A friend convinced me to purchase a copy and play the game when it was first released. Well for me it was all down hill from there and I didn't last to the end of the 30 days.
I found nothing of interest in this game at all and the starting zone with zombies was just one big turn off for me. The world setting didn't appeal either for that matter.
Well I finally got the game for real* and one problem is the combat difficulty does jump dramatically from the easy zombies to the harder everything else. It's easily fixed with the wheel once you realize weapon != class (which I didn't during the trial) but I don't think that's the main thing.
I think it's another example of a game falling between two stools:
1) fighting game with some story or 2) investigation game with some fighting.
Personally I love the back story and investigation part especially the stealth missions (moving security cameras ftw) and the fighting is easy now I've spent some time on the wheel. The only problem I have with the fighting is there's too much of it and I wish there were more stealth missions instead.
So I think they probably should have picked one stool or the other: either a straightforward fighting game with a unique setting or an investigation and story game with missions like "Thief" where you have to break into places and find clues while avoiding security cameras and wandering guards plus researching occult stuff online or in game books and then when the investigation is complete you get the big battle against the cultists, vampires, zombies or whoever.
Overall still worth the money for me as the investigation half of it is just my kind of thing.
nb newbie tip: if you like the investigation aspect remove the side missions from the map as it spoils the surprise.
Because the graphics and animation appear like they are back in the early 2000's at best. You know the funky long necked staring at nothing and not blinking issue with the Ventrue clan in Vampire Bloodlines? That's what characters do in this game. The whole game feels like an attempt to take Vampire Bloodlines and turn the world into an MMO but they don't do it as well as the original.
I"m just not into zombies...AT ALL. Not interested in the Walking Dead or anything with zombies and zombie-like creatures. It's just creepy and dark. Just my two cents.
TSW didn't hook me when it first release in 2012, but I tried it again early this summer. Frankly, I haven't been this engaged in an MMO for a very long time and have been playing TSW regularly now for the last couple of months. I've commented before that I think TSW has one of the best mission dynamics and great atmosphere (of course if you're not into the setting, you're not into the setting..), but it also has a terrific community. I've been running dungeons every night with great people that actually chat. Heck....even if they didn't chat, having the old school "trinity" dynamics where people actually group is refreshing vs. what seems like the new norm in games where random solo players just temporarily and randomly auto team up.
I like TSW's Buy to Play model, but really think they missed the mark in creating more utility value in subscriptions. For example, I think Rift does a good job of creating value for a sub.
[...] I like TSW's Buy to Play model, but really think they missed the mark in creating more utility value in subscriptions. For example, I think Rift does a good job of creating value for a sub.
Yep, that's a frequent topic... early Grandmasters are barely can buy anything from the store, during the years they've bought every cosmetic piece already Personally I'm not even a sub, I sub on AoC when it's AoC's turn (game hopping ftw), but I only sub to TSW when new content arrives - and even that is unnecessary, since this way I pay 15 Euro instead of 10 for the Issues / Sidestories. Probably I just think it's more fair because I don't pay for the other months I play...
I agree, Rift does the "here's the game, you can buy additional stuff but that's optional, and hey, if you like us, you can sub too, we have nice bonuses and cookies!" deal better In TSW it's almost pointless to sub - true, maybe for a new character it can be valid, for the xp buff and the AP bonus, but for someone with an unlocked Wheel... Aegis grind is boring anyways
___ On a sidenote, I remember that in your other thread (and a few other places too :winky: ) I promised to write about the Visible Dark, it's not forgotten, if I'll have the time I fabricate something of a post in the afternoon.
I recently returned to this game after playing at launch and purchased the Ultimate Pack.
When I played at launch I primarily did PVP. If you remember you could level very quickly when PVPing at launch. I stopped playing after launch because I finished the main story.
So now returning I have leveled the traditional way with questing.
The game really is one of the best MMORPG's I've ever played. The quests are A++ and the world is engaging. The graphics are excellent compared to other MMORPG's.
My biggest complaints with the game are the crafting (which is terrible) and the animations are sometimes stiff/awkward.
But neither of these issues imo ruin the game..
So why isn't this game more popular???
Because it's over too quickly.
I remember when I first played TSW, it felt like damn near the best RPG I'd ever played, right up there with the BioWares, Obsidians and Bethesdas of this world.
Then I got to the end of the story - and my interest in the game suddenly dropped off a cliff.
I did some of the dungeons, and I think it's quite possible I could have gotten onto the Nightmare train, but just at the point when I was tackling the Gatekeeper and starting to get somewhere, some other new game came along and grabbed my interest (can't remember what it was lol). Then the next time I got back I created a new character with another faction, and tried some new skills, same thing happened again. Then a third time.
I'm glad I saw the story from the three faction perspectives, but that's about it.
The other issues and new content since then, I'd love to see it, but somehow I just can't get into the game again. The ability thing is so complex that to get back into that sense of feverish interest in builds again would take a while.
So I think the problem with TSW is this: it's not really an MMO. It's for the most part, a fantastic single-player RPG, with some rather good dungeons tacked on. To a large extent, the virtual world of the game isn't really a virtual world, it's a series of paths to great quests.
When the game first came out, it was quite social, because it was hard enough that seeing a fellow player was quite welcome, and at first there were quite a lot of fellow players dotted around. But as that dried up (which it did anyway naturally in the early days, towards the later content - before the bulk of the playerbase reached the end of the content), the social aspect dried up too.
And the dungeons are of course social - but they feel pretty much like an adjunct. A very well done adjunct, but somehow unconnected to the rest of the game.
So that's it: beautifully made single player game; beautifully done multiplayer dungeons. But no real connection between the two - no sense of the social aspect of the game being dominant and threading through both aspects.
The biggest problem the game had, I think - the worst mistake they made - was in putting so much emphasis on the stories having solo conclusions, that you'd often get the situation where people would really enjoy teaming up in the wild, do some of the quests together, but find they had to do the end missions solo and separately. I think that killed interest for a lot of players - at least, I remember it being a big complaint on the forums in the early days. Funcom ought to have handled it more like SWTOR did their blending of single player story and casual teaming (where anyone could "join in" with another's story climax).
All I remember was; Great story, but not very coherent due to the way the quest structure was set up and the time limits imposed on them. I remember being told not to use the areas like 'quest hubs' but to follow the main or 'initial' story that you pick up all the way to conclusion. The problem with that advice was that the first hub (police station) was all interconnected *anyway* and usually after completing one quest you were never far enough level wise to bump down other missions to 'normal' difficulty.
For the conventional MMO gamer or newbie that can be very offputting, and if they are averse to playing 'hard'+ missions then they have to sit around waiting for the timer to kick off to repeat the earlier missions and that screams 'content gap' right in the newbie zone - NB: If the response to this is 'lrn2play' or 'you're doing it wrong' then you're missing the point, that is potentially what a newbie will see/think and it will have a massive impact on their decision to continue.
The other issue was that despite what people liked to say, you didn't really have freedom of class build as you absolutely had to go the survivalist route. Unfortunately, none of the builds or building methods were very clear cut. I found it difficult to get into, despite being told multiple times that 'anything works' and 'you can't gimp yourself' (bollocks, yes you can), and certain choices mish-mash poorly, which leads to poor performance and extra frustration and a tendency to look towards restarting.
I'm rather reasonable with MMO and class building, but the sheer amount of things to take into consideration and such on this was mind boggling, given that I had limited understanding of the mechanics from the tutorials anyway. It is off putting and lends itself to doing a bit of research (or copy/pasting builds off the official class build forums) and for most people, the game ends right there at that moment.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the point of the various weapons and the freedom but it is an aspect of the game that is *not* tailored to the majority of players or the gamer base out there and y'know, people go to the route of least resistance (i.e. other games).
Not sure about the too quick thing. There's a ton of content in the game. Granted if you play non-stop, then yes the game does have an end.
As to why it failed at launch and not more popular, that's easier to explain. Guild Wars 2.
At that time Guild Wars 2 was the most hyped game in MMORPG history. I have never seen a game more hyped than that game. Nothing against GW2. I actually think it was a good game for what it was, but the way people made it sound. The articles that supposedly 'legitimate' game journalists wrote about it. The whole thing was complete dog sh*t. Nothing was objective. Because of this many compared TSW to GW2 even though the two games couldn't be more different. Where TSW failed GW2 succeeded and where GW2 failed TSW crushed it. Namely GW2 had the action/twitch combat many wanted at the time (read REVOLUTIONARY) and TSW had the awesome story. But most couldn't get passed the combat, which I don't blame them. The combat was/is pretty bad. The animations are pretty wonky. The skill tree is not that exciting. The later lateral progression doesn't really read right on what you are supposed to do to take out mobs. Overall the feel for it just didn't seem very good. But the stories and puzzles? The best in the MMO industry. Dare I say ground breaking.
GW2 also highlighted another issue for TSW which is more commonplace in today's market. Box Purchase + Subscription + Cash Shop = people freaked out of the business model. GW2 B2P option only further highlighted TSW impression of being a money grab.
Alas, Funcom in their infinite wisdom rushed the game out hoping to get ahead of the GW2 hype. They delayed the game until July 3rd for whatever reason, choosing the middle of summer and right before a holiday in the U.S.
Then -
GW2 announced a launch for the next month and started Betas (which basically the vast majority of players wanted to play.) Everyone that was a fanboy of GW2 (which was about everyone that played MMOs it seemed) joined the hate train on TSW because everyone needs a villain. And well TSW was the 'competition' and therefore needed to be destroyed. Craptastic articles was written about TSW highlighting the above and voila, the game flopped.
I will point out that MMORPG.com and Massively both wrote very fair articles about TSW, but they were in the minority in the gaming industry.
I still do not know why TSW did not delay until around a Halloween launch. I just don't understand it. Their first zone even shows that the events happened around Halloween. Given it's theme and how many love scary stuff around that time to get in the mood for the holiday, it was just a massive missed opportunity.
As for the game now, I think Funcom should be grateful with the game for what it got. They switched the business model and many bought the game on the cheap and got a great deal for it. So they have recovered somewhat, but nowhere near what they were planning to get at launch.
I have been playing regularly again now these last weeks (last time I played it was around the 1 year anniversary), I think the population is quite ok for a game that has been around some years and the community is very improved with the Sanctuary channel.
All I remember was; Great story, but not very coherent due to the way the quest structure was set up and the time limits imposed on them. I remember being told not to use the areas like 'quest hubs' but to follow the main or 'initial' story that you pick up all the way to conclusion. The problem with that advice was that the first hub (police station) was all interconnected *anyway* and usually after completing one quest you were never far enough level wise to bump down other missions to 'normal' difficulty.
The missions at every hub are interconnected, but you don't have to play all of them at one go. Consider Deputy Andy's first mission: you end up down at the harbor. Turn left and there are delivery missions at the mail truck to the church and the fortuneteller (more hubs). Turn right past the gas station and there are 2 missions right on the street (one takes you to the church graveyard), and Norma Creed (another hub) a bit further along. Jump a fence into a yard to find a mauled body and a quest to fight a wendigo. Near the end of that is an escort quest back to the police station. Lower-level hub quests keep you fairly close, but drag you right past other hubs; higher ones take you across half the zone - and near more hubs. Forget the out-and-back questing model of many games, this trail-of-breadcrumbs approach encourages exploration.
Because the gameplay was dated right at launch and a lot of people quit MMOs at launch / don't ever look back. There are also far better options at this point. It is nice to play through once for questing, since that is slightly different then other games; but thats about it really.
I kind of look at the success of things like ESO, Destiny, Final Fantasy 14 and to be honest Funcom failed with this game and others. Because they never listened to their players. Now up for sale with yet another failure behind them. They had all the makings of success just squandered it. Pity I was looking forward to playing TSW on my Xbox One/PS4 ... ahh well.
Horror, there is a reason PG 13 movies make more money then rated R. Bigger audience. There is exceptions of the rule, like Grand Theft Auto but thats the long and short of it.
I recently returned to this game after playing at launch and purchased the Ultimate Pack.
When I played at launch I primarily did PVP. If you remember you could level very quickly when PVPing at launch. I stopped playing after launch because I finished the main story.
So now returning I have leveled the traditional way with questing.
The game really is one of the best MMORPG's I've ever played. The quests are A++ and the world is engaging. The graphics are excellent compared to other MMORPG's.
My biggest complaints with the game are the crafting (which is terrible) and the animations are sometimes stiff/awkward.
But neither of these issues imo ruin the game..
So why isn't this game more popular???
I pre-purchased the GM pack, I played since closed beta, and I said enough is enough just before Issue #12. Although I do view the dev streams.
My number #1 problem with discussing or suggesting something on The Secret World official forums was that if The Secret World was a cute cuddly puppy dog, then this is usually what happened if you questioned something in front of the TSW zealots:
So here is a clip if The Secret World was a cute puppy dog and some of the forum goers are represented by the owner:
These are personally opinions and these can as easily be why people loved the game, but I felt cheated for these reasons:
I know that a bunch of players came to witness another Epic story-line from Mr Ragnar Tornquist, and what we got was a main story-line re-hashed from his old work that could fit on the back of a cereal box and could be read during a breakfast.
The whole "we borrow from a 1000s references to peak as many players interest" was more like straying into some atrocious Dan Brown airport paperback where the author just used anchors in real life, fiction and other sources to weave into his own rubbish to sell more. In The Secret World's case it wasn't so successful.
Once you've played through the major content, done nightmares a gazillion times, raids, scenarios etc over and over, and done more variations on DPS builds than Katarina1, it gets very repetitive. Yes, Issue #12 is out now but remember how long we had to wait for new content sometimes.
The combat is designed so an 80 year old or an 8 year old can play it. It's very boring and I'm not going to argue with people over this. It's an opinion, that's all.
The fact that when The Secret World really needed the financial support the 72 hour trial forum goers starting spamming that it should be free to play while they couldn't get of their fat bottoms and go collect some cans and recycle them for cash to pay the subscription fee. I tell you, the internet is the best and the worst thing in the world and the trade prince was right when he said "If I truly want to understand humanity, I need only read the comments section on Youtube."
The endless grind the end-game turned into.
I will hand it to them, I enjoyed every investigative mission, that's where other MMOs fail. This should be introduced in every MMO where you have more cerebral missions than the "take this here", "kill X of these" mission that destroy your dignity now days.
I recently returned to this game after playing at launch and purchased the Ultimate Pack.
When I played at launch I primarily did PVP. If you remember you could level very quickly when PVPing at launch. I stopped playing after launch because I finished the main story.
So now returning I have leveled the traditional way with questing.
The game really is one of the best MMORPG's I've ever played. The quests are A++ and the world is engaging. The graphics are excellent compared to other MMORPG's.
My biggest complaints with the game are the crafting (which is terrible) and the animations are sometimes stiff/awkward.
But neither of these issues imo ruin the game..
So why isn't this game more popular???
1.The animations are awful 2.Character models are bland and ugly. 3. The skills system is bloated and has a lot of skills that are essentially useless or nearly the same thing as other skills. 4.The interface has an amateurish look and feel. 5. The combat has a tendency to be spammy and floaty 6. The way gear works doesn't show a visual change in progression. 7. The PvP is terrible. 8. It's a horror genre, which isn't as popular in MMOs. 9. It can actually get difficult as certain points, and because MMO players are probably the least capable group of gamers after the mobile gamers, they get frustrated and quit 10. Lots of gamers don't value story.
So it loses the folks that are big on graphics, it loses the folks who like tight combat, it loses the folks who like visual progression, it loses the PvP crowd, it loses the fantasy/sci-if purists, it loses the casual gamers who struggle with difficulty, and it loses the gamers who don't care about story. At the end of the day, you don't have many gamers left.
I think it is an absolutely fantastic game, but it's easy to see why it's not more popular.
Didn't like the combat in the game, the game does have potential, but, as it mostly revolves around the combat, if you don't like it, then it doesn't really matter how good the rest of the game is.
Combat lacking that certain something is a big problem, and also there seems to be some kind of disconnect between your efforts and your rewards in the game. Some of it has to do with the character progression system. The visual representation of skills is confusing and you don't feel that bump of advancement much either, at the visceral level.
Progression is a tricky feeling to capture, but character persistence/progression is a core mechanic of an MMO. If you don't get that right then nothing else matters. That's one of the reasons game makers are trying to spit out so many MOBA's lately. It's just easier.
Popular or not, there's a neat hoverboard, one month before Marty got (or will get) his. Not to mention with this one you can lose the aggro of all those who tries to bully you, so no need to kite around and stuck above the small lake like he did (will do... in October). https://youtu.be/JVqe8SWt8nA
I do enjoy these masturbatory comments to the effect of; the game is too difficult and only the poster and a select few others have the requisite intelligence to play. It is somewhat amusing watching these inflated and misplaced egos hammering out self eggrandizing claptrap with all the subtlety of a shire horse using a smart phone.
Comments
I found nothing of interest in this game at all and the starting zone with zombies was just one big turn off for me. The world setting didn't appeal either for that matter.
I think it's another example of a game falling between two stools:
1) fighting game with some story
or
2) investigation game with some fighting.
Personally I love the back story and investigation part especially the stealth missions (moving security cameras ftw) and the fighting is easy now I've spent some time on the wheel. The only problem I have with the fighting is there's too much of it and I wish there were more stealth missions instead.
So I think they probably should have picked one stool or the other: either a straightforward fighting game with a unique setting or an investigation and story game with missions like "Thief" where you have to break into places and find clues while avoiding security cameras and wandering guards plus researching occult stuff online or in game books and then when the investigation is complete you get the big battle against the cultists, vampires, zombies or whoever.
Overall still worth the money for me as the investigation half of it is just my kind of thing.
nb newbie tip: if you like the investigation aspect remove the side missions from the map as it spoils the surprise.
(*it didn't run properly on my old machine)
I like TSW's Buy to Play model, but really think they missed the mark in creating more utility value in subscriptions. For example, I think Rift does a good job of creating value for a sub.
I agree, Rift does the "here's the game, you can buy additional stuff but that's optional, and hey, if you like us, you can sub too, we have nice bonuses and cookies!" deal better
___
On a sidenote, I remember that in your other thread (and a few other places too :winky: ) I promised to write about the Visible Dark, it's not forgotten, if I'll have the time I fabricate something of a post in the afternoon.
I remember when I first played TSW, it felt like damn near the best RPG I'd ever played, right up there with the BioWares, Obsidians and Bethesdas of this world.
Then I got to the end of the story - and my interest in the game suddenly dropped off a cliff.
I did some of the dungeons, and I think it's quite possible I could have gotten onto the Nightmare train, but just at the point when I was tackling the Gatekeeper and starting to get somewhere, some other new game came along and grabbed my interest (can't remember what it was lol). Then the next time I got back I created a new character with another faction, and tried some new skills, same thing happened again. Then a third time.
I'm glad I saw the story from the three faction perspectives, but that's about it.
The other issues and new content since then, I'd love to see it, but somehow I just can't get into the game again. The ability thing is so complex that to get back into that sense of feverish interest in builds again would take a while.
So I think the problem with TSW is this: it's not really an MMO. It's for the most part, a fantastic single-player RPG, with some rather good dungeons tacked on. To a large extent, the virtual world of the game isn't really a virtual world, it's a series of paths to great quests.
When the game first came out, it was quite social, because it was hard enough that seeing a fellow player was quite welcome, and at first there were quite a lot of fellow players dotted around. But as that dried up (which it did anyway naturally in the early days, towards the later content - before the bulk of the playerbase reached the end of the content), the social aspect dried up too.
And the dungeons are of course social - but they feel pretty much like an adjunct. A very well done adjunct, but somehow unconnected to the rest of the game.
So that's it: beautifully made single player game; beautifully done multiplayer dungeons. But no real connection between the two - no sense of the social aspect of the game being dominant and threading through both aspects.
The biggest problem the game had, I think - the worst mistake they made - was in putting so much emphasis on the stories having solo conclusions, that you'd often get the situation where people would really enjoy teaming up in the wild, do some of the quests together, but find they had to do the end missions solo and separately. I think that killed interest for a lot of players - at least, I remember it being a big complaint on the forums in the early days. Funcom ought to have handled it more like SWTOR did their blending of single player story and casual teaming (where anyone could "join in" with another's story climax).
All I remember was; Great story, but not very coherent due to the way the quest structure was set up and the time limits imposed on them. I remember being told not to use the areas like 'quest hubs' but to follow the main or 'initial' story that you pick up all the way to conclusion. The problem with that advice was that the first hub (police station) was all interconnected *anyway* and usually after completing one quest you were never far enough level wise to bump down other missions to 'normal' difficulty.
For the conventional MMO gamer or newbie that can be very offputting, and if they are averse to playing 'hard'+ missions then they have to sit around waiting for the timer to kick off to repeat the earlier missions and that screams 'content gap' right in the newbie zone - NB: If the response to this is 'lrn2play' or 'you're doing it wrong' then you're missing the point, that is potentially what a newbie will see/think and it will have a massive impact on their decision to continue.
The other issue was that despite what people liked to say, you didn't really have freedom of class build as you absolutely had to go the survivalist route. Unfortunately, none of the builds or building methods were very clear cut. I found it difficult to get into, despite being told multiple times that 'anything works' and 'you can't gimp yourself' (bollocks, yes you can), and certain choices mish-mash poorly, which leads to poor performance and extra frustration and a tendency to look towards restarting.
I'm rather reasonable with MMO and class building, but the sheer amount of things to take into consideration and such on this was mind boggling, given that I had limited understanding of the mechanics from the tutorials anyway. It is off putting and lends itself to doing a bit of research (or copy/pasting builds off the official class build forums) and for most people, the game ends right there at that moment.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the point of the various weapons and the freedom but it is an aspect of the game that is *not* tailored to the majority of players or the gamer base out there and y'know, people go to the route of least resistance (i.e. other games).
As to why it failed at launch and not more popular, that's easier to explain. Guild Wars 2.
At that time Guild Wars 2 was the most hyped game in MMORPG history. I have never seen a game more hyped than that game. Nothing against GW2. I actually think it was a good game for what it was, but the way people made it sound. The articles that supposedly 'legitimate' game journalists wrote about it. The whole thing was complete dog sh*t. Nothing was objective. Because of this many compared TSW to GW2 even though the two games couldn't be more different. Where TSW failed GW2 succeeded and where GW2 failed TSW crushed it. Namely GW2 had the action/twitch combat many wanted at the time (read REVOLUTIONARY) and TSW had the awesome story. But most couldn't get passed the combat, which I don't blame them. The combat was/is pretty bad. The animations are pretty wonky. The skill tree is not that exciting. The later lateral progression doesn't really read right on what you are supposed to do to take out mobs. Overall the feel for it just didn't seem very good. But the stories and puzzles? The best in the MMO industry. Dare I say ground breaking.
GW2 also highlighted another issue for TSW which is more commonplace in today's market. Box Purchase + Subscription + Cash Shop = people freaked out of the business model. GW2 B2P option only further highlighted TSW impression of being a money grab.
Alas, Funcom in their infinite wisdom rushed the game out hoping to get ahead of the GW2 hype. They delayed the game until July 3rd for whatever reason, choosing the middle of summer and right before a holiday in the U.S.
Then -
GW2 announced a launch for the next month and started Betas (which basically the vast majority of players wanted to play.) Everyone that was a fanboy of GW2 (which was about everyone that played MMOs it seemed) joined the hate train on TSW because everyone needs a villain. And well TSW was the 'competition' and therefore needed to be destroyed. Craptastic articles was written about TSW highlighting the above and voila, the game flopped.
I will point out that MMORPG.com and Massively both wrote very fair articles about TSW, but they were in the minority in the gaming industry.
I still do not know why TSW did not delay until around a Halloween launch. I just don't understand it. Their first zone even shows that the events happened around Halloween. Given it's theme and how many love scary stuff around that time to get in the mood for the holiday, it was just a massive missed opportunity.
As for the game now, I think Funcom should be grateful with the game for what it got. They switched the business model and many bought the game on the cheap and got a great deal for it. So they have recovered somewhat, but nowhere near what they were planning to get at launch.
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
the combat was really really bad,
and that is what you wind up doing the majority of the time.
1. Funcom
2. Niche setting/story
3. Poor combat
4. Funcom
My number #1 problem with discussing or suggesting something on The Secret World official forums was that if The Secret World was a cute cuddly puppy dog, then this is usually what happened if you questioned something in front of the TSW zealots:
So here is a clip if The Secret World was a cute puppy dog and some of the forum goers are represented by the owner:
These are personally opinions and these can as easily be why people loved the game, but I felt cheated for these reasons:
- I know that a bunch of players came to witness another Epic story-line from Mr Ragnar Tornquist, and what we got was a main story-line re-hashed from his old work that could fit on the back of a cereal box and could be read during a breakfast.
- The whole "we borrow from a 1000s references to peak as many players interest" was more like straying into some atrocious Dan Brown airport paperback where the author just used anchors in real life, fiction and other sources to weave into his own rubbish to sell more. In The Secret World's case it wasn't so successful.
- Once you've played through the major content, done nightmares a gazillion times, raids, scenarios etc over and over, and done more variations on DPS builds than Katarina1, it gets very repetitive. Yes, Issue #12 is out now but remember how long we had to wait for new content sometimes.
- The combat is designed so an 80 year old or an 8 year old can play it. It's very boring and I'm not going to argue with people over this. It's an opinion, that's all.
- The fact that when The Secret World really needed the financial support the 72 hour trial forum goers starting spamming that it should be free to play while they couldn't get of their fat bottoms and go collect some cans and recycle them for cash to pay the subscription fee. I tell you, the internet is the best and the worst thing in the world and the trade prince was right when he said "If I truly want to understand humanity, I need only read the comments section on Youtube."
- The endless grind the end-game turned into.
I will hand it to them, I enjoyed every investigative mission, that's where other MMOs fail. This should be introduced in every MMO where you have more cerebral missions than the "take this here", "kill X of these" mission that destroy your dignity now days.2.Character models are bland and ugly.
3. The skills system is bloated and has a lot of skills that are essentially useless or nearly the same thing as other skills.
4.The interface has an amateurish look and feel.
5. The combat has a tendency to be spammy and floaty
6. The way gear works doesn't show a visual change in progression.
7. The PvP is terrible.
8. It's a horror genre, which isn't as popular in MMOs.
9. It can actually get difficult as certain points, and because MMO players are probably the least capable group of gamers after the mobile gamers, they get frustrated and quit
10. Lots of gamers don't value story.
So it loses the folks that are big on graphics, it loses the folks who like tight combat, it loses the folks who like visual progression, it loses the PvP crowd, it loses the fantasy/sci-if purists, it loses the casual gamers who struggle with difficulty, and it loses the gamers who don't care about story. At the end of the day, you don't have many gamers left.
I think it is an absolutely fantastic game, but it's easy to see why it's not more popular.
Progression is a tricky feeling to capture, but character persistence/progression is a core mechanic of an MMO. If you don't get that right then nothing else matters. That's one of the reasons game makers are trying to spit out so many MOBA's lately. It's just easier.
Not to mention with this one you can lose the aggro of all those who tries to bully you, so no need to kite around and stuck above the small lake like he did (will do... in October).
https://youtu.be/JVqe8SWt8nA