Funcom Blames MetaCritic For Share Price Drop

[targren]

This is a task in the secret world

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Your task is to translate these notes into readable English.

ROT13? Really?

No wonder the game's getting "bad" reviews.

 

[quantumsoul]

Does every game have to be an mmo? It just want to play in a big world with a few of my real life friends without the costs and restrictions mmos have.

Mmos are a big investment in time and cash. There's only so many people that can play them at a time.

 

[Sartan0]

Every new MMO Needs some form of general accessible Free trial. I don't care how it's done but it needs SOME form of free trial to hook people on the fence. I'de bet just giving one would bring in plenty of new blood into the game who are wavering (like myself) to deal with the 50 dollar plus entry fee just to find the game isn't your taste and put it down before the first month is up. (plus it lets you make sure your comps up to snuff to run it properly. Hate getting a game I think and research says I should run on some workable level and end up smelling smoke as my poor processors chug and cook under the strain of trying to slightly delag the game to a workable form or some such weirdness.)

They had a free weekend a weekend 10 days ago. I am sure they will do something similar again.

 

[Sartan0]

i was ready to buy this when it came up on steam (MMO aversion be damned, this looks awesome) but when i went to its store page the first thing that showed up was an EA logo. this makes me sad.

I had a similar concern when I went to get the game but as I understand it EA was only involved with the box sales. I ordered the digital version from Funcom directly and the game uses their client. So no EA involvement and no terrible Origin more importantly.

 

[In Search of Username]

I blame the fact they won't FUCKING RELEASE ANOTHER DREAMFALL GAME

/fanboy rage

 

[Sartan0]

As I stated in another post:

Yeah, imagine that, it's almost like it's an opinion or something.

I know, right? *GASP*

Ok I get the feeling you have possibly played the GW2 beta or been a lot more interested in it than TSW so allow me to touch up your TSW List a bit to fix up and expand.

Please do. I don't mind being corrected so long as it's done politely instead of the asshatish way the prior guy did it.

[1] Initial round of gameplay is exactly the same for all groups.
Each group has its own unique starter zone and story and only shares one scene which is the subway section, yes once done with the intro all factions do end up in Kingsmouth.

Wait, so what was the correction there? I was correct, everybody starts in the exact same place. Having a different opening cutscene really doesn't differentiate the groups at all, and from my LP experience that is basically what happens. It's somewhat depressing that everyone gets instantly dumped into the same area after that opening, too. Do they play the exact same game the rest of the way? Go to the same places, complete the same main story missions, etc? That's pretty much how most other MMOs do it, which sort of reinforces my earlier point about TSW being closer to WoW than the original poster wants to admit. There's nothing wrong with sharing traits from WoW, anyways, people just seem to get so angry when their precious game is compared to the reigning champion.

[4] Quests are started through standard flavored screens of text. Quests typically feature standard MMO structure, i.e "kill X zombies" or "collect X items from zombies".
Main/Story quest lines are fully voiced, only side quests found randomly in the game world are ever just text screens.

That seems false, since the opening sequence clearly shows a text screen for the opening quest. Unless that's just the first one and no others? Regardless though, it's still a significant step backwards from the supposedly "shit" game which features significantly less flavor text and significantly more voiceover work.

[5] The number of quests a player can work towards at any given time are limited to seven (IIRC).
Six quests I think and is one of my only gripes, one story, one main, one dungeon and 3 sides.

So it's even worse than I thought it was? Goodness. I'd be tearing my hair out trying to keep to a six quest limit.

Certainly you are entitled to your opinion. I think what is bothering some folks is your opinion is somewhat lacking in a foundation as you have not actually played TSW. You will not hear me commenting on GW2 due to not playing it. I am going to address points 1 and 4 for accuracy.

Point 1: No, everyone does not start in Kingsmouth. Yes everyone gets there but only after they go through their initial faction specific quest line in their faction specific zone. This is not a few minutes deal. There is a bit more too it and the faction you are playing in flavors the whole rest of the game. Every quest turn in is different in at least flavor depending on what faction you are calling to turn them in. There are faction specific directives for your faction rank up missions as well. You will return to the faction zones for various other reasons as well, particularly London.

Point 4: Yes actually the story quests as well as all dungeon missions and main non-side mission quests are all fully voiced and acted. The text is normally on turn in though some of the main story quest lines have more cut scenes as you move along on quest objectives. Some of the investigation missions have in game additions of voice work and characters as well as you move along.

 

[Something1something]

I think it's pretty hilarious how you point out him not having played GW2 and pretend to make an unbiased comparison, when it is clear you know nothing about TSW.

I think it's pretty hilarious you totally missed my point, so we're about even.

As I stated in another post:

Yeah, imagine that, it's almost like it's an opinion or something.

I know, right? *GASP*

My post was pointing out that his claims are subjective, and just as easily argued in the opposite direction.

Read before making fanboi posts, eh? You should try it yourself. I made it pretty clear that I acknowledged GW2's faults. The game brings back a lot of old concepts, but to its credit most of them actually feel fun while playing the game. There's a LOT of grinding involved in the game, which definitely doesn't make me happy. Their changes to the skill and trait systems make me want to jab someone in the jugular. But the worst by far is an absolutely rabid fanbase that will attempt to kill you for suggesting that maybe the ranger class should start with a sword or bow instead of an axe (yes, that really happened). BUT despite those things, I maintain that it's a great game and will happily fight for it BECAUSE it's a great game. Defending a game doesn't make me a fanboi, especially when I don't defend its faults. But if you're too ignorant to tell the difference between an educated fan of the game and a fanboi, then you're not worth my time.

Actually, what you said was

But you had a fair point and one worth mentioning. You can't judge a game without having seen it in action! So let's do just that. Let's compare the "shitty" GW2 to The Secret World.

So yes, you were, in fact, comparing the two games and not just pointing out you could counter arguments in a totally different post (which you did not even quote or mention).

The reason I call you a fanboy is because you try to compare 2 games in the same genre, stating one is better, while you clearly don't know anything about one of them. You did indeed point out flaws as well (just as I did, by the way), that doesn't change the fact you were stating a lot of false information.

Calling me a "fanboi" is pretty hilarious as well. You state you are no fanboy because you also pointed out flaws in GW2; if you read my post, you will see I also pointed out a flaw in TSW and also said I will probably try and enjoy GW2 ( I will most likely drop TSW when GW2 is released, even). But you go ahead and call my a TSW fanboi anyway, making you a hypocrit.

So I'll reply to this guy's post instead.

Ok I get the feeling you have possibly played the GW2 beta or been a lot more interested in it than TSW so allow me to touch up your TSW List a bit to fix up and expand.

Please do. I don't mind being corrected so long as it's done politely instead of the asshatish way the prior guy did it.

[1] Initial round of gameplay is exactly the same for all groups.
Each group has its own unique starter zone and story and only shares one scene which is the subway section, yes once done with the intro all factions do end up in Kingsmouth.

Wait, so what was the correction there? I was correct, everybody starts in the exact same place. Having a different opening cutscene really doesn't differentiate the groups at all, and from my LP experience that is basically what happens. It's somewhat depressing that everyone gets instantly dumped into the same area after that opening, too. Do they play the exact same game the rest of the way? Go to the same places, complete the same main story missions, etc? That's pretty much how most other MMOs do it, which sort of reinforces my earlier point about TSW being closer to WoW than the original poster wants to admit. There's nothing wrong with sharing traits from WoW, anyways, people just seem to get so angry when their precious game is compared to the reigning champion.

The correction here is the fact that every faction does have its own intro, with its own starting city. The first real questhub is indeed shared through all factions and you do go to the same places, so in this regard it is more like WoW.

[2] Game features a standard skill bar with 7 skills. Skills appear to differ primarily by weapon, and unlock as you use the weapon more.
The game features a 7 active 7 passive skill setup system. Builds are made based on which two weapons you have equipped and the skills you pull from each weapons tree, passives can be pulled from any tree which may benefit your active abilities. For example if you play with Assault Rifles and Fist weapons then you would pull your active skills from those trees but passives could come from any tree (assuming you have unlocked them).

So, again, I was right. That's two for two, which is not bad for a game I've never played, huh? I'm confused why people say I clearly know "nothing about the game" when most of this stuff can be picked up by watching LPs on Youtube. >_>

No, you were wrong. Skills do not unlock by using a weapon, you buy skills from any tree you want, and you can use the skills belonging to the weapon you are currently using. It has nothing to do with using the weapon though.

[3] Movement is permitted in combat. Player appears to be able to tank out enemies to some degree, though movement is encouraged.
Mostly true although omitting that all characters have a dodge roll on a short cool down which is activated by double tapping the desired movement key which mandatory for some boss fights and correct use makes things much easier. Also the use of cast time or channel abilities slows you down while casting

So, again, I was right. Starting to get deja vu. Thanks for letting me know that the game has a dodge, but I'm still not seeing anything I said that was wrong.

This was indeed the only point you were correct on, although the way you worded it for TSW and the way you worded it for GW2 does show bias towards GW2.

[4] Quests are started through standard flavored screens of text. Quests typically feature standard MMO structure, i.e "kill X zombies" or "collect X items from zombies".
Main/Story quest lines are fully voiced, only side quests found randomly in the game world are ever just text screens.

That seems false, since the opening sequence clearly shows a text screen for the opening quest. Unless that's just the first one and no others? Regardless though, it's still a significant step backwards from the supposedly "shit" game which features significantly less flavor text and significantly more voiceover work.

I don't remember any quests, outside of the random side missions, being text only, but I might have forgotten about one. I can't compare what game has more voiceover work, then again, neither can you, since you have no idea about the amount of voiceover work in TSW (or GW2 for that matter, since I doubt you've already played through everything).

[5] The number of quests a player can work towards at any given time are limited to seven (IIRC).
Six quests I think and is one of my only gripes, one story, one main, one dungeon and 3 sides.

So it's even worse than I thought it was? Goodness. I'd be tearing my hair out trying to keep to a six quest limit.

This can be annoying at times and is indeed something I'd like to see different, not going to argue here.

So let's see: most of what I said was actually pretty much dead on, which is pretty good for just watching an LP. And what I said was mostly correct: TSW shares several WoW features (moreso than GW2), and it also shares a lot with GW2. So if people are stuck choosing between the two, TSW is going to lose most of the time because it's a subscription game that nobody knows exists, and GW2 is a buy-once title which has gobbled up a LOT of media attention for years now. I'll admit that I didn't play TSW, and if the experience is basically WoW + GW2, then I don't see why I should pay $15 a month to test it out either. WoW fans will stay with WoW, and GW2 fans with GW2. Who is this game going to attract with its total lack of advertisement and restrictive subscription system?

Most of what you said wasn't spot on, you are right about TSW sharing plenty of things with WoW though (so does GW2, no doubt). I don't see this as a bad thing though, since WoW is (was? haven't played it in quite a while now) a great game.
GW2 will be the preferred choice for a lot of people, including me, most likely, since there is no subscription fee.

Anyway, if you were in fact just trying to defend GW2 because you think it is a great game and because you are an educated fan, that's fine. Just make sure you know enough about the game you are comparing it with before you make a post like that, because it does come across fanboy-ish.

 

[Nimzabaat]

Notice a difference? I sure do. The second one was actually exciting.

With respect, "exciting" is highly subjective. I thought that the intro video to TSW was intriguing and different, and it reminded me a little of one of my favourite games of all time (Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines). On the other hand, that GW2 intro looked like Yet Another Generic Fantasy RPG; it could have been Dragon Age 2 or Kingdoms of Amalur or Neverwinter Nights 2. That's not exciting at all to me.

Yeah TSW is more of a thinking players game, which may be its downfall I liked Guild Wars but I only played it because it was F2P. So it was worth every penny. TSW is also worth every penny as a P2P.

 

[Stevepinto3]

This is indicative of so many things wrong in the game industry I don't know where to start.

-A 7 out of 10 should not be considered a "low score", but since the average score handed out tends to be a 7 or 8 it seems that way.
-A critic has the right to assign whatever score they see fit to a game (if they want to at all), the developers and publishers do not get to influence this by force or by request.
-A game critic is not obligated to give your game a certain score.
-If a game is not selling as well as you would like it is NOT the fault of reviews
-Less related to the article, if you are trying to experiment and break away from typical WoW clone MMO's don't force the standard boring MMO garbage into the new game.

 

[-|-]

Why is this surprising? The fact is that meta-critic scores do matter. A lot. Everyone can debate what 7/10 means until the cows come home, it won't make a game with that score a good game, or more importantly sell well. Reviews impact sales significantly - games with 8.5 and above sell significantly more than those below that level. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable for publishers to incentivise developers based on this metric.

 

[Nghtgnt]

I always find it so odd that people say TSW wasn't advertised well - I've seen, and continue to see plenty of adds for it. Really to the point where I'm tired of seeing their adds on Youtube at least. Of course, this could also be because my interest in the game and the things I tend to view on the web caused me to be more exposed to their adds.

Anyways, 72/100 may or may not be a good score. What we think on that matter isn't important, because it was obviously viewed as "low" by investors and developers.

There is definitely a need for a review aggregator - this is a tool that is useful to the consumer. The problem, however, is the Metacritic seems to have some issues with how they translate scores to their system (tons of articles out there on this), and much more importantly, what reviews to include (and weigh differently) in the aggregate. As an example, if you were running the site would you include a review where the author admits he only played the Beta? How about a review where the author very blatantly fails to understand the basic principles of the game and essentially says it sucks because it isn't WoW? Metacritic includes stuff like this, because they themselves don't quality-control their input beyond certain sites weighing more.

Of course, this brings up the question: SHOULD Metacritic, seeing as how the industry places so much value in its scores, be more active in determining what reviews count towards the aggregate, or does that destroy the integrity of the score?

Also, I think a lot of the low scores for TSW might also be a result of reviewers who felt burned by SWTOR.