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The Secret World: Review In Progress - Part One

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Comments

  • BlackbrrdBlackbrrd Member Posts: 811
    Originally posted by Badaboom

    Just wondering, are all in-game civilians aware that their are monsters running around in the world and that their are three secret societies?  I'm asking because I thought that everything was secret but then I see all these monsters all over the place.  Can someone explain?

    No, it's just in the areas that are controlled byt the three secret societies and the areas overrun by filth, so not the whole world, but most of where your character will go.

  • DakirnDakirn Member UncommonPosts: 372
    Originally posted by Badaboom

    Just wondering, are all in-game civilians aware that their are monsters running around in the world and that their are three secret societies?  I'm asking because I thought that everything was secret but then I see all these monsters all over the place.  Can someone explain?

    If you're referring to London and the Templars.. that little area of London is specifically quarrantined by the Templars.  Only those "in the know" are allowed to visit or live there (do the Templar faction opening and you'll see this explained a bit).

     

    As for Kingsmouth.  The entire island is quarantined.  Nobody in or out except Orochi and players through the Agartha conduits.  The US Governement and CDC are heavily involved here especially in Blue Mountains.

  • n00bitn00bit Member UncommonPosts: 345
    Originally posted by Badaboom

    Just wondering, are all in-game civilians aware that their are monsters running around in the world and that their are three secret societies?  I'm asking because I thought that everything was secret but then I see all these monsters all over the place.  Can someone explain?

    If you play a bit of the templar intro, they go into how it's been a pretty big secret until recently. The world is going to shit (starting w/ the infeciton in Tokyo) and spreading about to different areas. "The Secret world" isn't quite so secret anymore.

  • spookydomspookydom Member UncommonPosts: 1,782

    Tested it for the last  four months. I liked it, it grabed me in the funny parts and wouldn't let go. Just a bit played out on it to buy it at release. For atmosphere and the setting there really isn't anything else like it out there. Reminded me a bit of Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines for some reason. My only complaint with it was the writing of the N.P.C dialogue. After a few months of testing it really started to grate on me. If I had run into that many self involved "Quirky" individuals in my life I think I would have cut my own ears off by now. That aside it's a good game and I wish it well. Will pick it up again further down the road. Happy monster killing kids. :)

     
  • knightauditknightaudit Member UncommonPosts: 389

    I will be the first to say when I heard of this game .. Not interested ... but then there was the free codes for beta (From this site) and once in .. WOW .. Sure there was work to be done .. It was beta so I do not worry too much about that part of it. Questing can be anything from a cake walk to a bloody pain to deal with. Everyone one knows the cleaning lady and where to get the code .. but there is a challenge in that ... rather than tell you .. it more or less tells you in a cryptic fashion .. Very nice

    For a game I thought would not make it and was not even inteested. I am glad I signed up and get in. I am enjoying my time and may never be able to go to disneyland again ... for fear of the chainsaw wielding Goofy. This game has made me laugh, and creped me out .. and I am loving every minute of it.

  • augustgraceaugustgrace Member UncommonPosts: 628
    Originally posted by BillMurphy
    If I'm not mistaken, an actual "Plastic Surgery" sort of thing is coming "soon". This will be part of a revamped character creation system, and allow you to alter yourself while already playing as well.

    Ragnar said they have  plastic surgeon, barber and tattoo/piercing hubs in the works, with the aim towards late August (though he warned that this isn't a promised date, just what they are shooting for).  They are also implementing new cc options, but body sliders aren't really on the table at this time.

  • MattVidMattVid Member Posts: 399

    Is that guy holding a doll that is having it's period? Or a circumcision gone wrong? That is pretty odd.

  • Flaming_MMOFlaming_MMO Member Posts: 137
    Originally posted by umcorian

    Another fairly glowing review for a new released MMORPG. Suzie, one thing you and the other MMORPG.com staff does is sing the praises of every big-budget new released MMORPG until, suddenly, you stop doing it a few months down the line.

     

    SWTOR is probably the best example. You and Bill just had nothing but positive things to say about the amazing game until a couple of months later, you started running the: "where did it go wrong" style columns... it was as if you never had high opinions of the game. 

     

    I won't fault the Secret World framework that this site has adopted (no doubt, EA has written them a blank check when it comes to marketing), but glowing reviews of every big-budget product 2-7 days after release have become too expected from this site IMHO. It's something you might wanna consider. 

     

     I am predicting they give TSW at the very least a 8.5, but probably a higher score, and as you say, a couple months down the road they will be along with those "what TSW did wrong" columns when the populations dips and the early adopters who hop from game to game grow bored of the latest shiny thing.

  • Xstatic912Xstatic912 Member Posts: 365
    If this game gets less rating than swtor, i'm gonna ban the reviewer... J/k
  • BlackbrrdBlackbrrd Member Posts: 811
    Originally posted by Flaming_MMO

     I am predicting they give TSW at the very least a 8.5, but probably a higher score, and as you say, a couple months down the road they will be along with those "what TSW did wrong" columns when the populations dips and the early adopters who hop from game to game grow bored of the latest shiny thing.

    The funny thing is that TSW is consistently getting lower reviews from professionals than it gets from the users. It has so far gotten a 8.9 on metacritic and 8.8 on this site. There are a good number of sites like kotaku.com that are in the progress of doing a review, but are so far just giving out initial expressions. To me it looks like the good sites are actually taking their time this time around.

  • ChicagoCubChicagoCub Member UncommonPosts: 381

    "MMORPG.com is committed to giving our readers the best and most informative reviews of today's hottest MMOs. With that in mind, we're beginning our multi-part series on The Secret World. In today's installment, we take our first baby steps into The Secret World and give you our thoughts about the game. Read on!"

     

    Translation:  We drank the SWTOR Kool-Aid and lost credibility.  This time we're being more careful.

  • VolkiraVolkira Member Posts: 3

    You'll be entering dark mines wearing a mining helmet with lamp and get the pooh scared out of you especially when batteries go flat and it's pitch black.God those red eyes peering at you in the darkness errrhhh

    You'll loose your group mates in thick fog while agroing everything trying to find them,you'll be entering parallel worlds trying to solve quests.

    You'll need to die to solve others.You'll die and die and so many times you'll just survive by the skin of your teeth.

    There are short quests,middle quests and ones that just go on an on.

    You'll see scarecrows climb off their poles and chase you,you'll be chasing crows.

    Come to think of it even your pet cat or dog chases you.

    Then Pvp geezus 100's and 100's going for it and no lag for me just unbelievable.

    Then the best bit friends on other servers can call you to join them.All it takes is an invite and bam your now playing with them.

    The atmosphere in this game is just fantastic.....Scarey at times and you just  keep waiting for things to jump out.

    Anyway for me this has been the best game i've played in a while it really pulls you in.

    To think in beta I didn't like Kingsmouth and was not going to play this past the 30 days.

    So glad I entered the other areas as I am now totally engrossed.

  • MaricMaric Member UncommonPosts: 98
    I have been playing TSW since April and have watched the game go from meh to I absolutely LOVE it!

    It is so fun solving puzzles and unraveling the mysteries that Tornquist has woven in The Secret World. It is a good game for soloers and even more fun in group.

    The dungeons such as Polaris are FANTASTIC! I have not enjoyed an MMO this much in years.

  • battlehambattleham Member UncommonPosts: 3
    Good points here. I gotta admit I wasn't going to even give TSW a try until I got a beta weekend key and was bored enough to use it. And exactly those things - voice acting, skill depth and the environment made me buy the game. And I actually like that u can't respec in this game. And I don't feel being "punished" when I make the wrong choices. If you go deep enough in any wep category and decide to swap to a different build u can just use what u have atm to build up eniugh points for the new spec to be effective at ur level.
    Another thing are the dev decks. Imo it's a good place to start especially if you feel like enjoying the game instead of going into the complex skill system from day one.
  • HappyFunBallHappyFunBall Member UncommonPosts: 221
    Originally posted by Thillian

    "there is no going back. This was an intentional game design on the developers’ part as they felt it would break immersion. I suppose I can understand that but I don’t know that I agree with it. If a player makes poor choices or “experiments” and those choices result in poor or ineffective builds, not being able to respec one’s character punishes players for trying to do something unique"

    This is not a valid complaint. If you picked wrong abilities and wasted a few APs, you can just rerun a couple of missions, and get those AP's back. First I ran through Kingsmouth as a DPS character, then at Savage Coast I realized I want to be a healer, so I reran several important Kingsmouth missions that give a lot of XP - and guess what, in about an hour I had all the AP's to make a viable healer's build, along with healer-item rewards from those missions. 

    Now  one could say that I've wasted about 150 APs so far on abilities I'm not using, since they turned out to be not that good, but they are not really wasted points. Eventually, maybe in the later stage I decide to re-do the entire build and focus on different synergies, and find those abilities useful. Who knows.

     

    Umm, yes it is.  Not everyone likes re-runs.  On TV or in a video game.  Also, many people don't have tons of hours to re-invest in "fixing" a bad choice either.  If you could respec, ya know, in 2 seconds, problem solved.

    Just because a work-around exists, to *anything*, that doesn't mean that it was a bad design choice (to start with), or that you can't have a valid gripe about it.

    I was in the beta and more people felt that a re-spec was needed than those that didn't.  Much more.

     
  • DaedrickDaedrick Member Posts: 168

    MMORPG.COM, where 7 is bad, 8 is decent and 9 is perfect. Let me guess, this one will be a 8.6, oh yeah, I have a feeling for it.

    The secret world is not refreshing, its the same old crap in another skin. Hell, Conan was more inovative than the secret world. The abilities wheel is alright I guess, but nothing extraordinary, and once again our choices dont matter. Hell how dare a game punish you for making bad choices. Its champion online, its world of warcraft, its all point bulletin. Nothing original about this game, its not because you hold an assault rifle than its any different than throwing a spell with a staff, especialy when you heal yourself with your assaultrifle, sheeeeeeeesh.

    Combat is the same old boring kind. Press TAB, cycle your abilites, press TAB. Brain dead gameplay, grinding in kingsmouth beta barely kept me awake.

    The atmosphere is decent, they tried hard, they missed the mark by this I---I, but they missed it. Its the uncanny valley really. The environement look nice, but the character look completly retarded and since players have terrible taste we have bimbos running around jumping all over the place shooting their shotgun which completly kill the little immersion the game could have had. There is absolutly no sense of fear, even in a city ravaged by undeads, its a walk in the park, litteraly. Mobs are all over the place, which completly destroy the cenery. Another relic of the old and outdated MMO model.

    I have nothing to say about the music, because I always turn that off.

    Voice over is nice, but thats not what keep players playing, its fluff and doesn't add much.

    In my book thats a 6.5, its decent, it can keep players enterntained for 3 months, it doesn't bring anything really new only some mutation to mechanics that have existed since the first MMOs. The setting is fresh, at the very least, thats all it got for itself.

    PS; The crap that usualy get a 6 from you MMORPG.COM should get a lot lower. 6.0 is passing grade, many crap MMO barely played dont pass today's standart(which is very low BTW) and should definatly get lower than 5.

    -------------------------------------

    Before: developers loved games and made money.

    Now: developers love money and make games.

  • FrodoFraginsFrodoFragins Member EpicPosts: 5,897

    The art direction looks amazing.  The sub fee and fears about endgame are keeping me away for the time being though.

  • DaedrickDaedrick Member Posts: 168

    Let me add that DAYZ for ARMA II is actually very popular because its an innovative take on older MMORPG model. You can argue as much as you want that DAYZ is not an MMO, but if its not then its only because they dont have the means to make the game on one single shard since they are only a mod team with zero budget.

    Players are tired of the same old crap, they are tired of getting hand held, they are tired of linear models and restrictive environements, they are tired of huge arcadeish interface full of colors clustering the screen, they are tired of choices without consequences...

    Games are now advanced enough to provide players with emotions, from AWE to FEAR, going by JOY. You won't feel any of these in so called modern triple A MMO. Instead you will get artificial and uninstinctive worlds. Where other people are only there to block your field of view or spam the trade channel. Where death mean next to nothing, where consequences are null and void.

    We needed visionary modders like ROCKET to finaly open the eyes of disconnected developers with tunnel vision. Hopefully the waves he created will transform into tsunamies and we will finaly get a decent MMO before 2020.

     

    -------------------------------------

    Before: developers loved games and made money.

    Now: developers love money and make games.

  • Cyberdeck7Cyberdeck7 Member UncommonPosts: 239
    Originally posted by Daedrick

    Hell how dare a game punish you for making bad choices. 

    You didn't play very long if you didn't figure out that you can eventually use every skill in the game and build your personal deck from that.

    In fact, rereading your post it sounds like you just plain didn't grasp the combat at all.

  • PanthienPanthien Member UncommonPosts: 559
    Originally posted by Daedrick

    Let me add that DAYZ for ARMA II is actually very popular because its an innovative take on older MMORPG model. You can argue as much as you want that DAYZ is not an MMO, but if its not then its only because they dont have the means to make the game on one single shard since they are only a mod team with zero budget.

    Players are tired of the same old crap, they are tired of getting hand held, they are tired of linear models and restrictive environements, they are tired of huge arcadeish interface full of colors clustering the screen, they are tired of choices without consequences...

    Games are now advanced enough to provide players with emotions, from AWE to FEAR, going by JOY. You won't feel any of these in so called modern triple A MMO. Instead you will get artificial and uninstinctive worlds. Where other people are only there to block your field of view or spam the trade channel. Where death mean next to nothing, where consequences are null and void.

    We needed visionary modders like ROCKET to finaly open the eyes of disconnected developers with tunnel vision. Hopefully the waves he created will transform into tsunamies and we will finaly get a decent MMO before 2020.

     

    Hate to ask but what game are you raging about? Because to me it really seems you never even tried TSW.

  • omidusomidus Member UncommonPosts: 99

    what kind of end game does TSW have? other than pvp.

  • MMOarQQMMOarQQ Member Posts: 636

    An objective review with a huge TSW ad in the background and a recent in-game promotion (T-Shirt)?

    Possible?

  • FionnFionn Member Posts: 68

    TSW is a fail MMO.  Won't last long.

     

  • Pratt2112Pratt2112 Member UncommonPosts: 1,636
    Originally posted by umcorian

    Another fairly glowing review for a new released MMORPG. Suzie, one thing you and the other MMORPG.com staff does is sing the praises of every big-budget new released MMORPG until, suddenly, you stop doing it a few months down the line.

     

    SWTOR is probably the best example. You and Bill just had nothing but positive things to say about the amazing game until a couple of months later, you started running the: "where did it go wrong" style columns... it was as if you never had high opinions of the game. 

     

    I won't fault the Secret World framework that this site has adopted (no doubt, EA has written them a blank check when it comes to marketing), but glowing reviews of every big-budget product 2-7 days after release have become too expected from this site IMHO. It's something you might wanna consider. 

     

     If you notice, though, their impressions seemed to echo that of many of the players, and people on other gaming sites. The initial "honeymoon" phase was still in effect and everything was new and different and exciting.

     

    Then that sheen wore off and, just like with so many players who went from "Woohooo!!!!" to "Meh..." and left... So, too, did some of the folks on this site. So, really, their cycle of excitement to disappointment in TOR echoes that of a large portion of its playerbase. To me, that would seem to indicate that folks at this site actually do approach these games as gamers, not purely as "journalists".

     

    Where they went wrong, perhaps, was in popping the champain and lighting the fireworks so enthusiastically, so early on.  At the time, while it was happening, I was rolling my eyes at the love-fest being shown for the game. I readily admit that.

     

    Maybe this time they'll give it a little more time to let the newness wear off, let the cracks show as they may, and give their final review from a more "sober" perspective.

  • IsawaIsawa Member UncommonPosts: 1,051

    "If a player makes poor choices or “experiments” and those choices result in poor or ineffective builds, not being able to respec one’s character punishes players for trying to do something unique." - or punishes them for doing something entirely stupid :) But I wiill say that some skills don't play along with others like you may expect. I actually prefer my beta build to my current more experimental one...I just got my passives finally syncing  up with my attacks decently at QL5.

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