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The Secret World Review
http://www.gamebasin.com/news/the-secret-world-review
Character Creation
I have never been a fan of spending hours on how my characters look; I will usually end up letting
my wife make my character. After working through the character creations multitude of choices it
feels like most creators out there, nothing really stands out and nothing new is brought in. This
does not mean that it is bad in anyway, it is a solid character creator where you can give your
character a unique look but it does feel a little stiff like I think most creators feels like. One thing I
do like about the creator and one which I think stand out is the human factor, since the game is set
in modern time the characters feel more human like than those we usually encounter in fantasy
games, where the cloth are none existing from the beginning and muscles are huge and boobs are
bigger than heads. Here they just feel like a person, like someone who would actually exist.
Factions
The next thing you need to do before jumping into the game is choosing your side in this secret
battle on earth. You are here presented with three choices. • Templars: Set in the old Europe,
Templars use London as its main base as the agent against evil in the world, where the only mission
for thousands of years have been to obliterate evil. You play as a soldier for the Templars, gaining

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access to their knowledge and the loyalty of other Templars. • Illuminati: They are based in the
United States of America as of today, after stealing the country from the Templars. An organization
always hungry for more, pushing for a New World Order with all means necessary. You play as their
agent, advancing in modern magic’s for money, glamour and real power. • Dragon: An Asian group,
which I hadn’t heard of before, with no historical fixed territory as the other two, but one whom
taken root in Seoul. A group which believe in the natural chaos of life. As their warrior, you are
tasked with reaching for the harmony of the world.
The three factions are all interesting but does not reach is full
potential.
The choice here is really not that important; choose the one you like the most. PvE will be together
with all factions and most of the story missions are the same for all three factions with only a few
missions which are faction based. The only place where you will actually notice the differences are
the visuals (if you chose to were the factions cloth) and of course in PvP. I really wish they would
have gone further here, going in a similar direction as Star Wars: The Old Republic did with the
story quests making each faction have its own storyline completely.
No classes and no levels
This is one of the two things in The Secret World separating it from most other MMORPGs out
there. The game has no classes or levels in the sense that we are used to, instead we here have
ability points (AP) and skill points (SP). Skill points: These are used to gain access to new weapons
or talismans (which are items used instead of armor pieces in other MMORPGs). And the first level
requires 1 AP, the second 2 AP all the way to 10 AP. The genius about this is that you are never
locked to a singular weapon, you are free to put ap’s in whatever you want and in the end you will

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end up with level 10 in all weapons. Weapons are split into two categories , damage and healing,
so it is important to figure out what your first focus is going to be. While the talisman are split up
into; head, major and minor. Ability points: These are used to get you skills in a myriad of skill trees
in the ability wheel. The wheel is made up of an inner wheel and an outer wheel. The inner wheel
is where you will put your points first and the inner wheel is broken down into Melee, Range and
Magic. The outer wheel is then split up into specific weapons as the SP is, and these are; shotguns,
pistols, assault rifles, blades, hammers, fists, blood magic, chaos, elementalism and three
categorizes called misc, one for every category in the inner wheel.
The skill wheel which you will love with time.
By using AP and SP instead of the traditional classes and levels, players are free to play the game
as they like and not be locked into one way of playing. For players only focusing on one character
in MMOGs this is ideal since they can easily switch weapon and role whenever they want. But for
players who like creating alts, and trying different factions and roles via different characters this
could be problematic. They still have the chance of creating 3 different characters, and therefore
try all three factions in the game. The possibility of trying all weapons and classes are still there
only with one and the same character. So in the end this change is positive, the only ones not
agreeing with me would be the players who find a magic in playing lots of different characters all
with their own play style.
Setting
This is where the game really shines for me, especially in its environment and the chills which follow
with it. Setting the game in the real world at its current time is what really sets it apart from other
MMOGs out there. Running along the streets of London or investigating a small town at the east

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coast of the USA really makes me a lot more intrigued then running around in green forests in a
high fantasy environment do. But the setting isn’t only about the world in this game; mostly it’s
about that thriller and sometimes horror feeling. The three main areas of the game all take up a
certain stereotype environment from thriller and horror movies, all in a good way. We have the H.P.
Lovecraft and Twin Peaks inspired American east coast area, the Indiana Jones and the mummy
inspired Egyptian area and finally the classic vampire fields and towns of Transylvania. All these
areas are really filled to its maximum with references to thriller, horror and adventure movies and
books out there. If you ever read Stephan King or listened to folks tales at the campfire there is
something in here for you to recognized and enjoy.
The starting area of Kingsmouth is one of my favorite areas in an
MMOG.
Questing
Questing is made out of 4 types of mission types plus a heavy story driven quest mission. Before
going into the main types of missions the story missions takes up a lot of time and it does so in the
best of ways. The story missions are what will guide you through the game, something which most
MMOGs have out there but not as good as this. The story is very well written and even if you are
not the usual MMOG player this game deserves your time, if only to play through the story missions
and enjoy the game as a single player experience. There are four types of missions: Action Missions:
These are your classic kill X of Y MMOG quest and sadly the most common quests found in TSW.
Sabotage Missions: These missions give that little extra which action mission lack, a pinch of
something new. Here your missions is to infiltrate a certain area undetected and complete a smaller
puzzle in form of hacking or silently destroying stuff without killing anybody until the chains end

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boss. It has been done before but TSW manage to improve and quantify this mission type.
Investigation missions: These missions combined with the games setting is what kept my intrigued
and engaged with TSW. Here you get to solve difficult puzzles or play code breaker in a true da
Vinci code spirit. It can be everything from going through passages in the bible to navigating
through mores code. I was very surprised by how hard most of these missions where and I love it.
Missions or quests if you like that need heavy thinking and searching for clues is very rare in the
genre, and they execute it perfectly in TSW. Side Missions: Together with action missions these are
very common and very classic to the MMOG questing concept, a majority of the side or item
missions are about brining A to B and maybe kill something on the way. The story behind them are
often lacking making them less and less interesting as you progress through the game, but you
always start them by fining the item you need to deliver which makes them feel more spontaneous.
The streets of Fusang are very empty…
End Game
The end game content is very much what you would expect from an MMOG, if you prefer pvp you
have your PvP matches to join or the open PvP area of Fusang. And after completing quest and or
winning in PvP matches you receive currency with which you can by better gear and perform better
in PvP. With PvE you now have a wide range of dungeons with different kinds of difficulties
depending on your gear, after a few big updates last year there are also two raids which you can
try your luck at for even better gear. The dungeons and the raid in The Secret World are a little
different than most MMOGs in a good sense. The dungeons put a very heavily focus on the bosses
and there are very few mobs to kill between the bosses and in some dungeons you can with ease
run past the mobs. More or less skipping mobs and only killing the ones getting you loot is an
excellent choice made by Funcom by making dungeon runs shorter, more intense, and it feels more

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rewarding. Another aspect of focusing on the bosses is that they all demand you attention, much
more so than most dungeon bosses in other games, you never get the chance to stand still and
spam damage or heals here.
Conclusion
I really have split opinions about TSW, sometimes I am in love with it, digging deep in its lore for a
hard investigation mission and enjoying the thriller suspense of the setting. Sometimes the game
wants me to look elsewhere because of the stiff characters and fights and repetitive kill and fetch
quest combined with a lacking PvP. I really want to enjoy this game and when doing investigation
missions or exploring urban myths it feels like my favorite MMOG out there, but that illusion is
easily broken and the game falls with it.
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