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The Secret World - Information And Update Thread [New dev diary]

D

derFeef

Member
Azzurri said:
Played the intro to Illuminati and liked it better than Templars. Feels like I'm a rock star
Click to expand...

"We are like Xbox but only more hardcore!" that cracked me up.

Altough I am Templar at heart, the Dragon faction is really interesting. Go with the flow, thrive chaos, don't question anything. And what's better than enforcing a vision through
oral sex
?
 
jediyoshi

jediyoshi

Member
Moobabe said:
Dragon is the only one I've not tried yet - has anyone made one yet?
Click to expand...

I went with Dragon, though I haven't tried the others so I'm not sure what's different.

Having fun, nice to get out of fantasy land for a bit and shotgun zombies in an MMO. Little indifferent about the aesthetics of the UI. I'm down with minimalism but there's a weird use of gradients and borders.

Recorded some early level questing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya9fIkmRwjg&hd=1
 
P

piratepwnsninja

Member
jediyoshi said:
I went with Dragon, though I haven't tried the others so I'm not sure what's different.

Having fun, nice to get out of fantasy land for a bit and shotgun zombies in an MMO. Little indifferent about the aesthetics of the UI. I'm down with minimalism but there's a weird use of gradients and borders.

Recorded some early level questing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya9fIkmRwjg&hd=1
Click to expand...

Nice footage. I really like the UI. Reminds me a lot of Dead Space.
 
D

derFeef

Member
Those guys are giving me the creeps, especially the sound they make and their twitchy head movements.

5cfa87c0.jpg
Click to expand...

edit: something very weird is going on in London. I think it's a bug, but it's aweseome.
b2838e5f.jpg
Click to expand...


That guy sells Taco's ;)
b981ec14.jpg
Click to expand...
 
D

derFeef

Member
Sniper McBlaze said:
Uhh, I think I started on a server with the letter T, but does it matter? I've been disconnected several times, but it seems like the game just sends me to one of the other servers.
Click to expand...

If I understand it correctly, the Meet Up function is to get people into the same Dimension, so a temporary grouping with other players on different dimensions should be possible. If that's really the case (we should test that) then kudos to Funcom, they have solved the "I can't play with my friends and some dudes on other forums because they play on different dimensions" problem!
 
C

Ceebs

Member
I absolutely love the setting and general vibe of the game. Still not sure about the combat though. I don't really have enough skills yet though to pass any sort of judgement.

My only real complaints are that the hotspot detection is not great on some of the clickable items you need to pick up, and loadtimes. Have an SSD on the way so maybe that will help with the loads. I may pick this up if I can find a deal on it at launch.
 
D

derFeef

Member
I dont get the complaints as I think the combat feels good now. It does not reinvent the wheel or anything, but it certainly feels fresh and different compared to other games. The fact that you can combine any weapon and skill is smart too.
 
A

aasoncott

Member
I really, really, really want to love this game. I'm a huge fan of Ragnar Tornquist, and I want to see his projects succeed. I like the subject manner, I'm intrigued by the social nature of MMOs, and for the first time in my life I think I'm at the point where I wouldn't be totally opposed to putting down $15 / month towards a game I enjoy.

That said.

I've never played an MMO before. Somehow I've totally avoided it, which is kind of amazing considering how many of my friends disappeared into EverQuest and World of Warcraft.

Playing through the first hour of The Secret World felt like dropping into a game where all the elements of good control and design had gone out the window. I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to be playing -- I ended up doing this weird keyboard kung-fu, the right mouse button always held in so it controlled "properly" and my left hand tapping 1 repeatedly to attack. It seemed almost purposefully obtuse. And then, the feedback you were getting from the game was so poor that it seemed like it expected me to know a bunch of stuff that I didn't -- should I be strafing around enemies like an action game or does that have no affect? Should I be selecting enemies to attack them, or aiming my weapon? And if the answer is "play it like an action game, strafing and aiming", then why are the basic controls so convoluted?

I understand that RPGs require complicated controls. I played DND for years -- especially at higher levels, the amount of combat options at your disposal are ridiculous. But is this seriously the best interface that people have come with?

I'd love someone to tell me if I'm "doing it wrong". I want to love this game. Maybe I'm just approaching it totally the wrong way, and there's a sweet spot where everything becomes second nature.
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
derFeef said:
I dont get the complaints as I think the combat feels good now. It does not reinvent the wheel or anything, but it certainly feels fresh and different compared to other games. The fact that you can combine any weapon and skill is smart too.
Click to expand...

I'm with you. I don't get the complaints at this point, and they may still make changes to the feel of it. Considering what has gone into the aspects that arent combat I will forgive it not being ground-breaking.
 
B

BattleMonkey

Member
derFeef said:
I dont get the complaints as I think the combat feels good now. It does not reinvent the wheel or anything, but it certainly feels fresh and different compared to other games. The fact that you can combine any weapon and skill is smart too.
Click to expand...

It's not about the actual game system, it's that it looks and feels bad. It's very floaty and the feedback between attacks, damage dealing, and pressing the button just don't jive. The animation is also to blame as it's still very weak in many aspects. The game systems and alot of the game is great and refreshing for a MMO, the combat just doesn't feel fun with it's sloppy feel.
 
P

piratepwnsninja

Member
BattleMonkey said:
It's not about the actual game system, it's that it looks and feels bad. It's very floaty and the feedback between attacks, damage dealing, and pressing the button just don't jive. The animation is also to blame as it's still very weak in many aspects. The game systems and alot of the game is great and refreshing for a MMO, the combat just doesn't feel fun with it's sloppy feel.
Click to expand...

I can agree with this for some weapons, but I find that some do feel good. As mentioned, I think that the shotgun+blade combo works and feels really good. I was mowing down large swaths of zombies in Kingsmouth and felt really good doing it. But I'd tried fist weapons before and man those felt goofy. Wasn't a huge fan of any of the starting magic types either. Pistols were pretty OK and assault rifle wasn't bad either. It would be nice if everything felt good. I do understand that a lot of the combat abilities that are unlocked make the combat both look and feel better, but that shouldn't be the case since you want people to get drawn in right off the bat.
 
M

Madouu

Member
I'm happy more people are liking the game now, I sure am. I'll be on Bourjila tonight if anyone needs help with quests and such. Also, I can't thank bloodforge enough for the key he sent me, you're the man!

Also, if anyone is running a factory OC'd Nvidia card, make sure to not use the most recent nvidia drivers as those will cause your performance to plummet. I learnt it the hard way.
 
T

TheYanger

Member
Sniper McBlaze said:
That's why we need a OT to get people interested! :) I don't understand why this game get so mixed impressions from the beta.
Click to expand...

People don't give it a chance past the bad first impression :/
Even once you're in Kingsmouth you have to actually dig into the quests to see what seperates it from the MMO chaff. It's a real shame, but it's already got a pretty high learning curve compared to your average MMO, making it even more difficult to grasp at the start would probably only be even worse, sadly.

I really feel the game is destined to end up a niche product, even though it's pretty freaking sweet.
 
P

piratepwnsninja

Member
TheYanger said:
People don't give it a chance past the bad first impression :/
Even once you're in Kingsmouth you have to actually dig into the quests to see what seperates it from the MMO chaff. It's a real shame, but it's already got a pretty high learning curve compared to your average MMO, making it even more difficult to grasp at the start would probably only be even worse, sadly.

I really feel the game is destined to end up a niche product, even though it's pretty freaking sweet.
Click to expand...

I watched someone try The Raven quest for about 20 minutes while I was just logged in and eating. It was painful. I could tell they were super frustrated and wondering why it wasn't just pointing them EXACTLY where they needed to place the feathers.
 
D

derFeef

Member
Yeah, plus people are just asking for the solution in the chat (like codes and stuff) instead giving it some minutes. I wonder what they do by launch because there will be no General Chat to minimize spoilers.

I blame some stuff to the UI though. The fact that you can re-watch every picture/map/book you pick up in the quest log is crucial to some quests and it never tells you this. While I love the digging and reading, I can feel for people being frustrated and I always want to help them out because the payoff is so good.

btw. I made some non-UI, downsampled impression shots over at flickr if you guys want to check it out. Constantly adding pictures ;)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75932498@N00/sets/72157630159084340/
 
Sniper McBlaze

Sniper McBlaze

Member
I like that this game doesn't have a leveling system like in other mmos. It doesn't stress me like the grind to level 60 in WoW to get to the end game. Here I take more time reading lore and just explore the town of Kingsmouth. It's great.
 
M

Moobabe

Member
Just did the Polaris instance. Wow. Talk about intense! We wiped like 3 times on the very first instance in the game - Karma and I were healers (and realised half way through how good one of our heals was) and that swung the tide a little in our favour. So impressed with the difficulty of the instance though.

So Feef... INSTANCE?!
 
V

vaelic

Banned
derFeef said:
I dont get the complaints as I think the combat feels good now. It does not reinvent the wheel or anything, but it certainly feels fresh and different compared to other games. The fact that you can combine any weapon and skill is smart too.
Click to expand...
You like floaty lack of impact t combat? I feel sorry for you then
 
M

Moobabe

Member
vaelic said:
this MMO has gone 10 steps backwards in this dept. go read the official forums. the game is good. the combat is the turn off
Click to expand...

That doesn't answer my question - and why do I need to read the official forums to form my own opinion on the combat? It's fine - it's not revolutionary - but I don't see it as any worse that WoW/GW2/SWTOR etc
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
derFeef said:
I feel sorry for people thinking that personal opinions are rules.
Click to expand...

Me too especially when everyone in here has pretty much pointed out that the combat is fine, but the real meat is the challenging quests. It feels like an amazing adventure game. If the questing was shallow, and lore uninteresting, then we may have some issues.
 
E

etiolate

Banned
So far the setting and world are cool. Won't comment on the combat until I get further in.

Framerates are janky for me and the London area isn't all that visually impressive. Kingsmouth looks a lot better so far. Music is good.
 
G

glaurung

Member
tswwb1.jpg


Spent something like 9h with the weekend beta. Here are some thoughts.

Pro
  • Looks good and sounds good. Some properly good texture work.
  • World feels complete and immersive.
  • The conspiracy theory story line has some appeal. The dragon faction feels like it's pulled out of someone's ass. Just to have a third faction.
  • Novel approach to the class system.
  • Voice acting is pleasant.
  • Good music.

Con
  • Tesselation looks way off in some places.
  • Engine is unoptimized as fuck.
  • Loading times are atrocious.
  • Difficulty curve is a joke.
  • Lip sync is non-existent.
  • Character models all look alike. Ugly, boring costumes. And you are stuck with them out of the gate.
  • Cookie cutter quests.
  • The grind.

Verdict - not buying. Definitely not worth the subscription fee that will be heavily padded with microtransactions from the get go. Plus the sale price of this game is too great.

F2P in November 2012.
 
W

walking fiend

Member
Just got my beta key, but it's the second time I'm trying to download the game through client and my PC freezes and have to do hard reboot; only 1 day left for beta, right? (got my key through Nvidia thing)... And my internet connection is probably too slow to download the client even by tomorrow, anyway; but really wanted to try and see the result of time and resources Tornquist could have instead put into The Longest Journey
 
B

bloodforge

Member
Setting and skill system is great but the rest is just meh. Game is also really ugly, character models are terrible.

Been looking forward to this since it was announced, too.
 
D

derFeef

Member
I agree with most your points Glaurung, except the know technical issues. Also cookie cutter quests are really only a small part of the game, and even those I enjoyed more than in other games. Grind I can not comment on since I only have somewhat of 15 hours on may main character in the open beta, and I gain AP's and SP's on a constant pace still.

F2P will never happen, though, (really, November?) if anything they will do a hybrid model like Conan. And you can really ignore the microtransactions because it will be visuals only.

@Moobabe
Sorry I could not make it for a Polaris run, family bussines!
Also I will stop playing beta weekends now - it spoils too much :)
 
P

piratepwnsninja

Member
glaurung said:
tswwb1.jpg


Spent something like 9h with the weekend beta. Here are some thoughts.

Pro
  • Looks good and sounds good. Some properly good texture work.
  • World feels complete and immersive.
  • The conspiracy theory story line has some appeal. The dragon faction feels like it's pulled out of someone's ass. Just to have a third faction.
  • Novel approach to the class system.
  • Voice acting is pleasant.
  • Good music.

Con
  • Tesselation looks way off in some places.
  • Engine is unoptimized as fuck.
  • Loading times are atrocious.
  • Difficulty curve is a joke.
  • Lip sync is non-existent.
  • Character models all look alike. Ugly, boring costumes. And you are stuck with them out of the gate.
    [*]Cookie cutter quests.
  • The grind.

Verdict - not buying. Definitely not worth the subscription fee that will be heavily padded with microtransactions from the get go. Plus the sale price of this game is too great.

F2P in November 2012.
Click to expand...

Yeah, no to the bolded part. Sure it has some, but overall, just no.
 
G

glaurung

Member
derFeef said:
I agree with most your points Glaurung, except the know technical issues. Also cookie cutter quests are really only a small part of the game, and even those I enjoyed more than in other games. Grind I can not comment on since I only have somewhat of 15 hours on may main character in the open beta, and I gain AP's and SP's on a constant pace still.

F2P will never happen, though, (really, November?) if anything they will do a hybrid model like Conan. And you can really ignore the microtransactions because it will be visuals only.

@Moobabe
Sorry I could not make it for a Polaris run, family bussines!
Also I will stop playing beta weekends now - it spoils too much :)
Click to expand...
The engine felt really horrible at times. Just to prove my point, I toggled all the settings from all sections to lowest of all, medium and highest. The game continued to chug at certain places, regardless of the configuration. Could be just my PC setup issue, but annoying nonetheless.

Also, this game would make an epic single player adventure. Why? Because I see no reason to play through the same story line quests twice.

And another mention for the ugliest character models of all time: there are no memorable faces. You will not care for a single character you meet.
 
G

glaurung

Member
piratepwnsninja said:
Yeah, no to the bolded part. Sure it has some, but overall, just no.
Click to expand...
Everything that has you reading stuff and figuring out puzzles was awesome.

But that was like 1 in 10 quests.

The others? Go to X, kill 5 mobs. Go to X, gather 3 items. Go to X, play broken-ass solo dungeon with broken and pointless stealth mechanics.

That last part irked me the most. It was like somebody played too much MGS and decided: we need this in TSW, but let's make it suck.

Edit: sorry for the double post.
 
E

etiolate

Banned
Some more impressions:

The world really does draw you in. I actually listen to the story cinematics and pay attention to the reasons for my quests. Some of the quests are "go here and kill five zombies", but others involve digging into the general weirdness of Kingsmouth. I like that there's some guessing of passwords and puzzle solving, and that these things can involve the in-game browser. I do wish the in-game browser had a built in search window or a home page icon that went to a secret world website. I get tired of typing in google.com everyime I want to search for something new. A couple of times the browser wouldn't work when I typed in a common url. Not sure what was going on.

The crafting system is cool, but needs a tutorial. I had to look up online to figure out what I was doing. I still don't know what to do with various crafting items I have.

Combat feels like a general MMO, but not much fresher than that. At least not to the level of GW2 or Tera. The dodge seems to serve the single purpose of getting out of an aoe circle. I do like that you can move out of incoming attacks. Issues of "weightiness" are always a matter of tweaking animations and sound effects.

I did notice that one mob was impairing/knocking me down and then my camera would flip around backwards. I imagine this is a bug.

Most disappointing thing is that the generally good VA isn't matched up with lip movements right now.

Due to the world and atmosphere, questing was enjoyable for myself, but I am not sure I like the quest swapping system.
 
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