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The Secret World: The Same But Different
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
In this week's The Secret World column, Bill Murphy takes a look at the recent gameplay videos to come from EA's Summer Showcase and puts them through the analyzer that is his goofy mind. Find out why Bill thinks The Secret World is headed down the right path towards success.
I’ve been watching those videos IGN posted from the recent EA Showcase event in California. In them, Funcom’s The Secret World showed a nice revealing look at the game’s dungeon content and how players can expect those sorts of adventures to go. We got a lot of detail on the class-system, and a lot of detail on the story-presentation. But what’s intriguing me more and more as I look at this footage is the seeming step back towards more standardized MMO combat than Age of Conan. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. On the contrary, I’m beginning to think that with their skill system, slant towards the ARG in an MMO, and the modern setting keeping the combat familiar may be the best bet.
Read the rest of Bill Murphy's The Secret World: The Same But Different.
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Comments
Funcom should stop recycling mobs model from their old games. These mobs on the screenshots are the same exact model to those from Shadowlands. I dunno be a little more creative maybe......
I have to admit, the more I read about this game, the more I think I might like it.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
There's no need to break with tab-targetting and skill-spamming. It simply works.
FPS-controls don't work as good in MMOs, especially with all those people around who simply cannot use WASD to move and simultanously press 1,2,3,4,5... Some players simply need their mouse to activate skills for whatever reason. And I admit, I myself can't access 1,2,3,4,5 with my fingers on a normal keyboard without getting fatigue in my hand fast. I'm using a G13 therefore, but not everyone is willing or able to spend the money on controllers like this.
FPS-controls work fine in shooters where you don't need to activate skills but simply trigger your weapon with the mouse-button and don't need to press the RMB to turn your character.
The skill-system is the single best feature of TSW imho, as it offers you the possibility to play any role you want with a single character. You simply switch your skills and gear and be a DD today, and a tank tomorrow given that you've learned all the necessary skills allready. This way we get tied to our characters and we can actually start role-playing instead of being shizophrenic having a dozen alts.
The only thing still not revealed is the PvP-systems in TSW and I do hope that there's possibilities to fight against other guilds/clans/alliances in the open world. Battlegrounds, arenas or instanced sieges won't cut it for me, coming from games like DAoC, Neocron or EvE Online.
I was in the beta (and pre-ordered) both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan. So I'm pretty familiar with Funcom's track record on MMO's (they've done much better with their non mmo's).
TSW is a game I was interested in the moment they announce the design choice. The more I see of the game the more interested I get. I was very impressed by the video's mentioned in the article when I first saw them. Because... being in various beta's I was not expecting to see a game in the state TSW seems to be in.
Especially for Funcom and as far as I know TSW might be in a "friends and family" stage but obviously not advanced beta. It just looks like they might finally pull off a good MMO... would be nice and different is good at this point.
This is one that I am keeping my eye on. I know Funcom crashed and burned with their launch of AoC, but if the majority of players gave it another look they would see that it is a quality game that deserves more success than it has. I think Funcom will take what they have learned from AoC and apply it to TSW to hopefully avoid repeating the crash and burn launch.
I like the fact that this game has a modern setting and skills instead of classes. While Rift is a fantastic highly polished game I get that been there done that feeling because it is TOO familiar. I am hoping TSW will be able to hold our attention longer than the WoW clones and Funcom will get some much deserved success here.
P.S. There are two mistakes that I noticed in the preceding article. "Loadout" is "Loudout" and "say" is "saw." You're welcome. Please read through your articles before posting or I will be forced to fine you in the name of the grammar nazis.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
fps does work... and it will be the future..
Expl. upcoming game planet side 2
Current games like darkfall and mortal online.. i preff the playstyle of darkfall
If a game is FPS and/or open world EVE PvP? Shrug. I won't buy them. It is just that simple. Flamers can just KMA. Havig flamed that I am looking forward to TSW. Just pre-ordered SWTOR and intend to pre-order TSW even if it is a "WOW Clone". Rift was a nice game, played in beta but I found it to have nothing particularly interesting and already have numerous alts of varying levels on WoW. Play WoW for a number of reasons and its satisfies my love of Fantasy genre. Will play SWTOR because I love the IP and sci-fi genre. Will try TSW because it looks to emulate the PnP genre of 'Shadowrun', which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I know I am lucky. I am a retired gamed designer and am able to play what I want when I want. Realize that the majority of gamers are not as lucky but TSW, so far, looks good.
Tab targeting and hotkeying skills/powers/spells/attacks is ok by me as long as there are a couple 'new' ideas going on. Attacking/casting while moving can certainly add a LOT to a game. And, changing your 'set' based on needs and your total skills means constant flexibility. Sounds awesome!
@Snoepie
Because Darkfall is such a successful game at the moment you believe that the FPS model is a success? MMOs aren't FPSs. And I don't want them to be easily exploited by aimbots like the current APB Online. Darkfall is going on it's second ititeration now because the first one wasn't all that successful and is a massive sandbox game in a market where theme parks are the best chance of survival.
MMO FPS is not the wave of the future, and it will remain that way.
Currently Watching: TSW. << Very Eager for a Beta invite. Have experience with Beta Testing.
Not personally a big fan of raiding or current pve endgame mmo philosophy. Nothing wrong with it, I just sort of burnt out on it.
Hardcore raider in wow from Launch to.. about 7 months ago.
Currently Playing: Champions Online.
LOL, I noticed the same thing. BUT, I actually like it! I thought that it was maybe to save time for development, who knows. I'll take it a step further, the classless model kinda reminds me of an....Agent in AO. You could be come any class anytime...a weaker one but a useful one. This whole game reminds me of AO. Hmmm..I can't wait for the engine update. I think I'll be playing both AO&TSW.
FPS style is a perfectly viable choice for an MMO. Particulary ones that deal with modern firearms as the standard MMO combat systems really aren't built to reflect that sort of combat well...although they do a reasonable job with Melee combat.
There are plenty of games that have opted for that sort of style or a hybrid of it.... TR, Fallen Earth, Earth Rise, WWII Online, Planetside
and quite a few that seem to be in the works Planetside 2, Defiance, Firefall, Line of Defence.... I've heard rumors about WH40K as well.
I'm not certain that FPS style controls will be the "wave of the future" or anything like that.... but there is certainly more then one way to put together a viable combat system for an MMO. Not all MMO's need be the exact same flavor, any more then ice cream does.
In fact, if there is one thing I am fairly confident about, it's that MMO's in the future are going to need to try experimenting with different mechanics in order to draw an audience. The market is just too crowded for them all to keep trying to follow the same formula and be successfull. Some of that experimentation will include different sorts of combat mechanics...count on it.
Although I'm personaly a little dissapointed that TSW isn't opting for a more FPS style system...it certainly is experimenting in enough other areas that it looks to be a pretty interesting game.
Like WhiteLantern, I'm intrigues, but I also remember how much I hated AoC after 20 levels. Now, I liked the FFA PvP system in AoC, but it was too chaotic. Getting stabbed in the back while trying to access a vendor isn't fun. The game world was also severely fractured because zones weren't logicially next to each other and were divided by realtively long loading screens. The instance hopping also made the experience pretty awful.
That's my biggest concern with TSW too. It looks like anotherfractured gameworld that's going to be heavily instanced because all the locations are spread out acorss the earth and alternate dimensions?
Now, as I said, TSW is intriguing because it breaks some MMO norms, but just having the Funcom name on it concerns me. I'm following coverage, but I probably wouldn't consider buying the game before 3 months post launch and trying out a trial version.
If you don't worry about it, it's not a problem.
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Yeh it will work if you have 100- ping, the rest us of will just be abused as "dont stand in the fire types".
mmofps will not work for everyone until a system is created to factor your efforts based on your ping, i.e. your shots fire slightly faster if you have high ping etc
that or you limit your market geographically like what happened in Darkfall when they moved the US server from West coast to East coast of the US and all of us aussies unsubbed.
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76)
Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
Agreed that low ping should not rule in PvP as it seems to do now.
I believe TSW started with fps targeting(reticle), and changed it to tab. They are working on a new server set-up. That may have been the reason for the change, but it is unknown.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Actually.....
I thought the character models looked more like the characters from Ragnar's other games, The Longest Journey, for one, but also Dreamfall. One of them is a dead ringer for April Ryan, and I think, being she's the heroine, it's intentional.
So....that's where I think the character models are "copied" from.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
That "original" of Aoc was, imo, just a mess. Especially at end using FIVE precious keboard keys for stupid combinations and for directional hits. Sure, this problem was always only with MELE, fortunately CASTERS were not afflicted by this "awesome" idea.
Btw, If somebody little fingers have problem to hit keys for execution of abilites shoul have also problem using wasd system. I simply to not play games where i can not move character with mouse. This is 2011, not 1990 anymore. Using mouse is superior in any aspect (+space for 3d movements).
Mostly TSW looks good, still waiting for more info on combat...
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
ar first i thought this might be the answer to my yearning for a world of darkness style mmo, then i found out that the world of darkness people will me making their mmo sometime in 2012 so im not so sure about this one anymore, we shall see,
This will be the best MMO for a long long time. The others MMO will have some trouble to not lose people.
I always figured they did that because they were setting up for the mythical expansion to consoles. The combo system they used seemed to be designed specifically for controllers. Hence, I never got a melee character out of Tortage and remained a Tempest pretty much from launch to unsub. Not that long a period really.