What I would love to see in this game (or any game) - dream with me

The Secret World

 

The following are thoughts and speculation and just plain dreaming of what I would like to see in The Secret World. And more generally in an mmo.

After the launch of AoC I certainly have had misgivings about Funcom. But AoC is still a game with many assets and I might return soon once I finish a 40 page essay for my special research degree in literature.

On the whole, I think the mmo landscape is pretty barren with just a little fertile ground here and there. And judging from what we do know I have come to the conclusion that Funcom might actually be theonly company who can create a good sandbox mmo. The Secret World really has a lot going for it.

Each to his own, but I can't get excited over SW Tor and many of the other upcoming "mmos".  Here are my list of wanted features I would love to see and a lot of random stuff:

 

 

DarkBoysCrySandbox

Ragner already stated his intention of having few instances, large open world, skills, no level system. I really hope for a sandbox system, more sandbox than anything we have seen before.

Little shop of horrors (or some such thing)

I hope for no common auction house, but player vendors and player shops. A book antiquarian should have a book shop that other players can visit. Shops should be rented and you can design your own logo to  put on the actual shop. Quite easy actually for Funcom to make like 5-10 different shops layouts and some signs that can be seen from the outside. When APB can pimp your avatar with so many designs, and tattoos and your ride, why not a shop too? The shops are chosen from generic types, but the front signs are replaced with your design, as well as you can put your own artefacts and furniture (SWG) style in your place.

Getting your feet wet

Underwater domains (and monsters lurking in the deep) would be cool.

Horsepower under the hood

I think the AoC engine is good if they can develop it to have less bugs. At this point it has matured. It is actually not bad. High potential here.

Vox in deserto

Let there be voice. We already know they employ 100+ voice actors. so that sounds good.

The Moriarty complex

One thing Champions Online did good is the inclusion of a nemesis that comes back to haunt you. I really love that idea. Could be cool to have an arch nemesis in The Secret World too.

Even an Arch deity too. Say there are five main deities, you can claim one as your arch nemesis deity and will have advantages and disadvantages against this particular deity every time.

A sanctuary of ones own

Player housing is key. Tied together would shops in some cases. I would love it if you could literally rent an apartment in the cities. If Ragner is serious about what he said somewhere about keeping us in the world, then this is key. This is what built a foundation between your avatar and you.

 

What is it to be born free and not to live free? (Thoreau)

Open World - we absolutely need an open world. If the right mechanics are thought out it can work much better than all the usual battlegrounds and raids. Keep the players in the open persistent world and not make it a barren, boring place devoid of players and interactivity.

Cogito ergo play

The already announced puzzles. I hope puzzles are the key achievement system in the game. Once a puzzle is completed there will be others more advanced ones. These are mainly tied into lore.

Keeping your day job

I hope day jobs are an important component of this game. I would like to see jobs like historians (who fiddle with lore), book antiquarians (better at creating / getting spell scrolls), archeologists (ability to gather more ancient artifacts) etc.

While the antiquarians have a corner store in the city, the archeologists may be in excavation sites with a small vendor in a tent. Historians have office space in the universities.

Any club that would have me as a member ..

We need secret societies (aka guilds). Obviously we will get these. There should be some puzzles that are meant to be solved in larger groups and societies. Each society should also have a unique goal. Say achoice between 5-10 goals that can give certain bonuses. The secret societys creed is thus intertwined with this unique goal.

Losing your marbles - insanity measure by measure

I would love to have an insanity system. The more secrets are revealed, puzzles are solved, monsters are met and dealt with, the less sanity you get. Once you hit rock bottom you have to regain your sanity.

Non combat professions help you in keeping your sanity ... erm sane. Also you can visit head doctors (asylums) - player characters who have this profession can help you quicker and somewhat saver than npcs.

Out in the open

I will deal with factions later on, but I really hope for a pvp mechanic to be STRONG in this game. Hopefully there will be some system where you can go OVERT and that means other players can attack you, and you can attack them. To get overt or covert one hour has to pass since last switch. Also you have to go to your faction headquarters. This allow different faction members to team up or even be in the same secret society, but once you go overt any one can attack any one. There should be skills that can be raised by pvp'ing other factions.

Factions can be changed, but not on a whim. It takes faction points. All this is more interesting than rigid factions or no factions and battleground and arena pvp.

I can only say: pretty please include this system.

The world is my battleground

Please no arenas and battlegrounds. It takes away from the persistent world. Find other new mechanics. Think out of the box and into the sandbox.

I am no hero

If all activity is combat, than no one is heroes, combat is common place and boring. The more non-combat stuff to engage in the more the combat people will find it interesting. Even for the bounty hunter type who just want to go head on with others. They can do that and get their skill points this way. But it gives them a chance for social interaction with all the merchants and crafters of the world. And with all the lore hounds who can provide them with artefacts or knowledge they need.

Bull markets and bear markets

Like early SWG did and EVE has done, hire an economist to handle the micro and macro economy. Economies of mmos are often underrated. They should be 66+% player driven and we need a high profile number cruncher and statistician to provide good data (hell you can hire me if you are rich enough, I work full time despite my literature studies which is more of a hobby these days with a form of statistics for alarge multinational corporation). Seriously you need this. Factor in all things, players earnings in average, time to market, expenditures and make sure you have the right system in play.

Some item decay is needed. Items that are at 0% should break but be recoverable if you spend enough. Tax high earners, so wealth is not amassed indefinitely. Find ways to make sure that while you allow rich and poor, that the poor is not too frustrated and that the rich can break as well.

The truth is out there

Achievement system based on puzzles, this can be actual puzzles (great) and some pieces of knowledge, lore that you gather. Could be cool with a real puzzle on screen so you can see how far you are with this storyline. Societies have larger puzzles and you can work on more than one puzzle at a time.

A necronomicon of knowledge

What is any man or women with a diary. Like a tome of knowledge, Funcom should work on making a great tome system. Here you have the lores and creatures you have encountered. A list of all the opponents pvp and npcs you have met and killed or been killed by. Your puzzles that you are working on. The puzzles you have achieved and the bonusses you got. Also you have a notepad for your own scribbles. As well as lists of societies you have been a part of and your faction and any faction changes.

Meeting that special someone.

Interaction with npc's is key. Please introduce much more dynamic npcs. NO absolutely no golden question marks over their head. No static bullcrap anymore. Find a dynamic and complex system. It CAN be done.

The R for Random factor

The game should include randomness factors. A new player should be able to luckily defeat a strong player or a great opponent. However rare you should be able to stumble upon rare spawning "quests" or even just pop over a unique item as you walk down the street. Assign 1000 different ways of entering unique and dynamic content. Let randomness not prevail but be a small factor. The strongest are never secure. It is not all about I do 100 damage you do 24, numbers are important, but should be inserted in a black box. Things should never be 100% predictable. Never.

The greener grass of my neighbour's lawn

Ressource and portal control is key. Find a hub. Create a portal of your own, once you assemble the components and the knowledge you can build a portal. These have "opening times" where other societies can snatch them from you. Never 24/7. Devise a system that is fair so people don't have to quit their job and drink red bull to keep ressources, portals and the like.

Death has no meaning

No death penalty = no reason to care. I don't like ONE system but prefer a combo system. Some randomness here too to make it unpredictable. Slower gain of xp after a death is good. Limited though as in COH.

Also there should be some chance for debuffs (common). No ffa full loot. It is absurd. But I would like a percentage chance of looting ONE item from the dead body. Say 20%. This will keep you on your toes.

As the looted item is random, the chance for losing that ONE special item you got is small. Obviously if you do lose an item, the item will be chosen from your top 10-15 best things in your inventory (not all items in case you have a gazillion things in your bag of holdings ).

The art of war

No lame constant hack hack flush repeat. Base this game on intense encounters, but not constant hack and slash. The demo trailer of The Secret World showed a lurking monster. If these are common place, thenwhat's the point. Make encounters infrequent. Let there be lurking horrors, and deamons, vampires and strange deities to combat as well as pvp'ing. But make the encounters unique by not running from A to Bto hack more things down. Once you do this it certainly has lost that Call of Cthulhu flavor which this game should choose to embody. Strange encounters and the unknown is not strange and unknown if every street is filled with monsters and katana wielding sorcerors destroying them. Built up the drama, then execute. New intelligent design needed.

Hey that is my tombstone

No graveyard camping. Make sure to make a system where pvp is not decided by how many hours you camp a gravesite. Always give the dead a chance to go covert. And a choice of spawning several places.

Spells of 'nother name

Scrolls should be key in the game. At least spells are not something you just thrown every second. Professor Long meets some demons: fireball, heal, fireball, heal bla. bla. ad nauseum.

Deities should give you different powers:

Daemonic (strong offensive powers)

Angelic (buffs, heals...)

Magick (summonings, buffs, offensive powers)

Otherworld (...)

Netherworld (popular: the undead)

Create your spells before combat, take them from your inventory and add them to your action bar to ready them, but for god's sake do not create a combat system of magic users that use spells like kids eat candy.

Something lurking in the dark

Night and dungeons, nightvision, goggles, mutations, torchlight and torches. Create scary atmosphere. If you have no means to see in the dark you are screwed.

You can be anyone you wanna be - just not everyone

Skills - not everything for all, some choices be made. Say you can learn all skills but not excel at all. Some choices are made underway. Not in classes, but limitations to what extent you can specialize in what. The expert marksman is probably not an expert martial artists. You allow players to re-tool as often as they want by spending the time unlearning and re-learning new skills.

Where did I put that daemon toe?

Spells based components are key. Spells are "crafted" for the most if not found. Unlimited spell power is = boring gameplay.

Take my hands and step into the pentagram please, it won't hurt I promise

Summoning could be cool. Large groups and societies should have the ability to do crazy stuff together. To buff themselves, commune with the dark forces and to learn more about The Secret World.

Group incantations are cool. Some magic helpers, invisible or not could be cool... Say why is that black cat following you. Or what did your shadow just do?

Rule of three (or four)

Never, ever have two factions in a game. Let there be three or four factions and the choice to enter the one you want. You can even leave a faction.

Order of the silver twilight

Brotherhood of prometheus

Priory of the Unknown

whatever... let each faction have a Sanctum of their own (possible one branch in each city, New York, London, Seoul).

Consider a fourth faction, THE COMPANY. The government cracking down on people involved with deities, secret societes other than their own, magick users. They specialize in equipment and technology over magick and playing with the dark to uncover (and quelch) the truth.

Sanctums should be attackable and holdable for shorter periods of time.

Could be nice if each player also had a Government Awareness meter that was raised by street fighting, being overt, fighting monsters etc. Some bonusses and penalties here.

One world to rule them all.

One persistent world server would be a nice dream.

Double spawning, proximity system can be implemented to make sure not to spread players too thin. Say 2000 are logged in all quests in area A of three cities (A being in many different places, not just one area like Chinatown). If more is logged in the next quest to kill master vampire Drakull is not given in A but in area B. Etc.

If area A is busy quest is in B etc. A should always be proritised to keep one area bustling with life.

No server transfer needed. All play together. At least make as few servers as possible and keep as many playing together as possible. Hundreds of thousands at least. Beyond that split in one or two more servers.

 

What is that slimey tentacle you have for an arm?

Mutations - rot or TAINT. You can get tainted and get a tentacle - District 9 style. Once tainted your sanity dips and your government awareness is red hot, but you can get bonusses in combat, new skills. TAINT is not permanent, but can be revoked.

I will see you on (de)facebook

Social media integration could be cool. Not important, but cool. From within the game of course.

 

Sent from my spellbook

Draccan

 

P.S. This post will be ninja-edited and updated with new thoughts and other peoples input. It is also cross-posted on official forums and mmorpg.com for different input.