The Secret World

I just got the game a few weeks ago and love it so far. I'm still fleshing out a Fist/Blood build and playing around with my passives while in Blue Mountain zone. The other characters are running Blade/Blood and Blade/Assault Rifle but that main toon is such a blast to run so far that I haven't spent too much time on them yet The synergy in TSW reminds me alot of Rift but, lacking the respec option, it's not nearly as forgiving. As such I had deleted 2 characters before figuring out what I was doing wrong and deciding what/how to prioritize in regards to the Skill Points.

I'm on Grim: Aeonala (main), Froudiandream, Mythinformed and am usually on after 4PM EST. I love the healer role though I haven't had much of a chance to get the hang of it here. I've yet to complete Polaris, got to the third boss twice but neither of my PUG tanks could get past it. Not sure if it was my lack of healing knowledge, their lack of tanking exp or (most likely) the combination of the two. As such I've decided to double down on the heals and have been building up my Talisman and Fist/Blood healing SP as well as picking up a few QL5-6 pieces from the AH and vendors

If anyone needs a hand, feel free to get in touch

0megawolf wrote:

The synergy in TSW reminds me alot of Rift but, lacking the respec option, it's not nearly as forgiving. As such I had deleted 2 characters before figuring out what I was doing wrong and deciding what/how to prioritize in regards to the Skill Points.

It's more forgiving than it looks, you earn AP/SP at a linear rate. Since most quests are repeatable, you can easily go back and do them again, earn the same amount of points and "respec" that way, just picking different abilities/skills on that pass (and the old ones remain, which can be useful for fine-tuning your passives later on).

Although you only really need to grind through old stuff if you're struggling with the later content, you start getting more and more points as you go on, to the point the early skills can be snapped up entire blocks at a time for the AP cost of a decent sized mission.

A reminder that if you can grin and bear it with a character you get a LOT more ability/skill points later on and it's not terribly hard to fill out quite a range of skills (aka alting is not really necessary)

When I played (as tank) I don't recall normal mode polaris being terribly difficult, like most mmo dungeons the main thing is making sure people understand the basic mechanics, iirc the gear check type stuff doesn't hit until a fair bit later.

Issue 8 Preview

Main things:
1) Virtual training scenarios from the Council of Venice. Completing them gets you a "certificate" that will be needed to enter Tokyo. Tokyo is live with Issue 9!

2) Augments. Augments are new enhancements. You can attach an augment to every one of your abilities. There are 40 augments total (with their own wheel).

Oh, very cool! Might have to jump back in again.

Dipping my toes back in to this again as well. Good thing about my lifetime subscription is that I have enough bonus points amassed after all these months that even after grabbing all the Issues, I can buy pretty much whatever outfits I like, so I've been playing dress-up a bit. Should have some more screenshots for the other thread soon.

So, I'm a Lifetime Member, but I have not logged in since July. Do I need to purchase the Venetian and other quest packs, or do they come with the Lifetime? They are available in the store, but I didn't want to spend bonus points on them if I don't need to.

On the other hand, maybe that's what the bonus points are *for*, so... I dunno.

Edit - I see I need to purchase every content pack after the fourth. So that *is* what the bonus points are for lol.

Edit 2 - Well, that was wrong. Issue 8 contains the three standalone scenario packs before it. The item store WILL NOT keep you from double-dipping, and you'll end up having a nice conversation with a Game Master to get your points back.

That said, I find I'm really looking forward to getting back in. I see we only have 9 people in the Guild. Did people go elsewhere, or is it just dead?

Is there a timed trial for this game? I'd like to give it a try to see if it's for me. I keep seeing mention of "buddy keys" when I do a search -- anyone got a spare?

When they initially went off-sub they said a portion of lifetime member's monthly points was intended to go towards the packs to make them free, while giving enough bonus points to let you pick up some other stuff too. I've not played for a while though so I'm not sure if that's changed.

eta: IIRC you'll have an item either in your inventory or in your deliverable items that is related to the new content if it's simply given to you by default, likewise after purchase.

I did get my points back after the double spend, quickly and easily, via a game master. Worked quite well.

ebarstad, send me your email via pm and I can get you a 72 hour buddy key. If you'd like to wait until some other weekend to get the most out of it, I'm good with that.

Robear wrote:

ebarstad, send me your email via pm and I can get you a 72 hour buddy key. If you'd like to wait until some other weekend to get the most out of it, I'm good with that.

Cheers Robear! Sent.

Hi everyone

I've been lurking here for a while without posting, so apologies for my first post being a request, but could anyone spare a trial key for this please? It's been on my wishlist for a while and it's on sale on Steam this weekend so I'm quite tempted. Not sure how it'll run on my PC though.

Thanks in advance!

pm me with your email, Huw, and I'll set you up.

Trial key sent. Anyone else want one?

Thanks very much Robear! Downloading now. Funcom were a bit weird about it though; I logged into my old Funcom account and applied the key, then they asked me to create a new account...? I shrugged and entered my existing details anyway, which the website seemed happy enough with. Then they sent me an email that looked identical to the one you generated for me, minus the key, in German.

Anyway! Only 16GB to download, I might get to have a go before the weekend is up...

Bah! This game just isn't working on my PC. For a while it wouldn't even launch, until eventually I switched the client from DX11 to DX9. That enabled me to create a character and start the game, but now it will only play for a few minutes at a time before the screen just goes completely black.

I've emailed tech support, but considering the trial is only 72 hours I'm not confident I'll get enough of a look to justify buying the game. Oh well.

How much memory do you have? If you're running a 32-bit OS and so limited to 3 GB then the game will crash a lot; it's very memory intensive. When I started playing back during the beta I actually upgraded from 3GB to 8GB just to play the game.

I have 4GB plus another 0.5 in my GPU on Windows 7-64.

My PC is ancient and I doubt I can run brand new intensive games any more - I can only barely run the original Metro on the absolute lowest settings - but I don't usually have problems with MMOs so this was disappointing.

I did manage to get it to run for quite a lot longer, and was intrigued by what I saw, but it doesn't run well and still crashes on occasion. I don't think it would be a good idea to buy the game, which is a shame. Back to Rift I go!

Huw wrote:

I have 4GB plus another 0.5 in my GPU on Windows 7-64.

My PC is ancient and I doubt I can run brand new intensive games any more - I can only barely run the original Metro on the absolute lowest settings - but I don't usually have problems with MMOs so this was disappointing.

I did manage to get it to run for quite a lot longer, and was intrigued by what I saw, but it doesn't run well and still crashes on occasion. I don't think it would be a good idea to buy the game, which is a shame. Back to Rift I go!

I actually upgraded my PC due to the game. It was the first time my old rig could simply not keep up.

I didn't upgrade my machine JUST for the game (;)), but happened to upgrade while playing the beta and the difference was pretty noticeable compared to other games I was playing at the time. It's a bit more demanding than most other MMO's of it's generation.

I'm glad you found out this way, anyway. Sorry to hear it won't run, it's a fun game.

Robear wrote:

I'm glad you found out this way, anyway. Sorry to hear it won't run, it's a fun game.

Yeah, it does look like it. If some miracle occurs and I get a new PC this year, I'll come running back to it! Thanks again for the key.

What server and faction are most people playing? I just picked this up on sale and want to try it out. Leaning towards the Dragons but could do Templars or Illumnati easily enough.

I'm not sure many of us are really what you'd call active; I'm a Dragon on... I gotta check the server... Arcadia (RP).

I'd be happy to pop in now and then and play around. Been a while, I'm sure I'm rusty.

The game has this weird curve where its fun for a week or two, then crazy boring. stop playing for a month. relogin after that and its fun again for a week or two.

The game has this weird curve where its fun for a week or two, then crazy boring. stop playing for a month. relogin after that and its fun again for a week or two.

I finished the main storyline and there wasn't enough other content to keep me around and didn't feel like grinding to just get new sets of abilities. I have looked in every now and then when new issues have come out but haven't finished any of them since they don't seem to be that solo-friendly and I haven't felt like throwing myself at them in order to get through them.

Raptr says I have 260 hours in the game, so it isn't like I didn't have fun with it.

I'll probably jump back in for a while when Tokyo opens up, though if someone wants to plan an instance run I may be up for a few. I still haven't done most of those.

Here's my main, fwiw

I created "Chet Manley" and made it into Kingsmouth last night and really dug the Lovecraftian feel. The only thing I don't like is the combat feels rather repetitive. Hoping more weapons/skills help with that. I'm Illuminati on the Arcadia server if anyone wants to group up.

Sooooo, apparently Funcom's offices were raided this morning by the Norwegian equivalent of the SEC concerning charges of insider trading during the release of the Secret World.

Insert joke here about "Funcom knows too much, man."