"If a tree falls in the forest...", or "Why should I post my reviews here?"

[Suicides-by-Steve]

If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one around to hear it fall, does it still make a sound? An old proverb that can be applied here with perfect veracity. I posted my reviews here in the past, to get feedback, acclaim, and recognition for the fact that I wrote a great review. Now however, it seems so pointless, and hollow to post them... No new visitors will be able to click on my review, rating it for quality, while others in their wake see the awesomeness of my review, and marvel in its' wake!! :cool: :rolleyes: Nor will I really help someone find a new great game at random. Basically this site is regulating itself to target consumers with particular products in mind, and who have zeroed in on one or two products and then choose the better of the two by coming to this site as the final say in the decision-making process. This is fine for choices when buying Furniture, appliances, or cars, but not games for Pete's sake!

Games come out so quickly and change so often, and are reduced to bargain bin prices that to have to SEARCH for ideas is bad... and not helpful at all... there have been so many ideas I have gotten for games to buy from reviewers here, that I don't think I can begin to count them all... all from seeing their name in the Review of the Day section. Again, with this new format of not giving credit to a reviewer by not showing new reviews on the splashpage, or a Reviewer of the Day, why post here? In the long run, it only helps out you guys, not me... I get nothing out of it, do I?

No short term kick, unless I win the game for Review of the Month. Is this prize for the whole site, or for the 2 with its' oh so fine line between Console reviews and PC reviews..., so in fact 2 games a months can be won? Oh it's all so confusing. If it's the whole lot of us competing like a bunch of starving dogs fighting for scraps, hoping to win the game of the month, there's gonna be a WHOLE bunch of disappointed people feeling awfully left out each 30 days... Not too good for morale. Like I said, I liked getting my reviews rated, because I knew they were getting read... thats my kick. Well, Epinions offers money for reviews... I can get kickbacks instantly for my reviews that are read, and if it weren't for my loyalty here on this site, I'd be thinking of jumping ship without a change or two. I'm sorry guys for sounding so vitriolic, but I'm just beginning to realise what the new changes actually mean to me...

I have a new review I wanted to post, but again, is it worth it now, should I wait for maybe a more streamlined interface, or what?! I mean, I can post it, but like that tree falling in the wood, if there's nobody who's aware of it, does it really make an impact? :( :(

[Aku]

I'm putting the final touches on my Mafia review now, the first review I've written I believe since February. Now I'm bummed. :(

Aku
Shapeshifting Master of Depression

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\">I'm putting the final touches on my Mafia review now, the first review I've written I believe since February. Now I'm bummed. :(

Aku
Shapeshifting Master of Depression</div>

Well, think about it, if you didn't tell me about it, I would never have known it existed, and because I like reading your reviews, and supporting others in the community, by reading and fairly voting for their reviews, it's a shame to think I won't be able to do that now, since why would I look over the reviews in Mafia when I've already played that crappy game :p ... Oh well, I guess we'll have each other for competition even though we won't be able to compare ours with others... oh wait! My review will be for Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic... It does Space Empires IV proud!

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\">I'm putting the final touches on my Mafia review now, the first review I've written I believe since February. Now I'm bummed. :(

Aku
Shapeshifting Master of Depression</div>

Oh.... the... horror... the... ...hor...ror...

There's a word cap limit on the reviews!! Oh no... :mad: The Summary seems to have no cap, but roughly 250 words have been alloted for the Graphic, Sound, and Gameplay catagories... :eek:

[Aku]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>
it's a shame to think I won't be able to do that now, since why would I look over the reviews in Mafia when I've already played that crappy game :p</div>

Now I'll have to hurry and finish that review. Crappy game my a$$!! :p

[Aku]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>
There's a word cap limit on the reviews!! Oh no... :mad: The Summary seems to have no cap, but roughly 250 words have been alloted for the Graphic, Sound, and Gameplay catagories... :eek:</div>

Guess I'll have to put the whole thing into Summary then, heh-heh!

AOW2:Shadow Magic -I never played AOW2. Is it that good? Is it better than AOW2? I never even finished the first AOW (the tiny combat animation just killed it for me, I quit after about the third or fourth map). Maybe I'll have to try this other one.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

Guess I'll have to put the whole thing into Summary then, heh-heh!

AOW2:Shadow Magic -I never played AOW2. Is it that good? Is it better than AOW2? I never even finished the first AOW (the tiny combat animation just killed it for me, I quit after about the third or fourth map). Maybe I'll have to try this other one.</div>

Try downloading the trailer for it- it looks ALOT different!

[Lara]

I have asked if the word count feature can be changed. We'll have to wait for Chris to answer this.

[Hieremias]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

There's a word cap limit on the reviews!! Oh no... :mad: The Summary seems to have no cap, but roughly 250 words have been alloted for the Graphic, Sound, and Gameplay catagories... :eek:</div>

But that hasn't changed from the old system, the Summary had no limit but the other three categories did (8000 characters I think?). It had to do with the database limitations, if I remember correctly (Eric explained it once).

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

But that hasn't changed from the old system, the Summary had no limit but the other three categories did (8000 characters I think?). It had to do with the database limitations, if I remember correctly (Eric explained it once).</div>

Huge difference between a 250 word cap and 8000 Jeremy... HUGEMONGOUS! GIGANTICUS even! LOL My review is 15000 words man... not 2000... I can stuff it all in the Summary, but it doesn't look too good... nor is it possibly acceptable. We'll have to wait and see for now though; I've asked Lara to remove the review I posted, and will repost it again... possibly if things get fixed.

[Hieremias]

Well the old site had an 8000 character limit, not 8000 word limit, if I remember correctly.

250 words for gameplay is a bit short, I admit, but 250 words for graphics and sound is plenty. Plus you have the unlimited summary. I'd probably be more inclined to just stick everything in the summary, I did that a few times on the old site.

You wrote a 15,000 word review?? For what game? Holy crap... I'll read it, but realize that the average novel is 60,000 words, only 4 times bigger. Yikes! With a review that long it doesn't really matter what section you post it in, it's gonna be big no matter what. :)

[Chris]

Steve, if you're talking about the alpha indexing of games, we've already brought that to the attention of our engineering staff. It will be developed for the new site. The character limit you spoke of will be looked at as well. These are both issues that we can resolve. What we can't do is make any major changes to the over design or interface. It's a standard design that our whole network of 11 sites is using, and cannot be drastically changed. However, we can make improvements here and there.

If everyone could just give us a list of things they would like implemented or changed, we'll do our best to address those requests. We won't be able to act on them all, but we'll definitely do what we can to help make the site as easy to use as possible.

[Lara]

As requested by Chris, please post any new questions/comments to this thread about the site change.

Official Site Change Thread - feedback and complaints here please

Post all feedback here in this thread!!!!!

http://forums.videogamereview.com/showthread.php?threadid=393