War of Magic–Report Card

Quoting Malsqueek,

Quoting greywar, reply 99
I didn't expect this thread to have this negative a connotation given the rabid fanboyism that has accompanied EWOM but holy crap. When a C is being counted as a "positive" post it might be time to sit back and start over.

I think that people realize that since the devs are asking, that they need to be honest. We could all say "nah, it's totally cool as is" but that doesn't reward the devs in the long run, and it certainly doesn't reward those of us who still hope to see a phoenix come out of these ashes.

I'm honestly way more surprised with the A and B ratings than the D and F ones.

There aren't very many and I was shocked that many of the "old guard" that would hang out here post-launch and blame the user, blame their system, or simply call everyone who didn't love the game "liars who don't even own the game" weren't in here giving it 10/10.

This should be a wake up call although frankly SD should have gotten the message long ago. Stop worrying about developing your own game engine and just have good game concepts.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Quoting TheProgress,

reply 94

Quoting Alstein, reply 93Tallying scores is useless because people score the same thing quite differently. It's also kinda skewed because it sounds like Brad expected most people to have bought those games (maybe it's what he bought?)

I think my giving a game 8/10 because it's mediocre (aka a C) might be another person's 6/10 for example.

If I rate a game below a 7, it's a bomb to me. At least it makes me qualified to do ratings for IGN

What the hell kind of a school did you go to.

7 out of 10 is 70%. That's barely passing. That's how I look at it.

I consider 80% what should be the average for games, a B.

That's how I score things.

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So in your high school, students would fail a course if they achieved less than 70%? Interesting world you've lived in.

I doubt Brad was asking for scores based on how games are weighted according to reviewers like IGN or Gamespot (where I too normally never buy a game that is below 80%). That is an entirely different matter.

A rough ranking system relative to letter grades would be:

F: below 50%. Failing / failure.
C-: between 50% and 60%. Terrible.
C: between 60% and 70%. Barely adequate.
C+: between 70% and 75%. Ok.
B: between 75% and 80%. Decent.
B+: between 80% and 85%. Good.
A: between 85% and 95%. Great.
A+: between 95% and 100%. Amazing.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

That's pretty standard for US colleges, not taking grade inflation into account. It varies. Some Math classes a 30 was passing cause the tests were so damn hard.

High schools were even stricter- my high school A was 93-100 a 70 was a D-.

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Quoting Alstein,

reply 104

That's pretty standard for US colleges, not taking grade inflation into account. It varies. Some Math classes a 30 was passing cause the tests were so damn hard.

High schools were even stricter- my high school A was 93-100 a 70 was a D-.

Is a D failing? Anyway, that's crazy and I've never heard of that for highschools. Were you in a private school by chance?

As for college, we didn't use letter grades, just percentages but the usually the cut off point was 50% or 60%.

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These are the PC games I got in 2010 Release date scores

TBS Elemental War of Magic D stability and constant crashing after ~30-60min game play
TBS Civilization 5 C Can't quite place my finger on it; but just doesn't match up to previous iterations of the series for me
TBS King's Bounty: Armored Princess B Nearly identical to Kings Bounty: The Legend, little new
RPG Dragon Age Origins: Awakening B- Good Content, but too easy even on hardest difficulty setting
RTS Starcraft 2 A Great Campaign, good but not great user generated custom maps
Sandbox Minecraft B Great multiplayer experience game, but constant crashing while in Alpha stages for me (conflict with ZA had to turn it off)
FPS Left 4 Dead 2 B- Good gameplay, but not a big extension of L4D1
FPS Battlefield Bad Company 2 C+ Minor bugs and crashes, good game but friends list didn't work
FPS Iron Grip: Warlord B(created 12/5/08) Good gameplay if you have friends who start playing when you do, but no longevity once you have strategy

Now

Elemental War of Magic B last played 1/20/10 still some memory problems, but takes a while for them to start and would like greater quest variety/ harder difficulty
Civilization 5 C+
King's Bounty: Armored Princess B same grade completed and done (little replay value)
Dragon Age Origins: Awakening B+ Still too easy even on hardest difficulty setting, but made a few good changes to make it play better
Starcraft 2 A, but 1-2% better User generated maps starting to flourish more
Minecraft B+Great multiplayer experience game, less crashes (lost most of it's flair though after playing for a while)
Left 4 Dead 2 B 2 New maps (campaigns)
Battlefield Bad Company 2 A All noticeable bugs fixed for my computer, smooth gameplay and balanced
Iron Grip: Warlord B no new updates created for it

XBox 360 (no significant changes noticed)

Darksiders A
Madden NFL 11 B-
Bayonetta B+
Enslaved: Odyssey of the West C
Sonic and Sega: All Star Racing C

For grades from the places I have seen generally go in increments of 10 A 100-90, B 89-80, C 79-70, D 69-60, F 59-0 of course assuming no curving however each school is allowed to do its own grading system (and the individual teachers can alter it too) college is University of Arizona

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

AT RELEASE:

Kings Bounty Crossworlds (a stand alone expansion in the Kings Bounty Universe) - B - This is really a straight A product, but the included eiditor that was the most important thing (in my opinion) addition in ths update of the game, just does not work at all. I have yet to see a single map based on this.

CIV V - didnt buy for the first time ever. Have bought CIV I-IV, but this just doesnt have the quality of a CIV V game.

Elemental: War of Magic - D

END 2010:

Kings Bounty Crossworlds - Still B - Editor not fixed at all

CIV V - patches doesnt seem to help as the game itself is too simplistic

Elemental: War of Magic - slightly improved C-

NOW:

Kings Bounty Crossworlds - Still B - Editor not fixed at all. The rest of the game is still class, but I would just love to add to the replayability with more maps/scenarios

CIV V - patches will never help. Can an expansion make me buy CIV V? Maybe, but probably not...

Elemental: War of Magic - still improving, but lots to be done. C

All in all 2010 was very disappointing for me as a strategy gamer.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Quoting TheProgress,

reply 105

Quoting Alstein, reply 104That's pretty standard for US colleges, not taking grade inflation into account. It varies. Some Math classes a 30 was passing cause the tests were so damn hard.

High schools were even stricter- my high school A was 93-100 a 70 was a D-.

Is a D failing? Anyway, that's crazy and I've never heard of that for highschools. Were you in a private school by chance?

As for college, we didn't use letter grades, just percentages but the usually the cut off point was 50% or 60%.

D's are passing in high school, barely. Failing in college with some exceptions (you were allowed one D where I went)

Both were public, though the uni I went to had a high washout rate.

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting TheProgress,

reply 103

So in your high school, students would fail a course if they achieved less than 70%? Interesting world you've lived in.

I doubt Brad was asking for scores based on how games are weighted according to reviewers like IGN or Gamespot (where I too normally never buy a game that is below 80%). That is an entirely different matter.

A rough ranking system relative to letter grades would be:

F: below 50%. Failing / failure.
C-: between 50% and 60%. Terrible.
C: between 60% and 70%. Barely adequate.
C+: between 70% and 75%. Ok.
B: between 75% and 80%. Decent.
B+: between 80% and 85%. Good.
A: between 85% and 95%. Great.
A+: between 95% and 100%. Amazing.

What does high school have to do with it? In the games industry and the games rating industry, anything below 70% is considered a critical failure. 70-79% is considered "medicore". They could honestly chop half the scale off entirely and only use 50-100% and most people would never notice (you have to be an extra special brand of failure like Final Fantasy 14 to score below 50).

I know that when I gave Elemental right now a D-, it was intended as a failing grade (just less failure then the F it got at release).

(Also if we're talking school, different places do it different ways. At the high school I went to, "F" didn't exist. The only way to fail was basically to not show up all year. At University a D was technically a pass, but to use the course as a prerequisite for another course you had to get a C, which meant that D was only a quasi-pass and only worked for electives. It was a downright bizzare system, particularly when in response to student confusion some profs stopped giving out Ds and moved the minimum pass bar up to C, while others didn't.)

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting greywar,

reply 101

I'm honestly way more surprised with the A and B ratings than the D and F ones.

There aren't very many and I was shocked that many of the "old guard" that would hang out here post-launch and blame the user, blame their system, or simply call everyone who didn't love the game "liars who don't even own the game" weren't in here giving it 10/10.

This should be a wake up call although frankly SD should have gotten the message long ago. Stop worrying about developing your own game engine and just have good game concepts.

I'm surprised at some of the A's too. Bs I can understand because it is fun for some people... but at least none of them are as baffling as the editors choice Neoseeker gave it at launch. That just caused me to never take them seriously as a review source.

I do want to comment on the 'old guard' though. The people doing that weren't the 'old guard'. The real old members were people from back in 2009 posting in giant idea threads about things like economic systems. The ones you're talking about were the fanboys, and they appeared closer to release.

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I do want to comment on the 'old guard' though. The people doing that weren't the 'old guard'. The real old members were people from back in 2009 posting in giant idea threads about things like economic systems. The ones you're talking about were the fanboys, and they appeared closer to release.

This man speaketh true.

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Quoting Tridus,

reply 109

What does high school have to do with it? In the games industry and the games rating industry, anything below 70% is considered a critical failure. 70-79% is considered "medicore". They could honestly chop half the scale off entirely and only use 50-100% and most people would never notice (you have to be an extra special brand of failure like Final Fantasy 14 to score below 50).

I know that when I gave Elemental right now a D-, it was intended as a failing grade (just less failure then the F it got at release).

(Also if we're talking school, different places do it different ways. At the high school I went to, "F" didn't exist. The only way to fail was basically to not show up all year. At University a D was technically a pass, but to use the course as a prerequisite for another course you had to get a C, which meant that D was only a quasi-pass and only worked for electives. It was a downright bizzare system, particularly when in response to student confusion some profs stopped giving out Ds and moved the minimum pass bar up to C, while others didn't.)

I figured he wanted us to rate the games on scale that would be familiar to all (ie, a letter grade system) instead of the industry's heavily curved rating scale - but that could just be me.

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I have it on good authority that Brad was taking any and all submissions for this report card:

A, B, C, D, F

4/10, 6/10, 8/10

40%, 60%, 80%

Good, bad, ugly

Pass, fail

At some point, he will thank all of us basement dwelling trogs for our honest and constructive feedback and then tell us to all go jump in a lake.

+1

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At launch:

War of Magic: F

Starcraft 2: B-

Fallout Vegas: C

Civ V: F-----

Napoleon Total War: B

Now:

War of Magic: C

Starcraft 2: B-

Fallout Vegas: A

Civ V: D (after some patches).

Napoleon Total War: B+

Whenever I start to try to get into a game of EWOM I get distracted very quickly and usually end up loading up Age of Wonders Shadow Magic. I think I like the differentiation of the different empires, something I wish that EWOM had a lot more of. I like having Hafling Pony riders, and Goblins that look like Goblins, undead etc..... EWOM seems a bit stale on the variety for me.

Fallout Vegas took me about 3 false starts, lost interest... Starting playing it again and am having a blast. Civ V is just not fun, and it was so broken I lost interest the day I purchased it. Like a lot of other I'm hoping for a patch. The AI was terrible. Taking over other empires while their troops literally stood nearby and did nothing is not fun. I don't know how sites like IGN gave it the review they did. It was obviously broken when it was launched.

I have high hopes for EWOM getting repaired. I think I'm waiting for the next iteration. The last few times I played it it crashed on me the first time for some reason.

It seems like there is a void right now of good games. What am I playing mostly now ?

Gratuitous Space Battles: A game I deleted after playing the demo for 10 minutes. Got it cheap on Steam. Had a blast playing it, despite my concerns over long term playability, fun for now.

Disciples 3: After some patching it is pretty fun, but the battles got repetitive about halfway through the Empire campaign once I had all the units unlocked, just ended up hitting auto battle a great deal of time. The graphics are pretty though.

Other than that it looks like Fallout Vegas until something else comes along, EWOM 2? Or Diablo 3?

Don't worry Stardock is still my favorite!

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

Grading based on preference is subjective...

Since nothing else was particularly interesting and playable at the same time, just E:WOM gets rated.

At release, F, end of 2010, C, now, C. Subjectively speaking.

If I analyze without adding in my personal distaste towards the economy and combat aspects I've worked in mainly due to the underachievement compared to early dev posts, I can see it being a B, maybe an A. It's still a solid F at release since it wasn't working on my particular system at the time, but whatever.

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Release:

E:WoM - F+

Starcraft II - A-

Dragon Age Ultimate - B+ (purchased well after release)

Mass Effect II - A+

Borderlands - B-

WoW (pre-Cataclysm) - B-

End of 2010:

E:WoM - D (now very playable for me but also extremely disappointing in terms of gameplay, graphics (especially), world)

Starcraft II - A-

Dragon Age - A-

Mass Effect II - A+

Borderlands - A- (terrific expansions)

WoW (post-Cataclysm) - A-

Now:

E:WoM - Mostly N/A, still a D if anything, but I haven't played much in the new year, can't get into a game

Starcraft II - B (don't enjoy multiplayer much, so the fun has worn out a bit for me)

Dragon Age - B (again, the fun has worn out a bit)

Mass Effect II - A+ (not really that replayable for me but still reigns over 2010 in my mind)

Borderlands - A-

WoW - B+

I don't purchase a ton of games, this year was actually more than usual due to some back problems laying me up for a while, but Elemental continues to take the cake as my most disappointing purchase ever. As a huge MoM fan I bought it for the promise of the heritage and inspiration, stayed for the promises of improvement (and a bit for the humor of the forum wars), and now occasionally lurk mostly to see how long it will be (if ever) until I enjoy the game. The free expansions don't hurt either, good move there, at least as long as they're much better games.

+1

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AT RELEASE:

E: War of Magic: F

Civilization V: D-

Starcraft 2:(Just played the demo) D(same as starcraft I, just better graphics)

Fallout: New Vegas:

END OF 2010:

E: War of Magic: C+

Civilization V: D

Starcraft 2:

Fallout: New Vegas:

NOW:

E: War of Magic: C+

Civilization V: D

Starcraft 2:

Fallout: New Vegas

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In my opinion, other than SC2 and AC:Brotherhood, not a good year for either PC or XBOX.

Quoting ,

quoting post

AT RELEASE:
E: War of Magic: n/a, incomplete
Civilization V: D+
Starcraft 2: A-
Fallout: New Vegas: B (xbox version)
Settlers 7: B
Final Fantasy: C
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: A-

NOW: (only the "replayable" ones...)
E: War of Magic: D-
Civilization V: D+
Starcraft 2: A-
Settlers 7: C

Most played hours this year, probably M&B Warband (modded), which is certainly not an "A" but is great mindless fun after a long day

Still in the "serious" rotation for lazy afternoons: CivIV (i.e. FFH2 and Quot Capita), Anno Venice, Total War (modded Rome and Med2, mostly). I still love these games but of course was/am hoping for EWoM or CiV to displace them.

To be honest i've enjoyed gaming on airplanes on my netbook almost as much as on my "real" systems this year. HOMM2, Caesar3, Age of Wonders 2, MOO2, Wesnoth, maybe a little Nethack or DF here and there.

Edit: Were these in 2010?

Mass Effect 2: A
Dragon Age Origins: B

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This is my honest opinion. I will give this game another try. I hope the tactical AI has improved.

Quoting ,

quoting post

AT RELEASE:
E: War of Magic: F
Civilization V: B
Starcraft 2: A
Fallout: New Vegas: A
END OF 2010:
E: War of Magic: C
Civilization V: B
Starcraft 2: A
Fallout: New Vegas: A
NOW:
E: War of Magic: ('ll tell you tomorrow, i'm going to give it another try)
Civilization V: B-
Starcraft 2: A
Fallout: New Vegas: A

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Keep in mind that we're all biased here. Just be true to yourselves. Work on the tactical AI, work on making Rise of the Temptress: Goldeneye or whatever the expansion pack is called the best game you've ever made in your life.

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AT RELEASE:
E: War of Magic: B
Civilization V: B
Starcraft 2: D
Fallout: New Vegas: A
END OF 2010:
E: War of Magic: B+
Civilization V: C
Starcraft 2: F
Fallout: New Vegas: A
NOW:
E: War of Magic: B+
Civilization V: C
Starcraft 2: F
Fallout: New Vegas: B

Bonus question:
Did yesterday’s beta build (1.19c) solve your memory issues if you had them?
Never really had an issue have been using this to skirt around it:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556

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Release(or when I bought it)

E: War of Magic: D

Starcraft 2: B

Minecraft: A-

Mass Effect 2: B-

dragon age: c+

gobal agenda: c+

Super Meat Boy: B+

Recettear: B-

Worms Reload: C

End of 2010

E: War of Magic: C

Starcraft 2: B

Minecraft: A

Mass Effect 2: B-

dragon age: c+

gobal agenda: B+

Super Meat Boy: B+

Recettear: B-

Worms Reload: C

Now

E: War of Magic: c+(I have looking forward to the expasion enough to buy a second copy for my roommate. It still has a way to go, but I am happy to say Star Dock is putting alot of work into it)

Starcraft 2: B

Minecraft: A

Mass Effect 2: B-

dragon age: c+

gobal agenda: B+

Super Meat Boy: B+

Recettear: B-

Worms Reload: C

so overall I have to say only E:war of magic and minecraft are the only 2 that changed.

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Release

Minecraft: A

Starcraft 2: A

Elemental: C

Now:

Minecraft: A+

Starcraft 2: A

Elemental: B

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Elemental: D. Not a great game. I had way less bugs the last time I played it though, so technically at least it is improving. I feel like the concept has potential and I'm looking forward to fallen enchantress. FFH was great. Everything needs to be revamped and fleshed out and this can be really cool. Certainly a lot of great gameplay ideas already in the game

Civ 5: C+. A very playable game, but it's a complete regression from 4. I would rate it a bit higher if it wasn't a civ game (Sorry Shafer)

Starcraft 2: Incomplete. I enjoyed the campaign but never really played the multiplayer

Catyclysm: meh, wow is old.

Nba 2k11. B+. I dont like the fact that attributes are capped in my-player mode, but this is a good game.

League of Legends: C+ I spend a ton of time playing this but it is not a great game.

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AT RELEASE:

E: War of Magic: Salvageable piece of crap

Civilization V: Piece of crap

King Arthur the roleplaying wargame: Fun

END OF 2010:

E: War of Magic: Poor

Civilization V: Ditched

King Arthur the roleplaying wargame: Fun but a bit hard at times

NOW:

E: War of Magic: Semi-regularly try to update the game to see if it will start and realise that no it won't. Then run Civ IV or dom3 rather than waste time uninstalling and reinstalling for dubious result.

Civilization V: Ditched.

King Arthur the roleplaying wargame: Fun occasionally

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War of Magic&ndash;Report Card

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