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Community => Other Games => Topic started by: Tahliah on December 09, 2012, 10:37:53 AM

Title: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Tahliah 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
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: dwturducken 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 It comes with 30 days "free" time when you buy it, but my one year old desktop, which is fully updated, has out of date graphics drivers.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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: GoreckiMike 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: faith.grins 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: houtex 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?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: faith.grins 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Stormy Weathermaker 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. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: cptbarcode 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: GoreckiMike 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: houtex 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: FlyingCarcass 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
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Cobra Man 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 ......
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: GoreckiMike 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Cobra Man 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
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on December 12, 2012, 07:34:08 PM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 13, 2012, 01:36:03 AM
Here's the official page about it.
http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/subscription_no_longer_required (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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on December 13, 2012, 06:55:00 PM
To help people catch up with the lore, they posted this "The Story So Far" article (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setView/news/gameId/404/showArticle/26297) at mmorpg.com.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Kaos Arcanna on December 15, 2012, 03:42:45 AM
Um, is there any way to make your male body build not quite so ... thick?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Greenstalker 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot 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.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: dwturducken on December 15, 2012, 06:08:10 PM
On the loader, as it's updating, one of the ads is for some kind of super speed or super run that is available from their store. I haven't let the loader finish running the update, though, because I was impatient to get into a game, and the update was lagging the game I actually could play. (WoW and CO were the only games I have installed that didn't need some kind of update, so I ended up bouncing back and forth between them.)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: faith.grins on December 16, 2012, 03:26:03 AM
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.
Death carries a penalty in that it causes damage to your gear.  If your gear takes too much damage (I believe 10 deaths is the magic number) it breaks, and won't work until it is repaired, which costs monies.

At one point, all the gear in your inventory was damaged when you died.  I think they've changed it so that it's only what you have equipped, which makes it much more reasonable.  On the other hand, vendors who can repair your gear are not near very many respawn points, so that's an incredibly risky "fast travel" system to use.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on December 16, 2012, 05:12:46 AM
Couple quick notes (I'll post something more extensive later...TSW is my "main" now).:

Travel is indeed a bit slow solo, but when you're teamed, you can use the "Meet Up" feature. Right-click on them  in the team list, select the Meet Up option and if they're near an anima well, they'll get sent a prompt to click...then you TP to that well.  You can also do it with someone you're not teamed with but have on your friends list via the same right-click method.

The game is graphically demanding, to be sure. I have a new system (but only a mid-range machine from CybertronPC), and it runs the game superbly. My previous laptop (which died anyway) was a disaster with TSW. Older systems that are still powerful do okay...less powerful ones, not so much.

There are some things I miss a whole bunch from CoH (obviously), but TSW is a terrific game in its own right. Unmatched writing and atmosphere building, for one...it's an immersion junkie roleplayer's dream.

Much more later...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 16, 2012, 08:32:18 AM
I've been playing 'The Secret World' since 1 Dec.

So far, going F2P has definitely helped the game.  I've actually seen more than 3 other people playing at one time.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Cobra Man on December 16, 2012, 11:51:40 AM
I've been playing 'The Secret World' since 1 Dec.

So far, going F2P has definitely helped the game.  I've actually seen more than 3 other people playing at one time.

Player numbers don't appear to be an issue with this game.

I've found that it does suffer from a slightly unfriendly teaming system, which includes several missions that you can only do when sol.

Fix those issues and it would improve the game significantly.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 16, 2012, 05:03:13 PM
I may be on a low population server or everyone has moved on to the next zone.

I've only seen a couple of people attempting to build teams in the default channel.  I've only seen one 'full' notice.  Either that practice isn't common in TSW or they gave up or went with a partial team.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Botzo on December 17, 2012, 06:25:21 AM
I'm thinking of giving this a go soon. While teaming really is my preferred bread and butter, I'm interested to see how different it supposedly plays compared to most mmos. I'm kicking myself for not trying it when they still had their 3 day trial.

How is the general community? I've tried a few other mmos but  WoW was too Leet (as in if you don't have heirlooms everyone else grinded for eons ago you will never compare to them, even if you outperform them statistically) , Champions/DCUO too derpy ( quick to tell you that you're doing it wrong, slow to tell you how to do it right), and SWTOR felt forever alone.

City for me just felt like the place where dimwits and number-crunchers could coexist peacefully ( So long you don't spam knock backs left and right!)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: beveri8469 on December 17, 2012, 07:09:08 AM
i like TSW, but man i have to turn everything down to low just to run it.
also just to be able to play without crashing is using Game Booster 3 to run it.
if i dont use GB3 i crash after a few mins playing.
want to get me a new alienware after the first of the yr so i can play it more.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: GoreckiMike on December 17, 2012, 11:23:45 PM
Well maybe TSW is not so sucky. I just added my first Bozo Filter. Some WoW idiot who has his own opinion on How to use Your Own Powers - mention, the Chat channel does not filter Profanity.

Now, TSW does not contain a 1-to-1 comparative AT types. There are is no distinction between Tanks and Scrappers; OK. Healers are Terrible Hard to Build; you cannot find a Healer for a "Cloud in the Sky". There are no such AT's as Defenders or Controllers. But, there are Powers that do Buff/Debuff/Hold. So where we saw Distinct AT types, there are instead Bands of Powers that anyone can take to create such effects.

Additionally, IMHO, the Base Decks in TSW are bad. You do have to read each Power type, along with their Secondary effect and Roll your own Deck. Exp., Healers need a set of Melee and a Tier 1 set of Blood. Now being Tier 1, these powers are not very powerful. You have to Craft Talismans to to boost them, but you also have to survive until you can get Tier 2 Melee weapons. To be a good Tank, you also have to have Super Excellent Talismans.

I still find Teaming a great chore.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 18, 2012, 01:27:03 AM
My play has been totally solo so far.  I've also gone back and started doing the missions offered by the earlier contacts.  I clearly made the game harder for myself after doing the missing persons mission and then taking missions, either found or from contacts, along the way.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on December 18, 2012, 06:00:27 PM
Well maybe TSW is not so sucky. I just added my first Bozo Filter. Some WoW idiot who has his own opinion on How to use Your Own Powers - mention, the Chat channel does not filter Profanity.

Yeah, I've had a few bad interaction, but not too many. Overall, the community is helpful and comparatively adult (one of the best things about CoH, too). There are two people on my ignore list, and I've reported one person for griefing in the time I've played.

Quote
Now, TSW does not contain a 1-to-1 comparative AT types. There are is no distinction between Tanks and Scrappers; OK. Healers are Terrible Hard to Build; you cannot find a Healer for a "Cloud in the Sky". There are no such AT's as Defenders or Controllers. But, there are Powers that do Buff/Debuff/Hold. So where we saw Distinct AT types, there are instead Bands of Powers that anyone can take to create such effects.

Agreed. You can build decks that effectively make the character a "tank," "healer," or "DPS," but the way the abilities work, making a CoH style Defender or Controller really doesn't work. You can put together a deck that works a lot like a Corrupter, though: DPS-oriented, but with abilities selected to maximize the game's available de-buffs. A lot of abilities, particularly in Tier 2 of each type, place the target in a "state" that subsequent attacks exploit.

Quote
Additionally, IMHO, the Base Decks in TSW are bad. You do have to read each Power type, along with their Secondary effect and Roll your own Deck

Definitely. The only reason to pay any attention to the default decks available is to get the associated costume (by getting all the abilities in that deck...but not necessarily slotting them). Most of them are terrible. Better to learn the abilities and oll your own.

I want to point out that it's no big deal to make incorrect ability picks or skill point expenditures. No, you can't respec...but both Ability Points and Skill Points come fast, especially as you start moving into the more difficult zones. Eventually, your character will max every skill line (this actually happens pretty fast) and get every ability (over 500...this takes a while!). The IC idea is that the character becomes something of a magical polymath, a grandmaster, if you will. OOC, it means that you can assemble a deck you think will be best suited to any given game situation. You can save a good number of decks to enable one-click switching, too (out of combat only, of course). You'll use a lot of in character storage space for talismans and weapons if you really mix things up, but there's an effectively unlimited amount of that (you buy additional space with in-game currency,not real money in the cash shop...).
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Allotrion on December 19, 2012, 03:09:14 PM
I'm still in search of my new home but am hopeful that The Secret World will fill that void.  Since Sunset I've returned to SWTOR where I have a RL friend but our play hours never seem to fall in line so it's still a solo experience for me.  I'll keep this on my computer and will return to it on occasion but I'm definitely not investing tons of time into it.

I've also tried CO (again) and my reaction to it was not good (again).  Imagine touching a hot stove...with your eyeballs.

I tried LOTRO and got a LoreMaster up to lvl 14 or so.  Not too shabby for a totally free game.  Very WoW'ish.  Will keep at it from time to time and hope to make some acquaintances there, but I don't have high hopes for it.

And finally, I tried TSW.  I am cautiously optimistic that this will be the game for me.  The graphics are tremendous!  And my computer can handle it just fine, no lag so far...woot!  The idea of a free form build is great in theory but it has required a hell of a lot of research outside of the game, ie forums, wiki, youtube, just to get an idea of what I want to be.  I definitely am bordering on paralysis by analysis on this.  I'll get through it but my fear, due to lack of knowledge, is how to course correct if I don't necessarily enjoy the powerset I've selected.  I ultimately left the Illuminati training room with an Assault Rifle slung on my back and picked up a shotgun after helping poor Andy the Police Officer with his bullets.  Reverting back to my altitis, I then rolled a Dragon to try the Hammer/Blade/Chaos powers. 

If I'm allowed to ramble a bit more, and of course I am since this is a forum, I wanted to add that I was positively giddy when I left the tutorial in TSW and zoned into the main hub where people are just waiting around spamming LFM/LFG/Need DPS/Tank/Healer/whathaveyou.  I didn't think I would be so happy to see so many teams forming.  I had to stop myself from broadcasting "I don't know my ass from my elbow, but I would love to join a team!".  This gives me great hope that once I get semi comfortable with the powers, I will be able to interact with other people, which is...err, was (ouch)... something i loved about CoH. 

That's all I have for now, thanks for reading and hope to see some of you online.  I can be found as John "Allotrion" Stoik, or Alan "AshaManCoH" Mandragoran, both are on the RP server (Arcadia?).  I would greatly enjoy speaking with CoH Refugees over there.  And yes, I will attempt to join the CoH Refugee channel on TSW as soon as I figure out how.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: GoreckiMike on December 19, 2012, 06:04:41 PM
Another thing I do not like is that of having ONLY 3 Character slots. They went F2P and I can buy 1 mreo slot, but ONLY 1.

Blaster - Assassin, Blood & Pistols & Subversion
Corrupter - Pandemonist, Element & Blood & Turbulence
Brute - Neoshaman, Chaos & Blood & Provoke

Healer - Custom, Fists & Blood & ???
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Diellan on December 19, 2012, 06:34:08 PM
I've been playing this since Beta and loving every minute. I have some complaints about the powers balance, but the atmosphere and story is fantastic.

I'm also starting to pick at the data files and theorycrafting in order to make a character builder there.

-Lorenzo "Ostiarius" Mondavi
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot on December 19, 2012, 09:40:30 PM
Healer - Custom, Fists & Blood & ???

I dunno if it's changed in the several months I haven't played, but last I played fists on its own was a pretty good healing build. I typically stuck a shotgun in the other shot for breaching shot and its groupwide buff.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: 8 Ball on December 19, 2012, 10:03:08 PM
Just got into it a few days ago myself, barely into kingsmouth yet (rerolled after I had a horrible initial experience with AR) Love the tone, look & backstory sofar, quickie noob question...at what point can I take both a melee & ranged ability? Is it fairly early on? I rolled Sword as it seems fairly simple but I wouldn't mind some ranged backup :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on December 19, 2012, 10:56:08 PM
Just got into it a few days ago myself, barely into kingsmouth yet (rerolled after I had a horrible initial experience with AR) Love the tone, look & backstory sofar, quickie noob question...at what point can I take both a melee & ranged ability? Is it fairly early on? I rolled Sword as it seems fairly simple but I wouldn't mind some ranged backup :)

Yes, now that you've made it to Kingsmouth, you can add a ranged ability at any time: just spend the SP (skill points) and AP (ability points) on it and find or buy a weapon to match. You have two weapon slots, and can add active abilities from both to your bar. Same for passives, although there's actually more freedom with passives, as you don't have to have the weapon associated with that set slotted to use many passives. So you can grab something from a completely different part of the wheel from the ones you have weapons slotted for, and they'll work.

Also, if you get further in and find you've made another choice you regret, don't worry about re-rolling. SP and AP come fast (especially once you're off off Solomon Island, the first three zones). You'll eventually get every skill bought to QL10 and have every power in the wheel if you keep playing a character. The system is designed to allow a character to radically change direction.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: 8 Ball on December 20, 2012, 02:12:21 AM
Thanks, managed to get a couple hours in tonight and got deeper into the storyline, as a side note rerolling to sword was an excellent idea, felt a lot more powerful than AR intially did, picked up some pistols for a bit of ranged abilities.

I'm actually really enjoying the game sofar, first time I think I've felt a real sense of dread in a MMO as a horde of zombies raced towards me.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: faith.grins on December 20, 2012, 08:16:37 AM
Same for passives, although there's actually more freedom with passives, as you don't have to have the weapon associated with that set slotted to use many passives.
Take note:  an overwhelming majority of passives do not work that way.  Those that do will typically say so.  (Or come from one of the three "green" skill trees, which aren't particular to a certain weapon type in the first place.)  The only example I can think of off the top of my head is a passive in Blood which increases the damage of your DoTs.  Which... while technically you don't need Blood to benefit from that, most of the DoTs in the game are from Blood.

Thanks, managed to get a couple hours in tonight and got deeper into the storyline, as a side note rerolling to sword was an excellent idea, felt a lot more powerful than AR intially did, picked up some pistols for a bit of ranged abilities.

I'm actually really enjoying the game sofar, first time I think I've felt a real sense of dread in a MMO as a horde of zombies raced towards me.
With regard to melee vs. ranged, keep in mind that Ranged Weapon resources are built on individual enemies, while Melee Weapon resources just build on you.  Dropping an enemy with 5 Pistol resources on it means you lose those resources, but you'll keep those Sword Resources until you spend them, so if you've got a choice between a Sword finisher and Pistols finisher, use the Pistols one.  (Magic Weapon resources also build on you, but they "decay" outside of combat.  As such, melee weapons open stronger than Ranged or Magic, which is the major trade off you get for being melee.  You aren't inherently tougher, or deal more damage, you just have a better opening combo.)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Allotrion on December 20, 2012, 01:52:26 PM

I'm actually really enjoying the game sofar, first time I think I've felt a real sense of dread in a MMO as a horde of zombies raced towards me.

I completely agree with you.  This was my first interaction with the zombies:

**I was strolling along, "oh look zombies, I'll just pick them off at range while they amble over trying to get me.  Hah, stupid zombies".**  BamBam...oh holy mother of ***, RUN, RUN!  :gonk:

I expected The Walking Dead zombies, not 28 Days Later zombies.   ;D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Tanglefoe on December 21, 2012, 06:21:48 AM
I've been playing this game hard the past couple of days.  I got my 30 mission points earlier today that I blew on some aviators and a cool green coat.  I'm actially enjoying my Assault Rifle/Hammer build (with a few points blown into shotgun for the starter commando deck).  I have only left Kingsmouth to do the Into The Darkness mission, then went back to Kingsmouth where I am still comfortable.  I saw some people recruiting for a Polaris mission earlier.  They were recruiting "newbie friendly".  Is this something I should get into?  So far I am using mostly QL2-QL3 gear.  Other than that, I don't have any idea where I should go next or when I should leave Kingsmouth. 

BTW I am on the Grimm server with an Illuminati character named Bob GIBOB Robert.  If there is any Cabal for former CoH players or at least a CoH Survivors channel to chat, let me know.  I'd like to join. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: cptbarcode on December 21, 2012, 10:40:51 PM
QL2-3 should be fine for a normal Polaris; the boss loot in there is supposed to be QL3 blue. I've only done that one once myself, but it's fun.

After Kingsmouth, the next stop is west up the coast to Savage Coast, which Into the Darkness probably took you into. That is typically QL4-5, and after SC the action moves to Blue Mountain (QL5-6) to finish up the Solomon Island zones. After Solomon Island is Egypt, and after Egypt comes Transylvania.

I'm only a few missions into Blue Mountain myself, on Arcadia server; MollyHatchet, a hammer/chaos build. There is a CoH-Refugees chat channel, details in the newcomers forum. (Due to the bad implementation of global channels there, you need to resubscribe every time you log in, so a script is recommended.)
Title: Re: The Secret World, Extremely Frustrated
Post by: Risha on December 25, 2012, 06:14:05 AM
I got a box, and created 2 characters, thought I'd like one of each cabal.  But when I went to create the third, I could NOT get a nickname that would work.  Either it isn't accepted as a word (Stormgard), or everything I think of is taken -- and you can't log in a character without a nickname.  That is SO stupid.  At Least COH let us massage names if someone else had the first one (Equinocks).  Does anyone have any take on this?

Also, I know I'm a noobie there, but to be told to go to the Mission Hint Channel, then shout your question into the void with no answer is not helpful.  I'm supposed to check out a half-eaten corpse.  How?  I click on the corpse, nothing, I click on "U" (sort of like glowies), nothing.

I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this game, with people who won't help.
Title: Re: The Secret World, Extremely Frustrated
Post by: Xieveral on December 25, 2012, 09:04:46 AM
I got a box, and created 2 characters, thought I'd like one of each cabal.  But when I went to create the third, I could NOT get a nickname that would work.  Either it isn't accepted as a word (Stormgard), or everything I think of is taken -- and you can't log in a character without a nickname.  That is SO stupid.  At Least COH let us massage names if someone else had the first one (Equinocks).  Does anyone have any take on this?

Also, I know I'm a noobie there, but to be told to go to the Mission Hint Channel, then shout your question into the void with no answer is not helpful.  I'm supposed to check out a half-eaten corpse.  How?  I click on the corpse, nothing, I click on "U" (sort of like glowies), nothing.

I can't tell you how frustrated I am with this game, with people who won't help.

A lot of "click" mission objectives are bugged and require GM assistance, changing instances (shout in global for an invite to change instances) or waiting to try again after maintenance. They're not the greatest solutions but they're the only options most of the time :(
Title: Re: The Secret World, Cabal groups and Servers?
Post by: Risha on December 26, 2012, 03:31:43 PM
All right.  The glitch seemed to be mine in the Nickname thing.  The problem is you have a Name (which actually means nothing), and a Nickname, and you can't get in without a Nickname so if you have a glitch like I did, that's a bad problem.  Spent about an hour and a half yesterday resetting the game, talking to support, etc.

However the content IS very rich.  I found the Dragon opening interesting with raised eyebrows, the Templar okay with fun fake sets of London, and the Illuminati just scary, but I have my 3 characters.

How many characters are you allowed?

Since I'm so lower level, if there are cabals and server groups out there, can you all please post?  I don't mind deleting anyone except my Dragon on Cerebrus.  I have a Templar on Acadia(?), which is the RP server, and my Illuminati somewhere else, Daemon, I think.

I am a 1 mmog player, and I will be playing this until the COX new options or old game comes back.  I really miss being a GOOD HERO.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 26, 2012, 06:23:36 PM
we've been poking about in TSW here as well.
As far as I can tell, you can only have 3 characters currently. I have seen mentions of character slots available in the store but I can never seem to find them.
 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Tanglefoe on December 26, 2012, 08:26:59 PM
This morning I got the old giant monster feel with a giant group of people taking down a the Harbinger in Savage Coast.  League of Monster Slayers mission was pretty cool.  Aparentlty emotes in this game are required to complete certain missions.  Also, I ditched the AR/Hammer build for an AR/Elemental build that I am currently working out.  Going for serious DPS but what's cool about this game is if I don't like it, I can always go back to tanking with a hammer build.  I also discovered the auction house this morning and got a serious upgrade to most of my gear for very cheap.  Still having difficulty with some missions in Savage Coast and am running missions in Kingsmouth as timers run out.

Would be cool if people voted for TSW for best new MMO on that site we are voting CoH for that CTA.  Every day I vote CoH in its categories then I vote TSW for best new MMO.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 26, 2012, 11:22:37 PM
I wish they would improve the jump animation. 
Title: Re: The Secret World, Cabal groups and Servers?
Post by: saipaman on December 26, 2012, 11:24:51 PM
All right.  The glitch seemed to be mine in the Nickname thing.  The problem is you have a Name (which actually means nothing), and a Nickname, and you can't get in without a Nickname so if you have a glitch like I did, that's a bad problem.

I had problems with the nickname as well.  In the end, my one character ended up with the nickname 'stupidfield' because that was how I was feeling about it at the time.
Title: Re: The Secret World, Jump and Movement
Post by: Risha on December 27, 2012, 05:56:40 PM
I am so bad at this so far (and I was aces in COH, could land almost anywhere, turn on a dime in combat to angle my hits), that the missions that need good movement (Horror Show and the Tunnels after the siren song), are impossible for me.  I am dying a whole lot more (I think), than I did in COH, and the distances to travel back are hideously slow -- like hosping in Atlas from the Hollows, only the run is slower.  The no levels confuse me, I have no clue how I am doing, where I should be at, and I haven't gotten the invention (assembly) system down at all, so am running around in puny armor or stuff I find.

Does anyone know how to move attacks around on the bar?  Equip/slot?  I have an effing flame thrower I can't seem to equip and until I test it, I can't finish that mission.  I want to put my first attacks from Elemental and Shotgun together instead of spaced...

As for the costume creator, I could spend hours on that in COH, not here, so that will cut down on my game time, just as well right now.

 : ???  Mostly confused.
Robin
Title: Re: The Secret World, Jump and Movement
Post by: Dollhouse on December 27, 2012, 06:10:36 PM
I am so bad at this so far (and I was aces in COH, could land almost anywhere, turn on a dime in combat to angle my hits), that the missions that need good movement (Horror Show and the Tunnels after the siren song), are impossible for me.  I am dying a whole lot more (I think), than I did in COH, and the distances to travel back are hideously slow -- like hosping in Atlas from the Hollows, only the run is slower.  The no levels confuse me, I have no clue how I am doing, where I should be at, and I haven't gotten the invention (assembly) system down at all, so am running around in puny armor or stuff I find.

Does anyone know how to move attacks around on the bar?  Equip/slot?  I have an effing flame thrower I can't seem to equip and until I test it, I can't finish that mission.  I want to put my first attacks from Elemental and Shotgun together instead of spaced...

As for the costume creator, I could spend hours on that in COH, not here, so that will cut down on my game time, just as well right now.

 : ???  Mostly confused.
Robin

You can equip weapons and talismans by right-clicking them in your inventory. This will cause them to occupy the appropriate slot in your equipped items window (viewable with the C key). If you have the equipped items window open, you can also drag them into the appropriate slot. If there's something in there already, it will be moved into your inventory (I key).  If you find a higher QL weapon, you might not be able to use it until you spend Skill Points (K key) in its skill category.

You can move abilities around in the bar in the Ability window (N key), but not in the main GUI.

One of the best ways to get a handle on crafting (which you will really want to do) is to run the two missions from "Moose" (in Kingsmouth, in the little compound surrounding the Sheriff's office. The first is basically a mini-tutorial on crafting...and you get a nice little upgraded weapon that's a good jump up from the starter one. I'd also suggest googling up some TSW crafter guides and bookmarking them. It's nice to have a quick way to look at patterns.

Character movement in TSW (or any other MMO) takes some acclimation time for anyone coming from CoH, the undisputed best ever MMO in terms of smoothness and realistic physics. It certainly did for me, and the problem was compounded for me at first by having an under-spec computer...I was getting truly horrible framerates. I have a new machine now, and it's pretty smooth.  My suggestion is to keep practicing movement (some later missions require some fairly tricky maneuvering), try not to think about how much better CoH was in that area, and it'll come to you.

Feel free to contact me in-game (StraightRed or FixiePixie, both on Arcadia, although you can PM and even team with people on any shard), even if you are a filthy Templar or Dragon...  ;D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on December 28, 2012, 06:55:11 PM
Thanks a lot, Dollhouse.  Right now I have to live in the world I'm creating for readers or will be late with my book, but I will look up the patterns, and though I love my Templar on Arcadia, I may move her somewhere else and my Illuminati from Daemon to Arcadia -- I've really only gotten 1 toon up to Savage Coast, the rest haven't even hit Kingsmouth yet.

Thanks again,
Robin
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 02, 2013, 08:36:42 PM
After five weeks of playing TSW, I finally had my first teaming experience.  Good fun!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Allotrion on January 04, 2013, 03:59:36 PM
After five weeks of playing TSW, I finally had my first teaming experience.  Good fun!

I've only had 2 teaming experiences and both were positive experiences.  I took part in a Polaris Dungeon run with my Cabal mates, whom I may add have been very supportive of "newbies".  I joined them on a whim when they were broadcast recruiting and to their credit, I haven't regretted joining them one bit. 

The other group experience was out of frustration because I couldn't get past a certain quest.  I died 8-10 times back to back before I saw someone else trying to complete the same quest.  I sent a tell, joined up with him, and easily beat that quest, and 3-4 quests thereafter.  He is now on my friends list.

I will say that I disliked soloing in CoH, 9 out of 10 times I would start up my own radio or tip team.  But I'm finding TSW so engaging that I don't mind soloing at all.  I actually listen to the NPC dialogues, read all the clues, it's fascinating.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 05, 2013, 01:30:51 AM
I did 'Polaris' with an excellent team leader nicknamed 'Cabal-Bank'.

I have no idea if he/she was a CoX player, but he gave out the kind of instructions that I've come to expect.  For example, 'No AoEs here'.

I have noticed that about TSW.  It's almost ridiculously easy for a duo, much less a team.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot on January 05, 2013, 04:21:26 AM
Quote
It's almost ridiculously easy for a duo, much less a team.

Like all non-CoH games, it has content designed to be soloed and content designed for teams. The former is pretty much everything outside of dungeons.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on January 06, 2013, 03:00:21 PM
Like all non-CoH games, it has content designed to be soloed and content designed for teams. The former is pretty much everything outside of dungeons.

Yep...dungeons and lairs basically require teams (although you can solo lair minions and LTs...and there's an awesome video of a guy solo'ing a Polaris Normal dungeon). Missions can always be solo'd. You will, however, have to have a deck (build) in place that works against the mission obstacles for the more difficult ones or if you're trying something aimed at a higher QL (Quality Level) than you've reached with your skills and gear.

But that's part of the beauty of the TSW character system: you start building up a pretty broad selection of skills and abilities (and gear) pretty fast, and you can swap stuff out any time you're not engaged in combat. The ability to save the decks you've built to be recalled with a couple of clicks makes it pretty seamless. I have two "mains," and both of them tend to alternate between a "team role" deck that specializes in a single aspect and a solo'ing deck that's a good bit more balanced between damage output and survivability. The latter can manage most any mission solo (although not always without a trip or three to the nearest anima well, TSW's version of hosping!).

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: dwturducken on January 08, 2013, 08:04:24 PM
I know this kind of is off-topic, but it's still TSW-related.

I had a charge on my account on Saturday. I've submitted two support tickets (the first was deleted because the link that is sent in the auto-reply does, in fact, delete the ticket, rather than taking you to a page with options; my bad) asking why I was charged if the game is now free to play, but I have yet to hear back. I have not had a chance to do my own digging, but I will be this afternoon.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on January 08, 2013, 08:07:28 PM
TSW still has a subscription option. If you didn't cancel it, you'd get charged for it.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: dwturducken on January 08, 2013, 08:39:09 PM
Well, that's friggin' fabulous. Now, I really have to look into this. It's not like there was a lot in that game to take away for "free" players...

I guess I'll have something to report in about a month.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 08, 2013, 10:48:08 PM
The video I saw they claimed not to have taken anything away. They are just giving some additional perks (like free allocation of Cash Shop Coins) to those that pay monthly to buy those extra perks that aparently were there since before the game went F2P (like speed boosts.)

Think wardrobe options are the main holdout for F2P players.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on January 08, 2013, 10:53:24 PM
Actually the wardrobe issue isn't that bad. You're a bit limited at the beginning, but once you earn a bit of in game cash, head off to Pangaea in London and shop to your heart's content. Clothing is (quite logically) purely cosmetic so you can build a look that pleases you without worrying that it will wreck your build.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on January 08, 2013, 11:14:11 PM
Yep...non-subscribing players can do all of the content* and have access to every ability, skill, etc. There are a lot of costume options that are only in the cash shop, but there are also a lot that are available with in-game currency. too.  Nothing that's exclusively in the cash shop can really be considered "buy to win," either.

* There are going to be more cash shop mission packs (currently only one, and it's truly excellent), but they won't be the only new content or even the majority thereof. Paid subscribers will, according to the devs, always get more cash shop "points" with their monthly renewal than the mission packs will cost...it's free content for subscribers, although it will leave you with less to spend on cosmetic items and such that month. Not every month will get a cash shop mission pack (they're devoting the majority of content development resources to "regular" content everyone will get.

So far, it looks like Funcom are handling B2P very well with this game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 09, 2013, 12:10:11 AM
I'm just glad the Mayan event is over.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on January 09, 2013, 04:31:15 AM
I'm just glad the Mayan event is over.

I was getting sick of the mayan zombies. Good riddance. Every time I turned around one of those Xatch--- xitchi--- things... was in my face.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on January 09, 2013, 03:21:06 PM

I was getting sick of the mayan zombies. Good riddance. Every time I turned around one of those Xatch--- xitchi--- things... was in my face.
Oh hell yes, I've had the misfortune of joining in the middle of that event... fortunately I figured out early on that keeping the mission kept the aggresive zombie from spawning in my face every five seconds... which only left the other annoying pests that just loved to spawn in my AoE's.
Other than that it's been a blast so far, I love the gameplay, the freedom in builds and most of all the stories.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 09, 2013, 05:07:09 PM
Oh hell yes, I've had the misfortune of joining in the middle of that event... fortunately I figured out early on that keeping the mission kept the aggresive zombie from spawning in my face every five seconds... which only left the other annoying pests that just loved to spawn in my AoE's.
Other than that it's been a blast so far, I love the gameplay, the freedom in builds and most of all the stories.

I love the amount of voice acting and cinematics even for the most stupid of kill count quests (so far, hope it is not just the early levels.)

I'm more of an audio-visual guy, never was crazy about the amount of text in CoH, especially in team oriented content.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on January 10, 2013, 08:39:35 AM
I love the amount of voice acting and cinematics even for the most stupid of kill count quests (so far, hope it is not just the early levels.)

I'm more of an audio-visual guy, never was crazy about the amount of text in CoH, especially in team oriented content.
Yeah, I'm quite impressed with that myself - it was one of the things I really like about SW:TOR as well.
I loved the cutscenes in Polaris as well, and hope that the other "dungeons" have similarly awesome things going for them.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on January 10, 2013, 07:33:17 PM
I love the amount of voice acting and cinematics even for the most stupid of kill count quests (so far, hope it is not just the early levels.)

If anything, it gets better...   :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: dwturducken on January 11, 2013, 05:00:36 AM
I did finally get a response back, after I had removed my payment information. You have to switch to the free side. In their words, "cancel your subscription," which I asked them to clarify, since it sounded like I was being told to, you know, cancel my subscription. They apologized for the confusion, but they still didn't really clarify.

So, now I have another month of paid time and a pissed wife. Go, Team Venture!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on January 11, 2013, 10:00:02 AM
Seems like going B2P was a good move! (so far at least)
Dropping Subscriptions Nets The Secret World a 30% Total Sales Boost (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121442-Dropping-Subscriptions-Nets-The-Secret-World-a-30-Total-Sales-Boost)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 11, 2013, 03:14:03 PM
Seems like going B2P was a good move! (so far at least)
Dropping Subscriptions Nets The Secret World a 30% Total Sales Boost (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121442-Dropping-Subscriptions-Nets-The-Secret-World-a-30-Total-Sales-Boost)

30% sales boost, 400% activity boost. I do got to ponder how many of the new players are simply result of CoH's cancelation (although in my case, I would not have jumped in without the B2P model.)

Anyways, the boost seems to be greater than the one we saw. Year over Year we saw only a 6% boost immediately after CoH went F2P (ignoring NCSofts wacky accounting where they never fully accredited cash shop purchases to the game.) So I guess 6% is rather high.

So they get more money, and players get a LOT more activity going on around them. Win/Win for now. I just worry a bit, though. B2P was Guild Wars 1 model. Guild Wars 1 had great initial sales, so good that during its entire lifetime it made more money than City of Heroes. But over time, GW1 lost revenew WAY faster than any other game I seen. Just look at this (a year to year quarterly income comparison for Guild Wars 1):

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=starsmangames.com%2Ftest%2FRevGW.png)

BTW, the final incomes for the last few reported quarters was WAY bellow City of Heroes.

So I have a feeling that in the short term, Buy 2 Play may be good, but in the long term it is not. I think the only reason GW1 is still running may be the clause Arena.net managed to get into the purchase where they would have the right to buy themselves out of NCSoft. Then again, even that may not save the game given how low its dipping.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on January 11, 2013, 03:49:34 PM
I attribute GW1's losses to the nature of the game, it never gets any new content added - so most of its long term players wind up being the ones that love it for the PvP, and inevitably even those grow bored and move on to other PvP centric games (like LoL).
Hopefully The Secret World will be able to keep generating enough content and updates so that they can keep their revenue up, pretty much the same thing DDO's been banking on for years now since going F2P - new Adventure Packs on a regular basis and plenty of cosmetics and such to keep the money flowing.
And I think quite a few, I've seen the CoH related discussions on general chat.  And ran into a player called "Penelope (can't remember the nickname) Yin" =P
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 11, 2013, 03:59:12 PM
I attribute GW1's losses to the nature of the game, it never gets any new content added - so most of its long term players wind up being the ones that love it for the PvP, and inevitably even those grow bored and move on to other PvP centric games (like LoL).

With a B2P model, you dont care that much for the existing playerbase. Adding content will not stablize your profit, keeping your existing players will not do you any good. Your goal is to bring in new players, and that requires new boxes in stores, or virtual box expansions (not just DLC) in digital storefronts like Steam. Sooner or later, old games just stop selling, and you need to refresh them for retail.

Keep in mind the chart above is not about players numbers, it's about revenue.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: FatherXmas on January 11, 2013, 05:21:27 PM
GW1 had several reasons why it's income dropped to a low level over the last few years NCsoft reported it.

1) Since it's B2P with item shop, without a steady presence of box editions on shelves in the last few years, you've eliminated the impulse buy.  Plus those that do, it's at a much lower cost than buying all four boxes which translates into less direct money from sales.

2) GW2 was announced the same time the last expansion set was announced.  NCsoft hinted that the game would be ready in 2009, 2010 and 2011.  Why spend money on a game that first came out in 2005 when the new shiny is just around the corner.  Okay the next corner.  This corner for sure...

3) GW I'm told is has a fairly big PvP following.  If you weren't a big PvP fan, you might wonder how much of the game content you could enjoy without stepping into an arena.  Would it be worth the money if you weren't interested in X% of the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 11, 2013, 05:42:25 PM
I am skeptical about points 2 and 3 having much impact. PvP was not heavily advertised, it was mentioned but only way to know its heavy influence in the community was to already be part of the community (heck I'm finding out about the heavy PvP community now in this thread, and I had the first game.)

Similar with the second game's announcement. I actually think it would boost sales lightly, but collapse them entirely upon release. GW's model made it very appealing for the standard video game player (the kind that would buy Gears of War for the campaign, perhaps stick around for the multiplayer) and those games seem to be affected by a subset of the players being interested in playing the prequel before the sequel's release.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: FatherXmas on January 11, 2013, 06:21:53 PM
I am skeptical about points 2 and 3 having much impact. PvP was not heavily advertised, it was mentioned but only way to know its heavy influence in the community was to already be part of the community (heck I'm finding out about the heavy PvP community now in this thread, and I had the first game.)

Similar with the second game's announcement. I actually think it would boost sales lightly, but collapse them entirely upon release. GW's model made it very appealing for the standard video game player (the kind that would buy Gears of War for the campaign, perhaps stick around for the multiplayer) and those games seem to be affected by a subset of the players being interested in playing the prequel before the sequel's release.

From what I read at the time it was a major selling point.  Why spend all that time leveling up in PvE when you can go straight to max level for PvP in Guild Wars!  It was the reason I didn't buy the game or even try any of the free offers I had in my NCsoft master account.

And yes my second point is that the announcement would cannibalize future sales of the existing game.  The last thing you want to do in business is to announce the new version of a product and then be late with it.  People will hold off their purchase of your current product for the new version.  If you are late you risk them going to a competitor, or going back to WoW.  NCsoft made a serious misstep by promising delivery over and over again without listening to what ArenaNet was telling them.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 11, 2013, 06:29:31 PM
From what I read at the time it was a major selling point.  Why spend all that time leveling up in PvE when you can go straight to max level for PvP in Guild Wars!  It was the reason I didn't buy the game or even try any of the free offers I had in my NCsoft master account.

Being max level, in my understanding, was simply to make sure everyone was the same level in PvP (same with GW2) but you still had to go through PvE content to earn the skills/spells/abilities that would make you competitive in PvP.

Quote
And yes my second point is that the announcement would cannibalize future sales of the existing game.  The last thing you want to do in business is to announce the new version of a product and then be late with it.  People will hold off their purchase of your current product for the new version.

In my experience that is more true with hardware or software you normally upgrade and replace than it is with games that contain a campaign.

In fact, friend of mine went back and bought all the GW1 expansions to ge the full lore of the game before jumping deep into GW2, but I realize this is anecdotal. It IS one of the reasons I didn't preorder GW2, though (I figure I'd first play GW1 through.)

Quote
If you are late you risk them going to a competitor, or going back to WoW.  NCsoft made a serious misstep by promising delivery over and over again without listening to what ArenaNet was telling them.

Given how much it sold, not sure if it was a mistake. Also, got to say the downtrend for GW1 goes back way more than just 2009, they had quarters with mroe than 50% losses in revenue since 2006.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Mistress Urd on January 11, 2013, 07:59:15 PM
From what I read at the time it was a major selling point.  Why spend all that time leveling up in PvE when you can go straight to max level for PvP in Guild Wars!  It was the reason I didn't buy the game or even try any of the free offers I had in my NCsoft master account.

And yes my second point is that the announcement would cannibalize future sales of the existing game.  The last thing you want to do in business is to announce the new version of a product and then be late with it.  People will hold off their purchase of your current product for the new version.  If you are late you risk them going to a competitor, or going back to WoW.  NCsoft made a serious misstep by promising delivery over and over again without listening to what ArenaNet was telling them.

Reminds me of Osborne Computers.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Mistress Urd on January 11, 2013, 08:09:34 PM
This game was also on my radar as another choice to replace CoH since there have been several CoH players who made the move to it. I'll see if I can pick it up cheap. Seeing some of the collateral damage known as "free to play" (well buy to play in this case) in the MMO world, I just hope there is still a game.

I am not a fan of special events, I wasn't a fan of them in CoH, I viewed them as programmer time not being used for more important stuff (bugfixes, new powers, missions etc). Glad to see Funcom handle the debacle in probably the best way possible. Still, rewards for being the top 1000? Yick, what the heck were they thinking.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on January 11, 2013, 08:59:47 PM
Being max level, in my understanding, was simply to make sure everyone was the same level in PvP (same with GW2) but you still had to go through PvE content to earn the skills/spells/abilities that would make you competitive in PvP.
Not really. For like $10 or $15 (I honestly haven't looked at GW1 or its store in over a year), you can unlock every single skill in the game, including some elite skills (the rest you have to earn), for use in PVP without ever creating a character in the first place.

What is there to do in GW1 when you hit level cap? (Which, by the way, is *20*...takes a couple days for a dedicated person, maybe a month for a less dedicated person.) There is very little actual content in the game that isn't "meant for leveling up to 20", there are very few "dungeons/raids", and there are no "events" (beyond some holiday stuff). All you have at 20 is "leftover leveling content" and PVP. Literally.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 12, 2013, 12:54:13 AM
Thanks to Google, you can see all the cut scenes without even playing the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 14, 2013, 08:16:38 PM
Not really. For like $10 or $15 (I honestly haven't looked at GW1 or its store in over a year), you can unlock every single skill in the game, including some elite skills (the rest you have to earn), for use in PVP without ever creating a character in the first place.

Interesting... I always kept hearing people say Arena.net did not "sell power". This sound like selling power.

But I also think this was not there when I played near launch.


Quote
What is there to do in GW1 when you hit level cap? (Which, by the way, is *20*...takes a couple days for a dedicated person, maybe a month for a less dedicated person.) There is very little actual content in the game that isn't "meant for leveling up to 20", there are very few "dungeons/raids", and there are no "events" (beyond some holiday stuff). All you have at 20 is "leftover leveling content" and PVP. Literally.

From my point of view? It was a campaign, once I was done with it I was done with the game. Box price was fair for just that, IMO.

I do ponder what it is about MMOs that so many people judge their viability on level caps and repeatable raids and not in content... I mean, I know GW did not have an insanely large amount of content, but given I was not paying monthly fee... well as I noted I felt it was worth the ride.

Reason I kept playing CoH was because of the content, not the cap nor the incarnate advancement. AE added a lot but it got hard to find content after a while, with everyone creating farms... making it hard to find any actual story arcs...

Anyways derailing... my point is, if there is no monthly fee and no significant cash shop, then the game that relies purely on a single up-front sale is very likely going to want to attract new players constantly more so than encouraging old players to keep playing. If that is not what happens, eventually their revenue stream dries up.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 14, 2013, 08:17:01 PM
Thanks to Google, you can see all the cut scenes without even playing the game.

Where is the fun in that?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on January 14, 2013, 09:43:51 PM
Interesting... I always kept hearing people say Arena.net did not "sell power". This sound like selling power.

But I also think this was not there when I played near launch.
You can only use these in PVP, and it's fairly simple to get the powers for use in PVP with regular play. It's not selling power, it's selling a shortcut.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 15, 2013, 12:39:51 AM
Where is the fun in that?

All the entertainment without any of the work?

Sounds the like the American Dream to me.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Spellcaster Hana on January 15, 2013, 05:22:28 AM
I'm playing this on and off. It's nothing compared to COH...heck, nothing compares to COH! I only play it because my brother plays it and there's nothing else to play.

Yeah, tried Champions Online and DCUO...DCUO is passable in some things but Champions? BLECH...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Starsman on January 15, 2013, 04:01:14 PM
All the entertainment without any of the work?

Sounds the like the American Dream to me.

Work???  :o
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 15, 2013, 09:00:55 PM
Work???  :o

Would without any effort be better?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: clayman54 on January 20, 2013, 05:32:03 PM
I don't think much of TSW, it always feels like a grind.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Castegyre on January 20, 2013, 09:18:32 PM
No more free trial now? I hate to be cheap, but I don't want to spend $30 just to try the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 21, 2013, 01:54:52 AM
It isn't always a grind but some of the puzzles are a bit extreme.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on January 21, 2013, 02:06:20 AM
As annoying as they are, I'm finding that I kind of like the puzzle aspect of the game. It does help relieve the grindy feel. The biggest problem with the puzzles are the replay factor. Once you've done them, well...
 
 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on January 21, 2013, 09:28:55 AM
As annoying as they are, I'm finding that I kind of like the puzzle aspect of the game. It does help relieve the grindy feel. The biggest problem with the puzzles are the replay factor. Once you've done them, well...
I have fun trying to see how far I can get with them before I'm forced to call upon Google the Almighty.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Mistress Urd on January 21, 2013, 09:44:10 PM
As annoying as they are, I'm finding that I kind of like the puzzle aspect of the game. It does help relieve the grindy feel. The biggest problem with the puzzles are the replay factor. Once you've done them, well...

That was something I experienced with DDO. Once you did a dungeon once, there was no surprise the second time.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on January 21, 2013, 11:29:13 PM
That was something I experienced with DDO. Once you did a dungeon once, there was no surprise the second time.

Definitely the case with Investigation missions...which is why I only resort to online guides when I'm simply completely stonewalled (some of them are very, very challenging). It's okay (and even expected) that the player will use search engines for research (there's a web browser built into the game, in fact), but using a full-on mission guide kind of ruins the fun.

Dungeons in TSW stand up well to repeated runs, although I'd agree that there's less of a  surprise factor after the first handful of runs. The more difficult Elite and Nightmare versions usually introduce some new mechanics compared to their Normal level counterparts...which is not just a surprise, but often a painful one.  :P 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: therain93 on January 24, 2013, 12:09:37 AM
Apparently The Secret World is on sale for $10 on the origin website (per CAG)
 
http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsPage/productID.245138900?sourceid=Origin_AFF_LS315&c=FKSJxY2VJAk&LSsiteID=FKSJxY2VJAk-7sv7_AJM0BMARV7FRRRVzw#terms (http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsPage/productID.245138900?sourceid=Origin_AFF_LS315&c=FKSJxY2VJAk&LSsiteID=FKSJxY2VJAk-7sv7_AJM0BMARV7FRRRVzw#terms)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 24, 2013, 01:16:53 AM
Having paid $20, I can say it would be well worth $10.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot on January 24, 2013, 02:26:30 AM
Of course, that means dealing with Origin. Which would outweigh ten extra dollars for me, if I didn't have the game already anyway.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on February 07, 2013, 08:50:11 PM
I played several days before work ambushed me, but when thinking about it, I get the feeling of gloom.  I don't think that The Secret World has an optimistic point of view like City of Heroes/Villains did.  It was fun just being there.  People thanked you for helping.  I may head back in, eventually, but I'm not feelin' the love.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 08, 2013, 04:05:38 AM
I have to say my interest in 'The Secret World' is fading fast.  I haven't played in two weeks.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on February 08, 2013, 04:28:05 AM
I still enjoy the game a great deal, but I'm not playing as much, either. That's largely because I've done a fairly good job of resisting my usual altitis, and my two primary characters (there's a third, but that one's only played with a pair of RL friends who seldom have gaming time) have exhausted most of the mission content. TSW has a lot of content and is adding it as fast or faster than I've ever seen...but it is less than a year since live release.

I can run dungeons (the game's equivalent of raiding), but a little of that goes a long way for me...I'm not the gear grinding type. The Incarnate System hamster wheel in CoH got on my nerves, too...  The dungeon runs at their higher difficulties are a lot of fun, but I don't want to spoil them by overdoing it. So I log in a bit less these days and wait for Tokyo...

I started playing Fallen Earth again, which remains as immersive as ever (the only MMO to approach TSW in that aspect for me).
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on February 08, 2013, 09:26:02 AM
I haven't been on much either, I've completely lost momentum after hitting Transylvania for some reason... and I find myself logging on, accepting a mission and then going "Meh, don't feel like it after all..." and then wandering off to play something else (TOR lately, though I will be trying Neverwinter later today if all goes well)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Megajoule on February 12, 2013, 09:47:09 PM
I've been playing it (not as much as I'd like to - my time is limited, and other things keep getting in the way) and enjoying it.  The setting(s) and stories are good, the characters and voice acting generally excellent, and the mechanics are decent.  The tone is darker than I'm used to, and my first character (an Illuminati agent) is no hero, not by a long shot.  Think redside, or possibly goldside.  I'd recommend it, especially if you can find it on sale.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on February 13, 2013, 01:59:27 AM
Not that it's very cut and dried but the morality of the three factions (at least the NPC's) works out something like this:
 
Templar: generally good if a bit, well, Templar-ish. So far I've found them to be the least reprehensible to play.
 
Dragon: Weird and a bit over obsessed with being chessmasters. The most neutral of the factions for a given value of neutral.
 
Illuminati: Punks. Every single one of them. About the most evil group in the game. well, perhaps not evil as such but very, very, self absorbed. I can see why the templars do not get along with them.
 
Just my observations.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Ironwolf on February 13, 2013, 05:10:45 PM
I having been trying to like this but the combat is extremely clunky and very borring. In most cases you don't dare face more than one group at a time. If you dare to accidentally pull 2 groups you are dead. I am finding that very annoying.

I went straight magic with choosing so far almost all elemental powers.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on February 13, 2013, 05:37:55 PM
I can agree about the clunky feel IW but it does smooth out a bit after you pick up more skills. I've found a fair amount of PBAoE attacks in all of the offensive skills. As far as multiple mobs, thats not too different from most other MMO's. Even in CoH you didn't want to get too far over your head unless you either 1. had taken the time to slot a really good defense or 2. had taken the time to slot really good offense.
Besides, TSW is not supposed to make you feel like Superman (or any other trademarked hero.) I get the feeling that you're supposed to feel a bit out of your depth and not quite sure what's going on. This is a world of secret societies and Lovecraftian happenings and all.
 
With your choice of all elemental powers (I've built a character the same way) you are very much a Glass Cannon. Great offense but you can get slapped down easily. I'd suggest pairing it off with Chaos which has some good melee attacks and some good evasion defenses, or something like blade which is a wonderful damage dealing set.
 
Just an opinion, for all it's worth.  ;)
 
 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on February 14, 2013, 09:05:17 AM
I can agree about the clunky feel IW but it does smooth out a bit after you pick up more skills. I've found a fair amount of PBAoE attacks in all of the offensive skills.
Yep, definitely - I love my sword animations, they generally flow well.
Of course when I use my pistol attack in between them it sometimes does feel clunky... (especially since the animation doesn't always activate properly)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on February 14, 2013, 03:41:11 PM
It's also a good idea, Ironwolf, to get into the mindset of creating multiple decks. I'm not sure how far along in the content you are, but as you progress, enemies become a lot more "deck dependent." You need to be able to counter what a particular enemy does or exploit a specific weakness...that sort of thing. In addition, your ability, weapon, and talisman load-outs vary depending on whether you're teamed or not (or what your teammates are carrying and how many of them there are). My two more-or-less endgame characters have four or five saved decks each, and even those get tweaked in individual situations (you can one-click revert to the saved baseline deck). What works filling a role on a dungeon team is very different from what you need for solo'ing.

The complexity of the character system and how its zillions of interesting symbioses effect the combat are  some of my favorite things about TSW.  It's a bit of a steep learning curve compared to a more conventional MMO system, but I  think it's worth it.

I find the combat a bit clunky in places, too...but it has some very good points. The need to keep moving and the absence of rooting, obviously, suit my playstyle (although the implementation of optional reticule targeting was really awful...). A lot of the combat animations are truly awful, alas, and the general smoothness of movement and realism of the physics are about average for an MMO (that is, terrible in comparison to CoH), but the overall combat experience is acceptable to me. Not what makes me love the game...but acceptable.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 16, 2013, 01:54:32 AM

I went straight magic with choosing so far almost all elemental powers.

I've done the very same thing.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 16, 2013, 01:56:34 AM
Not that it's very cut and dried but the morality of the three factions (at least the NPC's) works out something like this:
 
Templar: generally good if a bit, well, Templar-ish. So far I've found them to be the least reprehensible to play.
 
Dragon: Weird and a bit over obsessed with being chessmasters. The most neutral of the factions for a given value of neutral.
 
Illuminati: Punks. Every single one of them. About the most evil group in the game. well, perhaps not evil as such but very, very, self absorbed. I can see why the templars do not get along with them.
 
Just my observations.

I see the Templar philosophy being more like this - "We don't just fight evil, we decide what is evil".
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on February 16, 2013, 03:43:50 AM
I immersed for a day or two in December -- when the zombie fest was going and they could show up ANYWHERE, even in safe zones, which made it very tiring.  I haven't figured out how to claim a couple of costume things.  I like the setting, the stories seem okay.  I like a lot of the NPCs...but...what I finally realized is THE BASIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TSW and COX.  And that is the world view.

COH had an optimistic world view that ran through the game.  You FELT good when you played a hero.
TSW has an underlying dark and pessimistic world view that pervades the game that doesn't usually match what I want to feel when I play a game...so I was considering buying in before I figured that out, but now...I really don't know of any place to go.

Robin
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 17, 2013, 06:14:56 PM
The time that came with my TSW client purchase has expired.  This is a game I won't subscribe to regardless of the player rewards.  On the other hand, I might spend a bit in their shop.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Cobra Man on February 18, 2013, 05:20:07 AM
The time that came with my TSW client purchase has expired.  This is a game I won't subscribe to regardless of the player rewards.  On the other hand, I might spend a bit in their shop.

TSW is free to play.

If you received an email telling you that you're free play time has expired - ignore it.

Just log in and play as normal. That email was an automated system message that wasn't meant to be sent.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on February 18, 2013, 08:22:25 AM
I immersed for a day or two in December -- when the zombie fest was going and they could show up ANYWHERE, even in safe zones, which made it very tiring.  I haven't figured out how to claim a couple of costume things.  I like the setting, the stories seem okay.  I like a lot of the NPCs...but...what I finally realized is THE BASIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TSW and COX.  And that is the world view.

COH had an optimistic world view that ran through the game.  You FELT good when you played a hero.
TSW has an underlying dark and pessimistic world view that pervades the game that doesn't usually match what I want to feel when I play a game...so I was considering buying in before I figured that out, but now...I really don't know of any place to go.

Robin
If you like the gameplay, give TERA Online a try - it seems more optimistic storywise. (mind you I haven't seen much of it yet, so I could be completely wrong).
Or Neverwinter when it comes out.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on February 18, 2013, 05:01:53 PM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on February 19, 2013, 09:12:27 AM
Extra character slots are available through your account management - but you can't buy them with points, they require actual money.
Of course it's entirely possible you already knew that and meant you wanted them added to the store for points, in which case, carry on!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on February 19, 2013, 01:46:24 PM
Extra character slots are available through your account management - but you can't buy them with points, they require actual money.
Of course it's entirely possible you already knew that and meant you wanted them added to the store for points, in which case, carry on!

Actually, I did not know that. Account management you say? Hm...... very good tip KS. I shall have to look into that.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Knightslayer on February 19, 2013, 02:40:13 PM

Actually, I did not know that. Account management you say? Hm...... very good tip KS. I shall have to look into that.
Yeah, it requires logging in on the site - it's under account upgrades or a similar category if I'm not mistaken.   ;D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on February 19, 2013, 03:50:39 PM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 20, 2013, 12:30:41 AM
TSW is free to play.

If you received an email telling you that you're free play time has expired - ignore it.

Just log in and play as normal. That email was an automated system message that wasn't meant to be sent.

I bought my box back before the game became F2P.  I think I was two days into my time when they changed over.

I've seen nothing in their veteran's rewards program that would be worth the paying the monthly fee to get.   I'll continue to play but I'm making a definite effort not to become attached to my 'toon'.   I have no intention of having my heart broken again.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 20, 2013, 03:50:59 AM
I don't like the combat system.  Something is off with the power activation times and recharge timers.  The fact that powers become obsolete as you 'level' is a downer and having to constantly feed points into your wheel to unlock more powers gets old fast.

I miss being able to pick a power that works from lvl 1 to lvl 50 and that I can slot any way I want to make it work as effectively as I need it to.

And don't get me started on the crafting system and how their enhancements work.

Storywise, it's a great game.  But mechanically I don't like it.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on February 20, 2013, 03:52:35 PM
Yeah, DC, I'm a pretty big fan of TSW, and I still can only call the combat system "clunky." I like the lack of rooting and how the enemy mechanics require using that mobility, but the "feel" isn't great. The combination of basic movement/physics (that is, the engine) with twitchy, mediocre animations makes the actual physical gameplay something I tolerate in the game rather than enjoy.

I don't agree about abilities (powers...) becoming obsolete as you spend AP on more of that "slice" of the ability wheel. Some do, some don't. For all weapon types, there are heavy hitters in at least one of the two inner wheel "slices." Not usually the weapons heaviest hitters, but something you'll often find a spot in a deck for. Each weapon's across-the-board +10% Damage passive is always in the inner wheel, for example. A lot of the better resource builders are inner wheel, too. Sometimes the only advantage of an outer wheel attack over its categorical counterparts (that is, builders, consumers, or non-resource) is that it has a secondary effect like an Impair. The enemies that really call for secondary effects tend to come later in the progression. Those for whom they are necessary are mostly found only in Nightmare (and a few) Elite dungeons, Lair regional bosses, etc.

I'm pretty "meh" about the crafting, too. But I generally dislike crafting in games anyway, something I have to deal with (Fallen Earth's genuinely fun system being the exception). I don't really have "enjoy the crafting" on my list of MMO expectations.  I don't mind how the enhancement system works in terms of basic architecture...but the execution needs a lot of fine (and not-so-fine) tuning. And too damn many currencies, a problem CoH came to share, too.  >:(

Still as you say, TSW is all about the story (and immersion, etc.). For me, it works well enough mechanically to be acceptable, but that's not the draw.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Sailboat on February 26, 2013, 05:33:13 PM
I'm playing this now.  I do like the atmosphere; very creepy.  And the way you can just stumble across a quest way out in the wilderness is neat.  And the characters are memorable (I really felt for that Jake guy down in the sewer).

Something about the look and movement of characters in the world harks way, way back in my gaming history -- it feel old, vastly less sophisticated that City of Heroes.  I have a hard time putting my finger on it.

Still baffled by the subtleties of the ability wheel/skill system.  Still adjusting to having only 7 available skills/hotkeys.  Still adjusting to having only a few minor defenses that add a few points of healing or a 5-10% change in one combat stat -- so far I feel SO much weaker than a COH character.

And of course, intensely distressed every time I have to look for a break in a fence line because I cannot leap, fly, teleport, or even hop over small obstacles.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 27, 2013, 12:33:27 AM
For me, the skill points are what's important.  Ability points not so much once you get a set of powers you like.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on March 12, 2013, 02:51:37 PM
For me, the skill points are what's important.  Ability points not so much once you get a set of powers you like.

Agreed, although Skill Points become moot after you bring every active and passive (plus the talismans and auxiliaries) up to the top. Can't spend any more at that point!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on March 23, 2013, 04:35:08 AM
All right, I know I paid some $$ for costumes so I guess I'll go look at Account Management somehow.  I am, of course, accustomed to seeing stuff in my inbox.  As for the darkness...I just don't know.  I got so destroyed in December by the zombies, particularly those special ones that just showed up in safe zones.  Nothing but zombies and zombie mutants in the first level, which I barely got out of.  Several times lately I thought I'd go and log in (esp. now I have fiber optic), and I just didn't want to...the only thing I could ascribe that to is the dark feeling.  Might be something else, but I'm not sure.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Sailboat on March 26, 2013, 02:50:40 PM
Well, I've been making steady progress in the game (just started Egypt last night, freshly kitted out in QL 7 gear) and I do like it.  But it's been shockingly hard to find documentation on anything.  The Wiki has huge holes in it, and when I ask on the forums, the usual answer is some version of "why would anyone want to know the nuts and bolts details?"  I have literally been told not to worry what the skills do, it's easier just to take them.

It's the first game community I've encountered which doesn't seem to care about figuring out the mechanics.  (And a far cry from the Titan Network!)  I'm flabbergasted.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Brightfires on March 26, 2013, 04:07:16 PM
FCM and I are also playing Secret World a bit... We're just starting the second section of Egypt with our guys. (He's running a Hammer/Blood dude who's all about damage and I have a Blade/Chaos tank, who's a half-hearted attempt at rebuilding my favorite CoH tank in TSW terms-)

I'm not sure I can say that I like the game. I like PARTS of the game, and I've gotten a little attached to the new version of Palrah in spite of telling myself I wasn't going to... But for every single bit of Secret World I say "Okay, that's cool" about there are three or four things that annoy me, frustrate me or just make me shake my head and wonder who the devil ever thought it would be a Good Idea. And I'm not even to Transylvania yet, where the serious gimmick mobs and the missions *designed* to really annoy and frustrate players seem to be concentrated.

Personally, I highly doubt I'll play the game for much longer. I fully expect to hit a wall with the Egyptian end-boss, and knowing how low my tolerence for gimmick mobs is, I already have zero interest in Transylvania.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Spellcaster Hana on March 27, 2013, 03:08:59 AM
I've tried this game for months and it's cool and all but I find the difficulty of the game too hard with a lot of bugs so I quit temporarily...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on March 27, 2013, 05:19:42 AM
I've tried this game for a months and it's cool and all but I find the difficulty of the game too hard with a lot of bugs so I quit temporarily...

Yeah, TSW is a comparatively difficult game in terms of combat, to be sure. Some Transylvania enemies (Paduri, for example)  have pretty arcane mechanics...and Elite and (especially) Nightmare dungeon bosses have very complex mechanics indeed. I personally really enjoy the dungeon and Lair bosses, as I appreciate the devs trying to make them a huge challenge by way of something other than the "giant sack of hit points" method (Hi, Reichsman!) or "random patch 'o instant death" tomfoolery. But they can be bloody hard...

Moreover, the path out of struggling with later game mobs lies less in just gearing up than it does in discovering the various symbioses and combinations around the ability wheel that make a particular enemy easier to beat. It's deliberately complex...one of the game's attempts at long-term interest in a particular character. I like it a lot...but not for everyone. Heck, I've never been much of a min/max'er or number cruncher, and I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the additional complexity the Incarnate system introduced in CoH. I'm not sure why I tolerate it more in TSW...might be the feeling like I've stumbled onto some special, secret thing when I find a particularly good symbiosis of abilities (even though I know that it was something deliberately designed).

I wasn't seeing a lot of bugs...until the latest update (Issue 6...). They had to hotfix a few things, patch a couple more. The fact that there are now three games being handled by one dev team becomes evident with that sort of thing. Their QA (never Funcom's strong suit anyway) took a hit.

Taking a semi-break, myself. I've still been playing...but not as much. Played the final Defiance beta over the weekend (very fun...but an MMOTPS, not an MMORPG). Got back into Fallen Earth again. Gaming life goes on...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on April 07, 2013, 05:56:17 AM
Well, I sat down to load the patch and while I did, hit these forums...so much for the night...and I think I had a lot more fun than playing...sorry, I just miss COH...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: therain93 on April 23, 2013, 12:17:32 PM
Just a head's up that Best Buy is clearnacing a bunch of games at 50% off including the Secret World - so now only 14.99 to play forever.  The individual games were not marked, they just had a shelf full of them with a sign (Everett, MA) -- ymmv.  I picked up a copy, but have not set up an account yet.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Canine on April 23, 2013, 01:02:57 PM
- so now only 14.99 to play forever.

<twitch>

...yeah, those last two words now have unfortunate connotations to me :(
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 23, 2013, 06:07:06 PM
Yes, "play forever" simply means "until we tell you it's over".

I haven't played TSW in months.  I guess I should go back and try it again.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Blondeshell on April 23, 2013, 09:56:08 PM
Just a head's up that Best Buy is clearancing a bunch of games at 50% off including the Secret World - so now only 14.99 to play forever.  The individual games were not marked, they just had a shelf full of them with a sign (Everett, MA) -- ymmv.  I picked up a copy, but have not set up an account yet.

I checked my local stores and they don't show anything in stock, but they were eager to tell me about the digital download. I'd guess your store just didn't get around to sending that one back when it went F2P, but it's nice to have a physical copy as a memento sometimes.

Edit: I actually drove to both of the stores tonight to verify what they said over the phone. One store did still have a copy on the shelf, but it was at the original $49.99 price. I think it's quite silly that they rely on their Web site to see what items are in the stores. "If it's not on our Web site, there's no way we would have a copy of it here." Lazy dummies.  :P
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: therain93 on April 25, 2013, 12:38:32 AM
<twitch>

...yeah, those last two words now have unfortunate connotations to me :(
I was happily paying my subscription to NCsoft for City of Heroes, even after it went hybrid -- until NCsoft decide they didn't want my/our money anymore.  I'm fine going into a new game and only paying the 14.99 once -- my expectations are set and if I get a month out of it, I'll be happy.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: therain93 on April 29, 2013, 04:03:06 AM
So, installed TSW after a several hour download.  Fire it up....create a toon from a relatively small wardrobe and character options, then get to the name screen.  Sweet!  First Name, Nickname, Sur Name....throw it together....what? nickname taken?  Seriously?  You require 3 names, but make the nickname the unique identitfier? 
 
/e facepalm
 
 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on April 29, 2013, 05:09:30 AM
So, installed TSW after a several hour download.  Fire it up....create a toon from a relatively small wardrobe and character options, then get to the name screen.  Sweet!  First Name, Nickname, Sur Name....throw it together....what? nickname taken?  Seriously?  You require 3 names, but make the nickname the unique identitfier? 
 
/e facepalm
The nickname is what people view you as in the real world and what people invite/PM you with. The First/Surnames are flavor. I don't even have them turned on in my UI options.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on April 29, 2013, 06:05:42 AM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on April 29, 2013, 02:58:46 PM
So, installed TSW after a several hour download.  Fire it up....create a toon from a relatively small wardrobe and character options, then get to the name screen.  Sweet!  First Name, Nickname, Sur Name....throw it together....what? nickname taken?  Seriously?  You require 3 names, but make the nickname the unique identitfier? 
 
/e facepalm

Yep...never thought that made sense, particularly on a game where servers are just used for population instancing but you can play cross server (thus making it necessary to have only one list of unique names). You started hearing complaints that "all the good names are taken" about 30 days after launch.

The small wardrobe part gets better, and the majority of pieces are available with in-game currency. Some are quest or ability wheel segment completion awards, too. There are also clothes in the cash shop, which is one of their revenue centers. The character modeling options, however, are indeed fairly limited. They're excellent models, but not a ton of 'em. Some of the modification ranges are annoyingly limited (try and make a "dead fish belly white" goth-looking person...you can't).

I've been playing in "maintenance mode" for a few weeks now. I still love the game (best writing in all of gaming, immersive, graphically lovely), but some of the people I team with are waiting for more mission content (despite us not having progressed through the dungeon difficulty ladder all the way). But it's really sketchy at the harder levels without a full team, and I'm more than a little PUG-averse. I pop in and run some dailies and explore odd areas a couple three times a week while I wait for friends to return.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Kurrent on April 29, 2013, 09:52:06 PM
I just bought this over the weekend and started playing.  I'm really liking it so far.  My main character is on Arcardia, named Nika Rousseau (NikaRousseau for the nickname).  Nika (full name Satanika Lilith Rousseau) was one of my old GURPS Horror characters, the only one who actually survived every game she was in; she retired from occult investigation and became a professional golfer, thanks to me putting aside a point every game to go into her Golf skill.  It started as a joke, but when I decided to retire her, her Golf skill was somewhere around 19 or 20, so I went with it.  I figured the best place for someone who knows far too much for her good to be was as firmly in the public eye as possible, where a sudden disappearance would raise all sorts of questions, so the LPGA and its lower-tier tours got to deal with a fairly exhibitionistic young woman whose slightly too-short shirts, belly button piercing (an occult talisman), pentacle tattoo around her belly button (occult power focus) and "Hell's Belle" tramp stamp tattoo on her lower back stirred up all sorts of publicity.  Since blood magic was always her thing in GURPS, picking what ability I wanted to focus on for her in TSW was easy.

So I see that there is a CoH-Refugees channel for CoX alums; I'll try to join it tonight.  I hope the command syntax will be something simple like /chanjoin X, but I'll figure it out.  Any other channels out there for us, or any groups that are semi-regular?  I'd dearly love to see some of my old Liberty or Triumph friends, but just being around others from our world would be wonderful.  Never found anyone in Age of Conan who had seriously played CoX, sadly.

Oh, and is it my imagination, or did my subscription for AoC count as a subscription for TSW too?  When I checked out the item store, all my Funcom points were there as well as my unspent vet tokens.  Could it possibly be that I don't need to pay twice for subscriptions for those two games, since they're both Funcom products?  If so, that would be quite nice.

Jo
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 30, 2013, 01:34:11 AM
Aren't both games now 'free to play'?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on April 30, 2013, 02:56:06 AM
Aren't both games now 'free to play'?
I don't know about AoC, but TSW is "buy to play" (ala Guild Wars) - you buy the 'box' (or digital code) and then play forever for free.

I can't find anything for AoC that says anything about needing to buy ANYTHING. So it looks like it's completely free to play (I do see there's a "premium sub" option though - and an item store.)

Additionally, Funcom points are available to any Funcom game attached to that master account. They're Funcom points, not AoC points or TSW points. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on May 02, 2013, 11:26:18 PM
This weekend is double ability points.  That might be worth going back to it.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: CoolFlare on June 20, 2013, 08:52:36 AM
me and the hubby have been playing TSW for a couple of months now(bought the game to see what all the hoohaw was about)and had to buy a second so that we could both play. I do like the fact that the gear that you receive does not affect how your costume looks unlike some of the other gear based games that I have played. I like the mythology and lore in the game also. I anyone would like to form a team and go kill zombies and stuff or just hang look for Coolflare and the Hubby is Aggroking. just mention COH and you got us. We were also on the triumph server.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 20, 2013, 10:23:28 AM
Steam has this game as their Daily Deal for half price ($15 instead of $30). I went ahead and grabbed it because it's always seemed interesting to me.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on June 20, 2013, 04:59:19 PM
Great to see some new faces!  I'm still kind of in the same boat as above (that is, playing in "maintenance mode" while waiting for Issue 7 to run my two high-end characters), but I have a lowbie* (and space for at least one more toon), so I can run with new folks without overpowering the starter area content. One small catch: for RP/Immersion reasons, I only have Illuminati characters...no Templars or Dragons. That's no barrier to (PvE) teaming, just can't be in a non-Lumie cabal (guild) or invite non-Lumies to my cabal.

Happy to team and help people over the game's not-inconsiderable learning curve (without spoilers or "tour guiding!"). Might be best to contact me here to try and hook up in-game, since  the game's global communication tools are nothing special. I live on the West Coast, US, and have a pretty normal business work schedule...usually play in the evenings and on weekends. I'm a roleplayer, but more of the "do missions and kill stuff while staying in character" type; not much for hanging around gabbing in social hubs.

*"lowbie" in the sense of not having the ability wheel or skills ladder filled out much...there are no actual levels in the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 20, 2013, 11:18:09 PM
Poking about the material while the game downloads updates. I'm honestly shocked as all get out about the three factions, mostly because I can import some of my CoH/Original Concept characters without much fuss or bother. Vincent Chetti (Known in the Rogue Isles as "The Monochrome Mobster") or Lily Pandora are both absolute shoe-ins for Illuminati characters. Kevin McGann (aka The Leopard) will likely find his way into the Templar order, but I have to admit...the Dragons also have some qualities McGann might lean towards.

EDIT: Rolled my first character, Kevin "KillerLeopard" McGann, a member of the Dragons. The "One blade can silence a thousand lies" thing speaks to Kevin's motivations. The Dragons are definitely interesting. I plan to shoot for revamping his power selections from Champions Online - specifically Dual Pistols and Blades. Tonight after work I might roll out Vincent "Vinny/Monochrome" Chetti for the Illuminati. Who will likely be a Assault Rifle/Shotgun and some form of Magic wielder. Not sure what form of Magic to use, though. (The Monochrome Mobster was a Thug/Darkness Mastermind)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Oskmey on June 22, 2013, 09:26:03 PM
Rust, what about Blood Magic? I found that it goes well with the AR especially the heals which have kept me going a number of times.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 23, 2013, 12:09:44 AM
A possibility. Of course, I might go Shotgun too for that up close Shooty Shoot. But my plans for alts have stalled pretty severely. I've become immersed in Kingsmouth. The questing structure took me by surprise - the fact they are almost all repeatable - but I've been impressed with both the variety of the side quests and the general overall size of Kingsmouth in general. It's a pretty impressively large place.

Also I really do love the dialogue and story to the game. Some genuine moments of well timed humor. "Henry's got his God, that Roma (?) Woman has her crystal ball, and old Norma on point has her 12 gauge. My money's on Norma."
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on June 23, 2013, 02:41:40 AM
The writing keeps being amusing as you get deeper into the game. You might notice a few familiar voices as you go.
 
AR/Blood is a good mix, particularly if you like acting as party support. My character has good long range hitting power with the ability to throw heals/barriers on teammates. If you like a more high damage lifestyle, take a look at elementalism as your magic. It pairs well with pistols and shotgun.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 23, 2013, 03:17:13 AM
Wait a second here.

Kingsmouth had participation in World War II, the Witch Trials, and had a Mining Accident.

...Kingsmouth is on Carnate Island! o_o (From the PS2 game The Suffering)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on June 25, 2013, 04:12:32 AM
The only character I have is essentially an attempt to recreate an electric/electric blaster.  Sadly, the Secret World naming convention is frustrating and the character ended up with a stupid name.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 25, 2013, 10:27:34 AM
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the naming conventions of the game but I'm working around it.

Cleared out all but the dungeon mission (And the Lair Missions, but those are still conning as "Devastating") in Kingsmouth and am on the Savage Coast now. Have to say, I like the fact that while it's still the same general area, it has a very different "feel" to it then Kingsmouth. I was honestly getting a little sick of Draug and Zombies, so the Hellbeasts are a nice change up.

Also, this game is the first game since Myst back in the day that I've up and bought a journal for. Those Investigation Missions are a lot of fun, but I don't want to keep just looking up the walkthrough. I want to solve them for myself.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rotten Luck on June 25, 2013, 10:48:55 AM
I'm now playing in The Secret World as well.  Arcadia server joined a Cabal that just starting up thought the Rpers seem alright.  Name is Ron "RottenLuck" Bolton, Illuminati at this time I'm using the Maverick deck and expanding.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on June 25, 2013, 02:01:29 PM
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the naming conventions of the game but I'm working around it.

Cleared out all but the dungeon mission (And the Lair Missions, but those are still conning as "Devastating") in Kingsmouth and am on the Savage Coast now. Have to say, I like the fact that while it's still the same general area, it has a very different "feel" to it then Kingsmouth. I was honestly getting a little sick of Draug and Zombies, so the Hellbeasts are a nice change up.

It's a bit confusing, but despite being in the "starter area," the Lair missions in Kingsmouth (and every other zone in which there are Lair areas) are for characters/teams who have gotten their Skills advanced, have at least a couple of outer ring Ability wheel "slices" filled out all the way, and QL10 weapons and talismans. Lairs are filled with Nightmare-level enemies,  like you'd meet in Nightmare dungeons (dungeons advance from Normal to Elite to Nightmare...). They have tens of thousands of HP and special attack mechanics. "Devastating" in truth as well as label...

The Normal level dungeon mission in Kingsmouth, however, is very do-able for characters in the zone's range (same for Savage Coast, etc...). It's challenging and you'll want a full team (trust me on that), but it's also a lot of fun. It can take a while to figure out each boss fight 's distinct mechanics...this is NOT a game where you can just zerg rush that level of enemy.   :D

I have a relative lowbie in Savage Coast. You can friend "JustAstrid" (w/o me being in-game) and look for me, if you'd like some more company...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 25, 2013, 11:34:17 PM
I figured as much was the case. I was by the Municipal Airport and I saw someone farming the Zombies in the Parking Lot. A little later I wandered into the Parking Lot and realized my attacks weren't damaging the Zombies at all.

I kind of like that there will be things to do in the game once I hit a high enough skill set. I enjoy not "invalidating" Content.

I'm eager to try and find a group for the Kingsmouth Dungeon, but right now I'm busy doing the Investigation Mission at the Overlook Motel. This journal is going to be amusing to revisit in a few years or for anyone not familiar with it being a game. Drawing out an entire Infernal Alphabet is not exactly your standard fare for Video Games. :D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Twi on June 26, 2013, 02:10:53 AM
So, been trying this out for a bit now. Just got to Transylvania, got to say, the game manages to stay fairly fresh.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rust on June 27, 2013, 10:09:26 PM
So I need a bit of help, but in an odd sort of way. Thanks to Industrial Revolution and Original Gangster I have all the pieces I need for Vincent "The-Monochrome" Chetti, my Secret World version of my City of Villains Mastermind (He's Illuminati, and I think I'll be going Grifter for him since I like the idea of AoE attacks with Summons - fits his Mastermind Roots).

But Kevin "KillerLeopard" McGann is more complicated. Here's his Champions Online look (Since I was using Champions as the guideline for his powerset, seems appropriate):

(https://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/GuardConvoy/Heroes/leopard003_zps888f3120.jpg)

Currently I'm rocking the Black Tactical Vest, Brown Military Harnass, Yellow Slacks, Black Fingerless Gloves, and Black Buckle Boots. It works as a look, but I was wondering if I could maybe get something a little more in the ballpark. I've seen people walking around with like scarf masks covering their lower face, and I saw one guy who was in a full Black and Yellow ensemble completely with full face mask that looked really close. But I have no idea what outfit that is.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on September 07, 2013, 03:23:46 AM
I've been playing the 'Secret World' again the last few weeks.  I can't imagine this game is long for this world.  In three nights of two to four hours of play per night, I never saw more than a few people and almost no chatting.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on September 07, 2013, 04:23:23 AM
ive played it, but ive stopped because there is no reason to go to the other zones, because 1 could do the starting zone and stay there.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on September 07, 2013, 06:03:11 AM
I've only been as far as Blue Mountain.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on September 07, 2013, 09:54:29 PM
I've taken a couple players through more-or-less all the available content (although there's a massive new zone on the way), and it remains my favorite MMO (by a pretty big stretch, actually). It's by no means empty, but you kind of have to know where to look. The first three zones (Solomon Island) tend to be fairly sparse in population, as there seems to be only a modest trickle of new players, and there aren't a lot of reasons to return for someone in QL10+ gear.

It's not a chatty game in open zone chat (thank all the gods) except in Agartha (the "hollow earth" travel hub, which is also the access to some higher level instanced content like Nightmare-level dungeons). In Agartha, the amount of zone chat, mostly dungeon teaming requests done is rather cryptic shorthand, is overwhelming at times. As a roleplayer, I pretty much tune it out, actually.

Can't wait for the new zone to hit, in part because it ill bring back some of my usual gaming crew to the game and away from TOR, which despite herculean effort, I just can't connect with.
Title: The Secret World
Post by: Empyrean on November 06, 2013, 02:39:22 PM
I just posted over on the Champions Online forum because I left CO a few months ago for TSW, and, after posting my impressions of TSW over there, I thought I'd expand on them here and see others here think about the game.

For me, TSW REALLY took patience and stick-to-itiveness, but I hung in there and I'm really glad I did.  I found a challenging, exciting, smart, atmospheric story-driven game where you ARE a superhero (they come out and say it ingame frequently) just in a grittier way and on a smaller scale--at first.  I was able to re-create one of my supernatural heroes from CoH there and he fits in very well.  I do occasionally miss the primary colors, tights and cape aesthetic and classic "travel powers", but while I was afraid that would be a deal breaker for me, I found that the game was so good once I was over the hump that I am having a ball and really getting into it.

They've had some trouble getting people into the game after a buggy start, but, after really sinking my teeth into it, I have to say that I think their biggest problem is that  they were too uncompromising in their integrity and made the game too darn challenging and smart for most gamers (present company excepted--I never considered real CoH people your average "gamers").  If they'd sold out a bit more they would have done much better--but I'm glad they didn't :D.  You do take a beating from the learning curve, thought.  If you try it out, be ready for that.   It's not a "short attention span theater" game.  More like a good game for stubborn people who like a challenge.

Unfortunately, because of that they are fighting to keep their company and games alive and have had to circle their wagons, but they did it so intelligently and well--consolidating their teams in one location and sharing between their two games that have the same engine--that the development quality and pace of both games has actually improved!  They've been releasing some truly amazing stuff in TSW.

I will say that, after getting through the initial learning/understanding the world curve, I will have different standard for games from now on as far as story, atmosphere, challenge level and intelligence in a game.  It reminds me of how good the story, atmosphere, and development was in CoH in the Paragon Studios halcyon days.

ADVICE: 

1)  If you try TSW, stay in each zone until you exhaust every single mission in that zone!  It doesn't look like it because there are no "levels", but the difficulty really ratchets up from zone to zone!  One of the challenges I had at first was not feeling very heroic when I was getting squashed--till I learned to stay where I belong while leveling.  The game is innately challenging, so it's a lot more fun to be slightly over powered for a zone than under-powered.

2) You do feel like a small potato at first, but don't let that bother you while progressing--deep in the endgame you become a true demigod of a superhero, it just takes patience.

3) Move!  Actively avoiding the big attacks with movement and terrain makes the difference between "they're crazy, I can't beat that boss" and "Hmm, that was easy".

PS-  The community is mostly great (with your normal smattering of miserable bastards who usually aren't tolerated) and there are lots of CoH people there :).  And even a CoH channel and a CoH groups!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Dollhouse on November 06, 2013, 06:31:32 PM
As a long-term Secret Worlder, I love your post...very good presentation! I've actually taken something of a sabbatical from TSW that's just ending, mostly a case of my usual partners-in-crime wandering into TOR while awaiting additional TSW major content additions (which are happening as we speak). Two of my three characters are "endgamers," but one has a lot less of the Wheel complete and is only nearing the end of the second zone. Happy to hook up (if you're Illuminati-friendly!).

Simply THE most immersive MMO I've ever played, and the best-written. Combat's not brilliant (but it's playable and definitely challenging), and the character movement and combat animations are so-so...but those are really my only complaints with the game. Roleplayer paradise (assuming the game's setting and theme work for you...it's not as easy to ignore canon and theme and "roll your own" as it was in CoH). I didn't try to re-make any of my (125+) City characters  there, but several friends did, with pretty good success.

Anyone playing who wants some 'Lumie* company can look me up on either "StraightRed," "Cascadiant," or "JustAstrid" (no global, which is kind of annoying). Or just message me here...

* I really bought into their "immersion in your faction" thing, and play exclusively Illuminati. =)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 08, 2013, 02:54:40 PM
I'm still playing TSW.  I've adopted a new tactic.  I play only until I get killed and then I'm done for the night.  I've found it has made me a better player.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JetFlash on November 08, 2013, 07:25:26 PM
Do they have a trial version?  Not interested in buying a game that I end up not liking...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Blondeshell on November 08, 2013, 10:08:46 PM
Do they have a trial version?  Not interesting in buying a game that I end up not liking...

Nope, no trial version since they switched to a pay once, play forever model. It's a good game if you've got a computer that can handle it sufficiently.

2012 Trailer (http://vimeo.com/55393092)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on November 09, 2013, 12:30:34 AM
I'm still playing TSW.  I've adopted a new tactic.  I play only until I get killed and then I'm done for the night.  I've found it has made me a better player.

Ah, if only more people played that way. TSW really isn't a 'scream and leap' game. It's more of a sneak and snoop and fight when you must game, particularly in the earlier zones while you're still building your abilities.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: wyldhunt on November 09, 2013, 01:53:47 PM
Ah, if only more people played that way. TSW really isn't a 'scream and leap' game. It's more of a sneak and snoop and fight when you must game, particularly in the earlier zones while you're still building your abilities.
I've made TSW my home at least one of the CoH successors (or SCoRE) is ready for play. I have a Blood/Blade build in the Carpathian Fangs, and with that build, it's always been sneak/snoop. However, I've recently made a Fists/Chaos, I'm while sure it will be sneak/snoop in the Blue Mountains, that build in Kingsmouth is scream and leap - mowing zombies like grass.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 10, 2013, 06:04:52 AM

Ah, if only more people played that way. TSW really isn't a 'scream and leap' game. It's more of a sneak and snoop and fight when you must game, particularly in the earlier zones while you're still building your abilities.

Death usually comes for me as failure of my ability to sneak and snoop.  I played for a couple of hours tonight and got taken out by surprise in Blue Mountain.   My character isn't really ready for that zone but I wanted to work through one of the Halloween quests.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on November 11, 2013, 02:21:30 AM
Death usually comes for me as failure of my ability to sneak and snoop.  I played for a couple of hours tonight and got taken out by surprise in Blue Mountain.   My character isn't really ready for that zone but I wanted to work through one of the Halloween quests.

I can relate to that. I tried to run that same quest with a fairly new character and never even made it past the Bed and Breakfast. I tried again with a more established character and an assist from a friend and we did ok until we hit Blue Mountain, then things got a bit ugly. A bit more sneaking might have made the difference.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 11, 2013, 03:08:49 AM
I might not have made it past the three kittens if someone else hadn't run up and starting helping me with them.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on November 11, 2013, 03:11:41 AM
That was the spot. I got one of the three. Then the other two turned me into cat chow.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JetFlash on November 11, 2013, 07:01:42 PM
Nope, no trial version since they switched to a pay once, play forever model. It's a good game if you've got a computer that can handle it sufficiently.

2012 Trailer (http://vimeo.com/55393092)


I have no problems running modern games at maximum settings, so that isn't a concern.  Ah well, it's not like I don't have dozens of other games to choose from to play.

Maybe Steam will have it cheap over the holiday sales. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 12, 2013, 01:37:47 AM
I believe they already had a 'free to play' weekend on Steam.  I could be wrong about that.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Empyrean on November 13, 2013, 01:54:22 PM
As I mentioned before, I've found really hanging back in a zone helps you be able to "scream and leap" at least some :).  I make sure that I've at least done every single mission of every type before I let the main story mission take me to the next zone.  It feels more like a normal MMO that way--and usually, if you're patient, they're all worth doing.  And I've learned to go ahead and get hints if I get stuck, because it's not always your fault--some of the mystery missions are flawed.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on November 20, 2013, 11:00:52 AM
Nope, no trial version since they switched to a pay once, play forever model. It's a good game if you've got a computer that can handle it sufficiently.

2012 Trailer (http://vimeo.com/55393092)


Buddy Keys replaced the old trials.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=s7.postimg.org%2Fac4ppo9mj%2FBuddy_Key.jpg)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JetFlash on November 22, 2013, 01:48:49 AM
Ah that would be good.  I'll PM my address if you'd like to help me out. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on November 22, 2013, 11:29:37 AM

MMORPG is currently giving out keys that give you a three day trial to The Secret World and a free in-game t-shirt and trench coat.

90 keys left.

http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/476 (http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/476)

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JetFlash on November 22, 2013, 06:38:53 PM
Bah.... saw this way too late.  *sigh*
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 24, 2013, 03:52:18 AM
The latest update brought a major cosmetic improvement.  Players can now elect to hide their weapons when not in use.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on November 27, 2013, 12:24:00 AM

From Massively
Quote
The Secret World offers Golden Weekend for the holiday

If you've got a lot of extra time to game this long holiday weekend, The Secret World has a special event that will keep you busy. Starting Thanksgiving Day and lasting through Monday, December 2nd, players will be able to rack up double Ability Points, collect a 30% bonus on all purchased Funcom Points, and earn a free month's membership for every recruited friend who buys the game.

 Additionally, players can once again enjoy the Gilded Rage event complete with the roaming giant golden golem loot pinata and the opportunity to grab the semi-exclusive golden tux at a 90% discount.




http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/11/26/the-secret-world-offers-golden-weekend-for-the-holiday/ (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/11/26/the-secret-world-offers-golden-weekend-for-the-holiday/)

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JetFlash on November 27, 2013, 06:49:09 PM
I actually managed to beg a trial key from the Steam forums, and gave it a try.

Decent game I must say.  I don't want to spend $30 on it however.  I will have to see if there are any ridiculously good deals to buy it coming up, hopefully during the Steam sales.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 27, 2013, 11:12:09 PM
In many ways, the cut scenes are the best part of the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Second Chances on November 28, 2013, 03:49:14 AM
Decent game I must say.

I did the trial recently, myself, and decided to buy it. It is one of those MMOs that ends up discouraging casual teaming during leveling (except for group-oriented instances), but since there is a lot of story there, I can live with that (it lets me go through the story and the puzzles at my own pace, and read all the stuff, and whatnot). Given that it is Pay Once, Play "Forever" (CoH players know how long forever is :/), if I look at it as a single-player game, it was well worth the price of admission to me. Whatever teaming I may get out of it as an MMO is icing on that cake.

Quote
I don't want to spend $30 on it however.  I will have to see if there are any ridiculously good deals to buy it coming up, hopefully during the Steam sales.

If you search this list, it seems that Amazon is expected to have it on sale on 11/29...
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/106582/amazon---amazons-pc-digital-download-sale-firaxis-complete-pack-20-bioshock-triple-pack-15-borderlands-2-goty-12-x-com-collection
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on November 28, 2013, 04:54:17 PM
I admit to cheating on the puzzles with the in-game web browser.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on December 02, 2013, 03:25:31 AM

Amazon currently has Secret World for $10.19.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 02, 2013, 04:06:32 AM
This weekend was the busiest I've ever seen in 'The Secret World'.   I gained literally hundreds of ability points on Golden Golem event teams.  For the first time ever, I actually experienced lag in this game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Lycantropus on December 02, 2013, 01:06:13 PM
This weekend was the busiest I've ever seen in 'The Secret World'.   I gained literally hundreds of ability points on Golden Golem event teams.  For the first time ever, I actually experienced lag in this game.
Yeah, having seen a couple of those by now, those weekends are like that :) The golem events (and rewards) are fun enough (unless you get the stupid flares) but yeah... lots of lag.

The Secret World is where my little online group settled after trying a few other MMO's. It's not "home", but it's visually pleasing, wonderful stories and characters (I can pick one or two from each area that are my favorites and/or that stick in my head) and you can literally build any way you want (within the rules of the game). You want to be a ranged kind of tank thing? Sure! Want to throw down melee style, no problem! The fact that you can do it on the same character, and switch weapons and styles between each encounter if you really want, is a plus (for that, the gear management slots are invaluable!). That you can master everything eventually means there's no 'wrong' way to build, and finding the combinations that work for your and your group are a joy to explore.

Unfortunately, a lot of folks in game don't feel the same way and try to pigeonhole every character into a 'holy trinity' combo or consider your build a bad one. Granted, it seems the Dev's built the dungeons with that in mind (probably because players wouldn't have it any other way) but the rest of the game is more versatile and forgiving than I think a lot of people suspect. It's something few other games even attempt to do, so I guess I can't blame a large portion of the general playerbase for not being able wrap their head around that versatility.

I just wish the team size limit was a little bigger (caps at 5- whereas playing City of * we'd kinda gotten used to teams of 6-8... again, there's no place like home)

Lyc~

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 03, 2013, 04:11:06 AM
I must have 50 flares from just the weekend.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 06, 2013, 04:42:50 AM
I'm interested in trying Secret World (if this comp can handle it).

Are there any classes/builds that play like master minds or contollers?

What would be a good server to start on, I'm game for pretty much anything except for RPing.

It's free to play right, with a sub option? If it is, if I like it after I've played it some. I'll most likely sub.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Exxar on December 06, 2013, 04:51:20 AM
Are there any classes/builds that play like master minds or contollers?
Nope. CoH was an exception in the potency of its crowd control powers. You'll not see such heavy control in any other game. And last I played, there were no summonable pets.

It's free to play right, with a sub option? If it is, if I like it after I've played it some. I'll most likely sub.
It is buy to play with a sub option. Meaning you need to buy the box for $40 or so and you can play most of the content for free after that. If you wish you can sub, and then you'll have access to all update missions (without a sub, you'll have access only to some of them). In any case, you get full access to the game's various systems.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 06, 2013, 05:03:00 AM
Ah Thanks a lot Exxar.

I'll have to wait until payday then.

No pet classes is kind of a let down but as long as I can farm. I'll be happy, I'll buy the digital copy on pay day. Try it out and if I like it I'll sub. :)

So any particular servers I should try out? I really just like pve and farming.

Ty again and take care. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 06, 2013, 05:16:50 AM
You're going to find it plays different from CoX.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 06, 2013, 06:23:00 AM
I figured that, not many games play like CoH.

I've watched some game play videos but it's been awhile.

I'll watch some more game play vids tomorrow.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 06, 2013, 06:48:54 AM
I advise you to pick up the self-heal ability as quickly as possible.  You're going to need it.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on December 06, 2013, 01:38:08 PM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Second Chances on December 06, 2013, 09:58:20 PM
The Newcomers section of the forums has a lot of good info.
http://forums.thesecretworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6 (http://forums.thesecretworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6)

In particular, I found these two stickied threads there really handy in getting started...

The Basics...
  http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=66643
Things I wish I'd known...
  http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=52907
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 06, 2013, 11:58:28 PM
+1 on the advice regarding skill points.  I squandered some early on and I'm still paying for it a year later.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 09, 2013, 09:58:17 AM
So I decided to buy it. LOL! So far I'm liking it, I'm on the Grimm server by the name Helrunar.

I'm going with one of the pre-builds called Gladiator for my first character. Then I'll try to build my next on my own. LOL!

The leveling seems kind of slow at first but what MMO doesn't have alittle grind at that start? :P

Ty and take care. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 09, 2013, 06:41:17 PM
Two nights ago, I joined my first raid.  The target was the Quarry in the Blue Mountain zone.  In less than 45 minutes, I ran up 7 skill points.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 09, 2013, 07:58:56 PM
Nice, I got a feeling I'm going to like this game. :)

It's not City of Heroes but it's unique in it's on way. One thing I noticed that I like so far. Is you can hear gun shots in the distance when someone else is battling a mob. Makes the game feel more alive cause you know there's someone close by.

I like being able to freely move the UI around too and that I don't have to pay a sub. Even though I plan to eventually.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 14, 2013, 10:13:41 PM
I've been spending most of what little free time I have right now. Playing Secret World and was thinking about subbing up when I noticed the lifetime sub option.

So I was wondering, is anyone here a lifetime subber? If so, if I sub up that way. Will I get any new content that comes out free, will I have to save monthly points that's given to me to buy the new content or will I have to pay real money for new content when it comes out?

Do I even get a certain amount of points amonth and if so how many?

Thanks for any advice and take care. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on December 14, 2013, 11:22:47 PM
Is any game safe enough to justify a lifetime subscription?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 14, 2013, 11:29:36 PM
Probably not but it's only $200 and I don't think the servers being shut down in the next year or two (hopefully) So if I was planning on playing for the next say 3-4 years then it'd be a better investment to pay the lifetime sub. Which from what I've played of the game so far. I'm starting to consider it my "summer" home since City of Heroes even though gone is my actual home. LOL!

Now with City of Titans hopefully coming out in 2015. The lifetime sub would be a good option. I can pay it all up front. Play the game and then when City of Titans comes out. If they have a sub option I can sub up to that. Without having to worry about spending to much money each month on various subs.

Besides I'm not going to get the lifetime sub today. It'll be another 4-5 months before I even have the money saved up for it.

*edited to add: I know there are two other projects going on as well but for some reason I'm stuck on City of Titans. I guess cause the name is so similar to City of Heroes. lol. But I do plan to play all three and decide which of the three I'm going to stick with after playing them all.*
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: davpa on December 22, 2013, 08:14:51 AM
I've been spending most of what little free time I have right now. Playing Secret World and was thinking about subbing up when I noticed the lifetime sub option.

So I was wondering, is anyone here a lifetime subber? If so, if I sub up that way. Will I get any new content that comes out free, will I have to save monthly points that's given to me to buy the new content or will I have to pay real money for new content when it comes out?

Do I even get a certain amount of points amonth and if so how many?

Thanks for any advice and take care. :)
I took the lifetime sub. I figured the game would last at least a few years to make the $200 a safe bet.

A Lifer get access to a set of starter gear and weapons that gives you a leg up when starting. Nothing overpowering but better then what you initially find. Beyond the two weapons you can equip, you can gear up 9 types of booster, or what they call Talismans. There is the Head Totem, 3 Major Talismans, and 3 Minor Talismans. Each type comes in 3 different "flavors": focus on Health, focus on Attack stats, or focus on Defensive stats.  So the Lifer gets different flavors of the Head Totem, 3 different flavors of each of the 3 Major Talismans, and the 3 different flavors of the 3 Minor Talismans. You decide what flavor of talisman you want to equip depending on what kind of build you are going for (aka, DPS style builds will favor the talismans with mor attack rating compared to Tank builds going for more Health).

Lifers also get a monthly stipend of Funcom points to spend in the item store. New issues are not automatically free, you still have to buy them from the store, but I've never had an issue with the stipend I get. I get 1200 a month. New issues have been 960. Supposedly the next issue, Issue 9, will be a free one.

One thing about issue cost is that you are not paying for any new game mechanics introduced by that issue, that is free. What you purchase is added missions specific to that issue. These missions reward very well and give a lot of new depth to the already complex storyline. I have not regretted buying issues. But don't feel you have to run off and buy them. There is so much content to go through you just save up your points and buy these extra missions later on.

All in all, while not CoX, I've been very happy to play TSW. If anyone wants to run with Illuminati RPers, give Bureaucrat a ring. We run on Wednesday nights starting at 8pm EST. It is currently a small group, but we were from the Virtue villain group Entropy Legion. Now the Legion is (sorta) in TSW.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on December 26, 2013, 03:10:06 AM
Thanks for the reply Davpa.

It's good to know that it seems. If I do go lifetime, my points will be enough to buy the new issues if I save them. Which shouldn't be too hard since I haven't seen much in the item shop I'm interested in. I don't care for xp potions ect.. and some of the clothes ect.. are nice but nothing I want right away either.

I'm going to wait for my income tax check to come in and I'll lifetime sub. :)

Another question do they have new issues every month? or every few months? Cause if it's every few months, I can start chipping away at back issues on the off months. When new ones aren't coming out.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Namredel on January 02, 2014, 11:43:13 PM
Are people from heroes still playing this game? My buddy and I have been playing it the past few nights and we are enjoying it. I still haven't decided if it's completely got my interest but i'm curious to know if anyone wants to join us? We are on Grimm server. My name is Jeanette "Bremeira"  Voerman. Feel free to message and hopefully we can get some groups going. We're still new to the game so advice is appreciated as well.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on January 03, 2014, 02:59:58 AM
I still play it in between playing Diablo 3. I'm on the Grimm server as well under the name Sugarcult "Helrunar" farmey.

I don't play everyday but I do play 2-3 random days aweek atleast. I'm still pretty new at the game too. In in the Kingsmouth starting area. LOL!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 03, 2014, 06:34:48 AM
I've been playing on and off since the game started and I'm still in Blue Mountain.  I am up to final chapter of the main storyline although I can see it will be quite some time before I can complete the final mission.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Namredel on January 03, 2014, 07:00:39 PM
Thanks for the replies back! We are currently on the savage coast. I went ahead and added you Drauger9 if I see you online i'll send you a message and hopefully we can get something going! Any tips or advice on that game is also appreciated :D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on January 03, 2014, 08:30:02 PM
Cool, I'm off tomorrow (Saturday 1/4/14, in the US) so I'm going to try to play all day or most of it. :P

I could probably leave kingsmouth but I've been grinding SP and AP there. I also have one last main story mission to complete there I believe. I'm not a very social person, so I've been grinding in the general area hoping to catch someone else who's trying to complete the same mission. LOL!

Question for any of the vets, is crafting important or can you just ignore it? Cause the crafting system is really meshing with me. LOL!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on January 05, 2014, 05:45:33 AM
My sister came in from Ohio today so I didn't get a chance to log on. :(

Hopefully we'll run into each other soon though.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Namredel on January 06, 2014, 03:07:24 AM
Sounds good!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: wyldhunt on January 07, 2014, 02:34:15 PM
I bought TSW a while back, and played through the missions, and loved the storytelling. Unfortunately, my characters couldn't fly, the combat was lackluster, the active abilities were too restrictive, and I found the endgame too much like so many others. So while I really hope that CoX successor projects play TSW and learn from the missions, I've stopped playing TSW myself.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: JWBullfrog on January 07, 2014, 05:52:41 PM
Cool, I'm off tomorrow (Saturday 1/4/14, in the US) so I'm going to try to play all day or most of it. :P

I could probably leave kingsmouth but I've been grinding SP and AP there. I also have one last main story mission to complete there I believe. I'm not a very social person, so I've been grinding in the general area hoping to catch someone else who's trying to complete the same mission. LOL!

Question for any of the vets, is crafting important or can you just ignore it? Cause the crafting system is really meshing with me. LOL!

I know others might disagree, but I've found that I can completely ignore crafting. I find their system to be a bit more arcane (no pun intended) than necessary.  You are supposed to be able to craft specific looks for weapons but, unless you go looking for user guides, there's no really clear information on how that is supposed to work.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 08, 2014, 03:04:33 AM
I have never crafted anything in SW.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on January 09, 2014, 08:38:19 AM
Thanks for the replies, I didn't think it was important but wanted to be sure. Before I completely ignored it. LOL!

Work has been chaotic lately so I haven't been able to log on. I'm off tomorrow so I'm going to "try" to get some game time in. LOL!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Namredel on January 11, 2014, 04:46:01 PM
Was wondering if anyone who plays the secret world happens to be an a semi active cabal? Still learning aspects of the game but I have a decent understanding of how end game will be. Just looking for a cabal with some active players on mostly for PvE content and tips and advice. Btw my character is  illuminati. Any reply is appreciated :) thanks.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on October 23, 2014, 02:56:15 AM
The topic of COH returning has me wanting to scratch the mmo itch again so I'm patching TSW and dusting off my dragon faction Ninja in training (sword/elemental).

I joined off the box copy right after they dropped the sub fee originally. If any one is still playing let me know.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on October 23, 2014, 05:44:31 AM
I still play time to time, usually on Fridays and saturdays
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: wyldhunt on October 23, 2014, 08:44:07 PM
I've decided to make TSW my temporary home and subbed until something CoX-related gets going. Look for "Gnawt" if you want to team.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on October 24, 2014, 04:41:42 AM
Is that COH-Refugees league still running in TSW and how would I join it?

I just hit rank 5 with the dragon and still haven't run a dungeon or raid!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: wyldhunt on October 24, 2014, 02:26:56 PM
You know, I didn't think about the CoH-Refugees channel when I rejoined TSW, so I don't know whether it's still active. I have just added that channel to my auto-login and auto-teleport scripts*, so I'll know about its activity soon. However, I would also suggest at least joining the "Sanctuary" channel (several players are active and very helpful there), and likely "noobmares" (when you're ready for Nightmare dungeons) and "event" (for Halloween and other future events).

*See http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?s=c93c83438f951d4aa90ba28fd0692027&t=74514&page=7 (http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?s=c93c83438f951d4aa90ba28fd0692027&t=74514&page=7) for more on this.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on October 24, 2014, 10:17:56 PM
You know, I didn't think about the CoH-Refugees channel when I rejoined TSW, so I don't know whether it's still active. I have just added that channel to my auto-login and auto-teleport scripts*, so I'll know about its activity soon. However, I would also suggest at least joining the "Sanctuary" channel (several players are active and very helpful there), and likely "noobmares" (when you're ready for Nightmare dungeons) and "event" (for Halloween and other future events).

*See http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?s=c93c83438f951d4aa90ba28fd0692027&t=74514&page=7 (http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?s=c93c83438f951d4aa90ba28fd0692027&t=74514&page=7) for more on this.

My wheel lists as 8 percent done so I may be a while. I'm still trying to remember how to get to the Blue Mountain.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on October 27, 2014, 06:16:01 AM
My wheel lists as 8 percent done so I may be a while. I'm still trying to remember how to get to the Blue Mountain.
GO through where the innsmouth academy is, and the entrance to the blue mountain should be on the opposite side of the map from where you enter from kingsmouth. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: KennonGL on October 27, 2014, 12:51:05 PM
I've recently started playing again after leaving TSW alone for awhile.

I've got my Sword/Shotgun (solo) ... Sword/Chaos (when teamed) Tank "main" who has
finished Transylvania and is currently stuck in the Council of Venice missions that would
unlock Tokyo. 

That's where I left off of the game before, and I can't seem to finish those "protect the
stupid, helpless, civilians" training missions by myself ... the mobs just ignore any of
my taunting effects and just run right past me to kill the civvies. 

By wave 3, I'm usually trying to protect one or two remaining civvies who have only a sliver
of life left...  so I re-shelved my tank for awhile.

I'm now running an Assault Rifle leech healer (different faction) through for the heck of it.
It's quite a different experience than the melee tank was.  Not sure if I'll be able to (mostly)
solo this one much further though . . . Egypt seems way rougher than I remember from last time.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on October 27, 2014, 01:00:58 PM
GO through where the innsmouth academy is, and the entrance to the blue mountain should be on the opposite side of the map from where you enter from kingsmouth.

Productive weekend - did my first team instance (blue fog guy cheats!), joined a cabal and got a ton of missions done. Also found out training towards a ninja deck (elemental and sword) may have been a waste! I was trying to complete the rank 6 sabotage "rogue agent" mission and just got repeatedly owned by the boss there.

I do regret not having more cross-set options (katana and bow or a handgun, etc) in COH. TSW seems to handle it better than Champions with content that's more interesting. Coh Epic sets with archery (for trick arrow controllers) or ma, ss, and weapon fighters would have been awesome. Fingers crossed for issue 24 (ma on dual pistol or archery blasters? Yes please)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on October 28, 2014, 01:52:39 AM
Productive weekend - did my first team instance (blue fog guy cheats!), joined a cabal and got a ton of missions done. Also found out training towards a ninja deck (elemental and sword) may have been a waste! I was trying to complete the rank 6 sabotage "rogue agent" mission and just got repeatedly owned by the boss there.

I do regret not having more cross-set options (katana and bow or a handgun, etc) in COH. TSW seems to handle it better than Champions with content that's more interesting. Coh Epic sets with archery (for trick arrow controllers) or ma, ss, and weapon fighters would have been awesome. Fingers crossed for issue 24 (ma on dual pistol or archery blasters? Yes please)
Sword/Elm isn't bad if you have upper tier powers until then you would want to have mostly sword powers. That is a major problem I have with the Secret World, is the difficulty setting missions run from stupid easy to stupid hard, like the one missions I had before I quit I died a lot because, there was a green flag boss and 4 minion class that each had 3k worth of hp. Also The Secret World does not have a tab to nearest enemy, the enemy loves to have you in a pincer and this is consent. If they either lowered the hp of 3 or more minion ranked or lowered mobs to 2.
For the epic weapon I heard the mission was better with a team.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on October 28, 2014, 04:10:01 AM
I haven't played since the week Tokyo opened up.  After getting my head handed to me multiple times, I decided to go back and finish all the missions I had missed.  I think that's going to take awhile.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on October 30, 2014, 05:29:46 PM
if anyone wants to team up next weekend my handle is Emily (AngelPhoenix) Jade. I wont be on this weekend due to having 2 finals and a mid term. :(
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Hero of Steel on November 05, 2014, 08:15:53 PM

Code for a free in-game tshirt.

HALLOWEEN2014TEE


Redeem Key at https://register.thesecretworld.com/account/key
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on November 05, 2014, 09:38:43 PM
Nice tyvm :)

I wanted that tee when I saw the screen shot of it. I just recently started playing again. It's been so long I decided to start over going with a chaos/blade build right now.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 23, 2014, 01:27:36 AM
we should have a team up weekend :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on November 24, 2014, 11:42:47 AM
May be able to play over thanksgiving. I have a Cabal that's taken care of me (level 10 blue gear, 10.1 epic pistols from the cat god event) and I'm up to 35 percent on the wheel.

It's weird only playing one toon and just flipping Decks and Gear for builds rather than alts like CoH...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 25, 2014, 08:22:09 PM
May be able to play over thanksgiving. I have a Cabal that's taken care of me (level 10 blue gear, 10.1 epic pistols from the cat god event) and I'm up to 35 percent on the wheel.

It's weird only playing one toon and just flipping Decks and Gear for builds rather than alts like CoH...
nice :). So far I have half of my gear as ql10 blue and the rest is ql 10 green. I do have a epic sword that I have been trying to sell for money and I do not have the required money to post it on the market. :( Rejolt what is your cabal? The reason I ask is because, my main is a Templar and I have a secondary as Illuminati.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on November 29, 2014, 01:39:15 AM
nice :). So far I have half of my gear as ql10 blue and the rest is ql 10 green. I do have a epic sword that I have been trying to sell for money and I do not have the required money to post it on the market. :( Rejolt what is your cabal? The reason I ask is because, my main is a Templar and I have a secondary as Illuminati.

Immortal Ashes. Just unlocked the Desperado deck. And my wheel is a massive... 38 percent done. Good news is I have an RPG now!

Edit: had a COH farmer flashback in Dimir Farm. Ran in circles killing ghouls and wolves watching my xp fly up while using a spam able pbaoe blade deck. "Omg I'm herding! And now im sad..."
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 29, 2014, 02:46:01 AM
Immortal Ashes. Just unlocked the Desperado deck. And my wheel is a massive... 38 percent done. Good news is I have an RPG now!

Edit: had a COH farmer flashback in Dimir Farm. Ran in circles killing ghouls and wolves watching my xp fly up while using a spam able pbaoe blade deck. "Omg I'm herding! And now im sad..."
nice :) I need to get back into playing more, I have 43.8% completion rate on the wheel. Awesome have you slotted the rpg yet? I have mine but so far I do not have all the ap I need to slot it.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on November 29, 2014, 05:44:14 PM
nice :) I need to get back into playing more, I have 43.8% completion rate on the wheel. Awesome have you slotted the rpg yet? I have mine but so far I do not have all the ap I need to slot it.

I have. Nice range. Pop shot is a decent taoe. It's ap hungry though. Unlock a deck or three first.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 29, 2014, 06:14:53 PM
I have. Nice range. Pop shot is a decent taoe. It's ap hungry though. Unlock a deck or three first.
oh i got 5 decks unlocked :D, today I have a marathon of sorts to get enough sp points to be able to slot my rpg. Luckily I am rank 12 so I can breeze through kingsmouth before heading to Egypt. If your online look me up :) I am getting online now :D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 30, 2014, 01:02:12 AM
I am very happy after 5 months of grinding I was able to beat the final boss in the black sun, red sand arc :D. He was difficult, but I went ar, sword and I kept at a distance.
A few things before anyone takes him on get ql9 4 blue and the rest can be green. For the weapons if you go ar or any other ranged try and get max ql10 and if you get it in blue. Then when you die three times (there is nothing stopping the three deaths) I went with heal, defense, and pen, attack rate. Also when get gets say 3k worth of xp move up to him and use your melee attacks or your hardest hitting attacks to win.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on November 30, 2014, 03:31:12 AM
Sorry I missed you. I need to focus on some work related stuff this weekend and kind of blew my free time earlier in the holiday.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 30, 2014, 03:32:02 AM
its cool :) there always next Friday and sat :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on December 04, 2014, 11:33:53 PM
Issue 10 is out for members :), but free to plays have to wait 3 days :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on December 06, 2014, 08:44:42 PM
oh I forgot to mention the dimensions I play on, I have a new character on arcadia and two on daemon. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on December 07, 2014, 01:38:58 AM
oh I forgot to mention the dimensions I play on, I have a new character on arcadia and two on daemon.

I ... Can't get to the PC today lol. I'll tell you my characters locations soon (tm)

I think one is Dragon-based on Daemon.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on December 07, 2014, 03:14:34 AM
I ... Can't get to the PC today lol. I'll tell you my characters locations soon (tm)

I think one is Dragon-based on Daemon.
its cool :) Nice, I have my main Templar and my secondary Illuminati :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on January 01, 2015, 10:03:23 PM
for those who are having problems with making builds like I am, a person on YouTube sent me a website that is like mids to help out on making your build. :) http://www.tsw-builder.com/#00vp
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Tahliah on January 02, 2015, 02:43:44 AM
for those who are having problems with making builds like I am, a person on YouTube sent me a website that is like mids to help out on making your build. :) http://www.tsw-builder.com/#00vp

This is very helpful, thanks for the link.  Now that the holidays are over and things are settling back down, I'm going to get back to TSW.  I just can't manage any game around the holidays since COH closed.  I miss the presents and the candy canes and the ski chalet and even that ugly little Baby New Year.  Sniffle. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on January 02, 2015, 03:40:18 AM
This is very helpful, thanks for the link.  Now that the holidays are over and things are settling back down, I'm going to get back to TSW.  I just can't manage any game around the holidays since COH closed.  I miss the presents and the candy canes and the ski chalet and even that ugly little Baby New Year.  Sniffle.
yw :), I can understand city of. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on January 25, 2015, 01:12:00 AM
Is there a city of. chat tab?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on February 03, 2015, 01:40:35 AM
Is there a city of. chat tab?

I've given Tsw a break as my coaching season hits the home stretch. I couldn't make sense of the chat channels trying to find a COH refugee one!

Aaaand I may actually crack open ffxiv 15 months after I bought it on Black Friday for $10...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 04, 2015, 10:23:25 PM
Today, I got the "Grand Master Pack" offer.  Only $199 and only 19 February!

That doesn't inspire confidence in the future of the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on February 05, 2015, 03:42:04 AM
Today, I got the "Grand Master Pack" offer.  Only $199 and only 19 February!

That doesn't inspire confidence in the future of the game.
nice I got mine jan.30th :D
@rejolt, I completely understand :), Sometimes you need to take a break from the secret world. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 06, 2015, 01:16:32 AM
That's because the game is really depressing.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on February 06, 2015, 10:02:46 PM
That's because the game is really depressing.

Which, oddly, is part of its appeal.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on February 07, 2015, 04:40:03 AM
I grant you that is part of the appeal.

Story content is very important to me.  I just wish that my character was more in the 'saving' business than the 'avenging' business.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 04, 2015, 06:10:23 PM
For those who love the lore I found a website that is very awesome :) https://soundcloud.com/aquarion/sets/the-secret-world-lore
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 15, 2015, 05:28:46 AM
Finally after a year and a half, I have finally gotten to Tokyo :D
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on March 16, 2015, 01:26:27 AM
I was there.  Died A LOT.  When back to the regular zones.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 16, 2015, 01:45:20 AM
I was there.  Died A LOT.  When back to the regular zones.
I can understand that :), to me it is a interesting zones. I do like the return to the beginning mission it felt like it was a true full circle.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Rejolt on March 16, 2015, 02:07:12 AM
I just updated TSW and briefly stomped around and didn't notice much of a difference. I'll give it more of a shot next weekend when I have time.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 16, 2015, 02:39:03 AM
I just updated TSW and briefly stomped around and didn't notice much of a difference. I'll give it more of a shot next weekend when I have time.
You will like the changes, one of the most noticeable change is Funcom lowered the difficulty abit across the board outside of Tokyo and the nightmare areas, and the dungeons.  :), I will also be on this coming Sat. if you want to team.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on March 20, 2015, 01:32:50 AM
I bought the 'Fall of Tokyo' upgrade pack tonight.

I guess I'll have to return to that death zone now.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 20, 2015, 02:02:23 AM
I bought the 'Fall of Tokyo' upgrade pack tonight.

I guess I'll have to return to that death zone now.
nice :), I do have to say Funcom did a great job in offering the "fall of Tokyo" pack to everyone :). I bought issues 9 and 10 collectors ed.
I cannot wait for issue 11 and the end of season 1 of the secret world.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: DBadger on March 23, 2015, 04:37:48 PM
Have they sorted out the combat animations yet? that was the one thing I really didn't enjoy about the game.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 23, 2015, 05:46:36 PM
Have they sorted out the combat animations yet? that was the one thing I really didn't enjoy about the game.
I want to say a few of the elites got new animations, however, I am unsure. I do 4 seasons use a jedi type of animation now.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on March 24, 2015, 12:22:58 AM
Quite a few of the animations changed.  Ditto the combat icons.

The anima well jumping is a very welcome quality of life improvement.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 24, 2015, 05:09:48 PM
For those who are wondering what is new to the secret world here are the patch notes link.
https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?84391-Enhanced-Player-Experience-Game-Update-1-11
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 21, 2015, 02:59:00 AM
Steam has 'The Secret World' on sale for $10.19 from now until 27 April 2015.

That's a good price to see what the game is all about.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on April 21, 2015, 04:34:33 AM
Steam has 'The Secret World' on sale for $10.19 from now until 27 April 2015.

That's a good price to see what the game is all about.

If the expansion is on sale...... then there goes my 1 year fishing license.....
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Drauger9 on April 21, 2015, 04:40:22 AM
*Sigh* it is on sale.... for 14.99 wonder if my over time will cover that and my fishing license? *crosses fingers*
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on April 22, 2015, 03:39:46 AM
*Sigh* it is on sale.... for 14.99 wonder if my over time will cover that and my fishing license? *crosses fingers*
You should really try it :), also if you want a 4 day trial I can get one for ya. :)
After a month playing star trek online and star wars tor, I have decided to leave tor and never touching it again. I will still play sto from time to time, but this coming Friday I will be coming back to the Secret World :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 05, 2015, 08:56:49 PM
Issue 11 will be available tomorrow for subs and Gms :) with buy to plays getting it a few days afterward.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot on May 09, 2015, 11:41:16 PM
Issue 11 is kind of awesome, that is all.

Also,
Spoiler for Hidden:
ultimate abilites are amazing. It's almost like having Judgement again.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 10, 2015, 04:47:35 AM
Issue 11 is kind of awesome, that is all.

Also,
Spoiler for Hidden:
ultimate abilites are amazing. It's almost like having Judgement again.
nice :), I am still a month away from getting to the tower :(.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on May 10, 2015, 05:31:09 AM
Issue 11 is kind of awesome, that is all.

Also,
Spoiler for Hidden:
ultimate abilites are amazing. It's almost like having Judgement again.

Yes, i11 is really good. 

Also,
Spoiler for Hidden:
Not loving the Ultimate Ability.  Takes a long time to charge the Animus Bar and useless for a full healer/barrier players. Still a lot better than nothing though. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 10, 2015, 04:09:49 PM
anyone know how to get a second set of damage controllers? I ran back to the beginning again in hopes of getting another set, but it just gave me a container and another thing. :(
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 24, 2015, 06:14:28 AM
Mounts are coming to The Secret World.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CFpIaskUkAAz8Wr.jpg:large)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on May 24, 2015, 06:32:57 AM
:O I might come back to visit if I can get a motorcycle....
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 25, 2015, 03:59:25 AM
Tonight was a big night for my main! The grand finale to my climb through dungeons: Warchitect. If you enjoyed badging in City of Heroes, take a peek at Achievements in The Secret World.

(https://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w661/SpiderbabyLives/Random%20Adventures%20in%20TSW/Warchitect_zps6rswigjc.png)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 27, 2015, 04:33:31 AM
I'm so excited! Today, I was informed that my entry for a TSW contest has just won me a ton of realllllly cool prizes. For anyone still waiting for a game, come to The Secret World. It is not CoH, but it is a wondrous and beautiful place to keep the characters you love alive.

Incidentally, the event I submit was one I ran when CoH was shut down. It was a refugees march into a TSW starting zone. So many memories, bad and good.

Here is the announcement: https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?85333-The-Deadly-Gamers-Prize

... and my entry: https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?86089-Spiderbaby-s-quot-The-Event-You-Loved-Round-quot-entry-quot-End-of-a-Journey-A-Journey-Begins-quot

... and the original 2012 flyer:

(https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b328/AngryAngelsOnline/CoH-TSW%20Journey%202012/journey.jpg)


Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 27, 2015, 04:43:20 AM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 27, 2015, 04:08:11 PM
I'm so excited! Today, I was informed that my entry for a TSW contest has just won me a ton of realllllly cool prizes. For anyone still waiting for a game, come to The Secret World. It is not CoH, but it is a wondrous and beautiful place to keep the characters you love alive.

Incidentally, the event I submit was one I ran when CoH was shut down. It was a refugees march into a TSW starting zone. So many memories, bad and good.

Here is the announcement: https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?85333-The-Deadly-Gamers-Prize

... and my entry: https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?86089-Spiderbaby-s-quot-The-Event-You-Loved-Round-quot-entry-quot-End-of-a-Journey-A-Journey-Begins-quot

... and the original 2012 flyer:

(https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b328/AngryAngelsOnline/CoH-TSW%20Journey%202012/journey.jpg)
very cool, and for what it's worth I hope you win :). Also what shard do you play on? I have a character on Arcaia, and 2 more on an rp shard that seems to be more active.
Last sat. spent 2 hours not really spamming but broadcasting "looking for a team for tower defense." And the only person I did not help setting up any of the towers. Luckily I am rocking a sword/claw. :) I know for some of the arcs I will need a range power set.
 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 27, 2015, 07:46:25 PM
Wow. I was about to type "Arcadia".... and found myself proudly typing "Virtue Server" after 3 years. How quickly that returns to me in the company of other CoH'rs!

TSW teaming is. Hm. How to explain. I wish they had the lfg and channel capabilities of CoH. TSW is an incredible game but I don't see them teaming as freely for everyday missions as we did in City. I could write an essay on that - how I wish channels had greater functionality. But, new people will find assistance and teams by joining the Sanctuary channel. Just type /chat join Sanctuary. There are many great cabals (SG's) as well.

And, now, I will nap until next week when new content rolls (literally rolls) in!  :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on May 27, 2015, 09:23:40 PM
Most of my teaming experiences in 'The Secret World' haven't been pleasant.   I don't know if it is the player base or a reaction to the negative slant of the game itself.  "Positive" and "upbeat" aren't words I'd use to describe "The Secret World"!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 27, 2015, 11:13:51 PM
Wow. I was about to type "Arcadia".... and found myself proudly typing "Virtue Server" after 3 years. How quickly that returns to me in the company of other CoH'rs!

TSW teaming is. Hm. How to explain. I wish they had the lfg and channel capabilities of CoH. TSW is an incredible game but I don't see them teaming as freely for everyday missions as we did in City. I could write an essay on that - how I wish channels had greater functionality. But, new people will find assistance and teams by joining the Sanctuary channel. Just type /chat join Sanctuary. There are many great cabals (SG's) as well.

And, now, I will nap until next week when new content rolls (literally rolls) in!  :)
I agree :), I too wish TSW had a lft that rivals City of. Thank you btw for the channel, I will join it this coming sat. :)
Saipaman, my teaming outside of Tokyo, has been great I could team in Polaris, and a good team I could get done in 15 min, a team with newbies, would take 45 min. Urdrague, seems to be the phase that takes the longest.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on May 28, 2015, 02:57:05 AM
TSW is pretty good but the monotony of the team make up makes it more difficult to form a group.  Tank, heal and 3 DPS.  CoH was similar at the start but later after the introduction of IOs, the team make up mattered less.  I liked the fact that anyone could join and the team was able to work out the kinks without a designated healer, without a tank, without an uber amount of damage.  It made finding team members easier and in a lot of ways, more fun.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on May 28, 2015, 04:46:07 AM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 29, 2015, 04:37:06 AM
TLDR: Dev livestream tomorrow (Friday, the 29th)! http://www.twitch.tv/funcomofficial   2pm Eastern.

I think what I love best about TSW is the potential. While it is an amazing game, it's just shy of three years. City had eight years of content, quality updates, and community building. I played City for nearly all eight (having picked up the game two months following launch and then playing til the end, nearly daily but for grave illness). The mind marvels at how much it evolved over that time. Already, the World has a solid base. I will be there, for the magic, "all over again".

And part of that magic is the opportunities for communication between the development staff and the playerbase. They had a stream last week and another tomorrow. Players are encouraged to visit and converse in the chat room. While there will be two developers, Tilty and Scivnomancer, streaming, you'll often see more of them in the chat room. Come by. Say hello. Ask questions.

Make a twitch profile in advance if you do not already have one. I do not think guests have typing privileges though I could be wrong. This should be part II, part I can be found here: http://www.twitch.tv/funcomofficial/b/659394079
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 29, 2015, 04:53:10 AM
TLDR: Dev livestream tomorrow (Friday, the 29th)! http://www.twitch.tv/funcomofficial   2pm Eastern.

I think what I love best about TSW is the potential. While it is an amazing game, it's just shy of three years. City had eight years of content, quality updates, and community building. I played City for nearly all eight (having picked up the game two months following launch and then playing til the end, nearly daily but for grave illness). The mind marvels at how much it evolved over that time. Already, the World has a solid base. I will be there, for the magic, "all over again".

And part of that magic is the opportunities for communication between the development staff and the playerbase. They had a stream last week and another tomorrow. Players are encouraged to visit and converse in the chat room. While there will be two developers, Tilty and Scivnomancer, streaming, you'll often see more of them in the chat room. Come by. Say hello. Ask questions.

Make a twitch profile in advance if you do not already have one. I do not think guests have typing privileges though I could be wrong. This should be part II, part I can be found here: http://www.twitch.tv/funcomofficial/b/659394079
This is why I TSW my home away from home. This game has some much potential and it shows the devs care about what they are doing. And care about how it is received by the community. They could improve certain aspects of the game such as the run/jump mechanic and in Tokyo they could lessen the ghost mobs a bit. But outside of that I really hope they go back to the Lovecraftian sort of city/town. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on May 29, 2015, 09:29:19 PM
The jump animation annoys me.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on May 30, 2015, 03:30:11 PM
The jump animation annoys me.

It's their 2nd? The first was plain awful!  :o :'( I rather like it!  ;D But I am strange. Or perhaps it is the jumping puzzles I enjoy. There are not many but the ones they do have... ohhh boy oh boy!

I made a video for a special Lore (for anyone who still doesn't play TSW, Lore is their version of Exploration badges) which has a sneaky little jump. I just pulled up it now to show you and realized, hmmm, I have a strange passive aggressive relationship with my favorite pet. He is a baby golem. His name is Golem! He is my precious.  :) I'd like to point out that it took me friickin forever to figure out how to scale that bathhouse. Aghhhhhhhhhhhh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-tBlM9DcQs
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on June 04, 2015, 01:48:32 AM
Motorcycle mount is now online.  Also Athlete and Feet of Flame sprint animations.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i59.tinypic.com%2Fzt9iqc.jpg)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on June 04, 2015, 03:28:53 AM
I read that as Athlete's Feet.  :-X
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on June 04, 2015, 03:29:18 AM
Looks like I have some patchin' t'do!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Super Firebug on June 04, 2015, 05:30:54 PM
Do they offer sport bikes - the sleek kind used in superbike racing? Or is it just the "hog" type?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on June 05, 2015, 05:15:41 AM
One for now. More styles to come. And more types of mounts.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: damienray on June 14, 2015, 09:56:47 PM
Disappointed with TSW. I've totally screwed up on what abilities to pick, can't stay alive long enough to defeat a soggy newspaper & can't respect... sux.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 14, 2015, 10:00:10 PM
Disappointed with TSW. I've totally screwed up on what abilities to pick, can't stay alive long enough to defeat a soggy newspaper & can't respect... sux.
how far are you in game? If you just started I would recommend delete and restart, however, if you are a bit further it might worth mentioning there is no bad power picks, over time you will get all the powers in game. Again it depends on how far you are if you want to reroll.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on June 14, 2015, 10:47:39 PM
Disappointed with TSW. I've totally screwed up on what abilities to pick, can't stay alive long enough to defeat a soggy newspaper & can't respect... sux.

Just keep plugging away.  In the end the whole wheel will unlock anyways.  Sooner or later you would have unlocked those abilities no matter how crappy they are. 
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Aggelakis on June 15, 2015, 01:54:54 AM
Go back to Kingsmouth Town and redo quests there. (Almost all quests are repeatable on a daily-or-more basis.) There's no way you can die repeatedly back there. Once you're comfortable there, move on again.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: damienray on June 15, 2015, 03:41:27 PM
Thanks for the replies - can anyone tell me, where exactly do you go to find your equipped stuff after you are defeated??  I've tried going back to the spot I died, but nothing there.  Is there someone I have to "talk" to after each defeat?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Exxar on June 15, 2015, 04:20:54 PM
The what? I don't recall losing your stuff after being defeated. You die, respawn at an anima well and carry on.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 15, 2015, 05:46:00 PM
The what? I don't recall losing your stuff after being defeated. You die, respawn at an anima well and carry on.
this is right, when you die you accrue sort of a death penalty. Usually 10% of all your gear every time you die after 5 deaths you should see a wrench on the bottom right. That is the indicator to fix your gear. Another way depending on where you died you could run back to your body.
@damienray a suggestion get a auto heal such as lick your wounds that could help you.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot on June 20, 2015, 04:19:50 AM
Your gear takes 10% damage every time you die, no matter whether you resurrect at the anima well or run back. The only time it doesn't is if you die in PvP or to a trap in a stealth mission. To repair it, go to any vendor and there'll be a repair tab in addition to buy and sell.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 20, 2015, 08:03:08 PM
Your gear takes 10% damage every time you die, no matter whether you resurrect at the anima well or run back. The only time it doesn't is if you die in PvP or to a trap in a stealth mission. To repair it, go to any vendor and there'll be a repair tab in addition to buy and sell.
Also don't forget that gear does not take damage when you get one shotted.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: damienray on June 21, 2015, 07:51:40 PM
Thanks for the advice.  Is there a chat channel for CoHer's on TSW? Also any... uh... what are they called there... Cabels I can join?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angry Angel on August 03, 2015, 01:56:36 AM
Today felt like City of Heroes! We were achievement hunting (badging) in City of the Sun God. Our friend, Taiver, was tanking a lair boss while we killed the baby scorpions it spawns. The screenshots made me laugh, thinking that our tank looked like a villain-side Mastermind, summing its horde... and our raid was a brave team of heroes. Ah, City, I miss you everyday.

(https://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w661/SpiderbabyLives/The%20Badgers%20Admin/a13443d4-d4f1-4913-80b8-03ced7afed78_zpso1qzxjcg.png)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on August 03, 2015, 04:19:14 PM
anyone want to team up for the last two missions in Kaiden? I finished up the underground assault mission, now I am looking for one or two people to help me with the final two missions. I will be back home round 4:30 pm est.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on August 11, 2015, 08:28:19 PM
This doesn't sound good: 

http://www.vg247.com/2015/08/11/age-of-conan-secret-world-dev-funcom-up-for-sale/

Some people are talking about it on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSecretWorld/comments/3gllkd/funcom_is_up_for_sale_following_legos_lackluster/
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on August 11, 2015, 10:50:18 PM
Thankfully, I've learned the lesson NCSoft wanted to teach us ... don't get attached.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: chuckv3 on August 13, 2015, 06:36:30 PM
I played for about two months, then flamed out.

PROs:
- The graphics, sounds and controls are all top-notch, and I didn't notice any glaring bugs.
- The stories and puzzles in the low levels are creative, unique, and require lots of thought, intuitive guessing, or a guide.
- you can buy ALL the powers on one character and switch between different builds any time (with very tolerable cool-down rules)
- Combat mechanics and movements are very similar to CoH.
- Motorcycles! Although this is really just "sprint 6" with different graphics. If riding hogs is not your thing, you can use "sprint 6" and not lose any speed.
- It's free to play, and there's nothing you really need to spend real money on to play the game (and there are no significant pay-to-win items either)
- They have a published API that allows user-written extensions for many functions. You can download (or create) add-ons that have access to everything except attacks and movements. The exisintg crafting and battle stats add-ons are very nice, and the auto-bracelet-switcher is a life-saver (see below about bracelets).
- Most of the content can be done solo. The exceptions are the dungeons and hazard zones, but none of these are required to progress.

CONSs:
- the costumes are very limited to start, and too many options must be purchased (either game currency or real money). But look what I'm comparing it to... The best there ever was...
- the "ability points" and "skill points" curve is VERY steep. When you get to 50% of the abilities or skills (count wise -- this is the number you see), you'll think you are progressing nicely, then realize you only have 3% of them point-wise. This is just the typical MMO achievement curve (the further you go it requires more time/effort/cost for the next step), but it's exaggerated too much. And there are hidden things you unlock later that are even worse (augments, shields, auxiliary weapons and skills).
- the end game is definitely a gear grind, with folks repeating the easiest 3 or 4 dungeons over and over in order to get gear and upgrade drops. Teams are limited to 5 players, and the only effective team for the dungeons is tank/healer/dps/dps/dps. ALL OF THEM.
- There is no fly, super-jump or teleport. There is only sprinting, and the highest level you can buy ("sprint 6") is not as fast as super-speed was in CoH (subjectively it seems about half as fast)
- There is simply no way to get end-game gear solo. You must do 5-man teams of the above arrangement.
- The player community is not very friendly.
- There are really only 4 tiers (2 or 3 zones each), but the skill gap between them is huge. You'll get very overpowered, beat the gatekeeper boss (solo -- there's no option to team on these), unlock the new zone, go there and get your ass very quickly handed to you by the first mob you encounter. It's choppy for the 2nd and 3rd tier, then they really punish your success...
- the 4th level-unlock tier (Kaidan) introduces you to the concept of shields. You start with none, and all the bad guys have them. You must use bracelets to break down the enemy shields. You do ZERO actual damage until their shields are gone. You do missions to earn bracelets, each of which converts only a very small amount to reduce enemy shields (I think you start at 2% or something). So it takes 1 or 2 minutes before you can even START damaging a minion-level mob. Meanwhile they are damaging you, no problem at all. To make it worse, there are 3 colors of shields, and you must don the same color bracelet, or you're back to doing zero damage. AND - the only way to upgrade a bracelet to be more effective (levels 1.0 through 1.9) is to... defeat hundreds of enemies. In other words: grind! Some mobs have 2 or 3 shields, and you have to take them out in order. At least it's easy to see which color shield is up on everything.
- In the higher levels and dungeons, 80% of your focus must be on dodging projections (AoE indicators) on the floor. Only the tanker and healer will survive ONE HIT. The healer must focus 100% on the tank, so the 3 DPS team members will be one-shotted by everything on the map, even having one toe hanging over the edge of an AoE. To me this was just endlessly frustrating, and by no means challenging or fun. I want to fight, not dodge puddles.

Those last two points are why I haven't even logged on in about a month. It's just too much of a grind against over-powered enemies, and what I've seen of the end-game is just a gear grind in which one is puddle-dodging. And I don't see the point of doing the dungeons only to become better equipped to do the same dungeons.

It sounds really negative, I know, but I REALLY DID enjoy the first 3 tiers of the game, enough to pay for the lifetime sub (which really only gets you a regular deposit of game bucks to be spent on DLC and fluff)

Bottom line: The first 2 or 3 tiers are definitely fun, challenging and at the right price, but right about at tier 4 it turns into a death march of grinding.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on August 13, 2015, 08:26:35 PM
I played for about two months, then flamed out.

PROs:
- The graphics, sounds and controls are all top-notch, and I didn't notice any glaring bugs.
- The stories and puzzles in the low levels are creative, unique, and require lots of thought, intuitive guessing, or a guide.
- you can buy ALL the powers on one character and switch between different builds any time (with very tolerable cool-down rules)
- Combat mechanics and movements are very similar to CoH.
- Motorcycles! Although this is really just "sprint 6" with different graphics. If riding hogs is not your thing, you can use "sprint 6" and not lose any speed.
- It's free to play, and there's nothing you really need to spend real money on to play the game (and there are no significant pay-to-win items either)
- They have a published API that allows user-written extensions for many functions. You can download (or create) add-ons that have access to everything except attacks and movements. The exisintg crafting and battle stats add-ons are very nice, and the auto-bracelet-switcher is a life-saver (see below about bracelets).
- Most of the content can be done solo. The exceptions are the dungeons and hazard zones, but none of these are required to progress.

CONSs:
- the costumes are very limited to start, and too many options must be purchased (either game currency or real money). But look what I'm comparing it to... The best there ever was...
- the "ability points" and "skill points" curve is VERY steep. When you get to 50% of the abilities or skills (count wise -- this is the number you see), you'll think you are progressing nicely, then realize you only have 3% of them point-wise. This is just the typical MMO achievement curve (the further you go it requires more time/effort/cost for the next step), but it's exaggerated too much. And there are hidden things you unlock later that are even worse (augments, shields, auxiliary weapons and skills).
- the end game is definitely a gear grind, with folks repeating the easiest 3 or 4 dungeons over and over in order to get gear and upgrade drops. Teams are limited to 5 players, and the only effective team for the dungeons is tank/healer/dps/dps/dps. ALL OF THEM.
- There is no fly, super-jump or teleport. There is only sprinting, and the highest level you can buy ("sprint 6") is not as fast as super-speed was in CoH (subjectively it seems about half as fast)
- There is simply no way to get end-game gear solo. You must do 5-man teams of the above arrangement.
- The player community is not very friendly.
- There are really only 4 tiers (2 or 3 zones each), but the skill gap between them is huge. You'll get very overpowered, beat the gatekeeper boss (solo -- there's no option to team on these), unlock the new zone, go there and get your ass very quickly handed to you by the first mob you encounter. It's choppy for the 2nd and 3rd tier, then they really punish your success...
- the 4th level-unlock tier (Kaidan) introduces you to the concept of shields. You start with none, and all the bad guys have them. You must use bracelets to break down the enemy shields. You do ZERO actual damage until their shields are gone. You do missions to earn bracelets, each of which converts only a very small amount to reduce enemy shields (I think you start at 2% or something). So it takes 1 or 2 minutes before you can even START damaging a minion-level mob. Meanwhile they are damaging you, no problem at all. To make it worse, there are 3 colors of shields, and you must don the same color bracelet, or you're back to doing zero damage. AND - the only way to upgrade a bracelet to be more effective (levels 1.0 through 1.9) is to... defeat hundreds of enemies. In other words: grind! Some mobs have 2 or 3 shields, and you have to take them out in order. At least it's easy to see which color shield is up on everything.
- In the higher levels and dungeons, 80% of your focus must be on dodging projections (AoE indicators) on the floor. Only the tanker and healer will survive ONE HIT. The healer must focus 100% on the tank, so the 3 DPS team members will be one-shotted by everything on the map, even having one toe hanging over the edge of an AoE. To me this was just endlessly frustrating, and by no means challenging or fun. I want to fight, not dodge puddles.

Those last two points are why I haven't even logged on in about a month. It's just too much of a grind against over-powered enemies, and what I've seen of the end-game is just a gear grind in which one is puddle-dodging. And I don't see the point of doing the dungeons only to become better equipped to do the same dungeons.

It sounds really negative, I know, but I REALLY DID enjoy the first 3 tiers of the game, enough to pay for the lifetime sub (which really only gets you a regular deposit of game bucks to be spent on DLC and fluff)

Bottom line: The first 2 or 3 tiers are definitely fun, challenging and at the right price, but right about at tier 4 it turns into a death march of grinding.
I agree with almost everything you wrote. I never understood why the players need to lower an enemies shields before doing hp damage, while at the same time when you have a the correct shield in place the enemy can do both shield and hp damage at the same time. Even the tooltips point out the damage does x% of shield damage which to me means the rest should do hp damage.
Also another point in the end boss of the right round needs to have 1000+ shields for all the shields.
I enjoy a challenge but the secret world to me panders to the keep it hard group. I play to have fun, and Tokyo is not fun in large, it does have some fun aspects but it is far to hard. The epe did help but to me it was not enough, they could do much better. I love some of the aspects of the secret world, the story is as awesome as any I have played before, even challenging City of. story.
I also agree to get that top lined gear you pretty much have to need everything, if you don't you wont get anything. I found this out the hard way. I was teamed with a few people I did not see they were in the same guild, so I greeded everything and the only time I had above 90 was on 2 times I truly needed and what happened was someone could cut my greed of 100 with a need of 50. They need to fix the drops, out of 5 dungeons I came out with 15 crit. potions, no top level gear, and a verity of tool kits. This one run completely turned me of to dungeons.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: chuckv3 on August 14, 2015, 08:49:50 PM
Also don't forget that gear does not take damage when you get one shotted.

And if you really don't want the 10% gear damage, at least on outdoor missions you can answer "no" to "do you want to ressurect here?" and hoof it back to your body. I'm pretty sure if you do that you will not incur the penalty. I guess they figured having to run back to your own body is penalty enough.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: chuckv3 on August 14, 2015, 09:00:17 PM
This doesn't sound good: 

http://www.vg247.com/2015/08/11/age-of-conan-secret-world-dev-funcom-up-for-sale/

Some people are talking about it on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSecretWorld/comments/3gllkd/funcom_is_up_for_sale_following_legos_lackluster/

Well, I would say to any bored folks out there, go play tiers 1 through 3 before they shut the thing down. The Kingsmouth (tier 1) quests are the best in the whole game, and you start with those.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on August 14, 2015, 09:59:34 PM
Well, I would say to any bored folks out there, go play tiers 1 through 3 before they shut the thing down. The Kingsmouth (tier 1) quests are the best in the whole game, and you start with those.

I think I'll put off buying issue 12 until I see how this shakes out.   
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: General Idiot on August 17, 2015, 03:25:25 AM
For anyone in Tokyo, get one of the UI mods to automatically swap aegis things around. (Such as this one. (http://www.curse.com/tsw-mods/tsw/autoselect-aegis)) Makes fighting things in Tokyo infinitely more bearable when you don't have to manually fiddle with them.

Also, I've found the best thing to do to make Tokyo not suck as quickly as possible is to zoom through the issue 9 story missions since they give aegis capacitors the first time you do them which let you do more damage to shields. Also run the missions Tower Defense and The Right Round from the guy in the tank near where you first enter the zone, they give extra aegis controllers as rewards so you can have a full set for both weapons. You need three so you'll have to repeat one of those missions, or if you don't have the side story pack that has The Right Round you'll need to repeat Tower Defense twice.

Once you have a full set of controllers and capacitors, Tokyo becomes a lot less annoying. The whole aegis system is still stupid and should never have made it out of development, but at least once you have all the things and the auto switch mod it's not as much of a hassle.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on August 18, 2015, 06:32:12 PM
This doesn't sound good: 

http://www.vg247.com/2015/08/11/age-of-conan-secret-world-dev-funcom-up-for-sale/

Some people are talking about it on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSecretWorld/comments/3gllkd/funcom_is_up_for_sale_following_legos_lackluster/
Here is a new interview, it sounds to me like if they cannot find anyone to run conan and tsw they will.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-08-18-we-havent-always-made-the-right-decisions-we-are-all-well-aware-of-that
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Kaos Arcanna on September 01, 2015, 01:40:06 AM
Here is a new interview, it sounds to me like if they cannot find anyone to run conan and tsw they will.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-08-18-we-havent-always-made-the-right-decisions-we-are-all-well-aware-of-that

I would feel sorry for anyone who lost a game they loved. I hope they find a buyer.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on September 01, 2015, 02:49:56 AM
The best news for these players is that the company is open to selling the games if there is a qualified buyer.

That's way better than being faced with a company that rage quits the game for everyone.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on September 02, 2015, 07:55:50 PM
The best news for these players is that the company is open to selling the games if there is a qualified buyer.

That's way better than being faced with a company that rage quits the game for everyone.
I get a feeling it might be pwe that will buy them.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: LaughingAlex on September 02, 2015, 08:02:57 PM
PWE oh god not them.  After what they'd done to CO.....
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on September 02, 2015, 10:04:02 PM
PWE oh god not them.  After what they'd done to CO.....
I understand what you mean, what I posted was not a rumor or any other sort of thing just me thinking. Pwe might try and get it, they did say they wanted to expand their western gaming portfolio. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on January 29, 2016, 12:41:56 AM
Okay, I'm beginning to jones about not having a game to play and thinking of The Secret World, however, in the second zone there was a mission where you had to jump and open a door.  I got it only once because my reflexes are slow, but, for some reason I don't recall, I didn't progress.  Is that mission the same, does anyone know?  And is the game still viable?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on January 29, 2016, 07:57:29 PM
Okay, I'm beginning to jones about not having a game to play and thinking of The Secret World, however, in the second zone there was a mission where you had to jump and open a door.  I got it only once because my reflexes are slow, but, for some reason I don't recall, I didn't progress.  Is that mission the same, does anyone know?  And is the game still viable?
I am unsure about the mission you are referring to :( If you are having an issue with the mission try looking at the secret world database for help and clues :). The game is still very viable, it gets regular content and there is an active community.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on January 29, 2016, 10:00:44 PM
This is just in http://www.thesecretworld.com/membership
the grand master membership is going away, so if you want this membership get it before the 6th of February
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: chuckv3 on January 30, 2016, 02:04:44 AM
Okay, I'm beginning to jones about not having a game to play and thinking of The Secret World, however, in the second zone there was a mission where you had to jump and open a door.  I got it only once because my reflexes are slow, but, for some reason I don't recall, I didn't progress.  Is that mission the same, does anyone know?  And is the game still viable?

Personally, I loved the game up until Kaidan. There is where I burned out getting sick of getting killed in short order no matter how I was set up or how I fought. I didn't want to grind out the shield offense and defense needed to get past it. But seriously, I can recommend the game's first 3 tiers (8 zones) whole-heartedly. There are a couple of bottleneck points in the game, even before that.

You have to solo some tough bosses to unlock the 2nd tier of zones (desert-like), then another to unlock the second half of the tier (egypt-like), then Mara to unlock the 3rd tier (transylvania), then I think The vampire lord himself to proceed to Kaidan. Not sure after that. Sorry I am vague on the specifics, but it's been a few months. The first boss is just some british guy who spawns hell hounds and clones of himself. The next boss is an egyptian god wannabe and you have to run away from him when he casts a 360-degree AoE. There are only 4 paths out of the circle (which is suspended in mid-air, and falling = death), and the paths randomly disappear when the AoE is being cast. Mara also does some nasty AoEs and there's nowhere to hide except behind some statues... Yeah, it's a bear.

Then after that there's the gatekeeper, which you have to beat in order to do elite dungeons, but at least you can do that whenever you feel like, and it doesn't prevent the single-threaded story arc.

All of these are 100% solo, so yeah, if you don't have the game skills you cannot pass.

*edited* to correct some technical details.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on January 30, 2016, 03:16:32 AM
This website is an excellent resource for 'The Secret World':

http://www.tswdb.com/

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Risha on February 02, 2016, 03:52:47 PM
I am a good strategist, and I can be a good fighter.  If it depends on reflexes, though, I will die.  My hands, fingers and keyboard are not that fast.  For instance, I never made any sort of time in the winter sports and just gave that up.  I only use a keyboard and mouse.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: chuckv3 on February 02, 2016, 06:00:09 PM
I am a good strategist, and I can be a good fighter.  If it depends on reflexes, though, I will die.  My hands, fingers and keyboard are not that fast.  For instance, I never made any sort of time in the winter sports and just gave that up.  I only use a keyboard and mouse.

There is progressively more "run out of the way" skills. In the early game bad guys broadcast their AoE cones, and an expanding ring lets you know when it will hit. There's usually ample time to dodge. Later on, and in the dungeons especially, crap appears all over the floor, sometimes chases you, and has very little warning, and in most cases 1-shots you. So yeah, that can be annoying. In fact it relates to my gripe about why Kaidan sucks so much. I was getting pretty good using kiting and dodging as part of my fighting, but then they force you into narrow walkways and small fenced areas (where your mission target is hidden) where you simply cannot dodge or kite, and the result is that you die. I guess you are supposed to constantly grind for shields and that would help, but then grinding for months is just a different form of suck.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 13, 2016, 11:45:41 PM
Bundlestars has the 'Secret World' on sale.

As long as you don't have a problem with Steam games, this is a good deal.

https://www.bundlestars.com/en/game/the-secret-world-ultimate-edition

Nearly all of the content to date for $20.39 (US).
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on April 28, 2016, 05:23:54 PM
There's an update for Secret World.  After download and login, there's cowboys and horses in Agartha!  Also a horse riding a horse, of course, of course.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i68.tinypic.com%2F2vvj48h.jpg)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 26, 2016, 06:48:00 PM
I finally got great news, for those that are a bit cautious about TSW http://www.funcom.com/news/funcom_secures_future_development_through_multi_million_dollar_investment
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Safehouse on May 27, 2016, 02:36:15 PM
I finally got great news, for those that are a bit cautious about TSW http://www.funcom.com/news/funcom_secures_future_development_through_multi_million_dollar_investment


Indeed it's great news, since I've been a bit "on edge" about TSW in recent times. This is the first MMO since City of Heroes that I've really fallen in love with, between the story, atmosphere, characters, and setting. I've been starting to think every place that I start to call home is going to end up shuttered  :'(

It feels like a REALLY long time since I've seen anything other than grim news.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on May 27, 2016, 07:46:16 PM

Indeed it's great news, since I've been a bit "on edge" about TSW in recent times. This is the first MMO since City of Heroes that I've really fallen in love with, between the story, atmosphere, characters, and setting. I've been starting to think every place that I start to call home is going to end up shuttered  :'(

It feels like a REALLY long time since I've seen anything other than grim news.
I agree, in fact I stopped buying points, now I can buy points again.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Sarabande on June 09, 2016, 06:51:43 AM
So I've just started to dig into this one, and I'm having a great time thus far - is there still a hub for paragon refugees here or has that faded a bit? Could anyone suggest some cabals to take a look at? Thanks!
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 12, 2016, 07:17:33 AM
So I've just started to dig into this one, and I'm having a great time thus far - is there still a hub for paragon refugees here or has that faded a bit? Could anyone suggest some cabals to take a look at? Thanks!
Wish I could help ya, but atm I am flying solo :(, but I think there might be a city of. cabal that is around.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on November 22, 2016, 07:46:24 PM
Base game is in today's Humble Bundle for 3 bucks and change for any interested. I'm torn on whether to install or not. Not sure I want to get involved in another MMO given my huge steam backlog.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on November 23, 2016, 11:17:27 PM
Base game is in today's Humble Bundle for 3 bucks and change for any interested. I'm torn on whether to install or not. Not sure I want to get involved in another MMO given my huge steam backlog.
Sorry for the late reply, I would recommend getting it. That sounds like a very good price. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on November 24, 2016, 12:26:25 AM
I had bought it already, was torn on whether to install :P It's up to 4 and change now but the rest of the bundle is pretty nice too for those on the fence.

I did install and played for an hour or so. it's interesting so far but it doesn't draw you in with quick early character growth the way mmos usually do. i'm hoping it stays that way so i don't get out of control. I spent 6 months on swtor which i pretty much hated so I'm leery of playing one that might be good.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 29, 2017, 07:14:35 PM
For those who play TSW or want to take a look at this https://secretworldlegends.com/news/letter_from_the_producer/
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: AmberOfDzu on March 29, 2017, 08:03:34 PM
There's also a massivelyop story: http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/29/funcom-reboots-the-secret-world-as-secret-world-legends/ (http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/29/funcom-reboots-the-secret-world-as-secret-world-legends/)

It does not sound like a good change to me. The real TSW will be in maintenance mode from here out.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 29, 2017, 08:40:02 PM
I feel they are making a huge mistake, they are more or less willing to bet on their current player base and the losses from them will be out done by the new unguaranteed player base.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on March 29, 2017, 10:34:15 PM
If the SWL content is just recycled content from TSW, I won't even bother trying SWL.

This from someone that bought all TSW content.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on March 30, 2017, 04:19:44 AM
I liked the story stuff well enough but hated the progression system. Story didn't interest me enough to want to keep playing to unlock a few hundred more powers I won't be using, much less to roll more of the same for the other two faction stories. Got bogged down about halfway through illuminati egypt and haven't played in months. Now my story progress will be reset too? Noty.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: ricodah on March 30, 2017, 06:22:05 AM
That's too bad.  TSW became my home away from home (CoX).  Been on a break for the past few months but was going to return soon.  The thought of regrinding from nothing is enough to pass on SWL and knowing there will be no new content will stop me from continuing with TSW.  It just sounds like SWL is just TSW with a revamped combat system.  All the areas, scenarios, dungeons, raids are all the same.  It hardly warrants a whole "new" game.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Exxar on March 31, 2017, 05:53:13 PM
If I was a regular TSW player I would probably pissed to hell and back about this. But since I just played for a couple of months during the game's first year, I'm finding this quite appealing. I just hope the announced action combat won't be a DPS-fest dodging hell like in GW2.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on March 31, 2017, 06:12:48 PM
I'm not pleased with what is essentially a character wipe.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 31, 2017, 06:39:19 PM
For those on the fence as I was here is an update http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/31/the-daily-grind-are-you-excited-about-secret-world-legends-2/
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: LaughingAlex on March 31, 2017, 10:18:35 PM
From what I read, controls are more shooterish in a similar manner, I guess, to the fps/rpg hybrid "Vampire Bloodlines" (left mouse fires gun/swings melee at enemy, right button was discipline use).

Or maybe DCUO, although with the ability to rebind to what you'd prefer.  Although an active button to dodge over double tapping a direction unreal style, hmmm, not sure about that.

Main weapon left button and secondary weapon right button and spell/power use with number keys?  I think I may show some interest, who knows it may actually be interesting.

TSW suffered from a gameplay issue and a tendency to leave me unsure where I had to go to make any progress after a point not to far into the game, I felt like I was effectively screwed over in that way.  Like was I supposed to just blindly wonder until I found a new lead fit for my level?  That and some of the quests requiring out-side-of-the-game knowledge to complete, in that if I had to use a web browser to figure out some clues I was left "Ok why don't I just use a spoiler guide for the whole quest instead of looking up some obscure bible reference?".  Such quests left me feeling they were trying to hard to be difficult but not really challenging me as I'd rather the game had the clues better telegraphed in-game more.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on April 06, 2017, 01:48:45 AM
Their snazzy new Steam logo fooled me into firing it up today -  appears to be a lizard giving birth to a giant human head while a person discovers a blue cube in a tiny village which is also in the lizard's birth canal. Who wouldn't want to play such a game?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on April 06, 2017, 01:56:40 AM
Honestly, I might quit playing TSW, why because one, they are lowering the amount of players in the play field. This was the main reason on why I quit Guild Wars, I like seeing other players. The second reason is due to the reason they are getting rid of the tab option in favor of a reticle, where it is using the mouse to click to use a power.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 06, 2017, 05:35:41 PM
Honestly, I might quit playing TSW, why because one, they are lowering the amount of players in the play field. This was the main reason on why I quit Guild Wars, I like seeing other players. The second reason is due to the reason they are getting rid of the tab option in favor of a reticle, where it is using the mouse to click to use a power.

Are you talking about TSW or SWL or both?

I was actually playing TSW this weekend.  It was a ghost town.  And not the good in-game kind either.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on April 07, 2017, 12:25:04 AM
Are you talking about TSW or SWL or both?

I was actually playing TSW this weekend.  It was a ghost town.  And not the good in-game kind either.
I would say both, just as you described TSW is being abandoned by the players. And Funcom is putting all their faith in thinking new players will be clamoring to play Secret World Lite.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: AmberOfDzu on April 07, 2017, 01:07:10 AM
I was actually playing TSW this weekend.  It was a ghost town.  And not the good in-game kind either.
Osborne Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect)?
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 07, 2017, 03:51:40 AM
I think it has more to do with the character wipe.

If you knew your characters would transfer intact to the new game, you'd have no reason to quit playing.  You might even play more to maximize the rewards from a familiar system.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: AmberOfDzu on April 07, 2017, 12:08:38 PM
I think it has more to do with the character wipe.

If you knew your characters would transfer intact to the new game, you'd have no reason to quit playing.  You might even play more to maximize the rewards from a familiar system.
I think they've handled this pretty badly in communicating what they intended it to be. They said relaunch when they meant related new game, and they said transfer when they meant partial copy, and other problems, I'm sure.

It leads existing customers to feel things are being taken away, instead of being granted free perks in a new product due to their brand loyalty, which I think the company had hoped for. That anyone would describe this is a "character wipe" is a serious failure on the part of their communications team.

I wonder why they didn't try to differentiate the new game more from the existing; or absent that, offer people incentives to stay with the old game for some period. Even if the character status couldn't be copied over, maybe some set of daily play points that could -- e.g., play an hour a day in TSW and earn in-game starter cash for the SWL. It's also possible that there's no business case for it; maybe they're not shutting the old game down completely just to avoid the excessively bad PR that would create. In that scenario, they don't care much about current players of TSW because they are not the target clientele of the new game. They're too few and won't like the new game anyway, and they just want them to not make a big public stink over it.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: thunderforce on April 07, 2017, 05:22:39 PM
I see why people who like the existing TSW are rightly upset, but I'm kind of optimistic. I played it for a while; much of it is brilliantly novel (in particular, while they do often come down to Guide Dang It, the investigation missions are a welcome break from killing 10 rats) I thought it was let down by the utterly pedestrian combat; cycle your abilities and don't stand in the telegraphed-move marker. Of course, the new combat might not be any good either...
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on April 07, 2017, 05:34:48 PM
I suspect we'll be reading the closure announcement for Secret World Legends within a year.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on April 21, 2017, 11:15:57 PM
Well, this game just thrown on the trash heap, I will not continue playing TSL, I do not like the reticle targeting. Like I said previously, I like to click on the power buttons and using tap. Time for me to shop around for another game, until Ship of Heroes or any of the other successors comes out, of even City of comes back.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 14, 2017, 09:22:04 PM
Looks like someone followed what City of. has done. Read the fist ability, https://secretworldlegends.com/news/deepdiveweapons/
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on June 24, 2017, 02:33:04 PM
That was a disappointment.

After a 14 gigabyte download, I couldn't talk to Mei Ling and wasn't able to go on.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Tahquitz on June 24, 2017, 05:13:20 PM
I said it elsewhere, it seems like they went the Neverwinter direction with the UI, controls and gameplay, with a tinge of Champions Online (even moreso: CO gives you two character slots for free.  SWL just the one.  Additional is $10.)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on June 25, 2017, 12:05:34 AM
Ugh. I played through the first part of the dragon intro and i'm already dizzy. Not sure why they took the perfectly fine right-click to look and made it into always on mouse look chaos. Shift + move to dodge is really awkward and the double key to dodge seems to only work occasionally work. Was looking forward to this as I liked the story in TSW but found it incredibly dull otherwise. I can't see myself playing this even through the rest of the tutorial much less 3 full faction stories. It's like they only changed the things that were working well before.

Edit: and the move from too many weapon combo choices to too few is really dumb.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 25, 2017, 01:08:24 AM
Ugh. I played through the first part of the dragon intro and i'm already dizzy. Not sure why they took the perfectly fine right-click to look and made it into always on mouse look chaos. Shift + move to dodge is really awkward and the double key to dodge seems to only work occasionally work. Was looking forward to this as I liked the story in TSW but found it incredibly dull otherwise. I can't see myself playing this even through the rest of the tutorial much less 3 full faction stories. It's like they only changed the things that were working well before.

Edit: and the move from too many weapon combo choices to too few is really dumb.
It is very easy, they "remade" tsw, to attract new players. It was never for the vets, they hope this hot garbage will outdo those that will leave. The combat was not really bad, it just needed some improvement. However, all they did was barely anything, they did they bear minimum. Hopefully they will sell tsw to another developer, who knows what they are doing.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Castegyre on June 25, 2017, 01:42:45 AM
I haven't made it past the character creator yet. I've heard mixed reviews from all over the place, but I can't get beyond making a character I like to look at.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Exxar on June 25, 2017, 08:57:12 AM
They actually improved the character creator, in TSW you couldn't choose a face at all :P
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on June 25, 2017, 09:26:19 AM
Finished the tutorial. Kind of getting used to the controls but it's still not what I'd call fun yet (feels like dcuo to me which isn't a good thing). but when i played it the first time i liked the stories but not enough to keep playing with boring combat and no real sense of progression after a certain point. here it seems the same but with different combat, though they do seem to have done something about the sense of progression with the leveling and perma passives. remains to be seen how long that lasts or if it's enough to keep me playing for any length of time. i quit mid-egypt first toon the first time around so not really much of a benchmark to pass.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on June 25, 2017, 05:07:03 PM
Combat definitely seems easier than TSW.  I played for a couple of hours and never died once.

I do appreciate the simplification of the gear upgrade process.

Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: rookery. on June 26, 2017, 12:23:37 PM
Enjoying it myself. I never hated the combat before but now it's kind of enjoyable. Playing a chaos pistols Trickster and it works quite well.

They have shifted some of the quests around in Kingsmouth but so far I havent found anything that appears to be missing just streamlined, made a little easier in spots.

I suspect the hope is it draws in new folks with easier more action combat. For me at least it has drawn me back.

That said, the F2P aspect drew in some real nasty elements into Kingsmouth map chat. Not expecting to see racist, homophobic commentary but it was there for a while on Saturday. Was gone on Sunday so maybe they got dealt with. THOSE folks need not apply.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Xev on June 26, 2017, 03:57:00 PM
That said, the F2P aspect drew in some real nasty elements into Kingsmouth map chat. Not expecting to see racist, homophobic commentary but it was there for a while on Saturday. Was gone on Sunday so maybe they got dealt with. THOSE folks need not apply.

Not to be political... Even a bit.. Because I have my own problems and they don't care who is president. Juuust an observation from an online game chat reader.. Unsavory commentary like this and more appeared just after the last American presidential election, in STO. Hate chat was so bad for awhile I would have to turn chat off. It takes a lot to get me to turn chat off. Can probably count the times on one hand, over the decades..., before the election.

Definitely not nearly as bad in STO, lately, and since some weeks probably.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 30, 2017, 07:34:15 PM
Well this just showed how much tsl is pancaked up https://secretworldlegends.com/news/message-customer-service-manager/
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Xev on June 30, 2017, 09:09:37 PM
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Tahquitz on June 30, 2017, 11:08:28 PM
Funcom is based in Oslo, Norway.  Their idea of customer service might vary from ours.  By a bit.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on June 30, 2017, 11:18:22 PM
Funcom is based in Oslo, Norway.  Their idea of customer service might vary from ours.  By a bit.
from my understanding the dev team in charge of tsw is in the United States.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Tahquitz on June 30, 2017, 11:32:38 PM
Unless their HQ is directing the poor guy to follow their policies... (Where's the shrug emote here?)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on July 01, 2017, 03:10:18 AM
Seems like they need to put in a two-tiered support system and leave the live chat bit for subbers.

I'm half through Savage Coast now and I'm liking it better than the original. Combat doesn't strike me as any better or worse now that I'm used to it but the leveling and perma buffs adds the sense of actual progress I thought the original lacked. I'm surprised by the lack of differences in the faction stories though. My intent with the original was to play through one of each and I burned out on my illuminati. Now I'm thinking one playthrough ought to cover it unless the faction-specific story gets deeper at some point. Do feel like a dope for having run every single mish in the early areas on the old game when I actually need to play side stuff now to level.

Just watched this. I don't think the ptw is quite as bad as the vid but a lot of the stuff is funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiEKJ0_K9nY
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on July 03, 2017, 04:20:51 AM
As if a breast size slider was something new....
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on July 03, 2017, 09:46:30 AM
As if a breast size slider was something new....
there isn't any boob sliders in tswl. I know I checked.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: saipaman on July 04, 2017, 04:44:48 AM
there isn't any boob sliders in tswl. I know I checked.

That would be a good feature to put into the cash shop.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Kurrent on July 06, 2017, 01:22:59 AM
I loved The Secret World.

And now I'm done with it.  I hate reticle targeting, and having to redo everything we've built from the ground up is not my thing any more.  Plus it seems like Funcom is deliberately trying to drive people away from this IP, with the terrible way they've handled this for the last year, all the way up to the buggy launch, the huge leap backward in character customization and the currency bugs at launch.  I understand that they're trying to target a newer demographic and target audience, but there was a way they could have done it without infuriating a huge chunk of their loyal veteran players.  And now this deal with them forcibly updating the patcher to lock us out of TSW and make us launch into SWL was just insult upon injury for me.  It's my final straw, so I'm walking away from Funcom before I get more frustrated.

For those you still fighting the Secret War, stay safe.  I wish you all the best!

K


Nika Rousseau (Dragon DPS)
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Xev on July 06, 2017, 02:25:44 AM
As if a breast size slider was something new....

there isn't any boob sliders in tswl. I know I checked.

That would be a good feature to put into the cash shop.


Printed and framed. Title: Classic Gamer Moments

I got in this thread by accident but since I was already here I couldn't help adding my thanks for that lol  : )
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Castegyre on July 06, 2017, 04:17:54 AM
I made a couple of characters, one to play with my wife and one to solo with for a bit. I think I made it to about level 15 or so with one of them. One of the things I remember enjoying when I played a couple of years ago was sort of ruined for me. My weird MMO conditioned brain was remembering too many of the solutions for the content. Between that and the combat seeming even easier than I remember from before I just sort of became disinterested. My wife stopped playing for other reasons, but it took her less time.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on July 06, 2017, 05:50:28 AM
And now this deal with them forcibly updating the patcher to lock us out of TSW and make us launch into SWL was just insult upon injury for me.  It's my final straw, so I'm walking away from Funcom before I get more frustrated.


K


Nika Rousseau (Dragon DPS)

Weird, the TSW updater still comes up for me in steam, they just switched the logo. I had to add SWL as a non-steam game to get the new patcher in there. If you had the old game installed you should still be able to use it, and they have a link to it in the new patcher if not.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on July 31, 2017, 08:55:15 PM
Wow the steam launch was clunky. Couldn't log in despite having used the funcom launcher for weeks until I either transferred from steam to funcom or, i guess redownloaded the whole thing on steam. So silly.

Anyways just finished all the main zones and have to say I like this one a lot better than the original. A bit silly that they didn't include a way to switch builds on the fly but the BooBuilds mod takes care of that (though I really wish I'd known about it before I was practically done with the Carpathians, would have saved a lot of grief).
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Exxar on July 31, 2017, 09:13:15 PM
I'm also finding the game very fun, sucked me in completely. I just started Transylvania but am already dreading "completing" the story as it seems there are only dungeons, lairs, scenarios and the last couple of zones to play after that. I'm really missing some kind of level scaling, Kingsmouth is my favorite area in the game but it's useless once you level it out.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: Vee on July 31, 2017, 10:47:56 PM
I usually do dailies in kingsmouth so i don't have to spend 3 hours on them. So many superfast missions once you've outleveled it that it's not bad for sp/ap gains and tons of junk gear to sell.

Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Exxar on August 01, 2017, 05:51:50 PM
While I do run Kingsmouth every now and again, I do it only when I really need to do all the daily challenges in as little time as possible. Otherwise I've found the that doing as high missions as possible is better for the rewards I need most: anima shards and gear for the upgrades.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on August 30, 2017, 04:52:36 AM
Wow, if you though NcSoft, Cryptic, Bioware is bad, then Funcom, orshould I say Failcom just pulled the ultimate disrespect to their players. They should be told, it is these very players that is keeping that company afloat.
this is the reply, after people were negotiating free aurem, or are due on cosmetics. http://i.imgur.com/ukH5WuQ.png
They spent 2 months after their "new" game launched before posting https://www.reddit.com/r/SecretWorldLegends/comments/6uiylb/funcom_point_to_aurum_exchange_available/?sort=new
Back, to sto and SWTOR
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on August 31, 2017, 05:35:03 PM
I don't really get all the rage on the Funcom points. If TSW had been taken down and they gave a timeline on switching to the new game's currency I could see it.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on August 31, 2017, 07:23:56 PM
I don't really get all the rage on the Funcom points. If TSW had been taken down and they gave a timeline on switching to the new game's currency I could see it.
It is not the points that people are angry about. It is that at the very start they said "your Funcom points will be changed over to the new currency." There was no mention of how many points were going to be able to be changed over. Then after two months later after almost everyone changed to a tswl account, they announced how many points, and an arbitrary cutoff date. Not to mention they ran a Funcom point sell a month before, the first date. In essence Funcom stole money from their players.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Castegyre on September 01, 2017, 05:58:59 PM
That sounds very messed up, but if I'm understanding right it also sounds like one of those situations that could just as easily be incompetence as it could be malicious.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Hero of Steel on September 03, 2017, 01:20:27 AM

If anyone here has an existing account in The Secret World and hasn't used the TSW Legacy Transfer system yet, the service expires on September 4th.

https://secretworldlegends.com/news/legacy-transfers/ (https://secretworldlegends.com/news/legacy-transfers/)



FAQ

https://secretworldlegends.com/faq/ (https://secretworldlegends.com/faq/)
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: therain93 on September 21, 2017, 05:07:43 PM
Wow, that's lame.  I guess they really don't have an interest in recovering former players after all...
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Tahquitz on September 22, 2017, 12:28:35 AM
The transfer system is for vanity items and clothes, it doesn't confer past progress or character data.  The difference between a prior TSW Player who uses the SWL Transfer and a new SWL Player when they make a character on the rebooted game?  Other than clothes and sprints, nothing.  They both start at Level 1.  Nothing from the transfer would make you a better player or fighter.

The only part I could see a past player caring about would be their nickname.  That ended with the launch of the game, as you'd have needed to do your transfer then.

(A second Legacy Transfer is happening, but it's also one time, and only for those who did the first one.)
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on September 22, 2017, 12:59:52 AM
It did give you two extra character slots and unlocked access to all the weapons so it wasn't trivial even if you don't care about vanity items.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Tahquitz on September 22, 2017, 05:05:52 AM
I never said it was trivial.  :) But, yeah, that ended in early September.  They give new players one slot and unlocking weapons costs a lot of Marks of Favor.  (You only need two to get to Level 50, and those you don't pay for.  If you want a third weapon, however...)

I'll put it this way.  I played the original game, got to Innsmouth, and wiped so often and frequently, I quit.  That, and I've never been a fan of horror/zombies/vampire/werewolves stories.  (Doesn't mean I won't watch a well-thought out movie or two, but I don't seek it.)  So, $29.99 for a week's worth of play in 2012 and then I deleted the client out of frustration after leaving it to sit for almost a year. 

After SWL released in June, I went from Level 1 to Level 50 in a little over a month.  And went through two missions that were probably some of the best gaming I've ever played.  Honestly I've never seen anything similar to them before in an MMO.  And I wouldn't have ever seen it if it didn't relaunch.  (Yeah, I know, 2 missions out of 100s... big whoop, right?)

Spoiler for Hidden:
The Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn.  Last Train to Cairo.  Enough said.

I'm still not in love with the setting, but the mechanics of the game and mission play is interesting enough for me to keep going.  I might treat it like STO and Neverwinter: after finishing the end game content shelf it until the next major release lands and keep popping in as a Fairweather Player. 

If starting over means you don't want to play it, that's fair.  Putting your energy and efforts into a game for years only to be told to start over does suck, and there's nothing wrong with dropping it if that's where you find yourself.  But for those who never got into it because the first part was too difficult... it's worth another look.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on September 22, 2017, 06:15:06 AM
I'm with you on liking the new version much better. I got bored in Scorched Desert on the original but have 3 alts up to Tokyo on the new one (though I'm on a break for a while, didn't want to completely burn out on the game yet with more content coming). I can definitely understand those who really liked the original being upset though.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: saipaman on September 22, 2017, 12:33:15 PM
Crafting is definitely much improved.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Blondeshell on September 24, 2017, 12:47:59 AM
Crafting is definitely much improved.

That's where I stopped in TSW. Once it started being important to keep track of talismans (?) and such, the crafting system was confusing enough that I decided it was more effort than I wanted to make.

BTW, how exactly are we supposed to still be able to play TSW if we want to? Every time I start the old launcher it asks me about doing a minimal download for SWL. I thought I had the newest version of the launcher from the Funcom site, but maybe I don't?
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on September 24, 2017, 04:33:00 PM
That's where I stopped in TSW. Once it started being important to keep track of talismans (?) and such, the crafting system was confusing enough that I decided it was more effort than I wanted to make.

BTW, how exactly are we supposed to still be able to play TSW if we want to? Every time I start the old launcher it asks me about doing a minimal download for SWL. I thought I had the newest version of the launcher from the Funcom site, but maybe I don't?
There are a few ways to dl the original patcher, from your TSW/L account or at the bottom of the tsl launcher. What you want to do is when it scans your computer do not patch it. It will say the TSL patcher is still visible, then it will go through the motions of trying to update. Once done you can play the original game. This is the way I get on.
The other way is a bit more complicated. :(
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Tahquitz on October 25, 2017, 05:53:20 AM
So, after some weeks playing this regularly, I can come up with the following advice:

SP/AP Gained from Regular Play (Levelling Up, Dungeons, Mission Bonuses, etc.)
Doesn't matter how you spend it, as long as you put it in your current weapons, you'll be fine. SWL has taken freeform ability purchases out of the game, as every AP Ability requires the according weapon to be equipped.  Think of SWL's layout like Champions Online's Archetypes.  You really can't go wrong unlocking everything you get your hands on with AP and SP on your current weapons.

Aurum for Cosmetic Items/Services 
As long as you see that costume purchases in Aurum tend to be overpriced in general, then you can pick and choose better what you want your character to have.

Costume Parts:
Costume Set in Champions Online: 450 ZEN (Approx $4.50) Once bought, you can recolor and retexture as you like.
Costume part in Secret World Legends (Let's say a shirt): 700-1000 Aurum ($7-10.00.)  And once you buy it, the color you picked is all you get.  Other colors of the same costume part cost the same price.  So, make damn sure you got what you want -- as with any other Microtransactions out on the Internet, no refunds or do overs.

Sprints:
Motorcycles, mopeds, and horses are available, but the sprints do not exceed your Sprint Running speed (Levels 1-4 purchaseable with Marks of Favor. Level 5 and 6, Aurum only.)  So, keep that in mind.  Buying a motorcycle or horse will not make you faster than your current Sprint speed, which is not how mounts work in other games.

Also: Aurum is held per account, but purchases made with it are character specific only.  Buying a costume part, sprint, or item on one toon does NOT buy it for another.

Character Slots:
Probably one of the saner priced services in SWL, because it's the same as other titles.  A Character Slot is 1000 Aurum ($10.00).

So, for cosmetic gains, unless something is really perfect for your character... it's easier to earn costume parts from Achievements, Accolades, and Lore, which are all free.  Sprints up to Level 4 can be earned from regular gameplay to earn Marks of Favor.  But if you're Free-to-Play and didn't have TSW (Legacy Transfer) to give you three Character Slots, the $10 is worth it to avoid making a throwaway email address to create a second account to gain another character (which does work if cash will never come your way for the game, or you're adamant on not paying in any way.)

Marks of Favor Conversion:
The last thing Aurum can do is convert to Marks of Favor.  But even then, it's not great: 1) the price to convert is free-market, so it can go up or down at a whim (generally around 160 MOF = 1 Aurum.)  2) MOF is granted for free daily (around 4K of it on average, up to 10K if on Patron and you finish the bonuses) if you complete the Daily and Bonus Challenges  Takes a few hours in a level-appropriate area... takes 20 minutes for a Patron at Level 50 stomping around Kingsmouth.  Free always beats paid, even if a timesink is attached.

Aurum for Character Advancement
AP/SP Gain: 
Unlike most games, SWL lets you pay to advance your character directly.  But the rate of points to buy is pretty harsh.  Every single point of AP and SP is worth 100 Aurum. ($1.)  Want 100 AP?  10000 Aurum.  ($100)  Personally, I don't recommend going this route at all.  You can gain 100 AP/SP in 4-6 full days of play (6-8 hour sessions a day).  If you're a Patron, 2-3 days.  That and $100 can feed one person for a week if used well.

I'd purchase AP/SP only if you have a balance of Aurum left from a purchase for something else and it's burning a hole in your pocket for some reason.  (And converting the remaining Aurum total to Marks of Favor isn't a better option for some reason.)

Cache Keys: 
This is where Aurum has some efficacy.  Spending $10 for Aurum yields about 7 keys at 150 Aurum a piece to unlock Item Caches (Lockboxes.)  Every Cache you open has at least two distillates (free upgrades for weapons, talismans, glyphs and signets, etc.) and a small amount of Third Age Fragments (similar to Drifter Salvage, Lobi, and Tarmalune Bars in the Cryptic games.) for a total of three items.  A lucky use of a Cache Key may yield four items: the fourth being either extra distillate, a weapon or talisman, a costume piece (specific to the box in question), or the most common 'bonus': Anima Essence, which is a 30 minute stat boost.  The distillates are the real advantage to the lockboxes: they're all epic quality or better (small chance for Mythic).  That means the following:

Standard Item (Green Border): One Distillate = Instant Level 20 (Max Rank for Standard Items only).
Superior Item (Blue Border): One Distillate = 33% to Level 25 (Max Rank for everything else).
Epic Item (Pink Border): One Distillate = 10% to Level 30.
Mythic Item (Orange Border): One Distillate = 1% to Level 50.
I'm not going to try to postulate Legendary Items (Red Border).  Mainly because I haven't got my hands on one yet.  And Level 70... Just damn.

So, if you want to boost your Item Power in-game to something around 250 in a hurry, using Cache gained Distillates are the fastest way to go.  But even then, there's a wall: after reaching Epic in all of your talismans and weapons, continued purchase of Cache Keys to unlock distillates are diminished returns at that point. 

Again, as with buying AP/SP, this is why Pay to Win really doesn't work:

For the sake of argument, we'll ignore item progression using similar type weapons to upgrade for Anima Shards, but we'll assume you can get from Standard to Superior on your own without Distillates by Level 50 or so.

It'll take 12 Distillates on an Epic Item to make it Mythic, and 25 to make a Mythic Item into Legendary.  Doing the math:

Superior to Epic: 3 Distillates Needed = 450 Aurum. ($4.50)
Epic to Mythic: 12 Distillates Needed = 1800 Aurum. ($18.00)
Mythic to Legendary: 30 Distillates Needed = 4500 Aurum. ($45.00)

Doesn't sound like much, except this: this is per Talisman and Weapon individually.  All 7 Talismans and both Weapons:

Superior to Epic: 27 Distillates Needed = 4050 Aurum. ($40.50)
Epic to Mythic: 108 Distillates Needed = 16200 Aurum. ($162.00)
Mythic to Legendary: 270 Distillates Needed = 40500 Aurum. ($405.50)

And bear in mind, this is to get items to max level.  This is NOT to make the second item to fuse the next tier up.

Superior to Epic Including a Second Copy to Fuse on each Item: 54 Distillates Needed = 8100 Aurum. ($81.00)
Epic to Mythic Including a Second Copy to Fuse on each Item: 216 Distillates Needed = 32400 Aurum. ($324.00)
Mythic to Legendary Including a Second Copy to Fuse on each Item: 540 Distillates Needed = 81000 Aurum. ($810.00)

And for one character, costs are CUMULATIVE.  To go from Superior Items to Legendary on cash alone has a grand total of 121,500 Aurum.  810 Distillates.  That's $1,215 in US Dollars. 

It gets worse.  That's still assuming that Caches give out the exact Distillates (Weapon and Talisman) you need every single time (they won't).  This total is a minimum.  Realistically, you're looking closer at $1,500 if Glyph and Signet Distillates are granted too often.  $2,000 if your luck is really bad.

What's a better strategy?  If you want to go from whatever Item Power you are at Level 50 (assuming you play through everything you'll wind up around 90-100) to around 250, Cache Distillates are the fastest way to go without breaking too much of the bank... and there's a way to get Cache Keys at a discount.  Keep reading...

Subscribe to be a Patron
Seriously.  It's $12.99 a month.  But this is why it's a good idea if you want to go the above route:

Cache Keys as a Patron*: $12.99 for 30 keys.
Cache Keys under Aurum: $45.00 for 30 keys.

*: Only one key is available per day, with the clock triggering at midnight Pacific Time.  If you forget to login during a day, the key is lost.  Only one character can claim the daily key, along with the "Login Reward" that all players get free daily.

If you have the patience to get one key per day (can be done in minutes), and even if you miss a couple of days, you can kit out a character from Standard to Epic in a little under two months with a combination of regular upgrades (consume lower power weapon/talisman drops to Item XP) and Cache Keys under the Patron program to get Epic Distillates to speed progression up.

This is in addition to the other perks: Free Anima Leaps (Map and Zone Teleports are free, but still has cooldown timers), carrying up to 6 Potions to recover HP and 50% off on refills, double the AP/SP gathering (2 Points per Next AP/SP mark on the XP Bar instead of 1 point), 10% more XP to go from Level 1-50, extra Marks of Favor in missions, challenges and dungeons, extra keys for Dungeons, Scenarios, etc.

The downside to the Subscription to the Patron program: you need a US Debit Card or Credit Card to subscribe.  Prepaid and Gift Cards won't work.  (US Law prohibits Gift Card/Prepaid Card use with International Vendors, and Funcom is based in Oslo, Norway.)  And you can sign up on the in-game interface, but to cancel, you need to login to the Secret World Legends website.  (Useful if you're taking a hiatus and don't login at all.)

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I hope this info helps folks to make informed decisions in Secret World Legends.

EDIT: Didn't know what the Max Levels for Epic, Mythic, and Legendary were.  Thanks DJ Nexus!
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on November 14, 2017, 05:22:32 PM
QOL changes in the new patch are pretty....pretty....pretty good. Dumping the matching role requirements for bonus talisman exp will really help with the grind. It's almost enough to make me want to go back to playing heavy for another month, but I think i need to keep my hiatus going a while longer so I don't completely burn out.

Oh and I was on for 5 minutes today and there was of course a healzor raging that they wasted all that effort on 2 sets of gear and now you can switch role easily with a slider. Those legendarily selfless healers...
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Tahquitz on November 16, 2017, 06:07:15 PM
It's no different than Star Trek Online.  You can change power levels on a ship the same way out of combat to tweak how it works.

The only thing that's different is the efficacy of Glyphs and Signets, but there's a discount on removal that makes it easy to replant everything how you like.  Otherwise, increasing stats still has value.  If anything, Anima Allocation makes Build Planning a little easier as you don't have to worry as much about Talisman placement.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Sakura Tenshi on November 18, 2017, 01:40:35 AM
I've been playing this a lot lately and recently finished Tokyo on my Shotgun/AR guy SniperJoe.

Hoooo-leee cow, that was a hell of a ride. Ended up Marathoning Orochi tower with my usual running partner, I wonder if that was sort of like how SAO must have felt like to the characters in-universe.

Thank god we didn't need to ascend all god only knows how many stories.

Also, during some dungeon runs, I found out my guy could solo dungeon bosses on his own. Not even just ones twenty levels below him, I mean level 50 bosses.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on November 30, 2017, 09:51:07 PM
RNGesus has smiled on me for 5 intricate fierce in 3 days. Radiant generalist's belt is still an urban legend though.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 05, 2018, 08:40:14 PM
Sorry for the late reply. The doff system invades swl. An added plus, you only get one "agent" to gain more you ether have to spend money on booster packs, you are not guaranteed to get one. The next way is, you can try and earn one replaying missions from savage coast and onward. The last way is paying an over inflated price on the market.

This could have been a fun addition to an otherwise rehash of a once great game. But they pulled a funcom and only thought of how to squeeze more money out of its players.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on March 05, 2018, 09:34:56 PM
It gives me a reason to log in twice a day to reset agent mishes instead of just once for daily reward. Still no reason to actually play, but y'know. I did get a good chuckle at the aurum costs to expedite missions though.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 09, 2018, 08:52:04 AM
I ran two Transylvania dungeons and afterward, I went to sc and started my run for dossiers. After doing four missions I finally got my first. Then when I went to the school and ran what's her faces first mission I got my second one. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 14, 2018, 08:01:52 AM
Season 2 is just right around the corner.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Tahquitz on March 14, 2018, 07:31:20 PM
Yup.  New zone is in South Africa. 

It's like Egypt with less whimsy and more run down cars.  (Not a dig on South Africa, that's just how the zone looks in game.)

https://www.secretworldlegends.com/2018/03/13/dawn-of-the-morninglight/ (https://www.secretworldlegends.com/2018/03/13/dawn-of-the-morninglight/)
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on March 14, 2018, 07:47:38 PM
That awkward period between being able to complain about no new content and being able to complain about the new content.
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Angel Phoenix77 on March 15, 2018, 11:56:19 PM
That awkward period between being able to complain about no new content and being able to complain about the new content.

True, but when I complain about something in swl. It is due to wanting to see it succeed. And I see them wasting that chance. They made some very foolish changes, then there are something I absolutely love. That enhances the gameplay.

I really hope season 2 turns out good. I need to hurry up, I have four of the major contacts left alongside the main story missions in Tokyo. :)
Title: Re: The Secret World/Secret World Legends
Post by: Vee on March 16, 2018, 12:29:22 AM
I've got one character sitting waiting for the new stuff. The others are in no rush to do some of those annoying tokyo mishes. I learned my lesson the last time though when i came back too fast so I'll stay on my break well past April.

I hope the new stuff keeps the game going strong.
Title: Re: The Secret World
Post by: frazier on July 06, 2019, 10:01:56 PM
Kurrent where are you????
I MISS YOU!!!!!

We are up again and on Excelsior server. We need you and Tink!!!!!!!

Fraz

I loved The Secret World.

And now I'm done with it.  I hate reticle targeting, and having to redo everything we've built from the ground up is not my thing any more.  Plus it seems like Funcom is deliberately trying to drive people away from this IP, with the terrible way they've handled this for the last year, all the way up to the buggy launch, the huge leap backward in character customization and the currency bugs at launch.  I understand that they're trying to target a newer demographic and target audience, but there was a way they could have done it without infuriating a huge chunk of their loyal veteran players.  And now this deal with them forcibly updating the patcher to lock us out of TSW and make us launch into SWL was just insult upon injury for me.  It's my final straw, so I'm walking away from Funcom before I get more frustrated.

For those you still fighting the Secret War, stay safe.  I wish you all the best!

K


Nika Rousseau (Dragon DPS)