The Secret World (opinion)

My first impressions of The Secret World, was that it was a WoW (World of Warcraft) clone, mainly due to the fairly standard system of going to the quest giver, taking on quest, doing quest, going back, getting new quest, etc... that so many MMOs have used every since WoW got so famous. However, it's the best darn WoW clone I've played (I don't like WoW, I do like TSW).

The voice acting is overall, very good. General immersion is excellent. The skill system is amusingly complex, yet simple enough to get started quickly. Overall, I've been quite impressed with The Secret World.

A few key things I think more games should copy:

The Secret World has group dungeons available very early. Each zone has one, even the beginner zone people start in after the tutorial. After the game's main story is finished, and the world is explored, what keeps people playing are the dungeons. So I think it's really valuable that they let people get a taste of them early. It always seems dumb to me when a game's key selling point is kept away from new players. When older players have to tell newer ones that it gets better later. Players shouldn't have to play a game for two days, to get to the good stuff. It should be good right from the beginning, all the way to the end.

The skill wheel (it's really a skill tree that's organized in a pretty way) is very well done. They have synergies built into it that makes for enjoyable theory crafting and rewarding optimization. It's fairly easy to understand (Blood Sport applies afflict when you hit an enemy, Salt in the Wounds deals damage when you apply afflict) and gives a lot of freedom in options (though a few severe imbalances do exist). I would very much like to see deliberate synergies and free-form build creation in games. Being able to pick 7 active skills and 7 passive skills from a large variety of options is great, especially when there's so many tricks, and synergies to find.

Last but not least: the dungeons follow a philosophy I think games should look into using more. They are essentially a series of boss fights, but seek to make the fights interesting enough to be worth doing over and over, and remain fun. Many of the fights offer challenges to player skill, requiring focus and attention. A few good fights, is better than lots of crappy ones.