[QUOTE="Magic_Shrek"]I just wish someone from GameSpots editorial team would post a response.Skylock00

A fairly predictable response to be honest, it doesn't show any signs that they are prepared to change anything. So much for listening to users concerns!

There certainly isn't more to the review system now than there was before, it's had numerous features stripped all of which have been well documented here. The problems with the medal system have been clearly spelt out numerous times yet Jeff is still insisting they are better than component scores. That simply isn't the case!

He tells us the difficulty curve is still there in the new medal system, but it hasn't been seen yet. Well that's one prime example where component scores are superior, you could always see for every game exactly what it was about. Now, only special cases get singled out and how does some obsure medal that stands for Easy become any more descriptive than just saying Easy?

Without component scores there is no way to see how a title earns its final rating. How do you see which multi-format game has the better graphics? How do you know if the music is any good? How do you know how much the reviewers personal influence has had on the score? You don't!

I still feel strongly that we should have been involved in the changes, it would have avoided a lot of the hassle that has arisen. We don't fear change, we just don't like devolution, the gamespace changes are mostly excellent. I'm sure when it works properly the new FLV player will be fantastic. I've said before, there are hundreds of excellent ideas here for ways to improve GameSpot that are ignored, yet they are happy to forge ahead with these unwelcome changes to the review system.

I still haven't seen a good reason why it needed to be changed in the first place.

I mailed a request to cancel my subscription and get a refund on my remaining membership, but I haven't has a response yet. As someone esle suggested, if you don't like what is happening take your money some where else. That's exactly what I intend to do, but I do it with a heavy heart because I know how great GameSpot was.

Yeah... this is pretty much what I meant when I talked about incoherant screaming.
Shifty_Pete

Perhaps he has a problem expressing himself coherently, I was still able to understand the main point of his post. Are you suggesting that he isn't entitled to an opinion, or that it is any less valid than anyone elses?

One of the mods (Skylock00) suggested we try to create an environment that is condusive to discussion rather than emotional outbursts. I don't really see how that is possible until a response is posted because most of the outbursts are as a result of the silence from GameSpot. It's a vicious circle and it needs to be broken, but I can see only one way for that to happen.

I just wish someone from GameSpots editorial team would post a response. I know there are some childish posts, but there are also a lot of well though out arguments that warrant a reply. Some of them, like myself, are from loyal users who have paid money to GameSpot and I think deserve better treatment than this. Sure there may be some users who just want to shout and have a hissy fit, there always will be, but why should they be allowed to deny us a formal response?

Some good ideas here, I like the new emblems and the new look of screens and other stuff. What I say for fixing scores and stuff though is do it like IGN, rate the individual catagories, then rate the overall thing seperately, don't average them thats all that really needed to be fixed, and remove tilt since that would eliminate the need for it, thats all that really need to be changed.Phantom5800

Indeed, although 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 that 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 a the tilt and adjust the final rating yourself accordingly.

I think tilt is a great feature, it's another example of something that set GameSpot apart from other sites that's now been lost. I don't think GameSpot realised just how much we appreciated these features.

[QUOTE="Magic_Shrek"]

That's odd because last time I checked the dictionary definition of ban it matched what happened to me exactly. Not only that but when I watched "On The Spot" last night it told me in no uncertain terms that I couldn't join live chat because I was banned. It may not have been a permanent ban, but it was a ban none the less. So, I beg to differ using GameSpots own use of the word to back me up. It may just be arging semantics here, but they are important.

Dracula68

If you get bored and really wanna know the difference check out one of my older blogs. In short there is no such thing as a temp Ban.

I don't need to read your definition when I have a dictionary that gives me the correct one. I take it from this response that you really aren't interested in the issues raised?

You were NOT banned or you wouldn't be back here posting:?

Dracula68

That's odd because last time I checked the dictionary definition of ban it matched what happened to me exactly. Not only that but when I watched "On The Spot" last night it told me in no uncertain terms that I couldn't join live chat because I was banned. It may not have been a permanent ban, but it was a ban none the less. So, I beg to differ using GameSpots own use of the word to back me up. It may just be arging semantics here, but they are important.

Care to comment on the rest of my post regarding the real issues that are being discussed here?

Here's a suggestion for a compromise if GameSpot are interested in that? I don't want one, but I'm willing to discuss it - are you?

1) We get back to the .1 increments which seems to be the biggest problem most people have with the new system.

2) We get back the breakdown box for Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, learning curve etc.

3) You can lose the formula for generating the final score to save you having to fiddle the different apsects.

4) You keep the emblems, I'm not a fan, but can see how they might help some.

5) We keep the new gamespace and review style with bigger screenshots etc..

Basically we end up with something that looks like this but with emblems and no formula:

DiRT review

I could learn to live with that, what do others think and more importantly what does GameSpot think?

The only place where your posts were deleted for being off topic was in the thread that was NOT intended for review change discussion. Granted, it seemed that the thread creator wasn't clear off the bat, but he corrected the matter since then, but that's beside the point.

Skylock00

I'm back after yet another forum suspension for trolling, by simply posting about my dissatisfaction with the new review system. Guess what, banning me hasn't made me change my mind one bit and has just angered me that GameSpot are being so unreasonable about this whole situation. In fact, my ban came about because of posting in that very thread, my gripe with that is it's not my fault I posted my complaints in there. That is where we were quite explicitly told to post our comments, in several places I might add, including the forums front page. To then ban me because GameSpot had told me to use that thread is beyond my comprehension.

The problem I see is that people are getting way too emotionally worked up over an alteration of a scoring system for games. This isn't a change of how reviews are written, or how editors approach evaluating games, but a change of how that final, overall grade is assigned to a game.

Skylock00

People are getting emotionally worked up because believe it or not, they actually care! I agree the written reviews remain exactly the same, I haven't seen anyone complain about that aspect. However the rating system is completely different, there is now no way to see how a game acheived its final rating without reading the full text. It is also a proven fact that people really like to see the breakdown of points for graphics and sound etc. It is precisely because of the change to how the final overall grade is assigned that has a lot of people annoyed.

What happened, from what I saw, is that as soon as the announcement was made, some people immediately started claiming that GS's underlaying written reviews were going to become a joke, and started making other sorts of accusational comments, in addition to downvoting any sort of positive talk about the new system in Jeff's blog. When I looked there, the posts that were voted into being covered up weren't mostly negative comments, but positive ones regarding the change.

Skylock00

From what I can see, initially on Jeffs blog comments there was quite a lot of positive reaction to the changes. It was only after people actually saw the new reviews they realised exactly what sort of impact the changes have made. It was then that dozens of negative comments were posted.

With regards to down-voting positive comments, surly that's the whole point of the system? If I don't agree with something I give it a thumbs down, and vice-versa. That's how democracy works, if more people liked the changes then all the negative comments would have been down-voted. As that hasn't happened it is just further proof that the general consensus is against the new system.

Those who were against the change were simply not being very civil about the matter off the bat, and regardless of how emotionally impactful the change might've been, first impressions about how one responds makes a big difference. The impression given was that these people who were being so agressive came off as people who were unwilling to give the system a chance at all (and really, it was clear that they were never going to like it, no matter whether they gave it a chance or not), and would be unwilling to take any sort of compromise from what it seemed.

Skylock00

Why should there need to be a compromise? Why did the system that has worked perfectly for the whole of GameSpots history need to be changed? Why did it need to have major aspects stripped out?

People who were against the idea from the outset could understand exactly what was being done and didn't need to give it a chance. We have all experienced similar systems on other web sites and it's the reason we came here! Why would it be any different this time when we didn't like it at other sites? As it turns out it isn't any better than had been predicted, and in some respects it's worse.

This is further compounded by the problem when people start accusing the editors of not being willing to listen to the community, which only makes matters worse, as it simply perpetuates this needless agressive behavior from the userbase towards the editors/administrators.

Skylock00

They are only doing this because there has been no official communication from GameSpot, no attempts to engage is a discussion. Just moderation and an attempt to sweep under the carpet the more vocal posters. The accusations only exist because of this, if the editors actually took the to time to talk about our concerns there wouldn't be this reaction.

One case that just happened recently of this not being true in all cases is regarding the Overlord review. Apparently, there were comments regarding innacuracies with the review, so the editors picked up a retail copy of the game, and found it to be notably different in performance than the copy they were given to review (which was a print review copy), and as a result, they pulled the review score down, made a note about it on the game specific board, and are currently working to redo the review for the game to give it a more appropriate score.

Now, I'm not sure what was different about how users brought up concerns, but the fact of the matter was that the editors listened to the concerns.

Skylock00

This is a completely unrelated and irrelevant point. We are talking about a massive change to the way GameSpot operates at its core here.

I'm also not saying that the new system is perfect at all, but I understand why the editors went the route they did on a fundamental level, and have gauged probably why they might be reluctant to directly talk to posters on the forum regarding the matter, as the reactions regarding the review system seem similar to, say, how Zelda fans reacted to Jeff's review of Twilight Princess, which many wrote off as invalid before having played the game, and resorting to flaming and other tactics against Jeff. If you were an editor, why would you bother posting in a thread like this, when it seems like most people are going to just harass you as soon as you step out in public regarding this issue?

Skylock00

Because GameSpot is a community web site, it relies on its users support to operate. If the users don't have faith in the editors, and if the editors won't communicate with them then a greater divide opens. Once you lose trust like this it's a very slippery slope as you start to lose customers. GameSpot have to listen to its users, the site may be operated by CNET but never forget that it belongs to the users, after all what's the point of a website if nobody reads it!

That's just my two cents on this point. I don't think people are ignoring what's being said as much as they are reluctant to discuss things on this level given the environment formed.

Skylock00

Then it is up to them to change the general feelings by getting involved with the GameSpot community. I don't think these problems are going to go away overnight. Perhaps if they had involved us in the changes, those who are so against them wouldn't be so annoyed if they thought it had been a change the GameSpot community wanted. As it is, it's quite clearly the exact opposite of this at the moment.

Uh, under that simple score there's some words. Those words explain why the game got the simple score it did. What exactly are you looking for hardcore-gamer-wise that the redesign isn't doing for you?Shifty_Pete

Read the forum, especially this thread:

Review Overhaul Community Contribution Thread (R.O.C.K. O.N.)

This will tell you exactly where the new review process is failing.