MMO Melting Pot: The Secret World

MMO Melting Pot did a round-up of posts about the TSW celebration weekend, which more or less covers my experience from the weekend, and much of my lost post. Worth checking out if you're curious about the game.

Some additional thoughts on the game:

• The game's atmosphere is very grim/creepy/scary. Not the kind of game I can play on my own (played with a friend over the weekend). But I get freaked out playing the second half of Portal, so your mileage may vary.
• Solo instances need to allow other party members to join in. See above.
• The game ran well despite my computer being below spec. Graphics quality was low, and load times were very long, but the gameplay itself was smooth. Unlike a certain other celestial conflict MMO. Still bitter over that one.
• I like idea of the ability wheel, and the idea that you can eventually train all the abilities. I like being able to switch my skills around whenever I want, and if I want to try a different play-style, I can do that without needing to make a new character. It's just a matter of collecting enough skill points to train in the new weapon/abilities.
• Trying to see the synergies between abilities can be difficult, because you can only pull up the descriptions of a specific subset of abilities at any one time. Some abilities build resources, some consume resources, and cause status effects, and some take advantage of status effects. It's all written in text though, with no other visual cues, so you have to hold it all in your head while paging through abilities. It's a bit overwhelming for a newbie.
• Agartha is really pretty. It's the hub realm with the world tree that connects to various places and times of the "surface" world. It's all bright and glowing and a little steampunky, with a Victorian era conductor and his two giant automaton aides. Makes me want to check out City of Steam, hehehe.
• Love that you can customize your clothes right at character creation. The gear pieces with stats on them are all talismans/accessories and such that aren't visible, so your look isn't tied to your stats.
• Assault rifles are for healing. Who knew?
• Facial expressions and natural body movement in cutscenes, +10. Creepy eyes, -1. Might be related to my below-spec video card though.

No plans to get get the game at the moment, as there's a game with pandas on the horizon with my name on it, but I might consider it after my next computer upgrade. And after conning others into getting the game too (See point #1 above).