The psychological advantages of free to play:

For my latest article at WhatMMO, I analyze some of the psychological advantages offered by the free to play business model — ways in which free games feel more welcoming than subscription titles. I’ve come to the conclusion that my preference for free to play titles has far more to do with the way it affects how I feel about and interact with games than it has to do with saving money.

If you’re curious why free to play has become so popular so quickly, I hope this article will provide some illumination.

The Secret World: Theme Builds

I’ve talked a lot in the past about the power of The Secret World’s ability wheel. Mastering it is a crucial skill to allow you to adapt to new situations and survive the more challenging content in the game. But it can also be a lot of fun. With nine weapons and the ability to wield two at any given time, there are countless playstyles out there for those willing to experiment.

Today, I’m going to list some of the possible theme builds one could do, inspired by pop culture and mythological figures. These aren’t necessarily the best builds around, but they’re worth checking out if you like to venture off the beaten path when designing your character.

Note that I won’t be making precise builds with all abilities planned out. Just general concepts.

The Thor build:

Thor was the most revered of the Norse gods, a mighty warrior who rode around the heavens, creating thunder and lightning when he hurled his hammer at his foes.

You can emulate the slayer of Jormungandr by combining hammers and elemental magic. Focus on the lightning abilities within elemental, and you have a thunder-flinging, hammer-smashing warrior that will send giants fleeing back to Jotunheim. In fact, elemental magic even has a finisher called “Thor’s hammer,” which allows you to fling a giant, electrified hammer at enemies.

There’s actually a fair degree of synergy to this build, too, since both hammers and elemental magic make heavy use of strike abilities and a high critical chance.

The Neo build:

Also known as the Matrix build, this one combines chaos magic and dual pistols.

Chaos magic is essentially magically empowered martial arts, allowing you to move faster than the eye can see to dodge enemy attacks and deliver punishing flurries of punches. Anyone who’s seen Neo battle Agent Smith will find it a familiar fighting style. Add in some pistols, and it’s the next best thing to a revival of The Matrix Online.

For best results, combine with a long leather jacket and dark sunglasses.

The Leha build:

This may be a bit narcissistic of me, but I couldn’t help but imagine how to emulate the savage fighting style of Leha, the star of my World Spectrum books.

For this build, you want to combine fist weapons and chaos magic. This gives you a set of claws, as well as the superhuman speed to dodge enemy attacks and deliver blindingly fast attacks.

For a little extra authenticity, you can use hinder passives to slow enemies, simulating the energy of Sy’om, and using the “Giddy Up” ability from the whip auxiliary weapon provides a passable imitation of empowering your allies with Tyzuan power.

The interesting thing about this build is that chaos and fists are actually a pretty good combo. They have good synergy around burst abilities for high damage, and between the tanking skills of chaos and the healing of fists, it offers a high degree of survivability.

This build should only be used by female characters with short brown hair and the height slider set to minimum.

The vampire build:

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to perfectly recreate the iconic vampire with The Secret World’s weapons since the health-stealing abilities are all related to assault rifles, and you don’t exactly see Dracula carrying around an AK-47. But you can do your best.

My idea for a vampire build in TSW would be based on blood magic and assault rifles. This is a build that manipulates life and blood like a master, allowing you to drain health from your enemies with rifle skills and then put it towards empowering your own damage with blood’s health-draining skills.

This could be used for a solo build based on self-healing or as a group healing build. You could maybe make it work for group DPS, but I don’t think blood and assault rifles have much synergy on that front.

Make your own!

Do you have any ideas for theme builds that can be created in The Secret World? Share them in the comments. I’m sure there are plenty of possibilities out there that haven’t occurred to me.