132 réponses à ce sujet

[Otterwarden]

inSPECTRE Shepard wrote...

JamesX wrote...

Sadly true. If this game was called Mass Effect: With Dragons, or Dragon Effect, I would have given it a 8 or 9.

Mass Dragons?

Mass Apeal?

Playing off of the voiced objective to broaden the base to capture the CoD crowd.

[TheDarkShape]

If the exact same game was released under a different title, reviews would be similar, but the fan score would be *way* higher.

The fans are off-base here, not the critics. The fans are the ones who feel personally insulted, as though the developer owes them something (spoiler: BioWare doesn't owe you anything). So they rate out of a state of incensed "passion," not an objective look at the game itself.

[Otterwarden]

TheDarkShape wrote...

If the exact same game was released under a different title, reviews would be similar, but the fan score would be *way* higher.

The fans are off-base here, not the critics. The fans are the ones who feel personally insulted, as though the developer owes them something (spoiler: BioWare doesn't owe you anything). So they rate out of a state of incensed "passion," not an objective look at the game itself.

Hmm, that's a tough one.  What does a manufacturer of any good owe their customer?

Leaving aside the long marketing 101 debate, there is a general consensus that a branded product carries with it certain responsibilities if the brand loyalty is to be maintained.  Deviate too much from the original and disaster strikes (Coke often cited here as prime example).  The insult could easily stem from a feeling that DA:O was the "bait" and DA2 the "switch".  Was Bioware within its rights to deviate from the classical RPG framework they provided in DA:O?  Of course they are.  Are the customers within their rights to loudly complain that their expectations of brand consistency was not met?  Of course they are.

Modifié par Otterwarden, 17 mars 2011 - 09:11 .

[Vicious]

Pro critics think anything put out by Bethesda is god's gift to RPGs.

Do you agree? If you don't, u r teh disconnect

[AtreiyaN7]

Read the 0's and 1's and/or 10's and see what the supposed "reviews" say - if there seems to be some level of thought behind them, maybe they're valid. I'm guessing that the ones with either excessively high praise, or the ones where there are no comments/short one-line things saying "it's dumb" probably aren't legit.

I'd only trust something where someone actually manages to write at least one full paragraph indicating likes and dislikes (in a mature manner  ).

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 17 mars 2011 - 09:08 .

[DJBare]

TheDarkShape wrote... (spoiler: BioWare doesn't owe you anything).

In that case, fans don't owe Bioware or any developer support, I think that's fair, after all, it is the fans who pay their wages.

[Maverick827]

DJBare wrote...

TheDarkShape wrote... (spoiler: BioWare doesn't owe you anything).
In that case, fans don't owe Bioware or any developer support, I think that's fair, after all, it is the fans who pay their wages.

Not owing someone support and deliberately sabotaging (admittedly meaningless) ratings are two different things.

[DJBare]

Maverick827 wrote...Not owing someone support and deliberately sabotaging (admittedly meaningless) ratings are two different things.

Sabotage maybe, but obviously they were angry enough to do it, now I agree it's a childish thing to do, but Bioware took a risk by taking a new direction and it bit them in the ****.

[Cobrawar]

I noticed the huge gap as well. reviewers want advertising dollars for their sites/magazines so if they give a game a bad review the game company can punish them but not throwing as much advertising their way. fans have nothing to lose or gain. They know what they like and don't like and the game is either fail or great.

[Otterwarden]

Maverick827 wrote...

DJBare wrote...

TheDarkShape wrote... (spoiler: BioWare doesn't owe you anything).
In that case, fans don't owe Bioware or any developer support, I think that's fair, after all, it is the fans who pay their wages.

Not owing someone support and deliberately sabotaging (admittedly meaningless) ratings are two different things.

Meaningless in whose eyes?  Would you prefer a "tumbs up"/"tumbs down" metric?  Consequences/message would be the same.

[Maverick827]

Otterwarden wrote...

Meaningless in whose eyes?  Would you prefer a "tumbs up"/"tumbs down" metric?  Consequences/message would be the same.

Subjective things cannot be measured objectively.  I prefer no rating systems, just reporting on facts.

[Otterwarden]

Maverick827 wrote...

Otterwarden wrote...

Meaningless in whose eyes?  Would you prefer a "tumbs up"/"tumbs down" metric?  Consequences/message would be the same.

Subjective things cannot be measured objectively.  I prefer no rating systems, just reporting on facts.

Then you'll have to wait for the published sales figures.

[UltimoCrofto]

I personally would rate this game as 7.5 and DAO 9.0. So you know where I stand but how do explain the disconnect between the two?

Quite simple - reviewers are, on the whole, uninformed morons who don't understand the concept of critiquing. Furthermore, any game published by a company that pays them heafty advertisement money inherently has their games scored higher. It's basic stuff.

Recent example - Homefront on Eurogamer scores a 6/10, while Bulletstorm - a game which is equally of 6/10 quality - scores a 9/10*. Bulletstorm is published by EA, so the morons at Eurogamer have to make sure they keep the boys happy, while Homefront is scored low since THQ aren't made of cash, so it's irrelevant. Ya dig?

To pinpoint Dragon Age II: Typically big-named games gain praise from both "professional" reviewers and "normal" gamers alike, this is just because gamers are typically young and stupid, and are easily influenced into thinking what they're playing is good when it isn't. However, on rare occasions, a game's quality will be of such indifference that people begin to notice to an extent which surpasses the usual handful of negativity towards a big-budget game. Despite EA's, BioWare's, and gaming media's best efforts, Dragon Age 2 is of such a low quality that "normal" gamers have noticed to a large extent. Hence the contradicting review scores on Metacritic. Personally I wish "normal" gamers would react this way to most disappointing big-name titles - since this is the only way a developer will learn from their mistakes; if they're constantly lavished with praise, as BioWare wrongly often are, then we're none the better for it - but that isn't the case.

Hope this explains things for you clearly.

*Eurogamer's actual opinion on these games isn't a consideration; they've proven to be inconsistent with reviews and it all boils down to how popular and big the game/publisher is. It is this way with 90% of magazines/websites. Saying that they actually think Homefront is 6/10 is fair enough, but by that definition Bulletstorm is most certainly not a 9/10.

Modifié par UltimoCrofto, 17 mars 2011 - 11:32 .

[Wittand25]

UltimoCrofto wrote...

I personally would rate this game as 7.5 and DAO 9.0. So you know where I stand but how do explain the disconnect between the two?

Quite simple - reviewers are, on the whole, uninformed morons who don't understand the concept of critiquing. Furthermore, any game published by a company that pays them heafty advertisement money inherently has their games scored higher. It's basic stuff.

Recent example - Homefront on Eurogamer scores a 6/10, while Bulletstorm - a game which is equally of 6/10 quality - scores a 9/10*. Bulletstorm is published by EA, so the morons at Eurogamer have to make sure they keep the boys happy, while Homefront is scored low since THQ aren't made of cash, so it's irrelevant. Ya dig?

To pinpoint Dragon Age II: Typically big-named games gain praise from both "professional" reviewers and "normal" gamers alike, this is just because gamers are typically young and stupid, and are easily influenced into thinking what they're playing is good when it isn't. However, on rare occasions, a game's quality will be of such indifference that people begin to notice to an extent which surpasses the usual handful of negativity towards a big-budget game. Despite EA's, BioWare's, and gaming media's best efforts, Dragon Age 2 is of such a low quality that "normal" gamers have noticed to a large extent. Hence the contradicting review scores on Metacritic. Personally I wish "normal" gamers would react this way to most disappointing big-name titles - since this is the only way a developer will learn from their mistakes; if they're constantly lavished with praise, as BioWare wrongly often are, then we're none the better for it - but that isn't the case.

Please explain then why metacritic is the only user review that is off that much. If you check other user reviews you will see that the DA2 gets user scores of about 7 /10. DA2 is not as good a game as DA:O by common agrement from both professianals and users but the metacritic user score is a total joke.

[Leharic]

Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread, but;

GameFAQs Rating Average 8.0 From 182 users
http://www.gamefaqs....-age-ii/mygames

GameFAQS Ranking Average 8.0 From 24 reviews
http://www.gameranki...i/articles.html

[Otterwarden]

Wittand25 wrote...

Please explain then why metacritic is the only user review that is off that much. If you check other user reviews you will see that the DA2 gets user scores of about 7 /10. DA2 is not as good a game as DA:O by common agrement from both professianals and users but the metacritic user score is a total joke.

The scores on Amazon.com are very low, and many make an effort to explain why they've rated it as such. 

Bioware seems to feel that Metacritic's user section was compromised, but I'm not buying a giant conspiracy given the design changes and the likelihood that they were not well received by core RPG fans. 

[Jiggasaurus]

Always find it best to approach games with an open mind, similar for other forms of entertainment such as music and film. It often makes me amused when you read say an imdb film review where the review starts with “I didn’t have much hope for this film…” and shock horror they still paid to view it and expect people to read through their dross.

As far as gaming reviews go, is anyone really that surprised by the ever growing hatchet job conglomerate that’s emanated from the fan groups and industry down the years, the ad hoc, ill-informed haters?

I wouldn’t trust most of the user ‘Metacritic reviewers’ to turn a light on, let alone expect their opinion to justify whether or not I spend 30-40 £/$ on a product.

Find a professional reviewer that you can build faith upon over time, read their reviews for all other games and if you paid for a game that they reviewed and finished with a similar conclusion to them with past products, then you can hold their opinion in higher regard on the subject matter personally.

[Wittand25]

Otterwarden wrote...

Wittand25 wrote...

Please explain then why metacritic is the only user review that is off that much. If you check other user reviews you will see that the DA2 gets user scores of about 7 /10. DA2 is not as good a game as DA:O by common agrement from both professianals and users but the metacritic user score is a total joke.

The scores on Amazon.com are very low, and many make an effort to explain why they've rated it as such. 

Bioware seems to feel that Metacritic's user section was compromised, but I'm not buying a giant conspiracy given the design changes and the likelihood that they were not well received by core RPG fans. 

Amazon.com has an average score of 3.5/5 so what are you talking about. That is exactly the number I gave. And since every site that allows user reviews has a higher average than the metacritic site the only logical assumption is that it is the one average that is wildly off that is wrong and not the other ten that all are roughly the same value.

[CitizenSnips]

The critics did their job and fairly reviewed the game.

A small upset portion of DA:O fans nerdraged on forums and then carpet bombed Metacritic with abysmal reviews.

Don't mistake most players for the people crying the Dragon Age sky is falling.

[Athro]

There isn't a disconnect. There was a rush at the beginning by some disgruntled fans to drag the score down on metacritic in the release days. If you had been watching metacritic daily, the user score has been slowly creeping up, and metacritic also removed a number of "votes" after it was found that some people had been creating multiple accounts to just rate the game "0."

I expect in a couple of months time you'll see the score settle around 7-8/10 which seems to be the agreed median score.

I can confirm, anecdotally, that there was user on the RPGnet forums who explicitly admitted to voting "0" on all three platforms on Metacritic without having played the game simply because he wanted to punish Bioware.

I'm not so sure about the raid conspiracy theory - haven't seen the evidence - but there is evidence of people following the ideas of others individually - and you will note if you look at a number of the reviews, people have only written a review for DA2 and then copy pasted it for multiple platforms.

So the metacritic user scores are questionable in their reliability.

C.

[Otterwarden]

Wittand25 wrote...

Amazon.com has an average score of 3.5/5 so what are you talking about. That is exactly the number I gave. And since every site that allows user reviews has a higher average than the metacritic site the only logical assumption is that it is the one average that is wildly off that is wrong and not the other ten that all are roughly the same value.

I'm a PC elitist, so the aggregate score I see is 2 1/4 stars (or 4.5 out of 10 - very close to metacritics 4.3), and that type of feedback warrants further investigation as it would not be what I would expect from a sequel of a blockbuster.  Might be tied to buggy issues, operating systems, SecuROM...whatever, so nothing should be assumed.  It was not hard however to uncover the reasons.

Personally, if a game is 3.5/5 based on gameplay review, I'm not paying full launch retail.  This is especially true if the company is pushing DLC upsells.  Don't want to reward that model.

Modifié par Otterwarden, 18 mars 2011 - 12:41 .

[Gatt9]

Wittand25 wrote...

Otterwarden wrote...

Wittand25 wrote...

Please explain then why metacritic is the only user review that is off that much. If you check other user reviews you will see that the DA2 gets user scores of about 7 /10. DA2 is not as good a game as DA:O by common agrement from both professianals and users but the metacritic user score is a total joke.

The scores on Amazon.com are very low, and many make an effort to explain why they've rated it as such. 

Bioware seems to feel that Metacritic's user section was compromised, but I'm not buying a giant conspiracy given the design changes and the likelihood that they were not well received by core RPG fans. 

Amazon.com has an average score of 3.5/5 so what are you talking about. That is exactly the number I gave. And since every site that allows user reviews has a higher average than the metacritic site the only logical assumption is that it is the one average that is wildly off that is wrong and not the other ten that all are roughly the same value.

There's a critical error in your assumption.

You're assuming that the other sites permit the user reviews to stand fairly,  when the truth is they have a strong motivation to manipulate them.

Gaming site reviews are only as good as they're perceived to be,  and alot of perception is how close their reviews are to the average user opinions.  If Gamespot rates a game an 8,  and the users rate it a 4,  well then Gamespot starts losing traffic,  because it says to people that they don't know how to rate games.

So gaming sites make appear to make sure the ratings fall within a tolerance of the review scores.  They do this by conviently removing scores below a certain threshold.  If you go look through Gamespot's reviews,  you'll find that scores below a certain number don't exist. 

You can even find the point these sites did their last culling at,  because you'll see low ratings up until a certain point and then they disappear. 

It's not in the sites best interests to let user reviews stand fairly.

[Athro]

Gatt9 wrote...

Wittand25 wrote...

Otterwarden wrote...

Wittand25 wrote...

Please explain then why metacritic is the only user review that is off that much. If you check other user reviews you will see that the DA2 gets user scores of about 7 /10. DA2 is not as good a game as DA:O by common agrement from both professianals and users but the metacritic user score is a total joke.

The scores on Amazon.com are very low, and many make an effort to explain why they've rated it as such. 

Bioware seems to feel that Metacritic's user section was compromised, but I'm not buying a giant conspiracy given the design changes and the likelihood that they were not well received by core RPG fans. 

Amazon.com has an average score of 3.5/5 so what are you talking about. That is exactly the number I gave. And since every site that allows user reviews has a higher average than the metacritic site the only logical assumption is that it is the one average that is wildly off that is wrong and not the other ten that all are roughly the same value.

There's a critical error in your assumption.

You're assuming that the other sites permit the user reviews to stand fairly,  when the truth is they have a strong motivation to manipulate them.

Gaming site reviews are only as good as they're perceived to be,  and alot of perception is how close their reviews are to the average user opinions.  If Gamespot rates a game an 8,  and the users rate it a 4,  well then Gamespot starts losing traffic,  because it says to people that they don't know how to rate games.

So gaming sites make appear to make sure the ratings fall within a tolerance of the review scores.  They do this by conviently removing scores below a certain threshold.  If you go look through Gamespot's reviews,  you'll find that scores below a certain number don't exist. 

You can even find the point these sites did their last culling at,  because you'll see low ratings up until a certain point and then they disappear. 

It's not in the sites best interests to let user reviews stand fairly.

Wait. So you're trying to claim that because nobody scored a game below a certain number it is because the site is culling them?

Despite there being absolutely no evidence to support this other than you say it is so?

That's a bold statement to make when you have no evidence, Ser.

Edit: I believe this requires the application of Occam's Razor - it is much more plausible that nobody voted below a certain number than to assume some complex conspiracy to falsify the scores.

I do believe that algorithms may negate outlier votes - so if only one person votes 10 or 1 those numbers aren't calculated - but that is traditional statistics and not some conspiracy. They are looking for the median - not the outliers because the median will tell you what that majority of gamers feel - and that is what other gamers are looking for out of these numbers.

C.

Modifié par Athro, 18 mars 2011 - 01:04 .

[Temaperacl]

TheDarkShape wrote...

If the exact same game was released under a different title, reviews would be similar, but the fan score would be *way* higher.

The fans are off-base here, not the critics. The fans are the ones who feel personally insulted, as though the developer owes them something (spoiler: BioWare doesn't owe you anything). So they rate out of a state of incensed "passion," not an objective look at the game itself.

I don't disagree with your initial statement, but I have an alternate interpretation as to why.
By putting it under another title, you would have had a different set of people purchase it. By naming it as they did, it was an invitation to people who enjoyed or heard good things about DA:O.
It isn't a case of entitlement but a case of BioWare marketing it in a manner that would attract people (DA:O fans) who may not enjoy the style of play offered by DA2.  Selling a game to people who don't like that type of game is not a good way to obtain high scores for the game.

[Otterwarden]

Gatt9 wrote...

You're assuming that the other sites permit the user reviews to stand fairly,  when the truth is they have a strong motivation to manipulate them.

Gaming site reviews are only as good as they're perceived to be,  and alot of perception is how close their reviews are to the average user opinions.  If Gamespot rates a game an 8,  and the users rate it a 4,  well then Gamespot starts losing traffic,  because it says to people that they don't know how to rate games.

So gaming sites make appear to make sure the ratings fall within a tolerance of the review scores.  They do this by conviently removing scores below a certain threshold.  If you go look through Gamespot's reviews,  you'll find that scores below a certain number don't exist. 

You can even find the point these sites did their last culling at,  because you'll see low ratings up until a certain point and then they disappear. 

It's not in the sites best interests to let user reviews stand fairly.

As always, you are a fountain of new information