Pro:

1. Quest system

2. Graphics

3. Mood and atmosphere

4. Music

Con:

1. Animations

2. Combat

3. Effects (spells, combat, mobs)

4. Sound effects (hollow, no punch)

5. Character Creator

6. Tortage all over again (everyon goes to the same island)

7. Heavily instanced (Channels)

TOTAL: 4/10

Worth Mentioning:

1. Item interaction is clumsy and still has the Funcom trademark "click a few times before icon shows up" bug. It was in AOC too.

2. /funkychicken . Really FUNCOM? REALLY? Over 50 emotes but the combat animation is still crap? Get your priorities right.

Originally posted by taus01

7. Heavily instanced (Channels)

Two related questions if you don't mind.

Is there a single server or multiple?

Is the channel capacity for a zone fairly large? (a couple hundred players or more)

Gave it a 8, surprised me on many aspects and really turned out to be a very good game but the game has some really big flaws right now so I'll probably wait it out a few months before picking it up. 

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Originally posted by taus01

7. Heavily instanced (Channels)

 

Two related questions if you don't mind.

Is there a single server or multiple?

Is the channel capacity for a zone fairly large? (a couple hundred players or more)

Only one server as far as I can see and from all the people running around seems like it easily handles hundreds. 

Originally posted by Gabby-air

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Originally posted by taus01

7. Heavily instanced (Channels)

 

Two related questions if you don't mind.

Is there a single server or multiple?

Is the channel capacity for a zone fairly large? (a couple hundred players or more)

Only one server as far as I can see and from all the people running around seems like it easily handles hundreds. 

One server and its typical zone instance system as knwown from  AoC, Champions online and sw:tor.  you can switch "channels" whit the button in the minimap top.

this is from a late 2011 Zam interview (i think).   but yeah what they've already said.  shards.

Martin: At the bottom, it's a single server that we will split into shards, basically. Originally - and this was four years ago - we said, "One server," and that was it. But because of the persistent PvP, we realized it wouldn't really work if you had one server. The playfields had to have a population cap, and if we did employ population caps, then only a very small percentage of the player base would be able to do the persistent PvP. So we decided to split the player population up into servers. All the mini-games, however, will be cross-server.

When it comes to if we'll split between EU and the US, we're still testing that out. We've seen that if we put a server on the East Coast in the US, we get a ping of about 70, which is fairly acceptable.

ZAM: From Europe?

Martin: Yeah! We haven't made a decision yet, and we're trying it out. But even if we're going for one or two splits, the foundation is still a single server split into different shards.

ZAM: So there won't be region locks where I can't play with someone from Europe just because of hard barriers.

Martin: Nope.

voted 8..i have been fully engrossed in this game,but i do forsee a problem like SWTOR..i noticed that next to nobody was talking on chat.dont know wether or not people were just totally into what they were doin so they didnt really think of it has an mmo.Tbh i have been very suprised,only come across a couple of bugs.the game looks fantastic.combat and models need a little work but apart from that..i am definately going to enjoy this one.

Withdrawing my judgement for the time being.

Top likes:  Atmosphere/ambience/setting/environment.

Top dislikes: (Combat) animations.

So-so: Questing - had fun on the first plathrough when I _did_ not follow the quests pointing to the next place but roamed around on my own and picking up quests randomly on the way.

Open:

• Grouping: I didn't run into any group-oriented content and felt I was playing a single-played RPG (well this was like a starter area, right? right?)
• Longevity: what is there to do in addition to the very basic PvE quest-traing that was available in the beta?
• Massively Multiplayer: Where were all the other players (some channel-system was in place I guess which gave me goosebumps as I started thinking of SWTOR)?
• Launch schedule: On Friday I would have said "no way, never". Now, I'd say there's more than 0% (but less than 50%) of it being possible/smart (based on the technical status alone). I hope they delay the launch for as long as needed.

Overall I feel like we were shown such a small piece of the game and the world that it's premature to make any big final statements. Like having to grade LotRO after play through Shire (doing all chase the rabbit rubbish-quests, too, as a Hobbit tank).

I was positively surprised that the huge, huge problems with the client I had on Friday were gone since Saturday and I had no crashes and (major) glitches since. Framerate was around 20-60fps with all maxed out but overall the performance was much better to me than what I had in the last GW2 BWE, for instance (to be fair I expect the population was much lower in TSW beta though).

PS. Dare I say it? I did miss dodging in the combat:)

Still keeping my hopes up. TSW to me has great potential and the game just needs to be completed properly. The overall setting of the game I think is pure win after the smelly ogres and elves (in one form or another) infesting almost every other game out there.

Originally posted by Mexorilla

 

When it comes to if we'll split between EU and the US, we're still testing that out. We've seen that if we put a server on the East Coast in the US, we get a ping of about 70, which is fairly acceptable.

ZAM: From Europe?

Martin: Yeah! 

 

BULLSHIT.

Unless he mean those few people with exceptionally good conection and fabulous routing from UK / Portugal and even that will be miniority.

Most people from those countries don't get 70 ms even if they buy access to service that lowers ping. (usually based on proxy / vpn somewhere in east cost).

Most people I know from UK and was playing with on US servers in some online game were reporting 90-120 ms or more.

==============

I have connection from ISP that take internet from Technical University and generally I am close to backbone , and have very good pings.

Yet I am never getting better pings from US than 120-130 (I am in Central Europe) but ping is not what is worst , worst things on cross-atlantic gaming is that when there is alot going on like big PVP Battle or big fight in Raid ,etc  there sometimes are packet losses (due to long distance I presume, since I never experience this when playing on server in Europe).

And packet losses = horrible horrible lags and 'freezes'.

Now Imagine you're living in some rural area in Europe and you're far from backbone , or that you're living in very density area where internet infrastructure is overloaded or that you're on edges of a Europe like Greece , Russia ,etc 

Having server located in USA IS subpar service for Europeans. Sorry.

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Mexorilla

 

When it comes to if we'll split between EU and the US, we're still testing that out. We've seen that if we put a server on the East Coast in the US, we get a ping of about 70, which is fairly acceptable.

ZAM: From Europe?

Martin: Yeah! 

 

BULLSHIT.

[chomp]

Having server located in USA IS subpar service for Europeans. Sorry.

^The truth. You heard it here first, folks!

I voted 8. I love the H.P. Lovecraft feel to it. The setting is realy good. Even the questing I like a lot. Im a person that never reads the quests, and just pick up as many quests as posible and finish them while I run through the content.

Since its not possible in TSW (only 3 active quest at the time) I realy enjoy this approach. This way I can dive into the well made story.

The combat is sure not that great. Its hard to switch from Tera combat to this, but the skill system is very innovative and fresh.

I have to admit that I was very sceptic about this game. EA and Funcom are two companies I don't realy trust. Been let down by them far to often. But what I have seen so far, I liked quite a lot.

reading all these beta weekend comments, make me wish I had time to try it out on my own computer, played it for maybe 1.5 hour then simply had to stop, compared to most people on these forums, I have a high tolerance - usually I find people to be extremely nitpicking, like talking about lag after not experience anything myself that Id think is worth complaining about, but guess am just too used to EQ2, which one of the games people always say have an extremely bad performance.

 so actually suprised to not see more flaming of the game that there have been, either way havent rated the game at all due to the short amount of playtime and fact I didnt play it on my own system.

on the computer I played it on the game were extremely cluncky in controls, and it lagged like no tomorrow, even when there only were 3 - 10 around me, didnt ever see more than 15 at the NPCs, and even had troubles zone into the portals world, took about 5 minuttes before it offered to zone me in, and to me looked like the people around me had the same problem.

well never actually got out of the tutorial area, which in itself is god awful to me, go see NPC run 10 meters watch movie, get new quest run afew more meter´s watch movie. Also in this setting I had a hard time accept that you couldnt drive the cars at all, not that it would make sense when the world is so tight, but being able to use vehicles is something that have become the norm of games, actually had abit of the same feel in FFXIV, there were a chokobo stable, but you werent allowed to ride them, then why have them standing around at all? other than the cars, there is absolutely no world interaction, there is trash cans and the sort, but no collision at all.

either way, as said, I didnt really get to play the game, atleast that is how I felt, only spended 1.5 hours in it and didnt feel like I got to start on the game at all, and in the end just couldnt bring myself to continue, out of frustration in how the combat function, had setted my mind to get to the point where the quests become more like puzzles, as Ive read here... but when my friend offered me to watch him play end of nations, I for once said yes to watching.

hope they will have another beta weekend, so can have a chance to play it, without as much happening around me and on my own system, reading people here make me believe the game werent well optimized for my friends laptop

i'll give this beta round a 6, too many client crashes for me (once every 30 minutes...longest uninterupted play was 1h40m)

gfx are good and the atmosphere is amazing....realy dark and creepy.....you actually see people stopping when you run into them as they (and me) are thinking its a mob in a back ally......so yeah the atmosphere is realy awasome imho.

BUT these often client crashes and the very bad animations are realy a turn off for me.

More about my TSW beta expirience later this afternoon for those who didnt get to play this beta but like to see a good neutral review about TSW.

Originally posted by Hedeon

reading all these beta weekend comments, make me wish I had time to try it out on my own computer, played it for maybe 1.5 hour then simply had to stop, compared to most people on these forums, I have a high tolerance - usually I find people to be extremely nitpicking, like talking about lag after not experience anything myself that Id think is worth complaining about, but guess am just too used to EQ2, which one of the games people always say have an extremely bad performance.

 so actually suprised to not see more flaming of the game that there have been, either way havent rated the game at all due to the short amount of playtime and fact I didnt play it on my own system.

on the computer I played it on the game were extremely cluncky in controls, and it lagged like no tomorrow, even when there only were 3 - 10 around me, didnt ever see more than 15 at the NPCs, and even had troubles zone into the portals world, took about 5 minuttes before it offered to zone me in, and to me looked like the people around me had the same problem.

well never actually got out of the tutorial area, which in itself is god awful to me, go see NPC run 10 meters watch movie, get new quest run afew more meter´s watch movie. Also in this setting I had a hard time accept that you couldnt drive the cars at all, not that it would make sense when the world is so tight, but being able to use vehicles is something that have become the norm of games, actually had abit of the same feel in FFXIV, there were a chokobo stable, but you werent allowed to ride them, then why have them standing around at all? other than the cars, there is absolutely no world interaction, there is trash cans and the sort, but no collision at all.

either way, as said, I didnt really get to play the game, atleast that is how I felt, only spended 1.5 hours in it and didnt feel like I got to start on the game at all, and in the end just couldnt bring myself to continue, out of frustration in how the combat function, had setted my mind to get to the point where the quests become more like puzzles, as Ive read here... but when my friend offered me to watch him play end of nations, I for once said yes to watching.

hope they will have another beta weekend, so can have a chance to play it, without as much happening around me and on my own system, reading people here make me believe the game werent well optimized for my friends laptop

I think the vehicle commet is very interesting, be nice to have something way out of the ordinary in this game like that.

Instead of mounts you could use vehicles that have been abandoned, very fresh idea indeed.  Of  course people would say that was taken from dead island, it worked extremely well in dead island though which was bar far my favorite game of 2011.

Voted 5 because it's good single player RPG, but awful MMO.

Originally posted by oubers

you actually see people stopping when you run into them as they (and me) are thinking its a mob in a back ally......so yeah the atmosphere is realy awasome imho. 

LOL!  Yeah, for me anyway the game succeeded in making me a little jumpy.   Zombies are kinda easy to do right as far as MMO mobs go, because they naturally wander around or gather in groups around corpses and munch away, but even so they did a nice job with the way the zombies move and react IMO.

In response to another comment above: I was also put offf a bit by the amount of time I spent in the game before I actually got to start playing it for real.  Between the cutscenes and wandering around London and the one tutorial in the Tokyo subway that made no sense, I've never spent more time in a game before I actually got to start fighting, acquiring loot, and building up my character.

Originally posted by Hedeon

hope they will have another beta weekend, so can have a chance to play it, without as much happening around me and on my own system, reading people here make me believe the game werent well optimized for my friends laptop

they plan on doing a beta weekend,  every weekend until launch. 

Highly disappointed thus far - which is even more disappointing because I've been following the game since like.... 2009 and have been anticipating it greatly. The combat is beyond lackluster, the world is dead (yet immersive and incredibly atmospheric, a plus for the game), and after playing GW2 some of the mechanics (especially how mobs are tagged) feel archaeic and poorly designed. I also despise how cutscenes are non-interactive.

I've spent the majority of this weekend making frowny faces at TSW :[

7/10

It peeked my interest enough to buy it.

My expierence is it's a little rough but I like the atmosphere of the game and I don't get what people see so bad in the combat for me it's not bad (Tough I wished more skills where dodgable).

Also the graphics are fine I don't get you graphic whores always wanting new games with better graphics... If it looks good there's no need to keep on pumping in the graphic department it wastes time on the gameplay which is the most important.

Hopefully it will hold me for more than a month then when GW2 comes out I'll have a p2p and b2p games to play for every need.