Vote For City Of Heroes On MMOGrinder

Interesting. About 30 mins. after I posted this, it showed up on CoH's Twitter and Facebook pages... I hope he lets us know the results (that is, the number of votes each got).

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Originally Posted by Lazarillo I'm not sure I want to encourage any further connection between this game and the word "grind"...

I understand that, but he explains the reason for the name in the very first question in his FAQ:

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Q: Why the name, “MMO Grinder”? A: One thing I was always really bad at was coming up with names for things. (See: “Chaos Reviews”) so when I was planning this out, my original title was “MMO M.O.” which pretty much doesn’t make any sense, I just thought it was clever. I was wrong. I was also constantly discouraged by issues when I’d come up with what I thought was a good title for something, I’d see it was used somewhere else. (I had an idea for a reality TV review show called “Reality Check” but I’m hardly the only person who thought of that pun.) Unlike quite a few people on the internet, I actually check to see if anyone else is using a name regularly before I decide to use it. Because I’m not a complete dick. I contacted Justin Carmical (JewWario) on the TGWTG forums and asked him tips about making a show. In addition to a lot of information about starting out, he advised me that I should pick a name that brought together the entire point of the series, with something that had a common link. Not sure exactly when “MMO Grinder” came to me but I was VERY shocked to see that numerous Google searches turned up nothing but a Wikipedia page on the word “Grinding”, and someone asking for a free-to-play MMO in a forum. So I jumped on the chance to create something with that name. Why? Because Grinding is a part of every MMO in some way shape or form. Be it killing monsters to level, playing the same match or course over and over, or even having to travel back to the same area repeatedly are all part of the “grind.” Also it brings up mental images or a tool or a sandwich depending on who you ask.

I just found him last week via TGWTG, and I'm impressed with his style. He seems to be pretty neutral. Even with his dislike of Maple Story, he did a nice job. I like MS, and his review.

The part at the end, with his final "rating" is interesting. Instead of assigning arbirary numbers that only mean something to him, he instead focuses on three things: Play, Pay, and Pass.

This is from his About page:

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In my conclusion, rather than give a numerical score, I’ll give my final rating which works as follows. PLAY: Reasons to download and play the game. PAY: Things you might want to pay for if you’re willing to stick with it. PASS: Reasons to avoid the game altogether. Things stated in PLAY, PAY, PASS, will only try to consider things that won’t change about the nature of the game, such as the look or nuances or style of gameplay, but keep in mind that major overhauls might shift focus enough to make some points obsolete. This is why each episode’s title card is dated with a completion date, so you know if the critique is still relevant.

It works well for me. I'd often thought about checking out Dungeon Fighter Online. After watching his review, I came to the conclusion that it's not for me.

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Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

Found his poll via other means just now and voted for CoH of course. Then did a search and found this thread so...BUMP

What game should I vote for?

World of My Little Pony Galaxies

Just so we're all on the same page, Chaos has gone on the record as not really appreciating this kind of vote conscription. About one of the first things he posted on his site following the thread's creation was that he'd seen the spike in votes and was aware of this thread and not too happy about it. He's also, I suspect, playing the game and monitoring the forums.

And I kind of agree with him, to be honest. The point of the poll is to tell him what his audience most wants to see him review (League of Legends, it turns out), so getting votes from people who don't even watch his show, we are kind of cheating, not to mention making it harder for him to interpret the results.

I just wanted to put that out there.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Yeah, I saw him "call me out". Too bad. That's how the internet works. Besides, my main goal was to get more people to watch his show. It's a damned fine show, and it's given me some ideas about other F2P MMOs I've often though about checking out.

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Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

Yeah, I'm not trying to say we're cheating or that we should feel bad or anything like that. Hell, I accidentally voted twice because I thought it would show me the poll results (he's keeping them hidden until the poll ends). I haven't really had much contact with Chaos, mostly just trading comments on his site, but he strikes me mostly as a down-to-Earth fellow who just wants to make decent reviews and cater to his fans, so I'm sure he's not so much "mad" about it as it's just making his work more complicated. Internet polls in general are iffy since it's hard to keep people's identities straight if you don't force them to register, and even that's not always guaranteed.

As for getting more people to watch the MMO Grinder, I'm 100% behind that. It's a great show, it's informative, it's mostly fair and it's very comprehensive. Chaos D1 is one of those reviewers who really don't "love" or "hate" most games and as such do a pretty good job of being objective, plus his analytical style is very accommodating. I'd say any MMO that gets a spot on the grinder benefits from it, even when the review isn't entirely positive, like the Maple Story episode.

I wasn't trying to shame anyone here, and if that's how it came off, I apologise. The truth of the matter is he'll get around to City of Heroes eventually, if not next time then soon thereafter. He's played the game as a subscriber in the past, I believe, and did show interest when I informed him it's gone F2P (whether we want to call it that or not). Bringing his site and the game to attention is never a bad thing. I'm just bringing across what he's said on his site in posts other than the poll.

More than anything, though, I'd encourage people who go to vote to watch any of Chaos D1's recent episodes first just so they know what they're voting for. If you like that style of review and want City of Heroes done in it, then by all means - vote for it. I encourage you

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

FYI, we´ve won the poll

@Redcap

Given that this thread has 1,100 views, I'm guessing at least 1/3 or more of those views are repeated views, bringing the number to around 700 users. About 1/3 of those users probably didn't care enough to go vote, and another 1/3 probably would have voted without seeing this thread. That means this thread could have brought an extra 300 votes or so. Discounting those votes and CoH is still in the lead.

Our look he'll show up after a big patch screwup/server failure or uses an AMD video card with one of the drivers that always cause this game to crash and that'll be his impression of the current state of affairs for this game.

It's like having your in-laws drop in for the first time the day after you started major renovations to your living and dining room (floors, drywall, etc.).