#we have scraped the dlc of its lore

[galakaz]

COUNT YA DAYS YOU LANKY BASTARD YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR EQUIPMENT AWAY FROM ME FOREVER

[cecelianonymous22]

Okay i had to talk about this

So

Final fest just got announced a few hours ago

Squid sisters and oth look fire, more pearlina, new amiibos, the setting looks really cool and i like the visual of your inkfish being covered in ink splotches

However

The Splatfest theme has me concerned

Past vs present vs future

Now obviously present isn't going to win so its essentially just past vs future

Why is this concerning to me?

Im big into lore alright, i know almost every piece of lore (except about the bands), that kind of thing

I think no matter which side wins, I feel like its going to be really regressive going into the next game. For past, quite literally. it would probably be a load of retconning like Alterna was. But for future, i also feel like it would 1) mess with some sort of continuity or 2) just be really poorly executed

Which ties into another reason why im nervous about this last fest: the Splatoon devs most likely have in mind what side they want to win, and if that team doesn't win, we'll end up with a weird half-in half-out game like Splatoon 3

Let me explain

Chaos vs Order was HUGE

It was a big deal for a lot of different reasons, but everyone knew it would decide the fate of the next game.

I firmly believe that the Splatoon team wanted Order to win. Genuinely. Possibly they expected Order to win. So when Chaos won, they had to scrape together concepts and make the next game

Which leads Splatoon 3 to having (in my opinion) an uninspired main hub (whose chaos elements are rarely explored) and uninteresting idols (who i love but they feel so shallow to me compared to the other idols)

I think it's likely Alterna was meant to be the order-oriented story mode. Because if you remove the tutorial area, there's nothing "chaotic" about 3's campaign. The pristine, high-tech stages complete with an AI main character all scream Order.

Dont get me wrong, I think it's narratively fitting that Mr Grizz, the only one of three neutral parties in chaos vs order, is the antagonist of the most thematically ambiguous campaign.

But to have an entire order-esc campaign AND TO HAVE SIDE ORDER (which i could go on another probably controversial rant about) feels kind of redundant, and i to this day am upset that we didn't see more chaos elements beyond the hub, idols, and ig you could count the salmon run plotline? Idk man

Anyway, what im saying is im worried a potential Splatoon 4 would have the same sort theme confusion, where we wouldn't be able to just explore the aspect of the team that won and then maybe wait for DLC—we'd have a weird blend of the two that try telling their stories at the same time and end end up being ultimately underwhelming.

And lemme just say, this isnt hate, these are scattered thoughts ive been marinating on for a while because i love the Splatoon franchise. Its one of my special interests and ive been playing since the original. But theres so much i just straight up dont like about Splatoon 3 that im worried will continue in a sequel

I dont want to spark controversy, just constructive conversation. Be aware that it is 3 AM at the time of me writing all of this and its completely a train of thought type thing. I can get my thoughts together in the morning if anyone wants but yeah, im just worried

[cursed-blade-gf]

P5R Personal Persona Top 20

Told you I’d do this. I love the Persona designs in this game and that’s outside of the fact of me being a massive mythology, literature, and occult nerd. All of these are gonna be based on their aesthetic design, their place in the compendium, and their skillset and viability. I’m also basing viability primarily on the abilities it picks up through leveling, not through items or fusions. There may be standouts, but there are very, very few exceptions. For clarification, I also limit myself to using only personas whose base level is lower or matches my own until roughly late game on NG+, hence the placements.

Alice-We love her. She’s hella fun and has that horror, unassuming Annabelle doll type vibe (plus Alice in Wonderland—noice). She comes very close to scraping the ceiling, but I give her a pass because not only does she have a glaring weakness in the form of bless damage, but her physical stats and endurance aren’t great compared to the rest of the options that start above base level 80, which is also bad because she is a very late game option. Why I love her though is because she has an amazing Magic stat and she has a unique instakill button for farming through lower tier encounters that can chunk HP and SP on more difficult no item runs where I’m trying to conserve resources.

Nekomata-Catgirl. Fairly obvious, but still my early game go to, because she’s very adaptable. Also, my play style sits in the support/swing area that Morgana occupies if you carry him (which I don’t), so she makes for a good replacement so I don’t have to use him. Plus she represents a Yōkai and Japanese myth has always been a pretty niche interest of mine.

Yoshitsune-I know. I’ve always been very clearly anti-meta and this dude just happened to hit number 3. Hypocrisy. I know. But hear me out. Japanese history and legend is cool as hell. Plus, there is something SO satisfying to stack him with Charge, Zaou-Gongen’s trait, and all kinds of buffs to just devour health bars. I mean 750 per hit on Maruki is truly disgusting and he hits for 8 of those. I won’t use him regularly, but still a personal favorite.

Ananta-A very niche pick, I’m sure, but a very solid mid-to-late-game all-around carry with the abilities it picks up. Plus Nuke is a pretty solid choice. Being that Ananta is a cosmic serpent in Hinduism and has pretty interesting lore plus a kick ass design? He’s very cool.

Angel-My early game carry. Bless, early game is fairly uncontested and she comes with support moves as well. I also am a victim of religious trauma from Christianity, so using Abrahamic rooted characters is cathartic in its own way. Plus, I mean, girls.

Nebiros-Late game pick that’s just very fun. She specializes in Brainwash and turning your enemies against each other. Plus she picks up some pretty neat abilities. Probably could be higher, but bosses resist status effects. Another Abrahamic deep lore entity. High general and necromancer of Lucifer’s armies.

Quetzalcoatl-We love Wing Snake here. My Nekomata replacement late game. Windy boy here pulls his weight DEEP into late game and boasts some pretty butch stats for where he sits.

Yaksini-Early to mid game Kali. Solid for physical abilities and has the bonus of inciting rage. A Hindu goddess of fertility is also kind of like a mood for carrying two swords.

Okinunushi-Discount Yoshitsune, but can definitely still hold her own. She gets me Myriad Slashes earlier than I really should get it. And the whole samurai/ronin vibe is so nice in this game.

Lilim-My ice chick. I usually use Yusuke anyways, but Yusuke is a very good physical damage option and I don’t always want to waste his turn using ice moves, so Lilim helps cover that.

Baphomet-The late game weakness hound (or goat). Covers a wide scale of magic and abilities plus a few solid strengths. Also, I’m a fiend for the occult vibe and Baphomet serves that in spades.

Asterius-There will be a few DLC personas on here, but trust me, I know how broken they are. Asterius, besides been the Greek manifestation of the Minotaur, has a very unique utility where his damage goes up as your health goes down, incentivizing you to take damage, which I think is super cool. That and his design is S tier.

Mara-I will never use him for several reasons, mainly because I have dignity, but his design is truly peak. Two words: Dick Chariot.

Hastur-Probably the latest in the game I ever go because when you hit Maruki, you’re already pretty squared away, but Abyssal Eye is too cool of an attack to miss out on. Plus he adds a bunch of solid resistances and options to your play style. And while I’m not at all a fan of Lovecraft in any way, shape, or form, the Cosmic Horror genre has so much cool stuff.

The Riders (Four Horsemen)-I’m pretty sure I have at least two of these each run through. They build differently, but each one gets a solid mix of status and attacks and they make for good pick ups.

Kaguya-The chief reason I think DLC’s are broken as hell. Izanagi-no-Okami is bad, but you get this bitch at level 20. This, by itself, can bail you out of so many jams it’s insane, which is why I don’t use her. As a level 20, she also gets Repel Phys AND Mediarama AND Shining Arrows. All early in the game. Nasty, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t add her because she’s saved my butt so many times.

Pisaca-My Despair troll and a very fun midgame option that can status effect your enemies to victory. Plus, horroresque vibe on this one is top tier.

Power-Yes, there is a Persona. Named. Power. She isn’t in my inventory for long, but she practically carries when she is. Her defense is great plus she comes with some solid hybrid damage/status moves.

Daisoujou-Truly, the protector. Great for support, but matches most heavy-hitters with damage. Basically, Alice but midgame and bless instead of curse and he comes with more healing instead of assault moves.

Arsène/Raoul-Literally, your first persona and I wish you kept him longer. Raoul is the late game variant and is basically what Arsène would be if you had him the whole time. He also gets a blanket sleep that can set up SO many technical smacks.

[lightbringer-ultimate]

Shad Plays Future Redeemed: 📻

Warning a big chunk of this has me theory crafting.

OKAY

What

WHY

How

UM

Radio with Vector branding? Same Vector that made KOS-MOS in Xenosaga?

The radio mentions Project Exodus and mentions an Arc Ship called Icarus, which fits the naming convention of Xenoblade X.

But also name drops DIMITRI? XENOSAGA AGAIN?

Look Na'el and Matthew's Heart to Heart is probably really wholesome and sweet but YEAH NO I WAS LOOKING AT THE SUBTITLES ABOVE.

Some people in the Xenoblade netspace claim that the Xenoblade X nods here are like...just nods and aren't really confirming anything while the Saga stuff should be important.

Look. That's a bias, plus I really think something more deep is going on here. Something that's kinda big? Takahashi is definitely cooking a buffet for us.

What I mean here is, okay okay hear me out. Monolith might be getting the Xenosaga IP back? Namco hardly does anything special with it other than have Tales characters wear the corpse that the games have become.

The last major appearance any Xenosaga character has had was in Xenoblade 2. And then we get this.

We have lore from artbooks that already confirmed the possibility that Vector exists in Xenoblade given they're still responsible for KOS-MOS (And Tel-os too) and with it being in Alpha's memory space it retroactively explains things just like a lot of things.

I don't want to turn this gameplay summary into just a huge theory board but it's like...I GOTTA take a whack at this.

Yes X has aliens and Saga doesn't , big woop. Xenoblade already established alternative dimensions and the possible way to interact with them via things like the Conduit.

What if a Vector exists in a world where there IS sentience beyond Earth? It's possible! Keep in mind that KOS-MOS is canonical to Xenoblade 2, as she's in base game.

Future Redeemed established that all quests you do are canonical as is fighting every Unique Monster.

So Rex at some point woke KOS-MOS.

Its mentioned in the artbook that both battle androids were on the World Tree and fell to the clouds if my memory is correct.

The idea of core crystal technology wasn't nearly at the point it becomes once 2 starts, but given Vector exists...this version of of the company probably used core crystal tech in their designs. Not sure if Klaus believed in open source but like...KOS-MOS definitely knows what the World Tree really is.

Okay yeah I'm scraping just the surface of Xenosaga stuff but like, I feel under qualified to talk about it. Leave that to the diehards.

But X I feel perfectly qualified in.

We see a reformed world in the post credits scene with SOMETHING careening down to it. Saga fans will claim we're looking at somewhere important from their game, but X fans will say its Mira. Meaning what we see falling is either the White Whale...or a Saga Spoiler.

Keep in mind this is a Xenoblade game.

It's probably Mira and the White Whale. Which yes, would be conflicting since "WELL THEN WHY HAVE THE VECTOR STUFF AND MENTION DIMITRI AND ALL THAT?! THERE'S SPACE COLONIZATION. "

X had a lot of Saga blood for sure, but this seems to pretty much hint that something wacky is happening in greater Xenoblade lore.

Earth went BOOM in X, but Klaus destroyed it/split it in the trilogy. So that's the argument people make. How can the reformed world be Mira if earth died a different way in X?

I...I really don't have an answer other than it's possible that Mira has some strange way of pulling other universes peoples in to preserve life because it's core is Origin or something?

Look I'm stretching here I'll admit. But I'm just wondering if time and space warping caused something?

This DLC broke me, Matthew says his full name at the end confirming that the house titles are indeed Last Names and as far as I care, Ortiz is Shulk's and Rodes is Rex's since that's the last names their kids chose to use at least.

They fused into a huge mech. Alpha's second phase belongs in Bayonetta, N actually has pretty damn good writing with depths I didn't expect.

But I'm still not gonna calm down about that DAMN RADIO!

Edit: Okay so after giving more thought, I can see the Xenosaga connections more clearly, and yeah they're important. Namco did snag the copyright to Xenosaga a while back (the Fandom went nuts). And while I don't think the future connections will be as glaringly obvious as some might hope, I do see Namco popping in to allow references moving forward. I expect them to use X substitutes when needed if they can't agree to do __

X definitely is its own separate universe within the multiverse, but I would at least say that hypothetically some characters from X would exist in a Trilogy universe, just not in the same exact roles due to timeline wackiness. (No Elma though, she would break the No Xenoforms rule).

[rebelcourtesan]

I’ve Played . . .

I finally replayed this gorgeous gem on the PS4 Remaster edition and I had forgotten how wonderful this game was.  

SUMMARY:  A fungal infection that turns humans into the “Infected”, zombie like monsters that attack humans on sight and can infect others with a bite have taken over the world.  Most of humanity live in Quarantine Zones operated and maintained by what’s left of the US Military who run what’s left of America by martial law.  Fireflies, a group of rebels that oppose martial law are fighting to restore America to what it was.  All the while, groups of humans have become Hunters, bandits that prey on travels and raid colonies.

In the forefront of this world is Joel, a harden man still grieving his family, and his young charge, Ellie, a plucky young girl who know nothing of the world before.  Together, they will brave the many dangers as they cross a post-apocalyptic America.

WHAT I LOVE:  Everything.  Yes, that’s right, EVERYTHING!  From the animation, the gameplay, the characters, the world, the lore, the enemies, etc.  EVERY FRICKIN’ frame is just gorgeous.  I cannot gush over this game enough to show my love, so I’ll try to summarize it up.

The post-apocalypse never looked so beautiful.  The city streets are fraught with abandoned cars, skeletal bodies with their looted luggage around them, peeling advertisements about upcoming movies that never made it to cinema, and closed and looted stores.  And all of this is covered with grass and weeds as nature slowly takes back its land over the twenty years the cities have been abandoned.  Every building and every house has a story to tell.  One has had been a bachelor pad with music posters on the wall, a dart board, and even a cocktail bar in the back.  Joel and Ellie explored an old office building where you still see family photos and desk and business plans still written in market on white boards.  The world as we knew had just stopped in the middle of people’s lives with a finality that grows heavy as you continue your journey.

The game play is never repetitive nor cumbersome.  Everytime I heard the click of a “clicker’, (another name for a type of infected) my heart stops and I check Joel’s gear for the coming fight.  You can stealth your way around enemies, but sometimes you don’t get that option and must fight your way through via guns, melee weapons, and craftable items such as can bombs, molotov cocktails, smokebomb, shivs, and medikits to restore health.  Guns can be upgraded to carry more ammo, reduce recoil, and fire rate.  

The animation was done with amazing motion capture where you can read the myriad of emotions that cross Joel and Ellie’s face as they both experience, joy, fear, and sadness.  I don’t want to talk too much about the story because I don’t want to give away any spoilers to anyone who has yet to play The Last of Us.  (what are you doing!?  Do yourself a favor and go play this game RIGHT NOW!!!)  You watch Joel and Ellie bond over their journey.  Joel, a tight lipped, no nonsense man who’s done questionable things in the past to survive is softened by Ellie’s innocence that slowly erodes with every close scrape they endure.  

Now I come to the Gem of this game.  Ellie. 

Ellie is a fourteen year old girl born after the world went to hell.  Knowing nothing of what life was before the Infected, she often looks at the ruins and asks Joel about what the world was like.  Ice cream trucks, going to University, and the carefree nature of the world past is strange and amazing for her.  She begins our story has a young teenager wanting to prove herself and we watch her mature throughout her journey with Joel.  She goes from a girl hiding as Joel takes on the baddies and becomes a survivor in her own right, but that comes at a cost.

Ellie’s story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.  Joel may be the player character, but Ellie is the lead character in this tale.  And I am thrilled to see it continue with her in Part 2 which cannot get her soon enough.

WHAT I HATE:  Isn’t it obvious?  Nothing.  There is nothing about this game I dislike other than it has an ending.  Fortunately, there is the DLC Left Behind which is an Ellie central side story that explores her past and gives me a few hours with The Last of Us.  

I’m sure that if you wanted to nitpick, there might be some flaws somewhere in this game that I’ve missed or went unnoticed, but they are very hard to see under the glow of great story telling, gameplay, and animation.           

[idlemusingsofalex-blog]

Fallout 4, A game critique

An amusing critique of Fallout 4 and Bethesda as a whole, as written for entertainment purposes, a foray into nostalgia and because of a college deadline that almost killed me. 

Fallout 4 is a Lie, and this is why you should be mad.

Fallout 4, the acclaimed 2016 release of Bethesda studios, was a popular game upon its release, selling 12 million units on its first launch day.  But don’t let the numbers mislead you, Fallout 4 is intrinsically a cheap lie to consumers, players and the franchise itself.

Let’s start at the beginning. Fallout, the core game, classifies itself as an Adventure RPG and harkens back to the days of tabletop RPG’s like Dungeons and Dragons, specifically a variant known as G.U. R.P.S,  and is a creative DOS adventure created by Interplay and Black Isle Studios in which you can use many skills to determine your own path through the Wasteland. Fallout 2 follows much the same mechanic, though set about two decades after the first game.  Around the time of development for a third game from Interplay, the cancelled Project : Van Buren, Interplay went bankrupt due to bad business practice, and sold all rights of the game franchise to what is now Bethesda Studios. Years passed until, what can only be described as Bethesda’s game devs sitting at a table thinking “we can’t make another goddamn Elder Scrolls game, what do we do?”. They get an intern to dig through what I hope is the proverbial dumpster of rights deals Bethesda had made and found the small gem of Fallout.

From this, we can see Fallout 3, a failure in its own right, much less for the franchise, emerge. Amidst the cries of praise from paid off reviewers (this was when this was legal, and usually not frowned upon), you could hear the dissent of fans watching their loved franchise devolve into a hellspawn of first person shooter and RPG, with callous writing and boring plotlines at best (don’t even begin to talk about the issues with core game mechanics either, because any reviewer worth their salt would probably hit you).

But, somehow, possibly from the hype surrounding the astoundingly good trailers which were accelerated well beyond what normal consoles and machines could handle at the time, they made enough money from that steaming garbage dump to scrape together a “sequel”, and I say sequel because Fallout 3 changes so much of the 20 years of established lore that calling it a sequel to even Fallout in general is a reach.  With its overpriced at release DLC, not to mention the base game itself, littered with pre order “exclusives” and being such a buggy mess on certain platforms that it was rendered unplayable, Fallout 3 set the low standards that Bethesda continues to follow, even to this day.

Now of course, the engine itself is more or less sound. It is, of course an updated form of the Skyrim engine, known as the CREATION Engine, and its physics are about what you’d expect from a Bethesda game. Not unplayable but buggy nonetheless, events not triggering, textures incorrectly loading, entire system crash when all you did was move three inches to the left. Truly, a game engine couldn't be that hard for a major company to nail down. But oh, Bethesda is so synonymous with game engine failure that the internet has coined it’s own saying, the Bethesda Bug, in which a bug or glitch in a game is so bad that a player is unable to tell whether the game was bugged, or whether  developers simply hadn’t implemented certain parts of the storyline.

Now, this wouldn't be such an issue, you’d think, right? And in truth it wouldn't.

If they bothered to patched the game after releases.  

We’ll cover that further on.

It’s particularly telling, of course when both of the most downloaded modifications for your third and fourth installments to a series is an alternative start ability to the game, which allows you to completely bypass the pretty much set in stone character “creation” introduction, which basically sets your entire character's backstory (something that in its own self destroys the player control aspect). When your customers have to resort to MODIFYING THE CORE GAME, and I don't mean implementing a few graphics fixes, which they do anyway because Bethesda has a wonderful knack of never patching bugs in their games ever, and genuinely leaving it up to their fanbases -who already paid up to £60 for a completed game-, but instead scripting and voicing full alternatives to the main storyline and plot hook to turn the game into a semblance of an RPG, you’ve failed to create a game worth playing. This is made much more insulting when your main mantra is “It’s all about player choice”.

In regards to that choice, we are offered very, very little when it comes to the overall storyline and plot. The first major sin of poor writing is almost blase, and that is the game insists on piling exposition on you as soon as you start it up, with a narrated mini movie explaining the events leading up to the game’s events. To be fair, this is a staple in Fallout games, and it’s namely the way every previous fallout game has indeed started. Except, in those games, they changed depending on the title, none went into excruciating detail of the world, namely gave a short introduction to the world as it is, and where you begin, allowing the player to begin building an immersive character will some  

The Fallout 4 opening does none of this. It instead asserts that you, the player, has the backstory of being a male veteran of the war that results in the Apocalypse, taking leave incidentally before the bombs fall to spent time with his wife and newborn child.

I’d like to remind you this is supposed to be a Role Playing Game.

In only 5 minutes, the game has locked you out from your own character, telling you that this is not an RPG, this is a shooter with poor story hooks and a half baked plot. The game then moves on to the character creation, arbitrary, allowing you to set how you want your character to look, name them and set traits and-

Oh wait, that's right.

There are no traits. No skills either. Something that has remained at the very forefront of Fallout’s past lauded character creation. No, now everything is determined by basic points in each S.P.E.C.I.A.L Category, that is Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. These set points determined how a character interacted with the world around them, but also imparted certain inborn traits such as higher speech skills, barter, gunmanship and so on. With Fallout 4, this is dumbed down to practical stupidity, and unfortunately renders the nuanced creation destroyed, something that has been a mainstay and in fact a reason the franchise became popular in the first place

But, I digress, while the world of Fallout 4 (and it’s interlinking stories tying into Fallout 3) is made well, saying it is a fallout game is practically unsubstantiated. It feels like a sham, a game made without the franchise’s core aspects, a skin thrown onto a generic game to appeal to nostalgic gamers. The storylines lack the genuine emotional value and investment players can input, and tells a story, rather than letting experienced players create their own, something that has been a major point to the success of previous titles. Fallout 1 and 2 had such fantastic writing that it seemed almost natural, plot movement wasn’t nearly as dependent on long exposition or explanation in game, it simply flowed because those working on it did not know whether it would sell well, all they knew was that they wanted to make a finely crafted game, regardless of units sold. Todd Howard, the head of development in those days, had essentially turned to his investors and said “Give me all this money to gamble on a game that we’ve been working on for months” and, to quote himself, “It just worked.” Namely, this is a wonderful example of the Zeitgeist of Bethesda in those times, during which quality games were produced and placed the developer into the forefront of video game development. While people cannot deny they have made some definitive games of a generation, a good example being Morrowind. Bethesda used to set the standard, be the one entrepreneurs would aspire to be, to work for, to succeed.  

Nowadays, Bethesda doesn't need investors, it has its own budget, it’s own productions, and as a result have found that if they continue to vaguely lie to their players, take out content and resell it, build up a hype train so wild they crash their own website on launch day, then  they can continue to beat that dead horse, so long as it keeps spitting out money.

[grimmhelm]

TSW.L Breakdown/Slight Rantyness -ye be warned :)

First of all I am NOT in the beta, though I hope to get in just to see if any of this is better than it currently sounds.

So I have played TSW on and off since launch -I was in the beta, this is a game that I want to see flourish and be the best it can be.

Recently however they have announced the ‘Relaunch’ of The Secret World, which there calling TSW Legends.

-Cool more eyes on the game, more people to play with, that’s exactly what the community wants and needs to keep the game alive and updated for years to come and frankly still is.

However….

Nothing lasts forever as they say and with the coming of “Legends” a lot of stuff is shifting and changing, unfortunately from a lot of interviews I have scrounged and posts that people under the NDA shouldn't really be talking about but are in places (Reddit, TSW fansite forums under new account names, etc), it seems that this is not going to go well.

That said: THIS IS EARLY BETA. - also a bit of this is maybe a little out of date.

A ton of this can and will change before the launch of Legends, I just hope its for the better, ontop of that some of this is taken from forums and I can’t be 100% sure that some of the users aren't just string the pot and are not actually playing the game.

-we know 120 keys have already been sent out.

Because a lot of this is in the air i will mark it with stars.

Red: Confirmed though subject to change.

Blue: Confirmed -but there in the process of changing as i write this.

Yellow: Unconfirmed/Forum posted

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

My primary gripes:

1) Clothing: Does this set make my butt look big?

One of the things that made TSW interesting was being able to wear what you wanted, cloths had no bearing on your stats at all -pick a hat, a different shirt and a jacket, those jeans look good and some high heels! Good to go!

Not so much anymore, apparently it’s all set as ‘costumes’ now -sets that you have no customisation over at all…

This is the most likely to change, but if it does not there will be a flood of people leaving just because of that, many of us like our own unique looks that we have built over time from earning clothing through hard work or with money we have managed to scrounge up through our misadventures.

If it remains this way there will be a lot of people who simply wont play the game anymore, a ton of games took TSW lead on this system. -This also may already be outdated.

I have been informed that the Dressing room isn’t even in the Beta yet, So all this was bunk on forums.

2) The Ability wheel: Gone, it’s just gone.

In it’s place is pretty much an excel spreadsheet with abilities linked to weapons, they unlock as you gain enough points -oh what’s that want to change to a different weapon line. POOF, sorry your points you didn’t spend are gone, even if you jump back -guess you gotta grind them back out.

The ability wheel was another great feature but had a lot of the more childish members of the community up in arms because “it was too complicated” -it really was not, you pick a weapon you wanted to raise, you follow a set chain of abilities each a little more expensive but more powerful than the last, complete a certain set you unlock a ‘deck’ and its costume.

No more of that. (For now).

EDIT: This is apparently just a placeholder for what they actually have in store -the points vanishing is a bug that not everyone is experiencing.

3) Levels: Numbers!!!.

Before in TSW your level was an abstract concept, you had to judge for yourself when you was strong enough to take on an area and the creatures within.

Get your ass kicked -come back after doing some other stuff, did OK? Keep going, Kick ass yourself -maybe time to check that other corner of the map, in a fight with a tough foe who might be just a little stronger than you but you JUST manage to scrape by-nothing beats it.

As it was it was based on your ability choice and the gear level you had, the better stuff you had the better chance you had of pushing past an area.

Not so much now, There giving us a good old fashioned Levelling bar and a number next to our name.

Fuck. That.

I completely understand why, it’s easier for new players to come in and know how tough a bad-guy is compared to you, but the guess work added to The Secret World’s ambiance, despite your god-like powers your still a brittle human compared to the horrors that slip out of the darkness and into your waking nightmare, judging if you can actually handle something or not was part of the charm.

Nope, gone now, its level 23 your 18 better run.

4) Combat: DODGE!.

This maybe the only good thing I have heard? Maybe? That said I like the combat as it was.

Right click: Primary weapon attack, Left click: Secondary weapon attack, Dodge is now an action key instead of a direction double tap or a direction space bar, potions and mount are on an (currently) unmovable hotbar.

The abilities are all 1 to 8 as normal in MMO’s. Not the 6 button round up we have normally. I know those of us who played TSW before are going to get killed ALOT because of these changes, were not going to doge because our habit and instinct tells us to double tap, were going to forget to click to attack after we fire off abilities.

However this may turn out to be decent if it’s improving the feel of battle, though I will miss the combat they originally had.

5) Loot: Minor change. Maybe.

Apparently the items will no longer scatter the ground when you slay your foe, instead everyone in the party will get there own individual loot added directly to the inventory.

Don’t want to pick stuff up? Tough. Your friend got the weapon you was after and you got something you don’t even use? Tough, chances are there bound on pickup.

It used to be that items got left on the ground if you didn’t grab them, if you ran away a certain distance or didn't touch the items for 2 minuets, another play could pick them up -this was incredibly useful for helping lower geared friends in areas, letting them get a few extra resources to make weapons/gear/potions, but all that is apparently just a dream of the past now.

HOWEVER. This is only partially confirmed from a few interviews, it is unknown if items won’t drop as normal outside of parties.

6) Crafting: Gone is the template of old.

Apparently this is the largest change for us old TSW players, the crafting system has been scrapped.

It used to be you dragged certain materials such as metal or water or fire into a pattern on the crafting window -build a shotgun make a L longways with certain materials, a potion? Draw a bottle with the items.

Now it’s just a list like in WoW, or any other MMO these days.

Have the materials? Good, select how many wait a few seconds, off you go.

I know some players had trouble with remembering the combinations for items, but just give us an item window with the patterns on, don’t carve out the whole thing with a damn crowbar.

7) Story: The wheels on the bus go round and -OHGODITATETHEDRIVER.

The Main story for the factions remains almost untouched with the exception of some corrections in the lore and mechanical touch ups.

However.

Some of the side missions will be altered, some completely others just a tad.

Apparently some of the investigation missions -a unique mission type to TSW will be altered to combat ones since some players considered them a hassle or ‘too hard’ -these guys I want to lock in a TSW parking lot -if you play you know that’s a special kind of hell to be savoured!

Honestly if they remove the investigation missions, it will be a massive loss to the game and it’s unique play-style, having to figure out puzzles -logic based, history based, item based, etc. Was an amazing experience and sometimes required research and time to crack.

If even a few are gone it will make a lot of people turn there back on the game since they live for those missions.

Turns out this will mostly be tweaking, repairing some of the broken aspects and small click-boxes for some of the missions, a lot of this is fixes and moving onto improving.

8) Lifetime Subscriptions: Hahahahaha...haha...ha...*sobs*

Those of us who purchased the very extravagantly priced ‘Lifetime subscription’ and becoming Grandmasters in the game will apparently be getting the shaft.

Whilst we retain our Grandmaster status we will no longer receive monthly points to spend on the in-game store.

We will occasionally get subscription awards though not at the level we have been getting them the last year or so but mostly our lifetime subscription means that we just get the base future DLC for free.

Want the extra stuff? The clothing? Potions? Gotta pay cold hard cash.

Fortunately we keep our exp/currency/drop boosts, were gonna need them.

This I am ok with, they need to make money somehow now that there going this route with the game, but it’s still a difficult pill to swallow.

Oh and I made a point of saying DLC, not Expansion. If an expansion to TSW actually releases then you gotta pay for that too.

This is apparently undecided at this point.

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There is a lot more but I've already spent 2 hours putting this together, I would have included links but most of the forums are deleting whatever comes up when they see it.

However here is the main interview going around right now:

http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/31/the-daily-grind-are-you-excited-about-secret-world-legends-2/

http://massivelyop.com/2017/04/01/exclusive-interview-romain-amiel-on-secret-world-legends-story-monetization-membership-tokyo-and-more/

You can check out the regular places and try to catch the forum posts that aren't removed a few minuets after there posted, but that’s a hard thing to do -and as stated before, we can’t be sure the people posting are actually playing or stirring the pot of those who are getting wound up.

All that said here are people you CAN trust with TSW stuff:

@biomechanicaltomato​

@matovilka​

@councilofvenice​

@thehiveislive​

@existentialdents​

@fuckyeahtsw​

@tswshutterbees​

@pgirl1986​

(sorry if I missed anyone, this has been a ton of work XD )