893.4 hours played
Written 12 days ago
The original game was epic. I loved this game, but I came in late, right before the swap-over to "Legends".
Before, it was a buy to play, with boosted elements w/ monthly sub. They had a "permanent subscription" plan, which I purchased just weeks before they discontinued it (because they swapped to Legends and the f2p garbage that now exists).
I didn't know they were working on "Legends" and that they were going to kill the original. Only a fraction of my stuff transferred over (thanks for wiping my cash investment) to the new game and that's the minimal issue.
The original had a skill wheel, you could think of it as a talent tree, where you could pick so many skills from the wheel at any one time. By mixing and matching skills you became a different class. This made it somewhat of a steep learning curve, but it was a FUN learning curve, and made each character unique. This was my favorite feature of the game (beside story, which I'll get to).
After the swap to "Legends" they cut it to a skill path, where you could only pick individual weapons and then had to pay to swap to other weapons or reset talents, etc. I'm writing from memory, as I haven't played in quite a while. Regardless, the combat system and UI interface and control setup all changed for the new version, and it wasn't a good change. They tried to make it like a fps game, but w/ mmo style buttons. It wasn't a good change. It's not complete trash, it just isn't as good as it was. Update: So, I've played again since writing this review, spending some time on both The Secret World and Secret World Legends. I've noticed some of the major changes to skills and classes (such as blood magic not being able to spend health to cast when out of resources).
The Skills: The wheel of the old let you pick and purchase skills on the wheel as you choose and as you spent enough points you could move up to "level 2" of the wheel and pick from those skills. The path, however, requires more of a buy this skill then this then this and so on. You still get somewhat of a skill choice, and you can still ultimately use skills and passives (I'm mixing up the technical terms here) as you wish, once you've unlocked them.
The Combat: The original is more of an MMO style combat with the ability to swap to fps style of combat with auto targeting. Legends swapped it so that the fps format is the primary by default and mmo style combat doesn't really work the same as it used to. But I'm not actually against this as much as I was with the initial change (I don't like change q.q). This does work, and it's somewhat clunky, but it's a little better for control. They changed the resources for combat (mana, vs energy, etc.) and added stuff like shotgun shells that reload and heat resources for elemental, and corruption for blood magic and so on. The resources change is actually pretty slick, because it requires more finesse when fighting.
The Graphics: We were told Legends would have updated graphics. It does. But it doesn't. The models are still the same models, just smoothly rendered. I think this was my biggest grief with Legends, (well beside them not passing over all my costumes I paid for), because the character models are still just as glitchy. If making a new game, why not fix the glitches??! *cough* Ark *cough*. Buuuut they are a touch better-looking at least. I guess.
The Pay-to-Win garbage: I lied, this is the absolute worst aspect of this game. Want more Ability Points? spend money! Want more Skill Points? Spend money! Want to run faster? Spend money! and on and on and on. Loot chests in dungeons? Require fkn keys! If you pay to sub, you get 1 key per day (not unlimited, cheapskates). You can buy 25 keys for like 15 bux. wtf. Everything is overpriced. EVERYTHING. This, I think, is what absolutely killed this game. Killed dead. I hate it. Whatever jerk wad thought this was a good idea should've been fired, or downgraded to janitor, or something horrible, because their greed killed this game.
The story is what brings me back every now and then. It's like X-Files meets Zombies meets Aliens meets Stargate. It's dark, it's horror, it's gruesome, it's amazing.
You can still download the original and play as well at least, which I do sometimes (usually), since I have all my stuff over there (I think).
The story line for the original is amazing. I loved it. Starts with some zombie infestations and moves into supernatural stuff, and it's just a ton of fun, even if it looks goofy af. The quests were story driven, with some mystery/investigation type quests that have no guidance, just a little bit of info and a need for lore understanding to sniff it out (google also exists if you need help, naturally). But if you wanted to do the research yourself, you could do it, and it was brilliant.
There's some creepy story in there, stuff that gives the creepypasta feels with hints of backroom (before backrooms) and bizarreness.
The story has changed in places, cutting some and adding others, so there's some plot holes now as a result.
I will still recommend the game, because I think it's worth a play through, and the last time I played, there were still a number of people actually playing (I don't think the original still shows up in steam stats).
What I would love to see, now that they've got an income again from the Dune series, is a remake of THE ORIGINAL (maybe even Legends), with new graphics interface and better character models, etc. I think it would fly if they actually put some love into it. There's good money hidden here, they're just letting it rot, and that's gd heartbreaking.
Hell, I'd love to see them just resume work on the game, kill the p2w elements and bring the stupid price jacking down to nickle and diming (especially in this economy jfc). Even a small team doing little fixes and updating, I think they could breathe life back into it and bring back the fun of The Secret World.
