Good pros and cons list. I agree with it.

I'm still on the fence with the game. I have to decide if the setting, story, and overall experience can override the terrible combat. It's one of the reasons why I didn't last in games like Fallen Earth and LotRO, I just couldn't get past the combat and animations.

Originally posted by nolic1

I liked the game even with the bugs and such but feel a little skeptcal about buying it. I think I will wait a few months on this. I will have D3 and Gw2 to keep me busy for a while and Tourch Light 2 also. With 3 games with out subs I will be busy for quite sometime.

 

offtopic - i kind of doubt that gw2 will be released that soon. i know gamestop put up release day 26.6., but it is only place that did that, no other site (much less official statement from anet) claims to know when gw2 will be released.

Originally posted by TSWSilverfox

REserve your final list's judgement until the later betas. As you said, there are animation place holders and limited character creater at this time.

One month left to release. It's fair to start judging now. After both AO and AoC, it's a fact of record Funcom cannot produce "miracle patches" in multiple months, much less under one.

Not a bad review and considering that 2 of the 3 things listed in your bad section has already been addressed by the folks at Funcom (it was even in their Known Issues on the path files).

The one knock that I'll take away from this weekends BWE was that the combat did not feel very solid or that it had any real weight to it. Like mentioned in the short article and in another post I made I mentioned this. How it seemed to lack the "Umph" I was hoping for.

They could maybe use a bit of visual and audio reprentation for this stuff. I dont know, maybe the monsters themselves could react a little when being hit with stronger abilities so that the player can get that feeling of actually doing some damage to something. Right now, even my more "powerful" abilities seemed sort of weak. The mob would still pursue without any real hinderence.

I note that I did not have any knockback / knockdown abilties so maybe thats the reason why. However that doesn't really excuse the floaty feeling I get when performing moves. The Pistols animations could use some work. The basic attack is very, very bland and too short to even see that you are using the skill.

This made the feeling of smashing 1, 1, 1, 3, etc. a little more blatant. That's something that occurs in most MMO's, but the responsiveness and actual representation of fighting a monster and slaying it was missing. I found little satisfaction in most of my encounters. I found myself on numerous occassions having to get distance from mobs, just so I could feel I had some bearing and control over what I was doing.

/shrug

Hopefully stuff they can work on before launch. It's not totally gamebreaking for me, but it is a little disheartening since experiencing more rewarding combat in something like GW2 or even D3 for that matter. I enjoyed my play through for the most part but I did have times where I was "Meh" about things..

My last hour or two of playtime I just went around in London and Kingsmouth collection Lore pieces. I found that pretty fun as I got to suck in more of the atmosphere. I'm impressed with the amount of voice work done with the NPC's and their dialoge trees. Some conversations can go on for neear 30 mins..

I like that the core of the Secret World is solid.

It can be turned around. fixed. and made what its supposed to be, awesome.

Other games don't have that luxury, like one that launched back in December... having a rotten core, no mere polishing issues.

Rooting for you, Funcom... pull this one together.

Originally posted by Vhaln

The worst part of the game for me wasn't the combat or animations though. It was how rigidly linear it felt. The open world just felt like it was only there to prop up the quests. It gives you the freedom to do whatever you want, as long as its more step-by-step questing. Not really my idea of freedom.



Within an hour of entering Kingsmouth, I was just totally disappointed. All technical issues aside, it really comes down to the type of game it is. Like a less polished clunkier TOR.



I just didnt see that coming at all. Yet another MMO that's just not for me, I guess.

 

If by rigidly linear you mean you need to follow a particular quest to completion before you can truly move onto something else?  Then yes I would agree with you.

However, traditional MMO questing where you gather a bunch of quests and then multi-task the objectives isn't much better.  IMHO, TSW's way is better to me.  There's lot of breadcrumbs all over for picking random quests that add lots of nice flavor to the story, without feeling like you must complete them to progress.  That part of the experience seemed very open to me.

The biggest turn offs for me relate to the UI.  The skill wheel is brilliant, but the management and understanding of how various actives/passives work together could use a lot of improvement.  Even with the reduced tiers of skills during this BWE, it got complicated very quickly.  A way to quick swap in/out different skill sets/keybinds would be nice too.

The crafting UI really needs a lot of help.  There's very little information to be had about how exactly to use the system.  Maybe that was intentional to hide some of that detail for now, but if so, they should've simply disabled the ability as well as the drops for it.

The questing UI, while I do get that it's to allow one to focus on a limited number of objectives at a time, is overly restrictive.  The map really should allow for a player to choose for themselves how many mission hints to show at the same time (and allow for some coloration options so one can easily tell them apart).

The red highlights for clickable items would often bug out and not be visible at all unless you were looking at the item from a certain angle.  That to me speaks of an overly thing outline that renders differently depending on your graphics settings.  That's something that needs work.  There were a couple places (solo instances mostly) where you had to avoid traps, or follow something.  These were all quite difficult to perceive and also required a certain angle to actually see the graphical "thing" you were meant to see.  (Sorry for being vague, don't want to spoil anything.  And the folks that have seen it know what it is, I'm sure.)

I believe my negatives can all be addressed, so I'm not concerned.  It was a good BWE.  We got a really good taste of the core of the game.  The cosmetics can be fixed and really shouldn't be gamebreakers.

This sort of game should evoke the menacing feel of games such as FEAR or a really old one called Alone In The Dark.

TOR looks a bit like WoW on rails, which isn't great.

In addition, I think you'd get more immersion if you saw the world from a first-person perspective rather than looking down on your character. The monsters should appear more grusome.

so, no one will say the inventory is a cumbersome thing? crafting is a pain since you have to shift click, click to make 1 confirm several times to craft things? the can't hot key consumables?

I like dthe quests but the interesting ones are only like 30-40% of all of them. the rest started to feel tedious very fast.

One of the biggest problem for me was the world. It felt completely lifeless. NPC's standing still all the time, no chatter between them. London would feel as a ghost town if there weren't some players. Kingsmouth was only better b/c there were mobs to kill but still. I hope they didn't show us all.

I would have to place the bad stuff list on my list of bad stuff...seriously, so many things wrong with this game and those are what is being listed?

I guess I should have expected that after reading the opening...Funcom is also known for not taking those settings and USING THEM properly...its even stated on this very site with their discriptions of why Anarchy Online and Age of Conan are in their top 5 WORST MMO launches in history!

Talk about opposing stories...how can Funcom be class A- with taking those settings if they are making them the 2 worst launches in history?

Originally posted by QSatu

I like dthe quests but the interesting ones are only like 30-40% of all of them. the rest started to feel tedious very fast.

One of the biggest problem for me was the world. It felt completely lifeless. NPC's standing still all the time, no chatter between them. London would feel as a ghost town if there weren't some players. Kingsmouth was only better b/c there were mobs to kill but still. I hope they didn't show us all.

Like in almost every mmo....

All others that DO have the NPCs move about are just as lifeless. They DO NOTHING but move around fromhere to there.

Give me an example of a game wher the NPCs walked around for a purpose. Or did anything for a purpose!!

It's the nice new shiney argument around here though. But no one can give an example where an MMO has "lifelike NPCS".

I would love it too...but TOP BASHING other games for not doing so.

Originally posted by Kinchyle

Originally posted by QSatu

I like dthe quests but the interesting ones are only like 30-40% of all of them. the rest started to feel tedious very fast.

One of the biggest problem for me was the world. It felt completely lifeless. NPC's standing still all the time, no chatter between them. London would feel as a ghost town if there weren't some players. Kingsmouth was only better b/c there were mobs to kill but still. I hope they didn't show us all.

Like in almost every mmo....

All others that DO have the NPCs move about are just as lifeless. They DO NOTHING but move around fromhere to there.

Give me an example of a game wher the NPCs walked around for a purpose. Or did anything for a purpose!!

It's the nice new shiney argument around here though. But no one can give an example where an MMO has "lifelike NPCS".

 

I would love it too...but TOP BASHING other games for not doing so.

 

They don't have to ahve a purpose. the presentation is everything. Walking, talking, sounds, amient noices. Everything counts. After GW2 the world in tSW was dead.

btw. Want something else? try WoW. They use phasing to change the world at least a little bit to give it life. I really wish tSW used it too to see at least any change.

yet another story that ignores the in game crafting system.

Originally posted by QSatu

Originally posted by Kinchyle

Originally posted by QSatu

I like dthe quests but the interesting ones are only like 30-40% of all of them. the rest started to feel tedious very fast.

One of the biggest problem for me was the world. It felt completely lifeless. NPC's standing still all the time, no chatter between them. London would feel as a ghost town if there weren't some players. Kingsmouth was only better b/c there were mobs to kill but still. I hope they didn't show us all.

Like in almost every mmo....

All others that DO have the NPCs move about are just as lifeless. They DO NOTHING but move around fromhere to there.

Give me an example of a game wher the NPCs walked around for a purpose. Or did anything for a purpose!!

It's the nice new shiney argument around here though. But no one can give an example where an MMO has "lifelike NPCS".

 

I would love it too...but TOP BASHING other games for not doing so.

 

They don't have to ahve a purpose. the presentation is everything. Walking, talking, sounds, amient noices. Everything counts. After GW2 the world in tSW was dead.

Really? Seriously?

No thanks...after the first two days of randomly walkinn NPCs...it's the same as standing stil. If they have no purpose....

Originally posted by Kinchyle

Originally posted by QSatu

I like dthe quests but the interesting ones are only like 30-40% of all of them. the rest started to feel tedious very fast.

One of the biggest problem for me was the world. It felt completely lifeless. NPC's standing still all the time, no chatter between them. London would feel as a ghost town if there weren't some players. Kingsmouth was only better b/c there were mobs to kill but still. I hope they didn't show us all.

Like in almost every mmo....

All others that DO have the NPCs move about are just as lifeless. They DO NOTHING but move around fromhere to there.

Give me an example of a game wher the NPCs walked around for a purpose. Or did anything for a purpose!!

It's the nice new shiney argument around here though. But no one can give an example where an MMO has "lifelike NPCS".

 

I would love it too...but TOP BASHING other games for not doing so.

One of the things I liked of GW2 was that the cites (or at least the two I visited) really felt like cities, people were walking around, children running and playing and the ones that were stuck in place were either vendors standing next to a stall or people talking and gesticulating. I remember getting a simmilar feeling in the cities in WoW, even if it was just a few NPCs walking around without purpose really added a feeling of it being a living city. Granted, most MMOs I've played do follow the "people standing around static" formula for cities and outposts.

Originally posted by Kinchyle

 

Really? Seriously?

 

No thanks...after the first two days of randomly walkinn NPCs...it's the same as standing stil. If they have no purpose....

So instead you want everyone to be glued to the floor. To each their own I guess.

Originally posted by QSatu

Originally posted by Kinchyle

 

Really? Seriously?

 

No thanks...after the first two days of randomly walkinn NPCs...it's the same as standing stil. If they have no purpose....

So instead you want everyone to be glued to the floor. To each their own I guess.

It's not a huge factor to me. When they walk around doing fake things....it looks...fake