TSW roll call

[Landon]

Who is all planning on playing here? Got my pre-order already. Thinking we might be able to revive the Catacombs Crusaders.

[VKhaun]

We'll see how the last beta weekend goes (PvP).
The game promises three hooks:
Investigation Quests: Not linked to TSW. Nothing stops WoW from putting in figure-stuff-out-and-google quests.
Deck Building Skill system: Only 'Meh' and will not let you hyper specialize defeating SOME of it's own purpose (flexibility).
Large scale 3way PvP: Horrendously broken at this point from what I hear. Instagib builds mostly.

[Landon]

I been following it for a while. The main thing I love about it is the story quests. My bf and I are both gonna be playing so I was hoping to get more friends on board too.

This is the first mmo since DAOC where I've felt loyal to a faction in an MMO so it feels good . Hopefully more Templars to be joining from the cats. If we get enough we can start a cabal.

[VKhaun]

I am a Templar since you mention it.

[Zoobi]

If I were to play(which I'm not) I would have went Dragon anyway .

[Alex Mars]

I am going to take a look at this game at the end of the year and see what has changed and improved, but if I play it I will have to go Illuminati.

[Marou]

Holy shit, Landon? I guess catacombs people never die, they just disappear for a few years. I'm looking forward to World of Darkness when it finally comes out. Pretty much done with theme-parks though. Grinding stuff doesn't appeal to me. However, if you guys plan on playing WoD next year or whenever it comes out, I'll be there if I can be.

It's too bad too, because I love the type of setting the Secret World has. Just the gameplay/character models/animation looks very bad, and it's Yet Another Theme Park.

[Landon]

I never went away just don't post much. I have been playing MMOs.

[VKhaun]

You didn't do SWTOR did you?

[Landon]

I tried it.. And I really tried to get into it. But it felt like a bad version of force unleashed and the cartoon-look of something like SW turned me off

[Zavon]

I've been watching the Totalbiscuit beta footage of this game. The combat looks *really* rough.

[Ziel]

The only thing that doesn't look rough are the environments. I'm interested to find out if the game picks up at all.

[Landon]

They stated that animations etc would be on par with Conan at release. There was a post on the forums where a guy was worried about the character animations and they responded to say they would not be like that. We will just have to see.

[Zavon]

So, I've been watching vids of the game on youtube.

From what I can tell here are the pros:
* No Classes
* No Gear
* No Leveling
* Investigative quests that require you to use an in-game browser that your character carries
* Rich beautiful environments to explore
* No auto-target? Not sure on this one, but I've seen it said a few times that you have to aim your attacks. That targeting a mob is only good for seeing how much health they have.
* No auto-attack
* A collision system

Cons:
* Typical boring trinity
* Combat and mechanics are repetitive. Everyone builds up combo points by mashing a standard ability, then uses a big finisher.
* A lot of bugs
* Dodging is really just a slow walk away from mobs, and hope you don't get hit. Still mostly rock em-sockem
* Terrible characters and voice acting
* Monthly fee

Summary: It is a lot different than I thought it was. I'm intrigued by the questing system (especially given that there are no "kill x" type quests), and the fact that there is no gear grind at all. Gear grinds and the trinity role system are the biggest things I have issue with. But, good God, the combat looks so dull. I've watched people play it and say they were having fun, but I just don't see how.

[Zavon]

They stated that animations etc would be on par with Conan at release. There was a post on the forums where a guy was worried about the character animations and they responded to say they would not be like that. We will just have to see.

See that confuses me. Why would they secretly hide the good animations this close to release?

[cecilus]

So, I've been watching vids of the game on youtube.

From what I can tell here are the pros:
* No Classes
* No Gear
* No Leveling
* Investigative quests that require you to use an in-game browser that your character carries
* Rich beautiful environments to explore
* No auto-target? Not sure on this one, but I've seen it said a few times that you have to aim your attacks. That targeting a mob is only good for seeing how much health they have.
* No auto-attack
* A collision system

Cons:
* Typical boring trinity
* Combat and mechanics are repetitive. Everyone builds up combo points by mashing a standard ability, then uses a big finisher.
* A lot of bugs
* Dodging is really just a slow walk away from mobs, and hope you don't get hit. Still mostly rock em-sockem
* Terrible characters and voice acting
* Monthly fee

Summary: It is a lot different than I thought it was. I'm intrigued by the questing system (especially given that there are no "kill x" type quests), and the fact that there is no gear grind at all. Gear grinds and the trinity role system are the biggest things I have issue with. But, good God, the combat looks so dull. I've watched people play it and say they were having fun, but I just don't see how.

Well, not sure how much I can say without breaking the NDA but what you have listed as pros is not really true. There are quests that make you go to a spot and kill X number on monsters. There is gear, just not your "typical" gear. There is an auto target in the sense that when something is hitting you, you target it if you do not already have a target.

All of your Cons are spot on. I don't care to much about bugs since it is in beta but since the game is coming out in about 3 weeks you would think that there would be less of them. Also, you can only have a few quests at once which is really annoying.

I was really looking forward to this game coming out because the idea and the setting seems great. However after playing it I am not so sure. I can not seem to play the game for more then an hour before I get bored and I have gone days without playing cause I cant bring my self to log in.

[VKhaun]

No... gear is very typical. It's head/wrist/feet ragdoll just with the locations renamed. Stats will not surprise you. I don't think that's NDA breaking I'm pretty sure they've advertised a free set of them with certain collectors edition purchases and what not.

Typical boring trinity doesn't work either IMHO... the low levels are full of people who set up for DPS and get steamrolled while spamming for a 'healer' and no one gets that their group already has two healers and a tank, they just geared and picked skills like retards. Every skill line is half damage and half something from the trinity (Heal/Tank) and applies some kind of status effect. I tried to go DPS/Healer and I just get ass reamed every time I play because I suck up aggro like a hoover while everyone else does almost pure DPS with a little self survival.

NDA Check: Again, plenty of articles out there about the skill wheel and I didn't give specifics.

[Zavon]

So, they give you the freedom to be a tard/

[Alex Mars]

I was really looking forward to this game coming out because the idea and the setting seems great. However after playing it I am not so sure. I can not seem to play the game for more then an hour before I get bored and I have gone days without playing cause I cant bring my self to log in.

This was very much my reaction, normally when I get into a beta I have to keep myself from playing too deeply in order to preserve the upcoming fun when the game launches, but I find playing TSW to be a chore, I just don't like it.

It is a real disappointment for me as I am huge fan of conspiracy theories since I read the Illuminati trilogy while dropping LSD back in the 70s.

[Marou]

This was very much my reaction, normally when I get into a beta I have to keep myself from playing too deeply in order to preserve the upcoming fun when the game launches, but I find playing TSW to be a chore, I just don't like it.

It is a real disappointment for me as I am huge fan of conspiracy theories since I read the Illuminati trilogy while dropping LSD back in the 70s.

Robert Anton Wilson is a pimp. Outside of that, it offered me a beta key when I was updating my windows 8 drivers earlier today, I'll be be checking this out over the weekend. Given the horrid quality of the preview videos and the reception here I'm not expecting much, but then it's costing me nothing but time to try.

So, if you *WANT* to check it out, update your nVidia drivers.

I have to say, I haven't played a game this broken this close to release in the last 10 years. Basic group and char functionalities are totally fucked up, throw in horrid animations and character models, and multiple random non-reproducable crash bugs and just...Wow, 2 weeks from release? Really?

[Sillywilly]

I'm finding the game to feel somewhat uninspired. It also reminds me of one of the few turn-offs I had for Fallen Earth and that is th gameplay is very choppy and gaudy. It's like playing SWtOR/Warhammer and getting used to that pace of action then going back and trying to strafe somebody in DAoC. The movement and controls just seem heavily dated to me. I'm gonna keep trying it out and see how it goes but so far the answer is: I won't even bother buying it at all.

[Zavon]

It definitely is buggy and not ready for release on those grounds alone. I've had all sorts of silly errors, and two completely out of the blue crashes.

That being said, I don't get the complaints about the animations. None of them look that bad to me. In fact they feel sort of realistic.

The game has a lot of cons, but the reality is I've enjoyed the stories and mysteries so much that I've barely noticed the negatives. Also, the open ended character development is something I've always dreamed about. Come release, I will be playing. No idea if I'll go beyond the initial 30 day trial, but so far this game has been a blast.

[Valec]

They said they improved the animations I believe at some point, so I imagine you don't have a complaint with them because they are the new ones.

[Sillywilly]

lol I alt+tabbed and ctrl+alt+del cancelled the game in mid combat. Enough is enough. It's the most ridiculous beta I've ever been in. The combat is complete horseshit. For whatever reason my toon can destroy 5 zombies but one enemy with a unique name (solo quest mob) will damn near destroy me. The skills are lack luster, it's a corpse fetching game for god sake and the active dodging is a total gimmick. It's basicly a "leap back" ability like from Warhammer that is on a 10 second cool down or something. So if the enemy has one big high damage ability they use it's useful for getting out of the way but it's not like it makes the combat FPS'ery or anything. It's a stand there and swing your stick MMO. There's nothing "active" about it. Barely any loot drops and when it does it's the same thing that almost anything other than quest items are in this game, it's a rotating fucking square with some Super Nintendo quality icon in it. The lore items? Yellow spinning squares. Loot bags? White spinning squares. Healing potions in your inventory? Flat white square with a generic undetailed beaker image on it. Weapons you find? Generic looking white square with a cartoon quality weapon image on it.

The game goes BLAH.

Those items aside there's something about the game that annoys the shit out of me as well. Something about the way the character movies, the lighting, the way monsters move, etc. I can feel it building up inside of me little by little the longer I'm playing no matter what I'm doing. It was the same with Fallen Earth. The basic premise of Fallen Earth was good and I think I even subscribed for one month but this game doesn't have any appeal to me. There's something so disconnected about the game that it's a frustration to be doing anything. I think the best way I know to describe it is that your watching a made for TV B movie about a plot you really really like but just can't get into it because of the shitty cinematography and 2nd rate acting and about 3/4s of the way through it you throw the remote at the TV and pull the power chord out of the wall because you can't take it anymore.

[Zavon]

I can see what you guys are saying... I've played it for several more hours today, though, and am loving it more than ever.