The Secret World's site has been updated with a new developer blog detailing big changes coming with the arrival of Issue 4: Big Trouble in the Big Apple. Penned by Rasmus Harr, Senior PvP Designer, the blog is packed with information about how Funcom will alter PvP in several ways including overhauling rewards and boosting the underdog.

When a society has not gained a significant amount of rewards in Fusang for a while, the Council of Venice steps in to support it by unlocking a new PvP mission called The Underdogs. If your society manages to complete it, it gets a very powerful Custodian on its side. This Custodian patrols around Fusang, and helps fight enemy players and NPCs, and has a heal aura around it that benefits players on its side.

Read more on The Secret World's site.

I did a PvP run on TestLive with the devs on Friday and it was a blast.

Originally posted by Dahkot72
Agree with the other posters , and while this wasn't my only problem with Fusang ( it's still entirely too much a pve circle with some pvp mixed in ) , how do "professional" developers not have something like this in initially ?
This was easily something that was known to be a problem even pre launch and pointed out multiple times yet months later something finally implemented about it.
I just don't get how devs miss such glaring emblems.

I wouldn't be so harsh. Everyone is a genious when spouting nonsense on the forums but in reality if you were the one in charge you would probably have screwed something up as well. Everything is obvious when it has already happened....

Originally posted by Dahkot72
Problems not emblems , and its not just Funcom either , it's almost every mmorpg dev nowadays that has major issues and obvious ones pointed out pre launch that are ignored until its too late.

It's called limited resources.  Any project manager will tell management they get to pick two of three things: scope, money or time -- you never get all three.  The ones that gets picked most often are money and time.

Originally posted by Dahkot72
No Kuppa - that specific problem of Fusang WAS pointed out many times in closed and open beta - didn't take a genius to foresee it
They should have had this in at launch.

That's nice.  They addressed the issues and didn't ignore the feedback.  Again, resources and time; we're living in the real business world here. 

Originally posted by Dahkot72
Again , this problem should have been evident at the whiteboard session that thought of Fusang.
Easy to see should have been on from beginning. No fanboy defender of funcoms track record of launching very incomplete can say this was something they shouldn't have known.
They shouldn't have written line one code for Fusang without having this to start with.
And it's just one example of their rushed half assed effort ruining a possibly very good game.
Their failed sales by their own admission numbers wise should be an example of how rushing and launching incomplete will always fail.
So they either are imcompetent devs if they truly didn't see this issue from day one of thinking of Fusang , or a company that cannot learn from many previous market examples of a rushed launch leads to ultimate failure.
Either way shows why Funcom is circling the drain in financial terms.

All I'll say is that hindsight is 20-20 and that it's awfully easy to criticize as an armchair developer.

It's a good step in the right direction. My biggest issue was that the types of battleground maps TSW has, enforces one type of play which limits what type of builds that are viable.

This a issue that is unique to TSW more so than other games due to the millions of build combonations availible through the Ability Wheel. I've never been a "give us more maps" type of guy, but TSW screams for more dynamic playfields. 

At the pace Funcom is turning out content, I have no doubts that my concerns will be addressed. 

side note - I'd love to see a player driven battleground creator, since It doesn't look like I will be getting my PvP server ;)

So, carping and woulda-coulda-shoulda comments aside, some discussion on how PVP in 1.4 is playing out now on Testlive:

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=60920

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=61147

Originally posted by Ortwig

So, carping and would-coulda-shoulda comments aside, some discussion on how PVP in 1.4 is playing out now on Testlive:

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=60920

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=61147

 

great feedback.

To those whining on how this should have been implemented earlier - that was not exactly the priority. 

They did listen to people and they have been patching the game and changing stuff with every update, so its only normal that they first got game stable, then fixed out the most glaring bugs in already existing content, added mroe content and then focused on revamping on what did not work in the original content. They still listened. 

They were very straight up before launch that TSW is a PvE themepark game with PvP elements. However, they may have found that the PvP players are significant enough in the player base to give them some love.