Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Should I go on?
maniacfox
Member UncommonPosts: 171
There is so much to like about this game;
- The combat system really is innovative and different.
- The mobs have better AI than nearly any other MMO.
- The environment is detailed and quirky.
- The quest text is fun and entertaining.
- The community is really friendly.
- The High House idea is awesome...
- The PEP idea is awesome...
I'm sure if I sat and thought a little longer I could come up with more.
But, there is also so much not to like;
- The character graphics look low-res, I am running 1920x1200 at max video settings and characters still look like poorly stretched bitmaps.
- The environment, although good, looks very samey from area to area.
- The zones are the same for all classes, this means if you decide to roll one or more alts you will be replaying the same content again... and again... and again.
- At lot of the early quests are kill 10 boars, kill 10 bears, kill 10 wolves, into the next zone kill 10 boars, kill 10 bears, kill 10 wolves... you get the idea.
- The boars and bears look very similar (grey/brown sacks?) and at a distance wolves aren't that distinct either.
- The game doesn't use itemization like most MMOs, the theme is "dress to impress", woot! Ummm... no not really. This means 15 levels later you will still be wearing the same poorly stretched bitmap clothes you did at the start, the items that you can buy or make are the same items that you could have picked at character creation... huh? ... and best of all there is no character preview option anywhere in the game, so you don't really know what you are buying until you have bought it... that sucks! The idea of not having item stats is a good one, but you really, REALLY need to make it work aesthetically... otherwise, why bother?
- You are supposed to be able to enhance items with "sigils", so far I have only received 1 sigil as a quest reward, +0.5% healing....
- European servers... what can i say? Tumbleweed...
In general this game has some really good ideas, some different stuff, innovative stuff, that makes you think, yeah this is cool. They just haven't got the variety of content to back it up. I want to like this game, but at level 15 I feel bored... I've played too long for everything to still feel the same, to be wearing the same outfit, to be killing the same boars, to not have run a dungeon or equivalent (because there aren't any, sorry maybe one? high level?). I don't feel like I have anything to look forward to.
I'll put my hands up and say that I haven't got a high enough level character to comment about the game up to end game (is there any?), so I'd appreciate some feedback.
Saying it will get better is a poor answer, because it should be great from level 1.
So, should I go on? Or have I already talked myself out of it?
Comments
1. True.. the beginner outfits dont look that good. The higher level gear looks much better though!
eu-players.tcos.com/forum/showthread.php
eu-players.tcos.com/forum/showthread.php
2. Haven you been in many zones yet? The starter area (Hawksmouth/Aldenvault) do look pretty much the same but that is mostly because they are on the same shard. Once you go to Quarterstone, Exarchyon, Ringfell, Mount of Heroes, The Athanaeum everything gets totally different
(Not to mention slywood)
3. Not entirely true.. One of the most important things considering the High Houses (in my opinion) is that every HH has different quests. So yes, up to lvl 9 (when you choose a HH) the quests are the same, after that, every house has different quests.. so you can reroll 5 times without doing the same quests (well.. except for the starter quests and some of the main storylines that lead to instances suchs as The Athanaeum, Exarchyon, Citadel of Ail etc)
4. True, but this is mainly to get you familiar with the combat system. It _is_ pretty different and if you are playing the game for the first time it will take some time to get used to, so thats why those starter quests are kill x of y. (yet since this combat system isnt repetetive, its not that bad as in other mmos (in my opinion)
5. Aye, I give you that.. but there is 1 aspect of this being useful. Every mob has his own skilldeck. If you have different animals, you dont know what you are up against and which skills it has. If they sort of look the same, you can also expect sort of the same attack or defense strategy. Once again (as said in #2) after you leave the starter area/shard this gets different
6.1 See #1. Also, the dress to impress isnt done because then it doesnt matter, they did it because then you wont get forced to wear something. You can just wear anything you like.. granted, the options at the beginning levels (1-10) arent that great, but it gets way better once you go to Quarterstone and Ringfell. So just once you get past that theres much more you can choose from
they just dont want to force anyone in a particular outfit because that has the best stats (this doesnt mean there arent stats or ways to (temporarily) upgrade your items! See: sigils in the sticky post)
6.2 If you are buying stuff from a merchant, just click on the icon of the item (a little eye will appear on it) and your character is wearing it until you close down the window. If you want to see how non-crafted items look like (so recipes) theres a trick for this. Place the recipes in the Dyer shop, and you will see how they look like
So you wont craft something you dont like. (or check the wikia if theres an image of it 
)
EDIT:
7. Sigils will improve further on, There are loads and loads you can get. Yes some stink, but you cant expect there to be only good ones
Hope this helps!
Uhm there is an option to set the character details in the graphic options. If that one is set to low then all your gear looks bad. Try to see what character detail level you have set in your game.
Sigils slowly increase in importance as you level up. My main at lvl 37 have 30 sigils equiped out of the 50 or so I have gained so far. They drop quite a lot once you begin on instances. The bonuses of higher lvl sigils also increase a lot, like the +5% damage skill sigil I just got.
As to appearance then you have to get off the Parlaiment shard to really see different places. For example mount of heroes look a bit scandinavian while Ringfeld looks subtrophical.
Much of the good stuff is there but it takes a bit of time before you get to it, maybe too long for what is acceptable for many mmo players.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Thanks for the replies, you've convinved me that it is worth sticking with as it sounds as though it will get better as it goes on. In all honesty it shouldn't be like that, but I've had fungetting this far so I guess it's not so bad. I think I would have had a better experience if there were more people on the EU servers, I really hope the populations increase.
A thing that really helps is joining a guild
Im in the Forsaken Gods one, but thats the PvP Sever (Deiquonril).. If you want to join, just post an introduction on the forum
forsaken-gods.xphpbb.com/index.php If you are on the PvE Server, theres Forsaken Prophets, a guild with which we are very close
Hope this helps
I know there is a Character Detail slider, I have it set to max, like I said, all my video is set to max.
If you were to compare a character shot from TCoS with Age of Conan, there is no comparison, AoC blows it away. I know stylistically they are different, that's not my point, just in terms of graphical quality AoC is so much better. I'm not sure TCoS character graphics are even as good as WOW tbh
You know when you start with a wire frame model, then you stretch a bitmap over it. The bitmap starts off sharp and detailed, but because you stretch it so much it goes blocky/blurry in places. IMO that's how TCoS models look. I think this is very symptomatic of FPS shooters, particularly older ones so maybe it's not a surprise that they are using a version of the Unreal engine?
True, you got a point. But neither as you can compare the quality of the character detail, you cant compare AoC or WoW to tcos
First of all, these are huge companies with millions at their hands. Tcos on the other hand is just a small company (only 50 or so employees) and havent got that much money to spent.
EDIT:
WoW tcos
hmm.. both are sets from character creation ..
Sorry Minozi, you cant use the pic for the Chronicles of Spellborn, it's an oil panting pic.
Seems that people get confused between oil paintings and game play pics, same thing with trailers and game play vids. One has nothing to do with the other.
Why is that ?
an oil panting pic? its a screenshot from a character, after which the background is erased.. still its a screenshot..
I hope you don't complain about the graphics of newer MMOs, 'cause that's definitely not an oil painting. You can see the polygons easy enough, or you can try the game for free if you are really that skeptical.
[Mod Edit] Those are in-game graphics.
no.
Oil painting?
Fair enough, no MMO so far can compare to AoC in raw graphical power, but I think its more important to take note on how that power is used. In AoC you have amazing models and amazing clothes on NPC and then everything still look terrible from a player perspective because they have used their amazing egine so poorly.
TCoS is graphically more advanced than wow but less advanced compared to games like EQ2 or AoC. But they have a very strong visual vision and use the possible tools they have very well. BTW notice how there is a big difference between the graphip maps of clothes and armors. Armors are true 3d models while clothes only are bitmaps painted on the main character model and some of those bitmaps are truly not that great.
But when you compare it to wow then WoW is much simpler, WoW doesnt have true armors you put over your toon, armors there just change the surface bitmap of your toon and sometimes the shape of your toons surface but its not true items put over your toon like it is in TCoS.
Anyway I applaud that you will try to play more of the game. The good stuff comes later. Too bad that your server is empty but I hear the EU launch launched with way too many servers so the population became too spread out. The two Aklaim servers dont have that problem.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Thanks for the pics Minozi, obviously there is much nicer looker equipment as the game goes on. I guess as aofaa suggests, I am looking at the starter clothes as the benchmark for the rest of the game, which aren't that great.
Really the saddest thing for me is the botch of the European launch. Although I'm encouraged to say that playing this weekend there are more people online, just out and about, than I have ever seen yet. So I'm hoping this trend will continue
The graphics and animations in this game are lovely, IMO - far far better than the vaunted graphics of VG, much more dark fantasy than WoW or WAR...
That said, the coloring is pretty much an earthy palate all over, and that can get a bit tiring if you are looking for purple mushrooms and so forth. A few more yellows, oranges and some lighter greens woudl not have hurt here and there IMO.
The main city looks great. The houses look great. I love the animations of my trickster.
And the fact this is not a gear grind game is awesome.
So, my advice is - yes, do go on.
- The character graphics look low-res, I am running 1920x1200 at max video settings and characters still look like poorly stretched bitmaps.
I'm running at 1680x1050 and the graphics look fine. They are using the Unreal 2.5 engine as far as I know, so while the graphics might not be as modern-looking as say, Crysis..the graphics are pretty good in my opinion. I'm wearing gear right new on my 35 AM that looks pretty sweet. "poorly stretched bitmaps"? I'd call that a big exaggeration.
- The environment, although good, looks very samey from area to area.
I disagree. Slywood looks quite a bit different from Hawksmouth. Stonedeep is pretty cool-looking (it used to be an ocean) in my opinion. Have you even seen Green District? The art direction in this game deserves a reward I think.
- The zones are the same for all classes, this means if you decide to roll one or more alts you will be replaying the same content again... and again... and again.
This is true, I hope they add more zones for every level range, especially the lower levels (under 30).
- At lot of the early quests are kill 10 boars, kill 10 bears, kill 10 wolves, into the next zone kill 10 boars, kill 10 bears, kill 10 wolves... you get the idea.
What MMO doesn't have this? And actually some of the quest chains are pretty sweet and involve no animal-killing at all. There's a low-level quest in Hoggsridge where I have to place an eavesdropping device in a tree, then set a tent on fire, then kill a leader, etc. There are quest chains in this where you do one part at one level-range, then come back later and do another part. One of the better things about this game is that they use the whole world for every level-range. I remember having to go back to Hawksmouth in my 30s as part of a quest chain. It's nice to see those areas that I started in again.
- The boars and bears look very similar (grey/brown sacks?) and at a distance wolves aren't that distinct either.
I agree that there should maybe be more variety in mob types, but it does get a bit better as you level. Stonedeep has different-looking mobs for example. But really, almost ALL mmos are like this.
- The game doesn't use itemization like most MMOs, the theme is "dress to impress", woot! Ummm... no not really. This means 15 levels later you will still be wearing the same poorly stretched bitmap clothes you did at the start, the items that you can buy or make are the same items that you could have picked at character creation... huh? ... and best of all there is no character preview option anywhere in the game, so you don't really know what you are buying until you have bought it... that sucks! The idea of not having item stats is a good one, but you really, REALLY need to make it work aesthetically... otherwise, why bother?
WRONG! My toon looks way different at level 35 than she did at level 1. I have a helmet that I've seen very few other people wearing; the recipe was given to me by a guildie. The sword I'm wearing is pretty sweet-looking as well. Most of the stuff I'm wearing I either made through crafting or got as a quest-reward. The guildies and other friends I play with also look a lot different than they did when I first started playing with them. The fact that you can change your look whenever you want may not appeal to you, but it does appeal to a lot of others. As for previewing stuff, when you pick up a new item you can preview it by taking it to the dyer (even if it's above your level). You can also preview it when buying something from a NPC vendor. Granted, I'd like them to add the ability to preview from a recipe, but that may come later. Having a game that isn't gear-based is refreshing.
- You are supposed to be able to enhance items with "sigils", so far I have only received 1 sigil as a quest reward, +0.5% healing....
The sigils get better. I have a total of a 6% bonus to my run speed, which stacked with my pep level, actually does make a difference. The sigils get better as you level. One of my primary skills has a 10% bonus to damage output.
- European servers... what can i say? Tumbleweed...
Don't play on them, so I can't comment. But the NA servers are more populated than they were a few weeks ago.
In general this game has some really good ideas, some different stuff, innovative stuff, that makes you think, yeah this is cool. They just haven't got the variety of content to back it up. I want to like this game, but at level 15 I feel bored... I've played too long for everything to still feel the same, to be wearing the same outfit, to be killing the same boars, to not have run a dungeon or equivalent (because there aren't any, sorry maybe one? high level?). I don't feel like I have anything to look forward to.
You can do Exarch at level 20 (if memory serves) which is pretty cool. At level 15, it's kind of hard to judge the game. I think they've done a great job so far. Sure, more content is needed and a few more other features, but this game as caught me more than any other MMO has over the last few years. I'm thrilled that they didn't make another damn WoW clone.