"Death of a game: The Secret World" by nerdSlayer

Secret World Legends General Discussion
61

Well, I’m definitely going to defer to your on these matters. I haven’t played the game as long as you and have only been active on the forums for a week or so now.

When I mentioned finding a perfect solution, I was speaking theoretically. Obviously, there’s a big gap between what the players want and what Funcom is able to provide. Players probably want everything to be completely free (pets, cosmetics, patron benefits), but, needless to say, that’s not going to be in the company’s best interest. Players may also want new story content every month as well as new (or even old) dungeons and raids. Clearly, there aren’t resources available for that.

I think a lot of the frustration of the player-base comes from a lack of communication. There was a roadmap to future content when SWL was released, but there’s been nothing like that since SA dropped. I do get that there could be a reticence to make promises because that would backfire pretty badly if the promises weren’t kept. It’s just not a good look for the company if they are, indeed, still trying to build the game up.

Here’s my very specific piece of feedback: send out more surveys. The only time I’ve had surveys sent to my email is after I’ve had a /petition resolved. There should be an automatic survey sent when someone cancels their subscription, and maybe another when someone doesn’t log into the game for 30 days or so. I know there’s places for feedback on the forums, but I’d say a very small percentage of SWL players ever see the forums, and even less ever post. A survey about what people want in the game, or what changes are the most pressing, would not only give them data points on what issues people prioritize, it would show a willingness to listen and make changes. Also, sending surveys to people who no longer play the game would give them information about why they left and what would bring them back. People are more likely to give feedback when asked directly. Not that many people are going to proactively look for a way to voice their opinion, especially with a company that has a reputation for lack of communication.

If the counter-argument to this is that Funcom doesn’t have the resources to design a survey, send some emails, and then analyze some data, then this game really is dead. And if people aren’t willing to spend some time answering surveys, then the game deserves to die.

As for the customer service issues, I hope you’re right and that they are just temporary. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the customer service team in SWL and back in TSW. But again, this goes back to a lack of communication. As far as I know, the other thread asking for clarification for certain wording was never addressed. Also, the vast majority of players have no idea why customer service was cut back. Most people are just getting their information from the rumors being passed around in the in-game chats. A simple email sent to all players explaining that the current situation was due to unforeseen circumstances and will only be temporary would go a long ways towards alleviating a lot of the frustration in the player base.

Sorry, for getting so long-winded there. I have the terrible character flaw of thinking my opinion matters more than it really does, even when taking into account that bit of self-awareness.

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62

Bit disingenuous of you to imply that this is a thing that actually happens regularly (if at all) and that the change in policy means support wouldn’t help you if it did. They won’t help free players with “item deletion” but that very heavily implies action on the part of the player (ie: deleting the item) rather than just logging in one day to find the game has eaten your stuff (which I’m not discounting as a possibility but I’ve never seen actual evidence of).

What’s the opposite of QED? :v:

63

to me TSW/SWL’s problem is that it’s a story focused MMO with no new story, if you make something your strong point and then stopp adding things to it, people will leave. the problem with story focused games is that it needs constant and often new releases of content, which TSW/SWL has always failed to deliver.
another big problem was that the SWL release didn’t really bring anything good or new to the game, we lost character customization options (we did get some new ones too at least) we lost skills, we lost maps, we lost dungeons, we lost pvp zones. and what we got in return wasn’t good enough. A complete and real overhaul of the combat system could habve helped instead of what they didm which wasn’t change or upgrade enough, lots of people didn’t like it.
Now what mostly kills the game is the lack of any new projects or info about the game. if we don’t even know if there’s anything coming at all, most people leave once they finish the story. there isn’t enough to keep people interested other than long term fans that have been here since forever.

edit: i think sory content in this game is harder to create because of most quests having voices and cinematics to them. but even them, there’s a lot they could do without cinematics or voices, just using text and cool new stories. cinematics and voices are just fluff (very good fluff though) but not needed to do a story. I wouldn’t mind if they left cinematics and voiced quests only for the main questline and left all the other quests just as regular text, if that would mean they would do more new story quests.

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64

And that is why Funcom should still be stressing there’s more/alternate story for the other two factions, and give everyone three free character slots. It would give people a reason to stick around and potentially spend more (especially given cosmetics purchases are no longer account wide)

But noooo, they’re instead tried to monetize the hell out of the second character slot instead, while largely forgetting to stress the story benefits of having an alternate faction character. *sigh*

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65

Also, reading the comments to the video make me realize how much FC missed the mark on this one.

66

Exactly This!
I wrote something similar here: "Death of a game: The Secret World" by nerdSlayer - #8 by Synapsenpogo.
I´m glad I´m not the only one who realized that.

Exactly!
I never was into dungeons but PVP for example was my “anchor” to the game, because i´m not a Dungeons- Scenario- ( still hate them …) or Dailies-Player (dailies are ok if they aren´t boring). Thing is, TSW also for example had no proper crafting system (i like crafting, mostly). If there wouldn´t have been PVP I would have switched to other MMOs way sooner, only to return for fresh story-content.
And if there was nothing else to do, you could at least play around with the Skill-Wheel and test new ideas in PVP.

Well … i liked the OLD Combat-System in TSW. It was just to complicated for new players but it wasn´t bad itself.
The new one is bad!
I would immediately trade the crosshairs/reticle for having the skill-wheel back or at least its complexity and i have no problem using crosshairs/reticle.
And the Weapon-Gimmicks are just unnecessary crap, sorry.
“Overheating” while wielding magic … seriously? headdesk
Elite-Skills which only work when you have a grenade loaded? Yeah … right … .
“Wheel of fortune”-Pistols … are you kidding me?
I never encountered a more annoying gameplay-mechanic in an MMORPG.
The combat in SWL isn´t really fun for me and grew old very quick.

That´s why the game is basically dead for me.
I loved the idea of a relaunch and saw its potential, but in my opinion they just screwed it up.
Sorry to all who read this for beeing so negative, but it is what i honestly think.

67

Straight after the original launch we got regular releases of new content and it wasn’t enough to keep the game afloat. Would things have gone differently if the game had been free to play instead of full price + subscription fee? I guess we’ll never know.

When the words “charge for” just don’t convey enough drama. :v:

68

Does it have an actual argument for why it is better to initially discourage multiple characters as opposed to encourage them, in a game that is unique enough for the second and third play-through that might help retention? Like, say, actual evidence that this is the better long-term monetization approach? I mean, it is better short-term, but unless it wants to prove itself a fool by arguing having nothing but a short-term plan is the best way to ensure long-term success, that is quite irrelevant.

It loves demanding evidence, so it really should show it posses some semblance of character by occasionally supplying some itself.

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69

Don’t waste your time trying to reason with it.

70

Those are essentially the points I was making, too. I’m not claiming any sort of plagiarism; you probably didn’t even read my post and came to the same conclusions about the game because those are pretty obvious points. It’s too bad Funcom couldn’t see it coming, or, rather, didn’t care.

I do agree with your point that story content is harder to make, but I disagree that lowering the quality of the cutscenes would be a good strategy. Look at SA. It’s so painfully weak compared to the other zones and a lot of that is how poor the cutscenes are. I think a lot of players lost hope once they saw it.

It goes back to my point about SWL being a half-hearted attempt at a relaunch. The combat system can’t be saved without overhauling it to the point of basically creating a new system. More end-game content from TSW (Dungeons, raids, PvP) isn’t likely to be ported over. So basically, the only hope left is new story content, and in order to really save the game, the next zone has to be a huge step up in terms of quality. Another meh zone isn’t going to bring many people back, and the few people who do come back will only stick around for as long as it takes to play through it once.

71

Why would I have an actual argument to support a position you literally just concocted wholesale from thin air? All I did was point out the overly dramatic linguistic flourish you used to turn the mundane “business charges for something” into the sinister “business monetizes the hell out of something”.

Citation needed. :v:

72

Oh, I didn’t say it would. On the contrary, I was expecting it to once again display its lack of character by way of some absurd pretense it totally doesn’t need one. It delivered.

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73

I figured I’d try and see if there’s any reasoning given, but all I can find from my limited google-fu is hearsay. The only people who know why Funcom didn’t give multiple character slots by default (barring the 2 free ones for TSW linked accounts at the first Legacy Transfer) are Funcom themselves. Presumably, at the time it was thought to be an economically viable route with the information they had, and to change that now would either cause a controversy or else remain non-viable, or they would have presumably done it by now.
If you haven’t done so already, add it to https://forums.funcom.com/t/feedback-suggestions/

Reading through FAQ - Secret World Legends no reasoning is given as to why, but merely a statement of fact:

How many characters do I get on my account?
Each account has access to one character slot. Additional character slots may be purchased in game.
Players that used the original TSW Legacy Transfer service on or before September 4th, 2017 will have three total character slots. The Legacy Transfer service no longer grants additional character slots. Read here for details.

Though I did find one of the web results from trying to search for a reason includes Meta-Moth’s post from May 2018 Extra Char Slots NOT available - #17 by Starsmith, in which he gives the excellent summary:

I have no verds

https://zippy.gfycat.com/WearyImmaculateGelada.webm

As one person states underneath that:

From the seller’s - i.e. Funcom’s - perspective, which unlike [Meta-Moth’s] is actually relevant to the question of whether said seller would be losing anything, any Aurum item really is a cash only item [in this case referring to free character slots].
They may not care whether the person spending the cash and the person getting the item are one and the same, but the item is not going anywhere without somebody having spent cash. And therefore they’d be (potentially) losing cash by giving it away that item for free.

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Yes, I remember. I never said they aren’t losing more by not properly encouraging new players to run alts. I think they probably are, but Funcom clearly didn’t think they would when they made the one slot decision.

75

Eh, Kotaku’s “investigation” reads like a hit piece requested by JS’s buddies from Bioware Austin.

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A new zone, even if on a par with Solomon Island, is not going to bring the people back who left because of what Funcom did to the game and the combat system. Like I said before, I come here once in a while out of nostalgia, and I have the TSW GM, but I deleted the game some time ago, and even after S.A. was released, I had no inkling of coming back. Although I do still log into TSW once in a while.

And it its current state, SWL is not going to pull in any more new people. This is what you got. That’s it. It’s been only downhill for a while.

77

Actually, a new zone, i.e. a major content update, would be likely to bring in new players. I see it in other F2P games, it always happens. The question is whether those new players can be moved to stick around, and I cannot possibly imagine SWL would have better conversion rates than the lackluster ones I see elsewhere.

78

Just about anything added to the game brings players back. They don’t often stick around for long after they’ve checked out the new stuff but that’s the great unsolvable problem of live-service games, isn’t it?

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79

You may see it in other games, but I doubt a new zone in SWL would bring new players, unless the new zone completely ignores game progression, since to get to that new zone, a new player would have to play the entirety of the old game.

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It may bring some old players back to take a look-see, but they are not going to return to the game, or spend money, in any significant fashion. Players like me, they surely aren’t even taking the look-see in game. I took to youtube to check out S.A. when it came out.