mmo release since WoW.
I'm not really sure how you can even come to the conclusion that a third party could even be remotely responsible for poor development of any game. The responsiblity for the state of ToR is laid squarely on the shoulders of the decision makers at Bioware/EA.
Yeah MMORPG.com staff helped over hype the game. Pokket esp, they borught her in (they being MMO and BW) to put a good spin on the game. Tho if you notice now she stopped talking about it unless it's for a vblog for MMO or BW and she doesn't play anymore.
It is nothing against her but it shows once the game is done advertising on a site the suppot and talk about it goes away. Cause before the launch when there were a zillion ads on MMO for SW:ToR it was getting talked about a lot. Come ot think about it only time I do see staff here talk about ToR is when there is ad space for ToR :-P
Anyway it's still an OK game they just need to work on it another year and do something about the sub fee. If it stays the way it is now they need to lower it price for their single player game
While I agree that it was hard to see the problems at first, I think that once it was obvious how anemic the game was, it would have been good for the writers to address this. There may be the whole problem of needing to be positive in order to get the interviews with the companies, but it would do more for the journalistic credibility of the writers to play devil's advocate more often.
As for the badness of SWTOR, I blame that on BW. The Hype was their fault too because they advertised out of alignment with their actual product. The long NDA silence actually acted to overpromise, and there was no check to this except for users from beta on the forums.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
This site is pretty popular but if you think ti alone could have that sort of effect on a worldwide game you are pretty naive about the industry. It may be one of the, if not the, most popular MMO news sites but I'd guess that about 95%+ people who play mmos haven't even visited it.
This sites community is a very vocal minority and that's about all there is to it.