tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7577405488165152910.post6279576873295533483..comments2023-09-08T11:06:25.282-05:00Comments on Of Course I'll Play It: On Guild Wars, The Secret World, and the MetagameAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841034885738903494noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7577405488165152910.post-63009193634626085832012-08-06T10:24:33.581-05:002012-08-06T10:24:33.581-05:00So, I've played a month now, mostly duoing wit...So, I've played a month now, mostly duoing with Mr. Anderson. The game started good...and slowly grew on me! So far, that's a very different experience than I had with SW:TOR, where I was initially overwhelmed and then hit a wall after 2 months.<br /><br />Secret World is interesting because there are inherently TWO layers of appeal.<br /><br />FIRST LAYER: The Character Builder<br />You've covered some of the highlights above quite well! One thing that Funcom did well was provide you a think called "Decks". A "deck" is a pre-built set of skills that work together pretty well. There are better combos you can put together on your own, but this is a great noobie starting place.<br /><br />Decks also have two great sub-features. First, when you select a deck to work towards, the skills you need are highlighted on that big skill wheel you picture earlier. It makes it extremely easy to apply a template, and then work towards that. Secondly, when you complete all the required skills for the deck, you get a custom multi-slot outfit for that deck. The outfits look awesome. Every faction has it's own set of outfits, and each gender has some appearance differences. Combine this with the fact that you get some single appearance pieces for completing weapon-oriented groups of inner ring skills (pretty easy to accomplish) and there's a powerful motivator for moving forward here.<br /><br />SECOND LAYER: Story and Missions. It really is good.<br />Secret World did what SW:TOR tried - sorta. Almost every meaty mission you get has a opening cinematic, with VO, animation and the whole bit. Well-written and nicely set-up in the world. On top of that, the designers have done an excellent job (with only one or two hiccups) of matching what you're doing in the mission with the story set up, giving you LOTS of context. <br /><br />They also throw in a fair bit of puzzle, which is unique for the MMO genre. I'm talking hard-core, pull out Google and break-a-sweat puzzle solving for some of the missions. Sure - most of them are well-spoiled by now if you want it, but I've found working on puzzles with a friend to be highly rewarding, even when we're having to Google heiroglyphic symbols to determine in which order to activate the statues. Cool stuff.<br /><br />CONCLUSIONS:<br />I wish Secret World had launched in a different year from GW2. It's the lesser of the two games, especially considering it has a monthly fee AND a cash shop. It is, however, an excellent MMO and worth playing through once for the story. It has the deck-building / collection aspects of GW1, a find-quest-through-exploration dynamic not dissimilar from GW2, character-integrated cutscenes like SW:TOR, and a nice tactical action feel. It's full of bugs, and feels like it's being crafted by a rather small team, but I'm certainly glad I've played. When I hit that first hump in GW2, I'm certain I'll be back.Randyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01142020554095361076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7577405488165152910.post-62555364206641047862012-07-18T20:39:35.817-05:002012-07-18T20:39:35.817-05:00hmm. I think you're overstating the initial c...hmm. I think you're overstating the initial complexity. You can do pretty well by just picking (any) two weapons and filling in their base skills. <br /><br />By the time you hit the 'wall' with the naïve approach, you should have plenty of AP's to spend on more carefully selected skills. You can (and probably will) eventually buy every skill in the list. <br /><br />The combat system BECOMES deep... but the focus is on exploration, story, and missions. And there's no real way to gimp yourself beyond repair. ;)Grimjakkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08138305725665321140noreply@blogger.com