In one of my favourite cinematics, we have a mother and a daughter arguing about the dirty dishes in the face of the apocalypse. In another we have a desperate villain threatening an already dead man with…death. We have characters who sing, characters who dance, characters who blow things up, and characters who deceive. -Dag Scheve lead writer
The secret world is an MMO in production (no set release date yet; currently in closed beta) set in the modern world. In The Secret World (TSW) all the myths, legends, and wives tales you heard as a kid are true...though there may be a few twists.
Key qualities: CLASSLESS, LEVELESS, heavy narrative focus, meaningful and challenging non-combat missions, and fully-voiced cinematics,
The game is being produced by Funcom with Ragnar Tornquist (The Longest Journey and Dreamfall) as the producer.
Players chose one of three secret factions to align themselves with: Dragon:
A whisper of a rumour of a shadow, this Asian group is the most secretive of societies. With no fixed territory or structure, the Dragon have dissolved and reformed throughout history. They believe that a closed, controlled society is a sick society. Only through collapse and rebuilding, the natural chaos of life, can the world be in harmony. Recently, they have taken root in a nameless district of Seoul, Korea.. -TSW Website
The Illuminati may have ancient roots, but they remain forever young and hungry. In every growing empire they have played for it all. And they play for keeps. Stealing the Americas from under the Templars' noses, they grew with the United States to become a shadow superpower. Their corporate headquarters, the Labyrinth, is in an undisclosed location beneath Brooklyn, New York. -TSW Website
Proudly tracing their royal lineage back to Babylon, the Templars are the lions of the secret world. When they roar, everyone listens. Old Europe is theirs, and the Templars' marble hall dominates the old London borough of Ealdwic - historic capital of the secret world. It's not just a show of strength. Nothing is just for show with the Templars. -TSW Website
Little is currently known about the combat system.
What we know right now is that users will be able to wield a variety of weapons from regular magic to vodoo magic and from machetes to fists to assault rifles. And everything in-between.
In addition, TSW will use an ability system similiar to Guild Wars where players can have 7 active and 7 passive abilities on their hotbar at any one time. Abilities, when used, will generate a state on its target and abilities used subsequently can interact with that state to produce new effects. Simple example: Grease spray on a monster puts them in a flammable state and then another player can hurl fire to cause the monster to burn.
Also clothes will NOT be considered armor in the traditional MMO sense (where stat boosts come from). The only items that will affect stats will be hidden items like jewelry and tattoos. So players will be allowed to wear whatever clothing they want without having to sacrifice on performance.
Dungeon run-through[vid]:
Thanks to Slikk for reminding to put up the new dungeon run through. A note: This is more or less still pre-beta. The "beta" testing being done is with a very small team of professionals so it's not even in medium/large scale closed-beta yet. And considering we haven't seen a release date yet, there's still a long way to go.
"Story and massively multiplayer games have in the past (the myth goes) been like oil and water. "MMOs are playgrounds!", it's been argued. "There's no room for storytelling. Narrative gets in the way. The only story is the story written by players!"
This is, quite clearly, complete and utter bollocks." -Ragnar Tornquist
Story appears to be a much larger part of TSW than most other MMOs out there on the market today so here's some of what TSW is promising:
Ragnar Tornquist in an interview with Gaming Nexus:
We’re putting a lot of emphasis and focus on story -- or stories -- and this informs every aspect of the game, from missions and monster ecologies, to PvP and game mechanics. Everything is touched and affected by story, every decision made is in line with our extensive and deep backstory, and everything has meaning and context. This doesn’t mean players are bound to a single storyline that they have to follow. It means that the story -- which we always describe as a vast jigsaw puzzle -- is embedded into the world in a really unique way, that it makes the world feel real, and it gives players an incentive to keep exploring, keep digging, to play the content in order to enjoy it, and not just to gain XP and race to the finish-line.
Dag Scheve, lead writer in an interview with Massively:
The nature of an MMO (and the fact that dev resources are finite) would seem to dictate that players repeat content after a certain period of time. How is Funcom's story approach to TSW going to fit in with this design conundrum? How are the writers dealing with the challenge of multiple protagonists and the need for a story that never ends?
You're right. This can be a problem for story-telling within a persistent multiplayer world. But it's only a problem if every action has to permanently change something to make sense. That's why our story is more about piecing a puzzle together than it is about moving a certain narrative forward. It's about uncovering a world filled with myth, magic and conspiracies, not necessarily about making a permanent change to that world with every mission.
Does Funcom intend for the story of TSW to "end"? If so, do the players fall back to traditional MMO gameplay at that point?
Well, since the story is the world, then it won't end as long as there are people in it. Chapters will end and conclude, and content updates and expansions will bring new chapters, twists and stories, investigations and mysteries.
From Dag's blog on NPCs and their place in an MMO:
On your journey through the secret world you will meet characters from all continents and all walks of life. From a Scottish school teacher to an Ethiopian gangster. From a fifteen year old contract killer to a jaded hero of elder times. From a sexy Brazilian diplomat to a three thousand year old mummy in a suit. From a golden child to an ancient villain with a huge chip on his shoulder.
Where characters in other games are often just vehicles for the tasks the designers want their players to undertake, our characters are about giving you the information you need to decide for yourself. Rather than asking the player directly for help, they will talk about events in the world and offer opinions, present scenarios that players can choose to react to, do something to change, or walk away from.
In one of my favourite cinematics, we have a mother and a daughter arguing about the dirty dishes in the face of the apocalypse. In another we have a desperate villain threatening an already dead man with…death. We have characters who sing, characters who dance, characters who blow things up, and characters who deceive.
Our aim is for them to reflect all of the Secret World. All of the secret societies, all of the conspiracies, all of the mysteries and all of the legends. All of the emotions and all of the drama. We want them to laugh and love, give and take.
They will be more than mission terminals. They will be a mirror to the world they inhabit.
In addition to being able to fight the good fight, players will be able to engage in Investigation missions. These are generally non-combat missions that require the player to use their own deductive skills ( and the power of the internet) to piece together the solution. The main feature of these missions is the lack of hand-holding. Players will be expected to uncover and piece together the pieces without being told: "Go to this house and look behind the painting." Instead players may find a plaque with a series of numbers and the word King James and players have to realize that its a reference to a passage in the King James bible. From there, they would have to connect the dots and come to the conclusion that the passage refers to a painting in the local library. After traveling to the painting, they look behind it to find another clue that leads them on another part of the mission. Some of these missions can be done solo, others are expected to require the entire support of the community and the rewards will vary accordingly with individual missions rewarding single players and community missions rewarding whole factions/cabals.
Here's one example: The whole video is fantastic and worth watching (goes over basic mission structures and the skill wheel. But if you only want to see the non-combat mission then jump to 16:54. + Show Spoiler +
A quick criticism that will probably arise from anyone who's ever played an MMO will be: but what about all the lazy people who will just look up the answers and the griefers who will spoil the puzzles by spamming chat??
This has been addressed and when I find the interview I'll link it. Basically, their approach is that it's fine if people just want to look up the answers. They want people to play the game the way they want. Those who want to struggle through it and figure it out on their own, or with a little help from guides, will be able to do so. Those who just want to keep moving can do so as well.
As for griefers, it's been hinted (although I think it was in a separate interview) that they've got several filters and other steps they're taking to block the ability of players to do this. I'm sure it'll still happen though, people who really want to ruin another gamer's experience usually find a way. But at least TSW is being pre-emptive about it and trying to minimize those affected.
ARGs: I'll try to get around to work on this soon, just a ton that could be said, not sure yet how to best approach it. Basically, from the time the game was first announced in 2007 to now, players have been solving puzzles released by Funcom that uncover the lore of TSW.
Currently PvP will only happen in specific areas. PvE will be the focus in most areas and players of different factions will be able to team up to complete the missions (though players will have different motivations for doing so, depending on the faction). There are mini-areas for Pvp (the Fight Club) and whole areas (the Himalayas)
Fight Club:
In every hub city there will be a fight club. This is a free for all PvP area where people can try out different tactics on their buddies, duel or even gank. Some of you might be a bit surprised when I say that ganking is allowed, but what we usually see in games like this is that these areas are being self-policed by the players. If a player plays dirty, he will be punished by the other players. Another fantastic part about the fight club is that we will probably see a band of for instance Illuminati players coming into the Templars’ fight club and occupy it. This creates a great sense of rivalry, and we will likely see a band of Templar players forming to kick them out
-Martin Bruusgard lead content designer
Himalayas and other areas: Easiest to show a video. For now it appears to be instanced. Same GDC video as above. PvP content starts at 23:00. + Show Spoiler +
The game looks like it could be pretty fun judging from prerelease etc. But, funcom has a tendency to fuck up everything on release; so I'll probably be waiting for reviews before I pay for anything.
i remember seeing this trailer and thinking "oh thats interesting, at least its breaking from the formula a bit" and then i saw the combat screens and hit myself for being so naive.
On July 08 2011 11:56 Hakker wrote: The game looks like it could be pretty fun judging from prerelease etc. But, funcom has a tendency to fuck up everything on release; so I'll probably be waiting for reviews before I pay for anything.
Fair point. The two things I'll say that give me some hope:
1. Ragnar Tornquist is a monster. He's an amazing producer and every single interview with him and his staff have suggested that (at least from my perspective) they get it. They get what gaming can and should do. So I've got confidence in the conductor of this grand train. As long as the coal keeps coming, I think we'll be fine.
2. AoC was a massive launch disaster and I'm faaairly certain Funcom understands that ^_- so I'm hopeful that they've done extensive research into how it happened (which any gamer could probably tell you in 30 seconds) and how to prevent it.
But until we hit beta/launch, everything is up in the air.
On July 08 2011 11:59 brazenraven wrote: i remember seeing this trailer and thinking "oh thats interesting, at least its breaking from the formula a bit" and then i saw the combat screens and hit myself for being so naive.
I would argue that it is breaking from the formula "a bit." A bit being the key phrase. Combat will be fairly conventional (at least from what we've seen so far) but from the larger MMO perspective, TSW is touting some major changes. Among them a heavy emphasis on story and plot, along with challenging non-combat missions that require you to go outside the game to find answers.
>.< Alright, I'll scoot off for now (otherwise I might as well just finish it all) but after work I'll finish this article up and add anything that I've missed.
I love how developers are steering away from MMOs being WoW clones and actually making them unique and interesting. I saw the trailer couple days ago and I'd definitely be interested in playing this.
Look pretty sweet actually. I really think Funcom will deliver this time, EA is in helping with the release as well. The combatsystem look SO much more dynamic then AoC. I'm really eager to play this. Remember, this video is from the early beta. A lot of improvement is going to be made.
Thanks Slikk, added it. I tried to update the OP as best as possible but I know there's a lot more I can add.
If anyone has any advice for talking about the ARGs, please let me know. I think they're a large part of TSW so I wanted to include them but I wasn't sure how to go about it. Right now, I'm thinking of just talking about the first couple and providing a link to crygaia so people interested can explore the rest. Also, if there's anything I should change or add let me know ^^.
Went pic heavy because I thought visuals would be helpful but wasn't sure if I had too many >.< let me know if I should cut back.
I for one cannot wait for this game! They say some puzzles are going to take a very long long time to figure out! Hope the replay value is good, and its not a grind(snooze)fest.
This is incredibly sick. If theres a serious story structure with voice acting in this MMO, I might just come back to this type of game after quitting WoW.
On July 18 2011 21:57 freddievercetti wrote: This is incredibly sick. If theres a serious story structure with voice acting in this MMO, I might just come back to this type of game after quitting WoW.
Tornquist's claim to fame was his story telling in The Longest Journey (TLJ) so it's very reassuring to have him leading the production. Also, in several interviews (which I haven't included here because I've lost track of them) Tornquist talks about their focus on story and narrative. Also, every cut scene is fully voiced (Ragnar's tweeted several times about voice actors he's working with; the only one I remember off-hand is the actor who plays Tuvok in Star Trek Voyager because he's in the most recent gameplay vid). And before anyone asks: they've confirmed that you will be able to skip cut scenes.
everyone who is interested in this game should take a look in the dungeon run, it's amazing, I loved the couple that delivered the quest. can't wait, at least I already got my closed beta key.
On July 18 2011 22:10 rpgalon wrote: everyone who is interested in this game should take a look in the dungeon run, it's amazing, I loved the couple that delivered the quest. can't wait, at least I already got my closed beta key.
Absolutely concur. Got it through the AoC sub? Or just lucky?
On July 18 2011 22:10 rpgalon wrote: everyone who is interested in this game should take a look in the dungeon run, it's amazing, I loved the couple that delivered the quest. can't wait, at least I already got my closed beta key.
Absolutely concur. Got it through the AoC sub? Or just lucky?
Also: lawl -_- Just realized I forgot a PvP section. >.> And I love PvP too...my bad. I'll get right on it.
they made an offer to beta test pet vs monster on a certain day, to strees test the game, and everyone who did it got a key for closed beta
On July 18 2011 21:57 freddievercetti wrote: This is incredibly sick. If theres a serious story structure with voice acting in this MMO, I might just come back to this type of game after quitting WoW.
Tornquist's claim to fame was his story telling in The Longest Journey (TLJ) so it's very reassuring to have him leading the production. Also, in several interviews (which I haven't included here because I've lost track of them) Tornquist talks about their focus on story and narrative. Also, every cut scene is fully voiced (Ragnar's tweeted several times about voice actors he's working with; the only one I remember off-hand is the actor who plays Tuvok in Star Trek Voyager because he's in the most recent gameplay vid). And before anyone asks: they've confirmed that you will be able to skip cut scenes.
If the guy who fabricated the story in TLJ is leading this production, I may very well be a first day buyer for this game when it comes out. (I usually wait until I see reviews from users+critics before buying)
I don't have many games that I play nowadays, so I'm really looking forward to this. I'll wait for a few reviews, but I'm probably not gonna wait for too long after the release.
Really looking forward to this one. Lets just hope they've learned from their mistakes from Age of Conan. I'll probably end up preordering it anyways when we get close to release, if only to support our country's only video game company.
This game looks awesome but it's made by funcom so is probably going to be terrible. Which sucks because the idea is actually awesomely cool and promising.
On July 19 2011 03:52 cYaN wrote: Hahaha, I worked @ funcom for years, i still know a lot of the people working there. This game is gonna suck balls. Save your money.
I kinda don't want to just take your word for it when you're just laying it out like "These guys sucks. This game sucks. I know them, so I'm right". At least provide information as to why it will suck.
On July 19 2011 03:52 cYaN wrote: Hahaha, I worked @ funcom for years, i still know a lot of the people working there. This game is gonna suck balls. Save your money.
I kinda don't want to just take your word for it when you're just laying it out like "These guys sucks. This game sucks. I know them, so I'm right". At least provide information as to why it will suck.
Along with Excludo, I'd like to know why you're so convinced this game'll fail. I'm not saying it's going to be a major hit and I can't deny AoC was a giant flop but I'm not sure that suddenly requires TSW to flop. Unless you've worked with the producer/lead designer/lead writer on several other projects. In which, I would genuinely like to hear your experience.
Regardless, I'd like to know what experiences in Funcom tell you that TSW will "suck."
The lore in this game look fantastic. I'm not an MMO type, but this nonetheless looks very interesting. Might give it a try....who am I kidding, I probably won't try it. I might read about it though, heh.
I dunno. Age of Conan looked awesome and it was... Until you got to like level 30 and realized that NONE of the endgame was finished until a year later and siege combat STILL ISN'T IMPLEMENTED SUCCESSFULLY.
Ok, someone actually pm'ed me asking for more details, lol. It's being approached as a single player game rather than an mmo in many ways because that's what the guys in charge on this one knows mostly. AoC mistakes are being repeated to a silly extent. Basically you're gonna get another AoC. Off point to some extent and not finished since the internal- routines and tools and the engine are utter shit. It might look great, the story might even be awesome (that they do know this time around), but that's about it. Oh, and the music should be good too. Gameplay is gonna be crap. It will be buggy. It will not be complete on release.
I say again, save your money. Anyways, I know you won't actually do that but at least I tried^^
On July 19 2011 19:20 cYaN wrote: Ok, someone actually pm'ed me asking for more details, lol. It's being approached as a single player game rather than an mmo in many ways because that's what the guys in charge on this one knows mostly. AoC mistakes are being repeated to a silly extent. Basically you're gonna get another AoC. Off point to some extent and not finished since the internal- routines and tools and the engine are utter shit. It might look great, the story might even be awesome (that they do know this time around), but that's about it. Oh, and the music should be good too. Gameplay is gonna be crap. It will be buggy. It will not be complete on release.
I say again, save your money. Anyways, I know you won't actually do that but at least I tried^^
God I hope you're wrong =| its still a long way from actual release, so anything can happen between now and then.
The world they're making seems quite interesting. On the surface, their core gameplay seems to be standard fare tank + healer + some dps + don't stand in fire/bad stuff. It's worked for many games so far, so should be interesting what tweaks they have of their own. At least the characters seemed to be able to move while casting spells (least the ones shown). Turret casting is kinda lame.
I do really like how they seem to be doing skills, being able to learn them all. No need to make a tank character, a healer, four different dps characters, etc. Take WoW... even if you like tanking for example, there's 4 different classes - and thus characters - to play/gear up/log between. I think having to use multiple characters does remove some immersion from mmos, so good move if they're trying to emphasize story a bit more. Less times an mmo makes you return to the login screen (different faction characters aside), regardless of your playstyle, the better.
Speaking of which, having 3 playable factions (well, any number above 2) has a lot more potential for interesting events than just a 1v1 slugfest. Not the first game to do it (BW compared to some of the more traditional rts games comes to mind, haha), but still an admirable decision.
Time will tell how the game turns out, but worth keeping an eye on.
I'm somewhat looking forward to this game. It has some great potential, but also a lot of pitfalls. Ragnar is a brilliant storyteller and I have no doubt that he will create a gorgeous universe filled with all kinds of wonderful mysteries and interesting characters. The non-combat missions sounds absolutely fantastic with puzzles and the idea of gathering clues outside the walls of the game itself is quite intriguing. This was however never any concern of mine. Funcom have always been good at visions. They know what to aim for. What the correct goal should be, and they're also quite good at selling these visions. What I'm mostly concerned about is that they should mess up the game-aspect of the game. They have hardly released any details surrounding the game mechanics. We don't know how combat is going to work, don't know the skill system or character progression. Pretty much the only thing they've told is "no levels, no classes" (and a sweet tasty visionary argument that they don't want to put a hat on you and tell you if your character is the tank/medic/damage-guy, but rather let you be the character you want to be). Now I don't want to be saying that whatever system they come up with is going to be bad. I just haven't seen any evidence yet to say otherwise.
That said I'm most definitly signing up for the beta. This game has some huge potential and I'm pretty sure that we can tell quite quickly if they'll live up to it once we see the actual game system in play.
Will you be playing the beta and if so, what will be your first character faction? Illuminati, Templar or Dragon?
This game just grabbed me on immediately! The setting, the lore, and characters are super interesting. The concept is also fresh and new, and I am really looking forward to the beta! Dragons all the way :D
I was just over at Funcom interviewing some developers for a documentary and i managed to beg myself a small demonstration of the game. Im not sure how much i am able to say but the game looks to be tons of fun, especially the combat looks very engaging and promising, not stationary and boring. The UI was also very smooth and intuitive while also adressing tons of little problems and irritations i've had while playing for example wow.
The main thing here for me is the game looked like alot of fun to play, i saw it and wanted to try it, to play it. I dont get that feeling with alot of games i see, like for example CoD has 0 pull on me.
All in all looks to be a pretty fresh take on the MMO and RPG genre in several ways and i hope it does really well.
I guess i can answer questions from people about things they've already shown.
Ragnar Tørnquist knows what he's doing. He has won several awards in the past for games he's made, like The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. Age of Conans Gaute Godager has nothing to do with The Secret World, and Funcom have learned from what happened back in 2008, so I do not think a similar scenario will occur.
I've followed this game closely for some time now, and I gotta say that it looks very promising and pretty polished. Still 2-3 months to release but theres gonna be a public display of it at PAX the 6th of april, and I don't think they would show it unless it was finished. (which it is, from what I've seen on the beta tests)
Anyway, I invested A LOT of money in Funcom about a year ago, and its grown almost 150% since then...but I think its gonna go at least twice as that..if its a success, it'll be insane. Anyway, if you have money, and want to make more, you can invest in it at the norwegian stock marked at "Oslo Børs".
On March 23 2012 23:51 Epicfailguy wrote: Ragnar Tørnquist knows what he's doing. He has won several awards in the past for games he's made, like The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. Age of Conans Gaute Godager has nothing to do with The Secret World, and Funcom have learned from what happened back in 2008, so I do not think a similar scenario will occur.
I've followed this game closely for some time now, and I gotta say that it looks very promising and pretty polished. Still 2-3 months to release but theres gonna be a public display of it at PAX the 6th of april, and I don't think they would show it unless it was finished. (which it is, from what I've seen on the beta tests)
Anyway, I invested A LOT of money in Funcom about a year ago, and its grown almost 150% since then...but I think its gonna go at least twice as that..if its a success, it'll be insane. Anyway, if you have money, and want to make more, you can invest in it at the norwegian stock marked at "Oslo Børs".
The lore looks amazing but the graphics look kinda outdated. I don't judge a game by its graphics but it will have a huge impact on the success overall since for majority good graphics = good game
The premise of this game looks amazing and all the videos are really interesting. Signed up for beta, hoping it's as good as it looks but I'm skeptical.
my post is too old to updatee T.T or I'd add the video and the pre-order access. Got me a lifetime already :D You can even pre-DL the game so now I've got TSW sitting on my computer for the next month, mocking me. Daring me to try to play it >.>
Dont get your hopes up, i know 3 guys who are in the beta and they all say this is Age of Conan all over again. Game is nowhere near finished and june release will be absolutly disaterous. Too bad, I really like funcom and their ideas (Ao fan here) but they always release unfinished buggy products which eventually turn their games into ghost town
On April 07 2012 01:25 Makavw wrote: Dont get your hopes up, i know 3 guys who are in the beta and they all say this is Age of Conan all over again. Game is nowhere near finished and june release will be absolutly disaterous. Too bad, I really like funcom and their ideas (Ao fan here) but they always release unfinished buggy products which eventually turn their games into ghost town
Strange, because every beta tester I've spoken to so far says its amazing and that Funcom have learned from their past. I haven't tested it myself though so I really don't know.
Strange, because every beta tester I've spoken to so far says its amazing and that Funcom have learned from their past. I haven't tested it myself though so I really don't know.
They also say the game is fun to play, however its full of bugs and nowhere near ready. The game still doesnt have a functional friend list 2 months from release.... They also prepared themself for fail : Lifetime subs from the get go, cashshop implemented. I honestly think not even funcom think their game will succede - they will try to grab some $$ by initial purchases and soon after the game will probbably turn into f2p.
Apart from that you can only use 7 active skills in this game ... seriously? I use more in mass effect which is singleplayer game and guild wars 1 which was free and released ages ago At the moment the game is nowhere near warranting full retail box price + subscription - It just doesnt offer that quality.
I think this game is going to be just like Age of Conan - fun, beautiful and an interesting world - plagued by terrible game-breaking netcode that eventually steers people away from the 'MMO' aspect of it.
I dunno, I'm playing the beta now and I'm having a blast.
Such a nice new way of questing, no boring grind feeling yet, it's actually hard to stop. The town is really spooky at night, very well done.
It's mature, so has gore and feasting zombies etc, which is great. Quests are quite tough sometimes, you really need to read and search for clues.
Only thing I really dislike, besides the occasional lag spike, are the character faces. For such a beautiful world most face options look really shitty. But they are aware of that and will add more customisation.
I've been in love with this beta weekend. No levels is awesome. The quests are great, with excellent writing and good characters. Actual puzzles! The combat is so-so but I can live with that considering everything else is fantastic. I just hope it's not like Tortage in AoC where the rest of the game sucked in comparison.
This game is going to flop really hard when it releases. My compaints is not about issues with the beta but the game design itself. The look of the game is just plain awful with really weird facial expressions and even worse animations. And as everyone is saying, the combat is bad and when thats what you will be doing 99% of the time then you got a problem. The interface is messy, non-logical and just awfully designed. Everything is layed out with greyed background. Even the help text is not an help text, it seems like its an image with the text on it as the text is all blurred a bit.
The concept of the game didnt interesst me a bit either, a fly flew into my mouth, suddenly i started shooting plasma effects out of my body, then i go to outerspace where plants are growing into the floors then i visit a very small london inspired enviroment where NPC's are standing looking dead and only players actually doing something.
I have to say, this may be the worst MMO ive ever played in my life ..... i cant believe you guys liked it ? Did you guys even try Guild Wars 2 beta last time ? Its lightyears ahead in anything. Its a totally different concept but holy smokes ! Thats even free to play also and this is 15 bucks a month. Im mindfreaked
Interest in this game seems really low, alot of people dont know about it and it doesnt seem to be marketed that well. Also i think this is a really bad time to be releasing an MMO, with alot of peoples dissapointment fromm swtor still so fresh, and alot of peoples initial impressions of guild wars 2 i think alot of people are just going to steer clear of this one and play Diablo 3 until GW2 comes out or maybe play Tera, that game exceeded my expectations and also seems hugely popular compared to how i thought it would be.
Even if you just guage the interest by looking at how many people have posted about this game, it seems really low. I havent seen an upcoming mmo from a big publisher with so few posts ever i dont think most are in the hundreds before the game is even released.
I think this game is going to flop huge, and not even how most mmo's do, i dont think this game will see a huge rush in the first months with close to a million players and then it dies out as the months progress, i think this game will be a ghosttown from the getgo. If they dont make too many servers it probably wont feel like it but i cant imagine 100,000's of people rushing to go out and get this.
I think the one thing that could save this game is , if it is actually really good and it gets a ton of good reviews we could see a slow migration towards trying it out in the months after release, but as it stands regardless of how good or bad the game is , not enough people know about it or are showing interest in it. Also as ive heard a few people complain about, there is no representation of time spent or accomplishments in this game, your clothes mean nothing they dont provide yoou with stats or anything they are purely asthetic. Regardless of whether you prefer that or not, I think games that do a good job having that "e-peen" value will be more popular and keep people interested for longer (at least with mmo's in their current state) i dont know if I neccesarily feel that I prefer it that way ( although i do enjoy a robust end game loot table in an mmo with many different ways and options for gear to help you progress)
Ill stick with playing diablo 3 (and maybe continue subb'ing to tera for a few months) until guild wars 2 comes out.
Its not going to get good reviews, the game is just badly made its nothing else to say. People saying they like this ..... i mean what are you guys liking about the game ? The game is beeing streamed right now at Twitch.tv by several people, yet viewers hardly go over 100. Look at Guild Wars 2, when people streamed that people were amazed. People sat for the entire weekend watching the streams, it ended up in many thousands viewers.
It started at 1000 for Secret World on friday but slowly less and less viewers. I read the chat and people said the exact same as me, the game looks and plays awfully. Honestly this game is looking to be the biggest MMO flop of all time.
What do I like about this? I can only base my comments on the beta weekend in kingsmouth, but this is what I liked about that enough to pre-order:
1) The writing and characters are fantastic. The writing blows SWTOR out of the water. I actually listen to NPC's speak and click on the optional dialogue. In SWTOR I was rushing to get the past the bland, generic tripe they were blabbering on about.
2) The quest design is actually interesting for a change and requires you to think. There are actual puzzles (some of which are genuinely hard!). There are some of the MMO standards which is unfortunate, but for the most part the quests are a step up from previous WoW-clones. Definitely better than Rift and SWTOR which is what I've played recently.
3) I love the skill system and the flat level curve. I hate grinding out levels in MMORPGs and moving from quest hub to quest hub in a level based system, it took this game to really hammer that home for me. Levels suck. Plus I love creating builds which is what the skill system in this game is all about.
4) I love the setting. I'm sick of fantasy MMOs. Real World mixed with the 'fantastic' world works really well and gives the game really different feels depending whether you are in normal ol London or crazy-ass Kingsmouth or some subway station that is on the verge of going into another world.
5) I think the game presents an awesome atmosphere. My jaw literally dropped at the end of the subway when it cuts the shot of stars and planets. Crazy. Kingsmouth is perfect, atmospheric in a way that only single player games have done to this point.
I agree that the combat animations and feel is lackluster, and the characters themselves look kind of crappy. I just don't find these to be that big of a deal. Others might. If you want good writing, character, plot, atmosphere, and a different skill system, try out TSW. If you need combat to be cutting edge or can't stand characters that look like they are out of 3 years ago, don't get it.
Yep it's true. If you want combat/pvp etc, tera and guild wars are better.
But compare the questing to tera:
questhub A kill x mobs kill x other mobs escort harvest some stuff kill boss move to next questhub repeat
While in this game, every quest feels like a little adventure or a puzzle.
Story and atmosphere wise this game is just great. I love it that the quests are hard and not dumbed down for the masses. That's maybe why not everybody likes it. But I don't care. I don't like next topmodel tv shows either, while many people do. Doesn't mean it's any good. Number of people liking something never says anything about quality. I could very well become a niche game that's not for everyone but still very sustainable.
It's also 6 weeks from realease, when 90% of the people are already bored of diablo3. Majority of gamers these days don't stay much longer in 1 game.
Story, adventure, atmosphere etc. are all amazing thanks to ragnar tornquist making it feel like dreamfall/the longest journey.
Controls, animations, UI, combat and skill system are all horribly designed and implemented.
This game needs an extra 6months - 1year development time at least, but EA are rushing it out the door and will kill it with poor inital perception and player sentiment - so frustrating!
Really sad, I wanted this game to do well but even as much as i like the former aspects over the latter I have to be realistic... people wont buy this or play it for very long at all..
On May 14 2012 08:21 deth wrote: Story, adventure, atmosphere etc. are all amazing thanks to ragnar tornquist making it feel like dreamfall/the longest journey.
Controls, animations, UI, combat and skill system are all horribly designed and implemented.
This game needs an extra 6months - 1year development time at least, but EA are rushing it out the door and will kill it with poor inital perception and player sentiment - so frustrating!
Really sad, I wanted this game to do well but even as much as i like the former aspects over the latter I have to be realistic... people wont buy this or play it for very long at all..
Gonna flop harder than AoC imo ;_;
THIS
makes me so sad
wasting this much potential for the short term money
I dont understand why they would build in so many solo instances, which are like 3 minutes short and every time you have to reload the map costing you another minute. This is the most frustrating thing about the game if youre playing with friends. The graphics look okayish, a bit outdated but good enough for an mmo, but they really overdid it with the audio. 16gb game which i wouldnt bother to install on a ssd because there are just so many audiofiles for every single non relevant daily quest npc... Dont like the travel system either :|
Ah come on, the music in this game is stellar and its a big part of the setting/mood..if you're gonna rant on something, please let it be something else than the size of the installation.
I have to agree here with most guys. The setting is great but what will kill this game is the bad graphic and the combatsystem. To me it feels like FunCom blew all their money on AoC and now they had to do Secret World with cheap grahics and hotkey based combat most people are tired of after several years of WoW
I'm in playing and having a blast. I find that combat system to be improved since I last played a month ago. It's a real shame that this game is so under the radar. It's got a spirit to it that most modern games lack.
This is starting to piss me off. I keep getting "out of memory" error and crashing.
I am running 64 bit windows with 16GB of ram. How the fuck am I running out of memory? I also have a 7800 video card...so I know it isn't that either. Anyone have a fix for this?
Game deserves more hype as a great single player RPG. I don't even care about the MMO aspect yet. It's a fantastic successor to Vampire: Bloodlines. Fantastic writing.
This is a good in-game preview. A bit spoilery, but conveys much of what this game is about, spiritually, creatively.
This shouldn't have been an MMO. That aspect of the game is just going to drag it down into obscurity which is a shame given how much fantastic content it has.
The pricing is normal. We always pay more $ = € is normal in the gaming industry (steam, mmos, other digital distribution platforms, ....)
About the server location, well sure it sucks (but it's their server setup so meh). On the other hand we have SWTOR with servers in Ireland which was also shit So dont really see that much of a difference. I also played LotRO with servers located in the US. It was playable, and TSW was also okay on the BWE (though PvP feeled sluggish). Sure nothing compares to <10ms in WoW due to living about ~50km away from their server farms^^
Overall I'm interested in the game, but will probably wait 3-6 months before I buy it. It's summer and therefore I dont have a dire need for a video game and it gives them time to polish some things even more. And if the majority suddenly decides the game is shit like AoC launch I can avoid that as well Also everyone will play GW2 then so the majority of whiners probably has left the game then.
Not sure if anyone else is playing this, but it's pretty amazing. Great atmosphere and so many great stories hiding around the next corner. Fun, fun experience!
Seriously, this game rules. The quest design, writing, stories are the best that have ever been introduced in the MMO genre. Player response at release has been almost uniformly positive. The game runs much smoother than in beta, and combat feels more fluid. It's good. Check it out.
I'm currently in the third zone of 9 i think. And i have to say this is by far the best MMO experience I've had "leveling" up. The quest and atmosphere is amazing.
Weird that you're loving this so much. From what I've heard, it has a great atmosphere and premise but the gameplay is pretty boring. Did they change something major since the beta?
Additional to what heishe asked, what I'm interested in is:
- How "long" is it? As in before you run out of pre-endgame, awesome mystery solving content? Additionally, what is the actual ratio of investigation/adventure(ish) gameplay versus combat (if you were actively trying to avoid as many combat missions as possible)?
- How stable is it in terms of bugs but also queues, etc?
On July 04 2012 02:48 heishe wrote: Weird that you're loving this so much. From what I've heard, it has a great atmosphere and premise but the gameplay is pretty boring. Did they change something major since the beta?
I didn't play much beta, but I've heard that the combat was significantly improved since then. Also, one thing that is for sure is that combat starts off pretty boring, unfortunately. It get's far better once you start unlocking deeper abilities and can actually make interesting builds. Definitely one of the weakest points of the game is the combat at the beginning. They should really start you off with more abilities than they do.
On July 04 2012 03:01 Talin wrote: Additional to what heishe asked, what I'm interested in is:
- How "long" is it? As in before you run out of pre-endgame, awesome mystery solving content? Additionally, what is the actual ratio of investigation/adventure(ish) gameplay versus combat (if you were actively trying to avoid as many combat missions as possible)?
- How stable is it in terms of bugs but also queues, etc?
If you play it with a single-player RPG focus and take your time with it, there has to be alot there. I can't say how long til you run out of content since I'm not anywhere close yet. All I can say is that I'm 30 hours in and I'm still in the second 'zone' out of I believe 8, not precisely sure.
That said, I take my time and listen to every bit of dialogue and lore (which is all fantastically written and quite interesting). If you rush through it I'm sure you could go much faster. If you don't listen to any of the backstory, dialogue, or character monologues the game would be cheapened significantly. Seriously, don't play it if that's your style, it's a waste.
I have no idea how the end-game will go but I don't really care. I've already gotten my box price worth out of the game. More fun than most single-player RPGs, on the RPG side.
I would say that mystery solving is about 1/3 of the content, combat is about 2/3. But most quests involve both to some extent, so you really can't ignore combat entirely unfortunately. There are investigations that usually don't have much combat, but they often still have at least a little. But the combat isn't bad once you get into it. Seriously. And the combat missions always have some good writing behind them, and usually have some cool twists that make the more interesting than just 'kill 10 boars' or whatever.
No queues whatsoever. It is somewhat buggy, but I've seen far worse. From Funcom, actually, heh. There are a few bugged quests that are really frustrating, and I've crashed twice in 30 hours of gameplay (which isn't really too bad).
I signed up for it last night, finished downloading client this morning. Can't wait to try it out after work. I played anarchy online years ago when I was still in college and found it to be an extremely solid game, better then most mmos out nowadays. I skipped conan cause the setting was so boring, but the secret world looks really interesting. This game should at the very least keep me occupied for several months based on the story alone, and man is funcom good at story/atmosphere, anyone play the longest journey? Same author behind the longest journey is penning the story for the secret world.
Launch day worries? Funcom has been doing mmos longer then blizzard, and it's technically already been up for a week.
The Longest Journey and Dreamfall are absolutely wonderful, so I've had one foot in ever since I heard the announcement (not to mention that they seem to be going for a Lovecraftian vibe, which near made me climax). Not an avid MMOer, but the way they built the world and put focus on lore and story and shit makes me extremely excited. Will for sure pick it up after I'm done with my summer job, as some of my mates are going to play it as well.
From what I experienced in the beta I really liked it. Not in a situation where I can get it but I would if I were. The sidequests are well done in ways that its hard to describe. they have real feeling and a good story behind them while at the same time being decent combat as well. Even the combat as shitty as it was had a ton of promise and I'm sure they made it into something really good for launch
On July 04 2012 02:48 heishe wrote: Weird that you're loving this so much. From what I've heard, it has a great atmosphere and premise but the gameplay is pretty boring. Did they change something major since the beta?
I more wonder where you've heard that, I just see people saying good things about it everywhere, even in-game and that's pretty rare in new MMO's now.
On July 04 2012 03:01 Talin wrote: Additional to what heishe asked, what I'm interested in is:
- How "long" is it? As in before you run out of pre-endgame, awesome mystery solving content? Additionally, what is the actual ratio of investigation/adventure(ish) gameplay versus combat (if you were actively trying to avoid as many combat missions as possible)?
- How stable is it in terms of bugs but also queues, etc?
Can't really say anything about how long it is, but pretty damn long if you're going for every single quest all by yourself with no spoilers or hints. (If you are going to google every quest though the game will probably be pretty bad.)
I'd say it's about 50/50 on combat quests/investigation-like quests. So far by finishing the first two zones I'v had two bugged quests and one of them already got fixed and haven't had any lagg or queues.
From what I understand the endgame is your standard instanced dungeons/raid endgame though so that sort of sucks for me, but even so I feel it's worth it just to play through the story.
I was about to buy this game but then my friend brought up all the starter packs for various prices and it got us thinking what else you can buy for real money. So for the people who bought this game what is the extent of power or items that real life money can give you? Like is their a micro transaction around every corner and for every weapon? or is it just the start packs?
On July 04 2012 14:01 Fspoonork wrote: I was about to buy this game but then my friend brought up all the starter packs for various prices and it got us thinking what else you can buy for real money. So for the people who bought this game what is the extent of power or items that real life money can give you? Like is their a micro transaction around every corner and for every weapon? or is it just the start packs?
You can only buy those starter packs, which gives you like 10% more xp in the starting area. And you can also buy cosmetics. You can't buy anything that will give you an advantage later on in the game for RL money.
Hey, I'm thinking of trying this game out. Wish the pvp looked more promising, but the story looks worth the 50$. Is there a server/faction I should join?
On July 05 2012 08:36 mcgriddle wrote: Hey, I'm thinking of trying this game out. Wish the pvp looked more promising, but the story looks worth the 50$. Is there a server/faction I should join?
The story is worth a 100$ and the PvP might grow on you ^^
I play on Huldra, but for PvP I get the sense that Cerberus is the place to be. It is definitely the highest population dimension (server), at the moment there are times when it is not possible to create a character. In any case, the game is single server and so you can still group with people from other dimensions to play together in the world and in dungeons. The only thing that is dimension-locked is Fuglsang. In other words, don't worry too much about it
Sorry if I'm just bad at websites but I can't seem to find the pricing model for this game. I'm pretty sure it's subscription based, if so how much is it per month?
On July 05 2012 11:09 Nos- wrote: Sorry if I'm just bad at websites but I can't seem to find the pricing model for this game. I'm pretty sure it's subscription based, if so how much is it per month?
Still loving this game. It reminds me on an abstract level of why I loved Vampire: Bloodlines. Just the way the world is presented. You're very powerful but yet still a pawn, a fledgling, trying to uncover more. It nails that vibe.
Toss my 2c in and also say that I am enjoying this game as well. The story is great so far and I appreciate the removal of the leveling/class system while still allowing you to "build" a character, i.e. plan out your skills.
One thing I haven't found or looked into yet...is there a way to reset ability/skill points? I'm pretty happy with my build so far, but it would really nail home the accountability if it turned out I had no way to reset them.
On July 06 2012 01:08 ZasZ. wrote: Toss my 2c in and also say that I am enjoying this game as well. The story is great so far and I appreciate the removal of the leveling/class system while still allowing you to "build" a character, i.e. plan out your skills.
One thing I haven't found or looked into yet...is there a way to reset ability/skill points? I'm pretty happy with my build so far, but it would really nail home the accountability if it turned out I had no way to reset them.
On a side note though, is that there's no limitation on how many skills you can aquire. You can keep earning EXP till you max out everything I think. This may well take a truly prohibitve amount of time, but it's an option.
On July 06 2012 01:24 Obsidian wrote: On a side note though, is that there's no limitation on how many skills you can aquire. You can keep earning EXP till you max out everything I think. This may well take a truly prohibitve amount of time, but it's an option.
I thought that there was a limitation, but it may just be the way the window is laid out. Regardless, I think getting enough points to max out everything would indeed be time prohibitive.
Now that I know there is no way to reset abilities/skills, I'll have to think a little bit harder about my choices, which I like. Having a lot of fun with my Chaos/Fist tanky templar.
I'm actually surprised by how low key this launch was... I mean I guess they learned the lesson from AoC and didn't want a massive flop again, but how would they be able to get a decent sub base when no one even knows about the game?
Either way though, this is more of a single player game that you can play with others than an MMO.
Also... I'm really enjoying the story/investigation missions. Even though the combat is just average, the rest of the game makes up for it in spades for me at least.
I'm beginning to think this is the MMO for me. It's niche, but it hits all the right chords for me. One thing I value extremely highly is good writing and voice acting, and this game so far aces in those respects. I've only put a few hours in so I'll report back, but I'm cautiosuly optimistic!
I agree snot. The quality of the story/voiceacting is that of a single player game. So much fun so far. Everyone I've talked to loves the game. The only concern I hear is the lack of "end-game" content. Looks like the success of this game will come down to how it gets updated. Needs some kind of repeatable content late game. Not sure how they will accomplish that. Regardless, well worth the 50$ for a month of play.
I'm enjoying it, the NPC characters are so out there they are hilarious. Even one of the first, Deputy Andy, was ROFL quality, with his quiet, unassuming attitude in the midst of a verifable zombie apocalypse.
:Totally Deadpan delivery: Quiet town, only real crime is the odd disturbing the piece, or drunk and disorderly.... human sacrifice, a quiet town.
XD For anyone playing, feel free to add me: Arnfasta "Arn" Juell :D
McGriddle, almost every quest in the game can be repeated (on a 24hr cooldown). For endgame, I think it's just the usual dungeons/heroic mode for launch.
On July 06 2012 12:28 Arnfasta wrote: XD For anyone playing, feel free to add me: Arnfasta "Arn" Juell :D
McGriddle, almost every quest in the game can be repeated (on a 24hr cooldown). For endgame, I think it's just the usual dungeons/heroic mode for launch.
In transylvania its normal for quests to be on a 70 hour CD :O
And for the nightmare dungeons they are on a 16 hours cd, all others you can do as much as you want
Played the beta and headstart, but I've decided it's just not for me. I got my retail key today though (full game + 30 days playtime). Kinda feels wasteful entering it as I have no intention of playing. If anyone is interested I'd let it got cheap $30 or £20.
If not, nevermind and I'll chuck it on the pile of other mistakes! (Aion, Warhammer, Rift, SWTOR, DCUO, AoC etc. etc)
So far digging the game. The combat so far isn't anything special, but i'm playing the equivalent of a level 2 character so I don't expect much complexity at this point lol.
Some of the quests are lame (run here, kill x of this) but they're the exception, lots of them remind me of old adventure games that require a bit of sleuthing to solve. It appeals to me because it works especially well with the atmosphere but I can see this kind of game play being a huge turn off for some. None of the puzzles are obtuse and I've never been stumped for more then 15 minutes, they aren't the ridiculously contrived sort of puzzle that you encounter in games like **shudder** myst.
The main storyline in the start zone (kingsmouth?) is really cool though, story and voice acting are better then anything I've seen in any other mmo and are more on par with other media in movies/tv shows.
Honestly I like it. Best MMORPG I have played since the early days of WoW. I like running and shooting at stuff so the combat is fine for me, but honestly i rarely have to fight a monster and im mostly choosing quests where I do things i like. Thats whats the biggest plus for me in this game. It doesnt feel like a big grind. Im just exploring the world and getting stronger while doing it. Dragon is the coolest faction. Sadly I need to learn for my exams now. But ill definitely play the shit out of this once I got more time on my hand.
Also, I think the immersion is spectacular for an MMO. Including the in-game browser and sending you to real websites in-game for some of the information you need is cool. Minor quest spoiler:
Really loving it so far. I'm 8 and a half hours in as pistols/blood, and I'm planning on dropping blood and picking up blades instead. We'll see how flexible this classless system really is... =D
:D Yeah, it's certainly not for everyone but I'm happy to see a lot of people are enjoying it as much as I am \^~^/
The dungeons are something I think are really incredible. In many ways, they're very standard MMO dungeons but the subtle differences really set it apart from other games. There are no "trash" mobs so you're not going to be grinding from boss to boss. Each mob has some ability/property/mechanic that you have to understand to beat it. That by itself is fun but the fact that those mechanics are then applied to the next boss are what really seal the deal. You never feel like you're wasting time, just mopping up trash to get to the next boss. Every time you're fighting in a dungeon, you're prepping yourself for a boss fight.
Also, small thing but the ability to move while using any (and all) of your abilities makes for much more dynamic combat. This is particularly true in dungeons. There're a couple boss fights where you almost never stop moving.
Game certainly isn't perfect but it's got a real charm to it. The dialogue options for each npc are also a nice touch. They're not needed for progression but if you take the time to ask and listen, it adds wonderful depth to the world and really brings it alive.
Can't believe this thread isn't getting more attention. IMO this is up there with GW2 for the best MMO in a long while, and may even be better than GW2 depending on what the finished product of that ends up being. People should check it out!
Checked this game out today, was a bit sceptical, was pleasantly surprised. Got some trouble with the crafting system though(do I need to dismantle a gun before I can actually craft 1?).
On July 09 2012 05:13 TOCHMY wrote: Checked this game out today, was a bit sceptical, was pleasantly surprised. Got some trouble with the crafting system though(do I need to dismantle a gun before I can actually craft 1?).
I haven't given much thought to the crafting system yet but no you don't have to dismantle a gun to make one. You just need to arrange metal components in the shape that forms a gun. I'm pretty sure you can get metal from dismantling any weapon.
i often have lagspikes for a few seconds with a good pc, any idea what setting i can turn down so it stop ? xD just anything thats pretty "popular" to end in spikes ?
On July 09 2012 05:13 TOCHMY wrote: Checked this game out today, was a bit sceptical, was pleasantly surprised. Got some trouble with the crafting system though(do I need to dismantle a gun before I can actually craft 1?).
I haven't given much thought to the crafting system yet but no you don't have to dismantle a gun to make one. You just need to arrange metal components in the shape that forms a gun. I'm pretty sure you can get metal from dismantling any weapon.
Hmm I think I'm doing it right but without results, maybe got the wrong tool box
On July 09 2012 05:13 TOCHMY wrote: Checked this game out today, was a bit sceptical, was pleasantly surprised. Got some trouble with the crafting system though(do I need to dismantle a gun before I can actually craft 1?).
I haven't given much thought to the crafting system yet but no you don't have to dismantle a gun to make one. You just need to arrange metal components in the shape that forms a gun. I'm pretty sure you can get metal from dismantling any weapon.
Hmm I think I'm doing it right but without results, maybe got the wrong tool box
Your toolbox ql level need to match the qualety of you materials.
This thread has convinced me to give it a try. Looked interesting but saw alot of complaints in beta. The pros I'm seeing (VA, story, immersion) outweigh the cons (combat, graphics) for me.
On July 10 2012 16:35 oxxo wrote: This thread has convinced me to give it a try. Looked interesting but saw alot of complaints in beta. The pros I'm seeing (VA, story, immersion) outweigh the cons (combat, graphics) for me.
Is there a TL dimension thing?
Dude, even the graphics are fine and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the combat.
On July 10 2012 16:35 oxxo wrote: This thread has convinced me to give it a try. Looked interesting but saw alot of complaints in beta. The pros I'm seeing (VA, story, immersion) outweigh the cons (combat, graphics) for me.
Is there a TL dimension thing?
The combat in the first beta weekend was pretty bad, indeed. I don't know how exactly but the combat was way! better in the second beta weekend. Though the combat is not as fun as in TERA imo.
Hmmm, after reading this thread, I think Im gonna give this game a try. I like the balls of this game, if that makes any sense, I mean, trying something new and exciting.
I just hope, that the combat wont be as boring as the one youtube I saw, a ranger just mindlessly standing still and hitting a button.
On July 10 2012 21:51 crappen wrote: Hmmm, after reading this thread, I think Im gonna give this game a try. I like the balls of this game, if that makes any sense, I mean, trying something new and exciting.
I just hope, that the combat wont be as boring as the one youtube I saw, a ranger just mindlessly standing still and hitting a button.
That's pretty much how the combat is though. You have 7 active skills and 7 passive. It get's pretty repetative. The fun thing though, is to come up with an awesome build that works for your playstyle, just like in GW1.
There's more skills to unlock than there is bars to use them with.
Questions for those playing: Have you (or someone you know) experienced the chat issue? Did you teleport to another random dimension without the option to go back to your "home" dimension? How often did you encounter bugged quests? (the requirement to teleport to another dimension to do the quest counts as bugged).
And I doubt it - but if someone from Kobold is playing (German server): what's the faction ratio in Pvp?
A question for those that have already tried it out: is the game legitimately story- and questing-focused or just the same like what happened to SW:TOR, where they hyped it up to no end about being great even for us players loving SP-RPGs, but in the end it ended up being just like any other MMORPG with no sense of a meaningful story, 90% boring radiant quests and repetitive group-only PvP?
On July 10 2012 22:34 Zocat wrote: Questions for those playing: Have you (or someone you know) experienced the chat issue? Did you teleport to another random dimension without the option to go back to your "home" dimension? How often did you encounter bugged quests? (the requirement to teleport to another dimension to do the quest counts as bugged).
And I doubt it - but if someone from Kobold is playing (German server): what's the faction ratio in Pvp?
I've heard of the issues you brought up, but haven't experienced them myself. The faction ratio for PvP on Grim (Eng) is heavily Illuminati favoured.
On July 10 2012 23:09 TwilightRain wrote: A question for those that have already tried it out: is the game legitimately story- and questing-focused or just the same like what happened to SW:TOR, where they hyped it up to no end about being great even for us players loving SP-RPGs, but in the end it ended up being just like any other MMORPG with no sense of a meaningful story, 90% boring radiant quests and repetitive group-only PvP?
I'd say this game is much more SP-RPG like than SW:TOR. The quests have meaning, all of them, even the sidequests. All quests but the sidequests have voice acting (and the voice acting is gooooooood, oh man the voice acting is so fricking good). Without spoiling too much, I feel I make a difference in the world when I do these quests. Hope that answeres your question.
On July 10 2012 22:34 Zocat wrote: Questions for those playing: Have you (or someone you know) experienced the chat issue? Did you teleport to another random dimension without the option to go back to your "home" dimension? How often did you encounter bugged quests? (the requirement to teleport to another dimension to do the quest counts as bugged).
And I doubt it - but if someone from Kobold is playing (German server): what's the faction ratio in Pvp?
I've heard of the issues you brought up, but haven't experienced them myself. The faction ratio for PvP on Grim (Eng) is heavily Illuminati favoured.
Yeah it's most of the stuff I read on the official forums. It's basically what's stopping me from purchasing the game. Sure they'll patch it - but "when" is the question. But if it's not happening that often (standard - TL poll^^) I might consider buying it earlier (and just pray not to be affected^^).
On July 10 2012 22:34 Zocat wrote: Questions for those playing: Have you (or someone you know) experienced the chat issue? Did you teleport to another random dimension without the option to go back to your "home" dimension? How often did you encounter bugged quests? (the requirement to teleport to another dimension to do the quest counts as bugged).
And I doubt it - but if someone from Kobold is playing (German server): what's the faction ratio in Pvp?
Yes, i've experienced the chat issue. Relog seems to fix it.
Whenever I've teleported to another dimension to play with others, i've always continued to play on that dimension until I grouped with someone else. TBH I've never think about what dimension I'm on, because It does not matter.
I've encountered two bugged quest that required me to teleport to another dimension, most of the "bugged" quests are not bugged just ppl that don't know how to solve them. I'm in transylvania(skipped half of egypt) and I only know about 4 quest that is properly bugged.
Just read the latest blog from ragnar (the writer of the game). This game looks even more promesing after reading that imo, new content will be out on a monthly basis
On July 11 2012 02:42 sidesprang wrote: Just read the latest blog from ragnar (the writer of the game). This game looks even more promesing after reading that imo, new content will be out on a monthly basis
On July 11 2012 09:23 Depetrify wrote: Almost done downloading this game, can't wait to play!
I'm kind of sad that its made by Funcom though, seems like a Zyngaish company to me
blasphemy! Funcom made The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, two of the best atory driven games in the last 10 years. From what I hear, moat of the Secret World dev team are from these two games.
On July 11 2012 09:23 Depetrify wrote: Almost done downloading this game, can't wait to play!
I'm kind of sad that its made by Funcom though, seems like a Zyngaish company to me
blasphemy! Funcom made The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, two of the best atory driven games in the last 10 years. From what I hear, moat of the Secret World dev team are from these two games.
I was initially and still am a bit leery. Funcom is also the company that produced such notables as Age of Conan and Anarchy Online. Some good concepts, but horrible realization there. Fortunately, Secret World has combined the truely addictive full-dialoge questing of SWOTOR, with a gameplay more reminicient of GW.
Gameplay itself still only gets about a 7, maybe an 8/10, but I'll stick with it awhile longer and see how it pans out.
On July 12 2012 10:09 Depetrify wrote: Whenever I further unlock a skill using Skill Points it says I've gotten some new ability, but I can never find where that is.. help?
I'm pretty sure Skill Points abilities are passive and are just automatically applied to your character.
it doesn't really feel like an mmo to me. maybe my server is just dead though. its still a really fun single player game at least!
the story / questing is great and the way the environment reacts to quests is pretty cool. some of the stuff is pretty amazing and fun, like the whole amusement park quest chain.
you probably won't enjoy this game if you don't get into the story though
On July 12 2012 13:59 nennx wrote: it doesn't really feel like an mmo to me. maybe my server is just dead though. its still a really fun single player game at least!
the story / questing is great and the way the environment reacts to quests is pretty cool. some of the stuff is pretty amazing and fun, like the whole amusement park quest chain.
you probably won't enjoy this game if you don't get into the story though
recently got the game, are the only reasons for choosing between the different factions for faction specific story and PvP world faction buff?
I started out as Dragon and I'll continue playing for faction specific story (I assume there is one beyond the start of the game), but I've already accepted I'm not going to get much of a faction buff since everyone chose Illuminati just because they are the starting default faction.
I am typically someone who hates mmo's with a passion and drop them fairly quickly but this game is just insanely fun right now. Also the quests have some actual depth to them. Investigative quests are HARD. Fun but hard.
This is a game imo of pure story with the random mobs you have to kill to get to the actual spot to solve them. Loving it so far.
As for the faction stuff, as I rolled on grim and picked illuminati I am happy for the pvp buff but I can tell other factions will be annoyed as they will near never have it. Not sure why everyone picked illuminati, I thought everyone would go dragon
Did my first 5-man group zone last night (Polaris) and was pleasantly surprised. There was very little trash-clearing, and for the most part the bosses required you to pay attention to your surroundings and adapt on the fly. The second to the last boss was a bit of a disappointment, and felt like a WoW boss because it was almost exclusively "stay out of black shit on the ground and kill adds" but I had fun and it only took 45 minutes with a decent group that wiped twice because we didn't know the fights.
Got a lot of AP/SP and some decent gear too, definitely felt worth the time/effort to run the zone.
On July 13 2012 00:38 ZasZ. wrote: Did my first 5-man group zone last night (Polaris) and was pleasantly surprised. There was very little trash-clearing, and for the most part the bosses required you to pay attention to your surroundings and adapt on the fly. The second to the last boss was a bit of a disappointment, and felt like a WoW boss because it was almost exclusively "stay out of black shit on the ground and kill adds" but I had fun and it only took 45 minutes with a decent group that wiped twice because we didn't know the fights.
Got a lot of AP/SP and some decent gear too, definitely felt worth the time/effort to run the zone.
On July 13 2012 00:38 ZasZ. wrote: Did my first 5-man group zone last night (Polaris) and was pleasantly surprised. There was very little trash-clearing, and for the most part the bosses required you to pay attention to your surroundings and adapt on the fly. The second to the last boss was a bit of a disappointment, and felt like a WoW boss because it was almost exclusively "stay out of black shit on the ground and kill adds" but I had fun and it only took 45 minutes with a decent group that wiped twice because we didn't know the fights.
Got a lot of AP/SP and some decent gear too, definitely felt worth the time/effort to run the zone.
What QL gear should you be wearing for polaris ?
I'm wearing mainly QL3 with a couple of QL2 pieces. I healed it with not 100% healing gear as Blood, but there were two other players with Blood in my group and they may have been helping me heal on bosses, so I can't speak 100% to that. I'd definitely say you can do it with QL3 as long as your group is semi-competent. Might even be possible to do it with QL2. A good test is to do the missions at the Orochi camp where you zone into Polaris (there is a kill mission and an investigation mission, if you can do them you're probably OK for Polaris).
Lately I've been looking for a new MMO to try out with some friends. We like to play together doing all different types of content, PvE, PvP, etc. I've been looking into TSW for a while and it looks really cool (and from reading this thread seems good). I had a few questions about this game that I was wondering if the people who have played it could answer.
I keep hearing the game can be played solo a lot, but is it still good in groups? And what about PvP? I heard it's not really "all there".
I think I'll end up trying it anyways, but while I'm waiting to get into the game, I just wanted to ask the questions.
I was looking for something new to play after D3 left a bad taste in my mouth and just decided to download and try The Secret World after reading the stuff everyone in this thread was saying.
It has definitely been worth it so far. I've only played a while in Kingsmouth, but I'm liking the change of pace from what I'm used to in other RPGs and especially the different feel from other MMOs. I was wondering about something that was brought up a few posts above me as well- is there any TL group or Cabal around? I don't even remember what server I rolled on, but I'd be willing to reroll if it meant I'd get to play with some more people that hang out here. I need to start over anyway... I wasted too many early AP and SP not quite understanding what I was doing : /
On July 13 2012 10:43 xBebop wrote: I was looking for something new to play after D3 left a bad taste in my mouth and just decided to download and try The Secret World after reading the stuff everyone in this thread was saying.
It has definitely been worth it so far. I've only played a while in Kingsmouth, but I'm liking the change of pace from what I'm used to in other RPGs and especially the different feel from other MMOs. I was wondering about something that was brought up a few posts above me as well- is there any TL group or Cabal around? I don't even remember what server I rolled on, but I'd be willing to reroll if it meant I'd get to play with some more people that hang out here. I need to start over anyway... I wasted too many early AP and SP not quite understanding what I was doing : /
As far as i know there is no TL cabal. However if there exsist one or one will be made you do not have to reroll to join it. You can join Cabals cross dimension.
And don't worry about "wasting" AP or SP, you can get every skill so its no big deal, and you will gain AP and SP way faster as the game goes on.
On July 13 2012 07:42 fortysixandtwo wrote: Lately I've been looking for a new MMO to try out with some friends. We like to play together doing all different types of content, PvE, PvP, etc. I've been looking into TSW for a while and it looks really cool (and from reading this thread seems good). I had a few questions about this game that I was wondering if the people who have played it could answer.
I keep hearing the game can be played solo a lot, but is it still good in groups? And what about PvP? I heard it's not really "all there".
I think I'll end up trying it anyways, but while I'm waiting to get into the game, I just wanted to ask the questions.
I've quested some in groups, which i actually prefered. Because then it was all story focused, and on some of the investigation missions it really helps and are more fun to solve together.
Dungeons is fun, it's quite easy, but atleast all the bosses try to do something special so its not only tank and spank. It will get hard on nightmare tho.
PvP is not good atm, the queues for stonehenge and el dorado is to long on my server, and fusang is just a zerg fest. Hopefully this will get better and they will add more pvp modes.
This game frustrates me so much, because I want to love it but it's just not letting me. Combat feels clunky, some of the design choices are very questionable, there are some UI glitches, and in general this game just isn't fun to play. However I do love the writing, the atmosphere of the quests, the feel of the environments, and the game has a different feel to it.
Is this game worth 15 dollars a month? I don't think so, but if you're looking for something different, this is definitely right up your alley.
took me a while to realize that I'm not playing TSW correctly and that I should be dual speccing instead of single speccing
I've just been using Blood up through completing most of Kingsmouth and entering Savage Coast
kept wondering why my Blood resource builder kept also building up the resource for the other weapon that I had equipped even though I didn't use any of its related skills and I was just equipping it for stats
I understand now though and need to figure out what other weapon compliments Blood and my play style well
On July 15 2012 02:41 udgnim wrote: took me a while to realize that I'm not playing TSW correctly and that I should be dual speccing instead of single speccing
I've just been using Blood up through completing most of Kingsmouth and entering Savage Coast
kept wondering why my Blood resource builder kept also building up the resource for the other weapon that I had equipped even though I didn't use any of its related skills and I was just equipping it for stats
I understand now though and need to figure out what other weapon compliments Blood and my play style well
Blood works really well with assault rifles, pistols, and hammers I believe? It is all depending on what type of character you are aiming to play. Blood I believe is the best form of healing so complimenting it with assault rifles would be prob your best bet (one of the more solid heal combos). There is a deck centered around those two weapon choices as well.
There are 3 'healing' trees/weapons. Each have their own pluses and minuses.
Blood - Many healing abilities, but most are at best 50% heals, 50% shield effect. Fortunately, you can spam the resource heavy heals if you need too by eating your own life. Good variety of direct, chain, aoe and such heals.
Claws - Heals/Hots. Again, mostly a 50/50 split for how much each part heals.
Assault Rifles - Heals/Leech. Assault rifles have the greatest direct punch healing normally, while also granting them leech based on their own damage.
Now, all 3 secondary effects aren't stacking, at least amongst the same specific heal skill, this means that in a standard spamming the primary skill, that the Shield and Hot effect are largely wasted. Unless the tank is taking damage every second, your rarely going to see much use out of the shields or hots compared to just hitting them with big heals, topping them off.
Not saying Blood or Claws can't heal, but ARs seems to be the strongest, with the least loss due to mechanics. Plus one heal on a non-tank and then letting them leech their life back works fine in many instances. I could very well be wrong though. Just always felt like the most competent healers were AR users.
im running a hammer/chaos build with abilities that work with "weakened" as a tank and i'm finding Egypt extremely difficult to progress especially with the filth mobs near the ankh or w/e. I also can't find a group that can kill the final boss of DW, if anyone can help it would be so good lol add me "Deff".
think I've completed about 75% of the content in Savage Coast and I'm appreciating the game more
I decided to complement Blood with Elementalist just because Shock has a DoT passive (although no long term punishment for AP spending is nice) and combat immediately started becoming more complex and interesting managing 2 different resources.
I need to start looking deeper into Blood and AR or Fist for healing though. I haven't done a 5 player dungeon yet but plan on entering Polaris soon as a healer. I've been accumulating QL4 heal gear which I think is overgear for Polaris.
for anyone that has healed before, do you ever use a resource building skill to build up both resources or just completely focus on heal skills of the separate focuses to build up the resources separately?
in terms of story & lore, I think it's apparent there was a lot of passion and effort behind creating the world and voice dialog. there's some nice personality and character to it.
I've ran into some annoying issues. 2 quests that are bugged and a game locking up issue that others have reported on TSW's tech support forum. I'm trying out a solution that hopefully resolves the game locking up issue.
So I share an account with my brother and he plays the game more often than I do, like alot more. The problem I'm facing with this is that all I see is the same friggin type of area.... 20+hours of gameplay and still in the same gloomy offcity map. What were they thinking? I understand that this game is very very story oriented but the writers couldn't think of something?
I have to say I hardly play but I often sit next to him doing other stuff on the laptop but each time I glance, it's not inviting me to play. Fighting doesn't change much, skills aren't engaging and the delays are somewhat annoying.
On July 16 2012 14:39 udgnim wrote: I need to start looking deeper into Blood and AR or Fist for healing though. I haven't done a 5 player dungeon yet but plan on entering Polaris soon as a healer. I've been accumulating QL4 heal gear which I think is overgear for Polaris.
for anyone that has healed before, do you ever use a resource building skill to build up both resources or just completely focus on heal skills of the separate focuses to build up the resources separately?
QL4 is overgeard of polaris, but as a healer thats a good thing. Healing does suck hard till you get good gear (like all inferno QL5+ blues) and a few key skills.
At least from a blood magic perspective. Blood magic felt horribly weak for healing to start but now I have over 1k heal rating and the scartlett something skill its very nice. I did recently try to use blood magic with assault rifles but the lack of heal spam which builds up both resources was hard. Unless everyone is well geared in an instance you really have to focus on pure healing so spamming non-heal double resource builders just doesn't work.
Then again I hear blood magic does work well with assault rifles so maybe I just haven't given it the time of day!
Remember that to main heal in an dungeon you have to stack healing items, a full set is a must.
Generally I seem to find that the stuff you get from solo isn't very min max, it has health + attack or health + healing whereas blue items from dungeons tend to just have either health or healing or attack + glyph and min maxing seems to be the way to go for dungeons.
On July 17 2012 01:58 Sableyeah wrote: So I share an account with my brother and he plays the game more often than I do, like alot more. The problem I'm facing with this is that all I see is the same friggin type of area.... 20+hours of gameplay and still in the same gloomy offcity map. What were they thinking? I understand that this game is very very story oriented but the writers couldn't think of something?
I have to say I hardly play but I often sit next to him doing other stuff on the laptop but each time I glance, it's not inviting me to play. Fighting doesn't change much, skills aren't engaging and the delays are somewhat annoying.
Solomon Island does seem to drag on, but the good news is you don't have to do all the quests in the area. When you feel like it, and you think you're geared enough, go progress the Story Mission (teal colour quest) and move on to Egypt.
It's what I did, halfway through Blue Mountain. I actually quite like the gloom of Solomon Island but it was time for a nice vacation to the desert =P
Combat can get repetitive but to me, the whole idea of fighting is just something I have to sit through to enjoy the rest of the content - which is great. I do like the fact that you can avoid mobs a whole lot more than in WoW. So yeah, I try to avoid as many mobs as possible.
I began Yesterday and went Hammer/Blood (both DPS)... Seems stupid now (or isn't it)? . Wellfrom how i understand it.. I just can redo the quests after the timer runs out and get again KP/FP/Rewards for them?
On July 17 2012 18:01 Velr wrote: I began Yesterday and went Hammer/Blood (both DPS)... Seems stupid now (or isn't it)? . Wellfrom how i understand it.. I just can redo the quests after the timer runs out and get again KP/FP/Rewards for them?
I don't want to tank, but blood dps seems to have like 0 synergie with hammer.. Well, skilled into shotgun now, these few points shouldn't matter in the long run
Got it yesterday, and man, I've never been so hooked up on an MMO since WoW back in the vanilla day. This is a great game, the story and mood are just awesome and once you get used to it, combat is actually surprisingly enjoyable (at least that's what I feel). Love the fact that you get equal amounts of AP and SP per xp all throughout the game, makes the progression so much more enjoyable and doesn't punish for putting skill points in lots of low lvl skills either. If Funcom keeps the game alive with updates I can see myself playing it for a long time.
did Polaris and Inferno for the first time as a healer using Blood/Fist in QL4/5 green heal gear and out of the 2 groups I've played with, it's basically hope the tank and healer know the fight and the DPS is smart enough not to get hit by stuff
pace of the dungeons sure is fast. barely have to do any trash and its basically just going from 1 boss to the other.
in terms of my experience as a healer, I could definitely keep the tank up. DPS would die if they kept not avoiding stuff though.
wiped on the Inferno end boss on the first run because all the DPS died and boss had ~33%. the tank and I could have kept living for a very long time but it would have also taken a really long time to kill the boss because of the fight mechanics. second run all the DPS died again but the boss had ~10K HP so the tank eventually whittled the boss down.
might try using a dual resource builder once I get more accustomed to dungeon healing
starting to get really tired of the New England/Maine area while questing in Blue Mountain. I've completed the main story for the area though so I could head to Egypt, but I still probably haven't completed 50% of the quests in Blue Mountain.
also, Ak'abs are damn annoying. for whatever reason, an Ak'ab will sometimes come aggroing towards me while I'm in area where there shouldn't be any nearby Ak'abs
Oh my goodness this idea sounds really cool what with the backstory and everything ><
Hope to join you guys soon because I don't really understand the terminology being used here, not having touched the game myself. The historical fiction idea sounds epic.
Out of curiosity, what's the most/least common secret society joined, and also which is the most fun in your guys' opinion
Edit: ah, apparently there are a lot of issues with population imbalance lol
On July 16 2012 14:39 udgnim wrote: [...] I've ran into some annoying issues. 2 quests that are bugged and a game locking up issue that others have reported on TSW's tech support forum. I'm trying out a solution that hopefully resolves the game locking up issue.
all bugs i found was gone after the last patch ... seems they doing a great work think about anarchy online, still one of the best since 10 years
On July 18 2012 17:41 Aerisky wrote: Oh my goodness this idea sounds really cool what with the backstory and everything ><
Hope to join you guys soon because I don't really understand the terminology being used here, not having touched the game myself. The historical fiction idea sounds epic.
Out of curiosity, what's the most/least common secret society joined, and also which is the most fun in your guys' opinion
Edit: ah, apparently there are a lot of issues with population imbalance lol
If your not into PvP it's not that "bad". You can group up and talk with members of other factions but not have mixed guilds (cabals).
How to pick? Well, the basic lore and check out the rewards for completing a deck (special optical outfights) on the homepage.
turns out the solo build I've been using through Blue Mountain is pretty mediocre and I didn't realize it until I picked up Ignition (9 AP outer ring Elementalist active) and changed some actives & passives around
Ignition is pretty damn amazing. it's a dual resource building skill with a 0.5 cast and no CD and it does not appear to have any run speed decrease while casting which is really nice.
I'm using it with Combust (and 0.5 second cast reduction passive) which normally costs 2 resources but cost is reduced down to 1 when target is Hindered and use Molten Earth which procs a Hinder effect allowing me to cast 5 Combusts on a target before Hinder wears off. I then follow it up with Exsangulate to consume Blood resources and the target is usually close to death and I just need to cast some Ignitions to finish the target off.
I'm pretty happy with the actives I'm using but need to look at the ability wheel to see if there are some accessible passives that can better complement my new solo build.
Blue Mountain is really boring as hell. The area just doesn't really have anything interesting in it while Savage Coast & Kingsmouth were much more varied and different. Blue Mountain is a REALLY DREARY zone.
Just tried this game out. I'm about half-way through Blue Mountains, here are some current thoughts:
Positive - Very different feel and theme from the standard fantasy MMO - Great atmosphere and "feeling" to the game - "Single server" setup is really cool, it's the first time I've seen it in an MMO and it's fantastic - Great skill system with the ability wheel and SP/AP, essentially no classes, all players can be all roles - Quests are different and much more involved than your standard MMO, some tricky puzzles in there that require some research - Sounds effects, music and atmospherics fit the game and theme really well
Negative - Engine and graphics feel really old. Has a "console" feel. Maybe early PS2 standard? - Some of the questing is not very well thought out or intuitive (this could turn off some players, some players will consider it "challenging") - No AH or dungeon finder, although I believe both are expected to be added in the future (I know some players don't like dungeon finders, but they are standard issue now in modern MMOs) - Crafting system is pointless and tedious (I don't know why this is so hard for developers to even get partially right?)
Game breaking - The game is full of bugs. Bugs in combat, bugs in quests, bugs everywhere. All the time. - Feels like an alpha/early beta test, rather than retail release
Summary - Great atmosphere and theme - Very, very cool ideas and some great concepts in the game. Just needs some refinement, which I'm hoping will come over time. - Major execution fail. If this game kept cleaned up the bugs, engine and graphics it would be a great game...Feels a bit dated.
Conclusion - Current state of the game isn't worth my time for now. Certainly something I might come back to once they get the bugs under control and add more basic features.
Note: I haven't included any comments about PvP as I think PvP is garbage in pretty much every MMO I've ever played so I don't consider it a factor.
I think the game is going to suffer a population decrease though because it doesn't really hand hold people. If someone isn't using a decent solo build by the time they enter Blue Mountain, the build is going to get exposed and gameplay is going to be a lot less fun with low damage, taking a lot more damage, and dieing.
There are pre-built decks to follow but the decks are not necessarily good for soloing and trying to build your own deck can be a daunting task.
Sometimes I watch people attack something in Egypt just to see how much DPS they have, how much HP they lose, and whether they die or not and some people actually end up dieing against a single mob because their build isn't up to snuff. So either they're going to eventually fix/change the build, keep using their build and tolerate the consequences of their build being bad, or quit playing because they could no longer tolerate their build being bad and were not capable of fixing it themselves.
On July 21 2012 12:04 udgnim wrote: I think the game is going to suffer a population decrease though because it doesn't really hand hold people. If someone isn't using a decent solo build by the time they enter Blue Mountain, the build is going to get exposed and gameplay is going to be a lot less fun with low damage, taking a lot more damage, and dieing.
There are pre-built decks to follow but the decks are not necessarily good for soloing and trying to build your own deck can be a daunting task.
Sometimes I watch people attack something in Egypt just to see how much DPS they have, how much HP they lose, and whether they die or not and some people actually end up dieing against a single mob because their build isn't up to snuff. So either they're going to eventually fix/change the build, keep using their build and tolerate the consequences of their build being bad, or quit playing because they could no longer tolerate their build being bad and were not capable of fixing it themselves.
A population decrease is definitely going to happen in TSW but it's also one of the very few AAA MMO's that was designed for a niche audience rather than everyone and the server system makes it much less noticable so overall it probably won't be a problem.
I ran into the exact same thing you're talking about, I followed the Gunslinger deck and it worked great up until Blue Mountain and suddenly it sucked really hard so I had to swap around many abilities. Most people may expect the premade decks to be viable forever, for both soloing and grouping because that's usually how it's like but that's definitely not the case here.
Another funny thing from people that are quitting/have quit is that they complain about bugged quests etc. and the quests they talk about aren't really bugged, they've just missed something. Like an investigation quest is bugged because no passwords they've found in files works, but it's only "bugged" because they didn't find the cellphone where the password was. Most of the complaints from people who say "THERE ARE SOOO MANY BUGS" are probably just because of things like this.
I been disappointed in so many MMO in the last years but I really like the genre. Normally I would just buy it and see how it is but after D3 I decide to wait and see. So do you guys recommend this game?
On July 21 2012 12:52 Benjamin99 wrote: I been disappointed in so many MMO in the last years but I really like the genre. Normally I would just buy it and see how it is but after D3 I decide to wait and see. So do you guys recommend this game?
ask some questions or say what you like in a MMO and I'll try my best to provide an answer based off of my experience so far
it's the type of game where you should definitely have an idea of what to expect before buying otherwise you might be very disappointed
the review score difference between game critic reviews and user reviews says a lot imo and is what motivated me to purchase the game despite the low critic review average, and I'm glad I made the purchase and valued the user scores over the critic scores.
On July 21 2012 12:52 Benjamin99 wrote: I been disappointed in so many MMO in the last years but I really like the genre. Normally I would just buy it and see how it is but after D3 I decide to wait and see. So do you guys recommend this game?
Wait until the first major update (I think scheduled for August?) The chatsystem is completely broken for some players atm. They want to fix it next week (though some quotes have a "new chatsystem" flying around, that means probably bugged a bit as well). Some quests are broken - you can circumvent that most of the time by jumping dimensions but it's annoying & breaks immersion (which is one of the games strengths).
Oh and if you play a game for PvP - skip this game
On July 21 2012 12:52 Benjamin99 wrote: I been disappointed in so many MMO in the last years but I really like the genre. Normally I would just buy it and see how it is but after D3 I decide to wait and see. So do you guys recommend this game?
Wait until the first major update (I think scheduled for August?) The chatsystem is completely broken for some players atm. They want to fix it next week (though some quotes have a "new chatsystem" flying around, that means probably bugged a bit as well). Some quests are broken - you can circumvent that most of the time by jumping dimensions but it's annoying & breaks immersion (which is one of the games strengths).
Oh and if you play a game for PvP - skip this game
Perhaps Guild Wars 2 when it comes out? I don't know. All I know is the game genuinely gives a great single player RPG experience, better than most non-MMOs out there. Anything else is just gravy.
On July 21 2012 17:28 trias_e wrote: Perhaps Guild Wars 2 when it comes out? I don't know. All I know is the game genuinely gives a great single player RPG experience, better than most non-MMOs out there. Anything else is just gravy.
As of right now Guild Wars 2 isn't very promising.. :T
did the Darkness War dungeon in QL 4-10 gear as a Blood/Fist healer, so I'm overgeared
some interesting mechanics in the boss fights and I was able to heal pretty easily against the majority of the bosses. The moth boss hit noticeably hard though.
healing the last boss wasn't too difficult except for when he did an AoE pull.
I have an mass group heal that isn't limited by range or LoS and does a direct heal and a HoT which I like. my other group heal skill is Hematic Rites which is an AoE shield which puts a shield on everyone within a 5 meter radius and I might see if there is a better skill solution for AoE healing than Hematic Rites.
seemed the most important thing in the last boss fight was to make sure the slow moving adds were killed and did not explode on anyone. my group struggled with this and we wiped 2-3 times (all bosses before were 1 shot). we would have probably eventually got it right, but the boss bugged and stopped doing anything so it was just making sure the adds didn't explode on people while DPSing down the boss.
did the Ankh dungeon as a healer with QL 6-10 gear for the first time
Fired Up is such a good group heal skill to have.
the dungeon itself seems pretty anti-melee, but I guess a DPS focused player could always make a DPS melee and DPS ranged deck assuming they realize that is how the game should actually be played.
some interesting mechanics, but pretty easy to pick up after experiencing them. the group wiped twice. once on the first boss because all the DPS blew up simultaneously. don't quite understand what caused it to happen but the second attempt went problem free.
other wipe was on the final boss because 3 members of the group including me didn't realize we should have gotten out of the way of something. second attempt, we killed the final boss.
barely beat the the huge giant monster that slowly walks on the bridge by a few feet.
I took a solo tour of the beginning section of the dungeon in City of the Sun God. It looked pretty cool. I didn't know where the hell I was going though and eventually died.
there's going to be an open access weekend, 8/4-8/7
I healed the Hell Fallen dungeon. It felt pretty easy, but I ended up doing it with an experienced group. seemed all I needed to know was to not get hit by stuff, which honestly is the most common mechanic to deal with as a healer.
I like the look and feel of the dungeon. no idea about its story involvement and who Wicker really is though. I probably need to read up on lore to find out.
there's going to be an open access weekend, 8/4-8/7
I healed the Hell Fallen dungeon. It felt pretty easy, but I ended up doing it with an experienced group. seemed all I needed to know was to not get hit by stuff, which honestly is the most common mechanic to deal with as a healer.
I like the look and feel of the dungeon. no idea about its story involvement and who Wicker really is though. I probably need to read up on lore to find out.
Thanks for that link, definitely want to try this out.
I've done all the dungeons in the game and starting to do Elite versions of them as a healer. I think all the dungeons can be easily completed in less than 30 minutes if everyone knows the fights and DPS is decent.
the later zone dungeons start having a decent mechanic increase requiring more skill, movement, and awareness.
most of the boss fights require more of an understanding of the mechanics than being gear checks (enrage mechanics), but this has also allowed me to see and realize that there ARE A LOT OF BAD DPS IN TSW.
I've seen DPS that never waits for the tank to establish threat, DPS that does the same DPS as tank because they fail to understand the fight and don't have the motor skills to use skills and move at the same time, DPS that is completely oblivious to AoE/environment, and DPS that always dies because they are keyboard turners and don't strafe.
the bad DPS get exposed because with TSW's resource system there is no such thing as going OOM and it's just being able to build up resources & consuming them properly, so some fights can essentially just be done with a healer & tank albeit really slow. so in fights that take a really long time due to low DPS, it becomes very obvious why the fight is taking a while and who isn't really carrying their weight.
I'm pretty sure I can switch to my DPS gear and do more damage with lesser gear than many of the DPS I've grouped with because I would have much better DPS uptime.
I've completed the elite versions of Polaris, Ankh, Facility, and Hell Eternal so far. got to the last boss of Elite Darkness War, but DPS wasn't able to handle adds and after 5+ wipes I gave up and left group.
I really need to look into finding a PvE cabal which hopefully would reduce how often I PUG elite dungeons. too bad I chose Dragon (lowest pop faction).
the DPS requirement for most of the elite boss fights I've done is less than I expected and I wonder if there is a huge ramp up in difficulty in the Nightmare dungeons because there seems to be a lot of piss poor DPS getting carried in elite dungeons that I doubt will be tolerated in NM. they probably won't be able to get past the Gatekeeper NPC at least.
On September 16 2012 09:31 Praetorial wrote: So this game seems to have died quite quickly, huh?
So sad, I really liked it.
Still playing. Still fun. Still best MMO since old WoW (and Eve, but Eve is too diffrent to really compare it to the others).
Btw: Yesterday the big Patch hit with 2 new Nightmare modes, Rocket Launchers (new weapon class for witch you only can use 1 active and 1 passive ability) and new Quests + some other neat things.
Btw2: That GW2 is getting way more attention than this is just a shame.
I'm still subbed to this despite playing GW2. I think TSW is the superior game however and am only playing GW2 due to all of my friends being in it. I have a really hard time with GW2's PvE after the awesome job TSW does with writing and characters. GW2 is so damn bland in comparison. GW2's PvP is clearly superior (well, so is everyone's to be honest), so I think I will play GW2 just for PvP with my friends while TSW remains my primary PvE MMO.
Rocket launchers are awesome.
Glad to see they are profitable and committed to the game:
Yeah I hear there is a Halloween thing. A bit of an oxymoron considering the lore / setting, but I am curious to see how far their current content development team can go with each update.
I bought it 2? 3? weeks ago when it was 50% off. So I'm still playing. Though I'm not really far, 1st Egypt zone.
Halloween is a series of quests (havent completed them since I think I have to go to Transylvania for it), and you can kill mobs in Blue Mountains to get costumes etc etc. Maybe something else as well in the later zones.
As I said - I'm not really that far into the game. I'm personally having fun, but I doubt I will play it for long after I finished the story line. AndI dont have any clue about endgame.
You said it was fun on release, what stopped you from playing then? I dont think that much has changed from back then, except bug fixes. The raid is supposed to come out "soon" if that what you want/mean.
On October 20 2012 07:26 Praetorial wrote: So, is it still worth playing?
it was fun for however long I was playing it which was 2 months
current end game consists of 5 man increased difficulty dungeons where you collect budges and turn them in to get vendor gear. the gear drops from bosses are meant to be stand-ins for the vendor gear, but can be very good.
I think the biggest issue people have with the game is the combat where most people say it feels like standing in a spot which is definitely true if playing a melee-centric build, but there are definitely some benefits to actively moving especially if playing a ranged build since it's possible to move while casting
other issue people have is the PvE end game is mostly a gear grind which really isn't different from the majority of MMOs out on the market
PvP is also hit or miss with people probably due to the combat system, but some people like PvP because of the ability to change skill build (there is no class system just a big skill circle that everyone can unlock completely after enough XP) immediately depending on what they're playing against
I might consider resubbing for a month or two once they release the Tokyo zone to check it out.
On October 20 2012 07:26 Praetorial wrote: So, is it still worth playing?
it was fun for however long I was playing it which was 2 months
current end game consists of 5 man increased difficulty dungeons where you collect budges and turn them in to get vendor gear. the gear drops from bosses are meant to be stand-ins for the vendor gear, but can be very good.
I think the biggest issue people have with the game is the combat where most people say it feels like standing in a spot which is definitely true if playing a melee-centric build, but there are definitely some benefits to actively moving especially if playing a ranged build since it's possible to move while casting
other issue people have is the PvE end game is mostly a gear grind which really isn't different from the majority of MMOs out on the market
PvP is also hit or miss with people probably due to the combat system, but some people like PvP because of the ability to change skill build (there is no class system just a big skill circle that everyone can unlock completely after enough XP) immediately depending on what they're playing against
I might consider resubbing for a month or two once they release the Tokyo zone to check it out.
Well, resubbing isn't a problem, I got the lifetime sub.
was really excited and spent all I had on gaming budget at the time.
Decided to buy this game today.. And I have to say I'm pretty dissapointed. The story etc might be ok but its hard for me to enjoy true clunky controls and silly bugs (like my chars firing without actually grabbing his weapon) and now the game randomly died on me.. Is it like this for everyone or am I doing something wrong here?
On October 21 2012 03:57 B.I.G. wrote: Decided to buy this game today.. And I have to say I'm pretty dissapointed. The story etc might be ok but its hard for me to enjoy true clunky controls and silly bugs (like my chars firing without actually grabbing his weapon) and now the game randomly died on me.. Is it like this for everyone or am I doing something wrong here?
I'm running the game on a computer below min requirements just fine, so it's probably just you.
I just picked it up for $20 and don't know anything about TSW except that I've always wanted to try but I'm really tired of sub fees so I can't tell you much
I played in the beta, had over minimum specs (but below recommended) and rarely got over 8 FPS during actual gameplay. Was fine in cutscenes. Game seemed interesting but not worth a subscription. Now that the sub is gone, I might try it out if I can be sure the technical issues have been sorted out (might have been drivers/optimization considering it was beta).
On December 13 2012 12:01 deth2munkies wrote: I played in the beta, had over minimum specs (but below recommended) and rarely got over 8 FPS during actual gameplay. Was fine in cutscenes. Game seemed interesting but not worth a subscription. Now that the sub is gone, I might try it out if I can be sure the technical issues have been sorted out (might have been drivers/optimization considering it was beta).
I don't know what the min specs are but I have a x4 955 @ 3.7 and AMD 6870 and I'm playing on ultra and it runs better than every other modern MMO for me (TOR, GW2, Rift etc) and at times it looks really nice. Maybe not better than GW2 but better than the others
I don't get this game. I've been doing pure ar/shotgun dps proc build with pure blue dps talisman except 1 major for health and start to hit a ramp in difficulty. So I look up claw/chaos and claw/sword builds and go for a survivalist build. The damage is horrible and works even worse for solo. Either the heals are to weak to equalize damage or I have no damage finish the fight with. DPS is just fine except it only works if I can get the monster to come 1 on 1 or else I have to either chug a potion or revive to finish the fight.
"You need all three types of talisman in this build. You need some high hitpoint gear, some attack power gear and a bit of healing gear."
According to you, "pure blue dps talisman except 1 major for health". You need some +heal gear to make any healing skill work. Else they're wasted slots.
Holy crap, no offense but that's terrible. Escalation is not a DPS ability!
Try the following:
Actives:
Prey on the Weak - Burst builder from Fists One Two - Burst finisher from Fists, terrible terrible damage Four Horsemen - Burst finisher from Chaos - you did this correctly Go for the Throat - your elite skill, mega damage and impairman Reckless - 20% dmg boost basically all the time (fights dont last this long and it's available for next fight) Bushwhack, eventually; Helter Skelter also works if you already have it Muzzle for spellcasters
Passives:
Follow Through - DPS boost to One Two Adrenalize, 50 AP but most important skill, perhaps PvP a bit for the AP for this. Predator, of course Improved Bursts, if you got that far in AR Immortal Spirit from Blades Tipped Scales from Blades Closer from Pistols (eventually)
Run with 1-2 tanking and healing items and this setup and you should be fine. Make sure to get at least a bit of penetration for Immortal Spirit and a lot of hit so Adrenalize can work its magic.
For group, obviously run mostly DPS items, swap in a tanking item or two vs group damage bosses. Do or Die should be the elite, obviously (once you can reach it), also you will need Amor Fati and Confuse. Passives would be Ferocity and Twist the Knife instead of the self- healing-centric ones from above.
You can build the core of this build (One Two, Follow Through, 4HM, Adrenalize, Reckless) for 340 AP, by the way.
"You need all three types of talisman in this build. You need some high hitpoint gear, some attack power gear and a bit of healing gear."
According to you, "pure blue dps talisman except 1 major for health". You need some +heal gear to make any healing skill work. Else they're wasted slots.
Not sure what you mean. What is the point of having more health if heals are predetermined amounts? If I heal x dps and the monster deals x dps, then I just need to have more than 200 health to stay alive right? So minimum health shouldn't matter. Or does heal scale some how?
Holy crap, no offense but that's terrible. Escalation is not a DPS ability!
Try the following:
Actives:
Prey on the Weak - Burst builder from Fists One Two - Burst finisher from Fists, terrible terrible damage Four Horsemen - Burst finisher from Chaos - you did this correctly Go for the Throat - your elite skill, mega damage and impairman Reckless - 20% dmg boost basically all the time (fights dont last this long and it's available for next fight) Bushwhack, eventually; Helter Skelter also works if you already have it Muzzle for spellcasters
Passives:
Follow Through - DPS boost to One Two Adrenalize, 50 AP but most important skill, perhaps PvP a bit for the AP for this. Predator, of course Improved Bursts, if you got that far in AR Immortal Spirit from Blades Tipped Scales from Blades Closer from Pistols (eventually)
Run with 1-2 tanking and healing items and this setup and you should be fine. Make sure to get at least a bit of penetration for Immortal Spirit and a lot of hit so Adrenalize can work its magic.
For group, obviously run mostly DPS items, swap in a tanking item or two vs group damage bosses. Do or Die should be the elite, obviously (once you can reach it), also you will need Amor Fati and Confuse. Passives would be Ferocity and Twist the Knife instead of the self- healing-centric ones from above.
You can build the core of this build (One Two, Follow Through, 4HM, Adrenalize, Reckless) for 340 AP, by the way.
"You need all three types of talisman in this build. You need some high hitpoint gear, some attack power gear and a bit of healing gear."
According to you, "pure blue dps talisman except 1 major for health". You need some +heal gear to make any healing skill work. Else they're wasted slots.
Not sure what you mean. What is the point of having more health if heals are predetermined amounts? If I heal x dps and the monster deals x dps, then I just need to have more than 200 health to stay alive right? So minimum health shouldn't matter. Or does heal scale some how?
I read your "pure blue dps talisman except 1 major for health" as your current gear setup. But the build you linked has healing abilities. My point is that you need at least a few (~2) healing items if you have healing skills/passives.
As i am mainly a PVP person i would like to know your thoughts on the general gameplay and PVP of this game. I love playing some sort of Healer in MMOs. Maybe someone has some thoughts on that?
I played a bit of TESO last, but the PVP in TESO was rather awful. I mean fighting was fun but the general lack of possibilities to do so was dissappointing. No arenas, no 1v1, battlegrounds with huuuuuge walking distances. Not really an option to level through PVPing...
On February 10 2015 02:32 Harris1st wrote: I stumbled across this and saw it is B2P now.
As i am mainly a PVP person i would like to know your thoughts on the general gameplay and PVP of this game. I love playing some sort of Healer in MMOs. Maybe someone has some thoughts on that?
I played a bit of TESO last, but the PVP in TESO was rather awful. I mean fighting was fun but the general lack of possibilities to do so was dissappointing. No arenas, no 1v1, battlegrounds with huuuuuge walking distances. Not really an option to level through PVPing...
TBH,I have no idea how the instanced PvP works, but that shouldn't matter considering the gameplay is atrocious. It actually feels a lot like Dragon Age Inquisition without pauses in retrospect. You can build to kite mobs around, and I know there are melee gap closers. Healers (I play one) tend to focus a lot on shields. I could see PvP being reasonably balanced, but the awkward cast times and animations make it really weird and jarring to play.
TBH,I have no idea how the instanced PvP works, but that shouldn't matter considering the gameplay is atrocious.
Atrocious? That bad? Not what was hoping for exactly Could you specify a bit more? What does "awkward cast times" even mean? ^^ Considering the rest of your post doesn't come off too negative, you seem a bit torn.
TBH,I have no idea how the instanced PvP works, but that shouldn't matter considering the gameplay is atrocious.
Atrocious? That bad? Not what was hoping for exactly Could you specify a bit more? What does "awkward cast times" even mean? ^^ Considering the rest of your post doesn't come off too negative, you seem a bit torn.
Again, I only played the single player, which I have a bunch of other problems with. At the time I played it, I actually liked it because it felt different from WoW, but once I went back I got to appreciate how fluid the casting animations are. Basically, a lot of TSW is building resources using weak abilities, then using those resources on strong abilities. A lot of the gun skills have very particular hitboxes and some of them force you to stand still while you're shooting those hitboxes, while others let you run around and kite. It feels really, really awkward using the former abilities and it's sometimes difficult to tell if you're actually going to hit something.
There's also no auto attack, so you have to press a button every time you do something. Most weapons have several "basic shots" that do different things and build different types of resources in different ways. For example (to the best of my recollection, it's been years), the shotgun had a basic shot that builds combo points that can be used on a couple of finishing moves, but you can also stack some kind of DoT on them using a different type of basic shot that is used in other moves that vary in power depending on the number of stacks.
It's interesting in PvE but seems impractical in PvP, and due to the way builds work in the game, I'd imagine there's 2-3 PvP specs that you'll be locked into. Not only that, but due to the absurd way leveling works (no stats, only gear and XP requirements to USE that gear, plus 3 different kinds of level ups), it's virtually guaranteed that you'll have to PvE forever to get anywhere in PvP.
I've only played DPS in PvP and even that not that much, but I wouldn't say TSW fits badly for PvP. The combat isn't bad and if you're okay with the general mechanics (which aren't atrocious), you won't find it weird. I wouldn't say you're locked into more specs than you're locked in PvE eather, though they naturally differ from each other. Of course there are general issues with PvP, some of which are TSW specific and then there are those that can be found in every game, like premade groups dominate the instanced PvP etc., but generally I've found the PvP pretty fun. Also yes you'll get killed easily by experienced players, but it's mostly because they're better than you, as there is scaling in that sense that people with the best gear won't have that sizable advantage.