It Takes Two To Tango #TSW #TheSecretWorld

Well, it looks like the fates aligned for me when it came to The Secret World. I had held off purchasing the game and was making my way through the free trial when Amazon put it on sale, 50% off. That dropped the price down to $25 USD. As it would happen, I had $15 in Amazon coupons, left over from a Christmas gift so the entire game cost me roughly $11 total. Unwilling to pass up a deal that was less than even one monthly subscription, I of course purchased it and am now enjoying the 30 days the base game comes with. Enjoying it quite a bit more than I ever thought I would.

I’m still working my way through Kingsmouth, and have managed to get myself geared for Polaris, the first dungeon in the game. I haven’t been there yet but I do hope to some time this weekend. In order to be ‘geared’ for the first dungeon you’ll want to be wearing QL3 in most slots (or at least this is what general channel has told me). I’ve got mostly QL3 and a piece or two of QL4. I purchased some vendor sold gear for little tokens that you get while doing missions which has helped me out a lot.

I’m working towards my first deck which is the exorcist deck I believe (I may have the name wrong, I’m not in game and I’m not looking right at it) which is a blood magic / fist healer deck. Combat and skill sets and gear is pretty easy for me to understand, so I have been able to simply enjoy the game which I really like. I also love how minimal the UI is, I basically only need my offensive target, defensive target, and instead of having 6-9 hotbars jam packed with crap I have 7 buttons + a small bag with consumables to use. The game really makes you pick and choose which skills you want on those 7 hotkeys, and it’s just refreshing not to have to worry about which skill out of 50 I want to use during a fight.

So far I’ve loved every single NPC interaction I’ve come across. The cut scenes are fantastic, each character has a story and a history and it’s just amazing how much I feel a ‘part’ of it. Though I am wondering, if the church is ‘free’ of zombie ghouls, why doesn’t everyone just hole up there. I suppose those who are incredibly opposed to religion may not want to even if it’s safe from zombies. I’ve also noticed pretty much everyone in the town has blue eyes. In fact one NPC I was speaking to at the airport had orange eyes and it caught my attention – until I spoke to them in the next clip and they had blue eyes too. Weird. Probably some sort of graphic glitch but I still noticed it.

I’m not sure what my favorite parts have been so far. I really liked helping out at the Scrapyard and the Airport. I’ve gotten used to marking my map filled with little “Q” icons, for quests I find that I don’t have time / space to pick up when I run by so that I can return later. I haven’t done any stealth quests yet but that will be my goal for today I think, to attempt at least one.

I’m STILL not a giant fan of the genre. I have to take a break every so often because I find it very dark, and playing while I’m alone at home in the dark is just not fun. So long as I’m with friends, or my house isn’t empty, or it’s day time, it’s not so bad. For $11 you sure won’t find me complaining at all.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Wayfarer’s Reverie #GuildWars #GW

ArenaNet added a new festival to the world on Friday, the Wayfarer’s Reverie. This is a celebration of exploration (and in preparation of GW2).

The Wayfarer’s Reverie honors the traveler inside each of us, encouraging revelry and revisitation. The world is yours to explore—again or for the first time. Join the celebration!

  • For those looking to walk the Wayfarer’s path, festival coordinators have been added to Lion’s Arch, Kamadan, Kaineng Center, and the Eye of the North to offer festival quests for their respective regions.
  • NPCs will be dropping by the major towns—as well as a few locations off in the wilds—to share their insights during the festival.
  • Special drops and bonuses will be in effect throughout the Wayfarer’s Reverie, which will run through August 30th.

I picked up the quest in Lion’s Arch to explore Tyria, and set out to explore. The lower level areas were quite easy, and I had no issues soloing my way through them, picking up some spare crafting material and money. I had a lot of fun wandering through areas I had not been in for quite some time. Of course, it got harder. Much harder.

Before I knew it, it was 1:30am and I was practically falling asleep at my keyboard which never bodes well for my heroes (or myself) so I gave up on the location I was trying to get to, and called it a night. When I had logged in to play I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was my character’s 4th birthday, and I had a new miniature to add to my Hall of Monuments, the miniature Nian, which is an uncommon. Looks pretty good in my collection, too.

There’s no way I’ll get anywhere near 30 points by the time Guild Wars 2 releases, but I’m not going to stop trying, and might be able to eek out another point or two here or there. We’ll just have to see. In the mean time I’m still in awe at how beautiful this game looks, especially for its age.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Welcome to Kingsmouth #TSW #TheSecretWorld

Ah, Kingsmouth, home of.. well, these days many zombies. Dead people, screaming people, loud sirens, and zombies. So many zombies.

That’s right, I’ve found myself smack dab in Funcom’s The Secret World. Completely unintentionally, as I really didn’t have any huge interest to play this game when it released – strictly because of the genre. I’m really not a fan of anything spooky or scary, or anything that will give me nightmares or involves masses of screaming people. Or blood. I definitely don’t like blood. So how was it that I found myself right in the middle of all of those exact things?

Well. First I blame my incredible friends on twitter and G+. I’ve been following their tweets, blog posts, and comments about this game since before it came out. I managed to hold off on the hype pretty well, talking myself out of the purchase because it “just wasn’t for me”. Then I found out there was a trial, except at the time I believe it was only 24h and I wasn’t interested in trying to cram in as much gaming as I could in that little time. So once again I passed it up. The celebration weekend came and went and I was unable to download the game due to being at the far end of my internet cap for the month – shew, once more, I was saved.

Then I was told that the trial was three days long. Not only that but if I completed 30 missions in those three days, I’d be given two extra days and a few other bonuses. Really? Hmm. I wavered. I found my fingers tracing the download button and before I knew it I was watching the 4mb/s download whiz by and watching the introduction videos to the three factions.

I decided to go with Templar for my first character, which I know is a pretty popular choice. I created on Arcadia (I think?) and was instantly swept up in the story. I actually love the fact that my character doesn’t speak despite the fact that everyone else in the world I interact with does. Number one, I want my characters to sound how they sound in my head. Number two, I don’t want to have to think about why my character XYZ sounds exactly like my other character ZYX. Or that character over there, YZX. I have a great imagination and I can fill in the blanks just fine, thanks.

Maybe it’s because I’ve played such a wide variety of games before, but I had very little trouble picking up on the ‘basics’ as far as game play goes. Except for the fact that the screen shot button is F11 and not print screen. Must also remember to re-name my screen shot folder every so often as it will only save up to 1,000 images (thanks again twitter friends). I immediately chose blood magic, and paired it with fist weapons. I’m playing a healer, in other words. I’ve teamed up with ‘Ogur’ who has a ‘tank’ spec, as much as one can spec anything in this game at least.

Crafting is neat, almost exactly like crafting in minecraft. You lay out images of what you want to make in a little panel of squares and press a button. You need kits to craft + supplies, and the quality level of items must match up. QL is basically how you ‘level’ in TSW, since there are no traditional levels. You just earn points to increase your ability to use better gear and better weapons (and unlock better spells, of course).

The game is by far one of the most beautiful I’ve ever played before, whether I am interested in the genre or not. It looks amazing. In fact I’ve already taken over 100 screen shots in the hours I played today. Exploration is exciting and I really have no complaints at all EXCEPT that the genre is not one that I’m especially fond of. We’ll see how much I can over look that in the next few days of the trial.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Finding Myself in LIMBO #Indie

I got this indie game as a gift a while back and just hadn’t found the time to write about it, but with a newly formatted PC I decided to re-download a few games from my steam library, and my interest in this game sparked once more. Don’t let the fact that it’s black and white fool you, this game is deceptively awesome, and spooky and all those other wonderful things that make games fun.

The controls are sweet and simple, arrow keys and control – or if you prefer, an xbox controller. My hands tend to get tired playing via keyboard because I’m left handed and the controls use the arrow keys on the right hand side. Personally, I’m looking forward to giving it a try with a controller. You play a little boy who is out looking for his sister, as the brief steam description says “Uncertain of his sister’s fate, a boy enters LIMBO…”

Be warned, this may not be the type of game you want to play by yourself at (checks clock) 2am. Especially with the sounds on. The game is creepy and I found myself (more than once) jumping out of my chair or choking back a yelp. The basic ‘mission’ of this game is to solve multiple puzzles as you move through it, advancing further and further. Right now my little Jimmy (yes, I’ve named him) is trapped in a cocoon with a giant spider chasing him. You’re faced with the challenge of not only solving the puzzles to progress, but implementing them. This is even more dire for people like me who are (for lack of better word) not good at mario jumping games. Don’t fret though, once you’ve solved the puzzle it’s well worth each attempt just to see what Jimmy may be faced with next.

If you enjoy puzzle games and don’t mind the spooky scary side of things (or just outright weird) I highly recommend you give LIMBO a try. You can find it on steam or their web site and it’s available for PC, XBox and PS3.

Soaring Through The Skies of Telon #Vanguard #VGSOH #VGD

For those who may have missed the news, you can now explore Telon under the new ‘Free to Play’ model, and while I do have a few.. concerns, with this model, it’s nice to see Vanguard getting some attention.

One of the first things I did was visit the new marketplace and check out what was for sale. It follows pretty much the same pattern as the rest of the SOE games, there’s gear, potions, house items, mounts and the like. I decided to purchase a flying mount pictured above. There are two choices, one is a griffon and the other a wyvern. I was pleased to find out that gold members receive a discount to anything they purchase from the marketplace, although I have to admit I was less-than pleased with my new flying mount. It doesn’t handle very well at all, and doesn’t fly nearly as smooth as the mounts that you can rent in game from NPC. In order to use these purchased mounts you also must be at least level 50 in any one of the three spheres, thankfully I qualify because I’m a 51 mineralogist on my main, a blood mage (currently sitting at level 47 in adventuring).

When F2P was introduced there was also a slight revamp of loot drops for some bosses, and I expect they’ll be nerfed shortly if they haven’t been yet. People were linking loot that was far better than anything else you could obtain in game previously, with stats like 250 crit chance and other obscene numbers. There’s a patch today to fix some glitches and I’m hoping that the lag and disconnects that players may have been experiencing will also be addressed.

Telon is beautiful, and has always been. I’m pleased that more people will give it a shot and perhaps even stay a while. It’s nice to hear channels being used again (when they work), and as a long time player it’s satisfying to know that the game is getting at least a little more attention than in previous years.

If you’ve been away from the game for a while, there’s no better time to see how things have changed, even if it’s just to fill the lull between another game release. As always, happy gaming! No matter where you find yourself.