Not every negative review is from a troll

[treaves]

It's unfortunate (if understandable) that otherwise salient reviews are trashed as being from a troll.  Yes, many (most?) are poorly worded, and come off more as venting that a critique.  But it is possible to think that many aspects of PoE were poorly conceived, and unfortunately implemented, without being someone only on the forum to stir up trouble.

 

I'm only an hour or two into the game, so, haven't made up my mind.  I have major misgivings, but, as I've already paid my money, I'm willing to suspend a conclusion until I've seen more.  There are many progressive things about the game, and I love the art & music, but, that's not really a reason to purchase & play this genre of game.  

 

I'm not a big game player, as I simply can not find one I really like; the last one I played for any length of time was NWN,  

 

I understand people's frustration with this game, and when I read their posts, I ignore the emotion, and look for content.  If there is none, I move on.  But I've found I can't respond, as most respondents are from people just ripping on the original post for having been made.  So no intelligent conversion.  Not that it truly matters, as the game is out, and the authors aren't going to substantively change it.  But perhaps others reading will gather useful information, go off and write another game, and maybe, just maybe, one day I'll find the game I'm looking for.  Perhaps you all will too.

[IvoryOwl]

People need to understand one thing: An opinion = / = a critique. 

Opinions can be interjected with different tastes, leading to a moot argument between different parties. A critique should be based on facts, which are much harder to counter. Critiques exist to point out the good and the bad in something, while remaining objective and clear about it. If people are just going to spew a bunch of hatred and poorly written opinions (which can lead to misunderstandings) then they shouldn't be surprised if they end up labeled as trolls. Negative opinions usually bring negative reactions, which leads to a negative environment... and these are rarely constructive in any way.

Edited March 30, 2015 by IvoryOwl

[Amentep]

I think its entirely possible to have negative review from someone who is not a troll.

 

I think negative reviews that consist of "I hate it; you suck" probably aren't from serious critics, either, though.

[MachoGrande]

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. Also once again metacritic is proving to be just another marketing tool, I'm seeing tons of brand new accounts that rate poe a 10. Also on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both. Social media is another thing to avoid also, with the usual garbage that goes on there that for some reason kids love. 

 

Myself, I was going to play until I saw the bug with double clicking erasing your stats permanently. It looks like yet again a game has been released 6 months too early and the developers don't care and want more money before they finish it.

[FalloutBoy]

It's hard to take someone's critique seriously when they complain about things like a lack of a walk toggle.

[Amentep]

Also on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both.

You seriously think a kickstarted, micro-budgetted game from a developer who was in serious monetary trouble when the kickstarter began (according to the documentary) would have enough money to pay people to praise the game?

 

I'm not disputing that early reviews are skewed, but paid shills I find hard to believe.

 

My guess is early reviews are a combination of people from the Beta and people who were like "I think this will be awesome! 10/10".

Edited March 30, 2015 by Amentep

[Valsuelm]

A thing about negative reviews in general. Is that the people who don't like something generally don't want to invest the time to explain why to the very people who made that something, as those folks generally do not perceive what's wrong with that something to begin with.

 

Like a serious romantic relationship, most people don't want to hang out and discuss why they broke up with someone after they broke up with them. The time to fix whatever was before the breakup, and often plenty of attempts are made to get through to the other person before the break up. Eventually people give up, and break up. The best time to fix whatever in regards to PoE was during development, and there was a great deal of 'Hey Devs, this isn't a good idea' on this forum.

[Tigranes]

I think it's more than possible to have negative reviews that aren't trolling. I love the game, but there's a number of criticisms which I think are true (e.g. stealth system), and a number of criticisms which I think are worth discussing even if I don't agree with them (e.g. engagement).

 

 

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. 

 

I'm sure you can see into people's souls too and work out what they think, right? Saying "people who backed the game must love it because they are deluded" is just as pointless as saying "people who criticise the game are just trolling". Neither have any basis in logic or reality. 

 

 

 

lso on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both.

 

There were reviews also up within minutes of people giving the game a zero, for example because it has "old graphics" or whatever else. There's a lot of stupid people saying nonsensical things from every spectrum. Again, it's funny that you're doing exactly what the OP is cautioning against - assuming everybody is a troll.

[Ink Blot]

Yes, the problem with many 'reviews' is they tend to be more a "I don't like this feature, so the game sucks" or "This feature is different than BG/IWD/PST so the game sucks" or "This feature doesn't work the way I want so the game is unfinished". Seriously, reviews like that come off as nothing more than whining and trolling.

 

Having said that, as IvoryOwl pointed out, when a negative review actually critiques the game by using facts about gameplay elements or bugs or mechanics, then it can be considered a legitimate review and shouldn't have such a backlash (well, even the 'troll' reviews shouldn't suffer any backlash. They should just be ignored).

[Stun]

My guess is early reviews are a combination of people from the Beta and people who were like "I think this will be awesome! 10/10".

Not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of people that got access to the game a whole week before its release.

 

 

But lets get real. This happens with every game. And really, there's nothing the so-called Metacritic "bombers" can do to influence a major game's metacritic rating beyond a few 10ths of a point in either direction. Eventually, as the weeks go by and more people play the game, then come online to rate it, the score stabilizes and settles at where it should be.

[Stun]

Myself, I was going to play until I saw the bug with double clicking erasing your stats permanently. It looks like yet again a game has been released 6 months too early and the developers don't care and want more money before they finish it.

Nope. That's literally not the case. That Double Click bug is a *new* thing. It didn't exist in the beta, and the beta's been out for 7 months. Edited March 30, 2015 by Stun

[MachoGrande]

I think it's more than possible to have negative reviews that aren't trolling. I love the game, but there's a number of criticisms which I think are true (e.g. stealth system), and a number of criticisms which I think are worth discussing even if I don't agree with them (e.g. engagement).

 

 

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. 

 

I'm sure you can see into people's souls too and work out what they think, right? Saying "people who backed the game must love it because they are deluded" is just as pointless as saying "people who criticise the game are just trolling". Neither have any basis in logic or reality. 

 

 

 

lso on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both.

 

There were reviews also up within minutes of people giving the game a zero, for example because it has "old graphics" or whatever else. There's a lot of stupid people saying nonsensical things from every spectrum. Again, it's funny that you're doing exactly what the OP is cautioning against - assuming everybody is a troll.

And here again, a backer rushing to the defense of their "precious." There's a reason that Steam is forcing the people on there to disclose that they have been PAID for their opinions. Maybe you aren't aware of whats called astroturfing? Hiring shills to pretend to be real customers and give fake reviews, and now also to post in social media sites in order to control opinions. I'm not going to argue with you because I really don't care, I know how things work now I've seen many times, and the gaming industry can get away with it easily because their main demographic is children.

[soedenone]

 

I think it's more than possible to have negative reviews that aren't trolling. I love the game, but there's a number of criticisms which I think are true (e.g. stealth system), and a number of criticisms which I think are worth discussing even if I don't agree with them (e.g. engagement).

 

 

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. 

 

I'm sure you can see into people's souls too and work out what they think, right? Saying "people who backed the game must love it because they are deluded" is just as pointless as saying "people who criticise the game are just trolling". Neither have any basis in logic or reality. 

 

 

 

lso on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both.

 

There were reviews also up within minutes of people giving the game a zero, for example because it has "old graphics" or whatever else. There's a lot of stupid people saying nonsensical things from every spectrum. Again, it's funny that you're doing exactly what the OP is cautioning against - assuming everybody is a troll.

And here again, a backer rushing to the defense of their "precious." There's a reason that Steam is forcing the people on there to disclose that they have been PAID for their opinions. Maybe you aren't aware of whats called astroturfing? Hiring shills to pretend to be real customers and give fake reviews, and now also to post in social media sites in order to control opinions. I'm not going to argue with you because I really don't care, I know how things work now I've seen many times, and the gaming industry can get away with it easily because their main demographic is children.

 

I think you're far out of your depth, if you're arguing from the assumption that Pillars of Eternity main demographic is children, or is marketed towards children.

[Katarack21]

Some of those reviews up within minutes were probably from people who had review copies but didn't have time yet to post a full review on their website. There were 17 user ratings on Metacritic literally an hour after midnight on the 26th--some good, some bad. Trolls and fanboys, and I suspect one or two actual players.

[View619]

 

I think it's more than possible to have negative reviews that aren't trolling. I love the game, but there's a number of criticisms which I think are true (e.g. stealth system), and a number of criticisms which I think are worth discussing even if I don't agree with them (e.g. engagement).

 

 

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. 

 

I'm sure you can see into people's souls too and work out what they think, right? Saying "people who backed the game must love it because they are deluded" is just as pointless as saying "people who criticise the game are just trolling". Neither have any basis in logic or reality. 

 

 

 

lso on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both.

 

There were reviews also up within minutes of people giving the game a zero, for example because it has "old graphics" or whatever else. There's a lot of stupid people saying nonsensical things from every spectrum. Again, it's funny that you're doing exactly what the OP is cautioning against - assuming everybody is a troll.

And here again, a backer rushing to the defense of their "precious." There's a reason that Steam is forcing the people on there to disclose that they have been PAID for their opinions. Maybe you aren't aware of whats called astroturfing? Hiring shills to pretend to be real customers and give fake reviews, and now also to post in social media sites in order to control opinions. I'm not going to argue with you because I really don't care, I know how things work now I've seen many times, and the gaming industry can get away with it easily because their main demographic is children.

 

 

A lot of the beta period involved backers cursing out the developers for specific design decisions, and even now there are backers who do not like the end product. Any review that doesn't give details on why something is good or bad beyond the scope "because I said so" should be ignored, positive or negative. If a negative review has good reasoning behind it then it's as legitimate as anything else.

[barakav]

It's hard to take someone's critique seriously when they complain about things like a lack of a walk toggle.

No it's hard to take a poster seriously when he posts that the lack of walk toggle makes the game unfinished or how that the RPG system SUCKS!!!!!!!!!

 

It is OK to criticize everything ,but it is not OK to insult or to post offensive posts . When posters made polite posts  and explained themselves well they did got polite answers and discussions even if they thought this game was bad.

 

And there are also some individuals that can't grasp the fact that their opinions are not the only valid ones in existence. It is just impossible for them to understand that many players loved a game that they didn't and they will try to find any excuse they can for the good reviews or the commercial success just to prove that their taste is the only one that matters.

Edited March 31, 2015 by barakav

[Xavori]

Once upon a time when I wrote for a gaming mag...

 

I always had a copy of the game I was writing about at least a month in advance.  A few games I was playing for a full year before the game was released.  I'd pretty sure the same thing happened here with most medium to large game media having pre-release copies.  So the time a review was released is meaningless.

 

My personal review would prolly put the game at a B.  or 7 out of 10.  Somewhere in that area.  I'd also break it down into good, bad, and ugly:

 

Good:

-I'm enjoying learning about a new world with new problems.

-Lots of possible combinations of characters

-Well written story

 

Bad:

-Players have no way of identifying the difficulty of encounters, and most often cannot escape encounters that are impossible.

-No individual stealth (I'm a long-time rogue/stealth gamer)

-So much cheese possible because of weird balance decisions

 

Ugly:

-Isometric only view makes some fights very hard to control because characters get blocked by large enemies or scenery

-The kickstarter NPC's very wildly in quality of writing and are very obviously not really part of the  world.

-So very many times the player is given quests or information that no reasonable person would actually trust someone they just met with.

[Gallenger]

I got more or less exactly what I wanted.  I understand that some people will get hung up on various things - but for the most part with this game it is what it set out to be - the critics seem to agree.  A bit more grim than I expected to be sure, but still great.  I feel sorry for the OP though, unless you were playing user created modules, the single player of NWN was pretty regrettable lol.  I remember when my group of friends all got NWN and we all *had* to play through it, and after it was over we all swore, never again lol. 

 

For the most part the "negative" reviews hinge on a few either nonsensical points, a few minor things that wouldn't make a *huge* difference, or things that are just downright expected of the modern gaming industry (bugs).  Thankfully the game doesn't trip over itself at some point or leave me massively hanging somewhere with the story.  The double click bug is always talked about, but I'd already played 20 hours before I even checked the forums and was unaffected because I'd never thought to double click an item into place lol  Apparently a lot of QA testers were of a similar mind.   I think perspective is also a problem - most of the IE games *still* have bugs - even the so-called enhanced editions, have bugs!  They're massive games, it's hard to catch everything and fix it.   At least by this time most of us have internet connections to get the patches, I don't have to relive the days of friends sending me patches in the mail or handing them out on CD at school lol. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

So far, all the negative reviews I've seen are grading they game based in what type of game they personally would like, not by the standards of what this game is supposed to be.

 

The above critique dinging this game for being isometric is a good example. Isometric is the genre. That's like dinging a zork remake for being text based.

 

That said game has some flaws, sure, but its a kick starter small budget title and needs to be judged on those standards.

[TheUsernamelessOne]

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. Also once again metacritic is proving to be just another marketing tool, I'm seeing tons of brand new accounts that rate poe a 10. Also on steam, there were reviews up within minutes of the game going live praising it to high heaven, again either the work of fanboys or paid shills..probably both. Social media is another thing to avoid also, with the usual garbage that goes on there that for some reason kids love. 

 

Myself, I was going to play until I saw the bug with double clicking erasing your stats permanently. It looks like yet again a game has been released 6 months too early and the developers don't care and want more money before they finish it.

 

Mmm, I don't know. Wasteland 2 was pretty broken on launch but after a couple months' worth of patches it has polished up pretty well, and it's not like they demanded any more money for it (not that they should have). I think it's disrespectful to the consumer when you sell them a game that's full of bugs, but that seems to be the norm now that games are far more complex and it's just assumed that everyone has high-speed internet access to get patches; ship now, patch later. I know plenty of people have managed to dodge the game-breaking bugs and make it to the end of the game, but I did not (the Horn of Moderation ruined my Cipher playthrough eleven hours in). That put a bad taste in my mouth.

 

Honestly, I don't think I like Pillars, but I'm kind of stuck with it. I recognize that's just my opinion though. I don't necessarily blame Obsidian for it. A lot of the things I don't like are features, not bugs, and they're just working as intended. I do think there are legitimate complaints to be made, though, especially if it's stuff that could be corrected in a patch.

 

So far, all the negative reviews I've seen are grading they game based in what type of game they personally would like, not by the standards of what this game is supposed to be.

 

The above critique dinging this game for being isometric is a good example. Isometric is the genre. That's like dinging a zork remake for being text based.

 

That said game has some flaws, sure, but its a kick starter small budget title and needs to be judged on those standards.

 

Yeah, four million U.S. dollars is a real small budget.

 

I know it's not some bloated AAA game budget, but come on. Obsidian is a professional studio who got the budget they asked for and then some. It's not some indie developer coding all night in his basement instead of sleeping for six months, either.

 

That said, I think they spent the money well. I don't enjoy the combat system personally, but nobody can argue that Obsidian didn't deliver a hell of a lot of game for your dollar, and it's all well-crafted. There's lots of more expensive mainstream RPGs you can buy that have less content (probably because they wasted their gigantic budgets on getting voice actors to record every line of dialogue in the game).

[Heijoushin]

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. 

 

But what if you backed the game and you genuinely like it? We're not all in denial. There are some small things which annoy me and I've made a few threads about them but I'm enjoying the overall experience.

 

What annoys me is that people point out a single feature and then say that the game is terrible. 

OMG, wizards are weak, this game sux

OMG, their are gravestones with backer names, this game sux

 

That's just silly. What about the other thousand features?

Edited March 31, 2015 by Heijoushin

[Lohi]

A really good critique also should not be just "it's now what I like" or "that's not how I would have implemented it".  Sure, people have differences in opinion on some things or different things that they find fun.  But it's a bit disconcerting to enjoy seeing something new then having people complain because it's new and not the way RPGs are supposed to be done (mostly from people astonished to find it's not D&D I think).

 

But yes, I've seen some trolls and I wonder what's wrong with them.  However it seems that every single game maker in the world is the worst game maker of all time with more bugs than everyone else.  It just can't be true for all of them )  Sometimes I feel these people are just shouting at me "stop having fun, you're not supposed to be having fun in this game if I don't like it!"

 

My only ugliness so far really is the NPC "fan-fic".  When I first ran across this it was a bit confusing.  It stood out because the writing quality didn't match the rest of the game, or that the names just seemed a bit wrong.  It took me awhile to realize these were written by backers.  I think it was the name "Desslock" that tipped me off )

 

For the good:  I restarted the next day after a couple hours of trying things out.  I was amazed on second time that things played out very differently, even with essentially the same character type.  Little decisions lead to little changes which lead to bigger complications not too much later.  To have all this complexity in the tutorial makes me excited to see the rest of the game.  It's better perhaps to use the non-optimal choices I think because more interesting things happen.

[TheUsernamelessOne]

My only ugliness so far really is the NPC "fan-fic".  When I first ran across this it was a bit confusing.  It stood out because the writing quality didn't match the rest of the game, or that the names just seemed a bit wrong.  It took me awhile to realize these were written by backers.  I think it was the name "Desslock" that tipped me off )

 

Oooh, those little vignettes were written by backers instead of actual writers? No wonder a lot of them aren't worth reading. I would never have guessed on the names alone, though. I mean, this is the game with a guy named Durance (hint: it means "jail") and a character whose name is one letter off from "Chaos." And Lady Webb.

 

Some of the memories are fun, though. Were any of them written by Obsidian?

[Lohi]

I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is.

 

That's just the wrong word.  Very close to fighting words is much of the problem there.  Using "fanboy" is basically saying you won't listen to what they have to say.  And in so many game forums all over the place, to even hint that the developers may have had a reason to do something one way gets you slammed as a fanboy. 

 

But PoE is not exactly what I thought it was.  But that's ok.  If it was exactly what I thought it was it'd be boring because there'd be nothing new about it.  I figure that if players are whining about minor things then that's a good sign for the game.

 

I find it funny that three years on or so that some players on the Skyrim forums are still whining about the game being broken and badly designed game that no one can play, despite hundreds of thousands of players putting in hundreds of hours each into it.

[crabe]

From what I've seen so far, this is going to be exactly like Divinity Original Sin as far the kids that backed the game refusing to accept the reality about the game. I don't want to say fanboys but hey that's what it is. 

 

 So the world is simple. It's trolls vs fanboys. How cool.

 

I did not back the game, I played BG in 98, and replayed BG, BG2, IWD IWD2 last year, and to me, PoE is so far (about 30 hours and 2 parties) the best of the series.  The game asks for some implements, right, we agree, but is already fekin good. Seriously, I'm a big fan of BG and D&D in general (I played D&D and pen and paper RPG for 25 years) and I find PoE amazingly good. Am I a fanboy? an idiot?

 

Most of the critics I read are like compliment to me :

- "It sucks, we can't buff before combat !" : I say, that's great

- "it sucks, we can't rest for 8 hours every ten minutes !": I say, that's great

- "it sucks, paladins are not like D&D archetype !" : same

- "it sucks, it's different and I can't apply my old BG routines !"

etc, etc, etc.

 

I like how the combat works, I like all the tactical decisions you have to make to survive one or two dungeon level before rest etc. Great fun, pretty immersive. 

 

I understand that some can dislike the game and his changes, but I barely understand the critics like "your system sucks", "it's broken", "it's idiot", etc. It's not

Edited March 31, 2015 by crabe