The Secret World PvP Weekend

Beta weekend 4 has come and gone and we are less than a week from early access. I pre-ordered the game but this weekend was the tilting board helping me to decide if I start to grab the money together for a life time sub.

I was always very PvE focussed in MMO's until I wet my whistle in ‘EvE Online’ and small ship guerrilla warfare jumping from gate to gate.

Then I waited for ‘Age of Conan’ which promised PvP with siege warfare and battle formations. Early on it ended up being mainly PvE, though I loved the lore and combat system. I waited for the PvP patch which just hit as ‘Warhammer Online’ released.

War completely sucked me in with accessible PvP and RvR. Numerous times it was called a WoW clone, but for me at its core it was a different animal from WoW.

I didn't spend my time running quests and raids. As soon as I created an alt I was running PvP scenarios then after level 10 I spent most of my time in the RvR zones. I’d probably be still playing War if they would have kept funding it and gave us a paid expansion.

So how ‘The Secret World’ handles their PvP is a big selling point for me. I am reserving judgment on their decision not to have persistent war zones from earlier in the game and just having battle grounds and the fight club.

Over the weekend I had a longer play session on Friday and a few short stints on Saturday and Sunday.

I wanted to try the battlegrounds first so wasted hour and a half in queues before I switched to the persistent PvP in ‘The Fusang Project’. After about 10 minutes I was in.

It took me a while to find out what I had to do. But once I found the crowds the game started to flow. A few large groups floated around the zone and mini skirmish’s happened all around the center of the map.

I can only guess at numbers but the horizon was filled with friends and enemies and the game rarely lagged. While I was me running at maxed graphics and running FRAPS.

The map seemed well designed with choke points and multiple levels of terrain. All this and the views were stunning and varied, from the industrial landscapes to picturesque gardens. Multiple times I found myself just looking about the scenery when I should have been fighting.

For PvP the abilities fired when I wanted them to and the movement in combat as well as the dodging made it fluid. 1 on 1 combat wasn't over to quickly and I can see some pretty cool prolonged fights on the way.

The time I spent in ‘The Fusang Project’ was enjoyable and running with a cabal will be a lot of fun. If I had any suggestions I’d like to see at least 2 more of these zones and for them to be somehow linked.

I did not get enough time in battlegrounds. This left me with one requirement. Information while queuing. I would like to see more information on the amount of people in a queue for each battleground.

I am prepared to wait in a queue if I know the reason for the wait. Estimated time to queue or even just high/med/low levels by faction waiting in line would be enough.

So I remain on the PvP fence and guess I'll wait to see how the first month goes before I commit to a life time subscription.