Steam reviews » Forum Post by Frogboy

Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1753

Maybe they're related to those that drink 3 quarters of a bottle of red and then want a refund claiming it's corked...

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eviator

Join Date 08/2014

+62

90 hours is a lot. Unless you started with high expectations, kept giving the game a lot of chances, but ultimately decided it did not meet your expectations. I'm sure there are a few of those. Of course, we have seen countless threads here where people essentially rage quit because they didn't get the one feature they, for whatever reason, decided was necessary for the game to be any fun for them. That I don't understand.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjVC-bwhhpw

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On a more serious note though, Steam statistics aren't reliable. I often leave games running for days on end, sneaking in a few minutes of play here and there. The discrepancy between how much time Steam thinks I've been playing a game and how much I actually have is often quite massive.

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hedetet

Join Date 02/2012

+13

I'm sorry to see the game getting a so-so review score, but on the bright side, most of the negative reviews rooted in technical issues rather the 'game itself'.

On a side note: do you think it's possible / worthwhile automate testing by recording early access player actions as macros and playing them out across less active EA players? I'd happily sign up for something like that.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

I think there’s a special place in hell for people who spend 90 hours playing a game only to tell others that it’s not worth playing.

Okay, that's bad faith. If they don't spend 90 hours, then they're told "how can you judge a game you've barely played".

For instance, I've played SotS 2 hundred of hours, and I've hated every single one of them. I was just trying to find a setup that would give me an enjoyable experience because I wanted to like the game. I'm betting it's the same thing here.

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Heavenfall

Join Date 07/2008

+441

I also don't think that playing a game a lot negates criticism from that player. For example, after 40 hours of warlock 2 I had the sudden realization that it was all just randomized bullshit the "AI" was throwing at you.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

If they were in early access, 90 hours is a decent tester that still isn't happy with it after release.

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XWerewolfX

Join Date 02/2006

+31

I agree with the above posters. I think you're looking at it from Brad's perspective, Brad. You assume that people who have played it that long have obviously enjoyed it enough to find 90 hours worth of play time. I'm not saying that they haven't, but it's perfectly possible that they've just been trying to find some thing, some setup, that works for them and still can't.

I've done it before. Maybe not at 90 hours, as I don't personally have 90 hours to give a game I don't like, but others might.

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I agree 90 hours does not make it wierd to make a bad review.

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Maybe I'm crazy, but if I did not enjoy a game I would sure as hell not spend 90 hours on it trying to disprove the theory. That's way past 'good money after bad' and deep into masochism.

Heck, even games I like I rarely play that much...

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

if you've played the game 8hours a day for 2 weeks straight or equiv and you hate it that's crazy IMO. 20 hours? Even 40 hours, sure. You're welcome to disagree Of course.

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 12

if you've played the game 8hours a day for 2 weeks straight or equiv and you hate it that's crazy IMO. 20 hours? Even 40 hours, sure. You're welcome to disagree Of course.

with that bug that cause the game process to hang, it is possible they played a little, quit the game, came back many hours later, found out the game was still active, cancelled it, restarted it. I have AMD Gaming evolved installed (Raptr) and it will record these sessions as time played, even if it was just the process running. I think Steam records game time the same way, so it may not be that reliable. Maybe they really only played 20-40hrs.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

There's no way the guy burned 90 hours playing a game he didn't like in under 2 weeks, anyone with that time in a game this recent is probably a beta tester wondering the same thing I am.

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Borg999

Join Date 02/2006

+59

On the flip side, no one takes a review seriously, where the reviewer only spent a couple hours on the game.

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Quoting Cauldyth,

reply 4

On a more serious note though, Steam statistics aren't reliable. I often leave games running for days on end, sneaking in a few minutes of play here and there. The discrepancy between how much time Steam thinks I've been playing a game and how much I actually have is often quite massive.

That's because of a bug in Elemental, SK, and GalCiv3 where the .exe keeps running after you shut down. It might have been fixed in GC3.

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Steam says I've played 413 hours, but I wouldn't give SK a good review. I loved Legendary Heroes, but I'm still trying to love SK. Unfortunately, I don't know what the missing piece is so I don't know what to tell you. It won't surprise me if this game doesn't do as well as LH. Please don't give up on the LH series! You have the making of the next Age of Wonders juggernaut here. Maybe it's the asymmetrical game style, I don't know. I wish all of this time of effort had been spent on making LH 2.0 instead of SK 1.0.

To Island Dog's point on masochism, I don't think I'm a masochist. I think I just keep playing after every new patch hoping that something has changed to make the game play differently or better. Maybe the other guy does too.

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@Trojasmic odd, I have the opposite feeling. I enjoy SK much more than LH. I also expect SK to become even better before release.

But we digress. 90 hours is along time to play a game and then say you don't like it.

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Or when you look at the game; some people might see Galactic Civilizations III and expect it to be an almost clone-like comparison of another Civilizations series. And it's typical for reviews. You might not see as many positive reviews as the people are playing it and enjoying the product, however if they have problems; they'll often vent their frustration with a negative review.

Side note: any frustrations I have is with trying to play on a 4GB machine with Intel 4000 graphics. The fact that it can run with this is impressive enough as most developers drop support for it or state it's unsupported...

It is what it is... and thus is the life of Zathras... always the beast of burden... now to destroy all the lesser beings with the mighty army of Zathras!

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XWerewolfX

Join Date 02/2006

+31

Quoting ChungasRevenge,

reply 18

@Trojasmic odd, I have the opposite feeling. I enjoy SK much more than LH. I also expect SK to become even better before release.

But we digress. 90 hours is along time to play a game and then say you don't like it.

Agreed. I'll spend more time with Sorcerer King than I did with Legendary Heroes and I spent over 100 hours with LH, which is unreal for me.

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The big issue I see with SK is replayability.

Game seems to lose something once you beat it.

That said, a good number of the elements in SK, are things I'd love to see in a new fantasy 4X in the Elemental universe, or as a revamp of LH.

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I think there’s a special place in hell for people who spend 90 hours playing a game only to tell others that it’s not worth playing.

Gal Civ 3's current user review of 74% seems pretty fair to me, and many though not all the negative reviews I've read make fair points in my eyes . I don't understand why the game was released when it was. Beta 6 made a lot of good improvements to the game in a very short space of time but the game still needs a lot of polish. I think Stardock shot themselves in the foot if reviews are so important to them a couple more months of hard work, listening and actually implementing feedback from beta testers and I'm sure that user review would be a lot higher and deserve to be.

Personally I can totally identify with someone who can criticize a game after they have invested a large amount of hours into it, if someone asked me would I recommend Gal Civ 3 which I've put nearly 300 hours into I'd give them a few caveats.

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Steam tracking accounts != Steam tracking users

The whole family has been playing it. Why does everyone keep forgetting this?

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

With SK or any game I can see someone playing many hours trying to love it and just not doing so. I'm ok with that.

But to go onto the Steam review page and give it a down vote? Sorry, I think that's an incredible dick move. I don't care what your justification is, if you've played a game 50+ hours you got your money's worth. It would be like me watching a movie 5 times and then going onto IMDB and giving it a 1.

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Would adding another 200+ weapon, armor, item recipes make the game any more replayable? Right now, it seems like we get the same hunter's short sword, plate helm, and scout's ring every game and enchant them with the same +1 initiative and +10 hit points every game.

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