Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Secret World: My Beta Weekend #4 Experience (Part Two)

Character Creation
The Secret World - Selecting DimensionThe Secret World - Character Customization
Each account has the ability to create three characters. It is at this point where you select your desired faction (Templar, Illuminati or Dragon) as well as which "dimension" (Server) your character will reside in. From what I saw during the beta weekend, character creation is pretty simple and limited in options. There is an option to choose your character's gender, an option for the head (and its corresponding features) and also an option to customize your character's outfit.
The Secret World - Facial TraitsThe Secret World - Hair Makeup
The customization for head basically involves only changes to the character's facial traits (like eyes, nose, lips and jaw) and hair & make-up (like hairstyle, hair colour, eyebrow shape and make-up colours). Within these customizations, the options are pretty much limited to a few designs (probably less than ten for each option). Therefore, with this character creation system, there is a pretty high chance (close to very high) of you to see a "clone" of yourself within "The Secret World". Up until this point, I am sure you would be asking this..."What about the rest of the body?". Sad to say, you cannot customize anything below your neck. There is no customization for your character's height, build and anything what-so-ever apart from changing outfits. The reason for this might be due to certain brave attempts by the creators in doing something out of the ordinary (but this is just my speculation of course).
The Secret World - Fistful of ZombiesThe Secret World - Horror Show
Usually, whenever we are shown a cut-scene in a game (especially an online game where there's player customization for your character), we will never find our character within the cut-scenes. But for "The Secret World", in every cut-scene I've seen so far, we will definitely be shown our character (be it front or back).
This in my opinion is a very hard thing to do (worthy of a pat on the back). Surely everyone is gonna have a different character right? Therefore it would probably be quite taxing to incorporate our characters into the cut-scenes. However, in their attempt to do this, they had to sacrifice something else...our character customizability. I'm guessing they had to remove the ability to customize our avatar (everything below the neck) so as to make things easier for them to incorporate the characters into the cut-scenes. Albeit a praiseworthy attempt, I think that it might have been better that they improved on the customization options and just leave our characters out of the cut-scenes. Besides, our characters aren't even moving or talking in the cut-scenes anyway (Definitely asking too much over here...hahaha). They're merely standing there, so it would hardly matter at all if we had removed them.
The Secret World - Outfit ChestThe Secret World - Outfit Legs
As for our outfit, although there isn't much clothing to choose from during character creation, I am under the impression that there are plenty of them available in the game (probably at the faction HQs, New York, London and Seoul). The clothes can be bought using Pax Romana (the in-game currency). Guess this means that you will have to save up some money and go there for some "fashion shopping". But still, I think that those clothing are gonna cost a bomb and better looking ones will probably be available only in the "cash shop". Lastly, there has been talks in the forum stating that the character creation will improve during live and thereafter, but how much of an improvement it will be still remains to be seen.
Previous: The Secret World (Part One)Next: The Secret World (Part Three)

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Secret World: My Beta Weekend #4 Experience (Part One)




The Secret World - Login
Have you tried out the latest "The Secret World" Beta Weekend #4? If yes, then how was it? Was it fun and would you buy the game and play it? If no, then don't fret it. I'll share with you my experience of the beta weekend - what I liked about it, what I don't as well as what I've learnt about the game's systems.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend that you spend 250 Euros on this game right off the bat to buy its "Grandmaster" package (Lifetime membership). But this doesn't mean that you should disregard the game totally either. I would rather suggest that you buy the game and try it out for the first 30 days. If your interested, then buy the lifetime membership afterwards. If your still undecided, subscribe for a month or two to see if that will change your mind. In my opinion, you should never spend so much on a game that you did not even try out yet (just because it would "save" money later on). Who knows, you might not even like it afterwards, or it might be a far cry from your expectations...on the later stages perhaps? Anyway, let's get back to the beta experience.

First off, I didn't quite like what I encountered during my downloading of the beta client. I got the email invite like on Tuesday morning last week. When I downloaded the 10 MB client and started with the installation process, I was sure that the client said that it would require at least 15,375.4 MB of hdd space to install.

Normally, if a game client said that, you would at least expect that the client size to be around that much in size only...give or take a couple of GB at worst. But what's shocking to me was that at the end of the day, the whole folder where I stored the game grew in size to a shocking 27.8 GB (That's roughly 2X the hdd space requirement stated by the installer). I did a check on the minimum system requirements afterwards and saw that it required at least 30 GB of hdd space. So I guess they might have missed this tiny detail? But surely this would have placed the company in a bad spotlight right?

On a similar note, if the client size is 30 GB, shouldn't more time have been given to the population at large to download the client? Since not many people all around the world would have a fast enough connection to download 30 GB of data in just under 4 - 5 days. Unless of course you leave the computer on at night while you sleep. Well I have to admit my internet service provider (ISP) isn't top-notched and I can't afford any better, but surely there should be others in a situation quite like mine right? How many of you can download 1 GB of data in minutes? I have to say my connection crawled like a turtle and could only manage to download 1 GB of data in 2.5 to 3 hours. So downloading the client took quite a lot of time and effort on my part....not to mention that I was only expecting to download 15 GB of data, not 27.8 GB. (And also that time is running against me.)

After a humongous struggle, I managed to finish the client with 19 hours left till the end of beta weekend #4. So in the end, I only managed to test and run around in the game world for like 9 hours (had to sleep too you know ^_^). Hahaha...70 hours of effort downloading only to last for 9 hours. Highly inefficient don't you think? But frankly speaking, I do not regret having to spend my time downloading it. It was quite an eye-opener.

Give me some time as I prepare and sort through the screenshots and vids that I took whilst in the game world. In the next few posts, I will be sharing with you more information regarding the character creation, skills, equipments and quest system of "The Secret World".

- BuLaDiFu -

Next: The Secret World (Part Two)

Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Secret World: Closed Beta NDA Lifted.

With Tarib's announcement of the NDA on TSW Closed Beta being lifted, posts of screenshots and video streamings have steadily been released onto the Internet.

For those who are wishing to catch a glimpse of the in-game situation, here's a video stream from Jewel (which she kindly posted onto the TSW forums). Its a 1 hour and 20 minutes clip featuring various stuff like the character creation in TSW and the weapons and skills.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The Secret World: Beta Weekend #4

The Secret World - Beta Weekend 4
This morning when I woke up and checked my mailbox, I realized that Funcom had sent me two access keys for the upcoming fourth and final beta weekend for "The Secret World".
The Secret World - Account RegisterThe Secret World - Account Creation
Hoping to report on this and give readers a sneak preview, I immediately went to register for an account using one of the access keys.
The Secret World - Patching Beta Weekend Client
Next I proceeded to download the beta weekend client. And man did it give me a shock of my life...

I was expecting that the client wouldn't be too large since this was just a beta weekend experience, but upon patching, I realized that I needed to patch up to 12.6 GB of data. Since I'm running on a 1 MB line, this patch will take like 40+ hours to finish.

Hopefully I can finish it in time for the beta weekend which starts on the 22nd June 2012, Friday, 4 pm (GMT) and ends on the 25th June 2012, Monday, 7 am (GMT).

And oh...before I forget, that wasn't the purpose of this post. The actual purpose was to give out the "2nd" access key that Funcom gave me (wouldn't wanna waste it right?).

Criteria
Just be the FIRST to leave a comment (stating that you want it) below with a method for me to pass the access key to you, like an email or something.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Aika (Part Five)



Crafting
Aika - Crafting Area
The crafting system in Aika is pretty simple in my opinion and it doesn't involve the grind that you would often find in other MMOs. Any player, whether your a first-timer or a veteran crafter, can successfully forge an item and sometimes there's even a chance for you to create a superior item. In other words, everyone is equal because there is simply no leveling system in crafting. You don't need to grind to a "particular crafting level" in order to make something.
Aika - AnvilAika - Crafting EquipmentAika - Crafting Materials
To craft an item, all you need to do is gather the necessary materials and then access the "Anvil" which can be found in major cities like Regenshein. However, some of these materials will often need to be crafted from a combination of raw materials looted off monsters plus some items which can be bought from the blacksmith.
Aika - Disassemble
Due to the difficulty in looting items (for crafting) off monsters, it may sometimes be useful for you to disassemble unwanted or old equipments which you may have in order to salvage some usable materials for crafting better items. But owing to the randomness in materials obtained off disassembly, I often find it useful to only disassemble equipments which are low in durability while npcing (selling to npc) equipments which are high in durability (for gold).

Equipments
Aika - Superior Nergal 7A
Equipments in Aika can basically be modified in a few ways. You can reinforce, enchant, level down, change its visual appearance and also increase its max durability.
Aika - AlchemistAika - Reinforcing Weapon
To reinforce an equipment, you will need to approach the "Alchemist" NPC. Next, place the equipment you wish to upgrade together with the appropriate Pellurite (Hira) or Rubecine (Kaize). For example, a rank E weapon would require rank E pellurites.

When reinforcing, you can also place in liquid extracts of the same rank to "protect" your equipment from being destroyed if the attempt fails. But as far as I know, it is relatively safe to reinforce your equipment without the extract up to around +3 (for normal gears) and +4 (for superior ones).
Aika - Weapon Glows
However, I guess, the fun part starts when you upgrade it beyond +3. From +4 onwards (up to the max of +11), the equipment you reinforced will start to glow. But I read from a post in Aika Forum (gPotato) that this glowing effect is limited to weapons (all) and certain armor sets (unique ones such as Mana, BlackGhost and GrayHawk).
Reinforce Level+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11
Colour of GlowFaint BlueBlueStrong BlueYellowGoldenRedPinkPurple Blue
Aika - Enchanted Weapon
To enchant an equipment, you will need to approach the "Enchanter" NPC. But first, please make sure that the equipment can be enchanted. You can do so by hovering your mouse over the equipment in question.
Aika - Lower VaizanAika - Intermediate VaizanAika - Magical Crystal
Next, you will need either one of these items, auralars (vaizans) or magical crystals. There are various qualities of auralars and the better its quality, the stronger the enchantment it will offer. However, the downside of using auralars is that the enchantment it offers will be random.

The only way to control the type of enchantments you impart onto your equipment is to use magical crystals, but these are rare to come by. Furthermore, the enchantment found on the magical crystal might not be what your looking for or it can only be enchanted upon an equipment part which you do not have slot for.
Aika - EnchantingAika - Enchanted Equipment
When you have finally decided on which equipment to enchant and the material to be used for the enchanting, place both the items into their respective slots as shown in the above picture. Do note that each equipment only has up to three enchantment slots and enchantments cannot be overwritten or erased (though there is an item to do so in the cash shop).
Aika - Level Down Equipment
To level down an equipment means that you pay a certain amount of gold to the blacksmith to modify the item so that you can use it at a lower level. Take for example, your level 22 and you have an awesome item that can only be used when your level 24. You can either wait until your level 24 or you can take it to the blacksmith to level it down so that you can use it now, immediately.

The cost of leveling down an equipment depends on the rank of the item and naturally, the higher its rank, the more costly it will be to level it down. And although there is a chance to fail this process, it is less dangerous than reinforcing. Failing a level down will only increase the item's level requirement (to use). It will not destroy the item. Again, you will need to mouse over the item to check whether it can be leveled down in the first place.
Aika - Changing Equipment Appearance
To change an equipment's visual appearance, you will need three items. The first item is the equipment whose stats you desire to keep. The second item is the equipment whose visual appearance is what you want. Lastly, you will need a medium called "Athlon" to perform this process. This medium will be consumed regardless of the outcome (items are unharmed if the process fails).

However, you will have to know that the two pieces of equipment involved in this process must fulfill certain criteria. They must be of the same equipment category and be worn by the same character class. This means that you cannot perform this process to transfer a weapon's stats onto an armor piece (or vice versa). Likewise, you cannot perform this process to transfer a warlock's helmet stats onto a warrior's helmet.

The primary "useful" purpose of this is to trick an opponent into thinking your a low level and thus letting their guards down when engaging you. But I think you shouldn't waste too much effort on this because most of the time people take note of whose a threat by their names more than by their appearance.

Lastly, to increase the max durability of an item, you will need to procure a Hammer of Forging / Durable Hammer (called Normal Durability Increaser in AikaSEA). According to gPotato's wiki, this item can be found in the cash item shop, but from what I heard via fellow gamers in AikaSEA, it can be bought from an NPC in Epheso (Leopold) at a costly price (probably in the range of a million gold). Sadly, I could not verify this information because there was a level restriction to use the air transport to Leopold (required level 51 but I was only level 41).

Anyway, this durable hammer increases the max durability of an item by 10% and there is a restriction whereby an item can only perform this upgrade once. In my opinion, the only purpose of getting this upgrade is so that your items can last longer in battles. This is especially useful on weapons for dual gunners (as they have a skill that increases damage ability at the expense of durability).



Previous: Aika (Part Four)

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Aika (Part Four)


Pran
Aika - Pran Description
Princess of Air Nymph, otherwise known as Pran, is a fairy familiar that will act as your reliable sidekick and close partner during your stay in Aika. Though they cannot directly participate in a battle with you, they can help by providing you with offensive and defensive buffs as well as boosts in certain stats.

And as you travel around the world of Aika, fulfilling quests and undertaking adventures, she will grow alongside with you as well. Not only will her spells become more potent, she will also evolve and develop her own personality eventually (depending on how you treat her).

Furthermore, your pran can be given a unique name and also follow you around in whichever character you may choose to use in your account. You will need to use the pran station, as a go between, to move her from one character to another. Do note that each account has a limit though. You can only create up to three characters to play with and two prans to aid your characters in battles.
Aika - Fire Pran
There are three types of prans which you can choose to create, fire, water and air.
Each of these prans have their unique capabilities and skills. Although none of them are inferior to the other, it is in my opinion that you choose your prans carefully to compliment HOW you play your character or in other words, your fighting style.
Aika - Pran Quest
To acquire your first pran, you will need to have a character reach level 7. A quest will then be available to you at the Flour Mill NPC. Once you've followed through and cleared the quests, you will get to name and meet your pran companion at the Pran Station.

If you so wish, you can approach the Pran Station NPC again to repeat the quest to obtain your second and final pran (after which the quest will no longer be available). Just remember that depending on the type of pran your getting, you will need to acquire the necessary amount of essences.
Pran TypeEssence (Qty)
FireWaterAir
Fire522
Water252
Air225
Fire Essence - Can be acquired from boars (young, breeding, mutated, wild).
Water Essence - Can be acquired from kubaris (munta, fierce munta, raging munta).
Air Essence - Can be acquired from moguns (cowardly, anxious, feisty).
Aika - Old Wooden BoxAika - Opening Old Wooden BoxAika - Items in Old Wooden Box
Alternatively, you can also get random essences from old wooden boxes lying around the map.

If you ever decide that one of your pran is useless and you wish to change it for another type of pran, here is one way that I've read about (during my surfing for information) which you can try. But the criteria is that you must have an empty character slot.

First, create a disposable character. Then place the unwanted pran on that character and delete the character. The pran will then be disposed off together with the character and thus freeing you to create another pran. Just remember to remove all the things from the pran before deleting it (as pran costumes can be pretty expensive in my opinion).


There are three major points of evolution for a pran in which you as her master must take note of.
  • Evolution I
    Evolution I occurs when your pran reaches level 5. At this point, your pran will evolve from a fairy into a child.
  • Evolution II
    Evolution II occurs when your pran reaches level 20. At this point, your pran will evolve from a child into a teen.
  • Evolution III
    Evolution III occurs when your pran reaches level 50. At this point, your pran will evolve from a teen into an adult.
FairyChildTeenAdult
Aika - FairyAika - ChildAika - TeenAika - Adult
Each of these evolution stages will have its own unique quest to complete. Just remember that once your pran reaches the required level (regardless of which evolution stage it is), you must immediately bring her to see the following "suspicious-looking" guy in Regenshein.
Aika - Pran Messenger
That is because your pran will cease to gain experience points until she evolves into the next form. Upon completing his quest, your pran will evolve and can then gain experience points again.

If you still remembered that prans can have their own personality, then now would be a good time to introduce you to the types of personalities that a pran can have.
CuteMeanSassy
Aika - Pran Cute PersonalityAika - Pran Mean PersonalityAika - Pran Sassy Personality
SmartSpunkyTough
Aika - Pran Smart PersonalityAika - Pran Spunky PersonalityAika - Pran Tough Personality
Just note that during the fairy and child stages, your pran is still learning and is in the midst of developing, thus her personality will not be shown until later in the teen and adult stages.
Aika - Pran Interaction
The personality that your pran develops largely depends upon how you answer her questions (whenever she interacts with you), but there are speculations that the food you feed her might also play a small part in it.
SmartMeanSassy (Left) & Cute (Right)
Aika - Adult Pran Smart PersonalityAika - Adult Pran Mean PersonalityAika - Adult Pran Sassy (Left) and Cute (Right) Personalities
If you want a full list of their adult appearance according to their personality, here are two websites that I found it from, Adult Pran and Aika Epic II: Karena.
PersonalityBehavior Example
CuteYeah, I think it's fun playing with you! I think that you might be one of my best friends, master! That makes me really happy! Let's get going.
MeanHey, let's see if you're actually good for something. Hand over some cash. Um – please.
SassyIt's usually cold in the mornings, so I warm myself up with a cup of tea! But sometimes I feel like I don't need it - baby, I'm already steamin' hot!
SmartI'm slightly bemused, master. I'm getting insulted because of my ears. It's slightly gratuitous, isn't it?
SpunkyYes, I really like being happy! Yay, this should be easy!
ToughSome dumb pran was running her mouth, so I socked it shut. I'm only sorry that she wasn't sent straight back to the Pran Station.
Personally, I feel that apart from the differences in poses, wings (for adults) and behaviors while interacting with you, there isn't much else that is worthy in making you fuss over their personality. I would rather recommend that you answer the questions as you feel and then get a surprise when they develop their personality.

Anyway, if you still feel like wanting a particular personality, here's a pran conversion table which I found on one forum. Hopefully it will give you a better idea on how to answer those questions so that you can develop a specific personality.

Previous: Aika (Part Three)Next: Aika (Part Five)