Even Conan, way back when, was fun to a degree. Funcom comes out with some really novel idea's, but they never seem to perfect the landing so it misses the mark for the "masses." I didnt really get into AO, but Secret World I took up to max level on launch. I just remember hating the "normal clothes" look that my character had all the fucking time. You mean to tell me Im fighting off the spawns of fucking Cthulu wearing a fucking Tshirt? okay... - Your character should have auto-swapped to actual gear in combat zones and went back to regular clothes when in neutral cities. Sort of like Vanguard did with Diplomacy. Which fuck, if they had that AND Vanguards Diplomacy in? People would have ate that game up, despite the bugs and the constant google searches to complete quests.
That's why you had your different saved outfits or whatever for your secret world character. If you're running around you could rock your trench coat and cowboy hat, but then get into a dungeon and slap on your armor. I know it's kind of goofy but I don't think any of the clothes actually did anything in the game if I remember, it was just all stylizing your character.
I know at one point you were able to earn the PVP armor sets and able to wear them outside of PVP by getting rep. I had the Templar heavy armor, and playing pretty much a tank I would always go in dungeons and tossing that on. It was surprising the number of people that actually really took time to sort of curate their character.
Fuck that game was so much fun, Fusang Valley was some great PVP. Almost like a dark age of Camelot war zone. Even with the three factions you could sit and talk to most of the other players and the community was very friendly. Easy to find groups to complete question do dungeons despite being from a different faction. It seemed like the evening PVP stuff was just fun competitive matches. I don't remember what server I was on, but especially on the weekends, the wars and would fire up and everybody kind of got used to who you were battling, and things would get pretty hectic with that three-sided capture the flag mechanic. It was a blast.
I do agree that Ubisoft and specifically Ragnar Tornquist is always thinking outside the box and that's why his games are typically amazing, but I guess when it comes to the MMO scene it's all of the other people that end up maybe dragging it down. AOC was a pretty damn fun game for a while, too.
Anyways I still think the secret world it's still probably my favorite MMO ever. There was just nothing like it on the market, and the skill system was brilliant. It's such a shame that they fucked it up with the free to play relaunch or whatever. I tried it and it was just a night and day difference, I'm not in a good way.