Many may know how I've mentioned many times that it's been hard to find a game that really holds my attention anymore yet allows me freedom to pop in and out as needed by my busy schedule with work, kids, and all. I'd played Star Wars awhile but like many games, once I reached the end of the story line and maxed my level I quickly grew bored and stopped playing.
Recently a friend of mine with whom I've played many games, told me about a new one I'd seen advertised some but hadn't thought much about. The game is called The Secret World. They held a free weekend and my buddy tried it and loved it. I've recently started to play and there's many things I like about it that remind me of things I liked about EQ when I first started it. The story line is fresh, it takes place in the modern world of today as we know it. Basically it's 3 major secret societies battling each other and evil forces to prevent the end of the world as we know it due to Zombies, Demons, and other mythical creatures. The three major factions are the Templar's, Illuminati and Dragons. I wont go into it more as you can read up if interested, but I would like to list the reason's it's hooked me.
1 There are not "classes" it's open skill system suggests builds but from what I understand you can earn every skill in the game eventually and the ways you can customize your character are endless. You can eventually learn and use any of the weapons etc.
2 There are no "levels" you earn skills and are allowed to use higher level items but you do not level in a traditional sense.
3 Content is mature in nature due to violence etc. It's not a teen's game. So far most players seem "older" no stuff in the chat channels like in say WoW.
4 The game does not hold your hand, there are corpse runs and quests are hard no walk glowing paths to lead you along. Some quests are combat oriented. Some are puzzles and these are super hard. Game has built in browser with Google because you will need it to look up stuff to solve these puzzles. There are also Sabotage quests where stealth and tactics are the only way to win. Try to rush in and you die.
5 There are 3 roles as usual. Tank, DPS and Healer. The nice thing is Tanks just tank they stink at DPS and they cannot heal themselves, DPS is just that they cant take a hit and healers pretty much only heal. I like that roles don't overlap. Again you can earn all the skills and abilities and swap them out so you can play any of these roles on one character.
6 Quests have timers but are repeatable, you can bank skill and ability points and use them as you need them.
7 You can only have 7 active and 7 passive skills out of over 500 which makes choosing a big part of the fun and challenge.
I haven't played much yet but game seems huge. Story is very interesting.
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If nothing seems to be going your way, choose another direction.