The Secret World: Initial Impressions

While the NDA (Non-Disculosure Agreement) is technically still on for us closed beta testers, the latest, recently completed Open Beta Weekend of "The Secret World" grants me leave to openly discuss anything observed about the game during that time. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to begin a new gaming blog and also to reveal my thoughts of the game, just in case it interests anyone enough that they may want to give it a try during the 4th and final Open Beta Weekend beginning 6/22!

To start out, I want to warn you that while I won't reveal any true spoilers, I will be going into the actual gameplay and my impressions of it. Therefore, if you want to develop a true first impression yourself, I would recommend not reading further and instead simply go get that key for the 4th Open Beta Weekend! (In addition to simply applying to receive a key on TheSecretWorld.com, I would recommend checking MMORPG.com, Gamespot.com, and other such sites that usually have key giveaways).

I won't go into a whole introduction of the background of The Secret World as an avid Googler could pretty easily pick that up quite quickly. However, the main driving concept behind the core of the gameplay is the lack of classes and levels.

Classes (or lack thereof): While there are three distinct factions: the Illuminati, the Templars, and the Dragon; the players in all factions have the same exact opportunities for how they choose to build the character. While there are Experience Points (XP) and linear ability/skill progressions (and I will get into the nitty-gritty of that later when I guide you through my playthrough so far), anyone is free to choose any weapons, gear, and abilities they desire. Similar to other games, like Star Wars The Old Republic, you are asked to make a choice about how you want to build your character. However, unlike TOR, you are NOT "locked in" to that specific type. This choice is merely an introductory mechanism used to get the player going on their first quest, and like anything else, the decision can be altered at any point. It is even quite feasible to play the entire game through again with the same character and create a brand new build (while maintaining your old one). Story missions can't be repeated but all "Main" and "Side" missions can, and those are the largest portion of the game.

Levels (or lack thereof): The progression through the game is based solely on Ability Points (AP) and Skill Points (SP). AP and SP are periodically obtained through the acquisition of XP, which, of course, is rewarded upon completing quests and killing enemies just like any traditional MMO or RPG. AP allows you to purchase different skills (of which you are limited to 7 Passive and 7 Active). SP is what contributes to your traditional stats (Health, Heal, Attack Rating, Damage, Support, Evade, etc) along with your gear (which consists of what they call "Talismans").

There are 525 unique abilities in the game. They're called "unique" because they don't build on top of one another, although some obviously work well in tandem with others. There is a linear progression, however, in how they are purchased, and the abilities get more expensive as you go through the tiers. For this reason, it is preferable (but not necessary) to experiment and find your favored build early on, when abilities are inexpensive. Even though there are only 14 available ability slots, early abilities are NOT throwaways. The "numbers" related to the ability (i.e. shotgun blast damage) scale with the item that the ability is related to, so that if you really like that very first ability you gained, you can keep it, and it is viable the entire way through the game. The ability tiers are related to the 9 "weapon" types:

1. Firearms:
   • Shotguns
   • Assault Rifles
   • Pistols
2. Melee:
   • Hammers
   • Blades
   • Fist Weapons
3. Magic:
   • Elementalism Trinkets
   • Chaos Magic Trinkets
   • Blood Magic Trinkets

 There are also 3 (much smaller) tiers that are completely unrelated to weapon type. If you want a much more in-depth overview of the weapons, abilities, and skills, check out this post.

Now that I have gone through the basic gameplay mechanics, I want to take you through some of my actual gameplay and provide some remarks and impressions on my experience. Upon starting the game, and creating a character, I was given the choice of faction. With the Illuminati all about corporate greed and ruling the world, and the Templar touting religious superiority, I felt most comfortable with the Dragon faction, who believe in chaos theory and changing the world through many small acts. I later found out that success in PvP warzones grants the controlling faction bonus buffs and that Dragon was winning in all areas on this specific server. But since PvP doesn't interest me in general, I was most interested in how the choice of faction would affect the game's story. I later found out that only the beginning portion and a very small part of my playtime would be unique to the faction of my choice and that the much larger portion was the common story elements of Kingsmouth, Maine on Solomon Island. So I'm not sure how I feel about playing through the different factions only to find that much of the game is the same. But don't ultimately take my word for that; there could be large portions of faction-specific gameplay between each common area that I just haven't encountered yet.

After choosing my faction, I was given a basic character creator. It certainly wasn't the in-depth customization paradise of the Cryptic persuasion, but instead closer to Bioware's method of providing a discrete set of items to choose from, such as hair style, facial features, etc. Unlike what is found in TOR and Lord of the Rings Online, however, the clothing is also customizable in the character creator and not purely based on the equipment you obtain, purchase, or craft. There is a bit of similarity to LotRO, where you can obtain clothing during the course of the game to customize your character beyond what you originally chose (and I'm sure that will be an integral part of the microtransaction business model).

Upon giving my character a name, I was treated to an introductory cutscene. The graphics and animations were sub-par compared to TOR and even the Hi-Definition version of LotRO. At one point, while receiving a shocking, life-changing speech from one of the faction's veteran NPCs, my character curiously stared into the camera (instead of directly at the NPC) and graced us with a five-star impression of an ancient Greek who was unfortunate enough to glance upon the visage of Medusa. Despite being thoroughly creeped out by the paralyzed and completely deadpan expression of my virtual incarnation, the cutscenes were decent enough to get the story across, and that being the important part, it was quite interesting and engaging. The mystery as to what is going on in this world, why your character came to be there, and what the triumvirate of factions have to do with it is enough to keep you coming back for more!

Initially you're cast into the mind of a veteran of your faction who is working together with members of the other factions to destroy the evil "filth". This introduction is quite nice because it advances you through some abilities without the need to take time to actually deal with the ability "wheel". Upon getting that basic gameplay down, and exploring a small piece of Seoul (for the Dragon faction), you are given a choice of starting weapon: Shotgun, Assault Rifle, or Pistols. Why you're not provided with the option of Melee and Magic, I'm not sure, as it puts too much emphasis on firearms and flies in the face of the supposed "a la carte" nature of the smorgasbord that is the Ability Points wheel. As stated earlier, however, you can almost immediately opt to cast the weapon aside and go purely with melee and/or magic (you can carry 2 weapons of any persuasion at one time). But not before consuming an appetizer of at least a half dozen ability points for the weapon chosen initially.

The first common area is Kingsmouth, Maine. This quaint little zombie-infested town allows you to investigate many mysteries about "The Secret World" and pretend like you're in Left 4 Dead while you're doing it. With my shotgun in tow, I mowed down zombies on the road to town, lit gas cans on fire, and was even required by my story mission to stand on an alarmed car to "alert the horde". I don't know if this was an homage or a straight rip-off, but the nostalgia wears off quickly and you're luckily left with something more unique.

I thoroughly enjoyed helping the people of Kingsmouth and investigating the main mystery of that town (which I shall keep a secret so as not to spoil your first encounter of it). Every major NPC you speak to has at least one, and sometimes up to three, "main" missions for you and you can only pick up ONE main mission at a time (this is in addition to your story mission). So I found myself running back and forth to the same person and quite often encountering a person along the way who had missions I couldn't acquire. This was a little irritating as I'm generally used to picking up as many missions as I can get my hands on in MMOs. This was not too bad in Kingsmouth which is more or less pretty compact, but I can imagine it will get worse later on in bigger maps without some sort of mount (of which I have no idea if they have or are even planning on having).

Periodically there is an "investigation" mission that takes you deep into a "Da Vinci Code"-esque search for hidden secrets within The Secret World. These missions don't give you the standard indicator for where to go; you have to figure it out on your own. Codes and hints lead you on a scavenger hunt, complete with some frustrating red herrings. With more time and patience I may have figured out the first one on my own, but wanting to get a final picture of the mission in the time I had available I did cheat and Google a few answers. Although you are encouraged to even use the in-game browser (built on Webkit, a la Chrome and Safari) to research hints (they still have Internet during this zombie apocalypse), the point is to research it as the character would, not look up what other people say to do. I really like this. It's the first game I've played since Myst that has really taken the hand-holding completely off. These are optional missions, however, and they're sporadic, so if you want all your missions to tell you exactly where to go, it's not going to hinder you much to skip them.

Like in TOR, every main mission has a cutscene, but your character does not talk. Despite the pitfalls of worse graphics and lack of character speech or much personality, I actually found these more enjoyable than TOR, as I could simply sit back and listen instead of being on watch for which conversational response to choose from. "Side" missions (of which you can have up to 3!) are obtained from inanimate objects throughout the map and do not have an associated cutscene.

Throughout the missions, I received some more weapons, some crafting material that I had no idea what to do with (the game could stand to have a better crafting tutorial, but I found a great work in progress guide to the Minecraft-like system), and upgraded talismans. As noted earlier, talismans are your gear and determine your character's stats (along with what you purchase using Skill Points). There's no armor, so that's why your character's original clothing and look are retained. There are 3 "Major Talismans", 3 "Minor Talismans", and 1 "Head Talisman". Along with your weapons, you can upgrade these three categories with the Skill Points, and I find this method quite innovative and much better than traditional gearing systems. Instead of upgrading your weapons and armor directly and then having to cast them aside and start over with new ones later on, you can replace the base item with a better one but still retain the upgraded skills associated with it.

All in all I think it is a very good start and basis for an MMO. It certainly needs work (which will most likely not be accomplished by the July release date). It is not as complete and established as TOR was at this point, but more so than Star Trek Online at launch (and even months after). For me, seeing as my main in TOR just reached level 50 and my subscription is to run out soon, this may be the perfect diversion to occupy my time for a while (although just as my purchase of TOR had done, it will unfortunately push back my attempt to at last get through Siege of Mirkwood and Rise of Isengard in LotRO). I am not quite as enthusiastic about it as I was for TOR after my first weekend beta of that, but I will definitely be preordering it to at least try a 6 month playthrough and then maybe come back when it inevitably goes F2P.