f13.net

Gaming Journalism Hurts the Industry Again. Also, It's Wednesday. (http://f13.net/index.php?itemid=583)

So, some weird shit happened recently. We're talking an 11 on the weird shit-o-meter. I probably would have written something in the Q23 (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=37422" target='_blank') but for some reason my account isn't allowed to post. They're a bunch of self-obsessed swine anyway. SOE was apparently gauging the possibility of paying journalists $1,000 to judge their games pre-release and the “gentlemen professionals” at Q23 don't like it. THIS IS AN AWESOME FUCKING IDEA, AND HERE'S WHY.

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You'd be perfect for it.  Don't forget the hotel.  I reckon in a year it'll be first class air, four star hotels and $1,000 an hour, including travel time.  And why not?  It would be cheap at twice the price.

I'm also open to offering my services - hell, call me an "International" consultant. With the exchange rate I'd be cheaper than schild and less likely to scream and throw things. And I promise a Powerpoint presentation with every job! ;-)

As for the games journalism angle - I've met too many proto-journalists / writers fresh out of university / college / wherever who see themselves writing only about the stuff that really matters and will change people's lives and who will never sell out to the corruption of The Man. That they will break the big stories and save society from itself. This sounds like Q23.

Their first job, writing advertising copy for chewing gum brand variants, usually breaks them of those ideals.

But then who's going to keep the front page stocked with usefully cynical commentary?

Me. I can make it a point to post about games that don't hire me for such a thing.

That's the beauty of this, it's like typing with hands made of lightning and god-power.

I fully agree with Schild. 100%.

And quite frankly, I am shocked that there are not Multiple, large consultant operations already out there. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Then again, you might end up telling people shit they already ignore, like "MORE QA lulz."


Also, the one-hour thing? Fuck, I'm pretty sure nowadays, that's not an exaggeration. I mean, I've personally given you grief before for your "one-hour reviews," but fuck...

If the game's not fun from the start, why fucking bother?

Oh, corporations already ignore advice from consultants when they don't like what they hear.  The consulting firms are still very much in business, however.  Also, for actual consulting, this is cheap.  SOE wanted consultants, however there aren't any in the field, just a bunch of Jeff Albertsons on a web forum.

Undercutting prices for something like this is another reason the gaming industry isn't mature, it's the same mentality as people who program games for little or no money.  People work in games just to work in games; please refer to the old joke about the janitor in a theater complaining about his job but, when asked why he doesn't quit will reply, "What?  And leave showbusiness?!"  Me, I love games but I have a real job.  Having a real job doesn't prevent me from imposing my superior game-brain on others.

Consultants that come in and tell you why your product sucks is an ok idea, but the game industry is in bed with game journalism enough as it is.

Look what happened when Schild visited the Austin guys working on the NGE.

NOT THE SAME. DON'T BRING IT UP. I HEREBY BAN IT FROM THE CONVERSATION K THX.

I thought the Themis Group did some of that. And there are consultants out there, I should know :-D

I thought it was pretty intense and awesome until you started talking about suing people for stealing your idea and SOE backing you up.  Then I hoped you were joking.  And, if so, awesome.

Schlid, really good article. Without sounding too much like a brown noser, you're completely right. There is too much shitsucking and not enough truth-telling and genuine helping in the industry.


If enough people told VG/Horizons/Insert Game Here that his/her ideas were a big pile of shitty shit shit maybe Game_001 wouldn't be a flaming stinkbomb of Satan's feces.


I think that Kotaku set a really bad precedent with how it handled the situation a little while back and I think this is a direct result of this. Fuck stupid people. I am getting completely fucked by this in the long run because I want to take my English degree and use it somehow in the gaming industry. Now I'm more or less faced with editing (Not that I'd make gaming journalism my first choice) because Fuckwad_01 and Fuckwad_02 are so self-absorbed that they cannot think that games should be better.

Enough ranting. If we think that the gaming industry is run by father-son-uncle (all in the same) types, what the hell does it make the people who review them? The self-alienated I'm emo and stupid ginger stepchildren who pound their faces into the ground?

Plenty of people did tell them that. They just chose to ignore it.

I meant in a consulting fashion -- i.e. "We hired you to tell us how we can fix this game and will genuinely listen to you and your ideas"


Sorry if it was unclear, the ragemeter was a little high while I wrote the post.

For MMOs the developers get that consulting advice for free during their betas. There's no need to pay anybody to tell them their games suck.

Perhaps the MMO genre was a bad example. Focus more on Game_001 than the others I mentioned then. I think my point is still valid and you are being contrarian :)

It's still not clear that it'll help things. Let's take the movie industry as an example. They focus group/test screen out the wazoo. And they know when they have a stinker on their hands (they don't screen it to movie reviewers) and yet they still release it. In the gaming industry I'm willing to bet that the companies that really care about the gameplay already have a methodology in place for getting honest gameplay feedback ASAP. This is how companies like Blizzard operate. They playtest and iterate through the early versions until they know the game is going to be fun to play. The companies that don't care they are building a crap product will ignore any honest feedback even if they bothered to solicit it.

So where would this kind of proposition help the industry? If we've made a case that operations that genuinely care about QA (Your example of Blizzard) already have a stellar department and those that don't have good QA don't care, why advertise this kind of work? Isn't it moot?

The one type of company where this would be useful is one where for some inexplicible reason nobody at the company knows what a fun game is like and is willing to make the changes necessarily based on external feedback to make it more fun. But then you have to wonder why such a company is making games in the first place if everybody there is clueless about what makes for good/fun gameplay.

SOE has already shown many times over that they will blissfully ignore excellent feedback from testers to release games on some predetermined schedule rather than holding them back to actually make them fun first. It's not clear why they would be the ones looking to pay people to critique their games when 1) they can already get that advice for free and 2) they've ignored that advice in the past.

Why pay someone $1000 when you can make a forum of 40 sign an NDA and just lay infos down there?

After rereading this thread in light of what Trippy had to say, I'm completely confused.


What is the point of flying someone out if you have a QA department?

Presumably it's because your internal playtest group is incapable of giving proper feedback and/or has no clue if your game is fun to play. But again if that's the problem just invite some known hardcore gamers in your target audience to be alpha testers. Or fire your internal playtesters and find new ones.

Right, that's what I was thinking.  Just throw some of the hardcore peeps.  I guess Schild's reply will be something along the lines of jaded reviews since the hardcores feel like shoving their heads up dev's asses to get in those alpha groups.  How do you avoid the pole smoking/carpet hoovering?

Edit: Is "waiter is to waitress as pole smoker is to carpet hoover" correct?  What's the female counterpart to pole smoking?

Actually I'm being a bit too cynical. Focus groups and the like do have their place even for companies that do know what they are doing. However I still don't understand why an MMO company would need to pay for this sort of advice.

I think this is more spot on than I originally thought. I think it is mainly an issue with the playtesters being half-literate. Perhaps the employers believe that journalists would be much better at writing feedback than the people making $10.00 USD/hr.

QA is employed directly by the companies in question.  The idea of a consultant is to bring in someone from the outside who isn't beholden to the system.  And besides, how often is the QA department made up of people trying to break into the industry?  They have incentives to brown-nose and say "yes sir, it's a VERY good game, sir."  A consultant can come in and say "this game sucks horribly, redesign everything" and not worry as much about being fired.

I could be wrong, but I'm probably not.

QA isn't really there to tell you if your game is fun or not, though they can do that if they have the time. They are there to make sure the game is actually working as intended.

I thought internal testers all wanted to be devs one day? Someone in that situation isn't going to give honest feedback  and jeopardize their dreamed of promotion.

What schild is talking about isn't QA, it's critique of design.  Problem is, once you're at the point that you have a playable demo it tends to be expensive to go back and rebuild huge sections of the game.  In most cases, it'll just be more cost effective to publish as is and recoup what you can.  If a company's best guess is that increased sales due to game improvements won't match increased expenses, they don't make the improvements.  This is different from, say, a film focus group where it's not terribly expensive to reshoot just the ending, or even just manage it in the editing room to get the desired effect.  Eating a 5-10% cost increase isn't terrible if you are likely to recoup it, but systematic flaws are costly.


Although the costs assossiated are very different, book review goes along this path.  If a publisher doesn't like the first paragraph + synopsis, then first page, then first chapter, they won't accept a book.  And that's if you can get them to even read the first paragraph.

You're probably very right here, but I do QA at my company (although I'm not specifically QA) quite a bit of the time and my company is very receptive to the criticism I have to give them. In fact, that is what I am there to do. They like it more when I say, "This system sucks, you need to redo it" because they know I am actually spending quality time with the system.


However, it would not be in line with the gaming industry's background to have a completely functional QA department. It sounds more like what you are saying Phildo.

I suppose I see this in two different ways.  The movie industry analogy was a good one, but you might note that the movie execs are not really interested in making good films, just good money, and the information they pay for reflects this.  If enough people will pay to see it to make a profit, they make the movie.  What schild is talking about is a service to help people make good games, and you will note he talks about artists instead of executives being the issue.  The more I think about it, the more I wonder what information a publisher would want.  I'm leaning towards ROI right now.  A development studio, they want to make a good game, but then they may not be very likely to invite outsiders to create a powerpoint of exactly how they all suck at making games.  You never know, though.

To be fair, if it's a game and it's not fun, it's not "working as intended."

Also, Developers don't have to LIKE IT. But they need it. There's a certain amount of art that goes into making a video game. And sometimes those artists need a swift kick in the ass. It takes an outside 4 seconds to figure out things like "gun movement is too weird" in an FPS. Whether that weird be floaty or seemingly inaccurate. I mean, simply example, but a good one in light of games like Shogo Armor Division or Tomb Raider: Legend. But it doesn't stop there. There are a million things that someone who understands the design process can nitpick on that can be fixed in relatively short term. Also, one of those thins is ambitious design. 90% of the companies out there, IMO, need to tone it the fuck down. Thankfully, this is one of those pieces of information that companies get for free.

I hope Peter Molyneux and Will Wright are reading this right the fuck now: Fable and the Sims suck despite sells, tone it the fuck down and streamline that shit, assholes.

That was a funny posting. First because Schild apologizes for sounding like an egotistical bastard and second cause he thinks no one does this already, and three that there are not people better suited to do the job. I think that Schild knows quite a bit about games, but I have had my share of the game industry and can tell you that fools do this a lot. It is consulting and I have been an assistant consultant in the past on a number of games. I think that this whole thing just may work minus the cocky attitude and complete lack of tact. Also knowing a lot about games and game trivia and industry goings on and being able to design games well is two completely different things. "They are not in the same ball park, same league, they are not even the same sport." So for all you silly nillies that think you can do something like this,  This is something akin to film critics and book critics assuming that they could fix things and produce higher quality product. Nay I say. Hind sight is always 20/20. Luckily Schild has some game experience or I would call shinanigans on his ass.

So all in all, I think it is a good idea, albeit not original and certainly not a practice that has not been in use for several years at least. I think schild would do fine with a lot of the games that are thrown at him. But when it comes to fighting/combat systems and action and dynamic character interactcion/scripting  and animation key-framing..

Well...Monkey is really good at that too you know.... What I suggest? Actually make a company that does this and covers all genres of games. THAT has not been done before.

If companies are doing this already, they're doing it wrong. But really, I'm mostly talking about MMOGs here. I just made it broad for the sake of the article. There are so few companies that should be making fighting games that I wouldn't even dare go near that. Of course there are people better suited for me. But then, I think we have a total of 3 hardcore fighting fans on this site. And zero fighting devs that read the site. So uhmmmm, yea! MMOGs could keep a company like this in business. Fighting games couldn't.


Yep, once you're entrenched in the latter, you seem to forget what "fun" is.

I have to disagree. I think that, although fighting games are obviously not a bigger money maker than MMOG, they still make a good sum of money. No one scoffs at the money Sega makes off of VF or the popularity of Tekken, Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive. And you can be your ass that Smash Brothers is a major money making franchise. So I think that it is quite possible that other companies want a piece of that potential action. I think you are correct that there is not enough consultants out there doin this kind of stuff, but I also think that a lot of the consultants out there are also not qualified to do it. Honestly game design is not the hardest thing in the world but you and I know that apparently not everyone can do it, least of all some "designers".

Again I don't want you to think I think you are not qualified to do this kind of work on certain games. IE rpgs and to large extent mmorgs. But you seemed to target the industry as a whole and I can't really think of many designers who could tackle the entire industry single handedly and raise the quality of all genres.     

"Fun" is subjective. What is fun for me is certainly not fun for you and vice versa. I like playing fighting games. I actually enjoy sitting in practice modes and practicing combos and set ups and testing techniques. You actually enjoy level grinding and clicking a mouse endlessly while a random number generator takes its output and concludes your attacks success based on added bonuses of your equipment. Etc. I think designers need to focus on delivering a good representation of what they are making and that is it. It is too hard to please everyone and even the best examples of  completely accessible game play are still scoffed at by a good number of game players. designers need to do what they do well, and this will help keep their initial user base and ideally bring new players.

Sup dude. Stop talking about fighting games. It's about 1/100th the size of the MMOG industry and the companies that make good fighting games already bring experts in to fix things. It's NOTABLY one of the only genres of the industry that does so. You know this. I know this.


Why wouldn't I target the industry as a whole? All but 2 of the registered devs here work on RPGs, SRPGs or MMORPGs. The site's content is 90% online games in the forums and frontpage. Or multiplayer games. The real news stories we have are MMORPG type news stories. I could not have written this rant at Shoryuken. I'm not qualified to and I recognize that. I also recognize, as mentioned above that the fighting genre is one of the few that does exactly what I'm describing. They also get the luxury of location tests from Japanese arcades most of the time. A luxury that MMORPGs will never get since beta testers on public forums are not a way to gauge popularity or expect real critical response. Also, your average American or European gamer is a fucking idiot who has trouble getting up in the morning let alone forming words. So uhmmmmm, what are you saying?

I think you've just given proof positive why you are not suitable for the task you describe; as I've stated before, you don't get what fun is.  You know what you like, but that's not the same thing.  It's very obvious to you why you don't like something; I can do the same thing about myself, my wife about herself, etc.  It's a much more difficult thing to predict what someone else, or an entire category of someone elses, may like.  I know far too many people who love the shit out of some Sims.  It's not something I care for and I got tired after a few hours, but there are people who are lovin' more expansions.  It is a fun game.  For them.

It's also much more difficult than that to turn around and show what of these ideas are financially viable.  Being able to translate great ideas into a working product, and generate returns.  There are far too many projects that start out with good concepts but burn up their budget on implementation; or many others that are fantastic games, but wind up closing a studio because it didn't regain returns on sales.  Your article was nothing short of a red poster about how schild was going to make bitches out of us because you hold the secrets to the castle that no one else does.  

Just like everyone else on the internet.  Go you.

I meant to say The Sims Online, which as far as I know, made back it's initial investment - could be wrong though. I know longterm it was a colossal failure. The Sims is one of the best selling series ever, while I think the UI needs some modern shine, I think they know that too and I wouldn't touch that particular series with a 50 foot pole.. Molyneux however needs help, mostly he needs a guy punching him in the head most of the time he starts dreaming.


Thanks. This is new information.


Thanks. I didn't know.


Thanks.

I think it's important to note that we can sit around ALL DAY and come up with games that don't need this sort of help and what I and you (whoever) aren't qualified to help with.

That's a cakewalk. Then, I also think that ANY OF YOU could name 10 that need generic help at the baseline level for every 1 game that doesn't. That's mostly what prompted the rant. That, by and large, the industry is fucked with "arteeeeeeeeeeeeests" and journalists who are too full of themselves to help incite change.

Telling me I'm not qualified doesn't fix shit. And at this point, I'm pretty convinced that I'm more qualified than most of the assholes working on the games.

Roac, I totally disagree. To tell anyone that there is no way to make a game people love better is simply fallacy.

Sorry. What was the point of that post other than stfu, k thx?

Yes it would be.  Which is why I didn't say that.  I questioned schild's ability to make games better, not whether games can (or should) be improved.

If so, and since you said in your article you had a line of developers behind you who feel the same way about your talents, then a job should be a non-issue.  Polish your resume, throw down a dozen industry references, and make the WoW killer.


Edit:  Or here, make your own game.  Seriously.  Pull together a vol staff and create a GUI-MUD to showcase what you can do.  If all you care about is a fun game, then you don't care if companies rip your ideas.  But ideas are a dime a dozen; showing an implimentation is worlds apart.  If you're that qualified, make it happen.

You can't read, can you? If you're gonna fall into the sarchasm, be a dick, and not be able to comprehend things correctly - especially all that the same time - you should just not talk. I'm not gonna bother saying it again or summing things up for you, but you're typing with your asshole and it's not interesting.

I don't know why you've got an axe to grind with me, but back the fuck off unless you can say something useful. It was my rant and unless you can put forth something constructive, you have no place to be a dick.

If anyone has one fucking idea to make a game better than the next one, then he is qualified.

You are saying that he has no ability to come up with any idea to make anything better by questioning him following this logic.

I'm not being sarchastic.  If you think you are qualified to make things better, then build an example of how things can be better.  Or since you couldn't do it all yourself, get a vol team together and lead it.  This is something you can realistically do.  There are thousands of MUDS, and a handful of graphical MUDs, all doing this.  Or you can do something like a flash game and just illustrate a key principle.

Now you're just being a twat.

This is the sort of thing only typed by a pompous ass of the highest order who can't appreciate the fact it was a RANT and knew that no one would act on it. And you can trust me or not when I say this - most of the people doing this kind of consulting work haven't built nor needed to implement anything better. Simply because those that can implement, do, and they're the ones that make the type of shitty games I'm complaining about. Odds are, if I were adept at said implementation, I'd be part of the problem.

Edit: No Rasix, he's being Roac.

I am not just talking about fighting games. I am seeing that you are talking about a few genres here. I think that is it possible for you to make some changes and they may be good. But you can't assume that you will do it better than people who do it for a living. Not all of them suck, I think, and I say this from experience, all the things people want in a game aren't always able to make it in. But it seems that you are pretty convinced you can do better than most people in the industry so you should just do it. Perhaps you are just as good as you think and say you are. 

Note: I am not trying to be a dick here, if you really want to start consulting, you really should.

After playing what I played yesterday, I'm firmly convinced I could help.

Ideas mean jack shit.  Honestly, they're not good for much because everyone has them, and quite a number of those are good ideas.  Even getting ahold of great ideas isn't so much an issue.  Any dev, artist, or whomever worth a damn has a pile of good ideas they'd love to make use of.  There are no shortage of ideas.  If you think that's all he (or anyone like the role he describes) can bring to the table, then they're worthless.  

Roac, honey, please read.

I'm not selling new ideas here.

I'm selling a motherfucking point of view. I'm selling what SOE tried to just a few days ago.

I'm selling the ability to predict review scores before they happen. I'm selling the ability to predict player response before it happens.

If you don't think I can do that, what the fuck are you even doing here? I'm not uniquely qualified to pitch new ideas. As you said, dime a dozen. But I have been in the situation - multiple times - where I have predicted exactly what I'm selling. For free. It's a useful service. Your theoretical service that you've been bitching and moaning about is stupid and unnecessary.

I think...

Yup.

I think I'm the only person that got what Schild was pissed in his wheaties for...

GO ME!

Which is why that bit was in response to cmdlancas, and not you.


I get what you're suggesting.  I've had opportunity to work and socialize with people who do market analasys/prediction for various industries, so I'm somewhat familiar with that side of business (it's also something I've sort of done once, briefly, and hated... hats off to those who do it well).  You should also probably consider why SOE was willing to spend ONLY a couple grand on their offer.

They don't need to spend more than a couple grand. It was a brilliant move by them. It doesn't take a good reviewer more than an hour to identify the shit obvious point deducting/fun removing problems. When you play that many games, it's damned automatic. You can't turn it off. It's one of the reason games are less fun to me, in general, these days.

You're missing the point.  Yes they don't need to spend more than that and yes it was a brilliant move, but that's not what they're doing.  They don't need a good reviewer; there are plenty of people internal they can call up if needed, or shittons of outside people who will do it for free.  From a design standpoint it's a flop, because it's way too late in the development cycle to manage any code change; that's not their focus.  Yes, they are interested in seeing what the public reaction will be to their product because they want to better manage their marketing strategy prior/on release.  They don't need journalists for that, and remember, that's what they specifically asked for.  If they did fly you out there, they would nod, smile, take notes... and otherwise ignore every fucking thing you say, but not because of anything you did there, or because it's you.  Don't be offended; they do the same to everyone else.

They want journalists, specifically, because they want to grease the rails.  This is advertising money they're spending, not R&D money.  They want journalists to go, get happy with Sony, and once the NDA expires they will write previews/reviews that are more positive than they otherwise would be.  There is psychology at play here, notably the idea of reciprocation.  That is, if I do something nice to you, you're going to feel a sense of need to repay the kindness.  It's one trick in how you buy favoritism.  This is a very old hat, dressed up in a new way so people don't recognize it for what it is.  It needs to be dressed up, because there is more and more pressure (across industries) to not accept these sorts of gifts.  But now, it's not really a gift but a contract service.

Except SOE doesn't give a shit about the service the journalists provide.  You're right, it's brilliant on their part.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I finally see the problem.

You don't like SOE and you meant to post at Q23.


Naeg. Not what they were looking to do.

I like Sony just fine.  Nor is this a "Sony thing" - this is SOP within all industries, and is just how you do business.  You do nice things for other people who you want to have a buyin to your groupthink or product.  It's the same reason companies will take people out to dinner, buy drinks, host beach parties, or rent out a titty bar.  This is just a new (and clever) twist on an old tactic.

Microsoft used to call me weekly until I changed my phone number, asking me to come evaluate shit. I was sad I was always working.

http://www.microsoft.com/playtest/default.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/playtest/default.mspx)

Also the non-gaming version:

http://www.microsoft.com/usability/default.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/usability/default.mspx)

Dude, shut the fuck up and start a company then. Shit or get off the pot as the saying goes.

It's cheap to start a consulting company. All it takes is time. You got the idea and that's the hard part.

My only thoughts on the matter are you would need a better division of labor. You might have a great mind when it comes to games and how to improve them but you probably don't have the skills to sell that back to an executive who needs to be convinced to delay the game and spend some more money.

I would suggest a team of 3: tester, technical analyst, project lead.

Tester: has a "feel" for gaming. Can point to areas that don't seem right and why.
Analyst: has an insight into development and mechanics and can document what the tester "feels".
PL: Can put all of that into a proper format for executives to digest and pass on to their superiors.

You might think you can do it all. But you're wrong.

Schild on Wii sports: This sucks! The motion controls suck! Make it based on a standard control scheme!

Companies can get people to come in and play their games, record their reactions, have them fill out surveys, etc. Feedback is not the problem.

She's falling apart captain... Keep this up, and she'll blow.

 I think if Schild were to do this they wouldn't take his opinion as seriously as they should which is kind of a shame. Just get into development Schild.

Wrong, wiseass. I looked at the Wii Fit and knew instantly that it was absolutely perfect and not for me. So is Wii Sports. Just because I'm not retarded doesn't mean other people aren't also. Aside from that, Nintendo is optimizing profit on a fad. It's very clever. It's not the kind of thing they'd need this service for.


Yep, they do, not the same. Almost all companies do focus groups. Doesn't mean they know how a reviewer thinks. In fact, I'd bet cash-money that most focus groups in gaming aren't worth dick past the first 5 minutes of facial response.

And yes, OBVIOUSLY feedback is a huge fucking problem. Look at MMOG beta tests. I highly doubt focus groups help that much either given the state in which games are released.

Can't agree fucking more. It boggles my mind how many mistakes can be avoided early on with simple peer review equivalent. Scientific circles do it for VERY good reason, its time game development catches up.

Fuck I will top your offer, I will review PvP in any game and write one-page suggestion/correction page for FREE for any upcoming mmorpg title that interested in PvP. I just don't want to deal with another round of suck that is now in the making.

How come industry keep repeating mistakes time after time? Don't they play any games and, you know, observe? I swear majority of mmorpg development done by teams composed by accountants, loon database programmers and catass raiders... when all you need is bunch of gamers that love games.

NO! WRONG! Do not offer solutions. Do not offer solutions or you become liable. This is something that Roac and Margalis aren't getting. I am not offering solutions. UD kind of gets it. Though at $1,000, 3 people is too many. This is merely the following and NOTHING MORE.

1. I walk into your office.
2. I sign an NDA.
3. I play your game for an hour or few.
4. I give you what the public and reviewers will see as wrong, etc.
5. You, the developers, figure out a solution, implementation plan, etc. $1,000 is too fucking cheap to offer solutions. I am not a designer for hire. That is not the offer here.

At $1,000, I would almost be willing to guarantee a review score guess within 1 point. Hell, within .5. But I wouldn't offer a refund, $1,000 costs less than the beer at a junkett. And I can't account for them paying off reviewers or tained previews affecting smaller mags/sites.

I read that book.  I think it was called Pattern Recognition, and was by William Gibson.  I am pretty sure he didn't make the job up so if you learn what it is your are trying to be and use the terminology people are familiar with you might have a better shot at getting accepted as that.

I think we need to offer solutions or suck will continue. It will take another decade of broken dreams to beat sense into industry. THEY WILL STILL FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO BLAME.  Why do you think developers that come up with flawed product in a first place can fix these flaws in adequate way? Chances they KNOW these flaws already and in some misguided way hope it won't matter or will work anyways.

If I am not being paid, how exactly can I be liable? Free advise is just that, free.

Guys. Guys. Guys.

It was a rant. It came out of 3 things:

1. I am not that skilled all things considered, I had just played an MMOG and within 15 minutes, I could have made a laundry list of fucking problems.
2. Journalists, many of them, think this idea is bad. They are retarded. That angered me.
3. SOE had tried to do this, but because of #2.

This is a terribly easy job for anyone with a little dev experience and a lot of review experience. Stupid easy in fact. Ironically, since most games journalists are art fag moron blowhards, it's not exactly a very competitive field. I think a lot of the problem with this thread is that people assumed I was offering up easy to implement solutions.

-

Sinij, offering solutions costs more than $1,000. If you offer them for free, you deserve a beating. And yes, you can be liable without compensation. What you want is enough pay to make that liability worth it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolhunting

Look half-way down the page to where it says Computer Gaming under Areas of Research.  If you want to do what you said, tell people if their game is cool or not.  Go for it, the wiki page even has some suggestions on getting started.

Oh. Add another thing to the list of things I will offer:

Box art opinion.

Fuck, I can't remember the last good box art I saw. And what kills me is you can go on ANY INTERNET FORUM IN THE WORLD and actually get good feedback on that shit.

STOP PUTTING UGLY SHIT ON MY SHELF, FUCKERS.

Sometimes, it's fun to get petty.

Because they're all in the belief that their 20 year old design document based on gameplay rules from 30ish years ago is THE design document to rule them all.  They're all stuck in the rock paper scissors healer tank nuke d20 mindset.  The newbie devs are being indirectly trained by the old school devs that this is the way it has been done therefore this is the way it shall always be.  Looking back, the game that shall not be named broke those rules and people regarded it as teh suck (mostly because 90 percent of the game was broken, but that's another story).  Devs aren't the only ones to blame for this though, players share an equal or larger share of the blame wheel.  We want something different!! we say with compassion.  We get something different, then blast it because it's not what we're used to and it flops.  We're also stuck in the rock paper scissors healer tank nuke d20 mindset, and commercially successful games such as WoW have made it worse.

We're just to blame as much or more as the developers.

edit: apologies for the slight derail.
second: spelling school is hard.

Oh I never even mentioned your $1000 part. I would never set a standard job rate. You gotta break down hours and roles and hourly rate and shit.

$1000 would never cut anything and even trying to do something like that will get you laughed right the fuck out of your idea. Nobody is going to believe a word out of the mouth of anyone who says they'll do a job within the corporate world for $1000. You'd never get a foot in the door.

Within the IT world most contracting companies won't even talk to you unless they know you're looking at least a $25,000 job. Not until you have a relation with a vendor would you start talking smaller stuff. Given this is probably something new you would start lower but fuck $1000.

And I agree with Schild. Offering solutions is going to step on toes. Designers and developers aren't going to appreciate taking direction from a hired gun.

If you were ever going to put a statement of work together I would expect the bottom line to be something like:

Tester: 40 hours x $85/hour
Technical Analyst: 20 hours x $125/hour
Project Lead: 15 hours x $185/hour.

That puts you right around $8500. I'd tweak it until it was an even $10,000

Here's a list of things I could think of that a "contracting" company could offer in no particular order.

1) Playtest
2) Analysts
   a) Code
   b) Writing in Game (Editing)
   c) Writing out of Game (Editing)
   d) Art
3) Reviews
   a) Overall Game
   b) Detailed Writing
   c) Detailed Content
   d) Detailed Code
   e) Detailed Art
   f) Box Art


I think I agree with Schlid about the suggestion part. There should be no reason why the company should be part of the solution other than what has been asked of it. If you want me to review your grammar, punctuation, and spelling, that's what I'll do. However, I won't tell you how to sound more professional because you haven't asked me or paid me to do that.

Edit: What the fuck is Detailed Cost? I think I meant code. Sorry.

UD_Delt's description up there would be the goal of a company. More, the $1,000 mark was specifically for one thing. I agree completely that if it were some kind of Fun Task Force that $10,000 would be more in line.

See, I was frothy yesterday. I understood the business of it. But the point of what I wrote was to anger people, and it worked.

I've seen the impact I have on posting on beta boards. The problem is that for every criticism you have of a game there are 10 people out there who think it's sliced bread. Of course they are morons.

Due to crappy development practices, and schedule adherence here is no time for most games for this sort of insight from a few people that know what good gameplay is. Raph wrote a book on fun, he should be able to go and charge $10K to do a observation/comment right? I'm not sure Raph's fun is my fun. (But he likes Who woulda thunk it, so he's still ok in my book). You need 30 people to look and say, "Fun/Not Fun." if you want to program by committee. I think you're better off coming up with a fun idea off the bat... (Baby Eating Eagle!).

What pisses me off is that UO was revolutionary is so many aspects, yet nobody built on it. Where the fuck is my class-less skill tress and per-use advancement? Where are my player-driven crafting economies? Why THE FUCK we STILL CLONING DIKU?!

For the same reason why class and level-based RPG systems predominate in the PnP world and in the (combat) MUD world pre-MMORPGs and in MMORPGs now -- the masses prefer that style. Personally I feel your pain. RuneQuest (the original Chaosium version) is my favorite PnP game system but the masses have spoken with their wallets and their time so that's what we are stuck with.

1) In the movie business this is called a screening (or focus group).  They don't pay people to screen the movies.  These people say whether they like the movie or not.  You need a large number to figure, on average, how people will feel about the movie
2) Gene Shallot is a pretty famous movie critic.  Gene has watched an assload of movies.  Presumably he knows a fair amount about movies.  Probably Gene knows way too much about movies and is paying attention to shit that just doesn't matter to me because anything he says about movies, I know the exact opposite is true... for me.  Also, Gene Shallot is also a dick, but this doesn't really have any bearing on the points I'm trying to make, I just like mentioning that Gene Shallot is a dick.
3) Art/Music/Book/Play fags have read a great deal about Art/Music/Books/Plays.  The vast majority of the time they say anything about Art/Music/Books/Plays they are focusing on some obscure circle-jerk-inside-self-flaggelating piece of minutia that no one else gives a fuck and their opinions are worthless to anyone who isn't a Art/Music/Book/Play fag (note: fag here has nothing to do with a homosexual person, just someone with way too much time and way to high of an opinion about how insightful they are).
4) If you only review games from companies that don't pay you for your opinion you have created a conflict of interest - e.g. you open yourself to being accused of holding companies ransom to pay you for your opinion or you will give them a bad review (regardless of your opinion).
5) It's easy in hindsight to say, the Sims is a tremendous franchise and you wouldn't touch it.  If a company paid you for your opinion up front, you'd have no concept about the franchise, and you be left with whether you thought the game was fun or not.

For all these reason, I think your idea is better off stillborn.  Other industries have already gone down this path, and it doesn't seem to make a damn bit of difference (actually, we frequently read how focus groups and screenings are "souless" and "art-crushing", so, maybe worse then "makes no difference".  Depends on whether your trying to make money, or art, I guess).

Typhon, movies and other shit have no interaction.

It is very very very very very easy for me to go into an playing an action game and saying "Oh, have you heard of this, it's called Ninja Ga...no, you're not even there yet, try Blood Will Tell. That's a nice low bar."

Basically, I'm talking about real Shit here. Companies that have lost morale that can do things to at least save face. Oh, and MMOG companies. I don't know how any of them have morale in the face of Blizzard anyway.

You can be a journalist or you can be a paid consultant.  You cannot be both.  Once you're on a gaming company's payroll, your objectivity is compromised and will be questioned.  Did schild give that game a better review because the company paid him $1000 to look at another of their games?  Could there have been a deal made through a third-party?   You might answer "no", but your audience might not believe you.

As a television journalist, I assure you that this kind of thing is taken very seriously by most companies in the business of journalism and would be considered grounds for firing.  If you want to write game reviews for a privately-owned web site, that's a different matter, but you won't get much respect as a journalist if you're also acting as a paid consultant for gaming companies.

Fuck the audience. You can be both.

You don't review any game you helped with.

Once again. Games sell themselves. Reviews can sell games sure, whatever, fine. But good games sell. I have an interest in good games more than telling you about the bad ones.

If your motivation is to find, play and/or create good games rather than to tell the truth about them, you're not a journalist to start with.

No, you just have a problem with me being able to seperate the two wants. That's to say, I can want to better the industry and tell the truth, they can be mutually exclusive, this just happens to be a problem with the industry. This isn't politics we're dealing with here. Most of the time, it's not Serious Business. You can easily be both. If you believe people can't be both, then you're part of the problem.

I believe even the appearance of a conflict of interest is something to be avoided.  I also don't believe there is "small journalism" and "big journalism".  The principles are the same whether you're covering a presidential news conference or a Sunday tea.   There are certainly people and organizations who cross the line between telling the truth and pushing an agenda (shout out to the Fox News Channel), but that doesn't make it right or ethical.

No. Especially not with books; you're a tool for saying this. This may have been the case in 1971 when Adrienne Rich wrote "When We Dead Awaken" and presented it at whichever conference it was, but not anymore. I can't stand to see completely misinformed douchebags tell me and my fellow colleagues that we don't listen to new opinions. It just isn't true. I'm a goddamn undergrad presenting at a conference with what in the gaming industry would be the equivalent of Raph. And our (those of us without MAs or PhDs) opinions are worthless? Fuck you. I know you said vast majority, but you're part of the misinformed majority that perpetuates the myth in our sphere.

People who want to make a difference are willing to put aside ethics.

Sometimes you don't have a choice. Most of my beef comes with the actual comparison to journalism. I'm guilty of it also. But writing about games isn't journalism. It's just writing. It's putting words on paper with no actual relation to real journalism. In any given year, there's maybe 3-5 real stories in the gaming world. Exclusives given by companies are not one of them. Covering yet another conservative fuckwit complaining about violence in games is not one of them. Games Writing is not journalism. It should be a field that seeks to damn developers when they fuck up and praise them when they succeed. It should be a field where the writers have the most interest in the gaming community in seeing progress. Sitting around and waiting for a release to review is not journalism.

I'm sorry.

Every games "journalist" has been living a lie. New Games Journalism is nothing but art fags exercising their art muscle with creative writing. Bow, Nigger and A Rape in Cyberspace are not journalism or journalism with New Games attached to it. They are creative writing where a clever writer thought he latched onto something that would get some page hits. They aren't Necessary stories. I'm so sorry that rape and racism appear in the gaming world. With apologies to always_black, Julian Dibbel, and to an extent, Kieron Gillen. While the writing may be interesting, it's not journalism. It's not gonzo journalism. And it's not some other hybrid made-up journalism. It's just writing. It's the shit that appears in Reader's Digest. It's a harsh world.

The world isn't fair.

Get over it.

Being ethical does not directly correlate to writing honest reviews. Reviews should be injected with self, a triumph of emotion. Something that shows you have interest in the subject. Rants should be a reason to stay away. Reviews shouldn't be this half-assed advertisement that shows some college intern how to Do a Job That's Given to Them.

I'm not saying "let's blur the line." I'm saying, let's work together to make gaming better. Get rid of the line completely.

Holy hell I'm so getting you into our beta. Seriously, send me a note and I'll make sure you get a Universe at War beta key, if you're interested.

You don't have to sign an NDA or anything, but I can't send you a thousand dollars, either.

To the first part of Schlid's post, he's right. I think the last journalistic writing I saw here was the VG coverage. It was gripping, amazing shit. Seriously. It's the reason I post here and even know what f13.net is. (I sound like such a brown-noser in this thread, sorry Schlid) He's completely spot on correct with everything he says. Opinion pieces are not journalism -- they are editorials. There's a reason why there is an Editorial Page in a newspaper.

End point: Completely correct. How many times have any of you all on this board ever wanted to write an authority figure, "Fuck you, this sucks complete ass and I can't believe you are making me do it"? Well, as far as 'gaming journalism ethics policy' (and that's a flimsy term to begin with), it's not really feasible. I think official forums are a great example of honesty stifling.

I do, however, disagree with your end statement. I think the line is so blurred at the moment that nobody has any idea what the line entails. I think there needs to be a definition and an explication of what the line is and what to do on either side. If you put out a shit product, expect to catch shit. If you put out a great product, expect people to delight in your success. I think this would define 'gaming journalism ethics policy' as something that isn't a joke.

Cmlancas.

Of course the line is blurred. Maybe I wasn't clear - STOP BLURRING THE LINE. Maybe I left out the word "more." My bad. Not perfect in words, only mathematically perfect in awesome.

I can't help it, I can only work with what you give me ><

Did you go to the University of Awesome? I graduated, Class of '06

Conflicts of interest are serious business. I'm not going to trust any opinion that comes from someone who was paid money to work on a game by that same company, or by a rival company with a rival product.

It was absolutely proper to disclose this move by Sony. Not only do companies now trade access for good press, but now they would trade *money* for good press. No. Just no.

If you want to improve games, either work on them or write informative reviews and articles.

Again I point you to the NGE. It is the exact illustration of the sort of quid pro quo (unintentional it may be) that happens.

Hey. Writing reviews doesn't change anything.

They didn't ask me for what I'd improve. And I was in an idyllic environment. If anything, it was the opposite of what I'm talking about here.


Not at ALL what they were doing.

Jesus. Is this an article that makes brick walls out of people that are otherwise balanced?

Some people think that accepting money is automatically a bribe and somehow you can't accept money and be objective. If that is true, then everyone who accepts a wage (and especially everyone in the consulting industry) can't be trusted. After all, if McDonalds pays your food bills, you have to be a shill for McDonalds, don't you?

Of course not. Get it straight - if Sony got caught paying for reviews, or it was even hinted at that a journalist got $1000 for a review, things would get ugly very quickly. Flying and PR'ing a reviewer is one thing, but direct payments? Please. The journalist would be fired, the publication who printed the review would lose advertisers and the company behind the scheme would get publically crucified.

Schild is saying, "For $1000, I'll write you a professional, independent review before the game comes out". For that kind of money, he'd probably even throw in some Gamespot-esque medals up the top of it too. After that point, the dev studio can do what they want with that review (constrained by whatever contract Schild gets them to sign, of course).

In some ways, f13 already does something like this for free - it gets invites to various betas, perhaps a secret forum or something where players with a lot of MMO experience talk about the game where the developers can see it. The signal to noise ratio is probably pretty good here for a dev to get feedback about areas of concern. It doesn't predict a review score, of course, but if a MMO impresses (or fails to impress) something as jaded as the f13 crowd, that's not a bad thing for a dev to know.

It's not a bad idea. But as Schild said, it's a rant and not one he is apparently going to follow up with action.

Whoa whoa. If people want to pay me, I'll fucking follow up!

The only reason I haven't started SOMETHING like this is the lack of funds. Though if I had the funds, I'd fund f13.

You'd need proof of your skills first, or at least to get a company to provide you with a reference for other companies to hire you off the back of.

I was also going to suggest that f13 become more mercenary / organised about the betas it takes part in and the feedback it provides - if f13 because a recognised MMO beta testing machine, you could certainly charge money for such services.

Of course, such reviews / feedback would need to be more than "lol WoW 1.5" or "too many cockstabs".

But I also know a lot of people would hate the idea. Just spitballing.

I've joked about this. Too much liability to have a legion of 200 people do something for me to get paid. Can't be done. It's not even a matter of hating it. It's an impossibility.

I have a sudden funny visual of a dev asking schild to please explain in detail a haemish comment.

I've read the former at some point, and I looked up the latter out of curiosity.  What a complete load of excruciating drivel.  Then again it was an article about "cyberspace" from 1993, so what did I expect?

Sorry Schild. I gotta agree with the masses that you could either be an independent consultant writing previews of reviews and getting paid for it. Or you can write the actual reviews and not be on the books of any games. You can't really do both.

Two reasons:

1. The companies you are working for are not going to be pleased if they have you on payroll and you then either write a negative review of one of their games (not the one you're working on) or write a good review of their competitor's similar game. Fair or not it's going to piss off executives and make them question your "loyalty".

2. The masses will never trust your reviews. Either you never mention you are on the payroll for anyone and if it leaks you are shady as hell. Or you are upfront about being on someone's payroll and everyone thinks your reviews are shady right off the bat.

It really has nothing to do with the fact that you COULD do both and you are mentally able to separate the two things. If the idiot masses you are catering to can't separate the issues than you're sunk.

Umm... huh?

Write a (professional) proposal and send it off to all the developers and designers you know to get it into the hands of someone who makes decisions (or at least controls a budget). If you get any bites toss in your resume, references, a sample of what you would produce and a short statement of work and you're set.

How much does that cost? Seems to me it's only time.

You don't need to incorporate or any of that BS until such time as it looks like the idea will actually fly. And even that doesn't really cost much money to set up a company unless you decided to hire someone to do it for you. But again it would only take time to research what you needed to do and do it yourself.

Who writes the official game guides & hint books?  How does that fit into what you are trying to describe as objectivity?

I don't think objectivity is compromised by giving an honest review to a publisher before the game is released.  You are selling a review.  Who the customer happens to be is immaterial.  There is NO conflict of interest there, writing dishonest or inaccurate reviews won't sell your reviews to more publishers and won't sell your reviews to more gamers.

The value of your reviews from being marketed as the guy that sells reviews to publishers 'because he tells it how it really is.'  Is materially not the same a 'shill'.

They're self-obsessed swine?
Just a quick note: 99% of posters at QT3 are just random gamers that wandered in and started posting. There's a couple of handfulls of published freelance game writers and a couple of editors posting - so even if the thread you linked to had some sort of consensus and not just a bunch of people arguing the same points you bring up, then it wouldn't be what a majority of self-important game journalists think. I can't even recall any of them referring to their chosen profession as journalism.

And Roac is right. What you're offering isn't what SOE was asking.

I agree 100%
The industry is horrible right now. This is the same shit that happened to Atari in the 80's
Some really cool, very smart guys made some really cool games and it really took off...
Then the money men upstairs went "Holy crap! This is making tons of money! It's time to apply the same buisness model we used to make ballpoint pens to video games! YAY!!!"
A Couple years later and they are wondering where their customers went.
EQ2 should have CRUSHED WoW. It is unfathomable that the game did so poorly. The rulesets, the bad PR, the WEEK LONG server crash (yea, I remember that shit) The damned games been out for how many years? And the UI STILL SUCKS? WTF? Is their any fucking reascon that I need 40 spell/skill buttons on my screen at one time? I mean, seriously... WTF

What? What does this have to do with the original topic? I'm confused.

My long-winded version of "The industry needs help"
If SOE had consultants at the beginning the game would be huge now.

Well. It probably wouldn't not be huge. Blizzard and whatnot.

But the character models wouldn't have made it past the first mockup.

You sure? I heard that they proposed a huge comeback of claymation. Guess that flopped.  :-D

Yeah - I know the idea of turning f13 into some quasi-volunteer force of MMO violators probably wasn't going to fly; too many issues to deal with.

However, if you really want to see if this could work, the next MMO you've been playing that announces feature lock and drops the NDA, write the review as though they'd paid you $1000 to do it. Predict the score for the game on release. Adjust it if they patch up some things as necessary. Since it's meant to be for a private business audience, keep the rant terms to a minimum.

If you can successfully write that first review and people see what is offered, that may just be your start, Schild. However, don't expect those people who get off on gaming rants - which is really gaming journalism's younger cousin who suffers from tourettes - to like it.

Schild, I think you'd make a marvelous consultant.  The hard part is selling yourself to people on them believing they need your services.

The game industry desperately needs outside consultants such as you describe.  I assume (without really knowing what the problem is ) that there is way too much incest and asskissing between game "journalists" and game companies.  Not all game journalists are game "journalists" but enough are that I pretty much ignore everything I read elsewhere, and come to F13 to read the unvarnished bullshit.  I can read varnished bullshit everywhere else - the more polished the site the more bullshit it produces.

I don't think people here are correctly identifying the problem.

Feedback is not the issue. The issue is licensing, executives, corporate goals and plans, resource allocation, personel, personality issues, etc.

Developers already have access to tons of virtually free feedback from target consumers.

Game design is a pretty subjective thing. I'm not sure I'd want all my movies made by movie critics.

Still, if a developer can't separate themselves from their product (or if the publisher won't let em), maybe that's the sort of thing that'd help.

Good f'ing luck finding untainted souls in the TARGET consumer market who can provide quality feedback. Of course, if they're not from the target market they don't have the skillset in place to judge or have any frame of reference. Basically, the only way you're going to get someone who's going to be honest is pay them - a lot - to rip your game apart.

It takes more paid manhours to dig through the SHIT you get from "virtually free feedback" than a professional internal reviewer type that I just don't see it  as cost or time effective - especially in this industry..

Schild even has the perfect voice for telling people that their shitty POS game is a shitty POS when necessary.  Especially when it comes to console games.  I guess because he loves them so much.

By the way, I rarely read any publication that gives away a "Game of the Year Award."  This leaves me with a HUGE empty space next to the toilet which is the only place I think is suitable for that sort of rag. 

No, but you want your movies edited by movie editors rather than directors. 

Peter Jackson's King Kong is an example of a movie that needed a good editor.  Every single scene was too long.  The most reasonable explanation I've thought of is that Jackson was so successful that he believed in his own greatness and exercised too much control over the editing.

You're borderline silly Shild.
First, whoring yourself on frontpage (rant or not, it really sounded lame), then claiming that you don't have money.
Well, get a job at McDonalds for two weeks, that should pay off the paperwork.
Also, we want to see your 0-day reviews - that would be the ultimate test on whether you can really walk the talk. (so far you failed with NGE and 30 days of daily reviews thingy)

You're borderline illiterate, Joe.

1. People without money whore themselves out.
2. I don't have the money to pay a part time, let alone a full time employee (1 person) to start such an endeavor. I have money to support myself and f13 itself, not even mentioning the actual staff at f13.
3. What does this have to do with paperwork?
4. Zero day reviews are things FUNDED sites get. Hell, sites that don't even do reviews that are funded get review copies of nearly everything (sup Kotaku). I have ins at very few companies compared to the whole, I'll readily admit that. But when I get reviews in time, particularly with games people care about, I tend to get them up before zero day - like Disgaea 2 and Persona 3. Though I think I posted Persona 3 on the original launch day.

What crawled up your ass?

I'm not a native English speaker, so please bear with my language skills. Never realized that such endevador would absolutely require hiring an employee just for the paperwork. Tax system in US must be really horrible.

Now, I really like f13 and your writing, I was just pointing out that before people will be willing to pay 1k$, they might want to see a sample of your work. Get yourself pre-release access (you already got one closed beta offer in this thread), write your thing and publish it after game gets published (devs pay you 0$, so they whould go for this). People will see if your review score predictions were really within 1 point.

What the fuck is an "untainted soul"?

Okay now you are just being an idiot. Alpha feedback posted on the forum or through bug reports and feedback is nothing like what you get in the later stages where it's 99.9% noise and .1% signal.

Ha, this thread is getting silly. I honestly can't say whether this would work well or not. It's like you would be a Public Reception Forecaster. That is what I would have to describe it as. I think that companies should just hire better designers. Let's just nip this shit in the bud.

Well, yea, but we've seen how that works out.

Nepotism is a bitch, yo.


Someone that isn't a fanboi, friend of a developer, another developer, or part of the publisher. Or idiot. I just chose some grandiose words to describe something mundane. Which is to say...


I've read alpha feedback. For many, many of the recent games. And you're right, it's about .5% signal instead. Still crap. And it's mostly because of the type of person that's trusted to be in an Alpha, which usually ends up being a trustworthy but ineffective tester. Bug reports be damned by the way, I'm not even talking about that at all.

People here have a bad tendancy to misdiagnose problems in the game industry. Yes many games suck, but few here understand *why* that is the case. Again feedback is simply NOT the problem. Developers run focus groups, they show games off to other departments and divisions, they get feedback during previews and alpha/beta.

It's fairly easy to get stats on what people like and don't like. How to fix it is much trickier as it is entirely subjective. And even if that advice on how to fix it is good often the means and willingness aren't there.

To fix problems you have to identify what they are, not what you imagine them to be.

Schild in case you were wondering some people already do this for a living.  Richard Bartle was (not sure if he still is) doing it for sure.  Although I'm betting he gets paid regular consulting wages.  I remember reading an amusing comment by him about how he often couldn't play beta's because the NDA had some line about "you have to give us your opinion if we ask for it".

In general though you'll find that giving them good feedback rarely allows them to act on it.  The industry is heavily flawed and merely knowing what to make will not allow them to actually make it (Margalis says some good points about this).

Still though you're correct it's very hard to get good feedback.  I've worked with the issue before and frankly even when there are plenty of people who can spot obvious flaws they lack the articulation and background knowledge to turn that info into something useful to the developer.  The ones that do have the background knowledge and the articulation necessary to explain themselves almost always lack the objectivity to look at the situation in a way that sees the maximum profit.

When you finally find yourself a person who has all the qualities necessary then you often have to deal with problems like the employees having poor communication skills or also lacking objectivity.  This can cause all attempts at quality feedback to fail completely (i.e. Brad McQuaid).   That sort of situation is actually incredibly common.  Your rant on "artists" lends me to believe you've already seen quite a bit of this?

Im not sure working with journalists to do this is a good idea though.  To some degree if you've got a pigheaded Dev giving you crap being able to tell him IGN says he's a fucking retard is quite useful.  In general though I don't think it's a good idea simply because it does open a can of worms and using game journalists isn't likely to get you any better feedback due to objectivity issues.   It's also amazing how often "journalists" lack articulation skills even though they clearly should have them for their work.

This is just hysterical.  I know that you have no concept as to why this is hysterical, and you may never know why it's hysterical (which makes me a little sad).

Try this - at the next conference where you are listening to someone present, try to listen to what the presenter is saying, rather then the style, the form, the references or the allusions the presenter uses.  Listen to the substance.  Then ask yourself if the presenter really believes what he's saying.

Or you could just go back to trying to insert your head up schilds ass, seems like you are enjoying that.  You should pick another thread though, he's so blatantly wrong in this thread that I don't even think he really believes it.  Good intentions aren't enough to overcome all that is wrong with this idea.

I'm kind of curious.  What method do you think should replace the mechanism of having people familiar with a concept present their ideas on that concept to other people familiar with that concept for critique?  Since that method is such a self-indulgent circle jerk that produces no results worth mentioning?

Neg. I know what you are saying, but it just isn't true anymore. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that others don't too. Literary Criticism is much, much different than it used to be.


I've been there. It is more about substance now than it is about big words. There is a reason why they are panel discussions nowadays instead of lectures -- the ideas are given in a conversational style instead of a prosaic one.


Kill yourself. Just because I agree with a point of view that someone has doesn't mean that I'm trying to become his/her next lover. I think he's right, you think he's wrong -- fine, I'll debate with you. But when you start spouting nonsense about a field of study where you obviously know nothing, I'll call you out on it every time. Especially when it is my field of study and I know something about it.


Edit: Woo! 500! Shame it's a flame though.

I find literary criticism an interesting topic.

Typhon, why don't you post some links to examples of what you find objectionable?

If it wasn't clear from the "Art/Music/Book/Play" portion of my post that I was talking about artistic endeavours.  I think, for most concepts of a technical or philosophical nature that that method is tried and true.  I'm kind of curious why you broadened my context to include any concept under the sun?

For artistic endeavours, hell, let's call it plain old entertainment, I think these types of discussions mostly fail to achieve the desired result - where the desired result is in identifying whether something is or will be entertaining.  I think Art is so emotional and personal for the person creating it and the person consuming it that you cannot absolutely distill down into a dry dissertation why it is or isn't entertaining.  I think the dry dissertation and analysis can get you 60%, maybe 70% of the way there, but that's the outer 60-70%.  The heart is pure emotion.

Where do I get that opinion from?  From having to listen to self-important babble when I was in college/grad school (I finished with grad school in 1992), and again listening to conversations my daughter had with and about the dramaturgy majors and professors she was going to school with (she was in graduate school at the time).  (To show you where my bias is - I'm really pleased that she has stopped spending her time discussing other peoples criticisms of other peoples work and has started producing her own screenplays.  Of course I'm biased, but I think she is very talented).  And the occasional reading of movie, music and book reviews.

I think that there can be decent discussion about technique.  How someone uses a camera.  How someone uses a paint brush.  However, my experience has been that when these critical discussions are put to the task of determing whether something is entertaining they end up missing the boat.  I just assumed that it was because the critic had become so focused on theory they miss the forest for the trees.  As a consumer of books, movies and music looking for something entertaining (and willing to be awed or moved by the same) I have found that the more serious critics are the ones that I disagree with the most on whether something is entertaining or not.

The red part is way different than the orange part. Siskel and Ebert or the New York Times do the orange part. Scholars do the first part. Trying to compare the two is much like comparing apples to oranges (hooray for color!). Now, if you have a qualm about the second part, I'm with you. My tastes, especially in movies, are almost completely contrary to every 'movie critic' in the media. However, when it comes to analyzing textual usage of 'pooling of consciousness' or 'stream of consciousness' or 'insert literary technique here,' I can agree with any of the arguments. Literary criticism, in my opinion, is something to further your thought on a certain piece. It is almost like the "editor's cut" of a particular piece of literature. Maybe you disagree -- and that's fine -- but it is much farther from self-fulfilling circle-jerking (which you have strayed from in your last post).

Edit: Colors are hard.

Double Edit: To reinforce my point, I just got done watching Pan's Labyrinth on On Demand -- really didn't live up to the hype. It was okay, but I thought it was going to be more than what was there -- a lot like 300.

Because it's a tried and true method of creating advancement in, um, every single field of human understanding?

Nobody can tell you what you find entertaining.

The best thing a reviewer can do is establish a fairly consistent outlook that you know how to interpret. For example you might find that Ebert rates action movies much lower than you would, and nostalgic dramas much higher.

Most criticism doesn't focus on whether or not something is entertaining, because that is entirely subjective.

I don't understand the point of the Front Page Post, nor the resulting 4 page thread.

The whole thing is quite nonsensical.

Schild, if you wanna whore yourself, do it on your own website.

I worry a little though;  almost everyone in this thread is wrong and talking nonsense, so I'm worried that merely posting here will make my post come out exactly the same.

Hey, you know what would be keen ?  If you took the energy writing that shitty rant and actually put up an incisive and interesting review of a game/soon to be game  that actually made an critical sense and had a valid point.  Seriously.

Making a good point in a game that's about to be released is pointless. You can either recommend it or not recommend it, you know why? It's gonna be released no matter what you say and other developers will mostly just point and laugh and not learn anything.

It would have the effect of demonstrating a competence in evaluating design decisions, rather than saying "I are serious expert."

You play a lot of games and you claim to have good taste. We get it. That makes you no different from ten thousand gamefaqs morons. If you have some sort of great acumen in evaluating games you should demonstrate it, along with your superior communication skills.

Right now what you've written sounds a lot like "I can tell you how to fix your game - after all I did save the princess!"

 :-D

Yeah.  You learned that one the hard way.

Look, I may agree with some points you put forward, but at the end of the day your rant is completely pointless because you're putting YOURSELF forward as credible.

You're not.

Also, I find it interesting in this reply that you're basically agreeing with what Roac said quite a while ago :  By the time they're bringing you in as Teh 'Eavy 'Itter you're pretty much too late to change anything.

The solution, methinks, is to get designers and developers that don't suck.  And, if you don't agree that that little fact seems possible, then what's the point ?  Take your sequel games to the last one you enjoyed and sit down.

Of course, then they'll consolise it and you'll still end up fucked.

 :|

Oh, I agree, I just don't think the bad lead designers and directors in the industry - particularly MMORPGs - are willing to believe they need some help. Not when it comes to their vision of what the game should be at least.

I don't care about the consolization of games. Just the bad consolization of games.


I don't disagree that I'm probably not credible enough. The point was that compared to many people in the industry, I'm amateur hour, and even *I* see some base fucking problems in games that are too far along in the dev process to be fixed. Things that should have been nipped months or years ago.

But, if you don't mind me asking, who's more credible? Because, honestly, if anyone is That Much More Credible, they should really be MAKING GAMES.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the old designers has gotten out of touch with the vast majority of the gamers. Also, I know that in even a lot of large game companies all sorts of muppets gets to have their say in the design proccess, I think there's fairly few game designers that have total controll over the whole game design.

I definitely have a problem with the orange part (i.e. mass-market critical assessments).  And they receive the largest part of my dismissal as worthless.  But there is definitely some bleed-over because I have a problem with, as you say, scholarly analysis and mass-market analysis being apples an oranges.

I have a philosophical problem with scholarly analysis not having any (to my eye) impact on the mass-market critical assessments.  Let's assume that you are correct and the state of literary criticism has dramatically improved since the 70s.  Why then has the state of mass-market literary criticism continued to be abysmal?  What are the scholars doing to improve the state of mass-market criticism?

And a final nit: I don't think that scholarly criticism of entertainment is a self-fulfilling circle-jerk.  I think it's a reactionary circle-jerk.  I don't think scholarly analsys of entertainment media paves the way for new discoveries in entertainment media.  Equally troubling, I think its most important contributions (which I would say are the analysis of the technique that the author used to achieve the experience) can also be, at worst, destructive of the experience, and at best, deconstructive of the experience.

Well, quite a few mass market critics are nothing short of hacks. The last true critic I saw on the cover of a book give a review was Joyce Carol Oates.

Probably nothing other than writing a foreword or two.


Well, I'd disagree with you. Ever seen Memento or any other stream of consciousness film? That's a direct result of discoveries in entertainment media through scholarly analysis. I'd disagree with you on your last point only because I side with T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent." I think that all literature/criticism/whatever is constructive as opposed to deconstructive. It's more or less where my idea of criticism as a methodology to enrich art comes from.

// I like this a lot better than art fags are stupid.

If I could buy you for what your worth and then sell you for what you think your worth schild… id be a rich man.

You people don’t get it (nothing new here)… the real problem is that we don’t have real game designers making these mmops. Lord British was the first real designer that made a title in this genre and Blizzard was the last (got SE & WW Studios there in the middle of that time line). You would have to dig really deep, to find me a studio that had prior experience designing a triple A title outside of the mmop genre. That’s why; I get excited about Space Time Studios and w/e LB is making because outside of those guys, you have a bunch of snake oil salesmen.

When I listen to an MMO dev, all I hear about are “systems”. When he should be talking about Game play. IDC how you plan to work out grouping, don’t give a shit about your end game, could give a rats ass about your crafting… if it aint fun no one is going to play it… and GAMEPLAY = FUN.

Until we get Nintendo to make an mmo, or if blizzard would fucken realize that they use to make GAMES, then maybe we could see the genre evolve.

Uh.

It is definitely internet meme time. We went from an artfag circlejerk to the Book of Grunk. Therefore:

(http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/9676/deliveryan6.jpg)


Anyway, no Grunk. Every dev is trying to create the next big thing. Trying to trivialize their endeavors to "systems this and systems that" is idiotic.

By the way, Ninty is on record stating that they will not support an MMO that needs patches on any console. Also, Blizzard currently has the best-selling MMO on the market. I'm pretty sure they are writing the how-to guide on MMORPGs right now.

Grunk, I have a hard time thinking that you can read anything over a fifth grade level -- how are you reading Dev posts? ><

Who's Schlid ?

My evil twin. He's a Squid.

HEY, I just got back from an extended vacation in Bizzaro World.  What MOG did Lord British design?

My first thought about Schlid was: Schlid's Malt Liquor.

Hm.

(http://www.thenonentity.com/schlid.jpg)

(<3 my schildy)

Trouble is, your Evil Goatee just looks like a fanny.

Um...I do actually know what that means over there, but in the United Slaves of Bush, fanny means ass.  FYI.

Intranet embarassment to the extreme!


Sorry :/ It was my first chart, I had to mess it up somehow. And Yegolev, hi5 on the recommendation of Paint.net. It is awesome.

I'm well aware.

meep~!

(http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/5331/newdeliveryii4.jpg)

EVIL!

I think in every post that I have ever mentioned schild, I spelled it schlid. I suck.

The funny part is that the real-life schild has the evil-twin goatee.  I assume the good twin was eaten long ago.

The good twin loves a good 5 man dungeon in World of Warcraft, and can pass the hours away with a good bout of level grinding. He hates cigarettes and alcohol, and keeps his house free and clean of games, not wanting other people to know of his shameful hobby.

Schild, I agree with your premise, it is possible to do both credibly.  A person's journalistic integrity isn't necessarily compromised if he/she does consulting work for the company involved.  However, as a customer who has been burned by the video games industry multiple times  (including the very same company whose idea you are advocating) I have to tell you I would not only be suspicious of any review coming from a journalist who was a consultant but also I would look for journalistic outlets whose journalists were on record as not engaging in the relationships that you are advocating. 

The reason is very simple.  While you may or may not allow such a relationship to affect your reporting, as a consumer I am unwilling to take that chance.  The addition of having the title of "paid consultant" to your job history simply raises to many credibility issues in my mind. 




Journalists recusing themselves, would be a better solution in my mind.  If the journalists recused themselves of reviewing any game they were a consultant upon, then there would be no problem just so long as their is transparency in regards to the person's involvement.  I must however disagree with your premise though that great games sell themselves.  While this is true most of the time, I would refer you to the old Interplay game, Planescape: Torment as an example of how great games are sometimes not great sellers.  Also if just being a great game was all that was needed, then why exactly does just about every gaming company I can think of engages in PR campaigns prior to their product's release?  I think the reason is relatively simple, the reason is there are a large number of gamers out there who don't follow the industry very closely, who have money, and who look to journalists to expose them to games that they may just want to purchase.

I believe it is a large number because in all honesty, I am one of those people who sometimes look to other sources before purchasing.  Whether its word of mouth, seeing a review on either TV, the internet, or in print; it isn't just quality that will cause me to make the decision to purchase a game.  You can have the best and most fun game in creation, but if I don't know about it I am still not going to purchase it.  An example of this that comes directly to mind is the game G.U.N..   I first saw G.U.N. in my local blockbuster and it looked cool so I picked it up.  It was a western based game.  I was intrigued, I had never played a western based game.  It looked like good graphics to, it looked like quality.  I still however did not purchase it.

Even though I had liked what I saw I am very cautious.  I have been burned way to many times in the industry with blind purchases.  Pools of Radiance: Return to the Ruins of Myth Drannor comes to mind.   I waited on purchasing the game until I saw a review of it I believe on the G4 channel.  That review was a piece of journalism and it was the deciding factor in getting me to purchase the game.  I purchased the game after seeing the review, I purchased it because I was satisfied that I was going to get quality back.  However had I in any way saw the review from a journalist that I knew to be tainted (as in a paid consultant), I more than likely would not have bought the game at all and dismissed the review as biased.

I have taken a long time to say simply this.  I agree with you, for some people money can not cause them to abandon their integrity as journalists.  Unfortunately as a consumer, I don't know if these are the corruptible journalists or not.  As such anyone who took this money and did a review would not be considered by myself to be a legitimate journalist, simply because I couldn't trust the information they were giving me.

My .02$ for all its worth.

All I've learnt from this thread is that you can make up for any deficiencies in argument by passing said argument off as a 'rant'... while still maintaining that said argument is valid, sound, etc.

Right?

Or is it just a really bad job application... to everyone...

Well you could, but the quality rants are passionate, funny *and* correct.

Ah, the fabled Chimera.

More like John Stewart rare.

I object to being called an art fag. I've never stroked a beard in my life.

I think this kind of business would be a good idea, if the game developers actually wanted the feedback. However, I doubt their motives. I think they were looking for a way to pass a bribe to website editors who will be publishing the reviews for their games. I think it was very obvious, and I think the editors were right to take umbrage at it. I believe, as you do, that the independence of game websites is inherently compromised by the fact that they require pre-release access to games and therefore are beholden to the sources. But if this arrangement colors the pre-release coverage of games, the sites have held firm on the independence of the reviews. All questions about the judgment, taste or qualifications of the reviewers aside, and with a necessary caveat that the star ratings or x out of 10 ratings are weighted, the editors are very clear about which games they choose to recommend and which they do not, and I don't believe relationships or economic pressures impact that choice.

When game developers start handing cash to reviewers, it changes the picture.

And the game developers don't have to pay for this kind of feedback, which is why there aren't consultants in this area. Devs post a web forum and their players will tell them all this shit for free. If the developers of any of these games pick out a couple of outstanding guild leaders and forum posters from other games and get them in the beta, these people will tell them the same stuff that you or the game reviewers will tell them, and it won't cost a dime.

Disagree. I think Ebert and the more prominent critics like AO Scott at the times are as capable and adept at generating scholarly analysis as any of the professors writing analyses on the New Wave. The difference is that their job is to analyze a movie the day it comes out. Its place in the ouvre of the director is still in flux. The cultural significance of the movie is unclear because nobody has seen it. These critics put the film in the context of their knowledge of the artists producing the work and the context of the films preceding it and influencing it, and generate very quickly the narrative that that film fits into. This leads to mistakes; when you show someone something new and unexpected, they may react negatively, even if they might have appreciated what they were seeing on more considered analysis, and most critics will identify their own mistakes and the reviews they wish they could undo. (I realize Ebert's comments on games as art make him persona non grata among developers).

The primary difference is that scholarly criticism ordinarily takes place with the benefit of more hindsight and the wider view that provides on the significance of the movie to the careers of the people who made it and the greater themes that run through their work, and the place of the film in the time and social reality from which it emerged.

To say that a scholarly critic is of a higher order than a newspaper critic is similar to saying that a historian who publishes on the administration 20 years previous is of a higher order than a newspaper correspondent who covered the events as they were unfolding.

I wasn't really focusing on movies. I really don't know that much about the criticism that comes from them. I do, however, know quite a bit about literary criticism, and your argument for literature holds no water at all.


Also, I'd like to think of criticism more like a really long winded forum thread where the posts are eight pages long. A professor explained the idea of "the conversational discussion nature" of critical ideas this way and it really helped me in my endeavors.

That would almost make sense since most scholarly lit crit is utter bullshit that follows formulaic readings of texts to come to a "deeper meaning" that is preordained by the formulaic method of reading. See also *ist crit (feminist, marxist, etc.).

Hint: there is no deeper meaning to find when you come to it with a biased reading style. For fuck's sake, if I could get away with applying Hegel's master-slave ideas to Paradise Lost, then most lit crit is BS.   :evil:

There are a few scholars who get published with very sparse content on a new book.


"First!"

The masses of gamers are much like the masses of......well anything really.  They aren't going to go research gaming theory and take their sweet time in the thinker position pondering cybersociology and how games need to evolve.  These people want to play good games, and quite frankly you can only bag on them so much for not being educated....as I'm sure it isn't one of their primary goals to be so in regard to games.

I think the blame is plenty large enough to be spread across the board.  Gamers have spoken with their wallets, but until they are offered an alternative scenario (for a fucking change) how can we expect them to even know what the possibilities are?  That is why it's great that there is a whirwhind of new content relating to forward thinking in this department.  These people are slowly getting educated and that's the best we can hope for.

I keep quoting this guy (Robert A. Rice) everywhere I post but frankly the discussion keeps coming up.

If you go to market every day and everyone there is selling rotten eggs, then you are going to buy rotten eggs.  After all you've grown up living near this market and buying these eggs....until someone offers you a fresh one....how the hell are you even going to know fresh eggs exist?  The truth is our online games are rotten.....we've left the same templates out on the shelf for the last decade now and we are utterly failing to keep up with the evolution of gaming.

I think someone with money will have to grow a pair and make everyone realize that "this" was what they wanted all along.  Sadly I think they might just have to see it to realize it, which really takes us back to where we started.

Disagree. People don't make games because they want them to be unfun; everyone is trying to make the "fresh egg."

So far only a few developers have succeeded.

You missed my point entirely.  Nowhere did I even insinuate that people are purposely making crappy games.  However there are preconceived notions about how a game "should" be built and those my friend would be the rotten eggs I am referring to.  I don't blame the seller any more than the buyer.  On the contrary everyone shares the blame.

This site is chalked full of criticisms and claims that "most developers don't know their ass from a hole in the ground" so this line of thinking shouldn't be unfamiliar.

You girls just need to accept that 90% of games are shit and always will be, just like 90% of books and movies and everything else are shit.

I guess I need to spell it out for you. Plenty of games are trying to "make it new." I'd cite PotBS, EvE, Fury, Hellgate: London and possibly AoC as trying to "make it new." These games are trying to be more than what came before them. There are also games that are following the mold, rather than break it. I'd cite LOTRO, Mythos, WAR, and pretty much every other DIKU clone out there in this category. I'll concede that some of these games I listed have a few ideas that are new -- Monster Play being one of them -- but overall they are just clones.

Is that better?

I'd also contend that quite a few people here don't hold the notion that devs don't know what they are doing. Rather, I think people are scattered between opinions of project design sucking, QA sucking, horrid interface design and a few other qualms. To come out and say that this site claims that devs don't know their ass from a hole in the ground is generally pretty insulting. I certainly don't think that.

Nope, generally we question specific decisions but I think every regular poster will agree that running a 5 year project with a budget in the 10's of millions and the pressures from the fans and from the money and your own/teams instincts is HARD.

Making MMO's is complicated, that's why most of them suck.  Occasionally it's possible to point the finger at one person specifically who 'doesn't get it' but even then there will be debate about what specifically it was that he/she screwed up.

They don't want 60 bucks for a book or a DVD.

Plus 15-20 bucks a month...

Hey man I'm going to respectfully ask that you stray away from outright patronization in the future with me.  I am here just as much for the enlightening discussion as you are, and I personally could do without the smartass remarks.  I think you have some great things to say, so let's just leave it at that and keep it clean please.

When I talk about lack of innovation I am talking about the mainstream.  I think examples like Eve Online, PotBS, and Shadowbane are among some of the best virtual world concepts I've ever encountered, however these games (minus PotBS) until recently have received little attention.  I think it speaks of the conceptual design that Eve is finally getting the recognition it deserves after 4 years on a rocky road.  Someone would be hard pressed to argue though that the amount of innovation even compares to the vast amount of high budget "repeats" we are all seeing pop up one after another.  The truth is that the spotlight of mainstream attention from gamers and developers alike has traditionally failed to fall upon games like Eve because they detract from the traditional idea of what an MMORPG can and should be.

I find this to be a travesty of course, but my point is that the 800lb gorilla isn't moving anytime soon and I'm not just talking about World of Warcraft.  I am speaking of this entrenched but outdated ideology that see us experiencing the same single player game over and over again in our MMORPG's.

As for my comment regarding developers "not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground" that was pulled right off of the front page of this website, and I didn't use it to back up my own opinion.  I was simply stating that this ideology should not be unfamiliar to anyone on this site as it is not just mentioned, but trumpeted around here at times.  This site wouldn't have hundreds of active users coming by per day if it didn't offer diverse and enlightening discussion.....hell that's why I'm here.

To be fair, that was Schild's rant. I'm under the impression that he generally gives devs the benefit of the doubt.

I'd be unbelievably  :-o if EvE stayed as popular as it is now for a lengthy period of time simply because of the enormous barrier of entry that goes with 0.0. The first threads I check when I log in are related to EvE. EvE drama is unparalleled on any network television show. I'd play if I could go spam BoB for fun -- I'm not all about SA/Goons, but Endie just makes it seem like so much fun!

My opinion starts here: As far as innovation, I think that there will come a time where a game takes the fun aspects of multiple games and amalgamates them. You like the hands-off approach to EvE? Check. You like the ease of entry in WoW? Check. You like the fun gameplay of DotA PvP? Check. You like the character models of X game? Check. (Insert whatever idea you like here)? Check.  However, there is something to be said about why people still pay for the same worn out MMOG.

Quite a few people like vanilla and chocolate ice cream, ya know? Breyers, Edy's, Publix Premium? Whatever. Just give me vanilla and I'm a happy camper.

Forgive me for the attitude, I guess -- I saw your first post. But if you're going to hang out here for awhile, you have to know that there are many posters that are ruthless. I'm a speck of space dust compared to the likes of angry.bob.

You have to realise that you can do any thing you want in eve while skilling up. As in playing wow or whatever. If you want to be there you can get there. The first job in a PVP corp is a tackler. (snarer) and you can be there in a week. And there allwas looking for more. The game is very accessable from that angle. Try to carebear it, be a miner or industrialist and it takes years.

I totally understand and I appreciate that believe me.  I know there are some ruthless posters here but you know what?  That's ok too.  Generally the more condescending and vitriolic a person is the weaker their arguments tend to be as well.  I know there is a lot of gold on these boards and I'm willing to "hang" to talk to people like yourself that are willing to be mature about it.

Mature people can say "fuck" and call you a "cockstab" too.

You'll go a lot further ignoring it then you will by trying to be The Censor Police.

Well luckily I never claimed to be the Censor Police, nor does it bother me if people speak their opinions regardless of how they go about it.  As long as someone isn't being a blatant dick to me 90% of the time I will ignore it.

No more censor police?

So everyone can post in the den now?  Oh no, that's right.  Just the special people, so they can always have the last word in any argument.

Sorry, f13 can't just promote everyone to level 60. You have to earn your way up to the Den, thanks. Fucking carebears always wanting everything on a goddamn silver platter. "Wah, I can't post in the Den! Fuck these cockblocks!"


Jesus.

HELP! HELP! YOU"RE BEING REPRESSED!

edit: I'm way too grumpy in the mornings.

Let me spell it out for you.

If respectfully asking someone to stray away from being patronizing = Censor Police!!

Then the Den = Repression.

Geez.  I know the comparison was bitchy and weak, but still.

I tried grinding up to 60 for phat den lewt but the end-Schild-boss TPK'd my contribution attempt.  :P

Corp por.


I think it is hilarious that we've used the opening line, "Let me spell it out for you" twice in two posts. Bravo.

Oh, and by the way Lindorn, expect to have someone be a dick to you (cockstab?) 95% of the time.

That's why you don't preorder anything, or buy anything on release day.  If it's an MMO, maybe you don't buy it for the first month.  You practice a bit of restraint, and see what people are saying about it first.  Games "journalism" is a fraud, word of mouth is everything.

If that is how it has to be then I'll just react accordingly.  Probably by doing what Schild suggested and just ignoring it and/or moving on to a place where the discussion is more about MMORPG's and less about an old western style "who can whip their dick out the fastest" contest.

It's not about how fast; rather, with how much authority.

And don't face off against the wrong person, or you get a whole posse jumping your ass out of nowhere.

The point has been made but it seems to get lost in the other noise.

schild, pick a game you are beta'ing. Write a "report" on it in the format you are proposing. Send it to Trippy so he can put it in  a "lockbox." Two weeks after the game goes live, put the report up here so everyone can judge whether or not you can do what you say you can do.

Why does cmlancas hate angry.bob?   :|

It's not hate -- it's respect! I'd never go toe to toe with angry.bob. I don't want to be one of the first to the wall.

Pretty sure that won't happen.

Ranting is easy.

Fucking Awesome Avatar.

fucking edit/quote buttons...

That kind of feedback isn't worth $1000. My understanding of schild's point is that he can offer more substantive feedback. He specifically mentioned predicting the game's review score within a narrow range of error.

That said, if he really wants to do this then he needs to put a sample out there that people will believe was written well before launch.

~insert sound of crickets chirping~

At this point, I'd have to be paid to do it for MMOGs.

Why?

(http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1091/gamesthroughoctoberrd4.th.jpg) (http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1091/gamesthroughoctoberrd4.jpg)

That's why.

Xerapis, stop being a dick. It's gotten old. You made your point months ago.

Since when did being a dick get old around here?  LOL

And to me, the point was clearly never made.  I mean, my name's not blue, is it? :P

You jumped up and claimed you could do something.  People asked for proof. 

How much do you want?  Maybe some of us could take up a collection just for laughs.

You deleted your article. Let it rest.

Oh, sure.  After the site owner slammed the article twice in my thread. 

Yeah, I fucking deleted it then.

He ASKED me to do it.  Then slammed it in the thread.

Sure, he apologized in PMs.  But when I said I wasn't sure how to fix it, waiting to follow his lead, there was no follow-up.

It was on him at that point.  And he just stopped talking.

I tell you what.  You spend the time and money I did to write that article for him, then have him shit all over it, and we'll see how well YOU let it rest.

I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish by constantly bringing up what happened in the past. You certainly aren't currying any favor with him or myself by doing so. If you stilll have a problem with how schild treated you you should take it up with him in PMs or email. The forums are not the place for this sort of thing.

Indeed.

On the other hand, it does make one insatiably curious for teh dramaz.

 :roll:

I think we need some "investigative journalism" here. Mainly, I just want an interview with all the e-dramas so I can have more EvE online type stuff.

Thanks :)

You need an avatar before you start making demands on other people's time.  Although I agree e-drama is 4tw.

Okay see that's where you are wrong. We still have that thread archived and you did not ask for any of that until after you deleted your posts and I wasn't privy to your arrangement with schild beforehand so I had no idea what it was I was supposed to be doing. I made some comments about your posts, went to bed, and when I woke up you had deleted everything. If you had asked me to merge the threads or front page your article I would've done so but instead you deleted your posts before either of us could've done something to appease you. I'll bring back out that thread if you don't believe me on the timeline.

And now that you've dragged me into your mess with schild by blaming me as well for the problem you made unsolvable by deleting all your work hard work, basically cutting off your own nose to spite your face, I don't have any problems with telling you that this is your final warning to STFU about this in the forums. If you want to discuss this privately send me a PM.

Edit: Xerapis did have a post this was a reply to, I swear!

Understood.  Clearly this was just one uncoordinated bumbling clusterfuck.  Nuff said.


But where the fuck did this shit come from?  I've never ninja edited in an argument.  Not cool, man.

Edit:  Oh, I see now.  The den.  That's cute.

These are all useless observations that are very easy to make and very hard to fix.

Someone who is being paid to improve a game would point out things that:

1. Were not immediately obvious
2. Were fixable with some reasonable resources
3. Were worth fixing

Nobody is going to "fix" autoattack-based combat. That sort of observation isn't any more useful than "uh this sucks."

A good suggestion would be something like:

"The LFG tools are lacking and group play is a major part of the game. Here are 5 very specific suggestions on how to improve the LFG options."

Or:

"At low levels many of the classes are too similar, you might want to move X Y and Z character-defining abilities much lower down the XP curve so players quickly understand the core gameplay of the class."

Yeah, I'd love to see a more nuts-and-bolts approach to reviewing.

When pointing out all the horrific glaring flaws in a new game, go ahead and explain how you think they could fix that problem.  Realistically, not just snarkily.  Give a decent solution by the numbers.

Preferably using examples of other gaming systems, whether they are from console or computer or handhelds or whatever.  To be honest, I think this is the part Schild with all his esoteric computer knowledge could excel in.  He just needs to spell it out a little better sometimes for those of us who haven't played every game ever created for every system in every country. :P

1. By the time a game is in a open beta phase where we could perform Shiznit's "challenge" the game is already perma-fucked by the same mediocre design choices we see from every western MMO.

2.  Western MMO's suck so hard this "challenge" isn't worth dick.

Let's look at some recent "AAA" titles..  Fucking VG, LOTRO and christ I'm drawing a blank here what else have we had recently besides another GW xpack?  Anyways, VG wtf are you going to tell them to "fix" for VG?  LOTRO?  These games are flawed from the word go.  They are trying to put a shinier chrome hubcap on the wheel that WoW perfected.  Fuck off with that shit already.

Also the fact that for every MMO you could ask why the game isn't fun for the first 10 hours /played and that is a stupid thing to say because the complaint is "immediately obvious".  But instead we have a ton of endgame apologists or people who get starry eyed over WoW's "quest system".

What would you have told AutoAssault?  Besides that they were making a cars+guns game into a diku clone?  No matter what else they do if thats their core design the game will suck.  I consider that advice to hit two outta three of your categories:

1. Were not immediately obvious
2. Were fixable with some reasonable resources

But whatever, my bad for taking a shot at the clone army that basically amounted to "uh this sucks" they aren't fucking worthy of anything beyond that for my money.  I haven't paid for a MMO subscription since I quit WoW a third time almost a year ago.  Yet I guarantee I've been playing more interesting mmo's / quasi mmo's during that time period then anyone still flogging themselves playing WoW/EQ2/UO or whatever.

If you claim to offer a vaulable service you should consider having any evidence at all that you can deliver it.

Even a bad game can be made better. The fact that you essentially deny that says to me that you aren't any better at what you claim to be good at than any random person off the street. If you want to be making the design decisions from day 1 get a job as a developer.

*Waits in vain for a reply from schild*

The main problem wtih shiznitz's challenge is that NDA's prevent that sort of thing from being written up publically. And by the time the NDA drops enough people have already pointed out all the flaws in the forums that publishing something at point just makes it look like you are repeating what everybody else is saying.

LOCKBOX!

LOL

Not really. If you are pointing out the same flaws and the same solutions that everyone does in forums then again you are no better than joe average guy. If that's the best you can do then you have nothing to offer that a focus group couldn't offer.

What service is being offered here? Obvious advice that is nothing more than conventional wisdom. Exciting!

Point out some flaws and ways to fix them in ways that make sense and display extraordinary insight, rather than obvious flaws without proposed fixes that display commonplace insight. That's the whole point right?

If you can't do better than Vault posters don't expect to be paid.

You've totally changed the scope of the work. Instead of being paid $1000 to tell them why their game sucks you are saying I'm supposed to tell them how to fix it as well. I'm not doing the job their lead designer should be doing for $1000.

So we're back to the point that the input isn't worth the money expected.

You've never seen the inside of a game studio then.

When you're halfway through development, it's hard to see the forest for the trees.

The best part is you've spun this off based on a post I made saying damn near anyone could meet this challenge:


To which I still respond by the time one of these games is in a beta its far past too late for anything but tiny tweaks.  Which has resulted in you (Margalis) getting in a huff and calling out Schild and now Trippy about it.  Which is fine by me but sort of funny.

Critiqing Diku-Clone #0083 after its already hit a beta available for mass consumption would be the biggest waste of a person's life I can think of.  Do you honestly believe that anyone on this site would be incapable of reviewing an open beta for these games and not pointing out fixable, worthwhile flaws that wouldn't get fixed?

That's just downright insulting.  First of any of these games is released with glaring bugs, followed by obviously missing features that they promise to "patch in" later.  After that you have the obvious stretch of content that is placeholder shite that they shoved into the game just as they geared up to release.  Either some level bracket or perhaps a particular race/faction's area often times is under developed compared to other game areas.

Once you've looked at those areas you could continue with interface issues, balance issues, lack of customization for certain class/race/level groups/weapon or armor users.  Etc etc etc

But so what?  First of all walking this stupid fine line you've invented in your head between VN-level suggestions and "omg just go be a dev" level suggestions seems like it may be impossible to do.  So you want someone, to waste a bunch of time playing a game that isn't fun so they can prove to the interwebs that they aren't so retarded as to not be able to find flaws in said unfun game?

Oh fuck sign me up.

"Why can't companies fucking pay me $1,000 fucking dollars plus airfare and sit me in front of a game for an hour. All I need is a fucking hour. Hell, start me in the newbie zone. I don't even need to see high-level content. I will tell them EVERYTHING that is wrong with their game within that one hour. I will tell them why their quest writers suck. I will tell them why the game will break down at high-levels. I can tell them what reviewers will take off points for when the game is finally released. But most importantly, I will tell them why people won't recommend their game to other people. I can tell them this shit as early as the motherfucking alpha."

That's where we started with this whole mess, before the shitty waters of controversy started swirling.

It really comes down to:

Put up or shut up.

Pretty much.

It's fine to claim you are good at something, but that's pretty worthless by itself.

Since when is it put up or shut up time? I'm content with companies pumping out shitty games. I just don't want to hear or talk about them. And I especially don't want to hear "GAMES JOURNALISTS (lulz)" bitching and moaning about a goddamn thing since they're part of the problem at this point.

Remember, this stemmed from journalists expressing moral outrage at SOE for even considering such a thing.

I bet half of them could have done it also. If they weren't bitches.

"But most importantly, I will tell them why people won't recommend their game to other people. I can tell them this shit as early as the motherfucking alpha."

AoC:  Funcom why are so many of your features missing?  Bar brawling doesn't work / isn't integrated into the rest of gameplay at all.  None of the siege features you promised are in the game at launch and your class system for promotions is still confusing and leads to people not being sure until it is too late if they will enjoy their class.  What have you been doing all this time if so many of your core differentiating features aren't finished?  I'm not recommending this game to anyone.


WAR:  Mythic why does your balance still suck ass?  <insert archtype here> functions better and has more power then the other three.  Also <insert race here> has such a better version of <insert archtype here> compared to the other races on their side.  Also how is this different from world pvp when all the VP's are earned in instanced Battlegrounds by ORG's wtfrolling PUG's?  This is WoW all over again, just with a tiny bit more ganking and darker lore you didn't even do a good job adhering to.  Wtg, I'm not recommending this game to anyone.

Wow, I fucking kick ass.  I haven't even played either of these games nor have I been drooling over their newsletters or watching all their PR hype-machine videos and listening to their podcasts.

The bolded part doesn't line up with the first part. WoW all over again would result in recommendations, particularly paired with darker lore (and, appropriately, a darker setting).

Two things:

Speaking as a developer, public (or anything non-internal) beta feedback is basically worthless. It's too damned late in the development life cycle to make fundamental changes. Beta is for fixing bugs, not re-defining a fundamental game mechanic or addressing game play design flaws.

Secondly, even if a company were performing game development in a Scrum/Agile manner where feedback of this nature could be spiraled in (or, at a minimum, the project canceled early enough in the life cycle to save costs), I'm really not sure it's worth a price tag without a very successful commercially demonstrated track record. Personally, I'd freaking love alpha feedback on fundamental game mechanic with discussion on possible game play (/nudge Schild, you know what I'm talking about), but it's not a commercially attractive work product--for a few dozen dollars and some stamps (or even faxes), I can privately invite a focus group, NDA them up, and get that critical (but not necessarily worth funding, since I can get it free with a bit more work) important feedback when it matters.

With the vast majority of game development life cycles, "beta testing" is one of two situations:

--marketing (seeding viral marketing messages)
--"oh shit we screwed up badly" last chance review, for those companies smart enough to re-start from scratch, or flat out cancel, on projects that are already fundamental failures. That class of developers is almost infinitely small.

Now, prove to me that it's worth spending crucial funding dollars on with your historically accurate track record, and I might consider paying for the service--but as several others have mentioned, you have to bootstrap yourself to that level. No one (successfully) says, "give me your money and I promise I'll be right!" without a track record.

Except MMOG developers.

lol...touche!

^Zing!


I thought I either read somewhere or saw a video of that British dude decrying the virtue of silly things like 'balance.'  I believe he used the word 'rubbish.'  It might have even been here?  Maybe not here, but I distinctly remember hearing (or reading?) that one of their core beliefs was not to worry too much about balancing the game around ye olde rock/paper/scissors.  Inevitably that kind of balance seems to be a pipe dream to me in practice anyway, as I've always seen it a robbing peter to pay paul.  So if you're looking forward to WAR, you might as well get used to it, unless I'm thinking of a different game.  Me, I'm kind of looking at it as refreshingly honest.

Ninja Edit:  Paul Barnett Talks About Balance

http://www.mmognation.com/2007/05/18/face-the-nation-paul-barnett-pt-3/ (http://www.mmognation.com/2007/05/18/face-the-nation-paul-barnett-pt-3/)

This Musashi (http://www.ranter.net/mu/misc/endofsnd.html)?

Oh dear. THAT was a blast from the past.

No.

Probably cause some confusion in the future.  Don't be surprised if people start talking like they know you.