It may not hurt the game at all, but for heaven’s sake, if the review is factually wrong demand a re-review. You don’t make an issue out of it to the point of providing server logs to let it stand.

Do it if only to please your fans. Man, what is it about aventurine and their backend that they are clueless about so much? Its not your job to care about the journalistic integrity or the lack of it at eurogamer, its your job to ensure darkfall gets at least a fair shake at a review and that you as a PR person provide the best possible face by being gracious, yet not conceding.

Best thing to have done was to have been gracious, accept the re-review, and not rake zitron over the coals. That keeps you above the fray and shows professionalism, while providing a good example to your base and the gaming media.

When your game is three months old and already your players are making a 24 page thread on your forums about how people and guilds are leaving and how your game needs serious long-term overhauls, you don’t have the luxury to pull things like this.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=185733

Give Rog a yummy cookie.

That’s the main thing why I hated having to “score” the game at the end of my reviews. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have put anything. Ever. Reviews are opinion and what the reader is looking for is in the meat of the text, not in an arbitrary metric crammed at the end that may leave things out. I still had to do it because it was “the format” they were looking for, so that’s that.

I still challenge any reviewer to explain to me the difference between a 8.9 game and a 9.2 game.

Professional reviews are bullshit journalism. Most of us should know that. I did it myself for a few years and while it’s an expectation of consumers to get ‘fair and balanced’ reviews, let’s be really honest, there’s no such thing.

They’re opinions, nothing more. Opinions are something worth being paid for, until they start hitting formula and you’re making mass opinions.

I stand fully on the side of critics and criticism, paid for or free. But systematic reviewing / scoring is the lowest form of this kind of journalism.

If you make an MMO that is targeting 500,000 players or more, you better make it fun right off the bat because the majority of players won’t tolerate anything less. This is the nature of MMOs now. If you expect your players to grind through 10 or 20 hours before it starts to get fun or even make sense, you are in trouble. That’s my opinion as a player.

Darkfall is a game I don’t need reviews for. They told us what type of game it is and that was enough for me to know it won’t be any fun at all *for me*. So, is it fun? Depends on the player. I would not have fun so I can say it’s not fun even without playing it. That does not mean you wouldn’t have fun. Could I be wrong and perhaps I would have fun? Sure but they will have to convince me without making me pay them to find out.

Didn’t any of you log into the EQ of old? It was dull and uneventful for the first few hours until you figured out everything (for yourself) and started to discover grouping…. and then a fair few of us players and you bloggers got hooked…

You really have to give MMOs a fair amount of time, I think.