# The Secret World (MMO)



## Vintage Paw (Jul 16, 2012)

Anyone had a look at this? http://www.thesecretworld.com/

A modern day MMO, that's been getting some positive reviews and feedback. I haven't tried it out, but it looks interesting.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jul 16, 2012)

From what I've heard so far it seems to be "not quite all it could be but still a definite step forward". I do plan to take a look myself but just haven't yet.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 16, 2012)

Yep, same. It needs some time to settle yet, I think. Give it a good few months, let them get more feedback, and see what happens.

I like the idea of the quests having a point to them, and the setting, with its modern day 'things that go bump in the night are actually real' vibe.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 4, 2012)

Free weekend of this, at the moment.

Due to some deleting of hdd space and defragging, I'm still downloading it. Should get a decent amount of play in tomorrow to try it out though. It's 'only' 14gb, which isn't too bad. (TOR was something like 30 )


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 4, 2012)

No, I still haven't gone anywhere near it, and really it's the sort of thing I need to build up for my portfolio rather than play.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 5, 2012)

Ignore what I said about size. It's 14gb to download, but through some crazy compression skillzorz that they have, once you've downloaded it, it's 30gb+


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 5, 2012)

There's _really_ no excuse for a 14 gig download.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 5, 2012)

i was amused by this comment



> As members of the Illuminati, my _Secret World _platonic co-op partner and I represent one of the most secretive societies in the history of civilization. I look like a sewer worker with an armory strapped to my back, and he dresses like a kind of occult pimp.​​When it works, _The Secret World_ is an intriguing, globe-trotting mystery with some seriously snappy writing and an absorbing universe that exists just south of the fourth wall. It carves out a niche somewhere between Steven King's _Dark Tower_ series and Alan Moore's _The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_.​​The IP oozes potential.​​Which really makes me wonder why someone decided to staple a piss-poor MMO to the side of its head.​


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## renegadechicken (Aug 5, 2012)

Finding it a bit Meh tbh


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## grit (Aug 5, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There's _really_ no excuse for a 14 gig download.


 
Its an MMO, there are lots of excuses.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 5, 2012)

My TOR download was well over 20gb.

It's a bit weird, this one. 14gb download, and my game folder is 31gb. Super elite compression skills, obv.

Anyway, playing it. Enjoying it. Totally baffled by the game play. Zombies are evil. Shooting lightening is fun. Sub fee is prohibitively expensive. Shan't be subbing.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 5, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i was amused by this comment


 
Absolutely agree. This would make a fucking brilliant single player game (with online co-op options, perhaps). I haven't tried any of the actual mmo stuff yet, just doodling around on my own in the opening stages. I like its fresh approach to how your character progresses, but it's also a bit weird. So far, the npcs have been utterly brilliant, their voice acting included.

Of course, just like anything, the outfit comment up there is just down to people choosing weird fucking choices instead of anything that remotely resembles accurate role play. My Illuminati character is dressed in a rather smart jacket/black jeans combo and looks smashing.


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## renegadechicken (Aug 6, 2012)

Aye i enjoyed it as a fps but definately not subbing to it. My Dragon looked cool with blondish red hair, shades jeans and white t shirt and checkers hoodie.
Did some crafting, killed loads of zombies, liked the puzzle/investigation aspect but for an MMO i still stand by 'Meh' comment.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 7, 2012)

You played it in first person? Good lord. I'd die if I tried that.

Anyway, I managed to eke out a massive amount of free time past the official cut off time of 1pm for the free weekend 

I tried all factions, never got out of London with my templar, did a bit in Kingsmouth with my Illuminati character who used elemental magic, but absolutely loved the heck out of my dragon who used fists. I dabbled in blood magic as a back up, but sacked it off in the end, because 7 slots are so restrictive, it's difficult to keep a heal, something that de-buffs enemies, something that buffs you, something that builds resources, and then damaging stuff, for both disciplines.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in it today, I have to say I prefer it to SWTOR. It's more open, the setting is so interesting and the characters are great (and often very funny). I don't go in for the typical mmo stuff like dungeons and pvp, so I don't know what it's like in that regard, but as for just soloing along on the general questing stuff, it's great fun, once you work out what fighting style works best for you.

I can't get the hang of crafting though (which is a shame, because I'm a serial crafter in other games). Bought myself a decent weapon in the marketplace instead.

Damn shame the sub is so expensive, otherwise I'd be getting this. Love it.


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## renegadechicken (Aug 7, 2012)

Aye i was assassin (pistol/blood) - got the hang of the crafting by printing out the differing sequences needed for various items. The most annoying part of the crafting i found was disassembling as i never seemed to have enough parts of the 'right' level to craft what i needed.
I managed to play until about 8pm yesterday before it dc'd me - and i prefered it to swtor, which i quit 2 months ago.
When it goes f2p i will definitely get into it, bearing in mind swtor has announced f2p after only 7 months -and this is another 'ea' game.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 8, 2012)

renegadechicken said:


> Aye i was assassin (pistol/blood) - got the hang of the crafting by printing out the differing sequences needed for various items. The most annoying part of the crafting i found was disassembling as i never seemed to have enough parts of the 'right' level to craft what i needed.
> I managed to play until about 8pm yesterday before it dc'd me - and i prefered it to swtor, which i quit 2 months ago.
> When it goes f2p i will definitely get into it, bearing in mind swtor has announced f2p after only 7 months -and this is another 'ea' game.


 
Yeah, the thing that annoyed me the most was that every time I disassembled something, it only yielded QL0 materials, even when it was something like a QL2 or 3 piece (the highest quality I was getting drops of, by the end). Money was ridiculously easy to come by though. After a day's play, I had over 140,000 Pax Romana, so buying nicer gear at the marketplace won't really be too much of an issue. For my level, I saw nothing over 80,000, and most pretty decent things were between 2000-15,000.

Anyway, I caved in the end and got it. Their bastard free weekend marketing strategy worked on me. I'll play my free month, then likely set it aside for a while, until it goes f2p (which, like you say, is extremely likely, especially with GW2 coming out; along with their current pricing strategy - which seems to be charge some of the highest subs in mmo's on the current market, AND charge a fortune in microtransactions - I doubt they'll sustain the high subs for too long, although they have said they are 'dedicated' to that pricing model, so they can push out more content as fast as possible).


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 8, 2012)

Well, I just found out that you can upgrade your crafting supplies (runes and metals and so on) by placing qty5 in the assembly window in a stack, and hitting 'assemble' and it will upgrade them to qty1 of the next level up. Handy to know. Seems like a lot of crafting is bugged currently though. But, to their credit, apparently funcom have been relatively quick at addressing bugs (most, at least).


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## The Groke (Aug 8, 2012)

I was very much intrigued by it...but I just couldn't commit to a new subs based MMO when Guild Wars 2 comes out later this month!


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 8, 2012)

The Groke said:


> I was very much intrigued by it...but I just couldn't commit to a new subs based MMO when Guild Wars 2 comes out later this month!


 
And that is probably what will make TSW go f2p sooner than it otherwise would. Or so I hope


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## renegadechicken (Aug 9, 2012)

tbh i'm not overly impressed by the beta of gw2...*shrug*


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 9, 2012)

gw2  while not being  mindblowing at least feels... fun.   and  much better crafted than a lot of  f2p mmos

i sunk a hundred hours or so into everquest II  but  it  never  felt as alive as  my gw2 beta weekends


i will also  be playing  KOTOR  like a mofo when if gores f2p


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## renegadechicken (Aug 10, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Well, I just found out that you can upgrade your crafting supplies (runes and metals and so on) by placing qty5 in the assembly window in a stack, and hitting 'assemble' and it will upgrade them to qty1 of the next level up. Handy to know. Seems like a lot of crafting is bugged currently though. But, to their credit, apparently funcom have been relatively quick at addressing bugs (most, at least).


That does help, think im getting TSW tomorrow, and using the free month and seeing where it goes from there.  Will probably start a fresh toon to play with now ive learnt the basics (after having sodded up my skills-i hates hindsight)


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 11, 2012)

Well, I've completed the inner ring of both fists and elemental, only to find, through lots of reading around, that they probably don't really go that well together. But, the beauty of the game is that you will have enough points to keep investing in other things, to try them out, and swap out what you don't want.

The biggest issue is having enough SP. AP comes easy enough, but SP is a bit harder to come by (I think you get 1 SP for every 3 AP). You should aim to be around QL3 by the time you leave Kingsmouth, having invested SP in your 2 primary weapons up to that level (or if not both, then the 2nd should only be a point behind, really), and all talismans.

You should have the inner rings of both your primary weapons filled out, then it's recommended you have a look at the inner rings of other weapons and see if there are any useful passives you can pick up and add to yours. I've added a passive from blood and one from blades, that make best use of my attacks that 'afflict' (since fists and elemental both do that). You _can_ use the in-game decks to plan your ability point spending if you want, but they focus very much on extremely expensive outer ring abilities, that don't necessarily make the most of what is available. If you pick up the right passives and get the right combination, you can still be doing really decent damage using inner ring attacks, and you probably will, even at the end of the game, still have a few inner ring ones active.

Once you've cherry picked from the other weapons' passives, then you can start thinking about whether to fill out other inner rings completely, to either pick a new weapon combination (probably try to stick with one of your original ones, just to help with the SP allocation so it's not all wasted), or just to get the rewards for doing so (you get a piece of clothing for each inner ring you complete), or because you've dug deeper into the outer rings of that skill set and decided you'd like one of their expensive passives later on. Or, instead of that, you can focus on going deeper into your own 2 outer rings, to get the skills you want. You have to be sure that's what you want to do though, because it can be costly in terms of time and points (and money/pax if you're using the marketplace to gear up for one particular combat style).

Then comes gear. Crafting is buggy, and drops are few and far between, so you're probably going to want to be re-doing quick and easy missions in Kingsmouth daily to get the money you need to be able to use the marketplace and get talismans that compliment your abilities. I'm focusing on dps, and so I originally got a bunch of stuff for crit and attack, and also lots of health. Turns out, if you focus on health and you're not tanking, you're gimping yourself. I just wasn't killing things as quickly as I'd have liked. So, I swapped a bunch of stuff out, put more focus on penetration, hit, crit and crit power to an extent, and attack, stopped worrying too much about health (I still have more than a lot of far higher level dps people, it's something I'm working on as I get more money), and my damage dealing went up considerably. I have a couple of passives that heal over time with attacks, so getting at least one piece of gear with healing helps me get the most out of those.

There are tonnes of useful threads on the official forums, and tbh I'm still feeling utterly overwhelmed by it all. It's different to what I've had to do before, because of the ability wheel instead of clear paths to progress along. But, wisdom has it that there really is no need to re-roll a character just to have them focus on a different skill set, because the AP flows so thick and fast in the game, that you can essentially re-spec whenever you want. The idea being that you can certainly go through the game with just 2 weapon specs, but you can also have more, if you want, that either compliment that, or to switch out for dungeons, or whatever. I nearly threw my toys out of the pram earlier when I realised fists/ele aren't really ideal together - and because I wasn't any longer doing as much damage as I should have been doing - but now I've focused on filling out blood (I'm one skill away from completing the inner wheel), then I'll fill out blades, and I might pick up a book and a sword and head to the weaker enemies in Kingsmouth and see how I like them, and switch my things around as needed. And sorting my gear out has really, really helped.


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## renegadechicken (Aug 12, 2012)

Just got ql3 on everything,  and focusing on maxing my two talents, pistols and blood at the moment. It is very odd to play when its basically just gearing up rather than leveling. Cancelled my recurring subs but still got my free month .
and yes im enjoying it.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 12, 2012)

Now I'm starting to understand talismans a bit better, my damage has gone through the roof. I'm still using ele/fists, although I'm working on getting chaos to the same level (actually just got it to ql5, same as the other two). I've gotten so used to my rotation now, though, it's tough to break out of it, but I know I'm not being as efficient as I could be. That said, when my procs kick in and the stars align, I can get 1300 damage, which is nice.

I broke my mouse today (dropped it in a glass of squash) so I'm sticking to Kingsmouth until a new one comes (using an Apple Magic Mouse, ffs) so I don't get slaughtered. Mopping up a few quests I haven't done before, picking up some of the quicker ones I have and running them for the AP/SP/Pax, and I'm carrying on filling out other inner rings and storing up the rest of my SP now. Inners so far I've got: fists/ele (current main weapons), chaos, blood, and almost finished blades.

http://www.tsw-builder.com/#00vp This is quite useful, to plan what works together. And http://yokaiblog.wikidot.com/guides:talisman-mechanics helped me get my head around talismans a bit better (I'm no good at working that kind of thing out for myself).


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 14, 2012)

So have you done any pvp yet?

I'm a pvp n00b, but from what I've heard of it in this, it sounds kinda fun - which is something I NEVER would have thought I'd have said. I'm really not very confident when it comes to playing with other people (unless I know them very well).

I'm steering clear of dungeons because I have no idea how to fulfil the various role types, and I'd definitely be the weakest link. But the pvp sounds a lot more fun and less stressful, sounding a bit more like the kind of multiplayer team-based objective stuff you'd find even in something like Red Dead Redemption (my only experience of online multiplayer to date ).

Do you think TSW pvp areas would be something I'd have fun just popping into and having a mess around with? I don't think I'm quite ready (skill or confidence-wise) to have a go just yet, but I'm working towards a fist/chaos build I've seen online, and once I've gotten that sorted, I think I'd like to have a bash at it.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 14, 2012)

Oh, and the drops start being quite nice on The Savage Coast. I even got a blue assault rifle. I've seen stuff selling for crazy money on the marketplace, so I've started holding on to my SC gear and selling it. I sold the blue AR within 5 minutes of listing it (I priced it far lower than other blue gear I've seen on there, just to test to see if it really would shift, and because I kinda feel like a dick pricing it ridiculously high - I still made 90k for it though - the lowest priced equivalent was going for 350k), and sold all my other green gear over the course of the next few hours. 2 or 3 hours spent questing on the SC can net you a nice amount of money, that way - enough to improve your current gear, at least.


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## renegadechicken (Aug 15, 2012)

Haven't tried pvp yet either (although i'm not a pvp noob, ran a pvp guild in wow for a year or so and did a lot of arena on my lock, and my mara and shadow in swtor), my keyboards busted the space bar and w button have stopped working - guessing i will kinda struggle in pvp but might jump in tonight just to see. Currently still going all out for the pistol/blood assasin build as im really enoying that play style - mixing and matching them as i go until i hit the top wheel stuff...pretty hard to die with the self heals and increase in damage boosts i get.

i've made a bit just sticking all the greens ql1&2 on the market for a standard 5k each and they always sell.

Added for others - theres another free weekend this weekend. Its definately worth a go, and gets better as you understand the skills/ability wheel better.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 16, 2012)

The free trial is on now, not the weekend. Although if you complete 30 missions during the free 3 days (I think this is possibly day 2 or 3 already) you get an extra 2 days free.


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## Bernie Gunther (Aug 28, 2012)

I had a bash at the free trial over the Bank Holiday weekend. Tried all three intros. Ended up with Templar and filled the inner rings for Blade and Chaos plus a bit of Blood. Haven't left Kingsmouth yet, but I'm almost all Q3 and have done Polaris and my first faction mission.

So far I'm very impressed with the atmosphere, writing, dialogue, voice acting, skills design _and the complete fucking absence of poncy elves, servile hobbits and other twee tolkeinoid cliches._

I did try the PvP last night and mostly got splattered, but I think that's because I was part of a pick-up group Templar zerg, fighting against at least some Illuminati groups who were on Vent and organised. I was definitely getting focus-fired in quite a few fights, which I don't see how you can do without Vent or Teamspeak or something, as there isn't any sort of PvP group targeting interface that I could detect. The PvP seems to be an afterthought, designed by someone who didn't know or care much about PvP. I really wish the PvP had received as much attention and effort as most of the early PvE content, as it did in say Warhammer or even Age of Conan. I'm not really playing Eve much these days and TSW has enormous possibilities.

Sadly though, I suspect that those possibilities will not be realised. I doubt the game has longevity despite its many really quite strong virtues.

As far as I can tell with MMOs you can keep end-game players interested by pumping out regular content in enough quantity and quality, which costs shitloads of money, which you won't get investors to spring for unless you convince them you're the next WoW and when your sales fall short of that, they pull the plug and suddenly you can't keep pumping out the content adequately. The only other way that works is to keep _some_ content coming to satisfy the 'bears and give the new players stuff to do besides getting ganked, but mostly let the players generate their own content, which in practical terms means giving them both good reasons and good tools to enjoy PvP.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 28, 2012)

They are adding more content on 11 Sept (was due today but moved back because of lay offs). They are sticking to their guns that they are going to be pushing new content every month for at least as long as subs allow. They've apparently sold more lifetime subs than they expected, but have fallen short of overall subs. You're right about PvP: on the forums all opinion seems to be that it's woefully lacking, and while there is fun to be had, it doesn't provide enough or do it well enough to keep people wanting to continue to pick it up night after night.

There's a raid in NY coming on 9/11 (lol), plus some changes to PvP. Then I think they are rolling out more PvP areas shortly after. They've said getting PvP right is a priority for them. Only time will tell.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 2, 2013)

Well, I've just got back into this, started a new character. It's f2p now, and it's a pretty decent set up (unlike TOR, which is crippling towards f2p players). You get everything the subscription game offered, but if you sub or pay extra you can get stuff like a 10% discount in the shop, xp potions, that kind of thing. Really minor stuff.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 2, 2013)

Sounds like it won't last very much longer


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 3, 2013)

Really? I haven't been reading much about it. I know they've had massive lay offs before they went f2p. They've supported their previous games for years. What have you heard?


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## Bernie Gunther (Mar 5, 2013)

I just logged in for another look. Still seem to be a reasonable number of people running around. I'm still knocked out by how brilliantly they did the PvE side, especially the New England stuff which it turns out I'd almost finished last time I played.

Egypt is still a bit buggy though, and ... I want to say 'ideologically confused', but given the quality of writing in the New England segment, I'm hoping that they're consciously working towards something clever. The arrival area in Egypt is full of Blackwater-looking types pointing guns at the 'friendly' locals and shooting the hostile ones because they're 'fanatical cultists'. On first glance at least, this segment seems about as clued-up on actual conditions in Egypt as "Jewel of the Nile" (the crap movie starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny De Vito)

Also, it still looks like you need to grind gear for a few thousand hours if you want to PvP without being one-shotted every time you make contact with the enemy.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 6, 2013)

I really want to be playing this, but I can't get it to work at all. I've tried everything I can find online, and whenever I contact customer service they just keep telling me to send them my dxdiag text over and over -_-

I click on the launcher, and nothing happens. It's there running in processes, but it never opens. Have tried reinstalling several times. Drivers, directx are all up to date. But nothing.

I'm really quite grumpy about it. I bought this fucker. With money.


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## renegadechicken (Mar 7, 2013)

I had the same problem so i deleted everything and just downloaded it again. Username and password worked.

I also think we brought it at about the same time


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 8, 2013)

I've re-downloaded and re-installed about 3 or 4 times trying to solve it, but it didn't. I got it to work once, with the old AMD beta drivers, but it was unstable, and I could only run it in DX9. When I upgraded to the newest beta drivers, nope. I'm not rolling my drivers back because I loves them for other things that are more important. But tbh, I can't see why they would stop a whole game from even launching. In DX9 or DX11. But then I'm not the most technically-minded person in the world, so idk.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 26, 2013)

Did you buy it from Steam?


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## Citizen66 (Mar 26, 2013)

If a Steam game fails to load go to the game folder in your documents, delete the folder called 'cache' then right click on the game in your Steam library, select properties then under one of the tabs select 'verify integrity of game cache'.

I've had to do that with a couple of games that have developed issues when loading.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 26, 2013)

No, I got it directly from them. I've done the cache thing before with games through steam. Unfortunately, as I said, completely uninstalling the game and all its components, and re-downloading the exe and starting from scratch hasn't solved the issue. I must have done that 3 or 4 times now.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 26, 2013)

The cache thing isn't doing a re-install.* Anyway, was just a shot in the dark. I've used that method 3 times now when games refuse to load (vicky 2 twice, civ v gods and kings once).

*In fact, the issue that needs solving usually occurs after a re-install. It's a Steam quirk.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 26, 2013)

Yeah I know, it just checks for errors and re-downloads any missing or corrupt files. And resets your carefully manicured and edited .ini files while it's at it  But that's another thread.

Thanks anyway.

I'll pester them about it again one day. They seem utterly useless when it comes to tech support, unfortunately. I'm picking up GW2 later this week so that will fill the MMO shaped hole in my life for a while.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 26, 2013)

I was considering getting that. Although I still  have the after shocks of WoW eating away my life. Thank fuck I eventually got the flying Gryphon which allowed me to get bored and leave.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jun 25, 2015)

Bump. Downloading this to try it out on a 72 hour buddy pass. Is anyone still playing it? Has it gotten any better or worse since launch?


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 25, 2015)

I keep meaning to try it out again now I'm on different drivers, but haven't tried it since my last post on here. 

I still think it would have made an excellent single-player game. I loved the setting, the characters were a lot of fun, the combat and levelling system was really interesting and I enjoyed the strategy of combining actives and passives from different skill sets. 

But then, I tend to think all MMOs would be better as single-player games, but that's because I don't like people


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## Buddy Bradley (Jun 26, 2015)

I played it for an hour or two, but it's not really holding my interest. The setting and atmosphere are pretty good, but the graphics are pretty bad and the combat system doesn't encourage anything other than button-mashing, at least to start with.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 4, 2016)

Now I have my new computer I've installed this again, runs very nicely.

It's _very_ noticeable how badly it's aged now I have a 1440p monitor, plus most of the UI text (codex, ability wheel, etc) doesn't scale so I'm giving myself a crick in the neck straining to read it.

Haven't got out of London yet, spending too much time reading up on builds. I remember going for an affliction-crit build last time but I hear penetration is all the rage these days (fnar) so I'm trying to work out a build based on that. I see people recommending blades/chaos for soloing, but I'm looking at blades/blood because it seems to have one heck of a lot of synergy between affliction and penetration. Of course, you can take passives from any weapon, that's where the best synergy comes from, so I may not be restricted to blood even though I want many of its passives. Shotguns just look freaking cool, so I wouldn't mind using that, but I don't think it would be ideal for this build (it has more support I believe, and I want dps and survivability).

But god the graphics


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