Beyond the Veil Take 41: I See Polls!

Xander — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:37:14 +0000

Join the cast as they talk July’s item and Rowan’s poll at I Have Touched The Sky on Beyond The Veil!

Take a listen as we discuss our love of The Secret World in a casual and friendly atmosphere. Beyond the Veil is a Community based weekly talk show sponsored by HolosuiteMagazine.com. Be sure to tune in Mondays and listen to our audio remastered shows.

Looking for a friendly Cabal to do your missions and dungeons with? Look us up in The Secret World @ Beyond The Veil: New York, London or Seoul.

Host/Exc. Producer: Xander Hayes
Remaster Audio Engineer: Feii
Content Manager: Antida
Email: beyondtsw@gmail.com
Twitter: @BeyondTSW
Beyond The Veil’s theme song by Simon Pool & Marc Canham
Beyond The Veil’s Logo by Xander Hayes

Join us Live on Thursday nights at 7pm EST over at Holosuite Excess. Talk to us via our chat channel.

Beyond the Veil Take 40: Bringing the Heat!

Xander — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:46:19 +0000

Join the cast as they talk secret surveys, July’s item poll and much more on Beyond The Veil!

Looking for a friendly Cabal to do your missions and dungeons with? Look us up in The Secret World @ Beyond The Veil: New York, London or Seoul.

Host/Exc. Producer: Xander Hayes
Remaster Audio Engineer: Feii
Content Manager: Antida
Email: beyondtsw@gmail.com
Twitter: @TheXanderZones
Beyond The Veil’s theam song by Simon Pool & Marc Canham
Beyond The Veil’s Logo by Xander Hayes

Join us Live on Thursday nights at 7pm EST over at Holosuite Excess. Talk to us via our chat channel.

Beyond the Veil Take 39:In the Mail

Xander — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:17:20 +0000

Join the cast as they talk your voice and the director’s letter on Beyond The Veil!

Looking for a friendly Cabal to do your missions and dungeons with? Look us up in The Secret World @ Beyond The Veil: New York, London or Seoul.

Join us Live on Thursday nights at 7pm EST over at Holosuite Excess. Talk to us via our chat channel.

The Secret World – Running Polaris Elite

Antida — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:59:02 +0000

After successfully completing The Last Train to Cairo mission during the Golden Weekend in The Secret World, we collectively decided to go into an Elite dungeon. The choice fell on Polaris.

We numbered five: Galactrix (Healer), Xander (DPS), Rowan (DPS), Maiastas (DPS), Antida (Tank)

Some members of the group, who shall remain nameless, were not as convinced that we’d make it. For those of you not familiar with the Beyond The Veil crew, you tell us we can’t do something or we’re not good enough to achieve something, we’re going to find a way to do it to prove you wrong! So, the challenge was on and off to Polaris Elite we went!

We encountered some pretty vile creatures there that we put out of their misery…..

We were electrifying…..

After breezing through everything and successfully opening the ‘Orochi crate’ (BTW – let us know if you need the code), we were lulled into a false sense of security. We boarded the chopper and LoneStarBelle started commenting on Maiastas’ butt which he did not appreciate at all….

After hearing LoneStarBelle’s remarks, Maiastas’ jaw barely managed to hit the floor when the chopper was violently shaken and we came face to face with a huge Ur-Draug monstrosity.

Our chopper went down and we were in a fight of our lives. At one point, Xander was our last man standing bravely holding the fort, but Ur-Draug proved too strong for him.

After a few tries and misses, we finally had the right combo and took Ur-Draug down. Like proper hunters of the wild, we couldn’t help but proudly pose next to our trophy kill.

Heck, I even managed to watch a sunset at the Blue Mountains. Ahhhhhhh….. the perfect end to a perfect day…..

Reflecting on The Secret World’s Golden Weekend – PART 2

Antida — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:33:22 +0000

As mentioned in PART 1 of our adventures, then it was time for the most exciting part of the mission – yes, the train! Oh joy! Now, it has to be said… we never would have made the train if not for Nassir, the boldest driver in the desert.

He showed off his driving skills and boldly got us to our target. Now, jumping from a moving car to a moving train is hardly recommended, but hey, this was required, so off we went.

It quickly became apparent that this will be a perilous journey, fraught with danger as we came face to face with an enemy soldier.

Couple of times, we were holding on for dear life…

Fighting our little hearts out, we made our way to the locomotive, one wagon at a time. Needless to say, we were victorious! Enjoy some of the snapshots from our train ride.

Reflecting on The Secret World’s Golden Weekend – PART 1

Antida — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:23:49 +0000

Having a great time in The Secret World is not a problem for me. I’m pretty happy to run mission on my own, as a matter of fact, at times I prefer it. Then there are times when I want to play as part of a group, breezing through the higher tier missions which on my own I would probably have a problem with. Let’s be honest though – running as part of a group almost inevitably runs into at least a few memorable moments and are always, I repeat, always tons of fun.

This last weekend was like that. Beyond The Veil cast members grouped up with a few of our friends and at times with people we just met and had tons of fun playing the game. We played everything – from main missions, side quests, The Last Train to Cairo to Polaris Elite dungeon.

We were mostly horsing around in Egypt….

We did our The Last Train to Cairo daily missions there, as well as a whole bunch of other missions. Completing the daily missions, we went on to the real McCoy. The Last Train To Cairo.

The general consensus of the group – absolutely love it!!! That’s why we keep on running it every weekend. Love the story, love the graphics and that train ride…. epic!

There is one guy throughout this quest who is pretty awesome and who we love talking to. His name is Said. He did allow us to take a group photo with him. He did get camera shy, so it took us a while to coax him into looking at the camera.

Leaving our weapons at the door, we were required to use our fists. Here’s one of Xander looking like “Dude, seriously, don’t you know I win this one?”

At one point during the mission, Xander even insisted on comparing who has bigger glowing rings. He lost.

Then it was back to the past and… bean bags??? After we successfully aggroed every Roman soldier we could find (not intentional, I promise you), we put up a little performance for the audience in the Main Square. We showed them a dance very popular in the present. Funnily enough, this dance didn’t aggro anyone… hmmmm

We pressed on like real soldiers do and were greeted by not one, but two Saids sitting next to the time tomb. We believe the fumes on the sides of the time tomb were spiked. Xander insisted on approaching with caution believing Said will become dangerous. Turned out it was just a glitch and we continued on.

After the fun of being chased by a huge boulder…

….we took time off to explore the scenery and even had time for a few photo sessions.

Then, it was time for the most exciting part of the mission – yes, the train! Oh joy!

Check out PART 2 of our adventures here.

Beyond the Veil Take 38: Enter the Ninja!!

Xander — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:03:38 +0000

Join Xander and the cast as they play Peek-A-Boo with a Ninja on Beyond The Veil!

Looking for a friendly Cabal to do your missions and dungeons with? Look us up in The Secret World @ Beyond The Veil: New York, London or Seoul.

Join us Live on Thursday nights at 7pm EST over at Holosuite Excess. Talk to us via our chat channel.

Funcom, I Want Cross-Faction Cabals

Antida — Fri, 03 May 2013 23:21:22 +0000

Article by: Rowan Blaze

CABAL — a small group of secret plotters, as against a government or person in authority.
~~Dictionary.com

In Beyond the Veil Episode 38, Xander asked the panel what we wanted from the recently promised Cabal management improvements for The Secret World. I stated that I personally care about only one change to cabals: make them cross-faction. Right now players of all three factions can group together for every aspect of the game that involves group play, except two: PVP and Cabals.

Currently, cabals in TSW are more social enterprises than anything else, anyway. I think there’s a cabal bank. That’s really about it, a standing group of people who might available to group with. It not like there’s any boost/reputation benefit to being a cabal. Not that I really mind. I feel like that sort of system in other games has inspired zerg-guilds that are no more a community than the playerbase at large, and together only for the “material” benefits.

This article from GameBreaker TV puts my argument into a broader gaming context, to include the splintering of the playerbase between factions and across multiple servers. When I first branched out from WoW to play STO, I was delighted with Cryptic’s ability to make whatever multi-server set-up they had transparent to the player. I no longer had to worry about what server I was on versus where my friends were. I am still friends with people that I am sure I never would have met if they’d been on some separate server like in WoW. TSW’s server hopping is just as good a method.

I have long campaigned for cross-faction cabals. From my review of TSW back in July:

Set aside your differences. OK, remember how when you played WoW and you wanted to be a an Orc or Tauren, but all your friends were rolling dwarves and gnomes? So you had to roll Alliance, or you wouldn’t be able to play. It sucked. Not so with The Secret World. Feel free to group up with those of opposing factions for PvE content, dungeons, etc. After all, some serious shit is goin’ down, and unlike Telara or Azeroth, we need to stick together to take care of it. Then, when the pressure’s off, we can fight amongst ourselves again in the PvP areas. Yes, I say again cross-faction PvE. Hopefully soon we make form cross-faction cabals (guilds), wheels-within-wheels.

I thought I had articulated this more clearly in the past, but this post was all I could find. I like that I don’t have to role as part of the same faction as my friends to group up. I can help who ever I see in The Secret World. I understand the importance of separate factions in PvP—or different servers in the case of GW2. However, in most cases, limiting cross-faction cooperation only fragments a playerbase that could not care less about interfaction rivalries.

In conversations on the topic, I have returned often to the concept of “wheel-within-wheels.” Lore-wise, what’s the point of cabals? Movements within the larger factions? There’s no hope of taking over the leadership of the Illuminati, so why call it a cabal? On the other hand, a small group of characters from different factions may find they have more in common with each other than they do with their respective faction leaders. There is a potential for intrigue there, at least from a roleplaying perspective.I’ve heard arguments about not being able to meet in the faction HQ if some of your members aren’t in the same cabal. I would say if some of your cabal members aren’t in your faction, your meetings probably won’t be there either. There are plenty of places in London, Seoul, and across the “globe” to conduct a clandestine cabal meeting. Of course, individual cabals would be under no obligation to invite characters from other factions, but why should that hamper those of us who want to?I’ve heard rumor that Joel Bylos wants to increase the separation between factions. I think this would be a serious mistake for a game with an admittedly limited playerbase. I doubt anyone is saying, “I’d play TSW, but there’s too much hippie ‘Kumbayah’ crap going on between the factions.” Nor do I think increasing interfaction rivalry would be a selling point to recruit potential players. I could be mistaken.The truth is that many gaming meta-guilds form “chapters” for each faction already, then communicate through venues outside the game like TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Internet fora. Heck, even within TSW you can create custom chat channels that can include characters from all three factions if you want. Why not give those meta-guilds the means to bring all their members together more easily?

Joel, for these reasons, please give us the capability to form cross-faction cabals, if we choose to.

Beyond The Veil: Cairo adventures

Antida — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:58:11 +0000

One of the fun things about the Starter Decks in The Secret World is the fact that they are available regardless of faction (more on cross-faction awesomeness in a near-future post). On Saturday afternoon, I was playing with friends from Beyond the Veil. Someone—I can’t remember who—brought out their Haruspex outfit, gained from a combination of Blood and Elementalist abilities. Before long, we were all running around in oxblood leather ritual coats. I kind of wonder what other players thought of us as we ran through various populated areas doing our thing.
We look like a crazy version of ABBA. That’s LoneStarBelle (me) on the left, with Maiastas, Exceeder (a.k.a. Galactrix) and Antida, who looks ready to lop off a locust limb.

Here, we have Team Haruspex in action. Ironically, Exceeder is the only one sporting a Blood Focus, so all that spatter you see is from him. It does make us look like a gory lot though, doesn’t it.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t time for some clowning, or as Maiastas put it, “a delicate re-tuning of the universe via meditation.” Meanwhile, Saïd was a bit too cheeky with Antida apparently, as her sword is drawn like she’s ready to relieve him of his liver or some other vital part.

Our new album will be in stores soon, featuring the smash hits “My Bowels Move For You” and “That’s Just Gross.” We open for the Wyrd Systers this summer.

Thanks to Maiastas for the album cover portrait.

Article by Rowan Blaze, Beyond The Veil’s newest panelist

You can check out his blog here: I Have Touched The Sky

Beyond the Veil Take 37: Enter the Rowan!!

Xander — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:49:18 +0000

Join Xander, Feii and Antida as they break in long time gamer Rowan as he joins our cast on Beyond The Veil!

Looking for a friendly Cabal to do your missions and dungeons with? Look us up in The Secret World @ Beyond The Veil: New York, London or Seoul.

Join us Live on Thursday nights at 7pm EST over at Holosuite Excess. Talk to us via our chat channel.