With all thats been said, Funcom BETTER release a polished game with this title. If gamers give them a second chance and they fail to deliver, I doubt anyone will ever buy another product from them again.
Third Chance...people conveniently forget the Anarchy Online launch debacle.
I haven't
This is true, I don't think funcom has released a game thats launched flawlessly, ever. I'm not going to call them inept, because I doubt I could do any better, but I will say that I am watching this game closely. I do not have much faith in funcom to release this game in a successful, appealing-long-term, state. I would be pleasantly surprised if they prove me wrong though.
Name one MMO that did launch flawlessly...
Exactly! I cant think of one MMO that made a flawless launch. I truly believe that people needs to accept that no launch will be perfect, it's just part of the first babysteps of any MMO. I played Anarchy Online for several years even though the initial stage of the game was a big mess but if you can't accept that its part of the process, just wait for a month or two after release or don't engage in MMOs at all... To be honest, I can even see the charm with launch issues.
Exactly! I cant think of one MMO that made a flawless launch. I truly believe that people needs to accept that no launch will be perfect, it's just part of the first babysteps of any MMO. I played Anarchy Online for several years even though the initial stage of the game was a big mess but if you can't accept that its part of the process, just wait for a month or two after release or don't engage in MMOs at all... To be honest, I can even see the charm with launch issues.
Lord of the Rings online
Maybe not flawless but it was damn impressive and far as launches go should be what all of these companies strive for to either match theirs or do even better. Really begs the question why Turbine apparently learned so much from their debacled lauch of DDO and yet other companies such as Funcom continued to fall flat on their face.
Also, as debatable as some other launches have been because of the issues they had with other launches such as WoW they sure as hell did a lot more customer service wise than Funcom.
If you guys think that AoC was the norm for how launches go then I really have to question whether you actually played AoC at launch. Because really doesn't make a lot of sense. It makes about as much sense to me as the ones that go on and on about how "flawless" the WoW launch was.
Yeah right...maybe in another plane of existence...
Now having said that while I think Funcom should be used to show anyone how not to launch or run an mmorpg within the first six months of an mmo's life this certainly does not mean TSW will be the same way. As I already mentioned Turbine obviously learned from their mistakes so others could as well learn from past mistakes and errors in judgement.
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.
@ Wickedjelly, Ofc I also hope that Funcom has learned something from previous launches and I think they have. Everything else aside now, I just hope that skill and talentbuild will be somewhat similar to Anarchy Online so it becomes atleast a little challenge to build your char :-)
Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Lord of the RIngs Online, Tabula Rasa and Aion.
I Was there for the launch of all of the above and they were all smooth launches. In some cases, such as WoW, the only issues were the sheer volume of people wanting to play exceeding expectations.
I've been playing AOC recently and while it is much improved on it's state at release, it is still suffering some serious server-based issues two years on (especially in content involving lots of players). In general the engine remains poorly-coded and humbles even the most powerful PC setups due to its poor optimization. This has especially been brought to light with the latest expansion with its larger areas.
That's the state of AOC, TWO YEARS after launch. So, take that into consideration when deciding if you really expect TSW to have a good launch. Funcom are zero for 2 so far and money not quality will always dictate when the game launches as far as FC are concerned.
The game looks liek it will be fun to play for a while. unfortunately just about every MMO lately fits into that category. They are all fun to play for a month or 3 at best then they become boring. I miss the good ol days when MMo's could keep me playing 8 hours a day for years.
Even if it does sound reasonable - it usually is the investors or the top management - do you have any proof or links that Funcom was pushed to release AoC prematurely and not at a time they'd have preferred themselves?
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It looks interesting to me, and I'll keep my eye on it. I don't know much about it, but if they use the same engine that AOC runs on I think I'll have to pass. As good as AOC looks, I feel like I'm caged in by all the instancing. I know it sounds petty and doesn't seem like a reasonable point to disregard a game, but there's just something about seeing loading screen after loading screen that rips me out of the game.
It looks interesting to me, and I'll keep my eye on it. I don't know much about it, but if they use the same engine that AOC runs on I think I'll have to pass. As good as AOC looks, I feel like I'm caged in by all the instancing. I know it sounds petty and doesn't seem like a reasonable point to disregard a game, but there's just something about seeing loading screen after loading screen that rips me out of the game.
That's actually one thing I like about it. I liked zone based games, specially those using instances.
Definitely. Both Funcom and NCSoft have succeeded in ensuring I will never purchase one of their games at launch time ever again. Worst management decisions and customer service I have ever seen in the gaming industry by those two companies in regards to AoC and Aion. Regardless how they are run and managed today what happened at launch and for the first few months of those games was unacceptable and downright despicable how things were handled by the companies.
Every game has its issues at launch but what transpired with both of those games was utterly ridiculous especially when you consider it wasn't either of those companies first endeavour into the mmo market and the market history available for those companies to look over to ensure their games did not repeat some of the same mistakes others had made.
There was no excuse for what transpired in either of those games far as I'm concerened, and it would have to be one remarkable game to get me to purchase anything by either of those companies ever again.
Heh, good luck with that. GW2 will be published and released by NCSoft, I don't see any problem with playing it from launch since GW had a good launch too (also published by NCSoft).
About Aion: didn't see any probs there too, game was fluid and smooth, server queues were horrible for a while, but then again, look at WAR where they created additional servers to handle the launch flow, a lot of those became ghosttown servers within 2 months.
And regarding AoC, they showed with the launch of the expansion RotGS that they can learn from mistakes, it was overall a solid, stable launch especially compared to the launch 2 years ago.
Originally posted by Arnuphis
That's the state of AOC, TWO YEARS after launch. So, take that into consideration when deciding if you really expect TSW to have a good launch. Funcom are zero for 2 so far and money not quality will always dictate when the game launches as far as FC are concerned.
Bullshit. Funcom showed with the RotGS launch that they can release something in a solid and smooth way, on par with other good launches. Yes, AoC is one of the MMO's demanding the most from your rig - hell, with such graphics and detail, who's surprised?? - despite that, I and the majority of players manages to play it very smoothly and stable.
THAT'S the state the game is in now. Deal with it.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
A zombie MMO is not really creating a lot of static on my radar... A zombie MMO under Funcom: Even less.
This sentence alone showed to me that apparently you don't know squat about The Secret World, making the rest of your comments become valueless as well.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
To be honest, I am a bit worried. Now Funcom itself has little to worry about, while I was disappointed with Age of Conan, this is a different guy who has given me one of my most beloved games and so I am willing to take a risk with buying it.
BUT I think I will be disappointed again. I am just not getting the impression from the interviews that they want to produce a quality classic MMORPG. That is of course their right but I also don't get that they have truly looked at what works and what doesn't.
That was the ultimate failure of Age of Conan, when you got past the bugs and missing features, the game just wasn't fun enough for most players. YES, there are SOME PvP fans who liked the button smashing twitch combat. But PvP fans seem not to have a lot of money judging by the subscription figures.
For the PvE fans, Age of Conan was a boring grind with lots of common features missing and lots of new stuff that just didn't gel while the old stuff was done half-heartedly. It was the ultimate example of a product produced in a vacuum without looking at what others have done.
Take a FPS. You don't HAVE to make a Quake clone but if you are going to put the weapon selection under a menu, accessed from the start screen that you can only access after rebooting the computer then just maybe you should have copied the Doom/Quake/etc method of weapons being on the number row.
It can be as simple as not having to log into the game again if you want to switch characters, which Age of Conan forced you to do. Hello? Did they even play ANY mmorpg before starting making basic design decisions?
And I get the same feeling with The Secret World, the ideas behind it sound intresting enough but at its core it is yet another PvP game that seems to think that PvP is popular (Two biggest games are WoW and Lotro both PvE centric) but that it can suffice as the end game content.
I dread that we will get a game that has a lot of promise but will suck in its execution.
And then it will get a lot of negative publicity as the last failure of Funcom, because it will be tried out by people who are expecting a different type of game.
That is it most obvious failure, one that is shares with SWTOR. Quick fans, give me ONE sentence that describes the gameplay. What is it? That still isn't clear at all, a clear sign that Funcom wants to create a game that appeals to everyone and such a game will always disappoint.
Age of Conan had 1 million copies sold, but that had boobies. The Secret World will have to do it by word of mouth but so far I can hardly recommend a game when I have no idea what it is about. What will I be doing in the game? Raiding? PvE story? Crafting? Sandbox? RP? PvP open world? PvP small group?
Age of Conan had 1 million copies sold, but that had boobies. The Secret World will have to do it by word of mouth but so far I can hardly recommend a game when I have no idea what it is about. What will I be doing in the game? Raiding? PvE story? Crafting? Sandbox? RP? PvP open world? PvP small group?
I guess they have learned not to speak about features until features are present
To be fair, we don't know that much about how gameplay in the end will be in SW TOR as well as TSW, I find it a bit premature to go around condemning those games beforehand based on the little we know and have seen and some vague gut feelings. Bush and his friends operated from gut feeling and we know how that can end.
About AoC PvE, sorry, but that's a matter of taste, a lot of the people that played it loved it and certainly didn't consider it as something of a grind as some other MMO's around. The only problem was the lack of content sometimes, but the last 2 years of content updates and the expansion have plugged that problem. Also Khitai showed how large areas can be even with the highly detailed graphics as AoC has.
Regarding TSW, I think you should read up on the interviews about it, they released quite a bit of information. Sure, we still need to wait for any betas and ingame videos to learn more how the gameplay will be, but they're still more than a year away from launch.
This is something I posted on the official TSW forums, information I gathered based upon the revealed info in March (interview sources are between brackets):
World environment
* Persistent world, there will be huge contiguous open-world zones.
* All three factions progress through the same areas in the same order (IGN)
* Each location has its own "monster ecology" based on the mythology and lore of the area (Kotaku) and its own layered, unique story to tell (mmorpg.com)
Gameplay
* Instances will have a more scripted experience.
* There are no classes, no levels. Characters are built upon two facets, collection of powers and gear (Voodoo)
* Your powers grow more powerful with your gear (IGN)
* There will be 2 item sets for each character – one paper doll for functionality such as weapons, the other for character appearances (TenTonHammer)
* Next to combat, your character will spend time investigating and solving puzzles. Some areas will be more action focused (Kingsmouth), others will have more focus on puzzle solving (Egypt).
* Players will be able to create and decorate their own headquarters and rank their cabals against those of others (mmorpg.com)
* Powers can be unlocked by trading points you earn from experience. Some powers are tied to certain equipment, others have prerequisites (eurogamer)
* The game is item-heavy, there'll be millions of items, and you can craft, augment and level up your weapons (eurogamer)
Combat
* You only have 7 active powers and 7 passive powers that'll be active. At certain spots outside of combat you can swap those to activate other powers that you have collected.
* Team skill combos are possible via the State system, active powers put enemies or allies into a "state", passive powers interact with that state and make use of that. Example: one player sets a group of zombies on fire, while another has a damage over time power running that kills enemies on fire, causing the group to explode.
* Combat movement will include dodging and strafing (Massively)
Quests / storytelling
* Most of the regular storyline missions will be solo-able, and taking place in the open-world zones.
* Scripted, repeatable dungeons will be there for party play; shorter instances or "mini-dungeons" will be part of mission sequences and used as a storytelling device.
* There's one linear story to follow through the game, perpetuated with cliffhangers and mysterious elements popping up. Not all of the global story is needed or will be uncovered by progressing through the game. To find out more, one need to "dig deeper" (Voodoo)
* Storylines, lore and cutscenes can be skipped by those who want to jump into the fights rightaway (TenTonHammer)
* Your quests will not only make you travel over the world, but also through time (Massively)
* Every mission starts with its own cinematic cutscene incl voice acting. It's possible to replay a mission with a harder Challenge Mode (vgchartz).
* Parties seem to be limited to max size 4 (not 100% certain, but all articles and videos showed 4-man parties, no more, as if that was fullsize)
* Kingsmouth combat seems to take place in the evening/night cycle? (as latest trailer seem to suggest)
Miscellaneous
* Your UI will be sort of an augmented reality like Heavy Rain and iPhone have. The only permant visible UI things on screen will be your chat window and your 7 active powers (eurogamer)
* ARGs will also continue after launch, according to Tornquist.
Oh, and one of the "endgame" activities will take place in the large contnuous underground world, where the factions will battle eachother for control spots and the resources it will bring.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'm just hoping that they have learned from the past, and now know how to launch a game. Seriously, I doubt they could make the Conan mistake twice, but we'll see.
to op's question: yes. I did preordered ce for AoC, made 5 of my friends buy the game. For the same thing to happen someone has to put a gun to my head.
I think it's an intriguing concept, however I won't buy anything from Funcom because of the total lack of customer service that I experienced with AoC. With AoC when I ran in to CS issues I dealt with almost every level of thier company, all the way to the top, adn it was nothing but a huge runaround and waste of my time. Never again.
Whats funny to me in this whole debate is what is considered flawless by each respondant. Most seem to be relating flawless to not having lag and being able to get into the game without issues. Those are nice and of course DAoC was the first I know of with this type of launch, but the game was hardly flawless. A year in they were tweaking game balance and PvP or RvR more precisely. Aside from RvR I don't consider anything they did groundbreaking compared to the other offerings of the time.
CoX....really? That game was craptacular in beta and about the same at launch. Not because it had lag or you couldn't get in, but because it was boring as HE double hockey sticks. No content...no content..oh yeah..no content. They've done a lot to it now that to me almost makes it better than Champions and look almost as good, but it was not flawless at launch if you look beyond lag and accessibility which you almost have to if you paid to play the game. For a first MMO though we cut them some slack.
LotRO...again nice launch lag wise, etc, but still had plenty of things they had to fix as they went along. DDO to me wasn't a failed launch. I was able to play no issue. The gameplay had it's suckiness due to some bad "balance" decisions that made it hard to play certain classes, but based on the same criteria that is seemingly getting applied to CoX and other games here, it wasn't a failure. I didn't even have the highest end gaming rig like I do now with my SLI rig and it played fine for me.
You could go on and on and honestly say no game had a flawless launch as others have. Some here hate Funcom. Fair enough, I hate Cryptic and they will have to convince me to buy one of their games. On the other side I know people still enjoying STO and some love Champions. So I understand people not wanting to jump on the bandwagon, but to say there are games that actually had flawless launches? Not possible. No software period is ever flawless...thus every software you'll buy has patches eventually. But to each his own. Thing I love about the current MMO market is there is starting to be something for everyone. That is nothing but good news for gamers. No sense in bashing any game or the other since you not liking it is opinion and nothing more.
So far the games coming out like GW2, FF XIV, TSW, Rifts:, TOR, etc...they all claim to be offering something unique and different. So far in combat vids I see about the same in all of them. Mostly static fighting. But they promise movement and dynamic fighting..so either they are 1. lying, or 2. we simply haven't seen the relevent video yet. Combat in FF XIV looks downright boring, but people are drooling over the game (awesome graphics of course). Right now I'm hoping that just one of these games makes good on it's promises of dynamic "living world" content. If I get a world that feels alive I can deal with crappier graphics and same ole same ole fighting...so long as it's still fun.
I'm really looking forward to TSW from what I've seen so far. I ran into the blurb about puzzles and investigations in the game yesterday and my jaw hit the floor. If they actually deliver this they'll be putting in something to a game that I've longed for in an MMO for forever. And having to research out of game...that is just awesome to me. If they pull it off. It also fits this game world to a tee...after hearing that I kinda thought...well yeah...you have to have that in this game. It just makes sense. If they keep going as they are and the previews stay consistently good on the game play side then I'll definitely be buying this from the start. In fact aside from GW2 (hated GW1) and perhaps Telara, this game is the most intriguing game even being made so far. To me. That is simply my opinion. Of course all of this is simply based on what we know now and anything can change. But at this point I'm ready to give my money to those developers trying at least to do something new and exciting and fun and outside the WoW format of our current normal. Even if it's rough I'd rather give my money to innovators over copy cats. But again to each their own.
Omg thay make a game that hasent gone well and i love AoC, plus thay did very well for anarchy online and now people making funcom feel like black sheep.
erm, they made AO and AoC, the two very best mmo's on the market. i gonna buy TSW for sure, and im sure it will have a horrific start (as every funcom game) - and i love that, as such a start is wonderful for getting rid of the kids
where most people on these forums here at mmorpg.com seem to be waiting on either GW2 or Tera this is the game i'm waiting for. Aoc was good was just released before it was complete maybe the money hungry investors realize now that you can't expect to make your money back if you force the dev team to release the game before it is complete.
This game is the one i'm looking forward to the most because of the setting. I will probably play tor if tor comes out before this which i expect it will until this comes out.
Well, GW2 and TOR will come out sooner, TSW has still a year and more to go
I expect a lot of TSW too, but frankly they only sparingly release info. Which is refreshing, but has the side effect that there isn't that much new to talk about, at least for now.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
About AoC PvE, sorry, but that's a matter of taste, a lot of the people that played it loved it and certainly didn't consider it as something of a grind as some other MMO's around. The only problem was the lack of content sometimes, but the last 2 years of content updates and the expansion have plugged that problem. Also Khitai showed how large areas can be even with the highly detailed graphics as AoC has.
I still think AoC have very little content even after the expansion. The game should have zones for all of the 3 original cultures all the way up to 80 at least. 'They did fill up 80 fine now (even if a few more dungeons wouldn't hurt) but compare to most other MMOs do AoC still have rather thin content. In most MMOs can you at least level up 2 separate characters without doing any quest with both, in AoC that would need a lot of mob grinding.
AoC needs another expansion still. I hope TSW will have more content.
Comments
I think a good number of MMO players should probably do this with every new MMO. Someone playing an MMO at launch should expect issues to arise.
You are playing a video game. By definition that means you are not hardcore.
Exactly! I cant think of one MMO that made a flawless launch. I truly believe that people needs to accept that no launch will be perfect, it's just part of the first babysteps of any MMO. I played Anarchy Online for several years even though the initial stage of the game was a big mess but if you can't accept that its part of the process, just wait for a month or two after release or don't engage in MMOs at all... To be honest, I can even see the charm with launch issues.
Lord of the Rings online
Maybe not flawless but it was damn impressive and far as launches go should be what all of these companies strive for to either match theirs or do even better. Really begs the question why Turbine apparently learned so much from their debacled lauch of DDO and yet other companies such as Funcom continued to fall flat on their face.
Also, as debatable as some other launches have been because of the issues they had with other launches such as WoW they sure as hell did a lot more customer service wise than Funcom.
If you guys think that AoC was the norm for how launches go then I really have to question whether you actually played AoC at launch. Because really doesn't make a lot of sense. It makes about as much sense to me as the ones that go on and on about how "flawless" the WoW launch was.
Yeah right...maybe in another plane of existence...
Now having said that while I think Funcom should be used to show anyone how not to launch or run an mmorpg within the first six months of an mmo's life this certainly does not mean TSW will be the same way. As I already mentioned Turbine obviously learned from their mistakes so others could as well learn from past mistakes and errors in judgement.
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.
@ Wickedjelly, Ofc I also hope that Funcom has learned something from previous launches and I think they have. Everything else aside now, I just hope that skill and talentbuild will be somewhat similar to Anarchy Online so it becomes atleast a little challenge to build your char :-)
Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Lord of the RIngs Online, Tabula Rasa and Aion.
I Was there for the launch of all of the above and they were all smooth launches. In some cases, such as WoW, the only issues were the sheer volume of people wanting to play exceeding expectations.
I've been playing AOC recently and while it is much improved on it's state at release, it is still suffering some serious server-based issues two years on (especially in content involving lots of players). In general the engine remains poorly-coded and humbles even the most powerful PC setups due to its poor optimization. This has especially been brought to light with the latest expansion with its larger areas.
That's the state of AOC, TWO YEARS after launch. So, take that into consideration when deciding if you really expect TSW to have a good launch. Funcom are zero for 2 so far and money not quality will always dictate when the game launches as far as FC are concerned.
The game looks liek it will be fun to play for a while. unfortunately just about every MMO lately fits into that category. They are all fun to play for a month or 3 at best then they become boring. I miss the good ol days when MMo's could keep me playing 8 hours a day for years.
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Funcom have learned ofc.
But the early ( delayed ) launch of AoC was forced by the investors that wanted their money back already.
Funcom did not consider the game fully ready and wanted to delay yet another 6months to a year, investors did not want that.
So the question is really, have the investors and stockholders learned ?
Even if it does sound reasonable - it usually is the investors or the top management - do you have any proof or links that Funcom was pushed to release AoC prematurely and not at a time they'd have preferred themselves?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It looks interesting to me, and I'll keep my eye on it. I don't know much about it, but if they use the same engine that AOC runs on I think I'll have to pass. As good as AOC looks, I feel like I'm caged in by all the instancing. I know it sounds petty and doesn't seem like a reasonable point to disregard a game, but there's just something about seeing loading screen after loading screen that rips me out of the game.
That's actually one thing I like about it. I liked zone based games, specially those using instances.
Heh, good luck with that. GW2 will be published and released by NCSoft, I don't see any problem with playing it from launch since GW had a good launch too (also published by NCSoft).
About Aion: didn't see any probs there too, game was fluid and smooth, server queues were horrible for a while, but then again, look at WAR where they created additional servers to handle the launch flow, a lot of those became ghosttown servers within 2 months.
And regarding AoC, they showed with the launch of the expansion RotGS that they can learn from mistakes, it was overall a solid, stable launch especially compared to the launch 2 years ago.
Bullshit. Funcom showed with the RotGS launch that they can release something in a solid and smooth way, on par with other good launches. Yes, AoC is one of the MMO's demanding the most from your rig - hell, with such graphics and detail, who's surprised?? - despite that, I and the majority of players manages to play it very smoothly and stable.
THAT'S the state the game is in now. Deal with it.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
This sentence alone showed to me that apparently you don't know squat about The Secret World, making the rest of your comments become valueless as well.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
To be honest, I am a bit worried. Now Funcom itself has little to worry about, while I was disappointed with Age of Conan, this is a different guy who has given me one of my most beloved games and so I am willing to take a risk with buying it.
BUT I think I will be disappointed again. I am just not getting the impression from the interviews that they want to produce a quality classic MMORPG. That is of course their right but I also don't get that they have truly looked at what works and what doesn't.
That was the ultimate failure of Age of Conan, when you got past the bugs and missing features, the game just wasn't fun enough for most players. YES, there are SOME PvP fans who liked the button smashing twitch combat. But PvP fans seem not to have a lot of money judging by the subscription figures.
For the PvE fans, Age of Conan was a boring grind with lots of common features missing and lots of new stuff that just didn't gel while the old stuff was done half-heartedly. It was the ultimate example of a product produced in a vacuum without looking at what others have done.
Take a FPS. You don't HAVE to make a Quake clone but if you are going to put the weapon selection under a menu, accessed from the start screen that you can only access after rebooting the computer then just maybe you should have copied the Doom/Quake/etc method of weapons being on the number row.
It can be as simple as not having to log into the game again if you want to switch characters, which Age of Conan forced you to do. Hello? Did they even play ANY mmorpg before starting making basic design decisions?
And I get the same feeling with The Secret World, the ideas behind it sound intresting enough but at its core it is yet another PvP game that seems to think that PvP is popular (Two biggest games are WoW and Lotro both PvE centric) but that it can suffice as the end game content.
I dread that we will get a game that has a lot of promise but will suck in its execution.
And then it will get a lot of negative publicity as the last failure of Funcom, because it will be tried out by people who are expecting a different type of game.
That is it most obvious failure, one that is shares with SWTOR. Quick fans, give me ONE sentence that describes the gameplay. What is it? That still isn't clear at all, a clear sign that Funcom wants to create a game that appeals to everyone and such a game will always disappoint.
Age of Conan had 1 million copies sold, but that had boobies. The Secret World will have to do it by word of mouth but so far I can hardly recommend a game when I have no idea what it is about. What will I be doing in the game? Raiding? PvE story? Crafting? Sandbox? RP? PvP open world? PvP small group?
I guess they have learned not to speak about features until features are present
To be fair, we don't know that much about how gameplay in the end will be in SW TOR as well as TSW, I find it a bit premature to go around condemning those games beforehand based on the little we know and have seen and some vague gut feelings. Bush and his friends operated from gut feeling and we know how that can end.
About AoC PvE, sorry, but that's a matter of taste, a lot of the people that played it loved it and certainly didn't consider it as something of a grind as some other MMO's around. The only problem was the lack of content sometimes, but the last 2 years of content updates and the expansion have plugged that problem. Also Khitai showed how large areas can be even with the highly detailed graphics as AoC has.
Regarding TSW, I think you should read up on the interviews about it, they released quite a bit of information. Sure, we still need to wait for any betas and ingame videos to learn more how the gameplay will be, but they're still more than a year away from launch.
This is something I posted on the official TSW forums, information I gathered based upon the revealed info in March (interview sources are between brackets):
World environment
* Persistent world, there will be huge contiguous open-world zones.
* All three factions progress through the same areas in the same order (IGN)
* Each location has its own "monster ecology" based on the mythology and lore of the area (Kotaku) and its own layered, unique story to tell (mmorpg.com)
Gameplay
* Instances will have a more scripted experience.
* There are no classes, no levels. Characters are built upon two facets, collection of powers and gear (Voodoo)
* Your powers grow more powerful with your gear (IGN)
* There will be 2 item sets for each character – one paper doll for functionality such as weapons, the other for character appearances (TenTonHammer)
* Next to combat, your character will spend time investigating and solving puzzles. Some areas will be more action focused (Kingsmouth), others will have more focus on puzzle solving (Egypt).
* Players will be able to create and decorate their own headquarters and rank their cabals against those of others (mmorpg.com)
* Powers can be unlocked by trading points you earn from experience. Some powers are tied to certain equipment, others have prerequisites (eurogamer)
* The game is item-heavy, there'll be millions of items, and you can craft, augment and level up your weapons (eurogamer)
Combat
* You only have 7 active powers and 7 passive powers that'll be active. At certain spots outside of combat you can swap those to activate other powers that you have collected.
* Team skill combos are possible via the State system, active powers put enemies or allies into a "state", passive powers interact with that state and make use of that. Example: one player sets a group of zombies on fire, while another has a damage over time power running that kills enemies on fire, causing the group to explode.
* Combat movement will include dodging and strafing (Massively)
Quests / storytelling
* Most of the regular storyline missions will be solo-able, and taking place in the open-world zones.
* Scripted, repeatable dungeons will be there for party play; shorter instances or "mini-dungeons" will be part of mission sequences and used as a storytelling device.
* There's one linear story to follow through the game, perpetuated with cliffhangers and mysterious elements popping up. Not all of the global story is needed or will be uncovered by progressing through the game. To find out more, one need to "dig deeper" (Voodoo)
* Storylines, lore and cutscenes can be skipped by those who want to jump into the fights rightaway (TenTonHammer)
* Your quests will not only make you travel over the world, but also through time (Massively)
* Every mission starts with its own cinematic cutscene incl voice acting. It's possible to replay a mission with a harder Challenge Mode (vgchartz).
* Parties seem to be limited to max size 4 (not 100% certain, but all articles and videos showed 4-man parties, no more, as if that was fullsize)
* Kingsmouth combat seems to take place in the evening/night cycle? (as latest trailer seem to suggest)
Miscellaneous
* Your UI will be sort of an augmented reality like Heavy Rain and iPhone have. The only permant visible UI things on screen will be your chat window and your 7 active powers (eurogamer)
* ARGs will also continue after launch, according to Tornquist.
Oh, and one of the "endgame" activities will take place in the large contnuous underground world, where the factions will battle eachother for control spots and the resources it will bring.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'm just hoping that they have learned from the past, and now know how to launch a game. Seriously, I doubt they could make the Conan mistake twice, but we'll see.
to op's question: yes. I did preordered ce for AoC, made 5 of my friends buy the game. For the same thing to happen someone has to put a gun to my head.
I need more vespene gas.
I think it's an intriguing concept, however I won't buy anything from Funcom because of the total lack of customer service that I experienced with AoC. With AoC when I ran in to CS issues I dealt with almost every level of thier company, all the way to the top, adn it was nothing but a huge runaround and waste of my time. Never again.
Whats funny to me in this whole debate is what is considered flawless by each respondant. Most seem to be relating flawless to not having lag and being able to get into the game without issues. Those are nice and of course DAoC was the first I know of with this type of launch, but the game was hardly flawless. A year in they were tweaking game balance and PvP or RvR more precisely. Aside from RvR I don't consider anything they did groundbreaking compared to the other offerings of the time.
CoX....really? That game was craptacular in beta and about the same at launch. Not because it had lag or you couldn't get in, but because it was boring as HE double hockey sticks. No content...no content..oh yeah..no content. They've done a lot to it now that to me almost makes it better than Champions and look almost as good, but it was not flawless at launch if you look beyond lag and accessibility which you almost have to if you paid to play the game. For a first MMO though we cut them some slack.
LotRO...again nice launch lag wise, etc, but still had plenty of things they had to fix as they went along. DDO to me wasn't a failed launch. I was able to play no issue. The gameplay had it's suckiness due to some bad "balance" decisions that made it hard to play certain classes, but based on the same criteria that is seemingly getting applied to CoX and other games here, it wasn't a failure. I didn't even have the highest end gaming rig like I do now with my SLI rig and it played fine for me.
You could go on and on and honestly say no game had a flawless launch as others have. Some here hate Funcom. Fair enough, I hate Cryptic and they will have to convince me to buy one of their games. On the other side I know people still enjoying STO and some love Champions. So I understand people not wanting to jump on the bandwagon, but to say there are games that actually had flawless launches? Not possible. No software period is ever flawless...thus every software you'll buy has patches eventually. But to each his own. Thing I love about the current MMO market is there is starting to be something for everyone. That is nothing but good news for gamers. No sense in bashing any game or the other since you not liking it is opinion and nothing more.
So far the games coming out like GW2, FF XIV, TSW, Rifts:, TOR, etc...they all claim to be offering something unique and different. So far in combat vids I see about the same in all of them. Mostly static fighting. But they promise movement and dynamic fighting..so either they are 1. lying, or 2. we simply haven't seen the relevent video yet. Combat in FF XIV looks downright boring, but people are drooling over the game (awesome graphics of course). Right now I'm hoping that just one of these games makes good on it's promises of dynamic "living world" content. If I get a world that feels alive I can deal with crappier graphics and same ole same ole fighting...so long as it's still fun.
I'm really looking forward to TSW from what I've seen so far. I ran into the blurb about puzzles and investigations in the game yesterday and my jaw hit the floor. If they actually deliver this they'll be putting in something to a game that I've longed for in an MMO for forever. And having to research out of game...that is just awesome to me. If they pull it off. It also fits this game world to a tee...after hearing that I kinda thought...well yeah...you have to have that in this game. It just makes sense. If they keep going as they are and the previews stay consistently good on the game play side then I'll definitely be buying this from the start. In fact aside from GW2 (hated GW1) and perhaps Telara, this game is the most intriguing game even being made so far. To me. That is simply my opinion. Of course all of this is simply based on what we know now and anything can change. But at this point I'm ready to give my money to those developers trying at least to do something new and exciting and fun and outside the WoW format of our current normal. Even if it's rough I'd rather give my money to innovators over copy cats. But again to each their own.
Omg thay make a game that hasent gone well and i love AoC, plus thay did very well for anarchy online and now people making funcom feel like black sheep.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3845509852.png
erm, they made AO and AoC, the two very best mmo's on the market. i gonna buy TSW for sure, and im sure it will have a horrific start (as every funcom game) - and i love that, as such a start is wonderful for getting rid of the kids
where most people on these forums here at mmorpg.com seem to be waiting on either GW2 or Tera this is the game i'm waiting for. Aoc was good was just released before it was complete maybe the money hungry investors realize now that you can't expect to make your money back if you force the dev team to release the game before it is complete.
This game is the one i'm looking forward to the most because of the setting. I will probably play tor if tor comes out before this which i expect it will until this comes out.
Well, GW2 and TOR will come out sooner, TSW has still a year and more to go
I expect a lot of TSW too, but frankly they only sparingly release info. Which is refreshing, but has the side effect that there isn't that much new to talk about, at least for now.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
the title of this thread pretty much sums it up for me.
Steam: Neph
I still think AoC have very little content even after the expansion. The game should have zones for all of the 3 original cultures all the way up to 80 at least. 'They did fill up 80 fine now (even if a few more dungeons wouldn't hurt) but compare to most other MMOs do AoC still have rather thin content. In most MMOs can you at least level up 2 separate characters without doing any quest with both, in AoC that would need a lot of mob grinding.
AoC needs another expansion still. I hope TSW will have more content.