The Secret World: Game Director’s Letter – August 2013

Xander Hayes in Games, Magazine, The Secret World 0 comments 05 SEP 2013

Hungry players of The Secret World seem to be in for a big treat in the coming weeks. Joel Bylos, Funcom’s Creative Director in his Game Director’s Letter for August, dished out more new information on the upcoming Issues in The Secret World. A lot, or little as some may argue, has already been mentioned in his previous letters about what’s to come our way. However, now he has provided us with more concrete information on the upcoming Scenario and Augment systems, as well as Issues 8 and the brand new Tokyo region to be released with Issue 9. He also revealed that two new events will kick off tomorrow, a new Golden Weekend as well as another event titled “The Gilded Rage” where a different defense mechanisms of Gaia will once again be rampaging through the regions of the world.

So what information has he decided to tease us with this time around?

 

SCENARIOS

Playing through these Scenarios will earn you a Field Agent certification which is a must for Tokyo, a brand new zone in the game coming our way in Issue 9. Without this certification, you will not be allowed into Tokyo. Scenarios will come in all three dungeon modes: Normal, Elite and Nightmare. Nightmare modes will require the absolute top gear currently available in the Secret World which currently stands at quality level (QL) 10.5 purple. As previously mentioned, Scenarios will have an element of randomness to them, meaning that decisions you make during the Scenario will make the end result different. This will indeed add to the re-playability of Scenarios and to players’ enjoyment of the game. In talking about the testing of the Scenario system, Joel Bylos stated:

I had a chance to test the most recent iteration of the scenario system and I was incredibly pleased with how it is coming along. There was a moment when my character, attempting to herd survivors into the Hotel Wahid, was caught out by a sandstorm which swept in: reducing visibility in the entire area and damaging my character. I was forced to find cover to survive, but the survivors I was escorting weren’t so lucky!

During one game, half of the survivors I was protecting revealed themselves as cultists and began slaughtering the rest.

 

AUGMENT SYSTEM

Augments will fall into four categories with each category of the wheel to contain 10 Augments. Each Augment will be upgradable up to 5 times. As previously mentioned, the Augment system will require some knowledge of crafting in the game. Base Augment items will be recovered during Scenarios and will need to be crafted into useable items before being consumed to upgrade Augments in the wheel. Once you craft an Augment you will be able to consume it at a significant AP cost to learn/upgrade the appropriate Augment in the Augment wheel. In order to upgrade Augments past a certain tier you will also need to increase you Augment Skill to the required level. As you increase your Augment Skills, you increase your capacity to store APs. Players with fully upgraded Augment Skills will be able to store hundreds of APs.

There will be 7 abilities that players will have a chance to Augment and, of course, players will have the ability to upgrade them all. Augments can be upgrades that affect your entire character, or they can be narrowly focused and only able to upgrade the active ability that they are equipped on. Overall, there will be 200 different upgrades available to players through the Augment system.

 

ISSUE #9 – TOKYO

In keeping with the rest of the remarkable storytelling in The Secret World, inspiration for Tokyo was taken directly from Japanese custom, myth and legend. Two new interesting characters were mentioned this time around. Inbeda, the leopard-skin bathrobe clad Oni mercenary at the bathhouse, and Ricky Pagan, the rock-a-billy heartthrob who stayed during the Tokyo crisis to defend his favorite cherry blossom tree. One can expect new characters, new missions, new monsters and new game mechanics that will challenge every player. Joel does warn players though:

If you don’t take the time to learn how to fight the monsters of Tokyo, you’ll be kissing the concrete more often than not.

 

These new additions to the game, as well as new content being added to the game in regular intervals will definitely keep the players already in the game happy and satisfied with plenty of things to do, while others who have maxed out a while back might make their return to the game and enjoy it once again.

See you in game!

Xander Hayes
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