Woo thanks Giaddon! Now I am just waiting for an email from Funcom to unlock my account =(
After learning that the investigative missions (the last thing I was really hankering to try out in Kingsport) were locked for the beta weekend to try to avoid pre-release spoilers, I polished off the last couple of story quest steps from Kingsport and moved on to the Savage Coast, just to get a quick taste before I stopped until release. (After all, none of this effort is going to carry over, so I’d prefer to discover this stuff then.) No sharp dropoff in quality was evident, so I’m sold. And honestly, I think this is the first MMO where I might get my money’s worth out of a $200 lifetime sub, so I’m in for that too. (my poor wallet!)
The Investigative missions are pretty awesome, as long as you don’t spoil them. Sadly I expect most people to google straight to an answer then write the game off as boring and uninteresting.
The quality and quantity of PvE content in the eight zones available at launch is more or less equal. I’ve been through the first three zones extensively in closed beta and did about half of the fourth before I realized that I really should save some for launch. The rest I’ve heard about second-hand.
I wavered on a lifetime sub for this, but finally decided I’d stick with month to month, mostly because I know from past experience I’m not likely to play any game more than a year total.
Heh, yeah I had worked on the Kingsmouth Code some, which begins in a simple enough follow-the-breadcrumbs fashion, but quickly becomes something else entirely. I had puzzled out one set of clues and moved onto another, and spent 2-3 hours trying to figure it out. The thing is, they give you enough things in the environment that you can start making associations and drawing lines between things. In my case, I came up with what I thought were several great hypotheses for the next part, all of which turned out to be wrong. I spent that time and had nothing to show for it in terms of loot or XP, but I really enjoyed using my brain a bit.
Of course, if that sounds awful to you. Simply don’t do it or google the answers.
I have a free buddy key for the Closed Beta (no need to wait for the opens) up for grabsies! As always, first PM by datetime gets it!
And it is gone!
It’s definitely a gamble. Most MMOs I haven’t played for the 13 or 14 months in total it would take to break even on a lifetime sub. At least one game that offered a lifetime sub (Hellgate) tanked so hard the game didn’t even last that long. On the other hand, if I’d been offered the chance to pay a single $200 fee for WoW at launch, I’d have made out like a bandit by now. (Well…if my account hadn’t been hacked and banned like it was.) And although I honestly haven’t played LOTRO enough to have justified taking either of the opportunities I had at lifetime subs for that, I really wish I had now even so. Sure, it went free to play, but lifetime subscribers got the best of both worlds on that - all the perks and extras of VIP, none of the cost.
The way I figure it, Secret World has enough emphasis on the journey and quality of production that I reasonably could spend several months with it on at least an off and on basis, and that figure will expand if they continue to produce content for it, as I hope will be financially viable for them. And if it does go free to play (as I am secretly convinced all MMOs except WoW and maybe EVE must sooner or later do, these days), I should be set.
While this isn’t entirely incorrect and I understand what you are trying to say, it is misleading in a way to a number of people who haven’t experienced the game. There are tiers of content and challenge which are gated to require a certain level of gear to be able to tackle, as the bonuses from gear provide almost of the stat increases in the game. It takes skill point investment in order to wear increasing “Quality Levels” of gear, ranging from 0 to 10. So you won’t run to “end game” content (or even outside of the early areas in the first zone) without getting some skill points. The difference is you control that advancement and it isn’t tied to some arbitrary linear number. Want to drive straight to the upper tiers? Spend your points accordingly. Conversely you can master the inner wheel abilities of a number of skill areas before moving on to harder content. You can then move seemlessly between these areas based upon your needs. Most if not all of the quests in the game are repeatable with a timer so if you do Kingsmouth as a Hammer/Chaos magic today, you can most likely redo the whole zone as a Blood Magic/Pistols tomorrow. If you want to, you can spend the entire time in Kingsmouth; it will always award the same experience for the same actions. Monsters never go “grey”; all the content you are able to handle is always available to you.
One thing to note that I have seen asked a hundred times at least, is that there are also no skill point resets. If you want to switch from Fist/Blood Magic to Sword/Hammer or Assault Rifle/Pistol, just start spending skill and anima (ability) points in those areas, get some weapons of those skills, and find some content that isn’t too powerful for your new abilities. You will eventually , if you so desire, have all of the skills on one character. You can set up profiles to switch gear as you switch between roles, so your Ranged DPS guy can switch to Healer and then switch to self-healing Tank between combats.
If you look at the odds dispassionately, lifetime subs are an EXTREMELY bad gamble, and they are a gamble. You’re betting money that you will play the game for more a year or so. In most cases, this is not a bet that gamers win.
Well, I want to like this game, but it runs terribly on my computer. Any outdoor area or area with a lot of people is a slideshow.
A couple of points here:
It is entirely possible to enter Savage Coast with only Tier 1 and 2 talismans and weapons. You just have to know how to spend your skill points and what missions to take and what mobs to avoid at first until you get tier 4 and 5 stuff. Likewise from Savage Coast to Blue Mountain. There really is no set progression - you move on when you feel ready and can do so, and this is going to vary for each person and the choices they make in spending AP and SP.
Each successive zone awards more XP per quest, quite a bit more, so you will get more SP and AP completing missions in higher “level” zones.
The “leveling” is quite flat, so you may still be challenged by doing or redoing content in previous zones. I’ve found that I have had to skip a mission here and there and come back to it later when my character is more powerful/has abilities I needed but didn’t have yet.
True enough. That said, I find that the existence of a subscription fee means I either keep paying a sub and then feel guilty I’m not using it enough, or I cancel pretty quickly and then there’s $15 worth of disincentive to ever pick it up again. (For example, I liked Rift. I’d be vaguely curious about some of the new stuff they’ve patched in. But I’m not curious enough to buy in again.) So although I definitely prefer the Guild Wars model where they just straight don’t charge a subscription fee to begin with, that single up front fee is pretty tempting. It’s just that they always ask $200, and almost never at a point in an MMO’s lifecycle where it’s practical to know whether that’s a good decision. If they had a cheaper buy in or even ongoing availability at $200, I’d be more inclined in general.
I do find it interesting that they already have upgrade packs you can buy. One at 14.99 and the other at 59.99 though that one does come with an extra free month.
really liked the beta but to far broke to even think about it right now
You get the $60 one as part of the lifetime sub, which is a nice extra. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t call it $60 worth of stuff, though.
I took the ‘gamble’ of a lifetime sub. I don’t expect to save money. Rather, I’m voting with my dollars. This is exactly the sort of game I want to succeed, so I’m doing my own little part.
I have been in the closed beta for quite some time (though I’ve never gotten past Kingsmouth), and here are my thoughts:
PROS:
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The setting is fantastic, and they did a good job realizing it
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Related to the above, voice acting and storylines are well done
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Character creation, and therefore combat, are the most complex systems I’ve seen in an online RPG since GemStone III’s adaptation of the Loremaster rulesets. This is the game’s single biggest selling point for me
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The investigation and sabotage missions are, if not unique in the MMO world, certainly standouts and a lot of fun to work through
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The team has been very responsive to player feedback in the closed beta forum. There are things they can’t or won’t do, of course, but they are clearly open to and want feedback
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The servers are stable, and most missions work as intended
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The game is hard. I’ve heard folks call it the “Dark Souls of MMO’s.”
CONS:
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PvP needs more work, in all aspects (balance, rewards, variety)
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Graphics are good, and animations are adequate, but neither are great. In fact, they’re a step down from Age of Conan, which surprised me
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There are a whole host of features missing (no LFG tool, for example), currently in the ‘soon after launch’ category. If the launch fails, we may never see them
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The UI is functional, but many things are not at all intuitive
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This game is hard. I think they’re going to lose a ton of people after the first month, when they find so many things confusing. The lack of hand-holding is a design I like, but I suspect it’ll make this a niche game
There are two additional reasons I have high hopes for TSW. First, I was in the early days of AoC, and this game is in 1,000% better shape than Conan was at launch. Yet AoC is, today, a darned good game. Funcom stuck with it (though most of their audience did not). Second, and there’s no way to quantify this, it has been more than a decade since I felt a little adrenaline spike every time I logged into an MMO. There’s something special in this one. I just hope enough people agree, so Funcom can continue to develop it after launch.
I love lifetime subs - I wish I could afford that right now for this game as well, because yes, this type of game deserves all the support it can. For once its not the tired old wow/eq style of game we see, but someone willing to try to take it up a notch and do some new stuff in the same genre.
That is entirely dependent on your playing habits. If you are a person that doesn’t stick with most MMO games for more than a month or two, of course it is a bad idea. In my case, I am confident I will be playing this one for a long time, so it’s a no-brainer. The amount of money I could have saved in City of Heroes if they had offered this is nuts. I didn’t really get my money’s worth out of LotRO, but that had everything to do with the fact that much of the storyline content being unapproachable for two players.
No, it is really not.
How many games do people play for over a year? How many mmorpgs?
Yes, a small number of people will find it worth it in a very limited number of games, but this a very small number. Even if you somehow know you’re the kind of person that likes to play one game for years, you might find you don’t like the game in a month, the game might die in 2 months, etc.
But this comes up every time a mmorpg offers a lifetime sub. Buying a lifetime sub is somewhat like opening your ipad up with a screw driver to fix a minor problem instead of bringing it to the apple store when it is covered. Yes, for some people it may be worth it, but for the vast majority of people the odds that it won’t be a good idea are simply too great.
It really is. It’s entirely dependent on your playing habits as he said. To say it isn’t is pretty stupid.
You even acknowledge this in your post which makes me chuckle. You say a small number of people will find it worth it. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID. It’s entirely dependent on your playing habits. If your playing habits line up with it being worth it, it’s worth it.
Personally, it’s not worth it for me.