The Secret World: Early access continues

Funcom's modern day MMORPG "The Secret World" claims it has all the potential to become one of the legendary MMO games this year. Funcom defines the game as a revolutionary MMO. Whether it will live up to this, is something we will have to decide later this year but the conspiracy theory based MMO is about to enter its Early Access. The War began this Friday, for those who have purchased the game.

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The Secret World - Early Access begins this Friday

I have enjoyed beta weekends of Funcom's modern day MMO "The Secret World". Before the game is released next week, Funcom is launching the Early Access event this Friday. From 9 AM PDT, players who have purchased the game will be able to logon, create their characters (if they have not done so), join one of three societies in game: The Templars, The Dragon and Illuminati and start taking on dangerous missions as they are put to test by their secret society recruiters.

If you haven't pre-ordered the game yet, you can pre-order The Secret World now and get access to the Early Access event this Friday.

The Secret Launch on July 3, 2012

They told you it was all about 2012, right? The Secret World launches July 3rd, if you don't have the Early Access opportunity. So what are the main features of the game?

3 Secret Societies - No Classes, No Levels

In the Secret World, there are three secret societies.  The Illuminati, The Dragon and the Templars. Players will join one of these three societies and they will fight together or against other players for one purpose only; Global domination.

What are these Secret Societies really? It's all about the conspiracy theories, myths and everything you have been hearing mostly about Illuminati and Templars. Imagine if they were all true (I'm not saying they aren't, we're talking about a game here) and that you were invited to join one of these. Which one would you go for? Would you join the first to invite you or would you even care about joining? In The Secret World, you will choose one of them and it will affect all your gameplay experience. So you better make a good choice!

Once you select a society, they will start telling you what to do. There will be missions and you will be traveling to locations like Stonehenge, El Dorago and Shambala. Each location will have its own story and there will be special PvP war zones where you will be in a large-scale battle involving hundreds of players at once.

Single Server Technology in the Secret World

There is a fantastic feature in the Secret World. One of the biggest disappointments in MMOs is to find out that your friend who has been playing the same MMO with you, is on another server. Most of the games don't even allow server transfers and the only thing you can do, is to create a new character on another server and start from scratch - if you have the time.

Fortunately in The Secret World, there is the Single Server Technology that allows you to play with your friends without worrying about servers and regions. Instead of servers, there are dimensions in The Secret World. Once you setup a character, you choose a dimension which becomes your home. Whenever you feel like playing with friends on another dimension, you simply get teleported. You can always go back to your home dimension once you are done playing in that other dimension too.

Beta experience

In my experience with the game, I had the chance to play as a Templar and then a Dragon. The first one, with the Templars was absolutely exciting. Meeting the secret society leaders and traveling to Kingsmouth, fighting the infected and trying to complete missions at the same time was entertaining. The game's fantastic visuals and impressive atmosphere makes you want to discover more secrets and there is so much to do in game. Even if it was a limited beta, the map was massive and there was a lot of quests.

What I had liked most about the game was that you could actually enjoy the game on SOLO and you could freely explore the world, without worrying about any of the quests. All you had to worry about was the infected people who would attack you if you were too close to them. Without the levels and classes, the number of skills and weapons allowed me to customize my character. I didn't have the chance to experience the PvP but the single player mode was a lot fun with all the cinematics and the beautiful ambience of the game. Just like the title suggests, there were a couple of secret places in game, giving you another reason to explore the world before you started with the quests. Each quest had its little story and it wasn't all that boring to watch the cut-scenes and read the stories, unlike many MMOs today that bore you with repetitive stories and quests.

On another beta weekend, I had the chance to experience the Dragon story. Despite the exciting start, I wasn't all that impressed as it started repeating cut-scenes and story from the Templar story. It could be due to the beta being limited but I really hope Funcom will add more stories to the game as players progress. Seeing the single player mode die after some months would be a real waste.

I will be joining the game at 9AM PDT Friday to experience the Illuminati first. Expect a load of content over the weekend!

While you wait, here is a recap of what we have covered about The Secret World.

For more information visit out The Secret World special pages:

 The Secret World gameplay videos

 The Secret World screenshots

 All about The Secret World

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