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sauron38
Rara Avis
Joined: 14 Jan 2002
Posts: 4396
Location: Winnipeg's Sanctum Sanctorum |
To the reviewer:
Thank you for your prompt respone.
Is it possible that the person you encountered in the mountains was a foreigner?
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 4:48 am |
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I gave it the rating I did (5.75 of 10, on a site that actually gives 5's to average games) for one main reason - if I had bumped that up to, say, an 8 or a 9, then it would be almost like I was recommending the game to everybody that read the review, which I would be a hypocrite to do. This game is, unfortunately, not for everybody. Unless you know how to find information on how to bypass bugs, enable cheatmodes, solve compatability issues, the game would be impossible to play. Instead, I gave it an 'everyone' rating, and described the reasons in the review, including a statement that this is a great game for the right person - those that can handle the bugs and like the style.
As to sound, I think we are actually in agreement here, though we keep stating it differently. Your last post said about the same thing I did in the review: "The use of sound in Gothic is typical, maybe even a bit sub-par for the genre, though the sheer amount speech that was recorded for the characters is an amazing thing - especially when you realize that it was recorded in German once, then again in English"
Anyway, thanks for your comments, Llama. I did learn a few things about reviewing style here 
~Blackhawk |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:20 am |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:31 am |
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Zaxxon
Village Dweller
Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 2
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I'd just like to point out that Blackhawk gave the game a *positive* score, not a *bad* score! I've seen it mentioned in this thread more than once, and it's getting annoying.
As stated in the review, Stratos' average is a 5. Gothic got above a 5.
_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zaxxon
Pres/CEO
Stratos Group
http://www.stratosgroup.com |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:33 am |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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I agree. Since when did an 'average' consist of the top 20% of the range? If every game gets an 8 or 9 with 'bad' ones getting 7 or so... what's the point of having numbers 1 through 6?
_________________
Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
=Member of the Nonflamers Guild=
=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:38 am |
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sauron38
Rara Avis
Joined: 14 Jan 2002
Posts: 4396
Location: Winnipeg's Sanctum Sanctorum |
quote:
On 2002-02-19 23:38, EverythingXen wrote:
I agree. Since when did an 'average' consist of the top 20% of the range? If every game gets an 8 or 9 with 'bad' ones getting 7 or so... what's the point of having numbers 1 through 6?
Games like... Tetris. |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:48 am |
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The Hulk
Avenger, Defender
Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 728
Location: Southeast U.S.A. |
Llama, you made some very good points and I pretty much agree with everything you said.
Seems like the reviewer was being a bit too harsh. But anyway, it's his opinion(and thankfully not the only one out there on a reviews website).
I have to wonder though, what resolution did the reviewer play in and were all the graphical details turned up to maximum? I know that some people(myself included) made the mistake of trying to change resolution and not hitting enter after they changed it and then playing on thinking resolution increased when it really did not. Then they complain about how poor the graphics looked, when in reality they were still in the default 640x480 resolution and didn't realize it. |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:50 am |
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quote:
On 2002-02-19 23:50, The Hulk wrote:
I have to wonder though, what resolution did the reviewer play in and were all the graphical details turned up to maximum? I know that some people(myself included) made the mistake of trying to change resolution and not hitting enter after they changed it and then playing on thinking resolution increased when it really did not. Then they complain about how poor the graphics looked, when in reality they were still in the default 640x480 resolution and didn't realize it.
Hulk, to answer your question (and partially as I stated in the review) I played the game at 1024x768, 32bit, 2xFSAA in hardware on an original Visiontek GeForce 3 64MB card over a 19" monitor, with fogging distance set at 300%. And I would know in half a second if the resolution was not as I had set it
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 6:41 am |
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Llama
High Emperor
Joined: 11 Oct 2001
Posts: 509
Location: Earth |
quote:
I agree. Since when did an 'average' consist of the top 20% of the range? If every game gets an 8 or 9 with 'bad' ones getting 7 or so... what's the point of having numbers 1 through 6?
I wasn't requesting a 8 or 9 for the game, but *I* just felt that a 5.75 was a little harsh because, in my opinion, I feel Gothic is more than .75 above average.  But he has valid concerns, of problems I never experienced. I heard about the wench bugs after I had already played through once, but I have yet to experience the actual bug itself.
The only two instances that happen every time to me, is the small section of the swamp water disappearing from a certain camera angle, and a small section of the forest between the Old Camp and Sect Camp disappearing with a certain camera angle.
It's hard to relate to someone that has had problems, when I haven't had any of them. It's been cool discussing it though, and things are more clear now. We agree on a few things, but not on others, and especially the score!  |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 2:06 pm |
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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
Thank you for responding to Lamaīs mail, Blackhawk. Taking criticism seriously is not a common habit nowadays.
(A good opportunity to mention another positive example, Cindy Kyser of JA+ )
After rereading your review I have to correct my first impression. I have a lot to criticize, but itīs not one of the worst reviews I know.
First and most important point: your rating system is irritating. At the bottom of the article you explain:
quote:
*Note: 5 is average
I was not able to locate the anchor for the asterisk.
This makes me wonder what 'average' means for your site, average relative to ALL games, relative inside the genre (RPG), are the category scores also relative to the 'average' or are they absolute?
Your rating system lacks documentation. See RPGVaultīs newsbit on your Gothic review as an example how easily misunderstandable such a nonstandard system is. They thought you hated the game because they quickly scanned the article and saw "Overall rating: 5.75 / 10", which is sort of a massacre in the most common rating system.
An unusual and poorly documented rating system such as yours can course a lot of commercial damage to a publisher, due to misunderstandings. You saw Zaxxonīs post. Do you really want people to avoid this game because they only see the by far lowest rating Gothic ever received, without knowing about your rating system?
I personally prefer a system consequently focussed on the genre-average over the absolute rating systems most sites have, because itīs more precise if you make 100% clear what 'average' means for every single category.
A good installment of such a system can be found here:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1467&p=8
Next point, you are mixing up the description of positive and negative aspects of certain elements. I found myself reading paragraphs more than once just to find out how you weigh up these aspects. This is connected to another thing mentioned below.
quote:
(many bugs like)...the 'z' and 'y' keys being switched, and an occasional subtitle that they forgot to translate out of German.
You are counting peas! Half your article is devoted to criticism of (sometimes unimportant) details, while the combat system gets a mere three lines.
The untranslated keyboard mapping in the console is no bug, itīs industry standard. I donīt even remember when I saw a Y and Z in the right spot in a game developed in an English speaking country, from a German point of view of course . Keyboard mapping canīt be right or wrong, it follows one standard or the other. If you want to cheat you have to accommodate to it. Period.
That the game needs one more patch to get rid of the two plot stoppers is a different thing, though.
quote:
The combat itself is simple, mostly a matter of tapping the forward and side keys as you focus on the enemy. The enemy AI is fairly weak, consisting mainly of stand and shoot, or charge and hack. It isn't uncommon to see an opponent fall to their death while trying to chase you across a cliff top or ravine.
What about combos, combinations of magic and melee (e.g. transform, attack from behind) and combat mechanics?
The AI is fairly weak? Compared to the genre average or a specific game?
Wolves attacking in packs, snappers sneaking you from behind and waiting until you turn around before they attack, guards spreading if you shoot at them, opponents trying to surround you.
IMO the AI is more than one step in the right direction, I have no idea why you call it weak.
I donīt know a single RPG with better AI. Maybe you can help me out here.
You left out valuable information in this paragraph. Not only a serious omission, one can even call this a misinformation. 
quote:
There are also a great many big bugs, such as lock-ups, all of the spell effects, bump-maps, and flames being invisible except at certain angles, [...] and the fact that if you quit Gothic and want to restart it, you have to reboot your PC first, or it will lock up hard. The worst was in the last chapter, in which I had my two most recent saved games completely corrupted four different times.
The amount of serious bugs you found should have made you suspecting that either your graphics card, your OS or the combination of both, and Gothic, are not fully compatible.
You _should_ have tested the game on a different machine to find out if you can generalize all those bugs.
Most bugs you listed didnīt show up on my Win98 SE machine.
Somehow I forgot some other points I wanted to mention, so Iīll stop here for now.
Gorath
Webmaster GothicDot
[ This Message was edited by: Gorath on 2002-02-20 09:07 ] |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 2:58 pm |
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Rainstorm
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 02 Dec 2001
Posts: 194
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quote:
On 2002-02-20 00:41, Anonymous wrote:Hulk, to answer your question (and partially as I stated in the review) I played the game at 1024x768, 32bit, 2xFSAA in hardware on an original Visiontek GeForce 3 64MB card over a 19" monitor, with fogging distance set at 300%. And I would know in half a second if the resolution was not as I had set it
Do you use Win XP or 98/ME?
In my former box I had no problem with the fire animation.(Radeon,T-Bird,98 SE)
My present p4,GF 3 ti200,XP has the same problems you do...
So I suspect there's something with the GF3 line that gives the problem.(or win XP...or maybe even the two in combination)
Anyway,as I posted in the other thread about the review I don't disagree quite as much as most do...especially now with the new box.
I never did get the winch bug or any other of the fatal bugs on the old box...(even though I've seen quite a lot of those reported...wonder if it's some nVidia/XP thing going on...)
I have just tested a bit so I don't know how it is with the new and the winch bug.
The German speaker...is that a part of the camp where all have bows?
If it is I can't understand how you could talk to him,all that's happened to me is that they either attack or run away.(depending on my strength)
Besides,they are a part of a removed quest,so I guess they forgot to remove his German since you're not supposed to be able to talk to 'em. |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 3:23 pm |
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Bigpapa
Stranger from north
Joined: 22 Oct 2001
Posts: 930
Location: Strange place. |
Well as far as i can see, i have no complains about that review. I am Gothic addicted, but not blind, so i could easily agree most of it, but we should remeber that Gothic is first of it's kind and there is nothing to compare against, yet, so i'll forgive all bug's and enjoy what i have, no matter who say's what.
Every time i see new game that sounds interested, i seek for reviews about it secondly i try to find demo of it, if exists, if not, i'll wait for releasing and then i seek forums and other players comments, that way i usually avoided to waste my hard earned moneys to crap (still remembering that day when i bought Blood2, just because i liked first one ) )
_________________
I'll be back... |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 3:28 pm |
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Zaxxon
Village Dweller
Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 2
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quote:
"They thought you hated the game because they quickly scanned the article and saw "Overall rating: 5.75 / 10"
God forbid they take the time to read the review... In fact, we strongly debated not using a 'final word' rating of any source, since it seems the majority of gamers tend to skim the review at best, and make a judgement on our evaluation of the game solely based on the number we put at the end. This is a terrible mistake that--in my experience--most gamers tend to make.
quote:
I was not able to locate the anchor for the asterisk.
This makes me wonder what 'average' means for your site, average relative to ALL games, relative inside the genre (RPG), are the category scores also relative to the 'average' or are they absolute?
Gorath, you have a [relatively minor] point here. There is no anchor, however the '5 is average' statement applies to every numerical judgement in the review, so one is not needed. The numbers are meant to be relative inside the genre, for each category as well as the whole. In other words, a game that we feel has average graphics for the genre will receive a 5 in the graphics department. A game that we feel pushes the genre's graphical standards forward will receive a 9 or a 10, while a game released today with CGA graphics would receive a 1 or 2.
Hope I addressed everyone's points.
_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zaxxon
Pres/CEO
Stratos Group
http://www.stratosgroup.com |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 5:25 pm |
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ffbj
High Emperor
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 489
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Thanks to the reviewer for the in depth reply. I suppose all of our impressions of the game are colored by our experience. Mine were almost entirely positive. I quickly figured out how to use the controls and found the game to be immersive, well detailed, (graphics) and well written. I had no problems whatsoever running it on my old PII 350.
Regarding the voice acting I thought it was pretty good, except that sometimes I felt I was in a 'B' gangster movie, (heavy New York accents), but considering the number of voices
and the fact it is a German game, I thought it
was resonable. Also no bugs, and as pointed out by others, if you look up in the corner the version, 1.08k is evident. This indicates
a patch, no? |
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 6:53 pm |
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'tis I, Blackhawk (The Evil Reviewer), one final time. Good day to all of you once more.
If you go out and read the various reviews and message boards discussing Gothic, you see that a great many people have had bug-free experiences, a few have had unplayable messes, and most have had something in between. It is almost like playing Gothic is a pot-luck, and it is really a shame, because I would love to have played Gothic without the problems. Still, which experience is correct? Which one should be reviewed? If only the ones that were problem-free were reviewed, then would that really be a fair assessment of the game? If one in ten people who drop their cash for Gothic end up with an almost unplayable mess, then is it not fair that one in ten reviews reflect this?
Echoing the same thing with reference to my hardware: My system was hand built by me. It uses all components from major manufacturers (Creative SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer, Visiontek GeForce 3, Athlon, Crucial RAM, Asus mobo, Maxtor HD, Acer CDROM), which is very similar to a great many systems out there on the market and on people's desks at home. The hard drive was re-formatted with a fresh install of WindowsXP Pro only a month or so ago. It is completely stable, smooth running, and without any unusual problems. There are no other games that I have played on it (out of dozens and dozens), nor any apps that force a reboot or cause regular lock-ups the way Gothic does.
If I had more than one PC, I would probably have played it on a different one, but I do not. Likewise, most consumers do not have the option of playing a game on another machine - they are limited to the one that they own. My own system meets and/or exceeds every one of the system requirements for Gothic, so I don't think it unfair to the game or the company if I picked up the commercial version off the shelf, met its requirements, installed every available patch and bug-fix (none), and played it on a system that is known to be stable for gaming, and then reported the problems that I had. The problems are all re-creatable, and most of them (including the reboot thing) have been mentioned by other people on this very message board.
My reviews are just that - reviews. A subjective description of my own experiences in playing a game. I am careful to be fair to the games and companies when I review (such as not complaining about bugs from WinXP in a game if that game doesn't support XP, or complaining about graphics problems in an old game that requires Glide). But that is not the case with Gothic. I gave it a fair chance, and, unfortunately, got the fruit-cake in this particular pot-luck. But I don't feel that I was unfair in any way to the game or to the companies involved.
A couple of specific points:
"You are counting peas! Half your article is devoted to criticism of (sometimes unimportant) details, while the combat system gets a mere three lines. "
" Keyboard mapping canīt be right or wrong, it follows one standard or the other. If you want to cheat you have to accommodate to it. Period. "
You are correct, sir. Counting peas is precisely what I was doing. Note that only one paragraph is devoted to things like keyboard mappings and such, and that they were clearly described as 'minor' problems. The point was not that they existed, but that I found so very, very many of these little things. A single problem like that I never would have mentioned, but the sheer number of tiny, insignificant things is what bothered me.
"The amount of serious bugs you found should have made you suspecting that either your graphics card, your OS or the combination of both, and Gothic, are not fully compatible."
I don't want to beat this point into the ground, but it seems like a whole lot of people are using this as an excuse for Gothic's problems. I would tend to agree. It seems like it is probably a problem with my card and WindowsXP. If this game had been listed as being for Windows 98, I probably would have given it a much higher number of points and chalked the problems up to incompatibility, something XP users have to accept. But the requirements clearly say that XP is supported, and Nvidia is probably the largest graphics chipset manufacturer out there today. "...or the combination of both, and Gothic, are not fully compatible." I bought Gothic without any intention of reviewing it. I bought it to play. They may not be compatible, but Xicat and Piranha Bytes advertised that they were, and I think it is fair to hold them to their word. If only the people with a GeForce3 and Window XP are affected, that is a lot of people, and my experience could not be called unique.
A single final word on the patch thing. I acknowledged in this very thread that I was aware that the box contained a pre-patched game. I was comparing Xicat's support of the game with the original publishers, to show more clearly that I felt Xicat's support was lacking. I realize now that I phrased it badly, and I apologize. I have learned a few things about how to state things in reviews from this discussion
If I may, let me make a quick off-topic comment before I go:
Kudos to the Moderators and community here at the RPGDot/Gothic boards. While not everybody agrees with my review, everybody has been friendly and willing to discuss the matter in an intelligent, mature way. That is exceedingly rare on the internet these days, and, in my opinion, says something good about Gothic in and of itself. If Gothic's strongest fans are of quality, that is definitely a point in favor of the game. Too bad I can't work that into the review!
Thanks to you all.
Blackhawk
Managing Editor
GoneGolders Magazine
http://www.gonegold.com/golders
blackhawk@stratosgroup.com
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Wed Feb 20, 2002 8:16 pm |
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