All Posts by nitefly

Originally posted by Ichijo

 

Originally posted by nitefly

Same for everybody else. If you start thinking that your own 100% subjective opinion given in the complete and utter anonymity of the internet without knowledge of the gaming experience, relative preferences, and insight of your recipient (in this case, other forum posters) is of any interest or value, you're a fool.

 

Since you state that all opinions are valueless, could you kindly explain your need to post three replies to the topic ?

I'd venture someone is not being truthful about how important he thinks his opinions are or he would have felt no need to post.

But now that we have peeled away the veneer of self importance, let's get back on topic and discuss why this pathetic shell of a game should crash and burn to send a 100 million dollar message to the gaming industry about wasting money on hype and the perceived fame of pajama wearing self important little developer gods like Richard Garriott.

Save the insults and psych 101 insights into the human condition, let's hear what you have to say about how great this game is and why people shouldn't avoid it like the plague.

 

Once more for those who read what they think is there instead of what is really there:

Opinions are fine. I hope everybody forms one on any given subject. Reviews are also fine as long as the reader knows your preferences, your gaming history, what you have liked before, what you're currently playing, your gaming method (how often do you play, for how long a time and so on) and they are written in a relatively sober and subjective (meaningful) tone.

To state that a game is as shallow as a kid's play pool is a colorful statement but it is also completely without value to any reader. Shallow in what way and compared to what game?

This is the point I'm making: If you want to simply throw dirt or fan-boi praise, be prepared to be considered background noise; it is there all the time but effectively useless to anybody.

And to the poster who said that this site is primarily personal opinions (and therefore by definition irrelevant and meaningless to anybody but themselves, hence the "personal" part); couldn't it be nice if they were just removed from the site, leaving only information and questions/answers to be found here?

Ichijo wrote:

"To me, the story plays as follows:"

Like the other poster said, if you read the story you can get it, if not, you end up with Ichijo's take.

And as he says, even him at age 8-12 can take something away from this game. But the story is more complicated than that although you can boil it down so your kids can play as well.

Daedalus732 wrote:

"stay far away from CS: Source or any realistic FPS."

If you have ever been in a real combat zone you wouldn't write this drivel. Computer games may pretend to be portraying something realistically but they never try to be realistic. Only very few would be able to stomach a game like Counter-Strike or any other FPS if the game designers tried to make it realistic.

Realistic isn't desirable in my honest opinion, just try to find a game that you find fun. If you don't find a particular game fun don't play it. To hate something for not catering specifically to you should be a response given up when you were in kindergarden.

Saying "this is good" or "this is bad" (insert relevant colorful phrase instead if you desire) is useless.

Simply writing what is in the game could be of value, but any personal bias added would nullify this potential worth. The reason is the sender/reader relationship - it isn't there, so the point of reference is impossible to ascertain with any real proficiency.

I really this is common sense and a lot of people will already be ignoring the people who can't seem to write anything about a game without making blanket statements in the laughable league of "This game is teh best eva!!!" or "This game is complite rubish!!" (including numerous other spelling and/grammar errors and a hideous over-use of exclamation points).

Form your own opinion. Ignore the muppets.

You are missing the point entirely.

My opinion is not worth more or less than any other person to anyone but me.

Same for everybody else. If you start thinking that your own 100% subjective opinion given in the complete and utter anonymity of the internet without knowledge of the gaming experience, relative preferences, and insight of your recipient (in this case, other forum posters) is of any interest or value, you're a fool.

My opinion about a game is relevant for me and the people who know me and my preferences. To everybody else it is pointless white noise made by unknown entities with immature delusions of their own worth and/or importance.

I only played Tabula Rasa in Closed Beta. I found numerous bugs and reported them. Some got fixed others didn't while I still beta'd. Then I ran out of time to devote to the effort and went away.

I'm still going to buy the final version.

The reason is simple: I have my own opinion and I want to form it based on something concrete and personal. To be absolutely honest: The posts on MMORPG.com that simply contains the poster's subjective rant are totally useless to anybody. I could write that Game XXX was fantastic or rubbish and it would in reality just be a waste or your time. It doesn't matter if I write several pages of pros and cons, give examples of gameplay, highlight changes in this game compared to another game because if you don't know me, my personal preferences, my gaming history, and my mood of the day the end result is simply pointless.

Reviews are ludicrous if you haven't followed the reviewer for a long time and have seen/heard/played whatever the reviewer has reviewed.

<Mod edit>

It does not remind me of the days of my first MMO but it reminds me of the first days in World of Warcraft. Everything is at your fingertips, it is clear which way to go, the path is clear-cut and easy to follow with easily identifiable goals.

No real gameplay to think about, nothing to learn, just press the button and read along for the ride. It is sort of a very well produced Sword & Sorcery book (the old "If you want to go left, turn to chapter 402, if you want to turn right, go to chapter 68" type of books) with a graphical interface. Right down to the fact that you can go through the exact same story once again if you start over and start + end will be the same this time right too. You might take a few detours (irrelevant sidequests) but the main story remains intact.

On the other hand, I enjoyed those books back in the day. Somebody will surely enjoy this game as well.

It has to do with a lot of things.

First it touches on the subject of money, not everybody can afford to buy any game they'd like nor afford to play any MMO they'd like. This means that if they buy a game they honestly don't like, they will get hugely resentful beyond what is actually justified. A game can be something else than the buyer wanted it to be but that's not something the game developer can do anything about.

Secondly it touches on the subject of maturity. For some reason there are a lot of gamers who are very immature by nature. I'm not talking about age here, you can be thirty and still be immature. Immature people has a tendency to throw tantrums, to moan, whine, and basically go ape whenever something doesn't go their way. This means that they feel they are cheated when a game isn't designed for them, immature people are often spoiled and egocentric as well (one of the traits we should learn during socialization is that we're not alone in the world and that it *gasp* does NOT revolve around us) giving further fuel to these hatefilled aggressive naysayings following a game that did not live up to whatever expectations the gamer had.

Thirdly it touches on the subject of gamer culture. Some people start to see themselves as gamers as if it is some sort of group to belong to or a type of personality. It is not, gaming is a form of entertainment, if you play computer games you're a consumer. These individuals will often feel that they somehow can set themselves up as judges over what is good games and what is bad games and due to their immense experience within the field or their self-perceived leet-ness people had better listen. These are the overly condescending commenters that often come across as agonisingly self-righteous.

Fourthly it touches on the subject of lack of common sense or generel intellect. Some people are dumb and that's why they make their posts in such a penile juvenile form. They don't appear narrow-minded, they actually ARE narrow-minded. Another variance are the people who are unable to simply see the game as a game and wants it to be some sort of life-altering interface. This of course will always fail and in their boundless disappointment they make these monumentally silly posts containing nothing but personal frustration and (dare I type it?) self-loathing.

Games are entertainment. If something seems interesting, check it out as much as you can, if you're still interested, buy it. If it wasn't what you hoped, buy something else and move on.

Compare to this: If you want to go out for dinner, you might see an interesting little restaurant, you find out what type of cuisine it has and you go in. You don't like it. It is too spicy for you and you don't like it. Now you buy a pizza on the way home since you're still hungry. What you do not do (unless you're a complete nut) is send in angry letters to any online magazine or local newspaper that makes any passing references to this restaurant.

Or compare to this: You want a bird as a pet. You go to a pet store, you see a duck and you think it's pretty. You buy it and take it home. You want to teach it to say "Hello daddy" (for some odd reason). This does not exactly meet with a lot of success. Now you can either realize that this was a bad product to buy since you had something else you wanted to use it for or you can run down to the store and DEMAND that the duck starts talking RIGHT NOW. If your instinct is to do, or even defend, the second suggestion, you fail at life.

Edit: I can't type at this hour. I'm going to bed.

Originally posted by Cymdai

 

 

People express their distaste for this game to prevent the blind fanboi's from misleading potential customers.

I might be mistaken, but aren't you really saying that you want to prevent people who are currently playing the game making any positive remarks about said game, instead wanting people, who are no longer playing the game in its current state, to warn about it? This sounds weird to me since those that left a long time ago would comment on a previous iteration compared to the current player that could actually comment on what was IN the game, not what WAS in the game?

It's a self-perpetuating problem. When fanboi's stop making up complete and utter crap (Example: This game runs perfect, it's bug free, there are tons of people playing all the time, it's the best game ever,etc etc) then haters wouldn't have to constantly chime in to point out these falsities.

Again I have to say that the information from current players are more valuable than the information about a given game from people who are not playing. I have to say that I'm also a tad wary about the players stating the game is totally bugged, since I played the game for a couple of months without a system crash and with steady graphics performance (except crossing chunk lines or with heavy PvP going on).

Others might have had different experiences but just as mine is worthless to the next user (there has been released performance patches to Vanguard since I stopped) so would even older information be even more worthless to an outsider.

That's how bad of a game Vanguard is; people are willing to go out of their way to ensure that fellow consumers won't pay Sigil money for such a crumby, inferior product. Vanguard is Star Wars Galaxies: Part 2, except SWG was actually fun at one point...and it's a cold day in hell when you're inferior to SWG.

I think the real crux of the matter is closer to this: Some people have a hard time moving on. Vanguard was not for you. OK.
I played Vanguard for two months (as stated) but then my old SuperGroup started up again in City of Heroes so I left for that game. I played Auto Assault when it came out and that was a huge disappointment for me but I would NEVER discourage anyone for picking up the game today as I have had no real experience with the game since their latest updates.

What I do not get is why this game (Vanguard) generates so strong emotions and why the criticism is so childish? I have lost count of the amount of blank statements simply debunking the game with various adjectives that give zero information about the actual problem.

To be extremely blunt and generalizing; the Vanguard haters simply appear to be the slow ignorant people of internet forums and that surely cannot be the quest you're currently on?

Originally posted by Novaseeker

 

 

Many of the epic storyline quests are instanced, and most of them require a fellowship (i.e., a group).  They feature marquee content, characters from the LOTR storyline and so forth.  They're quite fantastically well done, in my opinion.

The remainder of the content is not instanced.

Sounds like you had a nice time.

Vanguard offers so many great moments in-game if the sandbox style is your cup of tea. Sadly most of my friends decided that the sandbox was too big and moved back to City of Heroes.

Maybe I should start up again on my own.

What server are you on?

Originally posted by brownspank

Would it be correct/safe to say that those who like LOTRO voted the other games down?

The problem is the amount of scores and general inflation.

Ranking anything from 1 through 10 will make most people decide that 5 is the first "bad" grade instead of actually treating it as average. Another often repeated mistake by amateur reviewers is that they fail to inform their readers about what their reference is, ie they do not openly describe what their experiences with similar games have been and what they therefore are basing their scores on.

An example:

A reviewer has played Wolfenstein 3D and for some reason hasn't played FPS games since. Now the reviewer picks up F.E.A.R. and is blown away, scores of 10 all over the place. If the reviewer states that their only reference is Wolfenstein 3D then I'm right up there with the person, I can see where the scores are coming from.

More often than not amateurs are better off with more simplistic grades, let's say A, B, and C. They are easily understandable and readily available. A would be outstanding in its field within the comparison, B would be as expected, more or less equal to the reference while C would be something that is substantially worse than the reference.

Sometimes you see ridiculous sites/magazines where they use Percentile scoring. I often think, OK, this game got 59% Graphics, how would 61% then look?! It is nonsense.

Keep the categories as they are here on the site, but include a reference information, what game(s) are you comparing the current reviewed item to. And simplify the grades to something akin to A, B, C or 1 through 5 with an average that is meaningful.

Good news.

According to OMGN the game will require a monthly subscription.

(http://www.omgn.com/gamesdirectory.php?Item_ID=1191)

 

 

I never said it was better than Vanguard. I was taking the ridiculous argument of a game only costing 10-20 cents an hour to play, so it must be a great value and mocking it, becuase by that logic, CoH/CoV would be the better value, since it amounts to two for the price of one.

Obviously, it's not a realistic argument. I never said it was, since fun is subjective.

 

 

But see, here's the rub, and here's what I was talking about-- by my comparison, CoH/CoV may not have a lot of things that Vanguard does, but it DOES have one thing in spades: fun. I've had a blast the past three years with the game, especially due to the friends I've made and the guild I've been in from the start.

That's the whole point. You can't narrow an MMO down to some stupid hourly rate of 10-20 cents an hour in order to argue its worth, since the real value of that game is entirely up to the player. It can't be universally quantified by money. I find more value in games like WoW, LOTR, and CoH/CoV than I ever did in Vanguard. Others feel differently. Hence, the whole reason why I laugh at the idea of a game's value being arbitrarily defined, like with an hourly rate.

Now that you touched on the subject of things to laugh at I suggest one more thing to laugh at: Concluding anything is more fun than something else.

Think about it: What information does such a statement really relay to anyone apart from yourself or someone who knows your tastes and preferences to an almost intimate degree?

This is not a personal slam against you Lidane, it is more a "pot kettle black" statement and it could be applied on a lot of posts.

What you also must realize is that for some people the cost compared to their personal definition of fun is what validates the playing of MMOs. They compare MMOs to for instance going to the movies, going to the arcades, going clubbing, or whatever and in that way they might see Vanguard as being the most value for money since it simply has the largest amount of content of any contemporary MMO.

I will however agree with you on a personal note that such considerations strike me as overly fanciful as well. However I have friends where they "justify" their time playing MMOs with the same form of logic. This is often when talking to their spouse or fiancé though, hehe.

I think it comes down to whether or not you have the money or not. You obviously have the money and are not concerned, I have the money too, it doesn't concern me. But others might really have to decide which game to play and for them the value per dollar/cent might make the most sense.

Lord of the Rings: Online is a grind game but not a grind game in the regular fashion. In order for your character to advance in any pace you have to keep picking up and solving Quests. As the rewards for exploring and doing your own thing is next to negligible you are more of less forced to following the quest story line.

Lord of the Rings: Online has also introduced an Epic Quest which is basically another word for Story Grind. There is an overlying story to be told (akin to those prevalent in single-player Roleplaying Games) that never changes and will be the same for all your characters.

There is no Faction Grind, Reputation Grind, Raid Grind, PvP Grind, or anything else though to take your attention away from the gameplay that is there so your attention shouldn't waver that much.

Originally posted by Lidane

 

It's because the "value" argument of an MMO is a generic one, and you can't apply it to any particular game.

Every game on this site that has a monthly subscription fee costs, on average, $14.95 a month. The monetary value of every pay-to-play game on this site, therefore, is essentially the same. The only real exception that I know of to this is CoH/CoV, since that single subscription fee can apply to BOTH games. Someone can buy one game on its own, and if they choose to buy the other and add it to their account, it doesn't cost anything extra.

EVE might be another exception. I don't know, since I know nothing about the game.

Using his logic, CoH/CoV is a better value than Vanguard becuase for the same $14.95/month fee, you get two games instead of one. Of course, in the real world, that argument falls apart, because a game's value can't be quantified that easily.

The real value in an MMO doesn't come from whatever it costs you an hour to play it, since pretty much all of them cost the same per month. The value then comes from things like the features offered, the performance of the game, the look and feel of the game world, and the overall experience in playing it, and what a player gets out of the game.

It's why I laugh at the "value" argument when applied strictly to VG. You can use it to defend the MMO genre to someone who might not understand it, but you can't use it to defend a single game. It just doesn't work that way.

Originally posted by Tnice

Vanguard is still very broken.  Aside from the many game bugs, the performance and the chunking issues remain.  Another 6 months the game will be in the same place.  You will then say "It has only been 6 months, give it a year."  After a year you will say "It has only been a year, give it another 3 months.".  During beta everyone said "It is only beta".

Face it.  Sigil is not capable of fixing this game.  If they dissolve Sigil and give the game to SOE maybe SOE can fix it but it will be much too late.  There will be a handful of diehards (about 10-20k) but that is it.  Asking Sigil to fix this game is like asking a retard to build a house.  It simply can not be done.

Trust me I do feel for you guys that are still playing.  Hell, I bought the limited edition.  Now is the time to face facts.  It is ok for you to play but don't let them rob other people with this game.  That is disingenuous.