The Secret World – launch & early access

Per the forums:

The Secret World will launch on July 3rd. Everyone who has pre-ordered the game will however get access four days earlier on June 29th. Anyone with a pre-order will be able to get into the game at 16:00 GMT (18:00 CEST, noon EDT, 9am PDT). Players who placed their pre-orders early and anyone with the Grand Master Pack will get access on June 29th even earlier.

Every account eligible for Early Access will receive an e-mail at the time when the account is opened up for access so make sure you check your e-mails frequently on June 29th.

Available dimensions (servers) at launch, subject to change though it’s probably getting late for that:

Dimensions are global and you can play anywhere you want without any regional restrictions. We’ve marked some dimensions as French- and German-speaking, and though you can still play the English language version of the game on those dimensions, people will probably be chatting and communicating in French or German.

Here is the list of the first five English dimensions, along with the first two French-and-German dimensions:

* Cerberus
* Daemon
* Arcadia (RP dimension)
* Grim
* Huldra
* Drac (French dimension)
* Kobold (German dimension)

For what it’s worth, I will likely be on Grim at least to begin with, since my long-time tribe-guild-gestalt-thingy is planning to start there. The rationale is to find a popular server (anyone who played TOR knows what empty servers look like a few months after launch) but not THE most popular server.

Counting only the non-RP, English language servers, my guesstimate as far as that goes is that Daemon will instantly be the most popular, followed by Grim/Cerberus (can’t quite decide which weighs more), then Huldra because nobody knows what one is and won’t be able to remember the name. The only way a server could be more popular than Daemon would be if it were called Boobies.

This is assuming I can find time to play on early access! I’ve got a bunch of things to do tomorrow and for some reason all these people keep wanting me to do work for them (the cheek!)… but I’m hopeful I’ll be able to hop in. I’m also planning to take screenshots and maybe even cobble together a review at some point, but I’m wary of promising stuff I may not have the energy to deliver.

In any case, to those of you who have preordered or will be playing at some point, I hope to see you in-game! Depending on the number of char slots we get across the servers, I may be able to make alts just to hop in and say “Ohai!” to people – because you all know how much I hate making alts. Or I could just use the handy-dandy cross-server chat that Winged Nazgul just mentioned in the comments… D’oh!

Oh, my ego

I probably shouldn’t be posting about this because it’s from the super-seekrit beta forums for TSW (or are they super-seekrit now the NDA is down?), but I’ll take the risk. Also, I want those of you with better memories to correct me if needed.

Someone used the term “content locust” in a thread title and post, and while I’m not sure I actually coined the damn thing (probably not), I do use it relatively often. It was stupidly chuffing to see it mentioned, regardless of the attendant flameage and, you know, actual content of that thread – and regardless of the fact that nobody will ever know or care who did coin it (assuming it doesn’t die the usual internet-term death within the next 6 months).

Except me. I’ll know. Whether I actually coined it or not, I can probably claim co-founder status and in a weird way that’s really satisfying.

I do have an ego, and sometimes it likes to pat itself on the back (yes, my ego has a back. Stop splitting hairs.) – mostly by sharing it with strangers on a blog. We now return you to your regular programming.

The Secret World NDA lifted

Yes, I’m behind the times. As some of you already know I lost my dad last week, so even TSW is taking a back seat right now.

Nonetheless:

As of today, Closed Beta testers are no longer bound by the non-disclosure agreement. This means that testers may now speak freely about their experiences in the current and future versions of the Closed Beta. Sharing of screenshots and gameplay videos of the current and future versions of the Closed Beta is also allowed.

I’m not in the mood for a long review, but I will say:

- I preordered

- I’m enjoying it, despite far less time to play than I would have liked, RL issues, and hardware issues

- I was even considering going for the lifetime sub but Green Armadillo (one of my blogosphere’s resident cynics and smartypants) reminded me that games are going Free to play faster than you can say “vanishing player-base” these days, so I’m still thinking about that one. Still… part of me wants to do it, not just because you get some fun goodies but also because I’d like to show support for Funcom and for this game in particular.

- I think the game is boss. Not everyone will. In my case however I suspect it will entertain me for quite a while.

- A somewhat more thorough Impressions post may follow, or not, depending on how RL stuff goes. We’re not allowed to talk about previous versions  and I haven’t yet experienced the post-NDA beta, so it also depends on whether I get a chance to play in the post-NDA world before launch.

Better (secretly) late than never

So this is one of those usual conundrums.

I have a couple of  one buddy key for a beta I’m not allowed to say I’m in. Closed beta keys that is, not open beta keys which would be silly.

Edit – Keys both gone!

If you know which one and you’re interested, leave a comment. Or you could just wait and catch the launch which isn’t that far away.

Another caveat: you’re looking at a multi gigabyte download (probably something like 14-18), so it would be useful if you had a much faster internet connection than we do. With our truly pooey DSL (and no, we can’t get better here in the boonies) it took me the better part of 4 days to download.

You Have Been Warned.

Short, not sweet

Supposed to refer to this post, but I guess it could refer to me too. I slay me.

1. Hot summer is hot. Where can I find a place that’s 70 degrees (20C) all year round?

On the bright side, it’s so dry here in New Mexico that hot here isn’t nearly as hot as, er, hot in humid places. I should probably work on that sentence a bit more.

2. Bad health sucks. It insinuates tendrils in all parts of your life and makes just about everything more difficult.

I’m not whining (much), just observing. My sympathies to anyone else who’s going through chronic health issues.

3. Work is harder when you’re sick.

Especially if you have a lot of it and feel sick most of the time. Oh, woe is me.

4. Only a month to go to TSW launch if it’s on time. /Snoopydance

I really really want to say more but I can’t so I won’t. I swear, work and health be damned, I’m taking a week off right around July 3rd.