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The Secret World's skill system detailed in new video
If you're staring down the barrel of The Secret World's first beta weekend and you're a little bit daunted by the game's 500-plus skills or its classless progression system, don't despair. Funcom has released an eight-minute video designed to teach you the basics and get your paranormal adventures off on the right foot. The ability wheel breaks everything down into one of three categories: melee, magic, or ranged. Each is subdivided a further three times into different types of weapons (blood magic, blades, rifles, etc.). Technically you can learn every ability in the game, but you can only equip 14 at a time (seven active and seven passive), and you're also limited to equipping two weapons simultaneously. Your 14 abilities, when paired with your weapons of choice, make up your build, and half the fun in The Secret World is trying out all the possible permutations. Learn more after the break, and don't forget to check out our Secret World press beta impressions while you're at it.
Funcom reveals The Secret World skill deck templates
Funcom has penned a new dev diary at MMORPG.com, and the piece reveals three new skill decks from the firm's The Secret World title. What's a skill deck? It's The Secret World's answer to the how-do-you-make-a-level-free-MMORPG question, and it allows players to select from 500 abilities to create "exactly the type of character they want." Funcom thinks the system will seem daunting to players used to simpler class-based mechanics in competing MMOs, and as such the firm is adding a few deck templates to offer players a helping hand. Three of these are profiled in the new diary, including one from each of the game's factions. The Witch Hunter focuses on big damage spikes and represents the Templars, the Warlord is your basic swordfighter from the Dragon faction, and the Thaumaturgist is the Illuminati's answer to the gunmage archetype. [Thanks to fallwind for the tip!]
The Secret World designers talk optimal builds, travel, and more
Funcom devs have been hitting the publicity circuit lately in support of The Secret World, and GamePro has a new video interview featuring lead designer Martin Bruusgaard and lead content designer Joel Bylos. The pair spend a good nine minutes talking about various aspects of their upcoming fantasy-horror MMO, with particular attention given to the game's skill system and the builds it makes possible. "In certain areas, people will need to have the correct effects to be optimal," Bylos explains. "In solo play especially, you will want to have a certain build." You can still progress any way you see fit, though, and Bylos was quick to point out that Funcom's intent is to provide a flexible character building system. That said, it's clear that build flexibility can come at the expense of perfect optimization, and ultimately Funcom is striving for a balance between playing how you want to play and tweaking your build as you go in order to progress through content. The interview also touches on travel in The Secret World, and Bylos drops a few interesting hints about the use of hollow-earth myths to facilitate the globe-jumping that players will experience when traveling between far-flung locales like New York, Seoul, or London. Check out all the details after the cut.
The Chronicles of Spellborn scores 8/10 in an early review
Although a great deal of the world is still playing the beta version of The Chronicles of Spellborn, continental Europe has had access to the retail copy since the 27th of November. Since Eurogamer has had a couple of weeks to put the game through its paces, they've posted a review. Now, we're sure you know the various problems with MMO reviews in general -- the two biggest being that most (good) MMOs are updated frequently post-launch, and that there's usually too much content to get through to provide accurate insight to all levels and areas of a game -- but it's worth nothing that this one comes with a rather healthy eight-out-of-ten score at the end.The art style and environments get an approving nod in the review, and so do the action-based combat mechanics. The "Skill Deck", which is the replacement for the traditional action bar you might be used to from a huge number of other MMOs, is both praised and knocked for its complexity. The primary criticisms that the review levels against TCoS are that it can be a bit generic at times, and that it lacks the glossy polish that you see in big-budget titles. Obviously these complaints were not significant enough to stop the reviewer from enjoying the game, and we look forward to seeing how it shapes up by the time it's released to the rest of the world in January.
