Author Topic: The Secret World/Secret World Legends  (Read 156482 times)

Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #60 on: January 08, 2013, 10:48:08 PM »
The video I saw they claimed not to have taken anything away. They are just giving some additional perks (like free allocation of Cash Shop Coins) to those that pay monthly to buy those extra perks that aparently were there since before the game went F2P (like speed boosts.)

Think wardrobe options are the main holdout for F2P players.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

JWBullfrog

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #61 on: January 08, 2013, 10:53:24 PM »
Actually the wardrobe issue isn't that bad. You're a bit limited at the beginning, but once you earn a bit of in game cash, head off to Pangaea in London and shop to your heart's content. Clothing is (quite logically) purely cosmetic so you can build a look that pleases you without worrying that it will wreck your build.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

Dollhouse

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #62 on: January 08, 2013, 11:14:11 PM »
Yep...non-subscribing players can do all of the content* and have access to every ability, skill, etc. There are a lot of costume options that are only in the cash shop, but there are also a lot that are available with in-game currency. too.  Nothing that's exclusively in the cash shop can really be considered "buy to win," either.

* There are going to be more cash shop mission packs (currently only one, and it's truly excellent), but they won't be the only new content or even the majority thereof. Paid subscribers will, according to the devs, always get more cash shop "points" with their monthly renewal than the mission packs will cost...it's free content for subscribers, although it will leave you with less to spend on cosmetic items and such that month. Not every month will get a cash shop mission pack (they're devoting the majority of content development resources to "regular" content everyone will get.

So far, it looks like Funcom are handling B2P very well with this game.

saipaman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #63 on: January 09, 2013, 12:10:11 AM »
I'm just glad the Mayan event is over.

JWBullfrog

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #64 on: January 09, 2013, 04:31:15 AM »
I'm just glad the Mayan event is over.

I was getting sick of the mayan zombies. Good riddance. Every time I turned around one of those Xatch--- xitchi--- things... was in my face.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

Knightslayer

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #65 on: January 09, 2013, 03:21:06 PM »

I was getting sick of the mayan zombies. Good riddance. Every time I turned around one of those Xatch--- xitchi--- things... was in my face.
Oh hell yes, I've had the misfortune of joining in the middle of that event... fortunately I figured out early on that keeping the mission kept the aggresive zombie from spawning in my face every five seconds... which only left the other annoying pests that just loved to spawn in my AoE's.
Other than that it's been a blast so far, I love the gameplay, the freedom in builds and most of all the stories.

Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #66 on: January 09, 2013, 05:07:09 PM »
Oh hell yes, I've had the misfortune of joining in the middle of that event... fortunately I figured out early on that keeping the mission kept the aggresive zombie from spawning in my face every five seconds... which only left the other annoying pests that just loved to spawn in my AoE's.
Other than that it's been a blast so far, I love the gameplay, the freedom in builds and most of all the stories.

I love the amount of voice acting and cinematics even for the most stupid of kill count quests (so far, hope it is not just the early levels.)

I'm more of an audio-visual guy, never was crazy about the amount of text in CoH, especially in team oriented content.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

Knightslayer

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #67 on: January 10, 2013, 08:39:35 AM »
I love the amount of voice acting and cinematics even for the most stupid of kill count quests (so far, hope it is not just the early levels.)

I'm more of an audio-visual guy, never was crazy about the amount of text in CoH, especially in team oriented content.
Yeah, I'm quite impressed with that myself - it was one of the things I really like about SW:TOR as well.
I loved the cutscenes in Polaris as well, and hope that the other "dungeons" have similarly awesome things going for them.

Dollhouse

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #68 on: January 10, 2013, 07:33:17 PM »
I love the amount of voice acting and cinematics even for the most stupid of kill count quests (so far, hope it is not just the early levels.)

If anything, it gets better...   :)

dwturducken

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #69 on: January 11, 2013, 05:00:36 AM »
I did finally get a response back, after I had removed my payment information. You have to switch to the free side. In their words, "cancel your subscription," which I asked them to clarify, since it sounded like I was being told to, you know, cancel my subscription. They apologized for the confusion, but they still didn't really clarify.

So, now I have another month of paid time and a pissed wife. Go, Team Venture!
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."

Knightslayer

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #70 on: January 11, 2013, 10:00:02 AM »
Seems like going B2P was a good move! (so far at least)
Dropping Subscriptions Nets The Secret World a 30% Total Sales Boost

Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #71 on: January 11, 2013, 03:14:03 PM »
Seems like going B2P was a good move! (so far at least)
Dropping Subscriptions Nets The Secret World a 30% Total Sales Boost

30% sales boost, 400% activity boost. I do got to ponder how many of the new players are simply result of CoH's cancelation (although in my case, I would not have jumped in without the B2P model.)

Anyways, the boost seems to be greater than the one we saw. Year over Year we saw only a 6% boost immediately after CoH went F2P (ignoring NCSofts wacky accounting where they never fully accredited cash shop purchases to the game.) So I guess 6% is rather high.

So they get more money, and players get a LOT more activity going on around them. Win/Win for now. I just worry a bit, though. B2P was Guild Wars 1 model. Guild Wars 1 had great initial sales, so good that during its entire lifetime it made more money than City of Heroes. But over time, GW1 lost revenew WAY faster than any other game I seen. Just look at this (a year to year quarterly income comparison for Guild Wars 1):



BTW, the final incomes for the last few reported quarters was WAY bellow City of Heroes.

So I have a feeling that in the short term, Buy 2 Play may be good, but in the long term it is not. I think the only reason GW1 is still running may be the clause Arena.net managed to get into the purchase where they would have the right to buy themselves out of NCSoft. Then again, even that may not save the game given how low its dipping.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

Knightslayer

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #72 on: January 11, 2013, 03:49:34 PM »
I attribute GW1's losses to the nature of the game, it never gets any new content added - so most of its long term players wind up being the ones that love it for the PvP, and inevitably even those grow bored and move on to other PvP centric games (like LoL).
Hopefully The Secret World will be able to keep generating enough content and updates so that they can keep their revenue up, pretty much the same thing DDO's been banking on for years now since going F2P - new Adventure Packs on a regular basis and plenty of cosmetics and such to keep the money flowing.
And I think quite a few, I've seen the CoH related discussions on general chat.  And ran into a player called "Penelope (can't remember the nickname) Yin" =P

Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #73 on: January 11, 2013, 03:59:12 PM »
I attribute GW1's losses to the nature of the game, it never gets any new content added - so most of its long term players wind up being the ones that love it for the PvP, and inevitably even those grow bored and move on to other PvP centric games (like LoL).

With a B2P model, you dont care that much for the existing playerbase. Adding content will not stablize your profit, keeping your existing players will not do you any good. Your goal is to bring in new players, and that requires new boxes in stores, or virtual box expansions (not just DLC) in digital storefronts like Steam. Sooner or later, old games just stop selling, and you need to refresh them for retail.

Keep in mind the chart above is not about players numbers, it's about revenue.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

FatherXmas

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #74 on: January 11, 2013, 05:21:27 PM »
GW1 had several reasons why it's income dropped to a low level over the last few years NCsoft reported it.

1) Since it's B2P with item shop, without a steady presence of box editions on shelves in the last few years, you've eliminated the impulse buy.  Plus those that do, it's at a much lower cost than buying all four boxes which translates into less direct money from sales.

2) GW2 was announced the same time the last expansion set was announced.  NCsoft hinted that the game would be ready in 2009, 2010 and 2011.  Why spend money on a game that first came out in 2005 when the new shiny is just around the corner.  Okay the next corner.  This corner for sure...

3) GW I'm told is has a fairly big PvP following.  If you weren't a big PvP fan, you might wonder how much of the game content you could enjoy without stepping into an arena.  Would it be worth the money if you weren't interested in X% of the game.
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Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #75 on: January 11, 2013, 05:42:25 PM »
I am skeptical about points 2 and 3 having much impact. PvP was not heavily advertised, it was mentioned but only way to know its heavy influence in the community was to already be part of the community (heck I'm finding out about the heavy PvP community now in this thread, and I had the first game.)

Similar with the second game's announcement. I actually think it would boost sales lightly, but collapse them entirely upon release. GW's model made it very appealing for the standard video game player (the kind that would buy Gears of War for the campaign, perhaps stick around for the multiplayer) and those games seem to be affected by a subset of the players being interested in playing the prequel before the sequel's release.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

FatherXmas

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #76 on: January 11, 2013, 06:21:53 PM »
I am skeptical about points 2 and 3 having much impact. PvP was not heavily advertised, it was mentioned but only way to know its heavy influence in the community was to already be part of the community (heck I'm finding out about the heavy PvP community now in this thread, and I had the first game.)

Similar with the second game's announcement. I actually think it would boost sales lightly, but collapse them entirely upon release. GW's model made it very appealing for the standard video game player (the kind that would buy Gears of War for the campaign, perhaps stick around for the multiplayer) and those games seem to be affected by a subset of the players being interested in playing the prequel before the sequel's release.

From what I read at the time it was a major selling point.  Why spend all that time leveling up in PvE when you can go straight to max level for PvP in Guild Wars!  It was the reason I didn't buy the game or even try any of the free offers I had in my NCsoft master account.

And yes my second point is that the announcement would cannibalize future sales of the existing game.  The last thing you want to do in business is to announce the new version of a product and then be late with it.  People will hold off their purchase of your current product for the new version.  If you are late you risk them going to a competitor, or going back to WoW.  NCsoft made a serious misstep by promising delivery over and over again without listening to what ArenaNet was telling them.
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Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #77 on: January 11, 2013, 06:29:31 PM »
From what I read at the time it was a major selling point.  Why spend all that time leveling up in PvE when you can go straight to max level for PvP in Guild Wars!  It was the reason I didn't buy the game or even try any of the free offers I had in my NCsoft master account.

Being max level, in my understanding, was simply to make sure everyone was the same level in PvP (same with GW2) but you still had to go through PvE content to earn the skills/spells/abilities that would make you competitive in PvP.

Quote
And yes my second point is that the announcement would cannibalize future sales of the existing game.  The last thing you want to do in business is to announce the new version of a product and then be late with it.  People will hold off their purchase of your current product for the new version.

In my experience that is more true with hardware or software you normally upgrade and replace than it is with games that contain a campaign.

In fact, friend of mine went back and bought all the GW1 expansions to ge the full lore of the game before jumping deep into GW2, but I realize this is anecdotal. It IS one of the reasons I didn't preorder GW2, though (I figure I'd first play GW1 through.)

Quote
If you are late you risk them going to a competitor, or going back to WoW.  NCsoft made a serious misstep by promising delivery over and over again without listening to what ArenaNet was telling them.

Given how much it sold, not sure if it was a mistake. Also, got to say the downtrend for GW1 goes back way more than just 2009, they had quarters with mroe than 50% losses in revenue since 2006.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

Mistress Urd

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #78 on: January 11, 2013, 07:59:15 PM »
From what I read at the time it was a major selling point.  Why spend all that time leveling up in PvE when you can go straight to max level for PvP in Guild Wars!  It was the reason I didn't buy the game or even try any of the free offers I had in my NCsoft master account.

And yes my second point is that the announcement would cannibalize future sales of the existing game.  The last thing you want to do in business is to announce the new version of a product and then be late with it.  People will hold off their purchase of your current product for the new version.  If you are late you risk them going to a competitor, or going back to WoW.  NCsoft made a serious misstep by promising delivery over and over again without listening to what ArenaNet was telling them.

Reminds me of Osborne Computers.

Mistress Urd

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #79 on: January 11, 2013, 08:09:34 PM »
This game was also on my radar as another choice to replace CoH since there have been several CoH players who made the move to it. I'll see if I can pick it up cheap. Seeing some of the collateral damage known as "free to play" (well buy to play in this case) in the MMO world, I just hope there is still a game.

I am not a fan of special events, I wasn't a fan of them in CoH, I viewed them as programmer time not being used for more important stuff (bugfixes, new powers, missions etc). Glad to see Funcom handle the debacle in probably the best way possible. Still, rewards for being the top 1000? Yick, what the heck were they thinking.