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Author Topic: Investor Press Release  (Read 115669 times)
Abelian75
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Reply #70 on: August 12, 2012, 09:53:58 AM

I haven't played, but it sounds like TSW doesn't have a fun/understandable newbie experience.  We've seen that a lot in MMO's.  Do they have a tutorial?  You throw a player in a non-diku MMO without some hand-holding you will get frustration.

Even AoC, their previous MMO, had a fun newbie experience and it lasted for all of Tortage.



I don't actually agree that it doesn't have a fun/understandable newbie experience, though.  I wouldn't sing its praises or anything, but I was pretty pulled in immediately.  I think the reviewers just assumed the game was going to be shit (just like I did, honestly) and saw what they wanted to see so they could quickly bang out a review of a game without having to actually pay attention.
Hoax
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Reply #71 on: August 12, 2012, 10:33:21 AM

There are 3 channels with a total of 5 people watching TSW being streamed on twitch.

The problem this game has is that it is for people who have played a lot more than just WoW and appreciate the learning curve and new ideas and systems. However at the same time TSW was made by the company with maybe the worst reputation among that segment of players.

They could have the next game that could grow the way EVE did but I doubt it not because it isn't as "good" as eve but because the game doesn't lend itself to people getting invested the way eve's single server all player driven gameworld did/does.

I think TSW has always had the problems DDO and SWTOR have, namely I'm not sure why those games were ever trying to be MMO's. Why isn't this game a Borderlands style co-op/sp game with dress up and lewt and leveling?
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 10:35:39 AM by Hoax »

A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation.
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Segoris
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Reply #72 on: August 12, 2012, 10:45:29 AM

Just finished the G4TV.com review, and feeling rather stabby. Here are the highlights:

Quote
piss-poor voice acting, the game features almost no redeeming qualities.
This is due to the game’s largest failure: a lack of classes or a leveling system.
The story is so weak and tortuous it hardly merits mention.
The writing is among the worst I have heard in a game and even the voice acting is hard to stomach.
Instead, the game is just too difficult to enjoy across the board. Mobs never really become easier to kill because you never really level above them.
The quests in the game are another serious weak point.
Most quests feel like time sinks without the comforting thought that at least you’re gaining experience and leveling.
Some quests require outside knowledge to solve, like say an obscure bible passage. But who in their right mind wants to exit a game, visit Google and look up a passage?

To misspell any doubts: Yes, this is a staff review. And yes, it features among the aggregate that makes up metacritic's 72/100 score. To think people get layed off over this... Ohhhhh, I see.


Read the comments and hope that others do so as well, as the reviewer (rightfully so) got torn apart in the comments

I don't think there's anything really wrong with what you bolded though.

The voice acting is occasionally awful and the lip syncing even more so.  It's not a strong engine and the real world setting and art direction do it no favors.  Not everyone likes deck builders.  The setting and the game's occasional ARG-like qualities are also pretty easy to find unlikable.

Everyone who recommends this game does so with heavy qualifications or caveats, sometimes implied in the case of Falc.  Guess what happens when someone who doesn't fall into those qualifications has to play the game?  An uncharitable review, but not one that's off-base.

Some of the parts that were bolded shows just how little the reviewer even tried with this game and what they really wanted (WoW made even easier with a modern skin and their momma's tit to suck on when they die, but that won't be needed because the game the reviewer wants is so easy that death does not exist). The most telling part is their thinking that you need to leave the game to solve puzzle quests, instead of informing readers there's an in-game browser. Or stating that there are lots of buggy quests (there are) but without mentioning that they are pretty damn quickly becoming fixed - showing even further the person who reviewed it was reviewing a beta product.

I think if players are giving positive word of mouth with caveats, then reviewers who are fuck-tards should also provide a caveat at the beginning of their review, something along the lines of "I wanted to never have to think and be rewarded purples all day because I'm a dipshit and have no clue what I'm talking about but still get to review for G4" or something along those lines.

That reviewer didn't get past Kingsmouth, I bet. Some of the early voice acting in Kingsmouth bothered me (the sheriff in particular). You don't see some of the more interesting aspects of the skill system until late in that zone. And if you don't do the dungeons, you really aren't seeing a lot of the differences between it and WoW-like MMO's that make the game special.
It may have bothered you, but her accent was dead on.

The reviewer was too stupid to understand anything about what the game was trying to be.  He only wanted WoW, and when a game dared, dared, to be different, he savaged it.  Even if he had gotten WoW, he probably would have rated it low because it wasn't WoW.

Everyone one of his points was either outright wrong or subjective opinion passed off as factual information.  The dude could work for FOX with skills like that.

^This.
Surlyboi
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Reply #73 on: August 12, 2012, 11:52:20 AM

That reviewer didn't get past Kingsmouth, I bet. Some of the early voice acting in Kingsmouth bothered me (the sheriff in particular). You don't see some of the more interesting aspects of the skill system until late in that zone. And if you don't do the dungeons, you really aren't seeing a lot of the differences between it and WoW-like MMO's that make the game special.
It may have bothered you, but her accent was dead on.

The reviewer was too stupid to understand anything about what the game was trying to be.  He only wanted WoW, and when a game dared, dared, to be different, he savaged it.  Even if he had gotten WoW, he probably would have rated it low because it wasn't WoW.

Everyone one of his points was either outright wrong or subjective opinion passed off as factual information.  The dude could work for FOX with skills like that.

^This.

Bingo. And people get mad when I'm so vocal about my disdain for WoW. It has turned into shorthand for MMO at this point and it's a piss-poor showing when every other game is held up to its ridiculous standard.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something.  We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail
Kageru
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Reply #74 on: August 12, 2012, 07:11:39 PM


The mainstream will always act as the benchmark, and as a result most reviews are going to favor the mainstream, this isn't exactly new. Nor that a lot of reviews are created after a pretty short time investment, especially relative to that required to judge an MMO.

Blaming the benchmark, in this case WoW, for causing the reviews to be inaccurate is wrong-headed.

That said GW2 isn't WoW and is getting decent reviews. I'd say half the problem was horror has always been far more niche than fantasy, "mystery" promotional material and game-play appeals to only a tiny subset of the market and novel game mechanics always present a challenge to the average gamer who really just wants to punch the button until everything dies. Plus it's funcom, and maybe they didn't grease enough palms.

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Reply #75 on: August 12, 2012, 07:51:24 PM

It makes sense to look at it from the point of view of the mainstream. What doesn't make sense is when they start writing things like "the combat is terrible", implying, presumably, that WoW combat is the benchmark, and is better. How the fuck does that work? At the very worst the combat is samesame. With a bit of a deeper look into it, TSW combat is miles ahead.

One must bow to offer aid to a fallen man - The Tao of Shinsei.
Threash
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Reply #76 on: August 12, 2012, 08:15:30 PM

Look, i've been enjoying the game but the combat is pretty damn shitty.

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Rasix
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Reply #77 on: August 12, 2012, 08:27:28 PM

No worse than any other MMO, really.  Has a bit more depth than most, and you actually have to move out of fire while doing leveling material.  However, it probably takes getting past Kingsmouth and a bit into Savage Coast before you start seeing the strengths.  Up into that point the story should have been carrying you along.  awesome, for real

Game is niche of niche and from Funcom.  I'm not sure it ever had a fighting chance just based on that.

It's the most fun I think I've had in a MMO since back when they still had that new car smell.  Still, it has its frustrating moments (easily overcome if you don't mind cheating), and it's a bit rough around a couple edges.  I'll probably be done soon, because really, there really just isn't enough of it (and I don't care much about running instances to get myself into purps).  It's kind of a unique experience for me to feel like I've "beaten" a MMO, and one that I'm sure isn't great for sub numbers going forward.

However, it's probably good thing that the brand new thing coming out this month doesn't require a sub.  And really, fuck Pandas.  So, depending on content release, I could be around for a bit more. This news won't help that.  undecided
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 08:31:25 PM by Rasix »

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Reply #78 on: August 12, 2012, 08:58:26 PM

Warning, this got a little stream-of-consciousness, and I can't seem to get it tightened up very well. Apologies in advance for the SirBrucing it will probably take to coherently reply to me.  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

But, thinking about Megrim's disbelief that people could come away from TSW combat thinking it isn't worse than WoW's, I like WoW's combat (and by extension SWTOR's) a lot better, on reflection. I know I complain when games give me too many buttons, but I think TSW gives me too few. I end up feeling like I'm just not very versatile on a personal level despite the crazy number of possible combinations. There aren't very many interesting utility powers to pick from, I think this is part of my problem. Not much CC, not a lot of escape tools, etc. The Survivalism tree is basically the main source of personal utility tools and every one you take takes away one of your other powers. Characters in traditional class MMOs tend to be more well-rounded - you have tools for dealing with a bunch of different situations, instead of having to respec yourself for each one, or whatever. You get, say, your single target attacks, your AE attacks, your interrupt, your CC, and your personal defensive tools all together without having to choose between them. The price of the huge versatility of characters en masse is reduced versatility for any given character, I guess. And granted, it does encourage grouping, in a sense. Surely by now though it has been thoroughly proven that people in general don't really want that kind of encouragement. Better rewards for grouping gets people to group up; making solo characters feel 'weak' makes people change games, and not being able to take a reasonable suite of attacks and still fit in 'enough' utility powers definitely makes me feel weak.

OK, so that was more about the character building than the combat, but that's the thing, the small number of things you can do with your character really makes the combat feel shallow. Build to 5 resources, hit your two finishers, and maybe some condition management on your targets, which for the most part just gives you a bit of bonus damage. Maybe you have room on the bar for a short duration, long cooldown group buff. And that's it - it makes fight difficulty a really, really static thing. Either you can beat something, or you can't, for the most part. Beating a tough encounter, instead of becoming a test of executing well (other than the moving out of fire that pretty much every game has) becomes a test of rejiggering your powers until you find a combination that can beat the monster. I feel like TSW is tactically very uninteresting on an individual level, while probably being super interesting from like, a group composition planning standpoint, but that's not a tradeoff that is going to have a lot of mass appeal.

Compare that to the suite of tools I have available on, say, my protection warrior in WoW or my Jedi Guardian in SWTOR and it isn't anywhere near the same level of complexity/mastery to perform well. About the only thing I feel like I gained as a combat 'plus' in TSW is the ability to move while I'm doing stuff with a casting time. That's certainly nice and the constant 'move out of circle' stuff would really be a headache without it, but it isn't really enough to make up for how all the other stuff feels to me.

But what about GW1, you ask! You only get 8 powers there! The answer is, I can put 7 other henchment/heroes of my choice with full loadouts (if I go for all heroes) in my group in GW1, I can order them around, etc. Not even comparable, basically. Maybe it has similar problems when you're not solo or in a small group, I never did full 8 person group stuff there.

And honestly all that said if it were F2P I would totally still drop in from time to time, that looks like a wall of bitching but on balance I still think I feel positively towards the game.

======

Surly, anyone who plays ARMA can't play the "if I can figure this out anyone can!" card.  tongue

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Rasix
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Reply #79 on: August 12, 2012, 09:02:23 PM

The problem I'm having with new MMOs (and to some degree in WoW at times) is that there are just too many buttons.  I'm liking the approach some games are making to get some of this crap off my screen.

edit:
Embarrassing factoid: I didn't know you could move while casting until Egypt. Gogo hammer/shotgun build.  All instants.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 09:04:06 PM by Rasix »

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Reply #80 on: August 12, 2012, 09:08:28 PM

SWTOR absolutely does throw too many buttons at you on some classes (unless you're Eldaec, then you think it is about half too few); I've bitched about this on a number of occasions. LOTRO has the same problem (worse than SWTOR by a large margin, actually, at least on my champion), WoW gets up there on some classes as well. I think the sweet spot for me is probably around 20. Enough to fill 2 10 button ability bars, and then maybe I've got one more bar for items and long term buffs and travel thingies. I think City of Heroes really nails this, by the way, the character building is very flexible but still allows you to carry enough utility to not feel shitty when you're solo.

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Llyse
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Reply #81 on: August 12, 2012, 09:19:18 PM

It makes sense to look at it from the point of view of the mainstream. What doesn't make sense is when they start writing things like "the combat is terrible", implying, presumably, that WoW combat is the benchmark, and is better. How the fuck does that work? At the very worst the combat is samesame. With a bit of a deeper look into it, TSW combat is miles ahead.

Pretty much this...

Fark lazy game reviewer wannabe journalists.

Admittedly I hadn't played an MMO since Cataclysm but look, feel of TSW was different enough from wow that it was interesting but the Action bar and combat was similar enough to WoW that it didn't really require a tutorial. Sure you could slightly gimp yourself picking random skills but I haven't repeated any quests, switched weapons at the start because I picked shotgun instead of pistols by accident and still turned out ok (Still in Kingsmouth).

The human animations can be stilted sometimes but I like that my character is mute and I have to fill in the blanks as a response. It's a clever way to cut down voice acting costs and involve the player more.
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Reply #82 on: August 12, 2012, 09:36:17 PM

Combat isn't really the strong point of TSW (neither was it for GW1 until their second expansion Nightfall, btw.. though the deck system worked well for pvp at least). And for all the talk about the deck system, I built one deck based on a cookie-cutter crit and strike-based ele/shotgun build (got all the abilities for it halfway Egypt, just used low-cost substitutes beforehand), and it lasted me until the end of Transylvania... I had to make up an alternate build exactly once (when one of your weapons is temporarily disabled for a mission) and switch in a cripple ability when fighting tough mobs that were vulnerable to cripple (one mission in the shadowy forest). I was doing basically the same rotation for the entire game!

I don't really care much about the number of buttons as long as it's fun. GW2 does it just about right with the 5*2+1+3+1+4 abilities that typically do more than one thing each, though as an elementalist that number changes to 5*4+1+3+1+4, which was just fine for me. LOTRO has a wide spectrum from the class you could play with 4 buttons in certain combinations like a fighting game (warden) to the bloated damage/pets/cc/debuff/situational ability monstrosity that is a loremaster (where you'll be hard-pressed to put all abilities in 5 hotbars... hotkeying them all was a minigame in itself).


edited to actually address the topic: That said, the game overall was very enjoyable for me. Calling it out on story/voiceacting/graphics is just... wat? I certainly don't see why the game's worse in any of those areas compared to SWTOR, which didn't get 70-ish ratings from the same people, I'm pretty sure.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 09:55:37 PM by Zetor »

Megrim
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Reply #83 on: August 12, 2012, 10:06:18 PM

Personally I loved LotRO combat. But it's probably bias from playing a Loremaster and Captain. Loremaster especially, feeling like some kind of orchestra conductor and trying to keep the entire group operating at peak ferocity. So. Many. Buttons.

And this is really what I don't get. I played a Druid in WoW until like, 74 or something? Used about four maybe five abilities with any consistency while levelling. Same old rotation. In raids as an oomkin it was, ugh, six or seven? Maybe? It's the same thing as playing TSW. Hit rotation, go through, hit rotation, go through. The depth offered, however, by being able to combine abilities freely is liberating, even if functionally the result is largely the same.

Hence I said, at worst the combat is on par with WoW. And it only improves on it, as you unlock more abilities.

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Dark_MadMax
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Reply #84 on: August 12, 2012, 10:09:25 PM

It makes sense to look at it from the point of view of the mainstream. What doesn't make sense is when they start writing things like "the combat is terrible", implying, presumably, that WoW combat is the benchmark, and is better. How the fuck does that work? At the very worst the combat is samesame. With a bit of a deeper look into it, TSW combat is miles ahead.

Ok to be honest here. WoW combat IS the benchmark. As it is pretty  damn good as far as MMOs go. Having said that I do think TSW combat is not bad and active dodge is nice touch. In any case TSW is not about combat, that reviewer flattened its best points (dialogue, atmosphere, quests) which is outright flat lies because no MMO to date is better than TSW in those areas.
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Reply #85 on: August 12, 2012, 10:13:19 PM

Lots of stuff about skills
This pretty much nails it for me. Trying to build a tank was incredibly difficult because I couldn't find a build that could hold AOE and Single-Target threat well; my options then were respec between trash and boss pulls (which would have been easier if the spec-swapping interface worked well) or just let the DPS tank the trash mobs and hope for the best. That's not even getting into the issue of how many to slot of attacks vs defensive CDs...

I generally agree with eldaec that there's no such thing as too many buttons, and ran into the same problem in D3 that I'm feeling here in TSW.

Edit instead of double posting:
And this is really what I don't get. I played a Druid in WoW until like, 74 or something? Used about four maybe five abilities with any consistency while levelling. Same old rotation. In raids as an oomkin it was, ugh, six or seven? Maybe? It's the same thing as playing TSW. Hit rotation, go through, hit rotation, go through. The depth offered, however, by being able to combine abilities freely is liberating, even if functionally the result is largely the same.

Hence I said, at worst the combat is on par with WoW. And it only improves on it, as you unlock more abilities.
Um, what? Just doing a quick count, I have ~20 combat abilities on both my DK tank and my Assassination Rogue that I use on a regular basis while raiding in WoW.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 10:22:43 PM by Rendakor »

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Megrim
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Reply #86 on: August 12, 2012, 10:33:44 PM

Lots of stuff about skills
This pretty much nails it for me. Trying to build a tank was incredibly difficult because I couldn't find a build that could hold AOE and Single-Target threat well; my options then were respec between trash and boss pulls (which would have been easier if the spec-swapping interface worked well) or just let the DPS tank the trash mobs and hope for the best. That's not even getting into the issue of how many to slot of attacks vs defensive CDs...

I generally agree with eldaec that there's no such thing as too many buttons, and ran into the same problem in D3 that I'm feeling here in TSW.

Edit instead of double posting:
And this is really what I don't get. I played a Druid in WoW until like, 74 or something? Used about four maybe five abilities with any consistency while levelling. Same old rotation. In raids as an oomkin it was, ugh, six or seven? Maybe? It's the same thing as playing TSW. Hit rotation, go through, hit rotation, go through. The depth offered, however, by being able to combine abilities freely is liberating, even if functionally the result is largely the same.

Hence I said, at worst the combat is on par with WoW. And it only improves on it, as you unlock more abilities.
Um, what? Just doing a quick count, I have ~20 combat abilities on both my DK tank and my Assassination Rogue that I use on a regular basis while raiding in WoW.

Having 20 abilities is not the same as using 20 abilities. What, you use all 20 when levelling?

 * Edit, sorry I misread, missing the 'regular basis'. You must play at a higher level of WoW to what I did, because regularly using 20 combat abilities while raiding was certainly not my experience.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 10:36:35 PM by Megrim »

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proudft
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Reply #87 on: August 12, 2012, 11:06:16 PM

Bear druids just had fewer buttons.  I might have even had a space on my hotbar on that tank, egads!
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Reply #88 on: August 12, 2012, 11:42:00 PM

I've always looked at the "buttons" in TSW to be hidden within the skills themselves (even the passives).  Most other MMOs have lots of buttons because each button does precisely one fuckin thing and that's it.  In TSW, you may push a button and set off a combat chain that does 5 different things situationally.  There's no need to push a passive button, because it pushes itself when a condition is met... and so forth.   I mean, one skill in TSW will have outcomes based on typically 3 different factors... which in turn effect what you use down the road situationally.  These are all metaphoric buttons in a sense. 

Also, in funcoms collision-based engines they do away with a lot of the usual defensive "buttons" needed because players are already given them via movement, active dodge, LoS, etc.  So right there also you're eliminating an entire bar of skills in a lot of other RPGs.

Experimentation is also a lot more prevalent in TSW then in most other MMO.  "Trying" things is one of the best parts of the game, but if you're not a gamer that likes to fool around with a system well... then just google a build and copy the routine.  /shrug   In your WoW-wish games there really is no "trying."  There is just push this button or don't and I may be good at something or I may not due to gear or tree selection.

In the end I really can't find any faults with this system at all cept that it might not be for everyone.   Then again, I absolutely loved AoC's combat system too (playing as a Conq) and a lot of people didnt (they were usually non-positional dps casters).



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Reply #89 on: August 13, 2012, 12:08:04 AM

I just checked how many abilities my WOW chars use (three 85s and a 83), it's actually a lot more than I thought... my lock actually has just as many buttons as my LOTRO loremaster  ACK!

- demo lock (83): 40 keybinds, 10 non-keybound abilities; I use about 15 regularly during an average dungeon run, and the others are typically long cooldown utilities / etc
- surv hunter (85): 33 keybinds, 5 non-keybound abilities; I use about 10 of these regularly in dungeon runs, the others are CC and really situational abilities (hey I totally used wyvern sting the other day!)
- blood DK (85): 34 keybinds, no non-keybound abilities; I use about 17 regularly in dungeon runs, most of the others are various ohcrap buttons
- resto shaman (85): 36 keybinds, 10 non-keybound abilities; I use about 14 regularly in dungeon runs, the others are individual totems/CCs/consumables/etc

Anyway, I think what Ingmar was getting at (and what I do agree with, mostly) is that TSW seems to skimp on the rarely-used/situational abilities. Like my DK has the usual buttons I push for tanking, but I also have about 5 different survivability buttons, a combat rez, some burst damage abilities, some minor CC, etc etc. and my lock has a lot of pet control buttons and wacky stuff like teleports and the demon shapeshift [which comes with its own buttons]. On my LOTRO characters it's even more pronounced - if there's something to be done in a fight, my loremaster probably has a button for it somewhere. Now I can certainly see that those buttons would just be annoying clutter most of the time, but it's definitely different from GW1/TSW/GW2 (GW2 has a lot more buttons though).

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Reply #90 on: August 13, 2012, 01:25:08 AM

Having 20 abilities is not the same as using 20 abilities. What, you use all 20 when levelling?

 * Edit, sorry I misread, missing the 'regular basis'. You must play at a higher level of WoW to what I did, because regularly using 20 combat abilities while raiding was certainly not my experience.
My DK was the main tank of a progression raiding guild when I was playing (quit right after 4.3); I included not just my rotational abilities but my defensive cooldowns and the utility skills (battle rez, taunt, etc) I used in most fights. It's those abilities that are lacking most in TSW, but even the rotations are incredibly simplistic: spam builder, hit finishers, repeat. Every class in the game plays like the most simplistic version of a WoW Rogue.

If you're a DPS character at least you're likely to have 7 'attack' skills that you can hit to create an interesting rotation. As a tank I usually ran 4 "attacks" (builder, 1 single target finisher for each weapon plus an aoe finisher), a taunt, and 2 defensives, giving me 3 buttons to spam based on the situation (1111123 or 1111124) and 3 to use situationally. Gaining levels and unlocking new skills didn't change the rotation, it just changed what random side effects the buttons had; this made customizing your skill deck very interesting, but playing it, not so much.

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Reply #91 on: August 13, 2012, 01:44:48 AM

Doing the nightmare dungeons in TSW last night, I was changing my build on the fly before most of the fights, swopping both active and passive abilities. If it didn't work, I'd make a change or two before we pulled again. You can't use the same cookie cutter build all the time and need to think about the enemy you are facing, what they do and the skills you might need to counter them.

You may not need to do this while doing your basic levelling but that's not the equivalent of raiding.

Edit: I should also say that trying to tank the high end dungeons involves a lot more than rotating any set of abilities. There's a hell of a lot of running around, moving the mob around, timing certain abilities to counteract the mob's abilities and trying to avoid a lot of environmental effects. It's certainly interesting.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2012, 07:26:12 AM by palmer_eldritch »
DraconianOne
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Reply #92 on: August 13, 2012, 06:15:19 AM

That reviewer didn't get past Kingsmouth, I bet. Some of the early voice acting in Kingsmouth bothered me (the sheriff in particular). You don't see some of the more interesting aspects of the skill system until late in that zone. And if you don't do the dungeons, you really aren't seeing a lot of the differences between it and WoW-like MMO's that make the game special.

I'm not sure hiding away the good, fun or interesting bits from people until they're several hours in the game is the best way of selling it to people like me who are on the fence, especially given what they're asking for in a terms of monthly sub fee. I played for several hours before logging out in disappointment and disgust (mostly at the fuck-awful storytelling and custscene dialogue). Which is a shame because I love the setting and what they're trying to do with the classless skill system design.

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Reply #93 on: August 13, 2012, 08:31:49 AM

That reviewer didn't get past Kingsmouth, I bet. Some of the early voice acting in Kingsmouth bothered me (the sheriff in particular). You don't see some of the more interesting aspects of the skill system until late in that zone. And if you don't do the dungeons, you really aren't seeing a lot of the differences between it and WoW-like MMO's that make the game special.

I'm not sure hiding away the good, fun or interesting bits from people until they're several hours in the game is the best way of selling it to people like me who are on the fence, especially given what they're asking for in a terms of monthly sub fee. I played for several hours before logging out in disappointment and disgust (mostly at the fuck-awful storytelling and custscene dialogue). Which is a shame because I love the setting and what they're trying to do with the classless skill system design.

Fuck-awful storytelling and cutscene dialogue?   I mean, really?  I bought the game primarily due to the storytelling and cutscene dialogue in the first 4 hours (yes, I even think the sheriff is awesome).  I can see not getting into it, but I'm kind of amazed that someone could come to the conclusion that they are fuck-awful. 
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Reply #94 on: August 13, 2012, 08:54:21 AM

TSW gets the number of buttons almost perfect for me.  I don't want to have to worry about more than 6-7 actives.  I do like how many passives there are.

I wouldn't mind a system that had another row which could be either active or passive to suit both preferences.  Even if the actives give a bigger boost, I'd be happy with that trade-off.

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Reply #95 on: August 13, 2012, 08:58:51 AM

I haven't played, but it sounds like TSW doesn't have a fun/understandable newbie experience.  We've seen that a lot in MMO's.  Do they have a tutorial?  You throw a player in a non-diku MMO without some hand-holding you will get frustration.

The TSW newbie experience is HORRIBLE, hands down. The setting is the only thing that initially kept me playing in beta. I wanted to like it, so I kept at it. But the amount of things that the game just doesn't tell you, doesn't document well at all is just staggering. The very fact that your talisman skills are more important than your weapon skills is so different from what any experienced MMO player would expect is a very big barrier to the new player. I can certainly understand how MMO vets would give up on the game an hour in, especially if they weren't personally invested in the setting. In that sense, I can absolutely understand why "professional" game reviewers gave it a bad score. But as we all know, professional reviewers are mostly complete fucking retards.

Basing payments to a studio on the collective opinions of fucktards you could buy for a free T-Shirt and a beta key is MADNESS. These guys don't pay for games, and will say anything you want them to just to keep from losing exclusive access to betas and previews. The only people this helps is, of course, the publishers, which is like just about everything else wrong with the games industry. Good business people do not base their paychecks and the survival of their business on the collective fapping of nerds, but the games industry is full of terrible business people who only learned a spreadsheet program because they wanted to make games for a living.

EDIT: I also note that on that shitty G4TV review, while he gave it 2.5/5, the user ratings were 4.4/5.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2012, 09:18:56 AM by HaemishM »

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Reply #96 on: August 13, 2012, 09:39:58 AM

Fuck-awful storytelling and cutscene dialogue?   I mean, really?  I bought the game primarily due to the storytelling and cutscene dialogue in the first 4 hours (yes, I even think the sheriff is awesome).  I can see not getting into it, but I'm kind of amazed that someone could come to the conclusion that they are fuck-awful. 

I'm kind of amazed that someone could think that they're not.

Like Sjofn, it drives me crazy that my character had zero agency in the conversations except I'm far less forgiving of the fact that I am subjected to having these sodding NPCs talk at me for two minutes without any come back on my characters part. That's not a conversation, that's a goddamn soliloquy and Deputy Andy reminiscing about his bastard kittens is not fucking Shakespeare.


A point can be MOOT. MUTE is more along the lines of what you should be. - WayAbvPar
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Reply #97 on: August 13, 2012, 11:12:08 AM

Where it really gets me is when the character(s) go on about stuff for a few minutes, and you then go off to do stuff that seemingly has nothing to do with what you just heard. Red's Bait Shop, I'm looking at you. Somehow a conversation about a chess game turns into kill 10 draugr. Uh, ok.

EDIT: I'm still unable to log on to their website with my account to cancel. It works fine to log in to the game. I tried a password reset request, got a message that they sent me a reset, received nothing. I guess that is one way to keep revenues up.  Ohhhhh, I see. Going to have to call into Norwegian tech support I guess.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2012, 11:16:15 AM by Ingmar »

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Reply #98 on: August 13, 2012, 11:32:01 AM

Fuck-awful storytelling and cutscene dialogue?   I mean, really?  I bought the game primarily due to the storytelling and cutscene dialogue in the first 4 hours (yes, I even think the sheriff is awesome).  I can see not getting into it, but I'm kind of amazed that someone could come to the conclusion that they are fuck-awful. 

I'm kind of amazed that someone could think that they're not.

Like Sjofn, it drives me crazy that my character had zero agency in the conversations except I'm far less forgiving of the fact that I am subjected to having these sodding NPCs talk at me for two minutes without any come back on my characters part. That's not a conversation, that's a goddamn soliloquy and Deputy Andy reminiscing about his bastard kittens is not fucking Shakespeare.

Given your stated prejudices I doubt you would even recognise a Shakespearean quality soliloquy if the game presented one.  The writing is spot on.  Your example of Andy especially, worrying about current events whilst still dwelling on the trauma's of his past, showing this town has a lot of dark history all throughout.  Not just big tragedy's but also a collection of more personal evils, like a father that can coldly kill a litter of kittens.  Its pitch perfect, it conveys all the extra meaning it needs to build setting.  You don't like not interacting, that's fine, but to not be able to recognise the quality of what you are getting is a certain type of tunnel vision I can't comprehend.
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Reply #99 on: August 13, 2012, 11:36:38 AM

I'll echo the comments about lack of agency; my ideal situation is something like Fallout/Skyrim: a silent protagonist but with dialog options. I found the writing in TSW pretty good though.

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Reply #100 on: August 13, 2012, 11:46:59 AM

Where it really gets me is when the character(s) go on about stuff for a few minutes, and you then go off to do stuff that seemingly has nothing to do with what you just heard. Red's Bait Shop, I'm looking at you. Somehow a conversation about a chess game turns into kill 10 draugr. Uh, ok.
You can't be serious.  He talks about being on the defensive, stalling and waiting for a wildcard to show up and change the whole board.  I'm not putting this in a spoiler because it should be obvious: you're the wildcard changing the board.  You go out and butcher the invading draug army.
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Reply #101 on: August 13, 2012, 11:58:39 AM

Where it really gets me is when the character(s) go on about stuff for a few minutes, and you then go off to do stuff that seemingly has nothing to do with what you just heard. Red's Bait Shop, I'm looking at you. Somehow a conversation about a chess game turns into kill 10 draugr. Uh, ok.
You can't be serious.  He talks about being on the defensive, stalling and waiting for a wildcard to show up and change the whole board.  I'm not putting this in a spoiler because it should be obvious: you're the wildcard changing the board.  You go out and butcher the invading draug army.

I don't like the abstraction of it, first of all. I come in, nobody reacts to my presence at all, I spy on a conversation with a generic chess metaphor, and it turns into a precise series of kill 10 rats exercises. I also don't like the fact that nearly every single person you talk to until you get to the Wabbajack reservation is not reacting in any kind of realistic way to the zombie/sea monster invasion, this is just the point at which I really went  Ohhhhh, I see..

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Miasma
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Reply #102 on: August 13, 2012, 12:15:33 PM

This is one of the few MMOs in which your character actually uses his own initiative.  He doesn't need to be told to kill that group of monsters slowly approaching, he assesses the situation and takes it upon himself to act.  It would have been more contrived if it were most any other game and one of the people had to give you a quest and actually tell you what you should be doing in that situation.

The quest isn't as simple as kill 10 rats either.  You kill some draug to get a nice collection of their corpses.  Then you burn their corpses in a big bonfire to attract more attention.  You kill the stronger draug that you lured out with your corpse bonfire and then stick their heads on pikes to lure out their boss.  Which I shouldn't have to explain is another direct tie into the chess metaphor.  You kill pawns, then some knights, then the queen and finally the king.

Game has the most brilliant quests in any MMO ever released.
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Reply #103 on: August 13, 2012, 12:22:31 PM

It *really* doesn't feel like I am using my own initiative to me. My character barely participates in the world. That's a huge problem, and it gets even worse for me when other characters act as if I'm not even present.

Brilliant is definitely not a word that works for me on a lot of these quests. Some of them are legitimately good - anything involving a haunted house so far, a lot of the investigations. But it isn't anything like all, or most, and I think my character's lack of impact in these scenes is a huge part of what makes them not work.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
palmer_eldritch
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Reply #104 on: August 13, 2012, 12:29:36 PM

Where it really gets me is when the character(s) go on about stuff for a few minutes, and you then go off to do stuff that seemingly has nothing to do with what you just heard. Red's Bait Shop, I'm looking at you. Somehow a conversation about a chess game turns into kill 10 draugr. Uh, ok.
You can't be serious.  He talks about being on the defensive, stalling and waiting for a wildcard to show up and change the whole board.  I'm not putting this in a spoiler because it should be obvious: you're the wildcard changing the board.  You go out and butcher the invading draug army.

I don't like the abstraction of it, first of all. I come in, nobody reacts to my presence at all, I spy on a conversation with a generic chess metaphor, and it turns into a precise series of kill 10 rats exercises. I also don't like the fact that nearly every single person you talk to until you get to the Wabbajack reservation is not reacting in any kind of realistic way to the zombie/sea monster invasion, this is just the point at which I really went  Ohhhhh, I see..

What Miasma is saying is that he does react to your presence.
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