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It is very very good.
santasanta
Member Posts: 10
I am one of those elusive forum creepers that never actually posts anything. If I agree with something, I just smile and nod my head. If your post is dumb, I think that you are dumb and move on. But I have never EVER signed up to a website or posted on a forum; and not just gaming forums....ANY...forum. And then, five days ago, something happened............The Secret World.
I am a 27 year old gaming addict, who has played well over 300 games on just about every console (PC is my primary mode of gaming); including Virtual Boy. I have played nearly all of the MMO behemoths, and many obscure titles as well. This is not a "OMG I'm a better gamer than you" post. I'm hoping to build a little credibility before making the following statement.
The Secret World could become one the greatest games of all time.
"Whoa!.....what? Did he just say that?" Just hear me out. Whether you agree with the above statement or not, you will have to admit that this game has an unlimited build potential. This is also the reason that EVE is in the same category. They both have the potential to NEVER stop growing. Also, if you are expecting a sappy gushfest about TSW, move on. Know that the game is brilliant in just about every aspect (opinion, so for the love of God, don't tell me I am wrong), and that you should buy it.
We have seen just about everything JRR Tolkien had to offer this world. Between him and Gary Gygax, you have pretty much every MMO ever made. Sure you can alter this or that, or the other thing to make it a bit different; or put more money into production to make it more fluid(which is very important). But what people have been missing out on is not a groundbreaking game. Those happen every year. What is difficult to make is a groundbreaking "Framework".
What I mean by this is; in order to make a groundbreaking game, product, service, all you have to do is wrap it up better than the last guy. We'll all complain about clones till we're blue in the face, but in truth, a part of us desires this cleaned up shiny new piece of familiarity. But every once in a while, we want something different, or at least we claim we do. In truth most people who want different, don't really know what the hell they want, and then they leave dissapointed.
This is that game. Like EVE, or Fallen Earth, it's the game you have asked for. Sadly, what is demanded, and what is accepted, are two completely different things. Many will love this game, and many will not, but it will not "Fail" as so many people like to say. I'll finish with a couple reasons for why I believe this.
- The first impression (launch) was nearly flawless.
- The love for this game from the community and developers is so blatently deeper than surface level.
- The 'hate' for this game from "the other game" crowd is very superficial, and will be extremely temporary. Just wait.
- Unlimited resources to draw from, providing unlimited growth possibilities.
- The "framework" that Funcom have created is of masterpiece quality, and it will only get better.
Comments
The more I play the more I am liking it. The community is really mature. I am glad it has a monthly sub. It will keep away those teen e-peen crowd :-)
Now Playing: DARKFALL Unholy Wars "Return to Open World, Full Loot PvP, Conquest in a Sandbox MMO with player driven economy! Just like classic MMOs!"
yap....a perfect example is how WoW comunity is so mature !! subs dont have nothing to do with mature communitys
Spot on OP. I feel the same.
True, but having a monthly sub is at least ONE filter. Having zero monthly sub means every spammer on the planet can just log in and wreak havoc.
Sub doesn't fix the problem, the mmorpg itself needs to be built in a way to make spammers and problem causers go elsewhere because it's too complicated or not silly enough for them to log in and try. Sadly, that doesn't occur any more.
so, (a), need a sub to start, (b) game built for adults so that adults (metaphor for mature, not necessarily >18) are attracted to the game.
Pvp horrible - disagree, above average, if say wow is average. Sure it ain't daoc / eve / planetside pvp, but its a ton better than wow / rift / swtor pvp.
Combat - good. Not as good as planetside but better than traditional combat by a huge margin. Not that different to gw2 combat which is supposedly the saviour of the world.
I Agree with the OP , this game is very cool and has huge potential to just keep on getting better ! :-)
Just to add , it has been one of the most Flawless Mmo launches ever , the only other game I can think of that comes close is Lotro.
Agree with you OP
We'll have to wait and see what Funcom does with it. The potential is amazing and I see solution's to so many things that people complain about, done in a very intelligent way.
This MMO is a lot different, and very well done as a whole.
Cheer's
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
With that said the TSW tries to be different and as such may get burnt for it in the long run..
If anyone is thinking this game won't go F2P, is fooling themselves.. You think Funcom hasn't learn there lesson after AoC numbers fall off after certain months...
like eve online, I hope they can survive on a small amount of sub...
Because truth be told the masses don't want too much different, they want what worked before, wrapped differently but without the aggravation of what happen in the past..
Graphic outdated? Do you want your typical Toystory rainbow graphics of TERA?
Animation Awful? Some are and they can easlly be fixed with a patch
Limited content? Define content? With so many Quest/Lore/Puzzile are F##@ing kidding me?
PvP is one of the best. PvP is very well implemented where everyone can tinker with the skill and come up with an opitmal build that matches their playstyle.
Now Playing: DARKFALL Unholy Wars "Return to Open World, Full Loot PvP, Conquest in a Sandbox MMO with player driven economy! Just like classic MMOs!"
Please stop telling everyone how good it is. All that will happen is more GW2 fanboys(haters of all other games) and WoW only players show up and troll the chat.
I kid, I kid. Sort of.
Compare to other Mmo games this wasn't all that hyped so servers weren't que over..
Guild wars 2 beta weekends are more full than this (not bashing the game or anything).. I can say no matter what arenanet do there launch will have problems on the popular servers..
pvp, when it isn't laggy its fun to play, but like any game where you got more than 50 person on screen, casting spells etc.. I expect a performance hit if some sort..
Dunno where you're from, but people converse like that all the time, in my experience. Usually minus the aggressive self-righteousness (of your examples) but not always. You say you like something, someone replies that they don't, and maybe why. Kinda just how it goes.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I respect anyone who dislikes something and starts their opinion with "in my opinion". It creates an atmosphere of mutual respect and allows for mature discourse on a topic.
Then there are jackholes who say things like "It's no good. It's outdated. It's not fun." as if they are facts. Remember their name and ignore them and everything they say going forward.
What game doesn't have this? I really wnat to it.
The difference between a personal blog and a public forum =
I wish I could like it, it seems good in many ways. But the combat, ugh, I just can't get past the lack of any sense of actually slashing, shooting or whatever. It just feels so detached and every time I'm in a fight I feel like I'm playing a game, rather than immersed in the world and connected to my character.
Just my opinion, and I'm glad that others don't have this problem and enjoy the game, but unless and until they give the combat a really good overhaul and make it feel better, the game is not for me.
Just because a forum is public does not mean a person has a free license to be a prick.
Much better, and thank you. It really is a shame that there were such dramatic improvements from beta to launch. That really good overhaul you're hoping for.....well it already happened. While I liked the combat, even in beta, it has been dramatically improved. So.....? Any more objections? Or are you already entering your credit card info?
The thing is, AoC is not free to play. It is free to TRY, but if you want the full game, access to all the areas, etc, you need to pay a sub.
That model would hurt this game because there is so many variables. The devs said it best that this game can be best described as a "Sandpark/Themebox game"
And studies show that gamers pay more on F2P titles over a period of time, with paying for buy to win items (which this game does not have, only cosmetic items) than they would paying a sub fee. So rooting for this game to go F2P is a pretty stupid thing to do, unless you are ok with paying more, of course.
Also history has shown that games that start off as sub based and then have a F2P conversion, takes an average of 2 years to do. Even AoC, not even being F2P, only free to try, took 3 years to embrace that model.Consider that The Secret World was in production since 2003, and AoC isnt considered to really be a "hit", I wouldnt really think this game would go F2P anytime soon, IF IT EVEN EVER DOES.
Your very much in the minority "Dude!"
Is this a joke post? You do know that TSW is a game you are playing right?
In the off chance you are not joking, let me retort, if I may:
The beauty of the combat system is not how it is played out, but rather the way you set it up. For example, the game has 525 abilities you can choose from, and every single one of them can be learned by one character. The way it is set up is that you essentially create your own build, class, and rotations. You find and choose skills that you like and work for you, and it is an unofficial goal to put abilities that work well together, called having "synergy" for example:
Lets say you like a certain skill. I'll use one that I am familiar with. In the Assault rifle tree there is skill that I personally like, that is called "Fire at will". This is a finisher move. Meaning you can only use it after you have built up rifle resources with what is called a "builder ability" So now you go and find a builder ability you like. Lets take one of the first builders you get "Safety Off" it builds a resource everytime you use it.
So now you can use Safety Off, which is a single target attack that hits the target 3 times. After you use it once, you can now use the "Fire at Will" abitity, which hits all targets in front of you. But wait a minute. You can build up to 5 resources, and the more you build up, when you use your finisher move, it does more damage!. Awesome! but...thats not even the tip of the iceberg. There are also passives abilities that you can choose that "boost" your active abilites, or does something else. For example, if you look at Fire At Will, you will see it is classified as a frenzy ability. There is a passive ability (one of many) that says when you activate a frenzy ability, you are healed for XX amount. There is also another ability that says when you activate a frenzy ability, you give the target a damage over time effect. So your Fire At WiIl can either heal you, DoT the enemy, or a number of other effects that you can choose from. You can also chain these affects. When an enemy has a DoT, it is in an "Afflicted" state. And there are abilities that exploit Afflicted staes, and other states. It is up to you to choose what you like, based on your preferences and playstyle.
And this my friend, is not even scratching the surface.
Another example is EVE Online. One of the big things about that game is the PvP. But when you se the combat system, its just your ship flying Automatically, while you circle your opponent and try to hit his ship. But that is not where the beauty lies within the system, its how you use the different modules, and upgrades in battle. And EVE Online has been out for 5. 6 years? and it has been the number 2 MMO in that time period behind "that other game" before the Rift/SWTOR era.
But alas, I can relate, this game, like EvE Online, is not for anyone. That I can agree on. But seriously, what kind of combat were you expecting? I can respect your opinion, but please dont call the combat system bland, plain, or boring, when in reality it is far, far away from any of those things.
Unfortunately I am not in a position to lay out €50 or whatever the game costs to see if, in fact, the combat changed dramatically between the final beta weekend and launch. Call me an old sceptic, but I find it hard to believe new animations, sounds, effects etc. all appeared in the release version that were not in the final beta just a week or so beforehand. I have a few friends who decided to buy the game and I have asked them about the combat - they say it's no different from the final beta weekend.
Are you sure you arent a seasoned forum poster, cause this my friend is a masterwork. Also, I agree with you about TSW it is the first game to come around for a long time to grab me this way...and here I was after TOR wondering if I had outgrown video games altogether. Funcom hit it out of the park with this one.
Actually I never called the combat system any of those things. The mechanics themselves are good, deep and complex as you say.
What I have an issue with (and again I stress that it is my issue as a matter of personal opinion) is the way combat plays out on screen. I find it clunky, unsatisfying and unrealistic. This is really down to animations of both player and enemies, reactions (or lack of them) to player abilities, sounds, effects and camera shake, to name a few things. A dev once made a comment about creating a "sense of hitting" in combat design and this kind of captures my problem - for me this sense is not there in TSW's combat. I don't find the moves "cool" or "satisfying" and the enemies do not react much to what you do to them, so in that respect, not the system itself, I find combat unengaging.
As for whether I know I'm playing a game, I would ask this. When you sit on the couch and read a book, are you thinking in every moment you're sitting there that you're on a couch with a book in your hands? Or is the book well-written and interesting enough that your mind is sufficiently distracted and your imagination stimulated by what you're reading? This is my point.
Not Hyped? there was over 1 Million open beta keys given out. The servers have been full. What most people don't realize is that FunCom did another amazing thing here. The brought MMO's to the "CLOUD".
Players can move betwen servers or dimensions as they are called. In addition each "Server" has multiple instances of the same areas, the end result is that the game can support a lot more people per server than most other games.
They started this in AO, with some instanced areas, continued it with AOC with even more playfields being instances and now it seems they have taken it to the next level with TSW.
You can team up with people from other servers or instances and they can move to the server you are on. If a server shuts down or crashes, you can continue playing on another server. Just like Server clustering in Cloud!
It also means that they only need to make as many instances as the population supports. if the population dwindles as it certainly will after the first month of launch. there will be less instances created so the population will still seen to be about the same.
There will be no server merges as there is no need, ever!
The OP is right. This is an amazing game that everyone should give a chance.
For those with lag issues, its probably time for an upgrade.... OR lower your settings when in the pvp zones. You can change your settings on the fly...
If you have the computer to handle it, this is hands down the most amazing looking MMO ever! <- My opinion of course!