The Secret World third Beta Weekend: Ugly, Shiny, Zombies!!

PS: Yep, I missed beta one and two

You're awake in the middle of the night, sweating and coughing, just like you've just swallowed something, really? In your sleep? Strangely you're also feel so cold so you reach for your coat, as you tried to, it burst into flame, a blue flickering one, you're stunned, you tried to reach it again and the flame dissipated, leaving your coat seems untouched. Three days after that you're sitting in the corner of your room, this new 'power' is getting out of your hand, it ruined your daily life, and also your room, as you tried to suppress your building emotion it burst into life again a form of splash, a burst, also a breeze, it seems growing... and you begin to recognize it. Two days after you're already spinning a ball of the unknown energy into yourself, you're in control now, the newfound power begin to grew again, you feel stronger, and you begin to realize the power it yours alone but (un)fortunately it is not because tomorrow someone will be knocking and your door and you'll be part in something bigger than just juggling a ball of light...

This is what happens when you sleep right after eating

In Funcom latest real world stage MMORPG: The Secret World, you play the role of an agent from one of the three secret societies, the proud Templar, the hedonistic Illuminati and the chaotic-controlled Dragon, in the universe of the secret world all of your urban legends and myths come true: your neighbour is a zombie, real life fire breathing dragon existed and they don't like you, Vampires really sucks your blood dry and they're not even handsome or pretty, that seemed abandoned ship on your coast? No the government didn't seize it, it's filled with spirits that a certain hellspawn is brought to wreak havoc on your city, so yeah above all that secret organizations are trying to get something whether it's pride or profit from these bizzare events, by cover-ups, government infringement, and also media controlling, when you're not part of the secret world you'd better be because you probably won't survive it when you saw it.

Hello :)

Combating Evil

Remember those light balls? They're called anima, and they're your powers on The Secret World, it can be extended by weapons whether it's ranged (Shotgun, Dual Pistols, or Automatic Rifle), Melee (Fists, Blades, and Hammers), or just plain magic symbol (Blood, Chaos, and Elemental), there's no class on The Secret World (although you still have to pick a role on dungeons, trinity is bad, bad, why Funcom?) and also you can mix and match every weapon you want, but you can only carry two at a time, and can only equip seven active and passive abilities at once.

Although The Secret World works on 'no level' jargon you still gained experience when you killed mobs or completes a mission, if the experience bar below you is full you gained Ability Point (AP) and sometimes Skill Points (SP). SP is used to power up or learned new rank of an ability which determine your power on using that weapon/item and also restrict your equipped item level (don't expect with no level you can zoom straight into a flesh golem and taking it down solo), mission and mob difficulties is determined on your equipped weapon and ability's quality, so yeah even there's no level, there's still Ilvl system in this game.

Shotgun and zombies, typical but effective

Ability Point is used to learn new ability of that weapon, the ability system is called ability wheel which describes all of your passive and active abilities for all of your weapon and magic, although there is some misc ability which describes some PVPy stuff, the system works this way: on the outer circle all weapons have two set of abilities, they have different names but the idea is one of them is offensive and the other is defensive/support, you have to learn all abilities in this portion to unlock the next set of inner circle which breaks down into four or five type of ability set (each set contains like seven abilities) so a LOT to learn and only fourteen can be equipped, so...happy mixing

The combat itself works like this, move a lot, yeah it's like Guild Wars 2 but still feels clunky on some portion, you can dodge once everytime your active dodge bar is full to avoid nasty AOE (ground marks) or charged attacks, mobs came on you on groups (like SWTOR), luckily the two foremost of your ability is AOE based so have fun slaughtering horde of zombies (although like Guild Wars 2 you'd best do it with groups), you can heal yourself but it came from an ability in which you have to learn so if you don't learn it prepare to die a lot, most of the mobs are unforgiving and battles can be exhausting if you do it solo, I started with pure blood magic type but later switched to shotgun and feels my AP and SP spent on offensive blood magic are wasted since I ended up using all offensive abilities from the shotgun, wonder what the cost to respec is, probably a cash shop item.... okay, that'll be bad, don't do it Funcom. And I was mistaken, there's no all rezzing type like Guild Wars 2, when you die you just have to corpse run but there are perks from being dead, which I'll be covered below, it is a different world after all.

Questing is Believing

There's only two area open in the BWE, Kingsmouth and Savage Coast, and it crawled with zombies, also the town is covered with strange fog, the coast is filled with icky wet humanoid things, the Innsmouth Academy is infested with ghosts and hellspawns, how's these things connect one another? This is your mission Agent of Pride/Opportunity/Chaos, in The Secret World quest/mission are split into some parts, the story quest is why you're there, in the area, it consists on several chapter and lots of cutscenes, the second one is the Main mission, usually provided by NPC (yeah you still have to talk to NPCs), the third one is the side mission which you can find scattered on the area in form of objects, NPCs, or even dead things, last one is the dungeon mission which can be used to enter an instance dungeon. You can have one story quest, one main quest, one dungeon quest and three side missions at once, when you accept another type of mission while the type of your mission is occupied you'll be prompted if you want to 'pause' the old mission and replace it with the new one, missions are broke down into 'tier' (sub-quest) and when you pause a mission you can take it later in the same state/tier as you previously pause it, so no more cancelling missions when your quest journal is full, HURRAH!!! (Okay, I like dynamic event more though) :D 

Let me tell you something: there are no NORMAL NPC on The Secret World!!! By the power of the ESRB M rating the colorful casts of character made me fall in love with the storyline, for example: Deputy Andy seems normal although when you follow his storyline you'll find out that he has some serious daddy issues (involving a really nasty story), that's just a fraction of Kingsmouth. NPCs offer you quests in form of a color bubble near them and when clicked  start a cutscene that gives you background about the mission (GTA style), there's also regular speech bubble where you asked the NPC about themselves or something else, just an idle talk? No my friends, this is where the fun begins.

I can't remember this guy name but let's call him Dante :P

 There are several type of Main Mission, beside the regular whackjob where you run around collecting items and killing mobs, there's also Stealth Mission where you have to infiltrate a place and you have to avoid guards and traps (which resulted in instant death when triggered), I tried them all in beta, they're aren't too hard IMO unlike some certain game :D. The other one is the Puzzle Mission, yes, all of you Point and Click Adventure Games Veteran behold your future!!! Puzzle Mission is where you will spend all of your time in game running around looking for clues, there's no arrow, there's no area indicator, only cryptic words from the mission itself, so yeah all of you who skipped cutscenes, not reading pop up messages, and didn't do idle talk with NPCs are screwed, this is the shiniest part of The Secret World, for example there's a mission where you have to find a serial killer from several years ago, up until one point you realized that the suspect is already killed himself in the sherrif office cell and leave a will that his ghost will answer all things, so how are you going to communicate with him? He's dead, sure Kingsmouth crawled with ghosts, but how are you going to find him? If you truly are puzzle solver you can find the asnwer at the end of my sixth paragraph :)

If this happens to you it's not my fault!!

Puzzle mission deals with codes but sometimes the clue can't even be found in game, so what are you going to do? Easy, press B, it'll bring up a browser window, a REAL BROWSER, with Google (damn you Google), yes some of the puzzle requires REAL world interaction, since some of the puzzles modeled after the real world, even some symbol and quotations. This brings a new approach to quests, blending real world and the virtual, also your own memory of a scene or words or a place, the quests make you THINK and deduct some of the answers. Well of course there's also some people who choose to asks about them on general chat, and in a few months the wiki will be filled of answers and walkthroughs, but who like spoilers right? Not me, although I admit I have to browse several answers just to cut my game time so I can do something else, it is beta after all but IMO again: Puzzle Missions are awesome.

In addition some of the townsfolk have twitter accounts.... and they're updating....(ominous music)

The answer... to all things...

Polishing Everything Else

The Beta runs smoothly, no random disconnect, stable server, there is still some bugs on the Savage Coast missions and the subtitles disappear from some of the dialogue, but The Secret World is probably the most Resource-Hungry monster that takes away some of my enjoyment of battle and exploring, I can see people also complains about it on their forums and Facebook page, the fps drops, the lags where there's a huge open area with lots of objects that affect the visibility of spawning mobs, but something that didn't appealed to me is the crafting system (called assembly) because I really have no idea how to assemble things, there's no tutorial or quest on that although some of the Innsmouth quests used it,  through trial and error I finally found out that I must lined the ingredients into the shape of a weapon and item... WTH??? I also can upgrade and downgrade several materials on the same assembly window, attaching glyphs which gave some iem and weapon attribute boost, they really should give this thing a decent tutorial of 'what can be done on this window'.

The battle can be a bit sluggish though but the design of the mobs are grotesque enough to feed your own horror lusts, the visual appearance of the game is over the top although your character is probably the ugliest part of it, Funcom needs to add more options on their character creation and fixed their movement so it doesn't feel too 'robotic', voice acting is good, cast of NPCs are colorful enough to gave them a bit of personality. I really can't complain, it's a good game although I must whine... why? why there's still a trinity system???!!

The game has potential, for me it gives a refreshing feeling about the quests, it's been a while since I'm really 'exploring' a game, looking for clues, writing it with a plain pen and paper like my old Myst and Gabriel Knight days, but my big nagging question is whether it can appeal to the crowd, the majority (a.k.a the 'WOW' crowd)  I don't think my friends will pay $15 a month for a combat mission interceded with puzzle, as for me, I won't buy the game even if I give the storyline and the quest 11 from the scale of 1 to 10, because Guild Wars 2 is already taking the spotlight, although I must admit... I want those puzzle mission...  on Guild Wars 2 =))

And there's the last beta weekend this week, Funcom inviting everyone, so grab your key by registering at their site

Guild Wars 2 Second Beta Weekend: Mesmerizing the Thief

I survived my one month Guild Wars 2 diet and let everything loose at it's second Beta Weekend, brought along a superb machine so I can play on high quality graphics without suffering a bad FPS drop (like ONE FPS on my previous notebook), on this beta weekend I narrowed my choices into two classes: the mesmer and the thief, while I still miss bashing enemies with hammers and axes as warrior the elegant combat from both classes drawn me in more, I'm also not a theorycrafter so I don't delve deep into min/maxing things and stats, it's all more like how I connect with the class, also I'm a through and through PVEr so never expect me to talk seriously about PVP

The Melee Scholar

I once called Mesmer a cross between fun and exhausting, not anymore, I really have no idea what the devs do about the class or the environment itself (or maybe the class is just started to grow on me), the thing is the exhausting part is gone and I can quickly get into fray even without remembering that my class is initially a caster class. Mesmer can use a variety of weapon, it can melee with swords and dual wield, it can also use the common magic weapons like staffs and scepters, mesmer depends on illusions and various clones which can be shattered to gain several benefits to the player.

Of course the class who wears a fancy jacket
can't be missed :D

My choice of weapon is to dual wield sword, although mesmer can use the gun in off hand to create some of the coolest debuff and clone effect, but when I take up an enemy I don't melee all the way like warriors or guardians, dodge is my friend and I usually created two clones before slashing enemies, I can also parried some of the enemy attack with a skill. There's a great system for Mesmer called distortion which means you can't be hit when you are on that state, it comes with limited use and must be triggered by some skill and shattering the clones, I choose the dueling and chaos traits to empower my critical strike and toughness to stand more blows. 

The ranged weapon for mesmer is somehow can be used to create chaotic situation on battlefield, the staff shoot chaos bolts with minimal damage but apply stacking debuffs to multiple enemies, it can also creates a huge dome of debuff field that randomly debuff enemies, self protect shields and so on. The scepter also dealt minimal damage but their auto attack skill creates clones that can be shattered to create a huge burst of damage or divert enemy attentions, the off hand weapon such a focus, gun or a torch complement the scepter and the sword although their choose is also depends on playstyle, I once considered sword + torch to accomodate my needs of stealthy business but dropped it, I like to mix and match based on a whim and I saw that mesmer is easy to master with any weapons.

The downside is on the term of soloing a mob that has two or three level above me, that's when I quickly lost the edge, my swords didn't do much damage and my ranged weapons promised a long fight, especially when the mob joined by a ranged or caster I was bitterly reminded that I'm a caster class and quickly bites the dust, but well Guild Wars 2 doesn't even created to be played alone anyway and the penalty of death is never a punishment,I played it through level 20 and found it satisfying.

The Asassin Without the Oh S*it Button

I played a combat rogue on WOW and I found it to be an extremely fun class, the damage, also the survivability, rogues fights dirty and I have no problem with stabbing an enemy then vanish or activates an ability that parries all the attacks, but rogues on WOW have journeyed a long way, through the various nerfs and buffs and controversial decisions, but it came all right and although I only played it like a year I like it very much.

Flashy suit enhanced my anonimity :P

The Thief on Guild Wars 2 probably a reminder that the melee with light armor can be a pain in the a**, on the term of developing or playing, here's the thing: Thief in Guild Wars 2 has some interesting mechanic but none of them stands out in a real fight, they have steal which not a real steal or disarm, it creates a copy of a weapon in form of a skill that can be unleashed ONCE, also it can be saved until later, thief dodge animation is cool but the vanishing effect didn't do anything to block incoming damage, unlike the other class thief's ability doesn't have cooldowns, it depends on initiative points above the skill bar that recharges through time or by activating certain utility skill so it's up to you to queue several same abilities together as long as your initiative permits it.

Because of my fanatical belief for combat rogue I decided I'll go with the sword+dagger combo for weapon, I tried the dagger pistol and sword pistol before but none of them is too appealing, despite my fast paced attack rate I just DIED too much because yes I can dodge and I can shoot'n stab but it never enough when you faced with two or more ranged class, my heal+vanish ability only can do so little in this situation and random downed vanish can do nothing to improve my gameplay, I feel so underpowered in term of attacks and survivability, one of my biggest disappointment is the skill pistol whip is not a ranged skill and the evade + stab skill do nothing to evade attacks (I still got hit, probably a bug), I once explored a cave alone with a skill point inside and whether the enemies are bugged to spawn fast or my utility skill and vanish sucks, I never got the skill point even when I tried with another player, we just wiped all over again. 

I realized something is missing from the thief ability, it's the oh s*it button, WOW rogues have dodge that evades most attacks, combat readiness that parries all incoming attacks,  and the Mesmer have distortion mechanic, Anet pulled the caster into melee zone with everything clicked properly but thief has no such thing, I feel like a naked warrior, died in one or two hit, I supposed to glorify the shadow and dwell in it, but all I have is underpowered three second vanish+heal and blinding smoke bombs, also traps which is not my utility choice, I have a feeling that I was being forced to play ranged with dual pistol or shortbow (which gives me a huge edge) somehow but I want to play melee while stay away from hits and conditions which in turn probably need some REAL evade skill.

Closure

But as they always says: it's beta and anything can change, I really hope they won't change mesmer since I really clicked with it, on the other hand thief.... needs A LOT of imrovement, probably not along the line I said but I just hope they did something to it, I heard on the world chat that many people are kind of disappointed on the class (probably a whole lot more on forum) I'll be back for BWE 3 and hopes for the best from Anet for the class. Mesmer still my first choice though.

It's Raining Beta Keys!!! (Closed)

It's literally downpouring outside since yesterday, lots of gaming site: big or small, even some notable gamer public figure are handing down Guild Wars 2 Beta Key, I'll try to list some of them, most of them has various closing time so grab them before they're gone (crossed means they're closed but I'll update if they're reopening)

- Talk Tyria

- Boons and Conditions

- Gamebreaker.tv

- Gamersbook

- JodyR's and Gamespot (probably it'll be better if you join Gamespot, it's a great game site)

- (Update) Guild Wars 2 Journal

- (Update) Fragworld (they still have some)

- (Update) Dragon Season (they did some riddle based contests.... which I'm bad at) =))
- (Update) GWOnline (they ended in Sunday midnight PDT, grab it quick!)

And many more, really, Use Twitter, Facebook, don't have it? make one then follow them since their sites are kinda interrelated/affiliated or something, hopefully you can grab one :)

**IMPORTANT** 

There's seems to be an increasing numbers of scam about beta key, notably from some site called "gw2beta(dot)org" yes the dot is the real dot, Anet has a post about them here so you might want to be careful about scam sites, always pick a site that is recommended by another trusted fansites. I know the hype can be sweet and blinding :D