GameSpy wishes for the Fallout fans to die

deadairis said:

The context of a scale matters.

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Of course it does, but I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT. Is that hard to understand?

I'm saying that three above average categories is too few. That is all. That is the only point I'm making. If I take a while saying it, it's because you seem to delight in missing the point.

Your system sucks because it has only three above average categories, and thus can't even differentiate four levels of above average game. [IN THIS RESPECT, it's no better than a 97% average - in other respects, of course it's better]

A 70% average on a percentage scale can differentiate up to 30 levels of above average game. Yours can do three. That sucks by comparison, and sucks in absolute terms - even allowing that a 70% / 3.5. average is reasonable.

Stop not listening to me when I try to inform you how metrics work.

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Stop missing the point, and hopefully you won't feel the need to keep stating the obvious-but-irrelevant.

Sorry man, I told you had an interesting point, but you keep trying to defend the idea that the bottom end and scalability of a metric don't matter. If you don't want to talk about it?
Stop talking about it.
You are talking about it -- "IN THIS RESPECT, it's no better than a 97% average - in other respects, of course it's better." Your caps are great, but that respect doesn't exist out of the context of the whole scale. For example -- 4, 4.5, and 5.0 cover 30 percent of the scale. 98, 99, and 100 cover 3 percent of the scale. That means that the difference between 4 and 5 matters more on our scale -- we can differentiate more than a 1-100 scale that set the average to 97 could.
While 3 does equal 3, the top three percent of a metric don't equal the top thirty percent of a metric. I mean, I see that you wish it was irrelevant -- it makes that 97% quote cute -- but it's not irrelevant.
A 97% average percentage metric does not have the same ability to differentiate the categories "above average" as a 3.5/5 average metric does, in any way. Not in any respect, or RESPECT, whatsoever. They only thing they share is that if you add the difference between the top of the scale and the average, you have the same integer.
That's metrics, man. They just work that way.

galsiah said:

deadairis said:

The context of a scale matters.

Click to expand...

Of course it does, but I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT. Is that hard to understand?

I'm saying that three above average categories is too few. That is all. That is the only point I'm making. If I take a while saying it, it's because you seem to delight in missing the point.

Your system sucks because it has only three above average categories, and thus can't even differentiate four levels of above average game. [IN THIS RESPECT, it's no better than a 97% average - in other respects, of course it's better]

A 70% average on a percentage scale can differentiate up to 30 levels of above average game. Yours can do three. That sucks by comparison, and sucks in absolute terms - even allowing that a 70% / 3.5. average is reasonable.

Stop not listening to me when I try to inform you how metrics work.

Click to expand...

Stop missing the point, and hopefully you won't feel the need to keep stating the obvious-but-irrelevant.

Click to expand...

deadairis said:

Sorry man, I told you had an interesting point, but you keep trying to defend the idea that the bottom end and scalability of a metric don't matter. If you don't want to talk about it?
Stop talking about it.
You are talking about it -- "IN THIS RESPECT, it's no better than a 97% average - in other respects, of course it's better." Your caps are great, but that respect doesn't exist out of the context of the whole scale. For example -- 4, 4.5, and 5.0 cover 30 percent of the scale. 98, 99, and 100 cover 3 percent of the scale. That means that the difference between 4 and 5 matters more on our scale -- we can differentiate more than a 1-100 scale that set the average to 97 could.
While 3 does equal 3, the top three percent of a metric don't equal the top thirty percent of a metric. I mean, I see that you wish it was irrelevant -- it makes that 97% quote cute -- but it's not irrelevant.
A 97% average percentage metric does not have the same ability to differentiate the categories "above average" as a 3.5/5 average metric does, in any way. Not in any respect, or RESPECT, whatsoever. They only thing they share is that if you add the difference between the top of the scale and the average, you have the same integer.
That's metrics, man. They just work that way.

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Let me try to mediate here. I believe that Gal says that you have less differentiation possible with 2.5-5.0 than if you use 50-100 or even 70-100. I can see his point. At one time, we changed our system from 1-100 percent to 1-5 stars. Readers went crazy, they said you wouldn't have enough headroom to differentiate games, which strategy game would be better of two that got four stars etc. While I liked the stars (I would actually want to try a three point system, thumbs down: don't buy, thumbs up: go for it, thumbs horizontal: mhh, well, if you like the genre), the readers didn't. Got changed back to percent after a bit over a year or two I believe.

deadairis said:

While 3 does equal 3, the top three percent of a metric don't equal the top thirty percent of a metric.

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Up to rescaling, they're equivalent (but that's irrelevant). The only thing that affects the expressive power you have (i.e. the ability to categorize games as better/worse than each other) is the amount of available categories.
Essentially what you're doing is using an arbitrary metric to illustrate an ordering on the set of games in question. The values/labels you assign to that metric are totally irrelevant once you pick a discrete number of labels. This is because the reader knows that you have only a three way choice.

Whether your categories are: 1/2/3, 98/99/100, 4/4.5/5, brian/jim/lettuce, A/B/C... is irrelevant.
Once the reader is aware of the scale, it's all equivalent to 1/2/3.

By giving a score of "2", all you're saying is "Better than 1, worse than 3".
By giving a score of "jim", all you're saying is "Better than brian, worse than lettuce".

Of course you can decide to give 90% of games a 3, just as you could decide to give 90% of games "lettuce". Whatever scale you decide to adopt, the expressive power is equivalent.

Once you adopt an arbitrary average - whether 70%, or 97% -, you immediately dismiss the possibility of any notion of equivalence between e.g. the 34%-35% range and the 98%-99% range. You've fucked that up by picking an arbitrary average (though even by sticking with 50%, it's not exactly obvious how you can maintain any clear idea of uniformity - the scale is arbitrary). Once the reader accepts the average, what matters is the number of categories you have to play with either side.
On the above average side, a 97% average is just as expressive as a 3.5/5 average (for a reader who knows and accepts the average). You can say no more with the 3.5 average than with the 97% average. Either way, you have only three levels. And yes - their meaning is essentially equivalent for a reader who has already accepted the average.

That's metrics, man. They just work that way.

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If only I'd studied metrics for as long as you have.

Yeah, it's a cool idea to shift. I don't know there's any intrinsic problem with a 5 average, except that at this point its counter-intuitive to the US audience.


I see his point -- I've already said it's an interesting idea.
But if he wants to hang on to discussing how metrics work, I'm game.

robur said:

Let me try to mediate here. I believe that Gal says that you have less differentiation possible with 2.5-5.0 than if you use 50-100 or even 70-100. I can see his point. At one time, we changed our system from 1-100 percent to 1-5 stars. Readers went crazy, they said you wouldn't have enough headroom to differentiate games, which strategy game would be better of two that got four stars etc. While I liked the stars (I would actually want to try a three point system, thumbs down: don't buy, thumbs up: go for it, thumbs horizontal: mhh, well, if you like the genre), the readers didn't. Got changed back to percent after a bit over a year or two I believe.

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I thought this
"I'm saying that three above average categories is too few. That is all. That is the only point I'm making. If I take a while saying it, it's because you seem to delight in missing the point."

was your point?
All you keep expressing here is the same stuff you've said -- about a point you claim you're not talking about -- which is wrong.

galsiah said:

deadairis said:

While 3 does equal 3, the top three percent of a metric don't equal the top thirty percent of a metric.

Click to expand...

Up to rescaling, they're equivalent (but that's irrelevant). The only thing that affects the expressive power you have (i.e. the ability to categorize games as better/worse than each other) is the amount of available categories.
Essentially what you're doing is using an arbitrary metric to illustrate an ordering on the set of games in question. The values/labels you assign to that metric are totally irrelevant once you pick a discrete number of labels. This is because the reader knows that you have only a three way choice.

Whether your categories are: 1/2/3, 98/99/100, 4/4.5/5, brian/jim/lettuce, A/B/C... is irrelevant.
Once the reader is aware of the scale, it's all equivalent to 1/2/3.

By giving a score of "2", all you're saying is "Better than 1, worse than 3".
By giving a score of "jim", all you're saying is "Better than brian, worse than lettuce".

Of course you can decide to give 90% of games a 3, just as you could decide to give 90% of games "lettuce". Whatever scale you decide to adopt, the expressive power is equivalent.

Once you adopt an arbitrary average - whether 70%, or 97% -, you immediately dismiss the possibility of any notion of equivalence between e.g. the 34%-35% range and the 98%-99% range. You've fucked that up by picking an arbitrary average (though even by sticking with 50%, it's not exactly obvious how you can maintain any clear idea of uniformity - the scale is arbitrary). Once the reader accepts the average, what matters is the number of categories you have to play with either side.
On the above average side, a 97% average is just as expressive as a 3.5/5 average (for a reader who knows and accepts the average). You can say no more with the 3.5 average than with the 97% average. Either way, you have only three levels. And yes - their meaning is essentially equivalent for a reader who has already accepted the average.

That's metrics, man. They just work that way.

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If only I'd studied metrics for as long as you have.

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deadairis said:

I thought this...was your point?

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It was.

All you keep expressing here is the same stuff you've said...

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It's part of my crusade against the mass of mathematical / logical stupidity which permeates the universe. If you haven't understood by now, you're probably not going to, so I guess I'll give up after this.

which is wrong

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I really can't explain it better. [for above average games] They're arbitrary scales with the same amount of categories. They're isomorphic. They're logically equivalent. They allow the same partitioning of the set of games considered. The labels on categories are arbitrary....

If the scales/"metrics" chosen weren't arbitrary, you'd have a point - but they are. 78% means nothing more than 78, which is simply a label here. Adding two scores is meaningless; dividing/multiplying them is meaningless. The only meaningful operation is subtraction - i.e. asking how many categories exist between the two. This can be done with any ordered labelling.

Since again, I'm talking about the expressive power only of above average games, the amount of categories available to differentiate below average games isn't relevant. The scale isn't uniform, the categories aren't equivalent, so using them as units makes no sense.

deadairis said:

AnalogKid said:

deadairis said:

Modern news systems have worked -- by which I mean, fostered services that the consumer felt worth their wages -- for so long because they manage to create information in a manageable way for people. I'm sorry you don't think it's right, but I still think that its centuries of managing to get the word out to a number of people that makes the effort worthwhile outweighs your estrangement from the system.

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And here's where your thesis is fucked. The CONSUMERS DON'T PAY YOU. The developers do, through adds on your site.

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Actually, that's exactly why the consumers do pay me. Ad sales relies on traffic. Traffic relies on content.
That may not be the case at a certain grandiose scale, but as far as the website ad market goes, that's how it is.
If you don't read the site, we don't get traffic.
And, more importantly? There's a reason ad sales and edit are totally seperate groups. My job -- my stated task -- is to make GameSpy's content -- specifically console -- better. Period. How much money our ads makes means nothing to my employment.
So, sorry to debunk that theory, but my job revolves around the consumer and the content the team I'm a part of creates. Ad sales jobs revolve around getting ads.

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for sure.
but your audience -80% of cnsole kiddie- doesn't have the same understanding of quality content than many codexers. The kids want to be hyped in order to have something to talk in their play-ground.
what codexers don't understand is that hardcore adult rpg player fallout fan doesn't make a "market" even a "niche market"for media and developers.
why?
1. there are 50000 at the maximum.
2. 1/2 of them doesn't buy games but hack (the console kids pay)
3. they are nostalgic and so angry for ever because they alwayws compare to previous games. no games can truly satisfied their needs. (for example if oblivion was the first of the series they may have welcome the title)
4. they are not a homogenous niche market, they spend their time to hate each other and have all different tastes (contrary to the kiddo)
5. they are quite geeky and so asocial. no one is truly an opinion leader and so they doesn't count.

DarkUnderlord said:

I was looking for this and someone linked it recently so here we go...

But when the press is shown a Preview or told we can write about a Beta, there are still many rules in place. These rules include:

(1) Always be positive

(2) Remember this is an early build

(3) Element X Y Z will be fixed and changed upon release

(4) Disobey any of the above and you will be banned

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Ahhhahahahaha... that site is lying.
Or that writer is misinformed.
Always be positive? Always be positive?
I have nothing to say. That's...well, I mean, maybe his site gets that. Every site and magazine I have written for doesn't. But remember that it's an early build? Which features are in which state -- that's good to know. "Early build" is useless -- preAlpha, Alpha, or what? Give me a release date, even if I can't disclose it.
Serious, who is this site again?

DarkUnderlord said:

Be nice if the reviewers outlined any conditions they were writing on, you know, in fairness and honesty.

Like that'll happen.

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Note that you're mixing up reviews...and previews.
Reviews don't get done on early builds -- despite cries for hyper-critical previews. Those aren't reviewable code.
I don't think any publisher puts "conditions" on their writers. Some writers and publishers may softball more than others.

DarkUnderlord said:

Oh and was our GameSpy friend here at the all expenses paid Fallout 3 junket?

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Ugh. I was recovering from some other shitty travel event, or possibly down in LA for pre-E3 stuff.
That's a fairly interesting WP piece. No, the person who wrote our preview went to that, unsurprisingly. But I've had my company and other companies take me to plenty of places. What can I say -- traveling for work is crap. Multiple cross-country or international flights in a month on economy to be rushed to a demo, eat dinner, and then sleep in a hotel room to be packed back into economy the next day to get home?
Maybe your job has sexier travel. I appreciate getting to see new places, but it's definitely a who "has to" handle travel, not a who "wants to," in almost every case.

And the publisher paying means nothing to the person writing it. If they publisher doesn't, our employer does. 6:half dozen.

robur said:

Bradylama said:

1-2-3-4-5

Notice how 3 is in the middle? How does that make 3.5 the benchmark any sense?

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Actually, it should be 2.5 - that's exactly the middle of 0-5. In other words, 5 divided by 2 is 2.5.

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heh, what are you smoking? 3 is obviously in the middle, no matter how you look at it. It's clearly both the average and median of {1...5}.

I've got nothing of substance to add to this thread, except to say that it is truly one of the best on the site in awhile. It should be archived and called "Deconstructing Gamespy".

-D4

callehe said:

robur said:

Bradylama said:

1-2-3-4-5

Notice how 3 is in the middle? How does that make 3.5 the benchmark any sense?

Click to expand...

Actually, it should be 2.5 - that's exactly the middle of 0-5. In other words, 5 divided by 2 is 2.5.

Click to expand...

heh, what are you smoking? 3 is obviously in the middle, no matter how you look at it. It's clearly both the average and median of {1...5}.

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Yeah, some math juggling there.
Note that Robur is actually including 0, as he noted.
Callehe is not.
Most reviewers include zero as part of their scale, even if they never use it. I'd give a zero star to a game that didn't boot.

Vault Dweller said:

Dark Underlord said:

I like how you weasel arguments around. I really do.

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"Weasel" custom tag?

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I'd be for it. If you go over this whole thread, deadairis is avoiding what's actually being asked or questioned and instead raising a minor side point, making that the main issue, either being proven wrong or saying exactly what the person he's critiscising is saying, ignoring that and picking out the next minor point in order to add another page of discussion.

deadairis said:

DarkUnderlord said:

You then weasle your way around the question and turn it into a "that's not what I said", rather than answering it. See, VD quoted you precisely, then later on (a whole half a paragraph down even)

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Don't know what to tell, you buddy...he didn't quote me.

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You could tell me what mental illness you have. Help us help you. Maybe that's why you fit in so well with the rest of the gaming journalism world? You ignore what's important and focus on the little things and decide to make that an issue even though everybody understood it anyway. VD quoted you word for word. Better yet, he even underlined the whole bit, including the "one of" part. Maybe you need reading glasses? I know reading this on your phone must be tough for you but it's no excuse for being ignorant.

deadairis said:

Maybe a life lesson, someday, will make clear the difference. Like, the difference between being one of the best people for a job and the person who gets the job.

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You do realise that the guy who gets the job is actually "one of" the best people for the job too, right? There are multiple candidates in contention, any one of them could be "the best". By saying Oblivion's combat is "one of the best", you're making it a candidate for that position. Actually winning that spot is something that happens later.

It's only now that you've come out and said "sorry, Oblivion's combat loses" after you were called on it.

Even take your earlier Olympic example which works better:

deadairis said:

You are one of the top 100 people in the competiiton to go compete in the Olympics
vs
You are the top person in the competition to go compete in to the Olympics.
Hey, guess who's actually going to, huh?

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Notice how the guy who wins is also "one of" the top 100 people in the competiiton to go compete in the Olympics? The fact that he did win, doesn't exclude him from the fact that he was "one of" the best.

If you don't get that, then you're either a troll or mentally retarded. Given you're also a gaming journalist, I'd say it's the latter mixed in with a bit of the former.

deadairis said:

If they're stupid, okay. He must have given a reason for why they were -- well, he said they're imprecise, that's something I can actually discuss.

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Yeah, no-one believes that, sorry. I really do like the high and mighty opinion you've got of your "discussion" skills here but this quote from you isn't discussing anything:

deadairis said:

Really? A scale that has 10 points and marks the 7th as "average" is as precise as one that has 100 points and marks the 97th as average?
Really? You really think 60% of a scale and 96% of a scale are comprable?
Wow.

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... that's not a discussion. That's you trolling and trying to say that galsiah made a comparison he didn't actually make. The "technicality stuff" is cute though. At least that makes this entertaining.

deadairis said:

It looked like placeholder text to me. Sure, I'm just one of your readers. But does the opinion of the reader matter or not?
It looked, at first glance, like placeholder text to me.
Turns out it was.
Why defend not catching it?

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So what happens when the placeholder text ends up in the final product? OOPS. As VD pointed out, Bethesda spouted a fountain of crap left right and center during all the previews. If only one journo had called them on it, maybe they would've done something about it? I'm sure for all intents and purposes they'd have loved to make some things better but if no-one complains, why would they bother? Especially when it comes to crunch time (which again, as a professed gaming journo, you should understand). Sometimes good intentions go by the wayside and "placeholder" becomes acceptable.

deadairis said:

Sure. It was placeholder -- as any game producer will pay someone to write for their. And then pay someone to write final text for the, well, final text. I mean, you get different rates for it and everything. It's a clearly defined thing, seperate from final text. But, okay, sure it was placeholder.

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Game producer's pay other people to come up with proper text later? The guy in the Depth of Peril interview is the lead designer. Given it's an indie studio, I don't think there will be anyone else writing text. Feel free to keep making bullshit like this up though. Given what the text was and the number of indie games or even professional Diablo-style games that have "kill 21 monsters" as their quests, I'd say VD was correct in calling him on it.

deadairis said:

I'm not going to call you a liar.
Are you lying?

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You've been trying to pin VD down as a liar for the last 5 or so pages now. Keep trying. You might get there around page 20. I doubt it though. All you've done so far is fall on your own sword.

deadairis said:

The industry standard is not to lie, straight faced, to press. Because then they call you on it, or fans do if the press doesn't catch it.

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No, lying is the industry standard. Driv3r even paid people to visit forums and tell people how awesome their game was, even when it sucked. Take a look at Oblivion's "Radiant AI" and that great example of the potion sipping, arrow shooting woman I mentioned before. Bethesda were lying their tits off about that. Given that track record, it's safe to assume they're likely to do it again.

deadairis said:

DarkUnderlord said:

Be nice if the reviewers outlined any conditions they were writing on, you know, in fairness and honesty.

Like that'll happen.

Click to expand...

Note that you're mixing up reviews...and previews.

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Voice-over: Watch how the spotted GameSpy Journo dives for what he sees at the slightest technicality. Ignoring the fact that everybody knew what was said anyway, observe now as he uses this technicality to avoid any serious discussion.

Yeah see, it's stuff like this that isn't winning you any friends. I know what a review is and I know what a preview is. Note that I called them "reviewers". I've never heard gaming journo's referred to as "previewers". Even movie previews are written up by "movie reviewers". Perhaps I should've used "critic" instead? The only problem then being that few of them ever actually critique.

deadairis said:

Serious, who is this site again?

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Note now, how the GSJ is dismissive of opinions other than its own and calls into question their validity.

This is you, right? With your 13 previews / reviews / articles / whatever you technically want to call them?

Well this is the person who wrote that article, with his 208.

Sure, having your articles used in Rotten Tomatoes doesn't mean anything, right? Not the point I'm trying to make. Think of it this way: They're being used in Rotten Tomatoes, the Codex isn't. They've written a lot of reviews. Your suggestion is that Kaleb is lying. With a site that's used as a source and is bigger than us, I've got no reason to disbelieve him.

The other thing to keep in mind is, who are you again? Maybe these e-mails go to your boss's boss and they don't let the janitorial staff see them.

Personally I see 60% as the 'pass mark'. Anything below 60% is a 'fail', in other words, not recommended. 70% would mean it's decent, and should be the average (if in fact most games are average, and have not deteriorated over time).

60-70% means the average user could buy it but it has flaws.
70-80% is the decent to great range... 80% being a great but not classic (a classic being Civilization, X-Com, Thief etc) game.
80-90% should be reserved for really great games, of which there are less than ten a year.

Anything below 50% should be for really awful games.

Again that's just me but that's how I automatically convert numbers into a description of quality.

When almost every major games reviewer gives Oblivion 90%+, there's a problem there.

DarkUnderlord said:

Vault Dweller said:

Dark Underlord said:

I like how you weasel arguments around. I really do.

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"Weasel" custom tag?

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I'd be for it. If you go over this whole thread, deadairis is avoiding what's actually being asked or questioned and instead raising a minor side point, making that the main issue, either being proven wrong or saying exactly what the person he's critiscising is saying, ignoring that and picking out the next minor point in order to add another page of discussion.

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I hate to brand someone for one thread, but I guess when it's so insane, I'd support it. My only reservation is that I really think it's more like intentional trolling than actual weaseling, and it has lead to some very good one-sided discussion by the codexers.

Whatever though, as long as it gives the impression that this guy is full of shit and not to be listened to, it's all good.

Hey, wouldn't "gaming journalist" accomplish the same thing?

AnalogKid said:

Hey, wouldn't "gaming journalist" accomplish the same thing?

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Yes, yes I think it would.

I'd be for it. If you go over this whole thread, deadairis is avoiding what's actually being asked or questioned and instead raising a minor side point, making that the main issue, either being proven wrong or saying exactly what the person he's critiscising is saying, ignoring that and picking out the next minor point in order to add another page of discussion.

Click to expand...

"Strawman" might be a better fit.

deadairis said:

I appreciate the "not-personal" note, but no worries. I'm happy for the feedback.
Here's a question: How could that link to our scale be more clear? It's in big letters: "what these scores mean." It's linked right under each score. It's the same system we've used for years. There's a summation of how we feel about the game right under the score.

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That doesn't address the issue of those who take your score out of its original context. Since you can't ensure your little scale carries over to any references made to your score, why not replace your system with something simple and unambiguous? Besides, the argument of "we make it perfectly clear" doesn't hold much weight. You shouldn't have to make it clear.

I agree that the video game review scale is inflated towards the 7-10 range, but again, if everyone knows it -- if it's publically available knowledge -- then it serves its purpose. Do you really look at school grades and not understand them because a 50.5% isn't a "C"? I presume not. Good or bad, right or wrong, it's a commonly understood system.

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Well actually, I don't know a lot about the system the American education system uses, but using it to parallel a subjective review is a fallacy and actually works against your own idiotic system. Presumably, the school grading system works the way it does, because 50% is assumed to be the acceptable minimum showing of knowledge, and the degree of failure is irrelevant, so why factor it into grading?

In that system, you have one grade to measure an unacceptable standard - F. You have 12 (?) for measuring success. The "inflated average" is simply a reflection of more people succeeding than failing.

In your own system, you have 3 grades for measuring that which is above the norm, and 7 for that which is below the norm. Since you are also in the same boat as the education system, in that the average is "inflated" due to more success than failure, the bias should go the other way so you have a better measure for the degree of success. You've got your system arse-backwards.

People who don't know it -- say, are looking at metacritic to get a gift -- are still going to look at the ones at the top of the scale, not the 70s. Because they'll look at the 70s and think "eh, a C!" or "Hey, I could get a 94 instead!"
Is it perfect? Probably not. Does it work? Yeah. Well enough? It seems like consensus here is "no," but why not?

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That in itself is subjective. How many people approach gift buying with the simplistic overview of "Jimmy likes games, I'm going to get him the best rated game I can find!" vs the people who take an approach like "Jimmy likes games, and Jimmy likes Spiderman. Let's check the metascore for Spiderman 3 - the game."

Honestly, it's still an editorial based an incredibly early hands-on.

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Is it really? The closest I get to representing a point of view is "Let's hope", which is irrelevant in this case - favourable if anything, because I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Is the inclusion of factual information from outside of that preview session what's getting you? I see nothing at all wrong with putting the information into context.

Besides which, it's still perfectly factual. I refrained from jumping to the conclusions I could have easliy jumped to given Bethesda's tragic MO - "Bethesda will almost certainly fuck this up utterly, given their slack design methods and desire to pander to the lowest common denominator."

And even if I did make such statements, who is going to prove me wrong? Certainly not Bethesda.

Sorry, to be more clear, I wasn't actually like "Oh, my hair is now white!" surprised. More 'Wow, I'm surprised they opened themselves up to showing anything at this point, since it'll be barely more than a taste and they can't have a ton of stuff locked in.' It's not that they *physically* shouldn't have anything to show; it's that they are being very daring showing so much, so early. That may not be your experience with publishers and developers, but it sure is mine.

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So, a triple A developer with a multi-million dollar turnover, employing hundreds of people who are all working full-time for eighteen months with an existing engine they have the good part of a decade's experience with, in addition to a significant amount of pre-production in advance, shouldn't have much to show for their efforts? Get your hand off it.

Developers in much less fortunate circumstances will be pushing out a gold master in that sort of time frame.

deadairis said:

b) previews need to cover what the reader didn't get to see, but we did. There was plenty of content in the hands-on time our previewer got to fill four pages without getting into editoralizing.

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The "we haven't played it yet," for what it's worth, is a polite way of saying "this could be anything." Without hands on, we don't know how it actually plays. How it survives being tweaked. If we can actually do what we've been told. I can see how that's unclear there, but it's an attempt to make clear that a) there's promise and b) that promise could be anywhere, since we're seeing the damn thing so early.
Although, note I didn't write that preview.

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You're right to a point - "this could be anything". So why the fuck are the so called "critics" instantly assuming the best case scenario? Why are you all studiously ignoring the warning signs? As I said earlier, Bethesda obviously think what they've got is worth showing off, so why refuse to comment on the worrisome aspects? You can safely assume the lion's share of the "warts and all" bits have been well covered over for the purposes of showing the preview, and anything else they're conscious of would be commented on:

"Bear in mind that's not how we expect the final iteration of the supermutants to look; our artists are still working on refining them to be closer to the source material."

They didn't say that. Why?

How do you get an objective review for a subjective thing? I gave Oblivion a (gasp!) 9 -- here, I'll make sure none of you have to hunt for it --http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3149203 .
And that's on 1up's "a 5 IS average" scale. I stand by it; you guys don't agree with it, but a review is fundamentally an opinion for anything other than technical fields. I think asking for a review with no editorialising is asking for nothing, honestly, but a feature list.

How is it not?

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If you believe you can't be objective about a game, you're dead wrong. There is a big difference between - "I think the graphics look shit" and "The graphics are technically impressive, but stylistically similar to contemporary products". I can't brook this attitude of "find a reviewer with similar tastes". I know what my tastes are, and the reviewer should be able to paint a clear enough picture that I can decide whether the game fits my tastes or not.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying reviews ought to be a dry academic paper, but I don't see the value in being overly subjective. Since it's easier for me to illustrate than explain - my own Oblivion review. From reading the opening of your own, I can see we'll be at sixes and sevens. For instance:

It builds a foundation of the little things, which are done so well that they grow into big things.

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You may have enjoyed those little things, but I can assure you with the utmost certainty that barely any are "done well".

Depends on who's on them, and what they're talking about. You're likely to get a lot more information, for one thing, since you aren't reading a piece that has to meet certain ethical and due diligance standards (which we've talked about). In the podcast? Well, depends on the product. You're not going to hear anyone disagree with my Shadowrun review on the GameSpy Debriefings, because everyone on the show hates it. If it's World of Warcraft (or any Blizzard product) though, you will - Sterling (one of our core podcast hosts) just doesn't like those games.
So, depends on the week. At GameSpy, our edit columns are largely platform wide thoughts -- Sterling on Sony stuff, Gabe on MS stuff, and Bryn on Nintendo stuff. Those tend to talk about higher level stuff than just "this game X, that game Y," using games as examples. The podcast is more of the people on it talking about the week at large, so we tend to discuss what we're working on. You won't hear an editor give a game a 5 and then trashtalk it -- or he wouldn't have given it a 5 -- but you'll probably hear someone disagree with the 5 (those are usually tumultous).

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Sounds to me like you guys need more dissenters among your ranks. I'd love to hear the arguments that try to counter the assertions the Fallout community has been making about Fallout 3 looking grim.

Since I haven't seen crap of the preview yet, I'm not sure? I'll get around to reading them soon. I promise.
But could we see a whooole lot change between now and release? Oh yes. The supermutant model? I don't know. Hell, Fasa totally redesigned Shadowrun after a badly received E3 showing.

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"Badly received at E3" is entirely different "badly received by the people you expect to hate it anyway." A poor E3 reception means that (predominantly) the media are against you, and that damage has to be undone otherwise your greatest marketing tool now serves a contrary purpose. If any of you guys had the balls or the good taste to speak up and say - "uh guys, this actually looks like they don't actually get fallout and have no intention of even attempting to surpass the high bar set by its namesake ten years ago," then their arm would be twisted.

Right now, I bet they're more likely to be pleased with the fact the Codex (et al) don't like what they see, because that means they're doing something right by their accountants.

Can it change? Yes. Will it? This early, entirely likely.
And, we once again run into a weird dichotomy: there are the Fallout fans who want to see something similiar to the original games, even if that means compromises to make sure the game gets published, instead of never seeing the light of day. And there are the fans who don't accept that compromise. I don't know there's any way to rectify the situation, honestly, and I hope everyone here can see how hard a situation the publisher is in:
Put out a game that's identical enough to satisfy the hard core and fail to sell because there's not enough done to justify a sequel;

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If you don't think a game will sell enough to recoup $20 million in development costs, don't spend $20 million developing it. Alternatively, don't pay $7 million for a core fanbase you don't believe can provide you with $7 million in sales. You fuckers are largely complicit in driving development costs through the roof, by lampooning anything that dares to be anything but a blockbuster.

Again, I don't think there's malicious intent in this, you're just not as discerning or insightful as "the hardcore".

And nice use of "identical enough" there. We've never wanted "idential enough", hence the reason why a lot of us are opposed to the idea of rehashing the BOS and Supermutants. All we want is a respectful understanding of Fallout, and a genuine attempt to make a game that is meant for us, and not Oblivion fans.

Change the game enough to have made "positive changes" but not enough to alienate the "real fans"; or
Put out a game that will appeal to the current market, a decent chunk of fans, but leave the ones who just will not accept some changes behind.
This isn't a Fallout specific issue; it's a sequel issue.
Homeworld is a great example -- Cataclysm was just too much changed for me, but it did well and kept a lot of the fans happy. I hated it. Homeworld 2 went too far in pandering to the market and misjudged what the market wanted, leaving Sierra with no one but the Homeworld sheep buying it.
As for Fallout 3...we'll see. I'll see the game at E3, most likely, and put some of what I've heard here to Bethesda and see what they think (and talk about it on the podcast). For what it's worth, I think

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No, it's not a sequel issue at all, it's an issue with developers and publisher being fucking idiot slaves to an ideology they don't even understand. A developer making a sequel is in an ideal position. You have solid market info on how many people bought your last game and you can use that in combination with peer and user review to get a pretty good picture of what a sequel is likely to do in terms of sales.

And from there, you draw up a budget. For what fucking reason would someone risking bundles of cash ignore that clear precedent in favour of staking a higher investment on a higher risk product in a saturated market? Oh wait, because it's conventional wisdom that consoles and the casual market are the way forward. Give me a fucking break. The only "reason" I can think of is greed. Pure and simple.

I don't think they accidentally showed anything. I honestly think, from what I've heard here, that they've got a build most Fallout fans will like. The quest, as described to me, doesn't sound all that terrible as a way to distinguish how you want to play, nice and early. That means the entire game now has a metric to build upon. Do I want something more complex than nuke or not nuke a town as options? Yeah. But do I want a choice to turn right to white knight or left to jerk right off the bat, even though I can't wipe out the town guard yet?
Yes.
Of course, I replayed both Fallouts to kill every non-random living thing I could, so...
And as for the super-mutants being the most iconic enemies of fallout, I'll take a crazed stance: humans are the most iconic enemies of Fallout. That sounds trite, but I mean it. Humans, doing human things, are what define Fallout. It's the difference between a madcap Unknown Armies game and a Kult game -- you might see the same level of weirdness and horror, but one of them is because of humans, and one because of monsters.

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And if the Megaton quest is anything to go by, they've even fucked up the "humans, doing human things" bit.

The guy who wrote our preview has been doing this a Loooong time, and is reaaallly good at it. The thing is, who do you think got sent to write these previews? The guy who wrote our preview is a huge Fallout fan.
I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan, and I wrote Oblivion previews that are reviled here. I don't think this is a core issue with how previews get done; I think it's a core issue with what the hardcore Fallout fans represented here want and what other people want.
Let's turn that around: Not a "single fucking one of you guys" shares any of the previewers conclusions -- even though you're discussing the same facts. So..."strange."

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At least we're offering arguments as to why you guys are coming up with your conclusions. You can try, but it's going to be pretty fucking hard to argue away the vested interest in being positive. What's our angle? What do we have to gain from criticising Fallout? What's our motive?

At the end of the day, it's clear cut. We say we don't like what we see because we legitimately don't like it. And don't try to pull that "you wanted to hate it from the outset! You never gave it a chance!" horseshit that so many others do. All evidence points to this reaction being consistent with our gaming tastes and wants. It's history repeating. We expressed our concerns over Oblivion, were assured otherwise, and in the end our concerns were proven to be well founded.

On the other hand, you guys say you like what you see, but it's pretty hard to take that at face value when we know what is at stake here. Like it or not, the credibility of your opinions and "facts" are forever tainted.

@Section8 I don’t understand why you wasting your time discussing scale in the context of game ranking. Even with a different scale Oblivion would still be, according to Patrick, a HIGH ranking RPG.

DarkUnderlord said:

...you're either a troll or mentally retarded. Given you're also a gaming journalist, I'd say it's the latter mixed in with a bit of the former...
Bethesda spouted a fountain of crap left right and center during all the previews...
No, lying is the industry standard. \This is you, right? With your 13 previews / reviews / articles / whatever you technically want to call them?

Well this is the person who wrote that article, with his 208.

Sure, having your articles used in Rotten Tomatoes doesn't mean anything, right? Not the point I'm trying to make. Think of it this way: They're being used in Rotten Tomatoes, the Codex isn't. They've written a lot of reviews. Your suggestion is that Kaleb is lying. With a site that's used as a source and is bigger than us, I've got no reason to disbelieve him.

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So, after an entire post ranting about how journos are liars, and big companies are liars, and liars, liars, liars, you're saying Kaleb -- a journo -- is someone you have no reason to disbelieve, because he's a journo and he's mentioned in a site bigger than yours. So, do you have no reason to disbelieve him because of the "troll" or the "mentally retarded" that you've ascribed to gaming journalists?
Man, you guys hate being called on the little things, as if they didn't matter.

You know, looking at how GameSpy's review scale works, that's really about it. http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/ratingsystem2/
Sound about the same?
Good calls on "classics."

sheek said:

Personally I see 60% as the 'pass mark'. Anything below 60% is a 'fail', in other words, not recommended. 70% would mean it's decent, and should be the average (if in fact most games are average, and have not deteriorated over time).

60-70% means the average user could buy it but it has flaws.
70-80% is the decent to great range... 80% being a great but not classic (a classic being Civilization, X-Com, Thief etc) game.
80-90% should be reserved for really great games, of which there are less than ten a year.

Anything below 50% should be for really awful games.

Again that's just me but that's how I automatically convert numbers into a description of quality.

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sheek said:

When almost every major games reviewer gives Oblivion 90%+, there's a problem there.

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Well, for what it's worth, I think the problem isn't the score, but that there's no major outlet that's found a way to cater to this kind of communities tastes. And by cater, I don't mean "lie," but put together review standards and staff that would produce content that would make this community satisfied, and at the same time not bleed money all day every day.

So you are a huge Elder scrolls fan deadairis?

Please tell me what it is about the elderscrolls that you liked in Daggerfall.

Now, please tell me what you then thought of Morrowind, while taking account your own thoughts on Daggerfall.

Now please do the same with Oblivion. At the end make a note of what was better and worse about each successive title in the series.

AnalogKid said:

Whatever though, as long as it gives the impression that this guy is full of shit and not to be listened to, it's all good.

Hey, wouldn't "gaming journalist" accomplish the same thing?

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Why would I even be here trolling? Time spent writing is time I spend normally earning money.
Honestly, I'm here because there are some interesting points. They keep getting lashed out under things like someone misquoting me and people then discussing that misquote as if I said it; people skipping their own point to get into metrics discussions they don't seem qualified for; or pot shots at me for being a journalist (a troll or a retard, or both if I'm since I'm a journalist? Was that the quote?) while calling my honesty into question because I disagree with another journalist -- who people have "no reason to disbelieve," since he's a published journalist on a bigger site than this one.

Ladonna said:

So you are a huge Elder scrolls fan deadairis?

Please tell me what it is about the elderscrolls that you liked in Daggerfall.

Now, please tell me what you then thought of Morrowind, while taking account your own thoughts on Daggerfall.

Now please do the same with Oblivion. At the end make a note of what was better and worse about each successive title in the series.

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I liked what they aimed for in Daggerfall, but I felt like it was too buggy, too ugly, and lacked any direction that I gave a crap about.
Respected the game, fan of what they built on. Didn't enjoy it personally. A lot like the GTA games from III on for me.

Morrowind made the series beautiful to look at, mostly, and gave the whole setting permanence. It also did some stupid shit in terms of monster placement and use, and failed to give users the option to fast travel -- or to not fast travel. That right there cost it a huge number of sales, which hurt development for every other game from the company. Also, huge technical issues, obviously. Faction interaction was spectacular.

As for how I feel about Oblivion -- 1up 360 oblivion review google. Sorry, they paid me to talk about that.

I think I covered the better worse from daggerfall to morrowind, but certainly from morrowind to oblivion what I really missed was the interaction of the various factions. I would have liked to see the various quest lines intersect more, but that would basically have delayed the game...well, a period . Leave it at that. That period would probably have been long enough to raise production costs beyond what could be spent to make the game, and then poof -- no new Elder Scrolls games.
But Oblivion is about 800 times more accessable to people who would never play an RPG, let alone an Elder Scrolls game. Fast travel and a cohesive -- but non-essential -- plot did that, and it did a lot for the series and the genre in terms of sustainability.

Alright, I'm going to try and derail this into a game score discussion.
70% being the score for a so-so game doesn't necessarily screw up a rating system. It's all about the dynamic range: how many steps do you have for indicating how good or how bad a game is? My point here is that if the review uses a percentile scale, I believe 25 percentile points to be too high a resolution compared to the standard deviation of the average reviewer. We should test this some time; have a reviewer play a game, write a review, come up with a score, then club him over the head until he forgets it all and have him do it all over.
In the absence of experimental data, I'm just going to assume that I'm right.

The above is why I don't believe in percentile rating systems but prefer star systems (or no-score-at-all, read-the-fucking-review systems). I'd be interested to see a histogram of Gamespy's score distribution, if that's available somewhere, but I do firmly believe that having only 4 degrees from "fair" to "great" is plenty of resolution for your game scoring experiment.

Edit: deadairis, VD told me you were too pussy to participate in this experiment. VD, deadairis told me the same about you. PROVE EACH OTHER WRONG! Instead of the headclubbing, I'll provide sufficient cannabis for the memory-loss-thing if you pay for your own plane tickets. I plan to publish my research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal of some kind, and will offer you second and third author positions. Any other reviewers want to participate under these conditions?