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…

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.

 

The Secret World: Sub Gone, Join Usssssss

On 12/12/12 12:12 Norway time, Funcom officially did it — flipped the switch on The Secret World making it subscription-free, or in other words buy-to-play. If you were one of the lucky ones who picked up the game a few weeks ago during one of the many crazy video game sales, I’d be feeling pretty damn swell right now.

Those familiar with the game probably already know that everything had been set up for this from the get go, but leave it to TSW developers to tie the whole thing to the end of the world. As for me, it’s pretty much going to be business as usual. I’m already playing at least once a week, so I’m keeping my sub for the perks: an item which doubles XP for one hour each day, a membership gift, and — here’s the biggie — discounts and bonus points to spend each month in the Item Store.

Assuming I don’t need to be shelling out every month for a game update, can you say, new outfits, outfits, OUTFITS, OUTFITS, OUTFITS?!?! That’s right, bring it on, Syp! We all know last week’s post about fashion show competitions was directed at me.

Speaking of which, I guess now is also the perfect time for me to once again plug our guild’s weekly Monday TSW nights. Depending on who shows up and what needs to be done, on a typical session we help each other through quests, dungeons, and if we have time, watch my character Laeyn dance Gangnam style in her underwear at the Albion Theater:

[SCREENSHOT REDACTED]

Seriously though, if you haven’t had a chance to try this truly amazing and creative MMO, you now have little excuse not to. Given its genre and unique mechanics, I can’t promise the game will be everyone’s cup of tea, but Knights of Mercy will absolutely be happy to welcome any returning or new players on board. I assure you, we loooooove fresh blood!

YUMMY…MUAHAHAHAHA.

How Do You Feel About One-Time-Only Events?

So I was fortunate enough to be online in Guild Wars 2 yesterday, waiting in Lion’s Arch, at the advertised time for the special Halloween event. And after all that build-up, all the secrecy, the “one-time-only” event that we were all waiting for amounted to a cinematic cutscene that lasted about 40 seconds.

Whether it was worth it or not is a matter up for debate, one I’m not going to get into here. Personally, I thought it was a wicked cutscene, followed by a fantastic encounter with the Mad King in his otherworldly lair, and that overall the ArenaNet folks did an amazing job bringing us Act 3. I was thrilled to have been a part of it.

But I still dislike the idea of one-time-only events.

Quite simply, they’re bad news, and hard to justify. Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s great that game designers are still freely experimenting with special events and timing, but when you’re planning an in-game holiday intended to be enjoyed by everyone, then 1) announcing a one-time-only event, and 2) not giving any details about what to expect is probably one of the quickest, easiest ways to alienate and piss off a bunch of your players.

Speaking for myself, yesterday just so happened to be a lazy, rainy Sunday and I had some free time in the afternoon. But I’m aware not everyone was that lucky. Australians and folks in Asia were setting alarms to wake up in the wee hours in the morning on a freakin’ work day, and a lot of East Coasters in the US were out shopping for supplies and preparing for the Frankenstorm. Come on, people, we’re living and gaming in an international community! There’s also conflicts and unforeseen circumstances that can always pop up! Crap happens! When you know full well that everyone and their mother is going to want to participate, why still consider one-shot events?

Not to mention how they often lead to not-so-fun problems associated with overloaded servers. If you ask World of Warcraft players present at the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj opening event, most will tell you about the horrific lag, and I still recall the long server queues being a hindrance at Rift’s River of Souls event last year. GW2′s event wasn’t perfect, but I do however have to give a hat tip to the team for the relatively smooth performance yesterday — though not indicative of everyone’s experience, I had absolutely no problems before, during, and after the wait in Lion’s Arch nor during my showdown with the Mad King. At least before the servers sputtered and died, that is.

But what does this all mean? It occurred to me that dynamic, truly spontaneous events with persisting and enduring consequences that will change the game world are still possibly a long ways off. After all, can’t an impromptu, extemporaneousness event which can cause our actions to alter our surroundings permanently for everybody arguably be perceived as a one-time-only event? As much as we ask for it, as temptingly awesome as it sounds, even if it were technologically achievable, player resistance will probably be a significant obstacle. As gamers, none of us like to be left out or miss anything in our favorite MMOs. And really, who can blame us?

Rift: My Storm Legion Tour – Dungeons And Raids

Continuing with the write-up of my tour of Rift: Storm Legion during the beta weekend, in this post I’ll focus on what Community Manager James “Elrar” Nichols showed me regarding dungeons and raids. To view the previous part on the world and new zones, see here.

I was told that Storm Legion will launch with seven dungeons and a couple of raids — one 20-man and one 10-man — with another 20-man being added in the first big patch. It’s clear that just because they have a huge expansion coming out soon, this by no means indicates that the Rift team will be slacking on their update schedule. New content will continue rolling in as it has always done, and players won’t have long to wait.

I’ll confess right now that this post will be image-heavy. A lot of the encounters shown to me were still works-in-progress; that and time constraints meant that we didn’t do much fighting beyond Elrar exercising his supermod tour guide powers and insta-killing the bosses so we could check out the beautiful dungeon interiors. Works for me! It won’t do well to spoil the fights for myself at this early stage anyway, so I was happy to follow along, pressing my PrntScn key every two seconds in amazement at the environmental details.

Our first stop: Storm Breaker Protocol, a level 52-56 five-man dungeon. The first thing we did was climb into a mech-like robots, giving us access to a set of cool-sounding abilities like Eradication Pulse and Rocket Salvo. We proceeded to clear trash, and I was told players will also get a chance to fight bosses in these Storm Breaker robots. Elrar confirmed that these kinds of fights are new to Rift; like many of upcoming features we’ll see in Storm Legion, they’re the result of ongoing experimentation with new ideas and implementation of mechanics by the Rift team, ultimately letting the player response guide their decisions.

By the way, I want to mention that the level 60 character provided to me was a Mage, mostly because I told Elrar I was fascinated with what I’ve seen of the new Harbinger soul. In the end, I didn’t actually get much of a chance to experiment with his abilities during the tour, but the good news is the little I did see of his conjured blades and weapons spells confirms my suspicions that this “melee battle mage” soul is as unique as it looks.

The next dungeon we saw was Empyrean Core, a level 58-60 five-man instance intended for players towards the end of the leveling experience. Some stunning bosses and sights in there. Honestly, the following screenshots I took don’t do that place justice, as I lost a lot of the nuances created by the play of light and shadow.

Next, Elrar brought me to the Endless Eclipse, the 20-man raid that will be available about a month after Storm Legion’s launch, where players will eventually get to battle Regulos. Which reminds me, I want to mention that all throughout the tour I was being provided with commentary about the game  world’s history and background information behind all these instances. There’s context in all we’ll get to do in the new expansion, and not for the first or last time, I wished I was more well-versed in Rift lore.

Here’s a few images from that place; as you can see it’s appropriately “deathy” in there. Again, I want to emphasize that it looks so much better in game with all my settings cranked up.

 

Finally, we checked out Frozen Tempest, the 20-man raid that will be available at Storm Legion’s launch. Here, players will get to battle Crucia, the power-hungry dragon goddess who controls the minds of the Storm Legion cult which makes even Regulos shake in his boots.

Got some great pics in there of the two of us getting our butts kicked, because Elrar forgot to turn on his supermod powers of invulnerability. Here he is getting stomped on by a giant harpy (and I was next)!:

Stay tuned for my third and final post in which I will talk about what I saw of the highly anticipated Dimensions feature also known as Rift’s housing system. Believe me when I say it deserves a full post dedicated to it all on its own! Not that everything else I’d seen so far didn’t look fantastic, but Elrar definitely saved the best for last during our tour. And thus, so will I!