I never felt like I watched the hotbar that much. I would suggest putting a "series" in a column, that way every move in that series will use the same spot when your cursor comes up.
Lots of people suggest columns such as melee, buff/debuff, ranged starting out. So as you attack, and your skillbar rotates, similar abilities will be in the same horizontal spot.
Most of your attention *should* be on your character, as dodging and position are so important and impactful to the combat (i.e. you should be able to fight boars without taking much if any dmg).
I've also noticed (and hopefully this isn't my imagination) that attack areas (or cones) are not always directly in front. For example, if a bear or big cat attacks with its right paw, the attack will be on your left-hand side (assuming you are facing the animal). It is then much easier to dodge the attack by strafing to your right. Strafing to the left almost always seems to hit me in such cases.
Yeah i realised that putting attacks with similar cooldowns in the same column makes sense, so it cycles through without breaking combat and putting longer attacks in the second column and switch when they go live. I quite like thinking about the way to organise combat. You're right about moving and dodging, i don't do enough but i was pleasantly surprised when i was able to outflank mobs and get behind them for an attack, in all other mmos they just auto turn and face so that movement becomes meaningless. Great combat system for PVP, although not experienced that yet.
A few more general observations after playing last night up to 7th level. Too many boar related quests i'm afraid and a couple of silly go collect the parts of a stuffed toy and collect turnips type quests. I'm standing there in full armour and tooled up to the eyeballs and a guy asks me to collect his turnips!! Why can't developers see the meaninglesness of such quests. It's not just CoS, it's every MMO. Seemed to be a reasonbly large, chatty and friendly community online last night in Enclave, everyone had an opinion and the OOC discussion was good and good humoured. Not sure how many if anyone will subscribe though, no use having a full tutorial zone and then empty sub game outside. I wondered if they made a mistake by allowing people to play up to 10th for free. At least if you sub for a month, maybe at a reduced rate, you're in. Actually a free month is a much better idea (like all other mmos) because people get geyond early levels and feels far more involved. Another stupid mistake. Who the hell runs these games? They don't make good decisions.
Well, since the game was empty every time I logged in, and I dont like all this solo crap but would prefer meaty group content, I didnt get far. Honestly, dont feel like I missed anything. PvP doesnt work in modern MMOs anyway (see DF and esp. WAR for proof), so the game has no real gameplay to it except questgrinding.
My girlfriend quit the moment she realized the game was empty.
if all players quit the game there will never be a high number of players -.- stay in and give the game a chance to grow up....
In todays MMO market, thats just not feasible if your game doesnt have some kind of unique pull, or gets off reasonably early. TCoS is over half a year old, has practically no endgame concept, and no players. Esp. for a Pay-to-Play, thats just not interesting, and there are tons of alternatives on the market with more content, more support, more players, more gameplay to be had.
Yeah it sounds unfair, but thats what it is. There is just no way to motivate large numbers of players of a modern audience to behave n a certain way thats good for the game, or themselves, in the long run, when there are easier and more comfortable alternatives in the short run to be had.
You are absolutely right, the argument that there are no players is pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is simply no other way, though.
Agree with the above. No mmo publisher should expect paying players to hang around to keep up the numbers until others join. The makers of CoS should give a free month to new and existing players. I can't believe they even made that basic mistake and didn't offer it from day one. Every new mmo gives a month free and then you sub, CoS only gives players up to lvl 10. No one can make a decision to sub on the basis of reaching level 10. That was the most stupid decision they made and it's the one that cost them players, since i'm pretty sure most got to 10 and then decided not to sub but if they'd had a month they would see more and probably still be in the game.
The problem with TCos is that it is an extremely boring experience for the noobie....The tutorial is about the worst I've seen and the beginning world is just "kill 10 boars/bears/wolves" rinse and repeat quests.......WHile the graphics are solid there is little else to give players incentive to stay.
The problem with TCos is that it is an extremely boring experience for the noobie....The tutorial is about the worst I've seen and the beginning world is just "kill 10 boars/bears/wolves" rinse and repeat quests.......WHile the graphics are solid there is little else to give players incentive to stay.
I've done the first zone about a dozen times and never found it boring, probably cause i loooove their combat system. Also, they changed the newbie area in the last patch, added some new quests. it should be better now.
The problem with TCos is that it is an extremely boring experience for the noobie....The tutorial is about the worst I've seen and the beginning world is just "kill 10 boars/bears/wolves" rinse and repeat quests.......WHile the graphics are solid there is little else to give players incentive to stay.
I've done the first zone about a dozen times and never found it boring, probably cause i loooove their combat system. Also, they changed the newbie area in the last patch, added some new quests. it should be better now.
I logged on yesterday and while i enjoyed some of the new quests (investigate the ruined temple etc....) but i still found myself killing boars for meat and after that i went back to a woman and she sent me to kill 5 of each animal (boars, bears, wolves) how tedious and unimaginative is that? There are several quests all based around killing boars. It doesn't matter how great the combat is, my heart just sankm when sent on another boar quest (maybe they should call the game BoarQuest). One aspect of the tutorial zone is the enlistment into the Enclave Militia, this is a brilliant idea that allows you to earn citizenship. Unfortunately it feels like an afterthought along side the meaningless quests. The whole tutorial should be based around quests for the militia, flushing out spies etc... Yet again it feels like the developers just didn't think things through and just thought they could get away with any old rubbish. This game cannot compete in it's current state with LOTRO, WoW or even AoC. If the developers get their act together, basically a total rewrite, then i might play on.
the new hype Aion with 3.5 mio players have also a strting area full of kill x/x quests and collect x/x quests. there is no whining of boring gameplay :?
A reasonable question. Both have a ton of backtracking and meaningless quests. I suppose Aion attempts to disguise the meaninglessness of the quests a bit more, although it does seem weird when a major plot point requires you to go talk to 3 people--that just happen to spread the entire distance you covered to get to him.
I can tell you, having hit the trial cap in Spellborn and this weekend's beta cap in Aion, that I won't be subscribing to either. I want to love both of them, but the opening experience for each doesn't sell me at all.
I've tried Spellborn twice, once with a caster and once with a rogue. The circle strafe and aim dynamics irritated me in an mmorpg. Honestly, it was hard for me to adjust and my fingers cramped quickly. The addition of the deck seemed unnecessary complicted to me. While I appreciate the attempt at innovation, I struggled to circle strafe, aim with the mouse and then watch/switch hotkeys in the skill deck. So, I guess the game just isn't for me--because I wouldn't want them to dumb down their most unique feature.
Aion, on the other hand, was very, very familiar. Boring? Not really, just too comfortable to want to find myself in the same relationship I just ended.
The difference? Good marketing and hype, better viral marketing, and quite importantly, Aion is a lot more polished. I see it on my friends rig. Aion is working excellent, in Spellborn he has to turn down quite a lot of features to run it as smoothly (around 40 FPS with some people around) which instantly makes it look one generation older.
Plus, I think Wings, nice looks and great char customizaton draw more people than "we only really got hardcore pvp, woot!" and " real time twitchy combat with cool new combat system", because the hardcore segment has better titles to chose from, and is too fickle to put up with other stuff anyway, like the cut and dried been-there gameplay and quest design etc.
Aion doesnt really try to advertise itself as a hardcore, or twitchy, or pvp title. It has a lot of that stuff (ok, not so much the hardcore), but it doesnt carry it around like a badge of honour. It just.... is.
I wonder how long they are able to continue to go on like this.
I mean...., there is hardly any money coming in for Spellborn NV. Many MMO's have been shutdown, while actually having subscribers.
It's sad really, as they are trying, but players are just not coming!
I still log on now and then with my free account, but chat is dead! There are hardly any players around still! Servers are just ghosttowns (at least the 2 left servers here in EU).
I think the biggest issues with this game is and why so many people just don't get any further then the free levels, is there are hardly any incentives to play.
1. No phat loot! A lot of people love to crawl many dungeons in search for phat loot! This game doesn't offer that. There are some dungeons in this game (all countable on one hand unfortunately), but without the real phat loot!
2. You can get some nice stuff through an ackward and rather tedious crafting system. The way to get hold of recipes and it's needed resources is just downright tedious.
3. This game is suppose to have a strong focus for PVP as well, yet there are absolutely no incentives to PVP at all! The fighting over resources in PVP resource areas don't work. As there are NO players to fight over. So are these areas extremely buggy still (constantly flagging / deflagging for PVP (on PVE servers)).
At this moment the game just doesn't have much to hold a player's attention for the long run. And without it. I just don't know how long they are able to keep going like this.
I wonder how long they are able to continue to go on like this. I mean...., there is hardly any money coming in for Spellborn NV. Many MMO's have been shutdown, while actually having subscribers. It's sad really, as they are trying, but players are just not coming! I still log on now and then with my free account, but chat is dead! There are hardly any players around still! Servers are just ghosttowns (at least the 2 left servers here in EU). I think the biggest issues with this game is and why so many people just don't get any further then the free levels, is there are hardly any incentives to play. 1. No phat loot! A lot of people love to crawl many dungeons in search for phat loot! This game doesn't offer that. There are some dungeons in this game (all countable on one hand unfortunately), but without the real phat loot! 2. You can get some nice stuff through an ackward and rather tedious crafting system. The way to get hold of recipes and it's needed resources is just downright tedious. 3. This game is suppose to have a strong focus for PVP as well, yet there are absolutely no incentives to PVP at all! The fighting over resources in PVP resource areas don't work. As there are NO players to fight over. So are these areas extremely buggy still (constantly flagging / deflagging for PVP (on PVE servers)).
At this moment the game just doesn't have much to hold a player's attention for the long run. And without it. I just don't know how long they are able to keep going like this. Cheers
True. And I do believe that this adds to the uncertainty of players who would like to invest their time in this game. What will be the return of that investment? Is it worth the effort?
Btw, there is fat loot in the form of Sigils, but for the rest I think you are correct.
Crafting is tedious in a way, because there are way too many ingredients, no clarity for what they are needed most of the time, and on top of that there is no way of telling what will be the result of all your efforts till after you created an item. And in the case of weapons no other way to see what you made than by equiping it, while they are bind on equip. On top of that most recipes are dropped as broken items, you need to invest money to make it into a recipe, but you have no clue whether it will be worth it. In the present form the whole crafting system is one big failure.
Tried the game when it first released and found it to be years behind whats currently available and whats comming. Spellborn just does not have anything that makes you want to play it.
i always think failing games should start to look at a different buisness model as ddo has done . theres really very little point in banging on with subscriptions if not enough people are willing to pay to play . cos like many other flagging games needs to at least consider micro transactions or maybe significantly lower monthly fees .
i always think failing games should start to look at a different buisness model as ddo has done . theres really very little point in banging on with subscriptions if not enough people are willing to pay to play . cos like many other flagging games needs to at least consider micro transactions or maybe significantly lower monthly fees .
I dont think that will be a solution here. The only way forward for Spellborn is to make the game complete and thereby enjoyable. The big question is whether they will survive long enough to pull that off.
i always think failing games should start to look at a different buisness model as ddo has done . theres really very little point in banging on with subscriptions if not enough people are willing to pay to play . cos like many other flagging games needs to at least consider micro transactions or maybe significantly lower monthly fees .
That is silly and RMT is no solution at all. It would chase me and many others even further away from the game.
The problem with this game isn't the monthly fee, as I am happy to pay a monthly fee.
The problem with this game is what I stated in my previous post! And RMT isn't going to be a solution to that.
The game needs more content and more incentives. It's just not finished!
Spellborn will never be popular mmorpg. If it does good it could have maybe 50k subs someday. Its just too different. I dont think its gonna die anytime soon. If u like Spellborn u couldnt play any other mmorpg after that, because they are so different and if u dont like... well then u just dont like it and prolly never will do..
If (when) they got some good endgame content, there will be alot of more players. Then we will see what happens with this game. Alot of those qho quitted are waiting for that., but how long anyone can wait?
It's sad really, as they are trying, but players are just not coming! I think the biggest issues with this game is and why so many people just don't get any further then the free levels, is there are hardly any incentives to play.. Cheers
I don't think they are trying, if they were we'd be given a free month to really get into the game. Why doesn't anyone get any further than the free levels, because 10 free levels is a waste of time and shows us nothing. I've posted all over here on what they should have done, but as usual this is another game where the devs pay no attention to players or logic and will have a dead game on their hands in a few months.
I don't think they are trying, if they were we'd be given a free month to really get into the game. Why doesn't anyone get any further than the free levels, because 10 free levels is a waste of time and shows us nothing. I've posted all over here on what they should have done, but as usual this is another game where the devs pay no attention to players or logic and will have a dead game on their hands in a few months.
And in the present state of the game you will leave after one month. Nothing accomplished by that. No, they need to improve the game and they know it. The game is not in a bad state but it has not enough substance to keep people busy beyond the first couple of months.
I cancelled my subscription to Spellborn, but have a couple of months left on the sub. The game is just not polished enough to appeal to the majority of players yet. I am in the AION CB and it is a much more polished game and more importantly...it is fun. I don't mind the skilldeck in Spellborn at all. What overwhelmed me and probably most other casual/intermediate players was the insane spawns and aggro at Ringsfell (when we were still at a fairly low level). To ramp up the difficulty at that level that fast will simply cause most of the players to go for the cancel button. It's not linear and is very poor game design. That and the bugs in the game were enough for me. I don't see myself really coming back at this point as AION will be my main new game and STO/GW2 are not too far off.
Yeah I don't think they are really trying. No plans for retail release, last time I checked. I was avid and excited about this game... but lost interest when it seemed like they weren't really being aggressive with this game. Maybe later they'll get it working nice and release untill then all i can do is *shrug*
I gave TCoS a try before the recent patch up to about level 8 or so. I made it out of the starter area (Hawksmouth?) but pretty much lost interest after that. The game engine seems a bit dated and the quests were mostly pretty boring. The combat system was fun but I don't think I really got into the whole combo system... I think that limits the free trial experience a bit. Based on my experience with the game I don't feel compelled to subscribe. I do plan to go back and run through it with another class since they changed the starter area and new player experience though.
Comments
I never felt like I watched the hotbar that much. I would suggest putting a "series" in a column, that way every move in that series will use the same spot when your cursor comes up.
Lots of people suggest columns such as melee, buff/debuff, ranged starting out. So as you attack, and your skillbar rotates, similar abilities will be in the same horizontal spot.
Most of your attention *should* be on your character, as dodging and position are so important and impactful to the combat (i.e. you should be able to fight boars without taking much if any dmg).
I've also noticed (and hopefully this isn't my imagination) that attack areas (or cones) are not always directly in front. For example, if a bear or big cat attacks with its right paw, the attack will be on your left-hand side (assuming you are facing the animal). It is then much easier to dodge the attack by strafing to your right. Strafing to the left almost always seems to hit me in such cases.
Yeah i realised that putting attacks with similar cooldowns in the same column makes sense, so it cycles through without breaking combat and putting longer attacks in the second column and switch when they go live. I quite like thinking about the way to organise combat. You're right about moving and dodging, i don't do enough but i was pleasantly surprised when i was able to outflank mobs and get behind them for an attack, in all other mmos they just auto turn and face so that movement becomes meaningless. Great combat system for PVP, although not experienced that yet.
A few more general observations after playing last night up to 7th level. Too many boar related quests i'm afraid and a couple of silly go collect the parts of a stuffed toy and collect turnips type quests. I'm standing there in full armour and tooled up to the eyeballs and a guy asks me to collect his turnips!! Why can't developers see the meaninglesness of such quests. It's not just CoS, it's every MMO. Seemed to be a reasonbly large, chatty and friendly community online last night in Enclave, everyone had an opinion and the OOC discussion was good and good humoured. Not sure how many if anyone will subscribe though, no use having a full tutorial zone and then empty sub game outside. I wondered if they made a mistake by allowing people to play up to 10th for free. At least if you sub for a month, maybe at a reduced rate, you're in. Actually a free month is a much better idea (like all other mmos) because people get geyond early levels and feels far more involved. Another stupid mistake. Who the hell runs these games? They don't make good decisions.
Well, since the game was empty every time I logged in, and I dont like all this solo crap but would prefer meaty group content, I didnt get far. Honestly, dont feel like I missed anything. PvP doesnt work in modern MMOs anyway (see DF and esp. WAR for proof), so the game has no real gameplay to it except questgrinding.
My girlfriend quit the moment she realized the game was empty.
if all players quit the game there will never be a high number of players -.-
stay in and give the game a chance to grow up....
In todays MMO market, thats just not feasible if your game doesnt have some kind of unique pull, or gets off reasonably early. TCoS is over half a year old, has practically no endgame concept, and no players. Esp. for a Pay-to-Play, thats just not interesting, and there are tons of alternatives on the market with more content, more support, more players, more gameplay to be had.
Yeah it sounds unfair, but thats what it is. There is just no way to motivate large numbers of players of a modern audience to behave n a certain way thats good for the game, or themselves, in the long run, when there are easier and more comfortable alternatives in the short run to be had.
You are absolutely right, the argument that there are no players is pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is simply no other way, though.
Agree with the above. No mmo publisher should expect paying players to hang around to keep up the numbers until others join. The makers of CoS should give a free month to new and existing players. I can't believe they even made that basic mistake and didn't offer it from day one. Every new mmo gives a month free and then you sub, CoS only gives players up to lvl 10. No one can make a decision to sub on the basis of reaching level 10. That was the most stupid decision they made and it's the one that cost them players, since i'm pretty sure most got to 10 and then decided not to sub but if they'd had a month they would see more and probably still be in the game.
The problem with TCos is that it is an extremely boring experience for the noobie....The tutorial is about the worst I've seen and the beginning world is just "kill 10 boars/bears/wolves" rinse and repeat quests.......WHile the graphics are solid there is little else to give players incentive to stay.
I've done the first zone about a dozen times and never found it boring, probably cause i loooove their combat system. Also, they changed the newbie area in the last patch, added some new quests. it should be better now.
I've done the first zone about a dozen times and never found it boring, probably cause i loooove their combat system. Also, they changed the newbie area in the last patch, added some new quests. it should be better now.
I logged on yesterday and while i enjoyed some of the new quests (investigate the ruined temple etc....) but i still found myself killing boars for meat and after that i went back to a woman and she sent me to kill 5 of each animal (boars, bears, wolves) how tedious and unimaginative is that? There are several quests all based around killing boars. It doesn't matter how great the combat is, my heart just sankm when sent on another boar quest (maybe they should call the game BoarQuest). One aspect of the tutorial zone is the enlistment into the Enclave Militia, this is a brilliant idea that allows you to earn citizenship. Unfortunately it feels like an afterthought along side the meaningless quests. The whole tutorial should be based around quests for the militia, flushing out spies etc... Yet again it feels like the developers just didn't think things through and just thought they could get away with any old rubbish. This game cannot compete in it's current state with LOTRO, WoW or even AoC. If the developers get their act together, basically a total rewrite, then i might play on.
i don't understand it really...
the new hype Aion with 3.5 mio players have also a strting area full of kill x/x quests and collect x/x quests.
there is no whining of boring gameplay :?
A reasonable question. Both have a ton of backtracking and meaningless quests. I suppose Aion attempts to disguise the meaninglessness of the quests a bit more, although it does seem weird when a major plot point requires you to go talk to 3 people--that just happen to spread the entire distance you covered to get to him.
I can tell you, having hit the trial cap in Spellborn and this weekend's beta cap in Aion, that I won't be subscribing to either. I want to love both of them, but the opening experience for each doesn't sell me at all.
I've tried Spellborn twice, once with a caster and once with a rogue. The circle strafe and aim dynamics irritated me in an mmorpg. Honestly, it was hard for me to adjust and my fingers cramped quickly. The addition of the deck seemed unnecessary complicted to me. While I appreciate the attempt at innovation, I struggled to circle strafe, aim with the mouse and then watch/switch hotkeys in the skill deck. So, I guess the game just isn't for me--because I wouldn't want them to dumb down their most unique feature.
Aion, on the other hand, was very, very familiar. Boring? Not really, just too comfortable to want to find myself in the same relationship I just ended.
The difference? Good marketing and hype, better viral marketing, and quite importantly, Aion is a lot more polished. I see it on my friends rig. Aion is working excellent, in Spellborn he has to turn down quite a lot of features to run it as smoothly (around 40 FPS with some people around) which instantly makes it look one generation older.
Plus, I think Wings, nice looks and great char customizaton draw more people than "we only really got hardcore pvp, woot!" and " real time twitchy combat with cool new combat system", because the hardcore segment has better titles to chose from, and is too fickle to put up with other stuff anyway, like the cut and dried been-there gameplay and quest design etc.
Aion doesnt really try to advertise itself as a hardcore, or twitchy, or pvp title. It has a lot of that stuff (ok, not so much the hardcore), but it doesnt carry it around like a badge of honour. It just.... is.
I wonder how long they are able to continue to go on like this.
I mean...., there is hardly any money coming in for Spellborn NV. Many MMO's have been shutdown, while actually having subscribers.
It's sad really, as they are trying, but players are just not coming!
I still log on now and then with my free account, but chat is dead! There are hardly any players around still! Servers are just ghosttowns (at least the 2 left servers here in EU).
I think the biggest issues with this game is and why so many people just don't get any further then the free levels, is there are hardly any incentives to play.
1. No phat loot! A lot of people love to crawl many dungeons in search for phat loot! This game doesn't offer that. There are some dungeons in this game (all countable on one hand unfortunately), but without the real phat loot!
2. You can get some nice stuff through an ackward and rather tedious crafting system. The way to get hold of recipes and it's needed resources is just downright tedious.
3. This game is suppose to have a strong focus for PVP as well, yet there are absolutely no incentives to PVP at all! The fighting over resources in PVP resource areas don't work. As there are NO players to fight over. So are these areas extremely buggy still (constantly flagging / deflagging for PVP (on PVE servers)).
At this moment the game just doesn't have much to hold a player's attention for the long run. And without it. I just don't know how long they are able to keep going like this.
Cheers
True. And I do believe that this adds to the uncertainty of players who would like to invest their time in this game. What will be the return of that investment? Is it worth the effort?
Btw, there is fat loot in the form of Sigils, but for the rest I think you are correct.
Crafting is tedious in a way, because there are way too many ingredients, no clarity for what they are needed most of the time, and on top of that there is no way of telling what will be the result of all your efforts till after you created an item. And in the case of weapons no other way to see what you made than by equiping it, while they are bind on equip. On top of that most recipes are dropped as broken items, you need to invest money to make it into a recipe, but you have no clue whether it will be worth it. In the present form the whole crafting system is one big failure.
--
Delanor
Tried the game when it first released and found it to be years behind whats currently available and whats comming. Spellborn just does not have anything that makes you want to play it.
i always think failing games should start to look at a different buisness model as ddo has done . theres really very little point in banging on with subscriptions if not enough people are willing to pay to play . cos like many other flagging games needs to at least consider micro transactions or maybe significantly lower monthly fees .
I dont think that will be a solution here. The only way forward for Spellborn is to make the game complete and thereby enjoyable. The big question is whether they will survive long enough to pull that off.
--
Delanor
That is silly and RMT is no solution at all. It would chase me and many others even further away from the game.
The problem with this game isn't the monthly fee, as I am happy to pay a monthly fee.
The problem with this game is what I stated in my previous post! And RMT isn't going to be a solution to that.
The game needs more content and more incentives. It's just not finished!
Cheers
Spellborn will never be popular mmorpg. If it does good it could have maybe 50k subs someday. Its just too different. I dont think its gonna die anytime soon. If u like Spellborn u couldnt play any other mmorpg after that, because they are so different and if u dont like... well then u just dont like it and prolly never will do..
If (when) they got some good endgame content, there will be alot of more players. Then we will see what happens with this game. Alot of those qho quitted are waiting for that., but how long anyone can wait?
I don't think they are trying, if they were we'd be given a free month to really get into the game. Why doesn't anyone get any further than the free levels, because 10 free levels is a waste of time and shows us nothing. I've posted all over here on what they should have done, but as usual this is another game where the devs pay no attention to players or logic and will have a dead game on their hands in a few months.
And in the present state of the game you will leave after one month. Nothing accomplished by that. No, they need to improve the game and they know it. The game is not in a bad state but it has not enough substance to keep people busy beyond the first couple of months.
--
Delanor
I cancelled my subscription to Spellborn, but have a couple of months left on the sub. The game is just not polished enough to appeal to the majority of players yet. I am in the AION CB and it is a much more polished game and more importantly...it is fun. I don't mind the skilldeck in Spellborn at all. What overwhelmed me and probably most other casual/intermediate players was the insane spawns and aggro at Ringsfell (when we were still at a fairly low level). To ramp up the difficulty at that level that fast will simply cause most of the players to go for the cancel button. It's not linear and is very poor game design. That and the bugs in the game were enough for me. I don't see myself really coming back at this point as AION will be my main new game and STO/GW2 are not too far off.
Yeah I don't think they are really trying. No plans for retail release, last time I checked. I was avid and excited about this game... but lost interest when it seemed like they weren't really being aggressive with this game. Maybe later they'll get it working nice and release untill then all i can do is *shrug*
I gave TCoS a try before the recent patch up to about level 8 or so. I made it out of the starter area (Hawksmouth?) but pretty much lost interest after that. The game engine seems a bit dated and the quests were mostly pretty boring. The combat system was fun but I don't think I really got into the whole combo system... I think that limits the free trial experience a bit. Based on my experience with the game I don't feel compelled to subscribe. I do plan to go back and run through it with another class since they changed the starter area and new player experience though.
I really enjoyed the skill deck combat system, but the entire rest of the game is underwhelming.
In order to enjoy the combat I will have to endure hundreds of mind numbing quests / boring and repetitive pve garbage which I just cannot do anymore.