[Molly]

This thread seems to have split up into two different topics:
A. Were the discussions on the boards better in the past, and if so, why did the site deteriorate?
B. Are the player reviews useful/useless?

The first question is actually intriguing: How and why did a once great discussion site deteriorate to the present state, where it is all but dead. That subject should be worthy of a thread of its own

As for the reviews, here are my own thoughts about them, based on some indisputable facts:

1. Fact: The people that write the reviews usually belong to any of the following categories:
- Mud owners/Administrators/imms
- Ardent active players
- Disgruntled players (often ex-players).

Neither category is renowned for their impartiality. Consequently I think we can all agree that the majority of the ‘reviews’ are biased - either uncritically positive or equally one-sided negative.

2. Fact: Some muds get an inordinate number of reviews, while others hardly get any, even if they didn’t take the step of disabling them completely.

This doesn’t seem to be related to the size of the playerbase.
It is probably safe to assume that the ones that get a very large number have Administrators that actively encourage their players to write reviews, in about the same way that some muds actively encourage their players to vote. In some cases they may even create accounts on the site just to write some reviews themselves.

It is also likely, that the muds where the Admin encourage the players to write reviews get a larger percentage of positive reviews. Mostly because they would be written by active players who like their game, but also because it is in the human nature to hope for some kind of reward for butt-kissing, (regardless of whether you actually get it or not).

3. Most muds get both positive and negative ‘reviews’.

This is only natural, since there is no such thing as a flawless game, and also people have very different tastes. (A very simple example of this is the different preferences of Roleplayers and Hack’n’slashers. There are even players who actually PREFER stock muds, because they know their way around in those).

The single reviews seldom point out both sides of the coin however. Still, viewing all the reviews for a mud should usually give you some sort of idea about the pros and cons with it.

The majority of the reviews a mud gets will probably be positive, especially since you have the option to get obviously biased, inflammatory or untrue reviews removed by the List Admin.

4. Fact: Some muds get a larger amount of negative reviews than others.

There can be several explanations for this, here are a few:
- The mud is very new and in an early development stage, and consequently the world is small, the code unfinished, the playerbase limited. It may have a great concept for the future, but the main part of it hasn’t yet been implemented. (Many players like developing Muds however, and actively seek them out as playtesters).
- The game is ‘extreme’ in one direction or another, meaning that some players will love it, while others hate it. (Examples of the extremes are; stricly enforced Roleplay with no OOC allowed, brutal pkilling muds with permadeath).
- The game is unusually hard, and/or has a very steep learning curve, causing some players to feel frustrated, because they cannot cope with the complexity. (This would make it a good game for demanding players however).
- The game is in the process of some sort of major change, either regarding code or policy. (Large and frequent changes always upset the players, especially if they are coupled with a pwipe or an equip downgrade).
- The game admin have recently discovered massive and widespread cheating, and decided to deal with it by banning all the players they caught, regardless of mud status. (Longtime, powerful players finding themselves barred from their favourite mud are prone to be vindictive. Most people would however agree that the Admin took the right action here).
- The reviewer happened to log on to a mud of a type that he simply dislikes. For instance an enthusiastic Roleplayer stumbling into a chatty and noisy hack’n’slash mud – or the opposite. Or a player who likes to explore entering a PK mud, where new players are preyed on. (In these cases the sensible player would just recognise that he is in the wrong place and quietly leave, but some people choose to make a public fuss over it)
- The mud is very successful, and some immature competitors cannot handle this fact, so they post negative reviews in order to try and bring them down. (This is what some of the mudowners that disabled their reviews probably will claim. It may happen, but personally I doubt it is very frequent).
- The game has a extremely hard-handed admin, who use ban frequently as an instrument against ‘problem players’
- Free speech is severely suppressed within the mud, and the players have no chance to vent inside the mud, without getting punished. (This is more frequent than you’d think. There are muds where players get zapped for the slightest comment that can be interpreted as criticism, and where any negative posts are promptly deleted from the boards, if there even are any boards).
- The mud is in open conflict with some other mud, which might cause the rivals to post negative reviews about one another. (For instance if someone took off with the code and zones, or there was a major disagreement about the policy, causing some of the Staff to leave, to start their own, similar mud).
- The Game goes under false pretences. (For instance a mostly Stock mud claiming to be ’highly modified and original’, a commercial mud pretending to be ‘free’, alleged RP-intense muds where the roleplay is mostly non-existent).
- The Game actually IS a bad one. (For instance rude and/or uncaring Admin, cheating imms, unfriendly players, extremely buggy code, sloppy building with typos galore, severe lag… After all, we all know muds like that exist).

Like the list shows, there are several reason why a good mud could get negative reviews. The ones at the top are examples of that, while some of the ones at the bottom are examples where criticism would be justified.

In the latter cases there is a definite interest from the prospective players to get this sort of information – (and obviously also a definite interest from the Admin to suppress it). This is one reason why I think the option for
Mudowners to get a review removed by the list Admin, should be restricted to ‘false’ reviews cases, where the allegations are obviously and blatantly untrue. It shouldn’t be very hard for the Admin to provide proof about that. (On a side-note, so far I haven't seen any valid reason for a mud to block all reviews, and I never understood why this option should be available. Still, since it is there I guess it will stay).

A balanced, intelligent and mature mudowner should be able to handle a few negative reviews in a constructive way. Sure, criticism is always a bit hard to take. But, as Valg and Samvean already pointed out, even negative reviews can be useful in some ways. Flaws and bugs that you perhaps didn’t even know existed can be rectified, you get a grip of what features players generally like or dislike in your game, and can take action accordingly.

And you always have the option to respond to them. Which in my opinion should NOT be done in the Discussion boards, but in the Review section itself. Ideally there should be a possibility to COMMENT directly to each review, like the Mud Connector has. If Synozeer doesn’t want to add that option, there is always the possibility to add your own review, where you can refer to the content in the other one, point by point. Sure, it doesn’t give the same exposure as if you do it in the boards, but maybe you don’t really want that kind of general exposure when it comes to bad reviews.

5. Fact: Regardless of what has been claimed by a few people, Not ALL reviews are badly written.

Obviously there are different opinions about this, ranging from Threshold and the_logos, who refer to the  reviews as ‘worthless’, ‘useless’, ‘absolute garbage’, ‘no value as reviews’, to Samvean and Valg, who claim that there are several examples of well written reviews - and even provide some links and examples to back their statements up.

As for myself, I couldn’t make a statement about the average quality standard of the player reviews, simply because I don’t know – I hardly ever read them. (See, this is what bothers me about the people, who so loudly claim they all are utter crap. How do they know? Have they actually READ all the available reviews to form this cocksure opinion? I guess it wouldn’t be hard to find some bad examples, but how do you go from there to the conclusion that 99% of them, if not all, are crap, without actually checking ALL of them out?)

Anyhow, the QUALITY of a review has nothing to do with whether the content is positive or negative, although a balanced review that points out both good and bad aspects of the game is likely to be better written than the one-sided ones.

Better quality on the reviews would benefit everybody, especially the mudowners that allow them. If a larger part of the reviews where better written, more people would bother to read them, which in turn would mean more exposure for the mud in question.

Also a very badly written review reflects negatively on the mud, even if it contains nothing but praise, because the readers will assume that it has a playerbase full of twinks.
On the other hand a well written review reflects positively on the mud it deals with, even if it contains severe criticism. Simply because it shows that someone cared enough about the mud to take the trouble of writing down their thoughts in a mature, balanced and well worded fashion. Nobody would go through all that trouble over a crappy stock mud.

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So to sum this up; I think reviews should be kept. They have pros and cons, but to me the pros definitely outweigh the cons. To an extent that again makes me wonder why some mudowners feel this need to disable them.

I think the reviews add to the site, not just by giving it more hits, like the mindless clicking of a vote button, but by providing reading material that at least some visitors find interesting and/or entertaining.

Players in search of a new mud probably check out some reviews first. That’s what I’d do myself. And reasonably intelligent players can probably see through both the obviously biased attacks by embittered banned ex-players, and the blatant advertising written by Admin pretending to be players.

Valg and Samvean have already pointed out many ways in which the reviews can also be valuable for the mudowners, and I agree with all these. Positive reviews definitely provide good publicity for the mud, and even the negative ones can be turned into good publicity, dependant of how the Admin handle the matter. They also provide an extra option for a mud that cannot afford a banner to get its name exposed.

The review concept as it stands could be improved however.

A definite improvement would be the possibility for the Mud Admin to comment directly to each review. If Synozeer would take the trouble of adding this, it would benefit everybody on the list, because the review comments on the discussion boards that seem to trouble certain people so uncommonly much would then be eliminated.

I also think that a small measure like re-label them from ‘Reviews’ to something like ‘Player comments’ would have a good effect. False product declaration is never a good thing, because it leads to unrealistic expectations, followed by frustration when these are not fulfilled.