The Secret World

[Tach Deneva]

More stuff revealed, and a new trailer featuring in-game footage.

http://www.thesecretworld.com

[Tach Deneva]

Some gameplay elements revealed:

Savage Coast Walkthrough

***

1st TWS Cinematic Trailer

2nd TSW Cinematic Trailer

3rd TSW Cinematic Trailer

[Softball]

The trailer video looks ALOT like the Left 4 Dead environment / atmosphere. Gonna read more about this, looks interesting.

[Tach Deneva]

Oh, I forgot to mention. There are three player factions in the game: The Dragon, The Templars, and the Illuminati. Each of the cinematic trailers features a member of one of these factions.

[Tach Deneva]

Release date announced: April 2012.

"We're also excited to announce that we will open our official beta registration on August 26th, on the first day of PAX. The beta registration will be integrated into a new, interactive social media campaign that will pit community members in each of the three secret societies against each other in the secret war."

Still a ways away.

[Tach Deneva]

"Durham, USA – February 21st, 2012 –Independent developer and publisher of online games, Funcom, today announced that the highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game ‘The Secret World’ will launch on June 19th, 2012. Originally slated for an April launch, Funcom has decided to invest more development time into the title in order to apply even more polish before launch."

http://www.funcom.com/news/the_secret_w ... ne_19_2012

[Softball]

Dag Nabbit!! No TIME!!

[Ghost]

Sorry, Tech I Wont be getting thid one. Still having way to much fun playing SWTOR.

[Tach Deneva]

Sorry, Tech I Wont be getting thid one. Still having way to much fun playing SWTOR.

No worries, Mr. Ghost. The Secret World isn't scheduled to be released until June 19th, so there's still all of March, April, May, and most of June for you to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.

[Tach Deneva]

Launch date pushed back to July 3rd!

I went ahead and did the pre-order on Amazon, which gets me a Loyal Hound Pet (looks like a Doberman) that will in some unspecified manner support me in combat (yay), an in-game item with XP boost (whee), early access to the game (woo), guaranteed access to special beta events (hootie hoo), head start to claim my character name (hoo wah), and pre-order exclusive in-game t-shirt (the peasants rejoice).

Evidently, other pre-order sources offer alternate pets. Pre-ordering from Funcom gets you a black Egyptian kitty. I think there's a wolf out there somewhere. Ah, here they are:

http://l3cdn.funcom.com/tsw/artworks/preorder_pets.png

Anyway. This should get me into the next beta weekend, which is this coming weekend. So we will see what we will see. Early access starts June 29th. Looks like they're gonna do waves, with earlier pre-orders getting in first.

Pretty much standard subscription options along with various 'upgrade' packs, and they are offering a lifetime deal.

[Softball]

Love the Doberman!! Lifetime subscription you say? *Ponders* I must find the time...*sigh*

Edit: Pre-ordered...Amazon...

[Tach Deneva]

Downloading the beta client.

[Softball]

Downloading the beta client.

Oh? Link? Instructions?

[Tach Deneva]

It took me a while to find it, but there should be a link to the beta client on your account page. It's a little over 29 gigs.

Here's the link as it appears on my account page:

https://register.funcom.com/account/cli ... product=12

***

Interesting how they've got the skills and stuff set up:

http://www.tentonhammer.com/tsw/guides/ ... lity-wheel

[Softball]

Got it, thanks! I'll start DLing the Beta.

[Tach Deneva]

Couple of interesting build threads from the TSW forums:

Weapon Synergy Quicklook

And

How to synergize ANY two weapons through "Bridge Passives"

I'm thinking I might try a Fists/Chaos tanky type...

[Tach Deneva]

So far, so good. Playing a Dragon using Chaos magic, running around Kingsmouth clobbering zombies.

[Tach Deneva]

So here's what I ended up running this weekend:

Chaos/Fists - this was my 'main' and I was trying to be very AoE/Tanky with it. There's a couple of Chaos AoE attacks available early on - one's a builder, the other a finisher - that were lots of fun when mass quantities of zombies would attack en masse. Did most of the Kingsmouth stuff and a good chunk of the Savage Coast missions with this one, mostly solo. This was the only one I didn't delete and reroll over the course of the weekend.

Blades/Ele - heh, well, I resisted trying to recreate the smoothie girl from the first TSW cinematic video, but blades is too much fun - and again lots of nice AoE attacks early on. I likes me some AoEs! Oddly enough, there was a particular Kingsmouth 'escort' mission that I was able to complete on the first try with my Chaos/Fists character that I never could complete with this one. Maybe I just got lucky. Or unlucky.

Pistols/Blood - started as Shotgun, rerolled as Pistols/Ele (and ran several missions with another Pistols/Ele player), then rerolled again as Pistols/Blood. Played this one last night until the '60 minutes until it's over!' announcement and it seemed to work quite well. Didn't necessarily have to delete and reroll - every character can eventually learn every weapon and ability and you can switch between them pretty much at will, so I could have just started building up /Blood, but I wanted to start from scratch and see how it went.



Random commentary, positive:

* Lots of fun missions with nice variety of mission types, not all just hack and slash. Brains! Use them!

* Environment and Atmosphere - just plain beautiful. Your characters start in Seoul, London, or New York depending on your character's faction. Then it's off - via a giant tree inside the earth - to a small coastal town in Maine where it's "Hi, I'm H.P. Lovecraft. Welcome to my nightmares."

* Good voice acting overall - I heard Tim Russ (Tuvok) and Bruce Abbot (Shras/Weyoun) in there - and the cutscenes were entertaining without getting in the way of the *game* (one of my problems with SWTOR). Didn't see any cutscenes I couldn't skip (looking at you, STO, grr).

Random commentary, negative:

* I never did quite grasp the crafting system. I was able to add glyphs to some items, but could never figure out how to make runes or weapons from the raw materials I found. If I'd taken the time to do a little research it would probably have become clear, but I was having too much fun to worry about it.

* For all the wonder and awe of the environment graphics, the character creator is somewhat disappointing. Not enough variety in faces and details. Lots of complaints in particular about female heads/faces, as in "They're all ugly!" There's no adjustment for height, weight, or anything else. Evidently they are adding more details as the betas progress, as there were more options in this third beta weekend than in the previous two, so there should be more to come. Maybe even... no hair!

* Not enough faction-specific content! Three factions that all share the same missions/storyline doesn't sit well with an altoholic like myself. However, I was told by several players that the devs have said there is more faction-specific material coming at launch, that for some reason wasn't available in the beta. Hope so. While I was exploring London last night (hunting for the yellow Lore thingees - must get them all!) I did find some clickable doors that weren't working (one even said something like 'requires mission') and lots of named NPCs that looked like they were there for more than just window dressing. So, we'll see.

Random commentary, neutral:

* Next weekend - PVP! I found some 'Fight Club' places in London and Seoul, and the P key opens up an array of available 'warzones', but until it all gets turned on next weekend, I dunno. I suspect my old PC will prevent me from participating effectively (see SWTOR).

* The game has a built-in web browser so if you find an abandoned lifeboat with a note explaining that there's treasure to be found at the following coordinates: 4 times the length of 'Safety Dance' by Men Without Hats by the length of 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey you can look up the running times of the songs without alt-tabbing. Not sure this is a good idea, though. I run Firefox with no-script, adblock, ghostery, etc. and am very picky with cookies. How does the in-game browser handle cookies and scripts? Um... yeah.



Anyway! Really like what I've seen so far and can't wait to play again next weekend.

[Tach Deneva]

Beta Weekend 4 is coming to a close (for me anyway!). Although this was the non-closed beta premiere of PVP I only got into one match - a capture the flag type thing with the three factions competing. It wasn't too bad on this old PC, much better than the slide show I was getting in SWTOR PVP. I was able to stay with my team and get in some kills. Yay.

Also did the first 'dungeon' instance, 'Dead in the Water' in which the team investigates the wreck of the ship that brought the bad scary stuff to Kingsmouth. Lots of tough fights, and that last boss... heh... we were all hiding behind an outcrop of rock, waiting for the dimensional woopsie to close so the boss wouldn't just wipe us out, and then he - IT! - came waltzing over and RIPPED the top off the outcrop. Yikes!

I'm very happy with how this one has turned out. Love the setting, the graphics, the gameplay, the way the skills/abilities work, the music, the cutscenes - it's all good. Some of the missions are very tough - can't just bull your way through - gotta use your head. If the General chat was any indication, there are a lot of folks out there who aren't used to doing that. Here's hoping the devs stick to their guns and don't dumb it down!

My rating: the stars are right! Cthulhu ftagn!

[Softball]

Damn, completely forgot about the Beta weekend. Tis ok though, the full version will be here soon enough. I also started working on my Sith Warrior in SWTOR, diggin playing as a tank. It's amazing how much damage they can take. I pretty much could handle 3 vs 1 in a heroic 4 mission. Yikes!