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What Killed The Secret World
NemeisMerc
Member Posts: 36
First things first, if you think TSW is doing fine don't take it up here or with me. Take it up with Funcom
http://cdn.funcom.com/investor/2014/Funcom_Q12014_report.pdf ,
http://cdn.funcom.com/investor/2013/Funcom_1Q13 report.pdf ,
or Funcoms very direct statement
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1561886/the_secret_world_flops_funcom_focusing_on_smaller_projects.html
"Funcom has now said it will concentrate its attentions on "smaller, more focused online games" after confirming its belief that The Secret World will sell less than half what they forecast for launch year, with plans to layoff around half its employees."
or take it up here http://steamcharts.com/app/215280#
The numbers tell the story.
That out of the way lets proceed to diagnosis. I don't make the claim of knowing what the exact cause was, but I see what are in my opinion many potential candidates.
1. Failed launch. TSW certainly did have a rough launch but other games that have done better and had worse, I think everyone who games has come to expect launch problems from MMOs and rightly or wrongly just overlooks them
2. Buggy Software: This is a hard one to rate again. TSW certainly has it's share of bugs, Auction house problems not the least of which is it doesn't show all the listings for high volume items (only retrieves the 1st 100 results on any query), horrendous frame rate problems in large events that reduce them to slideshows, a chat system that just shuts down on people, finally even the developers admit the game isn't optimized (Guess they have to seeing as last time I looked it was shipping in debug mode, and you could just watch the debug messages with visual studio). Once again something that gamers often seem willing to live with and overlook.
3. Lack of content/updates: A common complaint in MMOs it seems. The update rate for TSW is certainly low. There was the 8 month gap between issue 1.8 (oct 13) and 1.9 (Jun 14) , The next issue hasn't had it's release date set and isn't even up on the test server so the update rate is still in the toilet.
4. Combat: This is a big topic. I have seen lots of complaints about the games combat.
1) Not visceral
The game just really doesn't give you the thunk I killed something feel it' just doesnt have the big feedback. I can certainly see this, once again it's a your mileage may vary item/
2) Everything has the same animation
The game does have a limited amount of animations that's for sure. That same spinning green circle is always coming up. I don't know exactly how many combat animations there are but it certainly doesn't look like many and not much variety of what's there. It's especially bad when you consider the skill wheel has 525 skills.
3) Combat animations are poorly done
Purely a matter of taste here, and once again have seen games with worse animations and ones with much better.
4) The wheel is diverse combat is not
Well from where I sit there's large parts of the skill wheel that are usually completely useless and when they might be useful you are almost always better off just not bothering. For the most part the wheel seems focus you down to a very few useful skills.
5. Lack of endgame
Well it's not lack of endgame IMSHO as lack of quality endgame. TSW has nightmare dungeons and the NYC Raid, both are pretty good, its just that all the rest of the endgame content are unfixed disasters. Scenarios are probably the single most hated part of the game amongst the people I have talked to. IIRC the game director even acknowledged "everyone wouldn't like them". Lairs were never compelling and and the efforts to extend them haven't been very successful.
6. Ugly Characters Lack of Customization/Clothing
This is a common complaint again, matter of fact it's something I have heard so often I tuned it out when creating the list. It's very hard for people to make attractive characters in the character creators (but really really easy to make characters that look like the backside of a mule beaten by an ugly stick) and the clothing choices are really poor. http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/404/feature/8964 (funny enough theres a whole article on this site about the problems with the clothing). Personally I didn't see this as a giant problem, as with effort it could be overcome.
The problem I saw goes back to buggy/badly designed software in that once you do get an acceptable character you have to start loading in mods to get your clothing changes to work right. Once again this will bother some people more than others.
7. Community
It's a tough call on this because overall the community was pretty good especially when there were enough players for it to be meaningful. There were the usual share of "Whoever has the biggest DPS is the winner types" and insane farmer types that didn't want you sharing the same zone but they were quite the minority. If anything the bullet in this barrel would be the "Community" just disappears between updates.
8. Poor Business Model.
The game gives people virtually no reason to subscribe. Why bother when you can get the game dirt cheap on regular sales and then never spend another dime ? It's very nice if you are a gamer that wants a cheap disposable entertainment or someone that wants cheap accounts to break the terms of service with. It's not such a nice thing if you are someone who looks for regular content updates or a publisher looking for a return on investment.
9. Poorly done crafting
Crafting in the TSW seems to be there is as a check mark item that isn't much more than a little more elaborate way to buy items and directly spend endgame tokens. Except for lair puzzles there isn't any sort of minigame associated with them.
10. Lack of player housing
Another who's presence is felt by it's absence. Anyone who wants to create backstory of their own for their character and a life that doesn't consist of dodging filth has to do it outside of the game.
11. Game designed to eject people ?
Not to sure about this one, but one poster has cited the endgame as grindy and targeted at a niche in a niche. If I understand the post correctly he feels the game should be treated as a serial novel with everything off the story line as fluff. I can see the problem here as the episodes have defined endings and with the large time periods of waiting for updates it would be very hard to keep an emotional connection to "Your Character"
12. The game discourages teaming, and when necessary encourages the smallest team size possible. The game has a loot system with most of the "Good" items being very low chance drops. There are people who have been raiding from the start and never gotten an Astral Fuse from the raid or gold items from scenarios. Just looking at the Astral Fuse (The item that takes you from 10.4 to 10.5/ and which you need 9). It drops roughly in 1/3 to 1/4 of the raids. There's 10 people in a raid giving you a 1/30 to 1/40 chance of getting one. You can guess how people have full sets.
13. The game does not promote personal character development. While it does have an excellent story that it tells, it's not your story. There's almost no place in the game where you can make character defining choices. When you can the choice is relegated to a no effect non material choice. Compare this with a game like SWTOR, which IMSHO does not have as good a story, but is much more involving because your choices do matter and affect your character going forward.
14. User interface or lack thereof. Relative to other current games the games native user interface is just horribly bad. Putting aside things like the fact turning on nameplates will give you a performance hit, the UI is nowhere near feature complete and quite buggy in what it has.
Big hits in UI
- The gear manager did not work at all properly for the first year and a half still can be problematic
- There is no provision for repositioning or resizing parts of the UI. Especially important with castbars
- Auction house lacks basic functionality like price comparison for items you want to sell
- Group finder/ creator is completely useless
- No provision for saving or loading clothing sets as an outfit
- Raid windows near useless for tracking team/member status
- Social UI for all intents and purposes non existent simple things like last on for guilds don't exist
- Presentation of status information exceptionally poor in a game that relies heavily on state based effects
So there's my list of potential candidates, what's your smoking gun for The Secret World.
Comments
I am not with you OP. Imo it's actually one of the best MMO's off todays market.
Great storyline, beautifull graphics...
I can only agree about one thing, the animations could be a bit better...
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Edgar Allan Poe
I agree, it's one of the best games available. By FAR the best missions/quests in the genre, excellent environment, great character development, etc.
Really a fantastic game.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Oh thank you for reminding I forgot one of the common complaints.
Ugly characters.
I thought the game was pretty good to play through. It's still installed and I pop in from time-to-time to play any new content.
The game has no subscription. Remember, this is "the future of gaming!" Or at least, that's what a vocal minority keep driving.
So, if new content doesn't come fast enough and they make little money, what should they do? I'd love to know.
I had no problems at launch, nor have I encountered any game-breaking bugs. A few bugged quests, but that's it. I simpily re-visited them after they were fixed. So I can't comment on anything else you claim. However, how is this any different than other games?
TSW wasn't meant for everybody. It was made for those who are still playing it. I'm glad someone out there provided something different, it happens so rarely.
TSW is worth playing through, at least once. Don't expect it to be a "home" for you.
Or is this a Funcom issue?
I agree about the ugly female character models and textures, but I think it actually is a great game.
Edit: if they only used the same quality models of AoC...
I agree as well, TSW really is a great game.
this thread is bad and you should feel bad.
TSW is great
OP I do agree with some of your comments, however.... the game wasn't "killed" by any means. The title is like all others released recently and holds a large group of niche players. It is very unique and that is why many are still loyal fans of it since launch. The payment models is one of the best out with it's B2P conversion, and imho this should be the way all titles should be released. I'm kind of curious why you would bring up the launch when the game has been out for a couple of years too. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Thanks there's another one I forgot "The Community"
Community
It's a tough call on this because overall the community was pretty good especially when there were enough players for it to be meaningful. There were the usual share of "Whoever has the biggest DPS is the winner types" and insane farmer types that didn't want you sharing the same zone but they were quite the minority. If anything the bullet in this barrel would be the "Community" just disappears between updates.
I'll go back to my first point on this the numbers tell the story. I really didn't want and will do everything possible to avoid arguments with the people who will inevitably say "I love the game it can't be a failure" but by any reasonable evaluation it got killed, or failed to thrive.
Payment Model is an interesting point.
The payment model may be great short term for players but there is too much incentive to just buy the game cheaply from one of the sales and never spend another sent.
Indeed, Grimal. =/
It's one of my favorite MMOs, but sweet jebus, does it have ugly characters. If the rest didn't redeem it I'd have walked away after seeing them.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
No doubt The Secret World characters are quite fugly.
Just a few examples:
If not SWTOR - TSW would be my MMO of choice. I am still hoping to it from time to time, not as much as I would like but day has only 24 h LOL.
Agree with ugliness of characters, they really should work on it. I was able to create toons that I liked, so it's good enough for me. I have the same complaint about SWTOR as well.
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E
I think part of the problem with the updates have to do with the engine, it seems like making new content for TSW and AoC requires far more work then for many other MMOs.
I think really part of the reason that the game isn't larger though is that many MMO players who doesn't hang on this forum have not even heard about it.
I think that was what a lot of fans were hoping for. I know I was one of them. Nobody I knew wanted McGamers in the game.
Your black-haired girl reminds me of Dragon Age's Cassandra.
Nice job on both of them.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
I dont understand your opinion, tsw was never meant to be a mmo you played like a "my homegame" style mmo, no housing, no crafting, no pvp ladders or arenas, the design is based on story and when your done with the content there is no "endgame" so to say that its dead is like saying just because you finished the singelplayer and coop parts of the game its now done and over. Sure you can grind nightmares to get those extra gear, but that is only for the niche community, it does not even feel like it was part of the design to begin with, rather something they added for the niche community to do while hanging around waiting for new content.
I still play the game (when I have the time, so many games to play so much life to live so little time to do it all), and there is new issues to play, I have not yet completed the latest issue(9), though I'm excited about it, and will soon jump into game to get it completed. Also looking forward to issue 10 & 11.
Imo the game is beautiful, I also think the women can be gorgeous, and have on some occasions really got smittens with a few female avatars, and there is nothing wrong with the looks of the men either, unless ofcourse you suck at character creation, well then its your fault your char looks like shit.
The environments are stunning, only most areas are to small, and some of the set pieces are also just to small in the grand scope of the games storytelling. that would really be my main complaint. Combat is fine, the game is focused on the rpg and storytelling elements and the combat is how you pick and chose your skills, not how you hit 11111-2, to beat the gatekeeper is a thinking excersize, unless you read a internet guide from google, and on that note, if you surf the answer to the quests in TSW you are not doing yourself a favor, imo your killing the immersion on your own by cheating.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
Well I'm not trying to tell anyone that the population is a huge success, but what I am saying is the game hasn't died. I'm not a fanboi of the game, but when my son and I sit down to play the population is fairly healthy. If you compared TSW with about any other titles released at the same time, or even recently, you will see a large decrease in populations. The links you provided would more than likely mirror other titles like Tera and/or GW2. Things just gradually stabilize into what they are now and make the niche games that we all have grown use to.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
OP: I think if I read your post correctly you were asking about the financial success of the game. I have no idea why it isn't making buckets of money, because like the majority of posters on this thread I think its a great game - from a quality perspective. Every game has a few launch issues, though I didn't encounter any significant ones while I played. For me, in the end it got to a point where you needed groups to do stuff and there just weren't that many available at the times when I could log in and play. End game in pretty much any game is difficult to solo. Maybe people decided to just go play Goat Simulator. I don't know.
I have a life, its just different from yours.....
You're doing it wrong.
I self identify as a monkey.