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What I think Funcom should have done.
necrostein
Member UncommonPosts: 80
i dont mean to be a jerk,
i play TSW and like it. but..
Funcom had the most amazing and enjoyable multi player interactive game going for about two years prior to the launch of TSW.
it was their forums and ARGs. im not making lite of TSW, but i have enjoyed the game about half as much as i did checking the website and Forums daily during development.
with the release of the game , all that brilliance went away.
I know that some of the things were done by fans and the legneday Nyte even went so far as to mail puzzle pieces to other forum members as part of an arg.
Seriously, look at Ragnar's background, some of the most compelling and interesting single player adventure/puzzle/mystrery games available. they could have developed a subscription model ARG site that woud have been the rage.
especially if they could develop a way for players to go back and experience any missed ARGs . I know there are ARG sites out there. None seem to be as deep or insteresting . but who can blame that... are there any being developed by a team of professional designers ? perhaps its a new direction for funcom to go.
i feel like the game, as good as it is, is a shadow of the mysterious secret world that existed in my mind during the development days. its like seeing the shadow, in a movie, and not seeing the monster itself... now we can see the monster, and... its just a rubber suit
.just my thoughts. i still like the game and wish it well, and im still waiting for some of the epic-deep and difficult in-game arg puzzles that were promised before launch...
Comments
Made good on all their empty promises
Huh, you didn't say in your post what they should have done.
If i remember right, FC did say the ARG's where made for marketing. I didn't participate in them, and yes, they where pretty damm awesome, but they had nothing to do with the actuall game. After all, if Investigation missions are hard to develop, i can only imagine how hard making the ARG's is.
It's mostly your fault for thinking TSW was about that.
Now, don't get wrong. I "hate" TSW's idea being stuck in a themepark. I followed develpment and the puzzles, the "facebook war mini game" and all that was pretty cool and "geeky", but i always knew it was a quest, instance dungeons, leveled zones, instanced, meaningless pvp, etc type game.
I don't "hate" the game in the sense that it's horrible, just that the IP should have been placed in a different type of mmo, being it sandbox or something completly new. But hwat you speak of is your because of yourself
so... i suggest, maybe they should have doen something besides an MMO.
the complaints i regularly see are...
pricing model
gear grind endgame raiding
quest hub gameplay
broken / poor PVP
mediocrity in execution
empty promises / missed expectations.
not an insignificant list , as i said i do play and find it fun. but, i agree
actually i do, i suggest they should have created a professionally devloped ARG game.
and, you are so worng about what i think TSW was about, that it cannot be expressed.
the ARGs were directly related to introducing information about the game, yes marketing.
your last sentance is the weakes argument that i have ever heard, you claerly did not participate. (which you say yourself)
the secret war was a joke, as are you sir.
They should have done three things.
1) The game should have referenced the Facebook game more. For instance, the three factions should actually be fighting for control of the world, but outside of PvP. There should be a world map divided into hexagons, showing which areas of the world that the factions control. This should have been done with PvE content and quests.
2) The game probably should have been done as a co-op RPG instead of an MMORPG. There should be group content, but it should have pulled from all the players, not the ones that were around you. There could still be world chat, global chat, etc.
3) Have personal servers, capable of running on a single machine. Allow the players to tweak the servers however they want, and allow them to invite people or have the servers open to the public. They would be a use at your own risk kind of thing. There would be no server transfers, etc., just the ability to run your own, personal server.
** edit **
#2 is impossible at this point. Not going to happen. #s 1 and 3 though...very possible. :-) Hey, I can hope, right?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
any or all of these would have been a good idea and could have been sucessful.
tho i still think the secret war was a joke as it was done. (as am i)
I can agree with the other poins, but not with these 2. I found the questing quite open ended. Not to the level of GW2, which is prefer, but still not pure hub based. Also, don't know what empty promises they have. Expectation are a personal thing. I one believed TSW was going to be the mmo heaven, that's his problem.
Well, TSW was never meant to be an ARG game at all. As i already said, they where for marketing, not a game mechanic. The connections between the investigation quests and args was clear, but they where not the same.
Just because you wanted the game to be something, doesn't mean it's their fault for not being it.
Also, insulting others only makes you look bad. There's no need for it, just relax, take a breath and chill.
fair enough,
and a nyone who thinks there will be an MMO savior needs to stop drinking the kool aid and buy a motorcycle.
better chance of seeing some kind of heaven that way.
i never siad that TSW was supposed to be anything else, but that funcom should have doen something different.
read my other posts.
you sir are a joke. (as am i)
OK, my take...
They made 'an MMO themed like Mulder & Scully with chainguns' feel, when they could have made 'Mulder & Scully - the MMO'.
- ditch the combat. People don't expect Mulder & Scully to run around with flamethrowers, M16, hammers and blood magic.
- put in minigames. Other games have 'resource nodes', this MMO would have 'investigation sites'... and these would be the primary replacement for combat.
- put in jumping puzzles. Some investigation sites should be quite difficult to reach.
- put in class-dependence. Scully moves the crane whilst Mulder stands on the end and prepares to jump onto the crate...
- put in DEs. The town has a mysterious visitor - the players need to discover who the visitor is (since this is primary content, make a ton of similar DEs such that players don't know the ending).
- be creative... make deep, interesting, characters.
- let players create 'themepark rides'. People *love* fan-fiction in this type of setting.
Yes, it would have a lot of unforeseen problems, but (imho) you could make a very interesting MMO out of it for a niche market - and who the hell wouldn't want to work on a game like this???? (and that's ignoring the free press this game would generate).
good ideas for an MMO, i would go farther and suggest that they forget trying to do this in a 3d world, but create a new (perhaps a recreation of an old) type fo game to support these ideas.
once the need for mmo style servers is removed, the game could be profitable very quickly.
It would have been very cool if #1 were more a part of the game.
I agree 110% with #2 (including it being too late =/) but I will forever feel that if they had designed this game as a Co-Op like Borderlands or L4D but as a true RPG it would've been OMG awesome. Couple that with another poster's suggestion that it be less "Mulder and Scully with RPGs" and "more Mulder and Scully" with way fewer mob spawns, more investigations, jumping puzzles (all with random elements to increase replayability), perhaps a branching storyline...
Well I can dream too, right?
I don't mean to be rude but while I enjoyed reading your title, once I read the actual post, it failed to live up to the imaginary post I had built up in my head.
I really felt the title of this thread had potential, but now it seems the title is just filled with empty promise.
Just my thoughts, I still like this thread and wish it well. I am sure with some time and tweeking it could still live up to it's potential
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
1. Launch in the worst time of the year!
2. Step down announcement of CEO right before release! Dumping his shares in secret, which became public anyhow and so tanked Funcom's stock. All causing very negative press for TSW around release!
3. No serious marketing effort of the game! Review sites didn't receive enough or any add money... so they kicked Funcom in the face with bad TSW reviews!
Those 3 points are the primary cause why it didn't sell well.
They went subscription pay model instantly killing their game before it released.
Everyone i know who tried TSW during the free beta said they would snag TSW up if it was B2p or support it if it was F2p...
Being forced to pay a subscription to keep playing a game is so 2004. I knew TSW was doomed before it released.
Sadly the game is actually good. Would have been a fabulous B2p game... oh well.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Curious, I did not know a single person that said that. Sure, there were the freeloading trolls that one sees on all the beta forums for when a game's in beta - every game should be F2P or perhaps B2P - with no need to pay for anything.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%