decado

DA2 was horrible garbage. I'm glad I didn't buy it. I have no idea what I'm going to do when DA3 comes out. Like many posters here, it's my opinion that BioWare has jumped the shark with all of the romance nonsense and now they're just making dating simulators. And it seems like all of this has come at the expense of making good RPGs with actual RPG elements. Which is cool and all, if that is the market they are trying corner. It is just a little disappointing. BGII is one of the best games ever made, period. And it is sad to see the stuff they are producing now.

It loses something in translation, asterico, asterico, asterico, asterico, sounds better with a Spanish accent. @Decado: We were just being facetious about the topic but thanks on the info. Still something has to be said for the US being consistently divided about going to war since the time of its conception until modern day. This happens with all super-powers/empires. It usually ends in total destruction, or at least a significant reordering of society that is calamitous and painful. We're probably due for some of that.

This is off topic, but your reading of history is not quite correct. Most of the FF's did not want to "annex" nearby territory. It was only when the French started selling off huge chunks of land to pay for their wars that it became an enticing proposition. And even then, the Senate was bitterly divided over practically every land purchase the US ever made, and certainly divided over the ones we acquired by military force. Plenty of US senators were opposed to the wars against Mexico. Finally, the British are the ones who started referring to the colonists as "Americans." So if anyone has a problem with that usage, go find a limey and let him know you don't approve.

If this was the only place I'd come to for survey responses, it would be a problem. As it stands now, the people gracious enough to take my survey on these forums still only make up around 20% of my respondents overall. Even if half of them are not American (which I doubt, just considering the distribution of population) that leaves me with 10%, which is still rather generous in my view. I'm supposing it is even lower than that. Which, once again, may not even be relevant in the final analysis since I don't know if I'll even be using the demographic data I've collected, beyond the male/female stuff (which I will probably use).

It's basically a habit in the social sciences at this point to collect demographic data, whether you need it or not . If you don't need it you can simply toss it out, but since you are putting the survey out anyways you might as well ask. My primary interests are looking at the games people play, the amount of time they spend playing, and whether or not these factors can effect their reliance on professional reviews. I'm also interested in why people read reviews to begin with. Finally, I'm curious about what the differences between critics and users are, if any. Also, it is worth pointing out that as of right now I have about 100 respondents to my survey. By my estimation, less than 10% of those responses are from non-American gamers. So I'm not really worried about the odd European or South American throwing off my results. There simply aren't enough of those guys responding to my instrument to introduce a worrisome level of error with regard to level of income. Even the most catastrophic answers from all of them wouldn't really throw me off much, and I'm betting that at least a few non-American respondents entered their income in American dollars because they know the amount anyways.

Thanks!

You're right, I've seen the error of my ways.

As soon as he started trying to guess my socio-economic background over the internet through message board posts, I figured it out.

I blame my rich parents.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not possible right now. When any student or academic wishes to study a social phenomenon using human subjects, they have to submit their research proposal to an Instrument Review Board that carefully examines the instrument in question, whether it is a survey, an experiment model, or a set of questions for an interview. The questions and methodology get a comprehensive review in order to make sure that the instrument is not violating any ethical or legal rules, and also that the instrument will not cause psychological harm to any subjects that may take it. One of the biggest areas of concern is focused on the differences between anonymity and confidentiality. The survey you took was approved by the IRB at my university, and that approval is contingent upon the instrument staying the way it is. I am allowed some leeway when it comes to correcting spelling errors or maybe switching around a word or two, but adding another field to collect location data is a large enough change that I would have to resubmit my materials to the IRB. This would delay my research by a large margin, and invalidate all of the survey data I have collected so far. But the biggest issue is that these would be changes to no good effect, as location is pretty much irrelevant to what I want to know. A gamer from Germany having an opinion on professional reviews and a guy from America also having an opinion are equally valuable to the project at large. My research is American-centric but that's because I'm American, surrounded by other Americans, studying journalists who write in English -- this last point being quite important, since most of the barriers that come up in using the internet to conduct research are language barriers. The only point where this may pose a problem is with income, and even then I'm not so sure it is a problem. I work in an international business climate and I can say that most people who aren't from America know how much they make "in American dollars" simply because it is still the most widely used currency in the world, and is often the currency of choice for international business deals (though of course, not always). I do not anticipate people having that much of a problem with throwing their income out in terms of American money. Worst case scenario, the respondent can ignore the question altogether. So it's not the most precise instrument ever designed, but that is okay. I have a certain amount of room in which to work, as do most experiments conducted by graduate students who have no money to spend on their research. The real meat of the research is about how people feel about professional game critics, users, and the differences between the two of them. To answer that, I don't need to know where people are from.

This is a well-known phenomenon in self-reported data of all kinds. For example, the people most likely to comment on a product are people who either 1) Really liked it or 2) Really hated it! Extreme ends of the spectrum are often more represented in the numbers than the moderates, because moderates don't self-report as much. This goes for a lot of stuff, from movie reviews to product reviews on Amazon.com, to everything in between.

Yeah, it is a funny business to be in. The new Superman movie was blasted by most of the well-known critics, but raked in huge amounts of cash and is shaping up to be one of the larger comic/film blockbusters we've ever seen. So how much is the critic's disagreement actually worth, in the long run? The dynamic between critic and consumer has been a contentious discussion for many years in film, music and literature. Now we are really starting to see it in video games, especially in those games where the budgets get so big and the fanfare for release is so loud. ME3 is great example of a critically lauded game that was eviscerated upon release by the users who loved it as a game but hated the ending. This throws into sharp relief the ongoing problem that critics and consumers have always had with each other: they seem to value different things.

America americaned over america. America americaned america in america. America america america america. I am not trying to sound too judgmental but what concerns me the most about his thesis is how inaccurate its going to be or rather how myopic the foundation of his thesis is. To write anything around the Internet and its general trends and to not consider the fact that these types of statistics would obviously contain international information shows a profound lack of understanding on what constitutes Internet data. So imagine if he goes for a job interview and when asked about his thesis, "Yes I graduated and got a very good grade on my thesis which was about gaming reviews on the Internet. I know it was accurate and provides insight because it only included feedback from Americans living in America because they represent the gaming industry". Its fine to be America-centric but not around discussions about obviously international topics that require accurate feedback and content Please. Nobody asks what your thesis was. And if he's got rich parents (and his lack of concern shows that he does), he's guaranteed to have a job anyway through their friends etc. Lmao guys come on, how on Earth do you think you can know this about someone based on some posts on the internet? I don't have "rich parents," and I already have a job. I'm married and I have a daughter.

America americaned over america. America americaned america in america. America america america america. I am not trying to sound too judgmental but what concerns me the most about his thesis is how inaccurate its going to be or rather how myopic the foundation of his thesis is. To write anything around the Internet and its general trends and to not consider the fact that these types of statistics would obviously contain international information shows a profound lack of understanding on what constitutes Internet data. So imagine if he goes for a job interview and when asked about his thesis, "Yes I graduated and got a very good grade on my thesis which was about gaming reviews on the Internet. I know it was accurate and provides insight because it only included feedback from Americans living in America because they represent the gaming industry". Its fine to be America-centric but not around discussions about obviously international topics that require accurate feedback and content I don't want to get into a flame war but 1) I haven't said what my thesis is 2) There is no such thing, from an scholastic point of view, as "internet data." There is data, and the place you get it from -- whether from a phone survey, internet survey, personal survey, you name it -- has limitations. That is something you simply have to deal with when it comes to the social sciences. 3) The limitations of this particular set of data will be (actually, have already been) noted in the literature of the study. Since this is a convenience sample and not a representative sample, the errors introduced by the gathering method(s) are lot easier to deal with. 4) Most students do not have the money or the resources to craft a survey methodology that can reach across such a broad group of respondents as you are suggesting. At least, they cannot do it with any accuracy. Huge marketing firms like NPD literally spend millions and millions of dollars on that kind of research, and they have teams of people working on these projects for months at a time. I am simply a graduate student with an operating budget of zero. Nobody -- not me, not my school, not any employer and not any industry professional -- will be under any illusions as to what this data is saying about a larger trend. The absolute best I will be able to say about whatever my work produces is that we should (or should not, depending) investigate this area further.

Actually, I have several different "response groups" for this survey, all divided up by how I went about soliciting replies -- I have one group for the students from my school, one for Facebook, one for forum X, one for forum Y, etc. The survey is the same, but the respondents are grouped differently.

But surly you are aware these forums are visited and frequented by people outside the USA like every other forum? You do know the Internet doesn't just exist inside the USA? Sure! But like I said, I never intended to be distributing this via forum. It sort of evolved that way, late in the process.

This is actually something I touch on in my research -- what makes a critic a "professional" or even a "paid" reviewer? If some guy writes game reviews on his blog, and uses the ad revenue to pay his bills, I'd say he's probably a "professional" or least popular enough to where he is considered to knowledgeable. Is he a "professional" critic or a just user-reviewer who got lucky? These are sticky questions with no easy answers, and the lines get blurrier every day.

Regarding income, I understand what you guys are saying. Unfortunately, I never thought this survey would be distributed outside the United States so I did not include a location-centric question in the materials. By the time I realized I needed to hit the forums get responses, it was too late, since the survey had already been distributed by other venues. My research is American-centric in general, since I am an American, using American resources, attending an American school and surrounded (mostly) American students. You'll notice that most of the game review sites I mentioned are headed by American or UK companies, written in American or British English. Those are just the limitations of my study. Anyways, thanks to everyone who has taken it so far. I appreciate every response I can get.

Yep! It is basically a convenience sample, since I don't have the money or the resources to do real random sampling when it comes to human subjects.

Hi all! So before I get blitzed, I just want to say I asked permission before posting this. So nobody is allowed to yell at me. Anyways, I'm a graduate student and long time gamer. Currently, I'm studying how video gamers interact with professional game critics, game reviews, user reviews, and other aspects of game review culture. To do this, I developed a survey that will be used to collect data for my thesis. It can be found here: https://clipboard.rit.edu/take.cfm?sid=621FC6E7 I've hunted around for some good places to post this, and the Obsidian forums are a great spot because so many of us are long-time gamers who closely follow the industry. So please, take the survey! It will only take 5 minutes of your time, and you get to help a huge nerd finish his thesis. I appreciate every response I can get. Anyways, if you guys have any questions or concerns, please let me know!

I've often wondered if the "Highlight" function couldn't be tied into player stats. Give every item/door/table/what have you a "visibility rating" or something similar. Items with a higher rating are easier to "see" with your party, and this would be tied into some kind of stat/feat (Perception, Intelligence, Detect Traps, etc). In this way, you can highlight stuff and not worry about pixel hunting, while giving the player a reason to explore off the beaten path. And with a high enough skill, they could "find" everything.

This is also my understanding of how HPs were supposed to be working in the Gygax model. Getting hit for 5 points of damage is just that -- damage. Not all damage is critical, or even noteworthy. I view DnD HPs as an abstraction, with the nearest analogy being to boxing or something like that -- boxers get hit constantly and fights can last a long time, but you can also get whacked really good just once and that's the end of it, see ya! HPs seem like a convenient way to keep track of damage that may or not be lethal. Perhaps our conception of what HPs were/are changed with the advent of CRPGs, where graphical innovations led us to actually see our PCs getting hit and actually losing HPs.

Resting has been used successfully in plenty of games. In fact, one of the best computer RPGs of all time -- Betrayal At Krondor -- had a terrific resting system, probably the best one ever implemented in a CRPG. It had several components: 1) Food was required to rest, otherwise your guys would starve eventually. Managing food resources was perfectly balanced to be just interesting enough to make you care, but not difficult enough to make it a micromanaged chore. 2) Resting in the wilderness only restored your health/stamina to something like 85% of its maximum, and I've always felt that this was the true genius of the system. It acknowledged that resting could work in the wilderness, but it wasn't perfect. The only way to recover all of your health/stamina was to pay to rest at an inn. Constant resting in the wilderness was sustainable, but you paid a price for a it. Which leads me to the next point . . . 3) Prices at inns were high enough to put a dent in your gold supply, but not so high as to be ridiculous. Now that I think of it, the economy of BaK was also pretty nicely balanced (unless you cheated). The inns were extensions of an already nicely-designed system. 4) You could apply herbal packs before resting in order to speed up your healing. Again, nice and simple, with another added resource if you cared to use it. 5) Failure to rest would result in penalties and, eventually, death. 6) Resting did not eliminate status effects -- it could actually make them worse! If you tried to rest while poisoned, your health would drop until you went unconscious. 7) Which, finally, was another neat part of the BaK system -- there was a penalty applied to recovering your health if it had dropped to zero. So let's say you had a really nasty fight with some Quegian pirates. If Owyn did something dumb and got KO'd, even though you manged to win the fight with Gorath and Locklear, it would still take Owyn almost twice as long to recover the first chunk of his health (I think 10 percent? Not sure, though). This system is great because it penalizes laziness. It forces you to care about all of your team members, because even if you win the battle you still have to pay the piper. Anyways that's my long and boring post on resting in BaK. But it's important because resting can work, if it is done properly. The devs just have to make it more than "rest/recover" and voila everything is okay! I'm replaying NWN2 right now and the resting system is exactly what I would like to NOT see in PE. Why not just refill all my spells/health after every battle? All I'm doing is hitting the "R" key after every fight anyways. What's the difference?