553 reviews on Steam and 154 Negative

Well you underestimate the Impact of the Reviews. And yes , i seriously believe that ppl listen to the Feedback.

Well it is not me who gives me the Impression. It is Indie Developers telling about the experience they have with landing on "Mixed" Reviews.

I think my math is good. Was good in School in math.

If mixed only has an Impact on those who believe Reviews - why do i find articles and Feedbacks from Indie Developer and Experiences of Developers with the Steam Review System showing me exactly the opposite.

I have one nice read for you:

Indie game dev explains how Steam Reviews harshly punish early mistakes

I will Quote words coming from a Indie Game Devloper:

While you can read individual reviews for games on Steam, the real determining factor for many potential players is the aggregate opinion listed at the top of a game’s store page. This provides the overall sentiment of the user reviews based on a percentage. For example, any game with at least 70 percent good reviews is considered Positive, and higher percentages can be Mostly Positive, Very Positive, and Overwhelmingly Positive. Anything that falls below 40 percent is considered Negative, with further designations for Mostly Negative, Very Negative, and Overwhelmingly Negative.

Games that fall in-between the 40 to 70 percent range are called Mixed, but Johnson explained that when gamers are trying to decide what games to play, Mixed can be just as bad as Negative, and it can be almost impossible to climb out of the hole once you have fallen in.



So as you do not believe me SmokerKGB, maybe you believe the words coming from Indie-Developers.

As i see at least this hole discussion did lead to a Player going over posting his own positive Review. So i regard the OP and my discussion with all of you a postivie outcome.


Take care all.

 

I think "Indie Developers" are over stating their game, did you look at the screen shot of "Combat Monsters" in the article? It also says it's "free to play", Farmville2 is free to play just download and play... I think Combat Monsters was just a "Toon, try" at game developement and the 10-14 yo didn't want to play it, sorry it wasn't a huge success that's the breaks... I don't put much creadence in Steam anyway, the only reason I have an account is because Civ5 forced it on me for the install and then SotA gave me free access, so... Steam is only there to throw advertisements in your face every time it launches, and every time it closes...

So NO, I don't believe Indie Developers, I've never heard of them before this article... Have they ever developed a good game before? What was it?

 

Yep, we sure do... I prefer to ignore negative slag and make my own judgement as to what is good or bad in a game, I don't listen to other ppl, I do it with movies too... If the critics say it's a bomb, I usually think it's great... What do they know?

 

Indie developers are not a company, it's more of a classification (indie stands for independent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_game

Lots of indie titles have been proved to be very popular... in fact, SotA is classified as indie since it's crowd funded: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=41386

Indie developers are asked there because they usually don't work with big budgets; their games are not eye catching because of outstanding graphics, so everything that may point its game as a good thing is good. Also, just because you worry about forging your own opinion that doesn't mean the rest of the world does it. I'd say most people just go with the flow... but that's only my opinion

 

Terraria, sheltred, project zomboid. To name just a few ;-)

 

FTL, Walking Dead, Divine: Divinity, Wasteland 2, Shadowland: Returns, Banner Saga, Prison Architect, etc.

 

Guess what, i own them all hehehe.

 

Um, you don't take much creedance in steam? Why? It sells a lot of games and provides a lot of sales....one could argue they revolutionized the gaming market especially digitally.

There are tons of indie developers out there you may want to check out.

 

What it all boils down to is this, the only tool we have against negative reviews (justified or unjustified) is positive word of mouth.

If people want to say SotA sucks because it isn't UO, let them, people looking for SotA to be UO wouldn't be happy with it anyway, and they would only spread negativity.

 

Hi all!
Most of the reviews I've read take account of the pre-alpha state of the game; but to be honest, I think people like to complain anyway, and their acknowledgement of the pre-alpha status is just to give credibility to very biased reviews. Also, saying that the concepts for this game are old, doesn't really detract much from my enjoyment of the game (see my forum avatar for more on that subject!).
Only one review struck me as strange, and I was wondering if someone could clarify what the reviewer (Titler) meant in this passage:

"many pledges are being re-written now, and will lose the most desirable content, unless you upgrade to Ancestor at $275 dollars before an arbitrary cut off date. Check Newsletter #133 for the details of what is being withdrawn, and notice this applies even to Kickstarter backers, or "Royal Founders"."

What is he talking about? I re-read the update he mentions, and it seems to me that he really didn't understand it: he mistakes the possibility to upgrade a pledge and obtain certain bonuses (what is actually happening) with having already a pledge with said bonuses and retroactively losing them (an eventuality which doesn't exist). Of course he's writing a negative review if he thinks that, but as someone said having reviews so early on in development was probably a bad choice (was it a choice or does steam allow reviews always?).

 

Correct. Nothing is being taken away from existing backers.

They're locking certain tiers at a certain date so those tiers won't be available for new backers or for upgrades.

 

As @enderandrew said, nothing is being taken away from existing backers. It is true that people who decide to back or upgrade at a high level after the cut-off date will get fewer benefits for their higher pledge than early backers do. This has been the object of much criticism, but I don't see the problem. The potential backer will evaluate the benefits he will get against the cost and make an informed decision. I do believe that few people will choose to pledge at a high level after August 31 because of the reduced benefits associated with the pledges. So what? Why should this bother me? Pledges are hopefully going away soon anyway.

 

Titler is an Assp, he censors all comments that are opposite of his view, and yes you are correct "he doesn't understand" and won't bother reading, he assumes the worst... Update 133 is talking about "New" pledges, not older ones...

 

Yes, I might be old, but I can still "google" and it's actually "Independent Game Developers", and yes, SotA is "Independent", which only means "they have no Publisher", they own their own product...

I'm sure there're a lot of "Independent" games to choose from, and a lot are on Steam, no doubt... Steam gives easy, affordable access to a "sales" department, which most Publishers do for themselves...

I'm speaking of their "game reviews"... When the reviewers like "Titler" can censor the review (comments) to their liking, I think it nullifies the entire review process to a place where ppl can say anything they want, trying to kill a games reputation... An objective I personally find disgusting, if they don't like the game, then why do they play it so much? Titler has like 112 hrs playing SotA (alone) and he doesn't like it? So he writes a crappy review... Did you read his review? What he really doesn't like is lossing rewards (his misc understanding), he probably paid a $2,000 pledge (or one that allowed him dev access to one of the round tables), and then he got nasty with the devs and he was ignored... His pledge level didn't come with a castle and there's no way to get one in game, so he's pissed... He doesn't want to buy a POT with a castle, he feels he deserves one for what he did pay...

The OPer of this thread is only looking at the negative and thinks it has an impact, well I went over to steam and checked out the store for SotA and out of the 527 reviews (which are "mostly positive"), I don't think it's having much of an effect... Even the Indie developers said that "Mixed" is the doomsday cut off (between 40%-60%)

What we all need to do is go over to steam and give a "thumbs up" to all positive reviews, and a "thumbs down" to all negative reviews (as far as being helpful or not, the %s will change)... And if you haven't written one already, write a "positive" review, each person can write one... So, let's get those %s up...

 

You can up or down vote as many reviews on Steam as you want with a single account. I have no idea what you are talking about (conspiracy, etc.)

 

Not sure why this is even a thing. Some people who get stuff in their PM box telling them to be nice get angry, have angst and want to even the score in their minds. Those who get banned or made a purchase and couldn't easily return it, maybe even a little angry and want revenge. I read most of these bad reviews. Obviously the words 'In Development' are being ignored and SotA isn't where 'they' think it should be. Just like most kickstarters, it gets a 'whale' tag even though it doesn't really offer anything that will make you better then the next person. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about a 'mostly positive' rating. I think Sota honestly deserves a 'very positive' rating myself. All the negative posts filled with angst proves that. AA, SC, EQNL, alot of games offered early access and housing and alot of people bought into those. And i've been on alot of different forums for alot of different games. There are always those who feel they can harass whomever they wish without penalty. It amazes me how they are surprised when the ban hammer drops on their heads. Well, the game looks good and keeps improving. I'm happy about my purchases and look forward to each new release.

 

When is a negative review justified? We have to respect negative opinions as well as positive ones. We can't write off every negative review as misinformation, some people will just not like it.

Titler is close to crossing the line with his unclear wording, but it doesn't seem to be out of malice, just some sense of entitlement.

 

I wonder when the game changes to beta or retail do those reviews reset. It is based on atm being a pre release game isn't it?

 

I don't think they reset. Instead, there will be an Early Access Review tag at the top of the review if it was written prior to release.

 

I think we should be turning the reviews around in the next few months especially. The hangout yesterday said we will be seeing a huge amount of game progress with the new hires and one more new hire for next month. It is really exciting since we have been waiting so long to experience more of what the real game will be like. Yes people are reviewing it from what there is now which is not much in some ways to giving us a great and satisfying experience. There is no way we can say hey just wait for it and you will see. Well I do try anyway. I always feel like we will show them one day. I am confident that we will. Reading the reviews is fine but playing the game and seeing the new stuff as it comes in and realizing so much more is coming is for me where I want to be, but it is not for everyone. A lot of rollercoaster riding