Players - please spend a few minutes rating Steam reviews

As we saw with the recent drama that drove a member of the community away, Steam can be quite mean. As I look right now it is dominated by people who hate the game.

Where are we all at?

Please take a look and at a minimum spend a few minutes rating reviews as useful or not (thumbs up/down) and if you haven't reviewed the game, consider doing so. If you reviewed it any time before this year (or this month) it might be time to delete the old one and write one that is more updated.

We don't want to mislead players, so do mention the negative aspects as well as the positive. Lets keep it honest so the players who decide to join are the ones who will be happy here.

I just learned that you can delete negative comments from your reviews, it is your page and your domain. If you decide to review the game positively, you will probably draw the ire of some people.

I suggest just deleting their comments rather than getting yourself wrapped up in a war. Or report them if they constitute harassment. But as a group we should stay away from engaging, nothing you say can change their minds and engaging only creates more drama which will scare away new players.

Steam is an important gateway for potential players, and right now we are losing them because of a wall of negativity that is presented when they check out the reviews. Without starting drama, lets keep our games Steam community areas positive!

Edit: changed the title to better reflect my point

 

Did you even read my posts of the last 2-3 month? watch the escalation of them, what kind of review i should do? I prefer just don't do it. Before the last 2-3 month i was defending the game evrywhere and calling people to play it, now i just blame myself cause friends spended and then quitted due to "all the fun" the game is giving to people. Why i continue logging and playing? Cause i am a leader of a community i have the responsability of all the people that joined it first and then cause i hope someone before or late will understand what i am saying in my post. This game is like have a Ferrari and tune and treat it like a Prius. I love the game but i really think it has a lot of problems and not due to Alpha, omega, beta or delta things.

 

You do whatever review you feel like. If you feel like waiting, wait, or don't. (If you feel like it's a poorly tuned Ferrari, just have a bit more patience, because the tuning is happening as we speak.)

I'm sure there are also some here on the forum that have outdated reviews, or don't think that every single positive review is totally useless, as the Steam forum voting makes it appear. A low effort way to have an impact is to go through and vote up/down reviews however you see fit.

 

I love and honor the intention here. But Steam caters to trolls. Not much we can do about it. If I were to do that, I would suffer depression. I applaud anyone with the skin for it that enjoys it.

 

Don't engage, don't fight, don't reply, don't troll. Just roll through and rate, then ignore for another month.

If you are up for a review that's up to you. You can easily delete troll comments on your review, so there's no reason to be overwhelmed by them.

 

I really would like to write a positive review... but I'm still thinking about it. I have invited about 10 of my best friends to this game and they ended up leaving and stopped talking to me altogether... they felt THAT terrible, and we've gone through dozens of game and betas together.

Not because it wasn't balanced or other reasons impatient people come up with... but because when we asked when certain features would be worked on we have been thoroughly ignored. Not only that my friends who only wanted to know if our devs had an open mind to certain concepts were yelled at by the community, and then poured salt over their wounds and then thrown in a bath of acid disparaging comments.

They were not only told we would NEVER (never say never) have the game we hope for, but we were told we were being ridiculous for even wanting it. We felt like when you get laughed at in high school because you still play D&D... a kind of bullying I will fight against for the rest of my life.

It was a horrible experience, for me and for them, I am still here only because I am USED to it, like so used to it that it does nothing to me anymore. Sure I cried when many devs started yelling at me wen I started giving my feedback minus the euphemisms... but thats only human. I just hope the devs know that it wasn't pleasant to give this heavy feedback, that I suffered the ambiguity as much as they did...

I think publishing so early on steam was a terrible idea, and knowing what kind of population is vocal over there, I would have prepared a PLAN B to catch those players interest.

I still think portalarium is extremely professional and makes a great "game", I love the look and feel of the game in many aspects...

but... my experience here felt more like a one sided war where our hopes and dreams are being used as target practice, just because they remind some people of some harsh distant past.

I couldn't recommend this ambiance to anyone and noone can blame me for it.

When our very simple questions that take about 5 minutes to answer will get a response, then I will consider it.

 

So that I'm perfectly clear... I understand no Dev in our small team has the time to speculate and offer time estimates on certain features, heck we are lucky they have time to come on here some days.

In fact I beleived so much in portalarium that as soon as I could, I sold my car and my cell phone because I expected to embark on one of the greatest adventures I could not imagine...

imagine... A Lord British game without the superimposed publisher... the possibilities are ENDLESS.

But in all honesty... I have paid over a thousand bucks to be laughed at and ignored in trying to simply open doors (concepts), and know if in perhaps 2-3...5 years we MIGHT think about it ?

But we were looked at like some aliens who want to change the gaz composition of earth to survive, like right now.

"NOooo! we're going to struggle if those rules ever come to pass, and a siege perilous server is IMPOSSIBLE it would divert devs attention."

I didn't ask when or how... I asked why not and who.

Then please do not be so surprised some people have made a sport out of taking revenge on steam or other outlets

in fact it pains me to no end... I tried to warn... but hey I'm some nobody who sacrificed part of his life for a silly nerd dream that noone seems to care about.

 

ok I'm outta here before I start crying again... sorry if it seems negative it is not, I feel like I couldn't have spent my money better anyways, I learned a great deal from this experience, both in programming knowledge and social ascension. It was worth every penny.

In fact I am happy and those who know me know I will persevere until the end, my pledge is a pledge and not an investment.

 

3 Thumbs UP...

I'm having lots of fun in SotA, and Steam doesn't matter to me anymore... If anyone wants a "different" game, then they should find one they like, I have already done that...

 

Jeez I'm sorry. I don't know what to say beyond that.

 

It's ok to ask for the community to show solidarity, I re-read myself and I know it comes out all wrong. I didn't want to discourage anyone...

I'm just sad, I haven't felt like this since the last time a girl refused to go out with me because I played in LARPs, I'm a romantic I can't help it... portalarium to me is a dream come true, I had the chance to see my childhood heroes doing what they do best, live !

It just brought up alot of memories, the way you asked for a positive feedback, I WANT to give one... but what is important to me... well I don't know, looks like a blackhole right now. It's like I was another species of gamer noone ever heard about... I see others thinking a bit like me but they show very little, like they were shy, or afraid.

If one of the devs would come forward, then I'd have ALOT to say about what positive I see in the future. I would write a Wall of text feedback novel.

It's just a political game and I guess there is no room for a neutral like me... I get told I should wait then join the winning side... thats what people do.

Maybe I'm not people :/

In fact I beleive people SHOULD be showing more solidarity on here... its why I get so empathic with the devs and it just amplifies my own emotions.

 

The problem i have, and i say this with .. **** 1500 H into SOTA?
Is i wouldn't give it a positive review.

A huge amount of time i put in was waiting and hoping for promises/other features. It's just a secondary game for me now, and because the game isn't *released* yet, im holding off for fairness sake. If it released today, i would clearly explain the amount of hours i have, and why i have these hours. Why i followed the game, and ultimately that i wasn't satisfied with it enough to justify my purchase. But because its not *released * yet, i am holding off on trying to give it an objective and fair review.

Personally, if i didnt have the playerbase still here that we initially brought in, i wouldn't even look twice at this on my steam list. (And i've given enough feedback for a long time, that i feel i can say this without it just being a *shot* at the game.)
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Something to remember, is that steam comments are very loosely moderated. It's the same as Reddit. You can keep arguing that its just *trolls*.. just because people state things that you dont like. But thats simply not true.

There are some garbage reviews on steam yes. But i would argue there is just as many people blindly giving it *positive * reviews. Which is worse?
Steam doesn't cater to anyone because it lets people post what they want to post.. Should the regulate so only people that are massive fans can post? Thats pretty misleading.

I go on there and see people that are completly mis representing the game and its features, with false comparisons going both ways. For positive and negative. So that argument is pretty weak.

That all being said, there is very much some good and fair reviews on there right now. And just because they arn't positive, it doesn't make them any less fair or valid then posts from people from the *community* here. The reality a lot of people keep forgetting is that SOTA is NOT very well regarded ANYWHERE off the official forums. So far the majority of streamers, critics and game reviewers have given it pretty poor ratings.
Love the game or hate the game, a lot of people feel like they got suckered with their purchase. I personally play with about 12-15 guys in RL regularily. I got 6 of them to buy the game. 5 of those never made it past 3 hours. With numerous attempts, 1 managed to play with me a few months but has completely lost interest. Does that make their opinions invalid on the steam forums?

I follow a lot of games, i play a lot of games and have been doing so for years and years.
In no way can you guys validate the argument that Steam is unfair because people can post what they want.
Yes there very much are a few trolls. I follow the reddit and the reviews, and id say theres about 12-15 people who aggressively want SOTA to fail enough to troll and **** post. Some of them recently got removed from the Subreddit.

Its not like theres teams of 1000s of people out to make the game look bad, it just simply isnt received well in most places outside this forum.


In summary - Yes i will review it, but because of the people i brought in here and my sheer disappointment with it and the choices they have made, im holding off untill launch to give it the most objective review i can. But blaming every critique of SOTA on *trolls* is not only false, but counter productive.

Its well past the time SOTA starts acknowledging where its short comings are, instead of relying on heavy moderation and people always jumping up to yell troll. And they could probably have this game end up being quite solid.

 

I don't think I am suggesting a lack of credibility of all negative reviews. But in this case, the negative reviewer is predatory. That is by definition trolling.

 

Well heres the thing.
Steam actually takes their rating system pretty seriously. If you seriously believe a review there is *Predatory* and unfair / intentional trolling. You can very much report it.
The great thing about this, is steam is unbiased. It wants accuracy in its reviews and rating system. So the thing is, if a review is negative and is still up there, either it A - hasn't been reported, or B - It is a valid opinion.

I've only seen 1-2 that i would call *intentional trolling* and they are gone.
If you see more, i suggest you report it, but essentially if they are still up there... . .. . . . thats an unbiased, objective moderation crew.

 

Trolls or no trolls, nobody spends money on a game with the expectation they wont like it. The insane forum moderation has only led to fuel the discontent. If you remove a gamers voice from a channel that you control they will take their voice elsewhere...and it will be louder....a whole lot louder. As the saying goes you reap what you sow.

 

The abuse is mostly in the comments of positive reviews. This is why I was saying if you are being attacked by the crew, just report or delete.

Negative reviews are negative reviews, and they often have a good point. And I don't suggest fluffing it up if you are doing a positive review.

But if no one who likes the game will go to Steam and rate reviews or make their own, because of the abuse from a small number of people, we are in serious trouble.

 

Just gonna quote this whole thing and say that everyone should read this again, because this... ABSOLUTELY THIS.

 

I am also going to add that even looking at the most recent 18 reviews..
Theres more productive comments that are negative then the postive ones.

* Negative ones include Pros + cons.. and why they didnt like it or felt the game wasnt positive..

Yet all the positive ones except for 2 are 1 word unproductive and not useful.

So in your OP i would also add that if your going to make a positive review, you should try to at least put more then (and im quoteing )
EARLY ACCESS REVIEW

POSTED: 5 AUGUST
Very FUn Game.

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW

POSTED: 29 JULY
Ciao dev's, keep working hard, you have made such an amazing world and the peoples into are loving it!
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Cant have positive reviews like this,
then be surprised theres negative ones like this

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW

POSTED: 26 JULY
Milking donations giving skins 0 content.

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I totally mggryghhryyghyy where you are oumeoylghuouiy from. I have in the past blyuojoyy my paldyouyg only to be ignored. OIUOIUloyou have reached out and beoutyhhyd frustrated beyond anything in the pouyysst. The silensoiughyys of the devluoghss ss is the molughst profoun...ddydd problem. My revie..qqqq probably needs an upggrgatededate. Thanks for the remin..dggeraoore. Going to stea..gpppertt now.

 

... are you having a stroke? maybe you should call a doctor