From out of Left field comes..

[Tavie]

The Secret World

Most of you are probably more attuned with the gaming pipeline than I am, so this may not be as left field for you. I was recently in Eve chatting with some friends there, when one of them asked me if I would be interested in a beta key for this new game, The Secret World. I wasn't sure and did some quick internet research, and thought it has potential, why the hell not.

I spent most of this past weekend playing the game, and let me tell you, it was a ton of fun. One of the challenges I always enjoyed about Eve was in part its complexity as opposed to wow that wasn't ever truely complex but is becoming less so with time. In The Secret World, there are no levels, instead players advance through a "Skill Point, Ability Point" paradigm where skills are earned from experience (doing/killing stuff).

Once players have earned points, they can be spent to progress your player in one of two ways. The Skill points allow you to use better stuff and give a moderate benefit to your use of abilities. The Ability points allow you to purchase new abilities. A player can only have 7 active and 7 passive abilities active at any one time.

The result of this is a rather intricate system that allows players to drastically alter their gaming experience utilizing a skill management system in the game. So in one group you could be a tank, in another a healer. Yet when you are questing another build more suited to the mobs you are facing.

I suppose I have alway been a big fan of versatility and in this game, every player is totally versatile.

The play was challenging and the mix of quest types were very interesting and synergized with the storyline well in my opinion. One of the things that was interesting was that there was no real quest hub per se. Players are limited to the number of missions they can have at anyone time (1 storyline, 1 main quest, 3 sideline). The way it worked was you took a mission and started down a path and when you finished a mission there was usually a new mission to pick up around there. Eventually, you would end up back where you got the first quest and could then grab a different one. I suppose this seemed nice because there were a lot of players running around, but I never felt like any area was over populated such that completing a mission was a chore. I suppose the way the mission system worked is that players ended up being pretty well spread out by the random act of choosing.

It was fun, one of the more challenging gaming experiences I have had in a while. Therefore, I thought I would share it with you guys. I think the release is coming up in early July. I will definately be picking it up myself.

Now don't worry, I will still be around for raiding and what not, but anything else in WoW has zero interest for me, so I am searching for another filler for my gaming time. Hard to measure a games longevity in 2 and half days of trying it, However, this one has a ton of early appeal and might actually have some legs to take it far. I really like some of the subtleties in the character builds that can make something average exceptional.

[Amminidabtree]

Right field is way better.

[GM Fright]

Guild Launch sent me an offer as a site leader to be some sort of Founding Cabal leader in that game a couple weeks ago. If you're interested in doing that, I could probably transfer it to you instead (if they didn't already send it to you, too).

I looked at their little site thing and couldn't tell what sort of game it really was, besides MMO of course. One dude was holding a pistol or something? What's the setting for it, just out of curiosity?

[Amminidabtree]

I've not researched the game, but isn't it just an apocalyptic world in an urban city? Not exactly sure, but I'll have to give this game a try, especially since I tried TERA a month.

I've not seen much of the gameplay other than a video review that totalbiscuit put up.

Also, Guild Wars 2.

[Tavie]

Well I think some "Darkness" has come to earth and infected the planet with all kinds of creatures of darkness, vampires, zombies, monsters of all flavors really.. and the secret societies (Illuminati, Templars, Dragons) have had to set aside their conflicts in infected areas to deal with the new threat.

The main storyline quest deals with uncovering what is happening. In the short time I had, I didn't get to the answer

However, they still battle in other areas (pvp) for "World Domnination". This World Domination takes the form of a faction world wide buff which increases a variety of player stats.

Players can choose from 9 different weapon types each affecting their ability to deal, mitigate and heal the dmg dealt by the mobs. The secret to success if finding synergies with your mix of active and passive abilities, there is no cookie cutter approach. In fact, as you level the mobs have random immunities to certain "debuffs" if you will, (in some cases debuffs make them stronger) so players are "encouraged" to have multiple approaches to deal with the variety of mobs you face.

All players are dps oriented, as you do dmg in certain cases, you either improve your tanking or healing or optimize your utility/damage output.

Its really challenging, the progression is not linear, has both a vertical and horizontal component. There is a dev blog post that talks about the character progression HERE!

[kaasi]

[Tavie]

kaasi wrote:

Quote: A player can only have 7 active and 7 passive abilities active at any one time. i've played games with similar design before. they tend to get boring once you figure out "the way". you end up using skills that are just too good to pass up and a pile of others that you never even look at.

I can see where it might seem that way, but I think the random immunities that mobs have and the encounters where certain "debuffs" make them stronger kinda prevents a single or limited optimum build. I think each combination of abilities will have serveral builds that work well in certain situations and players have a handy mechanism for swapping between them quickly.

[Amminidabtree]

Isn't there an in-game web browser that is available? I remember a game that there wasn't a need to alt+tab to check the internet to solve puzzles or look up info for the game, not sure if it was the secret world, though.

[Tavie]

Yes, it has an in game browser.