Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Misan on 26 Nov 2011, 19:20
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Had totally forgotten about this game: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/404/feature/5830/page/1
When I first got an email about it they gave absolutely no details so I kind of wrote it off, but it seems like it has some potential to be very good.
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I saw a 10-min or so video of it being played by a Dev at a recent conference.
All interest has vanished, I'm sorry to say.
But that's just me.
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What about it changed your mind?
Also: 500th post. :)
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Doubt it'll be the "next big thing", but looks decently interesting. Curious as well what made Graelyn lose interest.
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The mechanics just looked clunky and unfun. Target something, and start shooting it, making numbers pop up over that enemy. WASD around on the floor if you want for effect, it doesn't actually change the dicerolls....
The art was nice, and the environments are a nice change from your average fantasy pap. It's still very basic high-latency MMO mechanics; cooldowns, standing there doing your animation while an enemy runs up to you and starts doing their one swinging thing to make numbers pop up on you.
It was the opening missions, so maybe things will flesh out, but I wasn't exactly awed.
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Best I could find for recent video footage was here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk57oisDDJ0 (30 minutes). Graphical quality on the characters seems to have improved a little since the earlier gameplay previews. Also the other big write-up here: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/21/hands-on-impressions-of-the-secret-world/
As far as the mechanics, from the original article I linked it actually sounds like TSW does try to change it up a little bit:
One of the most important things new players will learn when entering The Secret World is that movement in combat not only is encouraged, but is necessary in a big way. Monsters don’t simply charge at you and stay there in front of you. They move in random patterns, throw projectiles and incendiary devices, and hurl spells and more. Movement is quite literally the way to stay alive even in these earliest phases of the game.
I think with the current footage it can be hard to tell since it's all dev showcase stuff where they are way stronger than the intended difficulty of the enemies, so there is less urgency to stay away from things. With that said, that objection applies to just about every MMO that doesn't try to do some hybrid or full TPS/FPS (or RTS perhaps). Hell, EVE is a pretty bad offender on that front especially on the PvE side.
I'm of the view that the mechanics behind any of the avatar driven MMOs aren't bad on their own. I definitely remember enjoying both PvP and challenging raiding in WoW when I played. I think it's an effective design that goes beyond MMOs, especially any MOBA style game like DotA or LoL use very similar underlying mechanics. They key in my mind is challenge and needing to be actively engaged, rather than just pressing some established combo of buttons until the thing dies. It remains to be seen if TSW can do that, especially on the PvE side, but so far from what I've read it has potential to be interesting. The Polaris boss fight from the Massively article sounds like a lot of fun.
The PvP actually has me more interested. They haven't explicitly mentioned territory control, but it was in one of the trailers, which is making me think of the glory days of DAoC again. With the 3 faction setup it can make things a lot more interesting and potentially avoid annoying problems of stalemates and population imbalances. Otherwise with the potential to fight even the same enemies and never know exactly what you are dealing with it should be much more engaging than current offerings.
At this point it looks promising enough that I'm keeping an eye on it.
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Looking over the shoulders of a friend who's trying this out. I'm rather impressed. I've only seen some of the beginning but as far as MMOs go, it looks quite decent. Anyone actually playing it here?
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I've participated in the closed beta and this has led me to buying a lifetime sub. I'm not regretting it.
It is a more mature MMO, where mature doesn't mean tits and gore ( I'm looking at you, Age of Conan ) but the general aspect of the game. It's not [classic MMO] wrapped in [shiny universe] with added [singular selling point] (I'm looking at you, SW:TOR ).
While it's most certainly not to everyone's liking it is also very good at what it wants to do.
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What DOES it want to do?
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All the feedback I got is quite positive, so I finally decided to buy it and give it a try.
Apparently if you are looking for a revolutionnary pvp, the game is not for you, its pretty standard stuff with backgrounds and arenas. It is not the "big thing" of the game. But if the combat system is good, then pvp should be, though, at least.
Otherwise, the combat system, I will have to try it to see how it is. People seem to say that it is quite slow/clunky at the beginning, and starts to improve a lot over time. Pve donjons and raids apparently have been described as very well constructed and thought, though there is nothing revolutionnary here either. On the good side, you can custom your skills the way you want (just read any guide on the matter to understand how it works, it will explain it better than me).
The character creator is my only fear, it is really basic with not many choices (except for clothes, it does not really matter since you can get/buy a lot of clothes once ingame).
On the good points though, the feedback I got was that the universe is very, very, subtle and well written. The story is quite engaging and also adult, with very deep NPCs dialogues, and the solo quests all have their little unique and immersive cutscenes. It is worth mentionning that not that many quests will actually ask you to farm mobs over and over. A lot are about investigation, clues to find, enigmas to resolve, and when that happens, you will have to do it alone since the game does not bring you the answers. You will often have to look yourself on the net (I friend even opened his bible to find an answer to something, he told me). Exploration specific quests will not even points you the direction, you actually have to find it. There are also infiltration missions ala Deus Ex where you have to remain unseen.
Then, you have the "sandbox" part of the game where you can learn every skill, and get the appearance you want, with the clothes you want, and the weapons you want. Maps are described as gigantic, and yet not generic and void of everything at all. There are a lot of little things that make players pay more attention to what they do, for example I have heard that if you jump on the abandonned cars in the streets in the first area, it will trigger their alarms and attract all the zombies around waiting for the feast. Or, a friend that saw a steel-jaw trap on the floor, thought it was just part of the scenery like any standard prop, walk on it, and almost died hemorraging all over the place. Though I am slightly annoyed that falling from a certain height does not kill you...
Amongts other things : a crapload of emotes (I am looking at you SW:TOR), devs that say that they are definitly interested to see RP blossoming in their game, devs already mentionning possible housing, etc.
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That sounds fucking awesome. I'm going to have to look into this.
and just as I was starting to get back into EVE too.... :welp:
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Is there a good run-down on the lore somewhere?
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Pretty sure my laptop can't handle this right now, so never actually tested it during the beta (was really busy then anyway). :s
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The lore seems to be modern-Earth, but where every mythology, urban legend, superstition and conspiracy theory is true. The factions/secret societies are the Templars (London), the Illuminati (New York) and the Dragon (Seoul).
They have zombies, a hollow earth, and Cthulhu.
They seem to be seriously in the niche that I expected for CCP's WoD, but with "less vampire".
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They seem to be seriously in the niche that I expected for CCP's WoD, but with "less vampire".
And thus better...
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What DOES it want to do?
Classless and levelless system with immense freedom of progression in a modern day game setting in a world of magic, conspiracies, mysteries and dark horrors. Gameplay that focuses more on exploring than farming questhubs, more on finding and trying out new and fitting ( different encounters require/benefit from different skillsets ) ability combinations than simply 'gearing up'.
TSW Combat is fun for me, since it allows and requires a lot of movement. You need one or two hours into the game to get a set of abilities to really get going, but once that's achieved it goes only uphill. The game offers 525 abilities and you can train, combine and use all of them in your decks ( Selection of 7 active and 7 passive abilities ).
The main flair comes from the game world, which is well crafted, both from the looks (It's still no Crysis, mind you) and more importantly the feel. The lore is very well written, and can be 'obtained' piece by piece by playing the game. You'll find fragments of lore scattered over the game world.
And then there's the non-standard quest types. You get 'Sabotage' missions, which usually are centered around avoiding traps, patrols, disabling defensive mechanics and so, and 'Investigation' missions which require either spoilers or serious brain usage. They're optional, but if you like solving riddles, puzzles and use lateral thinking there's a lot of fun to be had.
What I also like is the 'One-Server' approach. They have different dimensions ( The mass PvP playfield can only played on your 'home dimension' ), but you can meet up with anyone on any dimension. By meeting up I don't mean 'Play an instance with someone from another dimension', but meet up right there, on the landscape. Since my old Anarchy Online group has settled on the only german dimension this allows me to play with them there, and on the RP dimension as my 'home'.
Re: Character generation: It is limited. While I consider it better than SW:TORs it's certainly not leading by a big amount. The main difference are the clothes, which are fun. Oh, clothes, did I say that your 'stat bearing armor' are mere invisible talismans? So you can run around in a sleek suit, bashing zombies with your fire-axe, no problem
Gladly the expansion of the CC seems to be the first thing that's on their list, including the ability to recustomize your character (for ingame-money).
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I was a little afraid of the lore and the universe that sure seem to be a huge melting pot of everything they could find and then tried to mash in one clunky random piece of lore, especially since even if I see Lovecraft as a great piece of work, I am definitly not a fan of it. You can find lovecraftian horror influences, Deux Ex influences, zombie influences, satanic/antechrist influences, and a ton of completely different atmospheres. But I got told that actually it works and it is well done, with a very developped lore. Apparently, you find a lot of clues and pieces of lore here and there, for example on notepads (ala Deux Ex...), or just in quests. It slowly makes the puzzles clearer for the player as he continues playing.
I am glad however that they are really planning to rework on the CC because I, for one, do not even consider it better than SW:TOR, which is quite telling in itself. Basically, it is a character creator where you can not model the body or anything, but have to choose between different types of eyes, noses, faces, etc. You have a very large scale of what you can get in that kind of CCs, going from very limited options like here to a very wide panel of choices like in guild wars 2. Well here, you have at least twice or thrice less choices than in SW:TOR, and can not even change anything on the body (scale, constitution, size, etc), but just the head and the face. And even for the head, there are not many options. Where you maybe had 30 different hairstyles in SW:TOR, here you maybe have 10 ? No, it is indeed not much at all, but the thing that makes it look better than SW:TOR is that their anatomy comprehension is at least correct and the look of their characters is far, far better. Quality over quantity, even if the "quantity" side of SW:TOR was still debatable.
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My personal experience with the SW:TOR creator was: 90% of all the guys and gals I created would've looked retarded. In TSW it's only 80%. So I consider this a success. The base models are simply looking better. So yeah, I can't choose between anorexic, fatass, normal, beefcake, wuss and cookie victim regarding body types. Not a big loss, tbh.
In earlier beta they had a 'height slider', dunno why they took it out.
Personal tastes and so on. But I do agree that it's fairly basic and in desperate need of an overhaul.
Regarding the lore: You won't find it as nicely hidden in datapads and so on. Most of the lore items are hidden 'icons' you can use to get the snippets. Of course you're going to find references to the lore or simply story material in the computers, dialogues, images* and so on.
*The game has plenty of images that help you along the quests. Classic 'look at that note pinned to the door there' situation where you 'use' the quest item? Image pops up with the hand-written note on it. And so on. It makes puzzles nicer and helps with the immersion.
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I am intrigued by this game and consider paying into it. I like exploring lore and puzzles and am bored of being a spaceship. I am a bit hesitant on my possibilities to “invest” in TSW; how are my possibilities to influence others through my direct actions? Not combat related, I mean. Can I trade, get stuff other players are interested in acquiring and can I set my mark on the world besides the way I dress?
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My personal experience with the SW:TOR creator was: 90% of all the guys and gals I created would've looked retarded. In TSW it's only 80%. So I consider this a success. The base models are simply looking better. So yeah, I can't choose between anorexic, fatass, normal, beefcake, wuss and cookie victim regarding body types. Not a big loss, tbh.
In earlier beta they had a 'height slider', dunno why they took it out.
Personal tastes and so on. But I do agree that it's fairly basic and in desperate need of an overhaul.
That was more or less my point. The CC in TSW may be even less furnished than in SW:TOR, but the quality of whats offered is higher.
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I am intrigued by this game and consider paying into it. I like exploring lore and puzzles and am bored of being a spaceship. I am a bit hesitant on my possibilities to “invest” in TSW; how are my possibilities to influence others through my direct actions? Not combat related, I mean. Can I trade, get stuff other players are interested in acquiring and can I set my mark on the world besides the way I dress?
You can obviously trade and craft, but I would answer with a No. The game is class/levelless and focuses heavily on horizontal progression, but this doesn't make it a sandbox. Crafting is simple 'minecraftian', but it doesn't offer enough variability to build a ingame-career on it. You find your stuff in the loot or by deconstructing looted talismans and weapons.
If you are into exploring a well-crafted gameworld, solving puzzles and having fun whacking zombies ( and other assorted horrors ) it's the game for you. If you want to be that guy who specializes into aquiring the rarest ingredient only found by the most skilled explorers you won't find salvation here. This is an aspect done much better by humongous sandboxes like EVE.
I don't think you can build a reputation for game related aspects as you can in EVE.
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The RP server is Arcadia/Faery or something like that right ? They seem to have changed its name many times.
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It was Faerie, but a lot of people were upset because of various, um, idiomatic connotations. So now it's Arcadia.
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What idiomatic connotations ? :eek:
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that's adorable :cube:
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Yes, a 'dislike' got the server name changed. My current roommate was laughing his ass off reading the cries of the RPers in question, reading the most tearful of them out loud while I was working. I went easy on them. The game does seem to be decent, though. Whether it's any good for RP will remain to be seen but it's got potential.
So far he's only had one rather ominous complaint: He has no desire to try multiple characters as it's pretty much the same shit anyway. The base mechanics are apparently the same across skillsets and they don't differ enough from each other to truly differentiate characters all that much. He also claims "Once is enough for Kingsmouth. The replay value is nil."
I can't verify any of these things yet as I've got no time for MMOs at the moment.
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I have to disagree with the launch trailer being beautiful.
The animations were clunky, monsters unimaginative in movement and appearance and there was nothing there that struck me as a selling point for the game.
Even the name would fit better for a Hello Kitty kind of childrens game than a horrorisque MMORPG.
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That was my exact feeling at first too. Actually, it has been since January when I heard of it for the first time. Now, considering the feedback I get from people that usually think in the same vein as myself, I am not so sure anymore. So I will have to see and play it a little to confirm. Maybe best not to judge a book on its cover here. It worked in the case of SW:TOR but here, I am really not so sure.
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Even the name would fit better for a Hello Kitty kind of childrens game than a horrorisque MMORPG.
I always though 'Lovecraft' would be a great name for the author of a children's series.
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More like a Harlequin series :D
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Is there anything sandboxy about this game, or is it just another single player game that happens to have other players in it?
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Is there anything sandboxy about this game, or is it just another single player game that happens to have other players in it?
Singleplayer MMO. Usual kind. Apparently it's got the usual launch issues. Weird bugs and progress halting stuff. My room-mate just ragequit after a particular quest bugged yet again. Something about White Ravens. He's livid, heh.
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Not much sandboxy, aside from the horizontal progression.
@Launch Problems
Chat has still problems with loosing subscribed channels ( you have to manually re-add them ) when you zone, which is extremely annoying. Aside from that I'd put it down under 'minor inconvenciences', such as a few missions with bugs ( the one with the white ravens is one of them, it is only solvable if you've already done it / have someone with you who knows, which is especially annoying for an investigation mission. ;) ), however I wouldn't call it "progress halting". Lag, rubberbanding, login troubles etc are things that are apparently not happening ( and no, the government doesn't hush it up ;) ).
Considering that it is Funcom who made this game I would say they're over their reputation regarding "Horrible launches". This is, however, my personal experience, including my social sphere and the forums.
About ragequitting: The forums have seen someone throw a fit because some people want the option to have smaller boobs on their avatars. His response is delicious forum rage (http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showpost.php?p=918105&postcount=91). Add the usual threads about how "this game won't make it" because the OP dislikes it and you got your regular launch enviroment. Haters hate, fanboys are gathering to the thread-rescue and the majority simply plays. :D
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I'd say it was Dame but he's not that legible.
Edit: As far as jubblies and mammaries go, they seem kind of nice in this game. There ought to be options for smaller ones, sure, but the current ones are fairly standard funbags aren't they?
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Well for now I am crashing all 15 min randomly. Apparently, cpu memory issues, the report log tells me to try to upgrade to 64 bits. 32 bits installs are not worth playing or something ?
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This is one of the few games on the market optimized for 64bits. I wouldn't have it any other way. Finally we're leaving behind the inferior hardware shite enforced on us by consoletards.
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No, games are usually optimized for 32-bit because of existing install base. As that changes, they (along with lots of other apps) often do get compiled for 64-bit.
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And ? There are still people that have old hardware and can't upgrade it. You can perfectly optimize something for 64 bits, which is actually very nice considering all the shiny new tech they brought here like SSAO (ambiant occlusion) and Tessellation, but you make sure that all your customers can actually play to the game no matter the hardware they have, unless that specific hardware is clearly told not to be compatible with the game, and here it is said nowhere that you can't play that game with a 32bits.
Moreover, I had to find a fix myself using the windows console to edit the boot settings to allow the RAM memory to bypass the 2Gb limit for a specified program. Solution found on a forum where some clever dude figured this out when all the other dudes were told elusive things by the tech support to fix the issue.
Seriously. /facepalm
Okay, it is my own fault that I run on a 32 bits system when I have done a mistake somewhere in the past when I installed that windows version by choosing 32 bits instead of 64 (/facedesk), and I still have the option to reinstall it with the proper version. But still, now I am in that situation I can't help but feel for the people that do not even have the choice.
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And ? There are still people that have old hardware and can't upgrade it.
There's always a tension between sticking with backward compatibility and moving to the capabilities enabled by newer tech.
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And ? There are still people that have old hardware and can't upgrade it.
There's always a tension between sticking with backward compatibility and moving to the capabilities enabled by newer tech.
I remember when PC game companies slowly stopped releasing new releases on both DvD and CD, and I was like, "oh noes, I need a DvD drive in my PC to play this new title".
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And ? There are still people that have old hardware and can't upgrade it.
There's always a tension between sticking with backward compatibility and moving to the capabilities enabled by newer tech.
I am all for moving forward, as long as it is specified clearly on the product.
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CoX is a really good example for all the gaming companies in this aspect.
You can play the game with a computer from the last millennium and it will run smoothly.
If you want it to look like candy for your eyes, then you need an up to date 'puter.
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In any case, for those who may run it on 32 bits : http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=36376 (http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=36376)
Works well.
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CoX is a really good example for all the gaming companies in this aspect.
You can play the game with a computer from the last millennium and it will run smoothly.
If you want it to look like candy for your eyes, then you need an up to date 'puter.
It still kinda looks like blocky shit even if you run on max settings.
I say this as someone who still plays it, even.
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Even the name would fit better for a Hello Kitty kind of childrens game than a horrorisque MMORPG.
I always though 'Lovecraft' would be a great name for the author of a children's series.
Or the owner of a chain of sex shops.
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Even the name would fit better for a Hello Kitty kind of childrens game than a horrorisque MMORPG.
I always though 'Lovecraft' would be a great name for the author of a children's series.
Or the owner of a chain of sex shops.
Selling macramé bondage gear and Cthulhoid gimp masks.
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I had a very brief look at this during the Beta. My gf was trying it out and played it a fair bit, while I just made a character and looked over her shoulder. I liked the setting and some of the departures from the traditional quest types were neat. On the other hand, the combat didn't appeal at all and I just didn't see the point of it being an MMO. What are the other people on the server for, exactly? Just to ruin any sense of immersion? I think the setting and the ideas that underpin the game would have been better served by a single player game. Ultimately: not buying and not subbing. I might revisit it when it goes free to play.
As an aside, the MMO trope of endlessly respawning monsters standing around waiting for you to aggro them just doesn't cut it in 2012, does it? Can't someone come up with something a bit less blatant and gamey?