The Secret World is definitely a game that I highly encourage everyone to play. I have a lifetime subscription to the game but I don't play it anymore because I feel like I have essentially beaten the game but that story is so incredible it is worth playing through.
Seriously the story of this game is fantastic and I loved it all the way to the amazing ending. I feel like I beat the game because by the time the first content update came out, I had already completed every quest in the game, enjoyed the amazing story, and did all the dungeons. Going back to lower level zones to get a few quests here and there just wasn't the same experience as going through it all the first time. But that first run through the initial game content is so worth it.
Originally posted by Betaguy Three words, EVERYTHING FEELS CLUNKY.
QFT
It is really not up to the pair, especially considering that this is the company that came up with innovative things such as the nano system in AO and the combat system in AoC.
The first thread ever in the existence of internet in which the 1st poster states everything relevant in 3 words and ends the conversation right there and then.
DAoC - 00-06 - And every now and then WoW - Online since launch - and now back again. EVE - Online since 07 - and still on, and on, and on.. WHO - Online 08-10 LOTR-O - Online 06-08 Also played : Asherons Call, EverQuest, EQ2, Dungeons & Dragons, Cabal, Dark & Light, GW, GW2, LA2, Ryzom, Shaiya, SWG, Allods, Forsaken World, ArcheAge, Secret World, Darkfall, Rift, ESO, Tera.
People should give it a try. It can be a lot of fun for solo or group through the standard content. The music, quests, skill system, and atmosphere are superb. On top of that, it can be played for free. The combat, however, is a bore. The other turn-off are some bugs and broken quests, as well as quests that are very difficult to solve. All too quickly you will be TSW quest-helper web sites and that gets in the way of game enjoyment.
tl;dr: Whole is not greater, or even equal to the sum, of the pieces. Combat sux.
There used to be an old saying, gameplay is king. And my feeling with this game immediatly, even before i started reading about it from others was that the gameplay (animations and combat) just didn't feel right. There are tons of games in history with amazing graphics, awesome storylines and inspiring settings that have been totally forgettable because of horrible combat. Character creation was also horrible and the lack of chatbubbles killed the community feeling.
What made matters worste was that Guild Wars 2 was launched shortly after and that game had arguably the most solid and fluid combat system ever seen. Many gamers I knew that played the secret world got invites to GW2 betas and never looked back, zombies or not.
TSW and i have a Abusive relationship, I love TSW and everything about it, but it keeps hurting me. When it hurts me, a month later i come crawling back. The combat everyone complains about is something i've never really noticed. MY personal feelings as to why the game never took off like it deserved to was because it came out of the start with a gimp leg, im not even talking about the chat system or some of the animations that were changed. The hatred of funcom killed their numbers out of the gate. The reason why there were layoffs was because all the anti funcom players killed it before it even got released.
So why don't people give funcom a chance: They are butt hurt over conan.
The only negitive thing i see about funcom that is their own bloody fault is their spegetti code. Funcom has the best ideas in the industry, however they also probubly have some of the sloppiest programers aswell.
Because i can. I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out. Logic every gamers worst enemy.
The major reason people wouldn't play TSW is because fundamentally is is not that different from most other MMOs. The skill wheel offers difference in aesthetics more than any practical application to gameplay, as it's far from the first game or MMO to let you flexibly train and use skills with multiple old ones out there offering considerably more mix and match flexibility.
The gameplay being the next reason. The story isn't that good. The setting is different than average, yes, but the myths and mysteries aspect is not well implemented and the puzzles are for the most part not so much of puzzles as they are a simple semi-lore quiz. The combat may be the biggest failure as it draws on a small pool of effects to play out the entire range of fighting, and relies on the same old tab and lock combat system as always with some of the most underwhelming weapon performances.
There are many other reasons, but as I'm not the one writing the articles here, I'll say it more simply. The fact of why more people don't play TSW is because it very simply is not that good of a game.
It appeals to a niche group that will happily overlook and dismiss the glaring issues because they enjoy the setting or some other finite aspect of the game enough that the rest of the problems just don't matter enough to drive them away.
Using straw men arguments to fill articles does not change that reality.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Its too goddamned small. I just can't stand the so tight world. Not to mention there really isn't anything to group up for except for dungeons. This game should have been group focused with a more traditional mmo fighting system. By trying to go action you alienated the audience that would have appreciated this game.
This game really could have been a horror GTA which would have been awesome, but it isn't. It feels like you are playing in a bunch of themed shoeboxes. Hell if the world was at least as big as City of Heroes or even DC Online it would have been tolerable. But ti isn't and last I hear Japan is delayed.
Funcom stop making instanced shoebox mmos please. Cryptic made a bigger world than you did on a smaller budget I'm sure. Please stop with the tiny worlds already. You have great enough designs to make things like fighting and other things vanilla. People would have not minded if you had a traditional mmo fighting system and your game was more group focused with the same great story, quests and voice acting. You honestly (as always) tried to do too much at once.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
My desktop broke down and I bought a high end gaming laptop to replace it.
I can run every game well on this, but TSW NOW FEELS CLUNKY!!!!
I never could understand this critisism before, while playing it on my desktop. No game had as fluent and responsive combat. But now I do understand. I am absolutely convinced that at least a huge part of the "clunky"-critisism comes from people playing the game on hardware that for some strange reason can`t run TSW well. I am no expert, and simply don`t know what is wrong.
My laptop SHOULD be able to run the game as well as my old desktop, but it certainly doesn`t.
I stopped playing because it really isn't that different. It might be a different setting, but its still a quest hub themepark. That's not to say I have anything against quest hub themeparks, it just the TSW doesn't do it very well. The quest were generic, except for the puzzle ones, and usually those were so challenging it was frustrating rather than fun. Also all the monsters, while wearing different skins, usually fought in the same manner, get in your face and kill you. Making them all feel the same.
And I have to disagree on the character customization, its more of an extremely limited customization. I kept coming up with builds on characters I wanted to make, but it always went over the limit on the number of skill and passive slots I had. So the character I felt always seemed to be some limited version of what I actually wanted my character to be.
..... I bought a high end gaming laptop to replace it.
I can run every game well on this, but TSW NOW FEELS CLUNKY!!!!
I never could understand this critisism before, while playing it on my desktop. No game had as fluent and responsive combat. But now I do understand. I am absolutely convinced that at least a huge part of the "clunky"-critisism comes from people playing the game on hardware that for some strange reason can`t run TSW well. I am no expert, and simply don`t know what is wrong.
My laptop SHOULD be able to run the game as well as my old desktop, but it certainly doesn`t.
A bit off-topic answer:
I think it depends on your GPU chip - most "high-end" laptop chip e.g. don't have same amount of shaders or clocking speed as desktop equiv, even nowadays. I have the same with my laptop, despite a gaming chip & external screen, it's not the same as on desktop even if there are games I don't see a difference, but for some I do, e.g. Skyrim. Guess it has to do how/which graphics-engine is used/how it is used by the developers.
Also, my laptop has 2 chips, Intel & AMD. At first, not all games for some reason switched to the AMD unit... Now I just have it as standard GPU...
The story is great, cutscenes are great, atomosphere is great. As someone who has played since release, however, the community is terrible and the combat and actual gameplay is very.... clunky and boring.
I really wanted to like this game, but they made the mistake of creating a themepark instead of a coherent world. The 3 (or 4?) zones feel too much like a setup for a spooky point & click adventure that you explore only once.
After the release they added a theatre for players to play their own stuff. That was an amazing idea but sadly, too small. They should have that for the whole game instead: a spooky world with lots of space for players to create their own adventures !
- without doubt the best quests you will ever get in any mmo to date
- it is required to change your deck/build a lot, but the gearmanager is still broken most of the time (e.g. forgets to change your weapons sometimes and stuff)
- NO advanced tutorials anywhere in the game, you wil still see people with shitty noob abilities/skills in endgame dungeons
- combat and rotations get interesting once you know about skills and synergys between weapons and passive skills, theres nothing ingame that tells you about that. i was gone for a year and had to relearn everything again
- 500 skills but really only ~100 different ones, rest is same shit in different color
- healing is confusing for people coming from other games, no healer quests or tutorials
- animations really suck balls, ofc FC promised 1 year before release "they are temp and they were working on better ..." - i actually asked about that at gamescom when they showed the game 1st time (2010 or 2011 i think). tho rest of the gfx is top if you have a strong gfx card
- endgame gearing is random (scenarios & nyc loot) , HEAVY grinding required to get by
- no lead from normal questing to endgame nightmare dungeons and raids at all
- you really need a mouse with at least 8 buttons to play this game
Still my favorite quest line: The League of Monster Slayers
"If you find yourself running back to a hub to grab the next quest from that hub, you're doing it wrong." (from Yokai's blog)
Not sure exactly what you mean with your comment about the quest hubs, but they're definitively there, if that's what you're arguing against. Or what else would you call a group of NPCs offering quests?
Considering that a lot of quests DOES send you back to the SAME locations, and often ONLY after you've done the first quests (hence my running back and forth comment), the "you're doing it wrong" part is just nonsense.
/sigh... if only it wasn't detailed countless times before... I guess there was even a specific line "drop your quest-hub mentality before the door".
Nope, TSW's questing is not based on "quest hubs", it's much more story-based and closer to its adventure game roots. I can't find the picture now (which would worth more than 1k words ), but TSW's missions aren't grouped around hubs, they're scattered all over the world and organized in a net. Sure, there are bigger 'knots' in settlements, where people (the npc's I mean) tend to get together, but it doesn't make those a "quest hub". And yep, if you try to keep running back (playing with "the quest hub mindset") then you're doing it wrong.
In TSW the questing is going through the net: taking a quest, and playing it all the way along, during the way occasionally bumping into sidequests, taking those (or not), and when you finish, do _not_ run back, just take the next quest which you find at (or in the close vicinity) where you finished, and follow that. Sure, since it's a net and the world is limited, a few times you'll get back to the bigger "knots" / crossroads, but it doesn't make those "quest hubs"...
(sadly I can't find the dev letter right now which explains the design much better, but if you google tsw questing or any similar, you'll see that it was mentioned in so many reviews/posts/etc. during this 2 years it's almost funny to see someone bringing it up again... lol, just tried to google myself and the first hit was this: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/17/hands-on-with-the-secret-worlds-mission-system/)
edit: why lol on the massively article? Just read the end: "If you're expecting to go through a traditional laundry-list of quests and you're bent on rapid content consumption, you're doing it wrong."
Comments
The Secret World is definitely a game that I highly encourage everyone to play. I have a lifetime subscription to the game but I don't play it anymore because I feel like I have essentially beaten the game but that story is so incredible it is worth playing through.
Seriously the story of this game is fantastic and I loved it all the way to the amazing ending. I feel like I beat the game because by the time the first content update came out, I had already completed every quest in the game, enjoyed the amazing story, and did all the dungeons. Going back to lower level zones to get a few quests here and there just wasn't the same experience as going through it all the first time. But that first run through the initial game content is so worth it.
QFT
It is really not up to the pair, especially considering that this is the company that came up with innovative things such as the nano system in AO and the combat system in AoC.
It feels more like an RPG storybook than an MMO.
I loved the world the stories in it, but it felt like I was playing with a Marionette puppets, so silly and clunky.
and I had minor performance issues with it.
mmorpg.com, the 4chan of mmo forums.
DAoC - 00-06 - And every now and then
WoW - Online since launch - and now back again.
EVE - Online since 07 - and still on, and on, and on..
WHO - Online 08-10
LOTR-O - Online 06-08
Also played : Asherons Call, EverQuest, EQ2, Dungeons & Dragons, Cabal, Dark & Light, GW, GW2, LA2, Ryzom, Shaiya, SWG, Allods, Forsaken World, ArcheAge, Secret World, Darkfall, Rift, ESO, Tera.
People should give it a try. It can be a lot of fun for solo or group through the standard content. The music, quests, skill system, and atmosphere are superb. On top of that, it can be played for free. The combat, however, is a bore. The other turn-off are some bugs and broken quests, as well as quests that are very difficult to solve. All too quickly you will be TSW quest-helper web sites and that gets in the way of game enjoyment.
tl;dr: Whole is not greater, or even equal to the sum, of the pieces. Combat sux.
There used to be an old saying, gameplay is king. And my feeling with this game immediatly, even before i started reading about it from others was that the gameplay (animations and combat) just didn't feel right. There are tons of games in history with amazing graphics, awesome storylines and inspiring settings that have been totally forgettable because of horrible combat. Character creation was also horrible and the lack of chatbubbles killed the community feeling.
What made matters worste was that Guild Wars 2 was launched shortly after and that game had arguably the most solid and fluid combat system ever seen. Many gamers I knew that played the secret world got invites to GW2 betas and never looked back, zombies or not.
TSW and i have a Abusive relationship, I love TSW and everything about it, but it keeps hurting me. When it hurts me, a month later i come crawling back. The combat everyone complains about is something i've never really noticed. MY personal feelings as to why the game never took off like it deserved to was because it came out of the start with a gimp leg, im not even talking about the chat system or some of the animations that were changed. The hatred of funcom killed their numbers out of the gate. The reason why there were layoffs was because all the anti funcom players killed it before it even got released.
So why don't people give funcom a chance: They are butt hurt over conan.
The only negitive thing i see about funcom that is their own bloody fault is their spegetti code. Funcom has the best ideas in the industry, however they also probubly have some of the sloppiest programers aswell.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
Was this an advert?
The major reason people wouldn't play TSW is because fundamentally is is not that different from most other MMOs. The skill wheel offers difference in aesthetics more than any practical application to gameplay, as it's far from the first game or MMO to let you flexibly train and use skills with multiple old ones out there offering considerably more mix and match flexibility.
The gameplay being the next reason. The story isn't that good. The setting is different than average, yes, but the myths and mysteries aspect is not well implemented and the puzzles are for the most part not so much of puzzles as they are a simple semi-lore quiz. The combat may be the biggest failure as it draws on a small pool of effects to play out the entire range of fighting, and relies on the same old tab and lock combat system as always with some of the most underwhelming weapon performances.
There are many other reasons, but as I'm not the one writing the articles here, I'll say it more simply. The fact of why more people don't play TSW is because it very simply is not that good of a game.
It appeals to a niche group that will happily overlook and dismiss the glaring issues because they enjoy the setting or some other finite aspect of the game enough that the rest of the problems just don't matter enough to drive them away.
Using straw men arguments to fill articles does not change that reality.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Its too goddamned small. I just can't stand the so tight world. Not to mention there really isn't anything to group up for except for dungeons. This game should have been group focused with a more traditional mmo fighting system. By trying to go action you alienated the audience that would have appreciated this game.
This game really could have been a horror GTA which would have been awesome, but it isn't. It feels like you are playing in a bunch of themed shoeboxes. Hell if the world was at least as big as City of Heroes or even DC Online it would have been tolerable. But ti isn't and last I hear Japan is delayed.
Funcom stop making instanced shoebox mmos please. Cryptic made a bigger world than you did on a smaller budget I'm sure. Please stop with the tiny worlds already. You have great enough designs to make things like fighting and other things vanilla. People would have not minded if you had a traditional mmo fighting system and your game was more group focused with the same great story, quests and voice acting. You honestly (as always) tried to do too much at once.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
I like the game, but I can`t play it right now.
My desktop broke down and I bought a high end gaming laptop to replace it.
I can run every game well on this, but TSW NOW FEELS CLUNKY!!!!
I never could understand this critisism before, while playing it on my desktop. No game had as fluent and responsive combat. But now I do understand. I am absolutely convinced that at least a huge part of the "clunky"-critisism comes from people playing the game on hardware that for some strange reason can`t run TSW well. I am no expert, and simply don`t know what is wrong.
My laptop SHOULD be able to run the game as well as my old desktop, but it certainly doesn`t.
You basically summed up my thoughts. Thanks.
--------------------------------------------
Youtube newb:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC96N3cxBuqKTPV2BQNlzGUw
Actually there is a single reason i stopped..
Combat sucks... Its not fun... because of how their skills work ..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
because its aweful
A bit off-topic answer:
I think it depends on your GPU chip - most "high-end" laptop chip e.g. don't have same amount of shaders or clocking speed as desktop equiv, even nowadays. I have the same with my laptop, despite a gaming chip & external screen, it's not the same as on desktop even if there are games I don't see a difference, but for some I do, e.g. Skyrim. Guess it has to do how/which graphics-engine is used/how it is used by the developers.
Also, my laptop has 2 chips, Intel & AMD. At first, not all games for some reason switched to the AMD unit... Now I just have it as standard GPU...
--------------------------------------------
Youtube newb:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC96N3cxBuqKTPV2BQNlzGUw
I really wanted to like this game, but they made the mistake of creating a themepark instead of a coherent world. The 3 (or 4?) zones feel too much like a setup for a spooky point & click adventure that you explore only once.
After the release they added a theatre for players to play their own stuff. That was an amazing idea but sadly, too small. They should have that for the whole game instead: a spooky world with lots of space for players to create their own adventures !
- its fc, lazy lying bastards
- without doubt the best quests you will ever get in any mmo to date
- it is required to change your deck/build a lot, but the gearmanager is still broken most of the time (e.g. forgets to change your weapons sometimes and stuff)
- NO advanced tutorials anywhere in the game, you wil still see people with shitty noob abilities/skills in endgame dungeons
- combat and rotations get interesting once you know about skills and synergys between weapons and passive skills, theres nothing ingame that tells you about that. i was gone for a year and had to relearn everything again
- 500 skills but really only ~100 different ones, rest is same shit in different color
- healing is confusing for people coming from other games, no healer quests or tutorials
- animations really suck balls, ofc FC promised 1 year before release "they are temp and they were working on better ..." - i actually asked about that at gamescom when they showed the game 1st time (2010 or 2011 i think). tho rest of the gfx is top if you have a strong gfx card
- endgame gearing is random (scenarios & nyc loot) , HEAVY grinding required to get by
- no lead from normal questing to endgame nightmare dungeons and raids at all
- you really need a mouse with at least 8 buttons to play this game
Still my favorite quest line: The League of Monster Slayers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umhy8vILHDg
The reason is simple.
TSW is a complex and challenging game which needs more than half a brain.
People prefer games like Cow Clicker on Facebook or simplistic mainstream MMOs to play while watching American Idol.
I don´t have a problem with TSW not being a smash hit, it would probably be a game I wouldn´t play, if it were a smash hit.
As long as it stays up and running and gets regular updates in the same pacing, everything is fine.
Please don´t dumb down TSW, ever
/sigh... if only it wasn't detailed countless times before... I guess there was even a specific line "drop your quest-hub mentality before the door".
Nope, TSW's questing is not based on "quest hubs", it's much more story-based and closer to its adventure game roots. I can't find the picture now (which would worth more than 1k words
), but TSW's missions aren't grouped around hubs, they're scattered all over the world and organized in a net. Sure, there are bigger 'knots' in settlements, where people (the npc's I mean) tend to get together, but it doesn't make those a "quest hub". And yep, if you try to keep running back (playing with "the quest hub mindset") then you're doing it wrong.
In TSW the questing is going through the net: taking a quest, and playing it all the way along, during the way occasionally bumping into sidequests, taking those (or not), and when you finish, do _not_ run back, just take the next quest which you find at (or in the close vicinity) where you finished, and follow that. Sure, since it's a net and the world is limited, a few times you'll get back to the bigger "knots" / crossroads, but it doesn't make those "quest hubs"...
(sadly I can't find the dev letter right now which explains the design much better, but if you google tsw questing or any similar, you'll see that it was mentioned in so many reviews/posts/etc. during this 2 years it's almost funny to see someone bringing it up again... lol, just tried to google myself and the first hit was this: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/17/hands-on-with-the-secret-worlds-mission-system/)
edit: why lol on the massively article? Just read the end: "If you're expecting to go through a traditional laundry-list of quests and you're bent on rapid content consumption, you're doing it wrong."
never played the game cause from the videos and images, i saw a clunky world, a visual issue which is important for me...
if the game looks ugly i dont wanna play it.
MAGA