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So how does the game work?
MMOExposed
Member RarePosts: 7,400
I havnt been following the game like a fan. Can somebody sum up the interesting, and controversial parts of this game, and when it plans to release?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Comments
....
Is it open world like WoW, or most Instanced like AoC?
What's the main selling point feature?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Last thing first, release is scheduled for June 19th.
The game will be instanced.
The game is pretty much your standard themepark MMO. What sets it slightly apart is the ability-wheel (no classes) and the modern setting. Very little is known, since the NDA seems to be working (as far as I can tell).
Friday that's gonna change, then the first beta-weekend-event will take place and I expect massive leaks.
Inspiration from HP Lovecraft and S King
1. Huge focus on story..Where you dont have 20 diffrent quests in one area ..You have a few so that what you do never get's confusing. Voice overs in the same ballpark as SWTOR.
2 . A level less system with a skill wheel (500 skills) that let's you unlock skills on it, you can then have 7 active and 7 passive skills from that wheel..and you can change these 14 skills based on the number you have unlocked.
3 . A World that is based from an alternative version of our world, Hong Kong , London etc , never been done before in an MMO.
4. Modern Setting .(.2012 esque time ?)
Release date 19 June
No you can't. At least not in the sense of "press X to dodge", obvoiusly you can position yourself to avoid damage but i don't think that is what you meant.
Yes it is open world, yes it is instanced. Both games you mention have open world zones as well as isntances, TSW has both of those as well.
Main selling features are storyline, setting and classless progression system.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
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General
What is The Secret World?
Why would I want to play The Secret World?
When will it be released?
How long has it been in development?
When does beta start?
What platforms is it being developed for?
What will the system requirements be?
What will the payment model be?
Will there be a collector's edition?
What are the factions?
What are cabals?
Will there be crafting?
Will there be social gathering places?
Will there be fast travel?
Is the UI customisable?
What are ARGs?
How will player names work?
How big is the game world?
Is there instancing?
What languages will it release in?
Will there be multiple servers?
Will there be regional servers?
Character Development
How does the ability system work?
What are active abilities?
What are passive abilities?
How does the skill system work?
What are templates / decks?
Will there be character statistics?
Will there be equipment statistics?
What kinds of weapons are there?
How will leaderboards work?
What will end-game be like?
Combat
What will combat be like?
Are there combat roles?
What is the maximum size of teams?
What is the 'states' system?
What are mob ratings?
Will there be pets?
PvE and PvP
Will there be separate PvE and PvP servers?
How will missions work?
How will PvP work?
What is Agartha?
According to a dev post on the forums the game uses a similar zone system to AoC (disclaimer: I never played AoC past Tortage); given the zones are based on real-world locations from all over the world it cannot be truly open-world but it seems the majority of zones are not instanced a la Guild Wars but the reference to a player cap per zone suggests the use of channels in non hub town zones (I have seen much confusion on this site and elsewhere between the concepts of zones, shards / virtual servers, instances, channels, &c).
As for the coming beta weekends they are not under NDA (per funcom_tsw Twitter) so "leaks" is not really the right word.
Zoning wise its not as bad as swtor or Aoc, more on a par with warhammer or coh
All the important abilities from boss/mini-boss monsters will be shown on the ground so you are required to move out of them. Also some abilities might have dodge possibilities but there's no actual "DODGE" key like in GW2.
The combat is similar to GW2? From the videos Ive seen it doesn't seem very similar to me. From movement to the trinity it seems pretty different.
Your picking a limited set of skills from a pool
True los
Collision detection
States system and combos across party members
Ok gw has downed state and dodge button, where as you dodge in tsw by loosing los, tsw makes more use of cones, but they're pretty similar with movement being so important and the way you combine effects.
I would say trinity is pretty important too and makes the games complete opposites. In GW2 you don't really need dedicated tanks or healers.
Im not sure we know that is true. I haven't seen the developers say that and to have a trinity-less based system it really has to be designed from the beggining. We have very little info on how a team without a healer or tank would fare since there are no videos or experiences, that I know of. All the developer "tours" Ive seen there is always a healer.
I doubt everyone in the team will be bringing their own heal skill and as far as I know there are no pots in TSW either, so you basically need a healer. Im not sure if there are any aggro skills, but if there are any that indicates there is tank mechanics.
The best comparison would be city of heroes. This would be on normal mode, a lot of leeway in group composition.
On hard mode, you will be expected to bring multiple decks and switch them before each encounter. For instance there is one boss you can't tank at all and would struggle to heal through, on this encounter everyone uses rdps builds and uses the environment to avoid the bosses gaze.
I'm fairly sure that GW2 will still make players with certain sets of abilities to rely on other players with different sets of abilities. At least if they intend to create any challenging group combat mechanics. It'll be interesting how GW2 turns out in that regard.
At the moment, we know for sure that challenging content CAN be created with a trinity system. It's questionable as to whether a game without such depenencies can create equally compelling content. 20 people having to co-ordinate abilities tends to be more involved than 20 people each doing their own thing until the mob dies.
My guess is that GW2 will make characters rely on other characters. If it's not a tank relying on a healer for heals, it'll be "spec A" relying on "spec B" for something else in order to defeat an encounter. So in the end, it ends up being pretty similar in effect and allows for exciting and challenging group dynamics.
The nice thing about TSW is the strategic component in deciding what each character brings to a fight - do they bring a heal? an AoE? a stun resistance? a group buff? etc. Which oddly, is somewhat akin to GW2 and weapon switching, with different weapons allowing (from what i understand) different characters to bring different things to an encounter.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
After playing the last BWE on GW2 what you said is not in anyway how GW2 works.
So GW2 encounters do NOT require players to rely on skills/abilities of other players?
I've not played GW2 myself, but looking up the Wiki just now, it says that the combat system revolves around the trinity of "Damage", "Support" and "Control" abilities executed by different players. Which while being different from "Heals", "Taunts" and "Damage" of the "traditional" MMO trinity, still seems like a similar cross-reliant system.
I'm just guessing here, feel free to explain. I'm interested in both games, so would be good to know.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
What they mean by that is that all classes can perform thoses actions, not that any one class will just be doing that role. Its kind of hard to explain. You are not relying on other players to provide skills/abilities. They built the game with the idea that you can bring the player not the classes (lets just assume it works, no one has played the game to such a degree to prove or disprove this yet). Personal skill is going to be much more important in GW2 than in most other games. Each class will be brining each of those three, the players spec will deturmine what that player brings to a fight, That player might be more on the side of damage, or support, or they might be a balance of those. You should never see LF1M support.
There are definately going to be specs and they will play off each other. But, I can see how iin GW2 you can do an all Elementalists group for example and take on a dungeon. Each Ele is going to probably be different from the other and they are the same class.
The thing with TSW is that the fact that you can bring anything you want will call for people to ask for specifics more probable. In GW2 every class has a healing skill and they all have what I like to call "OH shit" skills, to get out of trouble. There is also no aggro skills in GW2. In TSW I think there will be LF Tank/Healer and this also depends on how aggro works in this game, as you may be aware its pretty different in GW2 compared to other MMOs.
You probably will still see LF1M support though. Some classes do offer better support skillsets and even though you wouldn't need a specific class, I'm sure people will play their character the way they want to and not want to switch over their skills. Like the example of having all elementalists and not all being the same type. If you had all the same type mostly and needed 1 more, you probably wouldn't want to add another of the same type.
It goes back to why people don't play a lot of support roles in a trinity based game, they usually don't like to, lol. I've played games before where everyone was a hybrid, still saw the same thing. Played games with no healers, heck even no dedicated tanks because everyone could by just popping heal pots. People still concentrated on gameplay elements they preferred. It was easier to fill a group, but sometimes wanted someone with a little more oomph, or support.
Only bad groups will do that. Its not really the same thing. You might look at your group and say oh we are missing some thing, some more support might fill that, but than again perhaps control will work. Or perhaps just more dps will do the trick.. Player skill and being able to make use of your class/spec will play a bigger role than your spec. But making a full support build will fail, and trying to run a group that way will fail (as stated by the Dev, and since we don't have any other information...) They have also said that while you can try and make the clasical tank, dps, healer. You will not get very far.
You can run an instance with every one the same spec. But the odds of that happening is low. as you can have what ever spec you want. It will just be up the group to adapt.
TSW is bring the player not the class also, as EVERYONE will both need and have multiple builds, and there are no classes. Think like GW1 but you get your skills from every class not just a primary and a secondary, and can switch them any time you aren't in combat.
yep and that would be cool but its not really true. Or you could have said Rift was the same way, as you could just jump from healer to tank to dps at will. TSW still has tanks, healers, and dps, roles. So your still going to have to fill those roles in order to run dungeons. Its not a bad system. and letting every one do it is great. but the truth is that not every one will want to tank, or get the skills needed to tank, not everyone will learn the skills to heal. So your still going to have classes that focus on one or the other. From the looks of it, spliting your points so that you can do multiple things might hold you back. Will have to see how it turns out.
If you can win by all players doing the same thing (i.e. damage) then I don't see how you can create a challenging encounter.
If - regardless of spec - the game requires one person to heal if the other is doing damage, then it's not particularly different from a traditional setup. Except that now instead of having a "healer" and "damage dealer" you have two people that are BOTH but take turns casting heals and dmg skills. You still have to have someone do damage and someone heal, even if no one has to be fully dedicated to one of them.
btw, the quote above seems to be true for both GW2 and TSW. I only realized it after I had typed the response...
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO