Gather around, friends, for you are about to witness one of the rarest events in nature. Tyler is going to say something negative about The Secret World.
Funcom has now launched the new British Museum of the Occult feature. I was fairly skeptical of the feature going in, but even so, it’s still managed to disappoint me.
The general idea of the museum is to study the game’s many and sundry monsters by fighting them and collecting lore related to them. Kills are tracked retroactively, and some of the game’s pre-existing lore is used by the museum, but a lot of the lore you need is new (more on that later). There’s also a fairly substantive ability point cost to setting up an exhibit. Despite repeated claims from Funcom that the museum is “for everyone,” the AP costs ensure it’s only relevant to people with full ability wheels, and maybe not even then.
Displaying a particular monster in its most basic form isn’t too hard, but completing a wing, upgrading a wing, and completing the museum as a whole will all add up to pretty big grinds pretty fast.
To be fair, I screwed up. I went to the trouble of unlocking every wing in the museum before I went to the gift shop to see what the rewards are. In the process, I spent several million pax, losing about two thirds of the wealth I’ve accumulated over the past few years.
And then I checked the rewards vendors.
The main rewards for building your museum are mnemonic guardians, consumables that give you a chance to randomly summon certain monsters to briefly assist you in combat.
It turns out the selection of guardians is much, much smaller than I expected. You can only summon a handful of monsters, and none of the ones I’d been looking forward to having are options.
I also discovered that each guardian type requires you to complete an entire wing. Which is not a huge hurdle, but it’s not nothing, either.
Worst of all, though, guardians cost black bullion to purchase.
There is absolutely, positively no way I am ever going to spend bullion on a consumable. Even with how much easier bullion is to earn these days, I am not spending it on something that can be used up when I could use it for permanent upgrades.
So I bankrupted myself for nothing. Pax is easy to make, but six million will take me a while to earn that back. So needless to say I’m not very happy.
As it stands now I can’t see myself putting any further effort toward the museum. Or even going back there. The upside is, like a lot of things in TSW, it seems like you can pretty much ignore the museum if you’re not interested in it. It won’t harm your gameplay.
Provided you’re not a dumbass who spends all your pax without looking at the rewards, anyway.
Silver-linings Lorebook:
It’s not all bad this update, though. A massive amount of new lore has been added for basically every monster type in the game. Over two hundred and fifty new lore entries in total.
It’s a bittersweet parting gift from our dear Scrivnomancer, who is sadly stepping down as the lead writer for the game.
While the lore is required for the museum, I don’t believe the museum is required to collect any of the lore. So even if you’re not interested in the museum (like me), there’s still something new to entice you.
Personally I’m very excited to start delving into the lore of some of the more enigmatic of TSW’s creatures. I’ve always wanted to know more about revenants, ghouls, and Jinn, since there was so little information about them in the game.
I’ve only found a fraction of the new lore so far, but there’s definitely some good stuff here. It’s not just minor flavour; the bestiary lore is doing a lot to fill in the blanks of the story throughout the game. I especially like that we’re finally getting a clear picture of Archibald Henderson and his story. We’ve seen lots of little hints of it over the years, but never a clear and coherent image of it all.
I could have done without the heavy Shadow Over Innsmouth references in the Deep One lore, given that story was basically just written as racist propaganda, but I suppose at this point it’s an inextricable part of the Lovecraft mythos from which TSW draws its inspiration.
Despite ominous statements that the new lore would be harder to earn than past lore, so far I haven’t had much trouble. Most of it is just scattered around the world as per normal, or drops from mobs at a fairly high rate.
I have heard of a handful of cases where the bestiary lore is a bit harder to acquire. I know some of it only drops from group bosses, which is a bit of a drag for mainly solo players like me, and there’s one piece that can only be found in a raid. This is worrying precedent because up until now Funcom has done a pretty good job of making raids totally optional from a story perspective.
But it is only one piece, at least.
And some of the new challenges for lore are pretty clever. For example, there’s one piece that only appears if you can track down a rare mob who only appears at midnight on the in-game clock. That’s the creativity we all love TSW for.
So even if the Museum of the Occult is a dud, at least we have the new lore to enjoy.
Superior Realities 
I calculated it out just how much of a sink the new Museum is, and the bulk is all on the AP and Pax side. AP is an interesting choice, as I thought augments was the big AP sink there. But a Pax sink I’m sure will be welcome to those that couldn’t find anything to really spend it on, and it hopefully will bring down Auction prices considerably.
But yeah, to unlock all the wings and get up a green pedestal for every point is in the range of 7000 AP and 17 M Pax (I think, I don’t have my spreadsheet in front of me). I couldn’t figure out the full AP for Purple pedestals, but total Pax, to kit out the entire place, is looking at ~ 63 M.
Right now, my Pax is going toward the 10 M speed upgrade, after that, yeah, sinking it into the Museum isn’t *that* bad. My AP is currently going toward augments, though, and all my BB is going toward upgrades (so buying a consumable with it is really out of the question). So, yeah, I have no idea who this museum is for? My guess is primarily Lore and Pet collectors (the amount of non-combat, non-consumable pets added is pretty significant, too, in the gift shop)… both of which I consider myself a part of… but dat grind. Damn.
Someone on the forums did the math for the total AP cost of a complete museum, with all paragon pedestals. I believe the final number was just over eighty-six thousand. They estimated it would take about two years to earn that much, if you earned 100 per day. I don’t know what the average is these days, but I certainly don’t earn anywhere near 100 AP per day, even if I was playing every day.
I suppose you probably already know this, but if you buy the Frankenchopper mount, you can get every sprint boost at no additional cost from the ensuing mission. Saves a bundle of pax. Especially since every character on your account can do the mission and get full sprint upgrades as soon as they reach KM.
Huh. I did not know that. I should do that as I am usually trying to find stuff to spend my store point on in the first place (lifetime membership, and a general lack of interest of buying anything but content from in-game stores and there you go). The motorcycle itself never interested me, but the mission attached to it did, I just wasn’t that into paying so much for *one* mission. But I may now knowing that. Oh, and my initial math was wrong. To get all the green pedestals (which seems like a much more reachable goal) only takes ~12 M Pax (which includes opening up all wings), not 17 M. 17 M is the cost of getting all the blue pedestals. 😛
Yea. It’s a long term thing. To my shame, the 10 million costs i didn’t even really notice. But it explains why i am down to 49 million at the moment.. guess i spend too much time in the game.
The only aspect to slow me down is AP, and as augments is the only other way to spend that (and i don’t enjoy scenarios so much, so i don’t do them so often) it’s a welcome way to use AP for me.
Also, i haven’t bothered with looking up any guide on where to find the lore. Up to now, i have fun just stumbling over it. Today i noticed one again in the Facility, i found two more in Kingsmouth… it gives me a reason to stroll around all the world again and see what i can find. 🙂
Next to that, i think i am unique here by saying that i very much also appreciate the changes to abilities. Gone are the times were elite abilities were held back strategically, to use them with their long cooldown when they are best used, and actually often never get used at all. Also gone are the times when just four elites dominated the game.
Not only did many more elites become viable (while one got hit quite badly), they also now deliver vulnerabilities, which never are of the cathegory the weapon belongs to. So ballistic weapons can only provide vulnerability to magic and melee, etc.
As a result, since the patch the “better” dungeon groups stop for a moment and decide who brings which debuff for best efficiency. Doing so is worth it. As an example, we manage to kill the second boss in Ankh now before he ever triggers dreaming shroud and we can kill the fifth boss there right at the first gate, in case that tells you something.
It brought a fresh wind into the game,especially in cooperative play, which i like a lot. 🙂
I’m at full wheel and completely capped out on AP right now. Never really bothered with Augments, so AP’s always just pretty much sat capped since I filled my wheel. Still need plenty of SP for the AEGIS stuff, but I dunno …. I still have a soft spot in my heart for TSW, but I really just lost interest during Tokyo. I haven’t even been to the Orochi Tower yet. I keep saying that someday I’ll go back, but just don’t seem to ever do it.
That said, this museum has sparked some minor interest, so… maybe in the next little bit I’ll pop in to check it out. Time will tell, I guess.
“there’s one piece that only appears if you can track down a rare mob who only appears at midnight on the in-game clock”
Pyzjn from EQ is consulting her lawyers as we speak.
Shame how bad the reviews for The Museum have turned out to be once players got their hands on it. I was planning on coming back just for that feature but given the apparent costs I can’t see the point now.
Well, there’s still the new lore. For someone who enjoys exploration, this is actually a really good update. It’s all a giant worldwide treasure hunt.
Hmm. If you don’t enjoy the game itself, the museum is no reason to return. If you enjoy the game and its atmosphere, the new lore might be a reason.
Besides that, the patch also brought a number of improvements, among those the change to elite abilities, as described above.
Oh, and the thing i really am looking for in the museum: unlocking the t-shirts. 😀
I like collecting the in-game clothes. I have 99 outfits saved in Fashionista by now, and hope to expand. 😀 Next to that, several of the shirts are designed by people who i know from my girls RP activities and one is made by a cabal mate… so i am somehow obligated to get them… 😀
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