This weekend saw the first meeting of Murphy’s Lawbreakers, the official MMORPG Illuminati cabal. We had a fantastic turnout that had all of Kingsmouth talking. The first twenty minutes of the meetup were spent getting to know each other and inviting people to the cabal. By the end there were 17 of us, which had a few consequences that hadn’t been considered when the whole idea was thought up.
We gathered just inside Kingsmouth at the camp of Jack Boone, I don’t think he’s had so many guests at his camp at once in a long time. The beans ran out quickly but we stuck around for the friendly banter. Once we were sure the last of us had made the trip from New York we were on our way. And that’s where the trouble started. Zombies we expected, zombies are fine. The problem came when the zone didn’t scale to give us more enemies. So imagine if you will all 17 of us trying to go after the same lumps of mobs with three or four zombies in them. We went in without teams. Which resulted in people not getting credit for kills. Trying to organize teams once we were already out of the gate? Not really possible. I managed to get myself a good team plus one who followed us for most of the rest of our play session.
)
I’m surprised my laughter the entire road into Kingsmouth didn’t attract more unwanted, undead attention. But we took things slowish and made sure to kill every mob twice, double tap. One thing we didn’t do that really made a huge difference to me was walk. I have only ever played The Secret World walking. It slows everything down and perhaps more importantly makes the town of Kingsmouth feel bigger. Kingsmouth felt different this time around. Not only did I already know everything, which admittedly does damage the replayability of the game, it also went a lot faster. All because I didn’t have walk turned on. This makes me wonder how quickly we’ll be finishing Kingsmouth.
In just one short two hour play session my team accomplished quite a lot. We made it to the Sheriff’s office and defended it from an onslaught of ravenous zombies before making our way down towards the bay where the foes took on a slightly different appearance. Along the way I grabbed some undelivered mail and carried it with me through the bay while searching for the King of the vile creatures. He was an ugly beast who I can only imagine smelled of salt and rotting fish. After seeing him we stopped off at a small yard sale. The owner wasn’t too helpful but we did get a recipe for zombie powder. There we smelled smoke and followed the smell to a huge bonfire being watched by a nice, though slightly mad woman named Norma. While helping Norma take care of the zombie problem in the town we searched for survivors. There wasn’t much good news in that hunt. And we got the sheriff some supplies. After that my team split up to finish up some loose ends. I still had that package to drop off, others still had survivors to find. I’m going to spend a few days with Madame Roget, it was her package I dropped off and the Raven’s Knock seems like a safe place to stay for now.
)
Another thing that may have contributed to how fast it felt like we were going was the fact that I bought an AP injection of 110 AP at the suggestion of @Scopique, who I also have to thank for all the images in today’s column. So right from the start I had a tray full of options. No stopping to get something new, no suffering with only one or two abilities. Did it actually contribute to the fast pace I felt? Maybe, maybe not. I certainly don’t regret the purchase though. Not only did I spend some of my points, which was a topic of concern in the last column, I also got to have a variety of options for shooting the undead. And when you’re dealing with zombies you really do want options.
)
It seemed like once the cabal got to the Sheriff’s office they all scattered. With so many different quest options right there in the one spot it was easy to do. Unfortunately it didn’t do much for the whole community as one idea I had originally envisioned but the road to Kingsmouth taught us a valuable lesson. The main parts of the world in The Secret World are meant to be enjoyed in small groups. What this tells me is that we need to form groups within the cabal. Maybe it will be a new group every time, or maybe we will make it so you always group with the same people. I don’t know yet. I suppose we’ll find out more when we meet up again this Saturday. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to convince my group to walk this time. It really does make an incredible difference to the way the game plays. Next time you log in to TSW hit walk and see if you can feel the difference too.
We still have a long way to go in Kingsmouth and yet it feels like we’ve already accomplished much more than I had intended for us to. But that doesn’t mean that it’s too late to join us! We’ll be meeting up at the Sheriff’s office on Saturday at 4PM New York time (that’s the Eastern timezone in the real world) for more fun zombie filled excitement. More than likely we will end up finishing the main part of Kingsmouth town and head out to the outer parts. Who knows, we may end up meeting good ol’ Edgar who to this day is still my favorite NPC in The Secret World, even above Jeffrey Combs’ characters. I hope to see you all there. Keep an eye open for any of Murphy’s Lawbreakers or anyone wearing an MMORPG shirt.
