The Secret World

[BloatedGuppy]

All sounds good, but how long is a lifetime membership exactly, and how much is it?

Lifetime!

$250.

At $15 a month, you'd want to play for at least a year and a half to feel like you got good value out of that.

For what it's worth, I'm a rabid MMO enthusiast, and I've never lasted longer than 6 months on a single run on ANY game, even a content deep one like WoW or EQ. By all accounts, there's a good 1-2 months of content in TSW at present time.

I've yet to meet a person who bought a lifetime sub to ANY game that didn't consider it a poor investment down the road.

 

[WanderingFool]

All sounds good, but how long is a lifetime membership exactly, and how much is it?

Lifetime!

$250.

At $15 a month, you'd want to play for at least a year and a half to feel like you got good value out of that.

For what it's worth, I'm a rabid MMO enthusiast, and I've never lasted longer than 6 months on a single run on ANY game, even a content deep one like WoW or EQ. By all accounts, there's a good 1-2 months of content in TSW at present time.

I've yet to meet a person who bought a lifetime sub to ANY game that didn't consider it a poor investment down the road.

Thats exactly what im curious about. When I read lifetime, I tend to think of that lifetime as the life of the product. This being an MMO, that could be anywhere from 2 years, 1 year, 6 months or even less (reason being WoW.) I cant justify to myself buying anything like a lifetime subscription to a MMO that could very well be F2P in 2 months. Thats ideally why Im waiting until it either it goes F2P, or I hear enough good info about it to be willing to pay the monthly subscription rate.

 

[Tayh]

I've yet to meet a person who bought a lifetime sub to ANY game that didn't consider it a poor investment down the road.

Hello, my name is Tayh.
I own a lifetime subscription for LOTRO(>4 years and running) and TSW and I consider neither a bad investment.

 

[Schadrach]

I know all about the item shop. In terms of content, you're right, it's fairly non malicious, being limited entirely to cosmetic items. One could argue that cosmetic items are fairly significant in TSW, and I've heard mixed reports over the quality and quantity of the ones available for "free" via the sub, but for the sake of argument lets assume the "free" stuff is perfectly acceptable.

In terms of pricing it's straight up rude. Even proponents of the cash shop are snarking about the prices on the official forums.

In terms of optics it's terrible. Whether it's tucked away or not, people are aware of it, and it SEEMS greedy. And I'm just not sure Funcom can afford anything even remotely resembling negative perception with the hill they have to climb over the back half of this year. They're already going through the traditional "grace period was too short" fiasco at the moment, with physical copies slow drifting in thanks to July 4th and people getting locked out of the game they just dropped huge amounts of money on.

MMO players are fickle, demanding idiots. They will turn on your game in record speed if something rubs them wrong. And Cash Shop + Sub can and will rub many of them wrong.

As far as the quality of the "free" stuff, the starting clothing isn't terribly awesome looking, however it's not the only clothing in game. Also, if you build one of the sample builds (called "decks", viewable from the skill wheel) you actually get the clothing that the sample character is wearing, which is generally pretty nice. I'll have the Pandemonist getup soon enough, to go with my Secret War stuff and my hoodie or hoodies (if I win a slaughterhouse hoodie, it's never coming off).

All sounds good, but how long is a lifetime membership exactly, and how much is it?

Lifetime!

$250.

At $15 a month, you'd want to play for at least a year and a half to feel like you got good value out of that.

For what it's worth, I'm a rabid MMO enthusiast, and I've never lasted longer than 6 months on a single run on ANY game, even a content deep one like WoW or EQ. By all accounts, there's a good 1-2 months of content in TSW at present time.

I've yet to meet a person who bought a lifetime sub to ANY game that didn't consider it a poor investment down the road.

The lifetime sub for TSW is ~$200 by itself. The $250 number includes the box price of the game. If you would expect to play it for more than a year, it's worth it. If not, it's not.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Thats exactly what im curious about. When I read lifetime, I tend to think of that lifetime as the life of the product. This being an MMO, that could be anywhere from 2 years, 1 year, 6 months or even less (reason being WoW.) I cant justify to myself buying anything like a lifetime subscription to a MMO that could very well be F2P in 2 months. Thats ideally why Im waiting until it either it goes F2P, or I hear enough good info about it to be willing to pay the monthly subscription rate.

The lifetime subbers for LOTRO get access to all that game's ludicrously priced unlockables for free, so they at least got something for their trouble. I imagine the same would be true for TSW if it goes FTP at some point.

Hello, my name is Tayh.

I own a lifetime subscription for LOTRO(>4 years and running) and TSW and I consider neither a bad investment.

I've been getting burned by MMO launches a lot lately.

UO - 6 months played. Good value.
EQ - Roughly 1 year played, total, in two visits. Good value.
DAoC - Roughly 8-10 months played, total, in two visits. Good value.
CoH - Roughly 3-4 months played in 3-4 visits. Decent value.
AO - One week played. BAD VALUE.
WoW - Roughly 2-3 years played in MANY visits, due to lousy competition. Excellent value.
WAR - Roughly 1.5 months played. Questionable value.
AOC - One week played. BAD VALUE.
LOTRO - One week played. BAD VALUE. I actually bought two collectors editions for this as well, as they were the only boxes on the shelf when I went in to get it.
VANGUARD - 3 days played. BAD VALUE.
AION - One month played. Poor value.
TOR - Two months played, but bought a 3 month sub (optimistically). BAD VALUE.
RIFT - One month played, but only off and on. BAD VALUE.

I'm hesitant to even go beyond month to month on anything these days. Since every game since WoW requires me to buy two boxes, it's particularly painful when they're one and done.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few in there as well. Seems to me I'm missing one or two from the post-WoW era.

The lifetime sub for TSW is ~$200 by itself. The $250 number includes the box price of the game. If you would expect to play it for more than a year, it's worth it. If not, it's not.

I figured...I guess instead of "month and a half" I should've said 14 months, but I was rounding up aggressively.

 

[Schadrach]

All sounds good, but how long is a lifetime membership exactly, and how much is it?

Lifetime!

$250.

At $15 a month, you'd want to play for at least a year and a half to feel like you got good value out of that.

For what it's worth, I'm a rabid MMO enthusiast, and I've never lasted longer than 6 months on a single run on ANY game, even a content deep one like WoW or EQ. By all accounts, there's a good 1-2 months of content in TSW at present time.

I've yet to meet a person who bought a lifetime sub to ANY game that didn't consider it a poor investment down the road.

Thats exactly what im curious about. When I read lifetime, I tend to think of that lifetime as the life of the product. This being an MMO, that could be anywhere from 2 years, 1 year, 6 months or even less (reason being WoW.) I cant justify to myself buying anything like a lifetime subscription to a MMO that could very well be F2P in 2 months. Thats ideally why Im waiting until it either it goes F2P, or I hear enough good info about it to be willing to pay the monthly subscription rate.

Look at it from a historical perspective then. How many Funcom MMOs have died? I'd be more afraid if it were an NCSoft title, they've killed a *bunch* of online games, including Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, and Exteel. If you'd play for a year, get a lifetime. If not, don't.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Look at it from a historical perspective then. How many Funcom MMOs have died? I'd be more afraid if it were an NCSoft title, they've killed a *bunch* of online games, including Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, and Exteel. If you'd play for a year, get a lifetime. If not, don't.

To be fair, while Funcom has a great track record for supporting flagging MMOs, they have a terrible track record for putting out MMOs that take it on the chin in terms of massive sub drop-off. TSW is a game that might actually IMPROVE due to a smaller sub base due to its reliance on atmosphere, but there's a fairly loud and large contingent that likes their MMO of choice to feel vibrant and heavily populated. I remember people whining in TOR that the areas didn't feel crammed enough, even though they were plenty crammed (and annoying as a result of it). MMOs get a "failure" stank on them when they suffer a huge plunge in sub numbers, fairly or not. TOR is still hovering around a million subs and people ritually mock it. If TSW stabilizes at anything close to a million subs I'll eat my hat.

 

[AlotFirst]

I don't what I was thinking back then...I forgot about that.
Never was a MMO player. The only MMO I played is Path of Exile, but even then I play it only solo.

Path of Exile isn't really an MMO, though.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Eesh...just read this off TSW forums. Kind of a grim outlook.

Actually AoC didn't make enough money to make TSW. They had to borrow over 32 million USD to get the concept together before EA agreed to oversee/publish it. Now they're in debt close to 100 million USD to banks and 3rd parties. That is why their stock values have absolutely plummeted today and yesterday with their stocks having almost lost half their value since launch day (launch was at 16.2, the price today at its lowest was 10.5). In retrospect, AoC's launch happened when their stock was valued at over 58 points.

The fact are this... It doesn't matter how good people think TSW is. If they don't sell over 1.1 million boxes before Christmas, they will go bankrupt as a company. As of right now, they have 12 million USD in the bank and they are currently running -6 million losses per quarter. TSW has to recoup all of EA's money before they can start getting revenues from sales and subscriptions. They are indepted to EA and their private investors to a tune of about 76 million.

Their collateral for those loans was the intellectual property rights to AoC because they already had a 1:1 debt to asset ratio in regards to their corporate assets according to their investor's presentations.

So, if they default on their loan payments and fees they won't have an MMO to pay anything back with. This is why, according to Forbes, that Funcom's lifespan is presently measured in days.

 

[AlotFirst]

snippeh

Could you link me to that forum post?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Could you link me to that forum post?

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showpost.php?p=925651&postcount=76

Here's me talking a bit so that this doesn't look like a low content post. I'm talkin! I'm talkin' here!

 

[AlotFirst]

Could you link me to that forum post?

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showpost.php?p=925651&postcount=76

Here's me talking a bit so that this doesn't look like a low content post. I'm talkin! I'm talkin' here!

Good sir, you are a brave man for taking on Adversary. To think people like him even dare to complain about the GW2 community.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Good sir, you are a brave man for taking on Adversary. To think people like him even dare to complain about the GW2 community.

Adversary was grinding a weird axe. I'm not sure who he was arguing with, but it wasn't me.

 

[Schadrach]

Could you link me to that forum post?

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showpost.php?p=925651&postcount=76

Here's me talking a bit so that this doesn't look like a low content post. I'm talkin! I'm talkin' here!

I wonder where he gets his data. I find it interesting, especially because he, specifically, has gone out of his way to try to discourage people from playing, just look at his post history it's a mix of "Funcom is terrible" and "Funcom is going bankrupt" and the like.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I wonder where he gets his data. I find it interesting, especially because he, specifically, has gone out of his way to try to discourage people from playing, just look at his post history it's a mix of "Funcom is terrible" and "Funcom is going bankrupt" and the like.

Fair enough, but be wary of confirmation bias. I passed the info along to a friend and a couple of points, at least, were easily verifiable (stock price and losses).

If it IS true, that's a poor outlook for the game and for Funcom, given what an ugly run of months they need to go through.

 

[WanderingFool]

Could you link me to that forum post?

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showpost.php?p=925651&postcount=76

Here's me talking a bit so that this doesn't look like a low content post. I'm talkin! I'm talkin' here!

Well... damn. Thats sounds rather gloomy for FunCom.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Now I will start off by saying that yes some of the game is a bit buggy (fucking ravens), it's release week for an MMO...never seen one go off without at least one or two bugged quests.

I've been playing non stop since the game launched and I bought my lifetime subscription.
This is an MMO that speaks to damn near everything I love about modern horror and it probably the closest I'll ever see to a World of Darkness MMO that doesn't assume I want to play a Vampire.

Yeah there are your bog standard "Go here, kill 10 of monster X and win a prize" missions and that's all fine and good but there's also "Follow the trail of in game clues, read through the fluff, do a google search to find answers to riddles. Holy shit I'm having fun using my brain in an MMO" style quests.

And when I say "google the answer" I don't mean I'm stuck so time to find a walkthrough.
I mean The game hints at finding a clue in a passage of the King James bible, so I google searched the passage and found the answer I needed.

It's a feature of the game.


Maybe it's because I'm a gamer of a certain age but the fact that I've had to start keeping a journal next to my computer to write down clues and make notes is a game experience I haven't had since I was 9 or 10 and I love it.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

...And published by EA, so they still end up with some of the money.

So buy the frigging digital version.
Damnit!
Whatever man, I don't care anymore - go be paranoid all you want, I'm too tired of this ignorance.

Why the fuck do you care? And what does paranoia have to do with anything? My purchasing decisions have nothing to do with you, and won't affect anything important or substantial in the slightest in this case, and you have the gall to patronize me out of nowhere anyway as if I just ordered the slaughter of all the world's baby seals. It's a video game, christ.

What the hell is with people when they start using the internet that turns them into such jackasses?

 

[Schadrach]

And when I say "google the answer" I don't mean I'm stuck so time to find a walkthrough.
I mean The game hints at finding a clue in a passage of the King James bible, so I google searched the passage and found the answer I needed.

It's a feature of the game.


Maybe it's because I'm a gamer of a certain age but the fact that I've had to start keeping a journal next to my computer to write down clues and make notes is a game experience I haven't had since I was 9 or 10 and I love it.

That quest pissed me off because of one, tiny thing. The god-damned clock. Why the hell was a modern wall clock stuck at a specific time the appropriate clue? It doesn't fit in with the internal logic of the rest of it -- if it had been a clock in another painting, or suggestions of Illuminati markings on a sundial or something else permanent and old it would have been different, but LOLWUT?!?

Also, I just got the code, I won a slaughterhouse hoodie from the ARG. I suppose I now need to be worried that I never saw my code for the Black Watchmen hoodie from being #60 on the participation leaderboard.

 

[hazabaza1]

Buy game, pay monthly, cash shop.
Well, I guess that could be okay if the game was really good.
*watches gameplay*
lolno

Wonder how long this will take to crash and burn into F2P.