NWN2 - Latest on 1 Up 'Review' Being Pulled

Corwin

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Our readers might be interested to read the full story on why 1 Up pulled its controversial review of NWN2. Here's an introductory comment:
The comments I've read have been pretty much everything I expected, given that people either don't have all the information (because we haven't shared every minute detail), they have preconceptions of how the press works, they are predisposed to either hate us or praise us no matter what we do, etc. Everyone has a take on what happened here: We sold out to Atari. We sold out Matt Peckham. We did the right thing. We did the wrong thing. We compromised our integrity. We increased our integrity.
Reading all these opinions, and contemplating this throughout the day myself, I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop second-guessing what we did. I do think I will tell you a little more of what went down, so that maybe you can come to your own conclusions a little better.
You'll find the entire interesting article plus reader comments Here.

Thanks Abaaon for the headsup.
More information.
 
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What a sad tale. I wonder if this event has triggered the dawn of 'patched reviews.' I know that 'patched reviews' exist for multiplayer games with persistant gaming worlds... but perhaps it will now extend to single player games and multiplayer games sans-persistant worlds.

On another note, Jeff Green's insights into how an article is born demonstrates fairly well that reviews of RPG games that come out the day of or shortly after the release of the game are probably not going to be the best or most thorogh reviews...

Statements like

"The 1UP.com mandate is to post game reviews immediately, to coincide with their launch.)"

and

And here is where the breakdown occurred, and here's where we can find fault. Because in my head, at this moment, I knew it still wasn't quite there. It was BETTER, a lot better, but it was still nagging at me and I didn't listen to my gut. Why? Pick your excuse. I have a million things to do. I can't baby every single article through the process. I had a new magazine coming out that I was trying to pay attention to. I had 20 phone calls to return. I had next month's cover story to organize. I had a new employee to hire. And, on top of everything else, 1UP still wanted this thing right now.

While this situation most likely represents an extreme situation, after reading reviews of RPGs on the net for years now, I can't help but feel that reviews of RPGs that come out the day of or shortly after the release of a game are shallow and not very thorogh in the least.
 
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It's amazing how creepy this whole thing is. I understand not wanting to print a review that was so poorly worded, but I enjoy reading negative reviews so that they can help me figure out what others find irritating about a particular game. I don't really agree with Matt, in this case, but there are several games that I've found extremely unpleasant that have only received high scores (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc.). I like to hear the positives and negatives in a review -- in fact, I prefer magazines that have more than one person review a game -- that way I get 3 biased opinions instead of one :)
 
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One thing we're hoping to implement here eventually, is the option for others to add their views to one of our reviews, especially the other reviewers on the team!!
 
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It's funny that half dozen people went through that review and noone said anything?
It's only a half page long, for god sake. What a bunch of fucktards.
 
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Actually, I find the whole practive of having a review up to coincide with the launch of the game wrong. Unless they have received an early copy so they can play a game from start to end, at least (as a good RPG should take a few runs to have been played throughly). Otherwise it is not a review, but practically a preview, to stay on the positive side, or a really obvious advertisement, if we want to be negative.
 
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To play a game like NWN2 properly should involve many hours of play and replay. Each character type plays very differently, so to be fair to the game a reviewer needs to play with various character types. Everythingxen who did most of the D&D reviews at the Dot, regularly played a game 3 or 4 times before producing his review. You don't have sufficient time to do that and have it published at launch!!
 
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Magazines and the largest gaming sites do get access to earlier builds and gold masters. Their reviewers may not have time to play them as thoroughly as Everythingxen, but they do get reviews into the hands of early adopters. Writers for volunteer sites like this one can guarantee that they've played the finished product, because they paid for it, and give you the benefit of their dozens of hours in the game. Anyone can find a review to suit his tastes. But no, day of release reviews are Objectively Wrong, just as Oblivion is empirically Not An RPG. (According to my electron microscope, it contains too high a concentration of arcadium and trace elements of shootemum.)
 
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Sometimes we score an early release too. I got one for Seal of Evil and spent weeks playing it before I wrote my review, but that was most unusual. Most of the time I've bought the game myself at release, or I've been a beta tester which gives you a totally different perspective. I actually don't like to review a game I've beta tested, but occasionally I do. Lazarus would be the best example of that!!
 
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There is a big difference between taking 5 or 6 hours to play F.E.A.R. Extraction point (you only need to play it once to review) and something like NWN2. Trying to really get a feel for it in ~20 - 40 hours is not impossible, but it will certainly taint your perspective.

I could only imaging trying to read through the Dungeon Lords dialogues in that amount of time ;)
 
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Hahaha, was the the 'in game' dialogues, or the ones posted about it on the DC forums!! :biggrin:
 
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Hahaha, was the the 'in game' dialogues, or the ones posted about it on the DC forums!! :biggrin:

The DC forums (with very few exceptions, in deference to folks like chamr) were filled to the brim at release with 'waah ... buggy ... wanna my money bak ... gonna sue you ... waah'. I'm not defending the game, the devs or the publishers, but when you can't wait a week to see the 40% reviews roll in, you lose your caveat emptor rights ...

As for in-game ... Bradley could take the Terminator line "I'll be back" and come up with
"It is upon a heavy heart that the news of your decision to disallow my admittance to thine fair establishment lands, such that would a manatee upon a chickadee roost. Were thee merely to avail thyself of the near-upon button of admittance, the inner workings of my mechanized soul would cry out in a glee unknown but to the sweetest of pixies upon yonder glade. Wherefore thou dost deny such simple entry, does fall upon my shoulders the woeful tidings that backthrough yonder entry I must depart, must alight from hencefore I do desire to breach further. Know thee that my separation wilst be short, for upon gaining my vehicle and engaging the ignition in acts of combustion most foul, my heart, soul and body will henceforth return to this very spot to seek entry to your inner sanctum with the greatness of urgency that presses upon every fiber of my being ... "
 
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I see, you're auditioning to be a part of his design team for his next magnum opus game.......right??!! :)
 
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I see, you're auditioning to be a part of his design team for his next magnum opus game.......right??!! :)

Unfortunately, how exhausted I am from the last one tells me I just don't have the necessary 'M4D SK1LLZ' needed!
 
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I stopped reading the explanation after the fifth paragraph of yammering. I guess I don't really care. When I read the guy's idiotic anti-stats ranting ("IT'S NOT ROLE-PLAYING IT'S TEH RULE PLAYING lol") that told me clear as day that this guy had no business reviewing the game, because he obviously wasn't interested in it, or he has ridiculous expectations for a Dungeons and Dragons game, and he just set out to hate it on purpose.
 
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I stopped reading the explanation after the fifth paragraph of yammering. I guess I don't really care. When I read the guy's idiotic anti-stats ranting ("IT'S NOT ROLE-PLAYING IT'S TEH RULE PLAYING lol") that told me clear as day that this guy had no business reviewing the game, because he obviously wasn't interested in it, or he has ridiculous expectations for a Dungeons and Dragons game, and he just set out to hate it on purpose.

Good point - I wonder if it has something to do with being a paid review and having the deadlines? I look at it this way - my first stab at my Dungeon Lords review was ~3000 words, and my editor shot it right back and said 'make it a single opinion and cut ~2000 words and we'll talk'. ;)
 
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There is a big difference between taking 5 or 6 hours to play F.E.A.R. Extraction point (you only need to play it once to review) and something like NWN2. Trying to really get a feel for it in ~20 - 40 hours is not impossible, but it will certainly taint your perspective.

I could only imaging trying to read through the Dungeon Lords dialogues in that amount of time ;)

[Python hat one] Nice one Centurion!
 
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huh... if a reviewer of a D&D game say he doesn't like D&D why let him review the game in the first place? it's just dumb.
 
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