closed alpha tester represent, this game is basically Alex Jones the mmo. The early testing hammer animations were much better than the ones they stuck with.
If I was a millionaire and I could fund a proper reboot of a game, I'd pick TSW, without a doubt. Played for a couple of years at launch and it'll always have a place in my heart.
@@ThreeGoddesses You'd call that a proper reboot though? And yeah, I'm pretty sure anyone who loves TSW or that watched the video knows about the dead game SWL.
The atmosphere in the game is beyond any other MMOs out there, the stories are intriguing too with a bunch of real world lore turned into in game reality. Modern day setting is still woefully underused and it's a shame more MMO games don't utilize it. Sadly Funcom doesn't seem interested at all in the game or its continued development...which sucks because the story was really enjoyable even with the gear grindfest that the endgame turned into.
Agreed, I got so hook by the game's atmosphere that I actually go buy Silent Hill just to relive the scene. I was not even a fans of Silent Hill series at all.
Started playing this game as a "haha whats this" about 6 months ago, and iv never been taken in by a game atmosphere like this one. I hope it's still gonna have its servers running for awhile, I need to complete this games main story. I live this game.
Funcom lost a lot of talent when they restructured. Remember when Seoul was supposed to get a tattoo shop? And apparently, were never able to recover from such loses.
Well fortunately Funcom seem to be still interested in the Secret World universe as they are releasing the game called Moons of Madness which is a first person cosmic horror game that involves the Orochi Group and the Filth in a Mars research facility.
yes and no... it should have had a single player mode where you can play through the content without needing a group but then you can group if you so wish... that's how I would do it if I owned the rights to the game.
gnarlin I agree. Too bad Vampire Bloodlines died off before it could fully show off its epicness to... *learns Vampire Bloodlines 2 is a thing* HOLY SHIT!
The story in this was SO good. This needs to be a singleplayer rpg. "What do you want with me? I'm so small. You eat stars." "...You are aaaaaalll made of stars."
@@johnnymartinjohansen Yeah but it's not a single player RPG (though I'd prefer it was made into a survival horror game), that was what Yaldabaoth was trying to say. Plus the game is bad, grinding and outdated af, and the newer version is supposed to be even worse.
@NPC#00035246638/Triggered.Shaking d you don't need to grind in swl. Only reason to grind would be to take part in high elites (not worth it, its the same as lower ones but everything takes longer, except e5 which also adds extra mechanics to bosses) and maybe regionals, but I am sure people will carry low geared players.
@NPC#00035246638/Triggered.Shaking d If I remember correctly swl isn't mmo, it's "shared world experience" or something stupid like that. "End game" in swl is shit and boring. When I was playing it was the same 5 dungeons, scenario where you defend npcs on 3 different maps, lairs, regionals and lurker. If you played dungeons in story mode then it will be the same untill e5 where new mechanics are added. Scenarios made me fall asleep once and because of that I never again tried doing them solo. Lairs and regionals can be done as soon as you reach lvl 50. Only lurker was sorta interesting, it required people to know what they are doing and it could go south very fast if some people made mistake. You can do dungeons as many times as you like, there is no limit for that except keys for opening chests, which even with subscription you will be buying anyway. By carry I meant that they will be bringing so much dps that it doesn't really what you do. When I was playing lair bosses took around 10 seconds to kill and regionals 30 seconds. But that's only natural with dying player base where only people with maxed gear are left.
While unquestionably a shadow of itself, using Steam's CCU to measure the proper population of the game was always... flawed. Funcom func'd up pretty hard with how they placed TSW on the Steam store. For some reason you required a separate account to play the Steam version. Original Funcom accounts could not be linked with your Steam account, and trying to load the game from Steam initially would forcibly create a brand new account. The Steam version was always a less popular than playing from the Funcom Launcher (which I was forced into, being an early adopter of the game and unwilling to do their wonky "one time only" account link transfer which would overwrite one account with the other. Because Funcom.) However hard numbers via the Funcom Launcher aren't trackable like Steam's CCU, and while I'm positive those player numbers were not all that much better, Steam's CCU is NOT and was never an accurate representation of the actual active TSW/SWL playerbase. Seriously though, fuck SWL and its gutted content, clunky control and pay-to-win bullshit. I want my god damned Illuminati Bodyguard outfit back.
Hey, I liked the combat! I didn't actually like the setting. I wanted more of a focus on Templars / Illuminati / (Dragon) Phoenicians (imo, Dragon should be cut and replaced with Phoenixes) and more of a high tech magical setting not unlike Shadowrun. Alas what we got was a far cry from Shadowrun. All the krampuses can take a hike imo.
@@goransekulic3671 Sorry if I assumed wrong. Phoenicians doesn't come from Phoenix, but civilzation of seafarers and merchants in modern day's Lebanon/Syrian coast.
Yeah, why do you think their faction color is purple? Gotta something to do with what Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, Carthage and the like exported, yes? I know they are from Phoenicia, but I can't be bothered to spell, so I just call them Phoenixes. With that said, it'd seem that Suns are kinda piggybacking on all of this. When I better think their color has always been some shade of Purple. The more you know! Phoenix Suns are a conspiracy! :p
@@goransekulic3671 Yeah, sorry for that. I'll agree though, having more to do with Phoenicians than some anarchists who try to make you feel like you accomplished anything by telling that "it will have an effect, just you wait!" would be so much better. Heck, reacquiring their resources would give so much self-accomplishment. I was woefully disappointed when I realized you're not going to get a chance to interact with them like you do with other factions.
Same - it was just so unique in how it approached the MMO, but it was just horribly complicated and clunky starting out, and SW: Legends is just dumbed down... but regardless of all mechanics and systems, the storytelling in Secret World is simply astonishing. It was a real shame Funcom couldn't pull this off and manage it better... but Conan Exiles etc is better suited to their nature as game publishers... they've already butchered Age of Conan and TSW/SWL as MMOs.
The Secret World had the most awesome player community I had ever experienced in an MMO. Talking with people in general chat about some really complex and mature topics at a college level (on a near daily basis) was something I had never seen in an MMO before. I do miss the game sometimes, but I had a really hard time sticking to it after doing all the quests.
Not to mention, coming out of WoW and into TSW, with how brief the dungeons were, people were super chill if you wiped. No aggro digging into other players for wiping and generally hating on each other. It was such a breath of fresh air on that front.
Not to mention terrible at marketing. Age of Conan actually got way better (though not perfect) from it's launch, but they never bothered to really tell anyone. So it never recovered when I feel it very well could of.
@@XxGenericGTxX Good luck finding any games like that today. Most games require a 'phone home' as DRM. Unless you buy it from GOG I guess. However most digital game store platforms require you to log in to the service before it lets you launch the games. Also most games no longer release on store shelves.
@@zewm Big difference in requiring a connection for drm purposes and linking your gameplay mechanics to the speed of your connection and the stability of the servers.
TSW was one of the best MMO experiences I've ever had. Yes, it was clunky, but the story and the world were amazing. No other MMO comes near and I doubt any ever will. What games we get today usually have as much personality as a door frame and as much originality as FIFA "God knows which version is now". I would take TSW over them any day.
This makes me so sad, TSW was probably my favorite game for a long time. I played it since closed beta (NDA/wipes/...) and then for a few years with only little breaks. The whole lore, world building and questing was second to none and the developers had some good interaction with the community (I wrote DMs to the lead dev and actually got an answer the next day, the lead writer was always active on the forums and Twitter and would occasionally tease the community with some lore bits, ...) I'm just glad that there are more games coming that play in the same universe like the upcoming Moons of Madness.
I too played TSW out of curiosity during the early days of its release and I too thought that it was very innovative compared to all other MMOs then and even now. How it handled quests was very nerve racking but also very intuitive, like your solving and actual mystery. It's too bad we'll never see anything like this again, but my wish is that other MMOs take a lesson from what they tried to achieve and to keep the genre alive.
@@citizenterra I should hop back in. Been taking a break because I'm not kitted out well enough to take on the ghouls in Transylvania and I got frustrated.
I know not alot of people play this game, but I would have kept playing to this day IF they had not removed all my previous characters. It is the only MMO I have ever fell in love with. I miss the days when me and my group of friends played this all day together, it's only me now. Gosh I remember the first time we all fought one of the first major boss'.... Cthulu, we were all wowed by his size and mechanics. There was nothing like it... and I don't think there ever will be anything like it again. :(
@@tvbuu My hubby just checked into SWL tonight and found a ghost town. Both of us miss the original though. The revamps in SWL just were kind of terrible.
Thank you for covering this. The Secret World is hands down my favorite MMO *setting*, and that kept me playing for years. I don't want to resurrect the issues that encouraged me to stop playing, despite my grandmaster account. I did come back to give SWL an honest try and I didn't even get out of Savage Coast before I lost interest. Having all my progress essentially undone was not all that great. I notice others mention the combat. All I can say there is that there were builds that made the combat less of an issue (such as the Blade - Chaos solo grinding builds). A lot of weapon combinations were not ideal even early in the game, although I still remember soloing The Eye of Horus while underpowered with leeching AR + Pistols. I know people who quit the game after stumbling into signet quests before they had QL10 gear, and they weren't really signposted well in a lot of cases. A fun thing to do was find the builds that could easily solo quests that a lot of people had serious issues with (such as several in the Shadowy Forest), but a lot of those quests were nerfed at some point even before the relaunch, and contributed to my lack of interest when I tried to get back into the game to experience Tokyo.
I spent quite a bit of time in TSW myself, I think I spent most of the time figuring out how to do the things most people couldn't. The only thing I found fun in SWL was shamballa- trying to see how many people I could get blown off the cliffs (5 at once). By Tokyo in TSW major loss of writing staff and it felt like crap. Funcom does not get another chance from me.
I loved this game SO much. Not generally a fan of horror games, but this wasn’t horror so much as atmospherically creepy. It was a slow burn, sneak up on you, chills down your spine thing. And I didn’t mind the wonky combat so much, since one character could swap between every roll pretty much on the fly.
I'll be honest, the death of this mmo always hit me particularly hard. This was such a good game. Never seen a horror mmo and they nailed it. I'm also not sure you covered the fact that they kept cutting programming staff from the original team early on, so they forgot things like how their in game browser functioned, they lost the ability to optimize.
NGE equivalent exactly. It's shocking how little FC understood their own game when Ragnar left. "Let's loot box and cosmetics! So people can run the same 5 dungeons over and over again with just bigger numbers!" "All new story content is free!" So they demonitized the bits people would have payed for, and banked on the bit nobody care about. The dungeon running was just the holding pattern while waiting for new content (which seldom came!). I was a life time sub, and was still occasionally putting money down for issues, now I will never give FC another cent of my money ever again, even on other games. Impressive, since Anarchy Online was literally my first MMO. Also if you figured out how to mix and match the skill system, the combat usually went by too quick for you to notice just how clunky it was. Trouble was the difference between a random, average, good, and optimized build were so large that even normal players were whittling away for minutes, while a good build would wipe it in seconds. And the whole system was rigged to only give you examples of average to poor builds, you'd be surprised how often people never knew that you could take passives from any weapon in any combination. The NGE equiv removed that, now not only do you notice how clunky it is, the reticle targeting made it obvious that stuff like rifles were never pointing straight at the targets. Oh and speaking of rifles, let's talk the state of healing. High ranking dungeons in SWL are not survivable unless you are using a build that doesn't require a healer. Which means that if you got a tank working his way up the levels, he'll suddenly find he hits a mechanics wall. However nobody ever like healing, so seeing as how like half of all tanks don't need healers, this leads to DPSers queuing up as heals at rates significantly higher than other MMOs. Meaning the tank quickly finds himself in a non-survivable situation. The previous solution was leech healing from rifles. Rifle healing gave some minimal direct heals and a ton of heal-percent-of-damage stuff. You would need a pretty darn good set of DPS gear to pull it off; Something a ton of DPSers had on hand. It wouldn't work on all dungeons, you'd just not play those dungeons if you only knew how to leech. The whole thing was a gateway for DPSers transitioning to healing. And it was doing respectable damage. I was occasionally out damaging some of the more novice DPSers, and almost always out damaging the tank. I had some tanks comment that I was overhealing with some shots, they were overhealing because it was doing massive damage to the boss. For SWL: Rifle-Healing is just sad. The damage is pathetic to the point of non, the majority of the healing came from direct healing. You get nothing out of the equipment passives that are the difference between life and death at mid range dungeon running. Such a waste of a good universe.
Kinda. They did say they made more money off of the first cosmetic holiday lootbox than they did from all of the story content expansions they released beforehand. Which is sad, but tells you something about gamers I guess.
Speaking of alienating their player base? I mean you're right, but their response to totally ABSOLUTELY botching everything about the free to play monetization? Wipe all of the characters, delete all of the hard work of the die-hard fans that kept them afloat, and start absolutely everyone off at the beginning. In an even more dumbed down, content light version of the exact same game. And even better? They barely added any content to the new game, so you actually got LESS to do than the "maintenance mode" original. But, the community got splintered because of that, the old (good) game was a ghost town, and nobody played the new one because of how badly they handled the actual gameplay and transition. Who was this for?
@@JayRutley thats because the worst decision they made was you could purchase content/story/issues with funcom points... so the people MOST LIKELY to spend money on content were getting it for free. It should have been for cosmetics only. Whoever made that decision is the person who destroyed TSW and forced them to create the SWL cancer
Nothing like stopping Loki from claiming Excalibur who used a Mayan invasion of ancient Maine to claim the essence of astral gods by binding them to the blade after claiming it from a bunch of Vikings. The Secret World was weird and awesome. So sad it suffered.
One of the only MMOs I remember going back to even after it was half dead just to walk around and get immerced into it's awesome ambiance. the old lady manor in Innsmouth was such a great place to hang out, loved it.
I remember hearing about this game and wanting to play it as a young teen but didn't have a PC at the time, and then at some point I just stopped hearing about it and always wondered what happened to it.
The same situation bro. I've heard about this game from some kinda TV news about gaming industry in 2011 or 2012 maybe, in category of 'the most expected releases'. I was 8 or 9 lol, and I also didn't have a good PC at the time. I was very hyped and thrilled by teaser.
Man, the music, the story, the atmosphere. This game's is so amazing when it was about the personal experience. But man, the gameplay...it just didn't work
This was my favorite MMORPG. I supported it from the start with the lifetime subscription. But I dropped it when Secret World Legends arrived. It was upsetting enough to no longer be able to customize the characters as in the original game. But removing the "No Classes. No Levels." principle was the nail in the coffin.
They eventually added in a new area into the game and I remember reading an article they are now turning the story of The Secret World into a television series! Pretty hyped when I heard that.
Man I didn't know SWL cut so much content from TSW. I only came in from SWL and only knowing about the game originally from Ross Scott but at a tight budget at the time and MMO starved I didn't think it would sate me due to the combat. I still absolutely love the setting and story of the game. Hell, my favorite gunslinging warlock originally came from the game and became my most favorite D&D character. I won't forget my time with SWL and the stories I experienced with the game. You're an absolutely fantastic investigator and thank you for shedding light on what I was missing from what I thought was a story rich game.
@@snarkywombat155 Not all of it they kept the story and atmosphere. The rest was kinda a mixed bag. I liked that the new combat felt more fluent and impactful. And that Agartha revamp makes it a lot easier to navigate through. But I miss the classless gameplay without levels and the old ability wheel! And I hate that they literally made the game p2w. You can buy AP/SP for money and have a lvl 1 basically have access to all all skills even lvl 50s don't have without a heavy grind! That makes having levels at all kinda useless!
Oh shit lol you have no idea than. It's just... awful. If you played the other version you'd definitely get how much of a downgrade it is. Three guilds I was friends with simply left the game after the relaunch. Another just fizzled out after maxing.... I barely made it through the game... the lack of the rocker launcher jump alone....
@@skyknight0408 New combat was garbage. It was the same shit only your mouse was locked on and you are forced into stupid gimmicks that are plain pointless.
@@Ravenna_Black You are right about the weapon minigames being stupid gimmicks. That's why I picked a combination where I can mostly ignore them. I played the old version with tab-target/leftclick to target so I had some problems to get used to the new combat. But it feels more balanced overall. The old game was really slow, it let you hit a Draug for ten minutes before he died and god beware if a second one attacked you in that time. Now your attacks are more powerful and have more impact on enemies. The combat feels faster and more action based. At least in the beginning of the game, but when I got to Tokio I had flashbacks of the old game because the mofos there are tanky af! I never got that far in the original, hit a wall in Egypt 2 when I couldn't do enough damage to solo questbosses. And since this is a niche game I could never convince any of my friends to start playing. So I stopped for some months and when I came back, the new version was announced shortly after. So I stopped again because I felt it had no sense playing anymore when it's all for nothing and waited for the new version to try out. I feel the old version was better in some ways and this version in others!
@@skyknight0408 molton hammer always one shotted everything for me in the old game. Or a chaotic pull combined with a blade aoe. The stupid fucking aegis shield complicated things but onceyou maxed it and started getting it to 2.0 the shield became little more than an inconvenience in everything except the dungeons. Since SWLs closed beta I still dont get people who say the combat improved. It was no more impactful than it was before. The animations still sucked. And the over simplified builds left to the player didnt make it more interesting... it just made sure any idiot couldnt fuck it up to bad. But instead of a 11111 4 5 3 2 6 11111 3 2 sort of arrangement in SWL I basically do 1 on a builder till I build my charge than drop my major attack and completely ignore the secondary. Its boring. And Agartha no longer looks like a organic spanning world tree. It looks like a ridiculous shopping mall. Its inferior across the board. Even the new story elements, this move to make agent network part of the core game is just dilluding the world. Lets all just face facts Funcom went from attempting to challenge the tropes of the genre to desperately trying to adopt them and in doing so lost the thread of the game.
The thing that really made me love this game story was a little side quest known as "the search for Tyler Freeborn" That simple quest that made me decend into madness as I searched for a single man through the Solomon Islands and later finding myself in dream like reality with a unknown cosmic being whispering in my ears
I have played TSW for about 4-5 years and I can say it had the most unique "class system". You pick 2 out of 9 weapons and use 7 actives from only these two and 7 passives from any weapon. Number of builds we have tried in the very endgame is massive. Running dungeons without healers at all, tanks being their own healer, random weapon combinations you name it. And then during our biweekly raiding (which we did for years at this point) they announced TSW going to life support effective immediately. That's how we stopped raiding cold turkey... Thanks for giving us more free time I guess. TSW with all its issues was a brilliant game with one of the best character build systems I know TSW Legends never happened
As an avid player of both TSW and SWL, this was great. Absolutely summed up how it's gone for TSW. Still one of my favorite IPs and setting for an MMO though. Also, an honor to be in your vid NS!
I played this at PAX 2011. It was inspired enough for me to lay down the $199 and purchase the Grandmaster pack (Lifetime Sub). Never regretted that purchase once. Sad to see it go but I easily got my money's worth. I always had to remember as I ran through any quest that you might actually have to die to be able to complete it. Can't see the objective? Commit suicide so you go into Anima and see what's in that shadowy realm. An early quest in Kingsmouth where you had to follow a trail left by a raven and click on it's feathers needed that and had me stumped for literally hours before I found out. Good times.
Waikikamukau I lifetime subbed too. It was worth it. What killed it was the re-launch for me. I would have kept playing the game had they not taken away all the choice and benefits, because the streamlined combat & classes just betrayed everything I loved about my characters.
You could pay 199 dollars and be a lifetime sub? Thats kind of awesome. Not saying 199 dollars is cheap, I personally wouldn't spend that much on an online game (closest I've gotten to that sort of price was an original PAL copy of Castlevania Symphony of the Night for pretty much 200 dollars wich is the only time I have ever exceeded 100 dollars on a single game), but I wouldn't blame you if you liked the game to that extent.
Only distantly related, but the only lifetime sub I bought was the Star Trek Online one when it was on sale. They offer a half price (I think) sale twice a year. $ or £120. I forget the conversions because the site based it on dollars which auto converted to pounds during payment. This was perhaps four years or so ago and I more than get my money's worth since part of the lifetime sub is a small amount of the ingame currency you buy with real world money a month regardless of whether you play or not. So it builds up even when I take breaks from the game. And that's not taking into account the other quality of life perks such as the unique android bridge officer, the sets of faction-specific ships, space suit armour and other things I don't remember offhand. And I still play STO on and off. I'll play it with varying degrees of intensity for a few weeks or months, then I'll take a break for a few weeks or months. I tend to cycle through most of my games like that. So who got the better bargain out of buying the lifetime sub? Hard to say really. I've gotten the money back and then some through the stipend premium currency every month for four years and very seldom buy it using my money though I did a bit when I was younger and more well off living with my parents. On the other hand STO can consider me an active player because I do the weekly patch and log in to complete at least some of the 'daily' or weekly tasks. Maybe STO and I both benefits from the arrangement? What do you think, passing person in the comments? Regardless of whether you answer or not I hope you're having a good day.
The Secret World was my first job in the industry. I have very fond memories of this project and the team I worked with. We had to animate all the Gameplay animations by hand. No one does that anymore but it was such a creative process. Thanks for the video nerdSlayer
I played this game with the best guild(cabal) in the game. I loved this game to pieces. There were things that was regrettable, like the PVP. And the combat could've been worked on, but the high-risk high-reward PVE in this game made my balls sweat. It was great. I got deep into the story. Me and my guilds did the dailies and group quests and never looked up anything online. Everything was so philosophically written and it just got to you. I hold this game deep in my heart. The atmosphere was completely unbeatable. I can't even explain how this game got into your head. Especially the Wicker and Transylvanian storylines.
Good video, but I would add two points with respect to some extra things: 1. Many players whom I played with never used the Steam launcher for the game, making it hard to gauge player count from steam alone. The population was small, but not nearly as small as the steam numbers lead you to believe (at least for the original). 2. Funcom offered lifetime subscription models for WAY longer than other MMOs do, meaning that a large portion of the then longtime fans were not paying money to the game. The cabal I played with was at least 70-75% lifetime subscribers, and one of the first things they did when they announced the reboot was to gut the lifetime benefits. This was likely also a major cause of the subscription model failing with the lifetime sub paying itself back right around the time Funcom was struggling with restructuring if you bought it early. It's a damn shame that TSW never got the attention it deserved, I haven't enjoyed a game experience like it in a long time.
Hands down my favorite MMORPG, and I've played most all of them. But it did have its flaws, and ultimately even its strengths relegated it to a niche title. Sadly I don't think we'll ever see anything quite like it again.
I remember playing this and liking basically everything about it. The atmosphere, story, and especially the skill/class system was amazing. I stopped playing because it felt so unbelievably awkward and clunky. Animations looked goofy and had no impact, enemies felt like they were on a leash, the aggro AI was pretty bad, etc. I feel like if the game were polished up a bit, it would be huge. Or would have been maybe I should say...
I spent three years playing TSW, loved it all the way, and even appreciated the gameplay mechanics even though they were outdated. I'll always remember this game as one of my favourite MMORPG experiences. And then SWL came out and I had to start from scratch again? In a new yet downgraded version of a once compelling game? I guess all good things come to an end.
I have such fond memories of this game. I was part of the jump in players when the model went to one time buy and then play. The lore and story telling were good. The quests were fun. I liked trying new builds and finding something I liked to play. I really enjoyed the concept of the Bees and Gaia. You'd pick up lore pieces around the map, each with a different part of a lore entry. When you collected all the ones in a particular entry, you could read them as one with no missing parts. They were written from the perspective of the bees to you, which I found really neat. I wish I could go back and play the story and quests as a single player rpg. My friends would really like the story. I also really liked the fact you had to look up things on your PC browser. It made sense. If I have a question irl, I'm gonna look it up on my phone. I can't remember if that was actually stated in a quest for your character to look it up on their phone, or if it was just a community thing.
the game has amazing setting and atmosphere, you dont see many game with this kind of setting. their only mistake is making this game as mmo. the game should just stay single player with coop aspect. i really hope one day they going to remake this game as a full singleplayer game
I did not put in thousands of hours because of only the solo aspect, TSWs multiplayer content is the reason I still play, and the raids and dungeons and lairs and so on are millions of times better than any other multiplayer game whether its MMOs like SWTOR or co-op games like Destiny 2. I also mean TSW and not that cancer-ridden trash SWL
The best atmosphere, the best storytelling and the best quests I've ever seen in a MMORPG. Like many others said, it could easily be a solo RPG with those elements alone. Sadly, lack of content was the biggest reason people quit. We had to wait months and months for a small content update (Issue), while doing the same dugeons, the one raid and having not much more to do. Still we managed to entertain ourselves and help others along the way by doing custom challenges like a 2 man hardest mode dungeons etc. The skill system WAS something unique in TSW - the way you can mix and match skills and passives to create something really powerful, mix and match gear later on (talking end-game) to have something like heal tank or debuff healer was amazing. Yet they removed all this from SWL - I guess it was deemed too difficult for the majority of population. I still have my unique builds saved up somewhere, some of them were really fun to play. Would love to see TSW 2 by some better developer and publisher, but we all know it's never going to happen - MMORPGs lately seem to be all about playing it safe and not doing anything creative.
My deepest regret was that I was too young (and broke) when The Secret World first came out. I couldn't afford a PC, let alone play the game. Now I'm employed and got myself a gaming laptop, I can't even access the game's content anymore on Steam. :( I was so hooked by the story and the idea behind this game. I wish the planned TTRPG for it comes out soon, so I can play it with my friends.
Really hit the nail on the head, with this one. TSW, despite all its visual and functional flaws, operated in a fantastic world. The story and classless character development had me absolutely hooked. The reboot as SWL was... well, I logged in, got to the "choose your class" stage of character creation, and logged out, never to return. They had thrown away one of the two things about the game that I found thoroughly unique and engaging. Finding out here that they threw away so much of the story, too... well, frankly, I didn't need to find that out at the time.
Probably should've stayed a little longer then. You'd have then realised that the classes in SWL are starting types of weapons and an outfit. You're only really forced into it in the early game, and if you imported your account from SW (like you would have been able to do) you'd have gotten everything right at the start. I agree that the way skills are handled now is vastly inferior to SW but although they are named such, I don't think the classes are actual "classes".
TSW / SWL have given me many many hours of enjoyment, and I don't regret pre-order the grandmaster (lifetime) membership for this game, still consider it as a great deal. Yeah, I agree that the combat systems are bad, but it is countered by the stories and its investigation quests that are so great, it could rival the story of great single player adventure game, let alone the story of any MMO so far.
I’ve been back to the original TSW and it’s unfortunately a ghost town. I absolutely loved the startwe areas, all of Kingsmoth island, but once it transitioned away from Lovercraftian stuff and moved into Egypt, it really lost me. Though some of the endgame stuff was good, and I liked most of the big boss fights. They really felt like you were up against something extremely powerful.
Egypt finished it for me, twice. And I genuinely think it killed the game. I played through the game in its original incarnation... got to Egypt, burned out (I mean, after you find out about those Gaia engine things - the big cubes - why would you care about a cult in Egypt?). Then I played Secret World Legends... got to Egypt, burned out again. I never completed Egypt, either time.
@Nicholas I know the feeling... I stopped at Egypt in TSWL too, but that was also around the time of the whole “Red Shell” controversy which TSWL was a part of and that was all I needed to uninstall the game.
Egypt was hard. Monsters were op, combat was clunky which made it harder.. the characters were really good tho. The only game where Npc's felt alive. Transylvania was really good. (After Egypt) burned out after that..never got to Tokyo.
@@NicholasBrakespear Ironically, Egypt in SWL is far, far, far better because it forcibly ties Issue 6 in with it. Meaning, a lot of the subtext during Egypt becomes obvious - the reason you care about a cult in Egypt is because it's a good example of what happens when a Gaia Engine isn't working out too well. The Black Sun Aten is a Dreamer, and possibly one of the most malicious out of any of the known Dreamers.
Kinda sad to see this video, but not unexpected. The first time you figure out some of the investigation missions, the first time you do the Black House or the Amusement Park, the first time your party stands face to face with Chthulu...... These are memories of TSW that will always stay with me, but the lag and performance issues persisted into Legends and eventually I just moved on.
Me and my friend actually enjoys this game so much! I really like the story it reminds me of Life is strange. I also like how they put magic in the game I know the combat system is kinda meh, but we still enjoys it! Oh and also the puzzles, man they’re actually good! U really have to think to solve them. Unlike some games where an arro tells you where to go and thats it. I think they just needed some support from us for the game to actually become successful...
Played it with my friend not long after the launch. Took about a year to finish the main story and most of side-quests and investigations. Plus, DLC's was also interesting and came friequently for the first couple of months. Regular new stories for the first six months at least. Lots of it required to made a little research on web, via character's smartphone or solve the mistery without player tips - use your mind, agent. Great game! If only combat-system wasn't so crappy... Started Secret World Legends with another friend. Quest-part is still pretty good. Especially, Kingsmout.
Plus another issue was funcom always ran back trying revive the dying horse that was Conan ignoring that tsw players went months without any real content updates
Funcom is notorious for letting their current game starve to death so their newest project has attention. Happened with AoC when TSW started, and I'm pretty sure it happened with TSW when they decided to do Conan Exiles.
TSW was a great game in its beginning. Absolutely loved the classless levelling experience. You could really try out all kinds of combinations. We passed all dungeons with a 4 man friend group -- had an absolute blast. Also the world and feeling was amazing. rip.
Thank you for doing this. I played this game from the browser based community engagement. To the beta. To the full game. Bought all the content. Than became a Lifetime Subscriber. I loved this game. Than Funcom gutted everything great about it. I wish I could go back to that world but I cannot even stomach stepping into SWL.... and I'm afraid it's failure means we won't ever get another modern day urban fantasy MMO with such a rich world lore and storytelling. It is by far one of the saddest game deaths I've suffered in my life. My only consolation is that the spirit of this world lives on in Dreamfall which I can return to at my leisure.
They've recently had a successful kickstarter for a paper and pencil rpg of it. So the story will live on in that manner too, at least. Still, I still grieve the loss of the original game. Like you, my hubby and I were both lifetime subscribers too.
I really love this game. Then again, I just play it as a single-player campaign experience and don't care much about endgame content. I just want the story goodness. I've gotten hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of both incarnations of this game. I'm just hoping Funcom continues to keep the light on in the future as well, regardless of the size of the playerbase. Or just release a serverless version; the Legends version can be soloed quite easily and the world/experience was never dependant on having other players nearby. In fact, I mostly just found it distracting. Sure, some other players were roleplaying to the best of their ability, but just seeing them kind of took the edge off the atmosphere which for me was kind of a bummer.
Thankfully, the Secret World IP looks like it will survive. Not as a video game, but rather as a Tabletop RPG. They're expected to release a Kickstarter this year.
I played TSW for years and loved it, I then tried SWL for a few months until I no longer wanted to play it. My thoughts in brief: 1. Atmosphere, missions & music were great in both games but SWL has missing content (e.g. several dungeons) 2. Both TSW & SWL have clunky combat movement/animation. The combat tactics however (in TSW at least) were varied, flexible and fun. 3. The move from tab (TSW) to reticle (SWL) targetting was no improvement and hurt healers and combat tactics. 4. Power-creep in TSW was great. Thanks to its many skills and flexible gearing players were able to developed hybrid builds (leech-healer, heal-tank, buff-tank etc.) which allowed new combat tactics. The game broke free from the traditional Tank/Healer/3xDPS paradigm. 5. The community was, on the whole, very good. I met and befriended many players. 6. Excepting GMs, Funcom support was poor: bugs, slow content release and abysmal marketing. 7. Funcom fixed it so, by default, all players of TSW were auto-migrated to SWL. Underhand and unwelcome. 8. On Steam: Funcom retained TSW stats/comments for SWL. Wrong and misleading.
I absolutely loved the atmosphere, story and puzzles... but the combat system was so garbage that i simply couldnt play more than one hour in a row without getting bored..
totally agree, most of the time when i played it i usually just forced myself to play until i got to one of the fun puzzles and avoided combat when possible just because it was so boring
The funny thing about that is the combat system in Funcom's previous MMO "Age of Conan" is arguably one of the best out there in terms of MMO combat(especially for pvp), i remember when this game released all of us were so disappointed they chose to re-do a new system entirely.
This one feels ultra bad. Secret World/SWL is my favorite MMO of all time. It's the setting and theme I've loved and wanted since I was a kid. World of Darkness-adjacent type of stuff. Add to that incredible side-missions with real-world clues and lore to look into that truly challenge you to solve incredible puzzles.
Everyone keeps talking about how bad the combat is, but I never really felt the combat was that bad. It was honestly more engaging for me than WoW. I liked that I was able to choose my own move set with my 2 weapons, and the game wasn't level dependent. I also really liked the dungeons in this game. Always had fun when I played :/
In the original, there were hidden stats based on gear level. So if you didn't grind for gear then combat would be a slog with no indication of why. So people got to the 2nd hub, hit a brick wall, assumed it was just how the game was balanced, and quit. When really they just needed to get some quest gear drops or go to the auction house. Additionally, some weapon combos synergized better than others, while some actively worked against each other. Yet swapping weapons meant grinding skills from scratch again, further hindering progress. In the new version, the previously hidden stats are tied to a traditional xp level, and shown in your character sheet. Gear sets were slightly buffed to compensate for their hidden stats being moved. At the start you got a choice of weapon sets with good synergy based on tank/healer/dps roles. And the skill "simplification" was the removal of balancing skills around buffs from other weapons, such as using healing buffs from fists to make chaos lifesteal worthwhile. It got simplified that Chaos lifesteal was buffed to not need a heal buff, but Fist buffs were nerfed to only affect Fist skills. In the end each weapon is "self contained", so you really don't need a 2nd. But that is "removing the complexity", aka you don't have to read a guide to avoid screwing yourself in the early game. The cost was pushing customization until mid game. (You can't get new weapons until level 10 iirc, about 2/3's through Maine). Very nice for new players that don't know "assault rifle" is a healer weapon. But irritates old vets that developed the knowledge over the years, accept that experimentation means slower progression, and/or liked the "newbie" filter.
It makes me sad that the game is in such a state. It was the MMO that scratched my horror itch and I LOVED the quests, but it sucked when you could hardly find anyone to play with, which was important for the dungeons. I can only hope that someone else either makes a private server that keeps new content coming or someone makes a new horror mmo.
Loved this game, the atmosphere, lore, music and graphics were truly amazing, it did not feel like an MMO in the best of ways and actually scared me, no MMO has come close to evoking this level of emotion. Always mean to revisit it at some point, are the servers for TSW still up, don't want to start anew in SWL just yet.
The old servers are still up. The game will try to update to SWL so you have to change a file. There's some advice on the launcher/forums and TSW seems to be fairly active (not millions of players active) but people running raids, organised PvP sessions etc.
The Secret World was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had in my life of gaming. So much of the game to me felt fresh that the combat and animations were so easy to ignore not being ideal because I loved exploring the world and seeing the next story beats. Glad I got to experience it for some years before it went into maintenance mode.
@@notyoursavior78 Atmosphere, story, puzzles, SoundnMusic, even the combat system, i loved them all. except the player animations ;) I´ve played both TSW and Legends over 2000 hours i guess ^^ - awesome times and amazing people all over the place. For me it feels like my great love is gone forever. sorry for my bad englisch, greetings from Germany
This game has atmosphere yes and good story... but for me the best feature of the game was the voice acting and all npcs had tones of stories to say and damn the chills i had when john wolf started say his childhood stories and club they created as kids.
Glad to see another episode in the series! I'm pretty much locked in always waiting to see another episode of Death of a Game, also if possible I enjoyed the single "Life of a Game" series on FFXIV, I hope you do more for that as well.
omg Thanks for this video! I was a fan of the original and hated Legends; I had no idea that the original was still playable and I'm going to look into that asap!
The quests were so great... i can still remember runnjng through that coastal town, searching the floor for sewers with that sign... or searching a wallet to find a name, looking up the company he was working for with the ingame browser so i could learn the name of his significant other to access a laptop... it felt like i was really investigating something.
I took part in the ARG in the lead up to launch, and it was insane how in depth it was. The puzzles were so complex, it took an entire online community to solve them all. I loved this game hard for a good long while before I got burnt out. There's so much there that's good, I didn't care about clunky animations or bad combat. This game may not have had legs, but it more than made up for it with heart.
I played as Illuminaty for year and as Dragon for almost 3 years. When game was in b2p era. I looooved investigation missions and even battle system. Biggest problem, even before Legends - you can't find party to play through "dungeons". Everybody was sitting in world tree hub and farm hard modes. New player just can't enjoy this game, because old players so fed up with it.
TSW was a great game,despite some shortcomings, with the best questing and memorable moments I have ever experienced. Secret world Legends robbed the player base of incredibly hard earned gear in nightmare dungeons and long nights in PvP.
Mixing Lovecraft with real-world lore gave the Secret World an atmosphere which no other MMO has managed to match. The storylines also tended to be of high quality, especially when stepping out from under the shadow of WoW's fetch/kill/find quest system. It was just let down by the lacklustre combat and so-so graphics, but if you fell in love with the world you kind of forgave it after a while.
@@downsjmmyjones101 For one - Many griefers. For they fear they will lose their accounts. Unless they're money whales. Then there's bot accounts. There are more bot accounts on f2p games. As, they can just make as many as they want. For subscription based games, they need to pay the subscription for each and every account. Thereby, still giving the company money to deal with these issues. Thirdly, I think it makes the community as a whole a lot nicer. As, you're paying for a privilege. To be able to play a game. As, with a f2p game, if you get banned, you have to remake an account etc, and you can do this as many times as you want. With sub based games, I don't think people are going to be assholes unless they're leaving the game entirely and never want to come back. These are just a few of my reasons. I've been playing MMO's for well over 15+ years now and have seen many come and go, free to play, buy to play, even subscription based. So, while I might be bias to subscription games, as they get rid of the reasons above, there is also some good things about F2P games. Mainly not having to pay to play it.
@@Lord_Shmesh_The_Squishy *Looks at WoW community, then recalls all the F2P communities I've been a part of over the years* ...yeah... no. Definitely not. Sorry, I might have not been specific enough: no. Definitely not, on all accounts.
@@Lord_Shmesh_The_Squishy I completely agree with the bots and griefers, though a community as a whole depends on the game. WoW has a sub but in my experience the most annoying mmo community. While warframe is free to play, but it's community is actually decent. But that's as a whole. You'll find good and bad everywhere.
Mad respect for this game! When I got out of surgery to remove cancer I could not go back to work for a few weeks to recover. Luckily this game just launched at the time so I INVESTED my life during that time... had such an amazing recovery time being able to enjoy the story, world, gameplay. I always get hit with the feels when I’m reminded about this game.
TSW had the best storytelling, atmosphere, characters, and quests of any MMO. Making builds was challenging and fun. Combat was tolerable, and became intolerable after the introduction of aegis. Everything went downhill from there, and off a cliff with Legends. SWL is a grindy, p2w mess. Combat was not fixed -- it's no faster, nor more dynamic. It's exactly the same as the old game, except not as challenging or flexible and with some added gimmicks. Tab targeting was removed to force players to play with mouse & reticle, which you could do in TSW if you hit "t". The same bugs stuck around. As much as I dislike playing SWL, I will be sad when the game shuts down. The IP is so incredible; it's definitely worth playing through the main story, even with the outdated graphics and boring combat.
This game still has a special place in my heart. I bought the Grandmaster at launch and played untill shortly after completing Tokyo. But the reboot got me back and I still play SWL - but only casual solo play now, and mostly because of the atmosphere 😊
Thanks for the memories :D I had a very good time playing TSW from 2012-2015. I never saw it as a classic MMO. it was more like an Multiplayeradventure. When i think about it...i never had so much fun playing together with friends. (Standard MMOs are more like "what do we grind today...together...") Yes it had very clunky fightingsystems, loading times to read a book while waiting and outdated graphics. But the athmosphere, the sound and creepyness...thank you Funcom!
The early days of this game were simply amazing. Not only did they capture a fantastic atmosphere with their art direction and music but I never felt so involved with quests in any other mmos. And as clunky as the combat was, I still enjoyed the Guild Wars-like aspect of picking and choosing your own skillset. This and Warhammer Online were my two biggest MMO heartbreaks.
I never had an issue with the gameplay until Tokyo, and variable "Aegis" damage-type bullshit that meant you either mowed down the mobs or fought what amounted to brick walls until they fell on you. But it was hard to play in the constant grimdark, as well. I found myself needing some GW2 Queensdale just as a respite from the unrelenting doom of TSW. I wish (like GURPS, I guess) someone would create a skill-wheel game in a slightly more lighthearted genre. I will say this, some of the best times I've ever had with other players were in TSW.
Why is everyone saying its dead? They didn't shut down the server... yet. The game is the bee's knees! TSW (now SWL) deserved better, but I still love the game, with its slimy warts and all.
Secret world... The game (as a concept) is GENIUS. This game could have been SO GOOD. (I almost would say that it COULD have had the potential to be on the level of wow or such) The issue was just the god damn combat was so finniky! >:/
I always wanted to play this for the atmosphere alone, from being introduced to the idea of a foreigner parading in the streets of Orleans. As the City of Night, the City of the Devil, lovecraftian never worked so well in a modern setting. As a humans perspective of their world turns upside down as the stories behind the darkest trenches of the world is true, the Ugly truth behind the city of shadows.
omg the next game you're covering is Hawken.
I think your right there. i was thinking maybe its defiance as it has sounds just like that too.
That gatling fire is so burnt into my brain. I loved playing Hawken originally until they messed with how movement worked.
yes hawken was lots of fun, i loved it, i however dont know why exactly it died
@@Mad_Pretty I loved the skating-like movement and heat management meta. That was the only game IMO that got mechs of that scale correctly.
@@kasus123 IIRC the IP was bought out by a Chinese company and striped for parts.
I was actually a closed alpha tester of this, NDA and everything. It showed so much promise and the stories were amazing...
F to pay respects
I got the lifetime sub package for it. In the end, it was worth it. Sad to see it in this series.
Same. It was sad to see it implode like that.
closed alpha tester represent, this game is basically Alex Jones the mmo. The early testing hammer animations were much better than the ones they stuck with.
This game actually gave me chills when i first played it, f.
Lifetime sub here. TSW is one of the all time greats.
If I was a millionaire and I could fund a proper reboot of a game, I'd pick TSW, without a doubt. Played for a couple of years at launch and it'll always have a place in my heart.
IKR. I wish games could be protected in some way as an art from being mishandled and maybe given over to someone that actually cared for it.
It did reboot though? The secret world: legends was a thing starting like last year
@@ThreeGoddesses You'd call that a proper reboot though? And yeah, I'm pretty sure anyone who loves TSW or that watched the video knows about the dead game SWL.
@@Matthew-ij3zm I don't know exactly what they changed outside of updating the models, but it's definitely a reboot. More like ff14 though
@@ThreeGoddesses I played it, that's why I dont consider it a "proper reboot". FF had a pretty decent one. TSW didn't.
The atmosphere in the game is beyond any other MMOs out there, the stories are intriguing too with a bunch of real world lore turned into in game reality. Modern day setting is still woefully underused and it's a shame more MMO games don't utilize it. Sadly Funcom doesn't seem interested at all in the game or its continued development...which sucks because the story was really enjoyable even with the gear grindfest that the endgame turned into.
Agreed, I got so hook by the game's atmosphere that I actually go buy Silent Hill just to relive the scene. I was not even a fans of Silent Hill series at all.
Started playing this game as a "haha whats this" about 6 months ago, and iv never been taken in by a game atmosphere like this one. I hope it's still gonna have its servers running for awhile, I need to complete this games main story. I live this game.
@@johnyappleseed8267 even hearing the opening music sends chills down my spine, and immediately evokes the atmosphere of the game
Funcom lost a lot of talent when they restructured. Remember when Seoul was supposed to get a tattoo shop? And apparently, were never able to recover from such loses.
Well fortunately Funcom seem to be still interested in the Secret World universe as they are releasing the game called Moons of Madness which is a first person cosmic horror game that involves the Orochi Group and the Filth in a Mars research facility.
Honestly, this game should have just been a single player RPG like Vampire bloodlines.
För sure
It was better as a single player experience for me. I tried playing it with a friend but I remember there being constant forced solo missions.
yes and no... it should have had a single player mode where you can play through the content without needing a group but then you can group if you so wish... that's how I would do it if I owned the rights to the game.
Yeah, but there was no VtM: WoD...
gnarlin
I agree. Too bad Vampire Bloodlines died off before it could fully show off its epicness to...
*learns Vampire Bloodlines 2 is a thing*
HOLY SHIT!
The story in this was SO good. This needs to be a singleplayer rpg.
"What do you want with me? I'm so small. You eat stars."
"...You are aaaaaalll made of stars."
My thoughts exactly.
Then just play it. It's free, and most of it is easily done solo.
@@johnnymartinjohansen Yeah but it's not a single player RPG (though I'd prefer it was made into a survival horror game), that was what Yaldabaoth was trying to say. Plus the game is bad, grinding and outdated af, and the newer version is supposed to be even worse.
@NPC#00035246638/Triggered.Shaking d you don't need to grind in swl. Only reason to grind would be to take part in high elites (not worth it, its the same as lower ones but everything takes longer, except e5 which also adds extra mechanics to bosses) and maybe regionals, but I am sure people will carry low geared players.
@NPC#00035246638/Triggered.Shaking d If I remember correctly swl isn't mmo, it's "shared world experience" or something stupid like that. "End game" in swl is shit and boring. When I was playing it was the same 5 dungeons, scenario where you defend npcs on 3 different maps, lairs, regionals and lurker. If you played dungeons in story mode then it will be the same untill e5 where new mechanics are added. Scenarios made me fall asleep once and because of that I never again tried doing them solo. Lairs and regionals can be done as soon as you reach lvl 50. Only lurker was sorta interesting, it required people to know what they are doing and it could go south very fast if some people made mistake.
You can do dungeons as many times as you like, there is no limit for that except keys for opening chests, which even with subscription you will be buying anyway.
By carry I meant that they will be bringing so much dps that it doesn't really what you do. When I was playing lair bosses took around 10 seconds to kill and regionals 30 seconds. But that's only natural with dying player base where only people with maxed gear are left.
While unquestionably a shadow of itself, using Steam's CCU to measure the proper population of the game was always... flawed.
Funcom func'd up pretty hard with how they placed TSW on the Steam store. For some reason you required a separate account to play the Steam version. Original Funcom accounts could not be linked with your Steam account, and trying to load the game from Steam initially would forcibly create a brand new account. The Steam version was always a less popular than playing from the Funcom Launcher (which I was forced into, being an early adopter of the game and unwilling to do their wonky "one time only" account link transfer which would overwrite one account with the other. Because Funcom.)
However hard numbers via the Funcom Launcher aren't trackable like Steam's CCU, and while I'm positive those player numbers were not all that much better, Steam's CCU is NOT and was never an accurate representation of the actual active TSW/SWL playerbase.
Seriously though, fuck SWL and its gutted content, clunky control and pay-to-win bullshit. I want my god damned Illuminati Bodyguard outfit back.
My dream game.. but the Combat killed it ;/ loved the world and graphics tho
agreed the story was good, but combat was utter garbage
Hey, I liked the combat!
I didn't actually like the setting. I wanted more of a focus on Templars / Illuminati / (Dragon) Phoenicians (imo, Dragon should be cut and replaced with Phoenixes) and more of a high tech magical setting not unlike Shadowrun.
Alas what we got was a far cry from Shadowrun. All the krampuses can take a hike imo.
@@goransekulic3671 Sorry if I assumed wrong. Phoenicians doesn't come from Phoenix, but civilzation of seafarers and merchants in modern day's Lebanon/Syrian coast.
Yeah, why do you think their faction color is purple? Gotta something to do with what Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, Carthage and the like exported, yes? I know they are from Phoenicia, but I can't be bothered to spell, so I just call them Phoenixes.
With that said, it'd seem that Suns are kinda piggybacking on all of this. When I better think their color has always been some shade of Purple. The more you know! Phoenix Suns are a conspiracy! :p
@@goransekulic3671 Yeah, sorry for that. I'll agree though, having more to do with Phoenicians than some anarchists who try to make you feel like you accomplished anything by telling that "it will have an effect, just you wait!" would be so much better. Heck, reacquiring their resources would give so much self-accomplishment. I was woefully disappointed when I realized you're not going to get a chance to interact with them like you do with other factions.
I go back to Secret World every few months/years. This game has the best story of any MMO I have ever played. I wish things had been different.
Same - it was just so unique in how it approached the MMO, but it was just horribly complicated and clunky starting out, and SW: Legends is just dumbed down... but regardless of all mechanics and systems, the storytelling in Secret World is simply astonishing. It was a real shame Funcom couldn't pull this off and manage it better... but Conan Exiles etc is better suited to their nature as game publishers... they've already butchered Age of Conan and TSW/SWL as MMOs.
The Secret World had the most awesome player community I had ever experienced in an MMO. Talking with people in general chat about some really complex and mature topics at a college level (on a near daily basis) was something I had never seen in an MMO before.
I do miss the game sometimes, but I had a really hard time sticking to it after doing all the quests.
unfortunally that also dies with SWL... Seems to be a trend with f2p, with subscription it was the best community!
Not to mention, coming out of WoW and into TSW, with how brief the dungeons were, people were super chill if you wiped. No aggro digging into other players for wiping and generally hating on each other. It was such a breath of fresh air on that front.
Funcom - great with ideas, notoriously bad with the execution.
Not to mention terrible at marketing. Age of Conan actually got way better (though not perfect) from it's launch, but they never bothered to really tell anyone. So it never recovered when I feel it very well could of.
you never play a funcom game till 6 mos after launch then it is real solid :)
you never play a funcom game till 6 mos after launch then it is real solid :)
@@bodhisfattva7462 you never play a game until, at least, 6 months after release.
TSW would make a great single player game.
It's not?
@@zewm I'm talking about a release that doesn't require an internet connection to play
@@XxGenericGTxX Good luck finding any games like that today. Most games require a 'phone home' as DRM. Unless you buy it from GOG I guess. However most digital game store platforms require you to log in to the service before it lets you launch the games. Also most games no longer release on store shelves.
It should have been a series of single player RPG's
@@zewm Big difference in requiring a connection for drm purposes and linking your gameplay mechanics to the speed of your connection and the stability of the servers.
TSW was one of the best MMO experiences I've ever had. Yes, it was clunky, but the story and the world were amazing. No other MMO comes near and I doubt any ever will. What games we get today usually have as much personality as a door frame and as much originality as FIFA "God knows which version is now". I would take TSW over them any day.
This makes me so sad, TSW was probably my favorite game for a long time. I played it since closed beta (NDA/wipes/...) and then for a few years with only little breaks.
The whole lore, world building and questing was second to none and the developers had some good interaction with the community (I wrote DMs to the lead dev and actually got an answer the next day, the lead writer was always active on the forums and Twitter and would occasionally tease the community with some lore bits, ...)
I'm just glad that there are more games coming that play in the same universe like the upcoming Moons of Madness.
Wait, moons of madness is in the tsw universe?
@Brandon Lester Yeah, very true!
@@CharonsNightmare in the trailer you can see the Orochi logo.
Dont hold your breath for Moons. lol
Go back, give it a fair well play. :) It changes alot btw (i also played in closed beta)
I will say that the first area in the game, Innmouth, was the most fun I ever had in an MMO.
Kingsmouth
@@belisariussmith9095 :) Yeah, Kingsmouth. Innsmouth in spirit.
I too played TSW out of curiosity during the early days of its release and I too thought that it was very innovative compared to all other MMOs then and even now. How it handled quests was very nerve racking but also very intuitive, like your solving and actual mystery. It's too bad we'll never see anything like this again, but my wish is that other MMOs take a lesson from what they tried to achieve and to keep the genre alive.
Go back and give it another shot...it changed ALOT.
I went back last month and i am heavily addicted now.
@@citizenterra I should hop back in. Been taking a break because I'm not kitted out well enough to take on the ghouls in Transylvania and I got frustrated.
I know not alot of people play this game, but I would have kept playing to this day IF they had not removed all my previous characters. It is the only MMO I have ever fell in love with. I miss the days when me and my group of friends played this all day together, it's only me now. Gosh I remember the first time we all fought one of the first major boss'.... Cthulu, we were all wowed by his size and mechanics. There was nothing like it... and I don't think there ever will be anything like it again. :(
Idk if you still play but I just started and this game is incredible
@@tvbuu My hubby just checked into SWL tonight and found a ghost town. Both of us miss the original though. The revamps in SWL just were kind of terrible.
@NecrochildK I never got the chance go play the original unfortunately
Thank you for covering this. The Secret World is hands down my favorite MMO *setting*, and that kept me playing for years. I don't want to resurrect the issues that encouraged me to stop playing, despite my grandmaster account. I did come back to give SWL an honest try and I didn't even get out of Savage Coast before I lost interest. Having all my progress essentially undone was not all that great.
I notice others mention the combat. All I can say there is that there were builds that made the combat less of an issue (such as the Blade - Chaos solo grinding builds). A lot of weapon combinations were not ideal even early in the game, although I still remember soloing The Eye of Horus while underpowered with leeching AR + Pistols. I know people who quit the game after stumbling into signet quests before they had QL10 gear, and they weren't really signposted well in a lot of cases.
A fun thing to do was find the builds that could easily solo quests that a lot of people had serious issues with (such as several in the Shadowy Forest), but a lot of those quests were nerfed at some point even before the relaunch, and contributed to my lack of interest when I tried to get back into the game to experience Tokyo.
I spent quite a bit of time in TSW myself, I think I spent most of the time figuring out how to do the things most people couldn't. The only thing I found fun in SWL was shamballa- trying to see how many people I could get blown off the cliffs (5 at once). By Tokyo in TSW major loss of writing staff and it felt like crap. Funcom does not get another chance from me.
@@sertandoom4693 Yeah, I'm done with them. I also did not enjoy the grind in Venice or the AEGIS system, but that's mostly a matter of taste.
This is actually a game that needs a "Sequel" just as something else. Perhaps just a singleplayer RPG but it could be a lot of things
I loved this game SO much. Not generally a fan of horror games, but this wasn’t horror so much as atmospherically creepy. It was a slow burn, sneak up on you, chills down your spine thing. And I didn’t mind the wonky combat so much, since one character could swap between every roll pretty much on the fly.
Like i have been telling others, go back to it. They changed alot of the combat. I went back last month and i am seriously addicted now
I'll be honest, the death of this mmo always hit me particularly hard. This was such a good game. Never seen a horror mmo and they nailed it. I'm also not sure you covered the fact that they kept cutting programming staff from the original team early on, so they forgot things like how their in game browser functioned, they lost the ability to optimize.
This is going to make me sad. I loved this game.
Me too, go back to it. And start playing again. Its so worth it.
@@citizenterra do you know how to play the original still? the current game is a shadow of the original.
Me too.
@@bodhisfattva7462 I know it's been a few weeks but here's a link if your still looking for it cdn.funcom.com/tsw/live/setup.exe
NGE equivalent exactly.
It's shocking how little FC understood their own game when Ragnar left.
"Let's loot box and cosmetics! So people can run the same 5 dungeons over and over again with just bigger numbers!"
"All new story content is free!"
So they demonitized the bits people would have payed for, and banked on the bit nobody care about.
The dungeon running was just the holding pattern while waiting for new content (which seldom came!).
I was a life time sub, and was still occasionally putting money down for issues, now I will never give FC another cent of my money ever again, even on other games.
Impressive, since Anarchy Online was literally my first MMO.
Also if you figured out how to mix and match the skill system, the combat usually went by too quick for you to notice just how clunky it was.
Trouble was the difference between a random, average, good, and optimized build were so large that even normal players were whittling away for minutes, while a good build would wipe it in seconds.
And the whole system was rigged to only give you examples of average to poor builds, you'd be surprised how often people never knew that you could take passives from any weapon in any combination.
The NGE equiv removed that, now not only do you notice how clunky it is, the reticle targeting made it obvious that stuff like rifles were never pointing straight at the targets.
Oh and speaking of rifles, let's talk the state of healing. High ranking dungeons in SWL are not survivable unless you are using a build that doesn't require a healer. Which means that if you got a tank working his way up the levels, he'll suddenly find he hits a mechanics wall. However nobody ever like healing, so seeing as how like half of all tanks don't need healers, this leads to DPSers queuing up as heals at rates significantly higher than other MMOs. Meaning the tank quickly finds himself in a non-survivable situation.
The previous solution was leech healing from rifles. Rifle healing gave some minimal direct heals and a ton of heal-percent-of-damage stuff. You would need a pretty darn good set of DPS gear to pull it off; Something a ton of DPSers had on hand. It wouldn't work on all dungeons, you'd just not play those dungeons if you only knew how to leech. The whole thing was a gateway for DPSers transitioning to healing. And it was doing respectable damage. I was occasionally out damaging some of the more novice DPSers, and almost always out damaging the tank. I had some tanks comment that I was overhealing with some shots, they were overhealing because it was doing massive damage to the boss.
For SWL: Rifle-Healing is just sad. The damage is pathetic to the point of non, the majority of the healing came from direct healing. You get nothing out of the equipment passives that are the difference between life and death at mid range dungeon running.
Such a waste of a good universe.
Kinda. They did say they made more money off of the first cosmetic holiday lootbox than they did from all of the story content expansions they released beforehand. Which is sad, but tells you something about gamers I guess.
Speaking of alienating their player base? I mean you're right, but their response to totally ABSOLUTELY botching everything about the free to play monetization? Wipe all of the characters, delete all of the hard work of the die-hard fans that kept them afloat, and start absolutely everyone off at the beginning. In an even more dumbed down, content light version of the exact same game. And even better? They barely added any content to the new game, so you actually got LESS to do than the "maintenance mode" original. But, the community got splintered because of that, the old (good) game was a ghost town, and nobody played the new one because of how badly they handled the actual gameplay and transition.
Who was this for?
@@JayRutley thats because the worst decision they made was you could purchase content/story/issues with funcom points... so the people MOST LIKELY to spend money on content were getting it for free. It should have been for cosmetics only. Whoever made that decision is the person who destroyed TSW and forced them to create the SWL cancer
Nothing like stopping Loki from claiming Excalibur who used a Mayan invasion of ancient Maine to claim the essence of astral gods by binding them to the blade after claiming it from a bunch of Vikings. The Secret World was weird and awesome. So sad it suffered.
One of the only MMOs I remember going back to even after it was half dead just to walk around and get immerced into it's awesome ambiance. the old lady manor in Innsmouth was such a great place to hang out, loved it.
I remember hearing about this game and wanting to play it as a young teen but didn't have a PC at the time, and then at some point I just stopped hearing about it and always wondered what happened to it.
Saaaaaaaame
same!
The same situation bro. I've heard about this game from some kinda TV news about gaming industry in 2011 or 2012 maybe, in category of 'the most expected releases'. I was 8 or 9 lol, and I also didn't have a good PC at the time. I was very hyped and thrilled by teaser.
Playing this game made me feel like I was in the world of Supernatural
Man, the music, the story, the atmosphere. This game's is so amazing when it was about the personal experience. But man, the gameplay...it just didn't work
I thought the same but went back last month...they changed the game play alot. I addicted now
Thing is that the game works more better than ever now but, the player base is so low even roblox has more players now :/
The first dungeon with the last boss inspired by Cthulhu was one of the most dread inspiring and exciting moments in an MMO for me.
This was my favorite MMORPG. I supported it from the start with the lifetime subscription. But I dropped it when Secret World Legends arrived. It was upsetting enough to no longer be able to customize the characters as in the original game. But removing the "No Classes. No Levels." principle was the nail in the coffin.
They eventually added in a new area into the game and I remember reading an article they are now turning the story of The Secret World into a television series! Pretty hyped when I heard that.
@@SoullessAIMusic you are absolutely right ...
@@SoullessAIMusic I have some terrible news for you about the writers of that game.
Great documentary.
Many thanks!
Man I didn't know SWL cut so much content from TSW. I only came in from SWL and only knowing about the game originally from Ross Scott but at a tight budget at the time and MMO starved I didn't think it would sate me due to the combat. I still absolutely love the setting and story of the game. Hell, my favorite gunslinging warlock originally came from the game and became my most favorite D&D character. I won't forget my time with SWL and the stories I experienced with the game. You're an absolutely fantastic investigator and thank you for shedding light on what I was missing from what I thought was a story rich game.
@@snarkywombat155 Not all of it they kept the story and atmosphere. The rest was kinda a mixed bag. I liked that the new combat felt more fluent and impactful. And that Agartha revamp makes it a lot easier to navigate through. But I miss the classless gameplay without levels and the old ability wheel! And I hate that they literally made the game p2w. You can buy AP/SP for money and have a lvl 1 basically have access to all all skills even lvl 50s don't have without a heavy grind! That makes having levels at all kinda useless!
Oh shit lol you have no idea than. It's just... awful. If you played the other version you'd definitely get how much of a downgrade it is. Three guilds I was friends with simply left the game after the relaunch. Another just fizzled out after maxing.... I barely made it through the game... the lack of the rocker launcher jump alone....
@@skyknight0408 New combat was garbage. It was the same shit only your mouse was locked on and you are forced into stupid gimmicks that are plain pointless.
@@Ravenna_Black You are right about the weapon minigames being stupid gimmicks. That's why I picked a combination where I can mostly ignore them. I played the old version with tab-target/leftclick to target so I had some problems to get used to the new combat. But it feels more balanced overall. The old game was really slow, it let you hit a Draug for ten minutes before he died and god beware if a second one attacked you in that time. Now your attacks are more powerful and have more impact on enemies. The combat feels faster and more action based. At least in the beginning of the game, but when I got to Tokio I had flashbacks of the old game because the mofos there are tanky af! I never got that far in the original, hit a wall in Egypt 2 when I couldn't do enough damage to solo questbosses. And since this is a niche game I could never convince any of my friends to start playing. So I stopped for some months and when I came back, the new version was announced shortly after. So I stopped again because I felt it had no sense playing anymore when it's all for nothing and waited for the new version to try out. I feel the old version was better in some ways and this version in others!
@@skyknight0408 molton hammer always one shotted everything for me in the old game. Or a chaotic pull combined with a blade aoe. The stupid fucking aegis shield complicated things but onceyou maxed it and started getting it to 2.0 the shield became little more than an inconvenience in everything except the dungeons.
Since SWLs closed beta I still dont get people who say the combat improved. It was no more impactful than it was before. The animations still sucked. And the over simplified builds left to the player didnt make it more interesting... it just made sure any idiot couldnt fuck it up to bad. But instead of a 11111 4 5 3 2 6 11111 3 2 sort of arrangement in SWL I basically do 1 on a builder till I build my charge than drop my major attack and completely ignore the secondary. Its boring. And Agartha no longer looks like a organic spanning world tree. It looks like a ridiculous shopping mall. Its inferior across the board. Even the new story elements, this move to make agent network part of the core game is just dilluding the world. Lets all just face facts Funcom went from attempting to challenge the tropes of the genre to desperately trying to adopt them and in doing so lost the thread of the game.
Remember, Icarus was warned not to fly too close to the sun, but was also equally warned not to fly too low to the ocean.
The thing that really made me love this game story was a little side quest known as "the search for Tyler Freeborn"
That simple quest that made me decend into madness as I searched for a single man through the Solomon Islands and later finding myself in dream like reality with a unknown cosmic being whispering in my ears
dude I know what you mean the side quests that you find in this game are the best and are hidden that draws your attention
I have played TSW for about 4-5 years and I can say it had the most unique "class system". You pick 2 out of 9 weapons and use 7 actives from only these two and 7 passives from any weapon. Number of builds we have tried in the very endgame is massive. Running dungeons without healers at all, tanks being their own healer, random weapon combinations you name it. And then during our biweekly raiding (which we did for years at this point) they announced TSW going to life support effective immediately. That's how we stopped raiding cold turkey... Thanks for giving us more free time I guess.
TSW with all its issues was a brilliant game with one of the best character build systems I know
TSW Legends never happened
As an avid player of both TSW and SWL, this was great. Absolutely summed up how it's gone for TSW. Still one of my favorite IPs and setting for an MMO though. Also, an honor to be in your vid NS!
I'll always miss TSW. It had such a god damn awesome story, and the mix of modernity with supernatural elements captured me from the beginning.
I played this at PAX 2011. It was inspired enough for me to lay down the $199 and purchase the Grandmaster pack (Lifetime Sub). Never regretted that purchase once. Sad to see it go but I easily got my money's worth. I always had to remember as I ran through any quest that you might actually have to die to be able to complete it. Can't see the objective? Commit suicide so you go into Anima and see what's in that shadowy realm. An early quest in Kingsmouth where you had to follow a trail left by a raven and click on it's feathers needed that and had me stumped for literally hours before I found out. Good times.
Waikikamukau I lifetime subbed too. It was worth it. What killed it was the re-launch for me. I would have kept playing the game had they not taken away all the choice and benefits, because the streamlined combat & classes just betrayed everything I loved about my characters.
You could pay 199 dollars and be a lifetime sub? Thats kind of awesome.
Not saying 199 dollars is cheap, I personally wouldn't spend that much on an online game (closest I've gotten to that sort of price was an original PAL copy of Castlevania Symphony of the Night for pretty much 200 dollars wich is the only time I have ever exceeded 100 dollars on a single game), but I wouldn't blame you if you liked the game to that extent.
Only distantly related, but the only lifetime sub I bought was the Star Trek Online one when it was on sale. They offer a half price (I think) sale twice a year. $ or £120. I forget the conversions because the site based it on dollars which auto converted to pounds during payment.
This was perhaps four years or so ago and I more than get my money's worth since part of the lifetime sub is a small amount of the ingame currency you buy with real world money a month regardless of whether you play or not. So it builds up even when I take breaks from the game. And that's not taking into account the other quality of life perks such as the unique android bridge officer, the sets of faction-specific ships, space suit armour and other things I don't remember offhand.
And I still play STO on and off. I'll play it with varying degrees of intensity for a few weeks or months, then I'll take a break for a few weeks or months. I tend to cycle through most of my games like that.
So who got the better bargain out of buying the lifetime sub? Hard to say really. I've gotten the money back and then some through the stipend premium currency every month for four years and very seldom buy it using my money though I did a bit when I was younger and more well off living with my parents.
On the other hand STO can consider me an active player because I do the weekly patch and log in to complete at least some of the 'daily' or weekly tasks.
Maybe STO and I both benefits from the arrangement? What do you think, passing person in the comments? Regardless of whether you answer or not I hope you're having a good day.
The Secret World was my first job in the industry. I have very fond memories of this project and the team I worked with. We had to animate all the Gameplay animations by hand. No one does that anymore but it was such a creative process.
Thanks for the video nerdSlayer
I played this game with the best guild(cabal) in the game. I loved this game to pieces. There were things that was regrettable, like the PVP. And the combat could've been worked on, but the high-risk high-reward PVE in this game made my balls sweat. It was great. I got deep into the story. Me and my guilds did the dailies and group quests and never looked up anything online. Everything was so philosophically written and it just got to you.
I hold this game deep in my heart. The atmosphere was completely unbeatable. I can't even explain how this game got into your head. Especially the Wicker and Transylvanian storylines.
I feel with you. A great Love is finally gone
Which cabal? Lag Spike?
Good video, but I would add two points with respect to some extra things:
1. Many players whom I played with never used the Steam launcher for the game, making it hard to gauge player count from steam alone. The population was small, but not nearly as small as the steam numbers lead you to believe (at least for the original).
2. Funcom offered lifetime subscription models for WAY longer than other MMOs do, meaning that a large portion of the then longtime fans were not paying money to the game. The cabal I played with was at least 70-75% lifetime subscribers, and one of the first things they did when they announced the reboot was to gut the lifetime benefits. This was likely also a major cause of the subscription model failing with the lifetime sub paying itself back right around the time Funcom was struggling with restructuring if you bought it early.
It's a damn shame that TSW never got the attention it deserved, I haven't enjoyed a game experience like it in a long time.
Hands down my favorite MMORPG, and I've played most all of them. But it did have its flaws, and ultimately even its strengths relegated it to a niche title. Sadly I don't think we'll ever see anything quite like it again.
I remember playing this and liking basically everything about it. The atmosphere, story, and especially the skill/class system was amazing. I stopped playing because it felt so unbelievably awkward and clunky. Animations looked goofy and had no impact, enemies felt like they were on a leash, the aggro AI was pretty bad, etc. I feel like if the game were polished up a bit, it would be huge. Or would have been maybe I should say...
I spent three years playing TSW, loved it all the way, and even appreciated the gameplay mechanics even though they were outdated. I'll always remember this game as one of my favourite MMORPG experiences. And then SWL came out and I had to start from scratch again? In a new yet downgraded version of a once compelling game?
I guess all good things come to an end.
I have such fond memories of this game. I was part of the jump in players when the model went to one time buy and then play. The lore and story telling were good. The quests were fun. I liked trying new builds and finding something I liked to play. I really enjoyed the concept of the Bees and Gaia. You'd pick up lore pieces around the map, each with a different part of a lore entry. When you collected all the ones in a particular entry, you could read them as one with no missing parts. They were written from the perspective of the bees to you, which I found really neat. I wish I could go back and play the story and quests as a single player rpg. My friends would really like the story.
I also really liked the fact you had to look up things on your PC browser. It made sense. If I have a question irl, I'm gonna look it up on my phone. I can't remember if that was actually stated in a quest for your character to look it up on their phone, or if it was just a community thing.
Bad Grafics for 2012 Game. Are you crazy? The Atmosphere FC created is beyond many mmos today.
the game has amazing setting and atmosphere, you dont see many game with this kind of setting. their only mistake is making this game as mmo. the game should just stay single player with coop aspect.
i really hope one day they going to remake this game as a full singleplayer game
nono Dude, Dungeons and raids was extreme funny beside the quests
I did not put in thousands of hours because of only the solo aspect, TSWs multiplayer content is the reason I still play, and the raids and dungeons and lairs and so on are millions of times better than any other multiplayer game whether its MMOs like SWTOR or co-op games like Destiny 2. I also mean TSW and not that cancer-ridden trash SWL
The best atmosphere, the best storytelling and the best quests I've ever seen in a MMORPG. Like many others said, it could easily be a solo RPG with those elements alone.
Sadly, lack of content was the biggest reason people quit. We had to wait months and months for a small content update (Issue), while doing the same dugeons, the one raid and having not much more to do. Still we managed to entertain ourselves and help others along the way by doing custom challenges like a 2 man hardest mode dungeons etc.
The skill system WAS something unique in TSW - the way you can mix and match skills and passives to create something really powerful, mix and match gear later on (talking end-game) to have something like heal tank or debuff healer was amazing. Yet they removed all this from SWL - I guess it was deemed too difficult for the majority of population.
I still have my unique builds saved up somewhere, some of them were really fun to play.
Would love to see TSW 2 by some better developer and publisher, but we all know it's never going to happen - MMORPGs lately seem to be all about playing it safe and not doing anything creative.
The music, man, the music of this game, especially the main theme? Still give me the shivers.
My deepest regret was that I was too young (and broke) when The Secret World first came out. I couldn't afford a PC, let alone play the game. Now I'm employed and got myself a gaming laptop, I can't even access the game's content anymore on Steam. :( I was so hooked by the story and the idea behind this game. I wish the planned TTRPG for it comes out soon, so I can play it with my friends.
Really hit the nail on the head, with this one. TSW, despite all its visual and functional flaws, operated in a fantastic world. The story and classless character development had me absolutely hooked. The reboot as SWL was... well, I logged in, got to the "choose your class" stage of character creation, and logged out, never to return. They had thrown away one of the two things about the game that I found thoroughly unique and engaging. Finding out here that they threw away so much of the story, too... well, frankly, I didn't need to find that out at the time.
Probably should've stayed a little longer then. You'd have then realised that the classes in SWL are starting types of weapons and an outfit. You're only really forced into it in the early game, and if you imported your account from SW (like you would have been able to do) you'd have gotten everything right at the start. I agree that the way skills are handled now is vastly inferior to SW but although they are named such, I don't think the classes are actual "classes".
TSW / SWL have given me many many hours of enjoyment, and I don't regret pre-order the grandmaster (lifetime) membership for this game, still consider it as a great deal.
Yeah, I agree that the combat systems are bad, but it is countered by the stories and its investigation quests that are so great, it could rival the story of great single player adventure game, let alone the story of any MMO so far.
I’ve been back to the original TSW and it’s unfortunately a ghost town.
I absolutely loved the startwe areas, all of Kingsmoth island, but once it transitioned away from Lovercraftian stuff and moved into Egypt, it really lost me. Though some of the endgame stuff was good, and I liked most of the big boss fights. They really felt like you were up against something extremely powerful.
"50.000 people used to live here, now its a ghost town" cpt macmillan
Egypt finished it for me, twice. And I genuinely think it killed the game. I played through the game in its original incarnation... got to Egypt, burned out (I mean, after you find out about those Gaia engine things - the big cubes - why would you care about a cult in Egypt?). Then I played Secret World Legends... got to Egypt, burned out again. I never completed Egypt, either time.
@Nicholas I know the feeling... I stopped at Egypt in TSWL too, but that was also around the time of the whole “Red Shell” controversy which TSWL was a part of and that was all I needed to uninstall the game.
Egypt was hard. Monsters were op, combat was clunky which made it harder.. the characters were really good tho. The only game where Npc's felt alive. Transylvania was really good. (After Egypt) burned out after that..never got to Tokyo.
@@NicholasBrakespear Ironically, Egypt in SWL is far, far, far better because it forcibly ties Issue 6 in with it. Meaning, a lot of the subtext during Egypt becomes obvious - the reason you care about a cult in Egypt is because it's a good example of what happens when a Gaia Engine isn't working out too well. The Black Sun Aten is a Dreamer, and possibly one of the most malicious out of any of the known Dreamers.
Kinda sad to see this video, but not unexpected. The first time you figure out some of the investigation missions, the first time you do the Black House or the Amusement Park, the first time your party stands face to face with Chthulu...... These are memories of TSW that will always stay with me, but the lag and performance issues persisted into Legends and eventually I just moved on.
Me and my friend actually enjoys this game so much! I really like the story it reminds me of Life is strange. I also like how they put magic in the game I know the combat system is kinda meh, but we still enjoys it! Oh and also the puzzles, man they’re actually good! U really have to think to solve them. Unlike some games where an arro tells you where to go and thats it. I think they just needed some support from us for the game to actually become successful...
Played it with my friend not long after the launch. Took about a year to finish the main story and most of side-quests and investigations. Plus, DLC's was also interesting and came friequently for the first couple of months. Regular new stories for the first six months at least. Lots of it required to made a little research on web, via character's smartphone or solve the mistery without player tips - use your mind, agent. Great game! If only combat-system wasn't so crappy...
Started Secret World Legends with another friend. Quest-part is still pretty good. Especially, Kingsmout.
Plus another issue was funcom always ran back trying revive the dying horse that was Conan ignoring that tsw players went months without any real content updates
Funcom is notorious for letting their current game starve to death so their newest project has attention. Happened with AoC when TSW started, and I'm pretty sure it happened with TSW when they decided to do Conan Exiles.
TSW was a great game in its beginning. Absolutely loved the classless levelling experience. You could really try out all kinds of combinations. We passed all dungeons with a 4 man friend group -- had an absolute blast.
Also the world and feeling was amazing. rip.
Thank you for doing this. I played this game from the browser based community engagement. To the beta. To the full game. Bought all the content. Than became a Lifetime Subscriber. I loved this game. Than Funcom gutted everything great about it. I wish I could go back to that world but I cannot even stomach stepping into SWL.... and I'm afraid it's failure means we won't ever get another modern day urban fantasy MMO with such a rich world lore and storytelling. It is by far one of the saddest game deaths I've suffered in my life. My only consolation is that the spirit of this world lives on in Dreamfall which I can return to at my leisure.
They've recently had a successful kickstarter for a paper and pencil rpg of it. So the story will live on in that manner too, at least. Still, I still grieve the loss of the original game. Like you, my hubby and I were both lifetime subscribers too.
"Restructuring of the channel"? You're going F2P? ;-)
Death of a channel.
More like B2W
I really love this game. Then again, I just play it as a single-player campaign experience and don't care much about endgame content. I just want the story goodness. I've gotten hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of both incarnations of this game. I'm just hoping Funcom continues to keep the light on in the future as well, regardless of the size of the playerbase. Or just release a serverless version; the Legends version can be soloed quite easily and the world/experience was never dependant on having other players nearby.
In fact, I mostly just found it distracting. Sure, some other players were roleplaying to the best of their ability, but just seeing them kind of took the edge off the atmosphere which for me was kind of a bummer.
Thankfully, the Secret World IP looks like it will survive. Not as a video game, but rather as a Tabletop RPG. They're expected to release a Kickstarter this year.
I played TSW for years and loved it, I then tried SWL for a few months until I no longer wanted to play it.
My thoughts in brief:
1. Atmosphere, missions & music were great in both games but SWL has missing content (e.g. several dungeons)
2. Both TSW & SWL have clunky combat movement/animation. The combat tactics however (in TSW at least) were varied, flexible and fun.
3. The move from tab (TSW) to reticle (SWL) targetting was no improvement and hurt healers and combat tactics.
4. Power-creep in TSW was great. Thanks to its many skills and flexible gearing players were able to developed hybrid builds (leech-healer, heal-tank, buff-tank etc.) which allowed new combat tactics. The game broke free from the traditional Tank/Healer/3xDPS paradigm.
5. The community was, on the whole, very good. I met and befriended many players.
6. Excepting GMs, Funcom support was poor: bugs, slow content release and abysmal marketing.
7. Funcom fixed it so, by default, all players of TSW were auto-migrated to SWL. Underhand and unwelcome.
8. On Steam: Funcom retained TSW stats/comments for SWL. Wrong and misleading.
I loved leech-healing.
I remember watching those CGI trailers on repeat when I was younger and had only limited internet. Such nostalgia
I absolutely loved the atmosphere, story and puzzles... but the combat system was so garbage that i simply couldnt play more than one hour in a row without getting bored..
totally agree, most of the time when i played it i usually just forced myself to play until i got to one of the fun puzzles and avoided combat when possible just because it was so boring
The funny thing about that is the combat system in Funcom's previous MMO "Age of Conan" is arguably one of the best out there in terms of MMO combat(especially for pvp), i remember when this game released all of us were so disappointed they chose to re-do a new system entirely.
The combat and clunkiness never bothered me much. The switch to legends killed it for me though. Haven’t touched it since.
This one feels ultra bad.
Secret World/SWL is my favorite MMO of all time.
It's the setting and theme I've loved and wanted since I was a kid. World of Darkness-adjacent type of stuff. Add to that incredible side-missions with real-world clues and lore to look into that truly challenge you to solve incredible puzzles.
agree bro, mine too
Still have my lifetime sub.
Still love it.
Log in about once a year just to feel it
Everyone keeps talking about how bad the combat is, but I never really felt the combat was that bad. It was honestly more engaging for me than WoW. I liked that I was able to choose my own move set with my 2 weapons, and the game wasn't level dependent. I also really liked the dungeons in this game. Always had fun when I played :/
In the original, there were hidden stats based on gear level. So if you didn't grind for gear then combat would be a slog with no indication of why. So people got to the 2nd hub, hit a brick wall, assumed it was just how the game was balanced, and quit. When really they just needed to get some quest gear drops or go to the auction house. Additionally, some weapon combos synergized better than others, while some actively worked against each other. Yet swapping weapons meant grinding skills from scratch again, further hindering progress.
In the new version, the previously hidden stats are tied to a traditional xp level, and shown in your character sheet. Gear sets were slightly buffed to compensate for their hidden stats being moved. At the start you got a choice of weapon sets with good synergy based on tank/healer/dps roles. And the skill "simplification" was the removal of balancing skills around buffs from other weapons, such as using healing buffs from fists to make chaos lifesteal worthwhile. It got simplified that Chaos lifesteal was buffed to not need a heal buff, but Fist buffs were nerfed to only affect Fist skills. In the end each weapon is "self contained", so you really don't need a 2nd.
But that is "removing the complexity", aka you don't have to read a guide to avoid screwing yourself in the early game. The cost was pushing customization until mid game. (You can't get new weapons until level 10 iirc, about 2/3's through Maine). Very nice for new players that don't know "assault rifle" is a healer weapon. But irritates old vets that developed the knowledge over the years, accept that experimentation means slower progression, and/or liked the "newbie" filter.
It makes me sad that the game is in such a state. It was the MMO that scratched my horror itch and I LOVED the quests, but it sucked when you could hardly find anyone to play with, which was important for the dungeons. I can only hope that someone else either makes a private server that keeps new content coming or someone makes a new horror mmo.
Loved this game, the atmosphere, lore, music and graphics were truly amazing, it did not feel like an MMO in the best of ways and actually scared me, no MMO has come close to evoking this level of emotion.
Always mean to revisit it at some point, are the servers for TSW still up, don't want to start anew in SWL just yet.
It had ALOT of power and skill...
however it.. ugh just failed on the gameplay aspect (aka combat and controll)
The old servers are still up. The game will try to update to SWL so you have to change a file. There's some advice on the launcher/forums and TSW seems to be fairly active (not millions of players active) but people running raids, organised PvP sessions etc.
@@TemplarKle Cheers, appreciate the response, I'll look into it :)
The Secret World was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had in my life of gaming. So much of the game to me felt fresh that the combat and animations were so easy to ignore not being ideal because I loved exploring the world and seeing the next story beats. Glad I got to experience it for some years before it went into maintenance mode.
I feel you
@@Hakku1403 I generally liked the combat. I thought it was fine but that was clearly the main reason it wasn't more successful.
@@notyoursavior78 Atmosphere, story, puzzles, SoundnMusic, even the combat system, i loved them all. except the player animations ;)
I´ve played both TSW and Legends over 2000 hours i guess ^^ - awesome times and amazing people all over the place.
For me it feels like my great love is gone forever.
sorry for my bad englisch,
greetings from Germany
@@Hakku1403 A lot of the puzzles were very obtuse but yeah you nailed the reasons it was a great game. Your English was good. Enjoy Germany. Peace.
This sounds crazy awesome. Currently fantasizing about a game like this set in the SCP universe.
sucks that there are barely any games like this, so far only stuff like lobotomy corperation
I just finished watching every Death of a Game you made so far and this is easily one of my favorite shows on UA-cam now.
This game has atmosphere yes and good story... but for me the best feature of the game was the voice acting and all npcs had tones of stories to say and damn the chills i had when john wolf started say his childhood stories and club they created as kids.
Glad to see another episode in the series! I'm pretty much locked in always waiting to see another episode of Death of a Game, also if possible I enjoyed the single "Life of a Game" series on FFXIV, I hope you do more for that as well.
omg Thanks for this video! I was a fan of the original and hated Legends; I had no idea that the original was still playable and I'm going to look into that asap!
I played the original at launch and just recently tried out Legends, and I actually prefer Legends myself.
The quests were so great... i can still remember runnjng through that coastal town, searching the floor for sewers with that sign... or searching a wallet to find a name, looking up the company he was working for with the ingame browser so i could learn the name of his significant other to access a laptop... it felt like i was really investigating something.
Apparently the IP's being brought back as a Tabletop RPG by Star Anvil Studios
Great to hear
I took part in the ARG in the lead up to launch, and it was insane how in depth it was. The puzzles were so complex, it took an entire online community to solve them all. I loved this game hard for a good long while before I got burnt out. There's so much there that's good, I didn't care about clunky animations or bad combat. This game may not have had legs, but it more than made up for it with heart.
Anarchy Online and TSW will always be my favourite games. 💔
I played as Illuminaty for year and as Dragon for almost 3 years. When game was in b2p era.
I looooved investigation missions and even battle system.
Biggest problem, even before Legends - you can't find party to play through "dungeons".
Everybody was sitting in world tree hub and farm hard modes. New player just can't enjoy this game, because old players so fed up with it.
TSW was a great game,despite some shortcomings, with the best questing and memorable moments I have ever experienced. Secret world Legends robbed the player base of incredibly hard earned gear in nightmare dungeons and long nights in PvP.
Mixing Lovecraft with real-world lore gave the Secret World an atmosphere which no other MMO has managed to match. The storylines also tended to be of high quality, especially when stepping out from under the shadow of WoW's fetch/kill/find quest system. It was just let down by the lacklustre combat and so-so graphics, but if you fell in love with the world you kind of forgave it after a while.
Subscription MMO's > F2P. I will always rather subscribe to a video game than to have it free to play. It gets rid of many issues I find in MMO's.
Like what?
@@downsjmmyjones101 For one - Many griefers. For they fear they will lose their accounts. Unless they're money whales.
Then there's bot accounts. There are more bot accounts on f2p games. As, they can just make as many as they want. For subscription based games, they need to pay the subscription for each and every account. Thereby, still giving the company money to deal with these issues.
Thirdly, I think it makes the community as a whole a lot nicer. As, you're paying for a privilege. To be able to play a game. As, with a f2p game, if you get banned, you have to remake an account etc, and you can do this as many times as you want. With sub based games, I don't think people are going to be assholes unless they're leaving the game entirely and never want to come back.
These are just a few of my reasons. I've been playing MMO's for well over 15+ years now and have seen many come and go, free to play, buy to play, even subscription based. So, while I might be bias to subscription games, as they get rid of the reasons above, there is also some good things about F2P games. Mainly not having to pay to play it.
@@Lord_Shmesh_The_Squishy *Looks at WoW community, then recalls all the F2P communities I've been a part of over the years* ...yeah... no. Definitely not. Sorry, I might have not been specific enough: no. Definitely not, on all accounts.
@@Lord_Shmesh_The_Squishy I completely agree with the bots and griefers, though a community as a whole depends on the game. WoW has a sub but in my experience the most annoying mmo community. While warframe is free to play, but it's community is actually decent. But that's as a whole. You'll find good and bad everywhere.
@@omnifarius6325 I've seen more people who are kind on WoW than on Warframe. Though it all depends on the sevrer you're on in WoW
Mad respect for this game! When I got out of surgery to remove cancer I could not go back to work for a few weeks to recover. Luckily this game just launched at the time so I INVESTED my life during that time... had such an amazing recovery time being able to enjoy the story, world, gameplay. I always get hit with the feels when I’m reminded about this game.
TSW had the best storytelling, atmosphere, characters, and quests of any MMO. Making builds was challenging and fun. Combat was tolerable, and became intolerable after the introduction of aegis. Everything went downhill from there, and off a cliff with Legends. SWL is a grindy, p2w mess. Combat was not fixed -- it's no faster, nor more dynamic. It's exactly the same as the old game, except not as challenging or flexible and with some added gimmicks. Tab targeting was removed to force players to play with mouse & reticle, which you could do in TSW if you hit "t". The same bugs stuck around.
As much as I dislike playing SWL, I will be sad when the game shuts down. The IP is so incredible; it's definitely worth playing through the main story, even with the outdated graphics and boring combat.
This game still has a special place in my heart. I bought the Grandmaster at launch and played untill shortly after completing Tokyo. But the reboot got me back and I still play SWL - but only casual solo play now, and mostly because of the atmosphere 😊
I loved that game so much...
Thanks for the memories :D I had a very good time playing TSW from 2012-2015. I never saw it as a classic MMO. it was more like an Multiplayeradventure. When i think about it...i never had so much fun playing together with friends. (Standard MMOs are more like "what do we grind today...together...")
Yes it had very clunky fightingsystems, loading times to read a book while waiting and outdated graphics. But the athmosphere, the sound and creepyness...thank you Funcom!
Man I Knew it was only a matter of time before I seen this game on here
The early days of this game were simply amazing.
Not only did they capture a fantastic atmosphere with their art direction and music but I never felt so involved with quests in any other mmos.
And as clunky as the combat was, I still enjoyed the Guild Wars-like aspect of picking and choosing your own skillset.
This and Warhammer Online were my two biggest MMO heartbreaks.
I didn't want to watch this at first, to many feels. However, great job as usual N.S.
I never had an issue with the gameplay until Tokyo, and variable "Aegis" damage-type bullshit that meant you either mowed down the mobs or fought what amounted to brick walls until they fell on you. But it was hard to play in the constant grimdark, as well. I found myself needing some GW2 Queensdale just as a respite from the unrelenting doom of TSW. I wish (like GURPS, I guess) someone would create a skill-wheel game in a slightly more lighthearted genre. I will say this, some of the best times I've ever had with other players were in TSW.
Why is everyone saying its dead?
They didn't shut down the server... yet.
The game is the bee's knees!
TSW (now SWL) deserved better,
but I still love the game,
with its slimy warts and all.
TSW released with GW2, that was the biggest problem. Our guild was split 90% GW2 10% TSW on release sadly.
Secret world...
The game (as a concept) is GENIUS.
This game could have been SO GOOD. (I almost would say that it COULD have had the potential to be on the level of wow or such)
The issue was just the god damn combat was so finniky! >:/
I loved the world in this game especially Maine! I go back to it every now and then and hope to beat it one day.
Completely forgot the reboot existed
I always wanted to play this for the atmosphere alone, from being introduced to the idea of a foreigner parading in the streets of Orleans. As the City of Night, the City of the Devil, lovecraftian never worked so well in a modern setting. As a humans perspective of their world turns upside down as the stories behind the darkest trenches of the world is true, the Ugly truth behind the city of shadows.