The Secret World - PC Game | Action-Adventure MMORPG | Explore Supernatural Mysteries | Perfect for Fantasy & Horror Fans" (Note: If the original title was in Chinese, the translation would be: "秘密世界 - PC游戏 | 动作冒险大型多人在线角色扮演 | 探索超自然谜团 | 适合奇幻与恐怖游戏爱好者")

There is a veil over the MMORPG player's eyes for the last ten years. We've been spoon fed quests with mindless kill counts ad nauseum. We've scoured dungeons and battled whatever may have guarded their deepest treasures, over and over again in the name of Epic Gear. Open your eyes and see the secret world. There is more out there that the MMO genre can offer, and Funcom will be your guide...The Secret World offers a breath of fresh air in a somewhat stale video game genre. Certain mechanics may be the same - sure, there's these things that will define an mmo, but TSW succeeds by adding factors and variables to this formula rather than regurgitating the same old stuff with different models and textures. For starters, this is an MMO based in modern times - a welcoming break from your standard fantasy or science fiction setting. This naturally makes the game world familiar and easy to digest and possibly make your avatar more relateable. Mix in conspiracies, cultural mythologies, and the monsters that lurk beneath the bed, and you have an exciting setting that begs you to come back, much like a siren's song.As noted above, Funcom introduces unique mission types that have never been introduced in the MMO genre before. Investigation missions put you, the player, right into the shoes of an agent of the secret society of your choice. These cannot be solved by just following waypoints on the minimap. You literally have to open your in-game browser and SOLVE the puzzles. You'll be googling for historic information, biblical references, or even searching for answers on a fictional websites - blurring the line and enhancing the immersion in a fun and exciting way. These missions require some thinking outside the box. No spoon feeding here. Because I'm no Batman, my detective skills were lacking and it took me almost two days to solve my first investigation mission (Not 48 hours of game time, but more like thinking about the puzzle during the day, even when I wasn't playing) - The sense of accomplishment was worth more than the XP rewarded. Sure you could just look up the answers or beg for them in general chat - but then you're missing the point. You'll be reading the cliff notes to a good novel. "But I don't want to think and work hard when I'm playing a video game - that defeats the purpose of a leisure activity such as playing video games!" Then go back to killing 10 wolves and collecting 5 pelts. These missions are truly a test of patience and perseverance. When you don't feel like playing Scully and Mulder investigating the most recent paranormal activity, the game offers your more traditional missions.The lack of character levels and blatant classes is a welcoming change to your standard mmo from the last 10 years. Quality Level is a gear characteristic that indirectly defines how much progress you've accomplished in the game, so it could be argued these are just like character levels. But when you're wandering the city streets and encounter other players, you won't be able to tell "what level they are" just by looks - clothing has no effect on character progression and is strictly for looks. Long are the days of feeling ashamed and weak as your level 1 thief in tattered leather stands next to a seasoned warrior with shiny exotic armor. You won't have to worry looking like a multi-colored clown as you collect all the items for some gear set. Because the lack of classes, you're free to build the character that matches your playstyle. There's still a holy trinity (tank, dps, heal) for group missions but each player can contribute to each role by offering secondary abilities to the table (ex: a damage dealer doing off heals). If you're a fan of collectible card games, you'll enjoy the way deck/abilities system TSW has to offer.Another quality that stands out about TSW is how they deal with servers. When you create a character, you're asked to choose a "dimension." This selection matters for pvp purposes only as the persistant warzones will only queue up players from that respective dimension (75 players from each faction, 225 total). This design was used to make for shorter queue times for persistant pvp. The current map (Fusang Projects) is a little lacking when compared to other WvW persistant pvp designs out there - but nothing Funcom can't fix in future patches (or by providing new persistant maps with more objectives/mechanics. This is possibly the only reason I can think of why I'm giving TSW on release a 4/5). The other pvp maps will queue up players across all dimensions. In addition, you could group up with other players from the other servers to tackle pve content or the non-persistant pvp. Essentially, TSW is "one server" (much like Eve Online) which means player's names are unique and global.These are just a few things that stand out from TSW that I've personally noticed and appreciate. The game officially releases today (03JUL12) but I've been lucky enough to play since early access and have been enjoying it since (Fun 5/5). This type of game seems to attract the more mature player due to content as well as game design which proves to be a plus. If you enjoy X-Files, Dresden Files, Dan Brown, Men in Black, SCP, or love conspiracies: the secret world is waiting. Kudos, Funcom. You've shaken things up in the mmorpg world!---Update 10JUL12: Still digging the game despite some minor bug issues, barely scratching the surface content wise. My in-game time is approximately 4 days and 19 hours and I'm still half way through the first zone (Solomon Island). A couple of the missions are bugged at certain points but the first patch just went live this morning. Chat is still a little buggy, which can make socializing difficult at times (some channels reset when you zone in/out of areas). These are just minor bugs that don't really affect the enjoyability of the game overall.Lastly, I'd like to leave this update with an official State of the Game written by Ragnar Tornquist. For those people questioning whether or not this game is worth a subscription or whether or not there'll be enough content 2-3 months after launch, hopefully this answers your questions [...]. Back to the secret world; the spirits trapped at the academy are getting restless again.Don't get me wrong, I really like this game for a lot of reasons but I equally dislike many aspects of it, as well. And it definitely isn't a game for casual players.Best thing about the game? Hands down, it's the modern day, modern dress setting. No Robin Hood tights and tunics, no sorcerer's robes here. Just ordinary Joes and Janes in regular street clothes (for the most part - there are some fanciful outfits available through the cash shop) so you feel like you're playing with just a bunch of people off the street. Tons of female players, too, though, considering the over-abundance of short-shorts and skimpy halter tops, one wonders if they're actually female players (would real girls dress so skankily?).Best thing about the dress system is that stats aren't tied to your outfits, they're determined by 'talismans', which you equip but are invisible, and your weapons. This allows you to then wear whatever clothing you want.The story line for the campaign is certainly interesting enough and the setting is a cross of Lovecraft, King, zombies, vampires and werewolves and, yes, Cthulu, so kudos there as well. (You'd better like killing zombies, btw.)Now, for the not so fun stuff:First off, the game is hard right from the get-go and it just gets harder from there. The only time it gets easier is when you're on you're 2nd or 3rd toon, when you know how the game works and/or you're overgeared for the areas you're playing in.Coming from others games, it isn't obvious at the start how the skills and abilities assignment works so you have to ask in chat or hit the forums; you'll be asking a lot of questions in chat.One of the 'features' is that there aren't classes, per se - any character can learn any (and all) skills. (That's another point of confusion, at least it was for me - what other games call skills TSW calls abilities and vice versa.) \The absence of classes is a lie - there is the bog-standard division of tank, DPS and healer. And not only can you learn ANY ability but you WILL eventually learn EVERY ability (and skill). Why is this?Basic set-up is there are 3 skill branches, melee, ranged and magic. Each branch is further divided amongst 3 weapon types, short- medium- and long-range. Characters are pretty much required to equip 2 different weapons, which change automatically depending on the ability you are casting. (Say you have pistols and sword, when you cast a pistol ability the guns appears in you hands (pistols are dual, 1 each hand) and if you cast a sword ability, the sword appears.)This is actually a quite interesting approach and the theory is that the 2 weapons' abilities can interact synergistically. But there's more to it.Abilities come in actives and passives and you can have 7 of each equipped. Actives are, of course, weapon dependent - you have to have a shotgun to cast an active shotgun ability, for example. Passives are modifiers, they modify damage or healing of specific abilities (sword passive X increases the damage of sword ability P); a great number of passives, however, are weapon neutral so you can use them with any weapons. These do things like "whenever you land a critical hit, you are healed for x HP" or "starts a counter and every 7th hit automatically crits" - stuff like that.So, you will end up getting, say, shotgun or elemental abilities even though you use pistols and blood magic. And you're going to eventually get them anyway because you will be constantly earning ability points and will have to spend them until there are no more abilities to buy, at which point you're awarded a really stupid looking outfit. You also earn outfits for completing 'decks', sets of abilities for various weapon combos. You'll end up creating your own decks but they're useful to show new players how the 2 weapon set-up works, and many of the outfits are pretty cool. Each of the 3 factions gets the same sets of starter outfits and then their own set of advanced outfits.Yes, there are 3 factions your character can belong to (for PvP purposes), the only difference being that some of the main story quests play out slightly differently according to your faction. You get 3 character slots free so you can play each one if you like.Skills are like abilities but they determine the quality level of the gear you can equip (QL1 to QL10), how effective your weapons and talismans are - the higher you skill level the more damage/healing you do (for weapons) - and the base HP and physical and magical protection you have (for talismans). Again, you will eventually max every skill out.Actually, this all sounds pretty good, so far.But now we come to the game's biggest drawback. While this is a MMORPG, you are forced to complete a number of solo missions to advance the story; these are kind of like tests to see if you are 'good enough' to continue on. The main problem with these is that you get them well before you are equipped to handle them (there are a few, easy story-only ones where no combat is involved).This ties back to the encompassing abilities and your builds because you can't just have one build, you have to have a few. If you're DPS, you aren't suppose to have healing abilities on your bar in dungeons but you obviously need them for these solo quests (or if you play alone a lot).You can bypass all that if you're not interested in the story and stick to PvP and dungeons, of course but this forced learning is still there. There are 5 dungeons as you progress from QL1 to QL10; once you complete them on normal you have to do them (plus 3 new ones) on elite. Then you have to solo the Gatekeeper to qualify getting to do them on Nightmare. If you want to play in Nightmare as all 3 classes, you have to beat the GK as each one.Gear progresses from green to blue to purple. You can buy purple (which goes from QL10 to 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 & 10.5) from your faction house, which you need bullion you get from Nightmare dungeons to buy. So you're farming in blue gear 'relaxed' groups to get your purples. (I think you can get purple by doing PvP also but if you're not into PvP you're SOL.)If you're in it for the long haul and enjoy endless grind and insane difficulty, this game is for you.If you just want to play and have fun, you won't get too far past the main story (if you even make it that far) because it stops being fun.BTW, the additional paid content is intended for end-game level players.They have events throughout the year that all levels can participate in which are a lot of fun. Some give bullion rewards to get you started on purples and one give purple 10.1 weapons in one quest.So, take this as you will, this is just my opinion. There's ton's of end-game players who must find this fun.Just want to add that the community is very friendly and helpful for the most part, though there's the natural contingent of jerks, too.So I’ve been playing the last 2 months and here’s my report.This is the best MMO I’ve played since WOW vanilla. The game is a horror/survival/Lovecraft based game and meant for adults. The game is actually challenging, both in terms of combat and quests. (Of course if you cry “Uncle” and read the walkthroughs, it can be less challenging).There’s lots of content for both grouping and solo play, and definitely the best questing I’ve experienced of any MMO. In terms of questing, its worlds ahead of WOW.There are also lots of people still playing and lots of people leveling up in the old zones (thanks to the Steam sale). So you can still find groups for dungeons.For $30, this game is a great deal. I like the game so much; I’ve recently bought all of their additional content and have a subscription as well. And it’s worth every penny.I’ve completed every single quest and every dungeon until Transylvania (maybe 200 hours of content?) and there have been no bugs. I’ve read this game was buggy on release but it’s completely clean ATM.The game hasn’t been a grind at all; you only need do at most 25% of the quests before you have the gear and XP to leave a zone. Having said that, I find the story/questing to be so well done, I usually do every single quest before leaving.In terms of progression, I’m still not at end game yet (after 2 months) and I’m a fast at leveling in WOW. I think my PC has 15% of the abilities and that’s only on one ability wheel out of three. So in terms of horizontal progression, there is a lot to go. I’m still not sure how much vertical progression there is, but it takes a while.They have substantial content updates every 4 months. Like any MMO, I assume eventually I will run out of casual-player content, and will need to do elite content if I want to play every day.This game is not for people who want to:1) Level up as quickly as possible: If your goal is to level up as fast as possible and to get the most uber gear as possible, you won’t enjoy the game. And quite frankly, you’re missing the best parts of the game. Yes, you can probably do 25% of the quests in each zone (less with an XP booster or a friend) and get the gear/XP you need, but you’ll be missing all of the content and you’ll get to end game and say “is that it”? And then the content becomes more horizontal and challenging, which most grinders will not enjoy.2) If you skip watching videos to do the quest as fast as possible, this is not the game for you. If you don’t take the time to listen to the optional voice dialog offered, this is not the game for you. It’s extremely entertaining stuff.3) Like to be handheld through quests. If you like your quests to be “kill 10 rats”, you might not like this game and you’ll probably spend most of your time reading the walkthroughs for every quest. Congrats on making the game easy mode, but again you missed the point.This is a game for:1) People who like a good story.2) People who like dark horror themes and mature content. Zombies, werewolves, vampires, ghost, etc.3) People who don’t like questing and dungeons to be super easy.4) People who like to try different builds and options for their PC.5) People who like to customize how their PC looks and dresses.6) People who want something different in an MMO.It’s a great game, I give it 9.5/10 stars.A great game in a more modern setting than some. Very stable and always interesting.Pros: Unique world setting - a cross between Buffy and X-Files with a dash of Lovecraft thrown in. Single player storyline is well written if excessively cut-scened.Cons: The "end-game" is literally nothing more than the standard instance/ raid gear grind. The whole "no levels, no classes, non-linear progression" tagline is utter bs. There are levels, but they are tied to gear. There are classes, as every instance devolves into LF "tank", "healer", "DPS" and there are skills that are directly tied to the aforementioned roles. On the subject of grouping, there is NO group finder currently in the game, so get ready to do a lot of shouting to get the required instances done. The non-linear progression is also utter tripe, as you need certain gear to stay competetive in both PVE and PVP.PVP for that matter, is a joke. Perhaps the worst and most anaemic, unbalanced mess I've seen a modern MMO launch with. 2 battlezones and a 3rd which is a PVE zergfest where PVEers run around to get their starter raid gear. Do note that PVP gear is ultimately outclassed by PVE gear in PVP scenarios, so in order to stay competitive in PVP you MUST do the PVE grind. There is only ONE path to progression and that is doing dungeons. So, nothing in the game is non-linear.All in all, good till you clear the main story (could take two months if you're slow), but get ready for a raid or die commitment and grind not seen outside of Korean MMOs. Oh, and they recycle all the dungeons, some have up to three tiers of difficulty. So you're doing the same content ad nauseum.Just could not get into it. story did not grab me. also character movement did not flow well kinda feels like you are floating instead of running. crafting was not exciting at all your just mashing a bunch of crap together to get something random.