MMORPG: Review Part 2 - A Shroud of Confusion

[QUOTE="jammaplaya, post: 640289, member: 7427]It's all based on his personal opinion and playstyle anyways. Dated graphics? Not polished? You don't think that's for a reason? Like less lag for when thousands more people started jamming the login? PvPers dgaf lewl.[/QUOTE]

Bingo. Give the author the graphics he wants, and watch him complain about bad lag and login times.

Even though the article is telling some true facts about the status of the game, and some of its shortcomings, the context and tone are totally off.

The concept of "fairness" in a review implies that the author at least discusses all of the main elements of the item being reviewed. In this case, entire swaths of the overall experience are left out. He didn't even bother to recap the work that has been accomplished since his last review.

That's not a fair review; that's a poor review.

He's writing from the standpoint of whether or not to pay $45 to play the game, as if it were ready to ship today. In reality the choice right now is whether or not to pay $45 to basically sponsor a couple hours of work on the game at Portalarium.

Thus, the author is either clueless about crowdsourcing and game development, purposively being dishonest (lying by omission), or both.

 

In retrospect it was wrong of me to make any personal reference in my comments to you and I am sorry for that.

I truly hope that SOTA succeeds (despite my strong skepticism of RG's sales pitch and Port's business model) and that the users of SOTA get what they expect from the game based on the promises from Kickstarter.

 

As I've explained before, he's confused. He's not saying it has to do with both, he's saying "now" that it was really supposed to be about Ultimas and not Ultima Online.

I'm fine with criticism of the game, I do it all the time. I'm not fine with making your own facts up, creating a false narrative and then reviewing based off that narrative. If he doesn't like the graphics, fine, who's to say he should or shouldn't. I don't see how that's a good or fair review though. I have no problem with the graphics, does that mean I'm giving a biased review if I write that?

Well that brings up a very good question doesn't it? What did you expect to do?

I came to the game expecting to roleplay. I have a variety of tools that will allow me to do that in a meaningful way. Each month there's more and more of those tools that go online, more and more systems that get polished. I find the "living world" aspect of the game to be very compelling and exactly what I was looking for. It's not perfect yet, it has some design and implementation problems I hope get fixed, but I'm having a lot of fun despite those things.

This is a game I could play without leveling anything, which is a lot more than I can say for any other MMO that's been made to my knowledge. Where was that in the review? Why aren't you doing that? To each their own, but it doesn't make it "fair" it just makes it an opinion, and an opinion that plays loose with the facts.

 

That's not what he's saying.

As I quoted above:

You're just cherry picking one quote, out of context, and saying he's confused and making stuff up.

 

And the narrative you support Sir Frank, which is completely wrong, is held on to by people that don't want to see the truth. This is exactly why it's not a fair review.

Sir Frank, am I making up that the game was equally about UO and the Ultimas?

 

The narrative I support is that the game was to combine the best aspects of UO and the Ultimas. How does that make me wrong?
The review says that as well.
I'm not the one who doesn't see.

 

I don't believe the review states that. I believe it's unclear.

I'm not cherry picking when I quote

I get that he also stated something prior to that which is in direct conflict with this quote. That's why I say he's confused. If he made a statement like that about UO he would be equally wrong. People will read that and say "see it's not living up to the kickstarter promise of being like Ultima VII!" You can't just make false statements like that because on page 1 you said something different. That statement is incorrect.

 

Just out of curiosity. how can you say you believe the review states that, when Sir Frank directly quotes the part that does?

 

Cognative dissonance.

 

I'm not saying it doesn't use the words, I'm saying it doesn't mean what he's saying it means.

Clearly, you can read that second line and see that there's no mention of UO at all. The reviewer is factually incorrect in that statement and he's using that statement as the basis for his entire review! I'm not making it up, that's a fact.

 

"It seems to be very estranged from the original vision that was promised in the Kickstarter campaign and therefore in my impression fans who expected a successor to Ultima VII are those who are the most disappointed currently."

Definitely a statement of his opinion. It's not misleading. You may disagree with his opinion, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.

 

As I said before...

Tragic event in history SEEMS to be estranged from what they teach us in schools. Tragic event in history APPEARS to have played far less of a role in our culture than "the man" would have us BELIEVE.

Yes, that's a fair representation of tragic events in history, than you professor!

 

Holy crap! The author of the article gave "gameplay" a score of 7. That's insane; It should be a 2 at best.

Just so we're clear: I'm not waiting 20 years for a good game.

 

Wow a person who writes has credibility? What did he build? What did he create? What did he design? Those that do not build or make anything are useless. Wait until release then we shall see

 

Is it your position that the game also has "something to do" with Dragonlance?

 

WOW! That's a very bold statement. Are you suggesting that only game developers should criticize games? Or are you saying that people that don't build anything don't have credible and valid opinions?

Also, it's not that the author has more credibility, it's that he/she represents a wider audience. Let's just say that he chose a more elaborate and nicer way to communicate his sentiments towards the game.

If you want to Jay Wilson the entire thing, that's your prerogative.

That's grasping at straws, here. Everyone knows that they're trying to build a spiritual successor to the Ultima series; it's been stated countless times. If it doesn't feel like Ultima, then it somewhat missed the mark.

I mean, c'mon! A good portion of their trailers and introductions (at presentations) talks about how Richard Garriott made the Ultima series and how it jump-started the genre instead of focusing on what made SotA stand out on its own. That's their marketing angle.

 

When you see a movie advertisement pumping what actors have been in it or what previous stuff the director has made, do you believe they're attempting to produce a spiritual successor? They're brandishing their credentials. That's what people do to convince you they're worth giving money to.

I've never heard anyone associated with Port say anything along the lines of "this is Ultima X" or "this is UO 2" or even "this is what UO would have been if not for ..." - there's some extremely strong implication the world is related, but anyone with familiarity with the Ultima series would know that apart from U7 and U7 Part 2, no two Ultima games look much alike. And I'm referring to gameplay, not graphics. U1 was all over the place - it even has a space scene. U2 takes place on Earth and you jump around to different times. U3 is a traditional RPG. U4 not only introduced the virtue system, it was the whole point of the game - instead of killing monsters and collecting loot. U8 dropped Britannia entirely and even had platformer elements. U9 dropped isometric view and went single-player, ditching the parties that had been around since U3.

So why would you expect a game that doesn't even have the Ultima label to look similar to a previous Ultima title?

And the real point here, is that people are making a lot of assumptions they shouldn't be making - then getting upset when those assumptions don't pan out. That's their right, certainly, but it's not actually fair.

 

It's got the concept of "Avatars" and "Virtues" and couldn't be called "Ultima" because EA owns the rights. "Lord British" is in the game and Lord Blackthorn is in it as "DarkStar".

It doesn't have to look like it, it has to feel like it.

Then you'd kind of need to pay a bit more attention because it's everywhere.

Here's one from PC Gamer:

I'll leave it up to you to find the countless of other quotes.

 

Pretty much...

 

If there are not some fundamental changes and advancements being made to the game until "release" it will get very hard for SotA.
If the quests are not up to par with other modern RPGs with real choices and consequences and twists etc. then how can SotA be judged as a story-driven RPG with a single-player narrative?

The problem is the advertisment of the game. SotA will at one point be judged and reviewed as the game it is described to be. And then all of those features have to be in place and they have to satisfy. Just having a good housing system or an interesting world or a good PvP system won't be enough for a good score. SotA is advertised as more than that and every aspect will be taken into consideration and will be judged. So if it will have great PvP but bad quests it won't be a good game as the quests were advertised as an integral part of the game. As is the single player offline part. SotA will have a hard time in becoming a convincing game in all of the announced aspects if it won't excel in all parts - and we are a very long way away from that...