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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
Guest,
itīs not about ignoring mods altogether. The two problems are objectivity and fairness.
The mod scene for big titles is always moving. This is a problem because a review has an objective component (everything which can be verified, for example the number of levels) and a subjective component (everything else) with a foundation in the objective component. You need a fixed subject if you want to draw comprehensible conclusions. Of course this can also be reached by choosing a defined selection of mods, but this devalues the review for everybody who isnīt using them.
"Fairness" means that all games should be reviewed in the same way. The lowest common denominator is taking what the developers created and ignoring the mod tools because 9 out of 10 games come without them. Why should we give game A a bonus over game B only because it comes with mod tools the fans may or may not use? Wouldnīt it be unfair to game B?
The only fair solution is to assume that the developers delivered the best game they could and review the shipped product. Mods can be mentioned in the text, but they shouldnīt have an influence on the score.
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Webmaster GothicDot |
Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:36 pm |
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fluffy bunny
Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorath
I agree with Mike. Only the officially supplied version of the game should be relevant. This means the game as it is out of the box plus the latest official patch.
The goal of a good game review is to give people an impression of the game and it's qualities, and offer a subjective judgement of those qualities. One of Oblivion's qualities is that it's extremely easy to modify, and I believe this review shows that very well. |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:49 pm |
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GhanBuriGhan
Noble Knight
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 208
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorath
Guest,
itīs not about ignoring mods altogether. The two problems are objectivity and fairness.
The mod scene for big titles is always moving. This is a problem because a review has an objective component (everything which can be verified, for example the number of levels) and a subjective component (everything else) with a foundation in the objective component. You need a fixed subject if you want to draw comprehensible conclusions. Of course this can also be reached by choosing a defined selection of mods, but this devalues the review for everybody who isnīt using them.
"Fairness" means that all games should be reviewed in the same way. The lowest common denominator is taking what the developers created and ignoring the mod tools because 9 out of 10 games come without them. Why should we give game A a bonus over game B only because it comes with mod tools the fans may or may not use? Wouldnīt it be unfair to game B?
The only fair solution is to assume that the developers delivered the best game they could and review the shipped product. Mods can be mentioned in the text, but they shouldnīt have an influence on the score.
which is why Rendelius withheld a score according to his own admission. I agree though that if there were a score it should be based on the game out of the box. On the other hand, at least for the more involved players, the mods create a game that is vastly different from the original offering - my modded MW is a much more complete and enjoyable game for me than the original version. I don't know a solution. On the one hand I don't think the developers desere props for things they haven't (but sometimes should) have done themselves. On the other hand you would be doing potential customers a disservice by talking them out of a product if a mod exists that would turn it into a stellar experience for that person. Rend tried to point out the faults and also the existance of a possible solution - that's about as fair as it can be, I think. |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:53 pm |
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Guest
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 Which review were you mentioning, Gorath? The review by Rendelius doesn't have numerical score, which I think an appropriate decision.
In any case, good job, Rendelius. |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:53 pm |
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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
I was talking about reviews in general. I like Rendīs review, and I think it was a good idea not to give Oblivion a numerical rating.
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Webmaster GothicDot |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:00 pm |
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ShadowMoses
Head Merchant
Joined: 09 Jun 2005
Posts: 69
Location: UK |
quote:
Originally posted by Rendelius
Well, freedome comes at a price, doesn't it?
Not in relation to your original context but...
I think the biggest problem with Oblivion is the way Beth have approached the concept of freedom. They've successfully made all the freedom they give you irrelevant to me. So i can explore the whole wilderness right from the start? why would i even bother? there's no motivation to explore some dangerous dungeon or seek whats at the peak of a mountain. There's no danger and nothing unique to find. It's boring. I installed some mods to fix the levelling beasts and loot and while it makes the game much better for me it's still random. There's no purpose in the design. Another thing i don't like is the open-ness of the world. Gothic and Ultima7 had much more compelling and intelligently designed maps and blocked player movement across them with great effect.
Well, this is becoming a bit more of a general rant... oh what the heck, lets go with it:
Character progression is poor. It heavily favours combat orientated players. Speachcraft is largely useless especially as bribing is so cheap anyway. Security is less usefull than it should be with the lock picking mini game. With 30 security at the start my char could unlock the hardest locks. Roleplaying nullified. It may as well just be Dark Messiah.
Dialogue is poor. Persuasion mini game just makes it worse. Very limited choices and even fewer meaningfull ones. For me dialogue is one of the most important aspects of rpg's... it's usually what tips the balance and makes an rpg a role playing game. I really think that with good dialogue it could have been so much better. Great voice acting? who cares, give me good writing and choices any day.
Freedom? bah! give me freedom to make meaningfull choices!
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Dakkon: "Your reasons for your incessant clicking are not *known* to me."
-=:ASHES:=- || -=:Xenus-hq:=- |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:03 pm |
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elkston
High Emperor
Joined: 21 Sep 2002
Posts: 691
Location: North Carolina, USA |
quote:
Originally posted by ShadowMoses
Dialogue is poor. Persuasion mini game just makes it worse. Very limited choices and even fewer meaningfull ones. For me dialogue is one of the most important aspects of rpg's... it's usually what tips the balance and makes an rpg a role playing game. I really think that with good dialogue it could have been so much better. Great voice acting? who cares, give me good writing and choices any day.
I agree that the persuain mini-game is kind of lame, but I found most of the spoken dialogue was pretty good and sometimes quite funny. I'm not talking about the random chatter between NPCs...but your interactions with quest characters and such.
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All shall hear the words of Karras...the words of Karras |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:37 pm |
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Roi Danton
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 02 Mar 2006
Posts: 34
Location: Germany |
quote:
Originally posted by elkston
I agree that the persuain mini-game is kind of lame, but I found most of the spoken dialogue was pretty good and sometimes quite funny. I'm not talking about the random chatter between NPCs...but your interactions with quest characters and such.
Yes, the dialog is nice but nowhere exceptional.
My opinion is simple: I always prefer the freedom of making choices (hard ones, easy ones, simple ones, etc) over pure freedom.
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www.withingames.net |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:35 pm |
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per06a
Guest
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| Oblivian didn't set the precedent for fat loot |
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Liked the article, and will definitely check out the balancing mods.
I'd like to point out that Oblivian isn't the first TES game to be a little broken at high levels. I remember that one of the most profitable ways of amassing good gear in Daggerfall was to walk into Wayrest castle and start slaughtering the guards. Why? Well, past level 10 or so, you had at least a 10% chance of getting something adamantium grade or higher off of a human corpse. I'd go raiding dungeons I knew were full of human opponents simply because they had the biggest payoff (as opposed to raiding a place full of undead, where you were probably going to DIE, and if you didn't you'd get a cheap reward like reagents or 10 gold).
So yeah, it's a little ridiculous when bandits start lugging around Daedric gear, but trying to hark back to the halcyon game balance of Daggerfall just doesn't work. Hell, the game gave you an ebony weapon at the very beginning if you just asked for it... |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:18 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Congratulations to Rend for a highly successful article, with many positive comments, huge link-ins and many supportive emails.
It's no surprise I disagree on several points but you made your case well.  If I were to pick one issue that made me scratch my head it would be the AI, which I have found inconsistent and ineffectual.
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:58 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
One minor point. Rend is reviewing the WHOLE game; everything that comes on the DVD. This includes the modding tools and the ability to create mods. Therefore, I believe that a game which includes this ability should score higher than one which doesn't and thus, mods should be factored into the review!! 
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If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:50 pm |
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Alrik Fassbauer
Head Merchant
Joined: 25 Aug 2002
Posts: 50
Location: Germany |
Well, I found the article quite balanced - with one exception. The Mods.
I think there should've been more emphasize on how much mods increase the gaming experience - and even more, how it differs from the game *without* mods.
The game received high praises by several reviewers on different sites - but I wonder, whether it gets them only with several Mods / Plugins /Whatever already installed ?
I mean, how many points would this game get without any Mods at all ? Still nowadays there are people out there who don't want or can't to download several plugins or mods to get a game run smoothly. They will have to play the game, as it was originally shipped.
The point I think about is : How much does a company more or less rely upon a community to make a smoothly running game ? I don't think a company should do that - I think they should've seen the flaws and not wait until everything they didn't see is fixed by the huge community.
If I buy a car, I don't want to fix anything with it. I would like to drive it - well, Oblivion *can* be played, no doubt, and it seems still to be a good game in the intitial shipping - and I wouldn't like it to have to attach some things that makes my car run more flawlessy.
I hope I could make clear what I mean, but I'm not quite sure whether I succeeded in it.
Alrik |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:52 pm |
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Elwro
Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by corwin
One minor point. Rend is reviewing the WHOLE game; everything that comes on the DVD. This includes the modding tools and the ability to create mods.
The modding tools don't come on the DVD. |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:59 pm |
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abbaon
Head Merchant
Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 64
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quote:
Originally posted by txa1265
One thing I will say - I don't believe it is fair to review a game based on *anything* but the 'out of box' experience. That is probably my biggest issue with so many of even the better reviews - when they see flaws, they say 'no biggie, fan mods will clear it up'. Even you, in this excellent review - after railing about the levelling, you glow about the fan mod to balance it, and then support near-perfect review scores despite the fact that you are no longer playing the game as shipped!
To hell with fairness and to hell with the game as shipped. Lots of us don't intend to play that game, and no-one needs yet another rehash of that point of view. Props to Rendel for informing those of us who play with mods and for finding something original to say. But, please, someone get him an editor. |
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:14 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
He IS one and he had one. What specifically are you complaining about?
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:21 pm |
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