The Secret World

[Mythor]

There's no NDA on The Secret World beta:

6. Will there be a NDA for this Beta Weekend?
No, you are free to tell anyone about what you experience in this Beta Weekend. We encourage you to spread the word and take both screenshots and video.

From here: http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/beta ... th_calling

Needs a hell of a lot more polishing. They're more like 3-6 months out from being ready to release, based on the Templar content in this weekend's test. Longer, if they really want to nail everything down properly.
But it's good fun rounding up two groups of zombies and then twirling your sword around repeatedly till they start dropping. Elementalism was not a good first pick...

[Marius]

What makes you say needs more polishing?

From my perspective:

* Had a stable 50fps
* No crashes
* All the quests worked
* Encountered no bugs.
* Everything is voice acted.

The game honestly runs a lot smoother than SWTOR at launch.

The main attraction of the game, the classless skill system, works well, too. Right now I'm using pistol and assault rifle skills, with some passives from shotgun and blood magic. I love that flexibility.

Usually will start out by firing a grenade from the launcher, then pistol shoot until build up stacks of rifle and pistol resource, then summon a drone, then grenade launcher x 2. It's really quite fun combining different sets of weapons like that.

[Mythor]

- Frequent performance hitches, ranging from minor to multiple-second pauses
- Many items you need to click on are difficult to click on accurately or the interactive part is in an unintuitive location (the head of a shovel, not the handle? really?)
- Crafting seems to be completely unexplained
- "Tutorial" text is just one big page of information dumped on you
- Skills do not list their ranges
- Many things either have no mouseover information or it doesn't appear consistently when moused over
- No fall damage? Maybe I need to climb higher than the roof of a two storey building...
- Placeholder text and lots of it!
- No way to tell if enemies are beatable, other than trying it
- Balance issues abound, most of my points were going into Elementalism, found a sword and bought a single Blades skill and suddenly everything is much easier.

It's quite fun but the notion of this being smoother than SWTOR at launch is laughable. It has a long way to go, but it's certainly all fixable in due course.
That just won't be within the month until launch.

[Marius]

I agree with the clicking thing.

Though a lot of those complaints seem to be UI issues. UI issues are easily fixable within a month.

[Angeredsoul]

destined to fail.

[Marius]

- Frequent performance hitches, ranging from minor to multiple-second pauses

A reason you may be seeing these hitches is because the beta server is located in Norway. So you're probably at 500-1000 latency, which means you're not getting data fast enough.

I tend to get uninterrupted play when the ping's OK (so on the 500 side) but do get the same hitches when it's not. But I ignore them, because it's a latency issue.

[Artful-dodgeR]

I've become so disillusioned with mmos that while I love the look of this game I just don't think I'll bother any more.

[Mythor]

- Frequent performance hitches, ranging from minor to multiple-second pauses

A reason you may be seeing these hitches is because the beta server is located in Norway. So you're probably at 500-1000 latency, which means you're not getting data fast enough.

I tend to get uninterrupted play when the ping's OK (so on the 500 side) but do get the same hitches when it's not. But I ignore them, because it's a latency issue.

Lag doesn't - or shouldn't - lock the entire client up. Can't even move the mouse. If that's an issue caused by latency they've got bigger problems, not smaller.

It also tends to happen more the longer the client is running, leading me to believe it's a memory leak or similar, and the client isn't handling it well.

[Mekon]

Technical glitches aside, I'm reasonably impressed - it's a somewhat different take on the usual MMO paradigm. The modern setting is refreshing, of course... but the quests appear to be more story-driven (as opposed to purely combat related) so far. The Lovecraftian vibe is the quintessential hook for my tastes, admittedly.

With any luck it will appeal to a different crowd (older/mature?); I'm over the WoW barrens kiddies **** and moaning and cussing in general chat in every new MMO that comes out.

[Mythor]

I saved someone from some zombie firemen and they thanked me for the assist. So yes, there's still hope.

Going to reroll and focus on Rifles today, as I should have in the first place instead of being tempted away by Elementalism's fire...

[Marius]

Lag doesn't - or shouldn't - lock the entire client up. Can't even move the mouse. If that's an issue caused by latency they've got bigger problems, not smaller.

It also tends to happen more the longer the client is running, leading me to believe it's a memory leak or similar, and the client isn't handling it well.

It tends to happen a little in AoC sometimes when latency goes to the yellow-red.

I agree that the issue needs to be fixed anyway. Still, good that you find the game fun.

Next character think I will focus on pistols and shotguns.

[Sathias]

So how do you get in on this beta?

[Mythor]

So how do you get in on this beta?

Preorder for the beta weekends. I'm assuming there will be at least one more before release next month.
Or you can participate in The Secret War (A LOT) to get a guaranteed beta slot.

I preordered and I blame Draqul for it all.

Never seem to find any weapons for whatever I have my skill points in, only ones for everything else. Like my rifles character just found a sweet shotgun, after finding various magic focuses earlier. Think some of the mission rewards could be swapped from a choice of trinket things to a choice of weapons, might help the feeling of not finding anything new AND useful.

Did wander out into the water and find some enormous clawed mouth (?) thing that I assume might be relevant at some point. I couldn't jump into it so I'm not sure.
Lots of nooks and crannies to explore, just wish I had some better zombie smashing gear to do it with.

[Mekon]

So how do you get in on this beta?

Gamespot.uk was giving away free keys - that's how I got mine.

[Sathias]

So how do you get in on this beta?

Gamespot.uk was giving away free keys - that's how I got mine.

Cheers mate! Downloading