OOC: My thoughts on the SWL relaunch

Introduction

So, we finally have the official announcement of the launch after having known about it for a while from Funcom’s financial reports. It gives us more details, but there still are a lot questions untouched so far.

The new name is Secret World Legends or SWL. Make our Community Manager Andy happy and not use the The anymore when referencing the relaunched game opposed to the original TSW.

I will try not to speculate too much and base my thought about the relaunch on the facts that we know so far, therefore there will be a lot quotes. Still, I won’t quote every single detail. But there are sources to inform you!

Sources

Official Website

secretworldlegends.com
While on there, take a special look at the FAQ

Community Manager twitter feeds

Both of our community managers have answered a few questions on twitter already, doing a great job telling us what they can so far, really appreciate it.

Andy Benditt’s twitter feed (including replies)
Spynosaur’s twitter feed (including replies)

Press Interviews

MMORPG.com has released a Interview with game director Roman Amiel that answers a few more questions.

Massivelyop.com interviewed him as well. Their Interview seems to have a bit better questions as they are more familiar with the game. While the answers are similar, they give a tad more details here and there.

Spellsmith’s Unofficial Info collection

Spellsmith set up a Google Doc where they are collecting all the incoming information. If you want all info in one place without commentary and personal opinions, this is where you want to go, not this blogpost.

TR;DR

Short version of this pretty long post for those not caring about my reasoning:

My take on it

Okay, time to jump into the details.

Full Reboot

The game will get a full reboot, new characters, new servers, new game client.

You will need to create a new character when you start playing Secret World Legends. We feel it is important that everyone starts from the same point. Anyone that owns The Secret World will be able to continue to play it. Secret World Legends will exist as a separate product so it will have its own account system, installation, server, etc. 1

I think this is the way to go for a reboot and for a couple of reasons.

Relearning the game

With the game mechanics changing, we all will have to relearn the game. Period. The best way to do that, is actually playing the game from ground up again. Funcom promises a better introduction for new players and going through that will also help us TSW players to get SWL right.

Resetting the gear spiral

Let’s face it, TSW is quite a grind when it comes to gear progression and yes it hurts to loose those endless hours of progress. But you need a 10.9 gear and 2.4+ AEGIS for the NM raids, you do not for random dungeons. It is pretty daunting for new or casual players to hear the requirements some groups ask for in PvE. Full 10.9 for Polaris? Really?

Secret World Legends will relaunch with the original eight adventure playfields, scenarios, and dungeons available immediately. In the time following the relaunch, we will release Tokyo, Nightmare Dungeons, Raids, and the rest of the content that is currently live in The Secret World. 2

Since SWL will not go life with NM dungeons or Tokyo we don’t really need all that gear and it would be hard to translate it anyway. We will have time to gear up again as new content is coming along.

It will be good to have everyone back to the basic gear, exactly the gear they need to tackle the content. Yes, it will make it harder to pull someone through a dungeon or speed run them, but for me, it being a challenge is much more fun.

Replayability

A lot of improvements have been done to many of the missions. The story mission has also received several changes, new information has been added, and the story flow has been improved throughout the game. Additionally, the changes to combat and progression system make the game feel different and even more enjoyable than it was the first time around. 3

I probably have played every of the repeatable missions a dozen and more times, some surely 100+ times in the last years. I’m really looking forward to play them all and the story missions again. It will be good to have a reason to revisit them once more and at the appropriate level. Sure, I could play them right now, but the incentive is kinda lacking and the changes they are making will give things at least a new spin!

Loosing characters

I’m actually okay with this. Remaking Rovena is not a big deal and I already explained why I like the gear & skill reset.

Yes, it will suck to regain all the clothing variety (I nearly have every single cosmetic item ingame) but I will get there. With the promised update in visuals and character customization, some items might have to be removed or altered to fit the new system. We don’t know it yet.

I probably want to play around with the character’s face to keep it close to the original but also take advantage of new options. A restart for everyone is the fair thing to do. Clothes are status symbols in TSW, reflect progression and event participation.

On the upside, it means some of the rare, hard to obtain items might make an return and be more available again. We will just have to wait and see.

(There might even be the faint hope that some of the immersion breaking items get removed. Nothing official was even hinted in that direction though.)

Transition for existing players

Here I think it is where funcom shines most in this relaunch. I won’t go into the business model changes yet, that comes later.

Transfer of vanity store items & subscriptions

We are implementing a system to copy over some vanity/store items from TSW to Secret World Legends. More on this will be released as we get closer to launch. 2

What happens if I have an active subscription on TSW when the transition occurs?
After you have linked your account, your old TSW subscription will roll over into Patron Rewards Program time in Secret World Legends. 2

What about TSW Grand Masters?
Same as above. Link your Secret World Legends account to your old TSW account and you will become a Patron in Secret World Legends forever2

This is more than I expected from a relaunch to be honest, but of course it is exactly the right thing to do. We keep most items we paid for (only vanity items, not gear.) and our subscriptions carry over. Not sure what more we could even ask for.

Names

You will be able to reserve a name on your current TSW account to be used in Secret World Legends. You can find out more about this process HERE! 2

You will be able to select which character name you would like to reserve for use in Secret World Legends. Please note you can only reserve one name per account. You can only reserve character names that exist on your TSW account. 4

We can reserve one of our characters names we already have. For me, with only one char really this is more than enough. But I get why other’s with many alts are struggling with it. But there seems to be a reason for this:

By default, each account grants access to one character slot. Additional character slots may be purchased in game. 2

Unless you buy more slots, you can’t have more than one char.

I know I’m different than most, but I really like it when there are not myriads of alts running around. Gives more focus to each char. Yes, yes, won’t happen, but I can dream :P

Mechanics, Visuals & Tech

Now we are getting to the part where I am more skeptical. But always remember, about a lot of these things we are still lacking information, so take everything with a grain (fuck a handful) of salt.

Improved Visuals

We have made improvements to visuals like character models, character heads, combat effects/animations, lighting in playfields, and we’ve increased view distance in some playfields. Keep in mind these are improvements, not a generational jump in graphics. We are still using the original graphics engine. 3

I did not expect the change of the engine since that would have been far too much effort to pull off in such a short time.

General improvements are very welcome though. The game is still okay when it comes to it’s graphics, there is not too much needed in that area.

What worries me is that staying with Dreamworld as engine, we might still have the same poor performance. Still, there is hope they will find what causes the issues and either fix them or work the maps around it.

There are still many questions unanswered. Will the flash UI be replaced? (would love that!) Will there still be addons? And many more. Only time & further announcements will tell.

New combat

We have expanded on the functionality for the reticule system that was implemented in TSW. In addition, we have changed how weapons work, added unique elements to each weapon, and updated the active and passive abilities. Overall combat should feel more action oriented than it was in TSW. 1

We have changed how the ability wheel works in Secret World Legends. Actives and Passives have been separated into their own unique sections for each weapon. In addition, we have redesigned the actives and passives for each weapon to make the game easier to approach for new players. We still allow the combination of two different weapons to make a completely unique build. 3

This is not exactly much that we know about it yet. More action oriented sounds good as does a better organization of skills.

There are a lot unknowns, like Will we be able to still master every role? How exactly will it play? We will have to wait until the beta / gamplay videos.

Personally I am far from excited to get anything 3rd person shooter like, but there still is hope it will not be like Mass Effect or similar. I never felt it was rewarding to aim in a stats based game, where the result is dice rolled anyways.

I don’t have high hopes for this to be honest. I was rather disappointed by past combat overhauls and have been burned terribly by the revamp of Star Wars Galaxies.

From MMO to ActionRPG

As a Shared World RPG, we have reduced the maximum amount of players that can enter a playfield. While adventuring, you will still meet a few strangers here and there, but the focus is on you, and your friends if you choose. You are following your character’s story, your experience won’t be affected by hundreds of other players nearby trying to kill the same monster. 1

Yeah. This really bumped me out. A lot. I love MMOs, love running into a lot random players, play with them together, RP …

Then realization hit me. With how inactive TSW has become, I rarely ran into anyone and most of the time everyone was over-geared already and just in the rush to complete a weekly. Yes, some of my best memories come from random meetings in the playfields but honestly … it has been a long time one of those happened.

So I am clearly not happy about this, but if it helps getting more people active again, I can live with it. There will still be random encounters and I still can play with friends and RP in the world in small groups. Will make it work.

Reduction of PvP

Regarding PvP, in SWL we want to incentivize players to have fun rather than focusing too much on the faction tension. At launch we will be including TSW’s most successful PvP minigame: Shambala. Based on feedback and demand we will be updating the remaining minigames at a later date. 1

While I enjoyed it, PvP never was a selling point of TSW. It’s okay to reduce the battlegrounds, especially since balancing a threeway often did not really work out.

What I don’t like is the emphasis on less faction conflict. Faction conflict was one of the major drivers for the setting in my eyes and a constant fuel of RP for me. Only when the community started to “hate” conflict and smooth things out between factions it started to become boring for me.

Steam

My rational mind say that it is a good call, will make a number of features easier to implement down the line (like ingame VoIP, not announced at all but what I hope will eventually come), easier patching for Funcom and a lot more features …

But then I remember how much trouble I and others have paying on steam, how often the fucking client crashed, how generally poorly the experience on it is.

I’ll get over it, I promise.

Business model

Basically it is your normal free to play model. I don’t like it as it incentives less content updates and more overprices cosmetics & random bags.

But we have been more or less there anyways so why not give it a try? If it helps keeping my favorite game alive, this is okay. I have no rant about that left in me, already talked so much in other contexts how little I like it. We will see how it develops.

Outlook

Season 2

What does the change away from an MMO to an RPG mean for future content? Such as, we know that the stories for season 2 and 3 are already written – will we still get to see them? Will the seasons be expansion packs that will now be purchased (as opposed to smaller DLC issues)?

All future story content and quest content will be free. One of the main reasons we are relaunching is to enable us to release the rest of the story content for Secret World Legends. We will be releasing the first part of Season 2 later this year. 3

YAY! This alone probably would have me sold. I’m not too much a fan of the direction the setting had taken in the later Tokyo missions but the story is the main selling point and I am far too curious about how it continues.

Still, we do not know any details, but I am kinda optimistic.

Rovena?

First things first, yes, I will be remaking Rovena. Period. She will be my main when it comes to PvP and still be active in RP.

That said, I will not reset her story or replay all of the mission IC as if they were just happening. Of course there will be an occasional mission that gets an IC touch or me RPing a mission or two with a friend but not the full experience.

It is highly likely that I will kinda speed level her to represent her veteran status and high skill level.

On the story side, I will rewrite minor things about her past, streamline a few things and in general close a few open loops. Make her fresh again without changing anything that happened with interactions of other players. But some things might be pushed more into the background to keep her playable.

Alt?

Yup, you are reading this right, I’m thinking about an alt, one I actually will fully RP everything with. Will I really do it? Depends on how good or bad the combat ends up being.

Lack of Tokyo

How will I go about Tokyo not being open again? Short answer, I don’t knwo and will think about it once we know more about the plans & timelines.

Home of my RP

Of course, short stories, journals & blog posts still will be posted here. But for all organizing, group building & plot planing I will be over at http://swlegends-rp.enjin.com!

Restart of the game, Restart of the community.

Beta

I really hope I will get into the Beta soon. Playing Star Citizen and reporting a lot bugs there has got me hooked. It is a lot fun to find issues, report them and see them solved eventually.

Conclusion

Well … that’s depressing, I wrote just about 2.9k words and basically said:

We will have to see but I’m cautiously optimistic.

Looking forward to play SWL and meeting you all in there continue our journey!

  1. http://www.mmorpg.com/secret-world-legends/interviews/roman-amiel-on-making-secret-world-legends-better-than-the-original-1000011652/ ↩︎

  2. https://secretworldlegends.com/faq/ ↩︎

  3. http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/29/exclusive-interview-funcom-on-the-secret-world-legends-reboot-and-the-end-of-updates-for-the-secret-world/ ↩︎

  4. https://secretworldlegends.com/news/namereservation/ ↩︎