Steam updates their review feature!

So you know:
http://store.steampowered.com/news/21695/

Steam has updated how their reviews are shown to better reflect the changing nature of early release games. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction for this game, and others with similar development schedules.

It is old news, May 3rd, but in case anyone else wanted to know and haven't read this yet..

 

since the recent reviews are mostly negative wouldn't that hurt this game, and not be a step in the right direction? if i had a crappy game i wouldn't want people to see that in the recent months most the reviews are negative.......Actually if you read the first 5 or so reviews on there 4 or 5 of them are complaining its NOT UO so maybe your right maybe just maybe the DEVS will see that and realize what people want. now that would be a step in the right direction for this game.

 

I didn't say the reviews are looking better.. I said here's an article saying why Steam had made some changes. Maybe some people just want to argue, please wait for that other thread to unlock, I'm not looking for a discussion here. Enjoy the article! And enjoy the changes to Steam, I thought it was interesting because I had not noticed these changes until today, and I clicked on their helpful link regarding those changes.. and here we are.

 

Still a touchy subject it appears, I am not trying to make a discussion that was covered extensively in the other thread. Thank-you. Just.. read the article, or don't..

 

The new review system is definitely better, especially in more accurately reflecting the status of a lot of these early access crowdfunded games that are abusing the spirit of what crowdfunding was meant for. The biggest example is releasing/launching games in a pre-alpha state and then continuing to hide behind the language of early access. This new review system will properly reject that bad behavior and tell potential the truth of a game that was simply pushed out the door and launched as an incomplete mess.

 

We care for our Steam community too, they are a big part of making this game successful as well. Ideally, we shouldn't look at is as a division, but just another set of community members playing SotA, that just so happen to be using Steam to access the game.

Yes, the reviews are on the poor side, mainly because the game isn't yet finished and we've presented it to a broad range of player tastes that are found on Steam. It will take some time to shift this score in the positive direction, but we can do it!

 

Good post, thanks for sharing the news. And about time Steam did this for their community and early release games.

 

Can we update our reviews to make them recent ?

 

Probably, I would hope so at least! I haven't made a review on Steam yet for any game, but I would hope one could edit their post, save it again, and that should update their algorithm.. but that's just a guess as to how they work their system.

 

I checked that and for Sota reviews actually got worse. So the trend is a decline. I guess that's why the devs decided to not try to get more players into the game right now... better start fixing combat and PVP, before more first impressions get ruined... because that's what most steam reviews are. Still is a worrying trend, and some people including me already mentioned that the scenario of having a big pledged home in an empty game has become more likely..

 

See now that is the right attitude!

 

Yes. I know for a fact that you can update your reviews. Furthermore, updated reviews appear in the "recently updated" filter.

Or, you can delete your review and make a new one.

Plenty of legitimate ways to game the system.

 

All this fuzz about Steam. I don't get it.
Yes it's a platform for the haters. If I read the negative reviews i don't see broken promises. I see peope that had wrong (and sometimes pretty wired) expectations.
So what? Let them Post all they want, they are gone. We need to concentrate on the new players coming from Steam and take care they feel Welcome.

 

Steam forums and reviews?...

Removed video [Berek]

 

Yeah true but overall the reviews are a good indication. Better than game journals. I agreed on the mixed... now with persistence and the perceived "release" it was clear people start complaining more.

 

They are as objective or as subjective as every opinion.
Actually they are worse than game reviews in Journals because there are no Standarts to measure the quality of the game. Most journals have those standarts.
And game Journals aren't personally offended if something isn't as they made it up in their heads up front.

But in my opinion that's not the point.
The point, for me, is that this is a niche game. It won't be to everybody's liking. That's ok, but we have the habit of forgetting this simple fact.
If we want to cater for the masses we would be the next WoW Clone.

 

Yeah, and since it puts a spotlight on the Recent Review Scores, it can also given an opportunity to Early Access titles that show improvement, or force them to do so otherwise they're just digging their graves deeper. Presumably that would be reflected in raising the Recent Review Scores, but it will take much longer (and many more reviews) to bump the Overall Score depending on how low it is to start with.

Currently SotA is at:
RECENT: Mostly Negative (30 reviews)
OVERALL: Mixed (738 reviews)
Release Date: Nov 24, 2014

We still have some ways to go.

 

Yes exactly, it does give the more of a chance for poorly developed games to make changes and recover.

Unfortunately by launching SotA in all ways on July 28th, I see a lot more negative reviews coming its way before more positive progress can be made.

 

EvE Online is also a niche game, but with community and devs they got quite some reputation. Even if you don't play it people know it has sth going there. We need masses in the game... not of WoW proportion but the world will feel damn empty if the reputation of the game doesn't get better.

Like TEK1 I think it will go further down now, and lets all hope community and devs together can change the game for the better. Even if you like the game in its current state, everyone should take concerns and complains seriously if they state facts, even if you don't like them.

 

When the game launched on Steam, I saw a lot of negative reviews of "I was promised launch UO and you lied to me!" when that isn't true. Or people left negative reviews that the game was unfinished. No one was being fair. Criticism I can understand, but the game doesn't deserve the score it has. I asked people I knew who enjoyed the game if they'd consider leaving positive reviews and they'd say "I'm waiting until launch because it isn't fair to review a game before then".

You can edit and change your review over time, and Steam notes the version of the game when you reviewed it.

The positive people are holding out because they're reasonable and want to be fair. The trolls left unfair negative reviews to attack Portalarium as if that would somehow convince them to make a different game to cater to the trolls.