The Secret World.

Cloud Strife · 07-07-2012, 04:20 AM

So did anyone else already know about this game and just decided not to tell me? If so, shame on you. Shame.

This review article does a better job explaining the concept and gameplay of the MMO than the official website does. The writer mentions how you need to actually use Google to find answers to some of the quests, that there are no classes or levels, just ability and skill points, and the active dodge mechanic within the combat system. Add on top of that ten years of research into everything mythological, 'shadow government', conspiracy, and other such mediums into the making of the storyline (none of the research was left out of the game, mind you), and you have a game that I really, really want to play. If that's not enough for you, here is a convenient trailer:

In case you're wondering, the song in the trailer is 'This Bitter Earth' by Dinah Washington.

So, anyone else wanna play?

CABAL49 · 07-07-2012, 05:39 AM

EA games have a pattern of taking great ideas and fucking them up badly, but it is a cool trailer and I will at least look into it.

Cloud Strife · 07-07-2012, 09:44 AM

I may have neglected to mention this earlier, but while there is a standard monthly fee, the first 30 days of game time are free with the purchase of the game. IE, you're actually paying $49.99 to play, not $64.98. No trial accounts that I yet know of, however.

Aerozord · 07-07-2012, 11:09 AM

I find it sad that because of the cinematography and presentation of every single trailer for this game that my first thought upon seeing this thread was

"Why are you posting about a movie in the gaming forum"

Aldurin · 07-07-2012, 12:32 PM

On one hand, this looks pretty awesome. But on the other hand, I have not liked a single game made by EA in the past decade.

Definitely worth looking into, but with college starting up again soon for me I might not bother taking the time.

The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk · 07-07-2012, 12:56 PM

Unfortunately the combat in this looks completely terrible.

Nikose Tyris · 07-07-2012, 01:37 PM

I know quite a few of the people who made this game!

They are really proud of their hard work and different things they have contributed to it.

I'm still not getting it

**McTahr** · 07-07-2012, 01:40 PM

I played around during the closed beta. NDAs don't run over past the release, do they? (Google says I'm safe, first result was Secret World NDA lifted, so eh.)

Style-wise: It's very dark. The story was actually enough to keep me going through the first town. Instead of charging around for quests ABC to raise my numbers, so that I could go to the next area and do quests DEF, I was more interested in finding out the cause of the strange series of murders in the small port town fifteen-ish years back. The narrative occasionally drops off at points, and quests do get occasionally repetitive, but it was perhaps two similar quests per entire area. One minute I'd be running down a siren song through an obstacle course of rigged mines and camera turrets, the next I'd be following Illuminati symbols across town with no real quest direction or hints. Just wits. (There are puzzle quests. They are both fun and super extremely oh my fucking god frustrating at times. One had me using the in-game browser to Google stuff. I'd say what but it'd spoil the quest's most difficult point.

Gameplay: It was the tiniest bit buggy, but I played very early in the beta. I lost internet for a while and couldn't play, then I was going through a breakup and all my friends wanted to "comfort me" (comfort me by letting me play games, damnit!) or play D3 with them. I hear a lot of it got fixed. Everything was fairly intuitive. Most of the things you notice while playing MMOs, those minor annoyances, design hurdles that add no fun or add arbitrary difficulty by making controls limited or arkward, at least for me, seemed to be absent. Some were still present, of course. Since there's no real "level" system to the game, you have no idea if you're ready for an area. Expect to die if you move on too soon. Expect to die at the motel. Even better, FUCK the motel.

I did not test PvP or instances, so I can't comment on those.

Combat kept interesting, but the style I wanted to play was locked for the beta, so sad face. I ran around with pistols and blood magic supporting all of no one, because I don't recall there being any kind of quick-party grouping feature at that point in the beta and everyone was fairly elitist about who joined parties re: their gear. If you weren't QL4/5 at a time when I'd barely found 3, you just didn't get in. Dunno if that's held on in the release. Combat is also meant to be extremely mobile. There were some quirks with character animations in the early beta because they detached top and bottom character meshes from one another to allow this. You move slightly slower during channeling/casting, but if you want to run around in circles waving your katana madly or hop like a bunny backwards shredding your enemies with an assault rifle, you can.

Character creation was okay, definitely saw my doppelganger once or twice in the beta. Supposedly tons more options got added to the full release though.

NPCs themselves were actually something that stood out to me. I remember like 2-3 from like two years of WoW because it was "that guy with that quest." I remember nearly every NPC in Secret World I encountered because they were interesting, crazy, or both. From the small town cop trying to hold on to base things like justice and innocence, in a town where'd they'd never even used their guns and were now forced to gun down corrupted residents constantly, to the Illuminati-obsessed preacher holed up in a warded church, who looked more at home nursing ulcers at the IT desk of a community college than behind the pulpit.

tl:dr:
I liked it, would have paid monies for it, but I didn't want to play alone and all my friends flocked to D3.

Cloud Strife · 07-07-2012, 10:14 PM

Well, McTahr, I want to play. My wife wants to play.

... Heck, everyone I've shown the game to in person wants to play.

EDIT: Huh. Off topic, but I just noticed this is the 46,000th post in Playing Games. Also, Playing Games has more posts in it than GDEU.

Cloud Strife · 07-28-2012, 08:37 PM

So, I got the game and haven't looked back. I love this game, haven't really played anything else since I picked it up. My wife and my roommate play, I've gotten a couple people at work to play, and they in turn have gotten friends to play as well. All of them love the game. Just saying.

Also if anyone else is playing the game my main character's name is Unreadable and is with the Dragon on the Daemon server.

07-07-2012, 04:20 AM	#1
Cloud Strife Stranger in a strange land. Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Walla Walla, WA. Posts: 2,846	The Secret World. So did anyone else already know about this game and just decided not to tell me? If so, shame on you. Shame. This review article does a better job explaining the concept and gameplay of the MMO than the official website does. The writer mentions how you need to actually use Google to find answers to some of the quests, that there are no classes or levels, just ability and skill points, and the active dodge mechanic within the combat system. Add on top of that ten years of research into everything mythological, 'shadow government', conspiracy, and other such mediums into the making of the storyline (none of the research was left out of the game, mind you), and you have a game that I really, really want to play. If that's not enough for you, here is a convenient trailer: In case you're wondering, the song in the trailer is 'This Bitter Earth' by Dinah Washington. So, anyone else wanna play? __________________ You know, I'd put up something witty and clever right now, but eh. I'm lazy.

07-07-2012, 09:44 AM	#3
Cloud Strife Stranger in a strange land. Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Walla Walla, WA. Posts: 2,846	I may have neglected to mention this earlier, but while there is a standard monthly fee, the first 30 days of game time are free with the purchase of the game. IE, you're actually paying $49.99 to play, not $64.98. No trial accounts that I yet know of, however. __________________ You know, I'd put up something witty and clever right now, but eh. I'm lazy.

07-07-2012, 11:09 AM	#4
Aerozord So we are clear Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Former murder capital of the world Posts: 13,824	I find it sad that because of the cinematography and presentation of every single trailer for this game that my first thought upon seeing this thread was "Why are you posting about a movie in the gaming forum" __________________ "don't hate me for being a heterosexual white guy disparaging slacktivism, hate me for all those murders I've done."

07-07-2012, 01:40 PM	#8
McTahr For the right price... Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,268	I played around during the closed beta. NDAs don't run over past the release, do they? (Google says I'm safe, first result was Secret World NDA lifted, so eh.) Style-wise: It's very dark. The story was actually enough to keep me going through the first town. Instead of charging around for quests ABC to raise my numbers, so that I could go to the next area and do quests DEF, I was more interested in finding out the cause of the strange series of murders in the small port town fifteen-ish years back. The narrative occasionally drops off at points, and quests do get occasionally repetitive, but it was perhaps two similar quests per entire area. One minute I'd be running down a siren song through an obstacle course of rigged mines and camera turrets, the next I'd be following Illuminati symbols across town with no real quest direction or hints. Just wits. (There are puzzle quests. They are both fun and super extremely oh my fucking god frustrating at times. One had me using the in-game browser to Google stuff. I'd say what but it'd spoil the quest's most difficult point. Gameplay: It was the tiniest bit buggy, but I played very early in the beta. I lost internet for a while and couldn't play, then I was going through a breakup and all my friends wanted to "comfort me" (comfort me by letting me play games, damnit!) or play D3 with them. I hear a lot of it got fixed. Everything was fairly intuitive. Most of the things you notice while playing MMOs, those minor annoyances, design hurdles that add no fun or add arbitrary difficulty by making controls limited or arkward, at least for me, seemed to be absent. Some were still present, of course. Since there's no real "level" system to the game, you have no idea if you're ready for an area. Expect to die if you move on too soon. Expect to die at the motel. Even better, FUCK the motel. I did not test PvP or instances, so I can't comment on those. Combat kept interesting, but the style I wanted to play was locked for the beta, so sad face. I ran around with pistols and blood magic supporting all of no one, because I don't recall there being any kind of quick-party grouping feature at that point in the beta and everyone was fairly elitist about who joined parties re: their gear. If you weren't QL4/5 at a time when I'd barely found 3, you just didn't get in. Dunno if that's held on in the release. Combat is also meant to be extremely mobile. There were some quirks with character animations in the early beta because they detached top and bottom character meshes from one another to allow this. You move slightly slower during channeling/casting, but if you want to run around in circles waving your katana madly or hop like a bunny backwards shredding your enemies with an assault rifle, you can. Character creation was okay, definitely saw my doppelganger once or twice in the beta. Supposedly tons more options got added to the full release though. NPCs themselves were actually something that stood out to me. I remember like 2-3 from like two years of WoW because it was "that guy with that quest." I remember nearly every NPC in Secret World I encountered because they were interesting, crazy, or both. From the small town cop trying to hold on to base things like justice and innocence, in a town where'd they'd never even used their guns and were now forced to gun down corrupted residents constantly, to the Illuminati-obsessed preacher holed up in a warded church, who looked more at home nursing ulcers at the IT desk of a community college than behind the pulpit. tl:dr: I liked it, would have paid monies for it, but I didn't want to play alone and all my friends flocked to D3. __________________ Gone.

07-07-2012, 10:14 PM	#9
Cloud Strife Stranger in a strange land. Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Walla Walla, WA. Posts: 2,846	Well, McTahr, I want to play. My wife wants to play. ... Heck, everyone I've shown the game to in person wants to play. EDIT: Huh. Off topic, but I just noticed this is the 46,000th post in Playing Games. Also, Playing Games has more posts in it than GDEU. __________________ You know, I'd put up something witty and clever right now, but eh. I'm lazy. Last edited by Cloud Strife; 07-07-2012 at 10:17 PM.

07-07-2012, 05:39 AM	#2
CABAL49 Not bad. Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Senatus Populusque Americanus Posts: 1,584	EA games have a pattern of taking great ideas and fucking them up badly, but it is a cool trailer and I will at least look into it.

07-07-2012, 12:32 PM	#5
Aldurin Lakitu Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 4,648	On one hand, this looks pretty awesome. But on the other hand, I have not liked a single game made by EA in the past decade. Definitely worth looking into, but with college starting up again soon for me I might not bother taking the time.

07-28-2012, 08:37 PM	#10
Cloud Strife Stranger in a strange land. Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Walla Walla, WA. Posts: 2,846	So, I got the game and haven't looked back. I love this game, haven't really played anything else since I picked it up. My wife and my roommate play, I've gotten a couple people at work to play, and they in turn have gotten friends to play as well. All of them love the game. Just saying. Also if anyone else is playing the game my main character's name is Unreadable and is with the Dragon on the Daemon server. __________________ You know, I'd put up something witty and clever right now, but eh. I'm lazy.