The Secret World! Sub. Fee,Cash Shop and No Information Oh MY!

So...where to begin....

The Secret World had announced it's payment model back in August 2011:

Regarding new details on The Secret World's planned business model

I figure they would change it but...looks like they are going ahead with what I feel is a suicide plan.

By the way, this thread they posted it in, is made up of many angry pages and they have not even responded to it.

But back on point.

I had a major issue with cash shops+sub. fees to begin with but liked the fact they had to balls to announce it ahead of time. Probably a mistake,but none-the-less, admirable. 

However, my opinion on Funcom, EA and MTs in a whole:

This game, The Secret World, is the type of crap I hate about MMOs and these greed developers because not only are they "double dipping" in potential revenue but they have given very little information about the game to begin with. Even less than what we got from Bioware with SWTOR.

So, not only do we know little about how this game will play, but they want me to PRE-ORDER it? 

Haha...Oh...it's not a joke?

No. It isn't.

Pre-Order Information

By little info, I mean very little actual footage of the game and no information on how much the monthly fee will be. Ironically, this is almost the same marketing method used by EA with SWTOR.

But they have information on the cash shop which is selling character slots because you only get three character slots to begin with!

And don't worry! You know this game will "more than likely" be a huge success due to the fact they are offering a "Lifetime Subscription" plan for a low price of $199 (which is alot more for EU)! Because if the game gets cancelled, like APB and Hellgate, that lifetime subscription 

will be worth it!

Note that EA was involved with APB and Hellgate:London ; both failed horribly.

I bring that up because this game is almost a mix between those two with a Champions Online cash shop twist!

Ahh yes. 

Dark Days are coming indeed...

Tera Beta Gameplay Videos

Howdy all, Aesr here.

The last Tera online beta I captured some gameplay of a Female High Elf Warrior. Fun stuff. You can find the three parts below. So far I have had some fun playing the beta. I recommend you check it out.

Its kinda long so I do not expect you all to watch it all. Just briefly watch for Tera awesomeness.

MMOPTICS Youtube Channel

Howdy, Aesr here:

             

 Me and Opollo have setup a youtube channel to upload the videos we make onto it. You can find it here:

Clicky me

As always, Aesr out.

Blizzard is Trolling Bioware

Seems that even Blizzard is jumping in with subliminal torches of anger against Bioware.

Recently with the Supply Depot 2 Starcraft mobile game (Won't spoil it :)), Blizzard posted this:

Source: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/supplydepot/

The "color-coded endings" bit appears to be a stab at the highly controversial endings Bioware included at the end of Mass Effect 3 which were well....nothing more than different colors

Look at this video:

And the "DLC ending" part appears to be an allusion to people expecting Bioware to released DLC with a new more "appropriate" ending.

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium MMO Cancelled.

Well...this sucks.

 Eurogamer reported THQ would not be making the much anticipated Warhammer 40k MMO  but instead a single player / multi-player game due to financial problems after quarterly losses. 

Was hoping to play the MMO but what's even worse is...

...They had to let go 118 employees. 

Hopefully, if things pick up again, these people will be offered their jobs again.

Can We Escape"WoW Syndrome"?

Oh that's right. 

Because every MMO you seem play there is someone that has to bring up something about Blizzard.

And for me, it's gotten pretty damn old. Every. SINGLE. MMO I have played, it is only a matter of seconds after joining a server when you start seeing people rant and rave about either how this game you are playing will kill WoW and Blizzard or why this game you are playing is so much different and better than WoW. 

I used to like WoW (in Vanilla) myself.  Even when I came from  Lineage 2, where they were trash talking WoW while it was in development, I thought it was one of the best games I had ever played and it became my home for many years.  

And I even understand the impact that WoW had on the MMORPG genre as a whole. 

But what I don't understand is why people have to bring up WoW constantly. 

You could talk about anything! Anything! 

And there would be someone comparing it to WoW, usually in a pessimistic way.

I feel it stems from players who don't really hate WoW but more likely had really bad experiences in WoW. Things like not being able to progress or just not being good at the game at all. I mean, even I hated WoW for some reasons such as Blizzard seemingly abuse of "paid services" and constantly changing the game to the point it wasn't even the same game anymore etc.

These things made me dislike WoW. When I played another MMO, the last thing I want to talk about or hear about was WoW. And it appears there are plenty of gamers that feel the same way. Except they can't stop talking about it or bashing it everytime they join a new game. 

Doesn't make me think they have real legit reasons for disliking it by spamming chat with how bad it is. I mean it's at the point where it's no longer about WoW, it's about Blizzard and anything they do. It's as if they think Blizzard is the ONLY company that practices in the way they do. As if their favorite game company wouldn't take a chance to get some extra money out of their fanbase. Some won't, but most do.

Because if you really hate WoW, the worse thing you can do is keep talking about all the time. And if you are going to bash it constantly, at least make it more than "WOW FAILS!" "BLIZZARD FAILS"...

...it's not 2010 anymore.

Tera Online To Prove Interesting

So I recently bought the Tera Online collectors edition from the Enmasse website, (clicky me) and got into the Mach 23-25 beta event. I must say I am intrigued by this game. There are a total of 7 playable races and 8 playable classes and the character customization is pretty thorough to boot. Its not as great as Aion,s, but its a lot better than a lot of others. The graphics aren't as cartoony as swtor which really turned me off to swtor. 

One thing I always liked about mmos is the fantasy setting of them. It may be a cliche setting but lets face it, when has a sci-fi mmo been successful? Besides Eve Online.

One thing I hated about SWTOR is how bad pulling the map up was. You couldn't even move it and I felt restricted as most other mmos allowed me to freely zoom in, zoom out, and explore the world via the map. Well guess what? Tera online gives us two maps!

  The picture above shows us the area map. You can see quest npcs and waypoints of where you need to go to complete a quest. It also shows spots like campfires, vendors, trainers, etc. What is a campfire? A campefire quickly helps you restore your hp if you don't have any potions. In this game you don't quickly recover hp and mp aka swtor style, which made the game pretty boring in my opinion. (SWTOR not Tera.) You can toggle the area map on and off by pressing N.

   Here we have the classic map interface above me. By pressing M on the keyboard it toggles the interface and brings up my area in all its fine glory. *Sniff* I'm sorry folks, its been such a long time since I have seen such a great map interface I got all teary eyed. Time to move on.

     So now we are looking at the world map right above. From the previous picture there is an option called "Zoom out" right next to the "X" in the top right hand corner of the map interface that lets me zoom out of the map. Notice you can see where you are on the map, and its in the center. Charming, quite charming. Also a good thing to note is Tera starts you in a tutorial zone which is in fact the middle of the map where I am. I don't know about you, but I hate tutorial zones. It reminds me of Champions Online all over again.

        The above picture just shows what the game looks like without the area map. (N.)

 This is a unique feature I really enjoy in Tera Online. Walk near an aggressive mob and they don't charge you and try to kill you. Instead, they warn you with that exclamation mark above their head and the monster itself takes an aggressive stance and faces you the entire time. You can get away from the monster and it will no londer be hostile towards you. Stay near it too long and it will attack you. You can also just attack it.

Thats all for now. Before the beta ends I will play some more and give more thoughts on the game. This playthrough was only 30 minutes of goofing around and exploring the features. Could I been more in depth? Sure I could of but I wasn't. Until next time, Aesr signing off.