The Secret World

[Morreion]

PAX East 2012: Exploring the dark corners of The Secret World (Massively)

For instance, I could choose to focus on AoE attacks to take out the large hordes of zombies I found myself up against, or I could build myself in a way that provided high single-target damage so that I could hold my own against the monstrous draugr. Beyond that, I could have chosen to focus on debuffing attacks that slowed enemy movement speed and made them more vulnerable to my attacks, and I could even go the combat-medic route and pick up some heals. Keep in mind that all of these options were available within the blade and assault-rifle skill sections alone, and then take a moment to consider the fact that there are dozens upon dozens more available combinations in the myriad other segments of the skill wheel. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're the kind of person who likes to tailor his character until it's just so, The Secret World has got you covered.

The Intricacies of Abilities, Builds and Decks in the Secret World (Ten Ton Hammer)

For the hardcore theorycrafters who love to figure out builds, what other intricacies are there with the system that those people are really going to want to factor in?

Well, a build is just one piece of the puzzle--gear is equally important. Crafting is very important in The Secret World. Every item you find--any weapons and equipment--you can break down and get components you can craft with. If you have a healer build, for instance, you want specific gear for that, so you need to craft it. A lot of the stuff you find in the world is not going to be for that healer build, you know? So then you break it down and you make the stuff you need.

When you save your build and its abilities, you also save the gear. And so you really can micromanage all these things.

Killing it in Kingsmouth - 20 Tips for The Secret World Beta Weekend (Ten Ton Hammer)

When you create your character, you’ll be asked to provide a first name, nickname, and last name. Be aware that your nickname is the one that displays in the game. In other words, if you name a character Guy “Effin” Smiley...you’ll be running around the world with the rather uncool name Effin over your head. (Yeah. One of us learned that from experience.)

The Secret World reaches one million beta signups (Massively)

It's hard to fathom how you can have "secret" societies when over a million new people know about them, but somehow we don't think Funcom's sweating the security breach. In fact, the studio seems quite proud of the fact that a million players have signed up to test The Secret World. The Facebook tie-in is also getting record views, with almost two million visits over the past few weeks.

First Open Beta Weekend Coverage!

Hands-on with The Secret World character creator (Massively)

Characters created for this world reflect the seedy and sneaky nature of the game. One of the first things I noticed was that the characters' looks weren't extremely pretty. That's not to say they were ugly by any means, but they aren't what you would call super-model gorgeous like you are able to find in other MMOs. I'm OK with that. Personally, I don't like my characters to be too pretty; it takes away some of the realism. Even male characters can be over-the-top pretty or muscular in MMOs. The Secret World shies away from that, thankfully.

Hands-on with The Secret World's Illuminati experience (Massively)

...The skill wheel! Boy oh boy do I love the skill wheel. I really think that the open-ended nature of the thing is reinvigorating in a world of cookie-cutter builds and linear progression lines. I constantly found myself debating where to put my action and skill points. Do I want to grab another ability in the Chaos Magic cells, or would I rather get some pistol abilities so I can pop some caps in the zombies' proverbial asses? Do I want to assign my skill points to the damage line or the survivability line? Or do I want to go down another branch altogether to provide some healing and utility abilities? The choices are literally endless. Yes, I know, somewhere someone is going to come up with some "optimum" builds, but I don't feel like players are going to be required to use those builds in order to be effective. If you want a gunslinger who puts out massive damage from a range but can still go toe-to-toe using a blade, you can absolutely have that. If you'd rather be a purebred healer, you can do that, too. The system truly allows you to build the character that you want to play, not the character that a predetermined class-build combination says you should. Mix in the fact that you can, later in the game, build entire decks of skill combinations that can be changed on-the-fly, and you've got a recipe for dozens -- nay, hundreds -- of unique combinations that can suit any playstyle.

Hands-on with The Secret World's Templar experience (Massively)

Now, I'll be honest: I'm not the biggest fan of cutscenes and MMO story. That said, when I stepped into the Templar training hall known as the Crucible, I had a bit of a geek moment. See, there's a crusty old master-at-arms named Lethe waiting inside, and he verbally assaults you with a voice that sounds quite like David Hemmings'. Design-wise, the zone is a familiar weapons tutorial instance, but the kick-ass atmosphere drips from the walls, and it's helped along with dialogue gems from Lethe like "we do martial magic, none of that faerie stuff" and "you're not the only one, and you're not the chosen one."

Oh, and did I mention the grisly (live) practice demons hanging from the ceiling and waiting to provide you with as much hands-on weapon training as you need? They're chained down, "but they bleed the same," Lethe says.

The Secret World Savage Coast Preview (Ten Ton Hammer)

Even if you were to skip past some of the other content in Savage Coast, I would thoroughly encourage you to spend some time poking around the park. The rollercoaster ride is incredibly cool for starters, and otherwise the park is a great example of how well the environments and audio in The Secret World mesh perfectly together to form some of the best ambience you’ll find in MMO gaming.

The Secret World: Kingsmouth Quest (Zam)
In our continuing look at The Secret World, we send Gazimoff to Kingsmouth, a quiet coastal town with a severe case of zombies.

There's clear inspiration from the darker side of culture in The Secret World, with nods to H.P. Lovecraft, Gotham, Silent Hill and more cropping up throughout Kingsmouth alone. There are also contemporary references to Google, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook, stamping it as a reflection of the modern world. Although it feels more serious than silly, there are shades of Cabin in the Woods, Shaun of the Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn in the way the region had been crafted.

Funcom has rejected the traditional MMO preference for simplistic storytelling, with its reliance on obvious motivations and heroic declarations. While there's a definite place for wholesome fantasy material, The Secret World is an MMO that treats you as an adult. The stories tread a darker path, with characters that are shades of grey instead of the stark black and white of good or evil. As a result, the voice acting feels natural and authentic instead of theatrical and overly dramatic.

The Secret World General Article: My Wife the Noob and TSW (MMORPG.com)
Not everyone knows all things about all MMOs. Once in awhile, a rank amateur joins the legion fans surrounding the MMO-niverse. In our latest look at The Secret World, we check out the game through the eyes of a n00b. See what she thinks and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

In the end, several things stood out to Megan about TSW. The story, intrigue, and mystery grabbed her immediately. She loved that despite her noobish nature, she was able to pick it up and get into it, even if there was a lot more to learn. She also felt that the scenery and setting were haunting and beautiful. She loved the filth-ridden people in Tokyo. But on the flip-side she disliked the character creation and especially the hair. She felt the tutorial was too long and wished it would reward you sooner while spending less time on cinematics. Lastly, she also wished her character had a voice. She felt the combat was fun, and frenetic, despite what Suzie and I have stated previously. She loved the powers she was given with the shotgun, and even imagined herself using the fire and an assault rifle if and when she plays more.

[Morreion]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wykQ8fMCHH4&feature=relmfu
[/youtube]

The Secret World launch delayed to July 3rd (Massively)

The Dragons, Templars, and Illuminati will have to wait two more weeks to dive into their organizations: Originally slated for June 19th, The Secret World's release is delayed until July 3rd. Early access will open on June 29th.

The Secret World nets 1.3 million beta testers (Massively)

If Funcom were a recruiting agency for a real-world secret society, it might be the most successful one of all time. The studio announced that it's topped all of its previous MMO beta records, as it has roped in 1.3 million registered testers for The Secret World.

Final The Secret World Beta Weekend Event Open to All (Gamespy)

Register by Friday for a sizable look at The Secret World.

All content from the three previous beta weekend events will be open, giving newcomers a ton of stuff to explore in London, New York, New England, and even Hell itself. I've been in the beta since the get-go, and personally I'm looking forward to seeing how Funcom's level and class-free MMO translates to PvP. Should be interesting.

The Tao of The Secret World - A Guide to the Ability Wheel (Ten Ton Hammer)

Abilities in the Wheel are divided into clusters within clusters. For example, the Magic Cluster is composed of Chaos, Blood, and Elemental, as I mentioned above. Digging deeper, Elemental Magic is composed of React and Spark at the first tier, and six other clusters at the second tier. Each cluster at tier 1 and tier 2 has six abilities and an elite ability. In order to get to tier two, you have to get all the abilities in the two first tier clusters.

The Secret World Blue Mountain Preview (Ten Ton Hammer)

When you first arrive in Blue Mountain you’ll be faced with what’s known in MMO speak as a “gear check” of sorts. The road before you is covered with the corpses from what appears to be a recent bus crash. You’ll want to use caution before proceeding across the bridge at this point – if you’ve been playing TSW with your eyes open at all up to this point, you should know that the dead on Solomon Island have a habit of getting up and shambling around, Romero style.

The Secret World Hands-On Dungeon Preview - The Polaris (Ten Ton Hammer)

Our team met at a helicopter to head for a rocky outcropping somewhere off the coast of Solomon Island where strange things were reportedly afoot. We disembarked at a gloomy location filled with sea caves and craggy cliffs. Our first steps into the area roused the interest of our first encounter, a Draug, the hulking spirit of a drowned viking warrior.

The Secret World talks Founding Cabals and corrupt sun gods (Massively)

Cabals are TSW's super-secretive-sounding version of guilds. Founding Cabals come with a whole host of benefits including guild name reservation, beta keys for members, a lifetime account and 5,000 Funcom points for the leader, and the possibility to get five years of hosting via Guild Launch.

Final Secret World beta weekend features new PvP zone (Massively)

New this time around is a persistent PvP warzone called Fusang Projects, where 200 players will duke it out for bragging rights and factional supremacy.

Hands-on with The Secret World's Darkness War dungeon (Massively)

What do Vikings, Excalibur, native Americans, and Mayan hell-beasts have in common? They're all part of The Secret World's Darkness War dungeon, of course.

The Secret World lifts NDA -- from today onward (Massively)

Players not in Funcom's beta of the soon-to-be-released game who still want to hear more about it are in luck! As of today, the non-disclosure agreement that bound all of the closed beta testers has been lifted. But there's a catch: The NDA is only lifted for all gameplay and experiences from June 21st on.

The Secret World dev blog details three-faction PvP (Massively)

Curious about The Secret World's PvP implementation? Funcom lead designer Martin Bruusgaard has penned a new dev blog that you'll want to read. It's a pretty lengthy post, given that TSW features three distinct PvP flavors in the form of its fight clubs, battlefields, and warzones...

The warzone is a 24/7 persistent PvP area where the game's three factions duke it out over various controllable facilities. The game will launch with one warzone (Fusang Project), which features perimeter defenses and an Anima Guardian that players must subdue before securing the zone. Fusang Project supports 200 players simultaneously, so look for large-scale PvP battles that reward combatants with tokens and "substantial buffs" for the victorious faction.

[Morreion]

TSW has released



The Secret World General Article: Review In Progress - Part One
MMORPG.com is committed to giving our readers the best and most informative reviews of today's hottest MMOs. With that in mind, we're beginning our multi-part series on The Secret World. In today's installment, we take our first baby steps into The Secret World and give you our thoughts about the game. Read on!

All in all, I’ve been having a great time playing The Secret World. Not only is it fun to play but it’s actually a learning experience. Funcom has chosen to break most traditional MMO traditions so the learning curve is slightly higher than normal. Interestingly, however, that just makes it more fun in addition to learning all there is to know about the lore in the game. My journey has just begun and I can’t wait for more!

Funcom's CEO steps down on the day of The Secret World's launch (Massively)

If you were the CEO of a major MMO developer and your studio had just finished a major game project, what would you do to celebrate? Buy some drinks? Throw a party? Resign from your position and step into a new advisory role? Apparently Funcom's former CEO Trond Arne Aas opted for the last one, as he has officially ceded the CEO post to former COO Ole Schreiner on the same day that The Secret World has launched.

The Secret World community guide (Massively)

Everything you need to know about The Secret World, part deux (Massively)

Secret World’s Tornquist On WoW Copycats, What’s Next (Rock Paper Shotgun)

RPS: Is it or will it ever be possible in The Secret World to only do investigation missions and maximize your progression?

Tornquist: Yes, I think so. Right now you don’t have to do all kinds of missions in order to progress, but at this point there aren’t really enough investigations to progress only through that. You can do crafting and you can progress, you can do investigations and progress, you can do achievements and lore and progress, but you will have to do other stuff in addition to that. You can’t really skip the combat. But I think as the game grows and evolves, we are going to have enough investigation-type gameplay. It’ll sort of be an alternate progression path, to make it possible to at least get very far without necessarily focusing on quests. I hope so and I believe so, that we’ll get there. But we’re not there quite yet. You’re going to have to fight some zombies and demons and vampires. That’s still an integral part of the game.

A roadmap to The Secret World's ability wheel (Massively)

As the word "wheel" implies, the game's ability wheel is a circle, and this circle is divided into wedges. Think of it as a delicious pie full of ass-whooping. First, the circle is divided into thirds. One-third is devoted to melee, one-third to ranged, and the other third to magic. From there, each of those thirds is further divided into thirds. The melee wedge is divided into hammers, fists, and blades; ranged fighters have the choice of shotguns, pistols, and assault rifles; and the finger-wiggly types can choose from blood magic, chaos magic, and elemental magic. Each of these ability categories is further subdivided in a way that's rather difficult to explain without an illustration.

Funcom shares fall, Tornquist defends The Secret World's sub fee (Massively)

It's not all roses for Funcom following the launch of The Secret World earlier this week. Gamespot is reporting that company shares on the Norwegian Stock Exchange fell by almost 40 percent in recent days.

Adventure Log: The Secret World’s Amazing Quests (Keen & Graev)

Two moments are particularly memorable for me. The first is during the Men in Black Vans quest. You have to figure out the password to log into the MiB’ish guy’s computer. The hint is “my wife.” We found one of the bodies on the ground and noticed it had an email address: @orochi-group.com. Greav came up with the idea to see if that was a real website, and if so to look up the employee database. Sure enough, Funcom went through the trouble to actually make real websites. The name of this guy’s spouse was in there and we progressed.

The second, and perhaps my favorite moment so far, was during the Dead Air quest. You have to once again access that orochi-group.com site but this time pay attention to the fact that this satellite is made by a subsidiary company. Go to their website, find the satellite, and look in the details about what is used to repair it; Find those items, repair it, and then decipher a code. This code you hear is actually Morse code. Neither of us know Morse Code, so we looked it up on wikipedia (via the in-game browser) and sat there listening to the code, analyzing the sound waves visually as well, and finally came up with the solution. It was amazing when we followed the clue and realized we had deciphered it properly.

TSW Early Observations and Impressions (Keen & Graev)

It dawned on me yesterday that this story is very linear. While playing I am having a lot of fun exploring and figuring things out, but what happens if I want to go back and play again with another character? Technically, I’ll have already figured out every puzzle, found every lore item, explored all the hidden locations, solved the mysteries, and essentially experienced all that this game has to offer.

I thought SWTOR had little replayability, but TSW is the same for all three factions. There isn’t even the option to switch sides and do it differently. Let’s hope once is enough.

Stacking the Deck: How Pre-made Builds Function in The Secret World (Ten Ton Hammer)

Players can slot seven active and seven passive abilities. Of the active combat abilities, the player starts with a builder, which builds charges for each of the weapons he uses. (You’ll almost always use two weapons with a builder for each.) Then you have the consumer abilities, which use charges to cause damage and either apply a condition, or take advantage of an applied condition. Passive abilities enhance the active ones, granting things like more damage, damage over time, reduced cool downs, etc. At this point, the process may not seem horribly complicated, but determining which abilities work with which, and in what order, quickly becomes confusing when you’re faced with the Ability Wheel. Working up even a single skill line, the bounty of available abilities can make it difficult to know which ones to slot.

The Secret World Crafting Guide (Ten Ton Hammer)

Some Disassembly Required - Gathering and Crafting

But how do you get these materials? Unlike in other MMORPGs, you won't harvest raw crafting components piecemeal (that is, apart from weapon toolkits). Instead, you'll have to disassemble weapons, glyphs, talismans, potions and items to get the materials you need to transcribe new materials.

The Secret World to feature new content 'on a regular, monthly basis' (Massively)

"We're going to be releasing fresh and tasty new content to our subscribers on a regular, monthly basis," Tornquist says, before going on to explain that Funcom's version of fresh and tasty includes monthly mission packs. New investigation, action, and sabotage missions are in the works, all of them featuring full voice, cutscenes, and media pop-ups.

The Secret World adding server dimension to meet player demand (Massively)

The game makes use of something called single-server technology that allows players from different dimensions to chat, group, and join guilds. If you're thinking of taking the game for a spin and looking to roll on the same server that your friends inhabit, don't fret, as you'll be able to play with them regardless.

Funcom says the new shard will be flagged as a "roleplaying dimension." If you're looking for it in the dimension list, it's called Leviathan.

Funcom unveils armory-like Chronicle for The Secret World (Massively)

Starting now, players active within the last four days can log into Chronicle and check out their stats on their profile page and compare themselves with players across the world using the PvP and PvE leaderboards. But that's only the beginning.

[Morreion]

Why I Play: The Secret World (Massively)

Piecing together clues to solve puzzles and mysteries is something I really love. Now, I fully understand that this particular feature is the pinnacle of turn-offs for some. For me, however, the investigative missions are a highlight of the game and are something I am overjoyed to have! The feeling when you successfully reason something out is a great one, like being able to hit every area of the fortuneteller's visions just from the knowledge gained by running around Kingsmouth. I'm not going to lie, I was pleased with myself that I knew how to get the code from the church without even a second thought and that I deciphered the doctor's password from my own love of the music. Being able to use my own personal experiences, skills, and knowledge to advance in a game instead of my ability to mash buttons is completely awesome to me. And the fact I can share in these experiences with friends in an MMO is just icing on the cake.

Respeculation: Does The Secret World Need a Respec? (Ten Ton Hammer)

After spending some time looking at what the TSW community had to say, I've begun to see where the "no respec" camp is coming from. Most (though certainly not all) of the arguments both for and against a respec mechanic are well-reasoned. That said, I can still understand why new players can, and probably will, find the lack of a respec a harsh penalty for not understanding how the game works. After all, there's still no way to refund misspent Skill Points, and those take longer to earn than Ability Points, which tend to roll in pretty quickly.

Chaos Theory: The Secret World was worth the wait (Massively)

You don't have to spend hours poring over deck builds or wrapping your brain around the talisman system, but it ups the enjoyment ante considerably if you do. You can just go pick up a weapon and frag a sizable portion of the game's early content, soaking in Funcom's peerless world design and Ragnar Tornquist's fun story threads along the way.

If and when you get tired of facerolling, you'll find one of the deepest, most engaging character development systems in any MMO. And just for the record, how cool is it that you can go pick up any weapon and use it whenever you want? The fact that you're not locked into some class-based bind-on-equip nonsense (yes you can trade weapons and other gear with your friends!) is long overdue in terms of both gameplay and immersion.

Interview: The Secret World Creative Director Ragnar Tørnquist Talks About the Future of Funcom’s New MMORPG (Dualshockers)

G: Currently London is definitely the most popular of the three cities for players to congregate, meet and roleplay. Is there any plan in place to valorize New York and Seoul? Can we look forward to other urban environments in the future?

R: Yes, and yes — definitely! There will very soon be more reasons to visit New York, with The Modern Prometheus setting up shop in Brooklyn — and before the end of the year, Seoul will get Execution, the tattoo parlor. As for other urban environments…we are going to make some announcements soon.

Funcom: The Secret World metascores to blame for share price drop (Massively)

The news isn't particularly good, as Funcom's share price has lost half its value in recent days. The company believes the culprit is TSW's aggregate review scores, which include the metascore at MetaCritic (72 out of 100) together with "other public sources" for tracking performance.

The Secret World A Great Step Forward For MMOs, Funcom Somehow To Recover From This Failure (Broken Toys)

The Secret World kind of snuck out to the market in between all the loud explosions of SWTOR and 38 Studios collapsing and Guild Wars 2 ramping up to cover the world in fire or something. Which is a shame, because it’s pretty much everything MMO pundits have been looking for – a classless somewhat free-form advancement system where you can literally ‘respec’ between fights, with quests that actually reward out-of-the-box thinking (such as map coordinates in morse code, left for the player to decipher) set in a smart modern-day world of zombies, demons, snarky Illuminati and magic oral sex.

Yet, thanks in part to launching with some fairly broken quests, the final Metacritic listing wasn’t that good – based on a dozen reviews of that early fairly broken release such as this very low score by Tom Chick. And in today’s market, METACRITIC IS EVERYTHING.

Funcom Reveals Raids and Rocket Launchers Coming to The Secret World (Ten Ton Hammer)

Players will return to Tokyo for the game's first entirely new play field. "I like to talk about the play fields in terms of the theme," Joel Bylos explained. "On Solomon Island, we have the Lovecraft / Stephen King kind of thing. Egypt is like Indiana Jones meets King Solomon's Mines. Then you have Transylvania, which is kind of like Dracula meets Frankenstein. So, with Ground Zero, it's more like Escape from New York meets Outbreak."

Chaos Theory: How The Secret World has spoiled an MMO vet (Massively)

Finally, The Secret World has completely spoiled me when it comes to appearance customization. I'm not talking about face and body sliders because frankly those could be better. The game has a staggering amount of cosmetic clothing options, though, and it combines them with a terrific gear management system that separates your avatar's look from his stats on day one.

There's no grinding to unlock appearance armor, and there's no paying for appearance slots in the cash shop (I'm looking at you, Fallen Earth); there's just solid functionality that ought to be standard MMO equipment these days. Unfortunately, it's not, as there are still plenty of games out there for which appearance slots and vanity gear are some sort of unattainable, newfangled super-tech.

The Secret World sales at 200,000; Funcom focused on the future (Massively)

TSWSociety.com reports that, in a financial document released today, Funcom is claiming sales of "over 200,000" for the horror-themed title. These sales are reported as being "below expectations" and resulted in an impairment charge of $35,000 US.

In the report, Funcom also cites Guild Wars 2's launch date announcement, followed immediately by that of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as reasons for The Secret World's subpar performance.

The Secret World gets a new game director, title and date of Issue #3 announced [Updated] (Massively)

Funcom's finally named a replacement for The Secret World's game director spot: Joel Bylos. Bylos is moving up from his previous position as lead content designer, and Ragnar Tørnquist is pulling back from his role as senior producer to pour his energies into being creative director.

The Secret World unleashes free trial with earnable perks (Massively)

The free trial allows players to do anything they'd like to in the game during that three-day timeframe, and it comes with special bonuses for the super-ambitious.

Chaos Theory: Why you shouldn't worry for The Secret World (Massively)

And let's be real. The Secret World was always going to be a niche game. Funcom may not have met its projections when it sold 200,000 units, but I think that's more of a business planning blunder than an indictment of the game. Mechanically, TSW is as deep as MMOs come, and it's generally impervious to facerolling. The narrative is similarly layered, even moreso when compared to the competition in the MMO story department.

Many gamers can't abide complexity and freeform advancement, so I feel that 50,000 (paying) players going forward would be quite an accomplishment. Does TSW have 50,000 paying players? I have no idea, and that's really beside the point. It does have a future, particularly if both Funcom and its fans can continue to weather these inevitable year-one pains.


My impression of TSW is that it sold quite a bit less than expected, but its fans are quite passionate about the game. There's talk of how long it will be before it goes F2P.

[Morreion]

Chaos Theory: Reflecting on The Secret World's first year (Massively)

In the first half of its life, TSW was a subscription game with promises of monthly content updates, a promise that was mostly kept (see Issues #1-5 above). In these first months, the sub model was defended; in July, Tornquist even stated, "The subscription fee and our business model supports a big, ongoing team." However, players familiar with the history know that the game suffered layoffs as early as August, which is the opposite of a "big, ongoing team." The next month found the development team growing again, and in October, Funcom declared that the game wasn't going free-to-play anytime soon. Of course, it actually didn't -- it went buy-to-play instead!

The second half of the game's lifespan so far has been marked by the B2P model, starting just over five months into the game when subscriptions were abolished on the ominous date 12/12/12. it is also the period marked by the massive restructuring and the relocation that whittled down the development team significantly, combining all three of Funcom's games into one team. You'd think that this move would have hurt the quality of The Secret World's content and its bottom line, but it in fact did the opposite.

Chaos Theory: What I wish I had known when I started TSW (Massively)

1. Commit to a build

Here's my issue with the early game: AP is in short supply, and it's very easy to waste a lot of it fiddling around with different weapons and builds. My character's SP and AP screens are a roadmap of mistakes, second guesses, and wasted AP (and shush those of you who say "AP is never wasted!" Yes, it can be if you're not going to ever use those skills and could really use that AP elsewhere. That's the definition of waste).

What I needed to do was to commit to a build from the get-go. Man, I wish I had done this instead of constantly changing my mind, because I would have progressed faster, further, and with less headache than I did. These days, TSW comes with beginner and advanced deck templates that one can choose while figuring out how the game works, and I highly recommend that a new player stick to one of these until Egypt. Get a solid build that you can always fall back on, and then start experimenting with tweaks and other builds.

Chaos Theory: The Secret World anniversary celebration, take two! (Massively)

To best keep up on when Guardians are spawning, players should join the the event channel, which also happens to supply oodles of info. To do this, just type "/chat join event" (without the quotation marks). Be sure you enable #event to show in your chat box, and soon it will be flooded with sightings of golems! Then you can just add the spotter to your friends list and meet up with them (right click option from friends list) to pop to the right dimension to get in on the world boss fight. Not sure you made it to the right one? Check dimension and server by pressing shift + F9.

Chaos Theory: Exploring The Secret World's endgame (Massively)

Regardless of whether you are perfectly content with just playing through the story in TSW, there comes a point when the story ends. True, more issues come along, bringing more story to follow, but what do you do in the meantime? If you are treating the game more as a single-player experience, perhaps you wander off to something else until the new content comes out. But if you want to stay with the game, there is a whole new realm you can get in on; just because the story comes to an end doesn't mean the game does. Let's explore two areas.

First off, there's the elaborate ability system. If theorycrafting is your thing, then The Secret World is your game. You can get through the base game without knowing the ins and outs of every ability and every stat; however, if you want to really master your technique and increase your effectiveness, you have to dive really deep into the progression system. You have to know how each ability works and how they work together, both active and passive ones. And determining which abilities work best when and against which encounters is no small endeavor.

The Secret World has a lot of clothing options (Massively)

If you've played The Secret World for more than five minutes, you're probably aware of the fact that it has some of the most extensive outfit options of any MMORPG on the market. If you're not aware of that fact, well, you're the target audience of Funcom's latest dev blog.

It's all about avatar customization, and it details how TSW's stats are kept separate from clothing items in order to satisfy your inner min-maxer and fashion maven simultaneously. Since the game is set in the modern world, you'll find many authentic styles available to earn in-game or purchase through the cash shop. If you're a fan of the otherworldly, don't fret. There are plenty of sci-fi, steampunk, horror, fantasy, and medieval get-ups as well.

Chaos Theory: The Secret World's scare factor (Massively)

While the devs have to work doubly hard to overcome our offensive capabilities and social support to freak us out, they've done a remarkable job utilizing a few tools to undercut our sense of security and capability.

The first is a sense of wrongness. This game world isn't flush with bright colors and happy-go-lucky citizens; from the first steps on Solomon Island to the last few in Transylvania, there's an oppressive atmosphere that tells you things are more broken than they should be. Kingsmouth is scary to me not because of its zombie population but because of the ever-present fog that obscures the sun and the distance, making me feel claustrophobic and isolated. It turns what should be a somewhat familiar-looking place -- an American town -- into an alternate universe nightmare. The people being burned alive on stakes in Egypt also unnerve me greatly, as do the "blood stacks" in Transylvania.

The second tool are TSW's menagerie of creatures. Some are just downright disturbing, from the abnormally jointed Wendigos to the floating spirits to the filth-infected people. These probably would have a stronger impact if we didn't see the same models reused a thousand times or viewed them from a first-person vs. a third-person perspective. Still, in the right place and at the right time, even a familiar creature model can be a "holy crap I just peed my pants a little" presence.

Thirdly, there are the pop-out-and-scare-you moments. These aren't incredibly common, but they do happen (amusement park, anyone?) and still jolt me even if I know they're coming. The sound design of the game helps with this, especially that "crash" noise that indicates something horrible is coming your way.

Chaos Theory: The wonderful world of sabotage in TSW (Massively)

As you might surmise from the designation of sabotage, these missions require a bit of stealth and few clandestine maneuvers to pull off. While investigations require players to use their heads to solve puzzles, sabotage missions ask players to use their eyes and in-game spatial awareness to figure out solutions. As in the investigation missions, you can easily look up some hints to help out; however, when it comes to dodging patrols, you've got to be on your toes and paying attention to what's happening.

About these patrols: At certain points during these missions, it is of vital importance that players avoid the mobs at all costs. Folks who prefer the charge-in-with-guns-blasting type of approach to objectives will quickly find themselves severely outgunned. No matter how strong they are, if they're caught by the sentries, players will find themselves conked over the head and hauled out of the quest area unceremoniously like a sack of potatoes.

Sometimes, successful completion of these parts is just a matter of dodging all-powerful sentries, like The Orachi Group in Blue Mountain. Other times, you can disguise yourself to blend in and walk throughout the area without being accosted, like in ATC or Black Helicopters in Kingsmouth. Even though the new story arc of Issue #6 doesn't have investigation missions, it has sabotage elements -- just try finishing the tasks in Ancient Roman times without donning the peasant gear and see how well you do!

Chaos Theory: Nine reasons The Secret World is the industry's best storyteller (Massively)

4. Genuine sense of humor

"Funny" is hard to force. You've either got it or you don't, and I say TSW has it. Even though it's such a bleak game in spots, the NPCs make me laugh through bizarre references, sarcastic quips, and self-deprecatory comments. Humor engages us and connects us to these characters -- and it makes these stories far more memorable.

"If you want to understand humanity, read the comments on YouTube."

5. Contemporary references

I've already spilled a thousand or so words talking about why The Secret World has an advantage due to its contemporary setting. Part of this is because it's easier to tell stories when you don't have to explain the basic principles of the world to the audience. Layering the fantastic on top of the mundane, easily understood world we live in provides a natural, easy bridge to the supernatural. It opens the doors for all manner of contemporary references that are not lore-breaking but lore-keeping.

Chaos Theory: First five favorite moments in The Secret World (Massively)

One of the very first things I remember entrancing me was the fact that some world items could be interacted with in ways that you wouldn't expect but still made perfect sense. My earliest recollection -- or at least most vivid one -- is of the computer that sits atop Sheriff Helen Bannerman's desk. You could access it, but it didn't let you do anything... at least to begin with. That would change once I got my first taste of a sabotage mission, courtesy of the sheriff herself. Called Horror Show, this mission required us to go out and gather equipment so we could install security cameras around the station to help the forces better monitor the zombie onslaught. Once we did all that, we had to test the connection. That's where the computer came in.

When testing the four cameras, we noticed that the feed we were witnessing looked live, not like some prerecorded cutscene. Wait... could those security cameras really be working as security cameras? To test this, my partner-in-crime ran out to one of the zones and did a few handstands and such. I know this because I watched him do them! That was just incredible to me that such a realistic element would be woven into a game. My immersion just skyrocketed at that point. Even better, once you initialized the system, you could continue to access it long after the mission was done. To this day (and I literally mean even today), every time I'm in Kingsmouth and I get the chance to check out those cameras, I do.

Chaos Theory: Twelve things to do once you've beaten The Secret World (Massively)

1. The dungeon treadmill

The most obvious path for the recently finished is to hop right on board that dungeon treadmill and begin jogging for all your worth. It's the biggest path to those coveted QL10.X purples and is what everyone seems to be doing. They're fun enough, especially with a large group, but once you've seen what story each of these instances has to offer, the narrative quickly takes a backseat to group tactics, fine-tuning builds, and the drive to beat all normal and elite modes as well as the Gatekeeper so that you can run nightmares.

For me, this is a path that's best pursued in small doses. I enjoy dungeon running with my cabal, but it's not what The Secret World is to me. If there were a better way to secure the gear I needed, then rest assured I'd be doing that.

Chaos Theory: My favorite Secret World NPCs (Massively)

Everyone loves Hayden Montag, am I right? I'd totally watch an entire TV show based around him. I would. He's the tactless headmaster of Innsmouth Academy who just reeks of occult weirdness, right from his too-large suit to his blue glove-clad hands. And he makes me laugh with just about everything he says. He is, as the game mentions, the world's revenge on sarcasm.

Why I Play: The Secret World (Massively)

It's a setting unlike anything we've seen in MMOs to date

It's hard to peg TSW into a neat and tidy category. It's contemporary except when it's historical (yeah, there's some time traveling involved). It loves mythologies of all types as well as pretty much every conspiracy theory and cryptozoologic creature that's been dreamed up by man. It's certainly in love with the horror genre, especially with Lovecraftian horror, zombie films, and Japanese ghost stories. And it utilizes plenty of out-of-game sources so that you could even nudge this title into the "alternate reality game" genre.

It demands that you use your brain

Probably one of the most polarizing aspects of The Secret World's gameplay is its greatest strength: that it requires you to go far beyond mere button-mashing to use your wits, logic, and investigation skills to solve quests. The game isn't pandering to the lowest common denomonator of players, which is why it might scare some folks away. When you can't brute-force your way through every mission and instead have to use your mind to solve a fiendish puzzle, it might come across as too foreign to a largely complacent gaming population.

It handles mature content with surprising maturity

The Secret World is mature in many senses of the world. On a base level, it definitely has a lot of swearing, blood, gore, sexual themes, and nightmare fuel. But it also presents us with realistic NPCs who act and talk like real (if strange) people, made up of as many flaws as virtues. You figure out who they really are by reading into the subtext of their conversations, catching the off-quip, or even looking at their body language.

It tells the best stories of any MMOs, period

Simply put, TSW puts so many games to shame with its presentation and execution of storytelling. The voice acting is top-notch, and the characters are quite memorable, but more than anything else, these are tales to get lost in. Some stories are handed to you via quests. Some you gradually piece together from lore objects, the environment, and snippets of dialogue.

[Regolyth]

I really wanted to play this game when it came out. I signed up for all kinds of TSW stuff, and played their FB game. Eventually it just slipped by and I never got around to it.

[Morreion]

Jaema and I are puttering around in TSW to see what it's like these days, I'll most likely post a review of some kind here.

Back when this game released, it was buy-the-box, subscription, and cash shop all in one- that really turned me off. Now it's B2P with a cash shop, so it's a bit easier to digest