Players’ Reviews

[Adamant14]

This is a feedback thread for the wiki site Players' Review(s)

This wiki site is created to help players find their next campaign.
It is meant as a helpful tool to decide which UMC campaign fits for them and which not,
which one is worth downloading and playing next.


1. Here you can post criticism, ideas and suggestions.


2. And maybe you don't want, or don't know how to edit the wiki page, then you can post your review also here. I will add it then.




3. If you you are not familiar with editing wiki pages, then you can find a 'How to add a review' help here:

How to add a review:

1. Go to the Players' Review(s) page.

2. Go to pages bottom, and push the 'Log in / create account' button.

3. Create an account.

4. Push the Edit button.

5. Copy the Blueprint, and paste it to the place where your review belongs. (please make sure you paste it in the right place)

6. Edit the Blueprint.


A helpful page: Formatting a Wiki Page

[Adamant14]

I think about this:

If you want to review a campaign that was already reviewed, edit the old one, trying to make some kind of synthesis from yours and the original one.
Add things that weren't mentioned. Leave both opinions to things originally described from one side,
many elements have their good sides and odd sides (for example, usage of a custom era usually means unusual units, but awful graphics).
Remove only outdated elements. Ratings should be averaged. Add your name to the original reviewer's name.

What do you think about it?
Is this the right way, or is it better when each reviewer writes his own review?

Btw. I don't expect a spam of reviews.

[Dunno]

I have one suggestion. Please spare 10s and 9s when reviewing, imo 10 should be the best possible or in other words your all time favourite, not "just good". I don't want this ranking to end up like many others where every item has an average rating of 8-10 points

[Dugi]

I have used 10 overall to rank IftU, because I think it is the best campaign ever.
10 as a partial score for one of the factors should mean that it is well made and it could not be done better in that style.

[taptap]

I wonder about the whole numbers business... some reviews end really short and not reviewy at all because the numbers look like the most important part - I left them out altogether. I removed the part on top of the page copied from the parent page that said all the description/completion state etc. is wanted. In fact, I wonder whether description is necessary at all when there is a Guide to UMC campaigns as the parent page.

And I like the change adamant14 did. Composite reviews are impossible and if I like certain story elements and someone else finds them rubbish, writing something middling is not the way to go. I can accept people writing 100% the opposite of me, I can accept my review being removed because there is a half a dozen of more substantial reviews when the page becomes oversized, but I don't want anyone meddling with my stated and signed opinion (other than correcting english grammar). Having several, disagreeing reviews with reviewer name attached gives a much better impression to players about polarizing campaigns - and this is the purpose of the page, isn't it?

[Astoria]

I think about this:

If you want to review a campaign that was already reviewed, edit the old one, trying to make some kind of synthesis from yours and the original one.
Add things that weren't mentioned. Leave both opinions to things originally described from one side,
many elements have their good sides and odd sides (for example, usage of a custom era usually means unusual units, but awful graphics).
Remove only outdated elements. Ratings should be averaged. Add your name to the original reviewer's name.

What do you think about it?
Is this the right way, or is it better when each reviewer writes his own review?

Btw. I don't expect a spam of reviews.

I think it's better to just let everyone add them. For example, the opinions in my review and those in Raijer's (both for the same campaign) differ a lot, and you can't really display them all in 1 review (would look very weird, at least).

[Dugi]

It was me who wrote that. Maybe it's not the best idea. Just add your review.

[Astoria]

It was me who wrote that. Maybe it's not the best idea. Just add your review.

Ok, it's done.

[Dugi]

I thought that there is no need to write that it should not serve as a location for personal retribution. I have reported your outrageous post and Gambit told you off, and what? Instead of taking it like a man and accepting that your post was uninformative, harsh and unrelated to context, you have taken it personally. When I mentioned reviews, you knew that it is a perfect way to show how you hate me because I, a mere nobody, not even a forum regular, dared to report a post from you, a big and honoured translator.

This however brings a good point to this discussion. There will always be trolls, avengers and haters posting single-coloured posts based on their own twisted personal motivations. This means that people should be able to (and encouraged to) notify that they agree
with some of the reviews, and that there should be some kind of synthesis based on all reviews, trying to skip overly positive ones and overly negative ones. If there was a lot of reviews telling absolutely different things, it would be totally confusing for any reader.

[Raijer]

Oook... Passing by to see what's happening... And i see that. Let's stop this right now, it's just a game, don't start fighting over it. No need for a war on this forum, there are enough outside.
So STOP! That's it. No more hateful comments or whatever people will find to answer.

Anyway, i must agree that we need some sort of way to see which review is the most agreed on, or find someone that is neutral and can show good and bad points of a campaign without overdoing it (as bumbadabum and i did, unfortunately). That way the review system should become what it's supposed to be, something to inform new players about which campaigns might be interesting.

[vultraz]

Dugi, I can vouch for bumbadadabum and say that his review was NOT part of some personal vendetta against you in particular, because of that report or anything else. It's an honest review, and almost all of the points are ones I agree with 100%.

And before you accuse ME of having issues with you personally for some reason, let me say that this is strictly a matter of his (and my own) opinions of your campaign. Nothing else.

[Astoria]

I thought that there is no need to write that it should not serve as a location for personal retribution. I have reported your outrageous post and Gambit told you off, and what? Instead of taking it like a man and accepting that your post was uninformative, harsh and unrelated to context, you have taken it personally. When I mentioned reviews, you knew that it is a perfect way to show how you hate me because I, a mere nobody, not even a forum regular, dared to report a post from you, a big and honoured translator.

This however brings a good point to this discussion. There will always be trolls, avengers and haters posting single-coloured posts based on their own twisted personal motivations. This means that people should be able to (and encouraged to) notify that they agree
with some of the reviews, and that there should be some kind of synthesis based on all reviews, trying to skip overly positive ones and overly negative ones. If there was a lot of reviews telling absolutely different things, it would be totally confusing for any reader.

wat

My review actually was a honest and unbiased review, and surely not done in retribution; the report doesn't even matter to me. I wrote the review just on my personal experience with the campaign. Maybe the timing wasn't very good, but the two things are unrelated and I tried to forget about my personal views on you for the sake of writing it. (I actually planned on writing a review for LotI before all this happened). I find it a shame that you can't seem to take a negative review and blame it on an incident that is almost forgotten by now. The review was based on my opinion about LotI, and not how I feel about you or the color of my username.

Dugi, I can vouch for bumbadadabum and say that his review was NOT part of some personal vendetta against you in particular, because of that report or anything else. It's an honest review, and almost all of the points are ones I agree with 100%.

And before you accuse ME of having issues with you personally for some reason, let me say that this is strictly a matter of his (and my own) opinions of your campaign. Nothing else.

This is a shorter way to say it, thanks vultraz.

[Dugi]

Maybe the timing wasn't very good, but the two things are unrelated and I tried to forget about my personal views on you for the sake of writing it.

Your personal views on me? Yeah, great, you started playing something from a person you hated, of course that you will not come to like it. Especially if you skip large parts of it, as you said here. What lets you generalise about a story that you have played only in separate fractions?

(I actually planned on writing a review for LotI before all this happened).

Why you planned to bash my campaign, but you never reviewed anything else besides it? You must have played a lot of campaigns before. And why didn't you give some feedback about this?

To fully explain why I have a feeling that the review was biased and based on hatred (speaking of facts that can't be based on impressions):
1. Many points were never mentioned before and many people actually praised things you bashed. Inversely, many commonly reported problems were not mentioned.
2. This review contained the worst scores for every single thing ever given. Describing it as the worst thing ever.
3. Generalising that scenario size is too large. Some of them were too large, but some scenarios had problems with too small size.
4. Speaking about bad frankensteins and horrible artwork. The units are animated unlike many others and there are people who took some of LotI artwork into their campaigns.
5. Claiming that it was written 'in a hurry'. This would be a really basic assumption about something when reading that it is very long. But when I was writing the first three parts, I was not in hurry, because the first part was supposed to be the whole story originally (then first and second part, then first, second and third, and then I released it after some time of rest). Read this again to see on which parts was it based.
6. Bashing a usual lack of dialogues, except start and end scenarios ones. As if most mainline campaigns were different (not UtBS and such). The average scenario length was greater than the average scenario length of Eastern Invasion, for example.
7. Inclusion of comments purely meant to bash, without holding any information.
8. Really a lot of clichés in use.
Overall, it sounded like an exaggerated comparison with UtBS, from somebody who has played only UtBS.

[vultraz]

Dugi, did you even read my post? I said I agreed with bumbadadabum's review, especially on the points of dialog and characters. His review was honest and without bias from your report, and he most definitely did not do this to get back at you.

And may I just ask, why does he A. bringing up points that no one else has/have praised make them any less valid? And B. why are you making such a fuss about a single bad review? Not ever review you get will be positive. I, and at least one other person, second his review.

Now, please, people, can we drop this.

[Astoria]

Your personal views on me? Yeah, great, you started playing something from a person you hated, of course that you will not come to like it. Especially if you skip large parts of it, as you said here. What lets you generalise about a story that you have played only in separate fractions?

This is not true. By now I've played all of it, just to make sure I've experienced it all. The part about personal views impacting my views on a campaign is also not true (at least for me). I don't care about who makes a campaign, just its quality.

Why you planned to bash my campaign, but you never reviewed anything else besides it?

Mainly because it stood out as one of the most liked campaigns, and I disagreed and wanted to give my opinion.

1. Many points were never mentioned before and many people actually praised things you bashed.

Opinions.

2. This review contained the worst scores for every single thing ever given. If it was actually worst at everything, there would not be people who liked most of it.

In my opinion, people have rated all the add-ons too highly. Do note it wasn't the worst possible score.

3. Generalising that scenario size is too large. Some of them were, but some scenarios had problems with too small size

Again, personal opinions.

3. Speaking about bad frankensteins and horrible artwork. The units are animated unlike many others and there are people who took some of LotI artwork into their campaigns.

That doesn't mean it's good.

4. Claiming that it was written 'in a hurry'. This would be a really basic assumption about something when reading that it is very long. But when I was writing the first three parts, I was not in hurry, because the first part was supposed to be the whole story originally (then first and second part, then first, second and third, and then I released it after some time of rest). Read this again to see on which parts was it based.

This is just a feeling I got (as I said in the review). It doesn't necessarily have to be true, but for me it felt this way.

5. Bashing a usual lack of dialogues, except start and end scenarios ones. As if most mainline campaigns were different (not UtBS and such). The average scenario length was greater than the average scenario length of Eastern Invasion, for example.

Do I imply those campaigns DO have good dialog? Comparing it to something else doesn't make either better in my opinion.

7. Really a lot of clichés are in use.

Name a few.

Overall, it sounded like an exaggerated comparison with UtBS, expecting that it would be almost the same.

I didn't compare it to UtBS at all.

Now, please, people, can we drop this.

Yes, let's be done with it. Dugi, if you have anything you really want to discuss, you can reach me on IRC. I prefer that to posting this all in a public forum thread.