We recently had the opportunity to spend some quality time with a hands-on look at the upcoming MMORPG from Funcom, The Secret World, in the first Beta Testing Weekend event.

During this event much of the game was "closed off" to players, allowing for only one of the three factions and strict limitations on how far players could progress. We were able to begin as a member of The Templars, a secret order based in London with an historic foundation in tradition, order, and honor (at least they claim to be). In case you aren't yet familiar with the setting of the game, it takes place in a near future where dark forces of a hidden world have burst forth into our world and are causing a multitude of problems and disasters worldwide. Each of the factions has their own intentions and methods when it comes to how they plan to combat this, but all have the same common enemy. Directly after characte creation, the "Dark Days" really begin to arrive.

Speaking of character creation, while it may not offer as much customization as some MMO's, the options are pretty good. There are several pre-set options for different head shapes and ethnic appearances. From there players can more specifically choose their eyes, noses, mouths, and hair styles (and a few facial hair options for the men). The one thing we didn't see was options for body size changes. Everyone of the same gender seemed to have the same height, weight, and proportions. Now, this MAY just be an effect of the beta phase, so we'll keep an eye on any changes or additions to customization as the game gets closer to launch.

The graphics/visuals of the game varied depending on settings. While the game will be able to run on somewhat older PC's with only DirectX 9 capabilities, the visual quality is going to be much less. As the settings increased, the visual quality changed dramatically. Even the different between the "high" texture setting to the maximum option yielded a rather noticeable improvement in detail. I had initially glanced over this highest option, and most of the screenshots taken were actually only using the "high" setting. But if you have a PC capable of running the game using DirectX 11 and high settings or better, it looks outstanding! Here are the specs on the PC we tested with:

• CPU: Intel 1st-Gen quad-core i7 (2.2Ghz)
• RAM: 8Gb 1066Mhz DDR3
• GPU: Radeon HD 5870
• HDD: 500Gb 7200rpm
• Resolution: 1920x1080 (HD)

The particle effects, post-processing, and other added effects also had great detail and the higher settings on lighting really helped add to the creepy feeling of the location. The background music was fitting and not overpowering; even the combat music didn't seem overdone (as some MMO's often do). After completing the tutorial players were led to the town of Kingsmouth off the shore of New England, where they have a serious and mysterious undead problem. Right off the bat, I had the chance to start taking out some zombies. No complaints there! Maybe I should have chosen that sledge hammer as my staring weapon?

The initial story cutscenes and tutorials do a good job at both setting the scene for the game, as well as introducing the player to the gameplay mechanics and somewhat unique skills/abilities structure. I say "somewhat" unique because there are a few similar titles out there that have offered a nearly "level-less" advancement system (Fallen Earth for example). The player advancement in The Secret World feels much more realistic and fluid than the typical "ding" of level-based games. You earn two types of points as you complete missions and defeat enemies. Ability points allow you to choose various skills from a tree-style pool such as pistols, assault rifles, melee weapons, and different forms of magic powers. There are no "set" abilities and players are free to choose whatever they feel suits their playstyle. The hard cap to advancement is a specific limit to total ability points.

Based on what we saw in the beta weekend, it appears that there will be enough points to allow players to split up their abilities between at least two different power types (if not more). The powers and attacks a player can use are dependent on two things: 1. what weapon(s)/foci they have equipped, and 2. what available powers are slotted. Players have two available "action bars" where they can place a set of active and a set of passive abilities. These can be mixed and matched between different styles. There were no restrictions when it came to combinations, so any two (or more) styles could be combined.

After choosing dual pistols as a starting weapon (anyone here seen Equilibruim?), I added blood magic later on as a "support" style as it had a variety of shield and healing spells. Within each base style there are two branches. These each offer their own specializations, such as one branch focusing on healing while the other is mostly attack (as is the case with blood magic). A player could spend a lot of time just messing around with the numerous combinations possible, and that's just the start! While the beta weekend was limited in terms of how far we were able to explore, it still offered many hours of available gameplay.

The missions and story flowed together well, and there were quite a number of "pop culture" references and humor to add some laughs amidst all th darkness and death. All the major missions have cutscenes that help immerse the player in the story and also help alleviate the "quest text wall" frustration that most MMO's suffer from. Granted, each mission still has a descriptive paragraph that summarizes the situation before you decide to get involved, but watching the scene with your character involved just adds more immersion. This is similar to what they have in Star Wars: The Old Republic, though not to that extent in terms of detail or quantity. Not all missions have a cutscene.

Another pleasant surprise to the mission system was the inclusion of some "detective" or "discovery" style objectives much like you might see in something like the Silent Hill series. While some of the missions still often boiled down to "kill this" or "deliver that", others required some strategy, forethough, or problem solving. Hopefully this type of objective, or similar, are offered more throughout the rest of the game. Luckily, if you get stuck on something or are having a hard time figuring out that illusive riddle, there are other players around to ask for help. Even as a beta testing session, most of the community seemed more mature and amiable.

The actual combat mechanics of the game are not entirely different from what we've seen throughout the MMO genre. If similar to any other game though, it would have to be another Funcom title, Age of Conan. Players have different abilities depending on their chosen style, each having different speed/damage ratios as well as accompanying effects. Some weapons or magic offer more area of affect (AoE) abilities, while others may focus on heavy single-target attacks. And of course players can combine these in any way they choose. Some weapons/powers seemed more "fluid" than others, however. For example, when playing with dual pistols the standard attack and "combo" attack made it feel like you were firing slowly, with too much delay between shots. It wasn't that enemies weren't dying fast enough, more that the actual shots being fired were happening too far apart. I would have expected using dual pistols to be a "speed" type of weapon. In contrast, the sword style seemed to be much more fluid and properly paced.

The Secret World definitely has a lot of potential, and for still being in a beta testing phase it felt rather polished and stable. There weren't any crashes or server outages, and everything seemed to function. There could have been some better explanations for some of the more complicated aspects of the game (I don't recall crafting ever being explained), but overall it was a very positive experience. We will definitely be taking a continued look into the game during the remaining beta testing phases, so keep a look out for our ongoing coverage as the game gets closer to launch. There have been no statistics released so far on the number of pre-order purchases, but if the 1 million+ beta registrations are any indication of interest, this could be the most successful Funcom title yet.

Screenshots

For more information on The Secret World, visit the official website HERE.

Trion Worlds today released the latest gameplay trailer for massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) game, End of Nations™, the upcoming ground-breaking free-to-play PC title. The new trailer highlights the villainous Shadow Revolution, one of two playable factions in the fast-paced strategy title.

The Shadow Revolution, whose core values are order, security, and control is comprised of two distinct classes that help players shape their role in the massive battle for global domination. The first is the hit-and-run Wraith Class, which specializes in light and quick vehicles such as APCs and chopper units with high speed and long range output.  The second is the Phantom Class whose specialty is stealth and hard-hitting tanks plus infantry units that excel in attack, power and mobility.

The Shadow Revolution preview trailer highlights some of the key units players can select and customize when building their company before joining the battle.

For more information on End of Nations, visit the official website HERE.

The AION development team is currently working on AION free-to-play’s most extensive update so far. Amongst countless new features, there will be two new areas and a mount system, which will allow players to explore the world of Atreia even more quickly and comfortably.

New areas for players from level 55
The update extends the world of AION by two new areas. The areas, called Sarpan and Tiamaranta, are aimed at advanced players of level 55 and above. With the introduction of these new regions and the associated challenges, the level limit will be increased to 60. In a total of six new instances, players in Sarpan as well as in Tiamaranta can face new enemies and bosses, each of which drop high-level items, legendary armour and weapons.

Sarpan is activated via an individual campaign quest. It includes neutral territories as well as free PvP areas. Humans, Daevas and members of Siel’s Spear found a new home in Sarpan after the Cataclysm. Sarpan’s capital city, Kamar City, is surrounded by enemy territories. Adventurous players will certainly get more than they bargained for, as Sarpan is filled with strong opponents who drop lucrative rewards.

Tiamaranta can be reached through Kamar City.  It is aimed at PvP enthusiasts between the levels of 58 and 60 and offers fortresses that can be seized by both factions. Dragon Lord Tiamat’s strongest and most important fortress is Tiamaranta’s Eye, which is activated for the corresponding faction as soon as a minimum of two of the fortresses in this zone have been conquered.

Get around more quickly with mounts
The upcoming update will also make travelling easier: tame mounts speed up the players’ movements on the ground and in the air. They also have an additional short speed increase thanks to the new sprint function. Mounts with differing skills and corresponding level requirements can be bought from NPC merchants. Players will also be able to produce their own mounts via crafting.

Update 3.0 Screenshots

For more information or to sign up for a FREE account, visit the official website HERE.

Hi-Rez Studios, independent developer of AAA free-to-play online games, today announced the Summer of Tribes tournament series.  Between May and August 2012, Tribes: Ascend tournaments will award over $30,000 in cash and prizing, with each event being broadcast live over the internet with supporting game commentary.

Tribes: Ascend, billed as the World’s Fastest Shooter, will be featured by leagues and tournament providers including North American Star League (NASL), Electronic Sports League (ESL), Cyber Sports Network (CSN), European Game Series (EGS), Curse Networks and FPS General.

The finals for the first event are this Saturday, May 12th with CSN and over $2,500 in prizing.  http://cyber-sports.net/event/2500-tribesascend-launch-cup

The top prize for the summer will be $10,000 prize pool for NASL Season 3.  The NASL Tribes: Ascend semi-finals will be broadcast from E3 and the grand-finals will be a live LAN event in Toronto, Canada.  http://nasl.tv/News/Article/20120504nasl-launches-tribes-ascend-tournament

“Given that we just released Tribes: Ascend mid April, we’re pleased with how quickly the e-Sports community is growing,” says Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO.  “Our team believes that Tribes can be a premier spectator event and we’re thrilled to have partners who share this vision and support the community with great broadcast content as well as prizing.”

Hi-Rez announced intent to stream selected tournament games within the Tribes: Ascend game client itself.  The next digital update to Tribes: Ascend will integrate live viewing of featured games powered by TwitchTV.   

Todd Harris continues, “The community is already using TwitchTV to stream Tribes: Ascend game activity.  With the next update we’ll feature certain streams as viewable within the game itself so those become broadcast events.”   

“We enjoy working with developers like Hi-Rez Studios who harness live video to support their game community,” says Kevin Lin, TwitchTV Chief Operating Officer.  “At Twitch we’ve seen a phenomenal rise in eSports, and it is exciting to see the growing popularity of a fast-action FPS like Tribes: Ascend.”

For more informationon Tribes: Ascend, visit the official website HERE.

Funcom is thrilled to announce that one million gamers are now registered for ‘The Secret World’ beta tests. This impressive number confirms the game’s position as one of the most highly anticipated massively multiplayer online games in the world, and the number is also significantly higher than what Funcom’s previous MMO ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ saw at the same time in its pre-launch development phase.

“Shattering our previous beta records gives us great hope for The Secret World’s launch and its future,” says Funcom SVP of Sales & Marketing, Morten Larssen. “Combining this positive number with the excellent feedback we have received from both beta testers and the press that have played the game, make us very optimistic for a successful launch of The Secret World.”

In addition to these impressive beta registration numbers, Funcom can also share that in just over a month nearly two million unique visitors have come to Funcom’s ‘The Secret World’ websites. Interest has also grown tremendously on the back of ‘The Secret War’ social media experience that has seen almost 250,000 users register to take active part in the interactive pre-launch community initiative, and the experience has been visited almost two million times in just three weeks.

This coming Friday, May 11^th, Funcom will be kicking off the first of several Beta Weekends where gamers get to sample parts of the content and gameplay that will be featured in ‘The Secret World’ when it launches on June 19^th this year. Everyone pre-ordering the game will get to play each of these Beta Weekends, and more content is added from one weekend to the next leading up to launch.

Funcom has also teamed up with world-leading gaming website GameSpot who are giving out 100,000 keys to gamers in the US, UK and Australia this week on this giveaway page. GameSpot has also posted a video preview of ‘The Secret World’ and will be following up with exclusive coverage later this week.

In the first Beta Weekend, named ‘Kingsmouth Calling’, players will get to join the Templar secret society starting out in London, before they get to visit parts of Solomon Island to investigate the mysterious events that have occurred there. Players will get to play around with the groundbreaking progression system that is free of restrictions such as classes and levels, and will have the chance to experience the unique storyline that ‘The Secret World’ offers. More details on the event can be found on our website.

‘The Secret World’ is developed by Funcom and co-published by EA Partners, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. For more information about ‘The Secret World’ or how to register for the beta, please visit www.thesecretworld.com.

17th Free Expansion for Subscribers Sounds the Call to War

Building on a unique achievement in gaming history with a 9th anniversary celebrating continuous year-on-year growth earlier this May, CCP Games and its award-winning game EVE Online are nearing release of a 17th free expansion, EVE Online: Inferno, to all subscribers on May 22nd.

Check out the Graphics Update Video

More than any other expansion in EVE's history, Inferno aims to shake up all levels of warfare in the over 7,500 solar systems in EVE's massive universe. Overhauls of major war-related game systems will affect player-driven conflict and the first set of many new ship modules to come promise to alter tactics at the most visceral levels.

Key features of Inferno include:

• Mercenary Marketplace: pay the best guns-for-hire to settle your scores or make yourself avaialble to the highest bidders in the most notorious PVP universe in gaming

• War Declarations: reworked systems to help you wage war and keep track of your legacy

• Missiles and Launchers: savor every moment from launch to impact with missile launchers and dramatic new missile effects

• Factional Warfare: enlist in a faction and join the entry-level game of conquest with more rewards and deeper gameplay than ever before

• Visual Updates: Enhanced graphics on ship models and increased options in the industry-leading character creator

• Plus Kill Reports, Unified Inventory, 16 new modules and dozens of enhancements to both graphics and gameplay

"There has never been a more exciting time to try EVE and become the spaceship pilot you always knew you should be," says Jon Lander, Senior Producer for EVE Online. "The EVE universe is, now more than ever, staggeringly ripe with possibilities for adventure, stories, profit and, well, really satisfying explosions with the new missile effects."

EVE Online: Inferno bolsters the EVE universe for DUST 514's addition later this year, where millions of soldiers in a free-to-play PlayStation 3 shooter will join EVE pilots in the same persistent universe.

The full list of EVE Online: Inferno features can be found at www.eveonline.com/inferno