Screenshots Of The Day: Good To Be Back In TSW

After being on vacation and gone for week, it’s mighty good to be back for The Secret World Mondays. It’s amazing how quickly your fingers can forget the controls even after such a short time, and playing a ton of Neverwinter over the last couple of weeks sure didn’t help (I couldn’t stop pressing F for everything).

Our Secret Monday group is officially moving onto Elite dungeons now. Last time we were able to clear through Elite Polaris and Inferno, and last night we were able to clear Elite Inferno again with one group and Elite Darkness War with another.

Inferno team: Syp, Rowan, Sctrz (off screen in this particular cutscene…my apologies!), Thermic, Laeyn

Darkness War team: Tententacles, Pid, PaganRites, Thermic, Laeyn. There’s probably a joke in here somewhere. A kungfu master, an astronaut and an Egyptian god walk into a bar and…never mind.

Who knows, maybe next week the Knights of Mercy will venture into Elite Ankh. Hold me!

And last but not least (the feature I’m sure y’all are all dying for), what I wore for TSW Monday:

Look at me! Look at me! I’m a daredevil skydiving construction worker! Yeppers.

TSW: Some Screenies From Elite Night

You’re always bound to see some strange and disturbing things on The Secret World Mondays.

Case in point — here, enjoy a picture of a wild-eyed horse in a bloodstained sweatshirt sitting next to a well-dressed man in a helicopter, gawking at one another as it crashes. Yeah, this one is probably one of the more bizarre screenshots I’ve ever taken, even for TSW…

Last night, we hit up Elite Polaris. After foiling our last couple of attempts, the Ur-Draug finally succumbed to the awesome might of the Mercy Templars (plus one Lumie):

A spontaneous run of Elite Inferno also yielded favorable results. The place gave us a lot less trouble than I expected, but then again I’m also more familiar with this dungeon than any of the others. It happens to be my favorite instance, not the least of all because of the stunning visuals.

Er, wait. I didn’t mean those kind of visuals. “So sorry” indeed! I do swear this is a PG-13 blog!

And of course, no TSW picture post would be complete without the “What I wore for TSW Monday” feature.

Laeyn was ninja-ing around last night in the spiffy Assassinatrix uniform, with the glowy-eyes effect from the glowing lunar draug mask:

Screenshot Of The Day: Super Sleuthing!

Five Templars walk into Elite Polaris…

Digging Defiance

All right, here’s the straight dope from a person who admittedly feels much more at home in traditional MMORPGs with a sword and shield in my hand, rather than staring down the sight of a futuristic firearm. It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of shooters, so I won’t deny I was a little bewildered myself when people asked me how or why I ever got into a game like Defiance. So over the past week, I’ve been playing and making an effort in trying to figure this out, and I think I’ve got a few ideas.

The first is that there is plenty enough “MMO-ness” in Defiance to make me feel right at home, despite the third-person shooter perspective. It does feel a little surreal to be talking in voice chat and mulling over topics like the benefits of a assault rifle over that of say, a pistol or a sub-machine gun, and running around with a few of my friends last night, there’s a definite co-op shooter feel to the experience.

Still, the essence behind the gameplay leaves me no doubt whatsoever that I’m playing an MMO. The reason why “Rift with guns!” has become a popular tongue-in-cheek tagline thrown around by MMO gamers playing Defiance is because…well, is that because in many ways it’s a pretty fair and accurate assessment. Just as I’ve always chased planar invasion events in Rift, I readily chase arkfall events in Defiance with just as much gusto. The mechanics behind these dynamic occurrences are much the same, sometimes appearing quite randomly and in many cases only manageable with a ton of other people.

And they’re just so, so fun. I think I may even prefer doing arkfalls in Defiance more than I do planar incursions in Rift — the unpredictable movement of enemies and not to mention actually being required to aim at your targets makes the fight more hectic and exciting and simply better. Like in all public MMO dynamic events, you get the feeling like you and the others around you are involved in something BIG.

The other reason why I think I took to Defiance is because of Trion’s decision to include a hefty PvE component. PvP has never really been my forte or my preference, in both traditional MMORPGs or shooters, which is a big part of why I tended to stay away from games like Global Agenda and Planetside 2 that heavily feature team-based competitions or mercenary-style gameplay. No doubt Defiance has PvP aspects to offer as well, but thus far I haven’t had a chance to experience any of it; never had a reason to yet, as PvE content has been plenty enough to keep me occupied.

As a third-person MMO shooter, Defiance will probably find itself ever caught in the middle. However — and this is just my opinion — it does seem to me like there’s just a bit more “MMO” than “shooter” in this mix. I have a feeling that those who are more faithfully inclined towards shooters will find it more difficult to like the game, or may even spurn it; but on the other hand, those like myself who are more inclined towards MMOs might find it easier.

I don’t know if this has helped others like me who are “not into shooters” but are on the fence considering trying out Defiance, but I’ll be sure to keep updating on my thoughts as I put more time into the game in the coming weeks. Regardless, one thing I’m sure of is that Defiance has made the best out of its hybrid nature and has proven itself to be a tremendously entertaining pastime.

First Days Of Defiance

Ever since Defiance officially went live on Tuesday, I’ve been playing Trion’s new MMO third-person shooter every night for approximately 1-2 hours each session. Granted, that’s probably optimal for me, given my hopes that this game can become a fun and casual pastime on the side. Still, I’m sure I’ll need a lot more time with it before I’m comfortable with forming more solid opinions.

However, I’m happy to say that so far all my experiences have generally been positive. Even spending just mere minutes with the live version erased a lot of my previous misgivings, given that I was in the alpha and the beta…and let’s just say it hasn’t always been pretty. In light of some of the more persisting issues, I even occasionally had my doubts about my pre-order.

For one thing, I’ve always wondered to myself, “Can you imagine how stupidly fun this game would be when grouping with friends?” I envisioned a lot of running together as a squad with my guild, but alas I was never able to get the friend and group invite working for me properly during testing. So you can imagine my excitement and relief when I fired up the live client on Tuesday night to find the grouping system working flawlessly.

That one thing probably increased my love for Defiance tenfold. I mean, how surprising that a broken grouping system in an online multiplayer game can completely cripple your enjoyment! Who’d have thunk it, right?! 

Sure, you don’t absolutely need to group in Defiance, but I definitely experienced a whole different layer of gameplay dynamics after a few hours running with my husband. There’s an added immersion you just don’t get when playing alone or out-of-communication with others; playing the game is so much more interactive when I find myself planning out attacks with someone else, whether it’s splitting up the work during missions or laying down cover fire when the other player is interacting with a quest object (or running like hell for his life).

Last night, I even had the chance to participate in one of those big Arkfall events. Now, ain’t that a whole different kind of animal. It’s very similar to the rift events in Rift that happen very randomly and without warning. One moment, a small group of us were just la-di-da shooting away, and then all of a sudden you’re swept up in a massive crowd like a wave and flaming hellcrabs are jumping at you trying to eat your face and your poor mouse is just gripped in your sweaty shaking hand while you’re desperately firing that assault rifle like it’s nobody’s business and…it’s just one big mess. The good kind of big mess.

That’s the thing. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about Defiance, other than it’s rather fun and addicting. But if there’s one aspect that really surprised me about the game, it’s how quickly I took to it. I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of shooters, I honestly never thought I would get into a game like this. That I did and got hooked onto it so quickly speaks volumes about it, I think.

TSW: Plundering The Ankh

The Ankh is The Secret World’s fourth instance, located in The Scorched Desert. Deep beneath the sands, Orochi agents have discovered an ancient and subterranean Egyptian temple. Of course, it’s also damp, dark, spooky and completely infested with the Filth. As if any of us needed more proof that everything the Orochi Group touches inevitably turns into a giant cock-up.

Last night, a group of brave adventurers from the Knights of Mercy took it upon themselves to investigate the dig site during this week’s session of TSW Monday. First off, I want to say that there is no such thing as a bad instance in TSW…just that some are better than others.

I can’t say The Ankh is one of my favorites. Visually, it’s not as stunning as the others, and the bosses aren’t as memorable. And like I said, it’s full of Filth. I mean, it’s tentacle-ly and disgusting. Pretty sure as well that having been pummeled to death in that dungeon way too many times to count have not warmed me towards it. But someone’s gotta take care of the dirty work, right? And sometimes even dirty work can be fun when you’re doing it with friends.

Also, as any self-respecting TSW player will tell you, it’s of the utmost important to dress the part no matter what you do. The Filth of the Ankh learned last night that two can play at the tentacle game. So, there.

 

Screenshot Of The Day: Old Friends, New Business Model (TSW)

Another Monday night, another Secret World session. It was our guild’s first TSW night since the game’s big announcement last week, and I must say we had a pretty good showing, considering our modest little cabal.

Being a subscriber, I was able to claim my rewards which included a bunch of Funcom points, so of course the first thing I did was go shopping. And shocker — I didn’t buy new clothes. Instead, I adopted a pet:

It’s reaching up to me for a hug! Aww…

Okay, at first I was going to get a dog. But then, I saw this little guy on the front page and it’s like, how the hell can anyone resist? My new Automaton pet jumps around excitedly when he sees me and also follows me around on rocket boots (or a rocket butt, I can’t tell).

We also had enough people last night to split off into a couple groups. Almost all of us are in Transylvania now, and so I took the opportunity to zip back into the Shadowy Forest to turn in several missions that had been sitting in my quest log all this time. Honestly, it’s been so long that I’d forgotten how much faster the experience rolls in once you get into the higher level zones. With my Time Accelerator that increases XP gain, I don’t think it’d be too long before I get enough AP and SP complete my third deck (Warlock) and to finally equip my rocket launcher.

Oh, and something else I forgot now that I’m back in vampire land — how ridiculously, maddeningly, soul-crushingly tough this game can be. TSW is a cruel mistress, but then again, it’s a big part of why I love it.