A few years back, I was trying out a bunch of MMOs as well as a number of single player games, Skyrim being the most recent. I kept asking, "why don't these MMOs have any intelligent puzzles or things to figure out in game?" The fetch and kill X quests were killing me; even Skyrim had the occasional puzzle. The adventure game puzzle has been a staple since Ultima and Myst and Monkey Island -- why isn't this type of mission in an MMORPG? I'm guessing this all goes back to the single player vs group thing, with puzzles not being something a group would have patience for (was patience a virtue we lost sometime around Y2K?)
In any case, read about TSW during beta, signed up, and have been playing ever since. The thing that makes this game unique is that it respects your intelligence and requires you use your brain.
-Animations/Voice Acting. This was great. Even better than SWTOR's (which are very good).
-Dungeons. Played some on normal and not nightmare but i liked mechanics and ideas. Very well made.
-Questing in general. Great in the first two zones. Great ideas with puzzles and investigation.
-Zone Stories. Very well made and polished. Lore points were great and immersive. I equally liked the Solomon and Transylvania stories but my favorite was the Egyptian one.
-Ability Wheel/Combat system. Not perfect but very innovative and well thought with synergies.
-Clothes system. You can look anything you like.
Things i not so liked.
-Zones/world. Where they were very well made and detailed, world feels small. Very few things to do apart from questing.
-Starting areas. Feel small and unnecessary complicated at the same time.
-Getting started. This game does not help you at all. Luckily i have good guildies and found helpful fan sites.
-Main story. It felt not significant and not relevant with what you did. Myabe a cleared focus is needed.
-Lack of mounts or mounting.
-Transylvanian Zone in general. Maybe i was too burned with heavy questing in previous areas but i felt tired when i reached there and only did the main quest where i stopped at the mission before the last one and saw it on youtube.
Things i clearly disliked
-Places that forced grouping in open areas. Like the Roman place in Egypt. Never a good idea, imho. Maybe because i mostly played TSW solo.
-Rune grinding. I dont like grinding in general so i stopped playing when i reached this part.
-Crafting. Awful.
-Gearing and end game gearing. No clear path for it.
-Time to Kill. Yeah, i ll whine too about that.
-Agartha. Worst transition system/main hub in all MMO's i ve played.
Overall a quality game, a great purchase for me and i enjoyed my time there but it lacks staying power. World feels small, there is no greater focus for the main story. I fear it is a ruined potential now that Funcom relocated and fired so many people, they might not have the resources and staff to make new content or polish it. And it needs a lot on both
Its an ok game.....but when you get up to the highest skills and have supposedly real good gear and find you don't stand a chance against things you run into....its just sort of turn off.
I think I like the concept of when you level you should get stronger and more powerful.....but in this game you don't get that much more powerful then when you started the game. And then when you actually fight nightmare content you cant even fight a minion with out difficulty.
I am sorry I just don't agree with that concept...those things make a game a bad game...and sadly you can see it when you play....as you go around playing you will start seeing monsters and things with very high health points that no one ever fights.
Although I stopped playing TSW a few month after release, I don't regret the money and time I invested. It is really a great and fresh game for people who like story and awesome dungeons (Hell Eternal is my all time favorite when it comes to atmosphere and creativity). But the thing I liked most are the caverns and tombs where you have to use flashlights and flares to cut through total darkness.
awesome storyline and fun and challenging questing. The game was definitely worth double - triple the 25€ i paid.
That said, sadly there are many elitist pricks out there that require you to severely outgear the content before they consider taking you.
If you have a problem with finding players to run Nightmares (NM) with, join a Cabal (guild). But there are always someone asking for releaxed NM, that don't demand "elite" players.
And the endgame rune-farming is a mess . you need 10green runes of the same type to upgrade them to blue, 10 blue ones to upgrade them to epic quality. There is a pool of like 40 different runes out there, of whom like 7 are truly viable.
I think you talk about Signet-farming. You can get signets like you tell, but you can also do signet-quest that give blue signets or lair-raid that drop epic signets. So no need to farm 100 green signets, to get an epic.
I do like the game a lot, but i hardly play it anymore since i am only at 3.5k Ap, and many raid groups require you to have 4k +, and i really can't be bothered to spend countless hours grinding the runes.
I completed the main story quests and zones, got the best gear available from nightmare dungeons. To progress further, an enormous grind is required which i am not willing to do but it was definitely worth every cent.
One need 1350 black bullions (if I remember right) to get a full 10.4 talismans, glyphs and weapons.
With an ok team you get about 30 black bullions in 1 hour (3 NM dungeons). So that is 45 hours to get top gear. Even with a "bad" team you should be able to do it in 90-120 hours. So players saying they need to grind to get top gear, I really don't understand.
And don't forget the best part. All your playing or grinding if you like, are useful since you get anima points, that you use to buy more abilities.
I loved the New England/American Horror setting. It was just perfect. I saw what they tried to do with the Egypt/biblical part, but it wasn't quite spot on. The Transylvania part seemed cool on paper, but mixing Dracula and Soviet era radioactive experiments didn't work for me.
Original PvP system was just horrible.
Might actually go back and play through the Innsmouth part with a new character these day, just to see what they have added.
This game is one of those that people either seem to really love or really hate....There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground with it......For me, the beta was so bad that I literally had no interest even if it was free.....It just had so many things I did not like......
I picked this up for $15 when it was on sale a couple weeks ago on amazon and I've completely gotten my money's worth already. I'm nowhere near the point where I would actually need to get the DLC's to find something to do since I'm only playing casually. All in all I like it, and hope it continues to do well.
This is whithout a doubt the best MMO I have ever played.
It does alot of things differently, and in a good way. Sure, there are things I wish were different, but that is mostly nitpicking.
Since one character eventually will have all the skills, there is no real need for playing alts, but since I am an altoholic I play one char from each faction.
For a beginner the game can be really daunting to learn since it gives you almost zero help on the way. The skillwheel give an enormous amount of stuff to choose from, and can be totally confusing, but if one uses the basic "builds" included with the game, one quickly gets into it all.
Storywise, no other game comes close (LOTRO and SWTOR are very good too though), and in the ambiance-department it has no equal. Kingsmouth... wow....
With this game being B2P, there is no reason to not try it. If you have the least interest in conspiracies, Stephen Kings writings, Lovecraft mythos, or if you are bored with the same old, same old fantasy drivel, you cannot go wrong with TSW.
Also, if you are into RP in a modern setting, there are ample opportunities for that by joining an RP server. People there are in for the long haul and the session with other players can create memories that will linger long after you have stopped playing this game.
I have played the game since pre-release. I was a subscriber. I participated in the pre-release ARG's. I leveled up 3 characters for the 3 factions(dumb). I am a PvP'r. They built/put 3 different types of PvP play areas. I became a Fusang nut. I can positively state that after any update they did, PvP was borked until they re-patched it. So, I ran a bit of PvE(not a fan) but well done. All of us PvP'rs had to wait till they fixed the borked PvP(huh?) which took 2/3 weeks at a time. After the last patch, 1.7, PvP is so glitchy/laggy/lock-ups in Fusang that most of us long-time players have given up. The Dev's won't even acknowledge any issues, many players have posted on forums this dilemma with NO response. Many of us feel that we have wasted our time over the year, we simply don't log in now. This game takes up 40'ish GB's of HD space, I think I'll free it up and play a PvP game that gives a crap about it's player base and actively responds to issues.
So I say you PvE'rs go for it, not bad......PvP'rs stay AWAY, they simply don't care or are so understaffed they patch crap code over crap code.
Comments
A few years back, I was trying out a bunch of MMOs as well as a number of single player games, Skyrim being the most recent. I kept asking, "why don't these MMOs have any intelligent puzzles or things to figure out in game?" The fetch and kill X quests were killing me; even Skyrim had the occasional puzzle. The adventure game puzzle has been a staple since Ultima and Myst and Monkey Island -- why isn't this type of mission in an MMORPG? I'm guessing this all goes back to the single player vs group thing, with puzzles not being something a group would have patience for (was patience a virtue we lost sometime around Y2K?)
In any case, read about TSW during beta, signed up, and have been playing ever since. The thing that makes this game unique is that it respects your intelligence and requires you use your brain.
Things i liked.
-Animations/Voice Acting. This was great. Even better than SWTOR's (which are very good).
-Dungeons. Played some on normal and not nightmare but i liked mechanics and ideas. Very well made.
-Questing in general. Great in the first two zones. Great ideas with puzzles and investigation.
-Zone Stories. Very well made and polished. Lore points were great and immersive. I equally liked the Solomon and Transylvania stories but my favorite was the Egyptian one.
-Ability Wheel/Combat system. Not perfect but very innovative and well thought with synergies.
-Clothes system. You can look anything you like.
Things i not so liked.
-Zones/world. Where they were very well made and detailed, world feels small. Very few things to do apart from questing.
-Starting areas. Feel small and unnecessary complicated at the same time.
-Getting started. This game does not help you at all. Luckily i have good guildies and found helpful fan sites.
-Main story. It felt not significant and not relevant with what you did. Myabe a cleared focus is needed.
-Lack of mounts or mounting.
-Transylvanian Zone in general. Maybe i was too burned with heavy questing in previous areas but i felt tired when i reached there and only did the main quest where i stopped at the mission before the last one and saw it on youtube.
Things i clearly disliked
-Places that forced grouping in open areas. Like the Roman place in Egypt. Never a good idea, imho. Maybe because i mostly played TSW solo.
-Rune grinding. I dont like grinding in general so i stopped playing when i reached this part.
-Crafting. Awful.
-Gearing and end game gearing. No clear path for it.
-Time to Kill. Yeah, i ll whine too about that.
-Agartha. Worst transition system/main hub in all MMO's i ve played.
Overall a quality game, a great purchase for me and i enjoyed my time there but it lacks staying power. World feels small, there is no greater focus for the main story. I fear it is a ruined potential now that Funcom relocated and fired so many people, they might not have the resources and staff to make new content or polish it. And it needs a lot on both
Its an ok game.....but when you get up to the highest skills and have supposedly real good gear and find you don't stand a chance against things you run into....its just sort of turn off.
I think I like the concept of when you level you should get stronger and more powerful.....but in this game you don't get that much more powerful then when you started the game. And then when you actually fight nightmare content you cant even fight a minion with out difficulty.
I am sorry I just don't agree with that concept...those things make a game a bad game...and sadly you can see it when you play....as you go around playing you will start seeing monsters and things with very high health points that no one ever fights.
.
If you have a problem with finding players to run Nightmares (NM) with, join a Cabal (guild). But there are always someone asking for releaxed NM, that don't demand "elite" players.
I think you talk about Signet-farming. You can get signets like you tell, but you can also do signet-quest that give blue signets or lair-raid that drop epic signets. So no need to farm 100 green signets, to get an epic.
One need 1350 black bullions (if I remember right) to get a full 10.4 talismans, glyphs and weapons.
With an ok team you get about 30 black bullions in 1 hour (3 NM dungeons). So that is 45 hours to get top gear. Even with a "bad" team you should be able to do it in 90-120 hours. So players saying they need to grind to get top gear, I really don't understand.
And don't forget the best part. All your playing or grinding if you like, are useful since you get anima points, that you use to buy more abilities.
I loved the New England/American Horror setting. It was just perfect. I saw what they tried to do with the Egypt/biblical part, but it wasn't quite spot on. The Transylvania part seemed cool on paper, but mixing Dracula and Soviet era radioactive experiments didn't work for me.
Original PvP system was just horrible.
Might actually go back and play through the Innsmouth part with a new character these day, just to see what they have added.
twitch.tv/boonmackle
This is whithout a doubt the best MMO I have ever played.
It does alot of things differently, and in a good way. Sure, there are things I wish were different, but that is mostly nitpicking.
Since one character eventually will have all the skills, there is no real need for playing alts, but since I am an altoholic I play one char from each faction.
For a beginner the game can be really daunting to learn since it gives you almost zero help on the way. The skillwheel give an enormous amount of stuff to choose from, and can be totally confusing, but if one uses the basic "builds" included with the game, one quickly gets into it all.
Storywise, no other game comes close (LOTRO and SWTOR are very good too though), and in the ambiance-department it has no equal. Kingsmouth... wow....
With this game being B2P, there is no reason to not try it. If you have the least interest in conspiracies, Stephen Kings writings, Lovecraft mythos, or if you are bored with the same old, same old fantasy drivel, you cannot go wrong with TSW.
Also, if you are into RP in a modern setting, there are ample opportunities for that by joining an RP server. People there are in for the long haul and the session with other players can create memories that will linger long after you have stopped playing this game.
I have played the game since pre-release. I was a subscriber. I participated in the pre-release ARG's. I leveled up 3 characters for the 3 factions(dumb). I am a PvP'r. They built/put 3 different types of PvP play areas. I became a Fusang nut. I can positively state that after any update they did, PvP was borked until they re-patched it. So, I ran a bit of PvE(not a fan) but well done. All of us PvP'rs had to wait till they fixed the borked PvP(huh?) which took 2/3 weeks at a time. After the last patch, 1.7, PvP is so glitchy/laggy/lock-ups in Fusang that most of us long-time players have given up. The Dev's won't even acknowledge any issues, many players have posted on forums this dilemma with NO response. Many of us feel that we have wasted our time over the year, we simply don't log in now. This game takes up 40'ish GB's of HD space, I think I'll free it up and play a PvP game that gives a crap about it's player base and actively responds to issues.
So I say you PvE'rs go for it, not bad......PvP'rs stay AWAY, they simply don't care or are so understaffed they patch crap code over crap code.