Yay it’s Monday; hope all Americans enjoyed their weekend, as well as the foreigners.
The Secret World – I like MMOs; MMOs like me. So when I saw The Secret World on sale for ten dollars, I figured I’d give it a shot. They removed the monthly fee and turned it into a “buy to play” game, like Guild Wars.
For those not in the know, Funcom’s little game here tries for something different in the world of massively multiplayer online RPGs. Instead of either a fantasy sword-and-scorcery setting or the science fiction vein, The Secret World decides that conspiracy theories, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos, and horror movies were a better fit for the same kind of game mechanics. So it is that this game goes some strange and unexpected places with a lot of different elements.
For one, the three factions seem utterly the same except for one’s experience, story, cutscenes, and aesthetics; that’s fine and dandy. All three work together in PvE content, while acting as enemies in PvP, which works just as well as it sounds (heck, it also increases the player base for any group content you want to run in PvE, so that’s swell). Quests range the gamut from the traditional “kill X enemies quest” (which, admittedly, is rather rare here) to going on stealth missions (and these work very well!) and investigating your assigned area using good old fashioned puzzle solving.
Yes, puzzle solving! The Secret World tests your real-world knowledge in quite a few of these puzzles; one of them asks for the name of a famous composer who lived in the 18th century, and no, the answer is not as obvious as you think. Will you need some Internet sleuthing of your own? Most definitely! Is that fun for everyone? Well, not quite. Some play these games for the relaxation of mindless grinding, so this atmosphere won’t be to everyone’s liking, but I certainly enjoy the change of pace. The horror elements, the mature rating, and the rather serious philosophical nature of many stories in the game also mean it isn’t a “fun for the whole family” deal.
This lack of accessibility seems designed for MMOs veterans and adventurous newcomers, and this becomes even more apparent as you proceed. Funcom also completely changed the way you level. You do quests and the like, sure, but there’s no fixed classes. Instead, you place points in weapon/magic specializations which give you new abilities and gets you further down a particular tree. Think WoW talent tree multiplied by one hundred, and you’ll get how it works. You also get skill points, a separate specialization that augments your skills with base percentage increases, as well as allowing you to equip new armor. You may only equip seven active and seven passive abilities at a time, which forces your hand to choose wisely. Obviously, some abilities become outdated and some remain essential, but making choices like this is interesting!
A free form system like this obviously engenders much experimentation and cross-pollination. Multitasking talents helps you a great deal, and becoming a hybrid class isn’t unheard of. However, on the other hand, NOT having a clear progression makes things difficult for a new player like myself. I understand why they chose this route, but I’m not sure whether this extra layer of decision-making helps or hurts a game designed to hook players into the experience.
What I mean is: this game’s quite fascinating and interesting in its design. It attempts to avoid as many MMO tropes as possible while providing a fresh, engaging world for you to take part. But the game lacks a clear sense of progress and forward movement. WoW, for example, provides clear and tangible upgrades. Your level goes up, the gear statistics go up in number, your weapons look cooler, you get new abilities plopped into your lap, and generally you feel more powerful. This is especially true in looking at your character, who always appears quite cool with his bulky armor or giant staff.
The Secret World, early on, doesn’t offer any of that. It relies purely on the experience of the game, rather than how far you progress. My guy who I played for five hours looks exactly the same as any new character, excepting the giant hammer he swings around his head. I understand this impulse to make a good game, rather than an “addictive” product, but it may hurt The Secret World in the long run. Whether the setting prevent such ideas or whether the designers stood against that sort of thing I cannot say, although I feel the lack of clear roadmarks hurts the game.
For my part, it felt like I endlessly took up fetch quests for random people. While it was fun, the way quests work gave me a few headaches. Some count as “main” quests, and others don’t. You can’t just pick up everything in an area and just do them all; many of the quests count as “main”, forcing you to do a questline, finish it, then pick up another one that takes place in the exact same area. Sure, 3 “side quests” can also be completed at the same time, but this is shoddy design. It’s just an arbitrary barrier to prevent me from going quicker up the ladder. I like your settings, and I like that the first area takes place in a zombie apocalypse, but how many times must I roam this wasteland? It’s just tedious after a while.
So what’s the verdict? I’d say you should try it if it sounds in the least bit interesting. I like it and will continue to play it as my current WoW alternative when I need a break from said game, but it just doesn’t provide enough satisfaction for an MMO. Maybe the model only works on a select few settings, or maybe not, but The Secret World’s deserving of your time if you enjoy anything MMO-like.
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Monday Update. Yay. Haha!
