My Review of The Secret World by Funcom

The Secret World
Modern Time Based MMO by Funcom & EA

Off and on I have had the opportunity to participate in Funcom's beta weekend for The Secret World. The promises of a modern era MMO, with no rigid classes or levels seemed intriguing and worth checking out; despite having been burned in the past by Funcom's attempts at MMOs (Anarchy Online, and Age of Conan specifically).   

Before getting into my thoughts of the game, let's talk about what I did. I first created a character on the Illuminati side. This starts you in New York, for a few minutes anyway. Several cut-scenes, some introductory on the 'follow-the-triangle' method of questing, a tutorial, and more cut-scenes later, you're ready to start playing the game. New York appears to be setup mere to introduce you to the game and get you to Agartha, which is the central transportation hub of the game. In Agartha you walk along the roots of "The Tree of Life" and step through portals to other locations. Additionally, walking along the roots has been shortened to stepping into mini-portals that zip you from one node on the root to another. Walking around in Agartha, aside from throngs of players, are large tree guardians.


For comparison's sake I created another character on the Templar side. While the two characters look different, This character started in London, and while the cut-scenes were different, the rest was essentially the same thing as my experience in New York; including the fact that it ends with leading you into Agartha.

My blade wielder, "High-Turkey", enters
Agartha for the first time.

Once in Agartha, regardless of your side, you're taken to Kingsmouth; a town overrun by a zombie infestation. The town includes a last stand point built around the sheriff's station, walled up with make-shift walls of board, cars, etc. The whole feel of the town is very gloomy, as one would expect in a zombie infested town. Inside are there are a few quests to take, including the story line quest and a few side quests. Further into the town the streets are setup like a small 'Main Street' town would be, with small packs of zombies feasting here and there. After a couple of skills and some base equipment, these 'Returned Townies' are simple to handle, even in larger packs. My weapon of choice has been the assault rifle, but there has been a fair mix of weapon types throughout. 

Follow the trail of sign-posts

As you explore the town you find that many of the quests are not started, or finished at the hub, but rather sparked from objects or people throughout the town. In many cases, despite the existence of a 'follow-the-triangle' directional finder, many of the quests still require the player to think a little and figure it out. The triangle, many times, only leads you to the general area, and it's up to you to figure out the rest of it. This includes a much asked about code to open a safe. No spoilers in this review, but suffice it to say, the answers are out there. 

But What About the Graphics:

The firehouse is empty, well except a few zombies

On the surface, the world seems bleak, barren, and generally uninteresting. Much of it feels like movie set buildings, where, if you could open the door, you know inside would be nothing but an empty box. There are, nestled here and there, pockets of detail. The museum, for example, has a nice display setup of a mining cart and tracks, along with signs and other similar details. The fire-station, however, doesn't even have a firetruck; it is, for the most part, a box with stairs, and zombies. The docks, on the other hand, have stuff littered all over them creating realistic detail, but the hardware store you're sent to for a quest, doesn't even let you in (a missed opportunity there).

Yeah; that's an improvement, I'd say

The graphics, compared to other modern MMOs, are okay. It is a marked improvement over Funcom's previous products, including AoC, and has certainly beat WoW's cartoon world, in my opinion. If you played Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic, you may find the characters and environment to be a bit outdated feeling. That said, though, as I continued to play, I noticed less and less what I didn't like about the graphics, and grew to appreciate more and more what I did like. They have done a good job setting mood and tone. It's dark, dreary, and at times scary. My character feels real enough, as do the other players and monsters around me. 

Character Creation:

There are options, but sure would like some more!

Player customization could certainly have been better. There are absolutely no body tweaks from the neck down. Your body is the same as everyone else, aside from male versus female. Where you do get some control is with the head. Again, though, the choices are, by today's standards, fairly limited. With: 8 base head types, 13 skin color choices, 7 eye shapes (with 12 colors), 7 types of noses, lips and jaws, 19 hair styles (with 13 colors), 8 eyebrow types, and 17 makeup styles (with 13 colors) for the female characters. This seems like a lot when you put it in a list, but many of the differences are minor, and generally not noticeable during play.

Dear, you're a bit under-dressed for a
zombie apocalypse

On the first day of play there were many more options available, at character creation, for clothing than there are now, but this is probably the closest to keeping your look unique. Still, though, much of the variance is based on a few styles with a few color choices. Interestingly, there are 7 colors of glasses to pick from, but none of them are sunglasses. With the setting being such a underworld setting, one would almost expect everyone to be wearing sunglasses at night. The lack of big, black, leather boots is a bit of a surprise as well. Rest assured, though, most of the young boys will likely be running around in hot-pants and a bikini top with their digital dolls. 

Selecting a character name comes with a few rules

Picking a name is also different. You pick a first, last, and nickname. The first and last names don't have to be unique, but do have a slew of rules on them: No numbers, at least three characters but no more than 14, must begin and end with a letter, may contain two non-consecutive dashes, and may contain one apostrophe. The nickname, however, must be unique, must start with a letter, must be between three and 14 characters in length, may contain two non-consecutive dashes, may contain one apostrophe, may end in up to four consecutive numbers, and must end in either a letter or a number. Considering, as best I can tell, the first and last names don't really do anything in the world, it's a lot of complication for no apparent benefit. Also; I was never able to get the UI to let me use that second dash. Additionally, "drunk" and "drunken" appear to be 'inappropriate' words...

On Leveling:

Funcom Y U NO Have Levels But Have Level Bar?

On the flexible non-level, non-class based experience system... They're a little dishonest here. Your classes are: Ranged, Melee, and Magic. Those are broken down into sub-classes: Pistols, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Fist Weapons, Blades, Hammers, Elemental Magic, Chaos Magic, and Blood Magic. The only reason they're not truly classes is because you're not required to pick only one. Though, if you want to be really good at something you'll spend all of your points, at least early on, building up that skill type. There is also an experience bar that fills up as you gain experience, and when you hit certain, ahem, levels on that bar, you gain ability and skill points. While your character may not have a number assigned to it, you still level through an experience bar. 

The only thing innovative here is that it's a circle... wait...

Overall most of this aspect isn't really that different than anything you've seen before. There are skill categories, sub-categories, and gated advanced level categories. One part, though, that is a bit different starts to come into effect after you've spend a bunch of skill points, and I'm talking about building and maintaining your decks. In most other games, if you earned, or bought a passive skill, that's then end of that, it's now part of your character forever. In The Secret World, however, you have 7 slots with which to pick what passive skills should be active. You also only have 7 slots for which active skills you can use. This doesn't become an issue, if you specialize in one weapon type, until you've completed the first tier of the skill wheel, because they're designed to give you 7 active and 7 passive skills. After that, if you want more weapon types or grow into the advanced tier, you'll need to start picking what skills you want to be able to use without having to switch decks (not a difficult task, but something you wouldn't want to do during combat).

Regarding Skills:

The skill selection feels fairly standard. Some skills do big damage, but have gates or long cycle times, etc, others are fast but do low damage, there are skills to build focus, and skills to heal yourself or your friends. There are also buffs, and debuffs, though, as an Assault Rifle specialist, I didn't really get much into that. Speaking of; as an Assault Rifle specialist, things were a little challenging until I got a skill called Anima Shot, with this skill I could leach/heal myself while doing damage, and it was an instant 'cast' with no cool-down, plus it built focus. Not the only skill I used after that, but pretty close. It was based on this how I could see building a deck won't be too bad, as you can whittle down the skills you use fairly easily, though, I'd still like to have all my passives that I bought, especially since you have to buy them in a linear path to get the to top ones.

Overall, though, the skills seem to be laid out to allow the player to pick a play-style they prefer, rather than forcing them into a specific combo, stance, or other routine where everyone drives their character the same way.

Questing:

This quest is 'Hard' or so they say...

Thanks, in no small part, to Funcom wanting to say there is no leveling, quests aren't marked by level. They do appear to be gated, however, to encourage you to 'level-up' enough before attempting to do quests that will just detach your rear and hand it to you. Some quests are marked as "hard" and others "normal". These are meant to indicate quests that are easily solo-able 'at-level' versus quests that may require a group to complete. That said, soloing 'hard' quests is certainly something you can do if you're an experienced gamer, unless you try to take one on too early in your character's ability. 

For the most part, quests are standard fare. Go kill this, go find that, explore here, etc. Some of the differences are in the tiered system. Many times quests will have several tiers, all of which play out while you're out doing them. Then when you're done, you 'turn in' your quest via the phone you were given early on. This is nice in that you don't have to run all the way back to turn it in. The catch is, however, since you can't just pick up all the quests you see and complete them at the same time, you do still get to run back for more quests. As previously mentioned, though, this is tempered by there being many quests out in the world, and not all just starting from the main hub.

Don't let that camera, which emits really bright light
see you, because it also shoots missiles or something.

There are puzzles, and while you could certainly ask for the answers, the general player-base response is "dude, just look around, the clues are there". When someone does post the answer in the public chat, it's quite amusing listening to the stream of "Ermahger Spurlers!". Without giving away anything, there is a quest early in called "Horror Show" that introduces Funcom's espionage quests. First you have to collect a few items and then you're led into a basement where you must defeat the traps in order to complete the quest. 

Final Thoughts:

My first reactions to The Secret World were pretty dismal. That said, my expectations were also low, being that it's a Funcom game. After sticking with it for a couple days, though, it's gone up a notch or two in my eyes. It still lacks a lot of polish I think the gaming community is used to from other games, but it does have some things others do not. It also, quite magically, improved quite a bit from Friday night into Saturday afternoon, with a minor patch. While the back story is still pretty vague and uninviting, the environment overall is unique and refreshing (as much as gloom and zombies can be). Hopefully there is more diversity to be seen at higher levels, but there's something satisfying about taking out a mangled naked woman zombie, with huge tentacles protruding from her body, using an assault rifle, instead of a bow and arrow. 


Pros:

• Unique Environment - Dark, twisted, and very underworld
• Can be whatever you want from available ability sets
• Shooting zombies with automatic weapons
• Puzzles that require thought

Cons:

• Agartha - A real cop-out in how to travel across the globe in a game set in modern times
• Confusing quest system that takes a bit of a learning curve
• Lack of real crafting - you can 'craft' but it's minimal and clearly an afterthought
• Lack of stuff to do - If you're not out killing or fetching stuff, there isn't much else to do
• Still quite buggy - early on, expect to crash or have quests not behave exactly right
• No compelling storyline - how you're special or different makes no sense, and you're doing stuff 'just because'
• Voice acting is marginal, community theater quality in comparison to other recent games

I originally score this game as a 2 out of 5, but after the improvements made on day two, and getting to know it a little better, I am regrading it using a more in-depth method:

Graphics:	7/10
Story:	3/10
World:	7/10
Gameplay:	6/10
Fun:	8/10
Overall:	6.2/10