The Secret World takes place here, on Earth, as it would be if myths and legends were true, and magic and science held a place side by side in reality. If you’re tired of elves, dwarves, and gnomes, this game may provide you a sanctuary from the standard fantasy themes that so many MMO’s live by. The fact that the game takes place on a version of our world gives the developers the unique opportunity to tell stories that take place in familiar locations and touch on our sentimental side, while allowing them the freedom to change certain details, as well as create locales that are unique and flow well with the stories of dark magic and mystery. No spoilers, but you end up becoming empowered, and are recruited by one of the three factions who are attempting to control the chaos, determine its cause, and put an end to it. Each faction does so in its on unique way, of course.

Upon firing up the login screen, the now familiar theme music began playing, and I can’t lie, I got excited. That music has been the soundtrack to many great trailers that helped draw me into this world, and before I could even login, the mood was being set. Music is one of the most important aspects of any game, movie, or show, and it put me into the proper mindset while I was still trying to remember what my freaking Funcom login password was.

Character creation was, well lets just say, lackluster. There were a few options to be had, but for the most part everyone in beta looked pretty similar. Especially all of us who ran around in long black trench coats. I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist the awesome mystique of the trench coat. This is still early beta, and I’ve heard word that there is definitely more planned for the character creator, but as a review of what I saw this past weekend, it has to be mentioned.

The opening cut-scenes felt a bit long, but told a story of how you came to be, “empowered”. Again, no spoilers here, but the means by which you find yourself in possession of these abilities is, well, lame. You can judge for yourself, but I found that part a little uninspired. Other than that the opening scenes do a fair job of explaining what you’re going through, and where you are going next. The only other qualm I have with these cut-scenes is that your character is absolutely mute throughout the game, and never so much as nods in response to anything said to him/her despite the fact that the NPC’s speaking to you often react as if you have responded. Not every game can have multiple storyline choices presented on a conversation wheel for you to choose from, but we’ve pretty much come to a day and age where if you are going to do dialouge scenes, player characters should be voiced and have opinions about what is going on around them.

Once out in the world, I will have to say that I was pretty impressed with the rendering of the enviroments around me. It was unique and exciting to see real-world buildings in real-world towns rendered into a virtual playground for me to explore. Once I made my way to Kingsmouth, the first real questing area, the foreboding enviroment did a great job of telling the story of a darkness descending upon the area before any NPC had a chance to tell me. If there is one thing Funcom can do, it’s create a world, and they’ve done a nice job with the areas I have seen thus far in The Secret World.

Graphically, I do have a few issues however. The Secret World runs on the same game engine as Age of Conan, another Funcom MMO, and honestly the character models show a little age because of it. Now I can’t say that they are bad, because they certainly aren’t, but they are definitely not new and shiny either. Coupled with what is currently stiff, stilted, and often awkward animations, especially during combat, player characters look to be 4-5 years past their prime. Funcom has stated that the animations are also on their list of ‘to-do’s', and if they can smooth those out and create more realistic movement sets, my issues with the slightly outdated look of the models can definitely be overlooked.

Another aspect of the game that is suffering at the moment is combat. There are lots and lots of different powers to choose from in The Secret World, and the skill wheel is one of the most unique and interesting ideas to come around in a while, but the act of participating in combat is dull and completely uninspired. The animation issues stated above come into play here, but there are also issues with particle effects, ability timing, and NPC reactions to being attacked. If I smack a zombie with a big ol’ sledge hammer, I want it to act like it. (Also, I never thought I would hear myself say this, but this game could really use automatic target facing as well.) Firearms in particular look, feel, and sound weak, and after trying them out for a while, I found myself avoiding using guns at all.

This game mimics a very WoW way of doing combat, as you mostly just stand and button smash things to death, occasionally moving out of a telegraphed enemy ablitity, but it just isn’t fun right now. If an MMO dev does not want to re-invent combat with every game, and chooses to focus instead on making other aspects of their game the main draw, that is fine by me, but a combination of animation changes, particle effect updates, and ability function tweaks should help make combat more enjoyable.

So combat isn’t going to be a unique draw, and graphically you’re not going to see any bleeding-edge technology, but The Secret World is looking to hang its hat on two things; the setting, which we have talked about, and questing your way through this setting. Now don’t get me wrong, you’re still going to get quests that ask you to go kill a certain number of things, or find items, or talk to someone, but questing in The Secret World has its own unique flair that fits in well with the unique setting and story. Quests are tiered events, often beginning with a simple task, which leads into other tiers that often include more unique and interesting activites. You might start out with a quest to kill a few zombies, which leads into finding where they are coming from, which leads into fighting a big ugly monster that literally froze me in place for a few seconds when I first saw it, conviced I was about to get roflstomped into the ground and wondering if I should try to get a group together.

The quests are automatically updated as you complete each tier. Each quest tells you which tier of the quest you are on, and how many tiers the quest contains. Completing quests given to you from an NPC can often unlock a new quest, and many quests are repeatable after a 24 hour wait period. There are also individual quests throughout the world for you to discover. While questing you will also be sending updates to your given faction, and also receive rewards and sometimes further instructions from them. These reports are updated from the quest objective tracker and your rewards appear instantly in your inventory, preventing you from having to run back to your faction’s home city every few minutes for a debriefing.

There are no ‘levels’ in The Secret World. You advance by gaining points to unlock new abilites, and acquiring new stat items to improve your character. The skill wheel requires you to unlock abilities with certain restrictions as far as having to unlock one thing to get down the chain to another ability, but you are free to spend your points in any specialization you want, and once you have abilities unlocked you can mix and match those in pretty much any way you want on your action bar, the restriction there being that you can only have 7 activatable abilities, and 7 passive abilities on your bar and usable at a time. What this provides is the ability to ‘build-out’ a character and try different combinations in different situations without having hundreds of abilities bound to your action bar. For me there is a lot of enjoyment to be had in creating and experimenting with different builds, and this feature alone could entertain me for hours.

The Secret World is a game that is trying to build a unique corner for itself in the MMO market by presenting a setting and story that are unlike most everything else available, and there are those of us who would play it for those reasons. But that doesn’t mean that other aspects of the game can be forgotten and left to collect dust. Funcom has developed a game that has an opportunity to really stand out from the crowd and make a name for itself, and at this point they have plenty of time to tweak and adjust the needed things that can add that level of polish that we are all looking for. The Secret World made a positive impression on me and it is on my list of games I would be interested in playing, but there is still some work to be done. I’m looking forward to seeing the progress that is made going forward.

Characters from your previous beta play should be available to play, but all participants should be aware that this is a stress test, and as such, performance and connection issues are to be expected. That is the point of a stress test, to create problems now, so that the devs can identify them and eliminate them before launch.

Hopefully there aren’t too many problems, and those of us who are looking forward to calling Guild Wars 2 home can enjoy a little time with our game. See ya then!

Clicking the convenient link in my email took me directly to the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter page, where I immediately began scrolling down the right side, looking for the pledge reward tier that best suited my desire for the game, and financial contiribution abilities right now. The usual $1 and $5 pledge tiers were there, but I wanted a little more from this game, so I kept reading, looking for the tier that would provide me a copy of the game, and possibly a few extra perks as well.

Making my way into the $15 range, I noticed that a copy of the game had still not been offered, but I reminded myself that this is an MMO, and that the price for the actual game would likely be higher than the $15 mark where you can typically get copies of a lot of indie games. So I scrolled some more, still comfortable with the price range for what seemed to be an MMO that could break new ground in the genre. When I got past $100, my comfort level ceased to exist, and my brain began to realize something was a little odd here. I re-read all the pledge tiers to make sure I hadn’t missed something. Suddenly, the truth of what I was looking at hit me. I read the title of the Kickstarter page twice before what I was seeing really sunk in.

“Pathfinder Online Technology Demo”

This wasn’t a Kickstarter for a game, it was to raise $50,000 so that Goblinworks could create a tech demo to show potential publishers. My initial reaction was outrage, but I closed the page and walked away, hoping to find perspective with time. They had not lied or mis-led me in any way. The title and accompanying video made it very clear what they were raising funds for, but my mind kept going back to the same thought, “Why should I give you money, so that you can make a demo to use to try to get money?”. I mean, seriously.  If I donate money to you, and you haven’t even made a tech demo yet, aren’t I now more invested in your game than you are?

The fact of the matter is that the project is already funded, as fans came out and supported the game instantly, and reading through the comments section gives me the impression that the majority of them knew that they weren’t supporting the actual development of the game, and were not being promised a game, nor beta access even, in return. Sure, Goblinworks has full intentions of developing this game, and I believe that a publisher will be found, but at the end of the day, this game could be cancelled at any moment because no publisher likes what it sees. And how will the community feel when Goblinworks comes BACK to Kickstarter, asking for thousands more dollars for actual development?

Obviously there is a significant portion of players and fans out there who feel differently about this, but I can’t help but feel like a tech demo is part of business as usual for a game developer, and if you are coming to Kickstarter for that money, why are you even in business? At what point do the backers say, “Ummm….you need to show us a little more if you want free money”? The publishers sure as hell say that. I suppose I can’t blame the developers for going to Kickstarter. If I could make more than $50,000 appear out of thin air, I probably would too. I just personally feel that a line should be drawn somewhere, and for me it is at the point where you want me to give you money, and I don’t get a game. Your money is yours, feel free to spend it as you see fit. I’ll be holding on to mine for now.

This weekend’s beta event will allow players to experience the game as an initiate of the Templar (boooo, Illuminati RULE!), and after entering the faction’s headquarters, you will be tasked with a mission that takes you to a small island off the coast of New England. Once there you must discover what dark forces are responsible for the trouble in the town of Kingsmouth.

Players who have pre-ordered The Secret World are guaranteed beta access, but if you still haven’t secured your copy Gamespot is giving away a limited number of beta keys, so you can try your luck there.

There is no NDA for this weekend’s event, so you can be sure that The MMO Gamer will have some articles up next week detailing our time in The Secret World. See ya in game!

Riot has unleashed it’s latest champion onto the League of Legends, and Varus, the Arrow of Retribution, wields his bow with deadly accuracy, destroying those who stand in his way.

If you’ve been wondering what can happen when someone really, truly lets their dark side get the best of them, then look no further than Varus, the Arrow of Retribution. The newest Champion in the League of Legends is a dangerous combination between caster and ranged carry, and is equipped with a number of abilities designed to both whittle enemies down from range, and allow him to close in for the kill.”

Abilities:

• Living Vengeance (Passive): On kill or assist, Varus temporarily gains Attack Speed. This bonus is larger if the enemy is a champion.
• Piercing Arrow: Varus readies and then fires a powerful shot that gains extra range and damage the longer he spends preparing to fire.
• Blighted Quiver: Varus’ basic attacks deal bonus magic damage and apply Blight. Varus’ other abilities detonate Blight, dealing magic damage based on the target’s maximum health.
• Hail of Arrows: Varus fires a hail of arrows that deal physical damage and desecrate the ground. Desecrated ground slows enemies’ Movement Speed and reduces their healing and regeneration.
• Chain of Corruption (Ultimate): Varus flings out a tendril of corruption that immobilizes the first enemy champion hit and then spreads towards nearby uninfected champions, immobilizing them too on contact.

Lore:

For his incomparable skill with the bow and his unquestioned sense of honor, Varus was chosen to be the warden of a sacred Ionian temple. The temple was built to contain an ancient pit of corruption so vile that Ionian Elders feared it could envelop the island in darkness. Varus prided himself on his position, as only the most exceptional Ionian warriors were selected for the role. He lived with his family in a nearby village and led a quiet life of disciplined routine until the day the forces of Noxus invaded Ionia. Their shock troops left nothing but death and desolation in their wake, and the temple lay in their path. Varus was forced to make a decision. He was bound by honor to stay and defend the temple, but without him the village’s few inhabitants could offer little resistance against the oncoming war machine. Gravely, he chose to fulfill his duty as a warden. The corruption could not be allowed to escape.

His arrows sundered the troops who tried to wrest the temple from him that day. However, when he returned to the village, he found that it had been reduced to a smoldering graveyard. Remorse at the sight of his slain family gave way to overwhelming regret and then to seething hatred. He swore to slaughter every Noxian invader, but first he needed to become stronger. He turned to that which he had sacrificed everything to protect. The pit of corruption would consume him wholly, as a flame devours a wick, but its abominable power would burn within him until he was lost. This was a path from which there could be no return. With grim resolve, he condemned himself to the black flames, feeling malevolent energy bond to his skin…and with it, the promise of ruin. He left, seeking the blood of all Noxians involved with the invasion, a grisly task that eventually led him to the invasion’s most infamous perpetrators in the League of Legends.

”The life of an arrow is fleeting, built of nothing but direction and intent.” – Varus

Source: League of Legends

Game Informer is reporting on their site that they will have a teaser trailer as well as a screenshot sometime tomorrow, and that the June edition of their magazine will contain an unveiling of The Elder Scrolls Online.

The Elder Scrolls Online is reportedly set 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim, and should occur in the entire world of Tamriel, as the daedric prince Molag Bal attempts to pull the world into his realm.

More infomation is sure to begin pouring out soon, and we will bring you all the updates as they become available.

Source: Game Infomer

It is difficult to not begin with the visual art style the developers have chosen. The world of Tyria is presented as if painted onto a canvas with beautiful strokes from the finest brush. The forests, mountains, and cities in the background are given life with an artistic watercolor styling, leaving them distant and unobtrusive, yet alive and impossible to miss. When other game take an “artistic” visual approach, it often ends up felling cartoonish and animated. GW2 takes an “artistic” visual approach and transports you into a world that is actually a work of art.

The cities, towns, and wildernesses you visit are all wonderfully rendered, as are the inhabitants of these areas. Tyria is populated with a wide variety of characters that each feel unique and alive as they roam the streets completing whatever daily tasks they have to that day. The character models are finely detailed, and movement animations are smooth and realistic. From the smallest creature, to the largest monster, you can see scales, hair, and battle scars that show the attention to detail the developers have spent precious time creating.

Your own character will not be a plain compilation of polygons that you can count from across the room either. The character creator is quite robust, and you can alter your appearance with options that range from body type, hair styles, and tattoos, to body mass, facial detail sliders, and your characters background, attitude, and beliefs. Character creation is more than deciding how your avatar will appear in-game, it is also creating the beginning of your story, a story that you will then live out as you play the game.

From the opening cinematic, GW2 is presented as an interactive story. You adventure through the world, exploring new areas, and encountering new people and creatures. As you journey through the lands, you come upon areas which contain objectives to complete, such as helping a farmer water his crops, or stopping a band of rampaging centaurs from destroying the water supply. There are static quest objectives all around the map that grant you experience and rewards upon completion, as well as dynamic world events that randomly appear in an area. Either type of world quest objective can be completed alone, but any players in the same area automatically assist each other towards reaching the completion goals. You do not have to drop in and out of groups, and you will not have to fight other players for mob spawns or random drops. The world questing is designed so that co-operation is simple, unobtrusive, and absolutely beneficial. Guild Wars 2 does not overburden you with a bloated quest log of tasks you must complete by travelling to distant locations. You find tasks to complete AS you explore the world. You will receive quests that ask you to report to someone at another location, but you are primarily creating the narrative of your story by journeying through the world, and discovering the adventures that wait for you.

In order to complete your objectives, you will, of course, be using your skills and abilities. Guild Wars 2 has introduced a combat system that is both simple to use, and elaborate enough to keep players interested. Each class has a number of weapons from which they can choose, and wielding different types of weapons opens up the use of different abilities. If you want to run around as a Warrior, for example, wielding a giant two-handed hammer will give you 5 activatable abilities that inflict damage using the tremendous power of the large blunt object you are swinging, or wielding a one handed sword will provide 3 abilities to slice and dice your opponents, while your off hand slot can be equipped with a war horn, shield, or another sword, all of which provide 2 more usable abilities depending on which item you currently have equipped.   You learn how to use the abilities each weapon provides over a short period of time by simply using the abilities currently available to you.  This system provides each class with a large variety of useful skills, allowing them to take part in any capacity that is needed, without having to have more abilities keybound at one time than you could ever possibly use. After level 7 you can have a second set of weapons at the ready, and swich between two weapon sets for high versatility on the fly, and while out of combat you can rearrange which sets are equipped, and prepare yourself for a different combat experience.

Along with your weapons skills, your character will also be able to choose profession skills based on their class. These are abilities unique to each class, providing healing abilities, buffs, and powerful Elite skills. You can complete tasks to acquire skill points which unlock and upgrade new abilities that can be slotted onto your action bar. Here again, there are a large number of skills available, but only a handful can be equipped at once. While many may feel limited by the pre-set number of abilities that can be on the action bar at once, I believe that there are more than enough slots to create viable skill compositions, and that planning what weapons and skills will be available for a fight adds another level of strategy to the game, and keeps it from becoming a button mashing mess that overshadows the game itself, and the story that it is telling.

Story and storytelling have become buzzwords recently in the MMO community, and there are those who believe that the era of quest text is gone, and that voice acted dialogue is a must for story to be present. While those are the ramblings of folks who are too impatient to truly enjoy their games, I will have to say that there is something to be said for voice-acted quest dialogue, and it does draw you in deeper to the story. Guild Wars 2 features hours of voice-acted dialouge from characters who become real to you as you progress through the story and get to know those involved in your journey. These voiced scenes are presented with characters appearing before an artistic background, rather than in the game world, and when I first heard about this choice, I was not very optimistic about it. I thought that it would bring me out of the game world, killing my immersion. To my surprise, that was not the case, and the scenes did an excellent job of telling the story without distraction, or loss of immersion. There is still a “Work in Progress” logo on the voice-acted cut-scenes, but from what I’ve seen thus far, I have every confidence that the final product will be excellent.

The overall experience from this past weekend was by far the most positive and interesting MMO experience I have had in years, and I feel confident that once Guild Wars 2 launches, I will finally have a new MMO to permanently call home for years to come. My experiences so far have left me wishing that I had played the original Guild Wars so that i would be more familiar with the great depth of lore in the GW2 universe that I am unaware of, but at the same time, I am excited by the new world I have to explore, and I look forward to discovering the history and mysteries that await me.  The next-generation of MMO has arrived, and it is called Guild Wars 2.

 PWE/Cryptic Transition FAQ

Q: How does this affect Neverwinter? 

Development for Neverwinter continues at Cryptic Studios, with a revised release date of 2012.

Q: Will Cryptic remain its own entity or will it be absorbed into PWE?

Cryptic Studios is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Perfect World Entertainment.

Q: Will my Cryptic game account(s) become PWE account(s) or will they remain separate? 

Not in the near-term, no. Your accounts will remain Cryptic accounts. There is a possibility that, in the future, we will merge account services with Perfect World. Should that happen, we will keep you apprised.

Q: Who will gain access to my personal data? 

Your privacy and security are extremely important to us. During this transition our Privacy Policy will remain largely unchanged and access to your personal data will remain as restricted as ever, which we detail within the policy.

Q: Will your dev teams be changing? 

There are no plans to change the development team on any of our titles. If anything, we plan on increasing the number of team members to serve you better.

Q: Will your support teams change? 

All of the GMs and Community Representatives you already know will be remaining. Our support team will grow as Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment combine resources.

Q: How will customer support work? 

We have transitioned our Atari customer support related to Cryptic games to product-specific customer support for Cryptic titles. There should be no interruption in service.

Q: Will there be adjustments made to the CO/STO/NW Forum Guidelines? 

Yes. As part of our integration, a great many things will change and be improved upon. Our Codes of Conduct and forum guidelines are no exception. But we do not have a firm timeline for when changes will be implemented.

Q: Does Cryptic still make Cryptic games? 

Yes! Cryptic Studios will continue to operate Champions Online and Star Trek Online. Development will also continue as planned for Neverwinter and other unannounced titles.

Your mission in The Secret War is to spread the influence of your secret society throughout the world. By doing so you will not only defend your secret society’s honor and claim to power (not to mention speed up progress towards the Community Unlockable), you will also rise through their ranks and unlock great rewards that will benefit you in The Secret World MMO when it is released.

You will have to connect your The Secret World account with your Facebook account in order to play.

To get started, just head over to The Secret War site and sign up.

Good news!First Beta Weekend Event will be from April 27-29. We will let you know once the client is ready for download. We’ll have a blog post with details about what and when you can play later today or tomorrow. If you haven’t already: pre-purchase to participate!”

If you haven’t pre-purchased yet, there is still time.  Head over to the Guild Wars 2 site to reserve your spot in the beta events.

How to Enter TERA’s Open Beta Test

Have you pre-ordered TERA and played during a Closed Beta Test? Simply run your launcher to patch the game and you’ll be ready to play on April 19! Did you play during a Closed Beta Test but haven’t pre-ordered TERA yet? Run your launcher to patch the game and you’ll be able to play on April 20. Will the Open Beta Test be your first time playing the game? Welcome to TERA! Here’s how to get started:

1. Log in to your En Masse account. If you do not have an En Masse account yet, create one!
2. Click the Enter Code button on the right.
3. Enter the Open Beta Test code: TERABETA
4. Click the Submit button.
5. Click the Download Game button under the Account Overview tab.
6. This will start downloading the game launcher.
7. Run the launcher and install the game so you’ll be ready to go when the servers open!

Pre-Order Exclusive Event

• Begins: Thursday, April 19 at 12:00 PM Pacific
• Ends: Friday, April 20 at 12:00 PM Pacific

Open Event

• Begins: Friday, April 20 at 12:00 PM Pacific
• Ends: Monday, April 23 at 11:59 PM Pacific

Details

• Characters per Account: 1 per Server
• Maximum Level: 32
• Servers: Pending Early Character Creation

All active players will receive a set of festive Fireworks, as well as a Special Anniversary Cloak, and Premium and VIP players will also receive additional rewards for each year their account has been active.

(1 year):  Players whose accounts were created on or before April 30th 2011 will receive a 1-year Character Portrait Frame, and Fireworks.

(2 years): Players whose accounts were created on or before April 30th 2010 will receive a 2-year Character Portrait Frame, 3 +10% Run Speed Boosts, 1 +5% Attack Damage Boost, 10 Battle Potion of Restorations, and Fireworks.

(3 years): Players whose accounts were created on or before April 30th 2009 will receive a 3-year Character Portrait Frame, 3 Loot Box Keys, and Fireworks.

(4 years): Players whose accounts were created on or before April 30th 2008 will receive a 4-year Character Portrait Frame, New Azure Festive Clothing, and Fireworks.

(5 years): Players whose accounts were created on or before April 30th 2007 will receive a 5-year Character Portrait Frame, a Festive Azure Steed, Festive Azure Clothing, and Fireworks.

All rewards are based upon your account status as of April 15th of this year, and the event runs until April 30th.  For more information you can check out the official site.

That is Dark Legends, the third title in the highly popular Legends franchise of mobile and desktop games which includes the Mobile MMO’s Pocket Legends, and Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles.  Today Dark Legends becomes the first MMO to launch simultaneously on both desktop and mobile platforms, and is available through Google Play for Android Devices, and through the Chrome Web Store for PC, Mac, and Linux.  The game will be exclusive to these stores for the first two weeks, and will then become available to iOS customers as well.

 The commercial launch of Dark Legends across both mobile and desktop simultaneously is another industry first by Spacetime Studios and furthers their goal to create a ubiquitous social gaming experience. The company’s Legends series are the only 3D MMOs in the world that allow people to play the same game together on desktop computers, smart phones and tablets.

Google Play and the Chrome Web Store allow us to upload and update our online, multiplayer games instantly. Their immediate and unified environment fits perfectly with Spacetime’s ability to push global content to our suite of games on-the-fly across mobile and desktop.” said Gary Gattis, CEO of Spacetime Studios. “We’re both at the forefront of creating cross-platform gameplay that connects players in a much deeper online experience, anywhere and on any device.”

Dark Legends is free to download and play, and features an in-game cash shop offering vanity items, health packs, and other typical microtransaction items.  You can check out the official site at DarkLegends.com.

New features include new zones, mounts, and player housing, as well as a level cap increase to 60.

We will be bringing you impressions and videos from Aion: Ascension shortly, so be sure to stay tuned for that, and in the mean time you can head over to the official site and give Aion a try for yourself.  It is free after all.

That’s right. I will be on a bicycle. In traffic. On Cinco de Mayo, the third-drunkest day of the year after New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day. That’s how much I care about this event. I am willing to be run over by a 1985 Dodge Astrovan whose driver has had one too many shots of Patrón for these people.

You can find his fund-raiser page by clicking here.