I personally agree with this review. my own personal score is 7.
What do you guys think?
I am actually surprised that IGN is still read/visited in all honesty. I can't stand the ad's and poor layout/content. However, I'd give the game a 7 as well. If they add an endgame (repeating missions as is the current "end game" in every MMO is not acceptable) my score would go up.
The bugs are annoying as hell, but I can get over them.
Review seems fair. Game is fun, not incredible..for me game has been a decent hold-over until GW2 comes out. Not the most amazing game I've played but the scenario and dungeons are fun, I have enjoyed the setting, game seemed worth the 50$ to me, gave me at least a month of fun.
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
The issue in a nutshell. Which makes the Fallout: New Vegas-Metacritic debacle even more rage-inducing.
I think people that bash the graphics should consider a few things.
First of all, TSW is not a fantasy game like pretty much every other MMO out there these days. Take GW2, WoW, Rift etc for example. All these games have fantasy characters that do not need resemble human faces, nor does the enviroment look real. It automatically becomes "easier" to make the graphics look nice. While you can argue about that the graphics should be better, you have to acknowledge the fact that MMO graphics will not, at least any time soon, resemble the graphics of a single player games.
I also see people complaining about characters "hovering" when they run. That it doesn't feel as if the characters are moving on the ground, rather floating. This strikes me as confusing, since GW2 and WoW have the same thing and I don't see anyone complaining there.
My conclusion is this: Since TSW is based on real world, it automatically becomes much more of a challange making the graphics awesome as you would expect from single players games. It is as I have mentioned much easier to "manipulate" the perception of "beautiful" graphics with Fantasy worlds than in trying to resemble a real world. I think that Funcom is doing a great job trying to make something new in the MMO genre.
For all of those who are not impressed by the game you can always stick to the fantasy genre.
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
Subjectivity =/= fact.
Subjective consensus =/= fact.
Reviews, be they professional or layman, are simply tools to make a more educated decision. They are not right or wrong. The only person who can decide if anything is good or not is the person experiencing the event.
Sick and tired of people calling other people's opinions "wrong". Gaming is starting to be ruined by the fanatics.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
For some reason I thought this was a TOR thread...
Oh IGN, you are so silly!
They gave TOR a 9/10, so TSW must be terrible!
EA paid more money. So hence the higher scrore.
thats exactly what it boils down to also I can honestly say even though i dont like TSW that much its way better then SWTOR. Its kinda funny though because you can always see whos actually paying for advertising and review space on websites by looking at SWTOR because everyone around knows it was a huge failure yet it has unrealistic reviews and ratings on sites. You can always tell when companies spend tons of advertising. None of these sites have any creditability anymore in my eyes.
For some reason I thought this was a TOR thread...
Oh IGN, you are so silly!
They gave TOR a 9/10, so TSW must be terrible!
EA paid more money. So hence the higher scrore.
thats exactly what it boils down to also I can honestly say even though i dont like TSW that much its way better then SWTOR. Its kinda funny though because you can always see whos actually paying for advertising and review space on websites by looking at SWTOR because everyone around knows it was a huge failure yet it has unrealistic reviews and ratings on sites. You can always tell when companies spend tons of advertising. None of these sites have any creditability anymore in my eyes.
That is why I don't bother reading reviews anymore on these so called "official" sites. They lost credibility long time ago, when you could clearly and so obviously link amount of advertisement to review scores. /sigh
I rather read up on some nice player's blogs these days... much more informative and usefull.
yeah but honestly though its not even a fair rating to rate TOR higher then TSW even if its got its own issues. TOR is going down in history as the biggest trainwreck in mmo history and all the fan sites that gave it reviews off the charts deserve to go down with it IMO.
If you think Metacritic user ratings = real people, you sir are confused.
Metacritic user ratings are the biggest pile of crap on the planet - so easily skewed and manipulated, they are about as accurate of a judge as polling about gay marriage at an Evangelical church.
I agree they rate games much higher then they should be ...knock about 3 off every score and you will have a more realistic view of a games worth and rating
No. I think they do a good job with indy and small-studio games. Where I see them falling down on the job is they often (but not even always) rate shallow, high-production-values games from huge studios that have huge marketing budgets (that they depend on for revenue) much higher and with far less skepticism of the company claims they report as 'fact' than they should.
And let's be clear they have help from the companies on reviews. How many SWTOR reviews claimed 200 of unique class story? Ask how many of us (that are honest about it) how many hours of unique class story were there? It was about 2 hour per planet, maybe 20 hours all together. 20 =/= 200 The rest was generic, non-class-quest side missions.
Where did all those reviewers come up with 200? Did they crib each others reviews? Nope. That was a BioWare truth claim that was a flat-out lie. One of many included in the press kit the press used to write their reviews. [1]
[1] I was a CPA in Hollywood, then a CPA in Nashville with 22 years total experience including my first staff posting. I learned a lot by observing how it really works. Movies, albums, games, etc., all come with press kits on release to 'help' the reviewer (which includes sample reviews). The general rule of thumb is 'the bigger the kit, the worse the product.' Sadly, while movie reviewers have long since figured this out, game reviewers haven't seemed to have figured this out; probably because the high churn-over, low standards and lack of integrity due to the revenue model of the industry.
However... IGN already lost it's last shred of dignity when they gave SWTOR a 9 or something like that.... a 5 is too generous for that turd.
Now it's on the level of PC Gamer, with their Dragon Age 2 "RPG of the decade" & "best combat ever" paid review.
They also gave Spore a huge score and SWTOR a huge score. I got my 're-subscribe' envelop in the mail. I'm like "nope.' The past couple of years its gotten so bad that all I read is the hardware reviews...
Sad too, I susbcribed from issue 5 and read it from issue 1. In the early days, it save me a LOT of money on bad product. Now it tells me bad product is good product...
For some reason I thought this was a TOR thread...
Oh IGN, you are so silly!
They gave TOR a 9/10, so TSW must be terrible!
The question is if the same guy made both those reviews.
Besides, TOR is fun at first but get boring after a while which pulls up the score for most reviews since few reviewers actually have the time to play a game for 2 months before making the scores.
No, I checked. But it's irrelelvant. You run any business and the product needs, no matter who prepared the tax return, cooked the steak, re-glazed the window or whatever it is you're selling, be uniform, consistent and 'perfect'. Every single time.
Sounds 7/10 (compared to what Funcom has done in the past this is a bit of a let down)
Graphics 10/10 (as usual from Funcom, this is what they can do)
Gameplay 7/10 (maybe even 6 because of lack of options)
Presentation 9/10 (very well done story videos)
Lastability 4/10 (this might change as they are ambitious with montly updates, but the core game sucks)
Basically you have 3 choices - Missions, Dungeons or PvP
Missions are static, so you cannot repeat them and have fun...
Dungeons are out because it is more about Dancing than Killing and somehow a brain tumour got a GateKeeper to keep casual players out of the Endgame dungeons.
PvP is out - It is more Stun vs Stun than anything i have encountered so far.
the core game is in toruble, and while i can see a good amount of appeal for the story, the story really has been found by many players to be lacking with only a few really good spots here and there.
Overall this game is worth seeing, but not playing long time.
TSW starts off extremely strong and then slowly but surely loses steam. Later characters and quests simply aren't as interesting, and the endgame's currently composed of no-frills PVP and re-runs of old dungeons. Promised monthly content updates might be worth sticking around for."
So, TSW faithful - how is this any different than.. Oh I don't know... WoW, EQ2, WAR, AoC, RIFT, LOTRO, etc. etc. etc.
Dunno about a few of those but..
TSW has a few 5-man instances for endgame
EQ2 has 5000+ quests and something like 40 "current level" raid encounters across multiple zones.
AoC had quite a variety of raiding - nowhere near EQ2, but much more than TSW, it also had open world pvp and siege warfare.
Rift also had a multitude of raids, not to mention dynamic zone and raid events.
LoTRO has tons and tons of content, epic weapons to progress, multitude of raids and unique open world PvP system.
TSW is an awesome game for what it is, but it's doesn't really compare to most of the games you mentioned in terms of "longevity" content.
Honestly, I think 6/10 for longevity is probably a fair score to give TSW. The only reason I took issue with that is because IGN gave TOR a 9.5 on longevity. If TOR is a 9.5 on longevity, TSW should probably get a 12. EQ2 should get like.. 300.
That's my issue with the review. In light of the horrid grade inflation we've been seeing, a 7 is a slap in the face and an 'F' in the 'everybody gets an A' mentality we've been seeing in the over-hyped-franchise review market...
In the old day, a 7/10 was a 'good' game. Now a 7/10 is a 'bad' game because the grades have inflated so much...
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
Subjectivity =/= fact.
Subjective consensus =/= fact.
Reviews, be they professional or layman, are simply tools to make a more educated decision. They are not right or wrong. The only person who can decide if anything is good or not is the person experiencing the event.
Sick and tired of people calling other people's opinions "wrong". Gaming is starting to be ruined by the fanatics.
Exactly. Just like your opinion about the meaning of cumulative averages--weighted or not. You've heard of statistics, standard deviations and opinion polls haven't you?
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I disagree with graphics, sound and lasting appeal.
I had a hard time with games that had cartoonish graphics. I only stuck with WOW as long as I did because my friends were playing it. The game was fine. It was polished. I really hated the graphics. TSW felt much more realistic to me. I have a hard time with immersion when the graphics are so exaggerated. For me, graphics are a 9/10.
I really liked the sounds of combat and music score in TSW. For me, sound was 8/10.
Lasting appeal, so far, is not a problem. But, I'll have a hard time getting burnt out since I can only play Friday to Sunday.
And as long as they will keep updates coming, I think I'll be playing quite a while. For me, lasting appeal is a tentative 9/10.
Cut scenes are bad. I like them the first time I see them. I don't see myself wanting to watch them again if I eventually create another toon.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
Wow interesting. It seems the users are looking for something different than the critics.
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
Wow interesting. It seems the users are looking for something different than the critics.
And yet sub numbers paint a different picture. Go figure.
I know you all are smart enough to realize that there is more than one reviewer at IGN.
And I know that you all realize that one person giving a certain score does not reflect the integrity of other people.
And finally, I know that we all are intelligent enough to realize scores are subjective.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
This review is more like it. It's also by a website I trust, especially after their handling of Mass Effect 3, which was completely different to all the EA sponsored zombies around the web. They gave it 85/100.
Comments
I am actually surprised that IGN is still read/visited in all honesty. I can't stand the ad's and poor layout/content. However, I'd give the game a 7 as well. If they add an endgame (repeating missions as is the current "end game" in every MMO is not acceptable) my score would go up.
The bugs are annoying as hell, but I can get over them.
Review seems fair. Game is fun, not incredible..for me game has been a decent hold-over until GW2 comes out. Not the most amazing game I've played but the scenario and dungeons are fun, I have enjoyed the setting, game seemed worth the 50$ to me, gave me at least a month of fun.
I didn't play TSW With my headphones on so i wont comment about the sound.
The Graphics thou i felt like it was san andreas themed with just a little but more evolved and the wierd animations definatly not a 10.
Gameplay, dont put 1000 cars outside and not let me drive one that loses you a point right there lol. I;m not a fan personally.
I think It's a fair review, a lot of people have said pros and cons on both sides.
You know... as flawed as Metacritic is, there are still some interesting things you can see when you compare their weighted critic scores with the user scrores...let's take a look at a few:
The over-hyped:
WOW: Critics = 93, Users = 6.9
WAR: Critics = 86, Users = 7.9
SWTOR: Critics = 85, Users = 5.6
Rift: Critics = 84, Users = 7.2
The nearly right:
TERA: Critics = 77, Users = 7.2
LOTRO: Critics = 86, Users = 8.4
The underestimated:
EVE: Critics = 69, Users = 7.9
DAoC: Critics = 88, Users = 9.5
TSW: Critics = 71, Users = 8.5
I don't know about you guys but my conclusion is that the users always have more realistic scores than the critics... which I find hilarious.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The issue in a nutshell. Which makes the Fallout: New Vegas-Metacritic debacle even more rage-inducing.
Also the fact that devs are now starting to hire people partially based on the metacritic scores of applicants' previous games
I think people that bash the graphics should consider a few things.
First of all, TSW is not a fantasy game like pretty much every other MMO out there these days. Take GW2, WoW, Rift etc for example. All these games have fantasy characters that do not need resemble human faces, nor does the enviroment look real. It automatically becomes "easier" to make the graphics look nice. While you can argue about that the graphics should be better, you have to acknowledge the fact that MMO graphics will not, at least any time soon, resemble the graphics of a single player games.
I also see people complaining about characters "hovering" when they run. That it doesn't feel as if the characters are moving on the ground, rather floating. This strikes me as confusing, since GW2 and WoW have the same thing and I don't see anyone complaining there.
My conclusion is this: Since TSW is based on real world, it automatically becomes much more of a challange making the graphics awesome as you would expect from single players games. It is as I have mentioned much easier to "manipulate" the perception of "beautiful" graphics with Fantasy worlds than in trying to resemble a real world. I think that Funcom is doing a great job trying to make something new in the MMO genre.
For all of those who are not impressed by the game you can always stick to the fantasy genre.
Subjectivity =/= fact.
Subjective consensus =/= fact.
Reviews, be they professional or layman, are simply tools to make a more educated decision. They are not right or wrong. The only person who can decide if anything is good or not is the person experiencing the event.
Sick and tired of people calling other people's opinions "wrong". Gaming is starting to be ruined by the fanatics.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
EA paid more money. So hence the higher scrore.
thats exactly what it boils down to also I can honestly say even though i dont like TSW that much its way better then SWTOR. Its kinda funny though because you can always see whos actually paying for advertising and review space on websites by looking at SWTOR because everyone around knows it was a huge failure yet it has unrealistic reviews and ratings on sites. You can always tell when companies spend tons of advertising. None of these sites have any creditability anymore in my eyes.
That is why I don't bother reading reviews anymore on these so called "official" sites. They lost credibility long time ago, when you could clearly and so obviously link amount of advertisement to review scores. /sigh
I rather read up on some nice player's blogs these days... much more informative and usefull.
i think TOR was a good game but it had nothing new to it, while TSW is the other way around it has a lot of new things but the Game itself is poor.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
yeah but honestly though its not even a fair rating to rate TOR higher then TSW even if its got its own issues. TOR is going down in history as the biggest trainwreck in mmo history and all the fan sites that gave it reviews off the charts deserve to go down with it IMO.
Yeah, it's become that way...
No. I think they do a good job with indy and small-studio games. Where I see them falling down on the job is they often (but not even always) rate shallow, high-production-values games from huge studios that have huge marketing budgets (that they depend on for revenue) much higher and with far less skepticism of the company claims they report as 'fact' than they should.
And let's be clear they have help from the companies on reviews. How many SWTOR reviews claimed 200 of unique class story? Ask how many of us (that are honest about it) how many hours of unique class story were there? It was about 2 hour per planet, maybe 20 hours all together. 20 =/= 200 The rest was generic, non-class-quest side missions.
Where did all those reviewers come up with 200? Did they crib each others reviews? Nope. That was a BioWare truth claim that was a flat-out lie. One of many included in the press kit the press used to write their reviews. [1]
[1] I was a CPA in Hollywood, then a CPA in Nashville with 22 years total experience including my first staff posting. I learned a lot by observing how it really works. Movies, albums, games, etc., all come with press kits on release to 'help' the reviewer (which includes sample reviews). The general rule of thumb is 'the bigger the kit, the worse the product.' Sadly, while movie reviewers have long since figured this out, game reviewers haven't seemed to have figured this out; probably because the high churn-over, low standards and lack of integrity due to the revenue model of the industry.
They also gave Spore a huge score and SWTOR a huge score. I got my 're-subscribe' envelop in the mail. I'm like "nope.' The past couple of years its gotten so bad that all I read is the hardware reviews...
Sad too, I susbcribed from issue 5 and read it from issue 1. In the early days, it save me a LOT of money on bad product. Now it tells me bad product is good product...
No, I checked. But it's irrelelvant. You run any business and the product needs, no matter who prepared the tax return, cooked the steak, re-glazed the window or whatever it is you're selling, be uniform, consistent and 'perfect'. Every single time.
That's my issue with the review. In light of the horrid grade inflation we've been seeing, a 7 is a slap in the face and an 'F' in the 'everybody gets an A' mentality we've been seeing in the over-hyped-franchise review market...
In the old day, a 7/10 was a 'good' game. Now a 7/10 is a 'bad' game because the grades have inflated so much...
Exactly. Just like your opinion about the meaning of cumulative averages--weighted or not. You've heard of statistics, standard deviations and opinion polls haven't you?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I disagree with graphics, sound and lasting appeal.
I had a hard time with games that had cartoonish graphics. I only stuck with WOW as long as I did because my friends were playing it. The game was fine. It was polished. I really hated the graphics. TSW felt much more realistic to me. I have a hard time with immersion when the graphics are so exaggerated. For me, graphics are a 9/10.
I really liked the sounds of combat and music score in TSW. For me, sound was 8/10.
Lasting appeal, so far, is not a problem. But, I'll have a hard time getting burnt out since I can only play Friday to Sunday.
And as long as they will keep updates coming, I think I'll be playing quite a while. For me, lasting appeal is a tentative 9/10.
Cut scenes are bad. I like them the first time I see them. I don't see myself wanting to watch them again if I eventually create another toon.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
Wow interesting. It seems the users are looking for something different than the critics.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I know you all are smart enough to realize that there is more than one reviewer at IGN.
And I know that you all realize that one person giving a certain score does not reflect the integrity of other people.
And finally, I know that we all are intelligent enough to realize scores are subjective.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
This review is more like it. It's also by a website I trust, especially after their handling of Mass Effect 3, which was completely different to all the EA sponsored zombies around the web. They gave it 85/100.
http://www.gamefront.com/the-secret-world-review/