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Worst Review I could find
Scot
Member LegendaryPosts: 24,429
This is the worst review I could find for TSW, I picked it to see if you guys playing think some of the issues raised have been addressed or are at least on the way to being fixed. Or maybe they are just not as important as the reviwer thinks?
Secret World’s dirty little secret is that it doesn’t work yet
I love the game that Secret World is supposed to be. This new horror themed MMO from Funcom, the developers who launched Anarchy Online, and Electronic Arts, the publishers who designed Star Wars: The Old Republic, is the genre’s freshest breath of air since DC Universe Online. It takes a unique approach to worldbuilding with a world unique among MMOs. It admirably solves traditional problems like stale gameplay, played out settings, and players scattered among multiple servers. It has style, flair, subtlety, personality.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been playing the game that Secret World is supposed to be. I’ve instead been playing the game that was released.
After the jump, unsolved and unsolvable mysteries
Secret World is a distinct enough game that it can bear up under most of the usual launch issues and design oversights. For instance, the intricate combat system needs better documentation, the skills need a better organizational interface, usable items like potions and gadgets need hotkeys, the player vs player needs to be overhauled by someone who understands MMOs with good player vs player combat, the shameless money grabbing Sims style online store needs to go the way of the dodo, and whatever issues are going on with the chat servers need to be fixed the day before yesterday. But none of these has kept me from appreciating the fine game Funcom intended to create. That dubious honor goes to the wonderful and awful quests that make Secret World unlike any other MMO.
Most of the quests in Secret World are familiar MMO stuff about fighting monsters. The combat is your usual MMO button clicking while waiting on skills to refresh. 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 4, xp. Since this is Funcom’s follow-up to Age of Conan, sometimes you have to not stand in a certain place when you fight a monster. The character development system takes a page from Guild Wars, where you choose two classes and sample various skills from each class. A “no levels” concept is literally true in that your character doesn’t have levels. But taking away the actual number doesn’t mean it plays any differently. It just means you have no shorthand way to say how far you’ve gotten your character. This is all neatly laid out in a generously open world that encourages repeating quests and exploring locations.
But occasionally, and often optionally, you’ll find quests that work like puzzles in single-player adventure games. You’ll have to play with codes, language, riddles, diagrams, and lore. These tie neatly into the game world, giving the place even more of a sense of atmosphere, history, and mystery than it already has. Some of these quests are fiendishly clever for forcing you to think outside the MMO box. Some of them are frustrating. Some of them lead to glorious “a-ha!” moments.
And far too many of them flat-out don’t work.
You’ll come to a fairly simple quest where the trigger simply doesn’t show up, or the quest doesn’t progress, or it somehow just doesn’t work correctly. But you’ll have no idea it’s broken. You’ll naturally assume you just haven’t hit on the right solution in a fiendishly clever puzzle. You’ll conclude that this is where you’re supposed to think outside the MMO box. You’ll trust the developers at Funcom. So you’ll go about trying to parse how the quest works, maybe reading the text more carefully, maybe hunting around the vicinity for visual or aural clues, maybe scribbling down some notes or opening the ingame browser to check something on Wikipedia. You’ll give it the ol’ college try before resorting to Google. And eventually, if you’re lucky, you’ll discover that Funcom has simply failed to make a game that works as intended. You’ve been trying to solve an unsolvable broken puzzle.
At this point, any confidence you have in later quests is rightly destroyed. Any subsequent difficult puzzle will immediately make you question whether you need to keep trying to figure it out, or whether the game is broken. Right now, The Secret World is an exercise in Funcom failing to live up to our implied agreement that if I try hard enough, if I think smartly enough, if I agree to approach their challenges on their terms, if I invest in the world they’ve created, then I can solve the challenges presented. Right now, that isn’t the case.
In any other MMO, broken scripting isn’t a big deal because it’s obvious. When you need to collect ten wolf pelts and the wolves aren’t dropping pelts, it’s obviously broken. When you need to kill Gurgash the Barbarian Lord and Gurgash doesn’t spawn, you know Gurgah isn’t spawning. Less ambitious MMOs break less dramatically. But The Secret World breaks differently, crushingly, almost tragically. There are various explanations and workarounds and excuses, and it mostly comes down to the simple fact that making games is hard and making MMOs is even harder. Funcom is simply unable to make the game they designed. The Secret World shouldn’t have been released until our implied agreement was rock solid. Because in its current state, what should have been a unique experience is instead a uniquely frustrating experience.
2 stars
Comments
The worst review is how i feel about Funcom, I will personally not ever play or buy another Funcom product. " Hard to beat that One "
MAGA
I dunno. I've met a few broken quests and even those I have been able to finish the following day. Not a single quest has been "unbeatably broken forever" for me.
Maybe the reviewer bumped into one, got pissed and started writing? Sounds a bit like it.
He calls the game "a generously laid out open world" if this is what passes for open world now then we are doomed.
He seems really angry throughout the article though mostly with regard to broken quests. I have had 3 broken quests so far and all were completable in the next couple of days. The game is an MMO if you are struggling then just type in the help channel "is X quest broken" and you will find out if you are thick or the quest is actually borked.
After 90+ hours playtime still being in the first 3 zones i had 4, maybe 5 quests that did not trigger an encounter or an quest npc and i have more the 170 mission played.
That is less than 2.5% was bugged.
All of them worked in the next 2 days!
Question is if i am lucky or people be unlucky or if they have bad hardware that is unable to handle the game and bugs out or if they simply blow up bad things beyond comprehension so they can justify their bad rating?
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
I think some people just dont get the game, kind of like EVE. Not that its the holy grail of gaming, but dang .. guess I'm saying a lot of what you get out of a game is dependent on your expecations.
I feel that same way about a lot of f2p publishers and developers...only mature enough to just avoid their forums...since ill have nothing constructive to say.
if you read some of the comments beneath the review you can see that this guy has a fairly poor reputation as a reviewer. he even trolls someone who disagrees with his review. pretty unproffesional to say the least.
If someone is talking in general chat in a language you dont understand, chances are they're not talking to you. So chill out and stop bitching about it!
also "The combat is your usual MMO button clicking while waiting on skills to refresh. 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 4, xp. "
He couldnt even get the combat right...aside from a fail rotation...no mention on resource building and no cooldowns on most skills and a lack of a GCD....
This is a pretty good find OP...couldnt think the reviews from GW2 fans on this forums could be and worse and i now stand corrected.
Quartertothree is the worst (professional?) review site I've ever seen. It seems to be 1 guy who quickly boxes together reviews (12 reviews in june and another 12 in may, all reviews I checked were of poor quality), often with an extreme score hoping to attract controversion to get more visitors to his site. The sad thing is that it seems to be working very well. He's even listed on metacritic and because of his extreme scores his reviews stand out and thus it gets his site even more visitors.
This kinda reminds me of that russian company whose business plan existed out of giving the most horrendous customer experience possible, resulting in being talked about a lot and because of that ending up on top of search results in google
A review from quartertothree is the last thing I'd use as a reference to see if a game has shown improvement, there's so many other decent gamereview sites you could have picked instead.
Honeslty the reviewer did not play the game long enough, here are my counters:
"usable items like potions and gadgets need hotkey"- you put them in a bag, drag the bag close to the bar and there they are now clickables.
"the player vs player needs to be overhauled" actually I haven't seen a pvp system that goes on 24/7 with insta ques in a PVE server in a recent MMO so I give funcom a +1 there, otherwise its the same as most MMO's
Questing- if you search any forums on this site you will see this is TSW strong spot - awesome quests, that might just be too tough for the reviewer. The bugged ones are mostly fixed, if not you just need to ask someone from another server to invite you to un-bug it. I have been able to complete every quest that way, but hopefully they will fix that soon. Theres only a handful of quests like that.
I like the game he doesnt no biggie. My only concern is how long i will play it. I love it after a month's of play time (also did beta). Will there still be stuff to do in 6 months? i hope so b/c its the best game I have come across in the last 4 years of releases.
There are some things that aren't far off the mark.
Or, more to the point, some of the quests being broken affecting you later and making you second guess whether you need to continue thinking about the solution or whether the quest is really broken.
That has happened to me several times.
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
I've ran into a few bugged quests and some others I was able to complete by switching servers. Not enough to account for what the writer is babbling on about. Not even close.
He was right about the chat channels...so there's that. Rest of that review is pretty much shit.
I find it interesting he mentions that but not the gear management issue. I don't get the sense he played long at all. Nor does his example fit any of the quests I found bugged so frankly I think he's full of it and going more off what he's read from others or simply assumed the game would be like than from actual experience.
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.
That review was written before most of the patches were out. So most of whats said is now out of date.. that's the problem with people who try to review MMOs too early. Yes, it was accurate at the time but 2 or 3 days after that 'most' of the broken missions were fixed.
It's not a review anyway, it hardly touches on anything else about the game.. that is a rant disguised as a review.
Dont like that review at all, twisted everything thing way out of proportion.. dont get me wrong its not 100% perfect but the guy is maknig it out to be a bug ridden mess... this is not the case at all..
I think so far i have had 2-3 bugged quests that i have got done by swapping to a different server, I have not had any other bugs myself.
Each to their own but my guess is that he is not a fan of Funcom..
Good point, I have hardly seen any reviews mention the broken gear manager and for me in a game where you are supposed to save your loadouts and switch to them this is by far the most annoying bug in the game, yet almost no reviews even mention it, most of them don't even mention the gear manager at all.
No bugged quest since early access for me.
People just dont get that some quests dont work while someone else is doing them. You cant dismantle a device while someone else is dismantling it. You cant click the white ravens sequence while someone else is clicking it. You cant free the guy from the animal trap while someone else is escorting him. And so on and on. Either wait or group for an update.
I was thinking a spwan was bugged until i understood that the guy spawns random in a certein area and if someone else is killing him it might be like he is not spawning at all.
The game is just different form what many think a MMO is. With Mobs like the "Sleeping One" Funcom is laughing about people who cant be bothered to take their game as it is.
First, why go out with the intent of finding the worst review on a game. What is the point. There is always going to a fanatic in love with it and a hater that can't stand it. Most will fall somewhere in between and if they masses are generally giving it a thumbs up AND what they say seems to suit you personally, then it is probably a good bet it will be at least some fun for you.
As to this review. I have my main character almost complete with the first three zone and I have played a lot. Out of the hundreds of missions I have done I ran into exactly three that were broken. These are Men in Black Vans, Something Wicked, and The Black House. Even then, they were fixed quickly enough (Something Wicked was borked for a little longer than the others). Out of those, I am pretty sure only Something Wicked had another mission contingent on the completion it.
I did second guess myself on a mission or two, wondering if they were working. I asked in Chat if they were, got some good responses that they were in fact, fine, and figured em out.
I would not call myself a fanboy but I am certainly enjoying the game and find it worthwhile to pay the sub. I like that the game is a bit hard, I like that there are puzzles and mysteries to solve and now that I am very close to completing the first deck I was after I am seeing the real depth in the skill system, having different ability builds for different circumstances (single target big monsters, AOE mob killing build, solo build with some self healing, etc).
So far, best newer MMO around right now in my book.
We will never know "what he's likely referring to" when he says you pick 2 classes. What he wrote is "you pick 2 classes", which is something every MMO gamer can understand perfectly.
If I read a game review, and the reviewer writes "you pick 2 classes" I don't think to myself "ooh, I wonder what he REALLY means ?". It's very badly written, AND it's wrong.
It honestly sounds like he played about 2 hours of Kingsmouth (if that), and then read a bunch of other reviews and forum posts to find his content. He specialises in giving games "controversial" scores so that he stands out from the crowd. His business plan is quite good, but his reviews suck.
I think he didnt play at all, because you pick one weapon at the beginning.
Average players will play with one weapon half way through Kingsmouth. Heck, on the forum there are people trying to play the whole PvE solo part with one weapon.
Doesnt matter, those who like the game will play it. Those who dislike it dont. Such a review doesnt change anything imho.
"You’ll come to a fairly simple quest where the trigger simply doesn’t show up, or the quest doesn’t progress, or it somehow just doesn’t work correctly. But you’ll have no idea it’s broken. You’ll naturally assume you just haven’t hit on the right solution in a fiendishly clever puzzle. You’ll conclude that this is where you’re supposed to think outside the MMO box. You’ll trust the developers at Funcom. So you’ll go about trying to parse how the quest works, maybe reading the text more carefully, maybe hunting around the vicinity for visual or aural clues, maybe scribbling down some notes or opening the ingame browser to check something on Wikipedia. You’ll give it the ol’ college try before resorting to Google. And eventually, if you’re lucky, you’ll discover that Funcom has simply failed to make a game that works as intended. You’ve been trying to solve an unsolvable broken puzzle."
I'd had this happen a number of times. And like they say, even if it only happened once, after that, anytime you feel like you're obviously doing what you're supposed to be doing and it doesn't work, you're tempted to dig up a guide online to get it over with. The most clear case was the step in The Black House where you try to get the urn. It was abundently clear what I had to do and the pattern that I had to do it in, but thanks possibly to a bug and thanks absolutely to the game mechanics and interface, I died 5 or 6 times trying to do it.
Much of it is inconsistency in game mechanics, in general. Easiest example are courier missions. Some require you to click on the person and some don't, with no logical reason for the difference in most cases. Sometimes you have to pick a quest item up to have it in inventory, sometimes it just appears there like in other games. Still others require you to read minds, like the way you get into the jail cell in KM; there's no reason to believe it will be open to you if you take the action required, and no reason to think that you shouldn't be able to just ask the Sheriff to open the damn thing in the first place, since there's nobody in there.
As the review seems to state, the game represents the perfect example of a love/hate relationship. I love it so much for what it tries to do(story, immersion, new MMO genre), and absolutely despise it for its poor implementation of the standard MMO features(mob placement/aggro/combat in general) and those brilliant quests that don't quite work right...
Also, level restriction via gear, IMO, is worse than levelling.
I don't know how. It is stupidly easy to get the gear and there are only 10 "levels" of gear to be concerned about.
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.
Not in later levels, from my XP. Your first QL4 blues are easy, but those are obsolete by the time you reach Blue Mountain. QL6's will require 25 action missions, 50 courier missions, or a combination thereof, in tokens, each. QL6 greens spec out slightly better than QL4 blues, and the kits to make them even, are rare.
Most importantly, it's pretty much a waste of time to stick around Blue Mountain and repeat some quests in order to be better prepared for Egypt; the drops pretty much peg out at GL6 greens, inferior to council token weapons. And crafted items are on par with drops. And, obviously, SI tokens don't apply to your next tier weapon.
And as we know, progression on the wheel is mostly lateral; that once you have mastered one or two outer wheel groups, you're within a few percent of the power level of another player who has them all. So if you find yourself stuck in a rut, where you feel underpowered for the missions you're on, you have few options to fix it. Worse, the option is to go to a higher level area where you'll be even more underpowered.
To sum up, a standard MMO provides far more choices to a player that feels underpowered. You can work on crafting to make better weapons, armor, and/or buff items. You can check out the AH to find these items. You can stick around and grind to a new level. TSW, it would seem, deliberately eliminates these options.
Tom Chick strikes again.
I tend to disagree with his reviews, but many seem to think he is a great reviewer.
I don't know why.
Personally I feel he is overly negative, but I am sure others will prefer his scathing style.