With yesterday's huge announcement about The Secret World going "buy to play", we decided to take a walk down the past few months of the game's life to see just how much has changed since launch. You might just be surprised. Keep reading and then let us know what you think in the comments.

With news about The Secret World’s transition to a Buy-to-Play model, I thought it might be interesting to look at all the game’s added or changed since it launched. TSW is one of MMORPG.com’s most highly rated games, and yet I always found it strange how it didn’t quite reach mass acceptance. For sure, it has some foreign ideas and a setting that players don’t quite jive with (if it had involved swords and shields, would TSW have sold better?).  But man, I still can’t quite grasp why more folks didn’t give the title a try.  Despite (for me), lackluster combat, The Secret World’s more solo-oriented adventure through the zones and group-oriented dungeons are some of the best in recent memory.  In any case, now that TSW has gone “buy to play”, I thought I’d remind myself about all of the great changes since the game launched last summer.

Read more of Bill Murphy's The Secret World: So Far.

I picked it up for £15 yesterday and have had a quick play today, suffers from the same problems as Age of Conan in that the engine is terribly optimised and the only way to get decent framerates is to turn all of the eye candy down.  I have a 3960X and a GeForce 680 and still can't play AoC in it's full DX10 glory, the engine is that bad!  It's carried over to TSW unfortunately.

Also, apparently there is a problem with the framerates on Windows 8, and Funcom conveniently  "aren't supporting" Windows 8.  Considering AoC still runs like a dog after all of these years I don't hold up much hope of resolution, it;s just a dog of an engine.

Nice summary, it's good that I have only send one link to buddies if I want to promote the game now with the b2p.

"TSW is one of MMORPG.com’s most highly rated games, and yet I always found it strange how it didn’t quite reach mass acceptance." Simply it's not aiming for the masses, Ragnar always had a fanbase 'only' average in numbers but are really devoted :)

Originally posted by kosac
windows 8 problems? where?

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=60719

the problem is only in DX11, which I know sucks but in DX9 it still looks beautiful and better than many MMO's

So just run it in DX9 until or if they optimize the DX11 mode 

I have an I7 with a 680GTX and can run the game maxed with no problems at 50-60fps (adaptive V-scync on or it would be higher), same goes for AOC. I'm not sure why you're having an issue with nearly the same setup. I actually think the game runs pretty well considering the graphics.

for me this is the only MMO I can say about "I love it".

Feeling a little downgraded as a lifetimer though since the B2P change but I heard they think about more rewards for their early supporters.

Absolutely happy to play an MMO which is not about swords, archery and other medieval stuff.

Graphically, this is most tasty with a good graphics card and tesselation on in DX11.

Don't know of any other MMO with is technically so much advanced.

what the first poster is rambling about is a mystery, I only have gtx 580 and get 60 frames with everything on max.

the engine is most amazing and smooth for me.

Originally posted by FromHell

for me this is the only MMO I can say about "I love it".

Feeling a little downgraded as a lifetimer though since the B2P change but I heard they think about more rewards for their early supporters.

Absolutely happy to play an MMO which is not about swords, archery and other medieval stuff.

 

Graphically, this is most tasty with a good graphics card and tesselation on in DX11.

Don't know of any other MMO with is technically so much advanced.

 

what the first poster is rambling about is a mystery, I only have gtx 580 and get 60 frames with everything on max.

the engine is most amazing and smooth for me.

do you run on windows 8?

I had no problem either in dx11 until I upgraded to windows 8

I bought it last night and left the download running.  The reason I never tried the game in the first place is the subscription.  I'm not and don't have plans to do those for the forseeable future.  It's not just this game, but any game.

I find it odd that you say the combat needs polish or improvement because the fans on this site have touted the skill wheel, combat and builds as a deep and engaging system.  I guess I'll get to make up my own mind tonight, but it just struck me as odd.

Hopefully the content updates will allow me to buy the kind of stuff I like.  I enjoy solo, small group, and dungeon content.  I don't like raid content really at all so I'm hoping that will be packaged separately.  I want to support the content I like not subsidize someone elses content preferences.

Overall, I'm pretty stoked about this and the $30 price tag, which included a couple starter goodies, is a pretty decent deal in my opinion.  I'm also excited about having a different setting for my online gaming.  I have GW2, EQ2, and LotRO for high fantasy.  I have City of Steam for my steampunk, and STO for sci-fi.  Now I have TSW for that alternate reality tinged with the horrors of some beloved stories.

Originally posted by FromHell

for me this is the only MMO I can say about "I love it".

Feeling a little downgraded as a lifetimer though since the B2P change but I heard they think about more rewards for their early supporters.

Absolutely happy to play an MMO which is not about swords, archery and other medieval stuff.

 

Graphically, this is most tasty with a good graphics card and tesselation on in DX11.

Don't know of any other MMO with is technically so much advanced.

 

what the first poster is rambling about is a mystery, I only have gtx 580 and get 60 frames with everything on max.

the engine is most amazing and smooth for me.

I'm definitely rooting for ya, FromHell, and other Lifetimers to see more bang for their lifetimer bucks.

I'm with kevjards (and a bit with FromHell), gtx560ti here, fluent gameplay in 1920x1200. True, on win7 and not on 8.

And with AoC I also never had any problems, and it ran perfectly even on my 9800gt 3 years ago...

Originally posted by spawn12345

Originally posted by FromHell

for me this is the only MMO I can say about "I love it".

Feeling a little downgraded as a lifetimer though since the B2P change but I heard they think about more rewards for their early supporters.

Absolutely happy to play an MMO which is not about swords, archery and other medieval stuff.

 

Graphically, this is most tasty with a good graphics card and tesselation on in DX11.

Don't know of any other MMO with is technically so much advanced.

 

what the first poster is rambling about is a mystery, I only have gtx 580 and get 60 frames with everything on max.

the engine is most amazing and smooth for me.

 

do you run on windows 8?

I had no problem either in dx11 until I upgraded to windows 8

 

Just tried with DX9 on Windows 8 - it's fine, doesn't look much worse either since I can use ultra preset with FXAA HQ in DX9 mode.  Just a co-incidence I guess that AoC DX10 was often more trouble than it was worth and I try TSW on Windows 8 and find the same thing with DX11 :/

For a themepark, this is probably one of the best ones out there, and was certainly my pick for 2012.  This is coming from a guy who really enjoyed Guild Wars 1 and had high hopes for GW2 to be a really good themepark.  At the end of the day, TSW is much, much more interesting and fun for me.

I"m actually back playing it now unless I can get into the DF:UW beta, which seems fairly unlikely.

If anyone is wondering, Arcadia seems to be the most populated server, which players and Funcom say "doesn't matter" except for PvP due to their single-server / multiple dimension technology.  However, if you are on a low-pop dimension you won't see many other players running around unless you get invited to a different dimension via grouping.  I prefer to start off in a more populated dimension when I log in.

Windows 7 is the way to go for gamers, 8 is a serious mistep by microsoft, I play on what I would class as an average gaming rig 8gb intel 2500k windows 7 nvidia 470  and pretty smooth.

Love this game:)

I run a 480 and a bloomfield 2.4. i can run AOC max and tsw pretty much max.

Slagging off its optimization because you cant put a rig together is unfair.