Originally posted by Ulcerate Great story, great enviroments. Horribly boring and repetative combat. Terrible grouping system. Terrible instances. Worth the admission? Sure. Worth the monthly fee, no way. I quickly canceled my sub after I hit the savage coast and realized that this was more of a single-player experience than a multiplayer. I'll come back to the TSW when they decided to wipe the monthly fee. Till then i'll play a superior MMO(GW2) on it's release without having to worry about getting my moneys worth.
Well, enjoy your "superior" game (GW2), a game that I tried in beta, and that I think it's a huge disappointment, with its generic and poorly written story, worse voice acting, super shallow pve consisting of recycled mechanics from rift and warhammer and incredibly boring generic hearts quests, horribly dull combat mechanics that limit players to a single dps role all the time, and still rely on the use of "auto pilot" combat, an awful "downed" state, etc etc
The bottom line is that, if we accept that this model is actually 'free', going 'F2P' does not make these failed games any more fun.
If I wanted to play TSW I would be playing it. I would have paid for the client. If the folks that did buy it found it more then a month's worth of fun, they would be paying the £10 for another to keep on playing the game. The reason I didn't, and so many of them didn't, is because the game isn't fun enough for the majority. It is a ragged around the edges snooze fest with moments of 'that's cool'.
It's the game that's the issue, not the rev model.
The devs need to stop blaming the payment model (or metacritic!! or whatever else...) for their fails and face up that they simply need to make better games.
Ones we find fun enough to not mind spending money on.
Im inclined to agree though going micro transaction has boosted active players in other games. I plan on playing some time in the future, I hope they go hybrid (freemium) as with a game that us fairly light on content I would prefer to sub for a month or two.
You know... I wonder about this in the long term... the active player boost I mean and how it works for a lot of the games out there. The launches of these conversions always get a huge boost, there isn't an argument there at all, but how many are retained in the long term I wonder? We don't really see any facts given out.
In my experience, when this industry isn't giving figures then that means they usually aren't doing that proud of them. I am not saying that this is the case here, but has any Western converted MMORPG boasted about 'continued and sustained growth' 3-6 months down the line? Or does the F2P model see as much attrition as the sub model, but the cash shop set up just allows for more money to be made off a smaller number of players?
I would like to see some real figures for some of these games really, especially some of the ones that first made the change. How are they REALLY doing now in terms of numbers, assumption and guess work aside? It seems that people's impression comes from the 'F2P' relaunch, which inevitably see a lot of new players (and returners) trying the game out (again), but really tells us nothing beyond those first few weeks.
How many of these new players are actually staying around for the long haul though? I wonder if it is truly any more or less then under their old model percentage-wise.
I wish there was a game site out there that was capable of having a proper look at the F2P model... a critical honest look that was as concerned as much for the consumers as it was crawling up the industry's arse for advertising and access.
Funcom does alot of things badly, TSW could have been of much higher quality then it realy is. Funcom, many mmo players have a bad taste in their mouth, and wont buy another product.
TSW is another example they cant do thigns right and dont deserve the playerbase and support an mmo studio realy should be getting.
Box sale Subscription Cash shop
TSW aint worth that amount of cash to play, it was pretty obvious from the start this would not sell well.
Also GW2 (sorry) shows a path how a simple box sale can provide massive amounts of profits, + its a better game overal with no sub and not a Pay to Win cash shop.
Any company from today onwards will need to look very carefully how to sell their product as people aint stupid anymore after Warhammer / Aion / SWTOR.
Ah, forgot to add .... voiced video quests are terribly, but terribly, booooooring. Also badly animated, ugly, ... but mainly boring as hell to listen and watch. In Aoc and swtor I could listen and watch for the 8th or so time without problem, was fun, ... here have problems to go through that boring monologue of npc's for the first time, immagine if I had 8 or 10 alts. And even if risking to skip some usefull info from voiced quest few times had just skipped on first presentation or have been in mean time cleaning my teeth or preparing meal.
Any company from today onwards will need to look very carefully how to sell their product as people aint stupid anymore after Warhammer / Aion / SWTOR.
Not sure what have to do here in this company swtor. Best game, most fun, of all times. Of course not counting pvp or end game to which I could not care less. For the rest is incredible, never played any game in my life for 7 months, and played a lot.
I'm having a lot of fun playing TSW, my only major complaint with the game is the bugs. They haven't addressed all the bugs yet, even with the patches. I'm hoping they just don't continue to focus on content over bug fixing.
The combat I see nothing wrong with it, I haven't had an issue with it.
PvP is another issue (which is always an issue in MMO's that aren't centered around it), combo's work well here and I see it evening out as more people figure out their build. Every ability has some kind of counter, just comes down to knowing your buttons and having good teamwork. Just some figured it out earlier then others from Beta.
SWTOR i found myself skipping the movies, could only stand to listen to them once and that was it.
TSW would be the same except for the guy in the desert (can't think of name offhand) he's always hillarious to watch. Can't say you won't like them all, you'll have your favorite and least favorite characters.
Though both of these games had animation flaws in their movies, but then I've seen that in most movies I've watched in MMO's, not something major and can't say how hard it is to animate and fix these sort of situations.
To those of you saying free to play isn't evil. YOur right, its not. but the article never said it is, all it said was that p2p games going free to play is evil, which I agree with because games that are setup as p2p are generally made with massive money making in mind, however when those games go free to play, those games still want to be massive money makers so they make playing the game horrible unless you pay them money. And that is what is wrong with games that transition from f2p to p2p
Originally posted by ereyethirn To those of you saying free to play isn't evil. YOur right, its not. but the article never said it is, all it said was that p2p games going free to play is evil, which I agree with because games that are setup as p2p are generally made with massive money making in mind, however when those games go free to play, those games still want to be massive money makers so they make playing the game horrible unless you pay them money. And that is what is wrong with games that transition from f2p to p2p
This is typical BS from Funcom. The game was reviewed across the world by professional reviewers of gaming world and got a reasonable 7 or so. However, Funcom think that there is some player base that really loves this game, there may be, but we are talking very niche and can't be a metric for a good games compsny to proceed with.
Reality check here, from one who played TSW closed beta, the game is alright and would work free to play model, but isn't going to be viable as sub model for long.
I will NEVER....EVER...listen to someone telling me that I should NOT hold a companies history against them...or that I should have to pay for something that is sub-par and like it.
Deal with the FACT that more and more people are no longer feeling trapped into having to pay a product that is not delivering on its end.
Funcom has EARNED their reputation, a reputation that has earned them articles on this very website about how they seem to be inable to make a game that meets up to its potential, or that it takes them near a full YEAR after release just to make the game release worthy...
And the worst thing about this article, is that you dare to tell us that we should not be speaking out about this game...no. I WILL speak out. This game is not worth a subscription, the company is not worthy of my money. They are NOT a new company and they should be LEARNING from past mistakes which they have shown NO SIGN OF BEING CAPABLE of doing.
If you dont want people to "hate" on you...dont earn it with over a decade of bad business practices.
[mod edit]. I urge anyone [mod edit] to ignore reviews, ignore comments made by anyone else and just give the game a go. If you like it play if if not, don't waste your breath on it.
[mod edit]
You can boil down any review of any game or any post on the forums to this: -
You like SWOTR - noob the game is crap!
You like TSW - noob the game is crap!
You like GW2 - noob the game is crap!
You like 'insert game' - noob the game is crap!
Who cares what anyone says about a game, try it yourself, don't have stupid reservations about who made it, who publishes it, who wrote it, what review score it got or anything else. Play it and if you like it keep playing it.
This is typical BS from Funcom. The game was reviewed across the world by professional reviewers of gaming world and got a reasonable 7 or so. However, Funcom think that there is some player base that really loves this game, there may be, but we are talking very niche and can't be a metric for a good games compsny to proceed with.
Reality check here, from one who played TSW closed beta, the game is alright and would work free to play model, but isn't going to be viable as sub model for long.
The professional game reviewers game it a 7.0 (45 reviews apprently)
The people playing the game gave it an 8.4 (700+ reviews apparently)
Who do you trust? Someone who gets paid to review stuff of people that are paying for a service?
If your answer isn't the player then you are stupid.
Gotta admit, it's unnatural to see the slogan "Don't judge a game by the reviews it gets" posted in MMORPG.com. Talk about the pinnacle of irony. I don't say outright hypocrisy because I am not absolutely certain of the relationship between the author of this site. This place has made it it's business to treat game reviews with arbitrary irresponsibility and fickleness. Fully dependent on the financial strength of the game developer. Oh so it seems the reviews in sites other than yours sunk your pet game. My heart bleeds.
Originally posted by Illyssia This is typical BS from Funcom. The game was reviewed across the world by professional reviewers of gaming world and got a reasonable 7 or so. However, Funcom think that there is some player base that really loves this game, there may be, but we are talking very niche and can't be a metric for a good games compsny to proceed with.Reality check here, from one who played TSW closed beta, the game is alright and would work free to play model, but isn't going to be viable as sub model for long.
The professional game reviewers game it a 7.0 (45 reviews apprently)
The people playing the game gave it an 8.4 (700+ reviews apparently)
Who do you trust? Someone who gets paid to review stuff of people that are paying for a service?
If your answer isn't the player then you are stupid.
Actually I don't trust user reviews either,at least not till after 6 months or more.Users usually have their own agendas or give their rating/reviews,especially with MMOs, based on their first impressions of the game based on very low game play time.User reviews are just as untrustworthy as critical reviews for games albiet for different reasons.
Originally posted by Illyssia This is typical BS from Funcom. The game was reviewed across the world by professional reviewers of gaming world and got a reasonable 7 or so. However, Funcom think that there is some player base that really loves this game, there may be, but we are talking very niche and can't be a metric for a good games compsny to proceed with.Reality check here, from one who played TSW closed beta, the game is alright and would work free to play model, but isn't going to be viable as sub model for long.
The professional game reviewers game it a 7.0 (45 reviews apprently)
The people playing the game gave it an 8.4 (700+ reviews apparently)
Who do you trust? Someone who gets paid to review stuff of people that are paying for a service?
If your answer isn't the player then you are stupid.
PCGamer gave SWTOR 93!!! and TSW 69. Go figure why!!!!
Being in the gaming industry , I realized for awhile now, that people on this forum most of all, love to bash games, no matter if they are good or not, they love to find things wrong with a game, I for one would love to see some of these gamers make there own game, most would NOT have a clue where to begin..... People love free to play , why?? because they think they are getting stuff free when in the end it costs you more and you get less, with 15 a month is a cheap hobby!! I mean cheap, but gamers today have there morals and standards all over the place. Games back in the day used to be great, and gamers, had respect for DEVS, those days are gone, gamers/people love to hate on everything, you need to get over your selfs and play the games or find a new hobby!!
I agree, gaming is a very cheap hobby compared to most other entertainment. I'd have no problem with paying even $50 per month for a quality MMO that met my tastes. I just haven't found one. I'm looking around and HONESTLY there is nothing out there in terms of MMO's that is worth my TIME let alone money to play. That's not a bash, it's my honest opinion. There may be some MMO's that are decent...but they definately AREN'T to my tastes...or I've played them enough that I'm tired of them and don't want to go back.
But HONESTLY I'm not down on games IN GENERAL....
- I thought SKYRIM was awesome
- I thought the Baldurs Gate/Ice Wind Dale games were very well made.
- I'm an absolute Fanboi for this little known WWII Strategy Game called Advanced Tactics WWII. I've been playing it for years, and generaly rave about it.
- I really enjoyed the Mount & Blade games...and think they took alot of talent to make.
As far as the MMO space goes....sorry but honestly these days, at best it's pretty much..."meh". There are a couple in the works I'm excited about, hopefully they can deliver.
In terms of your analogy.....I can't design and build a car by myself either, and it takes alot of talent and hard work to do that.....but that doesn't mean I'm going to be willing to buy a lemon either.
I honestly WANTED to like TSW. They had some very cool concepts for it....but as far as execution goes...IMO it falls far short of anything I'm interested in playing. They can make it free...I'm still not interested in playing.
PCGamer gave SWTOR 93!!! and TSW 69. Go figure why!!!! Play the game and make your own judgement.
If you put it this way ... I would give tsw compared to swtor no more then 35 or 40. swtor is one of most polished games ever released since day 1. Virtually no bugs, no lag, increcible immersion and incredible - best ever I have seen in any game - twists in main stories, ...
But, there was big "but", pvp it looks was/is terrible and buggy, endgame not existent. This would not know as I do not care even minimally for this 2 aspect. And, yes, never liked space combat missions.
For the rest all the best about swtor. And have been playing since day 1 up to few weeks ago when started to play tsw. And i'm 50 not some small kiddo. And have played a lot since c64.
If somebody have something to say over some game, I mean something other then "epic fail" or alike ... at least I guess can aspect point by point whats wrong, 1...., 2.....
Well ... appart obvious problems nobody like, i.e. bugs, crashes, bad support in case one need it .... it is also all down to PERSONAL preferences. Which i usually always state. I never liked pvp, endgame for me is when all my alts are at max, I really dislike 1st person games which i would never play (tried however few times out of desperation more or less), ....
And I can also say for mysel, I do not hate any game. May dislike, "hate" bugs, .... but I see in this forums many true haters, that feed on hating something or somebody. Bad for them. Bad for those that read them.
you either love TSW (like me), or you hate the game so much that you have to tell everyone how bad it is.
the problem with TSW was not if the game is good/bad, the problem was that few people tried the game, and the haters are such a vocal minority that makes the game look bad, the amount of people that left the game after the free month is so low that I can't see the difference in Argatha, it's the same as launch day, clearly, most who tried the game are staying with it after the first month.
I don't put much stock in reviews whether proffesional or not, myself, unless I know the reviewer personaly. To easy for bias to creep in our for those reviews to be skewed by other factors.
What I do find usefull in reviews is not how "good" or "bad" the game was or what "score" it got but information about the features and mechanisms of the game. Example is combat FPS or standard MMO Tab Targeting, does it use instancing, how do they deal with death/recovery, etc. I don't really care whether the reviewer liked or disliked the specific feature.... I just want to know the details of what it was and how they went about implimenting it. You can get alot of this info from Dev Blogs and Forumns as well.
From this info I can get a pretty good feel about 2 things:
1) Whether the game suits my individual tastes or not.
2) Whether the features/mechanisms are well thought out, mesh together well and fit the subject matter of the game.
That's not going to tell me whether the game is good or not...or whether I am going to play, because a game can have a great design and just fall short on implimentation/execution (which is 50 percent of what makes a quality product). But it at least gives you a heads up about whether the game has the POTENTIAL to be something you might enjoy. There are alot of red flags you can pickup on from this sort of info.
From there, if the game has the POTENTIAL to be something I'm interested in and might enjoy, I'll see if I can get into a beta, free trial or if I know someone who has the game. YouTube footage of actual gameplay (not trailers) can be usefull here too. This can tell me alot about the games execution.
Very rarely will I buy something site unseen, just based upon advertisement or 3rd party knowledge. If the Developer someone I really trust because of thier previous titles (this is very rare these days) or I'm absolutely in love with the design of the game as described, I MIGHT make an exception....that's about it.
With TSW... there were a couple design decisions that raised red flags for me (mostly the MMO style combat) but I was still intrigued enough by the overall design to check it out. Once I got some hands on time in beta, I knew I wasn't going to play it. I wouldn't have bought it site unseen had I not got into beta. I could care less about the scores it got, they don't have any effect on my purchase decisions.
The bottom line is that, if we accept that this model is actually 'free', going 'F2P' does not make these failed games any more fun.
If I wanted to play TSW I would be playing it. I would have paid for the client. If the folks that did buy it found it more then a month's worth of fun, they would be paying the £10 for another to keep on playing the game. The reason I didn't, and so many of them didn't, is because the game isn't fun enough for the majority. It is a ragged around the edges snooze fest with moments of 'that's cool'.
It's the game that's the issue, not the rev model.
The devs need to stop blaming the payment model (or metacritic!! or whatever else...) for their fails and face up that they simply need to make better games.
Ones we find fun enough to not mind spending money on.
Im inclined to agree though going micro transaction has boosted active players in other games. I plan on playing some time in the future, I hope they go hybrid (freemium) as with a game that us fairly light on content I would prefer to sub for a month or two.
You know... I wonder about this in the long term... the active player boost I mean and how it works for a lot of the games out there. The launches of these conversions always get a huge boost, there isn't an argument there at all, but how many are retained in the long term I wonder? We don't really see any facts given out.
In my experience, when this industry isn't giving figures then that means they usually aren't doing that proud of them. I am not saying that this is the case here, but has any Western converted MMORPG boasted about 'continued and sustained growth' 3-6 months down the line? Or does the F2P model see as much attrition as the sub model, but the cash shop set up just allows for more money to be made off a smaller number of players?
I would like to see some real figures for some of these games really, especially some of the ones that first made the change. How are they REALLY doing now in terms of numbers, assumption and guess work aside? It seems that people's impression comes from the 'F2P' relaunch, which inevitably see a lot of new players (and returners) trying the game out (again), but really tells us nothing beyond those first few weeks.
How many of these new players are actually staying around for the long haul though? I wonder if it is truly any more or less then under their old model percentage-wise.
I wish there was a game site out there that was capable of having a proper look at the F2P model... a critical honest look that was as concerned as much for the consumers as it was crawling up the industry's arse for advertising and access.
The guy responsible for the Turbine F2P transitions is a friend of my family. At PAX East when we last spoke he said their revenue continues to exceed that prior to the F2P transition and while there was some falloff after launch of the F2P model for both DDO and LotRO, it's still more than meeting expectations. He could be lying or giving me the same PR spin I suppose, but to the best of my knowledge everything else he told me in the past has been true.
I'd imagine if you went to any of these type of events and asked the right people they'd be a little more open about things than during an interview or internet exchange. I don't think anyone will ever give you actual hard numbers though. I think the falloff after F2P transition would really vary from game to game.
In the free trial that TSW had for it's 1st month anniversary, the majority of comments I read in chat had to do with "I like this game, if it was F2P I'd be playing it." I heard that more often that complaints about combat, or lack of options in the character creation. I also heard lots saying "I'll hold out until F2P then I'll come back and play" during the last beta weekend.
So it sounds like, to be a financial success, you have to go F2P because the players EXPECT it. They don't want to pay a monthly sub, even if they LIKE the game. I don't get this mentality. They play the game when it's offered up as Beta Testing, they'll play it if it's F2P, but they won't pay to play it?
I'd like to know what all these F2P people would do if MMO's only offered monthly subs. Would you break down and pay? Is this the domino effect of the first game going F2P? If so, it's sad. I like TSW and am happy to pay a sub and get new content every month. I think their creative team is awesome. But because it's not F2P it's gonna fail right out of the gate? That sucks.
In the free trial that TSW had for it's 1st month anniversary, the majority of comments I read in chat had to do with "I like this game, if it was F2P I'd be playing it." I heard that more often that complaints about combat, or lack of options in the character creation. I also heard lots saying "I'll hold out until F2P then I'll come back and play" during the last beta weekend.
So it sounds like, to be a financial success, you have to go F2P because the players EXPECT it. They don't want to pay a monthly sub, even if they LIKE the game. I don't get this mentality. They play the game when it's offered up as Beta Testing, they'll play it if it's F2P, but they won't pay to play it?
I'd like to know what all these F2P people would do if MMO's only offered monthly subs. Would you break down and pay? Is this the domino effect of the first game going F2P? If so, it's sad. I like TSW and am happy to pay a sub and get new content every month. I think their creative team is awesome. But because it's not F2P it's gonna fail right out of the gate? That sucks.
It's actually sad now a days that people don't want to support the games they like by spending money on them.
you either love TSW (like me), or you hate the game so much that you have to tell everyone how bad it is.
the problem with TSW was not if the game is good/bad, the problem was that few people tried the game, and the haters are such a vocal minority that makes the game look bad, the amount of people that left the game after the free month is so low that I can't see the difference in Argatha, it's the same as launch day, clearly, most who tried the game are staying with it after the first month.
I'm glad you like the game but for me and many others it wasn't very good......We aren't necessarily hating on it but feel that people should hear both sides....I know I'd be upset if someone went on saying it was the greatest game ever, then I paid out 50 bucks and that is what I got.......I think TSW just wasn't what alot of us were hoping it would be....The combat and animations were so bad that it jsut wasn't even worth considering paying for.....Unfortunately it should have been made as a single player game like Dragon Age.....It just never really had much of a MMO feel to it at all.
I loved the game but unfortunately I'm waiting for my WoW yearly sub to finish.
That combined with Guild Wars 2 being released very shortly just made me not interested in paying another monthly sub game.
The storyline's are amazing, the combat is kinda boring IMHO and the character models are just ghastly which killed a lot of the immersion from the wonderfully thought out stories.
That said I loved the atmosphere and the themes in the game and I will definitely be returning. I'm more than happy to pay a monthly fee for quality and with Guild Wars 2 being such high quality and so immersive it wins at the moment and B2P it's an easy choice.
The author of the article completely missed a chance to show some true journalistic integrity and ask the tough question:
How many of the metacritic reviews were first time reviews, and could they possibly be contrived to artificially bump the game?
How often does this happen in other games as well? It's doubtful that MMORPG would explore such a possibility due to financial relationships with these games.
All the PVP players have been saying 'I told you so' due to the shallow depth of the PVP experience. While Funcom's designer 'Snow' has been active on the forums (a plus) he shows he fundamentally doesn't get it when it comes to the PVP experience. His recent posts show only ideas for fixing the existing (shallow) instances, rather than developing an immersive pvp experience. Expect subs to continue downward with a designer like that.
Comments
Well, enjoy your "superior" game (GW2), a game that I tried in beta, and that I think it's a huge disappointment, with its generic and poorly written story, worse voice acting, super shallow pve consisting of recycled mechanics from rift and warhammer and incredibly boring generic hearts quests, horribly dull combat mechanics that limit players to a single dps role all the time, and still rely on the use of "auto pilot" combat, an awful "downed" state, etc etc
You know... I wonder about this in the long term... the active player boost I mean and how it works for a lot of the games out there. The launches of these conversions always get a huge boost, there isn't an argument there at all, but how many are retained in the long term I wonder? We don't really see any facts given out.
In my experience, when this industry isn't giving figures then that means they usually aren't doing that proud of them. I am not saying that this is the case here, but has any Western converted MMORPG boasted about 'continued and sustained growth' 3-6 months down the line? Or does the F2P model see as much attrition as the sub model, but the cash shop set up just allows for more money to be made off a smaller number of players?
I would like to see some real figures for some of these games really, especially some of the ones that first made the change. How are they REALLY doing now in terms of numbers, assumption and guess work aside? It seems that people's impression comes from the 'F2P' relaunch, which inevitably see a lot of new players (and returners) trying the game out (again), but really tells us nothing beyond those first few weeks.
How many of these new players are actually staying around for the long haul though? I wonder if it is truly any more or less then under their old model percentage-wise.
I wish there was a game site out there that was capable of having a proper look at the F2P model... a critical honest look that was as concerned as much for the consumers as it was crawling up the industry's arse for advertising and access.
Funcom does alot of things badly, TSW could have been of much higher quality then it realy is.
Funcom, many mmo players have a bad taste in their mouth, and wont buy another product.
TSW is another example they cant do thigns right and dont deserve the playerbase and support an mmo studio realy should be getting.
Box sale
Subscription
Cash shop
TSW aint worth that amount of cash to play, it was pretty obvious from the start this would not sell well.
Also GW2 (sorry) shows a path how a simple box sale can provide massive amounts of profits, + its a better game overal with no sub and not a Pay to Win cash shop.
Any company from today onwards will need to look very carefully how to sell their product as people aint stupid anymore after Warhammer / Aion / SWTOR.
Not sure what have to do here in this company swtor. Best game, most fun, of all times. Of course not counting pvp or end game to which I could not care less. For the rest is incredible, never played any game in my life for 7 months, and played a lot.
I'm having a lot of fun playing TSW, my only major complaint with the game is the bugs. They haven't addressed all the bugs yet, even with the patches. I'm hoping they just don't continue to focus on content over bug fixing.
The combat I see nothing wrong with it, I haven't had an issue with it.
PvP is another issue (which is always an issue in MMO's that aren't centered around it), combo's work well here and I see it evening out as more people figure out their build. Every ability has some kind of counter, just comes down to knowing your buttons and having good teamwork. Just some figured it out earlier then others from Beta.
SWTOR i found myself skipping the movies, could only stand to listen to them once and that was it.
TSW would be the same except for the guy in the desert (can't think of name offhand) he's always hillarious to watch. Can't say you won't like them all, you'll have your favorite and least favorite characters.
Though both of these games had animation flaws in their movies, but then I've seen that in most movies I've watched in MMO's, not something major and can't say how hard it is to animate and fix these sort of situations.
What a strange perspective you have.
This is typical BS from Funcom. The game was reviewed across the world by professional reviewers of gaming world and got a reasonable 7 or so. However, Funcom think that there is some player base that really loves this game, there may be, but we are talking very niche and can't be a metric for a good games compsny to proceed with.
Reality check here, from one who played TSW closed beta, the game is alright and would work free to play model, but isn't going to be viable as sub model for long.
I will NEVER....EVER...listen to someone telling me that I should NOT hold a companies history against them...or that I should have to pay for something that is sub-par and like it.
Deal with the FACT that more and more people are no longer feeling trapped into having to pay a product that is not delivering on its end.
Funcom has EARNED their reputation, a reputation that has earned them articles on this very website about how they seem to be inable to make a game that meets up to its potential, or that it takes them near a full YEAR after release just to make the game release worthy...
And the worst thing about this article, is that you dare to tell us that we should not be speaking out about this game...no. I WILL speak out. This game is not worth a subscription, the company is not worthy of my money. They are NOT a new company and they should be LEARNING from past mistakes which they have shown NO SIGN OF BEING CAPABLE of doing.
If you dont want people to "hate" on you...dont earn it with over a decade of bad business practices.
[mod edit]. I urge anyone [mod edit] to ignore reviews, ignore comments made by anyone else and just give the game a go. If you like it play if if not, don't waste your breath on it.
[mod edit]
You can boil down any review of any game or any post on the forums to this: -
You like SWOTR - noob the game is crap!
You like TSW - noob the game is crap!
You like GW2 - noob the game is crap!
You like 'insert game' - noob the game is crap!
Who cares what anyone says about a game, try it yourself, don't have stupid reservations about who made it, who publishes it, who wrote it, what review score it got or anything else. Play it and if you like it keep playing it.
The professional game reviewers game it a 7.0 (45 reviews apprently)
The people playing the game gave it an 8.4 (700+ reviews apparently)
Who do you trust? Someone who gets paid to review stuff of people that are paying for a service?
If your answer isn't the player then you are stupid.
The professional game reviewers game it a 7.0 (45 reviews apprently)
The people playing the game gave it an 8.4 (700+ reviews apparently)
Who do you trust? Someone who gets paid to review stuff of people that are paying for a service?
If your answer isn't the player then you are stupid.
Actually I don't trust user reviews either,at least not till after 6 months or more.Users usually have their own agendas or give their rating/reviews,especially with MMOs, based on their first impressions of the game based on very low game play time.User reviews are just as untrustworthy as critical reviews for games albiet for different reasons.The professional game reviewers game it a 7.0 (45 reviews apprently)
The people playing the game gave it an 8.4 (700+ reviews apparently)
Who do you trust? Someone who gets paid to review stuff of people that are paying for a service?
If your answer isn't the player then you are stupid.
PCGamer gave SWTOR 93!!! and TSW 69. Go figure why!!!!Play the game and make your own judgement.
I agree, gaming is a very cheap hobby compared to most other entertainment. I'd have no problem with paying even $50 per month for a quality MMO that met my tastes. I just haven't found one. I'm looking around and HONESTLY there is nothing out there in terms of MMO's that is worth my TIME let alone money to play. That's not a bash, it's my honest opinion. There may be some MMO's that are decent...but they definately AREN'T to my tastes...or I've played them enough that I'm tired of them and don't want to go back.But HONESTLY I'm not down on games IN GENERAL....
- I thought SKYRIM was awesome
- I thought the Baldurs Gate/Ice Wind Dale games were very well made.
- I'm an absolute Fanboi for this little known WWII Strategy Game called Advanced Tactics WWII. I've been playing it for years, and generaly rave about it.
- I really enjoyed the Mount & Blade games...and think they took alot of talent to make.
As far as the MMO space goes....sorry but honestly these days, at best it's pretty much..."meh". There are a couple in the works I'm excited about, hopefully they can deliver.
In terms of your analogy.....I can't design and build a car by myself either, and it takes alot of talent and hard work to do that.....but that doesn't mean I'm going to be willing to buy a lemon either.
I honestly WANTED to like TSW. They had some very cool concepts for it....but as far as execution goes...IMO it falls far short of anything I'm interested in playing. They can make it free...I'm still not interested in playing.
If you put it this way ... I would give tsw compared to swtor no more then 35 or 40. swtor is one of most polished games ever released since day 1. Virtually no bugs, no lag, increcible immersion and incredible - best ever I have seen in any game - twists in main stories, ...
But, there was big "but", pvp it looks was/is terrible and buggy, endgame not existent. This would not know as I do not care even minimally for this 2 aspect. And, yes, never liked space combat missions.
For the rest all the best about swtor. And have been playing since day 1 up to few weeks ago when started to play tsw. And i'm 50 not some small kiddo. And have played a lot since c64.
If somebody have something to say over some game, I mean something other then "epic fail" or alike ... at least I guess can aspect point by point whats wrong, 1...., 2.....
Well ... appart obvious problems nobody like, i.e. bugs, crashes, bad support in case one need it .... it is also all down to PERSONAL preferences. Which i usually always state. I never liked pvp, endgame for me is when all my alts are at max, I really dislike 1st person games which i would never play (tried however few times out of desperation more or less), ....
And I can also say for mysel, I do not hate any game. May dislike, "hate" bugs, .... but I see in this forums many true haters, that feed on hating something or somebody. Bad for them. Bad for those that read them.
you either love TSW (like me), or you hate the game so much that you have to tell everyone how bad it is.
the problem with TSW was not if the game is good/bad, the problem was that few people tried the game, and the haters are such a vocal minority that makes the game look bad, the amount of people that left the game after the free month is so low that I can't see the difference in Argatha, it's the same as launch day, clearly, most who tried the game are staying with it after the first month.
I don't put much stock in reviews whether proffesional or not, myself, unless I know the reviewer personaly. To easy for bias to creep in our for those reviews to be skewed by other factors.
What I do find usefull in reviews is not how "good" or "bad" the game was or what "score" it got but information about the features and mechanisms of the game. Example is combat FPS or standard MMO Tab Targeting, does it use instancing, how do they deal with death/recovery, etc. I don't really care whether the reviewer liked or disliked the specific feature.... I just want to know the details of what it was and how they went about implimenting it. You can get alot of this info from Dev Blogs and Forumns as well.
From this info I can get a pretty good feel about 2 things:
1) Whether the game suits my individual tastes or not.
2) Whether the features/mechanisms are well thought out, mesh together well and fit the subject matter of the game.
That's not going to tell me whether the game is good or not...or whether I am going to play, because a game can have a great design and just fall short on implimentation/execution (which is 50 percent of what makes a quality product). But it at least gives you a heads up about whether the game has the POTENTIAL to be something you might enjoy. There are alot of red flags you can pickup on from this sort of info.
From there, if the game has the POTENTIAL to be something I'm interested in and might enjoy, I'll see if I can get into a beta, free trial or if I know someone who has the game. YouTube footage of actual gameplay (not trailers) can be usefull here too. This can tell me alot about the games execution.
Very rarely will I buy something site unseen, just based upon advertisement or 3rd party knowledge. If the Developer someone I really trust because of thier previous titles (this is very rare these days) or I'm absolutely in love with the design of the game as described, I MIGHT make an exception....that's about it.
With TSW... there were a couple design decisions that raised red flags for me (mostly the MMO style combat) but I was still intrigued enough by the overall design to check it out. Once I got some hands on time in beta, I knew I wasn't going to play it. I wouldn't have bought it site unseen had I not got into beta. I could care less about the scores it got, they don't have any effect on my purchase decisions.
The guy responsible for the Turbine F2P transitions is a friend of my family. At PAX East when we last spoke he said their revenue continues to exceed that prior to the F2P transition and while there was some falloff after launch of the F2P model for both DDO and LotRO, it's still more than meeting expectations. He could be lying or giving me the same PR spin I suppose, but to the best of my knowledge everything else he told me in the past has been true.
I'd imagine if you went to any of these type of events and asked the right people they'd be a little more open about things than during an interview or internet exchange. I don't think anyone will ever give you actual hard numbers though. I think the falloff after F2P transition would really vary from game to game.
Steam: Neph
In the free trial that TSW had for it's 1st month anniversary, the majority of comments I read in chat had to do with "I like this game, if it was F2P I'd be playing it." I heard that more often that complaints about combat, or lack of options in the character creation. I also heard lots saying "I'll hold out until F2P then I'll come back and play" during the last beta weekend.
So it sounds like, to be a financial success, you have to go F2P because the players EXPECT it. They don't want to pay a monthly sub, even if they LIKE the game. I don't get this mentality. They play the game when it's offered up as Beta Testing, they'll play it if it's F2P, but they won't pay to play it?
I'd like to know what all these F2P people would do if MMO's only offered monthly subs. Would you break down and pay? Is this the domino effect of the first game going F2P? If so, it's sad. I like TSW and am happy to pay a sub and get new content every month. I think their creative team is awesome. But because it's not F2P it's gonna fail right out of the gate? That sucks.
It's actually sad now a days that people don't want to support the games they like by spending money on them.
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I'm glad you like the game but for me and many others it wasn't very good......We aren't necessarily hating on it but feel that people should hear both sides....I know I'd be upset if someone went on saying it was the greatest game ever, then I paid out 50 bucks and that is what I got.......I think TSW just wasn't what alot of us were hoping it would be....The combat and animations were so bad that it jsut wasn't even worth considering paying for.....Unfortunately it should have been made as a single player game like Dragon Age.....It just never really had much of a MMO feel to it at all.
I loved the game but unfortunately I'm waiting for my WoW yearly sub to finish.
That combined with Guild Wars 2 being released very shortly just made me not interested in paying another monthly sub game.
The storyline's are amazing, the combat is kinda boring IMHO and the character models are just ghastly which killed a lot of the immersion from the wonderfully thought out stories.
That said I loved the atmosphere and the themes in the game and I will definitely be returning. I'm more than happy to pay a monthly fee for quality and with Guild Wars 2 being such high quality and so immersive it wins at the moment and B2P it's an easy choice.
The author of the article completely missed a chance to show some true journalistic integrity and ask the tough question:
How many of the metacritic reviews were first time reviews, and could they possibly be contrived to artificially bump the game?
How often does this happen in other games as well? It's doubtful that MMORPG would explore such a possibility due to financial relationships with these games.
All the PVP players have been saying 'I told you so' due to the shallow depth of the PVP experience. While Funcom's designer 'Snow' has been active on the forums (a plus) he shows he fundamentally doesn't get it when it comes to the PVP experience. His recent posts show only ideas for fixing the existing (shallow) instances, rather than developing an immersive pvp experience. Expect subs to continue downward with a designer like that.