BLOG Discussion - SotA Now MIXED

I backed this project to the tune of $800. I came into it on no particular side. I wasn't arguing for any specific goal. Didn't take a side in the open pvp full loot arguments or the PoT arguments. I still don't really. I like reading the arguments from all sides, which is why I come here, a place that allows arguments from all sides to be had.

The fact that the game is of 'Mixed' review status doesn't signify a validation of my thoughts on the game and its direction. It only signifies the fact that many other people were not satisfied with the product they purchased and/or Port's business practices.

I'm sad its probably too late to turn the ship around. If this turns out to be a fantastic game, I will play it. I won't sit it out on principle over pvp, spo, or pot decisions. I actually care little about folks like Blake spending $60000 on the game. If the game is good, as with any game, I'm happy to play it.

Unfortunately, the current product is not good and deserves the ribbing it gets. Plenty of games hit Early Access and shine. Darkest Dungeon, Kerbal Space Program, Don't Starve, Ark, Day Z. This one has not and it deserves the many criticisms lobbed its way.

Not everyone is like me. People come in to purchases with expectations of what an open world is, of what meaningful pvp is, of what an engaging combat system is, of what a level playing field is, and so on. Those people have every right to voice those concerns when they feel their desires were not fulfilled by the game they've paid money for at present.

I don't discount the efforts of the development team. I don't think it's a scam. I think the truth is more sad than that. Poor and fair games are released all the time, with dev teams that justify the game mechanics that also work on limited budgets, that love the work they do and the team members they work alongside. But those games are then released and criticized and no changes could be made to improve them outside patches or dlc. The sad thing here is that changes could (and can) be made to make this game better. That's the sad part. It could have been very different. It still can, but I think pride and defensiveness keeps real issues from being addressed.

Sadly, the negative reviews will continue to be written off as coming from trolls or idiots who simply aren't getting the vision. Meanwhile, the Steam, the market leader in pc sales by a large margin, reviews will continue to dip as long as purchasers are unsatisfied with the game. The list of trolls will simply grow longer and longer.

Ever hear the addage 'If everyone you work with is an asshole, and everyone you know is an asshole, then the only asshole is you'?

Its especially damning considering no one has asked for poor Steam reviews. We've made no concerted effort here to attempt to rally the troops against SotA. The negative reviews are completely organic. Even the Mixed score of 69% now includes many positive reviews from a year ago, people who haven't logged any time playing since then. There's no telling how many of those reviews would stick were those people still playing.

And don't include many of us who didn't link their Steam accounts.

I left a negative review before I started coming here regularly. And no one here ever hinted, even remotely, that I should. Someone I know said they should link it to their Steam account, purely to leave a negative review.

The latest review, a negative one that, at the end, reads a lot like the positive ones, has knocked it back down to 69.92%.

Off topic:

I personally read about Different type of Rating Systems.

And based on the sources i must agree;

Steam rating System is a peace of shit.

I would also prefer a system like IMDb

Give us a 1 to 10 rating option and let us as customers break down who rated what.

Then you can easily locate and exclude the love , hate voters. So exclude all 10 voters who praise everything just for the sake of being a fan and exclude all the 1 voters who give it a 0 because it is not UO2 or not Full Loot.

Also as we all know. It is highly political depending on the Fan Base.
Skyrim once dropped down to mixed without reason because of an modding update that caused a outrage.
Then the modders used the Review System to create pressure against the company.

So at the end - yes SotA is now mixed.

But the Review System has a power it does not deserve thinking of how bad the Steam Rating System is made.

A simple thumps up and thumps down for the site with 75 Million registered Users is disappointing.

Just one more comment about Steam reviews. It's really not fair to say that Steam has a bad review system, just to defend SotA. It works equally for all games, and the fact is, with the number of games there are on Steam, a Mixed review really tells something about a game. It's the reason that customers pay attention to those ratings. If they weren't willing to face it, they should not have put it on Steam at this point.

But just like they're so confident we're nothing more than "trolls" who want to see the game fail, they don't listen to reason. They are stubborn and steadfast that they're "right." And the sad part is, they're still thinking that because somehow once they get the game working, people will reverse their negative views, and it will reflect Mostly Positive or higher.

Once you miss a window on Steam, it's pretty much over. That's the unfortunate truth. It probably has happened, that a company has raised its reviews. But it's likely pretty rare.

Because the game is perceived as P2W and a cash grab, it won't appeal to hardly anyone, regardless of how lovely the scenery is.

Sure Myrcello, but if one looks at the trends in the gaming industry, it's a high risk putting early access games on Green Light in Steam. It's a trend that has happened so much, people will no longer back early access. There are a lot of scammers who take people's money to develop a game, and the customers don't like the development progress but have no way out but to have wasted money.

Portalarium should've thought long and hard before putting the game on Steam. Maybe they thought they did. But if you had asked any one of us in this forum if they should put it up on Steam, the answer (most likely) would have been a resounding NO.

They need development dollars. They may have won a battle but they are losing the war.

Understood myrc, but I disagree. See, if you release a movie into movie theatres and it is half completed and you are charging people money for it, you should expect reviews from those paying customers. Regardless of whether you say the movie is complete, you have accepted their money and only promised that in the future, you'll release a full version later. Were people not being charged money for the product, it would be different. As it is now, people should have every right to tell other people that they do not recommend purchasing the product as it is for money that can only be refunded if they spend fewer than 2 hours playing it.

Stating that your game isn't in its final release is irrelevant because you have released it to the public for a fee. At what point should Ultima Online have been able to be reviewed? On its release in 1997? What about the variety of changes that have taken place over the years? If a company is asking people to pay for their product, those people have every right to review the product as it was purchased.

Lets use Spacebase DF9 as an example. Spacebase DF9 released in Early Access and many reviewed it favorably based on promises made by the developer for future development. The game was incomplete, sure, but people were paying real money for a game. Ultimately, Double Fine announced that they were releasing 1.0 and they would stop supporting the game with regular updates. Those positive reviews influenced people to purchase the game based on future promises. Now, you might say that no one should have been able to review the game prior to its release, but I disagree. If you are paying money for a product, you deserve to have the right to either recommend that product (I feel as it currently exists, not on future promises) or not recommend that product. The transfer of money is the key.

If I paid you $45 for a full meal and you served me the appetizer and asked me to return for a better entree in the future, I should have every right to leave your restaurant and complain about the appetizer you served if I felt it was not good. I should be able to tell other people, 'Hey, I paid for a full meal in there. I haven't eaten the entree yet, but the appetizer was awful! If I were you, I'd wait until they serve a full meal before paying!'

There are many Early Access games that are not good. People deserve to hear opinions from other people who have spent their money on those games. It allows buyers to warn other buyers if they feel the product they've purchased is of inferior quality. It also allows games like Day Z or Ark, great great games, to be celebrated for what they are offering.

Without buyer reviews, what recourse does one have to find opinions about a game that is both released and playable? Eliminate those reviews on Steam (which to their credit, unlike sites like Amazon, are only able to be posted by those who actually purchased the game) and where does one turn to find out what the current product is like and whether it is worth $45? Doing so would leave virtually all control in the hands of developers. Potential buyers would have to rely solely on what they say the game plays like and not on how its actually coming along in development. Buyers can't review unfinished products, gaming magazines can't review unfinished products, so where does one go to do their due diligence? It masks how the game actually plays in its current form and leaves one with only the developers marketing and advertising. It is one thing to say that a game has engaging combat and another to play that combat and say that the system engages you in a way that doesn't work well. You are positing that a person who feels the developer isn't meeting their stated goal not be allowed to say so until the developer determines they are allowed. You essentially put that developer in 100% control of information for a game that is currently purchasable and playable.

I think that's very wrong to do. I think consumers deserve a say. If I can pay real money for it now, I deserve to say whether that product that you delivered to me now is currently working to my liking. I should not have to wait for an embargo that your business determines is fitting before I can advise other potential buyers as I see fit.

I would like to point out that the small group of people you are referring to were people who worked on the actual movie. They didn't release it to an audience. The movie's editor watched the film and fixed many of the issues the original version had in editing. Its not as though they opened it to the public, allowed people to pay money for it, reedited it and rereleased it again. They fixed it prior to its release to the public. No one was paying money for the film before its release. A game is 'released' when its purchasable by the public. Whether it has an Early Access designation doesn't matter. The game was on Steam's front page for a week. Its available to over 125 million active users. 125 million people can pay $45 for this game. If Star Wars released unfinished to a potential audience of 125 million, its 'released' even if George Lucas himself said 'we're still working on this, please pay now and come back and see it when we're done, we promise it will be great then, you'll see! This is just an early access version. Come back for the real thing later.'

Bur actually this is what i start to hate.

Games under development are represented the same as finished games.

The purchaser buys a early access game not even aware if the risks he is taking.

And that you can review it is just another way to brainwash us to believing it is a finished game.

Oh. There are reviews of that game. Must be finished. Lol.

Aha, we disagree again! Here's why!

Steam is very, very clear on what you are purchasing with Early Access and its their playground my man. You don't get to apply KS rules and Port does not get to apply their rules to Steam purchases. Here's some of what Steam says about EA purchases:





What you'll notice is consistent there is the phrase 'current form' or 'current state'. Unlike Kickstarter, your money isn't solely going to back the development of the project. You are paying for the current form of a product, a real game that should be playable in its current form. That's it. Note the final quote there, that some developers may not even be able to finish EA games. This is why it is of the utmost importance that people be able to review while development is in progress. They should be able to evaluate whether they feel satisfactory progress is being made in development as well. I suggest here that you want to stifle that. You want to stop people from criticizing the development of the game because it hurts the bottom line.

I say good! They should have their sales impacted if the game, in its current form, is not meeting people's expectations. You assume reviewers somehow aren't intelligent enough to discern they are writing an EA review and I think that's high minded Myrcello. Here's a thought, maybe they are fully aware they are playing and early access game and still feel the game is failing. If you are asking people to spend money on a game (not supporting the developer) as Steam states, on the current state of a game, then they deserve to review that game. I'm not going to be presumptuous and assume that the review writer simply wasn't aware of the purpose of Early Access. I give people the benefit of the doubt, given they've purchased an EA game, that they can make rational judgements about what they've spent their money on. Assuming otherwise is to assume people are too stupid to consider that the game is early access.

I'll tell you why this bothers me most of all. If people purchasing this game aren't happy with the current direction, Steam reviews gives them an opportunity to speak open and frankly about their dissatisfaction with the game. It provides there say without the glossy praise those forums over there portray. 'No more happy dancing', you said yourself. If you shut out all Steam reviews for this game, the only place to find information regarding its content is the Shroud forums and you know for a fact that there's too much happy dancing there. That's deceptive to potential buyers. It leaves Portalarium with all control over messaging. They own and operate and control any and all information on their forums (as is their right), but there needs to be a third party place for people to voice their concerns and Steam gives people that place. The poor reviews also act as a call to action for the developer. Portalarium should be responding to those reviews. I'm not saying change their game per se, but its clear that people associate this game heavily with Ultima Online. Maybe they should do something to counter that rather than having review after review come in believing this to be a successor to that game.

I also really appreciate that Myrcello is discussing this with us.

Myrcello, you said: But for SotA, there is a huge, bold statement warning people the game is not finished and all the information about what not to expect - not just in Steam but in the game loading screen. And yet people still buy it and rate it bad. Not because they are expecting a finished game. But when discovering the cash shop and the incredible imbalance in the haves/have nots, customers are understandably put off. Not only that, the kind of things that have been developed, rather than the kind of things that make the game fun for the average person, that's another reason to be disappointed. And finally, people expected better than this from RG.