4E Poorly Rated on Amazon...

[Fifth Element]

I don't think it proves that 4e is polarizing so much as it reinforces that nerds have absolutely no idea that there exists a scale between THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER and EACH TIME THIS IS PURCHASED AN ANGEL EXPLODES.

Yes, I think you've got it there.

 

[BobROE]

Would you trust a review of a cookbook by someone who didn't actually try any of the recipes?

If the review was based on the content of the book itself (ie badly written, badly organized, cheaply produced) that would be fine.

If the review states why the score was given, it wouldn't matter if the recipes were tried or not (or in our case if the game was played or not).

Now I'm not saying that this applies to the reviews of the 4E books (since I haven't read them), but I don't think one has to have played the game to review the book.

 

[Nebulous]

I had also noticed the low reviews on Amazon, especially when compared to the glowing reviews (overall) of 3e. 4e has definitely taken a new direction, some of it i like, some of it i don't like. I'll post a review on Amazon eventually after i've played some more. It definitely won't be 5 stars though. Personally, i think they botched the monster manual, although mechancially monsters are pretty darn cool.

 

[Aus_Snow]

This might actually mean something if it weren't for the fact that you pretty much rate everything that WotC produces as a 4 or 5. You and critical awareness are not exactly a match made in heaven, so excuse me if I take your rating with a grain of salt.

Hm.

Well, I tend to find Merric's posts (the serious ones, obviously) pretty much genuine and insightful, on a scale of intarweb norm to meaningful.

But hey, whatever. :\

 

[Sunderstone]

Umm... its easy to solve the whole issue. If its paranoia that Paizo or any other non-4E conformer has somehow sabotaged the reviews, go fix it. Post a review yourself.

 

[MerricB]

Euhm, iirc, it's "To pale in comparison". Not "To pall". Nor "To pail".

pall
Verb
to become boring or uninteresting, esp. by continuing for too long:

"Pales" is generally right. "Palls" may actually be better in this context! Of course, I don't agree that the 4e DMG is worse than the 2e DMG, but...

And it doesn't. It even has a bit in it that looks like I could have written it. (P113, "Drawing Diagonal Walls", see here, applied to squares).

Incidentally, that bit of diagonal advice was first published by Wizards in the 2003 "Miniatures Handbook". Not that many people read it, but anyway...

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Incidentally, the Wizards product I dislike the most is...
Map Folio II

Cheers!

 

[Umbran]

You and critical awareness are not exactly a match made in heaven, so excuse me if I take your rating with a grain of salt.

Fester, you have just gotten insulting and personal, which is not acceptable. Do not post in this thread again.

Folks, we expect you to be respectful to your fellow posters. You are free to like whatever game you wish, for your own reasons. But if to support your own desires you find it necessary to beat on other people, you'll find you'll have to do it elsewhere.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

On the one hand you've got people running around banging their drum about it being on the Amazon Bestseller list. As I'm typing this, it looks like it's ranked #39.

Try to point out that you can stack the odds of your book coming up a best seller, and there's even people that offer to explain _how_ to do it? Somehow the "bestseller" folks manage not to see that.

But now that the rating is negative, you've got folks taking exception to how stuff is done, complaining that it's just a bunch of 4E haters trying to tank it, and so forth.

If you're going to turn around and use Amazon sale ranking to herald a new age of gaming, you should be prepared for someone turning around and slapping you with the other side of 'em.

Of course, the flip side applies as well:
Despite the fact that it's got a 2.5 star rating, it's 39th on the bestseller list. Whoops... I notice it's now at a 3 star rating...

It's also ranked 18 (currently) on the Hot New Releases section.

I don't have a horse in this race. I just think if folks are going to try and bludgeon each other using something like this, realize that it's a knife that cuts both ways.

Yeah, mixed metaphor. Deal with it.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Club wiv razers innit. Rargh!