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[Review] The Secret World: Funcom's Magnum Opus

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Comments

  • bcbullybcbully Member EpicPosts: 11,838
    [mod edit]
    "We see fundamentals and we ape in"
  • MyrdynnMyrdynn Member RarePosts: 2,479

    no review, nothing anyone else here says really means squat.

    It all comes down to, am I enjoying playing it?  Yes

    while at work do I think about builds, missions, where I am heading next?  Yes

    for me right now the game is a 10, I am having a ton of fun, and not even searching the web for the next game of the month (gw2), which is something I was doing 2 weeks into SWTOR, RIFT, TERA and others

  • lifeordinarylifeordinary Member Posts: 646
    Originally posted by bcbully
    Originally posted by lifeordinary
    Originally posted by bcbully
    Originally posted by lifeordinary

    I still can not wrap my mind around 8.0 score for longevity. I think WOW and SWTOR should get 10 in this department since all these three MMOS end game is dungeon grind for purple.

     

    I can't believe such a generic end game gets 8.0

    /facepalm


     

    The pve'rs in TSW think the end game is awsome. The dungeons are raid quality in terms of challenge and there are raids on the way. As a person who used to be about 50/50 pve/pvp and it now 90% pvp, I really like doing the TSW dungeons, and can't wait for the 10/20 mans.

    [mod edit]

    [mod edit]

    Well and good but i am talking about longevity...and not the  lore and story delivery. Since TSW end game is as generic as it gets, i can't agree with that score however i mostly agree with rest of the ratings.

  • SkuzSkuz Member UncommonPosts: 1,018

    If this game really can put out Monthly content consistently then I think it'll be the MMO game that can most justify a sub price.

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059

    I agree with a lot of people here that I find the review score a bit high.  Though obviously we are talking about the reviewer's opinion here, I can't really understand how you can say combat in the game is good, it's far inferior to even WoW in my opinion.  The rest of the gameplay aspects are good (except PvP which was mentioned to be pretty bland by today's standards).

    The open skill system is a facade.  Amongst problems is passives are way too specific and strong (forcing certain builds), the resource consumer/building system which forces you to use a single builder and a spammable consumer in your build and reserve the other actives for more longer cooldown skills tends to pigeonhole you to specific builds.  Though there are plenty of build options in the game, they are far more limited than what they could have been with a better designed system.  One person focused on Blood/Fist healing for example likely won't have a very different setup than someone else focused on the same thing where in Guild Wars 2 which actually has less options on the surface has far more deeper viable options like setting up something specific as Condition specced DPS Ranger my build could vary greatly from someone doing the exact same thing.

    The reviewer telling lifetime subs they'll get their money's worth takes the cake though.  The game has very little content at release.  It took me a week and a half to complete all the missions in game, all dungeons on Elite, and the 3 Nightmare dungeons.  The only thing I skipped was doing all the lair bosses (I did do a few) which are currently setup in such a way that they can only be described as a pure pointless grind.  PvP could be a lot of content, but again you are probably better off finding another MMO if you enjoy PvP and the combat really brings PvP down.

    There are loads of pros in the game.  It definitely deserves a 7 or a 7.5.  8 is pushing it.  I think 8.5 and "potential for game of the year" is a bit absurd though.

  • AmanaAmana Moderator UncommonPosts: 3,912
    Originally posted by AtrusHomeboy

     


    Originally posted by Fadedbomb
    ADDING LOADS OF BLANK LINES TO MY POST WILL SURELY MAKE MY ARGUING POINTS MORE CREDIBLE

     

    PROTIP: it doesn't. Not flamebaiting whatsoever, just making a point.

    There is a bug  that sometimes inserts a bunch of extra spacing when someone edits a post. I went and edited the spacing.

    To give feedback on moderation, contact [email protected]

  • BlackbrrdBlackbrrd Member Posts: 811

    Originally posted by Skuz

    If this game really can put out Monthly content consistently then I think it'll be the MMO game that can most justify a sub price.

    Yeah, this is my thought as well. For a fresh MMO I think the content is very good and I do agree with the reviewer that they have made it a good game to continue adding content to, like how they added the 7 new missions and the two additional nightmare dungeons. For once I feel there is a good balance between content for the players that play 24/7 and the more casual players.

     

    I think TSW has plenty of room for improvement, but at the same time I don't think they have burnt any bridges. It does seem like the dungeons were very well received and that they can just build on what they started there. They have stated they are coming with 10 and 20 man raids, which after playing AoC I think will be very good. PvP seems to have missed it's mark, but not by an unfixable margin.

  • KuppaKuppa Member UncommonPosts: 3,292
    Originally posted by GrayGhost79
    Originally posted by Suzie_Ford
    Originally posted by toddze

    The real reviews of a game come from the players now and only the players. It is not just this site that has stopped giving real reviews of a game all game sites have.

    Funny. The average score for TSW on Metacritic with over 600 USER/GAMER/PLAYER reviews is 8.4. Go figure. ;)

    See for yourself: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-secret-world/user-reviews

     

    [mod edit]

    Its what happens with most themepark mmos. The game by itself probably warrants a good score. During the first month or so folks love what they are getting because its pretty good, after a while they have nothing to do and are still paying money thus end up lowering their original thoughts on the game.

    image


    image

  • tank017tank017 Member Posts: 2,192
    Over generous with the score, as is id give TSW a 7.
  • IsawaIsawa Member UncommonPosts: 1,051

    I think the review is pretty solid. So many of the complaints are from folks who appear to have very little knowledge of the game, figures...

  • ktanner3ktanner3 Member UncommonPosts: 4,063

    I enjoyed the guests, the world and the skill wheel. but I didn't like the clunkiness of the combat or the many glitches  I ran into during the time I played. For me this game deserves no better than a 7.0. Fix the bugs, make the combat more smooth, then it will deserve a 8.0. No game this buggy should get high marks. Not in this day and age.

    Currently Playing: World of Warcraft

  • CaldrinCaldrin Member UncommonPosts: 4,505

    Awesome review its about spot on and what I would have given it..

     

    Best themepak MMORPG to be released for a long time and nothing is going to come close to this for quite some time.. themepark wise that is..

  • Bonez005Bonez005 Member UncommonPosts: 38

    Originally posted by zigmund

    I wish reviewers actually played games for a month before reviewing.

    The BAD...

    Crafting and inventory management - terrible - hate it.

    Banking / AH only in London - terrible idea - hate it.

    Building 5 resource counters for combat - terrible - hate it.

    Gear manager doesn't work, forgets settings.

    Open skill sytem - not really - very disappointed.

    Interesting skills? - no very disappointed.

    PVP sucks.

    No lfg tool. LFG Spam is brutal

    The Good...

    5 mans are awesome!

    Quests are awesome!

    Skill deck although bland and fairly restrictive, is deep and really makes you think to put together a build with synergy.

    Mobs have great AI.

    Death system handled well.

    Great story.

    Verdict - I'll be playing GW2

     

     

     

     

     




     

    This is about spot on... I bought this game to hold me over for a month until GW2 comes out and I'm already bored with it four days later... way too many bugs. If you like spamming the same ability over and over with no way to just turn it on Auto-fire, then you'll love the combat. Every weapon set works pretty much the same way, the only difference being some are ranged, some are melee. The character advancement is very short. It doesn't take long to get what you want... it only takes long if you don't know what you want, or want more options to switch between. Just one dungeon per tier which will have you sick and tired of seeing people shout "DPS LFG for 'only dungeon in the area" and then you'll be sick of unsubing the LFG channel because every time you log in the damn thing is back on again...

    If you dare ask "Is the Disassembly system working yet?" be prepared to be attacked by a horde of fanbois trying to convince you that everything is working fine even though its officially a known broken feature that, guess what?? Is STILL broken after you went back to town and took the junk from your bank to disassemble it because the fanbois said nothing is broken... I got stuck in the enviroment last night and typed /stuck and I got a message saying "Your character does not seem stuck" and all I could think to myself was "and your game is a piece of shit..." yup they can have this game :)

    I really wanted to like this game. I will go as far to say that its a straight up dissappointment. If you are on the fence about buying this... save your money. This WILL be free to play before long... I promise you this. Otherwise it will die like the rest of the "Potentially good  mmos".

  • mysticmousemysticmouse Member UncommonPosts: 146

    After playing the game for the past month and having some fun at it, I would rate the game somewhere between a 6.5 to  a 7. While I won't be playing it anymore, I will keep and eye on it to see where it goes and may play it again at some future date. It does show a lot of promise .

  • DarhammDarhamm Member UncommonPosts: 68

    This is a game that grows on you. If you only play it a little and decides "wow, this blows donkey balls", you need to play more to really appreciate it. It's like fine wine, with it flaws and finesses :)

    image
  • TahoenvyTahoenvy Member Posts: 2

    I completely agree with the review actually.  Any of you that are still saying combat is clunky aren't playing the game or haven't since beta.

    I'm an old time gamer, I pretty much play everything or beta test it since EQ1 and this game is by far the best thing that's been released.  I LOVE IT!

    It takes brains to play it.  That has never been said before.  If you want to finish the quests and not read the spoilers it can be difficult.

    Again, I LOVE IT!

     

    Graphics are by far some of the best ever released, they could incrrease their character customization options but that doesn't have much importance to me and they have it in the works.

  • VaporsVapors Member UncommonPosts: 407

    Repetitive trashmobs?

    Most time u dont even have to kill them, and doungens are completly free from trashmobs, so its actually pure boss runs.

    Im fine with the 8.5, just kind of dissapointed of the gw2 players trying to rank down the game in every rating they can find, if its pictures or forums or just simple ratings like this.

    Also they like to sit on the "character customization" which is like acceptable, im not sure what ppl are missing, you want your character beeing anabol monster or fat or whats your points in this negative fact.

    Also gw2 and tsw are diffrent game types and does not stand as enemies in this market. So whats the point argueing about it.

     

  • AmanaAmana Moderator UncommonPosts: 3,912

    Guys, just a reminder that the topic here is this TSW review and TSW. Not other games, not our reviews in general, not MMOs in general. Those posts are off topic and subject to removal.

    To give feedback on moderation, contact [email protected]

  • mindw0rkmindw0rk Member UncommonPosts: 1,356

    TSW looks absolutely incredible on highest settings in 3D Vision 2. Plays great too. But numerous bugs and primitive combat are letdown for me. Still gonna sub second month, too excited about upcoming features


     

  • AbangyarudoAbangyarudo Member Posts: 156
    Originally posted by Fadedbomb

    None of your scores make sense.

    Aesthetics – 9.5??

     

    How in the bloody hell did you find it "ok" to take what essentially boils down to "Graphics" and turn it into a major scoring point for TSW? Graphics =/= a game. This shouldn't be a scoring point!

     If you acutally have read this site they've always used a category scoring system like most review sites. Obviously graphics should be a scoring point if you keep bringing up animations it is considered part of the graphics. 

     

    Game Play – 8.5??

    This is a highly opinion based score area given the fact that people whom like WoW will like TSW's gameplay, but generally speaking people whom like DAOC, EQ, SWG, or even Age of Conan's combat system will dislike it immensely. You should put near the beginning of your article which game you mostly relate to for your scores. Obviously I don't agree at all with an "8.5" given TSW's horribly clunky & non-intuitive combat system. Not to mention the horrible animations..

    1) Animations is not considered part of gameplay. Animations should be somewhat minimalistic in this game since its not high fantasy. Animations are a left over argument from beta where the game was using much of the same animations now that is no longer the case as they specificed they added many new animations before launch.  

    2) Clucky UI is also part of graphics. I don't really see the issue with the ui I only have problems with the inventory screen size that I can manually resize.

    3) Non-ituitive? I don't think people understand what this means anymore. Considering the combat system is new it will not be intuitive since you haven't been introduced to it unless you played something like magic the gathering. This is really more a sign of innovation.

    4) I've played all those games. I love the combat system its refreshing easy to learn hard to master kind of thing.   

     

    Value & Longevity – 8.0??

    Your primary reason, as stated, for this scoring point was based on SWTOR's recent announcement about F2P and that since TSW already has a cash-shop it'll make a clean transition to F2P should subs prove to dip too low?!

    Value & Longevity is a scoring point, in most reviews, that dictate replayability & end-game enjoyment. At the VERY LEAST it has nothing to do with the payment model associated with the game.

    NONE OF THE POINTS YOU RAISED FOR SCORING MAKE ANY SENSE AS A PRIMARY REVIEWBASE

    MMORPGs don't lend well to longevity because of the problems associated with the genre. The highest replayability is in games like Eve where new objectives are made more by the user than the acutal game itself.  If you want to complain about TSW's you'd have to complain about the whole genre. 

    Next, we look at your overall Pros/Cons that have zero connection to any of your previous scoring points:

     



    Pros
     




    image Deep skill system - Just a facade, not actually "deep"

    How? and lets use acutal examples then generalizations that offer nothing to comment on. 

    image GREAT story - Agreed, but so did SWTOR

    SWTOR was lackluster in story because there were lots of holes, inconsistances, etc. As an example with the companion system you go on a quest to get your initial companion he is supposedly a unique individual entity that everyone else just happens to also have. The plot holes are enormous and there is no real reason for your character to do what he/shes doing.  There is some issues in story but not nearly as bad as the mess in SWTOR.  




    image Meaningful dungeons - How exactly are they "meaningful", they have no impact at all on the world outside those instances?!

    In otherwords they're not just an excuse to fight bosses it is part of the storyline and it makes sense. 


    image Tiered and unique questing - Same quest system used by WoW. Go to point A get quests 1 - 9, do quests, go to Point B for higher tiered/chained quests. Nothing unique here other than the occassional "gem" with a half-decent story behind it

    .obviously you either never played WoW or TSW or you're just bsing to bash the game. In wow you have one objective that is all that matters. So if Say something is part of the quest but not the acutal obective you never really got xp for it like the tier system does. Is it completely new? no but its not the same old system that has been an mmorpg staple. 




    Cons
     




    image Lack of initial character customization - Yup

    Ehh most games I played have a lack of character creation options at start SWTOR and Rift come to mind. I think the initial character creation is more than adquete. 

    image Lackluster PvP - Yup

    More of a lack of direction in pvp. It needs more reason to acutally pvp./




    image Repetitive trash mobs - Yup

     

    problem in all games because trash mobs are rampant in all mmorpgs. It was a bs con. 


    [mod edited - removed some spacing]
     

     

  • EvilGeekEvilGeek Member UncommonPosts: 1,258

    I pretty much agree with the review though I would have marked it down a notch for longevity.

    I'm playing this game very slowly, really enjoying my time when I log in, I'm about 4-5 hrs played in to Egypt so far. This weekend I'm going to be going for the 30 mission award, I'm going to be repeating earlier content and revisiting familiar faces, faces I've already seen a few times. I don't mind repeating the occasional bit of content in this game, I think the characters are well realised, I've grown attached to Norma, Henry, Hayden Montag et al. In short I'm playing slow and getting a lot of mileage. I don't think the same is true of most mmmo players.

    I'm expecting to see the usual decline that is to be expected post first month and even more the second month (natural decline and up-coming competition), BUT I think this game has the potential to grow a sizable niche community, monthly story updates and game play additions should be enough to keep people playing at a pace like me pretty content. It has the best characterisations and atmosphere I've seen to date, a lot of people are going to enjoy that even if you don't.

    GW2 releases very soon, I've already bought the game, spent a little in the cash shop over the last BWE, I'll get that back to use at launch, it's not going to require any further financial commitment from me for quite a while. I can happily keep my TSW sub running and it will be the ideal contrast for me to GW2 (which is likely to be my main). Obviously that sub still has to be justified (I'm looking at you chat bug!).

    For PvE there's a lot of positives for TSW, I'm enjoying it a lot thanks :)

    image
  • MisarisMisaris Member Posts: 140
    Nice review, great game, I enjoy it a lot. But if SWTOR is an 8.7, TSW should get a 12.9
  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959

    Originally posted by Suzie_Ford

    Originally posted by toddze



    The real reviews of a game come from the players now and only the players. It is not just this site that has stopped giving real reviews of a game all game sites have.

    Funny. The average score for TSW on Metacritic with over 600 USER/GAMER/PLAYER reviews is 8.4. Go figure. ;)

    See for yourself: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-secret-world/user-reviews


     


     

    Owned :P

    Nice review. Agree with pro's and con's.

    Hope they manage to improve the PVP over time.

    Right now I don't miss it much, as I had no time to PVP yet (other than in the beta weekends). Too much fun with PVE'ing.

    Still hanging around in Savage Coast. So much more to go through.

  • shamus252shamus252 Member UncommonPosts: 226

    Good review.

    Sic semper tyrannis "Democracy broke down, not when the Union
    ceased to be agreeable to all its constituent States, but when it was upheld, like any other Empire, by force of arms."

  • MeliezaMelieza Member Posts: 269

    I feel this review is pretty good, but I also feel its unfair to mark the game down because of bugs.  SWTOR was given a better score simply because there may have been less mission issues, but as a game TSW is worlds better.

    A review should rate the game features and gameplay, etc. regardless of bugs.  Bugs will be fixed.  Unless you're going to review the game again after those bugs you marked it down for are fixed, don't rate it on that.

    It's really unfair because bugs have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself.

    I personally would rate it even higher than an 8.5, a 9 or 9.5 simple because the game is not only completely different than anything out there and Funcom should get major kudos for taking that risk, but because the immersion factor is just astounding.  Every document you find is an actually replicated document, the environments are incredible and not repetative, the NPCs talk and have banter between them, and of course, the mission stories and dialog are better than I've even seen in single player games.

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