The Secret World Message Board older than one year ago

Did John’s latest glimpse into The Secret World entice you? Did it make you (skeptically) ponder the possibilities of an MMO with diabolical puzzles and authentic female characters that finally offset the catastrophic damage Tera did to the balance of the universe? Well then, you might want to sit down. Ah, you’re already sitting. Well then, I give you permission to eat a cookie or something – even if you’re on a diet. But just one, because honestly, this isn’t that big of a deal. The Secret World, you see, has been delayed. By a couple weeks. And you’re getting more beta weekends. Actually, you know what? Give me back that cookie.

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As I’ve progressed further into The Secret World‘s beta, and have cleared most of New England’s enormous territory and swathes of quests, I’m hitting that more difficult place to write about in an MMO preview. That’s partly because you obviously don’t want to know what’s going to happen 30 hours into your game, and I’d be an idiot to say. And it’s partly because being a beta I’m increasingly hitting buggy territory and slightly unfinished missions, and it’s pretty bad form to write about that since it’ll likely be gone by release. (And if it’s not, it’ll certainly get written about then.) I mean, it’s hard not to want to tell you about the time I died so hard all my clothes and my hair fell off, and I spent the next hour streaking around in a tiny pair of pants, baldy-headed with my boobs out for all to see. But that’s unlikely to be a feature in the finished game. So of course everything I’m writing about here is subject to change.

So instead, I’ve thought of the big three things I think The Secret World is really getting right, and then put together a list three things I worry it could get wrong.

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I love weekends. They’re rife with potential – for adventure. Granted, that usually means a concert, bar-hopping, or sleeping through both of those things, but I don’t live in New England. John, however, is trapped there, and he seems to be having a pleasant enough time “joining the Illuminati,” “staving off a demonic invasion,” and whatever other crazy slang lingo drips from this apparently endless faucet of cool. Fortunately, you will once again have the opportunity to take an all-too-brief tour this weekend – but with even more locations in which to perform wholesome activities like “investigating what lies behind the rising darkness.” That means, like, braiding each others’ hair, right?

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Adam and John have been playing The Secret World all week. So it only made sense for the pair of them to chat about it. Which they did. Find out how they’ve found their time in Kingsmouth, what’s made them laugh, what’s made them scratch their heads, and learn about tripping jaguars.

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#thesecretworld When I first installed and started The Secret World earlier this week, I encountered a tiny graphical glitch: everybody was naked. More »

Recently John went to New England on holiday. We started receiving postcards. It appears he’s stumbled into some sort of… Secret World?

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Riddle me this: If everyone knows about it, is it still a secret world? And, if everybody in the entire whole of human existence makes that joke, have we failed as a species? Are our greatest works – from the Great Wall to the Sistine Chapel to Twitter – rendered invalid by a primal attraction to terrible humor? These are the questions we must ask ourselves as we peer into the nightmarish depths of our own reflections, glances dancing and darting around – never lingering – for fear of drowning in the oozy shadows of truth. Well, that and also “Did I pre-order The Secret World?” If the answer’s yes, then you’ve got a hot date with the Templar starting area this weekend. Hooray!

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Ugh. I feel dirty. I just took The Secret World’s newly launched “social tool” The Secret War for a spin, and it forced me to do some things even a childhood of grisly newfangled murder simulators never prepared me for. It is, in short, everything you hate about Facebook gaming – except that’s the whole game. I’m feeling a bit ranty right now, so join me after the break for the gory details. Oh, and consider brewing up some coffee so you can spit-take it in enraged astonishment.

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Last week I sat down to play some The Secret World for the first time. But not before I’d chatted with project lead, Ragnar Tørnquist, in the rather creepy location of a 90th floor bedroom in a vast hotel suite. It’s an interview in which he threatens to kill me. We also talk about how people are getting bored of MMOs, why the game has XP after all, and the role of religion in a game based on myths.

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The Dragon certainly seem the most intriguing of the secret societies that make up The Secret World. But perhaps that’s because they’re the group we’ve so far heard the least about. At a recent demonstration of the game, a little bit more was revealed, along with some news about the character creator, dungeons and the game’s intriguing crafting.

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There’s a still an interesting intangibility to Funcom’s The Secret World: I get the sense that it’s difficult to quantify because that’s the way they want it. Watching their latest trailer, showing off The Blue Mountain area, it has a story and aesthetic that makes me think of a single-player game, but the action smacks of buffs and guilds and raids. What do you think?

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