I just posted over on the Champions Online forum because I left CO a few months ago for TSW, and, after posting my impressions of TSW over there, I thought I'd expand on them here and see others here think about the game.
For me, TSW REALLY took patience and stick-to-itiveness, but I hung in there and I'm really glad I did. I found a challenging, exciting, smart, atmospheric story-driven game where you
ARE a superhero (they come out and say it ingame frequently) just in a grittier way and on a smaller scale--at first. I was able to re-create one of my supernatural heroes from CoH there and he fits in very well. I do occasionally miss the primary colors, tights and cape aesthetic and classic "travel powers", but while I was afraid that would be a deal breaker for me, I found that the game was so good once I was over the hump that I am having a ball and really getting into it.
They've had some trouble getting people into the game after a buggy start, but, after really sinking my teeth into it, I have to say that I think their biggest problem is that they were too uncompromising in their integrity and made the game too darn challenging and smart for most gamers (present company excepted--I never considered real CoH people your average "gamers"). If they'd sold out a bit more they would have done much better--but I'm glad they didn't
. You do take a beating from the learning curve, thought. If you try it out, be ready for that. It's not a "short attention span theater" game. More like a good game for stubborn people who like a challenge.
Unfortunately, because of that they are fighting to keep their company and games alive and have had to circle their wagons, but they did it so intelligently and well--consolidating their teams in one location and sharing between their two games that have the same engine--that the development quality and pace of both games has actually improved! They've been releasing some truly amazing stuff in TSW.
I will say that, after getting through the initial learning/understanding the world curve, I will have different standard for games from now on as far as story, atmosphere, challenge level and intelligence in a game. It reminds me of how good the story, atmosphere, and development was in CoH in the Paragon Studios halcyon days.
ADVICE:
1) If you try TSW, stay in each zone until you exhaust every single mission in that zone! It doesn't look like it because there are no "levels", but the difficulty really ratchets up from zone to zone! One of the challenges I had at first was not feeling very heroic when I was getting squashed--till I learned to stay where I belong while leveling. The game is innately challenging, so it's a lot more fun to be slightly over powered for a zone than under-powered.
2) You do feel like a small potato at first, but don't let that bother you while progressing--deep in the endgame you become a true demigod of a superhero, it just takes patience.
3) Move! Actively avoiding the big attacks with movement and terrain makes the difference between "they're crazy, I can't beat that boss" and "Hmm, that was easy".
PS- The community is mostly great (with your normal smattering of miserable bastards who usually aren't tolerated) and there are lots of CoH people there
. And even a CoH channel and a CoH groups!
