The Secret World Ditches Subscriptions

[Shinsei-J]

Unless I misread the article, this is a rather misleading title don't you think? It hasn't gone free to play(F2P), it's gone buy to play(B2P), like Guildwars 2. Free to play would mean you don't have to spend any money to play the base game.

Agreed.
My first thought when seeing the title was "Awesome, might have to download it tonight" now it's back in "eh might wait abit".
Now I'm just procrastinating.

PS, lovin your avatar.

 

[StashAugustine]

Gorramit, just started TOR. Might check this out later though, heard good things.

 

[ShirowShirow]

This is a MUCH BETTER model.

I might actually get it now.

Subscriptions are dead.

 

[Starke]

I think what really shows the shift from subs to f2p/b2p is the comments on articles about TSW going b2p - people are showing an interest in trying the game now there's no sub whereas in the past it would be declared the game was a failure. My concern would be paying for more powerful gear or access to skills you couldn't otherwise get - exp boosts aren't really an issue since your power is determined by gear not character levels or skill points. Eventually you can have all skills hence why there is no respec.

So far, the only "more powerful gear" option ever offered was the blue QL1s, that came with one of the preorder packs. (Functionally they're QL2 or QL3 greens, IIRC). And they're even adding an in game method of obtaining the Screaming Demon Ring... so that's good...

 

[Tanakh]

Are people playing? Is it fun?

I haven't played since the last beta (the one with the release product), but have kept an eye on this and IMO:

- The combat is basically your run off the mill WoW clone combat with two exceptions: You can dodge and nothing (AFAIK) has a castime which immobilizes you. Honestly decent and fluid but mhee.

- The questing is your run off the mill WoW vanilla clone, quest hubs, then go and grind them, then go back to the hub, and back to the grind. Terrible. There are some special quest that involved doing new activities, investigation i think they were called, very well made, but few and far between.

- The PvP consisted in a couple of decently made dedicated battlefields. Severely lacking PvP content IMO.

- The atmosphere is AMAZING. Yeah, sure, they send you to kill 10 boars by facerolling your keyboard, but oh boy! Do they know how to sell you that this boars are about to wipe out civilization as we know it!

- The "no leveling" system is just BS. There ARE levels, they just chose not to display it, imagine a Final Fantasy X where you leveled, but gained no static hp nor mp, just sphere levels. As such the system is fine, and it allows you a lot of flexibility, but by golly, there ARE levels.

No reason not to give it a try, I probably will. And there's some people still playing from launch, i know one at least.

My only gripe would be, what is happening with the guys that expended like 10k USD for the ultimate secret world package that included a "for life free of subscription fees". Hope they manage that well.

 

[Ham Blitz]

Man, if my computer could handle this game I would be all over it. This and planetside 2 becoming free and all those games that I got for cheap from the THQ bundle are making me wish I had more money to spend to get a nice gaming rig.
All and all, this does sound like a pretty cool system for an MMO.

 

[MrBrightside919]

I love The Secret World. I think it's a great MMO. Now that there isn't a manditory subscription, I really hope more people check the game out...

 

[wrightguy0]

so they're basically going to take the road guild wars 2 takes (albeit with some nickel and diming because EA.....) but with a much better model than SWTOR (once again because EA) I figured something like this would eventually happen to the secret world by the end of the year, it probably won't happen to WoW, but that's WoW and they seem to be the exception to a lot of things (though i can imagine the growing number of F2P MMO's has hurt their business in some way)

Now, i hope the other MMO's that are coming take a cue from GW2 and have an up-front cost and no subscriptions (I'm looking at you Elder Scrolls Online)

So in conclusion, all the barriers that have prevented me from getting into MMO's in the last 8 years have come crashing down.

I'm going to ask for Guild Wars 2 for christmas, and i may pick up the secret world in the near future (definitely getting TES Online though, that was a given from the moment i heard about it)

 

[AldUK]

I played this for a couple of months after it launched. I left once I'd cleared all the content, but I was reasonably satisfied and happy with my experience. It's a pretty solid MMO, if a little small.

EDIT: Forgot to mention; the PvP is utter garbage. Even SW:ToR had better PvP. If that's what you're into, get GW2.

 

[jbm1986]

I was curious about this title and now I may pay the $30 rather than continuing my EVE subscription.

 

[Rad Party God]

This is seriously one of the, if not the best MMOs I've ever played in my life.

The only thing holding me back from enjoying this game was the subscription, now I can play it to my heart's content, whenever I want and however I want

 

[Beautiful End]

There are times like this when I wish I had a computer capable of playing MMOs decently.

*Sigh*

Your move, Final Fantasy.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

*Before you bash me for Metacritic'ing, I actually read the reviews, and I look at a lot of them, and I look at both sides, good and bad, and to try and pick out trends. AND I take everything with a grain of salt. I use them as a guide to push me one way or another if I am on the fence.

Exactly! Metacritic is great as a library of reviews. Just ignore the actual Metacritic rating.

 

[Vault101]

I just got the email today...all I can say is WOW that was quick

 

[vasiD]

Sweet. Straight up: I only wanted to play this because I vaguely like what little I played of Dreamfall, and also because I know Cthulhu is in it (plus I love conspiracy theories, true or not they are very fun tales). Wasn't enough for me to subscribe, but it's worth 30 bucks. Player 1, buying in.

 

[Grabehn]

So... the guys that made Age of Conan, which changed to F2P after it flopped cuz it didn't have what they promised, had another of their games changing the subscription system? If nothing else, having the subscription fee at all was retarded since the beginning.

 

[Busard]

Nice to see that they dropped the silly mandatory subscription and went the B2P route instead, but now I wonder.... did they finally give you proper customization options? I recall that during the beta they had basically crap all customization and from what I was told, it was not improved in the slightest upon release.

It's still not that sublime but it has some nice additions: height slider, few more haircuts and faces and details like that. Plus a ton more clothing to choose from and the separation of the multislot items (which before covered your entire character from head to toe with one piece of clothing) now have separated head gear and body. All-in all, even if the fine details of the face are not on-par with AoC, clothing wise there's probably more choices than most mmos

 

[Cobalt Lion]

Started doing some reading on this, since I was considering trying it. It appears they dropped the subscription, and picked up some bad reviews. A lot of players saying it isn't worth the initial startup fee. Too bad really, it seemed like an interesting game at first glance.