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Ide · 10-03-2007, 02:50 AM

So rather than start a completely new thread, this seems like a good thread to ask what would people like to see in a fair and detailed review? What are the guidelines? Are there a minimum number of hours a reviewer should play? Do they need to play long enough to remort if a mud has a remorting system to give a fair review? How many classes would they have to play? How many races?

Just to talk specifics, let's take four muds, Carrion Fields, 4 Dimensions, God Wars II, and Achaea. What in your mind does a reviewer have to do to give a fair review of each of these games?

Here are my general thoughts on reviews. No reviewer will ever be totally impartial -- in fact it would be a dull reviewer who had a completely neutral perspective. However it should be possible to write a fair and nuanced review of a game, that is enjoyable to read, that can help a player determine if they would like the game, and that would give feedback to the game itself on what it's doing.

A 'review site', or a review section of a site, shouldn't just focus on full detailed reviews either. I think I would like to see regular full reviews along with 'capsule reviews' that are more like teasers, which the player will know is not a full review, but still retains the fair perspective that the longer reviews have.

10-03-2007, 02:50 AM	#20
Ide Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Seattle Posts: 361	Re: MUD Reviews So rather than start a completely new thread, this seems like a good thread to ask what would people like to see in a fair and detailed review? What are the guidelines? Are there a minimum number of hours a reviewer should play? Do they need to play long enough to remort if a mud has a remorting system to give a fair review? How many classes would they have to play? How many races? Just to talk specifics, let's take four muds, Carrion Fields, 4 Dimensions, God Wars II, and Achaea. What in your mind does a reviewer have to do to give a fair review of each of these games? Here are my general thoughts on reviews. No reviewer will ever be totally impartial -- in fact it would be a dull reviewer who had a completely neutral perspective. However it should be possible to write a fair and nuanced review of a game, that is enjoyable to read, that can help a player determine if they would like the game, and that would give feedback to the game itself on what it's doing. A 'review site', or a review section of a site, shouldn't just focus on full detailed reviews either. I think I would like to see regular full reviews along with 'capsule reviews' that are more like teasers, which the player will know is not a full review, but still retains the fair perspective that the longer reviews have.