After playing the game pretty extensively for the past few days (Amazon pre-orders are great) I can safely say it's going to flop. The fact that you can stop your own progression though the game's leveling zones by not understanding the incredibly complex system of synergies by the 3rd zone, and suddenly your build stops working for one reason or another, combined with the lack of a respec system means you'll end up grinding old quests ad nauseum so you can have enough points to "ungimp" yourself makes for one of the worst MMO experiences I've ever had. Don't forget that the "Decks" (Classes) that the game suggests to you are actually bad enough to stop you from advancing through the zones.
For example: I had 4 points in Fists and 3 points in Blood Magic. By the 3rd zone, the game requires you to have at least 4 points in any given weapon skill or else none of your attacks will connect with that given weapon. So all of a sudden, my blood magic skill was useless and all the other weapons I had put points into because I wanted to try them out were completely unusable for the foreseeable future. If I could go and talk to an NPC and reallocate my points (for a fee, of course), the problem would be moot, but that's not an option the game provides. Instead the game expects you to go visit an old zone and grind out some quests (Y'know, the ones that were really interesting the first time around really aren't that cool the 2nd or 3rd time) so you cab obtain enough points to fix the problem. It's a system that has itself designed around the idea of forcing a player to keep playing to advance - a model which is almost abusive towards the customer in some cases. Especially when you start hitting the skills that cost 20+ points to unlock and you find out they don't really work with what you had planned.
TL;DR: Game's going to flop because it expects far too much planning from anybody playing for simple game advancement. Requiring precise builds is fine for endgame stuff, but it's one of the worst things in the world when you require a precise build to even advance through zones.
I like how funcom's CEO steps down the day the game is released. Game alrdy flopped before it's released. there is 0 hype and tons of negativity about it already lol. cant be a good sign
I love this game. I love the theory crafting and infinite build options. I currently play Sword/Hammer tank and I'm just outclassing every other tank I've run into; People are always amazed at how awesome I am. I can consistently mitigate over 50% DMG (40% Glance Rate for 10s > 40% Block Rate for 10s then 30% DMG Reduction for 10s > Repeat + 30% Reduction from Weakness stacks GG) while having 9000 HP at QL6-8 with my rotation, it's pretty beastly. I make a healer's life so easy and I can control every fight in the dungeon for so long it doesn't even matter if my DPS suck.
I've definitely run into some really weak players that don't know how to synergize their skills properly; the gap between a skilled player and newbie of similiar QL is huge. The combat system is a bit dated but honestly it's grown on me and I've come to really enjoy it.
The lore, story, and setting is also fantastic, I only do missions for fun; if I wanna farm AP I just speed run Darkness Wars (or any dungeon for that matter).
I'm Anno "Villainous" Domini on Cerberus server, hit me up if you wanna do quests or need a tank for dungeons, I don't mind helping.
There are tonnes of bugs: broken quests, UI elements being fucked up, it's really annoying but hasn't really detracted from my overall enjoyment of the game.
You're an idiot. The starting experience gives you access to every weapon to try them all out before you pick one of the 2 you'll start with. Why would you bother leveling the rest when you only have two slots? If you didn't like Blood magic in the training area why would you put points into it later on? It's not going to drastically change its theme. Also, the games been out for 3 days, a week if you got early access. You can't have made so much progress on your character that you couldn't just make another. If you're already replaying old missions, it can't be a big issue for you.
My problem right now has less to do with my personal build and more to do with the fact that some mobs hit entirely too hard to reliably solo 1 without getting down past half health or nearly dying. God help you if you get a link.
Game has definitely grown on me over the past couple of weeks of testing. Once you get past the less than desired combat animations, this game's combat skill system and talisman build system provides deep planning and strategy elements I haven't really experienced since FFXI or EVE. The story is interesting and the characters are well written. Love that clothing is just cosmetic.
I've played through too many MMOs where you mindlessly grind the next dungeon for the next tier of gear. I think there's space for "unforgiving" MMOs as Arelian puts it. Also Arelian, I'm not sure if you enjoy PVP at all but that's a great way to gain AP and SP without having to repeat quests. Also dungeons put out pretty good AP and SP as well.
And yes Kis, I find Sword/Hammer tanks to be the easiest to heal so far. I was Blood/Fist healing a Chaos/Fist tank last night in Polaris and really noticed the difference. With the Sword/Hammer tank I was able to dps on the side.
Woot, attuned for Nightmare dungeons!! Now just to find people to do them with...
Maybe 1%, if that, of the game's population is attuned for Nightmare atm.
I had low expectations going into this game mainly because of AoC.
I've been blown away, this is easily the best storytelling/atmosphere MMO i've ever played. The quest system is fantastic and so is the character progression system. Been having a ton of fun playing, way more than I had playing SWTOR or TERA.
The combat is a little bland but the humongous amount of weapons/play styles you can be kind of offsets that.
I really wanted to like this but the clunky animations and bland combat really turned me off, as well as having the same tried and true tank party set up. I tried this after GW2 so maybe that kinda helped.
I also think the real world setting just isn't for me. I like a little more fantasy. Its great that I am reading so many pluses to the game though, if only it was no sub. The character progression I hear is really great and has much depth.
I've pretty much completed all the content this game has to offer and I gotta say the endgame is really lacking. Fighting through harder versions of the first 3 dungeons isn't fun when I've already run them 2 times. Hunting puzzle pieces in "Lair" zones takes a long time, is monotonous and boring. Getting PVP rewards takes too long and has been nerfed too severely. Also, the Nightmare dungeon lockouts are ridiculous when they're prone to bugs. Ran DW Nightmare the other day and we got screwed because 2 bosses were spawning when their should have been one; making it impossible to complete. GG 16 hour wait because there's no way to reset the instance or re-enter without a lock out. Unless the next content update provides a significant boost to endgame I'll probably need to reconsider my sub. Was fun while it lasted, but there seems to be a trend in MMOs with high production values (voice acting etc) being a little light on content updates. We'll see.
Yeah that was my number one deal breaker in that I had a gut feeling that content was going to be extremely light, and I guess I was right. From the folks over at mmorpg.com it seems you can complete all of the PVE content in just under a week. More casual folks may take up to 2-3 weeks, but it seems in the later areas, content is very light. The only other major thing to do in the game is PVP, but that has its problems as well.
http://forums.thesecretworld.com/sho...51#post1304351
Now everyone can try out the game for free post-release. Everyone can log in from Friday, August 3rd at 4pm GMT until Monday, August 6th at 7am GMT. That would be 11 am EST on Friday and 2 am EST on Monday. I'm might give it another go since I liked the content. But I don't plan on buying it. I'll probably just wait till it goes F2P later on.
Game is 50% off at amazon http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Art...fb_s_vg_m8wmww . Bought it for me and my gf, having fun solving mysteries.
So funcom just laid off 50-60% of its employees today.
More on that:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08...ffs-confirmed/
Funcom has made a new statement to Massively in light of the layoffs, stressing that the layoffs are temporary. "As we announced in the stock notice that went out on August 10th, Funcom is in the process of reducing operational costs and this process includes temporary layoffs as well as other initiatives. As we are currently in the middle of this process we can not provide any further comment at the present time. Rest assured however that we have long-term plans for the company and that we remain fully committed to all of our games. We aim to provide more information soon."
So they're doing what they should have done when the game launched. Wonderful. I'll bother checking it out now.
You should, I bought the game and actually enjoyed it a lot but knew it wouldn't keep me satisfied in the long term and didn't sub. I'm definitely going back to check out what they have built upon.
yeah I bought it and will download while I'm at work. can try it out later tonight. $30, if I get even 20~40hrs out of it it's paid for itself. apparently I got some pack with it too, nfc what thats about but I guess I saved $15 on something.
Yeah I might go and check it out again. I loved the atmosphere and story-driven content... not much else though. I'll probably play this a couple of hours a week (sort of what I'm doing with SWTOR). 1-2 hours per game per week to see the story unfold, but not enough to pay a subscription fee. I wonder if something similar might happen to RIFT. They also had a recent layoff as well (estimated 40 people). I hope they don't go F2P since TRION is really putting all the stops for that game (as far as content goes) but we shall see.
the one thing I took away from TSW during that first month was that their VA work was phenomenal. To the point where I still remember npc's names because they were that memorable to me. Completely shocked me and made some of SWTOR's VA stuff dull in comparison. The combat was so/so but I've heard they were working hard to improve it. Either way the investigation missions are worth it alone..