So... The Secret World.

[Tohuvabohu]

I got 2 Beta invites into the apparent final Beta weekend before launch for the Secret World. It was my first time I've ever had any serious exposure to the game. I knew it existed - But never had any interest in checking it out.

You see, escapists. Funcom still has me in their mailing list after my foray into Age of Conan a few years back when it released. And I haaaaaaaaaated Age of Conan. So due to the fact that this is another MMO by the very same Funcom that made Age of Conan - My skepticism going into this game was, needless to say, staggeringly high.

But heeeeey, I didn't have anything better to do this weekend, so why not? Maybe trying the beta for this game would be worth a chuckle or two.

So I passed off the spare Beta invite to a friend, and we both tried it together, and.... wow this actually wasn't bad. It was so unbad that I am actually considering buying it.

Now I have a lot to say about this, so I'll enclose my thoughts in a box to reduce wall o' text ugliness. My impressions:

What really stuck out to me was the setting and atmosphere of the game. I haven't played an MMO with a setting quite like this. A Non-tolkienesque-fantasy/Non-futuristic-fantasy MMO. It really drew me in. I only got as far as Kingsmouth, but this was a very intriguing locale and even immersive, which is impressive given that I've never personally played an MMO that has ever been immersive by any stretch. It was dark, heavy, and genuinely creepy at times.

Beyond the setting was the gameplay and questing.

Gameplay is hotkey based, which is typical of MMO's and the concept of it is becoming tiring. Yet I prefer this to experimentation on a new combat system which turns out to suck (Age of Conan) and I feel the hotkey combat is a bit more 'active' in this game than usual. As there seemed to be an abundance of powerful enemies which can be tricky to fight, and require you to pay attention to their incoming attacks. I noticed I was sometimes taking a ridiculous amount of damage, and was otherwise being floored over and over and disabled from combat for long periods of time. I then realized... I actually have to move out of the damn way of their attacks! Many powerful enemies will unleash attacks that can be avoided if you pay attention. Forgive me for being inexperienced in MMO's, but I'm more used to standing face-to-face with enemies and playing slap-fight until someone stops moving. I went into this game with that sort of mindset and was getting my ass handed to me for it! I thought that was cool Also, dodgerolls.

Questing is also nicely structured in this game. Rather that going there and gathering this and that or killing this and that (Which is still somewhat what you end up doing, but!), quests seem to gradually open up requiring more and more actions until it is complete.
The first quest I did at the Police station was to kill some zombies, in typical questing standards. Fine, me and a friend went out and dropped a few zombies. Immediately afterwards, we got a notice to defend the station from a zombie attack. Then this huuuuge horde of zombies appeared and beelined straight to the station. woah! So we hurried back and killed all the bastards and then... another horde of zombies, at another gate. After we defended the station, the next part told us to venture out into the streets to kill some other jerk.
This was when the atmosphere really began to sank in.
It was the first time we were running through Kingsmouth streets. It was really foggy and dark, the music was very somber and creepy at times, and all I could hear from every direction was the very loud snarling of dozens of zombies. I thought, "This is actually kindof really fucked up." But it doesn't end there.
This particular quest ended with us having to kill some huge monstrous mook, but there was at least 20 of us doing this quest together, so we killed it in a few seconds. Done! After this quest, things got... well, 'worse'.

Our next quest was to go out towards the coast and kill some enemies. It was listed as 'very hard', but whatever! Let's get going. We get close to the beach, and spot the "Draugr" enemies by themselves. They were big and scary looking, but there was 2 of us, so fuck them!
I accidentally aggroed 2 of them at the same time and... they almost killed us. Shit... We completed the first stage of the quest, and the next one opened up requiring us to venture further out to the beach. We hadn't even set foot on the beach at this point. So, we stepped out...
And the beach was fucking swarmed with these powerful enemies, and more powerful enemies. There had to have been more than a hundred of them as far we could see in every direction. With more of them rising out of the water and slowly shambling to the shore. And we had to go straight into this mess!? Holy shit!
At this point I realized, this game gets 'serious' rather quickly. And in sharp contrast to the earlier quest, where there was more than a dozen people working together in the same quest, me and my friend were all by ourselves. It was just us 2, versus this incoming army of powerful water monsters. By the end of this quest - Me and my friend wanted to run away screaming from this godforsaken beach.

I liked how the atmosphere provided a real sense of dread. Not only that, but the large numbers of strong enemies also made that dread feel stronger. Some quests were more 'interactive' than others, such as the instanced quests, which required things like avoiding laser traps and cameras to progress through the level. And other non-instanced quests which required us to climb over buildings looking for particular things. Pretty cool little stuff.

So, my initial impressions of the game have been quite positive. I am still skeptical that this game could go horribly wrong like Age of Conan did, although it's outlook seems promising.

Since I have developed my interest in this game rather late, I have the overwhelming task of learning every possible thing about this game. And there's a few things that bother me.

Microtransactions!?
Hold on, I gotta buy the game, pay to play it... then there's microtransactions? Isn't that kindof, really fucking redundant? I know the devs said they're keeping this for cosmetic items... and some craftables, and experience modifiers.... Okay. But this, AND paid subscriptions? :| Admittedly, I don't know everything about this yet, and the devs probably haven't even fully discussed this, so I am still reserved on this. But it rubs me the wrong way.

PvP focus

I fucking hate MMO PvP. But I haven't tried this PVP yet, and don't know much about it. But from my understanding, PvP will be a large focus of the game. Can someone describe it? Because if it's just standard 10vs10 Objective maps, and persistent warzones, then balls to that.

Splits up groups a lot.
There's a lot of instanced quests that take you into some areas with lots of detail. The problem? They split me and my friend up all the time. Say what you want about SWTOR, but this is something they got completely right. Seamless transitions into these story-heavy quest zones, and you could take whoever the hell you wanted with you along for the ride. Secret World, instead, forced our group apart to do this stuff by ourselves. Why? Doesn't the game want us to play together? I hope the game isn't full of this sort of stuff, because it seems really out of place for me and my friend to quest together, approach the same location, at the same time, and then forced to do the same exact quest separately for NO reason!

I guess these are my major gripes so far. And even so, I'm still quite interested in this game.

So escapists, what do YOU think about The Secret World? And perhaps some of you can shed more light on this game for an uneducated person like me.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I saw a video once of a girl drinking a milkshake, she turned round, and there was a demon thing there staring at her.

...

That's all I've seen..

 

[Windcaler]

I havnt played the game, I only watched the livestream done by Totalbiscuit. So my views of the game might be misinformed. I agree that the atmosphere seems thick and I really like that about the game. Most MMORPGs lack atmosphere of any kind but I especially like this kind of atmosphere because it has a theme very similar to the World of darkness setting which I really enjoy playing in.

I wish I could comment on the combat system more but Ive really only watched the assault rifle and shotgun styles. I wish I could have seen more with the magic styles (especially blood) but I dont know of anyone thats done any informational videos on them. The one thing I dislike about combat is it doesnt seem to have any weight to it but I also understand its hard to accomplish that in an MMO

The questing style is interesting but I dont think its going to be as immersive or player friendly as SWTOR is which is what I set the bar at for good questing now. I also wish it was more goal oriented

Thats about as much as I can say about the game thus far, having not played it

 

[nu1mlock]

In my opinion, The Secret World has the atmosphere of a game that I'd want to play and the skillsystem of a game I'd want to play.

Everything else, I did NOT like with TSW. However, I most probably will give it another chance when I get the game and 30 days for 20?. I'll get it for a friend and me and we'll play the shit out of it for a month. Then we'll get bored because they won't have any end-game content except for running dungeons or raids or whatnot over and over and over again.

But yeah, I guess for 40? which includes two copies with 30 days each, it'd be worth it for the time I'd get out of it.

They will be F2P within a year. Unfortunately. Perhaps they should look at GW2 but a more modern setting and some extras, perhaps taking some chances (not gonna happen, EA wouldn't allow it) and it might actually succeed.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I played a couple of hours as per friends request and I am really not impressed.
I find the writing and voice acting terrible, they seem to believe being set in a modern world timeline and throwing in modern buzzwords will be awfully immersive but to me it completely shot the other way.

Sure the cutscenes are atmospheric but the rest of it just isn't, especilly not when you got every goofy player around you as a reminder that this is just a game and they kill any fear factor that could arise, and to me strolling around what looks like my home town is really fucking boring... if I wanted to do that then I would fucking stroll around my fucking home town for fucking free.

Then the last piece is just standard MMO bad design, combat is utter unresponsive shit, you autotarget and then roll your face on keyboard till the random spawning mobs are no more, rinse and repeat for the whole game...

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Everything else, I did NOT like with TSW. However, I most probably will give it another chance when I get the game and 30 days for 20?. I'll get it for a friend and me and we'll play the shit out of it for a month. Then we'll get bored because they won't have any end-game content except for running dungeons or raids or whatnot over and over and over again.

They will be F2P within a year. Unfortunately. Perhaps they should look at GW2 but a more modern setting and some extras, perhaps taking some chances (not gonna happen, EA wouldn't allow it) and it might actually succeed.

Endgame is one of my major concerns. I tried to look this up and can't really get a definite answer on what's supposed to keep us playing. I hear that the director of the game, Mr. Ragnar Tørnquist (The man behind The Longest Journey/Dreamfall, games I never played but hear a lot of gushing about.) has 7 years of content lined up for this game. Whatever that means...

Best answer I got was the release of small amounts of content in rapid succession. If PvP is the only thing really keeping the 'endgame' together, then I might go through the whole game and explore all the zones through and through once, and stop playing. But hey, who knows many hours that will take?

I played a couple of hours as per friends request and I am really not impressed.
I find the writing and voice acting terrible, they seem to believe being set in a modern world timeline and throwing in modern buzzwords will be awfully immersive but to me it completely shot the other way.

I forgot to talk about the writing, which is genuinely really bad at times, and usually a 'miss' either way.
The voice acting isn't all that bad, I think. But the writing is. Not sure about the last part though.

Sure the cutscenes are atmospheric but the rest of it just isn't, especilly not when you got every goofy player around you as a reminder that this is just a game and they kill any fear factor that could arise

Well sure there wasn't any actual terror like there is in Amnesia, but my general impressions of the atmosphere was that it was genuinely creepy. Or at least it was there. Besides, I did see occasional players wandering left and right through Kingsmouth. And almost all of those players were being chased by hordes of zombies. Which, in my opinion, was a nice reminder of just how fucked this town really was. I really don't recall seeing that much goofiness. Until I got stuck in a fence...

and to me strolling around what looks like my home town is really fucking boring... if I wanted to do that then I would fucking stroll around my fucking home town for fucking free.

lol well in my case, the favelas in Max Payne 3 are much more like my hometown than Kingsmouth. So that was still... otherworldly to me

Then the last piece is just standard MMO bad design, combat is utter unresponsive shit, you autotarget and then roll your face on keyboard till the random spawning mobs are no more, rinse and repeat for the whole game...

I do remember the combat being stupidly unresponsive at times. Like my character repeating an attack twice after I already pressed another attack. Hammerspin!
*hammerspin* yeah! okay, now hammer smash!
*hammerspin*
*hammerspin*
*hammersmash*
^wtf? I don't understand why this happens.

As for the keyboardface comment, you think so? I remember trying to brainlessly attack every enemy in sight, and I ended up taking A LOT of damage and being knocked over on the floor all the time until I made the effort to pay attention and evade attacks. That sort of thing would've probably got me killed on the 'very hard' quests. I'm still not sold on the game, and the fact it adheres to hotkey MMO design is a huge turnoff. I'm still thinking if the game has enough appeals to warrant a purchase+subscription. Because microstransactions.... fuck.

My primary concern for the game is how entertaining it will remain once I reach the end. The fact that every faction sees the same areas really hinders on the replayability, although there are apparent faction-specific quests, I wonder if these will actually be interesting.

I dunno. I guess I don't mind playing through it until I see it all, then quitting. But when I go into an MMO, I prefer there to be a plan to keep the game interesting after you reach the end, and keep people playing (Besides PvP).

 

[Zeckt]

I heard the combat is pretty bare bones in comparison to regular mmo's, and I find myself barely paying attention to stories in mmo's anymore. I think I'll stick with rotating Tera and swotor.

 

[Flames66]

In my opinion, The Secret World has the atmosphere of a game that I'd want to play and the skillsystem of a game I'd want to play.

That is pretty much my opinion as well. I would also find it virtually impossible to get into a game with turn based or hot key controls as I like to actually be able to control my character. My WoW playing days are over and I have no intention of going back to that crappy slap fighting simulator ever again (no offense if you play it, just how I feel).

 

[Tanakh]

pvp a large part of the game.. well there goes my interest in it. the fact a developer actually admited startrek online could remove pvp content and people wouldnt notice is what got me to try it

It is not. There are 3 instanced battlegrounds and 1 persistent warzone, so it's about as PvP focused as ToR or vanilla WoW; for some reason though the devs are over hyping the pvp in their game, giving the wrong impression imo. If you want a PvP based MMO GW 2 or Elder Scrolls are much better bets.

OT: Everything about TSW is impressively lame and grey except the setting, which i love but its not enough to make me want to play it. On the skill trees and leveling they at least applied a fresh coat of paint to make the same old ideas feel somewhat new, sadly the questing and gameplay is as bland as they come.

 

[Meight08]

This game will get a high review from the Escapist (they have been pumping in the advertising) but there are only two words that matter: Electronic Arts. Do not spend money on this game and then act shocked-SHOCKED!!!- when it sucks and they do something that you feel screws you over.

It´s being co-published by Ea not owned which means Funcom has creative control EA just does the marketing and the shipping of the discs.

 

[nu1mlock]

snip

Thank you for a great post!

About the end-game content:
You asked what kind of "magical" end-game content I was talking about which didn't include doing dungeons and raids over and over.

Well, pretty much anything that doesn't involve doing dungeons and raids over and over. They're developing an MMO, there's lots of room for more story, more good quests (not kill x, grab y and those kind of quests), more towns (=more quests), more PvP modes, more ANYTHING. Developing a (hopefully) successful MMO gives you the ability to create (almost) whatever you want.

The thing I hate the most about MMO's of today is the "finished with your story? max level? here, do dungeon runs to find the gear you want. It only takes 1000+ tries". Not necessarily gaining the best gear, but most games have the "run 1000+ dungeon runs to gain the best *something*". I'm sure you get what I mean.

I tried the beta and I was not impressed at all. Some parts of the game, sure, like I said - the skillsystem and atmosphere, some of the cooler quests (like having to google a specific song to gain access to a computer with the password), but there was a lot of "mainstream MMO" in there. No taking chances, not enough original ideas.

Then again, I will buy it when I can get the game and 30 days for 20? which is... Actually, right about now. I'll try it about a month after release when they've hopefully gotten rid of all the bugs that come with the game on release.

Again, thanks for your post, it was very informative and I hope you're right with all the praise you're giving Funcom and TSW. I guess time will tell.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Everything I've heard appeals to me.. except the pricing model, particularly in that they're using both monthly sub fees (nearly a killer for me on their own) and a developed cash shop. if the game were free to play after initial purchase, like GW1 and 2, I'd have it pre-ordered already.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

massive snip

Thanks for that post, you magnificent bastard.

I've been too busy these past few days to do more digging into this game, but this post answered a ton of my questions and has piqued my interest even more towards it. And hey!

For example, I hate Guild War's guts for what it's worth, so if you like that you may not even agree with me.

Seems like we have more common ground in this regard than you'd think.

Like I said in my post, the beta was my first time ever being exposed to the game and it left a very positive impression on me. So it's good to know my concerns won't turn into huge issues. Biggest one being the microtransactions, although I still don't agree with it, if they really are just a bunch of cosmetic stuff and harmless addons then I won't mind it as much. I've seen enough effort and talent put into the game during my beta experience to believe that the devs deserve success for this.

It still just seems odd to me...

I see The Secret World as a thinking man's game with depth that few or even any games can match, and I think the weekend betas have been extremely poor at showing players what to expect from the game. If you are even slightly intrigued by The Secret World, I think you're in for a pleasant surprise if you give the game a chance despite not "getting into it" after weekend betas. It has everything most MMO players want.

Given that I had no opinion on the game at all, and it was quite honestly not even on my radar, it's definitely an unforeseen sleeper hit for me. The more I think about it, the more I am leaning towards getting it...

Anyway, I figured my gripes already had answers to them, but couldn't find any direct answers for myself. So I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. Color me interested.

 

[Windcaler]

I havnt played the game, I only watched the livestream done by Totalbiscuit.

snip

The one thing I dislike about combat is it doesnt seem to have any weight to it but I also understand its hard to accomplish that in an MMO

Your first line validates the error in your last line. TB's stream was done at a time prior to the combat improvements where they added player and mob reactions upon being hit, improved animations over all, and camera shake on penetrating and critical hits. This made a huge difference.

Moving in combat still feels "floaty" to an extent, of course, since animators have had to disconnect torso from legs in order to let everyone move while casting anything. This is a design I love, others may hate it, but I can't fault them for adding more to the skill roof of the game.

Fair enough, being that the game was in beta I thought it would be understood that all beta's are subject to change and thus my opinions might not be up to date anymore. Although as you expressed it, the floaty combat does still bug me a bit. After having played Dark souls I just really want more weighty combat where you can feel the satisfying "wham!" when you smack something with a melee weapon or see something flich when shot with a gun. Stuff like that

 

[Jandau]

I like Secret World, I really do. It has a lot of ideas that I'd like to see in a game and I adore Urban Fantasy settings (and bemoan the lack of games in that setting). However, SW gets placed in the "I wish it wasn't an MMO category..." (IMO). Seriously, everything I like about the game would work just as well in a single-player game so I find the whole MMO thing pointless and potentially dragging a good concept down.

Another example of this would be The Old Republic - everything good about that game would work just as well in a normal RPG. Heck, a lot of it might work even better. There are plenty of games like this, where I just feel like someone took a good, solid game concept and decided to make an MMO out of it for no apparent reason other than wanting to cash in.

Don't get me wrong, I like me some MMO, but I hate to see a perfectly good single player concept being wasted on an MMO that's likely going to fail or do miserably...

 

[Don Savik]

It looks interesting enough, and I would like to try it out.....but the price. Whoever is handling the business side of it is a fucking dumbass. 60 dollars + subscription + microtransactions? Subscriptions mmos aren't a standard anymore....its a privileged exception. The reason WoW gets away with it (barely) is that its a massive monolith that revolutionized mmos and made them so popular in the first place. To think that your little niche mmo can cost MORE than that is ridiculous. You might as well shoot yourself in the foot.

That being said if the price drops and the subscription goes away, I'll try it out. I probably would play the content like a single player rpg though, because I'd also be playing GW2 and other multiplayer games.....and there is a surprising lack of good rpgs these days.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Actually, BECAUSE it's a niche MMO is exactly why they get away with it. Realize there are people out there who hate what most MMOs have become and would gladly give an arm and a leg for a fresh breath of air like TSW.

To anyone anywhere, box + sub is all that matters. There is no reason to use the cash shop unless you absolutely want to. There is thousands and thousands of clothing options available for players to get in game, the extra 50 or so in the cash shop is not something you need.

It doesn't affect you or anyone but the people who want those items. So being a closed minded prick saying "I DON WANNA SO NOONE CAN HAS IT" is just abhorrent.

I got an email earlier letting me know about the early access, and I think that's what finally made me cave-in. I'll likely preorder it by tomorrow, and at least do the 30 day trial and see how the game goes. I'm pretty excited for it!

Shame that none of my friends are going to be getting it, I hope the solo-experience will still be worth it.

Anyway, thanks again for answering my questions.

 

[Twyce]

I like Secret World, I really do. It has a lot of ideas that I'd like to see in a game and I adore Urban Fantasy settings (and bemoan the lack of games in that setting). However, SW gets placed in the "I wish it wasn't an MMO category..." (IMO). Seriously, everything I like about the game would work just as well in a single-player game so I find the whole MMO thing pointless and potentially dragging a good concept down.

Another example of this would be The Old Republic - everything good about that game would work just as well in a normal RPG. Heck, a lot of it might work even better. There are plenty of games like this, where I just feel like someone took a good, solid game concept and decided to make an MMO out of it for no apparent reason other than wanting to cash in.

Don't get me wrong, I like me some MMO, but I hate to see a perfectly good single player concept being wasted on an MMO that's likely going to fail or do miserably...

I totally agree about Old Republic. That game would have been so much better single player rather than what it is now...

Back on topic though. I bought SW, but after trying out the last few betas, I'm really iffy on it. I absolutely adore the atmosphere and lore it presents, but something about the graphics and animations is rubbing me wrong.

I'm gonna keep giving it a shot, but I don't know, we will see.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Uploaded today, not an official video (guild it seems?) but damn does it make me wish the game could launch, like, now! Have you decided on a faction?

Damn that was cool. And I'm not sure yet. Illuminati seems too... cheesy for me. And I am enjoying the lore behind the Templars and Dragon. Although I am kinda leaning towards Templar. I gotta learn a bit more about each faction.

Something tells me that the Templars might end up being the largest faction. What about you?

 

[Doclector]

God dammit. I hate it when MMOs have interesting, unusual, original concepts.

I don't like paying subscriptions for individual games, and I don't have a great PC, so it basically means I really want to play it, but never can. Hell, I even have this problem with WOW. I don't wanna pay so much, but the world looks interesting. Dammit.

So yeah, it looks good and all. And I hate it for that.