MMORPG: Secret World

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MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

I've wanted to talk about this upcoming MMO for awhile but was waiting for some decent game footage to show.
Imagine if every myth, conspiracy theory and urban legend was true. Imagine a world where you can become anything you want to be, without restrictions such as classes or levels. This is the premise for The Secret World, Funcom’s upcoming massively multiplayer online game set in the modern-day real world.
So Secret World is about three factions, Dragon, Illuminati and Templars existing in a world where all secret societies and myths are true.

There are no levels to the characters and hundreds of skills/abilities are available to you. You can style the look and abilities of your character as you see fit.

A year or so ago Funcom started releasing some amazing teaser trailers for the game. If you haven't seen them, here's a few:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EARd-fmKZ2g&hd=1
^
|
Coolest teaser trailer ever

Some more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHGTNBG3z04&hd=1

The lastest one:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclu ... 3?type=flv (reminds me of The Preacher comic character)

The developers have put a lot of work into the lore of the game.

Watch these three videos. It's walk through of The Savage Coast area. The first part is premade intro to the zone and then the developer walk-through starts. As they explain, it's still in development so I think some of the NPCs are missing teeth, etc. Once the player is transported to their start point, check out great the environments look. The lighting, water, etc effects are outstanding. Keep in mind this is a video take of a projected screen so not the clearest. The gamma is off so there's a lot of washed out areas and over bright areas unfortunately but you should be able to get an idea of how things look.

Also, near the end of the second video, check the skill wheel. It's huge.

You can tell by listening to the narrator that they've put a lot of thought behind the instances and mobs.

Walk-through parts 1-3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nutu1o3xIpE&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdiBTeAiO8&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNdIOZ8CAjA&hd=1

The character animations need some work but otherwise it's looking outstanding. The gamma is off on the video but check the skies, water is amazing as they run through it. It's a creepy place well done...will be fun to explore this world with it's varied environments.

I'm extremely pumped for this game.

http://www.thesecretworld.com/

Image

This trailer is less visual and mostly text about "Everything is True" and lists out some of the topics in the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRY2tRU_OAo&hd=1
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Conceptually, I like what Funcom had tried to do with Conan and AO. Watching these clips, I cannot help but be impressed! I will most definately give it a try! Maybe it is time for a MMO to finally break free from the same same same. Thanks for posting this.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Kaldaur »

I really like the demo/walkthrough. What an interesting concept! Will check it out when it arrives.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Kwonryu DragonFist »

A lil scary if you ask me

Not to be played at night
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Aslanna »

You lost me at "MMORPG'".
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

9 minute video interviewing some of the developers (or is that Jim Morrison?)

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/07/13 ... -and-more/

I like how they are paying close attention to the failures of Age of Conan and doing their best not to repeat them in Secret World.

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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Asheran Mojomaster »

I really loved the CGI trailers, but the gameplay looks pretty blah to me. I think I'll go with SWTOR.

They really should take these ideas and the CGI they were using in those trailers and make a movie. Could be really awesome.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Not sure if April 2012 was a tentative date or not, but I imagine it will be released somewhere in Q2. Of course, if SWTOR ends up being HUGE, then that may hinder TSW quite a bit.

Still though, seems interesting. Going to sign up for beta since I have not beta/UAT tested anything since AO. :D
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

June 19th is the official release date, according to Funcom. Guessing beta is closed by now--should have kept up on this.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by masteen »

Wow, didn't hear shit about beta for this. Did they not have one?
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Boogahz »

I was wondering the same thing. Could've sworn it was going to be announced through the newsletters.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

masteen wrote:Wow, didn't hear shit about beta for this. Did they not have one?
They had bullshit beta sign up. It was a big deal, big build up to sign up, fill out your profile to determine which of the three factions you would be best suited for...and then they did jack shit except randomly pick a handful of people and then they kept doing facebook/social media crap to get people to spread the word.

Eventually beta invites will go out to more people but I can't say I like the way they've handled that part of the process.

There's plenty of recent info on the game:

Recent Video on Freeform progression:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1MeETdH9NM

In depth article on Ability Wheel:

http://thesecretworld.com/news/blog_lea ... evelopment

Long article, click link above to read. First parr of each section:
1: Abilities

So let's start with the overall basics, and then dig a bit deeper. TSW does not have any classes, but it has 525 unique abilities. When we say that these abilities are unique, we really mean it. We don't have rank 1,2,3,4 etc of an ability. The ability is unique, and it will scale with your gear. A player can potentially learn every single ability in the game. There are no crossroads where the player has to choose either left or right. There are no choices a player can make that would remove his options to purchase an ability at a later date.

You gain ability points by acquiring xp. You can then spend these points in the Ability Wheel. Players can't run around with hundreds of abilities, so we're asking them to make a choice: You need to pick 7 active abilities and 7 passive abilities, which preferably work well with each other. The Ability Wheel consists of a basic wheel and an advanced wheel, and the player needs to master all of the basic abilities (14) of a weapon before they can unlock the advanced ones...
2. Skills

I addition to acquiring many different abilities, players must also develop weapon and talisman skills. The old name for talismans was chakras. We changed it to give players a feeling of equipping something physical. The items are still invisible on the character, so players can look exactly as they like. The skills help the player specialize in his favourite weapons, but a player can get max skill level in all skills! The skills start at level 1 and maxes out at level 10. Each weapon has two roles, where one role is always damage dealing...
3. Gear

Let's s start with how our items are constructed. Each item consists of up to 3 parts: Prefix, Core and Suffix. These 3 parts hold different stats and can modify an item in different ways. Drops from monsters, and some mission items, will be randomly constructed by combining (up to) a prefix, core and a suffix, but we also have pre-constructed items that will be used for boss drops, some dungeon rewards, vendors etc.

The core of the weapon decides what the weapon type is (blade, hammer, assault rifle, talisman type, etc), but here you will also find the stats that determine if it's an offensive item, healing item, or defensive item. On weapons, you won't find "Damage: ‘100-130’, because we wanted a system that appealed to casters as well. Traditionally, casters don't really care about the damage on a weapon, but rather the stat that increases their spell's damage. We wanted them to care about the weapon's power the same way melee players do, so we replaced Damage with "Weapon Power", which is the main contributor to a melee attack's damage, a fireball's damage, but also a heal’s power...
4. Progression

So what will the player's journey be like? First of all the player's progression in power is not the same as in traditional MMOs. You will not start out doing 5 damage per hit and end up doing 5000. There is a progression in power, but it's much flatter than in most other games of the genre.

In order to explain the progression we need to start talking about xp. At the bottom of the screen is the xp bar, and when the player has filled up 1/3 of it they will be given an ability point. Filling out the whole bar gives a skill point. A player gets xp from many different sources: Killing monsters, PvP, missions and crafting. The amount of xp needed to get an ability point or a skill point is static.

The harder the monster or mission is, the more xp it will give, so the "further in" you are in TSW, the faster you will get points. This means that skilling up from 0-10 in a weapon type, or buying all the abilities of a weapon type, is quicker in the late game than in the early game. Keep in mind, though, what I said in the beginning of this article. The abilities in the basic wheel are cheap, so experimenting with new weapons and combinations is quite cheap and forgiving...
5. Crafting (just click the link above and read the article)
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by miir »

and then they did jack shit except randomly pick a handful of people
There was nothing random about it.
I ran into a load of people who did past closed beta testing for Funcom.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

miir wrote:
and then they did jack shit except randomly pick a handful of people
There was nothing random about it.
I ran into a load of people who did past closed beta testing for Funcom.
What the fuck does "ran into a load of people" mean? And for other funcom games or Secret World? I've beta tested other funcom games. Woopee! (Age of Conan)

I was there the day beta invites opened, there was a massive thread running on funcom's forums. Every so often, a funcom employee would post "next post after this gets in". About 15 people got in over the course of the day. Other than that, it was just a standard sign up for beta with some Facebook social crap that they tried to get you to spread the word to as many friends as you could. (a repost/tag/whatever you do on Facebook fest)
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

The site won't even let me submit for testing. Keeps telling me I need to agree to their privacy policy and the fucking box is already checked! :P
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by miir »

Winnow wrote:
miir wrote:
and then they did jack shit except randomly pick a handful of people
There was nothing random about it.
I ran into a load of people who did past closed beta testing for Funcom.
What the fuck does "ran into a load of people" mean? And for other funcom games or Secret World? I've beta tested other funcom games. Woopee! (Age of Conan)

I was there the day beta invites opened, there was a massive thread running on funcom's forums. Every so often, a funcom employee would post "next post after this gets in". About 15 people got in over the course of the day. Other than that, it was just a standard sign up for beta with some Facebook social crap that they tried to get you to spread the word to as many friends as you could. (a repost/tag/whatever you do on Facebook fest)
I've done closed beta testing for a bunch of Funcom games... You tend to see a lot of familiar faces in closed betas.
There was at least two dozen other beta testers I knew from the closed betas of Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, Midgard and Bloodline champions.

They haven't even done an open beta yet.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

miir wrote: I've done closed beta testing for a bunch of Funcom games... You tend to see a lot of familiar faces in closed betas.
There was at least two dozen other beta testers I knew from the closed betas of Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, Midgard and Bloodline champions.

They haven't even done an open beta yet.

I still don't understand what your point is. Are you in the closed beta? Were you specifically picked because you participated in other betas like I have for Funcom? Spit it out man! I think you mean they haven't done a closed beta outside of their circle of friends. The open beta comes later.

I've been testing Tera. They have an extensive testing schedule:

Closed Beta Test 1: February 10 – 12
Closed Beta Test 2: February 24 – 26
Closed Beta Test 3: March 9 – 11
Closed Beta Test 4: March 23 – 25
Closed Beta Test 5: April 6 – 8
Open Beta Test: April 19 – 22
Head Start: April 28 – May 1

I'm a believer in a long beta testing period. Tons of shit always needs to be improved and stress tested. With the new ideas for skill advancement, Secret World probably needs testing more than most and with a target date of June 16th they should start soon, especially considering how broken Age of Conan was and the lack of a mega budget and talent pool involved with a game like Guild Wars 2.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

The Secret World beta weekends kick off May 11, giving players that guarantee access by preordering the game a chance to uncover its secrets weeks before the game's June 19 release date. That means they'll have time to explore the world, decide on a faction (Dragon), and pick out an outfit for the game that lets player characters wear whatever the hell they want, booty shorts included.

Along with beta access and the head start, preorder customers will also receive an experience-boosting in-game item; an exclusive in-game t-shirt; name reservation; and a choice of one of three in-game pets to help the player in combat—a wolf, a cat, or a hound.

With more than 750,000 players registered for beta testing, a sure thing is a good thing. Hell, I haven't even played the game yet, maybe I should preorder as well.
I like the way the beta trend is going. I hate the beta roulette. If someone wants to help test a game before its release, just have them pre-order it. it's worked great for Tera although two weeks between beta weekends is a little long. It takes awhile to settle back in after that time.

Beta testing was cool back when it meant something like with the Everquest and Ultima Online betas which rocked. That was before beta testing went main stream with GW2 having over one million people register for the beta and Secret Wars not far behind. For pre-order incentives, beta testing works best, with the head-start helping a little as well to get out of the newbie zones a little early. It also gives you two months (1 beta, one active) to determine if the game is sub worthy. (except for GW2 which there's no subscription)

There are plenty who actually want to test games and not just play them but with the mass of people now applying, its too hard to weed out the good ones beyond the small initial focus groups.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by miir »

Open betas are usually for hype and polishing as well as stress testing.
Closed betas are where the actual game testing and bug fixes are affected.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

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miir wrote:Open betas are usually for hype and polishing as well as stress testing.
Closed betas are where the actual game testing and bug fixes are affected.
Yeah, but if you look at the Tera Schedule above, even for pre orders, it's a "closed beta", and then open beta mid april, and then the head start after that. So Secret World will probably have an open beta at the very end.

"Closed beta" definition has changed a bit over the years. Its more like Alpha or internal (friends and family) testing is where the old school beta stuff gets done now.
Closed Beta Test 1: February 10 – 12
Closed Beta Test 2: February 24 – 26
Closed Beta Test 3: March 9 – 11
Closed Beta Test 4: March 23 – 25
Closed Beta Test 5: April 6 – 8
Open Beta Test: April 19 – 22
Head Start: April 28 – May 1
Enmasse (U.S. Tera) is making a ton of tweaks to the game due to feedback so it's not all bad.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

I signed up for the pre-order.

if you just buy the 49.99 pre-order without the add on packages, your card doesn't get charged until a week before release (~June 12th) and you still get to play the beta weekends.

Kinda fucked up site. Took me awhile to actually place the order. Kept taking me to my Age of Conan account page.


http://www.thesecretworld.com/buy/

someone buy that Grand Master pack that cost 200.00 on top of your 49.99 order. You get a snake skin jacket! None of the upgrade packs look worth the time.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Pre-ordered today! Hoping that this time Funcom doesn't fuck up a good idea (again). I don't like to buy special editions/add-ons because invariably MMO interest peters out....
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Zygar_ Cthulhukin »

Got invited to the closed beta which starts for me at 5PM Eastern today. Anyone else in?
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

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Zygar_ Cthulhukin wrote:Got invited to the closed beta which starts for me at 5PM Eastern today. Anyone else in?
I'm in the full time closed beta as well. Looks like all areas and factions are available in the closed beta. The weekend one coming up only has Templars and Kingsmouth area.

Looking forward to checking it out.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Keeping in mind it's in beta, I have a few first impressions.

If you're going to enjoy this game, you'll need to completely ignore the graphics for most parts of the game. The character generator is the worst I've seen in many years. Just be resigned to having a character with a monkey/neanderthal face. Character animations are also non existent. The Avatars appear stiff while running or just standing.

There are issues with combat animations as well. When shooting a rifle for example, if the mob is up to 45 degrees to the side of where you're shooting, the rifle just fires sideways which really looks bad.

The textures and the quality of the environments remind me of Second Life (that's bad). The walls in houses are paper thin. Table legs are rectangles with not much detail, etc.

The inital cut scenes/intro are a little lacking in voice parts but I think that will be fixed. What's painful is watching the cut scenes with the avatars polygons overlapping each other and generally looking really bad.

-----

I have to admit, I was really really disappointed in what I saw and experienced through the creation and initial flashback scenes/game control intro. On the positive side, the environments look pretty cool if you allow for a 5 year old look to everything...meaning the concepts behind them are good but the quality/tools used to create the environments are severely lacking when compared to pretty much any other MMO out there today. It has the feel of a free to play game with a medium budget which is disappointing.

Still, the 525 skill/ability circle thingy is interesting and the non leveling advancement system is kinda cool. The UI is acceptable but the interaction with items in the game is very clunky. The process for interacting with NPCs and choosing quests is nice.

People still may enjoy this game as it is different than your standard fantasy/sci fi MMO. It's too soon to tell much about the game other than the poor graphics and stiffness of the animations/combat (audio is below average as well). I'm looking forward to how well the storyline goes with mysteries to solve, etc. Right now, it looks like the development team had an excellent concept but lacked the skill or experience to see it fully realized. With people still playing EQ and other older MMOs, the graphics/animation issues may not be a big deal to some.

Try before you buy.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Image

Sample quest. Most quests are personalized with various papers, etc giving a nice personal touch that you don't see in quests in other games. It's also adult oriented with the hippies in this quest smoking pot for example. Some dude smoking a doobie isn't something you'd see in most MMOs.

Go find Atkins!

Besides the dated look to the graphics and sluggish UI/bad animations, the game is growing on me. I'm going to switch to the open beta this weekend with my partner in crime and see how teaming is.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

I'm not too concerned a out gfx this early. Also, character creation will be enhanced. Going to put time in today. Cool so far.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Seriously. Fun. Mixing elemental magic and katana for now. Its a hoot!
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Zygar_ Cthulhukin »

Yeah, I'm having a great time with it as well. The only problem I see is going to be replayability. I'm really enjoying the story, and figuring out all the puzzles in the missions, but I think it'll lose most of its appeal for me after the first run through. I think it would make a great game in the Guild Wars pay model. Buy the game, and buy expansions, but no monthly charge. Use microtransactions for clothes, appearance items, etc. Haven't done any PvP yet (if it's even available now in closed beta).
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

I'm liking the openness of the world. You really do get the feeling you can just wander around the town and countryside picking up quests and running into things as you go. I'm impressed with the voice acting and varied quests. Some quest suffer, like when escorting a named person, you see three or four of that same named person being run around by others as well. The attention put into each little quest is impressive though as are the unique visual references such at the police complaint report above, the phone book, even when crossing a bridge, you can click on an see and aged plaque that shows the bridge dedication.

As for abilities/skills, I like that there are no respecs and that you just need to deal and earn some more AP/SP if you want to advance in other areas.

The game has a lot going for it. The character graphics hurt it quite a bit. On both the ongoing closed beta and open beta, you'll see tons of posts about their deficiencies. I find myself enjoying the stories/quests. The little quest icons are unobtrusive but everywhere at the same time while roaming around. The main NPCs have distinct looks and personalities (unlike the players).

Funcom is aware of the two major complaints: ugly/limited characters and movement/jumping stiffness and at least it appears they will try to address them as best they can before release. I'm not expecting miracles but anything would help. I'm not meaning it sucks due to lack of "pretty avatar looks" but that the character model quality is really bad no matter how you like your characters to look.

Kinda as Zygar feels, this game almost feels like a great single player/co-op game that would benefit from the GW2/Paid expansion model. The problem is that the game focuses a lot on your character's look and uniqueness while not offering ways to make them the way you'd like. Even so, if the abilities/skills remain fun/interesting as they scale up, the story/puzzles are worth checking out. They succeeded in avoiding the generic quests (go here, kill x mobs) for the most part which is a hug plus for the game.

Need more time with it.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

I like how it forces you to pick and choose quests. Keep you engaged as opposed to the usual a) get all quests at hub and b) be bored just to level cap. I likey so far.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Canelek wrote:I like how it forces you to pick and choose quests. Keep you engaged as opposed to the usual a) get all quests at hub and b) be bored just to level cap. I likey so far.

Biggest example of this is that the first general quest is to help the people of Kingsmouth and on the big map, there's people/survivors all over the place and no set order. You can go anywhere you want and as you do, you pick up random quests as well. So, while the Sheriffs Office is kind of a main location. You don't see everyone running from quest to quest in order which spreads people out all over the place. I like the map a lot as well btw.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Totally! People can be in same area on different quests. Cool concept. Sure hope this is a keeper! Very cyberpunk and fun so far! Beautiful artwork to boot.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Zygar_ Cthulhukin »

Oh by the way my name is Zygar "Zyggie" Cthulhukin if ya'll wanna try the group missions sometime.

Sword/Blood here (stupid higher level locked blood abilities). Level 4/5 gear.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Kwonryu DragonFist »

Winny got any screenshots?


What are the different faction abilities between Dragons, Templars, Illuminati?

Got a list of the Faction Specific Perks/Abilities?
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Kwonryu DragonFist wrote:Winny got any screenshots?


What are the different faction abilities between Dragons, Templars, Illuminati?

Got a list of the Faction Specific Perks/Abilities?
The instruction/help guide that is included might be of interest. That was in the open beta as well so can prob post here.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Not going to have much of a chance to test this weekend since I am heading to coast.

Looking forward to launch!!
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Zygar_ Cthulhukin wrote:Oh by the way my name is Zygar "Zyggie" Cthulhukin if ya'll wanna try the group missions sometime.

Sword/Blood here (stupid higher level locked blood abilities). Level 4/5 gear.
You're pretty far ahead of me. I played mostly on the Weekend Beta Server. I haven't played back on the daily closed beta enough to have that kind of gear : )
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Looks like this weekend will be the same faction/area, but with additional content.

<3 the zombies and MiBs!
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Open Beta this coming weekend with expanded content, as well as performance and video enhancements (DX11 stuff, I believe).

So, with the launch slated for first week in July, has anyone pre-ordered for early access, or plans to play at launch?

I am looking forward to it! Even with my Diablo 3 addiction setting in. :)
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

I played Secret World for most of the weekend. I underestimated the game. The environments, lore, quest, etc are all fun and you can tell a lot of effort was put into them. You need to put quite a bit of thought into your abilities.

The basics:

-you can equip two weapons. They can be any weapon type you have in your inventory.
-There are a total of 525 abilities, some active and some passive (you need to earn these abilities before you can use them)
-The ability wheel has three major categories. Ranged, Melee and Magic
-Those three categories are broken down into three sub categories, each representing a weapon type
-each of the nine weapon types branch off into six more focus groups

-you can equip 7 active abilities and 7 passive abilities
-only active abilities that work with one of your two equipped weapons will function
-you can equip passive abilities from any area of the ability wheel

I'm presently developing a build for Blades/Assault Rifle. My focuses are AOE attacks, Affliction and Healing

Each weapon has builder abilities that build up attack points for that weapon, and finisher abilities that use those points. In addition, there are various things like hinderance, affliction, etc. You need to find the best passive abilities that are triggered by or enhance your active abilities.

For example, many of my passive and active skills are triggered if a mob is afflicted so I open my attack with a ranged Suppressing Fire attack which is an AOE and also sets the affliction state (when combined with the passive "Shoot em up" ability that triggers off a frenzy attack). I keep tagging the mob(s) with that until they close in on me and then I use a finishing "Fire at Will" ability. I then lay down a Crimson Theater blade attack which is an AOE DOT.

Ranged attacks start out with zero/five attack points while melee start with 5/5 so you can use a finisher melee attack right off the bat while you need to build those points for ranged. Each of your weapons has their own ability points so "Suppressing Fire" for example, happens to build a point for each weapon equipped every time it's used.

Image

Image above is part of the skill wheel showing abilities for a particular branch. You can also see the active and passive skills equipped.

Image

There are pre made "Decks" that you can work towards. Above is the Blade/AR Deck. It will highlight the skills you need to achieve the deck. That deck is almost completely different that what I'm building using the same two weapons. I've looked over the forums and everyone has their own ideas about their perfect setup. You can always focus on single target, AOE or healing builds so that completely changes the Active/Passives as well.

You'll see in the lower left of the image what's required for that deck and it also shows the abilities I have toward the deck. You gain deck outfits for completing the various builds so even if you don't use them, it may be worth it for the outfit.

I wish the game worked out of box with an Xbox controller. I'm using my Saitek controller so it's not that bad. I guess I'm spoiled with Tera and some other games that were designed for controllers.

Secret World has a ton of puzzle solving. The quests are all deep (typical quest has at least 5 tier/stages).

I want to give an example of a quest to show how they differ from the norm.

(spoiler for this particular quest)

http://youtu.be/k0AsDuSsxfU?hd=1

The reason the video is all grey for most of the time is because this particular quest can ONLY be completed if you are dead. You need to investigate an area, and can't see the message or even get into the area unless you are dead. After you discover the first part/message, you need to track a raven and then listen for clues to figure out the quest while also examining visual media.

There are a lot of quests like this where you need to use your head. Now, I don't recommend getting frustrated over any single quest. A simple google will provide either clues or the answer so you can move on. There's plenty of quests and I applaud the developers for making things challenging so if you want, you can spend all the time you feel like solving stuff, or if you don't care for a particular quest, you can grab some hints.

The world looks great. The lore is deep. The voice acting is above average. It's different. It has it's own feel to it. There's not much hand holding in the game and the number of character building possibilities can be daunting. I recommend after a 5 hours of playing to get a handle on things, to maybe hit the forums and fan sites to read up on various builds as you'll be putting a lot of ability points into trees and may want to get an idea of the best place to put your points.

Also, while you will use your ability points fast as you are able to, your skill points probably shouldn't be used until you need them. You use skill points to advance your skill in weapons as well as advance your level for head/major and minor medallions that affect your abilities. There are no levels in the game for your character but your weapons have quality levels and your skill levels need to increase in order to use higher level weapons and medallions. What I do is keep my bank of skill points and apply them to the area that needs them when I acquire something that needs a higher level skill. Theres no need to crank your assault rifle up to skill level 5 when you won't be able to get a weapon quality level to match it. "Money" comes easy in the game so you can buy clothes, etc but to get the best weapons you need tokens when you earn in various regions of the game. You also earn different tokens for PvP.

Image

You can see the various tokens and money window in the image above. That's me (Illuminati) on a PvP map.

Image

Setting up some zombies for an AOE attack.

Image

Some of the spell affects aren't too subtle. This is one of my AOEs (Crimson Theater) which creates an Octagon of doom for any mob in the area. At least it's easy to see if they're inside the area. It actually looks pretty decent in game when animated.

This game is going to be worth your time for at least a month when it drops below 30.00 or becomes Free to Play. For those that like to think a bit n their games, this one provides plenty to solve while also allowing you a ton of flexibility in creating your characters abilities. The lower core abilities are cheap for each weapon so you can eventually try anything. I don't think there's any rush in this game though. It's interesting to just wander around and pick up quests. I haven't tried out much PvP. It's not my thing but I did kill three people and only died twice! You earn PvP tokens three different ways. Can choose to help capture areas, defend wells (respawn points) or just go kill other faction players.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Boogahz »

I didn't read through all of the post (at work), but I was going to point out that the decks vary based on which faction you choose. I've been working towards Paladin on the Templar faction, which is a Sword/Pistol build. When you finish out one of those decks, you also get the outfit pictured on that other tab in your deck screenshot.

Quests REALLY take some thought. There are still several that you might as well forget about doing if the people around you won't join a group for them. These would be the puzzle quests that require manipulating things on-screen. The cutscenes are nice, but I admit to skipping through a few of them. This is not always a good thing though, as they often have clues about what you'll need to do on missions. There have been several quests that I have had to resort to Google for references, which is actually what the devs recommend. These have included things like bible passages to determine where a clue would lead next, to looking up composers to determine the password for a doctor's computer.

They also did some good sound work on this one, which really surprised me in a few spots. The use of lighting sucks you into the environment in several places too.

Overall, it is fun, but I have also been sucked into a few other games lately. There have been bugs in this one that have plagued chat channels, and this has made any aspect of cabal/guild play impossible unless you watch for it to randomly remove channels from your windows. I think most of our members have been slipping away...or maybe they just got removed from chat again.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Hesten »

Got a RL friend who play it, so gave it a shot last night, just got to the first area, seems ok so far.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Kwonryu DragonFist »

So, what Central Perks do The Illuminati have compared to The Dragon or The Templars?
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Canelek »

Cool concept, but it got old for me pretty quick. May try again if GW2 sucks. Hah!
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Kwonryu DragonFist wrote:So, what Central Perks do The Illuminati have compared to The Dragon or The Templars?
I'm not sure if there's really any perks to choosing one of the three factions. There are different pre-maid "decks" but if you start playing the game, you'd make your own deck anyway. For PvP, Templars seem to be the most popular faction. Illuminati (my Faction) is probably the lowest population with Dragon in between.

This game is free to play next weekend. I suggest you try it out.

Weapon choices:

-Fists
-Blades
-Hammers

-Pistols
-Shotguns
-Assault Rifles

-Blood Magic
-Chaos Magic
-Elementalism

For Fists alone, here's the abilities: (each of the other nine weapons has this many abilities as well)
Tier 1

Feral

Claw
Sharp Claws
Hog Wild
Killer Instinct
Prey on the Weak
Predator
Go for the Throat

Primal

Lick Your Wounds
Nurture
Nurturing Gift
Pack Leader
Alpha Wolf
Wild at Heart
Out of the Woods

Tier 2

The Wilderness

Bear Knuckle
Thrill of the Chase
One-Two
Follow Through
Tear 'Em Up
Ferocity
See Red

The Outback


Salt in the Wound
Reckless
Bloodsport
Cage Fight
Animal Instinct
Bushwhack
Adrenalise

The Streets

Head On
Hardheaded
Berserk
Bruising Blast
Savage
Concussion
Gore

Warming Up

Surgical Steel
Hot Iron
Cauterise
Healing Sparks
Creature Comfort
Glimmer of Hope
Radiance

Heat of Battle

Renewal
Empathy
Restraint
Vigor
Making Amends
Muzzle
Empowerment

Play with Fire

Shelter
Trespass
Blast of Light
Positive Reaction
Inner Spark
Kindle
Fired Up
Choose 7 out of all those abilities and whatever other 2nd weapon you choose for actives, and then choose another 7 more from any passives in the game from any weapon tree.

Makes for a lot of possibilities with no restrictions. You can switch to any weapon combo you want anytime you want. (outside of battle) Setup your preferred PvE single target and AOE builds, your survivalist build (soloing), your tanking build, your DPS build, your healing build, your PvP builds.

Here's a Chaos/Fists build that seems to do pretty well:

http://youtu.be/WcxpEXbxcw4?hd=1 (he's a Templar but you can be Dragon or Illuminati with same skills)

That's one of the PvP maps. He goes up against quite a few different class combos in the video. In PvP each faction has a uniform that you automatically switch to when in PvP areas.

I'm still using Blades/Assault rifle but I know you like to use Fists!

Try it for free next weekend:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/27 ... -celebrat/
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Fairweather Pure »

This only sold 200k copies. Ouch!
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Boogahz »

I still think the game kicks ass, and I just wish more of our guild had tried it out.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Winnow »

Definitely worth a look when it goes F2P. I feel I got my money's worth out of the game for the 30 days my acct was active.

It's a thinker's MMO. Not really good for the general populace that doesn't like solving shit. (even with the answers a google's search away)

It takes awhile to get a solid grasp of the ability wheel with so many possible skill combinations and no real "perfect" solution which also probably frustrates those not willing to tinker.

As for voice acting type MMOs, Secret World is much more interesting to listen to than SWTOR. I felt less compelled to blow through the dialogue taking place. Not to knock SWTOR as I enjoyed that part of it as well.
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Re: MMORPG: Secret World

Post by Boogahz »

I remember watching people that came into the game new (no beta info) and complaining about not having a source to go to for quest answers. They really meant it when they gave the tip that Google would be your friend. There was still some shit that I just could not figure out until I ran across an actual walkthrough online.

Think I have said it before, but their work on Sounds/Voices rock. They had me sucked in so much at times that I actually jumped when something would happen. Pretty sweet stuff. Just need the community there!
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