The Secret World

[BQE]

I actually bought the game on release and had to stop playing because my GPU failed. After the recent news of swapping to a B2P model I've been playing again. I'm Illuminati on Daemon server. I really, really, want this game to succeed. It represents a pioneering step for a multitude of different concepts for the genre. This is one of the only modern-themed MMOs I've seen.

I think Funcom really sabotaged the potential of this project, and once again, overblew their expecations when this could of been another EVE online with it's niche of dedicated players. The addition of new features and different content is hamstrung by the fac tthat the team was downsized so much. I laud the developers for their authentic innovation in a stale genre despite the game's numerous imperfections.

One that that kills, that really kills me, is the fact that your character doesn't speak at all in such a story-driven game. Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 have proven that this is possible, and incredibly immersive. It's just so.....offensively jarring to have my character just ogle people, apparently dumbfounded, every single time anyone addresses me about anything, particularly something that I could add to.

 

[Windcaler]

When I read the game had gone "free to play" I was pretty excited because I know a few friends who would love the game but never bought it. Then when I looked it up I found its still a one time purchase. Much disappointment was had

Anyway, I played it for a few weeks and I liked what they were doing with it. I was playing a blood mage? style of character which I really liked. However the lack of visceral melee combat made that underwhelming for me (blame Dark souls it showed me how to do weighty, responsive, visceral, and rewarding combat well). I remember the shotgun was even worse since it had little to no recoil and generally unengaging. Although I don't recall trying out the other guns outside of the training area.

Much like STO and warframe IMO its best played casually. Log in once in awhile to do a story line or two

 

[Saviordd1]

I played it at release, I loved the universe, story, exploration, everything. Except it fell flat in the two most important areas, combat and character progression.

The combat was meh, I COULD overlook that, if not for part b of my hatred.

The character progression sucked, for all the what not about "We don't do levels!" they really do, they just hide it. You were still locked by zone depending on how advanced you were.

Though if it is F2P maybe I'll give it another go.

 

[Zeckt]

I enjoy it, playing it with my best friend and just got to Egypt. I go for a fists / blood combo because I find the claws just too cool to resist. So I pummel the enemy and throw a heal now and then on my tank friend and hopefully don't kill myself again with blood magic.

 

[Trivun]

I've started so I'll finish - except this isn't Mastermind, and this probably isn't the finishing chapter either. But, I'm going to post it anyway since I've posted the other parts here already...

Spoiler: Diary of a Sixteen Year Old Doomsday Weapon - Part 3

October 17th, 2013

Today we had more new arrivals to the island. I actually started seeing these 'men (and women) in black' that Danny was talking about. They've been driving these SUVs around with fancy gadgets, a couple of them came up the drive (then retreated when they saw all the familiars gathering around). No idea why they're here though. There was another one arrive too from the groups that Venice must have sent. I don't really think they're here of their own accord now, and definitely not to help us. Ms Usher told me about the Council though, and they've been turning up as well with these weird guns that they don't even have to reload. One of them approached the school, but Headmaster Montag sent them away saying we were grateful for the help, but that we didn't need it. I don't know what he thought he was doing, but to be fair they did look pretty threatening (and they had some strange medical looking equipment with them...).

More of that black ooze has been appearing around lately, by the way. I've already told Danny not to touch it. Normally he doesn't listen, but when I threw a little bit of raw meat from a dead zombie (Mr Montag hates it when I call them that) on a puddle of the stuff he saw what it did. I won't go into detail, but it wasn't pretty.

I saw Danny's spy plane flying around yesterday as well. I've already had a sneaky look at the photos, when he brought it with him to the coast to visit me (I keep telling him not to come down here, we do have video chat on our phones now...). On the one hand, I'm pretty jealous that he likes this Cassie King so much. On the other hand, looking at the photos, I'm more than a little jealous of her... Then again, Danny's a teenage boy. I have no idea what goes on in his mind most of the time, but I can take a pretty good stab at it. What's in his mind, that is. I don't really want to stab him. I don't really need a knife, after all.

Wait, that came out all creepy and wrong. Can I start over? Probably not. Let's move on.

There have been more ravens flying around in the past couple of days. Not my favourite bird, but in a kind of morbid way I think they can be pretty cool, seeing them flying around. With the skies outside though, keeping everything dark even during the day, they just look a little bit evil. Not my best choice of words, that's a bit cliché, but work with me here. Mr Montag was going to say something yesterday about them, but he got cut off by Ms Usher before he could really get into his stride. Just as well, really. It's hard enough sleeping knowing the wards are the only thing standing between us and all the things out there, least of all the familiars in the hallways. If it wasn't for Danny, and the internet still being up and running, I'd probably have already gone insane.

Maybe I already have.

(Note - I haven't).

In other news, I still haven't gotten around to that Agartha mission to bring down the Templar rogue agent. I'll probably just shelve it for now and carry on things over on Solomon Island. Not much more to do in Blue Mountain now, so I might be able to deal with the Templar traitor later on when I'm a bit stronger

 

[DanielBrown]

Just bought the game myself and thought I'd necro this thread(sorry) to tip people that it's on sale on Steam until November 1st. 15 euro(or 15 USD I suppose) for the game, which is quite the steal. It wouldn't install for me though, so I had to download the launcher from their site instead.

Haven't tried it yet, but from what I've seen through gameplay videos it looks really fun. The combat system seems hit and miss to me, however, and I'm clueless as to which path to choose. Leaning towards an elemental build that can work as healer too. Anyways, got some time to prepare myself a bit. 30 minutes left on the patcher unless something goes wrong!

So, anyone still play this game?

 

[Trivun]

Just bought the game myself and thought I'd necro this thread(sorry) to tip people that it's on sale on Steam until November 1st. 15 euro(or 15 USD I suppose) for the game, which is quite the steal. It wouldn't install for me though, so I had to download the launcher from their site instead.

Haven't tried it yet, but from what I've seen through gameplay videos it looks really fun. The combat system seems hit and miss to me, however, and I'm clueless as to which path to choose. Leaning towards an elemental build that can work as healer too. Anyways, got some time to prepare myself a bit. 30 minutes left on the patcher unless something goes wrong!

So, anyone still play this game?

Yep, still playing it, and from what I can tell the game has been getting slowly more popular, it just isn't having the same sort of coverage other MMOs have had. Though I will warn you, if you want to try a dungeon crawl at any point (and some side missions are based on the dungeons), you'll be waiting around a while unless ou play as a tank or healer which are in a lot of demand. Everyone always wants to go DPS, which would be fine except that there's a distinct lack of poeple who want to play any particular dungeon normally except for the very first one in the game, Polaris. That usually gets everyone wanting to run through, whereas the others are a bit less popular.

Still, the game is pretty awesome . Which faction have you picked and what server are you on?

 

[Trivun]

i finally got a computer that i can play it on properly. weirdly it played fine on my old computer right up until i entered kingsmouth properly and wow major lag.

started playing a few days ago again and its taking some getting used to and im still not really sure what sort of character i want

I would recommend the Razer Game Booster, my laptop can't really handle a lot of newer games and I had a lot of lag when I first bought the game, but Razer has basically alleviated all of that. It's a free piece of software you can download that you open games through, and it basically shuts down all programs and processes that aren't important to try and get the most juice running in your computer, so you can play games that would otherwise be laggy. It restores everything back to normal when you close it too, so there's no need to worry about losing anything or important stuff (like virus scans or whatever) not going ahead

 

[DanielBrown]

Yep, still playing it, and from what I can tell the game has been getting slowly more popular, it just isn't having the same sort of coverage other MMOs have had. Though I will warn you, if you want to try a dungeon crawl at any point (and some side missions are based on the dungeons), you'll be waiting around a while unless ou play as a tank or healer which are in a lot of demand. Everyone always wants to go DPS, which would be fine except that there's a distinct lack of poeple who want to play any particular dungeon normally except for the very first one in the game, Polaris. That usually gets everyone wanting to run through, whereas the others are a bit less popular.

Still, the game is pretty awesome . Which faction have you picked and what server are you on?

Done about half of Kingsmouth so far and it actually was a damn lot more fun that I thought. The only gripe I have so far is the small number of quests you can take. Makes more sense in focusing on a few quests rather than 20+ at once, but there's way too much running back and forth through the same streets.

Took up blood as my secondary talents, so hopefully I'll be able to heal. Tried it a bit yesterday, however the bubble disappears instantly and the heal only takes my life when I try to heal myself. Should probably read the descriptions.
Not sure if I should distribute my points evenly or begin with maxing out elemental though.

Playing on Daemon as a templar. They were my least desireable faction, but I read they get some medieval styled gear - which I love the sound of!

 

[Trivun]

Yep, still playing it, and from what I can tell the game has been getting slowly more popular, it just isn't having the same sort of coverage other MMOs have had. Though I will warn you, if you want to try a dungeon crawl at any point (and some side missions are based on the dungeons), you'll be waiting around a while unless ou play as a tank or healer which are in a lot of demand. Everyone always wants to go DPS, which would be fine except that there's a distinct lack of poeple who want to play any particular dungeon normally except for the very first one in the game, Polaris. That usually gets everyone wanting to run through, whereas the others are a bit less popular.

Still, the game is pretty awesome . Which faction have you picked and what server are you on?

Done about half of Kingsmouth so far and it actually was a damn lot more fun that I thought. The only gripe I have so far is the small number of quests you can take. Makes more sense in focusing on a few quests rather than 20+ at once, but there's way too much running back and forth through the same streets.

Took up blood as my secondary talents, so hopefully I'll be able to heal. Tried it a bit yesterday, however the bubble disappears instantly and the heal only takes my life when I try to heal myself. Should probably read the descriptions.
Not sure if I should distribute my points evenly or begin with maxing out elemental though.

Playing on Daemon as a templar. They were my least desireable faction, but I read they get some medieval styled gear - which I love the sound of!

I'd recommend not levelling evenly, best to max out one set of abilities first and then move on to another one, because it takes that much grinding if you want to level several talents together that it's not worth it. The Secret World isn't designed for grinding, the game doesn't encourage it (which is one reason I like it so much, I always hate grinding in games ).

I'm on the same server as you it seems, I'm also a Templar playing on the Daemon server. Character's name is Niamh O'Connor, nickname Aiobhan (it's an alternate spelling of a name which means 'radiant beauty' in Irish), so if you're online when I am let me know and we could do a few missions together or something . Although that might not end up happening anyway since I've just finished Solomon Island altogether and I'll be heading out to the next unlocked zone soon enough

Specialising in swords and chaos, by the way. No healing abilities, DPS more than anything else, too

 

[DanielBrown]

I'd recommend not levelling evenly, best to max out one set of abilities first and then move on to another one, because it takes that much grinding if you want to level several talents together that it's not worth it. The Secret World isn't designed for grinding, the game doesn't encourage it (which is one reason I like it so much, I always hate grinding in games ).

I'm on the same server as you it seems, I'm also a Templar playing on the Daemon server. Character's name is Niamh O'Connor, nickname Aiobhan (it's an alternate spelling of a name which means 'radiant beauty' in Irish), so if you're online when I am let me know and we could do a few missions together or something . Although that might not end up happening anyway since I've just finished Solomon Island altogether and I'll be heading out to the next unlocked zone soon enough

Specialising in swords and chaos, by the way. No healing abilities, DPS more than anything else, too

Doesn't encourage grinding? No respec options, access to the shitload of skills/builds with a single character and every quests are repeatable so you can gather exp. Can't get much grindier.
Spent several hour today looking over builds and I'm still torn(and extremely confused) as hell. Filled out the inner circles of blood and elemental while working towards some heavy damage blood skills. I kill fast, but can't take a beating at all - which has led to many deaths so far. Will probably end up with one or two ranged dps spec, a healing one and a melee farming one.

My nickname is DanielBrown and my name is... Daniel Brown. I thought they ment my nick would be the only thing visible to other players when I created him.
I'll be online quite a lot, so give me a shout if you want to do some lower level stuff like Polaris until I've caught up with you!

Edit: Says no character exists with your nickname.

Edit two: Ugh, seriously considering starting a new character. Filled out inner circle elemental; fuck that, I want blood. Filled out blood; fuck that, let's go blade! Filled out blade; hm, fist healing seems kind of fun.

So many points wasted and mobs are starting to get really hard since I don't have any outer circle skills. D:

 

[Trivun]

all you templar scum will fall to the dragon ! haha

The Dragon contradict themselves. They're an organised group, that worships chaos. It makes no sense! Unless that's their point... hmmm.

Anyhow, new chapter for my fanfic!

Spoiler: Diary of a Sixteen Year Old Doomsday Weapon - Part 4

October 20th, 2013

I visited Madame Roget yesterday. Not that Montag approves, though I don't think it's her he dislikes, more the kind of thing she gets up to. Or got up to, I should say. I'm still not certain how she avoided the fog, but I have my suspicions, especially when I think about the handcuffs on the sideboard... Still, women's issues are a bit more pressing and unlike at the sheriff's office, there's a steady supply at Roget's house of the kind of thing we ladies need. She mentioned the ravens again, which creeped me out a little bit, but at least I heard it from someone a bit more... mentally stable. She mentioned cats as well, and how Andy had been getting a bit spooked. He's a nervous guy anyway, so I hadn't really noticed, but she can probably sense that sort of thing better than I can. I just blow things up, really.

Walking back, I had this weird feeling that someone was watching me. I tried to brush it off at first but by the time I reached the skate park where Danny was busy setting up traps, I couldn't avoid it any more. It reminded me of the groundskeeper. It's been a couple of years since I saw him, since those seniors vanished, but nothing was ever done and Danny did say he had a bottle of whiskey he'd managed to find in one of the houses on a scavenging run (why he was out scavenging I can't say, but I'm guessing Sheriff Bannerman didn't give him the green light there...). I told Danny the story and he poured the whiskey down a drain faster than it takes his spy plane to take naughty pictures of Cassie King. What a waste. He regretted it when I mentioned he needed to have a bonfire on the beach too. Then I had a call from Montag, apparently worried about me, so I had to run. The feeling came back though, so I kept a watch out. Didn't feel safe until I was past the wards, and even then just barely.

Next mirror I looked in, I could have sworn there was a pair of eyes in the corner, just faintly, looking a little past me...

It always gets like this near Halloween. I can't see things getting better in the next few days. You thought Solomon Island was bad now, trust me, around Halloween it's like this even when we aren't cut off from the world with zombies roaming the streets. Whatever was going on with the cats, I've been hearing meowing and stuff in random places. I saw a guy in a top hat with a cat's tail, pretty fat, in the distance this morning, but when I looked again he was gone. This whole place has gone to hell and all the crazy shit here is just piling up, and I don't know when it's going to end. The Templars, the Illuminati, even those Dragon guys, they're not making things better. They're spending more time fighting each other than the guys out there, that are causing the mess, and Venice just stand on corners giving them weapons. It's complete and utter fucking madness, and I just want it to end.

Trouble is, I can only see things getting worse from here...

 

[chaser5000]

I've always had an interest in this game, now it's gone free to play I am definitely going to pick it up soon but I've a bunch of games I need to complete first.

 

[Windcaler]

I bought the game when it first came out and was kind of disgusted that it wanted microtransactions on top of a subscription. So after my first month had passed I put the game down till I heard it had gone a 1 time purchase free to play game (like guild wars). If I recall correctly I was an illuminati that used blood? magic and I enjoyed it. A lot of the stories were very cerebrally focused required research or knowledge of the topic at hand.

I cant really play the game a lot though. Its more a game that I come back to every once in awhile rather then one I play to death. That said, I like it because its doing something different and in this industry that has to be applauded even when it doesnt succeed (luckily secret world works)