Initial Impressions (TSW)
With no NDA for the TSW Beta weekends I can happily discuss my experience of playing through the first few hours. I aim not to give any spoilers and will hopefully I’ll focus more on the mechanics/systems in the game and if this isn’t what you want to read about then I’d suggest you stop reading here.
Highlight 1
TSW has been promoting their no-level progression system and to be fair I always took this with a pinch of salt as this often translates into “we refuse to call them levels but the mechanics are the same”. However TSW have managed to pull it off in a rather successful way.
To sum up my play-style, I’m a lore whore, hovering up any story lines and quest arcs whenever possible but as I reminded during my recent playing of Swtor, this often results in you over-levelling can the foes you encounter are weaker and present no challenge.
With TSW I played my normal path and picked up quests as frequently as possible (there is a low capacity for quests) and it felt very natural that the location/game content still matched. Enemies were still hitting me just as hard, despite me having some new skills to use against them.
Hightlight 2
Quests give a quick indicator that tell you how many parts it comprises of, this feature is good for juggling long and short term missions, plus in the one area in use this weekend, quests originate from investigations and not just contacts, which at first I thought was gimmicky but it’s not over used (yet) and the quests are very varied.
Highlight 3
The game uses much phasing to delivery a good experience for the player, despite there being a high volume of players in the area I didn’t feel that my quests were impacted by this. Only once did I have to wait for a clicky to respawn and it was only between 5 and 10 seconds.
We’ll that’s my first post complete, nothing magic but certainly a good start to the game.
Secret no more
In preparation for the Secret World launch and Beta events a few weeks back I started planning running a group where players could meet and team up without the being confined to one Society.
The game allows mixed faction grouping so why can you be part of a group who wants players from all societies to interact, discuss tactics, arrange events and generally have a good time. It frustrated me that I can’t plan to play with friends who are in other societies and cabals. I didn’t what to set up a whole guild/clan required players to dedicate time under a banner of my making, more that I wanted to offer players a way to coordinate with virtual friends who maybe haven’t followed the same society.
So I present to you The BlastShield Consortium, a non-traditional group to bring gamers together for PvE adventures.
So if you are without a clan/guild/cabal for the upcoming beta events or are just looking for somewhere different to coordinate your game play why not give us a visit?
No more secrets
I don’t normally get caught up in events, ARs or other pre-game activities, however I’ve been drawn in by the Funcoms Secret War game. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who has been drawn in to the game despite the fact it authenticate via facebook has instantly put some people off, which is understandable. But at least it’s not using my Origin friend list of 3 as the source of my information.
The game has recently started it’s 3rd week with the battle currently raging over all of Africa, while the factions attempt to retain control of their base countries and states. The previous week was all about taking and holding the opposing factions territories, which saw the map a patchwork of red, green and blue.
I believe that I’ve only got one more rank to achieve in the War which is Secret Agent, I’m not sure how long the war is actually running but once I’ve achieved the top rung I think that’s in for me unless there is a hidden bonus levels or content I’m unaware of.
Those playing need to remember to link their Secret War account to their Funcom Secret World account otherwise how are you going to claim all those goodies. You can find the link to do this your original sign up email but Funcom also email you at certain milestones, with a helpful reminder included.
Once you have done that you can quickly view the items you have earnt from participating in the war, it looks as if you have been raiding the cash shop early.
