Bad reviews

[Tikon]

.POST DISCONTINUED,

iVE HAD ENOUGH, GOODBYE!

[__________Grimmtooth]

Tikon, your right in your statement:

You have a time advantage of the other new MMORPG's, as Anarchy Online has now been up for a while.

To compete with AO all other Sci-Fi/Fantasy MMORPG's will be coming out sooner than they expected just so they have a chance to survive in the market. This means they will have bugs galore and they will have alot of unhappy players as well.

All FC has to do is concentrate on bugs and expanding the range of things to do in-game and they will have the market on SciFi/Fantasy MMORPG. When other games start to falter the players will look to AO as the leader in Sci-Fi/Fantasy.

You have a great start on your competition! Keep the lead! In my opinion you guys have a diamond in the ruff. Keep progress going on good ideas and keep your lead in the market.

[MartekO]

Originally posted by Tikon
I was looking through my monthly gaming magazines, and i came across a review on Anarchy Online.

Now what it said was rather demeaning to Funcom, I am not going to name names, but the review basicly said that the game has a lot of problems and a lot of immature players.

If you aren't going to tell us the rag and which issue, then you could be making this all up, or mis-paraphrasing.

If you're going to call this out, you need to name names.

Martek

[Intenseheat]

I agree. Cite a source. I subscribe to Computer Gaming World and Computer Games Magazine, and often pick up PC Gamer from the newsstand, and I have seen nothing of this. From my knowledge, those are the top 3 computer gaming mags, save maybe EGM, but they cover everything.

P.S. - The booster was announced 4 days ago. And you said this was a MAG. What magazine can write an article, publish it, and get it out to subscribers/newsstands in 4 days? In the middle of the month? This either has to be a site, or you're making this up.

[Tikon]

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[Myers]

Originally posted by Tikon

3: I am not going to name this Magazines name, due to the fact that it may be subject to Legal Implications.

Legal Implications? You think a magazine will track you down with thier lawyers for mentioning thier name in some forum without thier written consent?

[MartekO]

Originally posted by Tikon
And can I ask, why do you think I would make something like this up for?

I don't necessarily think you are making it up. AO isn't perfect and any honest review should talk about both pros and cons. But I'd like to review the material and form my own opinion. Do you really think I want you to spoon feed my opinion to me?

3: I am not going to name this Magazines name, due to the fact that it may be subject to Legal Implications.

You really think there is a legal issue with naming a readily available publication and factually stating what they published? Boy are you paranoid! lol I hope they don't come after you just for hinting about this to us. Uh oh, is that a black helicopter out your window?

Martek

[_____________Browken]

He's talking about the Sept. 2002 edition of PC Gamer. Actually he should have mentioned that he's talking about a UK magazine - that's why nobody else here has seen it

To clarify, there was one caption on a pic saying "Much of the role-playing has been ruined by immature players". Please point me to any large MMOG which doesn't suffer from this to some degree?

Basically the review said FC have done a good job retooling the game, but at the cost of the storyline. As we all know, that little area is kicking back into gear a bit now, so we'll see how that changes things. Most of the rest of the complaints are that there isn't enough to do other than missions etc.

With the recent relaunch of the story, and the prospect of PvP livening things up, there is some chance things will change...

Actually, thinking about things (and to get back on topic for this board), one of the more compelling reasons for FC to launch a booster pack and not just patch things in is that they can then encourage PC mags to re-review AO (much as they would when EQ, etc. launch an expansion). AO has indeed come a long way from its launch, and I'm sure most mags haven't taken a second serious look at it yet. Perhaps this will give them another burst of new subscribers (assuming the booster works well)

[Tikon]

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[_____________Browken]

Originally posted by Tikon
Im not sure if you live in the UK,but if you do then you need to read upon your laws a bit.

Hmm, I presume you must be talking about UK libel laws? Well for one thing, here we're only providing quotations from a registered publication. Yes you can make disparaging comments about a product on a public forum and be sued for libel. However, you seem to be implying that a computer games review magazine might be liable for publishing an unfavourable review of a game.... Well, don't you see this is somewhat incredulous unless the review contains straightforward lies about facts?

If you want to go into details (and it will be very boring to do so) we can briefly cover my layman's understanding of the subject.

Yes, writing a negative opinion of a product could theortically get you sued. However, there are five legally recognized defences to a libel action (and are therefore reasons why you're allowed to publish negative things about a person, company, or product). Of these, two are clearly recognisable and applicable here:

• Justification.
  It's all true - you can't get sued for telling the truth.
• Fair Comment
  An expression of the author's personal opinion. Sometimes it can be difficult to draw the line between opinion and fact, but generally if you write a piece in a newspaper or magazine saying you dislike a product, you can't be sued unless you presented inaccurate details as fact.

In short, no Funcom are not going to sue PC Gamer because the it wasn't a glowing review (it wasn't really a bad review either); and no, you cannot be reasonably liable for referring to or quoting from such a publication. Quoting the entire article, or a substantial proportion of it would open you to accusations of publishing copyrighted materials, but that's a totally different kettle of fish

Anyway, this isn't a very exciting topic, and I've likely got some details wrong (I Am Not A Lawyer) but unless a magazine has signed some Non-Disclose Agreement then they're perfectly allowed to publish their opinion of a product - it'd be a damned scary world if they couldn't!

[_____________Kytesta]

I just had to reply to this =)

I'm from the UK, I know about PC Gamer and I play AO.

PC Gamer's comments about the roleplaying being destoyed by immature players is funny. This magazine in my opinion is 10 times worse than Funcom and I am not sure why they are still around. If they think that AO players are immature, they really have not opened their eyes to MMORPGS as EQ newbie zones beat the immaturity of AO on a scale of 1:1000.

PC Gamer is simply an outdated PS and Gameboy magazine which generally has incompetent reviewers who write drivel about everything as they have no idea of the current state of gaming. I have a sneaking feeling that the very same reviewers write for the Sunday Sport (another UK thing) and are unfortunately believed by the few.

Oh yeah, I am employed by a rather powerful legal organisation. Please feel free to chuck me a libel case, I could use the money you will give me =)

Kytesta