Trembling Hand has a post up relating to games reviews and, more specifically, MMORPG reviews. It uses the Age of Conan debacle as a case study, of sorts, and while that will no doubt swing the ensuing discussion into a rather lengthy exchange of, “Age of Conan is the worst MMO ever made…” and “No, Age of Conan is brilliant and has hidden depths that you just can’t see yet…” which will only end when one of the parties involved decides to get a life, the premise of the article overall is something I’ve thought a lot about, myself.
MMORPGs are inherently dodgy beasts for reviewers. Faced with tight deadlines, especially in the online realm, reviewers are generally unable to play the game for any meaningful length of time before those deadlines require the reviewer to pass judgement upon it and, as Trembling Hand says, suggest whether people should buy it or not. This becomes a real problem when, for example, a game has tarted up enough of its noob levels to give the reviewer a very skewed view of the game’s true face.
It’s my firm belief, for example, that most of the early Age of Conan reviews were written by people who didn’t get past the first 20 levels and the “noob zone” of Tortage. In this zone they saw polished quests, great voice acting and an interesting game world, full of promise. “This game is looking great! It’s loads of fun!” the reviews gushed. And, yeah, based on Levels 1-20, that’s quite fair to say.
Of course, if they’d had the time to push past that area and get beyond, say, Level 30 or 40, the reviews would have undoubtedly started to take on a different tone. The voice acting dries up… the quests break… the game mechanics prove to be increasingly flawed… a wealth of promises from the box are either broken or non-existent… the endgame is crap… and, most alarmingly of all, THE GAME JUST ISN’T FUN. This is something AoC reviewers should have been ALL OVER, but failed. And therein lies the danger of MMORPG reviews.
I’m sure some of these reviewers played on and, over the months that followed, would have realised that their reviews were WAY too cheery and optimistic. Hell, I would be quite embarassed to have written such glowing reviews when, in the space of three months, the game was revealed to be such a collosally stinking piece of shit. But that’s me. I’m not really into the concept of suggesting people buy something when it’s actually terrible. I guess I have a conscience.
So… who’d be an MMORPG reviewer, eh? On one side, the reviews need to be written fast for a ravenous audience and, on the other, games are sprinkling way too much fairy dust on the lower levels, so the chances of being made to look like a fool within mere months of release are high. You know, free games or not, I don’t envy those guys, not one little bit. I think the best hope for “real” reviews comes from, as always, playing these games ourselves, or having a friend in a beta test who is happy to break an NDA and tell you all about it. Relying on the highly sanitised reality that reviewers are given to deal with will result in rather inaccurate reviews, more often than not.
You’re exactly right, Rob. The problem with reviewing MMO’s is that it takes an enormous amount of playtime to experience the game fully. We’re then left with the corporate mega sites like Gamespot paying some chumps to play the game for 15-20 hours and then write a “review” of the game – which, as you pointed out, was brilliantly illustrated in Age of Conan. I guess they figured they’d dupe enough customers into the game by showing them Tortage / reviewing Tortage. By the time everyone wizened up and realized the game was as fubar as it is, they’d already covered a lot of the initial cost of the game. Isn’t there a law against that or something? False advertisement or selling a product not as advertised?
Anyway, take any MMO review with a grain of salt, especially shortly after release.
Exactly right! There’s no such thing as a good “early” MMO review.
Sadly this is the standard, but a few companies have done well at launch. I thought Wow was pretty damn decent at launch and was not only playable but enjoyable for the first six months. LOTRO, while its endgame content was some what lacking, was also enjoyable for the first six months due to large amounts of PVE content and the epic quest storyline – plus grinding traits if that was something you enjoyed. Even then, it was worth rolling an alt through at least lvl 20 to experience the different starter area content.
I’m hoping some of the more experienced companies have learned what makes a good game at launch. Turbine learned from AC, and it looks like Mythic has learned from DAOC. Though some companies struggle to get it right. I will give Funcom credit that AoC’s launch was much better than Anarchy Online – which isn’t saying much, but they improved. How a company responds with patches and tests those patches in the first couple weeks of a launch generally speak to how the company will treat the fanbase’s concerns as the game ages. Nevertheless…I will not be buying another MMO from them or SOE (SWG disgruntled vet here) in part due to their launches and patches following launches.