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KaVir · 10-03-2007, 08:38 AM

I liked the style of the Mud Connector reviews - it gives a fair amount of information about different aspects of the mud, often including both positive and negative. For example:

I don't think you can expect the reviewer to play the game all the way through with every class or race, but I do think they should clarify how much of the game they've played, even if it's just along the lines of "I played this for 10 hours as a human warrior". Perhaps 10 hours isn't enough to get into the meat of the game, but if so it can still give valuable insight into those first 10 hours.

To give a fair overall review of God Wars II I'd expect the reviewer to class (which takes most players around 10-20 hours the first time around), complete a few tasks, and train sufficient powers (ideally 100% potential at age 100) that they could start experimenting with different builds. I guess we're talking around 30-40 hours of playing time - which isn't going to happen unless they're either an active player or an ex-player, in which case the review will likely be heavily biased.

However I wouldn't mind simpler reviews, as long as the reviewer made it clear how much of the game they'd played - such as the 'capsule reviews' you mentioned. I think it'd be pretty nice to have a selection of one-hour reviews, whereby the reviewer had spent an hour playing each of the games before writing up a summary of their experiences (and once again, they should make it clear that they've only played for an hour).

An hour obviously wouldn't cover the meat of the games, but it could still provide an informative introduction - a summary of what you can expect in your first hour, from the perspective of an experienced mudder. Most newbies who aren't going to hang around will drop out long before the 1 hour mark anyway, so a well-designed mud should have sunk its hooks in long before this point - if there's nothing good to say about the mud after an hour of play, then that is also valuable information (not just for the prospective player, but also for the mud admin).

10-03-2007, 08:38 AM	#22
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	Re: MUD Reviews I liked the style of the Mud Connector reviews - it gives a fair amount of information about different aspects of the mud, often including both positive and negative. For example: I don't think you can expect the reviewer to play the game all the way through with every class or race, but I do think they should clarify how much of the game they've played, even if it's just along the lines of "I played this for 10 hours as a human warrior". Perhaps 10 hours isn't enough to get into the meat of the game, but if so it can still give valuable insight into those first 10 hours. To give a fair overall review of God Wars II I'd expect the reviewer to class (which takes most players around 10-20 hours the first time around), complete a few tasks, and train sufficient powers (ideally 100% potential at age 100) that they could start experimenting with different builds. I guess we're talking around 30-40 hours of playing time - which isn't going to happen unless they're either an active player or an ex-player, in which case the review will likely be heavily biased. However I wouldn't mind simpler reviews, as long as the reviewer made it clear how much of the game they'd played - such as the 'capsule reviews' you mentioned. I think it'd be pretty nice to have a selection of one-hour reviews, whereby the reviewer had spent an hour playing each of the games before writing up a summary of their experiences (and once again, they should make it clear that they've only played for an hour). An hour obviously wouldn't cover the meat of the games, but it could still provide an informative introduction - a summary of what you can expect in your first hour, from the perspective of an experienced mudder. Most newbies who aren't going to hang around will drop out long before the 1 hour mark anyway, so a well-designed mud should have sunk its hooks in long before this point - if there's nothing good to say about the mud after an hour of play, then that is also valuable information (not just for the prospective player, but also for the mud admin).