Throne and Liberty (Formerly Project TL)

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,712
1,858
What I've been saying for months and I've never even played the game. I think it's a little worse than "OK", "barely functional" might be more accurate. One month after Korean launch they merged the 18 servers down to 7.

"During its investor call, however, NCsoft admitted that the game had underperformed with the Korean audience and that it was hoping Amazon’s global launch – still slated for 2024 – would revive its prospects (it was hard not to read that as NCsoft implying that westerners would buy what Koreans snubbed)."

Clear cash grab. Anyone who gives any money to AGS for this shit is a fucking moron. This game's pop is going to peak and crater so fast it's going to give Lost Ark and New World vertigo. But, hey, at least it will give AGS the hat trick.

Well said, though I don't think it's *bad*, or perhaps they just fixed all the crap between Korean launch and US launch?

It's just "blah". A few neat ideas, fairly nice graphics, standard things you expect to find in a game or MMO, but nothing that makes it stand out. This is a clear example of someone banking on graphics and gimmicks thinking it will make a good game and it proving incorrect.

I still plan on playing a bit more in the closed beta since it is free, so I'll provide another update after maybe 10-20 hours of gameplay and see if my thoughts change.
 
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Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
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The monetization is going to be a sticking point for people at the end game. I hate this crap in all the games. This game is average at best and feels very generic. The default keybinds are pretty bad too. I’ll be passing on this game.
 
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Raes

Vyemm Raider
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Well said, though I don't think it's *bad*, or perhaps they just fixed all the crap between Korean launch and US launch?

It's just "blah". A few neat ideas, fairly nice graphics, standard things you expect to find in a game or MMO, but nothing that makes it stand out. This is a clear example of someone banking on graphics and gimmicks thinking it will make a good game and it proving incorrect.

I still plan on playing a bit more in the closed beta since it is free, so I'll provide another update after maybe 10-20 hours of gameplay and see if my thoughts change.

It's like Flip says above, and I've mentioned several times, the game is so fucking generic. If it was generic and did all the generic shit perfectly it might be considered "OK" or "average" or maybe (MAYBE) squeak out a "good", but it doesn't. And even if it did, it would still fail hard, just might take an extra month. History has proven this time and again.

Scrapping the game you put years into (that actually DID look good) and shoehorning in a fucking shitty mobile game and trying to make it a AAA MMO is FUCKING STUPID. But, it's NCSoft, so that's like saying water is wet.
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
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Some bucks for something new. If it sucks I can still have some fun

You can have the same exact amount of "fun" for free. Spending a single fucking penny in this game's cash shop is just begging for more of the same shit.
 
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Brahma

Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
12,489
45,438
Well there certainly are quite a few peeps playing...

aaa.jpg
 

Chersk

Trakanon Raider
1,592
1,416
I won't turn this in to a back and forth FFXIV debate, but I was not referencing combat specifically with my comment about FFXIV. I was trying to reference what people used to call "polish" back when WoW was new and used as the gold standard comparing new MMO's.

It's the small things like how smoothly the characters moves, how "synced" pressing something is to it happening on screen, how fluid camera angles and movement are, etc.
Okay fair enough
 

Brahma

Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
12,489
45,438
One thing...The voiceovers/narration are damn good.
 
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Raes

Vyemm Raider
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Well there certainly are quite a few peeps playing...

View attachment 524354

Of course there are, and I'm sure there will be a shitload at launch...for a few weeks. If friggin Quinfall had a weekend beta you'd see the same shit. We all know there are millions of players starving for a new mmo.

1712885139541.png

1712885165869.png
 
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Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
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312
Update: This game's controller support is pretty awesome and makes combat feel way less clunky. Enjoying myself finally.

Population probably wont drop off because of PS and Xbox players sharing servers with PC. They only have a few MMOs and I can see them playing this game. Its still generic but it runs and looks good.
 
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Raes

Vyemm Raider
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So I got into the beta yesterday and tried it out for myself to see if the game had any redeeming qualities.

Pros:

The graphics/animations, sound, music and cutscenes are all decent, but that's standard for Korean games.
I really liked the seamless transition from character creation to the tutorial.
Teleporting (recall/waypoints) is done well.

Cons:

Combat - Boring. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel very engaging to me. It's kinda like the combat designers from the NWN mmo and the area devs from FF14 (launch) got together and had a retarded baby.

World - Static and lifeless. Lore seems pretty bare other than "Big bad wants to take power from chosen ones" trope.

Travel forms - Useless. Base run speed is slowed down to make the travel form feel faster, which still isn't very fast. Bird form is just a glide and barely seems necessary for anything but avoiding fall damage. Swim form, same as land form. Increase character run/swim speed and give us a glider, same effect. The only point I can see for adding this was that they were too lazy to do mounts and they can sell skins. BDO came out ten years ago and did mounts perfectly (animation and speed) and no other game has come close. Why? It ain't fucking rocket science.

Grappling hook - Lame. Can only hook where they let you and only seems to exist because they were too lazy to implement climbing. Traversing elevated terrain is clunky as fuck.

Exp loss on death - LOL?

Stellarite - Terrible. A stackable/toggleable consumable that boosts damage by 15%. Lineage 2 had this also, it was stupid then and it's stupid now. Any time you don't use it you effectively are fighting with a permanent debuff.

Stat points- You can think this allows for more build diversity but all it really does is allow them to sell stat resets in the cash shop. Same reason they have exp loss.

Leveling - Needing skill books (in addition to skill points) to level up skills is just a bottleneck that doesn't need to be there. Side quests are fairly standard, as in boring. Questing areas seem way larger than they need to be. Always spend more time running around or listening to NPCs use too many words to tell you what they want than actually fighting. Mobs only seem to drop crafting ingredients (rarely). I guess real loot is dungeons only? Haven't run any yet.

Crafting - The game has crafting.

UI stuff- Only 3 presets for skills is kind of annoying. It would be better to let us have 2 (toggleable) presets per weapon that apply automatically when that weapon is equipped. Having to click to like half a dozen different pages to get various shitty achievement rewards is fucking dumb, but seems to be pretty standard for asian games these days. Not only could they just have them be drops or quest rewards, but if you're going to have this shit at least put them in one place for fucks sake. Small gripe, but storage isn't shared between characters and you can't mail items or gold (which also isn't shared for whatever dumb reason) to your alt. Having to go to an NPC to craft instead of just doing it in your UI is unnecessary, except I guess to get you to go to town more often?

Overall, this game feels like how an LLM would design an MMO. It has the shape of one, without the substance. There's just no connective tissue there. In my opinion, publishing this is a mistake for AGS, just adding to their reputation for underwhelming games. There are other MMOs still running that are 10+ years old and are still exponentially better than this shitty but pretty, generic waste of time.
 
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Voldeth

Trakanon Raider
1,208
588
So I got into the beta yesterday and tried it out for myself to see if the game had any redeeming qualities.

Pros:

The graphics/animations, sound, music and cutscenes are all decent, but that's standard for Korean games.
I really liked the seamless transition from character creation to the tutorial.
Teleporting (recall/waypoints) is done well.

Cons:

Combat - Boring. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel very engaging to me. It's kinda like the combat designers from the NWN mmo and the area devs from FF14 (launch) got together and had a retarded baby.

World - Static and lifeless. Lore seems pretty bare other than "Big bad wants to take power from chosen ones" trope.

Travel forms - Useless. Base run speed is slowed down to make the travel form feel faster, which still isn't very fast. Bird form is just a glide and barely seems necessary for anything but avoiding fall damage. Swim form, same as land form. Increase character run/swim speed and give us a glider, same effect. The only point I can see for adding this was that they were too lazy to do mounts and they can sell skins. BDO came out ten years ago and did mounts perfectly (animation and speed) and no other game has come close. Why? It ain't fucking rocket science.

Grappling hook - Lame. Can only hook where they let you and only seems to exist because they were too lazy to implement climbing. Traversing elevated terrain is clunky as fuck.

Exp loss on death - LOL?

Stellarite - Terrible. A stackable/toggleable consumable that boosts damage by 15%. Lineage 2 had this also, it was stupid then and it's stupid now. Any time you don't use it you effectively are fighting with a permanent debuff.

Stat points- You can think this allows for more build diversity but all it really does is allow them to sell stat resets in the cash shop. Same reason they have exp loss.

Leveling - Needing skill books (in addition to skill points) to level up skills is just a bottleneck that doesn't need to be there. Side quests are fairly standard, as in boring. Questing areas seem way larger than they need to be. Always spend more time running around or listening to NPCs use too many words to tell you what they want than actually fighting. Mobs only seem to drop crafting ingredients (rarely). I guess real loot is dungeons only? Haven't run any yet.

Crafting - The game has crafting.

UI stuff- Only 3 presets for skills is kind of annoying. It would be better to let us have 2 (toggleable) presets per weapon that apply automatically when that weapon is equipped. Having to click to like half a dozen different pages to get various shitty achievement rewards is fucking dumb, but seems to be pretty standard for asian games these days. Not only could they just have them be drops or quest rewards, but if you're going to have this shit at least put them in one place for fucks sake. Small gripe, but storage isn't shared between characters and you can't mail items or gold (which also isn't shared for whatever dumb reason) to your alt. Having to go to an NPC to craft instead of just doing it in your UI is unnecessary, except I guess to get you to go to town more often?

Overall, this game feels like how an LLM would design an MMO. It has the shape of one, without the substance. There's just no connective tissue there. In my opinion, publishing this is a mistake for AGS, just adding to their reputation for underwhelming games. There are other MMOs still running that are 10+ years old and are still exponentially better than this shitty but pretty, generic waste of time.

I played this for a few days at KR release and this is a pretty fair review. It's clear that the development hell and multiple changes resulted in a completely bland (albeit beautiful) game. This game doesn't have much hope in NA and the drop off after a month will be massive. I really wish they would have stuck to the original vision but alas!
 
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Sylas

<Gold Donor>
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Combat - Boring. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel very engaging to me. It's kinda like the combat designers from the NWN mmo and the area devs from FF14 (launch) got together and had a retarded baby.
Hrm different strokes for different folks for sure but I am confused here. Do you mean the Neverwinter MMO? ie the greatest MMO combat ever?

Also while I wasn't a huge fan on FF14 the world design ("area devs?") wasn't exactly a bad thing.

Sorry just having trouble understanding what you mean. I had no interest in this game once it came out how bland it was but I went ahead and signed up for the closed beta based solely on your "con" review, on the off chance that its combat is even remotely close to Neverwinter lol
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
3,264
2,719
Hrm different strokes for different folks for sure but I am confused here. Do you mean the Neverwinter MMO? ie the greatest MMO combat ever?

Also while I wasn't a huge fan on FF14 the world design ("area devs?") wasn't exactly a bad thing.

Sorry just having trouble understanding what you mean. I had no interest in this game once it came out how bland it was but I went ahead and signed up for the closed beta based solely on your "con" review, on the off chance that its combat is even remotely close to Neverwinter lol

It's just my opinion, but I didn't like NWN combat. I can't really explain what's wrong with T&L combat, something is just off.

I did specify FF14 "launch", as in the version of the game they had to revamp and rerelease as Reborn. If you don't remember, the zones had a lot of copy/pasting of the same elements, stuff like that.

A lot of my cons are pretty minor, but when you add them all up, plus the few major ones, and then there's the fact that there's zero good things to counterbalance them. Usually an MMO will at least have ONE thing that gets people interested (like LA's combat), this game just doesn't. I'd literally rather play Minesweeper.
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
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Wasn’t the original pretty much just Lost Ark?

I posted the launch trailer for the original version a couple pages back. The only real similarity was that it was isometric. What we were shown looked way better than Lost Ark, in my opinion. It just boggles the mind that they would decide to scrap that and release this crap instead.
 

Sylas

<Gold Donor>
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Ahh true I don't remember FF14 launch because it was a hotmess. I only started when the did a realm reborn and it was still shit as far as the game goes but the world didn't seem so bad..

I cannot relate to your experience with Neverwinter, especially about combat feeling "off". That game had a ton of faults, ultra predatory cash shop /loot boxes mostly as well as buggy as fuck dungeon geometry, but combat was never one of its issues, it's literally the only thing they did right, every aspect of it in fact.
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
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That game had a ton of faults, ultra predatory cash shop /loot boxes mostly as well as buggy as fuck dungeon geometry, but combat was never one of its issues, it's literally the only thing they did right, every aspect of it in fact.

the dude your opinion GIF