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Live Forum Q&A Joel Bylos - The Secret World
nusquam
FuncomMember, AMA Guest UncommonPosts: 62
Hi everybody,
My name is Joel Bylos and I am the Creative Director for Funcom. Today I'm throwing wide the doors for any and all TSW related questions. Ask me whatever you feel like and I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge!
To save time here are some things I can't/won't answer in advance:
- Release dates for anything.
- Questions about the other Funcom games (but I am happy to do a Q&A specific for them in particular so suggest it to the MMORPG.com staff)
I'll start answering in around 10mins, to let some questions build up. Fire away!
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Now that the Second phase of Whispering Tide ended last night. A lot of People are still recovering from the Anti Climax that followed. Being faced With a Cleansed Portal you cannot enter due to a mission requirement that appearantly is not ingame yet.
I Guess the burning question on everyone's mind is. When will it continue? As so far the event went smoothly from phase 1 into phase 2 and we got what you would say "in the flow" of the event and the general expectation was to be flowed straight into phase 3.
So this sudden abruption was unexpected and created a bit of a letdown / anti climax. Especially since a lot of People worked hard the last couple days to get the tendrils Down, excited to finally move forward into phase 3 and enter something New, after running the same mission over and over for the past 2 weeks. ;-)
Greetings Joel,
Will Magic get a revisit on the wheel? I'm just not feeling the "rock-paper-scissors" aspect when
Ranged and Melee feel just about right to each other. Magic should be dangerous to everyone
and not just the one using it.
Cheers!
Hey, thanks for agreeing to do the AMA! I've been playing since Christmas, and I've sunk over 1k hours in, I love the game.
#1: How does magic work in the Secret World? There are Bees (player characters), who use anima, but are they the only people with “special powers” in the Secret World? Kirsten Geary is pretty clearly a Muggle, but Sonnac talks about war golems on the battlefields of France back during the European wars between Illuminati and the Templars. Is he a Bee, or some kind of (immortal?) sorcerer. Hayden Montag is pretty clearly using magic from ritual books, not anima. The kids in Innsmouth – are they kids who are learning magic from scratch, or are they Bees who are learning how to contain their natural power? I'm especially interested in Carter. Is she a Bee or a magician?
My current theory is that there are Bees (inborne power, ability to use anima, purity to Filth, semi-immortal) and wizards of varying kinds (some inborne power that must be honed and trained, and ability to use spells/create runes based off prior knowledge). Is that accurate, or am I off base?
#2: There are a few references in the Orochi lore entries about how Orochi pharma is distributing pills that make people a little less curious about the world, etc. As a mentally ill person who struggles with bipolar and anxiety, I found this a little disheartening. Please tell me the Funcom team isn't saying conditions like ADD are just a part of these big global conspiracies? Are we supposed to interpret it as Orochi being THAT immoral?
Thanks so much!!
Are there any plans to make a bigger "open world" typ PvP zone or alter the existing ones in a way that "undergeared" Players (blue 10 for example) can have a role beyond being 1 hit target practice dummies? Just leeching your way up somehow to eventually get some gear is not most peoples notion of fun I would think.
Thank you for taking the time to do his.
Question:
How are the Development Team now they are finally moved to the US? Are they well and in good spirits? Pass on our good wishes to them and rom a players perspective has production increased now to a level you are happy with?
THE SECRET WORLD - PAY ONCE PLAY FOREVER - Give it a go!
http://www.thesecretworld.com/buy/
OR PM ME FOR A BUDDY KEY (need your email address).
- hello guys!!! first off, My apologies for not giving this game the chance on its release-it is now my favorite mmo of all time!
Q1: how many writers are involved in writing the Issues and the side missions in TSW?
Q2:will you have further towns like kingsmouth in the future or introduce new Countries after tokyo = brazil?
Q3: weve seen zombies, giant Bugs, filth, and ghosts, will we see new outbreaks after tokyo?
Q4: how will pvp become more appealing to the pve players in the future?
Q5: will we get a 'steampunk' eye patch in the item shop anytime soon?
Hello Joel!
One thing that has made me curious about the plot of the game is in the main storyline, at key points we are given the choice between working for or against the Filth. Yet, it seems that all events and actions given to us otherwise are ONLY against the Filth. Will there ever be content, costume options, storylines for those of us who chose the darker path?
With Tokyo on the horizon, and the augment system almost in place, where do you see Augments being first utilized? Is this something you should have a completed ability wheel for, or is this system implemented for lower QLs as well?
Can we please have an update on the status and current proposed functionality of the ever hinted at Bestiary and their powers? Many achievement hunters want to know!
Will an achievements forum ever be added on the main forums?
What is the Data Vault Access that you supposedly unlock when you get Faction Level 13?
Thank you for taking the time to respond to these.
Hi Joel,
Thanks for taking the time to do this! Development-wise, what are some of the technical lessons you'll take away from Tokyo in the design of future playfields?
Hello!
There are a lot of the side missions which have a very generic "Your Report has been sent in and will be looked at" sort of responce; Are these just placeholders, and if so will we see answers from the various faction leaders eventually?
Hello and thanks for interacting with us here.
Are there plans to review the myriad (or plethora) of nealry worthless signets and begin tweaking them so they have some in game value?
How about the many abilities that have little or no value in "approved" builds useful in NM groups?
I am looking forward to what comes next in our crusade (Templars win) against the Filth incursion...
Thanks for this opportunity
Question1: Issue 8 with Augmentation will be out soon. Can you be more specific on what will be free, what will be paid on Issue 8 ? It seems 1 scenario will be free for all (if i remember well). Does this means that Augmentation will also be free and we'll get the other 2 scenarios buying Issue 8 or does it mean that 1 scenario is included with the Issue 8 cost and the other 2 should be bought separately?
Question2: A clarification on Augmentation abilities. How the link between augmentation and abilities will be done? It's possible to link a single augmentation to more then 1 abilities or 1 augmentation can only go on a single ability? It's possible to change augmentation linked to abilities on the fly?
Thanks
Hello there!
First, thanks for all the hard work you & the dev team do to make TSW as awesome as it is and thanks for doing this AMA.
Q- TSW is currently doing some merchandising with clothing / hoodies / posters w/ WeLoveFine (which are fantastic, btw).
Has there been any talk or any plans of expanding TSW merchandise through action figures, books, etc?
Hello Joe!
My biggest question, mechanics wise, would be if there are plans to ever implement faction defection? (Switching from Dragon to Illuminati, or Templar to Dragon, etc) I was a huge fan of City of Heroes' alignment system and thought that would be a great tool for the Secret World. A series of missions to either defect to another faction, or to reinforce your standing with your current faction, potentially for a new rank, or outfit. I know that at times, other factions will contact you, although sparingly. Are there any plans for something along these lines?
Thanks!
Q6: I recently got TSW as a gift to a buddy of mine ... I kinda will have to hold his hand to many events etc- will we see perhaps a join option in the solo dungeon so a new person can progress through the main story?
and can a higher level player be scaled down to group up with a less experienced player?
Q7: since the success with the train and snowmobile in the past issues will we see perhaps bicycles or scooters permanatntly be introduced after tokyo ?
Hello Joel, i got a question about Tokyo, i doubt you will tell when it comes out, but how log time till we can actually do something New?! it is boring to grind nightmares now adays so... i just got 28k Black Bullions on Sunday, i got nothing to spend them on...
Also the New Mission was sorta weird, thanks in forehand! Good Job with the game keep refreshing time to time
)
Mostly lore-mechanics-related inquiries..
Do the "bees" fix all the problems a player character comes across, and is that limited to purely physical problems? Does it also inclue pre-existing conditions? (ie, if you get a minor cut, will it animagically go away? If you had a gimp leg before getting chosen, would that now be perfectly fine, or would that be your baseline for bee-healing? Would you just not be chosen if you had a gimp leg beforehand?)
Related to the above, but if Anima/Emma hadn't been around when we got kneecapped, would our own beestuff have fixed us? Up to that point it was pretty much assumed that it could fix anything that ailed us, and the cutscene made it seem like a big deal that a new spec of anima came over to help us out.
Can "bees" actually die, and what would be required to make that happen?
Can we get a pet Scrivnomancer?
Hey Joel,
Long time player and tester of TSW and other Funcom products here. One of the biggest issues with your games that you seem to face as a company, TSW included, is poor version control. Fully functional content seems to become broken, bugs that were previously fixed are reintroduced, and performance degradation over time. Has there been any thought or effort put into getting this resolved?
I feel that proper version control would prevent a lot of frustrations that drive players away. I have a fairly high threshold for these sorts of things, however, after a solid year of playing TSW nightly, it finally got to me when PVP, the interface, etc., continued to get worse and more plagued with bugs over time. I understand your resources are stretched thin, but this seems like a priority that needs to be addressed to maintain a healthy game further down the line.
Scott "Scottius" Aldebaran
It's a slow burn event as we have said multiple times. You've cleansed a portal, but there is more to do and it is coming soon. I can't offer you more than to say it won't be "weeks" until it starts again. It will be much sooner than that.
Also you have to remember that the pacing is something new for us. We can "guesstimate" how quickly the community will do things, and then we adjust the pacing for the next phase. More to come, in other words
We're adding emotes, new dance moves e.t.c. Can't you keep the torch from that mission? I swear I still have it on my character?
Player housing...I've told people not to expect it anytime soon. That's still my answer.
The coders need to fix that sitting bug, but I can't give a time frame right now.
We will continue to add things for the RP community over time, and as capacity allows!
All the abilities are tweaked as we go, depending on how well/poorly we feel like they fit into the overall vision. I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment that ranged/melee are balanced against each other while Magic is not - each skill line in magic is designed to serve a different purpose and build type and some of the most successful builds in the game utilize magic.
As we tweak some abilities, others will come to the fore. I think with Issue #8 we'll see a few build shakeups from incoming changes.
#1 - There are as many different types of magic in TSW as there are in the real world. Anima is just one form that bee people can access without any specialized knowledge. Too much else here would be spoilers.
#2 - It's more like that Orochi are adding chemicals to make people think a little less about the things that are happening right before their eyes. The implication is not that mental illness in any form is a conspiracy, but rather that a conspiracy is bringing a kind of lassitude to the masses. Just like the Illuminati bombard the world with information to hide their secrets in the noise, the Orochi (specifically Vali) are using a type of chemical warfare.
Hi Joel!
Are there any plans to progress gear past 10.5?
The last two issues rewarded 10.1 custom talismans, and the last events have rewarded Black Bullion. Can we expect to see this trend continue into Tokyo?
Any chance there will be another live stream?
What has been the most personally rewarding content you have created for TSW?
Are there plans to expand the chronicle? Additional leader boards for PvP, global firsts, event rewards, etc.
Love the game! Thank you for your hard work!
Hey Joel, I am big fan of the work you have Done on the secret world and looking forward to seeing even more you can bring to the Age of Conan, i see so much potential for growth in both games that i can't get enough! i was wondering if their any other main weapons and auxillery weapons planned soon? (sorry if this question has been asked already, i just signed in)
also i was wondering if you would be having another ARG event anytime soon?