Shrapnel to Take on Wargamer.com?

[Leslie]

Excellent read.

Not sure I will offer much of use to the conversation here. And I hope I am not regarded as sticking my nose in to much.

But I have a long history (well a handful of years isn't really long in some ways) of reading and contributing to Matrix Games as well as Wargamer.
Both have seen a lot of evolution in the last 5 years.

I am not concerned at this moment claiming it to be good or bad. Not the reason for my post.

I don't have much history with Shrapnel games, but that is not a limitation either.

I have a fairly good history though, with an additional separate forum entity. They don't make games, and to my knowledge they are wholely independent of any operation that does makes games.
And they have the added bonus of also owning a print publication that is most definitely wargamer friendly.

This reader is of the opinion also, that reviewers are human. And being on staff at a widely recognised web site, really is no real garantee of anything essentially speaking.
A person needs to be able to write competently, and that is about the size of it for a competent review.

Ideally the reviewer needs to have the game, the full game, a system built with the preferred specs, and enough time to play the game properly, several times through.

If a reviewer is truely unbiased, they don't really have to be a fan of the genre, but it helps. I for instance, would be a bad choice to review a sports title indeed. No aptitude whatsoever.

But back to the "other forum". I refer to Warfare HQ, which I think everyone here is familiar with.
Yes I am a big fan of theirs admittedly.
But the place is entirely independent to my knowledge.
They provide a great forum. They provide timely news. And I get just as much out of visiting there, as you could hope to give me at either Wargamer, or the site you have under construction.

Only downside I can see with Warfare HQ, is they are currently focused specifically on military titles.

Wargamer isn't quite so focused, but I am willing to put my hand up, and say, this person is willing to go on the record as saying, it's just not possible to just write off people as being incapable of wondering about owner bias.

I am pro Matrix Games, but I am still able to wonder all the same.
It's a curse that comes with it being public knowledge of who the owner is.

I have a private personal forum myself. A small little gathering place for a small handful of friends.
It would be illogical for me to expect anyone out there to think the site didn't suffer from at least some bias from me.

I can't see anyone truely and honestly extending a blank cheque to either Wargamer aka Matrix Games, or a site built by Shrapnel.

The only really important detail here, is Wargamer exists now, it's very well established, and it will be hard to make the Shrapnel equivalent anything but redundant.

You will have a very hard uphill climb getting any respectable traffic. Especially without all the accumulated indulgences that make up Wargamer.
They possess substantial linkages, enormous quantities of file downloads.
And that isn't built up over a small span of time.

I don't know why anything more than your forum here is reguired actually.
Wargamer to me, is a forum with a newspage/website wrapped around it.
Once people realise Shrapnel owns the site, they will just see it as an extension of here at any rate.

I hope I haven't muddied the waters with my thoughts on this.

[Combat Wombat]

So it is now summer does this mean we get a more specfic date on when the site will have its grand opening?

[Richard]

Probably closer to the end of summer, but the site is coming along.

[geodetic]

Interesting thread. As a reader of games reviews (with a little experience of writing them too) I've always felt that one of the most useful and trust-cultivating features a review site can offer is a prominent 'reviewer's track-record' section embedded in every review.

This section would contain info on and links to the previous 5? 10? reviews that writer had produced for the site. A hypothetical example:

I'm reading a review of Operation Bent Javelin on www.grogland.com. It's written by Ivor Chiponmyshoulder. One click away from this review is a list revealing that Ivor has written 13 reviews for Grogland of which the last 10 were:

Storm Over Suez (Detonation Software) 88%
Kursk '43 (Powder Monkey Games) 15%
Mailed Fist (Detonation Software) 95%
Viking Raiders (Powder Monkey Games) 23%
The Washing of the Spears (Hex House) 55%
Vimy Ridge (Hex House) 62%
Spitfire Summer (Inferno Interactive) 68%
The Battle of Omdurman (Detonation Software) 87%
Waterloo 3D (Inferno Interactive) 71%
Austerlitz 3D (Inferno Interactive) 73%

(In the event that scores aren't used then links would have to suffice)

Naturally I've played a few of the titles on this list and can compare Ivor's analysis with my own. In no time at all I can see whether Ivor is a reviewer I can trust and relate to.

Speculating about a site's bias or lack of it is ultimately pointless as nothing can ever be proved. At the end of the day the reviewer's (ergo, the site's) track-record tell you everything you need to know about their trustworthiness/competence.

[Annette]

geodetic said:
Interesting thread. As a reader of games reviews (with a little experience of writing them too) I've always felt that one of the most useful and trust-cultivating features a review site can offer is a prominent 'reviewer's track-record' section embedded in every review.

This section would contain info on and links to the previous 5? 10? reviews that writer had produced for the site. A hypothetical example:

I'm reading a review of Operation Bent Javelin on www.grogland.com. It's written by Ivor Chiponmyshoulder. One click away from this review is a list revealing that Ivor has written 13 reviews for Grogland of which the last 10 were:

Storm Over Suez (Detonation Software) 88%
Kursk '43 (Powder Monkey Games) 15%
Mailed Fist (Detonation Software) 95%
Viking Raiders (Powder Monkey Games) 23%
The Washing of the Spears (Hex House) 55%
Vimy Ridge (Hex House) 62%
Spitfire Summer (Inferno Interactive) 68%
The Battle of Omdurman (Detonation Software) 87%
Waterloo 3D (Inferno Interactive) 71%
Austerlitz 3D (Inferno Interactive) 73%

(In the event that scores aren't used then links would have to suffice)

Naturally I've played a few of the titles on this list and can compare Ivor's analysis with my own. In no time at all I can see whether Ivor is a reviewer I can trust and relate to.

Speculating about a site's bias or lack of it is ultimately pointless as nothing can ever be proved. At the end of the day the reviewer's (ergo, the site's) track-record tell you everything you need to know about their trustworthiness/competence.

I think this is a great suggestion and hope to see it incorporated into The Gaming News format. Thanks for your input.

[Curt Pangracs]

I've been scanning this thread for the first time, and only one thing comes to mind:

"We despise that which we don't understnd!"

I would also like to point out that a review is, in fact, a personal opinion, especially when done by someone who has never created a game, or deeper still, has never created a game in the genre being reviewed!

Opinions are, indeed, like, noses - everyone has one, some just "smell" better than others!

Have a great day, all!!