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Why is the world not engaging me?
Mahlo
Member UncommonPosts: 814
I can't quite work it out. I like the contemporary setting, the locations are well chosen for atmosphere, and yet I'm not finding the world engaging. Not sure if it's down to design, instancing or what. But after playing it a week I've yet to feel immersed in Secret World.
Comments
have you felled immersed with any MMO of late?
i rank TSW pretty high in the immersion category, might just not be your thing?
I really enjoyed the first zone, however once I got to Egypt it started to lose me and I too didn't find it that interesting (too much like all the desert areas I've fought my way through previously?, I dunno)
Never did get to Transylvania so no idea how that would have grabbed me.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I know what you're getting at. I think a lot of discontent on here abour MMOs comes from player burnout. Not sure I've really got into any new MMOs recently. I did start playing Vanguard and got quite immersed in that.
I think TSW should be my thing to some extent. I do like elements of it, which is why I'm not giving up on it. I generally prefer the more open world games though.
I bought the game and really enjoyed it for first week or two... then... I don't know, I lost completely interest... I think it's too many zombies... I really got tired of them. Everything seems so right in this game... environment is beautiful, voiceover... which is a standard for MMOs right now for me, no way I can go back to wall texts, combat is interesting... I just can't point my finger as to why it does not appeal to me.../shrug
And nope, I am not burned out by MMOs, I play SWTOR every day (over 2,200 hours so far) and still have fun there.
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E
Different people react differently to various games, and TSW is no exception. I think it's because the game has quite a bit to absorb, both with the dark story and the system. It's also a bit intense. I don't generally play marathon sessions and do just a few missions here and there, and then do some group stuff. I'm not sure TSW is a play-long-sessions-every-day kind of game, at least for me. I play every few days have a lot of fun, then come back in a few more days. Especially if you are doing a difficult investigation, just finishing one mission feels good.
It's all about what you like in a setting, I suppose -- for me, the game is incredibly immersive and engaging, but I don't need to play constantly to be hooked.
The thing that really irked me about TSW is the fact that everyone aside from my character knew what was going on. I mean on Solomon Island the junk yard guy knew more than my character did...
They did a great job on the world design and making things seem creepy. But the NPCs were just wrong, all wrong.
They portray the world as Secret, yet you have monsters selling goods in the market in London.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
When I first started playing TSW, Kingsmouth completely blew me away. The visuals, the atmosphere - it was a perfect mix of Lovecraftian horror and King suspense. By the time I got to the Blue Mountain area, though, I had started feeling somewhat burned out. Too much of a good thing perhaps?
What carried me through was the continued high-standard of writing, and my fascination with Innsmouth Academy - it's my real hope that John Bylos & Co. return to the campus grounds - it makes sense to me that the Illuminati would decide that they have just too much invested in the Academy to abandon it, and the school wards mission shows there are ways to reclaim the Academy. Anyway...
To the OP - it's seriously not a problem if the game isn't 'grabbing' you so far, there might be a 'hook' or plot that gets your imagination fired up further down the line - certainly TSW doesn't lack for interesting sub-plots! One of my friends was 'meh' when she played through Kingsmouth (which earned a dumbfounded look from me) but got really excited when she got to Egypt.
I liked the atmosphere of of the game, but there were a few things that burned me out quickly. My first issue has been a complaint by many since before launch -- the combat animations are terrible. Why are animations so important? Because the more I have to use any one skill, the more varied or interesting it should look. I understand that animations are a lot of work, but if you're going to have fewer skills at once, make them more entertaining to watch. People have lots of gripes about GW2, but I do like that they tried to vary animations for well-used skills. I haven't played since launch so they may have improved this.
Second, while many missions are more interesting than old Fedex missions, there are still tedious ones. Ones that send you across the map and back, for example. And in between you and your goals are lots of the usual mobs that you can't avoid, then it goes back to my first point with combat. I'm not saying I want to teleport across the map. I'm saying I want that trip to be more interesting, but it's usually not.
Like I said, I do like the atmosphere... and I do like the skill wheel. But in the end, the minute to minute game play just got old quick (at least for me).
One thing I found after my first week in Kingsmouth, was that I was starting to need more breaks than I was used to in an MMO. I found the story really engaging and the locations are spot on, like being in a virtual version of the real world (I'm from New England).
The setting was so real. The accents were so perfect. The animations weren't high fantasy, they looked like stuff martial artists could do (I was melee at the time). And then it hit me - the game was depressing me because it was just TOO real.
So I did the only thing I could think of - I turned my brightness way up.
Did this fix the problem? Not entirely, but it sure helped. Also getting out of Kingsmouth helped. SC has amazing stories - the League of Monster Slayers, Sam Krieg, Ami and her family, not to mention the Academy. You really get more into how the island has always been under occult threat and how they've always just dealt with it, and I started feeling more hopeful. Of course, I was totally hooked by the story from the moment I started it up, so I was really glad about that.
One caveat, however. Make sure to turn your brightness back down before you hit Egypt or you'll be blind for a week.
I still think this game is the most interesting themepark in recent years, but the problem is also that it's just a themepark. I believe that had this game been taken more in a hybrid direction, it would be much more popular. Considering all the RP on the forums long before the game was even released, I was shocked to see how it turned out in the end. The people who followed this game from the beginning wanted so much more than they got.
I knew it was screwed when they announced the instance only faction PvP. This game needs world PvP, at the very least.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
ARGs are neat and all, but I'd much rather that creative energy was put into the game instead. To me, the ARGs are misleading because they make you want a much deeper game than you actually get when you log in.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
To the OP, I felt the same way with TSW.. it ended up with me wanting to like the game way more then I actually liked it..lol. It lost me after about 2-3 weeks.
I just started playing SWTOR again and I must say, this game with the story-line and areas does a fantastic job in the immersion dept. I've recently re-subbed and I'm having a good time just doing the questing and main story-line. Of course, I'm a child of the 80's so I have a really insane fasination with Star Wars in general. Your mileage may very lol
SWTOR is an mmo? Really?
Yes it is MMO... unless you choose to play it solo:). If you have a guild of fantastic buddies like I have it's the most awesome MMO
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E