Things have been pretty quiet for The Secret World as the team prepares the second beta event. But that certainly doesn't mean people aren't talking about TSW. For today's column, we open up that discussion to our readers. Tell us what you're thinking about The Secret World and what it is that you find so interesting about it.

For many, 2012 is bringing a lot of big reasons to take interest in the MMO genre again. Whether it’s Guild Wars 2 or WoW: Mists of Pandaria or Firefall, the MMO space seems packed with potential.

One of the front runners in the pack is Funcom’s The Secret World. The interest around TSW seems to rise every day and the game has generated a lot of buzz and, for some, equal measures of skepticism.

Head through the jump and add your thoughts to our The Secret World Reader Roundtable discussion.

i think that a permanent open PvP Battlefield for over 100 people will be plainly entertaining.

I think that saveable builds are awesome, together with the fact, that you only need 1 char to learn all the different roles.

A "One Server" concept will greatly benefit the community, think what you want about FC, but they have the best communities i've seen so far in their games.

The Dreamworld engine is awesome, can eat A LOT of players and looks outstanding good.

And i havnt even started to spread my thoughts about the game itself.

Myth and Conspirathy, im ready to uncover the secrets behind, i am ready to enter Hell.

Im looking forward to the recent changes, due to a old betaweekend client, they added some Gigabytes more to come.

This game doesnt plays like a standart MMO, more like some exploration sandbox with hidden hints everywhere.

It has totally dragged me in in only one weekend and   i    c a n t        w a i t !

It's the storyline/PvE content for me. That's why I preordered it. Just felt cool, different, worth 30 days of my time etc.

Everything else I have seen, done. The PvP especially. To be honest, anything outside of sandbox PvP I really do not enjoy for the most part....themepark PvP is just too predictive/calculated. :(

What drives your interest in The Secret World?

- no levels and classes, but equipment and "freely" choosable skills
- one character can learn all skills and be everything possible, no twinking
- modern day setting with good background-story
- no comic-book graphics, but an attempt to make the world look rather realistic
- 3 factions and a big persistent battleground

Conversely, what concerns do you have?

- that there might not be enough content to play around with
- that the content is not challenging enough but watered down to cater to the casuals
- that the cashshop might turn into a P2W-shop

It's not fantasy based. That's pretty much the reason. It has other pluses, but I hope it can carve out a niche ala Fallen Earth and Eve. I'm disappointed it has a subscription but I will try to play it alongside Guild Wars 2.

Probably the cleverest marketing scheme I've ever seen is the ARGs rolled out between BWEs. It keeps the community thoroughly engaged and it's both challenging and fun to work on solving the puzzles.

It feels like I'm playing the game when I'm not playing the game, and that's truly unique.

Incredible customization that harkens back to the days of pen and paper D&D. Being a pvpr this flexibility is a dream come true.  Add in 3 factions and huge persitant wazone holding any from 150-300 people. Pvp made of pure awesome sauce!

double post

 

 

I'm more of a sandbox fan myself, but i've been keeping my eye on TSW. I really like most of it's features, the crafting, skill system, setting, story, pvp, etc.

My favorite aspect has to be the puzzles. Sure, there may not be tons of them (i can't blaim FC on this), but the investigation missions, and possible puzzle raids in the future, is enough to excite me. Also, hopefully more ARG's.

My main concerns are the combat, bugs, Funcom, lack of content, animations, etc, etc, etc. There'll be FOTM builds, but that's normal.

However, i disagree about the solo element. There's dungeons, pvp, mob camps for more than 1 person, and most quests have a public quest system fused with them. But my greatest reason for watching over TSW is community. Rift's rifts are group content, yet, while not a bad community in itself, it's not much better than other mmos.

TSW has a great emphasis on lore and story, myths anmd legends, so i believe it will atract some really interesting people. Also, with a real world setting, theatre, tons of emotes and (hoepfully) chat bubbles, this made may end up atracting a huge RP playerbase. I think this game has the potential to have an awesome, mature, chatty community. If this happens, and the "game" part is good enough, i'll probably move in, despite being a themepark.

as a SWG vet i am pretty sure the skill system will be hell to balance, the more freedom you give people to min/max their stuff the worse it turns out. This was in the end the downfall of SWG and it might be downfall of TSW

I'm looking forward to everything...I was sooo hooked once I  spent hours on that first presearch quest(cause I refused to ask for help)

side note swg only had one downfall and that was the NGE lol

Does the open skill system seem too open?

are you kidding? this skillsystem is far away from a classic open skillsystem. it looks more like an extended trait-system due to the long chains and mix of passive/active and offensive/defensive/uitility-skills in one chain. you are enforced to buy a lot of skills, you may consider pointless for your playstyle. however this just disturbs until you got them all. well, we will see ....

i dont say the skillsystem is bad, but it isnt open either.

Originally posted by tawess

as a SWG vet i am pretty sure the skill system will be hell to balance, the more freedom you give people to min/max their stuff the worse it turns out. This was in the end the downfall of SWG and it might be downfall of TSW

 

i see your point, but i am also convicned that balancing is overrated. first you should strictly separate the skillsets of sPvP and PvE; e.g. in pve you may use a longsword with strong CC skills, but in pvp you are reduced to the shortsword with rather weak CC skills. same with armor and whatever may unbalance sPvP. and some other utility spells simply dont work in sPvP.

in most modern MMOs balancing leaded to a rather dull PVE-gameplay with less tactical options and a flood of rather weak skills. there is a lesser strong reason for balancing in PvE than in PvP especially sPvP. however, it means more time and effort to make a good game and separate these two worlds.

the neccessary limitation in TSW is given by the fact that you cant use all your skills at once. we will see, how this works.

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Originally posted by tawess
as a SWG vet i am pretty sure the skill system will be hell to balance, the more freedom you give people to min/max their stuff the worse it turns out. This was in the end the downfall of SWG and it might be downfall of TSW

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If there's any OP skills, then balancing them isn'T actually necessary as everyone can learn the exact same skills with every character. So why would you balance it at all... people just need to learn the skills for their characters aswell - problem solved.

Originally posted by Yalexy

 

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Originally posted by tawess
as a SWG vet i am pretty sure the skill system will be hell to balance, the more freedom you give people to min/max their stuff the worse it turns out. This was in the end the downfall of SWG and it might be downfall of TSW

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If there's any OP skills, then balancing them isn'T actually necessary as everyone can learn the exact same skills with every character. So why would you balance it at all... people just need to learn the skills for their characters aswell - problem solved.

thats not correct. if the hammer skills would rule in PvP so you can beat all others easily and in PVE you could beat bosses solo with the hammer but not with any other weapon, than everybody would use the hammer. this is not intended, so it will not happen, due to balancing.