The Secret World

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21 entries. 12,141 words.

June, 2012

  • The Secret World. 2012-06-29 9:08 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’ve had a burst of gaming enthusiasm in the last month or so, ending my streak of playing basically nothing since Christmas. As usual, I tend to gravitate toward RPGs and MMOs. The last MMO I played before my break was Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I found enjoyable, but not enough to keep playing past the free month. Then recently, on an impulse, I bought TERA, which boasted a totally fresh new action-based combat system, but again, it didn’t keep my attention past the first month. After that I played LOTRO again, which is a bit dated now but still one of the best MMOs around. 283 words.

July, 2012

  • The Secret World, Likes and Dislikes. 2012-07-02 2:08 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews

    Here are some of my impressions from playing The Secret World for a weekend of beta and a few days of the head start. Likes: The “investigation” quests are awesome! You can Google the answers, of course, but trying to solve them without is a trip. We’re talking old school adventure-style puzzles and riddles here. (Make sure to turn off General chat if you don’t want to see spoilers, ‘cause, you know, people are lazy.) You can die. You don’t really know how powerful new mobs are until you attack them. (In fact, as it turns out, sometimes you have to die to complete quests, because the ghost world can be explored too.) It’s pretty painless—all you have to do is run back to your corpse, just like WoW. Almost every quest is repeatable daily, so you never have to grind on mobs. (Though it is still fun to shoot zombies at random.) Having an out-of-combat sprint toggle is great for getting around. It’s sort of like riding a mount, and you can do it from the beginning. I wonder if you can increase the speed later on? The flexibility of creating your own “backpacks.” You can carry 50 things, but they can be organized into any number of bags of any size, which you can pin to the screen or not. For example, I made one to hold crafting supplies, another for things to sell, and another one pinned to the screen for healing drinks. Humorous NPC quest givers and great voice acting (which you can easily skip if you’ve seen them before). Dislikes: 836 words.
  • UltrViolet in The Secret World. 2012-07-07 2:22 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Stories
    • Theory

    This is what my main character looks like in The Secret World. He makes me laugh whenever I look at him. I just wish I could have made him with a pot belly. FYI combining shotgun and sword seems like a bad idea, now that I’ve already committed to it. I was going to use the shotgun for AoE attacks and the sword for single-target attacks, but there’s no compelling need to split them up like that. Both shotgun and sword have plenty of AoE and single-target attacks. 88 words.
  • Maybe Some Other Time. 2012-07-08 12:40 AM.
    • MMORPG

    I was going to write up a bunch of hints for The Secret World’s investigation quests, but then I realized that 1) I don’t really have the time to do that, and 2) I don’t really want to do all of the SEO to get them into search results. So, if you were dying to see spoiler-free hints for The Secret World, sorry. :) 64 words.
  • Down the Rabbit Hole. 2012-07-17 1:59 AM.
    • Dungeons
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Theory

    I’m a bit surprised to say this but I don’t think I’ll be playing TSW beyond the free month. In fact, I stopped playing long before the free month ended. I’m still glad I pre-ordered it, though, because it deserves to have a chance. But I realized that I don’t feel much of a sense of character advancement while playing. You don’t get new weapons very often, and you don’t really get new powers very often, either. Like I said before, as your character advances, you get more choices of powers, but you don’t really get more powerful powers like you might expect. So often times, when you gain new abilities, you find there’s no reason to change what you’ve already been using. The only things to look forward to are new NPCs telling new stories, and maybe a new piece of clothing now and then. 1,371 words.

April, 2014

  • H1Z1 – You Have Got To Be Kidding Me. 2014-04-18 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG

    So. H1Z1. Another zombie game. That’s already enough to make me not care about it. Zombies were old when The Secret World came out. (Yes, TSW is already an MMO with zombies.) Zombies are now so old that you can’t help but roll your eyes whenever you see another zombie game. “But wait, in this one the zombies can breakdance! See how relevant we are!” No. Zombies are dead. Pun intended. They are like elves in a fantasy MMO. Except there are no other races to distract you from the elves. 350 words.

June, 2014

  • Friday Blues. 2014-06-13 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Musings
    • Status

    Today I’ve got the blues. It’s been a generally lousy week. I was going to skip posting today because I didn’t have anything queued up and in the broad spectrum of life, who really gives a crap whether one blog out of a billion misses a post. Instead I’m going to attempt to rid myself of this funk by writing a little bit, because it’s Friday morning and my workplace is dead as a doornail on Fridays so I have eight full hours to kill. 476 words.
  • WildStar – PUG Attunements!. 2014-06-19 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Musings

    Yesterday I said that WildStar’s dungeons are too hard for PUGs, so today I’m going to solve that problem. Okay, I don’t really know how to solve it. But I have an idea: PUG Attunements! Or as I like to call it, “Stuff you have to do before you can queue in the dungeon finder.” In order for a PUG to even have a chance at success, you need each member of the group to know how to dodge and interrupt. You also need the tank to know how to maintain a little bit of threat, and you need the healer to know how to heal people who are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. 683 words.
  • Mid-June MMO Status Report. 2014-06-20 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Not much to talk about, so here’s a non-WildStar MMO status report! ArcheAge. I’ve only logged in to pay the taxes on my measely 8×8 farm, and occasionally grow aspen trees. I don’t expect to play this any more until after it launches. The Secret World. I have logged in every few days to grind through a mission or two in the City of the Sun God zone. I’m attempting to collect AP and SP so I can fill out my skills better, which will better prepare me to go back to the Besieged Farmlands and continue the main story quest, which will then eventually allow me to get to Tokyo perhaps sometime in 2018. 421 words.

February, 2015

  • GW2 – Heart of Thorns Initial Reactions. 2015-02-06 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Responses

    I’m pretty sure I will buy the GW2 expansion Heart of Thorns, however I’m not sure it will hold my attention for very long since it appears there is not going to be anything new to do for existing endgame characters except collect more achievements. Masteries. “We’re reimagining progression with our new Mastery system.” I’ll need to see this before I can make a final judgment on it, but initially it sounds like more grinding, to be honest. Hang gliders are a cool concept (I loved them in ArcheAge) but if I have to grind before I can get one, that’s a lot less cool. 608 words.
  • Progression Report – February. 2015-02-28 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    I think I’ll make this a “thing” and do a monthly progress report of all the MMOs I’m playing. I started running a time tracking program* called ManicTime so I can actually record precisely how much I’ve played every game now. FFXIV (22 hrs)**. I unlocked most of the new 2.5 dungeons and World of Darkness, however I haven’t actually gone into any of them yet. (To this day I’ve only done one level 50 dungeon-Amdapor Keep for the Relic quest.) In other news I leveled my Rogue class from-you might want to sit down for this epic achievement-10 to 15. 1,168 words.

April, 2015

  • Progression Report – March. 2015-04-01 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    March was definitely a low point in my 2015 MMORPG activity, but don’t panic. This is normal for me. There’s usually one or more months during the year when I end up watching television instead. Still, I accomplished a few things. In Rift, I continued to log in every few days to collect Minion rewards and send them out again. My bank and inventory is bursting with useless junk. In Final Fantasy XIV, I forgot to mention that I joined the cool blogger Free Company on Cactuar. Unfortunately every time I log into FFXIV I stand around feeling like I don’t have any goals to accomplish. I do have goals, but none of them are interesting to me right now, which is a shame because it’s awesome to see so many other people *cough* finally *cough* getting on the FFXIV bandwagon. 639 words.

March, 2017

  • Secret World Legends Announced. 2017-03-29 3:13 PM.
    • MMORPG

    Totally ripped off from https://secretworldlegends.com/ There is some interesting MMORPG news out! Well, “shared-world” news, that is. Some time back, Funcom mentioned in an investor report that they were planning to “re-launch” The Secret World, and Internet speculation ran rampant. Nobody knew what that actually meant. Today, we found out. Funcom is planning to launch a new free-to-play game called Secret World Legends (the official acronym is apparently SWL, judging from my Twitter feed). This game will be a “shared-world action RPG.” You can read all the announcement information yourself on their site. 333 words.

June, 2017

  • Secret World Legends, A Quick Look. 2017-06-27 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG

    I spent a little bit of time Friday evening checking out the head start for Secret World Legends. I was actually surprised how many people on Twitter were downloading it. I don’t remember seeing more than a couple people express much interest in The Secret World on my timelines before. Let me be blunt, like a politician: It’s the same game. It has slightly more action-y combat, in that you no longer have to hit the tab key to select targets. Instead, you point at the target you want to hit. (And when you point at a target, it “highlights” just as if you had tab-targeted it.) In my opinion, this does not fundamentally change the game at all. The animations are the same, the models are the same, the movement is the same. 942 words.

March, 2018

  • MMO Roundup #10. 2018-03-23 2:30 PM.
    • Administration
    • MMORPG
    • Roundup

    A weekly diary of MMO news and observations. Secret World Legends, the League of Monster Slayers tree house In my last roundup I said that Secret World Legends wasn’t The Next Big Thing. This week I made a new Templar Sword/Elementalist and now suddenly the game looks fresh and interesting and exciting again. It just goes to show how much a tiny change in play style can make a huge difference in one’s perception of a game. 306 words.
  • Secret World Legends Revisited. 2018-03-26 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG

    It’s another week, so of course it’s time to abandon the last game and switch to another! This time we’ve landed on Secret World Legends in the Great MMORPG Weekly Roulette Wheel. (RIFT Prime and EverQuest were the previous winners.) Not many screenshot choices to pick from because SWL seems very selective about actually saving images to the hard drive. 642 words.
  • MMO Roundup #11. 2018-03-30 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Roundup

    _These post titles are killing me. I hate titles that don’t mean anything. I don’t know about anyone else, but I almost never click through to read an article if the title doesn’t interest me (my feed reader also shows the first sentence, so that is also a factor). I assume everyone else is the same. But here I am, doing the exact thing I hate. “Generic Post #11.” I might as well call it, “Don’t bother reading this one.” Not even mentioning the SEO implications of a worthless title. Not too many people are going to search for “Generic Post #11.” 508 words.

April, 2018

  • Weeklies – Haven Week. 2018-04-06 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Roundup

    New title! “Weeklies?” Get it? Like Dailies, but Weeklies! I was actually planning to stop doing these but then Bhagpuss had to go and say that he enjoyed them. :) I’ve been very distracted this week by re-watching the complete Haven series, because @MissByx reminded me that I had not yet seen past season 4, so I started it again from the beginning. I could write volumes about this show but I will try to refrain. The show has almost no connection to the novella it’s based on (which was a noir crime drama, not supernatural in any way), but it captures the spirit of Stephen King’s other supernatural works very well. It is also a textbook example of how building likable, relatable, grounded characters is the most important thing in genre fiction (for me, at least). The style and tone of the show changes quite a lot over the course of its six-but-they-call-it-five seasons, but it still resonated very strongly with me all the way to the end. (The video game tie-in is this: The show’s lead Emily Rose also voiced Elena Fisher in the Uncharted games, and fellow Uncharted actors Nolan North and Claudia Black also appeared in Haven.) 470 words.
  • Weeklies – SWL, Anti-PAX, Batteries. 2018-04-13 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Roundup

    It’s been a slow week. City of the Sun God, near the Houy Sentinel. My primary game is still Secret World Legends though I didn’t play as much this week. Now that the Morninglight content is already out, I don’t feel any more pressure to “hurry up.” Also, Egypt is a bit dull, particularly the City of the Sun God, which is just a long series of tasks that don’t seem to have much story relevance. Other than the cut scenes, most of your minute-to-minute gameplay is mindlessly standing in front of monsters, pressing the left mouse button over and over again with little or no danger of dying. (Just like Kritika Online!) It’s a far cry from the Egypt of the old The Secret World, which was a constant (albeit annoying) struggle to survive. 790 words.
  • Weeklies – ESO, SWL. 2018-04-20 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Roundup

    Yikes, April is almost over already. I finished Secret World Legends’ Red Sun, Black Sand and left Egypt behind. I’m taking a break for a while. This past weekend I decided to try to play through the Morrowind content in ESO. It took four tries, but I finally got past the first meeting with Vivec and into the rest of the story. (I had a hard time finding a character I wanted to play.) I knew reports had indicated it was short, but I was still a bit surprised to finish the entire Morrowind expansion story in 5 1/2 hours*. As per usual, I recorded everything and it will probably end up on my YouTube channel. I’m also working on a post about it. 302 words.
  • Weeklies – Oligarchgate (The One About Daybreak). 2018-04-27 2:30 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Roundup

    Not much gaming to report this week. I’m on a Secret World Legends break. I’ve mainly been dabbling in Elder Scrolls Online (trying to record the Orsinium storyline; much like with Morrowind, I messed up and have to restart it). Since @Sypster has been talking up Dungeons & Dragons Online for a while, I thought I would check it out again myself. I’ve played DDO before, and enjoyed it, but I haven’t had it installed in years (computer forensic evidence suggests since 2015). So I downloaded it and tried to login. It won’t let me play using the SSG account I use for LotRO. It tells me I need a subscription. It’s a free-to-play game. DDO isn’t listed on my SSG account and I can’t find any way to add it. I had to create a new SSG account to play DDO, which apparently is what they recommend now. That is dumb. My characters weren’t very high level and I can’t even remember what classes they were, but I didn’t think they deserved to be erased completely. Anyway I ended up playing for about 20 minutes and, while I remembered why I enjoyed it, there are plenty of other enjoyable games for me to play right now. 861 words.