Perparing AS A COMMUNITY for negative reviews

[Abriael]

TDDR; Community! Place your bets! Where will this game land on the metacritic score?! closer to 5.0 or 8.0?!?

This just sounds like meaningless stirring of the pot.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

i don't care a shit about reviews since, like, 8 years. Nothing to worry about for me.

[indira]

when the NDA goes down i can speak.

[SkyeWindbinder]

Well, there's always going to be negative reviews as well as positive. But I couldn't care less either way. I'll be too busy playing to read them. lol

[ArkhamNative]

Oh. From the title I thought this would be about reminding all us forum posters "be nice: no death threats." IMHO even one idiot going personal against a reviewer is too much.


I don't quite "get" the topic. Nobody, really, has seen ARR yet, so I don't think we'll hear what anyone likes best or worst about it.

But, yeah, what Abriel said: Elder Scrolls Online. Its trailer is all Hollywood (as tired and silly as I think that is) and they were all over PAX-E. I think they could be the media sweethearts this year, at least in the PC/MMO press. Even if ARR were new, it might still be portrayed as "that other MMO".

In the console gamer press, I think ARR could earn very favorable reviews. If not, then maybe the western press really does have some petty grudge against SE.

As for actual subscribers, it's not at all bleak for ARR. I kind of get a SWTOR vibe from Elder Scrolls. Plus TESO is effectively abandoning the consoles that accounted for well over half their Skyrim sales. TESO does support Mac (+10% of PC?), but ARR supports PS3 (+100% of PC?).

[Robobandit]

I don't particularly care what the reviews are like for ARR (as long as SquareEnix isn't determining its success or failure based on metacritic scores).

A lot of people will love it and a lot of people will hate it for everything that is in the game (and everything that isn't)

We'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

[Orophin]

The general reviews after the media event a while back were mostly positive. They don't look at the game like a fan would of what it was or what it should be. They critique it for what it is. I'm sure you'll see comparisons of mechanics to other games, but I highly doubt you'll see a reviewer say "Unless ARR's combat is like TERA or GW2, it will fail."

[Platinumstorm]

If the reviews are negative then the game probably deserves it. If the reviews are positive then the game probably deserves it.

[Quesse]

Why are we assuming reviews are going to be negative?

[Rowyne]

Many critics, as much as some don't see it, are actually looking forward to have a chance to praise ARR. Not all journalists live and thrive on negativity and hate, and many would really like to have a "good story" to write.

I think there's some truth in that. Take Gary Gannon of Gamebreaker.TV, for example. He didn't sugarcoat the fact that he wasn't only disappointed with the game, but chucked his Collector's Edition box across the room during two episodes of TWIMMO. However, he could have wiped his hands clean and moved on. But he's continued to cover ARR's progress, and said how extraordinary it would be if SE managed to resurrect a failed MMO. An industry first. And Mike-B's copy-pasta montage, he claims he did it for the fans. To bring to SE's attention to a major problem than needed to be fixed.

I don't think all reviewers are just scoffing and waiting to hook their claws into this game. They were critical and objective when 1.0 was released because that is their job. But I think some of them would be happy if they could report that this was the first game to rise from the ashes. Let's hope ARR delivers.