283 réponses à ce sujet

[Firky]

AmstradHero wrote...

Every reviewer is influenced by their personal bias, even if they know they have to try and keep it out.

I agree, Amstrad. (And I find this topic really depressing.) Personally, I'm very glad that many online communities can value the individual differences that reviewers bring, based on experience, expectation, audience, etc etc etc. I don't think a reviewer has to keep personal bias out of anything, as long as the review comes with sufficient information that allows the reader to make the right decision for them.

If you know your audience, then you can provide information and your own opinion concurrently. Not every review has to be, "Greatest RPG in years. 9/10." It could also be, "I freaking loved new features and it improved upon many aspects of Origins, but many RPG fans are going to hate it. 9/10." Or "In DAII, the story carries it, but if you're looking for roleplaying, forget it. 9/10." Or "Recycled dungeons did not detract from what was a truly evocative experience, for the following reasons ..... 9/10. " You could also substitute a much lower score for any of those, too, and find infinite variations of impression. Or it could look totally different if there were different reviewing/scoring criteria, as defined by different outlets. I think a world with much freer, much more authentic scoring would benefit everyone.

I really don't get the preoccupation with trying to prove there is one correct opinion on gaming - or a game. There really isn't. Some people go on about DA2 and how many reviewers are "clueless" or "paid off" because of a decent volume of pre-release period high scores. There is a simpler explanation, and that is that some/many pre-release reviewers really enjoyed/thought it was a great game. I know I did. Others didn't. That's fine. I can totally respect that.

PS. In a nutshell. I think that reviewer integrity comes from accurately representing yourself, and your audience, even if it doesn't necessarily always gel 100%

Modifié par Firky, 19 décembre 2011 - 12:39 .

[AmstradHero]

[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
I can just point you to where I wrote my editorial, but since you asked nicely, here is the abridged version of the long editorial I did write about this for you. (or you can skip to the link. Your choice i'm nice like that.)
[/quote]
I read the whole thing. I like being informed. I'll address the points in order:
1. Gripe about 360 interface - I played on PC. It's not a great interface, but not significantly more clunky than other games.  Irrelevant for me.

2. Skill trees.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
...you can still pick master locks without even training in lock picking,
they don’t make it a minimum requirement anymore as they did in Oblivion or Fallout 3. And let’s not forget the Skeleton Key is also in the game too...
They also favor combat trees over utility ones, and it shows in the progressions and powers given to them.
[/quote]
Sure you can pick a master lock without a minimum requirement, but you better have a lot of patience and a bucketload of lockpicks, because they break a heck of a lot faster than they do in either of those two games. And what if you don't join the thieves guild and hence track down the skeleton key. Then you've got choice, which the last time I checked, was one of the things RPGs tried to grant.

As for combat trees being favoured... obviously you didn't play a character focused on smithing and enchanting. I took only a single point in the armor, weapon and destruction trees for a very long time  (and I was getting around in light armour and with axes augmented with some fire), and focused on smithing and enchanting. You seem to have discounted these as useless trees - but I didn't need to put points into those other trees, because I managed to become very powerful (and rich) from my own created gear.

The skill trees themselves aren't unbalanced, it's the entire late game power structure that is unbalanced, but that's frequently the case in any game where you've got the ability to pick and choose from a vast array of abilities. Remember how obscenely broken and powerful you could become in BG2, NWN, Morrowind, Risen, DEHR? No, it doesn't make it better, but it's in good company.

3.Melting pot of classes. Yeah, I'll agree with you on this. It makes race choice less unique. Massive gamebreaking design flaw? Hardly. Also, you undermine a complaint in your lore section
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
You never hear a word based on your race, which is a problem from both a story and a gameplay standpoint. ...
[/quote]
with
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
races no longer matter, with the exception of a few minor dialogue changes in-game
[/quote]
Whoops. I guess you do hear a word based on your race. In fact, as a Nord, I had it commented on quite a bit.

I'll jump ahead to 5 - Complaining about the Stormcloak/Imperial questline.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
So you have the choice between the xenophobic, zealot-like Nords, or the murdering, enslaving Imperials.
[/quote]
This smacks of the "grey choices" that everyone lauds The Witcher series for. Which bad choice is the lesser of two evils? How come here it's a "I don't want to side with either of them", but in The Witcher it's "the pinnacle of grey morality"?

[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
Why have the factions to begin with? Or let’s take is a step further, when you play as an elf or imperial, why would the Stormcloaks even allow you to join them in retaking Skyrim for the Nords? Why would the imperials be so trusting of a Nord character on the flip-side?
[/quote]
Tullius' number 1 offsider is a Nord. There are also plenty of Nords who hate the Stormcloaks. Same goes the other way. Not every Altmer is a Thalmor, and not every Imperial believes that the Empire should simply roll over and let the Thalmor dictate that Talos can no longer be worshipped. An inability to roleplay your character or accept the diversity of the lore (which as I'll discuss below, is evident) does not constitute a failure of the game.

Finally, point 4 - Irrelevant or inconsistent lore.
I really could not disagree more. What's more, your logic and arugment is internally inconsistent.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
The Concordant basically gave the Thalmor power in the south...  the Thalmor rarely show up as a force in Skyrim, which quickly undermines their importance to the conflicts that happened over 30 years ago
[/quote]
Yes, it gave them power in the SOUTH. Skyrim is in the North, and the Thalmor don't have much sway up here, and have very little presence because they know they'll get butchered if they try and establish a significant presence. Besides, they're technically at peace with the Empire because of the Concordant. This isn't an inconsistency.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
A lot of characters talk about the problems in Tamriel often, but it doesn’t relate to you because you are a blank slate, so the events of the past 201 years are just gathering information your character should know already.
[/quote]
Sorry, how is this any different to any other game? The player does not have the knowledge of the character, and to be honest, do we really expect our character to be a historian familiar with all the ins-and-outs of Tamriel's history. That hardly seems a fair measuring stick.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
And a lot of it is more important to the richness you talk about. For example, the Thalmor and the Aldmeri Dominion beating the tar out of the Imperials, forcing them to sign the Concordt in 175 4E. And yet, the effects of the Condcort are only really seen in the Stormcloak Rebellion that takes place. effects that are superficial at best and totally based on here-say, a questline that is regulated into the misc. pile when it should be inter-twined with the main story.
[/quote]
You mean, like say, breaking into a Thalmor embassy and attempting to broker a peace between the two warring sides? Sure, the truce is not as complex as it could have been, but it is there. You personally don't like it, but that doesn't mean that it's not there or that the lore is irrelevant.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
Add to this the fact that Elswyr is now two different countries technically, Vvardenfell was destroyed by Red mountain anyway (meaning Morrowind as a game was totally pointless since you were the prophsesized Nevararine that would defend Vvardenfel, and the world, from destruction) ... and Hammerfell is now independent, thats a lot to take in with the games second-hand way of showing information.
[/quote]
So why should these changes have a massive effect on Skyrim? It's not an easy journey to reach the North, and each province has it's own politics and problems, and these tend to be contained within the borders outside of wars. Besides, you still see effects of these anyway! How about the Gray Quarter, complaints about all the refugees from Vvardenfell (which you DID save - from Dagoth Ur), or you can even turn over a traitor of Hammerfell? The splitting of Elswyr is about the only one that doesn't really come up, but given how far away it is, that's not really a great surprise.
[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
Basically, the lore is forgotten. You learn it as you go, and what is taught is a severe lack of consistancy, urgency, and caring about it. The lore lacks any attachment and weight to it, which makes a lot of the conflicts drama-less and boring even more than they are. 
[/quote]
Again, I couldn't disagree more. You seem to be wilfully wanting to disengage with the lore because the overall game doesn't suit your tastes. You don't like the way the game forces you to take an active interest in the lore if you want to find out about it - there's no historians to converse with, no abstract codex you keep that stores every bit of lore about the world in an easily accessible form at your fingertips. I love codex entries as much as the next person, but Elder Scrolls goes for a different approach of "if you want to know about the lore, you need to find it yourself, explore libraries and gather your own collection of books".

This isn't a design flaw, it's merely a fundamentally different approach to letting the player have access to that information. How is it any less incongruous for the player to have a full codex entry of detailed history at their fingertips simply because someone mentioned a location in passing?

I'm not saying Skyrim is a perfect game. I've written my own opinions on design shortcomings within the game. But any argument that the lore is shallow, inconsistent or irrelevant is just plain wrong.

DA2 could have done well to follow Skyrim's lead in terms of its lore. DA2 simply doesn't follow on well from DAO. You killed off a character the writer's liked in DAO + expansion/DLC? Ah, well, tough. We're going to magic them back to life! Wait, everyone loved character X! We need to have them make a cameo in DA2! One of DA2's major flaws as a sequel was that it seemed to toss so much established knowledge right out the window. Now, I'd assume that the talented writers at BioWare didn't actually do that, which means that if it wasn't the content that failed, it was the presentation at fault. Either way, it's something that needs to be addressed, and Skyrim's coherency demonstrates how this can be done and done well.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 19 décembre 2011 - 01:24 .

[AmstradHero]

Firky wrote...
I don't think a reviewer has to keep personal bias out of anything, as long as the review comes with sufficient information that allows the reader to make the right decision for them.

In a nutshell. I think that reviewer integrity comes from accurately representing yourself, and your audience, even if it doesn't necessarily always gel 100%

Couldn't agree more. I find it telling when a reviewer does or doesn't mention specific aspects of a game. For example, if I read a review about MW3 talking about the "gripping story of MW2", I'll immediately discount their opinion  on writing.  Same goes for if someone talks about "DAO's superior combat to DA2", because DAO's combat fails miserably in comparison.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Zero Punctuation, because he'll brutally pull apart the flaws of a game. I won't have a balanced opinion of the game, but I'll likely be told about the things that will potentially annoy me. Combined with other reviews, I can make an informed decision on whether I will purchase a particular game.

One thing I will not be doing is looking at metacritic average scores (or any score) as my sole measurement for a game. I contend that review scores are the worst thing for game reviews and their place within the gaming industry in a whole, particularly given the raucous complaints and flamewars that spread like wildfire between idiots on the Internet and even garner complaints from developers themselves because a game scores 8 or 9 instead of 10.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 19 décembre 2011 - 01:12 .

[Firky]

I think there are some games which are really obviously going to satisfy their audience, and some which aren't. For the one's that aren't, I think it's wise for reviewers to get descriptive and raise questions, rather than try to prove their opinion is correct. But yes, finding sources that make sense for you, as the reader, has to be the best approach.



I really don't know what impact scores have on big budget devs, but I am aware of some potential pitfalls of scoring Indies low. To be honest, I wish I wasn't aware of those pitfalls, because the last thing you want to do is put up walls for passionate, small teams. (I hate scores. I take them very seriously, but I'd love to see an industry overhaul.)

Modifié par Firky, 19 décembre 2011 - 01:20 .

[LinksOcarina]

I'm not one for dividing up a long post, so I will briefly talk about the points here again...even though this is a pointless argument and were going off-topic.

1. So? It doesn't excuse the fact that it's poorly implemented on all platforms. Still a problem, and one that people praised for some reason. But thats why it was my only nitpick in the pack.

2. My first run was a Breton Conjurer, my second a Wood Elf Archer. Both I avoided smithing, and only after the fact people pointed out how broken smithing was to begin with. Apparently you can have the best armor in the game, all enchanted, by level 16-17, and be untouchable. Exploiting the skill tree system is an inherent flaw. At the end of the day the trees are still unbalanced because of these flaws, and it directly correlates to the late game power surge you talked about.

And since Bethesda said they wanted to streamline this and try to make the game less exploitable, they failed at their job.

3. Glad we have some common ground.

5. That was a problem with The Witcher as well. But the thing is here, both sides are not in shades of grey, both sides are Black and more black. or White and more white, take your pick on the analogy, the point is the factions become a moot point because both are horrendous first off, and second have no weight, which brings us to point 4.

point 4. *sigh* I know it's your opinion on things. Thats fine, I won't change it. But the problem here is that yes, other games do this, but they do it right because of HOW they do this.

I don't mean just codexes, or prologues, or whatnot. I mean gradually showcase information to you. Where Skyrim failed is the fact that everything about the lore is insignificant to the plot. The thalmor show up in an infiltration mission? Cool. Why don't we see more. Yeah they have power in Cyrodiil and Valenwood, and the Summerset Isle (forget the new name right now) but they also have something called influence. I wanted to see more of the Thalmor in the main quest, pulling strings or even being a bigger hindrance to the PC.

The problem is the Thalmor come off, in the lore, as an influential force, but we never see it in Skyrim. Your right they have a small presence up there, but that small presence needs to make an impact, at least in terms of what was established about them in the books you read.

Second problem, and this is where I really need to emphasize something. Yes, they are there. But they are POINTLESS. Not because of my own opinions on them, but because, in the grand scheme of the game, they serve no purpose except one quest. It goes against what the lore says about the Thalmor and the Nords a bit too; if anything there should be a bit more bad blood between them but we don't really see it. Were told it, which is a bigger sin if you ask me.

Lastly, these changes should affect Skyrim because it was within the past 30 years of the games timeline. Any historian can tell you that one generation of time, massive changes can happen between nations. The Grey Quarter was well implemented (but the reason behind is not. Seriously this one bugs me the most of all, why bother saving Vvardenfell from Dagoth Ur when less than 30 years later Vvardenfell is destroyed anyway? That's not pointless?) and I liked the scarcity of Argonians and Khajits in-game. Point being though, in 30 years we should be seeing more splintering of the empire; more influence of the Concordt in Skyrim and High Rock, since they were removed from the war. We should see bad blood between Hammerfell since they basically said screw the Empire.

We don't though. It's not a question of how the game forces me to learn about it, it's more of a question of how the game handles it, which is poorly. I want to be interested in the games world, but it's hard to care when it is insignificant to the surroundings your in.

To sum it up: doesn't matter if its via codex's or through books you find in-game. Skyrim treats the lore terribly. It's not a comparison to other games in that regard, or else it would be a major problem with Elder Scroll games in general. Here they basically screw over four established games by changing things so radically, and trying to justify it all in-game the same way they always do it. You can't make fundamental changes to established lore like that, or else you get the Star Wars effect.

And contrary to what you believe, the game is in my tastes. It just didn't do a good job.

[DeathDragon185]

oh please IGN gave Legacy a 6.. This is nothing more than something to appease the people who gave them lots backlash.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Gunderic wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Oh yes, so much more tiresome than the prickly girl or the easy girl or the princess girl? LoL.

What?

There are plenty of other "archetypes" (and dear gods and demons how I hate that word and all the crap that goes along with it) repeated over and over again in the female NPCs of videos games... singling out the "competent but reserved" female NPC as "tiresome" requires all others to be dismissed as such at least as readily.

[AmstradHero]

LinksOcarina wrote...
Lastly, these changes should affect Skyrim because it was within the past 30 years of the games timeline. Any historian can tell you that one generation of time, massive changes can happen between nations. The Grey Quarter was well implemented (but the reason behind is not. Seriously this one bugs me the most of all, why bother saving Vvardenfell from Dagoth Ur when less than 30 years later Vvardenfell is destroyed anyway? That's not pointless?) and I liked the scarcity of Argonians and Khajits in-game. Point being though, in 30 years we should be seeing more splintering of the empire; more influence of the Concordt in Skyrim and High Rock, since they were removed from the war. We should see bad blood between Hammerfell since they basically said screw the Empire.

We don't though. It's not a question of how the game forces me to learn about it, it's more of a question of how the game handles it, which is poorly. I want to be interested in the games world, but it's hard to care when it is insignificant to the surroundings your in.

Actually, Vvardenfell was destroyed over a hundred years later, but what's a century between friends?

The problem to me is that you're expecting the game to treat you like a closed-path game, like say... The Witcher 1/2 or DAO/DA2. In these, typically whenever you're introduced to something, it's to set up a future pay off that ties in with the linear telling of the the linear tale that the game offers. Certain themes and conflicts are reinforced throughout the game because this is the primary focus of the story.

Skyrim (and all Elder Scrolls game) have a main plot, but it's the setting that is the key aspect of the game. Same goes for Fallout. There's a main plot (which was utterly hideous in Fallout 3's case), but this isn't the primary experience for the player. It's the exploration of the world and the multitude of quests and locations to uncover and delve into.  In this case, not everything can relate to the "core" plot (because once it's over, there's no point), and more importantly, not everything should. There's plenty of bad blood with the Thalmor, and they're actually involved in several quests, and mentioned in many more, but not everything should relate to them. It would feel like a contrived setting, rather than a realistic one. There's not the dedicated set-up and payoff - just like if someone was exploring in a "real" world. There are plenty of quests that raise lore issues as a related concern, it's just not shoved down your throat, and nor should it be.

The fact that you're raising it an issue that you personally believe that the game didn't show the effect of these events enough (perhaps you didn't ever have, say,  an encounter where a group of Thalmor travelling in the wilderness were ambushed by a group of Stormcloaks, or similar such occurrences), only demonstrates my previous point regarding inherent bias in reviewing. You're declaring the game's design is at fault, when it's your personal opinion that the game didn't deliver sufficiently in this regard. That's not a design issue - that's player preference.

Which brings me back to my closing point last time in tying the discussion back to DA2. DA2 does deliver the set-up and pay-off with the lore it represents to you. It introduces various characters and factions that later play a significant role, but some of these act inconsistently with how they have been represented previously, which weakens the strength of the lore. Furthermore, the problem with this is that it paints all these factions as being reasonable and seems to present the player the ability to walk a tempered line of truce to avoid conflict. Yet this is simply a weak facade that is crushed underneath arbitrary events that force the player into fighting, and ultimately ends up undermining the choice that they made by casting their chosen allies into the pits of insanity.

That is the weakness of DA2's lore, in that it may deliver the consistent set-up and pay-off that you seem to crave, but does it in a matter that undermines the credibility established by its predecessor and the internal consistency of the game. This design flaw is what gives rise to the frequent and credible complaints levelled at the game for the lack of choice and the apparently irrational behaviour of several NPCs within the game.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 19 décembre 2011 - 12:36 .

[The Hierophant]

DeathDragon185 wrote...

oh please IGN gave Legacy a 6.. This is nothing more than something to appease the people who gave them lots backlash.

Regardless of my issues with DA2, opinion wise Legacy was an definate improvement and deserved nothing less than a 8.5.