Penny Arcade revokes WoW for Game of the Year.

[Raedon]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/


In other news, we hereby revoke 2004 Game of the Year status for Blizzard's "World of Warcraft," effective immediately.

If you are familiar at all with the newspost, you know that it has been a spigot of almost unmitigated goodwill towards the title. We've been playing it for months in another form, and even chose to write thirteen comics for the guide. Understand that we don't need to take or even entertain projects if they are not utterly delicious, your readership of the site itself guarantees that. We took it because we loved the game and had faith that any hitches in the experience would be ground down before release. This has not been borne out.

I would not disagree with you if you said that the game was good - indeed, as delivered, I still maintain that in the Massive genre it provides the greatest reward for the least nuisance. It also succeeds in many ways corollary to that, but I've said plenty of things along those lines, and the puff piece phase is over - particularly with the European launch en route. Now is actually a good time to appraise their technology. It is, in a word, wanting.

I'm putting aside issues like class balance or Gamemaster abuse, because honestly those things are only a problem when the fucking server is up. They will no doubt be very interesting topics eventually, but it's actually four and five times a week at this point that I can't even log in to the game. It's not like I'm sitting here trying to connect at odd hours so I can catch them in something, either - this is in prime time, or on a weekend. The mail system works when it is good and ready. The servers themselves appear to have other things on their mind.

Every week, there is some new calamity that necessitates some huge response on their part, servers are coming down, but if you think that the servers coming back up again will represent an improvement in the basic functionality of the game you're mistaken. They took them down most of the day Thursday (and again for "emergency service" on Sunday), and when they came back up it should have been something supernatural but it was actually utterly imperceptible. It should have been like when the Genesis device hit and a lifeless rock became a fucking paradise. That didn't happen. So, if I say, as I'm about to, that their emergency service amounts to parlor tricks, what evidence can they give to the contrary? Because near as I can tell they've been doing "emergency service" since release, only they used to credit people's accounts for it.

If this happened in Galaxies, or Dark Age, or AO, of course it'd be everybody everywhere piling on. But it's Blizzard, and since they made a few good games years ago now they can do whatever the fuck they want to. Great policy, and it totally serves consumers. Good job. Where's Lum The Mad when you need him.

When a young person comes into a noticeable sum of money, it is often the case that strictures are placed on its expenditure. The thinking is that such a person will plow their inheritance in things that are critical to them at the time but do not represent a wise long-term investment, such as Sweet Tarts. A trust fund protects this amount and purifies its purpose. So it can be said for the coveted Game of the Year award - it was given too early, and they have squandered it. It is now withheld. It will be released only when they prove themselves worthy stewards of it.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think this hardly requires a new topic as not everybody believes the words of PA are divinely inspired...that said, it's good to see them discussing this. Good game to that.

Blizzard is gonna have to make something very special in order to solve this problem. Free sexual favors perhaps. Or candy. Mmm, candy.

I definitely would not want to be working to fix this right now, and the customer support folks? AGH.

[Raedon]

To be on topic it always needs a new topic.

honestly I'm never read what those guys write just the comic.

[Ed Oscuro]

Wasn't poking any fingers at ya, Raedon, I'm just sayin'

PA has caused a stir more than once. This won't be the last time...they'll surely start something else this year. This is pretty justified, though! Loved the sweet tarts bit. LOL

Anyhow, to go over something somebody posted in the thread you linked, "computers don't require so much leniency." Er, these people have to debug stuff all the time. Having to patch an FPS would be hard enough, but having thousands of people beating on your servers all the time, needing an immediate response? Instead of waiting for bug reports to trickle in from users they can see the problems unfolding...of course, the cause and solution isn't clear? They HAVE to patch the bugs, it's not optional...and what's more there's the hardware side to look out for as well. Each server must be up, some degree of redundancy must be maintained and everything should be kept in sync. Pretty daunting task if you ask me.

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh, and lol, when this was being discussed last night I was downloading that CS bot. Played a few rounds with them, they're alright but there's a bit too much gap in skill between Easy and Normal IMO, in easy you can pretty much spray them down from a distance and they suck up close, but at Normal they kept killing me and taking my pra LOL

[GobopopRevisited]

Problems with WoW??





oh... I'm still waiting for StarCraft Ghost.

[Nature Boy]

honestly I'm never read what those guys write just the comic.

I didn't even know they *did* anything other than the comic (that's the only thing people ever link to).

And although I think it's good that they're revoking their award, the fact that they gave it without playing the final version means I won't bother reading anything else ever. That's pretty shoddy journalism IMO.

[Sothy]

ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKE

[-hellvin-]

I never read what they write, I hate their writing style, I can not stand to read it. The forums are even worse because everyone has the same type of lingo, ugh. None the less, I would defenitely say it's warranted. Like I said in another thread, I just don't see how blizzard can think this is an allright thing to do to customers who are paying so much money just to play the game.

[AB Positive]

well, I sold my account for $38 to someone because I haven't been playing it personally. Meh.

-AG

[poe]

And although I think it's good that they're revoking their award, the fact that they gave it without playing the final version means I won't bother reading anything else ever. That's pretty shoddy journalism IMO.

They did play the final version. Back in November, all of this was pretty minor and most people I heard talking about wrote it off as expected behavior for an MMO following launch. It's just that Everquest 2 (which some of the developers admit was only about 70% ready at launch) works fairly consistently, while WoW sounds like it's gotten worse.

[DynastyLawyer]

Desperation ploy on PA's part. Penny Arcade has pretty much been in bed with World of Warcraft since well before it's release. They wrote comics for the guide, and they pretty much badmouthed all of WoW's competition, probably for a tidy fee.

And then it gets released, and is obviously wanting.

Penny Arcade pretty much has to do something: they've pretty much sucked up to a game, calling it a hundred times cooler than the competition, but meanwhile, I'm playing Star Wars Galaxies, and the World of Warcraft fans read a book with their monthly fee.

What do you do? You of course, badmouth the game. Sure you may lose the advertising, but I don't think Penny Arcade is interested in that. Penny Arcade is merely interested in appearing to be always right to their fans. Could prove to be a tactical mistake on their part, however.

The situation is mirrors why I can't stand Penny Arcade. A lot of gamers look to them as the end all and be all of videogames, but they really don't have any qualifications to be looked up to as such. Sure, they play videogames a lot. So does everyone else. Often, they have to pretty much drop playing videogames midway, so they can play the next new things, paint up a strip about it, and move on to the next new thing. This leaves them with an incomplete grasp of the games they are reviewing. Don't believe me? Look at how glowing they were of Kingdom Hearts, until they reached the 8th hour of it, and it descended into Disney Rehash. Their opinion turned pretty quick. I'm pretty sure they've badmouthed a lot of good games and acclaimed a lot of crap since then, on similar grounds.

Moral of the Story: Don't trust what these guys say. Anybody who tells me with a strait face that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a better game than Final Fantasy Tactics is the person who knows the least about what is going on in videogames.

[SoulBlazer]

Agree with you about PA.

Is FFTA better then FFT? No. Is it still a damn good game worth buying and playing? Hell yes. :D

[Ed Oscuro]

ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKE
oh god noes

Anyhow, about PA.

WoW is an excellent game. It just IS one of the best MMOs out this time around, and while you're free to say it's better or worse than X that makes no difference. If anybody's covering their ass it would be the fanboys who feel abandoned by PA and want to seek revenge and somehow make the PA reply cunning subterfuge - conspirators are only one mouse click away on the Internet, apparently. I know what I've written about them, but the more I think about it the more I agree with their initial assessment. They had a big, Gabe Newell style failure to take advantage of their window of opportunity; game companies need to remember that communicating is key. If anything I'm wondering if Blizzard is planning to keep everybody's money and not give anything in return, as the proposed solution (accepted and rejected variously) didn't address that point.

Of course PA didn't write anything up for the competition, say City of Heroes - they're people and have limited influence and specific tastes which define what sorts of projects they work on. They aren't going to create comics for games they don't work on. There's not a necessary "project selections = stupid fanboys" link as you seem to indicate, and in any case it should be a moot point. They've got internet comics and lots of rhetoric/wishes for the future of gaming. Why should they not pimp projects they wish to see succeed?

I don't see how being upset is inapparopriate as any human would be at the service outages and most importantly the lack of communication between company and subscripers is definitely a poor showing from Blizzard.

Sometimes PA stirs up trouble for no good reason, and sometimes they mirror the average interested gamer's viewpoint. Jumping on them over this is asking them to predict the future, no longer be that interesting source of commentary and criticism, and essentially cease to be interesting at all.

[DynastyLawyer]

WoW is an excellent game. It just IS one of the best MMOs out this time around, and while you're free to say it's better or worse than X that makes no difference.

I could have Metal Theft Auto Halo 5, and it could be an awesome game, but if it's a massively multiplayer online game dependent upon servers to play it, and there are no servers to play it on a substantial amount of the time, it's still a poor game.


If anybody's covering their ass it would be the fanboys who feel abandoned by PA and want to seek revenge and somehow make the PA reply cunning subterfuge - conspirators are only one mouse click away on the Internet, apparently.

You're right. I'm just upset, I lost my job yesterday, my children are starving, and Gabe beat me with a stick as a result...

LOL

First off, someone needs to be put in an Ayslum if they have abandonment issues over the "betrayal" of a web-comic. Conspirators? More like realists. Until Penny Arcade came along, a lot of videogamers pretty much had their own opinions on what to buy, and what to play. The same videogamers now repeat what Penny Arcade has to say about the game, refuse to play anything they bad-mouth, and pretty much worship the main characters of the comic. You haven't felt frustration until you try and speak about the merits of a good game, and the person you are talking to refuses to agree, merely based upon the fact that Penny Arcade put it's mark of death upon it. Don't get me started on Penny Arcade's hyper-intellectual criticism of videogames. To think, when I was a child, people shut up and actually played their games, rather than take good games, put them in their consoles, and engage in sarcastic and pseudo-intellectual critiques about every single facet of the game.


They've got internet comics and lots of rhetoric/wishes for the future of gaming. Why should they not pimp projects they wish to see succeed?

Pretty much the exact same reason why shoes won't automatically be awesome just because Micheal Jordan is wearing them in a commercial: They aren't specialists in that field.


Jumping on them over this is asking them to predict the future, no longer be that interesting source of commentary and criticism, and essentially cease to be interesting at all.

Generally, when someone gives out a "Game of the Year" award, a person is giving an opinion about the past, and not engaging in clairvoyance.

[calthaer]

To think, when I was a child, people shut up and actually played their games, rather than take good games, put them in their consoles, and engage in sarcastic and pseudo-intellectual critiques about every single facet of the game...

Generally, when someone gives out a "Game of the Year" award, a person is giving an opinion about the past, and not engaging in clairvoyance.

What kinds of opinions can kids have, other than "THIS SI = TEH R0><0R!!! MARIO SI K3WL!!!1" (except that we didn't have l33t and "teh intarnat" in the '80s)? A lot of kids will consume any tripe you put in front of them. See Barney, Teletubbies, or even some of the old crappy 80s cartoons like Voltron that we used to like. Man, when I watched that again as an adult...I was like: what was so cool about this? That was, until I read the Devil's Due comic.

Old folks like to yammer and talk like they know stuff about their obsessions and hobbies. So what? Nothing to get bent out of shape over.

Re: clairvoyance -- most games don't drastically change. MMOGs do. Why shouldn't any awards and / or flames they get be in a state of flux, too?

[petewhitley]

To think, when I was a child, people shut up and actually played their games, rather than take good games, put them in their consoles, and engage in sarcastic and pseudo-intellectual critiques about every single facet of the game.

Word.

[Iron Draggon]

RCT3 (Roller Coaster Tycoon 3) is still plagued with problems after 2 patches now, some of which are new problems since the 2nd patch, and yet they have the nerve to be talking about the first expansion pack being due out sometime in the middle of the year. As if anyone is gonna buy it! The core game still needs a ton of improvement before they should even be thinking about adding even more problems to it, but it's almost guaranteed that both the expansion packs will be as rushed as the core game was. It's pathetic! I think alot of the game publishers are getting way too greedy these days. If the current trends continue going the way that they have been lately, then I wouldn't be surprised if there's another crash, and I'm kinda hoping for it. Something really needs to happen to teach the PC games industry that we consumers shouldn't be expected to be their free beta testers or their free tech support staff, while we pay top dollar for the "priviledge" of debugging their games for them. Especially when they're only as buggy as they are because the publishers keep rushing them out the door just to meet a holiday deadline, like they did with RCT3, and certainly not when the game being tested is a landmark title in an established blockbuster series that would easily become a platinum seller almost overnight no matter when it was released! RCT3 deserves so much better than it got, and so do all us players who were expecting it to live up to all the hype of such a long running and best selling 2D series finally making the crossover into 3D! PC Gamer really said it best when they said that it was "Buggier than an entomologist's convention!" And yet they still gave it an 83%! GameSpy is the only one to call this spade a spade so far. They gave it the Green Banana Award that it so rightfully deserves! Worst game of the year! Yeah, baby!

[Ed Oscuro]

I could have Metal Theft Auto Halo 5, and it could be an awesome game, but if it's a massively multiplayer online game dependent upon servers to play it, and there are no servers to play it on a substantial amount of the time, it's still a poor game.
There's no reasoning with you, is there? So let me guess...once the game is working fine again, it will magically cease to be a poor game, correct? By your reasoning the XBand must be really, really shitty because you can't use it anymore.


Until Penny Arcade came along, a lot of videogamers pretty much had their own opinions on what to buy, and what to play.
LOL. Whenever PA is discussed at an internet forum, I've noted that at least one third of the people present will say they hate it, often more. Obviously, today's gamers are all morons and gullible in the extreme. Thank goodness for cool cats like DynastyLawyer to lead us into the light!



They've got internet comics and lots of rhetoric/wishes for the future of gaming. Why should they not pimp projects they wish to see succeed?
Pretty much the exact same reason why shoes won't automatically be awesome just because Micheal Jordan is wearing them in a commercial: They aren't specialists in that field.
What the hell does this mean? Does one need a doctorate to critique video games now? Shucks, I guess that means we better pack up and go home because opinions obviously don't count anymore in the entertainment field. In fact, you should go tell most everybody who's ever worked on a gaming mag to start flipping burgers or become administrative assistants; all they're doing is wasting that English major. PA doesn't beat around the bush and I suppose that stripping of your needed comfort blanket makes you uncomfortable. Hey, guess what: almost every newspaper in the world has an editorials page. There you may find opinions written by non-experts! Looks like you've got some work to do.

We aren't talking about politics or history here where the debate is limited to pushing around nuanced factual tidbits at a snail's pace. As a result, sometimes they hit a home run and sometimes they strike out.

Furthermore, I see no evidence PA forces their opinion on anybody; they've made the WoW comic and Blizzard has done with that as they see fit, out of PA's hands. If I listen to Rush Limbaugh then I'm responsible for looking like an idiot when I start saying that Donovan McNabb has had everything handed to him by the PA* media. PA has written various things about WoW on their site (which also isn't yours), and possibly they've written a comment about it at some random forum or other. This hardly constitutes a cramming down our throats of PA-approved slimy WoW goodness(TM).



Jumping on them over this is asking them to predict the future, no longer be that interesting source of commentary and criticism, and essentially cease to be interesting at all.
Generally, when someone gives out a "Game of the Year" award, a person is giving an opinion about the past, and not engaging in clairvoyance.
Well, that's not what I was discussing, but hey - PA doesn't bat 1000 all the time. I guess you never heard the classic quote from Voltaire (I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it)? I would imagine that it was more along the lines of a disqualification, but again, they're gaming ideologues. And they like top-level MMORPGs, which you don't see coming out every month. They've made their choice, and as I've said - if they make the wrong decision, they've got freedom of speech as well as freedom to suffer the consequences in hearing what their own disappointed viewers have to say :)

Interesting post from Calthaer about the clairvoyance as RE MMOGs. Actually, there's been a great deal of change with plain old Counter-Strike over the years; not once has it been awarded GOTY but if it were then perhaps it would have been voided out with the release of 1.6 ;)

*The other PA, as in Pennsylvania

[blissfulnoise]

Ok, I actually play WoW and I can say first hand these "issues" are overblown. I'm on the server Sargeras which is high during peak hours, medium off hours. The only place where I have ever experienced a disconnect is in Orgrimmar, the Horde capitol city.

I have never been booted otherwise, never experienced a lag death, or in any way had my experience detrimented by a server issue. There have been two occassions where I could not log into the server due to unscheduled mantenance. On both of these occassions, Blizzard has refunded my fee for that day.

I played AO at launch. I played SWG at launch. Compairing WoW to those two launches is farce. World of Warcraft has run exceptionally stable in my opinion based on the volume of users / outages when stacked up next to other MMOs. Was Blizzard inept to not see these volume related issues coming? Yes, unequivably yes. They gave away 500,000 open beta slots in the span of 36 hours. How many people did they think were going to play it?

But is Blizzard working to fix it? You can bet they are. As a matter of fact, I was just refunded for two days of play where I didn't even experience any issues. I'm sure their business model is based around making money. And continuing to give away "free days" isn't something they want to keep doing (those two days cost them around $700,000). So as a result, they're left with upgrading and extending their server farms to make a more stable online experience for the rest of the world.

I think the majority of the complaints directed at WoW can be centered around specific servers, under specific circumstances and are not representative of the experience the majority have while playing. At least not the one me and my friends are having.

As for PA. I don't care if you hate them, I personally like the site and enjoy reading Tycho's commentary (most of the time). And, yes, they have spoken very highly of WoW since the beginning, but at what point did they badmouth all other MMOs? Hell, even during WoW beta, Tycho spoke non stop about how wonderful City of Heroes was; (another game I very much enjoyed) which is, gasp, another MMO!

Just because they didn't rant and rave about how pretty EQ2 is or how pointless the latest UO expansion (I don’t really know if it was or not, so don’t attack me UO players) was doesn't mean they're automatically anti anything that isn't World of Warcraft. Besides, it's not a game review site people. Go to any one of the other game review websites out there if you're looking for just how good the new Asheron's Call expansion will be (actually, I think I might here in a minute...)

And I don't know if they received any financial reparations for "pushing" WoW. They might have just gotten the deal to draw the comics for the strat guide (which I enjoyed). Frankly, I don't really care either way. They hyped a good game... actually, an outstanding game, and the paragon of the genre in the opinion of a good number of critics and fans (given the fact copies are not to be found anywhere in the country, I say the "dollar vote" rings very true here).
Let us not forget that PA (read: Gabe/Tycho) also did ad-comics for Ghost Recon 2, Painkiller, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and others this season. None of which were hyped by PA (their website), nor were they on their “best of 2004” list. Why? Because they didn’t think they were top caliber games.

In any case, that's my $0.02. MMO fans tend to be very devisive over these games. I think they fight to try and justify the time they've put into their respective characters by defending their game of choice tooth and nail against games that, frankly, extend the genre. While I can understand why people argue such, I still think it's a sad situation.

[Nature Boy]

They did play the final version.

Then why did they write this:

"We took it because we loved the game and had faith that any hitches in the experience would be ground down before release. This has not been borne out"

Doesn't "Ground Down Before Release" imply they weren't playing the final version?

[DynastyLawyer]

A lot of kids will consume any tripe you put in front of them. See Barney, Teletubbies, or even some of the old crappy 80s cartoons like Voltron that we used to like.

Did you just diss Voltron? Those be fighting words!

I'm not going to argue with the fact that a lot of children are easily persuadable, but I'd be careful not to underestimate their capabilities of judgment. While yeah, on average, an 8 year old will accept more faults than a 20 year old, I bet if you put an 8 year old in a room with Sonic the Hedgehog against Fatal Rewind, he's going to be able to pick what the better game is. And he will probably be able to do it without citing faults in the "Frame Rates" or "Production Values"


There's no reasoning with you, is there? So let me guess...once the game is working fine again, it will magically cease to be a poor game, correct? By your reasoning the XBand must be really, really shitty because you can't use it anymore.


There's hella reasoning with me. Yeah, pretty much. Not a lot of "magic" to it, either. A game that I can't play is going to be pretty boring. A game that I can play has the opportunity to be cool. If you have a lot of faith in Xband to be really, really bodacious when you can't play it, then spend tomorrow "playing it" and tell us how it goes.


LOL. Whenever PA is discussed at an internet forum, I've noted that at least one third of the people present will say they hate it, often more. Obviously, today's gamers are all morons and gullible in the extreme.

You're a real master of arguing against things I didn't say. I wouldn't agree with morons, but gullible in the extreme? Could be.


Thank goodness for cool cats like DynastyLawyer to lead us into the light!

My pleasure, chief.


What the hell does this mean? Does one need a doctorate to critique video games now?

Nope. But one should have a pretty accurate grasp of what the totality of the game is about, before one "pimps" it or "makes a social laughingstock" of it.


Does one need a doctorate to critique video games now? Shucks, I guess that means we better pack up and go home because opinions obviously don't count anymore in the entertainment field. In fact, you should go tell most everybody who's ever worked on a gaming mag to start flipping burgers or become administrative assistants; all they're doing is wasting that English major.

I don't get it. Is this a mix of a slippery slope and a straw man fallacy? Or is it actually a profound philosophical statement on the futility of subjectivism?


Hey, guess what: almost every newspaper in the world has an editorials page. There you may find opinions written by non-experts! Looks like you've got some work to do.

The same editorials page is a forum where people could debate that the sky is orange. Am I really supposed to look to it like a paragon of truth, like the fans of Penny Arcade do to Penny Arcade? My answer would be no.


Furthermore, I see no evidence PA forces their opinion on anybody; they've made the WoW comic and Blizzard has done with that as they see fit, out of PA's hands.

I was unaware that the changing/sealing of a person's opinion required any "force."