Do you listen to reviewers?

[jollyninja]

free products? if only my opinion was respected!

note: if you send me free stuff i'll plaster every board i find with my opinion every time it's mentioned in as well thought out a manner as i am capable.

as for other people's reviews, what i look for is a summary of the contents and a decent description of the ratio of mechanics to setting specific information. also a specific problem with the printing of the book if problematic enough to mention more then once in a review can put me off. i do not pay any attention to the reviewers opinion on the product as a whole but on specific parts and only then if they go into a little depth. for example if you tell us that the prestige classes in a certian book suck i will pay little attention to that. if you say that you did not like them because they are really setting specific and would require alot of work to fit into a homebrewed setting. then you have given me something worth knowing. high average reviews mean nothing to me, it's all about specifics.

also most people seem to do a review after only one or two read through's without using it in a single session, so the opinions are a little premature in my opinion. as a personal example, my expectations for song and silence were way to high and my idea of what that book should have been were far different then the authors. after a couple of read throughs i would have roasted it as the worst dnd book in dnd's long history. i still do not like it all that much but it is not nearly so bad as i might have made it out to be shortly after spend(waste cough....)ing my money.

 

[Nightfall]

I a past reviewer, I have to admit, there are some people's opinions I take in to consideration more heavily than others. Psion and certainly yours Joe as you have similiar tastes as mine. But still, what influences something for me is portibility and of course, how much use I'll get out it.

 

[Phowett]

I only listen to reviews if they are very clear on what is good or bad about the books/movie/whatever.

 

[Grraf]

Reviews are the killer app of EnWorld.

All of my buying purchases are heavily informed by reviews both at EnWorld and occasionally from other sites (Ken Hite, MC , etc.)

I LOVE people who point out rules problems. Honestly they are a giant pain the ass. I bought Secret College of Necro recently for the rules but I've found that the setting is much more useful. The inability of a signifcant chunk of people to playtest or balance their products at all confuses me.

Which brings me to one more point: The Tradgety of the loyal fan reveiwer:
Reivews that just repeat what's in the book are a waste. You can tell whats in the book by going to the website of the company. I skim to get to the analysis, its the only reason to really read a review. If I want an ad I can go to a companies site.

Bad reviews are the best: those are usually the only ones that actually go into depth. Unfortunately there are a bunch of terrible products out there with one or two positive fan reviews.

There's a strong tendancy for people to post positive bland reviews. Of course given the way some writers react when people post non-positive reviews I'm not surprised.
<http://www.enworld.org/d20reviews.asp?sub=yes&where=active&reviewer=GameWyrd&product=hhfdwa>
(I actually think that its great that the writers of prodcuts get on the review to explain their reasoning and methodology.)

 

[Larry Fitz]

I dislike 'numerical' reviews. Here's why, most forums for review have multiple reviewers, but they standardize the 'numerical' values and categories. This would be fine if there were clear benchmarks, but there are not. Recently our "Broadsides!" book was reviewed in a periodical. The reviewer that reviewed it only had one review in that month's issue. The numerical score he gave us was certainly above average, but well below what some other books (three of which were reviewed by one person) received. However if you read the text of the review without the numbers, you came away with the impression that he loved our book and strongly recommended that everyone buy it immediately rather than buying say, food, or new socks. Since reviews are subjective, they should be left subjective. To have several people with different opinions trying to use a single limited numerical rating almost undermines the process. Instead just give textual reviews. Reviewers are literate, readers are literate, it should be possible to get your point acrosss without a bar chart or pie chart or some such. Simply tell people how you feel about a book and why, let them draw their own conclusions.

Just my opinion....

 

[GravyFingerz]

I only listen to reviewer's opinions if they are similae to my own

 

[Zarrock God of Evil]

I like to check the different reviews before I pick up my copy of a book. Reviews have stopped me from picking up some d20 system books but never WotC (because I've learned by now that many reviewers are much more critical towards WotC than I am - for instance the bad reviews didn't stop me from picking up De&De and I wasn't disappointed).

So in short: I buy every WotC product anyway and have rarely been disappointed (the classbooks are the only books that didn't live up to my expectations). D20 products I like to have confirmed even though publishers such as FFG and Malhavoc have earned so much credit that I would probably give them a shot even if the reviews weren't all that great.

It's difficult to find truly neutral reviews and I mostly use them to keep informed about the content. I've found that when I know most of the general content beforehand, I can't be disappointed because I know almost exactly what I bought. If I had hated the content I wouldn't have bought it - as easy as that

 

[ColonelHardisson]

That said, I do think that there are some BS criteria that some reviewers levy in their reviews. Like complaining that a book that uses a standard D&D cosmology does not fit your very specific cosmology.

I saw a review of a campaign setting (I won't say which one) in which the reviewer spent a lot of space going over why the setting was illogical and could never have come into being the way it existed. Like any RPG setting is really logical, considering magic and magical beings are assumed to be in 'em.

 

[Pielorinho]

Confession time:

A few months ago, a company sent me an adventure they'd published, asking only that I do a review of it. I thanked them, said I'd try to get a review up soon, settled down with a cup of coffee, and read through the adventure.

I *hated* it. There was tons of railroading, random encounters that didn't make any sense, shady corrupt NPCs that the players had to trust if they wanted the adventure to move forward, and several other problems.

But they'd sent it to me for free. It seemed to me to be terribly ungrateful to post a negative review of it.

So I never posted one. Honestly, I think I shoulda: free product shouldn't influence the reviews a product gets. But it's hard for me to punch a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.

Daniel

 

[Davelozzi]

Of course I don't always agree with reviewers but I certainly find them useful. Knowing a reviewers likes/dislikes from past reviews certainly helps. Mostly I only read reviews of products that I was already interested in although hype on the boards can peak my interest level to the point where I'll go looking for reviews on products that I would've passed on had I just seen them in the store.

I saw a review of a campaign setting (I won't say which one) in which the reviewer spent a lot of space going over why the setting was illogical and could never have come into being the way it existed. Like any RPG setting is really logical, considering magic and magical beings are assumed to be in 'em.

I disgree, Colonel. A setting can have fantasic elements but still have its own internal logic and consistency. For example, I know that you're a big Middle Earth fan. How would you feel if Decipher put out a new LotR monster book and it had creatures in it akin to those clockwork critters from Planescapes' Mechanus?