With the first full beta weekend of The Secret World behind us, we thought it’s time to list out the best possible aspects of Funcom’s latest game, and the parts that we feel need work before the game launches in June.

Funcom has always been Class-A when it comes to nailing the aesthetic and settings of their worlds.  From Anarchy Online to Dreamworld and Age of Conan, very few developers can compete with Funcom when it comes to capturing atmosphere of their source material or the creative vision of their writers.  The Secret World is no different.  Though we've only thus far seen bits and pieces, everything from Agartha to Kingsmouth has been gorgeously rendered and detailed.  The sense of foreboding in the latter is something we don't see much of in MMORPGs. 

Read the rest of Bill Murphy's The List: The Best and Worst of TSW. 

Have to say i agree...my main worry is replayability...i absolutely love the game..but when its story orientated i think it maybe a case of i may pass rolling alts..but either way i think funcom have done a remarkable job on this game..what gets me is people have been crying out for something different ,well here it is..it may not be your cup of tea but i have to say this game is for me and most definately i,m buying.

Also if i may add,this game ran really smooth,i do remember conan and the release,memory leeks etc.this game is way more polished imo.bugs wise i only come across a couple and never crashed,unlike conan .the game itself looks fantastic,apart from char models and npc's.but i never let gfx get in the way of a good game..

It may not get wow numbers but it will find its  own audience and i will be one of them.people can dislike this game all they like and thats there choice but to me its a  breath of fresh air..roll on june.

REserve your final list's judgement until the later betas. As you said, there are animation place holders and limited character creater at this time.

The game runs smooth, has few bugs if any, and looks fairly good. Character creation must be better at launch, end of story. A game like this lives and dies on individuality, though I feel that the animations while at times weak (elementalism second skill I'm looking at you), can impress once in a while, but the core of the the game is so solid that I'm willing to overlook the negatives for now. And besides Tera proved that no one can even come close to it in terms of combat.

Good read!  I agree with everything.  I think the one thing that many are failing to mention though is that fact that you'll stumble upon quests out in the middle of nowhere....you just have to explore...exploration has been devoid in current MMO's and to see it back again is a breath of fresh air. 

I thought some of the character animations were a bit weird, but then again I thought the same about AoC and I think they have copied a lot of them across. Hey, maybe that's just how people move in Norway?

i agree to your points in general.

but i would not call this an open free skillsystem like we saw it in sandboxes lie UO or EVE. this is more a trait system, where they put simply all level-based skills into the trait-trees and tied all skills to weapons. and then they made the skillchains 7 skills long. and they mix all kind of skills in one chain: offensive, buffs, debuffs, utility and heal. this limits you a lot. and you are enforced to buy skills you may consider useless to your playstyle. due to the fact, that they have no skillcap, this is irrelevant if you once have reached your 525 skill cap. but until then, it is an annoyance.

i also dislike the combat style very much. i am a range fighter and therefore i like to control the mob either via CCs or via pet or via fast and far rolls. of course you can move around in TSW, but this is just standard movement WASD. and your 1st and i hope not only CC comes with skill #7 way too late. i doubt i can realize my playstyle in TSW. i usually dont allow these stinky monsters to touch me.

I put about 12 hours into the game over the weekend and I have to say that it feels very rough around the edges with that beta build. Most of my issues with the game are pretty much mirrored by what everyone else has said before: animations, combat, lack of customization etc, but I think my biggest complaint is the combat.

The combat is just so bland in this game, the weapons don't have any bite or feeling, and every weapon has the same resource system so it just felt like no matter what weapon you choose it in no way changes anything about the combat experience. I can pretty much use the same generic "combo point builder" and "generic AoE finisher" ability across every weapon skill set and do fine. Never once did I come across a situation that put me at a disadvantage for using range weapons or melee weapons for instance, it all played out the same.

With that said, my other issues with combat are just that I never once was actually threatened by any of the mobs on the island. I played mostly with shotguns for damage and the blood magic support tree for healing and I have to say I was absolutely unstoppable once I unlocked the higher damage and healing passive abilites.

I understand this is a starting zone but with that build I was taking on multiple scrapyard golems and those large creatures outside the airport without any difficulty. The resource system for blood magic healing is crazy overpowered in my opinion, you can't actually run out of say, mana as a healing resource limiting how much you can take in terms of enemies so there is no real threat unless you literally grab like 5 elite enemies on purpose.

On top of that the shotgun combo points counted toward the healing combo points as well so I could literally spam my Angelic Aegis heal ability every 3 shotgun shells and never run out of resources, making pretty much every fight trivial.

My overall beta experience is a very mixed bag, it has great a atmosphere, I love the quests (even though many of them came off as being a little too vague in my opinion) I also really like the characters and music used for the game but the combat, UI, animations, character customization and the resource system still have a long way to go and I think the resource system needs some looking into.

This is a very immersive game. I have put more time into this beta than any mmo outside of EvE this month. Very fun stuff.

Hoping the game will have controller support. I am using xpadder coupled with an xbox 360 controller and the game functions great with the controller.

With that being said, this game feels more console than mmo, but heck most mmo's now a days do.

I hope this game will not have debacle like AoC. I was sceptic, but I tried game this weekend, as for every new MMO was scared about questing sistem - and I must admit 90% quests I've done in beta were interesting and didn't get bored (like in Tera/SWTOR). And God damn, I've enjoyed Investigation quests. 

Prepurchased GW2, now maybe I'll get this game, too. It's very promissing, I hope Funcom will disapprove their nick Failcom with this game.

I have played the beta this weekend, i was really enjoying the game even the clumsy animations that looked like a wooken stick running straight...anyway i looked the other side and gave the game a chance.

The quests seems real nice, the environment is amazing something that funcom does it well, the game captured my attention and of my guild for some time until something happened...my character jumped over a car and a fence that was, and im not exaggerating, double the size of the character, i mean, wow since that moment only the mario bros tune was in my head while i was playing it, after a while i gave up because i coulndt stop laughting at it, my entire guild LOLing in vent.

"OMG ITS AGE OF CONAN ALL OVER AGAIN"

Between client crashes, textures bugs, clumsy animations and those funcom bugs that we all have been exp, we all could take it, but hey! jumping over a car and a fence with double the size of the character was the turn off, from there we spend a good hour jumping from the most stupid places and seeing where it was possible to go, the record was jumping from a roof thru that fence and over the car, amazing for a sports game.

We left the game laughting.

and thats my exp from this weekend.

Nice article...

I felt about the same way but I didnt really have an issue with the combat system as it worked well, just thought the animations did need a bit of work but its not the end of the world..

Originally posted by altas

I hope this game will not have debacle like AoC. I was sceptic, but I tried game this weekend, as for every new MMO was scared about questing sistem - and I must admit 90% quests I've done in beta were interesting and didn't get bored (like in Tera/SWTOR). And God damn, I've enjoyed Investigation quests. 

Prepurchased GW2, now maybe I'll get this game, too. It's very promissing, I hope Funcom will disapprove their nick Failcom with this game.

I agree.  I can easily see myself playing this AND GW2 this summer (if the latter releases soon too).  Plus TERA... I have too many games to play.  Oh, and Diablo 3.

Oh, and Torchlight 2.

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

i agree to your points in general.

but i would not call this an open free skillsystem like we saw it in sandboxes lie UO or EVE. this is more a trait system, where they put simply all level-based skills into the trait-trees and tied all skills to weapons. and then they made the skillchains 7 skills long. and they mix all kind of skills in one chain: offensive, buffs, debuffs, utility and heal. this limits you a lot. and you are enforced to buy skills you may consider useless to your playstyle. due to the fact, that they have no skillcap, this is irrelevant if you once have reached your 525 skill cap. but until then, it is an annoyance.

i also dislike the combat style very much. i am a range fighter and therefore i like to control the mob either via CCs or via pet or via fast and far rolls. of course you can move around in TSW, but this is just standard movement WASD. and your 1st and i hope not only CC comes with skill #7 way too late. i doubt i can realize my playstyle in TSW. i usually dont allow these stinky monsters to touch me.

Joel Bylos, the lead content designer has a kiteing Assault Rifle build as is favourite, so I think it's quite possible to make a build to your likeing. You won't have everything you need from the first moment, but by the time you are finished with Kingsmouth, you should have collected the key abilities needed.

As much as I enjoy the atmosphere, the setting, the art style and ESPECIALLY those investigation quests, I'm not sure I could actually play the game because the gameplay simply isn't fun to me.

I can't get into the combat - it seems like something from an alpha build of a game to me.  I felt quite bored circle strafing around stuff and widdling them down.  Maybe it's the GW2 talking but a dodge mechanic might help make it feel more fun.

I was also sad to see the lack of interaction with the world.

I'd like to be able to do things like climb fences/walls/cliffs and just overall, more interaction with the world itself.

Anyhoo, I think the game oughta stay in the oven for a while longer... but that's just my take.  Maybe GW2 spoiled me.

@kevjards

The character concept itself throws apart the need for alts. As far as you progress, you will have lots of skill points and anima points to spend in another trees and make alt builds, so you wont be needing another character to do that.

Funcom seriously need to bring in better Dev to do their combat gameplay and animation.

In a long run this will bring down their companies profits if they don't do it.

There are a lot of F2P game companies that have better animations than TSW.

Just sub out the TSW gameplay and animations to the EYEDENTITY GAMES lol.

I felt a little disappointed by this game but will reserve judgment until I try another beta because I didnt have much time to play this weekend, certainly not enough time to make a judgment on whether it's worth playing in my opinion. 

i have to say (besides strongly agreeing with the pros) that i actually liked combat a lot. I think it is more or less how it should be in (mmo)rpg - it is not as much important how fast you move, react etc., but about how you choose your skills and prepare your chracter before the battle.

i know guys that a lot of you want more action combat, but seriously - thats what fps are for, why do you have to bring it into rpgs?

edit: typos