(I) Don't Believe the Hype...

There’s been much hype about the upcoming FPS PC game Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad from TWI, that cannot denied. I have never believed it, per se, but I did have high hopes for the quality of the game. The latter is no longer true. Most of the hype, repeated and linked ceaselessly, has been from the RO community and the developer themselves. Much of the rest has been from one publication (PC Gamer) and one reviewer there, known for uneven reviews.

Who can say how much of that positive “pre-review” might be the result of selective hiney powdering of said reviewer by the developer, the promise of ad revenue (a recent full page ad...), or other coddling à la the infamous COD reviewer junkets? Conspiracy theory? No, reality - the “review” business, whether it be PC games or anything else, is known for its corruption. Examples are rampant. Good reviews seem easily bought, or otherwise obtained. 

Part of the job of marketing, frankly, is the inveigling of hapless reviewers. I myself treat any review, save those by trusted friends or critics with unimpeachable credentials, with a block of salt for these reasons. 

And for the same reasons, eyebrows surely must rise with scepticism at “pre-reviews” making proclamations so grandiose as a game from a relatively unknown publisher somehow “beating” megaliths such as COD:BO. 

We should not forget the many games hyped similarly that turned out to be turds.

Opinions posted in counterpoint to this tide of hype from those not part of the religion of HOS are excoriated and often locked or deleted in the TWI forums. These selfsame forums allow other threads to limitlessly suppurate their spite until it fills every available crevice so long as they involve bashing other games and potential competitors. 

Similar behavior can be seen in the few other forums actively conversing about the game, often from apparent patrolling by TWI cultists: Witness the ridiculous level of “down-voting” of dissenting comments toward the alleged quality of the most recent game-play visuals on the gametrailers.com site. (You’d think these probable sock-puppets could at least be creative enough to use names dissimilar to their TWI forum monikers when doing their psuedo-astroturfing...and that TWI would at least be bright enough to use a sock-puppet moniker when actually astroturfing...)

To not toe the line is to be branded a “hater”, or “ignorant”, or “naive”.  

Such censorship and bullying of dissenting opinion and warranted scepticism, either from corporate edict or inaction in corporate forums, or by fanbois elsewhere should not go unnoticed, and instead should garner a dim view by the PC gamer.

TWI has made AAA claims for the game, but there has yet to be seen AAA evidence. Few backwater developers that have made grandiose claims have delivered, and I share the view that the proof is in the pudding. We’ve yet to see anything truly justifying AAA status much less claims, a status that seems preordained by the believers.

We really know little about  game, other than the paucity of information released by the developer and proclamations by the foamer faithful. 

We do know that not all of the “sneak peeks” of the game have been met with unanimous praise. 

Why might this be so? There are some prime reasons PC gamers buy a game:

1. The game has a fundamental mechanic / game-play style they particularly enjoy.
2. The game serves as a showcase for their PC horsepower: Crysis: Brutal for hardware and pretty!
3. They want to play what their friends and their community plays.

To some gamers, satisfying even one of these qualifies a game as desirable, while others require all three (and more) criteria to be met. Looking at RO:HOS in each of these areas proves enlightening.

The game has a fundamental mechanic / gameplay style they particularly enjoy.

Viewed by this criterion, HOS finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Despite efforts claimed to make the game “more accessible” to the mainstream gamer, I’ve seen little if any evidence this has been successful. Sandwiched between the more mainstream (arcade? popular style?) play of AAA titles such as the Battlefield and Call of Duty series, and the arguably superior “realism” of games like the ARMA series, HOS seems to be limiting itself to an exceedingly thin slice of the gamer pie. 

The attempted COD land grab by TWI (historically implausible weapons, unlocks, etc.) has further alienated their existing dedicated community, and to my eyes is not going to be sufficient to capture any real segment of the mainstream market without losing many from the existing core.

The fact that one will find more people in their local Safeway than are actively playing HOS’ forebearer worldwide at any given time amply demonstrates the vacuum of interest in this category of play and game family (WW II “realistic”).

The game serves as a showcase for their PC horsepower.

The visuals seen so far for HOS have been underwhelming at best. Not much really can be expected from the already aging version of the engine used. Statements from the leaky beta testers have not been encouraging in this regard, excepting those of (possibly sight impaired) foamers. 

Most serious PC gamers have serious investments in PC hardware. They want to show it off, if only to themselves. HOS seems unlikely to fulfill that desire. 

“Gameplay AND graphics from 5 years ago” as one viewer of the game commented.

That the game is being consistently shown with less than “full on” visuals (by admission of TWI staff) when it is allegedly scant weeks from release rings alarm bells. Are the visuals seen in fact really as good as it gets? Is the performance with the apparently mythical “full on” settings so dismal it can’t be shown? Who knows.

We certainly have been told to expect great visuals. Where are they? 

And why on earth with beta testing nearing its end, so close to release, would the game not be tested at its limits? Something doesn’t pass the smell test here.

Apologists saying things like “...the game is set in WWII and has a certain look because of this...”,  with foamers quickly chiming in with nonsense like “People know in their heart of hearts the game is going too [sic] have pretty good graphics...” (Really? Your heart told you so?), where no one I know of has publicly seen anything remotely resembling modern hardware quality capabilities in visuals is analogous to Britney Spears fans wailing how fine her voice really is. 

When was the last time a game that actually had truly kick-ass capabilities was not shown in that light scant weeks before release? I can’t think of any.

They want to play what their friends and their community plays.

This may ultimately be the killer for the game. All but one of the serious gamers I personally pointed toward the game has stated they no longer plan to purchase the game. Their reason: the community. I’ll not delve into details. A perusal of Facepunch will give one sufficient pause as to the view seen by many others. Suffice it to say, the CEO of TWI has claimed he gets ten messages a day from new community members stating they don't want to go there any more.

We want to play what our friends are playing, and meet new friends in the greater community. The latter in the case of RO seems utterly uninviting: a club no one wants to be a member of, save the overabundant churls already there. I myself have joined the ranks of “no thanks” because of the behavior there, seemingly encouraged rather than disciplined by TWI themselves. 

TWI’s flippant attitudes are sewage sauce on the excrement pie. To paraphrase one example: “You just don’t get it. It is a revolution in gaming. You’ll see!” Really? How about letting the gamer decide what is and isn’t revolutionary, instead of decreeing it so as if only you are the all-seeing, all-knowing of the PC gaming community? Even hardened, long faithful members of the core community feel slighted and are turning their backs on the game because of the attitude pervading the forums from the top.

So, a game that has apparently already dated visuals, with a play style that seems to attract a limited player base, played and hyped by a community with one too many TWIrps. 

It seems there must be many better places to spend my PC game monies in the near future (like the upcoming Iron Front WW 2 realism game on the ARMA OA engine, and of course BF3 and MW3, with ARMA 3 and Dead Island thrown in for good measure), and I and others I know plan to. 

The fact that the game, only a few weeks away from release, did not even muster a mention in the list of the top dozen games of the most recent OTX GamePlan insights surveys of PC game purchase intents bodes poorly and is a focused magnifying glass on the (un)reality of the hype. 

The fact that the recent Steam giveaway of the top ten games in 100 winners’ wish lists resulted in a grand total of three “wishes” for the game reinforces the detachment of reality from the hype.

The fact that many long-standing and devoted members of the community are not pre-ordering the game, and some have chosen to divorce themselves from the community speaks volumes.

The fact that one beta tester called the game “...shite [sic], with some interesting features...” is perhaps the most disquieting indictment of the chasm between the hype PC gamers have been fed and the apparent reality of the game.

I played the original mod. I bought OSTFRONT to vote with my wallet for an original job well done. I never even played the latter in earnest, I’d already moved on from an enjoyable time with the free mod. I just wanted to reward a tiny team for their effort. It’s a shame the heads grew so big, and too much of the community so foul, that I’ve no desire to continue my patronage of the brand.

I’ll be voting with my wallet, along with others. Elsewhere.

I may buy HOS when it is cheap, for which I do not anticipate a long wait.


Edit (7/20): The reactions to this entry (other than the largely concurring comments here and elsewhere) have become something bordering on bizarre. Like watching Bill Clinton in his infamous parsing of words. See the post A sorry hebetating of the truth, and be sure to follow the hyperlinks contained therein, for an amusing trip. The Attack Blog entry should amuse you also.

Edit (7/17): It seems some readers have posted links to this entry in various forums, including TWI. I've received amusing messages regarding the (not surprisingly biased) censorship going on at the TWI forums (and Steam forums by TWI moderators) over comments toward the entry. Head on over to see great examples of the artificial view TWI wants you to believe...and the reality (before they delete those posts.)