Author Topic: The Secret World/Secret World Legends  (Read 156480 times)

Tahliah

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The Secret World/Secret World Legends
« on: December 09, 2012, 10:37:53 AM »
I didn't see a thread on this game, but I think it's the most compelling option out there.  It's no COX, nothing is or will be, but it's at least interesting and immersive and well-written.  I definitely like the free-form builds that you can create there, but unless you follow someone's build guide, it's going to be trial and error (I guess that's the same as in COH, but in TSW there are more options for builds).

The game premise is that there are not levels, and I guess technically speaking, there are not; however, there are levels as related to your gear (armor, weapons, etc.), so it's kind of misleading.  When people seek teams, they want "X" level armor/weapons, etc.  There really is no way around that, but it's interesting that the game tries (even as it fails) to eradicate levels. 

The character creator isn't that great, but after COX, nothing will be.  This one, at least, is intuitive and not a clunky disaster (I can't stand CO's costume/character creator).  But there aren't that many options, and the chances of you running into your doppelganger are pretty high.

I could go on forever about why and how TSW doesn't measure up to COX (I'd still be spending my money on COX if I could), but it's probably not helpful. TSW has great graphics, an easy and intuitive mission list thingy, and offers the potential to build your own "incarnate" level toon.  The cities are well done, the maps very useful (unlike in CO where I find them more confusing than useful), and the mission objectives clearly spelled out (as in COX, they appear in a "target" kind of space).  Another thing I like about TSW is that you team essentially as you did in COX, not "zone teams" or other random PUGs that you have no control over.

Of the games I've tried, The Secret World is definitely my first choice as my "go to" game in the absence of COX.  What are your thoughts? Have you tried it yet?  Like it? Hate it?

Edit: Added SWL to the title to reflect the 'relaunch' while welcoming folks playing the original. -- Tahquitz
« Last Edit: August 01, 2017, 01:30:01 AM by Tahquitz »

dwturducken

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2012, 06:45:00 AM »
I picked it up on sale for 75% off. It comes with 30 days "free" time when you buy it, but my one year old desktop, which is fully updated, has out of date graphics drivers. I seems kinda cool, but I can't tell if the game is "twitchy" because it's not running correctly on my machine or because you actually have to aim. I'm already annoyed, but, for $7.50, I'm willing to go the full 30 days.
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."

GoreckiMike

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2012, 01:06:19 AM »
I have 3 Characters in The Secret World. It takes time to learn the Game mechanics; it would help if they had a Game guide.

Pro's:
Game Engine - Video is nice and crisp. Movement is very good. Controls are programmable. And the World is very fleshed out.

Servers - I have not been able to count how many servers there are, but one thing I did find, if part of your team is on one server, and the rest are on others servers, it does not matter. When you join on a Dungeon (Mission), the software put you all in the same instance; even teleporting you if need be.

Missions - Yes, everything is mostly Monsters and not Supervillains nor Superheroes, still they are well thought out and challenging.

Con's:
Dungeons (Group mish) - When you attack a Boss and die, you can Ressurect (Hosp). However, if others of your team still live, you are "Hosp Locked" and unable to complete the mish with the team, i.e. each time a team member dies, there are just that fewer to take down the Boss. When the Boss dies, you can move again, or if all your team dies.

Powers & Abilities - You build Powers thru Ability points, 1 AP, 2 AP, 4 AP ,etc. This is good as you have a wide variety of powers, Up to 9 AP. Then you need to go Tier 2, but only if you have bought all others Tier 1 powers, even if you do not want to. Same for Skill points - there are 3 types of AT's, Tank/Melee, DPS/Range, & Healers (which do not seem to show up much). As you add Skill points, the effectiveness of your Abilities increases. However, you have to spend Skill points equally, even for Skills you may not want. I.E., you waste a lot on AP's and SP's for stuff you do not want to buy.

Chatting - One thing I have noticed since beginning here in TSW, I need to reset several Channels each time I login. This seems to be a know bug that will not be fixed soon. Another is, TSW is far less busy, Chat wise, then we were in CoX. I could go for 2-3 Hours and not see a single chat. People are online, but Broadcast/Local channels are used infrequently.

faith.grins

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2012, 02:57:43 AM »
Dungeons (Group mish) - When you attack a Boss and die, you can Ressurect (Hosp). However, if others of your team still live, you are "Hosp Locked" and unable to complete the mish with the team, i.e. each time a team member dies, there are just that fewer to take down the Boss. When the Boss dies, you can move again, or if all your team dies.
That's common to MMORPGs.  Yet one more way City of Heroes was distinct:  you could rez in the middle of encounters and jump back into the fray!  (Even Champions Online has lockout mechanics for some of its boss encounters.)

Powers & Abilities - You build Powers thru Ability points, 1 AP, 2 AP, 4 AP ,etc. This is good as you have a wide variety of powers, Up to 9 AP. Then you need to go Tier 2, but only if you have bought all others Tier 1 powers, even if you do not want to. Same for Skill points - there are 3 types of AT's, Tank/Melee, DPS/Range, & Healers (which do not seem to show up much). As you add Skill points, the effectiveness of your Abilities increases. However, you have to spend Skill points equally, even for Skills you may not want. I.E., you waste a lot on AP's and SP's for stuff you do not want to buy.
Uh, you don't have to spend Skill Points equally.  You have have Rank 5 in Pistols Damage, Rank 1 in each talisman category, and Rank 0 in everything else if you want.  It doesn't behoove you to do so because the major thing skill ranks effect is the QL of corresponding gear you can equip, but if you just say "fuck it" and buy up everything in Pistols and Elementalism because you don't see the point in equipping other types of weapons, you can do that.  Also, Melee does not necessarily equal tank:  Fists are damage/heals, and Chaos Magic is a tanking weapon, although admittedly it does contain a lot more melee than it does ranged damage.  (For that matter, Hammers have some ranged things, too, although you certainly can't be an effective Ranged Hammer build, as much as I would love to see that.)

The "Buy everything in the first two tiers to unlock stuff in the other tiers" thing is a game design thing.  I don't know if there's a name for it, but generally speaking you should give your players core abilities before you let them have access to more specialized stuff, which is what's going on with the inner circles vs. outer circles thing.  Outer circle powers are more likely to be things that have cool-downs or other sorts of high costs, and their resource builders tend to be things that are more effective when your resources are empty.  Yeah, some of the stuff in the outer circles are strict upgrades compared to stuff in the inner circles, but those are the exception, not the rule.  If you look at the not-starter Decks, they all contain some inner-circle abilities, regardless of their role.  (Off the top of my head, the Hammer/Chaos Templar deck uses the Hammer Block active and the Escalation Chaos passive.  In fact, to my understanding, Escalation is considered mandatory for end-game tanking, even though it's a Tier 1 power.)

Chatting - One thing I have noticed since beginning here in TSW, I need to reset several Channels each time I login. This seems to be a know bug that will not be fixed soon. Another is, TSW is far less busy, Chat wise, then we were in CoX. I could go for 2-3 Hours and not see a single chat. People are online, but Broadcast/Local channels are used infrequently.
That's the primary reason I don't think I'll be sticking with that game.  I just never see fun conversations happening over there.
Aram:  "Man, just look at all this.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that we get to live surrounded by such wonder."
Gamal:  "We don't live over there." Aram:  "We don't?"
Gamal:  "No.  We live over there." Aram:  "... But it's all on fire."
Gamal:  "Yes it is, Aram.  Yes it is."

houtex

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2012, 04:37:10 AM »
I've... contemplated this.  I am curious.  I've seen what the game is, and, with the exception of the limitation of 7 actives, 7 passives, am intrigued by the storylines and the playstyle, as well as the 'pick whatever' powers.

Having said that... I'm taking a break from *all* MMOs, as I need to work on the house, car, motorcycle, myself, family, club, etc, ad nauseum...

Perhaps later in the new year, provided it doesn't stop working Dec 21.  ;)
 
Oh, question, haven't see this... can you fly?  Super jump?  Teleport?  Or is it all ground based movement and even then, no super speed?

faith.grins

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2012, 05:39:35 AM »
Oh, question, haven't see this... can you fly?  Super jump?  Teleport?  Or is it all ground based movement and even then, no super speed?
It's all ground-based movement, with a 1-hour cooldown, fixed-destination teleport object.  You upgrade your "sprint" speed (which can only be active while outside combat) with money as you level (or rank up with your faction, I haven't figured that out yet.  It's possible accruing skill points directly affects your faction rank, but I'm not sure why.)

Travel's actually kind of clumsy.  Zone-to-zone travel requires that you either teleport back to the hub, or that you hoof it to the one specific zone exit that gets you from The Narrows to The Coast, or whatever.  That's not a huge deal, generally speaking, because the game doesn't really use quest hubs, it just sprinkles quests throughout the zone, some of which you just kind of stumble upon while you're doing ones that noteworthy NPCs give you.  It does mean, however, that if you've decided you're tired of the quests over here by the police precinct and city hall, you do have to spend a good 5 minutes running over to the airfield or the junkyard or some other place.  (I mean, seriously, Kingsmouth is a zone about as large as the Barrens in WoW, which at least had the decency to give you taxis between north and south.)  I don't know if the slow, clumsy travel is supposed to add realism to the game, or if it has more to do with the sort of puzzle-solving nature of some of the quests.  (Oh, sweet zombie Jesus, I hated the end of the psychic's "puzzle" quest!)

I do miss flight.
Aram:  "Man, just look at all this.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that we get to live surrounded by such wonder."
Gamal:  "We don't live over there." Aram:  "We don't?"
Gamal:  "No.  We live over there." Aram:  "... But it's all on fire."
Gamal:  "Yes it is, Aram.  Yes it is."

Stormy Weathermaker

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2012, 12:10:43 PM »
I've also jumped into TSW.  Currently on the Grim server.  As others have said, it really doesn't matter which server you  created your character on, you can team with just about anyone on any server.  I do believe, however, for those who are heavy in to PvP, there is a dedicated server for that.  if you're the badger type there's loads of achievement and lore to collect.  Nice thing about TSW as far as badges go, if you're missing one or two, it actually shows you which one(s) you're still missing, which CoH didn't do.  CoH just would show "7 out of 8", list all the ones that are required for the badge, but wouldn't tell you which one you were missing.

The character builds can be just about any combination you want, as far as powers go.  You are not confined to "primary" and "secondary" power sets combinations restricted for that particular AT.  You have the option to have complete freedom of picking the powers you want (obviously from what is available) and/or work with what they call "decks". Example of an offbeat combination would be:  Assault Rifle (ranged) and electrical storm (elemental magic)   

Still miss flight / superspeed (never had superjump) but at least for the most part, quests so far (in Soloman's Island area) are relatively close in distance.  So it's not like you pick up a mission / quest in one zone and have to go through another zone or two to get to your destination, complete quest and go back through 2 zones to reach contact.

I know nothing will ever measure up to City of Heroes for me, but this is the closest I have found for now. 

cptbarcode

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2012, 07:33:13 PM »
I started in TSW this past weekend; runs fine on my Core Quad from 2008, mostly, although the key bindings are just different enough to give me fits. (Hitting CAPS LOCK instead of TAB is my biggest bugaboo, because it throws me out of the game window and it takes a while for Vista to get its feet back under it, but that's between me and the registry, not a TSW problem per se.)

Having fun levelling a Hammer/Chaos Dragon; smashing zombies is F-U-N FUN. But it feels more like Fallout 3 than COH. That doesn't mean it's not worth playing, just that it isn't a drop-in replacement. I like the ability system so far, because it's very flexible. Possibly too flexible -- it makes respecs something you can do between encounters if you have a few minutes. Total rebuilds, if you've bought enough abilities, which everyone can do given time.

GoreckiMike

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2012, 08:22:34 PM »
Oh, question, haven't see this... can you fly?  Super jump?  Teleport?  Or is it all ground based movement and even then, no super speed?

Apart from having some Magical abilities, no Fly, Superspeed, Superjump, TP. You are a normal human for all transport abilities. You have a lot of Running to do. One point though, there is this "Tree" that you can use to move between Zones.

houtex

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2012, 02:09:44 AM »
That... sounds kinda sucky.  Although if everything is within easy reach, less so, but still.

Heck, even a higher ground advantage is a good thing(tm) that I used with Fly/Hover/SJ/TP...

Hm.  Well, maybe in a couple of weekends, when I have time to use the full 3 days of trial (1/2 of which will be taken up DOWNLOADING IT, I imagine... :| ) I may give it a shot.  Thinkin' Dragon, for some reason.  That whole initiation scene I saw in a youtube video was... pretty ok with me.  :)

/Pig here, yep, that's me.  Oink.

FlyingCarcass

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2012, 01:04:44 PM »
I'll just mention this piece of news I saw since I know some CoH folks were interested in Secret World. They dropped the mandatory subscription (there's still an optional one with perks), so all one needs is to buy the box/download from a store to play it.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/secret-world-drops-subscription-fee-6401451

Cobra Man

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2012, 06:16:24 PM »
I'll just mention this piece of news I saw since I know some CoH folks were interested in Secret World. They dropped the mandatory subscription (there's still an optional one with perks), so all one needs is to buy the box/download from a store to play it.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/secret-world-drops-subscription-fee-6401451

I'll be smashing a few zombies in the face tonight by the looks of it.

All I need to do is fine a former COH players cabal ......

GoreckiMike

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2012, 06:45:28 PM »
http://kotaku.com/5967800/funcoms-mmo-the-secret-world-no-longer-requires-subscriptions

So it looks like TSW is in trouble already and going for F2P? Great, I choose a replacement for CoX and the MMO is going down.

Cobra Man

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #13 on: December 12, 2012, 07:14:24 PM »
http://kotaku.com/5967800/funcoms-mmo-the-secret-world-no-longer-requires-subscriptions

So it looks like TSW is in trouble already and going for F2P? Great, I choose a replacement for CoX and the MMO is going down.

I don't think it's in trouble.

It's just adopting the F2P model that appears to be the route that many MMO's are taking these days - GW2 most notably

Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #14 on: December 12, 2012, 07:34:08 PM »
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

JWBullfrog

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #15 on: December 13, 2012, 01:36:03 AM »
Here's the official page about it.
http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/subscription_no_longer_required
 
It looks to be a very guild wars model. You'll have to pay for DLC (new content) but you'll get the core game for $30.
 
This just went from a 'maybe' game to an 'almost definately' game.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

Starsman

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #16 on: December 13, 2012, 06:55:00 PM »
To help people catch up with the lore, they posted this "The Story So Far" article at mmorpg.com.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

Kaos Arcanna

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #17 on: December 15, 2012, 03:42:45 AM »
Um, is there any way to make your male body build not quite so ... thick?

Greenstalker

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #18 on: December 15, 2012, 08:10:52 AM »
Even before games launch it was already stated that in a year or two they will be moving to a F2P (or B2P in this case) model since it was aimed at a niche market. Not only game is horror/urban legend type but to solve most quests it actually requires common knowledge as well as a good investigation skill (aka google-fu) Ofcourse nowadays everyone is just too lazy and instead of searching real challange they just look for walkthroughs but thanks to those walkthroughs game kept more players than normally it could.

General Idiot

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Re: The Secret World
« Reply #19 on: December 15, 2012, 03:30:04 PM »
Apart from having some Magical abilities, no Fly, Superspeed, Superjump, TP. You are a normal human for all transport abilities. You have a lot of Running to do. One point though, there is this "Tree" that you can use to move between Zones.

One thing perhaps worth noting. The game has no fast travel system like WoW's flightpaths or Guild Wars' waypoints, but at the same time it sort of does. See, when you die you can choose which anima well you respawn at from any of the ones you've discovered in the current zone. Additionally, there's a /reset slash command that will instantly kill you, and the game has no notable death penalty. Respawning at an anima well costs a small amount of money, if I remember rightly. I doubt it's intended, but you can combine all that for a sort of fast travel.