| Title | Secret World's dirty little secret is that it doesn't work yet |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Game reviews |
| When | July 9, 2012 |
I love the game that Secret World is supposed to be..
Read the full articleHave you played an MMO at release before?
Hell, have you played ANY game at release before?
They are NOT going to be perfect and if you got frustrated enough to give the game a 40 over a few bugged quests, then I pity you.
I pity the fact that you can't control your frustration and expect your fun to be spoon fed to you on a silver platter.
Instead of actually reviewing the game you posted a kneejerk reaction.
A review is supposed to come AFTER you have spent long hours with the game.
This is barely even an initial impression that obviously was put out after less than a day of playing.
Oh, and the "flat out don't work" part?
I'm in the valley of the sun god and have only encountered one quest like that. I've done all the quests people are having trouble with on Solomon Island.
So, your review is not just a knee-jerk impression, it's a LYING knee-jerk impression.
I seriously hope that you go back to journalist school because, frankly, you have a LOT to improve apon.
Much more than this game ever will.
FYI, my /played reads 3 days, 7 hours, 44 minutes, and 39 seconds. But I'll look into this journalist school thing you mention. It sounds fun.
So your entire review is basically 'this game is buggy' without any actual comments of the content, or the things it does and doesn't do well. "This game has bugs, it's frustrating, and therefore it's a really bad game that you shouldn't play".
And I had to laugh at J.Leake's post. Hey bub, notice how this site is another random blog with little to no understanding of proper journalism? It's no wonder you agree.
Your entire review is complaining about the bugs. That's not a proper review, sorry. As much as you'd like to think it is.
It's a sad state of MMOs when a product that charges an initial and monthly fee is not only expected to not work but is also defended for not working. Players should demand better of their games.
And even if your experience bug-wise was more positive than others, your experience does nor speak for others'. Do not call people liars because their experience does not conform to your own.
Can you explain proper journalism to me?
If you're going to review a game, then you have to cover all the bases of what you can objectively say are good and b ad about it and in detail. All this 'review' does is gloss over basically every feature in half a paragraph and then spends four paragraphs complaining about the bugs of this game. Yes, there are many bugs. Yes, you have every right to include this issue in your final score. But you lose credibility when you don't even bother to talk about the actual game itself and instead rag on one issue (that you're entirely able to bypass by getting someone to invite you in game). If you're going to rate a game 2 out of 5, then there better be a damn good reason. He gives none. Other than the fact that some quests are buggy.
pretty lame review considering the fact I've never played a MMO I enjoyed more than TSW.
Ever played an MMO at release poor guy? By the way my quest log shows 71 completed quests and the only one which was broken was something wicked, tier 4.
It does work. Very well, in fact. I've played many MMO launches and TSW was one of the smoothest. Does it have many bugs? Yes. Are they frustrating? Yes. Can you bypass them to be able to continue? Yes. Is this one issue worthy of rating the entire game 2 out of 5? Hell no
So the start of Blue Mountain, if even that.
Reviews, by definition, are supposed to be objective.
I'm sorry you ran into so many problems but the fact that you assumed that everyone had those problems is wrong.
Also, you completely missed out on the point of the combat system. The point is not that is is hot-key based, the point is that you actually have to THINK in order to fight properly. If you don't have a good synergy, especially in Blue Mountain, you're going to get destroyed.
Finally, I encourage you to go to journalist school. You are missing out on the opportunity to transform from a blogger to an objective reviewer.
What I'd like to know, however, is how you get to rate a score on Metacritic but Penny Arcade doesn't?
http://penny-arcade.com/report...
They have the right idea.
I was in the closed beta, and we were assured by the forum fanboys that this was a BETA and all of the problems (bugs, broken quests, missing content, terrible PVP, missing endgame) would be fixed by release. Did we not know what "BETA" meant? Now the excuse is that "this is just past release!!! Have you never played an MMO at release before?!?!?" There's no deterring the true fanboy.
Of course, knowing Funcom as I do, I knew the game would have a messy release and a lot of the bugs and problems will likely never be fixed. I'll check back in 6 months to see what the state of the game is. The questing part is a lot of fun...too bad they decided to focus mainly on non-repeatable story and puzzles instead of fun combat and gameplay. I think they'll find that their players can play their story faster than they can generate new content (see SWTOR), but we'll see how it goes.
hey wait that other guy who bashed the game chiming in! Did Arenanet hire you both to preserve their precious viral online marketing for their little WoWclone?
woah gamereviewing seems to be like dirty mafia job
I don't know why this should even come as a surprise. Age Of Conan was also incredibly broken when it was released and Anarchy Online, when sent out the door, seemed to literally have no end-game design besides "well people keep killing stuff I guess." And was pretty damn buggy.
Funcom won't be getting any more of my money, that's for sure.
It's nowhere near as buggy or broken as AoC. Not even in the same ballpark. The author here greatly exaggerates the issues.
If I'm reading your review right, your only major complaint is broken quests. How many broken quests did you encounter exactly? I've only heard of three, two of which are the "optional" adventure-type Investigation missions you mentioned. One of those is already fixed, and at least one other is to be fixed in the patch that's landing tomorrow morning.
I don't call people liars for having a different experience. I call people liars for having a different experience and then saying that THEIR experience is the only experience you'll have.
Also, those bugs he mentioned are actually trigger malfunctions. They only appear under extremely high server stress and are incredibly hard to replicate in a studio. They can also be worked around by the players.
Technically, there is only one quest that I've run into that has had any bugs other than trigger malfunctions.
mr MMO expert, you tell me please how I was able to finish 71 quests Kingsmouth/Solomon island with only one having an issue (something wicked).???
or is this a secret only known by shady review sites to generate traffic?
Well that worked, I read it, you earned 1 internetmoney. Enjoy
Shortest MMO review I have ever read O.o Didn't explain anything about the game. Just bitched about the bugs...out of a shit ton of quests I've done only a handful were bugged...
I'm just waiting for the inevitable 2 star review he is going to give to Guild Wars 2. You all know it's coming.