It's mostly singleplayer/solo like SW:TOR, Rift, WoW, Aion, Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest II, and Age of Conan.
More so than most games. Which is surprising. I didn't think you could get more instanced/solo oriented than WoW.
This is what happens when devs from singelplayer games try to make MMOs... They kind of miss the point.
in what way?
In the way that all the content takes place in instances, like SWTOR? Whereas at least in WoW some stuff exists in the open world?
Is that how you define how multiplayer-focused a game is? By the number of random players you see running around in a zone? So if you never interact with any of them, what difference does it make if you see 20 people in a zone or 4 people in a zone? I don't know about TSW, but I know that in SW:TOR, even if there's 148 people in a zone, you might be in a different phase, but all 148 of you have access to the same general chat channel. Seeing as you have to chat to socialize, again, I fail to see a difference.
Honestly, would TSW have been a similar, or even better, experience as a single-player game with coop and PvP multiplayer elements, as opposed to being a pay-to-play MMO?
From all accounts, the things that TSW does well are quests, investigations, story, atmosphere, voice-acting ... things that single-player games do just as well.
SP with co-op is what themeparks are in the first place. You say that like it's not terrible game design for a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game Zones aren't instanced. Almost everything in the game is instanced, especially all the areas with content. You can do anything in a group, nothing is stoping you, expect for solo instances. Which is the vast majority of the game, and the mechanics don't encourage you to group. aaaaaaaaaaaa
Long story short, this game is almost entirely instanced/singleplayer.
No. The starter area, solomon Island is pretty easy to solo. However once you get to Egypt you will want a group. All Missions can be done in a group and you will see hundreds of people running arund near you (especially on Grim server this game is pretty much the exact opposite of SWTOR. You can explore the whole zone. There a few quests that have single players instances as part of them, but they take no longer than 30 minutes to complete and are usually quite fun. Once you are done you can carry on with your group.
So no Gervon, you are pretty much dead wrong. But GJ passing judgement on a game you have obviously never played.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Honestly, would TSW have been a similar, or even better, experience as a single-player game with coop and PvP multiplayer elements, as opposed to being a pay-to-play MMO?
From all accounts, the things that TSW does well are quests, investigations, story, atmosphere, voice-acting ... things that single-player games do just as well.
TSW is very well suited to being an MMO.
On several occations I have "soft grouped" with other players, gotten hints about quests I got stuck on and so forth. The game world really feels alive, something it wouldn't do in nearly the same degree in a single-player/coop game.
For the most part the vast majority of players coming in to the game wil want to solo to cap (whatever that means for them but most likely meaning geting their ql10 gear and useage up.), which they would do even if the game had alot of group oriented content till the difficulty forced them to group up as such i think making the first two zones pretty solo friendly was a good idea to keep the players coming in. If peole actually think this game has alot of solo instances they are crazy you spend most of your time in the game world around other players, and yet you are forced to actually talk to the players if you watn to group up, over the game forcing you an others to group up (although the difficulty does ramp up it is not completely impossible to solo in later areas, just extremely difficult to do so.). Also you gain a higher chance for items dropping, faster experince, better survival rate while grouped, as such i would say the game has alot more reasons for players to want to group actually without having a artificial forced grouping in the game. Sorry but if you have not played the game past the first two zones your oppion on the grouping and such in the game is flawed, and also completely irrelevent as the grouping scheme changes as you go thru more of the zones, and the ease of playing in the first two zones is not the same as the difficulty of playing in the other zones.
The story in the quests if you actually pay attention to them and want to fallow them is very well done, and worth playing thru with players that will not rush you, yet being able to come back and redo the quest later allows for you to skip the convo and such with a much more rushed group as well. In this way it lends itself to group and solo playstyles by allowing you to adopt either a more solo mindset of wanting to run at your pace in the game, or a more group oriented playstyle of rushing and focusing on harder content to plaay thru.
The way the game is laid out, if you see a player standing next to you killing the same mob, they are likely on the same quest as you. Many times me and the other player would help kill each others mob without even grouping, (which is fine by me) and other times we grouped to do the quests and other in the zone (quests sort of chain off one another)
I will say I made it 3/4 of the way through the first map of Transyvlania before I HAD to group to do a normal quest.
There's some instancing, but no phasing (at least not that I've seen). There are players everywhere -- one thing that I really like is that there doesn't seem to be any 'tagging' of quest mobs. If I heal a stranger getting beat on by a boss, I can usually get credit for the quest.
SWTOR puts players on a track -- even though the zones are technically huge, you're really limited to a narrow hallway as you progress through the content in the pre-determined order. It feels like a Star Wars themed version of a Disney World ride. You're sitting in your individual cart, moving along and watching the animatronic characters put on a show for you.
TSW is more like a horror-themed renaissance fair. You can wander in any direction you like and find something interesting. And there are people around experiencing it with you, even if you're not grouped. There's a sense of place that's been lacking from a lot of recent games. It's not EvE, but it's not sterile and isolated like SWTOR either.
One more question! Is the game 'smooth' and does it have that freedom feeling? Or is TSW filled with invisible walls and un-responsive attacks?
Wish I could try a trial before buying.
No invisible walls that i know off, but maybe i missed them. The way the game is setup is that you go to Kingsmouth first, then you keep moving to the next zone (no levels, but still require certain gear QL). In each zone however, the quests aren't hub based, so you can go in any different.
There are buddy keys, which if i'm not mistaken, will let you play the game for 1 day. Atleast that's how i think it works. Try to get one
The only walls are at the zone border. Like if you try to leave solomon island by swimming
There is a junkyard and nothing is preventing you from running on top of the stappled cars and fighting mobs from up there or jump over the fence to escape
I do mind the sharding however....but they have managed to make it as social as possible with cross-chat across the shards. I can see why they did it though. It would get extremely hectic since the world isn't some huge landscape with nothing but trees and rocks.
Originally posted by FredomSekerZ Originally posted by heartless Originally posted by FredomSekerZ Originally posted by heartless Originally posted by FredomSekerZ Originally posted by heartless Originally posted by FredomSekerZ Originally posted by Garvon3 Originally posted by FredomSekerZ Originally posted by Garvon3 Originally posted by FredomSekerZ
Garvon3, like i said, i myself don't like how mmorpg are turning too much to the solo/instanced/etc mode, but that's another topic and my opinion. However, TSW is just as much of an mmo as every single other themepark. Hell, Diablo 3 is put in the same genre by many.
Also, again, you're wrong. The zones, like Kingsmouth aren't instanced at all.
There aren't different instances (dimensions) of Kingsmouth? Press F9 to find out.
You don't have to go through a loading screen to get to Kingsmouth?
What? Those are dimensions, the same thing as servers in other mmos, just that way because it's a single server.
Also, loading screens mean instanced now? I already said that TSW is zoned which means there's loading screens between areas. An instance means a copy created for only 1 players or his group. By your definition, every mmo is instanced. You mean seamless, which TSW isn't, and can't be.
Dimensions are not separate servers, they are instances of the same zone. Each server (Arcadia, Grim, etc.) has a number of dimensions for each zone. That's why when you press F9, it says "dim: 3" instead of "dim: Arcadia."
You mean channels. So, by your definition again, every mmo beyond EVE is instanced. If i transfar my character toa different server or, even better, if i switch server in GW2 with the guest option, that means the games are instanced.
Whatever you want to call them. Channels or dimensions. They are instances.
Changing an instance is not the same as changing a server. A server is a separete entity. An instance is an exact copy of zone on a particular server.
A server is a copy of the same game world as well. a channel is also a sepearte entity. So, if i change to a different server for pve in GW2, how is that different at all? An instance is an area copy made for 1 player or a specific group.
One is a server, the other is an instance of a zone on that server. I'm not going to spend any more time trying to explain it to you. Google it, if you're really interested in learning the differences between the two.
?
dimension = server
Now, the difference with other MMO's is in contrast with other MMO's, you can switch from server (or dimension) to server, even chat can be 'cross server'. That's the difference, because TSW uses a different infrastructure, its servers - or 'dimensions' - aren't separated in a hard, rigid way where there's no contact between servers.
One more question! Is the game 'smooth' and does it have that freedom feeling? Or is TSW filled with invisible walls and un-responsive attacks?
Wish I could try a trial before buying.
No invisible walls that i know off, but maybe i missed them. The way the game is setup is that you go to Kingsmouth first, then you keep moving to the next zone (no levels, but still require certain gear QL). In each zone however, the quests aren't hub based, so you can go in any different.
There are buddy keys, which if i'm not mistaken, will let you play the game for 1 day. Atleast that's how i think it works. Try to get one
The only walls are at the zone border. Like if you try to leave solomon island by swimming
There is a junkyard and nothing is preventing you from running on top of the stappled cars and fighting mobs from up there or jump over the fence to escape
Seoul has invisible walls that prevents access to clearly reachable roofs which was very annoying when lore hunting!
its both. you can do most quests solo if you want. it has some solo only quests that throw you into a solo instance, not many but a few and they are working on changing the solo instances. later on in egypt and stuff its better to group up with a friend or two and do the missions together. some of those missions are pretty hard for a solo character unless you make a hybrid tank/dps/heal build which really limits your weapon choices because there is only a few weapons you can make that type of build with.
its playable mostly solo, but much more fun with a small group or a duo.
Comments
More so than most games. Which is surprising. I didn't think you could get more instanced/solo oriented than WoW.
This is what happens when devs from singelplayer games try to make MMOs... They kind of miss the point.
in what way?
In the way that all the content takes place in instances, like SWTOR? Whereas at least in WoW some stuff exists in the open world?
Is that how you define how multiplayer-focused a game is? By the number of random players you see running around in a zone? So if you never interact with any of them, what difference does it make if you see 20 people in a zone or 4 people in a zone? I don't know about TSW, but I know that in SW:TOR, even if there's 148 people in a zone, you might be in a different phase, but all 148 of you have access to the same general chat channel. Seeing as you have to chat to socialize, again, I fail to see a difference.
For fans who are currently playing:
Honestly, would TSW have been a similar, or even better, experience as a single-player game with coop and PvP multiplayer elements, as opposed to being a pay-to-play MMO?
From all accounts, the things that TSW does well are quests, investigations, story, atmosphere, voice-acting ... things that single-player games do just as well.
The reason I'm asking is the theme behind The Secret World: secrets!
How secret or mysterious is the world, if you keep running into crowds of people in 'secret' places?
Not to mention players who think they're running their own talk show in general chat.
No. The starter area, solomon Island is pretty easy to solo. However once you get to Egypt you will want a group. All Missions can be done in a group and you will see hundreds of people running arund near you (especially on Grim server
this game is pretty much the exact opposite of SWTOR. You can explore the whole zone. There a few quests that have single players instances as part of them, but they take no longer than 30 minutes to complete and are usually quite fun. Once you are done you can carry on with your group.
So no Gervon, you are pretty much dead wrong. But GJ passing judgement on a game you have obviously never played.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
TSW is very well suited to being an MMO.
On several occations I have "soft grouped" with other players, gotten hints about quests I got stuck on and so forth. The game world really feels alive, something it wouldn't do in nearly the same degree in a single-player/coop game.
For the most part the vast majority of players coming in to the game wil want to solo to cap (whatever that means for them but most likely meaning geting their ql10 gear and useage up.), which they would do even if the game had alot of group oriented content till the difficulty forced them to group up as such i think making the first two zones pretty solo friendly was a good idea to keep the players coming in. If peole actually think this game has alot of solo instances they are crazy you spend most of your time in the game world around other players, and yet you are forced to actually talk to the players if you watn to group up, over the game forcing you an others to group up (although the difficulty does ramp up it is not completely impossible to solo in later areas, just extremely difficult to do so.). Also you gain a higher chance for items dropping, faster experince, better survival rate while grouped, as such i would say the game has alot more reasons for players to want to group actually without having a artificial forced grouping in the game. Sorry but if you have not played the game past the first two zones your oppion on the grouping and such in the game is flawed, and also completely irrelevent as the grouping scheme changes as you go thru more of the zones, and the ease of playing in the first two zones is not the same as the difficulty of playing in the other zones.
The story in the quests if you actually pay attention to them and want to fallow them is very well done, and worth playing thru with players that will not rush you, yet being able to come back and redo the quest later allows for you to skip the convo and such with a much more rushed group as well. In this way it lends itself to group and solo playstyles by allowing you to adopt either a more solo mindset of wanting to run at your pace in the game, or a more group oriented playstyle of rushing and focusing on harder content to plaay thru.
I think this sums up nicely the state of mmorpg's and more important the state of mmorpg players.
Well done sir.
The way the game is laid out, if you see a player standing next to you killing the same mob, they are likely on the same quest as you. Many times me and the other player would help kill each others mob without even grouping, (which is fine by me) and other times we grouped to do the quests and other in the zone (quests sort of chain off one another)
I will say I made it 3/4 of the way through the first map of Transyvlania before I HAD to group to do a normal quest.
Can't wait to check out roleplay on TSW <:
There's some instancing, but no phasing (at least not that I've seen). There are players everywhere -- one thing that I really like is that there doesn't seem to be any 'tagging' of quest mobs. If I heal a stranger getting beat on by a boss, I can usually get credit for the quest.
SWTOR puts players on a track -- even though the zones are technically huge, you're really limited to a narrow hallway as you progress through the content in the pre-determined order. It feels like a Star Wars themed version of a Disney World ride. You're sitting in your individual cart, moving along and watching the animatronic characters put on a show for you.
TSW is more like a horror-themed renaissance fair. You can wander in any direction you like and find something interesting. And there are people around experiencing it with you, even if you're not grouped. There's a sense of place that's been lacking from a lot of recent games. It's not EvE, but it's not sterile and isolated like SWTOR either.
The only walls are at the zone border. Like if you try to leave solomon island by swimming
There is a junkyard and nothing is preventing you from running on top of the stappled cars and fighting mobs from up there or jump over the fence to escape
As instanced as FFXI was.
I do not mind this at all.
I do mind the sharding however....but they have managed to make it as social as possible with cross-chat across the shards. I can see why they did it though. It would get extremely hectic since the world isn't some huge landscape with nothing but trees and rocks.
Garvon3, like i said, i myself don't like how mmorpg are turning too much to the solo/instanced/etc mode, but that's another topic and my opinion. However, TSW is just as much of an mmo as every single other themepark. Hell, Diablo 3 is put in the same genre by many.
Also, again, you're wrong. The zones, like Kingsmouth aren't instanced at all.
There aren't different instances (dimensions) of Kingsmouth? Press F9 to find out.
You don't have to go through a loading screen to get to Kingsmouth?
What? Those are dimensions, the same thing as servers in other mmos, just that way because it's a single server.
Also, loading screens mean instanced now? I already said that TSW is zoned which means there's loading screens between areas. An instance means a copy created for only 1 players or his group. By your definition, every mmo is instanced. You mean seamless, which TSW isn't, and can't be.
Dimensions are not separate servers, they are instances of the same zone. Each server (Arcadia, Grim, etc.) has a number of dimensions for each zone. That's why when you press F9, it says "dim: 3" instead of "dim: Arcadia."
You mean channels. So, by your definition again, every mmo beyond EVE is instanced. If i transfar my character toa different server or, even better, if i switch server in GW2 with the guest option, that means the games are instanced.
Whatever you want to call them. Channels or dimensions. They are instances.
Changing an instance is not the same as changing a server. A server is a separete entity. An instance is an exact copy of zone on a particular server.
A server is a copy of the same game world as well. a channel is also a sepearte entity. So, if i change to a different server for pve in GW2, how is that different at all? An instance is an area copy made for 1 player or a specific group.
One is a server, the other is an instance of a zone on that server. I'm not going to spend any more time trying to explain it to you. Google it, if you're really interested in learning the differences between the two.
?
dimension = server
Now, the difference with other MMO's is in contrast with other MMO's, you can switch from server (or dimension) to server, even chat can be 'cross server'. That's the difference, because TSW uses a different infrastructure, its servers - or 'dimensions' - aren't separated in a hard, rigid way where there's no contact between servers.Seoul has invisible walls that prevents access to clearly reachable roofs which was very annoying when lore hunting!
its both. you can do most quests solo if you want. it has some solo only quests that throw you into a solo instance, not many but a few and they are working on changing the solo instances. later on in egypt and stuff its better to group up with a friend or two and do the missions together. some of those missions are pretty hard for a solo character unless you make a hybrid tank/dps/heal build which really limits your weapon choices because there is only a few weapons you can make that type of build with.
its playable mostly solo, but much more fun with a small group or a duo.