Dawn of the Morninglight Review (After 1 Week) - (SPOILERS)

I enjoyed the Foundling area, it was busy and fleshed out. The anointed zone less so. That’s a very small printing press and a small call centre. The whole area was very minimal in detail.

The favoured section was a let down. A few sheds? Where is everyone? We see one small shed detailing how blooded are made, but theres hundreds of them patrolling, from where? Do they hotswap on those ~6 mattresses in shed 1?

Even if the compound is a funnel for foundlings to be made into blooded, the lack of information even hinting at who the favoured were, where they lived, where the blooded are kept and trained. We just got a few sheds.

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I personally wouldn’t mind some post-humous for Berihun. Like, he didn’t have to return, but finding, say, a journal or something would be cool. In this area or the next.

My 2cents on Morninglight:

AS IS: 4/10
Quests are rushed, half the mob models are TERRIBLE (Aigaxuma and Blooded… wtf), the content is derp-tastic enough to just mash through and the dialogue left much to be desired. No spoilers, but KG respect went from 17/10 to about a 3/10… show me how a “Queen Bee” handles things my left nut.
There were some redeeming moments like that filthy T-rex, but nothing shone; the whole thing was kinda dingy and lackluster, not to mention dropping frames like there’s no tomorrow whenever I try to do something vaguely important.

There’s the promise of a new zone and expanded quests within the existing zone but…

I waited years and lost TSW for this? Really?
</3

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Wait a bit? I have been waiting since 2016. I’m tired of waiting. I don’t even know why I keep playing this any more.

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Hi all !

Just wanted to add a few feedback and suggestions about S2 part 1. [spoilers inside]

. First I really enjoyed playing it & discovering the new content :slight_smile:

I Loved the writing & New Jerusalem area.

There is a more “straight to the subject” feeling than in Tokyo, as you don’t have to follow a lot of breadcrumbs to break in the main story. I Understand the reason why, but I hope that some side tracks and other mysteries will appear in the next missions in South Africa. I would have expect perhaps a more insidious & seductive aspect of the sect, as most people inside just seem brainwashed, and are less frightening than Kaidan Fear Nothing Fondation or Club.

Maybe this aspect will be developped through missions with characters we can cross during that season 2 first part : the creepy priest has a good potential, and I am thrilling to see missions given by Riley, Nomsa & Kwanele. A mission given by Marquard’s wife could have been too oooohhh so much creepy too.

I hope maybe we will have a few missions out of New Jerusalem, with a more South African flavor. In Kaidan there was a lot of truly Japanese aspects that were flavoring a lot the all area. Hope some things like that for South Africa and Congo, as African Culture is full of mysteries for me (and probably for most players).

I found the game mechanics quite intuitive and nice to play. Missions nice to play too. Enjoyed doing that a lot. About Berihun, and the Marquards family, the would have deserved maybe a little bit more cinematics (like Halina’s and Daoud’s endings.)
With my stuff monsters die fast, so maybe it’s the reason, but I feel they are the weak spot of the extension. Aigamuxas and The Dinosaur are really cool, the robot too, Hyenas are doing some cool blinding effects… But flying creatures and mutated soldiers just die and their mechanics seem so much more basic than all the fabulous monsters we are used to see in TSW/SWL.

I keep my good start impression, and wait for the next. Please keep on.

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I ate the new dawn in 3h30.

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what’s wrong with the automaton fight? eveyrone seems to hate it, i got it on the first try as a melee fist/blood without much trouble myself. it was long because of the mechanics, but not horrible either.
I personally loved it, and can’t wait to see more about it. I hope they keep adding missions to the zone and we get them fairly often.

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I get the feeling it’s the pauses. I get why they were there but they were just a bit too long for me to give it a ten out of ten. (I largely enjoyed it otherwise. It’s a bit cheesy, but I like myself some cheese.)

I had targetting issues with that fight. It wasn’t difficult to figure out; it was a bit obnoxious to actually find the target to hit. I think that was improved a bit.

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Targeting was the hardest part. Hitting the weak spots - arms in particular - was a major pain. I eventually used non-targeted AoE to just blast Berihun’s automaton. Seems like the main hit box overlaps them, even when it’s in charging mode.

I’d looked at the weak spots, found nothing targettable and went back to just knocking him out for a few rounds, then asked in Sanctuary what to do. Wasn’t really in danger of dying at any point in the fight though, it just took a while. Maybe it’s easier if you’re not melee range?

I found the automaton fight to be a good fight mechanically but not really the way to end the starting chapter of season two. I would have much rather had that just be the first phase and then have to fight Behirun himself afterwards. It’s like Funcom is unable to make dramatic final encounters since the game launched.

Beaumont, Black Pharoah and Mara were all interesting fights that fight the story you had been experiencing and were (mostly) satisfying endings. Then we get to Tokyo while the Uta fight was great the waves of easy as hell filth mobs did not an end of a chapter boss fight make. And then our quarry is just nabbed away and we don’t really get any resolution. And now here the end fight is “well he’s like a mecha or something”.

Funcom isn’t the only one that does this, World of Warcraft raids are notorious for having side bosses that have nothing really to do with anything just to pad out wings (really, we’re fighting the gardener in Nighthold?) but to be fair that’s padding dozens of fights in the dungeons and raids they release with each patch where Secret World just gets a single “meh” fight.

That said I did enjoy parts of this (I was just going to respond to the one note, but seems I went on a bit of a rant). The T-Rex fight, the aigaxuma while their dialogue was kinda eh, the fights and lore were fun, the sabotage mission part and the rocket launcher assault gave me good flashbacks to the end of Resident Evil 4.

The mansion was looking to be good from the basement and then we got that family… cutscene… and everything just kinda ended.

Well, my personal bet is that Berihun is the filth-equivalent of a Bee. He’s come back from the dead once (granted, no confirmed kill) and probably will keep showing up.

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… That’s a new one for me. That said, it’s a very interesting one.
I just really hope that he’ll return. He’s just too interesting.

T-rex shoulda been the final boss. That fight at the gates to the mansion was my favorite in the entire expansion - she teleported, split into clones and left filthy trails all over. THAT was a boss fight in the making… Berihun was a sideshow.
And yeah, they totally should have done more with “the nuclear family.” They kinda popped in and were underwhelming, albeit canonically compelling.

Basically, S2 isn’t even close to done and there’s plenty more to fill in SA… hopefully. I just hope they reskin those awful Blooded mobs.

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I really dug the Nuclear family. But then again, I have a weakness for the seemingly idillic turning out to be a literal nightmare. Between the three, it’s probably my fave. (Can’t wait to meet Marquard himself, who’s probably MADE of this. And Stars.)
That said, they’re also not really comparable, at least lore wise? One’s a brand new model/villain (I think…) that’s there for the ‘What in the heck?!’ moment. One’s something that’s been teased, but ultimately not shown yet. And the final one was a long awaited (For me, at least. Been pining since Call of the Nameless) return of a main antagonist. Success of execution aside, I personally don’t feel it’s fair to compare them.

It’s funny, because Marquard really has been the main antagonist all along, but he’s treated like such an afterthought. The Tokyo bomb… the return of the Dreamers… that’s all Morninglight. He collaborated and used Lilith/Orochi until he achieved parts of his aim, then he hung them out like a red flag for a matador and the Secret World charged right ahead and passed him by.

Nah, I don’t think it’s that he’s an afterthought, but rather that they’re building him up.

Agreed. If anything Marquard has shown how resourceful and deceptive he can be. He clearly is inquisitive yet doesn’t let his arrogance and interests overshadow his ultimate goal. I think he likes the fact that most beings such as Lilth, Samael and the faction heads have either been underestimating him or just weren’t aware of his overall role in recent events. His (supposed, at this time) humble beginnings actually gave him an advantage over immortals, while his conviction, cunning and twisted interests clearly make him a threat that rivals if not exceeds what we’ve faced before. Add to that the fact that he’s slowly been amassing his forces as a fanatical army which is spread out around the world (infiltrating different factions, global superpowers etc.) and what you have is a recipe for the end of days. A buffet of stars waiting to be served on a platter full of dreams.

Sounds like fun.

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for me, the family would have been cooler if they looked normal in the first half of the cinematic, and then started turning black and evil with rd eyes suddenly and then you have to fight them.

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