Dark Days Are Coming - New Funcom Project

[Spiff]

Loved AO and played it to bits (I'm pleading young, naïve and too much time on my hands as a defence), but AoC burned me so hard I'd need a flame-retardant suit to touch this before having some rock solid info.

Problem is Funcom is too good at pulling my heartstrings with promises and too reliable in not delivering.

Also: those prices + cash-shop hilarity + sub, with GW2 lurking around the corner? Good luck with that

[Modern Angel]

ANYTHING with GW2 right around the corner.

[Surlyboi]

fuck GW2, but I'm still not gonna pay those prices.

[bhodi]

If you preorder ANYTHING in this day and age, you deserve what you get.

That goes double for MMOs, and triple for funcom. Come on people, just look at the track record on this shit.

[schild]

That particular bit I'm not taking into account. I just don't think companies should be able to ask for money and hide behind an NDA at the same time. It's TOO greedy, and this comes from someone who is a fan of greed in general.

[Slayerik]

Right on.

[Tyrnan]

That particular bit I'm not taking into account. I just don't think companies should be able to ask for money and hide behind an NDA at the same time. It's TOO greedy, and this comes from someone who is a fan of greed in general.

Will that apply to GW2 as well come the 10th, assuming you go ahead with this?

[schild]

GW2 at least has videos and fucking information out there. I mean, we've got NOTHING on this and they want money? Insane.

[Tyrnan]

Oh yeah I totally agree. Whatever small interest I had in TSW went out the window with that announcement. And while I certainly trust ArenaNet more than FunCom, they are basically asking people to pre-purchase while an NDA is still (mostly) in effect so I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some clarification on your stance in regard to it as well.

Plus it's the game I'd actually like to hear some more information about.

[schild]

Alright, discussed this with a few other staff members. Due to Funcom's greed and inability to make a coherent source of information for the game available, if you WANT to break NDA, you are free to break NDA. f13.net will not be held liable for any information posted here, nor do we condone the posting of any information here. If you are scared you might get hunted down by Scandinavians with bowie knives followed by a gun-toting synthesizer and the special perk of Drop the Beat, then don't post anything. If you don't give a shit and don't mind outing yourself for any repercussions that may come from such a person, than feel free to just post whatever the fuck you want.

Mods, don't fuck with this thread.

Have at it.

EDIT: THIS IS A SPECIAL ONE-TIME CASE, DO NOT START BREAKING OTHER NDAS. THIS IS MERELY A RESPONSE BY US TO STOP RESPECTING A DEVELOPERS WISHES WHEN THEY STOP RESPECTING THE CONSUMER. PS. Funcom, you did this to yourself.

[01101010]

There is a beta? 

[Soln]

there's a game?

[taolurker]

There's Scandinavians with bowie knives?

[Modern Angel]

I *just* got into the F&F beta, since that's apparently the last bit of the closed beta rather than the first... Europeans...

I don't know much. I haven't played it much. My first impressions were favorable, but my old rig is having a hell of a time running parts of it smoothly. I do have it on extremely good authority that optimization passes aren't done yet. It's atmospheric as all hell, the writing feels crisp at the start. The UI is annoying.

So I can't say for sure. What I CAN say is that I worked at Funcom on AoC and some of my very best friends are working there still, on TSW, in design. These are guys who came up through QA with me. They tend to be just as critical of Funcom as anyone outside the company is. The difference in their outlook on TSW and what it was in the leadup to AoC is night and day. We were hyper-critical of AoC and the mood around the office wasn't always great... these guys I speak to think TSW is a reasonably solid product. Not for everyone, probably, and not with the level of polish that some games come out with; it's still Funcom, after all. But I'm cautiously optimistic just because I know these guys aren't idiots.

[HaemishM]

Ok, I'll give you some quick takes, because I really haven't played it much.

The atmosphere is fucking awesome. They absolutely nailed that part.

Voice-acting is meh at best. The cutscenes and the character models in early beta weren't great but got better with the last patch.

UI and skill system UI is confusing and not well explained. This may have improved.

The gameplay bored the piss out of me. REALLY REALLY BORING. Take City of Heroes and their focus on "every attack is caused by hitting a button", add cooldowns on every ability (though your one main ability has a short spammable cooldown), and graft it onto AOC's style of targeting and you get... well, boredom. Most fights involved me firing to initiate, then backing up and around while firing at the chasers, or just standing still and unloading (I was using shotguns and assault rifles - no magic).

I've put maybe 10 hours into it, probably less, because it just really didn't capture me. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't play it for more than 30 minutes at a stretch without thinking there are other games I want to be playing more. As I said, I'm not pre-ordering but my wife is. She likes it. I don't hate it, but I can manage no excitement for it whatsoever. I didn't even make it out of the first starting instance area after the tutorial. I might try again this weekend but I don't hold high hopes.

Also, the 3rd faction only became playable this week, if that tells you anything about their ability to come good before the release date.

[luckton]

So I can't say for sure. What I CAN say is that I worked at Funcom on AoC and some of my very best friends are working there still, on TSW, in design. These are guys who came up through QA with me. They tend to be just as critical of Funcom as anyone outside the company is. The difference in their outlook on TSW and what it was in the leadup to AoC is night and day. We were hyper-critical of AoC and the mood around the office wasn't always great... these guys I speak to think TSW is a reasonably solid product. Not for everyone, probably, and not with the level of polish that some games come out with; it's still Funcom, after all. But I'm cautiously optimistic just because I know these guys aren't idiots.

Ah, well, now I know where the earlier drama comes from.  Mea culpa.

Still waiting for Ragnar's apology.  I'll be playing Kung Fu Panda Mists of Pandaria/Guild Wars 2 until then.

[Modern Angel]

That wasn't drama. That was just a correction. 

[Draegan]

That particular bit I'm not taking into account. I just don't think companies should be able to ask for money and hide behind an NDA at the same time. It's TOO greedy, and this comes from someone who is a fan of greed in general.

Will that apply to GW2 as well come the 10th, assuming you go ahead with this?

GW2 Beta NDA will drop with the next test weekend.  It won't be just media.

[Tyrnan]

Oh that's good to know, cheers for that!

[Lantyssa]

GW2 Beta NDA will drop with the next test weekend.  It won't be just media.

Woo!  More than media can speak about those.

[blackwulf]

Since you are allowing stuff from beyond the NDA - A beta tester posted this in another forum I read:

I'm in beta. I'm not going to break the NDA, but I do want to offer a bit of encouragement to those of us who have praised Ragnor over the years.


I'll start with one neg - you have a point about animations, but that pales beside the positives.


Pyros mate, I wish you above all people were in the beta. This game is a theorycrafting persons wet dream and I can't wait to hear what you have to say when you get to grips with it (I'm talking in terms of the skill / dmg / debuffing / buffing / healing system). Remember the juggling to try and equip the best gear in AO, but imagine trying to do the same thing to max builds using any of the abilities. And you guys who've been crying out for a Vanguard Blood Mage can fill your boots - with an assault Rifle in tow.



1. This game is going to shit all over SW:ToR in terms of player satisfaction.

2. No-one in beta is saying this game isn't/won't be ready for launch. Split pretty much 50/50 between being disappointed at the last minute move from an April launch date to being happy at getting a little more time for the devs to polish. Will it have bugs at launch ? Shit yes, probably. But it sure won't just be a buggy copy of WoW.

3. This will be as refreshing as Anarchy Online was in terms of innovation / moving away from WoW, perhaps moreso given how many have copied WoW in recent years.

4. Draegan you done goofed son. SW:ToR Junkies and Rift : Junkies but no TSW Junkies ?

5. The beta is SMALL, efficient and they are using an agile system. Any of you who have a clue that tells you what you need to know about what is happening with beta testing.


They are making one major fuck up and that is overpromoting the 'xp' less system. It is exactly that but it's setting expectations which will bite them in the ass. I can't say more than that without breaking the NDA.

Maybe not really much to go on here, but he seems to think that most of the beta testers who've spent time with it really like it.  Another viewpoint at least.

[schild]

1. Quote function.
2. There's absolutely zero information there. Other than that Draegan seems to pimp his wares everywhere.
3. He talks like an idiot.

[blackwulf]

1. Quote function.
2. There's absolutely zero information there. Other than that Draegan seems to pimp his wares everywhere.
3. He talks like an idiot.

1. Fixed, thanks.
2. Yeah, I agree - just an opinion.
3. Hopefully that's a function of the environment he was in.  I mean you should read some of the posts in that place.

[Threash]

1. Quote function.
2. There's absolutely zero information there. Other than that Draegan seems to pimp his wares everywhere.
3. He talks like an idiot.

This.  Sounded like fanboy gushing while saying absolutely nothing helpful.

[Modern Angel]

I will say that the launch move was, at least to the folks I know still there, primarily a polish and get it right move rather than an OH SHIT NO TIME TO CODE THE A KEY type of move.

[UnSub]

Also, the 3rd faction only became playable this week, if that tells you anything about their ability to come good before the release date.

... and that's all I need to know. I'm guessing that things like the end game still have some restrictions / are capped / aren't available yet?

The CoH-style combat system was great 8 years ago. But it is just slow now. Unless Funcom have done a lot of work to improve that system - which, based on only one anecdote, I admit, seems they haven't - then it seems very slow compared to other, more modern systems.

[Viin]

See, this would be so much more interesting if it wasn't all DIKU combat and crap. Sounds like they had an opportunity to make this something a bit more interesting, but alas, that's hard and stuff.

(Is CCP the only dev shop willing to take a risk on conflict modes that don't always require trying to pummel the bad guy?)

[luckton]

 

[Margalis]

Sounds ok to me. I dunno, I liked AO for the few hours I played of it. A lot of the game was a mess (like the skill point assignment) but it had a lot of little things done right like a wide variety of cool looking clothing, good sound fx for the guns, etc.

[HaemishM]

So I finally tried this again. I wasn't able to make a Dragon character because my slots are filled, but I went back into my Illuminati character which is in the first instance. The game has improved GREATLY. The models all look better, though the animations, especially combat animations, are still crappy. The voice acting is still really bad. I've gone from definitely not pre-ordering to not pre-ordering at this time, but maybe I should look at it more. The most innovative thing it does do is having a defensive target. Whenever you enter combat, you pick an offensive target and a defensive one. If you aren't in a party, you are always the defensive target. Certain abilities will heal or give other positive effects to your defensive target.

[Threash]

Warhammer had that.

[blackwulf]

So I finally tried this again. I wasn't able to make a Dragon character because my slots are filled, but I went back into my Illuminati character which is in the first instance. The game has improved GREATLY. The models all look better, though the animations, especially combat animations, are still crappy. The voice acting is still really bad. I've gone from definitely not pre-ordering to not pre-ordering at this time, but maybe I should look at it more. The most innovative thing it does do is having a defensive target. Whenever you enter combat, you pick an offensive target and a defensive one. If you aren't in a party, you are always the defensive target. Certain abilities will heal or give other positive effects to your defensive target.

I don't get how their animations could be so bad.  They are using the same engine that AOC used, and when they made the animations for AOC they motion capped pretty much everything.  Even a live horse.  Don't you think the AOC team would share those animations?  I get that some of them need to be done from scratch, like the gun shooting ones, but there must be hundreds of weapon and casting animations that TSW could use.  Maybe they are just running bare bones animations right now on purpose?

[Kageru]

Warhammer had that.

Vanguard too from memory, it was really good and allowed some interesting heal mechanics.

[blackwulf]

Warhammer had that.

Vanguard too from memory, it was really good and allowed some interesting heal mechanics.

I think it's more notable what MMOs don't have it.  SWTOR doesn't and I'm assuming that is because WOW didn't, and so they didn't have that feature to copy. ;)

[Tyrnan]

Warhammer had that.

Vanguard too from memory, it was really good and allowed some interesting heal mechanics.

I remember playing Warhammer and thinking the WP/DoK was really cool and innovative. Then I played Vanguard and realised they just nicked it from there