The Secret World: Secrets... Revealed

Stradden · April 2009

In this article we look at the GDC presentation of Funcom's upcoming MMO, The Secret World, and unwrap the mysteries of the game's core design and story.

When I wrote my overview of the things that we saw at this year’s Game Developers Conference, there was one game that I couldn’t talk about. Information about The Secret World, Funcom’s new upcoming MMO, had been embargoed until this morning.

For those of you who don’t know the premise of the game, I’ll give you a quick overview:

Imagine that the world isn’t how we think it is. Imagine a world where monsters and demons, magic and curses, conspiracy theories and those who fight the darkness are all real. That’s the story behind The Secret World. These things actually exist all around us, and more and more people (players) are becoming aware of not only the darkness and strangeness around them, but also of powers inside of them that will help them to fight it.

Read Secrets... Revealed

Thillian · April 2009

I'a Dagon I'a Hydra Cthulhu Fhtagn! This finally looks like a decent cthulhu-que uhm .. game. Iä Y’hanthlei! Iä Dagon, Iä Hydra! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

ThomasN7 · April 2009

Sound interesting and we'll just have to wait and see how this game plays out.

brostyn · April 2009

Dear Funcom,

Just give it up.

Sincerely,

MMO Fans

skeaser · April 2009

Originally posted by brostyn

Dear Funcom,
Just give it up.

Sincerely,
MMO Fans

Speak for yourself. I'm stoked about this one.

ElRenmazuo · April 2009

Originally posted by skeaser

Originally posted by brostyn

Dear Funcom,
Just give it up.

Sincerely,
MMO Fans

Speak for yourself. I'm stoked about this one.

Me too and if it sucks at release, oh well.

Valgar1 · April 2009

Originally posted by brostyn

Dear Funcom,
Just give it up.

Sincerely,
MMO Fans

Lol, new reccord for flaming a new game?

And dont speak for MMO fans i love AoC

ElRenmazuo · April 2009

Originally posted by Valgar1

Originally posted by brostyn

Dear Funcom,
Just give it up.

Sincerely,
MMO Fans

Lol, new reccord for flaming a new game?

And dont speak for MMO fans i love AoC

For some reason the hype for this game is making me want to go back to AoC. Is it a lot better now with DX10 and does it have more content for level progression? Like for solo and group.

Blurr · April 2009

They talk like this game setting is unique and hasn't been seen in settings like the World of Darkness, Supernatural, etc

Also, "..this is not a feudal society..." "... our society is not a class based society and that's why our game doesn't have classes..." Does he really not realize that game classes are different from society classes?

While this could be good, what i've heard so far doesn't impress me. I've also not had good experiences with Funcom, so I'll stay in the "believe it when i see it" crowd for now.

Personally I think the World of Darkness MMO from White Wolf / CCP has much more potential.

Stradden · April 2009

Originally posted by Blurr

Also, "..this is not a feudal society..." "... our society is not a class based society and that's why our game doesn't have classes..." Does he really not realize that game classes are different from society classes?

Yeah... I'm pretty sure he meant that we don't have classes in real life and so we shouldn't have them in the game either. Otherwise, I don't really see what one (economic classes) has to do with the other (classic MMO classes).

Khebeln · April 2009

I have big hopes for this title and WoD is still very very far away. And as for AoC, it have stelar performance in dx9 atm, what meny games cant say atm like WO for example that got crapiest engine i used in very very long time. Dx10 still is bit tricky and still far from perfect performance, but it gives you a glimps of how impresive game looks then and no screenshot can realy give it justice

Maelkor · April 2009

Just like every new game that has some decent money backing it...I will take the wait and see approach. No game ever lives up to its hype, however, that does not mean they are not worth playing. Expect the game to be overhyped and anywhere from about 60% to 80% as good as the hype machine tells you and you wont be dissappointed. With Funcoms reputation for me I will definately wait untill post release to think about buying one of their games unless i get in on some form of beta sneak peak situation.

The way most games go now a days you can get free access to most of them in some form before having to purchase them or put any money down in any case and I always try to try a game out before i buy it, unless I am really bored.

xover33 · April 2009

One Word

Funcom

and the erection I had about the idea of the game went limp when I saw Funcom is going to be designing it.

Khebeln · April 2009

Originally posted by xover33

One Word
Funcom

and the erection I had about the idea of the game went limp when I saw Funcom is going to be designing it.

Right... like there is perfect mmo company out there that delivers 100% perfect mmo games that always lived to its hype and never had any bugs, mistakes and other crap.

Pff you should realy play more mmo games right after retial. No game is perfect and have it share of problems after that and neither wow nor Eq2 or Eve or whathever other mmo you can think of was without any faults when it was relised.

And there was never any mmo that lived even up to 80%of its hype Im happy if we even get 50% of what they say and rest is usualy implemented in next 6 months or so if everything works smooth

Have some realism instead of troling tss.

xover33 · April 2009

Originally posted by Khebeln

Originally posted by xover33

One Word
Funcom

and the erection I had about the idea of the game went limp when I saw Funcom is going to be designing it.

Right... like there is perfect mmo company out there that delivers 100% perfect mmo games that always lived to its hype and never had any bugs, mistakes and other crap.

Pff you should realy play more mmo games right after retial. No game is perfect and have it share of problems after that and neither wow nor Eq2 or Eve or whathever other mmo you can think of was without any faults when it was relised.

And there was never any mmo that lived even up to 80%of its hype Im happy if we even get 50% of what they say and rest is usualy implemented in next 6 months or so if everything works smooth

Have some realism instead of troling tss.

I played WoW, FFXI, EQ2, LOTRO, AOC, WAR the day of release and gave them all at least 3 months of play

Out of all those games Funcom produced the only game that made me hate the Developer with the very fiber of my being.

obviously were not perfect, but at least the games ran semi decent. AOC was a memory leak nightmare and I heard AO was even worse.

JeroKane · April 2009

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Blurr

Also, "..this is not a feudal society..." "... our society is not a class based society and that's why our game doesn't have classes..." Does he really not realize that game classes are different from society classes?

Yeah... I'm pretty sure he meant that we don't have classes in real life and so we shouldn't have them in the game either. Otherwise, I don't really see what one (economic classes) has to do with the other (classic MMO classes).

That is exactly what he meant. MMO classes. They don't fit in this game. Same with the level system. None in this game.

But I think Blurr was doing a poor attempt on trolling, as every sane person on this forum knows exactly what he meant in that interview.

I personally can't wait to see and hear more about this game.

It's about time this genre got more attention. And better yet. That the industry finally realises that class based, level based MMO's is a think from the past!

Longetivity = player freedom. Skill based. Do what you want to do. And change your skills whenever you want. Without having to recreate a new character and start all over again. Like is the case with level/class based MMO's.

Cheers

Khebeln · April 2009

Well if you want to count who played what here is the list of games i played since beta ,then right to retial and then atleast 2-3 months after game was relised.

AnarchyOnline/Atlantica/UO/DAoC/Horizonz/EQ2/SWG/AC1&2/L2/SoR/WoW/TMO/Requiem/

GW/Lotr/CO/TcoS/Cabal/Tabula Rasa/Meridian 59/Vanguard/Shadowbane/Fury/SotW/Dreamlords/HGL/RoM/DDO/FFXI/Aoc/Eve/Warhammer Online/Manibogi and lots of f2p titles that i did not play that much like above titles neither i had had oportunity to play beta or since start compared to ones above.

To top that i was testing since alpha games from above titles like Eve/Tocs/WoW/Ac2/Lotro/DDO and few more.

But i agree that you might had realy bad rig to play at that point, however right now AoC runs like gold compared to most titles on market right now, even if you compare the performance to titles that are meny years on the market.

If i would mention company that realy got under my skin, that would be unquestionably Mythic with no official forum policy for a long time for WO, false promises and ignoring everyone to the point that you would want to stab someone out there for that. To this day they are ignoring major issues with the game fixing minior problems and ignoring ppl that have basic problems with the game stability/performance and more.

Atleast with Funcom Boasting and other things there was always open line of comunication betwean Devs and players and things are geting fixed steadily over time. With WO you cant say the same thing.

jaded · April 2009

I loved AO, just returned to Conan and can't wait for this one. Plus the song is stuck in my head.

synergi · April 2009

This looks really promising. Dare I hope it will be more sandbox then linear?

Mahrtiir · April 2009

I'm glad to see that there's another game in the works that isn't trying to out-WoW WoW, but I must admit that I was very disappointed that it was coming from Funcom. Yeah, sure, every MMO has it's problems out of the gate, but Funcom seems to have turned poor game launches into an artform. And yes, I was there for AO's launch, if you want to call it a launch. And yes, I have a long list of games I've beta tested and played in retail, too -- I just don't feel the need to put it all here.

I'm glad people think that AoC is great now, but I've been bitten by Funcom too many times at this point. As promising as the game mechanics sound, they're just that -- promises. And Funcom has a history of tossing those around with reckless abandon. I don't think I'll be giving Funcom any more of my hard-earned dollars.

JeroKane · April 2009

Originally posted by Mahrtiir

I'm glad to see that there's another game in the works that isn't trying to out-WoW WoW, but I must admit that I was very disappointed that it was coming from Funcom. Yeah, sure, every MMO has it's problems out of the gate, but Funcom seems to have turned poor game launches into an artform. And yes, I was there for AO's launch, if you want to call it a launch. And yes, I have a long list of games I've beta tested and played in retail, too -- I just don't feel the need to put it all here.
I'm glad people think that AoC is great now, but I've been bitten by Funcom too many times at this point. As promising as the game mechanics sound, they're just that -- promises. And Funcom has a history of tossing those around with reckless abandon. I don't think I'll be giving Funcom any more of my hard-earned dollars.

The big difference here is that the promisses about AO and AoC came out of the mouth of Gaute, who has been kicked ou.... left the company last year.

Ragnar Tornquist and his team are a completely different team than AO or AoC's team.

Difference with AO and AoC is that Ragnar has always delivered when it comes to his games (The Longest Journey and Dreamfall).

So I have a lot more faith and more hope with The Secret World and that they will do right this time.

Ragnar has been concepting and thus working on this game for over 10 years.

Cheers

Deathstrike2 · April 2009

Game looks good, but I simply do not trust Funcom. I'll definitely be taking the wait and see approach with this one. Let's hope the game that's sold matches the description on the box this time.

toddze · April 2009

I am glad you guys are excited about this game. but it takes some serious faith to think that what is said will be even remotely delivered upon.

Their past, they have done nothing but dish out empty promises. There is absolutly no reason to think otherwise. So what they kicked out guate, he was just the sacrificial lamb to take the hit, to try to save their name. It seems some people on these boards actually beleive he was the SOLE reason behind the bad launches. Thats sad on your part if you believe that. There was many more than one person involved with the problems of AoC and AO.

This train wreck is going to be fun as hell to watch develope.

Locklain · April 2009

Originally posted by toddze

I am glad you guys are excited about this game. but it takes some serious faith to think that what is said will be even remotely delivered upon.
Their past, they have done nothing but dish out empty promises. There is absolutly no reason to think otherwise. So what they kicked out guate, he was just the sacrificial lamb to take the hit, to try to save their name. It seems some people on these boards actually beleive he was the SOLE reason behind the bad launches. Thats sad on your part if you believe that. There was many more than one person involved with the problems of AoC and AO.
This train wreck is going to be fun as hell to watch develope.

It's a good thing not everyone in the world is a pessimist or we would be in some serious hot water.

Seems that there is no middle of the road anymore. You are either riding this train or the guy on the sidelines giving the people riding the train the finger or shouting "I told you so!" while they writhe around on the ground after the derailment.

toddze · April 2009

Originally posted by Locklain

Originally posted by toddze

I am glad you guys are excited about this game. but it takes some serious faith to think that what is said will be even remotely delivered upon.
Their past, they have done nothing but dish out empty promises. There is absolutly no reason to think otherwise. So what they kicked out guate, he was just the sacrificial lamb to take the hit, to try to save their name. It seems some people on these boards actually beleive he was the SOLE reason behind the bad launches. Thats sad on your part if you believe that. There was many more than one person involved with the problems of AoC and AO.
This train wreck is going to be fun as hell to watch develope.

It's a good thing not everyone in the world is a pessimist or we would be in some serious hot water.

Seems that there is no middle of the road anymore. You are either riding this train or the guy on the sidelines giving the people riding the train the finger or shouting "I told you so!" while they writhe around on the ground after the derailment.

Pessimist? I prefer the term realist. A pessimist was back when AoC was about to launch and the good ole AO people were warning us about Funcom. Ok so one bad launch no biggie, they must have learned a thing or two! No way they could botch another launch, boy howdy were the optimists wrong. I know I was what you would call a fanatic AOC fanboy pre-launch. Defended everything. Wrote the AO people off as a pessimistic trolls, but you know what? 90% of what they said was true about Funcom. Its one thing to "troll" about poor game mechanics as it depends on the gamer if he/she will like it. Its quite another thing to warn about the company. Things just dont maracusloy (sp) get better when a company is involved. Thats why I will never defend SoE to the SoE haters, they have been burnt so they have a right to be mad. I personally have not been burnt by SoE but I will take heed in the future if they release an MMO that even slightly intrests me.

As for your train we "pessimist" are not giving you guys the finger, Its more like were laughing at you because we know whats at the end of the tracks, because we rode that train as well. Some of us rode it twice while most rode it once. Its the same train just different name.

Funcom is good about hyping up their games , ill give em that. TSW probably will be decent a year after release just like AoC. If you like paying for betas, Great! Funcom will give you the opertunity.

radszuweit · April 2009

Interesting!

This is a straight rip off from the Swedish pen and paper role playing game "KULT" which was a fantastic RPG!

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kult_(rollspel)

I really hope they captured the feel as it my next best RPG to Shadowrun and AD&D (AD&D and Shadowrun sucked in the MMORPG/game versions)

So good luck with the design guys!

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