This is a game that grows on you. If you only play it a little and decides "wow, this blows donkey balls", you need to play more to really appreciate it. It's like fine wine, with it flaws and finesses :)

I completely agree with the review actually.  Any of you that are still saying combat is clunky aren't playing the game or haven't since beta.

I'm an old time gamer, I pretty much play everything or beta test it since EQ1 and this game is by far the best thing that's been released.  I LOVE IT!

It takes brains to play it.  That has never been said before.  If you want to finish the quests and not read the spoilers it can be difficult.

Again, I LOVE IT!

Graphics are by far some of the best ever released, they could incrrease their character customization options but that doesn't have much importance to me and they have it in the works.

Repetitive trashmobs?

Most time u dont even have to kill them, and doungens are completly free from trashmobs, so its actually pure boss runs.

Im fine with the 8.5, just kind of dissapointed of the gw2 players trying to rank down the game in every rating they can find, if its pictures or forums or just simple ratings like this.

Also they like to sit on the "character customization" which is like acceptable, im not sure what ppl are missing, you want your character beeing anabol monster or fat or whats your points in this negative fact.

Also gw2 and tsw are diffrent game types and does not stand as enemies in this market. So whats the point argueing about it.

Guys, just a reminder that the topic here is this TSW review and TSW. Not other games, not our reviews in general, not MMOs in general. Those posts are off topic and subject to removal.

TSW looks absolutely incredible on highest settings in 3D Vision 2. Plays great too. But numerous bugs and primitive combat are letdown for me. Still gonna sub second month, too excited about upcoming features

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

None of your scores make sense.

Aesthetics – 9.5??

 

How in the bloody hell did you find it "ok" to take what essentially boils down to "Graphics" and turn it into a major scoring point for TSW? Graphics =/= a game. This shouldn't be a scoring point!

 If you acutally have read this site they've always used a category scoring system like most review sites. Obviously graphics should be a scoring point if you keep bringing up animations it is considered part of the graphics. 

 

Game Play – 8.5??

This is a highly opinion based score area given the fact that people whom like WoW will like TSW's gameplay, but generally speaking people whom like DAOC, EQ, SWG, or even Age of Conan's combat system will dislike it immensely. You should put near the beginning of your article which game you mostly relate to for your scores. Obviously I don't agree at all with an "8.5" given TSW's horribly clunky & non-intuitive combat system. Not to mention the horrible animations..

1) Animations is not considered part of gameplay. Animations should be somewhat minimalistic in this game since its not high fantasy. Animations are a left over argument from beta where the game was using much of the same animations now that is no longer the case as they specificed they added many new animations before launch.  

2) Clucky UI is also part of graphics. I don't really see the issue with the ui I only have problems with the inventory screen size that I can manually resize.

3) Non-ituitive? I don't think people understand what this means anymore. Considering the combat system is new it will not be intuitive since you haven't been introduced to it unless you played something like magic the gathering. This is really more a sign of innovation.

4) I've played all those games. I love the combat system its refreshing easy to learn hard to master kind of thing.   

 

Value & Longevity – 8.0??

Your primary reason, as stated, for this scoring point was based on SWTOR's recent announcement about F2P and that since TSW already has a cash-shop it'll make a clean transition to F2P should subs prove to dip too low?!

Value & Longevity is a scoring point, in most reviews, that dictate replayability & end-game enjoyment. At the VERY LEAST it has nothing to do with the payment model associated with the game.

NONE OF THE POINTS YOU RAISED FOR SCORING MAKE ANY SENSE AS A PRIMARY REVIEWBASE

MMORPGs don't lend well to longevity because of the problems associated with the genre. The highest replayability is in games like Eve where new objectives are made more by the user than the acutal game itself.  If you want to complain about TSW's you'd have to complain about the whole genre. 

Next, we look at your overall Pros/Cons that have zero connection to any of your previous scoring points:

 

Pros

Deep skill system - Just a facade, not actually "deep" How? and lets use acutal examples then generalizations that offer nothing to comment on.   GREAT story - Agreed, but so did SWTOR SWTOR was lackluster in story because there were lots of holes, inconsistances, etc. As an example with the companion system you go on a quest to get your initial companion he is supposedly a unique individual entity that everyone else just happens to also have. The plot holes are enormous and there is no real reason for your character to do what he/shes doing.  There is some issues in story but not nearly as bad as the mess in SWTOR.    Meaningful dungeons - How exactly are they "meaningful", they have no impact at all on the world outside those instances?! In otherwords they're not just an excuse to fight bosses it is part of the storyline and it makes sense.   Tiered and unique questing - Same quest system used by WoW. Go to point A get quests 1 - 9, do quests, go to Point B for higher tiered/chained quests. Nothing unique here other than the occassional "gem" with a half-decent story behind it .obviously you either never played WoW or TSW or you're just bsing to bash the game. In wow you have one objective that is all that matters. So if Say something is part of the quest but not the acutal obective you never really got xp for it like the tier system does. Is it completely new? no but its not the same old system that has been an mmorpg staple.

Cons

Lack of initial character customization - Yup Ehh most games I played have a lack of character creation options at start SWTOR and Rift come to mind. I think the initial character creation is more than adquete.   Lackluster PvP - Yup More of a lack of direction in pvp. It needs more reason to acutally pvp./  Repetitive trash mobs - Yup   problem in all games because trash mobs are rampant in all mmorpgs. It was a bs con.

[mod edited - removed some spacing]
 

I pretty much agree with the review though I would have marked it down a notch for longevity.

I'm playing this game very slowly, really enjoying my time when I log in, I'm about 4-5 hrs played in to Egypt so far. This weekend I'm going to be going for the 30 mission award, I'm going to be repeating earlier content and revisiting familiar faces, faces I've already seen a few times. I don't mind repeating the occasional bit of content in this game, I think the characters are well realised, I've grown attached to Norma, Henry, Hayden Montag et al. In short I'm playing slow and getting a lot of mileage. I don't think the same is true of most mmmo players.

I'm expecting to see the usual decline that is to be expected post first month and even more the second month (natural decline and up-coming competition), BUT I think this game has the potential to grow a sizable niche community, monthly story updates and game play additions should be enough to keep people playing at a pace like me pretty content. It has the best characterisations and atmosphere I've seen to date, a lot of people are going to enjoy that even if you don't.

GW2 releases very soon, I've already bought the game, spent a little in the cash shop over the last BWE, I'll get that back to use at launch, it's not going to require any further financial commitment from me for quite a while. I can happily keep my TSW sub running and it will be the ideal contrast for me to GW2 (which is likely to be my main). Obviously that sub still has to be justified (I'm looking at you chat bug!).

For PvE there's a lot of positives for TSW, I'm enjoying it a lot thanks :)

Originally posted by Suzie_Ford

Originally posted by toddze

The real reviews of a game come from the players now and only the players. It is not just this site that has stopped giving real reviews of a game all game sites have.

Funny. The average score for TSW on Metacritic with over 600 USER/GAMER/PLAYER reviews is 8.4. Go figure. ;)

See for yourself: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-secret-world/user-reviews

 

 

Owned :P

Nice review. Agree with pro's and con's.

Hope they manage to improve the PVP over time.

Right now I don't miss it much, as I had no time to PVP yet (other than in the beta weekends). Too much fun with PVE'ing.

Still hanging around in Savage Coast. So much more to go through.

Good review.

I feel this review is pretty good, but I also feel its unfair to mark the game down because of bugs.  SWTOR was given a better score simply because there may have been less mission issues, but as a game TSW is worlds better.

A review should rate the game features and gameplay, etc. regardless of bugs.  Bugs will be fixed.  Unless you're going to review the game again after those bugs you marked it down for are fixed, don't rate it on that.

It's really unfair because bugs have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself.

I personally would rate it even higher than an 8.5, a 9 or 9.5 simple because the game is not only completely different than anything out there and Funcom should get major kudos for taking that risk, but because the immersion factor is just astounding.  Every document you find is an actually replicated document, the environments are incredible and not repetative, the NPCs talk and have banter between them, and of course, the mission stories and dialog are better than I've even seen in single player games.

Originally posted by MidBoss

Alot of people seem to be using the user score as some sort of vindication for the reviewer score.

I'd like to remind thoes people that 600-1000 is a poor sample size for an MMO.

What this tells me is that only people with a strong positive opinion of the game cared enough to vote. While most others found the game to be "meh".

Not offensive enough to spur the masses into a downvoting fest, but not good enough to pull in a large amount of positive votes.

 

 

 

600-1000 isn't a poor sample size for anything.  Most political polling doesn't go over 1500 and that is for 100 million voters.  Many state polls don't go over 1k and that is for millions of voters.  1k for polling purposes will get you within +/- 3%  95% of the time.  5% of the time something will have been off and give you the something outside of +/- 3%.  The real problem is that these are self selected reviews and not a random sample, so their representation of the mmo market cannot be known.

Originally posted by niceguy3978

600-1000 isn't a poor sample size for anything.  Most political polling doesn't go over 1500 and that is for 100 million voters.  Many state polls don't go over 1k and that is for millions of voters.  1k for polling purposes will get you within +/- 3%  95% of the time.  5% of the time something will have been off and give you the something outside of +/- 3%.  The real problem is that these are self selected reviews and not a random sample, so their representation of the mmo market cannot be known.

 

Yeah, but you've got to consider that its a sample size made up entirely of people motivated for one reason or another to rate the game.

For more popular games, people often feel the need to express disapproval, but when a game is less popular and drops off the mainstream radar, you get a higher percentage of votes in favor, because people who don't like it, forgot all about it, and don't care enough to vote it down.

I can't be the only to have noticed that this game hasn't exactly been flying off the digital shelves, right?

Originally posted by tkoreaper

Deep skill system - Just a facade, not actually "deep" Explain please... It's pretty deep to me, there are hundreds of abilities and combinations to choose from. It was to the point of being overwhelming for me in the beginning... If that's not deep then I would love to know what is.

 

Deep means intrications, mechanics between different skills & tiers. Not just a mixbag of separate spells.

Originally posted by vtravi

I love the game. One of the best MMo's I have played and I have played them all. The bugs are annoying and the crafting is usless so I think an 8.5 is right on.

I am not sure how people say there is not much content. I have played over 125 hours and I am not done with egypt yet. I have only finished 22% of the skill wheel. I guess if you look up hints online and rush through everything then it would go quick, but this is a different game. You are not supposed to just blow through the investigative missions. Several of them have taken me over 3 hours to complete. The most fun I have had in a MMO.

 

   Same thing with SWTOR , people did not read the quests, did not care about the story and wondered why they finished so fast

I certainly think this innovative game deserves 8.5.

I have been playing since day 1 and still love it!

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by tkoreaper

Deep skill system - Just a facade, not actually "deep" Explain please... It's pretty deep to me, there are hundreds of abilities and combinations to choose from. It was to the point of being overwhelming for me in the beginning... If that's not deep then I would love to know what is.

 

Deep means intrications, mechanics between different skills & tiers. Not just a mixbag of separate spells.

gonna copy past my post from official forums, when asked the same question.

Fire manifestation

200 base dmg 

every 2 seconds

5 meter area

 2 resources

Lightning manifestation

200 base dmg

every 1 second

5 meter area

2 resources

Take lightning. No brainer right? Wrong here is where the brain comes in.

Lightning 

10 second cool down

Chain attack

Fire

5 second cool down 

normal attack 

So take fire right? Well maybe. What if I added 7.5 dmg to chain attacks and a heal debuff? Easy take lightning then right? Well  do I really want to use 2 passives cards to have an extra uber lightning manifestation? It depends.

It depends on the map and it depends on the situation and your build concept. This is just 2 cards I'm talking about. There are 523 more that play just like these.

No other mmorpg gives you this level of depth, customozation, and freedom across the board except maybe EvE, and lets be honest we like RPing people more than ships.

Originally posted by Daedrick

*braindead drooling*

Will they ever learn? that game will be empty (read go free to play) in six months just like all the other MMOs that are so called ''almost perfect'' (read 8.5).

Misleading score, as always, one day, MMORPG.com will FINALLY learn and make their rating a minimum realistic.

Suzie ford answer this one and only question. I also invite you to share it to your fellow reviewer, here is the question; How come the majority of the game you (MMORPG crew) review so highly never flourish but instead fall, sink and dwelve into the ''free to play'' in a desesperate attempt at trying to gain back their lost player base?

They ''fail'' for a reason. You people are suposed to be professionnals about MMORPG and we should be looking here for guidance, instead, we get this.

Here you go Daedrick on your F2P model for TSW

http://www.shacknews.com/article/74704/the-secret-world-committed-to-subscriptions-for-now

Just wanted to point it out that 6 months is a little to soon for F2P as you stated for TSW. Just keep the facts straight here.