VOLRATH'S PROFILE

I never did thank you for writing this. We appreciate the kind words and the commentary on the characters was pretty amusing.

Hmm...I might be a little late. But oh well. I'm not as active as others who have weighed in on this, but perhaps the different perspective will help.

In terms of the problem the op describes, it's there, but it could certainly be a lot worse. I like a lot of people here, but there are a handful of very visible members who are antagonistic jerks and coat their assertions/insults with the worst kind of teeth-grindingly obnoxious dogma. None of them are staff, as far as I know...and no, none of them have written a bad review of MotW. :P Every forum has people like this, but if you want to imrpove the overall tone of RMN, this sort of "mean for the sake of being mean" stuff should be met with more pushback than it currently is. And I'd rather not name names.

I want to talk right to Legion/Max cause I feel like if I had less restraint, I could get into some of the same situations he tends to. But I've learned a fair amount about dealing with criticism, mostly through trial and error.

You seem to react to criticism by immediately suggesting the reviewer has it in for you. And it's easy to fall into this trap. Sometimes I feel like MotW gets targeted because someone out there doesn't like that it has a fanbase, and other times the complaints are so asenine and nitpicky that I can't help but feel there's ulterior motives at work. But even it's true, there's really no upside to trying to make a case for it. Comments like that almost inevitably make readers side with the reviewer, and the kind of attention these incidents draw isn't the kind you want. I remember when you brought Iron Gaia II to rmxp.org (now hbgames.org), it didn't take long before your foes from GW followed and basically restarted the arguments you were having there. The thread was ruined.

So what's the alternative? Respond by talking about the intellectual, not the personal. Did the reviewer make factual errors? (Not liking the game doesn't count. :P) Are the expectations unreasonably high? Are the viewpoints expressed inconsistent with other reviews this person has written? That's the kind of stuff that makes for good discussion.

I left rmxp.org a long time ago due to an overly nasty climate...and have basically lived in semi-seclusion in regards to the RM world, except of course for the MotW forums. I've been hedging on being more active here, though some of the behavior I've described makes me hesitant. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks it's worth discussing, though.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Karsuman.

Also, FG:

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As for the games themselves, I have never actually played any of them so I can't offer an opinion.

This comment amuses me greatly, given our past differences. We're actually putting some tweaks on the older arcs at the moment, and many of the ideas for improvements came from reviews we've gotten on this site (yes, even yours, FG), so thank you all for that.

Edit: I can edit! At last! Well played, sirs!

There are some interesting points being brought up in this discussion.

The story vs. gameplay issue is a worthwhile debate to have, but at some point, it does need to be accepted that Quintessence's formula of ample story and periodic gameplay is Reives's decision and he has the right to that style. This game is well known for an uneven split between the two, so it makes me wonder why people more interested in gameplay download it at all. Are they bored and want to become annoyed?

However, because he has worked to put in some gameplay elements, I don't think they can be simply ignored in a review...the same way that the game's presentation shouldn't be ignored just because a reviewer may be irked by the dearth of gameplay.

One problem I think Quintessence runs into is because the narrative is so prominent, that really raises the expectation for the quality of the story. As we've seen, the story, with its heavy anime-influences, is not everyone's cup of tea. If I were writing a full review of the game, I'd probably go with three stars. 4.5 stars is too kind, I think, and 1 star was just absurd.

This write-up actually illustrates a potential problem with the way this site handles reviews. They should still be encouraged, but the fact that the ratings in the reviews are averaged into one rating seen by every person who clicks on the game can inspire people to write a nasty review simply to lower the game's score for spiteful reasons, as seen here.