Comments on: The Secret World’s Secret Screenshots

By: Wandesh

Wandesh — Sun, 30 May 2010 01:37:47 +0000

Tørnquist has stated that when you enter the game you will start at the end game. And since the only cap is your gear and skills you should find your self fighting monsters in no time. in addition to that is that the exploration is something that you can use a hell lot of hours on due to the diversity in envioment and size. in general im looking forward to a new way of playing MMO’s where you dont have to start from lvl 1 and start grinding

By: harrumph

harrumph — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:32:29 +0000

Two titles from the same developer are not necessarily developed by the same people. Tørnquist, for one, had nothing (as far as I know) to do with AoC, and I believe most of the devs working on The Secret World come, like him, from The Longest Journey and Dreamfall.

Wikipedia says “The pre-production of the game started in 2002, but in mid-2003, most of the working team was transferred to the development of Dreamfall. The work on The Secret World was resumed after Dreamfall shipped, with many of the latter’s designers (including Ragnar Tørnquist) playing key roles in the former’s development. TSW is being produced at the Funcom studios in Oslo and Beijing. In August 2008, it was stated that the development team consisted of people previously involved in the development of Dreamfall, Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, EverQuest II, and The Longest Journey. In November Funcom stated that 70 people were working on the project.”

So yeah, people from AoC (and AO) are working on it, but it sounds like the core of the team is from Dreamfall. Might be that you should worry more about horrible combat and lame puzzles (I liked Dreamfall a lot, for what it’s worth) than crashes, cookie-cutter MMO design, or incomplete content. Without a D&D/WoW-style class/level system, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about rushing through a grind or wanting for endgame content, either.

By: Seb Potter

Seb Potter — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:09:33 +0000

“realise (sic)”? @noc – if you’re American you’re excused, but not forgiven. I’m also sure that I’ve been excited without the aid of hype (excessive or misleading publicity or advertising) before, but maybe it’s just an undiagnosed medical condition?

I think however that my difference of opinion about FunCom’s track record comes down to the fact that my first job in the games industry was, by strange coincidence, working with Valve and Blizzard, so my expectation of release quality could be somewhat skewed!

Anyway, to those complete strangers who have clearly taken great offence at me pouring bile on FunCom, I apologise for not taking the “glass half-full” view. In the case of AoC, my glass is empty, and I’m annoyed that I paid for a full one.

By: Vexor

Vexor — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:14:19 +0000

AoC may have a lot of problems but you can’t argue with it’s excellent graphics. This game might end up sucking, but it will look good doing it.

By: Harlequin

Harlequin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:32:33 +0000

I was really interested in this game…then I played Age of Conan. I’ve called AoC the atrocity of the MMO industry and will continue to do so.

By: Yukkione

Yukkione — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:06:02 +0000

I read outright distortions from people like Seb Potter, and I wonder just what game they are playing. AOC is a success it’s sold over a million copy’s and has several hundred thousand subscribers. I have confidence they will make Secret World and excellent game. The rumors of AOCs death have been wildly exaggerated.

By: Stromko

Stromko — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:35:53 +0000

My first read on ‘Secret World’ is it’s Funcom’s stab at a World of Darkness MMO. Q: “But wait, isn’t CCP already doing a World of Darkness MMO?” A: Yes, exactly, someone’s already trying to fill the niche, somebody already decided that a world just like ours except with supernatural critters would build up a lot of hype and can be done well with the tech currently available, so somebody else is trying to cash in on the same damned thing. It’s not a weasely thing to do, really, after all ideas are cheap, implementation is priceless.

By: Larington

Larington — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:27:20 +0000

I was only aware of the secret world from Ragnars blog, its basically being kept under the radar for the moment. http://ragnartornquist.com/

By: Esha

Esha — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:17:18 +0000

So this is what Ragnar’s been up to? I wonder if it’ll have the usual unspoken but expected quotient of male frontal nudity? I can only hope, Dreamfall was a huge let-down in that regard.

I’m amazed that I hadn’t heard about this anywhere though, but I suppose I just haven’t been reading RPS long enough yet. The idea excites me, but as others have said, the screenshots do not.

By: Larington

Larington — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:31:32 +0000

Time will see, the one thing that I’m worried about is that Ragnar might craft this wonderous story full of wonder and intruige, only to have the effort wasted because all the ‘moar lvls pls’ and ‘endgame content pls’ types fall into the habit of pressing the 1 key 5 times to get through the dialogue as quickly as possible because they’ve picked up that god awful XP obsession (Though thats in part because the actual gameplay of most MMOs is fracking tedious and the only thing to keep you going therefor is the levelling and if you’re lucky the community).

Thus far, the only MMO I have any real fondness for is Planetside, because the levelling was secondary to the gameplay, rather than being a primary element. (Oh, and Lord of the Rings Online, for its attempts at story telling and most of all, the artistry that went into the soundtrack/score).

I liked the way AOC has done its combat system, however the fact that they promised full on guild PVP at release and failed to deliver (Not something I personally cared about that much) will inevitably cast them in a negative light in future, though I hope Ragnar (And his reputation as a game designer/writer) will mitigate that at least in part.

By: UncleLou

UncleLou — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:26:22 +0000

I must be the only person who quite likes Age of Conan, and still has an active sub.

I am also not quite sure which games people compare AoC to if they call it a disaster. Certainly not any other MMO that has been released since WoW.

By: Stupoider

Stupoider — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:16:57 +0000

This has tickled by interest. I’ll be keeping my eye on this game, hopefully Funcom will have learnt a few lessons from Age of Conan.