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Originally posted by Doogiehowser

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Originally posted by Mulli

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Fair point and my honest answer is; I'd love it if that were the case, but the number of opinion pieces stated as fact on these forums is beyond the pale. It never hurts to emphasise that one is being purely subjective and in no way stating opinion as hard fact. Your link is the perfect example (if you take the original "review" in this context).

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Well my apologies that i am not too faimlar with the status quo of these forums when it comes to giving a review or first impression.  Because  by default such articles are suppossed to be a personal opinion unless it claims to speak on behalf of entire playerbase.

So nope no where i stated  that 'game is a mess' as a fact but you and others are free to interpret title in any manner you like. It is a free world after all.

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Originally posted by Mulli

Originally posted by kadepsyson

Originally posted by Mulli

Originally posted by kadepsyson

-snip-

so the OF A NEW PLAYER bit wasnt enough to specify it was one opinion, his?  lol....................

Not when started with a thread title that cites opinion as fact ("This game is a mess!"), no.

or that was in fact his impression? 

 

In which case, my first post still stands. There should be no issue with it being changed to "in my experience, this game is a mess"? Yes? No?

no reason to do so as it is already easy to understand (except to some) from the part in parantheses in the title that it is one impression. 

i dont see where he claimed it was fact for everyone though i am not psychic and cannot see into your imagination which may be why

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Originally posted by Doogiehowser
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.

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75% of your agreement is technical issues. Which, may or may not be apart of your own.

Now i'm not blatantly going to say the game is 'golden' but it does offer a refuge for people which would like something "different"

Personally, I think the dungeons in tsw really are the best in the industry. Features like the dungeons is what led the march to the "critically acclaimed' comments by 'reviewers'

so it is deserving of praise.

Originally posted by Nitth

 

 

 

75% of your agreement is technical issues. Which, may or may not be apart of your own.

Now i'm not blatantly going to say the game is 'golden' but it does offer a refuge for people which would like something "different"

Personally, I think the dungeons in tsw really are the best in the industry. Features like the dungeons is what led the march to the "critically acclaimed' comments by 'reviewers'

so it is deserving of praise.

Question. I bought the game but haven't been able to get into it much yet. But I've read a lot of people saying this that they have "the best dungeons". Could you elaborate? I haven't seen anywhere someone give examples as to why.

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Originally posted by Kuppa

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Originally posted by Nitth  

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  75% of your agreement is technical issues. Which, may or may not be apart of your own. Now i'm not blatantly going to say the game is 'golden' but it does offer a refuge for people which would like something "different" Personally, I think the dungeons in tsw really are the best in the industry. Features like the dungeons is what led the march to the "critically acclaimed' comments by 'reviewers' so it is deserving of praise.

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Question. I bought the game but haven't been able to get into it much yet. But I've read a lot of people saying this that they have "the best dungeons". Could you elaborate? I haven't seen anywhere someone give examples as to why.

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To sum it up for me, I get the feeling back like when i played megaman and such on the ness. "they cant seriously expect us to do 'this', i must be doing something wrong"

In fact your not, They are challenging dungeons and its so liberating

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92NWoIHdckY

The common phrase associated with this game is that "it's not for everyone". Well there's nothing wrong with that, mmo's need  variety.

The problem occurs when not for everyone translates to not for very many. And with the monthly sub model that's what it turned out to be.

Going ftp doesn't change the nature of the game, it possibly makes the weaknesses a little more palatable wth no monthly sub. But that's all. Nothing changes for players who didn't like the original game, they are hardly likely to return and swallow their dislike purely for the absence of a fee - there are several other ftp options out there for them.

TSW was not a standard mainstream game, yet the fee model was based on mainstream numbers playing it - didn't happen.

For anyone thinking about giving this a try - do your research first to avoid disappointment, or to find out that it is in fact the game for you.

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Originally posted by JudgeUK
The common phrase associated with this game is that "it's not for everyone". Well there's nothing wrong with that, mmo's need  variety.

The problem occurs when not for everyone translates to not for very many. And with the monthly sub model that's what it turned out to be.

Going ftp doesn't change the nature of the game, it possibly makes the weaknesses a little more palatable wth no monthly sub. But that's all. Nothing changes for players who didn't like the original game, they are hardly likely to return and swallow their dislike purely for the absence of a fee - there are several other ftp options out there for them.

TSW was not a standard mainstream game, yet the fee model was based on mainstream numbers playing it - didn't happen.

For anyone thinking about giving this a try - do your research first to avoid disappointment, or to find out that it is in fact the game for you.

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The thing to really remember here is taht tsw was modest in its approtch and was only desiring 500k subscribers at the start.

People on these boards always say "why do companies always shoot for wow numbers" well this company didnt, and they unperformed.

What does this prove? Shoot for wow numbers and hit a realistic target higher than a modest approach. - turn out cheap generic crap and you can estimate the trend of "highsub sudden drop off" with a large amount of certainty.

Perfect for ploting a 'safe' profit margin.

I rolled a new character just after B2P was announced, also after The End Of Days event had begun. I managed to kill the first spawn of the mob before I reached Kingsmouth, OP did you aggro someone else's spawn? The spawns are 'level' appropriate. In fact I didn't know that accepting the mission that starts would stop the spawns, had to kill a couple of them before I sussed that out.

Lag - I don't get any at all, playing from the UK on Arcadia server. There are definitely, and always have been, problems with chat and the latest community server drop outs are probably related, the system just doesn't work as it should. Aside from that my gaming experience has been smooth, full of rich storyline, challenge and fun, certainly not a mess.

I don't PvP in TSW so no comment on that one.

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Originally posted by EvilGeek
I rolled a new character just after B2P was announced, also after The End Of Days event had begun. I managed to kill the first spawn of the mob before I reached Kingsmouth, OP did you aggro someone else's spawn? The spawns are 'level' appropriate. In fact I didn't know that accepting the mission that starts would stop the spawns, had to kill a couple of them before I sussed that out.

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They get more difficult the more you kill until their "raid boss" material.

I was seriously considering this game after several CoH players went to it. However, after I read that the game came out in July and by December it went "B2P" and hosing all the lifetime subs, that alone was enough of a red flag for me to pass on it. Offering a lifetime sub is usually a good warning that the game is bad and probably why I passed on it when it came out in July.

I'll see if the game is around in July 2013 and evaluate it then.

Thanks for the review

Originally posted by newchemicals

I was seriously considering this game after several CoH players went to it. However, after I read that the game came out in July and by December it went "B2P" and hosing all the lifetime subs, that alone was enough of a red flag for me to pass on it. Offering a lifetime sub is usually a good warning that the game is bad and probably why I passed on it when it came out in July.

I'll see if the game is around in July 2013 and evaluate it then.

Thanks for the review

Huh?  Lots of subs and lifetimes who were very happy with the change -- they were treated very well and in fact gained some perks.  You can still buy the sub or lifetime as of today, so no one got 'hosed.' 

1.  Agreed that the event made life difficult for newcomers over the holiday, especially if you did not realize it was going on.  The mayans are not too difficult once you realize they spawn as neutral once you've grabbed the quest, but this was certainly not communicated as well as it could have been.  If treated carefully or avoided, they are just a nuisance, but folks using AOEs tended to attract them, and the fact that they get tougher could lead to many deaths.  That said, the older players had a lot of fun with the event.  Might have been nice if they limited them a bit in Kingsmouth.

Won't comment on a real or perceived exploit.

2. All I can say is that there ARE regular PvPers in TSW and that they DO have fun, despite the shortcomings.  This isn't to say there aren't any issues -- there are, and everyone is pretty damn vocal about them.  But Funcom has shown some commitment to improve things.  Balance is the largest issue in Fusang, with the challenge being 3 faction populations and the wide disparity in builds and gear.  

3. Not sure when this cropped up -- I think possibly with the event, but yeah it's a pain and the devs know it.

4. It's strange -- when I'm in game, I'm actually really happy with the character looks, and I haven't run across anything truly horrendous, but I do see some snaps here and there and agree there's some pretty ugly faces.  Hasn't bothered me at all in-game, not sure why.  Clothes are terrific.  Counbt me in for a vote on more options on character creation though.

5. I do get the occasional freeze, but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with my graphics card and drivers (typically get an error from the card itself).  My system isn't the newest either, so I'll see more about this when I upgrade (very soon).  I am not seeing major lag, but I know everyone has different experiences with this.

So sorry OP, if you had some issues -- I like the game enough to overlook some of the rough patches, but I don't seem to have run into as many as you did either.  I fully expect things to improve as it moves ahead, tho.

Originally posted by coxyroxy

Basically the OP has no clue and should stick to WOW, there I said it.

Summing up a whole game on a one time event and one of the three pvp games is just bad.

If you really did your research before playing like you said, would have known TSW's strong area was the story arc and PVE mission.

Never played WOW but thanks.

If you bothered to read the OP you would realise that i have already mentioned stpries and missions as the positives But right now for me, all the negatives over shadow the positives especially FC's unwillingness to ban exploters has left very bad taste in my mouth.

While FC is avoiding this issue under the pretense that 'staff is on holiday and need a break', Anet continues to perma ban those who exploited in wintersday event.

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

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?

.......

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.

I never had this problems first month after start before I left.

 

......

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.

Agree on this.

......

5.) Lag and game freezes.

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

There is "easy" as suggested by producer solution to this: upgrade to W7 64bit. I have put in "" that easy becasue game that advertise player can play even on XP CAN NOT INSIST THIS IS SOLUTION! I did it eventually, purchased even new hard disk and windows and boy .... what a differnce, no lag, no single disconnect, crash, ... nothing. Incredible fluid experience. Before was pure nightmare even on freshly installed copy of original W7 32biit. But many can not just afford to pay 10 times game client to have new windows and hard disk. And even if we are talking about only upgrading windows is still about 4x to 5x times game client in money. Unacceptable. Or they should advertise that is MONDATORY to have 64 bit windows. I had no problem running on my computer with 32 bit windows swtor, wow, gw2, lotro, rift, ....

Anyway ... despite my investment I left aprox week after. Main reason why I left and will NOT return until this is fixed (if they plan at all) is that SILL 7 (SEVEN!) ACTIVE BUTTONS LIMITATION! That is just plainly silly. Just spells BUTTON MASHING. And If I want button mashing will play console games not PC. Have nothing to do with "carefully plan" for 7 buttons, has to do with hated BUTTON MASHING.

But I'm fine if somebody is not bothered by, just simply said they will not get my money on sub. Yes, sub. If I decide to play i will 100% play on sub mode. I really hate so called F2P games as they are actually never free and they have destroyed quality in gaming. 

off topic:

As I see these kinds of posts more and more around let me just tell you something once and for all, If you already have a bought version of Windows 7 32bit then all you need to do is get a Win 7 64bit install DVD from PC sites like chip.de and use your original Win7 32 key to install the Win7 64 bit version to your system.

Windows keys do not depend on which 32/64 bit version you install but on how many times you activate(3 times) and what kind of version you use, Pro, Home Premium...

on topic:

The game has some very good features but sadly needs some work done in terms of better animations, and gameplay.

I really hope that with a bit of work, now that they changed the payment system, the game can become something great.

TSW deserves a chance.

Interesting read.

Normally this kind of post are a whining rant from pro-pvp players but for once its a beginners view and experiences

told in a sensible way. I wish for more posts like this here on MMORPG.