"You are cursed with free will" - A Secret World radicalthon

[Falconeer]

I.


My favourite book was "Foucalt's Pendulum" from that eccentric Italian writer, Umberto Eco. It was a strange story about the Knight Templars (written long before that other English idiot decided to make fun of History and facts), and how people are more dangerous than myths. It was also a story about believing and disbelieving, lying to others and to yourself, and well, to make it short it has been my favourite book since I read it in high school.

Since then, I never thought of the Templars as anything else then History, one fascinating piece of the very complicated human puzzle, and regardless of the speculations or some shitty best selling novels published on them I never took seriously the hypothesis that they could ever be anything else than a bunch of fanatics who lived and died centuries ago.

I'm a student, and a skeptic. I don't believe in much, and I find the need to find answers at all costs that animates some people utterly ridiculous. I often look at them with pity. Looked.
I always thought it would have been cool if at least one, just one, of all the paranormal bullshit stories we've heard in our life were true. Just one!

But that's the curse of a skeptic. Free will allows us to choose what to believe. And I, without knowing, had chosen not to see.

You know, ironically, it's like the ugly truth had to be forced down my throat. Literally.

It happened one night...

Everything is true - The Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 1

[Falconeer]

II.


So I decided to go where the woman said. What could I do? I've been locked in my apartment for a week. It wasn't about believing or not. "Something" was challenging my reality. I had to see and understand what was going on...


Everything is true - The Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 2

[Falconeer]

III.


Not good, not good. The puppetter wasn't just boring, and it's not because I hate ventriloquists that I passed out and dreamt about being someone named Sarah shooting zombies on a metro at the edge of the universe.
Waking up to another enigmatic woman spilling nonsense with a Jamaican accent didn't help. And go figure, she gave me another address. Almost desperate, I headed to Temple Court. Here's where I met Sonnac (which I started liking the moment he shared his feelings about Dan Brown) and ended up wielding a shotgun. Me, the pacifist. What the hell...

Everything is true - The Secret Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 3

[Falconeer]

IV.


I was certainly hoping for something more from Sonnac. I liked him (as in _really_ liked him) and maybe that's why, in the middle of such an emotional turmoil, I decided to trust him. He said something about a "portal" that connects to the Hollow Earth, some sort of unbelievable teleportation device conveniently placed under one of the tube stations, and a town in Maine where something weird happened, and asked me to go there to see if my new found powers could be put to a good use.
So, certainly not convinced but too shaken to say no to such a handsome lad, I headed for the secret Agartha entrance...

Everything is true - The Secret Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 4

[Malakili]

I started watching mainly because you said you like Umbertco Eco :-D

[Falconeer]

To say that I like it would be an understatement. He's one of the very very few Italians alive that I have respect for.

[lamaros]

What about me? :(

[Ingmar]

I thought for sure it would be HRose.

[Hutch]

OK, so I know that this video is not officially part of the radicalthon. But it caught my eye. A few things that I noticed:

- At the start of the fight, the boss was so focused in on you and your teammate, that he was killing his own henchmen. If PC's in this game use AoE attacks, do you risk injuring your friends?

- TSW has built-in video capture? Nice. Can you compare/contrast with Fraps? What is the quality and/or filetype of the raw video?

- At one point in the fight, I saw your toon kneel, and start using a hammer on something. By the tone of your voice(s), I took it to be an accident. Was that a crafting animation? Or repair, maybe?

- I noticed that instead of one huge, slow moving health bar, the boss has a bar that you have to empty out three times. I'm curious as to why Funcom chose to do that.

- I was amused by the way the boss animated. It's like his hammer was almost too heavy for him to use, and he had to recover his balance after each attack.

[Miasma]

That's not The Secret World.

[Hutch]

That's not The Secret World.

D'oh!

He named his character Lefteye, and gave it a similar appearance, and I projected from there.

So what game is it?

edit: never mind, Vindictus is the name of the game. Enok is the name of his buddy. I didn't pick up on that before.

[Surlyboi]

That said, mobs do fight each other in this game too.

[Miasma]

That said, mobs do fight each other in this game too.

I love that.  All the different evils hate each other, as God intended.

[Hutch]

OK, one more post. First, apologies to Falc for unintentionally attempting to derail his radicalthon thread.

But, my hijinks have led me to download the F2P Vindictus over the weekend, via Steam.
I'm not very far into it, but it's pretty fun so far. I want future MMO devs to steal the combat system.

OK, that's it. derail over. Back to your tasks.

[Falconeer]

What about me? :(

Since when are you Italian? Really?

And yeah Vindictus is lots of fun. Short lived, but very well executed. I loved it until it lasted.

About the Radicalthon, I am gathering up more videos so to only show what's quite relevant to the story or is somewhat cool instead of every single cutscene as I did so far.

[Falconeer]

V. - VI.


Kingsmouth was much worse than I expected. The sheriff and the few survivors in a pathetic state, and the few "agents" I spotted around didn't seem too friendly. I have no idea how could I tell that they were somehow like me, but I could sense it. Maybe it was their attitude. For once, they didn't look local at all, and second, they didn't look scared. Confused, for sure, but not scared. And I gotta tell you, I wasn't scared either. And for some reason, that scared me.

I left the Sheriff's office and decided to take a look around, and go talk to some of the people the Sheriff mentioned. Turned out Kingsmouth was a very interesting place, no matter how you wanted to look at it...

Everything is true - The Secret Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 5

And the charming Madame Roget. I loved her honesty. The more I dug into Kingsmouth, the more it felt like a place that has been acting a part for ages, and ultimately lost its mask. The horror it has been trying to hide for centuries couldn't be contained anymore, and started sweeping away everyone's lies, only to leave behind a trail of decomposed goo that reeked like a grotesque parody of the truth. While still shaken but somehow not terrified at the realization that my voice seemed to be gone when I swallowed the luminous bee, I listened to Madame Roget confession and meditated on what would have happened if the rest of the planet couldn't keep its mask anymore...

Everything is true - The Secret Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 6

[Falconeer]

VII.


Back to the Police Station I decided to exchange a few words with deputy Andy. He stayed on the roof of the station for days, scouting, occasionally sniping, and ruminating something dark behind that smirk that seemed to keep the worst memories at bay. For now.

He wasn't doing good, but who was? And I couldn't help but admire his pragmatical, almost naive stubborness. I asked him (not sure how, as the words didn't come out of my mouth, but he heard me) if he wanted to take a break and have a coffee with me downstairs, but he just tilted his head on the side for a second, smiled, and said "maybe later. When I'm not on duty". I knew what he meant.

Everything is true - The Secret Chronicles of Lefteye, pt 7

[lamaros]

What about me? :(

Since when are you Italian? Really?

Yeah. I'm a citizen and everything. I just, wasn't born in Italy and can't speak the language. But I get stuff about elections in the mail, which has to count!