I guess it's better to see everyone whining about animations in the game rather than actual problems with the game...

I understand, you want them changed. Funcom said they're going to change. So in response.. you make another article asking them to change it.

Are there other games out there you could give coverage to?  I mean.. great we're talking about TSW.. but it's the same thing over and over again... opinions on opinions on opinions.

Ugh.

For some reason I find it funny in a game with zombies, magic and all sorts of other strange happening that jumping and it's animation are what people think looks artificial... and even odder if it's a "game-breaker" for someone deciding to play the game.

I guess everyone needs something to complain about.

While you could have asked the Priest, I think that this quest was specifically designed so that people would learn something. Asking someone is simple.. teaching them early on to look around for clues is harder.

Just asking the Priest for the number would have been an easy out and not tought the player anything.

It's the first zone.. you have to teach people about things somewhere.

Which brings me to your note about combat..

I hope you didn't expect the full range of combat to exist in the first zone where you only have access to a small number of abilities, weapons and stats.

Of course combat is easy here.  If you think combat remains this easy later (and your skill choices are only single/ranged starter/finishers) you're going to be mistaken.

Originally posted by eycel

This game really needs more then the first impression to give you the overall picture of what there trying to acomplish with TSW.  As in Kingsmouth, the game doesnt really pick you up off your feet till you start immersing yourself in how the town is dealing with what has happened and how the story ties into each of the townsman.  A lot of the game you have to explore the entire zone first before you can start to even work on progressing which I think is very genious way to do it.

So no, with TSW, you cant just play a few hours and judge it by its cover, you have to keep playing to make a valid opinion of the game unless all your looking to do is see the core mechanics of the game. 

If you only played a few hours of the game, I wouldnt call that playing in this circumstance at all, more like testing core game mechanics and thats it.  So your thread should say, I dont like the way the core game mechanics work and thats it.

 

Finally, someone that gets it.

The hardest sell will be to those who give up because of any minor annoyance.  I was in this boat until I decided "You know what, I'll just give up my pre-concieved notions of what an MMORPG SHOULD be and just play the game." I was surprised at the result.. I'm actually more excited for this game than I was for GW2.

The story is so deep I have a feeling most people don't even start to understand it.  Funcom wasn't just hyping how deep the story of the game is.. if you look hard enough you can find it everywhere.. conspiracies, fables that are reality.. juicy bits of nuance everywhere.

Just in Kingsmouth you can find everyone's story intertwining.  Listening to everyone's dialogue gives an amazing amount of information on the situation (most people don't realize you have to keep asking about a subject to get all of the information and the green check mark).

It's too bad most people won't give it a chance because of "bad animations" or cutscenes where you don't respond.  It still baffles me that people complain about too many cutscenes when they knew this going into it. Seriously.. people used to compain that there were NOT ENOUGH of them in games??  People are just looking for any excuse to dismiss a game these days.  I hope they find their "holy grail" but they're going to miss out on a lifetime of fun and interesting games while waiting for it with closed minds.

I have to wonder if I'm playing the same game as some other people.  Animations need minor work but I can't see that as game breaking (besides, in a game based in the current time frame trying to stay true to realism when possible, what are people expecting animations to look like...).  To me, animations as a "deal breaker" is a lame excuse.  If you're so superficial that animations break the deal for you... I'm not sure you'll ever truely be happy with any game.

If you don't like the game and can't figure out why that's different than trying to blame it on animations or cutscenes.  At least be truthful to yourself even if you don't know the reason rather than masking it with another false premise.  If it wasn't a Funcom game and it had the same "animation problems" would you still play?  Maybe you don't like Funcom.  Would you still play the game if it was "awesome" with the "animation problems?" Then there's some deeper issues you have with the game.  I'm going to guess the irrational Funcom hatred which is "cool" these days and never give anyone a second chance.. always be biased..

Are you guys going to start copying and pasting this article to every MMO that gets announced?

It's not like your speculation a year ahead of time is going to change how they release it. I was hoping the site would find some actual information on the game but I guess speculation will have to do for now.

My speculation is that the entire premise of the game seems to be a money grab and no innovation. I'm not sure why this game is getting hyped up so much. I guess I can't wrap my head around a modern MMO that says "well, we don't have quests but if you kill all the mobs in an area you'll get a reward."

And, being a money grab, I'm sure they'll have every option available they can think of.

Just to throw in my experience with BWE to those who think the world is small..

I spent 20-25 hours over 3 days simply exploring the 1-20 zones for Norn, Human and Charr.  I still have a little bit left when it ended, but for the most part unlocked most of those zone maps.

I was level 23, mostly from exploring, getting waypoints, doing skill point challenges.. did very few events that I ran across (and they were EVERYWHERE).  I ended up with 47 skill point stored up, bought some abilities and still had 20 left.

The 1-20 zones for Asura and Sylvari aren't even open yet.  There is SO MUCH PvE in this game you should NEVER have to do a single event more than once (or any at ALL if you just explore the world).

I don't buy the "game is too small" or "not enough PvE" arguments.  By time the game releases I have no doubt you could level straight to max level just exploring the world.. or simply level each race actually doing the events without even moving to another area of the world.

I had to double check that it was still May and not April 1st.

Seriously.. this game gets a 6 and has botting as a pro?

Why has the quality of reviews gone down so much?  This almost seems like a paid review.

I bought the game and got beta.. I didn't buy beta. I knew I was going to buy it before they offered beta.

Nobody had to buy the game to play beta. You could wait around on the beta sign up list from months ago and hope to get in. Some people with closed beta accounts got into the beta and didn't purchase the game...

Or you could have gotten a PAX beta code.  Why aren't people saying "I was forced to pay for PAX to get a beta key!!" ?

Several friends of mine used PAX beta codes and didn't purchase the game.. got into beta just fine.. so the argument that you could only get in by buying the game is flawed and inaccurate.

Originally posted by Elikal

The big questions are:

- are masses of people in 2012 willing to cooperate in complex ways in a MMO anymore?

- are masses of gamers willing to learn a complex combat system and leave the WOW-concept behind?

- are many people patient when it comes to repeated dying?

- and most important: how does ANet handle the "emptying" of low level zones when people advance and nobody gets a group for the big events? (see SWTOR Heroics & Flashpoints)

 

-Everywhere I went, people were helping each other even if they didn't speak.

-GW2 doesn't need WoW level sub numbers to be successful. Why does everyone try to compare a game to WoW. There are hundreds of successful, fun and profitable MMOs.  People should play what they enjoy and be thankful that WoW isn't the ONLY game out there.

-You only repeatidly die if you suck and aren't trying.  In that case.. sorry.. get some friends to carry your lazy butt.  Once you learn how to play your class you rarely die in most situations.. you can't fix lazy.

-Events scale, did you mean dungeons?  Players downlevel when going to lower level areas, yet still get rewards/drops based on their real level.  I think that there will be plenty of people who transverse through lower level areas working on achievements and skill challenges.  There will always be lower level players around.. using flashpoints in SWTOR isn't an accurate comparison with GW2 because the gaming/leveling systems are totally different.

Originally posted by ButeoRegalis

Please add an option to add people from chat to friends list. Link list to mail system as well, so I don't have to type some 25 character name into mail, hoping I get spacing, punctuation and spelling right. Also, see #2 about partying.

 

If you open your contacts list, you can right-click and send mail. Then just drag the items into the mail.  You can right-click items and mail but it doesn't have your contact list which is annoying, I agree.

A note for something I saw earlier.. why would anyone "run" back to town?  Just teleport.  Travel in this game is so fast and easy if you want to spend a few copper.  Then, just jump back to where you were.  It's super simple.

If you're cheap, you can do the same thing using the Mists it just takes a bit longer.  Go to the Mists, then Lion's Arch..  from there you can take portals to every major city.

Originally posted by colddog04

On top of that, you can right click basic crafting materials and send them straight to your collectibles bank from anywhere in the world. It made the space in your inventory not seem so tight. What I did is carry around like 50 salvage kits at all times and converted items I wasn't going to use into basic mats and then sent them to my collectibles bank. It made my inventory feel plenty large.

Wow, didn't even see that. Thanks!

I'm not sure what was going on with your problems finding mats.  I spent almost my entire beta exploring the world exlusively and doing the random event I came across and harvesting most nodes.  I ended up with tons of metal, wood, jute, leather, vials.. so much that I had to go back to my bank a couple times to make inventory space.  I was too interested in exploring to craft this time.. maybe next beta weekend I'll try the crafting side.

By time I was 22 I had a ton of mats.  Oh, you also didn't really mention that you can change crafting skills and not lose progress, thus being able to learn them all.  Just saying, since it's a crafting preview...

1. Salvage kits: used to decon salavagable items. If you explore you can find REALLY good salvage kits (blue quality) that have much higher success rates.

2. Harvesting metal nodes give you the possibility of getting gems to insert into the upgrade slots of your armor. This is good for people who are out harvesting, but wouldn't want to craft. They can get drops to insert into their empty armor slots.

A side note on harvesting.. use the tool required. If you don't need an expensive harvest tool to harvest the node you're at, use the cheaper tool.

And everyone can harvest a node.. which is pretty sweet. No more rushing people to a node.  And those rich nodes, schweeeet!

Originally posted by AI724

My 5 issues:

1. The game needs performance optimization, tweaks, etc

    LAG was my issue even with lowest graphical setting (my system is old but it meets the spec reqirements. I will get new built but I still think the game needs system optimization)

2. Melee class combat and targetting

    Countless times I lost targetted foe during chaoic melee combat with my Theif! One second I'm hitting the chosen target, the next second I lose that target lock and end up waisting a skill or two before realiziing I was hitting nothing! It happens constantantly. It was hard to get used to the combat system but I eventually got used to it but the targetting still SUCKS imo. What was wrong with GW1 targeting? It worked fine for me. Picked up and learned in 5 minutes!

3. Skill (H) panel interface

    I find it hard to understand the skill system. It seems overwelming and complicated to learn. I was unable to figure out how to rearrange skills on my skill bar? (GW1 was so good, I just drag skill icons on skill bar and drop to another slot, very simple and works great).

4. Tutorials (people need to understand new skill system, combat, targetting)

    Will you implement Turorials of how to play the game? Skill system turorials will be GREAT!

5. Mobs balancing

   The mobs are just so tough and unbalanced. It took my lvl11 theif more than 10 deaths to beat a lvl11 Doc Howler in one of the Two-blade quest fight.

 

3. Complicated isn't a negative for me. It's not THAT complicated.  No, you can't change around your bar like you want. You need to select 6-0 abilities from the H menu because there are tons of abilities at 80 and you have to CHOOSE which you're going to have in a battle rather than having access to all of them. Did you know that you can go to the Mists lobby area and level to 80 and get all abilities and test on target dummies to your heart's content?

4. Tutorials are needed, but will probably come closer to release.

5. Balancing is PART of beta. BUG IT or nobody will ever fix it.  ALSO.. just because you're equal level with the mob doesn't mean you can take it inside a personal story quest. Those quests are meant to be REALLY HARD solo.  Ideally you should take friends with you, be VERY GOOD at your class, or go in a couple levels after the level of the quest.

Before people chide companies for doing this, maybe you should look at the reason why they KEEP doing this.. the gamer populous.

The gamers are the ones who use the "beta test" as a free game test. A very small majority of people beta testing actually contribute useful information these days.

So yeah, they've turned into big previews of the game because developers know that the majority of people won't bother to even open a bug report.

This won't change until the players change.. and since that'll never happen, expect it to be the norm in the future.

The problem wasn't that ArenaNet didn't announce a Stress Test.. it's that some of those who were in it leaked it when they were specifically told not to talk about it via the NDA.

I'm not sure why some pre-purchase people were able to play.  Most likely, they were using the entire database they'll use for the Beta Event Weekend and didn't expect anyone from pre-purchase to attempt to login since the client wasn't supposed to be leaked on the Internet.

Blame the bad apples who broke every part and the SPIRIT of the NDA, not ArenaNet, who were trying to get one last test in to make sure those who DID pay for the game get an enjoyable taste of it when the first Beta weekend comes.

Still no comments on how most quests are standard fedex/kill X X and that you can only have a small amount at a time?

Interesting. I hope everyone who's about to spend money on it gets a chance to try it first.

Just saying..

If you have an STO account I'd suggest you take a look at what Cryptic has been up to since PWE purchased them.  Actually having money to develop makes a HUGE difference.

I like what's going on with STO. I checked it out again this weekend and the past changes are in the right direction.  Will it get there immediately? Of course not. It takes time to design, code, test and implement.

Neverwinter looks pretty interesting thus far. It's using their engine which has been beefed up a bit it seems.  Since it's the same Foundry it's going to be extremely powerful and bring a whole new realm of user content to the D&D genre.

And it's Free to play with no box purchase price.. I'd say that makes it worth every penny to at least give it a chance.

Rift is a good game.. it's exactly what they set out to be. Don't blame Trion for not meeting your false expectations that they never set in the first place.

There is plenty of room for all games to co-exist and Trion is doing something very few (if any developers) do.. release a ton of free content at a steady pace based on user comments and feedback.

I personally don't think this looks very interesting but it's pre-alpha footage.  I hope the show is somewhat decent, though SyFy's trackrecord is pretty bad for that.

I think I'm more interested in the social experiment of an MMO and TV show melding together than actually watching or playing it.  Like.. how, with long pre-production and post-production schedules, actors and filiming.. changes in the game will affect the show.  Obviously the show can immediately change the game world, but not vice versa unless it's all planned ahead of time and multiple outcomes are filmed.

An interesting experiment indeed.. just glad it's not my money :)

You didn't see Star Trek First Contact?

Awesome pet. I'll be jumping back in to take a look at this and get my free pet :D