Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Roguey]

They are most accurate possible indicator to which we have access, not as an all-encompassing and universal measurement. Like Prime Junta said, they tend to skew on the positive side, only really angry AND willing to post reviews people will post a negative one. Like I said, the game is garbage, but I didn't go out of my way to rate it on Steam or GOG.

I disagree with that. I learned ages ago in one of my classes that people are far more likely to speak up about a product/service/business if they have a negative experience than a positive one. If anything, 33% would be too high.

 

[Lacrymas]

I disagree with that. I learned ages ago in one of my classes that people are far more likely to speak up about a product/service/business if they have a negative experience than a positive one. If anything, 33% would be too high.

While that is true, it's not so high a number as you'd think. Here's the first statistic that came up when I googled it -

While it's not for games, it still shows only 12% higher to post a bad review for online review sites. While 12% is pretty high, it's still only 1ish person in 10. And only a third of people having a bad experience posted a review. Taking this statistic in mind, it should be that every product should have a higher dissatisfaction in online reviews, so there's obviously something else at play here.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

They are most accurate possible indicator to which we have access, not as an all-encompassing and universal measurement. Like Prime Junta said, they tend to skew on the positive side, only really angry AND willing to post reviews people will post a negative one. Like I said, the game is garbage, but I didn't go out of my way to rate it on Steam or GOG.

I disagree with that. I learned ages ago in one of my classes that people are far more likely to speak up about a product/service/business if they have a negative experience than a positive one. If anything, 33% would be too high.

No longer true. That is really old data. For the past 10 years people have become rating-whores as a result of internet familiarity and ease of use. Heck, even my local cinema has ratings and hundreds of people rating it, from angry to meh and to positive, all in equal measure. Me, being an oldie, would never even think to rate a cinema after visiting as its not part of my historical routine, but for many it is now. The mantra you're referring to is from my era where the only reason you'd phone up the cinema is to either book tickets, ask for show times or complain about something. No, in the olden days only about 0.001% of calls would be people phoning up to tell the manager how nice their experience was. That's not how it works now. Nowadays everything is rated.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Also only people who bought the game can rate it. I think people potentially interested in this niche (any niche really, but crpgs and spiritual PS:T successors in particular imo) are more prone to research their games thoroughly before purchasing (than AAA audience), and apparently all who did concluded that Numanuma is shit.

Yes, I pulled that out of my ass. But I also think a spiritual successor to PS:T has the potential to be financially viable and way more successful than Numenera was.

 

[Ismaul]

Yes, the criteria is games that are broadly aimed at an oldschool audience. Games that are relevant to the Codex's interests.

I don't understand what's so controversial about what I'm saying. It's not "You only hate this game because it failed commercially." It's "You give this gave even more grief than you would have otherwise because it failed commercially." Surely you're not denying that the Codex community is known for being vindictive and drama-seeking?

Vindictive because a game failed commercially? Your explanation is ridiculous, that's why it's controversial. The commercial fate of a game is far from being a prominent factor in our reception. Other factors are far more explicative and plausible, such as hopes and money invested, relationship with the devs and general interest for a game. Intrinsic factors > extrinsic factors, because they're relevant to us personally. Worse, your own criteria for saying that the commercial fate of a game is affecting our judgement is that those games are old-school / relevant to our interests; i.e. that there are other factors much more important to us at play.

This, combined with the fact that commercial reception and Codex reception rarely align, i.e. that extrinsic factors have little relevance to our judgement, means that your explanation is convoluted for no reason at all. There is a simpler one: we're vindictrive because we cared about the quality of the game, wanted it to be good, invested money, and the dev wasn't earnest. Occam's razor fucks you up.

 

[Roguey]

No longer true. That is really old data. For the past 10 years people have become rating-whores as a result of internet familiarity and ease of use. Heck, even my local cinema has ratings and hundreds of people rating it, from angry to meh and to positive, all in equal measure. Me, being an oldie, would never even think to rate a cinema after visiting as its not part of my historical routine, but for many it is now. The mantra you're referring to is from my era where the only reason you'd phone up the cinema is to either book tickets, ask for show times or complain about something. No, in the olden days only about 0.001% of calls would be people phoning up to tell the manager how nice their experience was. That's not how it works now. Nowadays everything is rated.

And yet ToN only has about 2000 ratings out of 110,000 players.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

No longer true. That is really old data. For the past 10 years people have become rating-whores as a result of internet familiarity and ease of use. Heck, even my local cinema has ratings and hundreds of people rating it, from angry to meh and to positive, all in equal measure. Me, being an oldie, would never even think to rate a cinema after visiting as its not part of my historical routine, but for many it is now. The mantra you're referring to is from my era where the only reason you'd phone up the cinema is to either book tickets, ask for show times or complain about something. No, in the olden days only about 0.001% of calls would be people phoning up to tell the manager how nice their experience was. That's not how it works now. Nowadays everything is rated.

And yet ToN only has about 2000 ratings out of 110,000 players.

The primary market for TToN is an old one is it not...

 

[Roguey]

The primary market for TToN is an old one is it not...

I looked up D:OS 2, 14,000 reviews/ratings, 788,000 players. Same percentage, about 1.8%.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

The primary market for TToN is an old one is it not...

I looked up D:OS 2, 14,000 reviews/ratings, 788,000 players. Same percentage, about 1.8%.

And does that have a high percentage of negativity?

 

[Ismaul]

IncendiaryDevice has it right. The old-school RPG audience would be the kind that wouldn't rate, because we're older or older-minded than this "rate everything" generation. I don't even have a smart phone or a twit account. The only things I rate are posts on RPG Codex.

 

[Prime Junta]

This is getting deep into somebody’s wrong on the internet territory.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's getting deep into "someone is trying to creepily be an apologist for this piece of shit game" territory.

 

[Roguey]

And does that have a high percentage of negativity?

No. Funny how its financial success means that anyone who would claim that there's really a silent majority of players who hate it looks like a loon even though the sample sizes are the same.

IncendiaryDevice has it right. The old-school RPG audience would be the kind that wouldn't rate, because we're older or older-minded than this "rate everything" generation. I don't even have a smart phone or a twit account. The only things I rate are posts on RPG Codex.

A game for literal children: Five Nights at Freddy's. 845,000 players, 17,000 ratings/reviews. 2%, just a .2 increase.

 

[Infinitron]

This really isn't rocket science.

Two games, Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Both games have a group of highly vocal grognards who hate them. If you're a picky oldschool gamer looking for a reason not to buy either one of these games, you can find one easily. Yet one game sells a million copies, the other can't pass 150,000.

Is Pillars a better game than Torment? Yes.

Is that enough to explain that huge gulf? Probably not.

Before any question of quality, the core difference between the two games is the type of game that each one is. A Torment that sold twice as much would still be a flop for a game that took that long to make.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

And does that have a high percentage of negativity?

No. Funny how its financial success means that anyone who would claim that there's really a silent majority of players who hate it looks like a loon even though the sample sizes are the same.

IncendiaryDevice has it right. The old-school RPG audience would be the kind that wouldn't rate, because we're older or older-minded than this "rate everything" generation. I don't even have a smart phone or a twit account. The only things I rate are posts on RPG Codex.

A game for literal children: Five Nights at Freddy's. 845,000 players, 17,000 ratings/reviews. 2%, just a .2 increase.

Your first point makes fuck all sense. Either the people rating are bias towards negativity or they're not. Make up your mind.

Re: your second point, you're getting all your stats of off steam... a site for PC gaming. Whatever game you find on there it will have the same demographics, people who play PC games. All the games on there are likely mostly played by old'er people. The number of younger players will be uniform, duh. The people who rate will always be the people who rate, whatever they are playing.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

This really isn't rocket science.

Two games, Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Both games have a group of highly vocal grognards who hate them. If you're a picky oldschool gamer looking for a reason not to buy either one of these games, you can find one easily. Yet one game sells a million copies, the other can't pass 150,000.

Is Pillars a better game than Torment? Yes.

Is that enough to explain that huge gulf? Probably not.

Before any question of quality, the core difference between the two games is the type of game that each one is. A Torment that sold twice as much would still be a flop for a game that took that long to make.

For someone who starts their post talking about rocket science you provided a highly irrelevant post. I guess nothing's rocket science if the be-all-and-end-all of everything you say ties back to Pillar of Eternity somehow...

 

[Infinitron]

It's not irrelevant at all once somebody has brought up "oldschool RPGers who don't use newfangled social media review systems" as an important factor in a game's success. And I started with Divinity: Original Sin 2 as an example first, so where's this be-all-and-end-all obsession you're speaking of

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It's not irrelevant at all once somebody has brought up "oldschool RPGers who don't use newfangled social media review systems" as an important factor in a game's success. And I started with Divinity: Original Sin 2 as an example first, so where's this be-all-and-end-all obsession you're speaking of

1. I didn't bring up ""oldschool RPGers who don't use newfangled social media review systems" as an important factor in a game's success ". I brought that up to counter the horseshit that people are more motivated to rate things if they don't like that thing.

2. In your 'rocket science' post you seem obsessed that there's this 'grognard' conspiracy against certain games. There isn't. Both PoE and TToN fucked liberally with people's expectations. D: OS2 did not fuck with people's expectations. It's really that simple... it's... not... rocket... science...

 

[Roguey]

Your first point makes fuck all sense. Either the people rating are bias towards negativity or they're not. Make up your mind.

I'm not contradicting myself. It's entirely possible that the number of people who dislike D:OS 2 is even fewer than 7%.

Whatever game you find on there it will have the same demographics, people who play PC games. All the games on there are likely mostly played by old'er people. The number of younger players will be uniform, duh. The people who rate will always be the people who rate, whatever they are playing.

FNaF is enjoyed almost exclusively by children/teenagers/young adults. It's freaking red light/green light as a computer game.

 

[Infinitron]

1. I didn't bring up ""oldschool RPGers who don't use newfangled social media review systems" as an important factor in a game's success ". I brought that up to counter the horseshit that people are more motivated to rate things if they don't like that thing.

I was replying to the argument made by Ismaul, not to you.

2. In you're 'rocket science' post you seem obsessed that there's this 'grognard' conspiracy against certain games. There isn't. Both PoE and TToN fucked liberally with people's expectations. D: OS2 did not fuck with people's expectations. It's really that simple... it's... not... rocket... science...

And apparently that's made you so buttmad that you routinely misunderstand totally non-controversial points. This post was fucking crazy, lol: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-numenera-thread.113925/page-198#post-5204095

 

[Lacrymas]

The difference is that PoE is an immeasurably better game than Numanuma. It's not whatever ideologically/shillingly skewed nonsensical arguments you put forth. While PoE selling so many copies isn't tied just to how good it is compared to Numanuma, it also has a long tail, so it's not only about initial hype and inertia. Numanuma died the moment people started playing it and saw it was a piece of shit, it really is THAT obvious from the very beginning that it's going to be very, very bad. PoE's bad points are more well-hidden and only grognards will pick up on them and have the motivation to deconstruct it apart and explain what and why it's bad.

What Roguey and Infinitron's arguments logically lead to is that quality has no bearing on sales ever, that even niche gamers are sheep who will literally buy anything with a RTwP combat and a standard setting, regardless of anything else. That's insane and even arrogant.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

In you're rocket science

 

[Infinitron]

What Roguey and Infinitron's arguments logically lead to is that quality has no bearing on sales ever, that even niche gamers are sheep who will literally buy anything with a RTwP combat and a standard setting, regardless of anything else. That's insane.

Not at all, I just conceded the possibility that Torment could have sold twice as much. Which would put it at about the same level of commercial success as Tyranny. (Tyranny is kind of a useful example for this debate for how well a 'meh' but more standard game can do)

 

[Raghar]

The difference is that PoE is an immeasurably better game than Numanuma. It's not whatever ideologically/shillingly skewed nonsensical arguments you put forth. While PoE selling so many copies isn't tied just to how good it is compared to Numanuma, it also has a long tail, so it's not only about initial hype and inertia. Numanuma died the moment people started playing it and saw it was a piece of shit, it really is THAT obvious from the very beginning that it's going to be very, very bad. PoE's bad points are more well-hidden and only grognards will pick up on them and have the motivation to deconstruct it apart and explain what and why it's bad.

What Roguey and Infinitron's arguments logically lead to is that quality has no bearing on sales ever, that even niche gamers are sheep who will literally buy anything with a RTwP combat and a standard setting, regardless of anything else. That's insane and even arrogant.

So what was bad on PoE? Aside of character system.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

And apparently that's made you so buttmad that you routinely misunderstand totally non-controversial points. This post was fucking crazy, lol: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-numenera-thread.113925/page-198#post-5204095

The only person who rated that post butthurt was you. The only person rating my posts on this page butthurt is you. You seem to have a really dedicated memory for posts made a very long time ago which you can bring forth at the drop of a hat.

You really really hate people disagreeing with you don't you...