If you want an ad free GameSpot then use Firefox in conjunction with the AdBlock Plus plugin. It's amazing and removes all adverts. I'm currently a Total Access member but I'm not going to be renewing my subscription next time.

I just don't see any reason to any more with all the problems I've had, especially when the main reason is to get rid of the ads, and I can do that now for free!

The feed for the MS conference was appaling, but I don't think it was a GameSpot stream. They just took what MS supplied and put it on the site. You are correct to say that it was poor, the whole thing seemed extremely low res and most of the stage stuff was just a postage stamp in the video window. Really dissapointing when you compare it to the other two conferences which had great footage.

So to answer your question, I don't think there is a better quality feed they can give us.

[QUOTE="Magic_Shrek"]

Why? As long as user know before entering that it may not be moderated what's the problem?

I've used numerous chat rooms on websites that have automatic filtering / censoring of swear words. Just make sure that people take responsibility for what they write.

Caddy06_88

I don't see how that would stop people. Sure, there can be censoring of swear words but what about the rest of the ToU. Simply telling users they may not be moderated is just creating problems if anything. Havoc could occur and there would be no punishments for culprits. People should always take responsibility for what they write, even on the forums but that doesn't stop the mass number of moderations, per day. With a site as big as GameSpot with as many members, rules are broken left right and centre but luckily the moderators are there to give out punishments (with the majority of cases anyway), if there was no punishment, there would be chaos.

It won't but you still could be moderated if a mod is in the chat room, there could also be a report user function like report post in the forums. People would still be accountable for what they write, the risks may be smaller granted, but the chat isn't saved for everyone to see like forum posts. It would be gone forever after a few seconds.

Then again why not just say chat isn't moderated, enter at your own risk, blah blah... Problem solved! Perhaps it's just me because I'm not in favour of moderation in any form anyway.

[QUOTE="EJ902"]A union chat room idea was brought up recently, and general concenus was that chat rooms outside of live feeds is a bad idea as they'd be very hard to properly moderate. Not sure if there's any official word on this, but I'd assume the good idea of having chat rooms only for live feeds is that moderators know when the chat'll be there and at least one mod can be there to keep an eye on it.Caddy06_88

After all, we can't just have a non-moderated chat room where anybody can post whatever they desire.

Why? As long as user know before entering that it may not be moderated what's the problem?

I've used numerous chat rooms on websites that have automatic filtering / censoring of swear words. Just make sure that people take responsibility for what they write.

I wouldn't mind the component scores, as long as they maybe removed tilt, and the score formula. So you just have the four component scores, and the final score is decided by the reviewer.gakon5

See my post from further up the thread for why I think Tilt is probably the most important component score, reposted here to save you searching:

For example, I would say that tilt is quite an important, perhaps the most important category. It allows the reviewer to show how much his personal preferences have influenced the review. If you know you trust and have similar opinions to the reviewer you can be sure that it is a score you will agree with. If you don't, and we all have different tastes so some won't. Then you can look at the tilt and adjust the final rating yourself accordingly. The new review system doesn't take this into account at all.Magic_Shrek

I strongly believe there are many fake positive reviews for this game. In my opinion, people are spamming the reviews because they are upset Gamespot rated the game poorly.There are also a fewpeople that have accounts just with one review, scratches, and they praise it for being one of the best games ever. They are also marking all positive reviews as "helpfull" despite the fact they are full of lies and praise about the game. In my opinion,these accounts should be investigated as spam.

5UPERMARIO

I don't agree, I've not played the game so it's difficult for me to say. However, GameSpot rated it 3.9 in contrast to the critics score of 7.1. If you compare this to the user rating of 7.3 there's not a whole lot in it. Perhaps GameSpot got it wrong, perhaps not, I don't know. But you can't label user reviews as spam because they don't agree with the GameSpot rating. This tilte would seem to have split opinion, there are all manner of scores given, that doesn't make any of them wrong.

It's simple enough for me. I'm a new TA subscriber and soon enough I will be a former customer. I liked the old system. Everything about this new one seems extraneous to me. I'm sure I'll visit gamespot in the future, just not with the same fervor or respect. If people like the new system that is great, who am I to demand change against the majority (if it clearly is one). The great thing about a capitalist nation is that I can take my business elsewhere. Also, there is really no reason for me to rant, many have spoken eloquently enough about it such that anything I say would not add to the argument. At any rate, I'll still be trolling around, I just won't be contributing to GS financially.

Jynx_XIII

As I suspected, the review has been "fixed" if you can call it that, and they've removed the component section.

As I explained elsewhere, it's actually not as easy to take your money to another site as you might think. I pay annually, and I'm basically locked into that agreement, they won't refund me. So while I can stop reading GameSpot, they still get my cash - of course there's not a hope in hell of me renewing after this but that doesn't help me now.

I just don't understand why they won't put back component scores. Who does it hurt by using them? As far as I can see nobody loses out. Is there anyone reading this thread who likes the new system that would be against them adding component scores back? If so for what reason?

Judging from the (bugged) Super Stardust HD review, it appears that component scores are back!jediskilz173

Interesting, but I think that is going to transpire to be just a bug, however that's exactly how I'd like the new review system to be. I'd be very happy with that abd it would be the first time I've been pleased with a GameSpot alteration in a very long time. Have to keep an eye on it and see what happens there.

On the same note, it is just as disingenuine to look only at places where you're going to get predominantly negative responses (such as this board in general) to guage community response. The large outcry I've seen has consisted of around 100-200 or so users vocally complaining about matters, which only makes up about 1-2% (Sometimes slightly more) of the total number of users actively posting on the boards, whereas I see a comparable number of users who are vocally in favor of the new system (though very few of which are found on this board).

In short, I don't think the community is, as whole, as against this new system as you guys are.

Skylock00

Hmm, what's that saying you get taught in business school that for every complaint you receive there are at least 10 more people who didn't bother to complain and just took their custom elsewhere? So let's take an average of your figures at 150, multiply that by 10 and you've now got at least 1,500 disgruntled customers.

Add to this the fact that many who commented that they like the new style still don't really like the .5 steps in scoring.

Now, in regards to Shrek's comments about the subscores not being less meaningful, and a 10 in graphics now is just as meaningful as it was 10 years ago...I strongly disagree. As we advance to more elaborate and powerful hardware, in addition to having wider divides between hardware types in strength, as well as begin witnessing a wider range of approaches to graphics and such, trying to quantify graphics as a whole to a single number 1-10 simply becomes a less meaningful way of expressing those nuances regarding the different aspects of a game's graphics, especially when you have people trying to compare these subscores against different games and such.

Skylock00

But you still know when a game looks good and when it doesn't! There have always been advances in graphics technology over the years and the system stood up to them all. There is no bigger change now than when we first went into 3D, yet the system coped then and it can still cope now. Just because we have more powerful hardware doesn't mean a thing, some games are still coded badly and look poor in comparison to other titles.

I simply don't see the purpose or point of having such a needlessly detailed system of scoring a game, when the numbers for these subcatagories simply become more and more circumstantial in regards to what gets assigned to them, making the task more of a headache for a person reviewing the game than It should be. It's more rational, IMHO, to simply assign a game a general grade/score based on simple general quality, directly address strong and weak aspects of the game through the Good/Bad and Medal system, then go in depth regarding the game and its strength/weaknesses through the written review. This isn't just something based on the mathmatical system the old system used to derive a score...this is a personal opinion I have on such hair splitting approaches to simply scoring a game that I have for any website/periodical.

Skylock00

Okay, so you don't like component scoring, but lot's of us do. Just because you don't want it, why should we suffer? After all, you can just ignore them and look at the medals and text if that's what you like.