[Megathread] Secret World Legends

[Razael]

I had an odd feeling that the beginning of the game was not indicative of how the game actually played out...luckily I've learned a little patience with games from playing so many of them these days that I didn't want to toss the baby out with the bath water.

They really failed at the intro and beginning experience though...it was just...beyond awful. All over the place, non sensical, and overly filled with cutscenes. The lore and achievement system was the only thing to catch my eye before I started to play the game proper...though it did remind me of PS2/GTA style gameplay...which isn't necessarily bad.

Wut? The Tokyo flashback was awesome. IMO. They did not fail the intro, theres far worse out there, it sets the theme and the mood.

[Kelimbror]

Wut? The Tokyo flashback was awesome. IMO. They did not fail the intro, theres far worse out there, it sets the theme and the mood.

The whole intro, from the moment you log in the game is too rushed, too cliche, and pretty confusing. I have no idea what my purpose in the game was and the Tokyo flashback aws pretty much icing to a cake of having to be thrown into action with random abilities and no weight to whatever story you are taking part of.

This was how my time from log on went:
-Show some random time period where my character has some weird experience with blue energy
-Go back in time a random amount of days and my room that was not destroyed in the future is now destroyed and I have blue stuff coming out of me.
-Go back forward in time a couple of days, now I can magically do ball tricks with this blue energy I'm a savant!
-Jump further in time, get knocked out by a random asian guy
-Placed in a random setting, followed butterflies with 100 cutscenes to get to the guy who finally starts to explain my story...ok, I'm beginning to get invested in what's going on
-just kidding! get molested b an asian chick with horrible graphics like this is GTA Vice City just to flashback in someone else's body with a bunch of random characters I certainly don't care about, get immediately thrown into very wonky combat (b/c you've had no adjustment period) that makes me feel like I'm going to die as a verteran MMO player and I'm constantly worried about running around when it seems I shouldn't be fighting 100 mobs right off the bat.
-realize it's not possible to die, forget what I'm even doing...do the equivalent of chase butterflies
-end everything by still not knowing what's going on and waking up back in the place I just was.

Total time in control of my character, 3 minutes. Total confusing cutscene time 30 minutes. Utter disaster.

Take the quest to go into the portal to my first zombie town, and the relief of an actual story and questing experience starts to unfold. Game dramatically improves and I start having fun.

Just my 5 cents.

[Sj]

The whole intro, from the moment you log in the game is too rushed, too cliche, and pretty confusing. I have no idea what my purpose in the game was and the Tokyo flashback aws pretty much icing to a cake of having to be thrown into action with random abilities and no weight to whatever story you are taking part of.

This was how my time from log on went:
-Show some random time period where my character has some weird experience with blue energy
-Go back in time a random amount of days and my room that was not destroyed in the future is now destroyed and I have blue stuff coming out of me.
-Go back forward in time a couple of days, now I can play magically ball tricks with this blue energy
-Jump further in time, get knocked out by a random asian guy
-Placed in a random setting, followed butterflies with 100 cutscenes to get to the guy who finally starts to explain my story...ok, I'm beginning to get invested in what's going on
-just kidding! get molested b an asian chick with horrible graphics like this is GTA Vice City just to flashback in someone else's body with a bunch of random characters I certainly don't care about, get immediately thrown into very wonky combat (b/c you've had no adjustment period) that makes me feel like I'm going to die as a verteran MMO player and I'm constantly worried about running around when it seems I shouldn't be fighting 100 mobs right off the bat.
-realize it's not possible to die, forget what I'm even doing...do the equivalent of chase butterflies
-end everything by still not knowing what's going on and waking up back in the place I just was.

Total time in control of my character, 3 minutes. Total confusing cutscene time 30 minutes. Utter disaster.

Take the quest to go into the portal to my first zombie town, and the relief of an actual story and questing experience starts to unfold. Game dramatically improves and I start having fun.

Just my 5 cents.

You forgot the fellatio! Did you try the Templar or Illuminati openings? They make a little (a little) more sense. The Dragon don't make senseby nature.

[Razael]

Snip

The characters in the flashback represent the 3 factions in the game. They are there to aclimatize you to the way stuff rolls on The Secret World. Random is what Dragon is all about. Chaos. You chose the wrong faction if that isn't your cup of tea. You killed some some dudes in your initial combat sequence. You don't do that in other MMOs? Jump into the action killing pigs and shiz? This ain't WoW/GW2/Rift/SWTOR leveling (just using recent trendy games as reference, i don't have the audacity to assume to know what sort of older and harder MMOs you've played as a MMO veteran). You will get your ass kicked. And your brain will be put to function.
I don't mind the cutscenes. They are cliche and weirdly made i didn't understand it at first either, but this is a mmoRPG. Complaining about cutscenes in RPGs is .. well. Ye. Trust me all will make sense in due time. I suppose i agree with you in a way, that was me trying to make sense of something that for you is new. Gets hard to remember how i first felt when i started.

---------- Post added 2013-03-19 at 09:04 PM ----------

You forgot the fellatio! Did you try the Templar or Illuminati openings? They make a little (a little) more sense. The Dragon don't make sense by nature.

This. /10chars

---------- Post added 2013-03-19 at 09:06 PM ----------

And man i totally fucked up yesterday. Saved exactly 35 SPs to buy the Whip skill. Bought the Chainsaw one by mistake. FML.

[catcommando]

That was the vibe I was getting once I hit the zombie town...definitely a unique vibe with me being some strange fist weapon wielding, dragon ninja being put into an episode of supernatural. Kinda pulpy maybe?

I like that they did something different. I can also see why it failed as a subcription game, because it is definitely niche. Nice to see such a liberal F2P model and glad some money can be given to them to play the game as a one time purchase.

Stick with it, Kitty. I did find some of the early cutscenes lolworthy (play as Dragon) and had a pretty bad case of paralysis by analysis when I cracked open the ability wheel. Like the deck system (once I got the hang of it) but found the combat a bit clunky. My character's face in some of the cutscenes is hilarious. But rolled through it anyway because the quest system is outstanding. Yesterday I chased a siren's song and died a few times...which I thought was funny in itself (yeah didn't see the traps...derp). I also stole a dead man's outfit, infiltrated a super sekret organization's operation, and helped some kid's rc plane take pictures of their base. Helped said kid build a flamethrower. Capped off the night by melting down a bunch of zombies at a scrapyard, and I think I'm going to have to take the scrapyard owner's dog for a walk later. I'm not sure if there's an mmo who's got a quest system that can rival the offerings of TSW to be honest. Yeah, the graphics aren't all that great, but they make up for it with tone and atmosphere. Warts and all, I think it's well worth the price of admission. It's just a shame that the intro is a little rough, and the tutorials aren't great.

A tip: Don't try to pick up every quest you see. This isn't WoW/TOR style quest hubs, don't even bother trying to gather them all. Just make a note of where you found them on your map and go back to them later. I usually just focus on one mission at a time, and some of them are pretty involved. When you complete 30 missions, you're granted a one time bonus of 1200 points that you can use in the cash shop. Don't know if your copy of the game comes with issue #5 (mine did) but I'd suggest using them for the dlc unless you really want the buffs/fluff/cosmetics. Those set of bonus points expire in 30 days. Used mine to pay for issue #6, and I'm a longgggg ways from getting there since I'm still running around in Kingsmouth.

[Kelimbror]

@sunshine, thanks for the sound advice...I'm not even sure what mine game with as it was given to me

@everyone else, I know the dragon was Chaos...but that doesn't explain poor cutscenes. And I don't expect to be bombarded with hundreds of them every time I take 2 steps regardless of what genre it is. That is just poor management of them. I'm not bashing the game, just giving my perspective on how it opened. It could have very well turned a lot of people off, but I'm not that impatient.

Anyways, I'm going to actually play and stop ranting about it

[Razael]

A tip: Don't try to pick up every quest you see. This isn't WoW/TOR style quest hubs, don't even bother trying to gather them all. Just make a note of where you found them on your map and go back to them later. I usually just focus on one mission at a time, and some of them are pretty involved.

What i do usually is look at where i started on the map. And then clear missions on a NPC by NPC basis, along with all Secundaries found in the path of other missions. It helps (me at least) get involved with NPC in question, as if each NPC represents a quest chain? to me it kinda does. the flavour dialogues are pretty good and the voice acting is awesome.

[Sj]

@everyone else, I know the dragon was Chaos...but that doesn't explain poor cutscenes. And I don't expect to be bombarded with hundreds of them every time I take 2 steps regardless of what genre it is. That is just poor management of them. I'm not bashing the game, just giving my perspective on how it opened. It could have very well turned a lot of people off, but I'm not that impatient.

Anyways, I'm going to actually play and stop ranting about it

I agree. The beginning of the game is really jarring. I think that definitely turns a lot of people off on the game. Yes, they need to show how your powers were granted and how you ended up with your secret society, but I think the presentation faltered on that one; I shared this early in beta and was told more would be added to the opening sequence (the white-haired girl and the dark-dressed guy and their scene was kept under wraps until launch).

[Valeron]

actually during the beta part of my feedback was the extreme disjointed feel of the introduction, I can't imagine I was alone in that. I have to wonder how many people they lost due to that as well. After all, first impressions are huge and can never be taken away.

[Sj]

actually during the beta part of my feedback was the extreme disjointed feel of the introduction, I can't imagine I was alone in that. I have to wonder how many people they lost due to that as well. After all, first impressions are huge and can never be taken away.

I'm sure it had a huge impact, especially during the beta weekends. Didn't help either that the beta weekends used a build that was way behind what we were seeing in closed beta. The active dodge wasn't even in. I played with some friends during those weekends and they were disappointed in how bad the game ran and also with the opening sequences. They liked Kingsmouth a lot more, but the damage was already done. They still won't give it another shot.

[Gereorth666]

Good! I was looking for this thread, so I don't have to make a new one..

Now! I have a few questions for this game, as I am very intriqued into getting it (not because of the 'buy once, play forever', but just the game itself).

What is the state of the game? How well does it cooperate?
Is the community big, enough stuff to do at "end-game"?
Is there a trinity in this game? I'd like to pick up the role of the medic, if such a thing is possible.

Now a question that maybe not everyone can answer, maybe a few:
How much can you compare this game to "Hellgate: London"? I've played that game for a few months when it was an actual "buy to play (and possible subscription)" game. I loved it, enjoyed the theme, combat and everything to it. Just a shame it went down (thank god for the single-player option).

Does this game also take much of my computer?
At the moment I'm running with:
Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3,40GHz
12GB RAM (I know, quite the odd number for RAM)
GeForce GT 545 (buying GeForce GTX 650 this friday)

So I heard there aren't realy any classes, and you basicly pick up a weapon and that decides your abilities? Someone cares to give a brief explenation for how that works?


I apologize to anyone in advance that says "go search this thread for answers", but it's 167 pages long, by the time I read all of it I probably have the game already.

[Razael]

Just finished Issue#6 , was good overall, last mission was nice, but still enjoyed the 5th alot more.

---------- Post added 2013-03-20 at 12:40 AM ----------

Snip

First question: Game is at a decent state, although there are some bugs here and there, sometimes something that was fixed before gets re-broken with each patch, but they try their best to get around to the bugs as soon as they can.

Second Question: With few servers mostly everyone is in a decently crowded server, and my guild does Lairs , Dungeons and all that easily. Judging by the "trade chat" , theres groups running for end game content all the time.

Third Question: Yes, dungeons are based around the idea of using DPSes, Tanks and Healers. Some weapons have that Role available if you desire.

Fourth Question Can't answer never played that.

Fifth Question Your PC will run it. Although mind you, this game isn't very well optimized, i get framerate drops just running around (not all the time, but more often than i'd desire), and even people with monster PCs get performance issues, but these are inherent to the game. My PC should be able to put all settings on Max (according to requirements) but i have to contend with Medium because anything higher and the game is unplayable.

Last Question No there are no classes or levels per se. Weapons don't decide your abilities like GW2 , as in use this weapon have 5 mandatory skills. You will have a Wheel with all the weapons listed. You choose your weapon and youll see you have a plethora of Abilities and passive abilities to choose from (after buying them), and mix match to your hearts content, you buy these with AP or Ability Points. Oh and its 2 weapons you can wield at a time (and an Auxiliary weapon , but only later in the game). All weapons have "two roles" ,One is always DPS, the other is Support (which can either be Tank or Heals, or CC). Weapons are trained to be effective at a particular role by investing Skill Points. You earn all types of points by getting XP obviously. Basically if you wanna be a tank pick a pair of weapons that supports damage mitigation , and choose apropriate abilities like AoEs, Taunts, Buffs, etc. Same for heals, pick weapons that can perform Healing like the Assault Rifle and the Claw.

[Kelimbror]

I had planned on playing for a couple of hours and then going to my usual games....but then I just couldn't leave. I really like the questing system and the ability to blend abilities to customize my play style. Currently using pistols and a sword and I feel like I'm playing in some weird buffy/supernatural, walking dead, grand theft auto, resident evil game mashup.

Apparently it's addictive lol.

[Eremiel]

They really failed at the intro and beginning experience though...it was just...beyond awful. All over the place, non sensical, and overly filled with cutscenes.

If you're not fond of cutscenes and long bits of dialogue, this is probably not the game for you. That said, if you're not someone who skips quest dialogue then you'll have a good time!

[Gereorth666]

I guess I'm going for the silly question now.. What server would be suggested?

[Endus]

I guess I'm going for the silly question now.. What server would be suggested?

It basically doesn't matter. You can chat, form groups, and have clans that are all cross-server, by design. Server is basically irrelevant, for the most part.

[Razael]

I had planned on playing for a couple of hours and then going to my usual games....but then I just couldn't leave. I really like the questing system and the ability to blend abilities to customize my play style. Currently using pistols and a sword and I feel like I'm playing in some weird buffy/supernatural, walking dead, grand theft auto, resident evil game mashup.

Apparently it's addictive lol.

I knew you'd like it =p

[notorious98]

I had planned on playing for a couple of hours and then going to my usual games....but then I just couldn't leave. I really like the questing system and the ability to blend abilities to customize my play style. Currently using pistols and a sword and I feel like I'm playing in some weird buffy/supernatural, walking dead, grand theft auto, resident evil game mashup.

Apparently it's addictive lol.

Yeah, it's definitely an enjoyable game. The freedom it gives you is awesome. The only reason to roll an alt would be to see the main storylines from the other 2 factions. Other than that, why bother when you can do everything and anything with just one toon if you invest enough time?

[Razael]

Yeah, it's definitely an enjoyable game. The freedom it gives you is awesome. The only reason to roll an alt would be to see the main storylines from the other 2 factions. Other than that, why bother when you can do everything and anything with just one toon if you invest enough time?

I have a Dragon character, was toying with the idea of making a Lummie alt.

[Sj]

I have a Dragon character, was toying with the idea of making a Lummie alt.

Illuminati is fun; Kirsten Geary is just the best.