Gone Digital: Into the Vault

I'm sad. Since I haven't logged into Secret World in almost 2 weeks and with Borderlands 2 coming out today, I ended up cancelling my SW account for the foreseeable future. I know I will get back to it eventually but not sure when. Borderlands (the original) consumed quite a bit of time, and I have no doubt that number two will as well. Plus next month sees Dishonored and Assassin's Creed 3 both releasing. Because of this, it may be at least December before I get back to my Dragon.

Where's the Time Gone?

We took Riley to see his first movie Saturday: Nemo 3D. He sat through all but the last 15-20 minutes, at which point he started moving between seats.

It's been almost two weeks since I've played Secret Wars. Between Guild Wars 2, classes, family in town, and just life in general, I've not had extra time to play it. I could play SW instead of GW2, but I want to get some use out of the money I put in buying the game.

I also have a new class starting tomorrow: Functional Programming Principles in Scala. I know a little about Scala but have not really looked into it before. I'm looking forward to the class. I hope I just don't get overwhelmed by work and three classes (even if they are non-credit courses).

Gone Digital: 2 Days and Counting

Early access for Guild Wars 2 starts in 2 days! Granted that date is only for those that pre-purchased the game (like moi) but that means that release is just a scant 5 days away. Does this mean that I'm giving up my beloved Secret World already? Most definitely not! GW2 will be fit into my cramped schedule but will still take a back seat to SW.

Gone Digital: Issue 1 (Unleashed)

Issue #1 for Secret World (that's what they're calling their monthly updates) has been out since the end of last month, and it's was cool. It added six new missions (5 being investigations, which I love). I have finished all of them and can't wait for Issue #2 (which was announced yesterday). The "special" mission is one that I encountered during beta but with some differences, mainly the ending. For those that care about the game's story and lore (and I most definitely do), will be even more curious about a certain alluring blonde lighter of the morning.

On a side note, I have added links to the profile pages of my characters for both Secret World and Diablo 3 under the respective game link.

Gone Digital: My Dragon eats my Asura

So this past weekend was the final beta weekend for Guild Wars 2. It was also the first time during open beta that the asura and the sylvari (and their respective starting areas) have been playable. I have been waiting for the asura since they were announced as a playable race.

After updating the client Friday night, I jumped on to make my asura. I rather quickly went through the character creation process and hence Talsen was born. He ran around talking to NPCs and exploring his world. He helped out a couple people in need (i.e. quests). Then about 15 to 20 minutes in, something that had been creeping around the back of my mind burst through to the front: my Dragon wanted to be played. It was with only slight reluctance that I logged out of GW and started up Secret World. I say slight because even though I have waiting a long time to finally play an asura, the character was only going to be around for the weekend then wiped. I figured that my time would be better spent on a live character then a temporary one.

So the rest of the night saw Raszagal running around with some of her companions (can't say friends since they're Illuminati). We ended the night after several sound defeats by the boss of the Darkness Wars dungeon.

Gone Digital: Off the Island

I finished the main story line for Solomon Island (SI) last night. The last tier was pretty interesting. It was the first real branching point that I've seen in the game so far. Being a huge HP Lovecraft fan, I've loved the whole Lovecraftian atmosphere of the island, and the main story dealt with it quite well. I was really torn between the two options I had at the finale but ended up choosing the one that fit my character's outlook.

I have only repeated 3 or 4 missions so far and then only to get enough xp to open up the next Dragon mission. I plan on work on it tonight then heading back to SI and finishing off the few remaining missions (that I know of). I will also most likely run through Darkness War (the Blue Mountain instance) several times to try and get better gear before I head to the next main area, Egypt I think.

A Week Away

Well, yesterday Riley went to spend a week with Grandma, my mom. He has spent a couple days with her before, but this is the first time it's been a week. It's going to be rather quiet around the house for the next few days.

Angela and I finally managed to have the time to watch the "Hatfields & McCoys" mini series. It is just too adult for us to watch with Little Man around. We only got through the first two parts and will watch the last part tonight. I have to say that it's been a really intense and good show. I knew growing up that their feud was huge but never realized the extent of it until now.

Secret World is plagued by yet another bug; this time it's the chat system. I grouped with Brandon this Friday night for a little while, but most of the time we had to chat through Steam rather then in-game since SW's chat was completely fucked. It's really sad and disheartening to see a really good game marred by issues that should not exist. I can understand (but not accept) issues with their missions since some are not like those you would find in other MMOs. The chat system on the other hand should not have ANY issues. I'm not talking about linking items in chat or even filtering chat but generic chat functionality. When no type of chat is working between two people (not group, tells, or even local says), something is seriously wrong. After ~15 minutes of trying to get things working, we finally said "screw it" and logged to go eat. I really hope Funcom gets their act together and fixes these serious issues or SW will be a past issue for me.

Gone Digital: Pulling Back the Curtain

Friday was the first day of early access for Secret World. Needless to say, this weekend was full of exploration and attempting to turn back the tide of evil (pun intended). After having played through the starter area several times, I skipped the cut scenes I had seen before. I was a little miffed that they decided to complete change the model of at least one main NPC and completely remove another along with her related mission. Her removal makes some of the references made by other NPCs about her harder to piece together as being about the same person.

The main issue I (and many other players) have is the several of the missions are bugged. How the hell did these get past the betas let alone the internal testing? I have had to make a (short) list of missions I need to go back and complete when the game is updated later today/tomorrow for  release. Luckily you can invite people on other dimensions (aka servers) to your group and are temporarily moved to their server. This is one way of dealing with the bugged missions. Because, lo and behold...the bugged missions are only bugged on some servers! Seriously? How the hell is that even possible when all of the servers supposedly have the same code base!? WTF!? I did not partake of this method of getting bugged missions done nor did I petition a GM to force complete the bugged step of missions X. Instead I made a list and plan on trying again after each patch until I get them done.

This is definitely the buggiest (?) launch of a MMO that I've experienced with the exception of Anarchy Online. Hey, look! Another Funcom game. Age of Conan (their other MMO) suffered from a buggy release too, but I didn't have the problems I had with AO or SW. Seeing a trend here? Funcom puts out games with good concepts but is seriously lacking in the QA department. I absolutely love Secret World as a whole, but I can't stand shoddy programming/testing.

Gone Digital: Games of the Weekend

This past weekend was the last beta weekend for The Secret World with next weekend being the head start for those that pre-ordered and release on Tuesday. I created an Illuminati this time, again initially choosing Elementalism followed by Blood this time after gaining a few Elemental skills. These two have some nice multiple target skills (or chains as they're called in this game). Also, Elementalism has good single target damage skills while Blood is there for healing/damage resistance.

Also on the agenda this weekend was From Dust. Overall, I really enjoyed the game. Since I finished the story line levels, I will start on the Challenge levels sometime. I will say that the end of the story line is rather anti-climatic. I do need to go back an redo a couple of those levels to unlock some of the Challenge levels.

Gone Digital: The Secret World BW3

This past weekend was the third beta weekend for The Secret World.  The last time they had it, I played a Templar. This time around they had opened up the Illuminati and the Dragon factions. I chose the Dragon since that is what I plan on playing at release. For the most part, the majority of the beta has little real faction difference about it. Nevertheless, it was still fun and interesting. My Templar character went mainly elemental/blades with a little blood thrown in. The Dragon on the other hand started out blood and added blades after ranking blood some. Overall, the solo ability of both seem to be roughly the same.

As far as the playability goes, I did find a few bugs. They were mainly annoyances rather then game breakers. For instance, when I would sell something, the vendor window listing the items would blank out until I scrolled it. To me, for a game this far along and this close to release (July 3), things like that should not be there. Hopefully this weekend's beta will have fixed all of the ones I noticed.

I will have to say that I love the real world integration SW has. For one mission/quest you needing to get into someone's computer. You could get a hint ("music of the seasons") plus a nearby item was a picture of a nighttime scene with fireworks. If you did a web search on the hint (using the in-game or an out-of-game browser), you could discover the password. Another mission had you look up the duration of songs to get maps coordinates. Only once did I have to ask for in-game help, and that was because the item I was looking for was bugged and partially inside a table.