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Chaos Theory: The Secret World anniversary celebration, take two!

Chaos Theory:  The Secret World anniversary celebration, take two!

It's that time of year again: time to celebrate another anniversary in The Secret World! And that means taking on world bosses, soaking up oodles of AP, and collecting lore, clothes, and (the best part) pets. Yep, definitely sounds like a party. The birthday bash lasts through July 17th, but the double AP portion of it ends on the 11th, so if you have new builds you want to test and you like the feel of all that AP popping up every few steps, now is the time to get into the game.

If you attended last year's Guardians of Gaia celebration, you're no doubt familiar with the set up of the event; you may have even completed everything. If not, you now have the chance to catch up on everything, including collecting all the lore and pets. On top of that, there are new goodies to collect this time around. There's even a new achievement involving all the pets! Here are some tips and tricks for getting the most out of TSW's second anniversary celebration.

As they did last year, subscribers will find a free anniversary t-shirt available to claim in the item store. Instead of being emblazoned with a fancy number one in flames, it's got a matching number two. (I see images of TSW's version of Thing 1 and Thing 2 wandering Agartha...)

Additionally, if you missed out on getting the Gaia Rocks t-shirt, you need only to complete each world boss mission once to earn it. That means killing the Guardian golem in each area in the main game (not including Tokyo) one time during the event.


A new addition to the festivities this year is the Happy Feet achievement. If you are familiar with the movie of the same name, you'll get the idea that it is all about dancing. To get it, a group of eight folks (each with one of the shem pets except Tokyo) get together and summon their pets in a circle. The pets then get down and cut a rug. Well, they dance. Someone with the mini Patchwork Mech-man from Tokyo can also disrupt the dance ritual.


Even if you missed out on collecting all the mini guardian pets last year or want only the new stuff or just want to maximize your AP hoarding, you'll want to know where to find the guardians to get the goodies. The eight main world bosses are all in the very same spots as last year (+1 for being too lazy to delete my waypoints!). The new Tokyo boss has a couple of locations in Kaiden, one near the crashed helicopter and playground and the other near Susanoo's Diner. Very important note: If you have not yet traveled to Tokyo, you will not be able to participate in the Tokyo boss!


To best keep up on when Guardians are spawning, players should join the the event channel, which also happens to supply oodles of info. To do this, just type "/chat join event" (without the quotation marks). Be sure you enable #event to show in your chat box, and soon it will be flooded with sightings of golems! Then you can just add the spotter to your friends list and meet up with them (right click option from friends list) to pop to the right dimension to get in on the world boss fight. Not sure you made it to the right one? Check dimension and server by pressing shift + F9.


An extra hint: Last year my friends list got so bloated I lost track of who was who. So unless it is a spotter that you use regularly, I'd recommend removing the name from your friends list as soon as you are done meeting up. You can easily re-add it later just by right clicking the name in event chat when needed.

To get the most (loot and AP) out of the experience, you will probably want to keep track of which boss you have killed because each one has a two-hour mission cooldown. No mission, no reward bag. You can either keep a running list of which guardians you have engaged and cross them off as you go (my preferred method) or check your mission cooldown timers. Do this by pressing shift + L and check the mission tab. With the exception of two, the missions are all labeled "Guardians of ____". Here is how they correspond:

  • Kingsmouth (KM) = Earth

  • Savage Coast (SC) = Water

  • Blue Mountain (BM) = Stone

  • Scorched Desert (SD) = Fire

  • City of the Sun God (CotSG) = Sand

  • Shadowy Forest (SF) = Pestilence

  • Carpathian Fangs (CF) = Ice

The two different ones are:

  • Besieged Farmlands (BF) = The Verdant Guardian

  • Kaiden (KD) = The Patchwork Horror

Two important hints for fighting The Patchwork Horror in Tokyo. One, I'd recommend having a good chunk of HP equipped, or you will find yourself one-shotted often. Two, for the love of all that is decent, do not go on the raised sidewalk! Fight in the road; the boss cannot step up and will reset if he has to leave the area in order to get you on the sidewalk. And since this boss has multiple AEGIS shields that pop up throughout the fight, no one wants to have to start all over.


If you want only a certain Guardian or two for specific rewards, you have to watch only for those. Of course, AP isn't a bad thing, and your assistance with all the bosses helps others who are doing this for the first time! So now the only question is, what loot is available?

As last year, each golem has its corresponding mini pet called a shem. The cosmetic eyepiece items -- green glowing eyes, eye patch, monocle -- also still drop in the main zones. Of course, Black Bullion, signet bags, and the ever popular anniversary flare gun (/sarcasm) are still available as well. If you want new stuff, however, you have to head to Tokyo.

Considered very popular items during other events, new clothing pieces have been added. Because the new Patchwork Horror boss in Tokyo drops the new clothing, it makes sense that it has a Japanese flair! You can collect the hat, the chest piece, and the legs -- all in white. Other loot from the KD boss includes augment items, AEGIS items, diodes, capacitors, and criterion upgrades. Sadly, the Tokyo loot bags are bound to the player, so there is no way to trade them to friends or alts to share clothing items, the pet, or other goodies. Another important thing to note is that one set of the new lore for the event actually comes from the boss itself (see below).


For all you lore junkies out there, there's good news and bad news about the event lore. The good news is you don't have to go into Fusang! Those who missed the lore from last year that was tucked away in the perpetual PvP zone can actually get it on the Tokyo branch in Agartha. Now everyone can finish the Guardians of Gaia event lore series in the open world.

The bad news is that there is a new set of lore (well, technically two!), and both are acquired in Tokyo. That means that folks who don't have Tokyo or haven't gotten there yet will be unable to complete at least one of these new lore sets. Even worse, half of the lore is available only through loot drops from the new Tokyo boss. Random chance at lore? No way!

Luckily, there is a bit of good news on this front. Funcom jumped in and negated the chance part of getting lore; as of Wednesday's patch, the SD cards that contain The Black Signal's lore pieces are now a guaranteed drop, although they're still random. Thankfully, the update also made the SD cards tradeable! If you have a toon that can't slip into Tokyo yet, you have the chance to save up and send off those extra SD cards, or you can trade with others for the ones you need to complete your own set. The cards are numbered one through five and correspond to the lore number. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done about getting the location-based Buzzing set that is sprinkled throughout Kaidan.

If you're having any trouble finding specific lore, here's a little cheat sheet. Just skip ahead if you'd rather find them without any help.

Guardians of Gaia

  • #1 -- Kingsmouth (685, 695)

  • #2 -- Savage Coast (20, 565)

  • #3 -- Blue Mountain (620, 255)

  • #4 -- Scorched Desert (525, 640)

  • #5 -- City of the Sun God (760, 890)

  • #6 -- Besieged Farmlands (1225, 1260)

  • #7 -- Shadowy Forest (445, 545)

  • #8 -- Carpathian Fangs (475, 1220)

  • #9 -- Agartha (315, 50); Tokyo branch

Anomalies of the Filth, The Buzzing (all in Kaidan):

  • #1 -- (658, 434)

  • #2 -- (253, 416)

  • #3 -- (441, 737)

  • #4 -- (866, 532)

  • #5 -- (415, 636); follow the spark after the Tokyo guardian dies, it becomes the lore.

  • #6 -- (385, 719)

Anomalies of the Filth, The Black Signal: SD cards 1 - 5 correspond with lores #1 - #5.


And one last extra goodie for the party! Funcom is offering a recruitment reward of one month of free membership for every new player you entice into the game. To qualify for the free month, you have to send the invite by July 11th, and the friend has to purchase the game within 30 days. Anyone is able to do this, and all accounts have been given 10 more invite keys to send out. So get those friends addicted to TSW with you!

Conspiracies, paranoia, secrets, and chaos -- the breakfast of champions! Feast on a bowlful with MJ on Thursdays as she infiltrates The Secret World to bring you the latest word on the streets of Gaia in Chaos Theory. Heard some juicy whispers or have a few leads you want followed? Send them to mj@massively.com and she'll jump on the case!