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Can you tell if a game is good or not....
Albytaps
Member Posts: 208
within the first few minutes?
I know a few games like EQ, WoW, FFXI (this one was a bit slower but was already a FF fan) took me a minute or 2 before I knew how awesome the game was.
Other games like PotBS, Horizons, EQ2 I almost knew right away those games were lacking... some more than others.
I guess it's the addictiveness of the games. I just need a taste and I know if I want more or not.
How bout you guys? How long does it usually take you to figure out if you like a game or not?
Comments
I tend to gather from what people say on forums such as these. Seriously, if you see a game where 75% of the crowd hate the game and only a handset of die hard are trying to defend it, then let’s be realistic here… What are the odds that I’ll like the game myself? However, I usually try to find a constructive post and from that point am I able to see if the game is for me or not.
Now I usually give a game a few nights try and if I like it, I’ll probably come back for more and more. If it’s a triple AAA mmo, then I really pray that it’s good else I’ll simply cry for wasting money then quit lol.
I like the details in a game and if the first thing I see is complete crap or rushed, then I’ll probably leave on the spot. If it’s not too bad, then I’ll give it a fair shot and see if I get hooked.
If its not WOW.
OK, just kidding, didn't mean to rag on WOW. I usually give games a fair trial, at least a week, and if I'm still entertained I keep going for a full month. Then I decide if I want to continue my sub or not.
Some games like RFO and Archlord failed to grab me by the first week or two. DDO I gave a month trial, LotRO and VG actually got 2 months.
No magic forumula really, and like you said, some games start out a bit slow (EVE, DAOC) but really grab you if you stick with it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If your not having fun within 10 mins then why would you carry on playing it wasting your time? I hate people who say you havn't give the game a chance and it's like well why would i carry on playing something i'm not enjoying?
Like i logged in to DAOC trial and hated the UI and hated the bad movement and the fact i couldn't find anyone playing as a low level, so i quit the game because i wasn't having fun and obviously they're game breaking issues.
Because sometimes it takes a bit of time to learn how to play the game properly and full appreciate everything it has to offer.
Perhaps if you had taken the time to get acclimated to the UI, learned how to move properly, and figured out where the low level players were still at (Classic servers, usually on Gareth) then you would have had a more enjoyable experience.
Your impatience may cost you many fun hours of gaming one day.
But from your post history you seem like an angry, impatient sort anyways.
Who the hell are you, and why should I care?
Congrats! You are a victim of Trollstar!
With Singleplayer games, I would say, yes, you can tell after 2 or 3 minutes if you like em or not and based on that decision, keep playing or toss 'em in the dumpster.
MMO's...now I find that a bit harder. Sure, there may be things that tick you off in the beginning. Feeling a bit uncomfortable with the strange new UI? Character animation not totally what you agree with? All possible. Can you still have fun? You bet you can!
See, for me at least, MMO's are as much about the community as they are about a well-developed, intuitive gameplay. A game can have the best content, gameplay and graphics ever developed, if the community is dead/crappy, I will not play it. If the game has the worst possible gameplay and/or graphics and so on, but had the best people around, I would consider it. For me, the largest part of the fun from online gameplay is that you play it with others. Find a group of people you enjoy playing with and you can have fun in any of the games currently out there (roughly said). And finding a group of nice people can take a bit more than 2 minutes.
Granted, if after a few weeks you still haven't found a decent player to play with, or you and your friends all decide the game sucks, then it's time to move on. Chances are there may still be parts of the community you#re missing, but by that point, at least for me, it gets too frustrating.
*shrug* Anyway, my 2 cents on the matter.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I can tell a great game or an awful game in about 10 minutes. It's the ones in the middle that usually take a couple hours to try to determine. I don't think I've ever started playing a game and thought 'eh' and then a while later went 'WOW'. It might be a little better than 'eh' but it won't blow me away. Games that blow me away usually do that from the first 10 minutes of the game and games that just blow are the same way although I can't really remember any games that blow that I tried for more than an hour or so.
That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Technically, no. You can only tell if the part you are seeing is good or not.
If I had judged WoW or SWG by the first few minutes, I never would have bought them and played for 2 or more years.
Then again, SWG wasn't really "good".
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
But that's exactly what I am saying. In MMO's, you can still have fun and it can still be a great gaming EXPERIENCE for you, because of the people you play with, not because of the mechanics and graphics and what not.Singleplayer, if you don#t feel comfortable with a game, you put it away. MMO's, you can get used to them and you can accept that because of the fun you can have with great people you meet. At least that's it for me. ^^
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Singleplayer, if you don#t feel comfortable with a game, you put it away. MMO's, you can get used to them and you can accept that because of the fun you can have with great people you meet. At least that's it for me. ^^
I see what your saying. I guess I'm just more of a solo'er. If I'm not enjoying myself, then it really won't matter if others like it or not and vice versa. If I like it, I couldn't care less if no one else but me likes the game, I'll still play. E&B was like that for me. It just clicked with me and the fact that few others were playing it really didn't much matter. I did manage to convince a few friends to try it and they all liked it too. To this day I have no idea why it never caught on.
Because sometimes it takes a bit of time to learn how to play the game properly and full appreciate everything it has to offer.
On the other hand, if you've seen more negative things in those 10 mins than positive things, you begin to suspect there is worse to come. Such was the case with me and Vanguard. After playing VG for (ok, maybe 30 mins), I'd seen a number of backwards steps lifted straight from another game I don't play.
I knew, by the features I'd seen, that features I wanted couldn't exist. They weren't compatible. I think I gave VG another week or so after that, but I knew it was dead to me.
This is an interesting post.
On one hand, I agree with the OP because if a game don't hook me in 10 minutes then the developers didn't do their job right. A game, like anything marketing to a consumer really needs to grab you from the get go. So yes, most times I know right away if the game was going to be great or not.
That being said, there are exceptions. EvE for example is a fantastic game but at the beginning I had no sweet clue what the hell I was doing. I might as well been lost at the playground than sitting at my PC playing that. Turns out, the game is very well designed and I never would know that from 10 minutes.
Then I can use examples like LOTRO, while is a "good" game I didn't last past the trial. Why? Maybe a sense of deja vu from playing WoW too long but it was just lacking and even though I'm sure the game is great and those who play it really enjoy it... it just didn't capture me the same way.
I think Marketing has a lot to do with it, and some games just "catch on" like WoW did. Games like DDO, which has come a LONG way in 2 years and seems awesome from the get go (I literally just downloaded the trial. Everyone said "meh that game sucks" and thats it). I played through the training section and love the layout, the controls, the way its made, everything has a great feel. It will keep me interested enough to definitely play the trial and perhaps even beyond that point if I end up liking the community.
I guess my point is, the look and feel and the ability to grab the users attention is key from the very, very start. If you don't do that, I think you put yourself at a huge disadvantage.
Yep a game I delete after a few minutes is crap, a game I delete after an hour or so is semi crap, and lastly a game I delete after a Week is not my type of game but must appeal to someone if it held my interest for so long. And if I dont delete the game its either because the game is good or I am to lazy to press uninstall.
This simplistic system has worked for every game I have tried lol
I actually played EQ2 for about 6 months. I had bugged some friends to buy and play it with me and they ended up loving it (their first mmorpg) but I ended up disliking it from the first 2 minutes. I hung with the game to play with my friends... I however would have liked them to jump over to WoW sooner than they did.
So yea, you are totally right... you can have fun with any mmorpg in the right situation.
Well, telling something is "good" or not is more based on your own idea of what is good and what's not. It has to do with your own preference.
But generally for MMO, I gave a week (so I figure out how to play the game). The only two exceptions was SWG (I like it with 2 hrs of playing it.) and WoW (I hated it after 30 mins of it on my friend's computer...)
As for any other type, if I don't find myself playing 30+ mins, I know the game isn't something I like.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
Yes.
A stincker...stinks.
You can be nice and try to give it more chances, but your first impression usually confirms itself. A flaw you detect in 5 minutes of playing is only the tip of the Icerberg most of the time.
I found that in the tutorial the game was...XYZ.
Many "veterans" would answer you stuff like: WTF nubs, cause in the game, it is a LOT worser.
See...Saga of Ryzom took me a full week to realize I didn't like it. Everquest 2 took me a few days...WoW I was raging as I was playing it. Pirates of the Burning Sea took me a whooping 15 minutes, but I am still going to try it more anyway. Horizons took me a few hours Tabular Rasa took me a few hours as well. Everquest and City of Heroes on the other end, it was instant loves.
DAoC tooks me a full weeks to realize I didn't like it, but MANY things in it I really like...such as the buffing system, never equalled in any other MMO (maybe in Vanguard, but, I didn't try Vanguard long enought to see it buffing system). If I would have tried DAoC first, I would possibly have played it instead of EQ, but as I knew EQ, and as I see just a variant of critical flaws (despite the awesome buffing system), I had to leave it.
Final answer: A game which I will really loves...it won't take an hour to figure that out! It may take me years to find flaws in them, flaws which may make me leave the game eventually and prevent enjoying rival games, as my tastes refine themselves constantly.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well I usually play the game for a few days and general around 5-6 hours to get the feel for the game. If the game interests me then I would play more. I would weight the positive and negative features of the game and note which features i like very much and which I don't like very much. If I'm gonna write a comprehensive review of the game I'd list them all down in my notepad so I don't forget while playing. Sometimes a game is presented in such a way that I find extremely repulsive (bad controls, bad interface, bad translation) then I would stop playing.
Positives:
- Good Intuitive Interface
- Good camera Angles
- Good translations into understandable english
- Easy Installation
So basicly with MMO's i mostly took me a couple of weeks to be sure if i would enjoy the game for the long run. Unlike single player games of which i could make my opinion already based on a demo, never could do this with mmo's, mostly cause some of htem had restrictions, there for i never base my opinion on a beta or demo with MMO's.
The first MMO we play usually define what we expect from any follow up. We were more patient with whatever we played first and we become less and less patient and forgiving the more games (and concepts) we try.
I can bet that noone spent just 10 minutes in his first MMO. But I do understand that somebody that passed through 5-10 MMOs should be able to easier identify the concepts he likes or hates than a first timer.
It does become silly however when people bash games they never experienced just by analysing the concept that has been layed out on paper.
I knew PoTBS sea sucked after 10 minutes seeing rickshaw dev, and seeing http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=xEeWT2wAspM which is lol but so true.
And Vanguard after my 4th crash to desktop
.
Now I ignore companies instead of games really, if it's SOE I'm not touching it, if it's another dev I'll go look at a vid or try it out.
My policies have kept me pretty happy:
1. I won't buy a new release, it needs at least 90 days up and running first.
2. I won't buy a game without a trial...and I need to enjoy the trial obviously.
My belief is that if a game isn't willing to allow a trial, they aren't very confident in the gameplay.
I don't have to play an MMO to know for certain if I will like it or not as long as there is a website with the character abilities and items listed, and I know PvP will be available.
When I read a skill list and I see Fireball I-IV - a huge number of skills that are simply direct damage with no side effects, drawbacks, or creative uses - or when I see a bunch of passive skills that are simply "turn em on, select a target, go AFK until you win, come back and turn em off" I know the game is probably too simplistic to hold my interest in PvP. Games with weak skill libraries usually accidentally turn out to be, or are specifically designed to be brainless DPS fests, sometimes with the ocassional tactical skill thrown it (think silence from WoW) to make the game not seem so simplistic.
When I read an item list or devposts about items and I start seeing things like "tier", "rare", "proc", or even "resist" in some cases, then I know the game will be too item based for me to waste my time learning to PvP on. Games where there is some "hard" to obtain top level gear, or gear with procs, means that people will be beating me in PvP because of all the grinding they have done since they began playing or because their weapon procd 6 times in a row.
Those things will immediately take my attention off that game, but if I don't see either of those problems coming, I'd be more than happy to try it. Then it will take me a while to decide if I truly like it.
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PM me when an MMO as good as UO was comes out.
It's really hard to say what makes or breaks a game for me in that precious "noob" time.
If the game isn't easy to learn, I tend to throw it out. It's not that the game is easy or hard or whatever, it's whether or not the game is designed well enough to get you playing right away.
Games like SWG, EQ2, WoW, TR, LOTRO I was able to pick up very easily and enjoy my initial gaming experience.
If I stick with a game or not depends on how much fun I'm having as I continue to play.
I loved EQ2 and TR at first, but after a few weeks once I got into the mid-teens levels, I got really bored. It all just seemed so lackluster.
With WoW, I can't stand the level 1-15ish game anymore... I've done it so many times on so many alts, I've seen everything and it's just so boring. Once I get into the late teens and 20s, I find myself really enjoying the game again.
I really enjoy hopping on my main toon in WoW and running a couple of Battlegrounds. But if I try and do any more battlegrounds I get a little bored and log off.
I miss raiding a little bit, mostly for the social aspects of it. Hanging out with friends, being a part of somthing greater then myself.. but I don't want to go back to the hardcore grind of 3-4 hours day in day out.
I actually really enjoyed the limited play time I had with EVE, especially with the new Trinity client, but I just couldn't see myself really investing time and money into the game long term.
I got bored with LOTRO after a few hours, it was way too similar to WoW but just didn't "feel" right. I guess from playing WoW for so long, anything that doesn't quite stack up is hard to stick with.
I try to give a new game a few hours, and if after that few hours play time, I want to log back in, I want to see more and experience more, then I'd say it's a good game. If it's a great game, even after a few weeks I want to keep logging in and playing, then I know it's a game I want to invest my time and money on.
Unfortunately, ever since WoW nothing else has quite stacked up for me to keep playing after the trial/free month.
Simple: if it feels like your playing a game or just waiting to hit max level (like in wow).
My blog:
Single player, offline multiplayer, and plain ol' online multiplayer I can usually tell in thirty minutes or less. Although I generally give more time to RPGs. I remember not liking Final Fantasy VIII and being razzed by my friends because I only played the game for THREE HOURS and they felt that you needed more time to get a real feel for the game. I disagree.
As for MMORPGs..... I general play the trial and try to put in at least an hour or two every day of the trail. That's about 28 hours for a standard two week trail which is way more than enough to tell if you want to sink any more time and money into the game. Three day trails are reserved for weekends when I can put in 8+ hours a day into the game to give it a good run through.
Most recently, I played about 20 hours of Tabula Rasa. I was mind numbingly bored after the first four hours. After that I was frustrated because I wasn't playing the game right and once I figured out how to correctly the play the game, the trial was over. I still have the itch to go back and play TR now that I "get it" but I think that would only be a waste of time since I'd just blaze to the level cap in about week and be left with nothing to do but start working on a clone, i.e. remorting.
I realize that MMORPGs are supposed to be the everlasting gobstoppers of video games, but if you're still not interested eight hours in then you probably aren't going to be any more interested 200+ hours in either.