Your opinion matters right away from the first time you log into the game world.You are there to play the ENTIRE game,the game does not start at any later on point,it starts right away.I do not think there is a game anywhere in the world that starts at level 20,they all start at level 1,if levels are used.
You will see what type of game world is used,you wil have a good feel for the game engine right away and a good feel for the mechanics.You will see all the player choices before you login,the classes will also be known before you login.
The ONLY things you will not see is all the spells and abilities until you actually finish a game,but that does not matter one bit because,EVERY game advances your spells and skills as needed,meaning you will gain new ones that correspond to the mobs you are fighting.If a game is ALL PVP,then it is most likely a fail,especially if allowing players to advance over others ,merely by time in game,instead of actual player skill.PVE does not matter about time,because yo uare not competing,you are playing the game for yourself,at least i hope it is for yourself and not some bragging platform.
The one thing that needs to be said is that your opinion matters from day 1,however any opinions you give should be based on what you do know ,not on what you don't know.Example you should not talk about slow or tedious travel times,if the game allows faster easier travel a weeek or so into the game,something along those lines.You should not say things like the spells are awful in this game,when you may have only 1-3 spells out of the 50 possible.You should not say the mobs are too easy to kill,not knowing they might get increasingly harder as you level up,most games do allow easier kills in the first few levels.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Interesting question. If think it takes the time for you to trully say "I love/hate this game". Sometimes the fun comes after a while, but let's be reasonable - if the road isn't so much of a headache, then I'll give it a try. But if I'm not entertained at a minimum for some time, then I'm sorry, uninstallation.
Though I trully believe you must revisit games, to really have an opinion about it. Like EQ2 - first time, I didn't like it, couldn't go past the first 7 days of the trial. A year and a half later, I gave it another go, and couldn't drop it for 4 months - I really liked it. Perhaps it's how you approach the game, a combination of time, dedication to study it, mood...
But I really tried MxO and FFXI, for example. Read tutorials, talked to people in- and out-game, had friends to play with. Don't think they're for me. Just couldn't like them.
I think alot of it depends on the game, I play'd WOW for around 8 months and felt I had a really good grasp of what the game was about, that being said I play'd FFXI for 2.5 years and while I got a good feel for the game. I didn't even get my main past level 50.
But on another example I play'd Wizard 101 for about a hour, and felt that I knew enough about the game.
If you don't have fun in your first couple hours, I'd give it about three play sessions (if you stop the game because you're not having fun after all three play sessions, then it's not worth playing anymore). If you're having fun playing the game in your first couple hours, one to two weeks.
Answer for OP question - It depends on what concept of the game you want to give a valid opinion about, which should be limited to what you actually experienced in your time spent, otherwise your opinion will not really be valid, even less valid if it is based someone's else opinion.
No matter what, opinions will be distorted, heck, even reviews are. There is no such thing as reviewing a whole game, an opinion then is something even smaller, that's why you usually see trolls saying "WoW clone" as your generic hate opinion about a whole game they probably didn't experience even half of, yet they want to look complete and try to kill as much mechanics they can about the game for the unprepared reader.
The long version:
A valid opinion is something VERY subjective, not only because it is an opinion but because you will only be giving an opinion about something very specific (if you care about making it valid and not a hate/troll post).
If you play a MMO for one hour and then unistall because you disliked it, well, you can only give a valid negative opinion regarding the New Player Experience.
If you play a MMO until the level cap and then unistall because you don't find whatever the fun in the end game is, you can give a valid negative opinion regarding the End Game.
Anyway, these will still be just opinions, for others what should matter are the concepts of the mechanics itself, so they can somehow imagine if they will like the game or not, this will be even worse in forums as they may hate a game without even playing it because they assumed in a very distorted negative opinion about a game, they wouldn't like it, and then they proceed to give their own opinions based on what was already an opinion.
That's why when I talk negatively about a game, I try to talk what the concept is that I didn't like and then show my opinion.
For example, I can say I dislike Atlantica because of their license system and item mall. After tasting the licenses and then finding myself with a cost of $15 a month to cover these expired licenses I had for free that are so damn useful, I simply did not want to play the game anymore because I knew I would face more and more costs yet I had already found something that pretty much equals the game to P2P games, for me.
Comments
Your opinion matters right away from the first time you log into the game world.You are there to play the ENTIRE game,the game does not start at any later on point,it starts right away.I do not think there is a game anywhere in the world that starts at level 20,they all start at level 1,if levels are used.
You will see what type of game world is used,you wil have a good feel for the game engine right away and a good feel for the mechanics.You will see all the player choices before you login,the classes will also be known before you login.
The ONLY things you will not see is all the spells and abilities until you actually finish a game,but that does not matter one bit because,EVERY game advances your spells and skills as needed,meaning you will gain new ones that correspond to the mobs you are fighting.If a game is ALL PVP,then it is most likely a fail,especially if allowing players to advance over others ,merely by time in game,instead of actual player skill.PVE does not matter about time,because yo uare not competing,you are playing the game for yourself,at least i hope it is for yourself and not some bragging platform.
The one thing that needs to be said is that your opinion matters from day 1,however any opinions you give should be based on what you do know ,not on what you don't know.Example you should not talk about slow or tedious travel times,if the game allows faster easier travel a weeek or so into the game,something along those lines.You should not say things like the spells are awful in this game,when you may have only 1-3 spells out of the 50 possible.You should not say the mobs are too easy to kill,not knowing they might get increasingly harder as you level up,most games do allow easier kills in the first few levels.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Interesting question. If think it takes the time for you to trully say "I love/hate this game". Sometimes the fun comes after a while, but let's be reasonable - if the road isn't so much of a headache, then I'll give it a try. But if I'm not entertained at a minimum for some time, then I'm sorry, uninstallation.
Though I trully believe you must revisit games, to really have an opinion about it. Like EQ2 - first time, I didn't like it, couldn't go past the first 7 days of the trial. A year and a half later, I gave it another go, and couldn't drop it for 4 months - I really liked it. Perhaps it's how you approach the game, a combination of time, dedication to study it, mood...
But I really tried MxO and FFXI, for example. Read tutorials, talked to people in- and out-game, had friends to play with. Don't think they're for me. Just couldn't like them.
Going back to the original post.
I think alot of it depends on the game, I play'd WOW for around 8 months and felt I had a really good grasp of what the game was about, that being said I play'd FFXI for 2.5 years and while I got a good feel for the game. I didn't even get my main past level 50.
But on another example I play'd Wizard 101 for about a hour, and felt that I knew enough about the game.
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If you don't have fun in your first couple hours, I'd give it about three play sessions (if you stop the game because you're not having fun after all three play sessions, then it's not worth playing anymore). If you're having fun playing the game in your first couple hours, one to two weeks.
The short version:
Answer for OP question - It depends on what concept of the game you want to give a valid opinion about, which should be limited to what you actually experienced in your time spent, otherwise your opinion will not really be valid, even less valid if it is based someone's else opinion.
No matter what, opinions will be distorted, heck, even reviews are. There is no such thing as reviewing a whole game, an opinion then is something even smaller, that's why you usually see trolls saying "WoW clone" as your generic hate opinion about a whole game they probably didn't experience even half of, yet they want to look complete and try to kill as much mechanics they can about the game for the unprepared reader.
The long version:
A valid opinion is something VERY subjective, not only because it is an opinion but because you will only be giving an opinion about something very specific (if you care about making it valid and not a hate/troll post).
If you play a MMO for one hour and then unistall because you disliked it, well, you can only give a valid negative opinion regarding the New Player Experience.
If you play a MMO until the level cap and then unistall because you don't find whatever the fun in the end game is, you can give a valid negative opinion regarding the End Game.
Anyway, these will still be just opinions, for others what should matter are the concepts of the mechanics itself, so they can somehow imagine if they will like the game or not, this will be even worse in forums as they may hate a game without even playing it because they assumed in a very distorted negative opinion about a game, they wouldn't like it, and then they proceed to give their own opinions based on what was already an opinion.
That's why when I talk negatively about a game, I try to talk what the concept is that I didn't like and then show my opinion.
For example, I can say I dislike Atlantica because of their license system and item mall. After tasting the licenses and then finding myself with a cost of $15 a month to cover these expired licenses I had for free that are so damn useful, I simply did not want to play the game anymore because I knew I would face more and more costs yet I had already found something that pretty much equals the game to P2P games, for me.