Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The Secret World: The Sound of Silence
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The Secret World has gone largely off the grid in the last month and a half or so. Is this a good thing for a game that is due to hit the MMOniverse in just over four months? Read on and then let us know what you think in the comments.
This is going to be a short column this week… because there’s honestly not much to say. It’s as though Funcom, EA, and The Secret World have purposefully gone black in order to let SWTOR hog the spotlight through the end of the year. Sure you could say we got a taste of something new when the guys at FC released a big smattering of info about the Scorched Desert zone. I loved it. Hell, we ran a story here from them on just that. But come on fellas… give us more. You’ve got us wanting it, why not satiate our hunger?
Read more Bill Murphy's The Secret World: The Sound of Silence.
)
Comments
I think a lot of people have reached a point where hype is bad.
If one could release a product without much hype or expectation. Then people would form their opinion and conclusions simply by playing the game.... Of course Funcom's track record is not the best.
However, if they released a solid product with low expectations from the customer base. They might gain a lot more from the unexpected "good game" than hype. I always believe that hype works against you... because the game people play is never going to be as good as the one they pictured in their mind.
If one doesn't expect much then the picture in your mind is not that hard to exceed...
Keeping quiet right now is probably a smart move. Let the SWTOR hype train die down to normal levels, and about the end of January start to ramp up prelaunch hype.
Besides, for me, I'm enjoying SWTOR a ton, but I also want to enjoy The Secret World in the spring. So for now, silence is golden while I romp through that galaxy far, far away.
I certainly hope Funcom and Mythic learned a little something from their last releases.
OTOH, you can almost feel the looming fog of expectation->disappointment preparing to surround GW2. That's going to be an epic forum battle.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I think its a great move to not build too much expectations. TSW being a niche-title it feels appropriate to not have huge campaigns that will try to rival SWTOR or WoWs campaigns (that are already in high gear) .
While additional information is always nice, its not something I really need, I've seen enough of the game from previous presentations and hands-on previews to be considering a purchase at this point.
I'm still expecting the BETA though.
I'm not sure this is going to be a mass-appeal game, and It think Funcom is cool with that. Besides, they have been talking about this game and leaking info and ARG gameplay for years now. I wouldn't mind some specifics either, but I also don't need to know completely how the game works so there is nothing left to explore when it releases.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I think its two-fold:
1) SWTOR hype would drown out most of theirs.
2) They got into the SWTOR beta/release and have said "Oops, our game isn't as fun as this, we need to work on it some more."
I'm impatient about it, but at least there's a launch date. Too bad it's not today!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I'm starting to think this game isn't going to launch on April. We just haven't seen enough of it, and there's also no talk of the Open Beta.
The Social Networking stuff also never fully launched after that big hype.
The Sound of Silence this close to launch is never a good sign.
I really hope they are able to pull things together and get the game launched, but I'd prefer a later launch rather than a poor one.
I agree with this for a few reasons. First of all from the perspective of EA - to allow SWTOR get all the attention right now, that will help that game continue to grow without anyone being distracted by other games on the horizon for now. Second, for TSW, it will help as right now many people are focused a lot on SWTOR anyway, their news might be slightly less noticed just because of that. After SWTOR initial launch excitement slows a little (although it might not a lot for awhile), then people will start paying more attention to the other news. The audience I'm talking about obviously is the group of SWTOR fans.
Lastly, I think that I agree that keeping some mystery in the news about the game is a good thing because today there is so much hype that has been over done, I think many gamers are tired of being disappointed.
Actually this is true. I'm kinda worried about GW2 not living up to the hype.
This only applies to the people who create their own feature lists for the games, and then assume those features will actually ever exist. It's just dumb. It happens for every new game that releases. It's probably good that those people all post in forums...at least it keeps them out of the games.
EA is the company handling the distribution, and they don't want anything interfering with SWToR. Funcom can take a break on the information about TSW for a bit. They'll pick back up again after SWToR is well under way.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
agree totally..better to keep quiet atm..let SW hype train die down a bit..every other post on here is about that,i am quite happy for this game to start small and build..hopefully it wont have the same problems at launch that AoC had.hopefully they have learnt from it.although it still has bugs AoC has turned out a good game..i just hate those damn lag spikes .bring it on i say..i then have 3 mmo's to choose from..oh no make that 4..ffxiv,eq2,lotro.dont know where i get the time..have to say goin off point i,m looking towards ffxiv 2.0..hope they do a good job with that as well.
I really hope it's just let the TOR hype die down and not fight it, and not a major issue. Although if there is an issue that needs to be fixed, I hope they'll delay release until they get it right.
If they do another release like AoC, I think they'd lose all crediblity with the gaming community. AoC turned out well, but what a horrid release.
That said, can't wait for this one. Niche market are not it's going to be awesome.
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
Probably a good thing really. I think this will be the sleeper this year, and I mean Funcons history is not that bad. Yes they did mess up the launch for AOC, but most ppl I know have found memorys of AO, also do not forget they did make AOC a whole, whole, whole lot better too.
In afew ways i am glad they are not hyping the game as much as others have or will, since it means they are either doing one of two thgins with that time. First they might be setting up a chain of hype events to happen over the next several months to release, such as articles, vids, and TV spots to get knowledge of the game out. Second they might actually be choosing to go more fo the route of polishing the game to a gem-like finish to make rift, as well as other games have along with fleshing out the content of the game to make sure it has enouph for launch. Hype is good till you into the game to find the game is not supper polished (alot f gamer's expect that.), as well as a lack of content to experince compared to other games.
While I do agree with first point and thats exactly the reason why they are silent(it make sperfect sense from marketing stand point)
The second point is laughable. TSW does not want to be world of warcraft. They have no reason to take stuff from torcraft.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
Then TSW would have to be the most boring MMO ever. Currently that title is easily held by SWTOR.
There's no way in hell I'd do Beta Testing fot this game. I want no spoilers for its story.
SW:TOR's story, is just cornball cheap Star Wars drivel. So beta testing for that was no big deal. But TSW is a far more entertaining story enviroment for me. Heres to hoping the game is actually good....
Distribution of both games is handled by EA. Is it so strange that EA is heavily promoting the one that launched right now (and also owns the studio behind it) as opposed to the one that will launch sometime in 2012?
This reminds me a bit of the clash of interests between EQ2 and Vanguard for Sony.
I cant wait to play the beta if i ever get selected and tommorrow is january so who knows what will happen. GL
I don't know if I completely agree with that. For myself it's a matter of going by all the hype that GW2 has set up. IT sounds really awesome and the visuals look stunning.. but that's the problem. I've seen this type of hype before and had my high hopes dashed on other games. I don't mean that it's inevitable but just hope that doesn't happen. With SWTOR, it has always had controversial two sided hype and anti-hype (for lack of a better word) and truthfully, I was pleasantly surprised because I think my expectations were somewhat lower than in other games that I was overly excited about.
FC stated in one of the press interviews a couple of months ago that one of the lessons they learned from AoC is to promise certain features and then not deliver on those promises. So, this time around they are making 100% sure that whatever gets promised gets delivered. I would expect FC to stay a lot more tight-lipped until much closer to release. At least this one example where they have learned from their past mistakes and will not repeat them with TSW.
yeah TSW is going for the "don't like wow" market
That first one could be true but just out of plain marketing reasons. After all fanchise was always a hit.
Heh, if you have at least active brain usage and learned to use it for judging the world around you , some marketing drama or hype that has been created based on marketing tricks and comments can't force you do play something that you don't want to play. Or I could be wrong, mass media seem to have influenced overseas more than they seem to pierce and brainwash on this side of Atlantic:P
TSW is aiming for different audiance, and after so many years of their products, no matter how badly rated by some players they were, their games were played for unique experience it offered.
At last, you can't generalise if something is better than something else by just being a same genre (if you can say that for a mmo anyways). What you see as fun, lots of others don't :P
Lots of opinions of course. Here is mine. Funcom has provided enough info to get me decided about whether to buy or not. I will purchase and play TSW. Do not know what else to say about the subject. I know I will not partake of Forum PVP, it is just annoying. Unsure about Beta tho, if invited I will try it but if not I will still buy and play it. Enough said!