Oh, and it was way too easy overall, not once did I feel as though my character was going to die, I never had the "Oh shit" moment you get when you pull too many mobs, as no matter how many mobs were pulled, it was not a problem.
Overall, Im left wondering what all the fuss is about.
Hmm, when I tried the game at PAX I found there were several areas where I could easily die and did. Of course it was a character that used pistols and I wasn't used to the controls but several times I inadverently drew mobs more powerful than myself and it was definitley a fight.
This was in Innasmouth (spelling?) I believe.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Game still needs work in some area's but damn I had fun. Combat/animations are ok but nothing mind blowing. Didn't do any group combat so can't really comment on how that works. Quests were the real gem for me. Sure you had the usual 'kill things' or 'find things' quests but a lot of the quests were ones that had me laughing in glee when I solved them or worked out a clue.
My overall observation from the weekend though is about the people that took part. It was very clear to spot the people that were the ADD kids and those that wanted to enjoy the game as intended. Also, it was quite clear when people were just not realising that EVERYTHING in the game seems to have a connection elsewhere.
For instance, speaking to the guy in Agartha (transportation hub for want of a better descrition of the place) and listenning to his dialogue/cutscene he makes a reference to these bees that work there. Later on there is a quest without hints or a map marker that references this place....needless to say the number of people who had either cancelled the cutscene ro simply not kept notes were all asking in chat where to go and had no idea why the quest location and clue were linked.
Another funny thing was someone complaining in chat about the bugs had such as where, during the Tokyo cutscene, his appearance kept changing to a girl and the other characters kept calling him Sarah...I mean, when stupidity hits that hard it is hard to keep a straight face. Only problem is I bet they are all over the forums slagging the game off....where their own lack of IQ is the problem not the game.
Anyway, game was fun and I am looking forward to another look next weekend and when game is released.
I gave it a 7. Very nice game, good story, great setting and atmosphere. I loved the questing system, specially the quests where you got clues and had to think on how to solve them.
Character animation would use some work (but we already know that most of it will be post-release), character creation felt limited, but that will improve. Combat (as a sword guy) felt a little too easy for me, I was just running around spamming 2 AoE skills and was never in danger of dying, even when fighting hordes of zombies or the biggest mobs you sometimes had to fight at the end of some quests. The story was very good, but being so story heavy and having a single starter area makes me worry about replayability (it all depends on how different are the groups from each other), specially when it comes to the thinking quests if they end up being the same. Still, the game felt very fun to play.
That said, I will give it a pass for now. The game, as I said, was fun, but I honestly have to say that, for me (personal opinion), feels more like a single player game with a chat system than an actual MMO. I never felt a benefit of having all those people running around, never felt compelled to interact or group with anyone, I usually try to help people in combat in MMOs, and did this time as well, but since combat was so easy I never felt I was really making a difference with my help, and I'd go as far as saying that sometimes felt it detracted from the game, like one time where I was trying to figure out a quest and someone just wrote the solution in the chat.
If this game was B2P, or a single player game, I'd get it in a heartbeat. As it is, feels like a really good game, but not one I could justify paying box + $15 a month to play
P.D.: I know that $15 a month isn't much, but I live in Venezuela, and because of some stupid laws we have I can only spend $400 a year online abroad, and already spent most of it on parts to upgrade my computer, so I have to be rather picky when it comes to where I spend the money.
Oh, and it was way too easy overall, not once did I feel as though my character was going to die, I never had the "Oh shit" moment you get when you pull too many mobs, as no matter how many mobs were pulled, it was not a problem.
Overall, Im left wondering what all the fuss is about.
Hmm, when I tried the game at PAX I found there were several areas where I could easily die and did. Of course it was a character that used pistols and I wasn't used to the controls but several times I inadverently drew mobs more powerful than myself and it was definitley a fight.
This was in Innasmouth (spelling?) I believe.
Oh, dont get me wrong, Im not saying the whole game is too easy, just what I experienced during the BWE.
As you can probably tell from my post, I did not play for long, just took a couple characters through Kingsmouth.
But that was my point, the game *might* be better further in, and hopefully it is, but with the way the game starts out, a lot of people will not stick around to see it (myself included), as the good bits are not good enough to outweigh the bad bits.
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
5 I felt like it was a bit of a letdown. So many things I'd seen and read leading up to it talking it up like it was going to be much more open and sandboxy. There is no sandbox at all in this game. To progress, you have to do quests (grinding doesn't get you anywhere, there's no exploration exp, all that's left are quests). The skill wheel is as linear as you could possibly make something that's shaped like a circle. I was very disappointed that you had to unlock skills in order, and couldn't pick and choose the abilities you wanted to unlock. You don't even get your own individual story. Every single Templar is told the exact same things you are. Overall it just felt bland to me.
However, I did have fun playing the game. Just not enough to justify the box cost plus a subscription. I'll pick it up once it goes f2p.
It's pretty much what I expected from Funcom: standard MMO fare hidden behind a few gimmicks intended to disguise the fact that the game has a lot more in common with it's competitors than it has differences. I gave it a 6 because while I really liked some parts of it, the parts that I didn't like annoyed me so much that I had to fight the urge to uninstall.
For the time being, it's on my "pass" list, but I will definitely be watching to see if it improves with age.
One of the best "beta"'s I've been in. I didn't have a single hitch at all, not one techincal problem the whole time, no spending a day trying in vain to get in and then half of the next day spamming the login button to get lucky only to get kicked afterwards
The only real bug I came across was for the dx11 lighting down by the beach with the blue flame campfire guys, the whole area would go blue intermittantly, light an atmospheric light was bleeding somewhere. My pc is pretty old now (about 5 years) with a gpu and ssd/os update in all that time. I ran dx11 with the option before ultra, with aa max and tes ground&char (or whatever) and ran at 40-60+ fps on ultra it would dip to 30 so no good. I did notice it would over time (5 hours or so) suddenly go to crap, at first I thought it was lag but a restart went right back up again, but I am running win7 on 2gb ram.
The game itself was annoyingly exactly what I wanted, the scenery looked absolutely amazing best in any mmo for me. the story the ambiance, it just felt real. Probably the London setting (where I live) was helpful for me. But also Kingmouth is just so believable and engrossing it made such a difference to the gameplay for me.
I can't think of anything I didn't like, I didn't even notice the animation thing everyone is going on about. I did notice that towards the end I got a few quests 'out of order' but not really a problem.
So it's a fkin shame it has a cash shop because I was hoping I was going to get to cuss the crap out of it and not feel bad for not playing it.
Bollox, Funcom and their greedy bastadidgery ways.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
One of the best "beta"'s I've been in. I didn't have a single hitch at all, not one techincal problem the whole time, no spending a day trying in vain to get in and then half of the next day spamming the login button to get lucky only to get kicked afterwards
The only real bug I came across was for the dx11 lighting down by the beach with the blue flame campfire guys, the whole area would go blue intermittantly, light an atmospheric light was bleeding somewhere. My pc is pretty old now (about 5 years) with a gpu and ssd/os update in all that time. I ran dx11 with the option before ultra, with aa max and tes ground&char (or whatever) and ran at 40-60+ fps on ultra it would dip to 30 so no good. I did notice it would over time (5 hours or so) suddenly go to crap, at first I thought it was lag but a restart went right back up again, but I am running win7 on 2gb ram.
The game itself was annoyingly exactly what I wanted, the scenery looked absolutely amazing best in any mmo for me. the story the ambiance, it just felt real. Probably the London setting (where I live) was helpful for me. But also Kingmouth is just so believable and engrossing it made such a difference to the gameplay for me.
I can't think of anything I didn't like, I didn't even notice the animation thing everyone is going on about. I did notice that towards the end I got a few quests 'out of order' but not really a problem.
So it's a fkin shame it has a cash shop because I was hoping I was going to get to cuss the crap out of it and not feel bad for not playing it.
Bollox, Funcom and their greedy bastadidgery ways.
Why not just purchase it and not use the cash shop then if you enjoyed it so much. I mean long as there aren't p2w items in it what's the harm?
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Dont get me wrong, enjoyed quite a bit of what I saw, but one of the big selling points of an MMO for me is the PvP. With this weekend being single faction and being unable to see it, I cant really go much higher. In addition there are a few other concerns, but on the whole, enjoyed it enough to start paying more attention to it, and I definitely want to be able to get a handle on the PvP system, as well as a few other aspects of the game.
A full on 10. I hope people hat and dont buy the game actually, I dont want thos mmo vagrants/bums ruining TSW for me. I am a proud lifetimer here.
I'm pretty sure that you've had more experience with the game than I have. As someone who is strongly considering a lifetime sub, can you tell me what would make it worth it vs. a few months sub cost? This is my only real dilemma at the moment.
A full on 10. I hope people hat and dont buy the game actually, I dont want thos mmo vagrants/bums ruining TSW for me. I am a proud lifetimer here.
I'm pretty sure that you've had more experience with the game than I have. As someone who is strongly considering a lifetime sub, can you tell me what would make it worth it vs. a few months sub cost? This is my only real dilemma at the moment.
Thus far its the setting/ambiance/feeling of the whole world. I FEEL like Im in the center of all hell breaking lose.
Is the channel capacity for a zone fairly large? (a couple hundred players or more)
Only one server as far as I can see and from all the people running around seems like it easily handles hundreds.
One server and its typical zone instance system as knwown from AoC, Champions online and sw:tor. you can switch "channels" whit the button in the minimap top.
"heavily instanced" then is a bad thing to say about it.
"one server", plus very populated instances........ the opposite of what people think of when thinking of a "heavily instanced" game (such as D&DO, Guild Wars 1, Dragon Nest, Vindicstus etc.)
there's a VAST night and day difference between public and private instances.
and ALL MMOs outside of Eve are (technically speaking) heavily instanced. they instance the whole world so each is a seperate/segregated server, causing alot of barriers to coordinating things with real life friends, etc.
One of the best "beta"'s...[snip]...bastadidgery ways.
Why not just purchase it and not use the cash shop then if you enjoyed it so much. I mean long as there aren't p2w items in it what's the harm?
Because for me any item they could sell in the shop would be p2w. For me outside influences such as wealth should never have an influence on the game world, I disagree with the item shop model and the only way I can effectively make my protest is to boycott them. Ordinarily I wouldn't care but from the small amount of the game I got to see it was exactly what I was looking for, gutted tbh.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
One of the best "beta"'s...[snip]...bastadidgery ways.
Why not just purchase it and not use the cash shop then if you enjoyed it so much. I mean long as there aren't p2w items in it what's the harm?
Because for me any item they could sell in the shop would be p2w. For me outside influences such as wealth should never have an influence on the game world, I disagree with the item shop model and the only way I can effectively make my protest is to boycott them. Ordinarily I wouldn't care but from the small amount of the game I got to see it was exactly what I was looking for, gutted tbh.
So cosmetic clothing is P2W? Please do us all a favor and dont play this game, we don't need your kind.
Overall my time playing TSW was really positive and I like this game. It is definitely a game I will play either at launch or a few months after. Is it a wow killer - no - but I think i would enjoy playing it for as long as it keeps me entertained.
Quests:10 -
pros: Innovative and engaging - not a wow clone finally! Makes you focus on or two quests at a time and not scoop up everything at a hub and blast them all out. I was on 35 completed and I didn't even start the church and junkyard hubs. There was one that was bugged, and Raven roost and moose still had quests for me. There are a lot of quests lying around that are not at hubs and are easy to miss - makes you want to explore.
cons: I could not delete a quest. I do not like how you have to pause a quest to pick up another, although I understand how they want you to focus.
Gameplay: 8 -
pros: kinda based on quests - but you really have to think (or cheat) to interact with items/quests. Lots of exploration. I did like in the solo instance how you had to disarm traps by avoiding cameras - really well done. A lot of the characters (like Danny) had real twitter pages which I didn't bother reading all of them - but they put work into them. The skill system is great. it makes me wish I could equip more spells! This system really lets you customize your characters abilities. I do like like how you have the opportunity to learn them all on one character.
cons: If they gave us more opportunity to interact with other players I would have given this a 10. In many other games you start off single player until your first instance I am hoping that as the game advances, social opportunities will increase. Many UI functions need to be clearer like the friends & guild pages- that is easy to remedy. It was difficult to get onto the same instance of the zone with a group member
Crafting - not enough was done for me to rate this but it seems to interesting. Again, in game it is not easy to find out how to craft - but maybe that's intentional. Maybe they want you to google it to learn how.
Graphics: 8.5
pros: The environment is a 9 especially because there is no copy pasta of environments in a lot of places. Lots of attention to little details.
cons: Character customization could have been better, but it wasn't horrible. The cutscenes graphics could have been A LOT better. A lot of the guys I played with didn't like the combat animations, but in my humble opinion were ok because they were not lagging down combat and seemed appropriate for the spells.
Performance: 7
After the initial issues (I repaired the client) I only had a bit of infrequent lag.
Story: 10 It is fresh and well delivered.
Overall I would give it an 8.5. Only time can tell if it has the content and social opportunities that will make it last a long time for me. It is definitely fresh and different from all the wow clones out there - so it has a good bone structure for it to be a really great MMORPG. If they nurture this game right (in the coming months) it could turn out to be one of my favorites. Having only played a few days - I cannot judge it past that.
Right now the cash shop will only be cosmetic items. Once the game goes F2P who knows what will be in there. If you are worried about or hate cash shops stay away from this game. If you hate F2P games I would also stay away from this game. There really should not be a doubt in anyones mind that TSW will go F2P its just a matter of when.
Comments
I guess you missed the in-game browser
Hmm, when I tried the game at PAX I found there were several areas where I could easily die and did. Of course it was a character that used pistols and I wasn't used to the controls but several times I inadverently drew mobs more powerful than myself and it was definitley a fight.
This was in Innasmouth (spelling?) I believe.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Had loads more fun in this beta weekend than I ahve had in my entire time it closed beta for GW2.
Sure its not perfect but I think this will be my themepark mmo for the furture
Really? You must not have played much of it then to form that opinion. It does quite a bit different than the average MMO.
Did you play it? If not you are trolling here.
Gave it a 7.
Game still needs work in some area's but damn I had fun. Combat/animations are ok but nothing mind blowing. Didn't do any group combat so can't really comment on how that works. Quests were the real gem for me. Sure you had the usual 'kill things' or 'find things' quests but a lot of the quests were ones that had me laughing in glee when I solved them or worked out a clue.
My overall observation from the weekend though is about the people that took part. It was very clear to spot the people that were the ADD kids and those that wanted to enjoy the game as intended. Also, it was quite clear when people were just not realising that EVERYTHING in the game seems to have a connection elsewhere.
For instance, speaking to the guy in Agartha (transportation hub for want of a better descrition of the place) and listenning to his dialogue/cutscene he makes a reference to these bees that work there. Later on there is a quest without hints or a map marker that references this place....needless to say the number of people who had either cancelled the cutscene ro simply not kept notes were all asking in chat where to go and had no idea why the quest location and clue were linked.
Another funny thing was someone complaining in chat about the bugs had such as where, during the Tokyo cutscene, his appearance kept changing to a girl and the other characters kept calling him Sarah...I mean, when stupidity hits that hard it is hard to keep a straight face. Only problem is I bet they are all over the forums slagging the game off....where their own lack of IQ is the problem not the game.
Anyway, game was fun and I am looking forward to another look next weekend and when game is released.
I give my experience 4/10. Nice skill system, nice atmosphere, nice quest system. But atrocious combat.
I gave it a 7. Very nice game, good story, great setting and atmosphere. I loved the questing system, specially the quests where you got clues and had to think on how to solve them.
Character animation would use some work (but we already know that most of it will be post-release), character creation felt limited, but that will improve. Combat (as a sword guy) felt a little too easy for me, I was just running around spamming 2 AoE skills and was never in danger of dying, even when fighting hordes of zombies or the biggest mobs you sometimes had to fight at the end of some quests. The story was very good, but being so story heavy and having a single starter area makes me worry about replayability (it all depends on how different are the groups from each other), specially when it comes to the thinking quests if they end up being the same. Still, the game felt very fun to play.
That said, I will give it a pass for now. The game, as I said, was fun, but I honestly have to say that, for me (personal opinion), feels more like a single player game with a chat system than an actual MMO. I never felt a benefit of having all those people running around, never felt compelled to interact or group with anyone, I usually try to help people in combat in MMOs, and did this time as well, but since combat was so easy I never felt I was really making a difference with my help, and I'd go as far as saying that sometimes felt it detracted from the game, like one time where I was trying to figure out a quest and someone just wrote the solution in the chat.
If this game was B2P, or a single player game, I'd get it in a heartbeat. As it is, feels like a really good game, but not one I could justify paying box + $15 a month to play
P.D.: I know that $15 a month isn't much, but I live in Venezuela, and because of some stupid laws we have I can only spend $400 a year online abroad, and already spent most of it on parts to upgrade my computer, so I have to be rather picky when it comes to where I spend the money.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Oh, dont get me wrong, Im not saying the whole game is too easy, just what I experienced during the BWE.
As you can probably tell from my post, I did not play for long, just took a couple characters through Kingsmouth.
But that was my point, the game *might* be better further in, and hopefully it is, but with the way the game starts out, a lot of people will not stick around to see it (myself included), as the good bits are not good enough to outweigh the bad bits.
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
I felt like it was a bit of a letdown. So many things I'd seen and read leading up to it talking it up like it was going to be much more open and sandboxy. There is no sandbox at all in this game. To progress, you have to do quests (grinding doesn't get you anywhere, there's no exploration exp, all that's left are quests). The skill wheel is as linear as you could possibly make something that's shaped like a circle. I was very disappointed that you had to unlock skills in order, and couldn't pick and choose the abilities you wanted to unlock. You don't even get your own individual story. Every single Templar is told the exact same things you are. Overall it just felt bland to me.
However, I did have fun playing the game. Just not enough to justify the box cost plus a subscription. I'll pick it up once it goes f2p.
The more i played it he more i liked it.. felt like Fallen Earth mixed with Matrix Online in a fresh new setting..
It's pretty much what I expected from Funcom: standard MMO fare hidden behind a few gimmicks intended to disguise the fact that the game has a lot more in common with it's competitors than it has differences. I gave it a 6 because while I really liked some parts of it, the parts that I didn't like annoyed me so much that I had to fight the urge to uninstall.
For the time being, it's on my "pass" list, but I will definitely be watching to see if it improves with age.
deleted
One of the best "beta"'s I've been in. I didn't have a single hitch at all, not one techincal problem the whole time, no spending a day trying in vain to get in and then half of the next day spamming the login button to get lucky only to get kicked afterwards
The only real bug I came across was for the dx11 lighting down by the beach with the blue flame campfire guys, the whole area would go blue intermittantly, light an atmospheric light was bleeding somewhere. My pc is pretty old now (about 5 years) with a gpu and ssd/os update in all that time. I ran dx11 with the option before ultra, with aa max and tes ground&char (or whatever) and ran at 40-60+ fps on ultra it would dip to 30 so no good. I did notice it would over time (5 hours or so) suddenly go to crap, at first I thought it was lag but a restart went right back up again, but I am running win7 on 2gb ram.
The game itself was annoyingly exactly what I wanted, the scenery looked absolutely amazing best in any mmo for me. the story the ambiance, it just felt real. Probably the London setting (where I live) was helpful for me. But also Kingmouth is just so believable and engrossing it made such a difference to the gameplay for me.
I can't think of anything I didn't like, I didn't even notice the animation thing everyone is going on about. I did notice that towards the end I got a few quests 'out of order' but not really a problem.
So it's a fkin shame it has a cash shop because I was hoping I was going to get to cuss the crap out of it and not feel bad for not playing it.
Bollox, Funcom and their greedy bastadidgery ways.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Why not just purchase it and not use the cash shop then if you enjoyed it so much. I mean long as there aren't p2w items in it what's the harm?
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I'm going to round down to a 6.
Dont get me wrong, enjoyed quite a bit of what I saw, but one of the big selling points of an MMO for me is the PvP. With this weekend being single faction and being unable to see it, I cant really go much higher. In addition there are a few other concerns, but on the whole, enjoyed it enough to start paying more attention to it, and I definitely want to be able to get a handle on the PvP system, as well as a few other aspects of the game.
Full Thoughts
A full on 10. I hope people hat and dont buy the game actually, I dont want thos mmo vagrants/bums ruining TSW for me. I am a proud lifetimer here.
I'm pretty sure that you've had more experience with the game than I have. As someone who is strongly considering a lifetime sub, can you tell me what would make it worth it vs. a few months sub cost? This is my only real dilemma at the moment.
Thus far its the setting/ambiance/feeling of the whole world. I FEEL like Im in the center of all hell breaking lose.
k. thanks for your answer. something for me to think seriously about.
"heavily instanced" then is a bad thing to say about it.
"one server", plus very populated instances........ the opposite of what people think of when thinking of a "heavily instanced" game (such as D&DO, Guild Wars 1, Dragon Nest, Vindicstus etc.)
there's a VAST night and day difference between public and private instances.
and ALL MMOs outside of Eve are (technically speaking) heavily instanced. they instance the whole world so each is a seperate/segregated server, causing alot of barriers to coordinating things with real life friends, etc.
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
Because for me any item they could sell in the shop would be p2w. For me outside influences such as wealth should never have an influence on the game world, I disagree with the item shop model and the only way I can effectively make my protest is to boycott them. Ordinarily I wouldn't care but from the small amount of the game I got to see it was exactly what I was looking for, gutted tbh.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
So cosmetic clothing is P2W? Please do us all a favor and dont play this game, we don't need your kind.
Overall my time playing TSW was really positive and I like this game. It is definitely a game I will play either at launch or a few months after. Is it a wow killer - no - but I think i would enjoy playing it for as long as it keeps me entertained.
Quests:10 -
pros: Innovative and engaging - not a wow clone finally! Makes you focus on or two quests at a time and not scoop up everything at a hub and blast them all out. I was on 35 completed and I didn't even start the church and junkyard hubs. There was one that was bugged, and Raven roost and moose still had quests for me. There are a lot of quests lying around that are not at hubs and are easy to miss - makes you want to explore.
cons: I could not delete a quest. I do not like how you have to pause a quest to pick up another, although I understand how they want you to focus.
Gameplay: 8 -
pros: kinda based on quests - but you really have to think (or cheat) to interact with items/quests. Lots of exploration. I did like in the solo instance how you had to disarm traps by avoiding cameras - really well done. A lot of the characters (like Danny) had real twitter pages which I didn't bother reading all of them - but they put work into them. The skill system is great. it makes me wish I could equip more spells! This system really lets you customize your characters abilities. I do like like how you have the opportunity to learn them all on one character.
cons: If they gave us more opportunity to interact with other players I would have given this a 10. In many other games you start off single player until your first instance I am hoping that as the game advances, social opportunities will increase. Many UI functions need to be clearer like the friends & guild pages- that is easy to remedy. It was difficult to get onto the same instance of the zone with a group member
Crafting - not enough was done for me to rate this but it seems to interesting. Again, in game it is not easy to find out how to craft - but maybe that's intentional. Maybe they want you to google it to learn how.
Graphics: 8.5
pros: The environment is a 9 especially because there is no copy pasta of environments in a lot of places. Lots of attention to little details.
cons: Character customization could have been better, but it wasn't horrible. The cutscenes graphics could have been A LOT better. A lot of the guys I played with didn't like the combat animations, but in my humble opinion were ok because they were not lagging down combat and seemed appropriate for the spells.
Performance: 7
After the initial issues (I repaired the client) I only had a bit of infrequent lag.
Story: 10 It is fresh and well delivered.
Overall I would give it an 8.5. Only time can tell if it has the content and social opportunities that will make it last a long time for me. It is definitely fresh and different from all the wow clones out there - so it has a good bone structure for it to be a really great MMORPG. If they nurture this game right (in the coming months) it could turn out to be one of my favorites. Having only played a few days - I cannot judge it past that.
Right now the cash shop will only be cosmetic items. Once the game goes F2P who knows what will be in there. If you are worried about or hate cash shops stay away from this game. If you hate F2P games I would also stay away from this game. There really should not be a doubt in anyones mind that TSW will go F2P its just a matter of when.