After reading the praise from critics and player base i decided to give it a go. I got the game for 20 buck and was very excited. I mean two quality B2P games and holiday season..what could go wrong right?

I have been playing it only for sometimes so my impression is from point of view of someone who is fairly new to the game. But the more i played the more i started to realise why this game went to B2P and  failed as a P2P MMO.

At first i thought that maybe  it is because of its complex gameplay and niche settings but i think problems are lot more deep rooted. And its 'niche' nature is just used to cover up the real issues I will go through these issues one by one which really spoiled the game experince for me.

1.) The 'End OF Days' Event.

What does this event rewards to its players?

The top 1000 players will receive a unique title, Hero of Ages, so their contribution to the world may be remembered for all time. 

The top 100 players will also receive the exclusive Hatchling pet, a young ak'ab flown straight from the abyss to your side! This may be your only chance to ever own one of these soulless chittering creatures!

Good compeition on paper but fails completely when put into practise. Thanks to slow reponse by the dev team, this event even though ending on 7th Jan has been exploited from day one. Now since i can not mention the exploit openly and many TSW players are already aware of it, it is sad state of affairs that it has been allowed to continue without any strict action from FC.

What is even more interesting is that any topic regarding this exploit of farming 'mayans' is immediately removed from forums which in beginning gave a false impression that dev team will crackdown on this exploit and those who are using this exploit. 

I as a new player though wasn't aware of it and when i questioned the tactics in general chat i was told to 'shove it' and 'mind my own business'. 

However,  once the final results come up for this event and you see list of top 100 players, it would be hard to take their win seriously. Not saying all 100players exploited but how can you really tell?

Moving on to next issue of this poorly thought out  event.

Random spawns of zombies much higher than your level. When i just started playing i entered kingsmouth and immediately got attacked by a zombie which was red to me. As expected i died quite quickly. I inquired about this in general chat and i was told that this zombie will continue to attack me till i kill it and pick up its remains. 

I asked for help in general several times but i got no help so decided to continue playing. I got jumped by this zombie several times in middle of fighting other mobs and i died many many times that day. I decided to take break in frustration and give it another go next day.

Next day after several hours i managed to find help of a high level player to kill it and pick up remains. The attacks by aggressive zombie stopped.

As i thought it was the end of it, i started getting zombie spawns right on top of me (non aggro) while fighting other mobs. And it happens so fast that before you reliase that you hit that non aggro zombie you are dead.

And all this in starter zone.where new players are just starting to learn the game.

But i kept it together (i am avery patient man) and continued to play. As i got half way through Kingsmouth i realised i can join Fusang. (how exciting!!)

2.)  Fusang PVP

I am an illuminatti player and had no idea that i joined  faction which owns Fusang in Group C  24 hours a day. Yes 24 hours constant farming of white marks for PVP gear. And how it is done?

Join Fusang (queue time is anywhere between 40 minutes to one hour), rush towards a facility, stand in there afk as you get your 3000 White Marks, leave fusang, convert them to Black Marks, rejoin queue..rinse and repeat.

On ocassion if you get 4 or 5 payers from Templars or Dragons zerg them with 15 players and camp their spawn point. This is the state of PVP in Group C. I have heared that same situation exists in Group A only difference is that Templars own Fusang 24 hours a day.

Because of this imbalance, Templars in Group A and illuminati in group C are geared to the teeth in 10.4 which leaves other factions in their groups with no fighting chance.

There is no buff for under dogs and at most you can get is 2 or 4 white marks in 3 minutes where as the over populated faction can farm upto 140 marks in 3 minutes.

3.) Error; 'Disconnected from community server' ;

Every 30 minutes to one hour you get kicked out of Fusang, raid groups and Market goes down. During this period all community functions are unavilable. This usually lasts for 10 minutes and you have to rejoin PVP queues and reform your raid groups just to fall apart again after an hour or so.

This has been happening since the day patch 1.5 was launched. So far the reasponse has been that 'devs are also human beings and they need off time in holidays'. So this will get fixed once dev team is back from holidays.

Fair enough. I mean if my MMO is a huge succes i would also go take long extended  holidays..what is there to worry about right?

4.) Character Customization

I know this must have been talked about many many times before. But since i am a new player i just can not get over the hideous faces that i get to choose while making my character. No other MMO has put me off so badly on character creation screen before.

Considering the 'modern day' settings of the game i find it really un settling that all players are blessed with perfect and chiseled physique.  There is no place for various body sizes in modern world and some magic pill has transformed eveyone into these models right out of an episode of Bay Watch but.... with very hedious faces. There is a plastic surgeon in New York but even that poor guy can not fix the faces which look like as if hit by a bus.

5.) Lag and game freezes.

Horrible lag, constant server disconnects and game freezes is a part of daily life in TSW now.

Regarding which i was told by other players that even though FC opened the doors to more players with B2P model they forgot to upgrade their servers which is causing major performance issues for the players. At first i though that maybe it is my internet connection. So i fired up all other MMOS that i could like GW2, SWTOR, STO, EQ2 etc.

All these MMOS ran without any problems and latency was normal. But as i got back into TSW, i started getting very high latency, game would just freeze randomly and disconnect from server along with all other players in my group making dungeon runs almost impossible.

Despite all these problems is there a fun game hidden in there somewhere? yes maybe  but as a new player i have come to the conclusion that in its current state regardless of cheap box price, i value my sanity a lot more.

The story, atmosphere, cut scenes, skill wheel all are very interesting and top notch and game can be fun when it works. Sadly it works for vey little in its current state.

I believe that the poor support by FC and delayed and slow fixes is the reason that caused it to be a failure as P2P MMO and not its complex game design or niche settings. And if FC wants it to be a long lasting success this time in my opinion they really really need to be more aggressive.

Despite all these problems is there a fun game hidden in there somewhere? yes maybe  but as a new player i have come to the conclusion that in its current state regardless of cheap box price, i value my sanity a lot more.

just like on their forums now, with more players comes more of the complaints that sunk the game in the first place. basically they don't have a really solid title. it has bright spots that pop up every so often and get covered up by the many bungles.

Originally posted by Rthuth434
just like on their forums now, with more players comes more of the complaints that sunk the game in the first place. basically they don't have a really solid title.

They have a soild title. They just don't have a solid and more aggressive team to back up their title. A good game is nothing without good support.

sigh...so fusang is still utterly broken....

I just got the game as well but haven't got the chance to drop in, won't be anytime soon either with XCOM taking my time.

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

Originally posted by Rthuth434
just like on their forums now, with more players comes more of the complaints that sunk the game in the first place. basically they don't have a really solid title.

They have a soild title. They just don't have a solid and more aggressive team to back up their title. A good game is nothing without good support.

yes, but the team and the foundation title are what make the MMO. can't have one without the other. they didn't have the crucial piece at full strength, and certainly don't have it now. 

pvp in fusang is a joke. I knew folks who logged in just to capture an area you got a 5 minute timer. So they would leave and go do something else come back in 5 minutes capture an area. Most folks just do that I hardly seen any real pvp everybody was capturing the area and avoiding each other.

As far as character creation went I spend about 1 hour creating mine and just finally decided to go with what I had despite the fact I really did not like it that much but it was the closest representation to myself that I could come up with.

OP you should have read up about the game first.  As many of your issues are not issues to others (I couldn't care less about "events" or PvP or pretty character customization).  I find the setting, interesting quests and freedom to make my own class much more important than a pretty character or seasonal events.  To bad you didn't read up about the game first or you would have realized that PvP was going to be REALLY difficult to balance with this type of skill wheel setup and likely that PvP would suffer.  Luckily you didn't spend much on it and can move on without much thought.

Your system issues definitely are not something I've experienced.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
2 I like. I like that its not steadily camping mobs and there's hard stuff you have to avoid. Also sounds like you picked up that cursed talisman from the cave, yeah that zombie will keep following you until you fry it on the church doors. But imo hard is good.

5 sounds like a pc or internet provider issue, game ran smooth for me on my mid range pc, never had a crash, the servers were really good no lag problems. You do need a better pc than for the likes of eq2 and wow, tsw is a much more technically advanced game. I'm suprised you had worse performance than swtor though, that runs terrible for me with more than 10 people on screen.

2 I agree with, 4 also to a degree, although you do get a lot of options in how you dress your character as you play.

I never said anything about hardware performance issue but i was talking about latency and server disconnects and freezes caused by high latency. I get constant FPS of 40 in game which is quite good.

If i was alone suffering from this problem i woudl call my internet provider asap  but when after 5 to 6 seconds of freeze suddenyl the general chat looks like this..

Player 1; LAGGGGGGG

Player 2; Omgaddd lagggggggg..

Player 3; Did everyone freeze? for f*** sake FC get your shit together..

Player 4 ; Arggghhh i died to lagg again......

You know you are not alone.

Also the zombie i am talking about is specificaly related to End Of Days event and not the one related to cursed talisman. it stops spawnig once you kill it and pick up it remains but problem is that it is red to new players.

I really felt that i was being trolled by FC when that red zombies killed me in 4 hits as soon as i got in Kingsmouth feeling all tough and  cocky with biceps flexing out of my sleevless top.

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

Originally posted by ShakyMo
 

Player 1; LAGGGGGGG

Player 2; Omgaddd lagggggggg..

Player 3; Did everyone freeze? for f*** sake FC get your shit together..

Player 4 ; Arggghhh i died to lagg again......

My major issue with the game is that the players lack any imagination when coming up with names. 

I've seen the exploit in action, but it doesn't look so much like an exploit as it does players who are willing to constantly do the same thing over and over and over and over again. Those players are always going to be at the top of the food chain. Sad, but true.

The random zombie spawn is tough, and can get you killed, but most people manage to get past that guy. I know I did. I had no idea what the deal was but I just plugged away at him with my shotgun until he died. He's going to be a pain for awhile if you hit him. I suggest that in the future, you just run away. The game isn't terribly forgiving if you pull extra mobs, especially at lower levels.

There's a reason that TSW isn't known for PvP. The game just doesn't have great PvP. I wouldn't expect this to change anytime soon either.

Don't know much about the community server error other than it pops up in chat and then goes away. I've seen it, and it sounds frustrating if you're in Fusang or raid groups. Since you just started, what are you doing in raid groups and Fusang? This shouldn't be affecting your game play over much. That doesn't mean they shouldn't fix it, asap, but I'm not sure how this is a huge issue with your game play as a new player.

The characters are pretty ugly. They did the whole thing where they tried to make things look real or something and it didn't work. It never works. I really wish developers would stop doing it. Just don't look at anyone's face and you should be fine. :-)

I've not had any trouble with game freezes. I have had some lag, mostly with the game saving or loading something from the HDD. I think with an SDD this would disappear. After awhile in game, this just goes away. I guess whatever needs to be saved or loaded gets saved or loaded.

Overall, my experience has been substantially different from yours. I have noticed things that are a bit wonky, but for the most part, they are background issues that I've hardly noticed while playing the game.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the abysmally long screen loading times. This is the single biggest wart I've had with the game. It shouldn't take this long to get into the game.

Originally posted by Mardukk

OP you should have read up about the game first.  As many of your issues are not issues to others (I couldn't care less about "events" or PvP or pretty character customization).  I find the setting, interesting quests and freedom to make my own class much more important than a pretty character or seasonal events.  To bad you didn't read up about the game first or you would have realized that PvP was going to be REALLY difficult to balance with this type of skill wheel setup and likely that PvP would suffer.  Luckily you didn't spend much on it and can move on without much thought.

Your system issues definitely are not something I've experienced.

So you don't care about the exploits and you don't care about PVP either. Fair enough. But i don't know what reading up on game means? i read on it and i still stand by the things i said i enjoyed like atmosphere, settings, skill wheel etc

But that doesn't  change the reality that TSW has some very glaring issues which can not be over looked especially by  a new player, you know the kind of player they want to attract with new B2P model?

You are telling me that it is really difficult to balance PVP in TSW when a simple fix like under dog buff which gives decent amount of white marks or black marks can encourage more players to join the game even though on losing side?  

I am not even goign to touch on the issue of glance tanks and clear the path spammers in PVP and what should be done about it. I am simply talkign about giving more incentives to under dog faction.

1. first part I can't say much since I'm not interested in the top100 race. Second part, you're somewhat right, the spawning Servants could be a pain in the *** especially for a newcomer. It's maybe not a good move to give them this first impression on the game. Luckily it's only a few more days. (and for higher players the event is fun I think)

2. I never go to Fusang, so I skip this one :)

3. Agree, it annoys me as well... hopefully they will fix this issue soon

4. Agree partially, it's pretty much limited, and then you're directed to the plastic surgeon. Not a nice move... but on the other hand I could make my characters to my liking (maybe I was just lucky)

5. I agree with ShakyMo, I never had any crashes, and only a very few lag (very few I mean probably less than 10 times since I play altogether). Probably some ISP issue. LotRO also has this, a big part of the playerbase notice nothing, and a few players have constant lag... It's very hard to backtrack the source of the problem, I can only wish the best for you with the lag issue.

Beyond all those, as you said too "The story, atmosphere, cut scenes, skill wheel all are very interesting and top notch and game can be fun when it works." You should check back after the event is over, at least the first issue will be solved by then :)

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

Originally posted by ShakyMo
2 I like. I like that its not steadily camping mobs and there's hard stuff you have to avoid. Also sounds like you picked up that cursed talisman from the cave, yeah that zombie will keep following you until you fry it on the church doors. But imo hard is good.

5 sounds like a pc or internet provider issue, game ran smooth for me on my mid range pc, never had a crash, the servers were really good no lag problems. You do need a better pc than for the likes of eq2 and wow, tsw is a much more technically advanced game. I'm suprised you had worse performance than swtor though, that runs terrible for me with more than 10 people on screen.

2 I agree with, 4 also to a degree, although you do get a lot of options in how you dress your character as you play.

I never said anything about hardware performance issue but i was talking about latency and server disconnects and freezes caused by high latency. I get constant FPS of 40 in game which is quite good.

If i was alone suffering from this problem i woudl call my internet provider asap  but when after 5 to 6 seconds of freeze suddenyl the general chat looks like this..

Player 1; LAGGGGGGG

Player 2; Omgaddd lagggggggg..

Player 3; Did everyone freeze? for f*** sake FC get your shit together..

Player 4 ; Arggghhh i died to lagg again......

You know you are not alone.

Also the zombie i am talking about is specificaly related to End Of Days event and not the one related to cursed talisman. it stops spawnig once you kill it and pick up it remains but problem is that it is red to new players.

I really felt that i was being trolled by FC when that red zombies killed me in 4 hits as soon as i got in Kingsmouth feeling all tough and  cocky with biceps flexing out of my sleevless top.

So becuase YOU get lag and lots of DC's that means we ALL get them, is that correct?

I have suffered 2 disconnects in the months of playing TSW, lag has been non existant, I'm not denying ppl suffer from Disconnects or lag but members from my multi gaming guild complain about the exact same issues in WoW which this week suffered a 12hr issue that prevented nearly all of the EU from entering the game, and there was some pretty pissed off ppl I can tell you.

As for exploits well you gotta be some kind of idiot to think a forum won't delete any thread that mentions them, wether to explain how they work or that they exist, your advertising the fact there is an exploit out there to those that are eager to abuse the game, you report the game in-game via the ticket system if you come across a problem, you don't go and tell the whole world on the open forums.

Originally posted by Mardukk

OP you should have read up about the game first.  As many of your issues are not issues to others (I couldn't care less about "events" or PvP or pretty character customization).  I find the setting, interesting quests and freedom to make my own class much more important than a pretty character or seasonal events.  To bad you didn't read up about the game first or you would have realized that PvP was going to be REALLY difficult to balance with this type of skill wheel setup and likely that PvP would suffer.  Luckily you didn't spend much on it and can move on without much thought.

Your system issues definitely are not something I've experienced.

yeah he should have read more about the game to see its one you like.  ooooook lol.  or did you mean read to see funcom failed to add and fix pvp?  or both lol.  and of course because mardukk claims no performance issues experienced then the game has none...heh