f13.net

So is this worth a run out?

And for someone considering an impulse buy, am I interested in 'Massive Edition' which 'contains the full Secret World game and Issue #5, #6 and #7.' for £25 whatever the fuck that might mean?

OK, just bought it.  Ten bucks, no sub, what the hell.

Well worth it.  Great game for a month or two.

I picked it up as well.  Figure if I can't get 10 € worth out of this, surely one of my boys will.

It's worth $10 just for the atmosphere.  Note that the difficulty can be quite a bit higher than most MMOs, though.

This.  Make sure that you stay in the starting area until you have finished every single quest that you can find.  Also look over the ability trees for synergy.  Picking the right combination of weapons can make solo play much more enjoyable after the 2nd or 3rd area.

I've gone AR/Swords. I noticed I have a heal on both starting trees.  Should I forgo one of the support trees? 

First impressions
-The environment is VERY nice and atmospheric. 
-The quest system took me a minute to understand but I think I like it a lot.  It seems elegant.
-The UI is good overall, but I've been stumped on a couple of things. 
-I crafted my first item, a blade.  Crafting system looks OK but rudimentary. 
-The combat is nothing special so far.  MMO.  Maybe once I figure out all the combos and hinderances, etc. I'll like it more.
-I do wish some of the characters would shut the fuck up!  I don't need your life story to go get some ammo.
-The first instance was pretty cool.  I had to think a bit and look carefully at my environment. 
-The loot is...OK?  I'm getting cash and symbols I don't know I guess I can spend them later.

Combat is probably the weakest part but its still ok, imo.  I love how you can wear whatever you want since your stat modifiers aren't visable.  I wouldn't bother with crafting too much since its mostly useless, esp. in the early game.  The game starts to get difficult once you leave the first area, so its best to gear up as much as you can before you go to the next zone.  As per abilities/skills, I would pick one of the pre-set "classes" and work towards that first.  You'll be able to progress faster than guessing a viable spec plus you end up getting a cool outfit to wear.

It's a very good game but my memory is failing me.  There is quite a bit of info in "the useful information thread" but it might be dated by now.  This site is very good. (http://unfair.co/tsw-builds/)  Scroll down to the solo builds and pick something you like.  Each region has symbols that you can spend for good blue weapons from the UN people (I forget their real name).  The symbols are per region though so you might want to save them for the vendor in the highest level area, which would be blue mountain when you start the game.

The difficulty does ramp up but all it forces you to do is get a good build/rotation and once you do that you will be fine again.

I see this is on sale again - thoughts on picking it up? Still positive on the game?

If you're in the mood for a new MMO it's a good option, just to see one that does things differently.  Since it's f2p now, the one-time cost isn't bad.

If you're on the fence it's one that goes on sale pretty frequently.

It kept me entertained for a few months as it was F2P but in the end it was just lacking. I never made it past the first island and was annoyed at the length of some of the combats.  I had enough skillpoints to do some of the advanced classes and the Tier 6 weapons, but the mob fights still took forever. No thanks.

I've found STO has more staying power for me. A better, more deciperable progression model and simpler daily tasks that fulfill my MMO fix inside of an hour or two a day.

If you aren't sick of MMOs (which I think I am at this point), SW is a better option than most.  I has a bit of soul to it, which most lack nowadays.

Thanks for the replies. I reckon I've spent too much money this week, so I might wait for the next sale go round. We also started mucking about with EQ1 again casually since their free-85's promotion and proper F2P changes.

Note that if own TSW on steam and you buy the "Massive edition" you *don't* get a second account key. I suspect the new key associated with the purchase refuses to over-write your old (used) account key. Was hoping to use a "well I have a spare account" to induce the wife to play (she consider it "ugly"), but guess that's not happening.

FWIW, I've played a lot of MMOs in a duo with Sjofn and this was easily the worst 2 player experience out of all of them. The game really gets in your way a lot, or at least it used to.

Only place you'd really benefit is that parts of Egypt and Transylvania are a lot easier if you have another person around.  There's a lot more group quests as you progress and Transylvania has a lot.   Luckily when I was playing around launch, there was a decent contingent of F13ers around, so those quests could get done (well, there was also this one bug that helped too  :awesome_for_real: ).   Plus, tank/heals are needed for dungeons.  So, it helps if you can bring that on your own.  

Honestly, this is a little tempting to play again just for the story.  It's really well done and a lot of fun in parts.  But, there are some frustrating aspects that keep me from taking the plunge (too many group quests IMO, some LOL Funcom moments and quest mechanics, etc).

I haven't seen anything in the core story and general zone missions that requires a group.

I'd agree with Ingmar though, this would be a terrible game to play with a regular partner. 80% of the content in the general zones would be trivialised, and the remainder would be solo instances that you'd be totally unprepared for. The dungeons need 5 people, so you'd still be pugging them.

How far in?  It really doesn't become an issue until Transylvania and it's never on core story missions as far as I remember.

In Transylvania, but probably less than half way in. There was one mission I couldn't do in Egypt, but don't think that was a group thing. I know I've hit a few missions where the mission walkthroughs state 'this mission got patched and x was made more straightforward' so it is possible the missions that previously needed a group weren't intentional and got fixed.

Or maybe I haven't reached it yet. But hard to imagine any group content couldn't be skipped.