Review-bombing Imperator Rome is not the solution...

[Reaperdamo]

I think you just have to respect people's opinions. I gave the game a negative review on release. Not going to change that, even though i played most probably 40 hours after 2.0 released. I think the game was improved vastly, but it still felt you reached the end far to quickly and were left having barely had a chance to do anything of any meaning. I did enjoy my last play through though and I have total respect for the dev team, but they cannot be held responsible for the mess that this was at launch and we all know who did that, and is still doing it with EU4 as we speak.

 

[LSF]

I think you just have to respect people's opinions. I gave the game a negative review on release. Not going to change that, even though i played most probably 40 hours after 2.0 released. I think the game was improved vastly, but it still felt you reached the end far to quickly and were left having barely had a chance to do anything of any meaning. I did enjoy my last play through though and I have total respect for the dev team, but they cannot be held responsible for the mess that this was at launch and we all know who did that, and is still doing it with EU4 as we speak.

With all due respect, but playing 40 hours and enjoying the playthrough quite contradicts the definition of a bad game.

 

[HerrWolf88]

I´m a bit confused how some people thought this is a good idea.
Wasn´t everyone saying the game is in a pretty good state right now ?
Do we want to express our support and love for the game by doing negative reviews on steam so it´s down to mixed again ?
Surely this way new players are going to buy this and give paradox an incentive to redistribute more ressources to it.
Let´s make sure nobody will get this game so it will definetly die.
That´s just strengething the position of everyone saying this fanbase is toxic, I´m honestly just disappointed.

If anything we should do a positive review bombing.

People are allowed to be, and are understandably angry.

 

[HerrWolf88]

With all due respect, but playing 40 hours and enjoying the playthrough quite contradicts the definition of a bad game.

How? Paradox games can still offer surprises after literally thousands of hours of gameplay. 40 Hours is pretty low.

 

[LSF]

How? Paradox games can still offer surprises after literally thousands of hours of gameplay. 40 Hours is pretty low.

You are reviewing the game in question, not comparing to other games.

Now not directed to you, but speaking at a wider scope.

Come on guys...

People use the reviews to express dissatisfaction about princing policy, dlc policy, forseable future patching (or lack of). They all are important, but they are not the game per se.

Almost all my games are on GOG. Imagine if people only gave high ratings to games still supported with new patches. I would have never bought dozens of games!

So if you guys want to leave negative reviews for IR do it because you think patch 2.0 is bad. Not because patch 2.0 is probably the last one.

 

[HerrWolf88]

You are reviewing the game in question, not comparing to other games.

Now not directed to you, but speaking at a wider scope.

Come on guys...

People use the reviews to express dissatisfaction about princing policy, dlc policy, forseable future patching (or lack of). They all are important, but they are not the game per se.

Almost all my games are on GOG. Imagine if people only gave high ratings to games still supported with new patches. I would have never bought dozens of games!

So if you guys want to leave negative reviews for IR do it because you think patch 2.0 is bad. Not because patch 2.0 is probably the last one.

This really isn't that complicated. Paradox games have always had a reputation for being continually developed for 5 or more years on average, with the developers listening to the fans and their suggestions/gripes and using it to improve and change their games for the better. They even used to take particularly useful and popular mods and implement them in the actual game as new features, sometimes even hiring the modders themselves. It just seems like that attitude has changed, and we're all worse off for it.

So of course people are mad that IR has been cancelled, it would be like having an Early Access game meet all of its funding goals, then cut all their losses and run with the money. I want to give Paradox the benefit of the doubt but they've used up all of my good will.

 

[Torugu]

This really isn't that complicated. Paradox games have always had a reputation for being continually developed for 5 or more years on average, with the developers listening to the fans and their suggestions/gripes ad using it to improve and change their games for the better. They even used to take particularly useful and popular mods and implement them in the actual game as new features, sometimes even hiring the modders themselves. It just seems like that attitude has changed, and we're all worse off for it.

So of course people are mad that IR has been cancelled, it would be like having an Early access game meat all of its funding goals, then cut all their losses and run with the money. I want to give Paradox the benefit of the doubt but they've used up all of my good will.

They have been supporting IR for 2 years without it ever making any money. I'm as disappointed as everybody else, but I find it very hard to argue that they "ran away with the money".

 

[ThrashingLikeAManiac]

I have changed my review to a negative one because the value proposition has been changed, not because development has been ceased (although that has an indirect effect on it.)

The counterargument that PDX and the die-hard fans use for rushed or broken games/DLC's that are drip fed is usually something along the lines of "you are not buying the game/DLC. You are buying it and the promise of further development, patching and added content for years to come".

All that nonsense from the last paragraph, that no other publisher would get away with for so long, is now no longer applicable.

I gave it a positive review after 2.0 on the basis of "it's fun now, needs a bit more development, but certainly worth your time already".

With the recent announcement 'that promise' has been taken away and it's now heavily overpriced for what it is and has many bugs left unpatched (nothing big, but it's certainly not a flawless game by any stretch).

To re-iterate: the value proposition has significantly changed and this mandates a different opinion when trying to review a game.

EDIT: Spelling errors

 

[Kill_off1004]

Just to clarify, I don´t think that good reviews will make Paradox more likely to further develop it, but players do look at reviews before buying a game. And sales numbers definetly influence a companies decision process. So potential new players will probably not consider getting IR if it´s review bombed for reasons like "stopped development" or "I´m mad at PDX".
I completly understand genuine bad reviews if you dislike the game, but if someone has like 500 hours on it did he really dislike it ? is that a masochist ?

And on the topic of stopped development is a justified reason for a bad review in itself alone: Did you all give CK2 a bad review when it was ended too ?

 

[ThrashingLikeAManiac]

And on the topic of stopped development is a justified reason for a bad review in itself alone: Did you all give CK2 a bad review when it was ended too ?

No, but that game had almost a decade of continuous development, patches, expansions, etc. to keep things fresh. They even stated multiple times that "Holy Fury" was the expansion to fix all the remaining issues + fill in the last gap of content. It was reviewed overwhelmingly positive because it delivered all that was promised and more.

Not much later the game was made free to play (so the comparison to IR is... not the best) + they even have a subscription service running to play with the mountain of DLC's for an acceptable price (subjective) if you don't feel like buying them separately. This is an example of a great development cycle and care taken after ceasing development.

IR on the other hand has just had its base game finished with 2.0 and a delay of ~2 years. Let's not pretend this was content development. This is what 1.0 should've been and you can look at the outcry from the 1.0 release as to how well it was received (hint: not good). They're still charging around ~80 euro's (that's in my local currency without the OST) for the experience and the DLC's aren't really big content packs. Just small flavor stuff that everyone expected to be in the base game.

You can't compare the success story that CKII's development cycle was to IR's and use that as as a proper argument in my humble opinion.

It is also perfectly acceptable to look at the current price tag of IR and reviewing it as "this is not worth the price of admission" if one thinks this is the case.

I'll concede that writing "no longer in development" is usually not acceptable as a review for any regular game HOWEVER: this is the whole 'shtick' of PDX games and their publishing. They use 'long term support and development cycles' in their marketing, in their PR and on these forums. I've been reading dev. diaries since 2013. It is one of their 'core' marketing tools to justify broken DLC after broken DLC that needs months of hotfixes to render the game playable again (heck, look at the latest expansions for EUIV and Stellaris).

 

[Stianas]

One thing is to write an honest review looking at the pros and cons, but to write a review now and mainly highlight that the game is no longer in development is by no means a fair approach. Why the review now? Why didn't it come with 2.0? Review bombing is only done by people with malicious intent. People who intend to hurt a company. It is the way of the coward to strike against someone who don't really get the opportunity to defend themselves against it.

And I agree. If you have put a significant amount of hours in the game it seems very strange to say that you dislike the game. Generally I play games I dislike for 1-2 hours tops. If I am in doubt, maybe I can stretch it to 10-15 hours. Anything beyond that, I cannot say that I don't like the game. I can grow tired of the game or feel saturated, but that is not the same as the game being bad.

It is also perfectly acceptable to look at the current price tag of IR and reviewing it as "this is not worth the price of admission" if one thinks this is the case.

I find that to be a rather naive attitude towards the gaming industry. Just the idea that one should be able to get a game at a discount price with several years of support and development is ludicrous. I am not saying that you in particular are of this opinion, but there are several reviews out there that will only encourage players to pick up games on a sale or suggest that it is somehow not worth to pay the full price for them. There are quite a few people out there who seem to believe that they are entitled to something. They are not. When games go on sale, usually it is to promote the game either to 1) boost sales of the original game which no longer has any traction in the market or 2) to pull in more customers to the original game so that might get hooked and buy the newest expansions at full price. These price fixed people though seem to think that there is some kind of charity contest that they are entitled to take part in. They seem to forget that behind these companies there are people like you and me with their every day problems like everyone else. A gaming company does not consist only of the top management with great salaries.

 

[ThrashingLikeAManiac]

I find that to be a rather naive attitude towards the gaming industry. Just the idea that one should be able to get a game at a discount price with several years of support and development is ludicrous. I am not saying that you in particular are of this opinion, but there are several reviews out there that will only encourage players to pick up games on a sale or suggest that it is somehow not worth to pay the full price for them. There are quite a few people out there who seem to believe that they are entitled to something. They are not.

I believe we are of one mind then on this topic (not the main topic of this thread). When I say it is perfectly valid to write a review based on cost, this is always with the full price for the full game in mind. I did not mean to insinuate any 'waiting for a handout because it's only our right' opinions (I too dislike this entitlement).

Sales in general should be discarded when trying to review a game.

 

[Dagda]

And on the topic of stopped development is a justified reason for a bad review in itself alone: Did you all give CK2 a bad review when it was ended too ?

CK2 had 8 years of content and the best PDS expansion of all time in Holy Fury to capstone its retirement. Quite a false equivalency in comparision with the bait and switch support cycle of I:R

 

[hermithill]

I would be interested to know the average duration played for negative reviews (especially among the recent ones) and to compare it with the average duration for positive reviews...

 

[Daft]

Community reviews will always be a mixed blessing and tend to skew towards the extremes. I see the same with extremely positive reviews as well. They seldom paint the whole picture.

In any case, I personally dislike review bombing in any direction, but arguing against them is pointless. I understand that people are frustrated by quality issues and in this case, prioritizing other teams with people from the I:R team I get that, I feel that as well.

But personally I try to distance myself from that when reviewing the product, as I really enjoy the game. Yes I would love to see more fixes and DLC, but I really love the game for what it is right now as well. That is currently all that matters to me regardless of what I feel about the business decisions of PDX. That is a separate issue for me.

I bought it with what it is in mind, not primarily for what it can become. Things can happen, plans change, and if promise had been my primary concern when buying, I would have waited longer to see how things panned out.

So bomb away, it's everyone's prerogative. Personally I don't like it, but that doesn't count for much in the end.

And also, yeah, the Leviathan debacle is probably a factor in the reactions we see here. Something obviously happened there, but the tone is already changed after yesterdays patch. I know that PDX has gotten flak for their policy, but the seem to genuinely want to fix things with I:R 2.0 and a couple of really quick patches from Tinto (Midnight shifts obviously) to fix Leviathan.

Obviously lessons should be learnt from all this, but as I always say; don't buy games on promises, no matter who is making those promises. Buy stuff for what it is primarily.

 

[Te. Kenzo]

I´m a bit confused how some people thought this is a good idea.
Wasn´t everyone saying the game is in a pretty good state right now ?
Do we want to express our support and love for the game by doing negative reviews on steam so it´s down to mixed again ?
Surely this way new players are going to buy this and give paradox an incentive to redistribute more ressources to it.
Let´s make sure nobody will get this game so it will definetly die.
That´s just strengething the position of everyone saying this fanbase is toxic, I´m honestly just disappointed.

If anything we should do a positive review bombing.

I Agree

 

[hjarg]

Review bombing is such a bad term. This implies coordinated effort when there is usually none. Or this implies malicious intent when there is none. This term allows to shrug off criticism by just saying "review bombed" and be done with it.

In reality, most of us have one review, for there is usually just one steam account. And you cannot review a game you don't own on steam, right?

Meaning that what you call a "review bomb" is actually people who actually bought Imperator Rome and are truly dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and have no other method of voicing their displeasure. It's not coordinated, it's not malicious. It is just a lot of people are unhappy and this is pretty much the only way to make their voice heard.

Plus, at least steam shows recent positive reviews at 55% and overall at 56%, so the trend is quite similar.

 

[Stianas]

Review bombing is such a bad term. This implies coordinated effort when there is usually none. Or this implies malicious intent when there is none. This term allows to shrug off criticism by just saying "review bombed" and be done with it.

In reality, most of us have one review, for there is usually just one steam account. And you cannot review a game you don't own on steam, right?

Meaning that what you call a "review bomb" is actually people who actually bought Imperator Rome and are truly dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and have no other method of voicing their displeasure. It's not coordinated, it's not malicious. It is just a lot of people are unhappy and this is pretty much the only way to make their voice heard.

Plus, at least steam shows recent positive reviews at 55% and overall at 56%, so the trend is quite similar.

It is not coordinated in such a way that there is a person sitting on top and telling people to do bad reviews, but that does not mean that there is not some kind of loose mechanism at play here. It's pretty much the same mechanism as when people spread conspiracy theories or anti-vaccine propganda in social media. One person sees it and the next person adopts the idea. So yes, there may actually be a malicious intent behind it. They rely on that the next person will copy them and do the same.

 

[Bovrick]

Yeah, basically the same bandwagoning that flooded 1.0 and ultimately led to where we are today.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Yeah, basically the same bandwagoning that flooded 1.0 and ultimately led to where we are today.

Bandwagoning or crowd psychology? Honest question. Will ever PDS introduce psychology simulation in their games? I had high hopes with diplomats in I:R with their own psychological traits conflating with the other party, and someday apply these social traits, like groupthink.

For me, none describe exactly what is going on, but both have merits: Bandwagoning because the small "players" abuse Steam, a powerful platform, to attack PDX; and Crowd psychology because the loss of responsibility on the reviews.

But these behaviours are consequences, the root cause remains the same.