I find this to be a really odd critique of the game. The post yesterday was very accurate and seemed to be a fair representation of what the game offers. (Currently repetitive core gameplay, but the challenge comes from other players) Today's review seemed to have holes in the in it.
I don't know how much time you spent in the game for your review, but with about 20 hours of action district time I ran into two identifiable clan groups. So, part of what you said seems true - that most people play the game ostensibly solo or at least don't appear with gear making them look like a team. However, given the player limit to one specific instance your attempt to contact major clans in-game seems sort of comical. It could be a valid critique of the game that the low player count per instance prevents important community interaction from occurring, but faulting the game because you used a poor method to find them given the situation is a bit misguided.
More importantly than that little aside, while it's true that you need some vision or skill in order to create wonderful customizations - I don't see how the editors are too complicated. There's no pen tool, you essentially manipulate various shapes with rotations and skews in the vector image editor, and the music editor I suppose is fairly standard but low on features. I possessed very little knowledge about music, but by spending about half an hour researching via google and a half hour with the music editor I had a very nice ghostbusters theme to play for all my fallen foes.
I don't agree at all with the overall tenor of the review on customization. You seem to take issue with the fact that there is no instantiated reward for using the editors, but that's not necessary, nor can I think of a way in which a game reward system could be implemented. The marketplace could use some alterations, but it remains true that you can sell your creations to other players. I've put copies of one symbol and one theme up that I thought others might be interested in, and sold maybe 20-25 copies of the symbol and 10 of the theme. I love being able to use my own work to display some personality in the game, and the idea that somebody else is making use of my work, and those are wonderful intrinsic rewards to customization. Who cares if there's a mechanism whereby the game itself rewards you? How could that even be possible unless the designers gave the game engine some instructions for evaluation of player art? If you don't enjoy the products or process of customization then obviously that aspect would hold no draw for you (and honestly I do understand that a review is part opinion and part information) but maybe somebody else should have reviewed those parts of the game if the challenge doesn't interest you.
"An important thing to note here is we are looking at the top geared hunters out there. This means that the MM hunters are all pushing the armor pen cap. With a lot less armor pen, the gap between MM and SV lessens somewhat. However, what is undeniably true is that BM is not just last, but they're last by a significant margin -- by 20% - 30+%."
I'm sure there are some diehard raiding BM hunters out there, but you're going to have a huge selection bias by looking at the top hunters for each spec. The top hunters overall are very very likely to go to the spec that simulations/theorycraft indicate has even a few % dps advantage. The best hunters will not be BM.
Review: APB (Day 3: Choose your illusion)
Jul 9th 2010 9:27AM (Joystiq)I don't know how much time you spent in the game for your review, but with about 20 hours of action district time I ran into two identifiable clan groups. So, part of what you said seems true - that most people play the game ostensibly solo or at least don't appear with gear making them look like a team. However, given the player limit to one specific instance your attempt to contact major clans in-game seems sort of comical. It could be a valid critique of the game that the low player count per instance prevents important community interaction from occurring, but faulting the game because you used a poor method to find them given the situation is a bit misguided.
More importantly than that little aside, while it's true that you need some vision or skill in order to create wonderful customizations - I don't see how the editors are too complicated. There's no pen tool, you essentially manipulate various shapes with rotations and skews in the vector image editor, and the music editor I suppose is fairly standard but low on features. I possessed very little knowledge about music, but by spending about half an hour researching via google and a half hour with the music editor I had a very nice ghostbusters theme to play for all my fallen foes.
I don't agree at all with the overall tenor of the review on customization. You seem to take issue with the fact that there is no instantiated reward for using the editors, but that's not necessary, nor can I think of a way in which a game reward system could be implemented. The marketplace could use some alterations, but it remains true that you can sell your creations to other players. I've put copies of one symbol and one theme up that I thought others might be interested in, and sold maybe 20-25 copies of the symbol and 10 of the theme. I love being able to use my own work to display some personality in the game, and the idea that somebody else is making use of my work, and those are wonderful intrinsic rewards to customization. Who cares if there's a mechanism whereby the game itself rewards you? How could that even be possible unless the designers gave the game engine some instructions for evaluation of player art? If you don't enjoy the products or process of customization then obviously that aspect would hold no draw for you (and honestly I do understand that a review is part opinion and part information) but maybe somebody else should have reviewed those parts of the game if the challenge doesn't interest you.
Scattered Shots: Can Beast Mastery raid?
Feb 11th 2010 12:32PM (WoW)I'm sure there are some diehard raiding BM hunters out there, but you're going to have a huge selection bias by looking at the top hunters for each spec. The top hunters overall are very very likely to go to the spec that simulations/theorycraft indicate has even a few % dps advantage. The best hunters will not be BM.