Our TSW Family Is Growing

Another month, another deposit of bonus Funcom points in my account when I logged in to The Secret World last night. I used them to buy the outfit shown above, the new Gladiatrix armor, so I can finally look like a tank (and so my guildies can’t claim that I only do all my tanking in skimpy clothes, at least until the next time I decided to buy a new mini-skirt).

There appears to be an increase of interest in the game lately, and as always it gets me giddy to see TSW getting attention because there really is no other MMO out there right now quite like it. Our Monday night TSW sessions continue to thrive as we get new people joining us some nights and current members experimenting with new decks and roles. We’re a pretty casual group, mostly splitting up individually or in groups while hanging out in cabal chat or teamspeak.

Anyway, in light of this I thought I’d plug our guild some more as well as provide some info to common questions I often see about TSW. Yep, it’s buy-to-play now, which means you pay for the game and play for free, and these days you can often find it at retail on sale or for pretty dirt cheap. As far as I know, it also comes with a month in which they treat you as a full subscriber and you get the perks like the XP booster drink and free in-game gift.

My character’s name is Tamerlaine “Laeyn” Berard; your nickname in the middle is what everyone in the game goes by. Feel free to add me to your friends lists or ask me any questions. The Mercy Gaming Knights TSW branch are the Knight of Mercy. We’re Templar guild, though your faction only matters for cabals and cabal features; when in game, members of the Illuminati, Dragons or Templars can group together to do quests or instances no problem. Aside from the intro as well as your faction quests, everyone pretty much experiences the same content, though each faction has its own unique flavor and you’ll see differences in things like quest completion text, etc.

Server also doesn’t really matter unless you want to PvP with others on your home realm. No matter where you end up you can still play with anyone in this game, though most of KoM are on Arcadia, the RP server. So you see while it’s not completely restriction-free, I still think the degree of flexibility is one of the best things about the game.

A lot of people have said that TSW has a rather steep learning curve, and this is probably true especially towards the beginning. I remember it took me a couple hours to really get into it. The good news is, once you get the mechanics down, the the drive to create and experiment with new ability decks gets pretty addictive. Still, the game being so niche, some never really get into it or are turned off by the horror themes, which is totally understandable too. Even now I still frequently run across features that make me want to tear my hair out, and personally there are certain quests I really wish I hadn’t done at night. In the dark. All by myself.

Rift: My Storm Legion Tour – Player Housing And Dimensions

In this final post of my tour of the Rift: Storm Legion expansion, I will talk about what Community Manager James “Elrar” Nichols showed me of the highly anticipated Dimensions feature, perhaps more widely known as Rift’s housing system. Remember how I said in my last post that I was saving the best for last? Well, while I can’t speak for others, I have to say this was personally my favorite part of my almost two-hour tour. (You can find the first part about new zones here, and the second part about dungeons and raids here.)

I confess I was looking forward to my tour of the Dimensions feature the most, and believe me when I say it didn’t disappoint. First of all, I almost feel like it could have constituted an expansion all by itself. The fact that we get this intricate housing system plus two huge continents of PvE content and the dungeons and raids in Storm Legion is just starting to sink in.

Second of all, I am beginning to get a deeper understanding of why the Rift team prefers to use the name “Dimensions” rather than the term “housing” when referring to this feature. Sure, it may also sound better for marketing, but to me the plain and simple truth is, the word “housing” just doesn’t cut it; I don’t think it’s really enough to describe the sheer scope of we’re being offered with this expansion.

For this part of the tour, Elrar took me several dimensions in order to explain how the whole system works. The first one we went to, “Elrar’s Bar”, was a relatively simple endeavor in the Stone Flask Tavern location where I was allowed to muck about and get hands-on with everything. The first thing Elrar told me to do was to look up. The surroundings clearly showed that I was in the Stonefields area, but what I saw above me was most definitely not a Stonefield sky. Yep, it was one of those things Elrar had put in to customize his own little corner of Telara. Pretty!

Here, I was shown the basics and given an explanation of the system. I was told you can own multiple dimensions, but can only have one active. As to why, Elrar clarified that this is because the feature is still so new. Indeed, testers have suggested letting players have more active dimensions, but before the team can expand the system further they have to make sure current conditions won’t crash out the system. But in the future, who knows what’s possible? This feature will continue to be expanded. I didn’t press for more information, but it seems that in the meantime if you wanted to switch active dimensions, doing so is as simple as having all your items packed up into a box before moving.

As to how to gain ownership of new dimensions, I got the impression that they work a lot like many other items in the game — some will be easily accessible, while others will have varying degrees of rarity, with the rarest dimension “keys” being highly coveted and requiring the appropriate level of investment to obtain them.

I asked Elrar when is the earliest a player can have access to his or her own personal dimension. His answer: through a quest you can get at level 5, or in other words, pretty much as soon as you complete the tutorial area. That’s pretty great news; Rift developers are aware that not everyone who will be interested in housing will also be interested in questing, leveling, endgame, etc. and their goal is to make the Dimensions feature as accessible as possible. This will also allow newcomers to the game access to a huge part of the Storm Legion right off the bat, since I was told the bulk of the new areas in the expansion, i.e. much of everything else I saw on the tour, will only be available to level 50 characters.

Next, a closer look at the controls and decorating tools. As a “friend” of Elrar, my character had access to his dimension, though each player will have the ability to further customize these options to designate who can visit, place items, or make changes, etc. In the dimensions UI, you can also set whether or not you want your dimension private or public, but more on that later.

If you look at the screenshots, you can see that the UI is very intuitive. Clicking on the wrench icon will give you access to a bunch of options, allowing you to take an item and move it along multiple axes, or rotate it, or scale it, etc. You can do this with virtually every item. In this next shot, I took a formerly normal-sized stool and shrank it into a size fit for a dollhouse. In the screenshot after that, I was playing with the height of some of the furniture. Want a bed that floats in mid air? Sure, you got it! Can’t jump high enough to get to it? Create yourself a flight of floating steps using books! Pretty much everything seems possible.

Items aren’t just limited to furnishings. I already mentioned the way you can customize the sky with a projector, and there are also music boxes to add to your dimension, letting you set the perfect mood. With a click of a button you can bring up a list of all the items in your dimension, and actually doing so was how I came across a peculiar entry called “Dimensional Bartender.” Yes, Elrar has his own personal barkeep. I stood by as he served up a line drinks and then watched with amusement as Elrar’s character promptly chugged them all down.

From what I saw and heard, I got the impression that there will be various methods to procure dimensional items, with the most common items being easily accessible and obtainable, and those rarer and more unique items likely requiring more time and effort invested in the game.

Later, I was shown several other examples of dimensions and what their owners have done to them. The impressive display of creativity and user-created content simply boggled my mind, and left me with no doubt that this feature will have a profound impact on the Rift community.

Elrar had described dimensions as being virtual neighborhoods, a social system that is easy to access, share and explore. Indeed, there were many open to the public which you can enter from anywhere in the world. I could also see that a bunch of them were highly recommended by other players using the feature’s rating system. It occurred to me that certain dimensions can even have the potential to become in-game tourist destinations (“Hey, have you seen the ____ dimension?” “OMG, you have GOT to visit the _____ dimension!”) In fact, we ran into many other players while visiting the public dimensions.

In this dimension, the decorating has started in this corner of the house. Everything seen here has been placed there by hand.

In this one, the owner built the entire second floor from scratch, just adding to the basic structure of the house provided.

This next dimension features a boat in a lovely little grotto. I was told that the boat, also constructed from scratch, is made up of about a few dozen or so separate pieces — again, all placed by hand. This is sort of what I meant when I said that the term housing just doesn’t seem sufficient to encompass this feature. This is about way more than maintaining a home in a game, it’s also about the complete freedom to build and share anything you can imagine.

To further illustrate that point, here’s another dimension Elrar showed me. The owner has made a jumping puzzle out of it! Literally, the sky’s the limit. My own personal limit here, however, would be my crappy platformer skills. By the way, did I mention that I’m notoriously bad at jumping puzzles in MMOs? Not surprisingly, I didn’t get very far on this. There will be no prizes for me.

One thing I do know for certain now: there will be absolutely no jumping whatsoever required in my own dimension when I get Storm Legion.

Here’s a couple more screenshots to show two versions of the same building structure template, but their owners have done very different things to its exterior. The second house has been cover with rocks, creating a cave-like stronghold complete with hidden entrance, and which even has an added second floor.

Here are some more examples of fun things other players have built in their dimensions. Some of it almost puts me in mind of Minecraft on steroids.

I think housing is something a lot of people enjoy and would like to see implemented in more MMOs, so I wasn’t surprised when so much of the buzz I’ve heard surrounding the Storm Legion expansion involved the dimension system. But now I know it’s also because of the lengths that Rift has gone with it. They seem to have embraced it completely, intending full well to deliver their promise of giving players the ability to unleash their creativity and transform their dimensions into anything they want.

I actually thought of the Sims at one point, and considering what a big fan I am of the building and decorating capabilities in those games, I definitely mean it as a compliment. Can you imagine the potential for roleplayers? For everyone? My mind is swimming with the possibilities.

And so ends the write-up of my Storm Legion tour, I hope you enjoyed reading about my experience and thoughts. I was initially unsure of how I was going to present all this, but ultimately decided just to write about what I saw and heard from my guide and lay out everything as they were shown to me. I couldn’t help it, though; I just had to gush a little when it came to Dimensions. If you haven’t gathered already, I was very impressed by this feature.

Again, I want to say thank you to the Rift team and Elrar for this wonderful opportunity. But of course, I must also curse them now because I’m tempted to resubscribe right away and not to wait at all to buy the expansion.

TSW Night: Using Our Heads

The Council of Venice, a watch-group formed to uphold the rules and ensure that all factions in The Secret World are keeping the peace. Also known as the guys that show up only after we’ve taken care of the mess.

So, another Monday night come and gone, which means another night of shenanigans in The Secret World. And as far as TSW Nights go, I have to say last night’s play session was a rather productive one. Admittedly, last week most of us were rusty and still struggling to remember how to play our characters, but this week we brought our game faces!

First things first; I can now scratch one biggie off my to-do list — “Obtain stolen rocket launcher from forces of evil.” It’s right there on the agenda between “Clean out rain gutters” and “Remember to buy Halloween candy.”

Fortunately, everyone last night was at least Faction Rank 6 or higher and were able to pick up the mission, and two groups were formed to brave the dangers ahead. It worked out well too, because how anyone could have done this quest chain solo at that level is beyond me. Poor Scopique and I were being torn apart by mercenary bullets until I poked my husband in the ribs and got him to switch to heals. Things got easier after that, though snipers trying to shoot at my face still posed an aggravating problem. Staying out of the light was the key, though I found running around like a chicken with its head cut off also kind of helped. In my humble opinion.

Oh, how I wish I had a picture of my character Laeyn and her brand-spanking new rocket launcher to post here right now, complete with an obligatory and ridiculous caption like “Say hello to my little friend!” perhaps, but sadly I don’t even possess the number of skill points required to equip it at the moment since I blew them all last session. I have to accrue 5 more SP, though if the rumors about an upcoming chainsaw auxiliary weapon are true, I may save them for that. After all, when it comes to dealing the zombies, I like to get up close and personal, and chainsaws are much more hands-on, don’t you think?

Afterwards, the remaining Knights of Mercy headed back to Kingsmouth town to see the Reverend Henry Hawthorn in order to pick up “Digging Deeper”, the eponymous investigation quest from Issue 2.

If you play TSW and haven’t done that one yet, do make the time! Major Indiana Jones vibes pouring off this one. It’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had doing an investigation mission, though it probably helped that the format of it was perfect for a group. They say two heads are better than one, so five heads we should be golden, right? Well, for the most part I’d say that’s true, though lucky for those heads none of the puzzles were as unforgiving as the first room in The Last Crusade. The worst we had to contend with for screwing up was a jet of poison, once again sending us all into a flailing panic. I have to say, running around like chickens with their head cut off didn’t work quite so well that time.

Only the penitent man will pass.

Yes, there were mistakes aplenty and a lot of spinning our wheels, but this made for lots of laughs along the way and most importantly, in the end the group effort paid off. When I first heard about TSW nights, this was pretty much what I pictured: people getting together and pooling their knowledge, adding different viewpoints to the problem and brainstorming solutions. Thank goodness someone else was familiar with music theory, for instance; all that knowledge has sadly left me since high school, when studies halted my flute and piano lessons.

All in all, I was amazed at how well things went, with everyone pitching in with suggestions and ideas which ultimately got us through. To me, the kind of quests that make you think and research are definitely one of TSW’s best features. One thing’s for sure — when Funcom gets around to putting in those group investigation quests they have planned, I am so there.

The Secret World: Monday Night Thrill-Seekers

Hrrmm, creepy black veins around my screen. What could go wrong?

From its launch, I’ve praised The Secret World as the most fun and interesting MMO I’ve played in years, and that I plan on sticking to it for a long time especially if they keep up with their monthly updates. I know there have been some hiccups along the way for Funcom, including some restructuring and staff layoffs, but against all odds they’ve managed to catch up and maintain their update schedule! What is this? How dare they keep their promises! Now where the hell am I going to find the time to play all this new content?! Unforgivable, I tell you…

Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit I’m no good at MMO juggling. Being able to concentrate on one game at a time appeals more to my personality, but I try and try anyway. Thanks to Guild Wars 2 and now World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, I’ve been shelving TSW to play again when things calm down a little, but it doesn’t help that every time I sit down and my computer and see a TSW article, some exciting news about upcoming updates, or even the game icon on my desktop, I get the urge to fire up the game. My addiction to it is still very much in my system.

What I really need is focus, and sometimes a schedule or a little bit of enforced structure does wonders. Which is why I’m so pleased that my multi-gaming guild has decided to put together “The Secret World Nights”.

These static weekly Monday night sessions began yesterday, when a handful of members from Knights of Mercy dove right back into the game and started kicking Egyptian cultist butt. Like all MMOs, the game is so much more fun when playing with other people — not to mention the difficulty level takes a jump once you leave the Solomon Islands and head into Egypt, so the extra manpower really helps. Not only were we able to support our fellow cabal-mates, the quests being repeatable also garnered everyone, even those who have completed them already, much needed AP and SP.

At the end of the night, the remaining brave souls, full of piss and vinegar, even tried to take on super-powerful mobs in a lair. These are a somewhat new feature in the game, which is probably why we were completely unprepared for the good old-fashioned thrashing we received. Originally designed for three players in endgame gear, lairs have been toned down so more casual players can also attempt them, but it was still painfully clear that we had wildly overestimated our own power. Silly us! This is TSW, after all.

KoM will be returning to TSW next Monday night, and every Monday thereafter, hopefully to polish off some of the new quests that have been added in the latest issues. It’s great, even if you’re not the grouping type but would still like the company. Personally, I love it because I know this is a great opportunity for me to keep up with the content.

Speaking of which, by the way, I still need to get my rocket launcher. Oh, and we all know the Halloween content is coming soon…

GW2: Insert The Standard Launch Character Introductions Post Here

It’s inevitable, I’m writing a character intro post which must mean Guild Wars 2 headstart has kicked off and is live!

It’s also inevitable, that the very fact I’m not playing right now but am instead banging out this post means that we’re experiencing some hiccups at launch (it’s around 8am at the time of this writing). I just hope that most people will be patient and realize launch days are going to be full of unexpected downtimes like this. I was grateful that Arenanet decided to bring up the servers three hours early last night, allowing me to create my characters and sneak in some brief playtime which I otherwise thought I would not have, and for the most part my hour-to-two-hours played beautifully and without a single hitch. I even got the names I wanted, without having to give last names.

If you’d like to say hello, my ID is Caylinn.6459, my guild is Knights of Mercy, and the server is Fort Aspenwood. I think most people have committed to a home by now, but if you happen to be still looking or if in the future you’re looking to guest, ss my Asura would say, we’d be pleased and honored to play with you, bookah! Without further ado, let’s get on to the new additions of my MMO family.

Kilioe (pronounced Kee-lee-oh-eh) – Sylvari Guardian

Kilioe, or Embelia pacifica, is actually a plant native to Hawaii. Not only had I wanted a flora-related name for my Sylvari, as I looked upon my Guardian in the character creator I suddenly recalled this name from a college botany project and to me the the name just seemed to fit. The current plan is for her to be my main.

Moggsi – Asura Thief

I frequently go by the abbreviation MMOGC, which some people in the blogosphere/twittersphere have taken to pronouncing it “Mogsy.” While I admit to thinking it was the most unfortunate nickname at the time, since then it has grown on me. I “Asura’ed” it up a bit, doubling up the “G” and replacing the last letter with the more feminine “I” associated with female names in Asura culture (I’m such a lore nerd). You can’t really tell by her celebration hat and town clothes, but my Asura Thief is pretty much the splitting image of the one I made in beta.

Sooner or later, I’m sure their stories will take shape and develop. (One thing I do know though, is that my Asura will be getting a happy childhood and not the damaged past that some commenters seem so fond of bestowing upon their own Asuras )

One of these days I will also be making a Charr for our guild warband, a completely voluntary and fun project promoting camaraderie by KoM. Since the custom is to involve a common word in all our names (which as a guild we’ve chosen by popular vote as “Knight”), it’s going to take some idea brainstorming.

Screenshot of the Day: Purged By (Growing) Pains

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’d probably know that I go through cycles with World of Warcraft, taking breaks and going back as I feel like it. Still, I have to say this is the most fun I’ve ever had returning to the game. I’m sure the company has everything to do with it, as I along with several folks from my multi-game guild has decided to take a casual dip back into WoW before the arrival of Mists of Panderia. We’ve all either started new characters or picked up long-forgotten baby alts, and one thing we were curious about was how we would do in a dungeon as a group of lowbies.

So, riddle me this: what do you get when you take five people, put them in an MMO that none of them have played in ages, get them on baby characters they’ve all forgotten how to play, and stick them in the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard? You get:

So okay, the first big pull ended up in a pathetic wipe, but it was caused by a confluence of unfortunate events. I think we all knew beforehand that our very first run together was either going to be really easy or really hard. Our Priest was playing healing spec for the first time, the tank would sometimes forget to be in the right stance, and we’d also inadvertently pulled the boss with Shaman totem aggro. Plus, by then I was pretty sure that anyone still left standing was giggling too hard to be really effective at anything.

And yet, it was great! For me, it was also a momentous event. Personally, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been through a low level dungeon in WoW “properly” without being powered through on an alt by a level-capped friend, or more often than not, I just skipped them entirely. It’s been years, probably not since the first time I leveled up my main. However, our humble little group has started anew, complete with a humble little guild. Luckily, since that pitiful first wipe, we haven’t had another. In fact, in the interim we’ve completed a lot more classic dungeons for our guild achievements — no reason at all, other than just for the fun of it.

There are definitely some growing pains, but in the face of disastrous early results, all you can do is laugh — because it is kinda funny if you think about it. WoW veterans, destroyed by puny SM trash. In a way, the game feels new again.

Funcommunication

Everyone gets those warm, fuzzy feelings for a company when they make a good product, but for me and many others that’s only a part of the story. When it comes to MMOs and the game makers that produce them, quality customer care and communication can go a long way in making up the rest of it.

A few days ago, my husband and I were playing The Secret World and had the misfortune of running into a bugged quest, one of those profoundly and irreversibly screwed up situations with a stuck objective which could only be fixed with a petition to a GM. It was the first time since I started playing this game that I had to do this, but I’d heard nothing but good things from many of my friends who have had contact with customer service, so I was admittedly quite curious as to what my own experience would be like.

Honestly? I was pleasantly surprised. On a Saturday evening, right smack in the middle of a busy celebration weekend, both my husband’s and my tickets were answered by a helpful in-game representative within ten minutes, and within another five we were all fixed up and ready to go. Let’s face it, bugged quests are irritating as all hell and no one ever likes running into them, but the sting sure is lessened by a prompt response and swift resolution to the problem. I was very satisfied.

Granted, based on the inevitable complaints on the forums, not everyone has been as fortunate. So maybe you can say that my husband and I just happened to hit the GM lottery.

Still, no one can deny the other ways that Funcom has attempted to reach out to their customer base and fans of their game. From their efforts, I gather there has been a push to improve customer service and communication since the days of Age of Conan, especially in the realm of social media.

For the most part, it’s been pretty effective on me. Recall the /headdesk inducing chat bug that plagued TSW for weeks, at a time when the game is still so new and getting to know your fellow players is of the utmost importance. Several choice words not limited to “unacceptable” and “game breaking” came to mind, but while I can’t speak for others, I know I for one was immediately appeased when I saw this update post and understood that they were working on it and that the problem was more complex than expected. Well, that and Indiana Jones references get me EVERY TIME.

Between following @Morteia and @funcom_tsw accounts on Twitter, I know I can actually count on staying up-to-date with TSW happenings. In particular, I have also been impressed by Creative Director Ragnar Tornquist’s presence on Twitter, forums and game sites, interacting with players and answering their questions. Thus far, he has responded to pretty much every one of mine. As a player and a fan of his work, I won’t deny that felt pretty damn amazing. To see such a celebrated designer and someone so integral to the game’s development get so involved is very rare indeed and I gotta say much appreciated.

That’s not all. After watching this hilarious webcast from yesterday, I also have to give a special nod to the livestreams hosted by TSW devs about once every other week. With the hosts drinking beer and swearing up a storm (though given that PvP was involved, I can understand completely), the recording is most decidedly NSFW, but still I have to say its genuine and unscripted nature is what I love best about it and why I will always make the effort to tune in each time.

I know not everything can be revealed due to spoilers and I certainly don’t begrudge a company’s need to keep certain information hush-hush during development. And yet, I can’t help but feel that the kind of candidness I saw in yesterday’s livestream is a breath of fresh air at a time when it’s way more common to hear the dreaded words “We can’t talk about that right now” come repeatedly out of a developer’s mouth. Open and honest communication and Q&As like that give me high hopes for the future of TSW.

As well, aside from showing everyone that he is one cruel tease, Ragnar’s random revelations (yay for alliteration) such as Peter Stormare doing voice work for the game are quite significant. They’re not particularly telling, nor are they true game updates, but those little tidbits do a good job of letting me know that there are some big things up the pipeline to look forward to (can you say Odin and Norse mythology?!)