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[Column] The Secret World: TSW & MMO Roulette
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In our latest column devoted to The Secret World, we take a look at this week's August State of the Game letter. We offer our analysis and our hope for The Secret World after a rather difficult month. See what we have to say before weighing in with your thoughts in the comments.
One thing I like about last week's State of the Game was that it did its best to quell fears by positively framing and understanding the nature of the business. By acknowledging the bad (the reshuffling and establishment of a “cost-efficient live team”) and reinforcing the good (saying that TSW has a bright future ahead, mentioning the high user score), it did what it could to be honest about the realities of what TSW's development team was facing with the minimum of PR speak to look stronger in front of investors.
Read more of Victor Barreiro Jr.'s The Secret World: TSW & MMO Roulette.
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Comments
The biggest part that is supposed to be coming is the character editor allowing you to change the way you look as a replacement for the rather limitted character editor that was present at character creation.
It is quite sad to see just how bad mainstream games are at this, when a small title like Star Trek online has far more options availabel for creating your unique look.
It will be very intresting to see what they come up with in about a weeks time. The clothing choices are already a major improvement on what other games offer, a good detailed character builder could round it off.
I just wish the web browser for researching was 'controlled'. I hate trying to research for a mission to be spoiled by someone else already having found the answer and seeing that in the auto-fillin in Google.
I wish there was a way to block all of that. I just have to control where my eyes wander.
Excellent excellent gaming experience.
Yes they mix well because of how different the themes and maturity-ratings are. And the combat has a bit of overlap with dodging and skill slot limits so that you aren't handicapping your reflexes too much by bouncing back and forth.
Been playing since headstart and still hooked in the wonderful setting of this game. Not perfect, but what it offers is really immersive, and it will only get better as time goes by with all the planned content updates.
Seriphin: It might not help the auto-fillin, but at least you can control the results you get. When I'm attempting to research without being spoiled I put negatives in my search. Usually ( -quest ) or ( -"secret world" ) after whatever word/phrase I want to search for. That way I won't receive a page full of glaring spoilers when I'm trying to find results that have NOTHING to do with quests and The Secret World.
(You may already know about and use the same technique, but I'm putting it here in case it's useful to anyone who happens to read this.)
Yep. Good game. There's nothing else like it. It has a unique atmosphere.
Some of the quests are actually scary and I've jumped out of surprise --- like that dark parking garage or the deepshaft mine.
I stopped to play TSW before 30 days free expired, but still hope game stay as I would like to return at some time. And I hope they will survive without that plague called F2P. All in all I actually like a lot this game. In some ways is also innovative but this aspect is usually last I'm interested in. I never liked repairing thing that are not broken, that works perfectly well.
But had 2 big problems.
For the first 2 week constant crashes. Annyoing, terribly annyoing. At times after crash had to pull plug out of computer. They state game is compatible even with Win XP, but all answers and suggestions from them said, that I should upgrade to W7 64-bit to be able to play at all without in media 3 crashes per hour. That is unacepptable for many. I can not immagine how can any company expect when so many players complain about sub charges and pretty expensive client that thery will spend aprox 2 years sub ammount for upgrading to W7 64-bit to be able to play at all the game?? But after 2 weeks of torture, frustration and increasingly bad mood from day to day I have decided to buy another disk and 64-bit windows. I had also in plan this for some time, this was last motivation I needed. And I really wanted to play TSW. And, boy, how have improved gaming performance! Really incredible. For aprox next 2 weeks I did not have a single crash. All smooth. Impressive. And expensive. But working. And now I'm happy I will play with better experience many other great games, SWTOR, WOW, Rift, .... Actually I already have all this 3 + CO. Was really worth to invest money in 64-bit version.
Second problem, that idea of theirs to limit active abilities to 7 buttons on toolbar is just ... well, silly at best. It spells "button mashing". Did not like this idea even before purchase of client and I really started to hate when into game after 2nd or 3rd area. I have heard and read arguments pro and contra ... for me contra outwight by large measure pro. This was single main reason I stopped to play TSW few days short before expiration of free period.
Ok, there are other problems, like 80-90% of abilities, passive or active, out of 500 or so being completely useless. One have to invest insane and insensate number of points just to get to some candy. Very annoying. In virtually any other game nearly all in path to top spell have been more or less useable and fun, a lot of times complimenting other spells. Here many spells are pure trash never to be used at all.
Bugs. Pretty a lot of them, pretty annoying, ... but rarely cripling the game or preventing going on.
Incredibly annoying monologues in voiced quests, terribly bad made animations.
I hope some day will be able to return.
Meh, Dwa-czy, I'm sooo gonna help you.
I find TSW lasting and gameplay very satisfying. I can now compare, how many people dissapointed with TSW were... and how many b**ch about GW2 now. Of course, GW2 has wayy bigger sales and community. Still, I somehow feel that average of happy players in TSW is higher.
I wanted to give this game a try with the free 3 day trial but couldn't find the sign up form from this link http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/sign_up_now_for_our_free_three_day_trial.
The post mentione to use a form on the right to sign up but the only form there is to subscribe by email.
Maybe I'm missing something if someone could point it out.
Count me in on someone who didn't know this, and is VERY appreciative to find it out. Thanks for posting this search function!
I looked around and I think the trial was only available through 8/16.
Though the state of the game is dated 8/31. Maybe they forgot to put the sign-up back on the page?
Yeah I did not know that either. I will be employing this next time for sure. Thanks.
The game was hyped up way beyond what was delivered: theres very little new here, with the same old raid or die end game, gear being more important than skill and some of the worst pvp the mmo world has seen.
The setting however, now that is truely great, fantastic atmosphere (until the main story quest is done) and unique NPCs. I really wish they hadn't just turned the game into a wow clone at end game.