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Originally posted by ChicagoCub

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Originally posted by MindTrigger

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Originally posted by ChicagoCub

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Originally posted by Thorbrand I think they made the best MMO in 10yrs but they didn't give us enough content. Once you finish the story and missions there is nothing to do but farm gear (Gear you don't need for any reason.) They should have launched with much more content than they did, it was great up to when it ended and they had more than most MMOs today for content. Took me 2wks longer than others to finish the game. I am sad that this happened but it is the nature of the beast.

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I agree and I find it just mind boggling that designers of such games as SWTOR, TSW, and many others set out to make a game similar to WoW that can compete with WoW or at the very least attempt to duplicate some of WoW's success but leave out the final and most important factor, end-game content.  It's like trying to compete with Starbucks and designing a great shop with great customer service and great prices but no coffee.  It has to be intentional, SWTOR went so far as to try and make it interesting to replay the whole game over again, maybe even several times, rather than provide it.  I just don't get it.  Along with PvP I would say the lack of end-game content is the #1 reason people leave/quit games.

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Depends on what you mean by end-game.  Blizzard's own stats show that the vast majority of players don't care for raiding.  My own experience in recent games shows that a lot of people are even put off by mid-grade 5 man dungeons.

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People formed vast intricate guild networks, some of which will survive even after the game dies.  They developed websites, third-party software, and even TV commercials based solely on obtaining that next sword, axe, helmet whatever from raiding.  People stayed and paid monthly fees in order to get happily jog along the treadmill of getting an item so you can get in a group to get that next item.   I can understand if people got tired of the way WoW did it, just re-invent it.  They have focused on re-inventing the leveling system, the skill system, the pvp system, and nearly every other aspect but just throw out the raiding system?  Doesn't make sense to me.  Not when people keep asking for it.

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It's funny you say this. I have been playing Rift Recently and I do enjoy it. In fact, I intend to purchase the Expansion. I've also purchased GW2 and will get my money's worth ther as well.

Al that aside, In WoW and Rift, I've been around late in a game's late releases in a given version. (Rift being 1.9) and with Raiding as big as it is, and with the ability to aquire raid level gear even without raiding....(No the grind wasn't all that bad) You still see the player base get to a point where ALL content outside the raid is a joke.

We now run 5 man Expert dungeons in as little as 15 minutes.

If I go to Shimersand, IPP or Stillmoor, all level cap zones, I feel like I entered a zone that was 10 levels below me.

It means that raiding has made any content outside raids obsolete for anything other than for farming purposes.

Originally posted by Hurvart
I think people dislike the game because of Funcoms reputation. Even if they know very few facts about this game they believe Funcom will eventually do something terrible that will hurt and ripoff the players...

I think people have to be kidding themselves if they think they can release a game with WoWs amount of content. it has 4 bloody expansions now. Also now that half the world has gotten used to the format of a themepark MMO picking up and playing has never been easier. i think people need to get off this whole content thing, a game launching with minimal content and leaving it at that (SWTOR) is bad. A game launching with all the content they have and then monthly updating the content they make to try and grow the game (TSW), Good.

you cant argue support on TSW. i have put in tickets and had them answered within an hour. any other game you will see a reply the following day.

Also as for the World PVP. it doesnt fit the lore, sorry to tell you this. In the lore the 3 societies noticed the world was going to shit. so they allied to fight back the coming darkness. we aren't talking about moronic Orcs and Humans who figure their army alone can stem the tide. We are talking about groups who put trade into intelligence, Espionage and Fact-Finding. they know that they cannot stop what is coming alone, so why the hell would they shoot at eachother while trying to save the world. It doesn't make sence, The PvP that is in the game i believe is either allowed by the council of venice or happening under their noses. but simply put World PvP in this case is as lore unfriendly as it can get.  

      Here's the problems I had with TSW.....Mind you I only saw it in beta but hey thats often the only shot you get at a game and they have to get it right.

1. Wayyyyy too many cutscenes.....It felt like I was watching a movie instead of playing a game

2. THe opening cities were awful....Everything was pretty much static and they had no real purpose...WHen I think of cities like NY and London I think big time...THese were not big time at all.

3. Combat....Never felt right....My starting weapon of choice was a shotgun....WHen we fought the zombies in groups of 4 they would spread out...Often I was hitting the ones standing at a 90 degree angle to the side...It just felt fake and artificial...Some of hte worst combat I ahve ever seen.

4. Animations...Alot of you are only zeroing in on our character animations...What bothered me more was the animations of the NPCs and monsters......The way mobs died jsut looked stupid...Half the time it didnt even look like I was hitting them and then it looked more like they fainted than died....

5. Too story driven....TSW simply felt like a single player game that when you finished the main story the game was over...Yeah there were other things to do but really most of them were jsut time wasters (like filling out the wheel)

6. PVP - Here we are hearing about these 3 factions for 2 years before the game even launches, then when we see it the factions feel identical...The clothing is the same and the characters look the same.....Add in lame PVP and you get a big turn off.

      I jsut felt that TSW was going to be alot better...Pretty much everything in the game fell short of my expectations...I have no problem with Funcom as I am still playing Anarchy Online ot this day.....Like others have said, if you're going to have the balls to charge a box price, monthly sub, and a cash shop it had better be a great game...TSW was far from a great game....In fact most of us felt it was a f2p from the get go.

Sorry but Funcom and TSW got exactly what it deserved. People touted Ragnar Tornquist as some kind of savior. He would make an incredible storydriven game. Well sure he did, except he forgot that he was supposed to make an MMO. If you are going to charge a sub than make damn well sure you have something that will make people stay. This is where they not just failed. They failed to even conceive one single feature for people to really stick around. Not counting the blind fanboys. 

Content wise it is severely lacking. The only reason that makes it seem longer than it really is is simply due to the limited number of quests you can have. You constantly have to back track to the same area to pick up a new quest. 

Than to me it's also the little things that they didn't get right. Cities are lifeless. Lack of customizing. The lack of world coherency. I never felt like I was playing in a world. Still don't, though I rarely play my girlfriends account.

Making the content repeatable only helps a little in keeping people subbed. In the long run it needs something that will make people want to play and I'm not talking about dungeons and raids.

First thing I did when getting out of the tutorial area in TSW was click on some random NPC, and he told me something. Just a line about something I can't remember.

Then I clicked on him again and he told me something else. I clicked on him before he was finished speaking and he began to tell me something else, but was also continuing to tell me what he just said before. Two voices at once.  I click on the NPC again, and again, and then again, and soon enough I have several voices all talking at once as separate audio files being played. When I began to hammer down the mouse button on the NPC, I got enough noise to emulate a party in a crowded room full of voices. I thought: no one noticed this? No one on QA? No dev thought about this as a basic core sound principle when designing voice in a game?

The linked article talks about Funcom being masters of their trade with voice acting and writing. I don't agree with that.  I feel the writing is targeted for young teens even if it is "dark", the acting is quite poor (though GW2 is still the king of worst voice acting and crap writing in an MMO), and feel it's easy to fall into the trap of giving something a better score when all you've got is donkey dung quality games being produced left and right. 

Then Animations have much improved since when many people experienced them in Beta but you can't blame peopel for judging the game on what they experienced.However when I tried TSW again int he free weekend there was still no flow between animation and sitll no feeling of weight to any of the attacks IMO.

The Animations in GW2 have similarities  but IMO opinion GW2's animaitons has good flow between them and you feel like your hitting stuff.But others are free to fell differently.Still the animations didn't bug me much in TSW and were only a minor contributing factor for em passing on TSW for now.

As to the complaint that people aren't buying TSW because of Funcoms past failures wel...sure that is probably true but it's also true of any company.You reap what you sew and they deserve any consequences of past decisions....AS WE ALL DO.

Current TSW subscriber here.  I really enjoy the atmosphere, theme, and story of the game.  But is that enough?  It's already losing its luster for me.  Investigation and subterfuge missions are a cool and refreshing change.  However, two things have always bugged me.

1. Combat-  Like many others, I have always felt like it's the weakest link in TSW.  The fact that it's all focused around builders and finishers makes every spec play exactly the same.  It kind of defeats the purpose of a skill-based system imo if it lacks diversity.  I would have preferred a diverse class system with various ways to play.  At this point, combat has me bored to tears.

2. Game World-  The game world feels very small and narrow.  It's a shame because the environments they do have are pretty awesome.  I just wish they would have expanded on it.  When I'm in London, NY, or Seoul I don't feel like I'm in a major city at all. 

The animations are choppy and strange even compared to Age of Conan's (Which still has some of the best melee animations in all of the titles)

I like the game but not for it's animations.

The female run is okay, most casting is alright - the jump is really bad, dodge animations are "OK."

TLDR

They should've just reused Age of Conan's pc models and animation sets.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 Yet, I don't hear anyone complaining about GW2 animations.  I have seen lots of complaints about the Norn characters to the point that some people flat out refuse to play them.

What?

I think that counts as complaining about the animations.  It's a fair complaint too.

Originally posted by BadSpock

These days, you get ONE shot at a MMO launch - one.

Back in the day people were a lot more forgiving of polish issues AND everything took a lot longer so what content/systems they did fit in for launch lasted a lot longer.

Now?

If you can't max in a weekend of power gaming it's too slow.

The content locusts that hop from game to game burning up their free month for a box price and quitting? Yeah they aren't going anywhere. You have to expect you are going to only retain 30% after the first month, so you have to make that first month AMAZING so that 30% is out of the largest pool of launch players as possible.

TSW just didn't grab enough players at launch - it didn't sell enough copies - so 30% of not enough is REALLY not enough.

As others have said, if you are going to charge box $ and a monthly fee AND have a cosmetic/convenience cash shop, you better have one AMAZING game.

"Good enough" and "Better than people think" simply will. not. cut it.

Too much competition, too many choices to settle on "good enough."

Yeah pretty much agree with the one shot mantra. My main gripe with the game during the closed beta, open beta, and the free weekend post release was the content. I loved the lore and the setting as well as the sometimes heavy-handed voice overs, but I had a gut feeling that the content (PVE) was going to be very light. And in fact I'm glad I listened to my gut feeling. Seems folks can clear all or most of the PVE content within a week or two.

Too much competition and the typical white knight stance of "good enough" or "better than what people think" will definitely not cut it... at all in the long run. Content was my #1 gripe with the animations/combat being my 3rd. My 2nd overall gripe was the character creator.

After playing Blade & Soul Online... and currently playing ArcheAge... there is no excuse... there is no reason... whatsoever as to why they came out with such a simplistic character creator that could of easily have been released 10 years ago. I don't want to hear it... zero excuse when you have games like these already being released with tons of options.

I'll just wait till it goes F2P to enjoy the story, probably just do one full run.

TSW is a good game in many ways, but their timing is really bad. They release 2 months or so before GW2 that's pretty heavy competition right there. But they wanted to be niché and they got it. TSW wasn't very interesting after 3 weeks or so, the main story was good but I didn't want to grind gear and the PvP was probably the worst I've ever played.

Truth be told TSW would be a better single player game, considering the story was great and the characters were interesting.

Originally posted by Fraugnutz
I really dont understand the objection to the sub+cash shop model when the shop is purely for vanity and there is no reason that any player HAS to use it. It offers zero advantages to those players that do choose to use it. So who cares? Its no sweat off my sack if someone wants to drop some $$$ on a new beanie or a leather coat for their toon. Whats the issue...? WoW has a cash shop more or less that offers purely cosmetic items to players, why isnt that considered a strike against it, when for so many people its a deal breaker when it comes to TSW.

Because people are already paying a sub, why the hell do they gotta shell out more cash for some vanity items?  This is pure greed and a slap in the face to their customers imo.  I feel that if one is paying a sub then there should be rewards.  DDO gives their VIP sub customers a monthly cash shop currenncy allowance.

I don't agree with WoW's cash shop either and years ago told friends that when they stopped giving pets away for anniverseries and gave some crappy achivement title that is was a slap in the face.  But WoW's is somewhat modest I guess.  A few pets and mount choices.  Wouldn't really call it a cash shop to be honest.

Originally posted by Fraugnutz
I really dont understand the objection to the sub+cash shop model when the shop is purely for vanity and there is no reason that any player HAS to use it. It offers zero advantages to those players that do choose to use it. So who cares? Its no sweat off my sack if someone wants to drop some $$$ on a new beanie or a leather coat for their toon. Whats the issue...? WoW has a cash shop more or less that offers purely cosmetic items to players, why isnt that considered a strike against it, when for so many people its a deal breaker when it comes to TSW.

1) Buy the game

2) Pay for the game

3) Cash shop in game

All 3 is greedy.

Any two is ok (as long as not P2W by MY definitions)

Originally posted by Wolvards

Originally posted by Fraugnutz
I really dont understand the objection to the sub+cash shop model when the shop is purely for vanity and there is no reason that any player HAS to use it. It offers zero advantages to those players that do choose to use it. So who cares? Its no sweat off my sack if someone wants to drop some $$$ on a new beanie or a leather coat for their toon. Whats the issue...? WoW has a cash shop more or less that offers purely cosmetic items to players, why isnt that considered a strike against it, when for so many people its a deal breaker when it comes to TSW.

1) Buy the game

2) Pay for the game

3) Cash shop in game

All 3 is greedy.

Any two is ok (as long as not P2W by MY definitions)

 

The only purpose of the cash shop is.. to make things for the cash shop.  All of the money made is to support additional clothing for those people.  It has absolutely nothing, at all, to do with the game.  At all. Period.  Money made in cash shop = money to make more items for cash shop.  If nobody buys cash shop items, no cash shop items get made. It's completely self sustained.

It has the added benefit of clothing that was made FOR the cash store eventually coming into the game, in addition to ALL the other clothing ALREADY coming into the game as part of the regular updates (and there has already been additional clothing into the game just in the first 2 patches that aren't in the cash shop).

I've seen games triple dip but the clothing store in TSW isn't one of them (by MY definition).

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 Yet, I don't hear anyone complaining about GW2 animations.  I have seen lots of complaints about the Norn characters to the point that some people flat out refuse to play them.

What?

I think that counts as complaining about the animations.  It's a fair complaint too.

Well, they don't know it's the animations they are complaining about.  A lot of them can't put their finger on it.  They say their character is "slow" and "weird".. heh.

TSW and Funcom deserve what they EARN.

Its the gaming community and those who pay that DESERVE better.

Originally posted by Dakirn

Originally posted by Wolvards

Originally posted by Fraugnutz
I really dont understand the objection to the sub+cash shop model when the shop is purely for vanity and there is no reason that any player HAS to use it. It offers zero advantages to those players that do choose to use it. So who cares? Its no sweat off my sack if someone wants to drop some $$$ on a new beanie or a leather coat for their toon. Whats the issue...? WoW has a cash shop more or less that offers purely cosmetic items to players, why isnt that considered a strike against it, when for so many people its a deal breaker when it comes to TSW.

1) Buy the game

2) Pay for the game

3) Cash shop in game

All 3 is greedy.

Any two is ok (as long as not P2W by MY definitions)

 

The only purpose of the cash shop is.. to make things for the cash shop.  All of the money made is to support additional clothing for those people.  It has absolutely nothing, at all, to do with the game.  At all. Period.  Money made in cash shop = money to make more items for cash shop.  If nobody buys cash shop items, no cash shop items get made. It's completely self sustained.

 

It has the added benefit of clothing that was made FOR the cash store eventually coming into the game, in addition to ALL the other clothing ALREADY coming into the game as part of the regular updates (and there has already been additional clothing into the game just in the first 2 patches that aren't in the cash shop).

 

I've seen games triple dip but the clothing store in TSW isn't one of them (by MY definition).

I don't care really about the cash shop but in TSW clothing is a HUGE part of the game. I don't generally like a sub game having a shop that has items I can't get in the game by some other means though, but guess it's becoming the norm nowadays

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 Yet, I don't hear anyone complaining about GW2 animations.  I have seen lots of complaints about the Norn characters to the point that some people flat out refuse to play them.

What?

I think that counts as complaining about the animations.  It's a fair complaint too.

Well, they don't know it's the animations they are complaining about.  A lot of them can't put their finger on it.  They say their character is "slow" and "weird".. heh.

it's this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley