By Craig Pearson on January 27th, 2012 at 9:31 am.
There’s a still an interesting intangibility to Funcom’s The Secret World: I get the sense that it’s difficult to quantify because that’s the way they want it. Watching their latest trailer, showing off The Blue Mountain area, it has a story and aesthetic that makes me think of a single-player game, but the action smacks of buffs and guilds and raids. What do you think?
I don’t mean what I’ve written to sound negative: I’ve long hoped for interesting fighting in an MMO. While I don’t mind magic, I prefer a side-slung Uzi peppering demons. The collection of monsters here is eclectic as well, and difficult to follow a trend. There are zombies, some really cartoonish ghost, alongside esoteric possessed architecture: a collection of broken concrete held together by rebars.
So help me I want to play that, and being told it’s still on for April of this year is kind of exciting.
If I can play this game as a long story driven co-op RPG compaign with a few of my friends (like a L4D2 with plot) and stay away from the MMOish parts of it – oh boy…
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Oh yes, this would be a cool way to play it. Here’s hoping…
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Let’s play the game it wasn’t intended to be played! Hurray!
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@Gozuu
It seems it has been designed to appeal to many different playstyles. They have indicated that it is much more plot and puzzle driven than your regular MMO, so you can play it as a single player game (if you want to), and PvP is in a special designated zone only.
Assuming you can get zoned instances so you can play with friends only and don’t see any of the other players, I don’t see why this is any less valid way to play it than any other (single player adventure+combat || MMO grind || PvPfest…)
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What Lars said. This is more or less exactly how I already play City of Heroes and Dungeons & Dragons Online.
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@Gozuu
If you can why the hell not?
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@Lars: Whatever rocks your boat. If playing Single-Player in an MMO (The most opposite it ever gets) then I won’t question you doing so.
@Spakken: As I just wrote, playing SP or Co-Op in an MMO, that is everything that SP & Co-Op isn’t, then go ahead. If it can actually provide you with fun by not participating in the main factor, enjoy doing so! :)
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Eh. This fallacy that you need to be playing with reams of people to properly enjoy a MMO hasn’t been true for some time, and is getting even less true as the genre evolves. Playing alone, or co-op with my girlfriend, has been quite entertaining for years now. That way your fun and your time is your own, and not gated by the comportment of 24-40 idiots.
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Over the last decade single player RPGs are becoming progressively more open-world and MMOs more linear.
The last few big name MMOs have environments that are literally corridors housing a succession of linear quest hubs. SWTOR doesn’t even hide the fact that it’s a single player game.
I don’t understand why this inter-genre transformation is taking place as both genres are worse off for it, imo. I’m guessing it has something to do with Blizzard having more money than God.
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I just don’t know what to think about this game yet. It seems to be all over the place.
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haha, I get it, or wasn’t that a joke?
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Uh-huh, very nice. Of course it doesn’t mean anything if the combat mechanics aren’t interesting, so show me that instead, please.
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I get an increasingly strong feeling that it’s purely standard MMO fare, hotbars, cast timers and standing still shooting monsters from two feet away as they flail at you.
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I’m secretly hoping they get around to wrapping up The Longest Journey instead of trying to have a hit MMO.
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Only concern I have with this is the combat, from what I’ve seen of it, it lacks meatyness and the guns in general seem abit naff.
Everything else is pretty good.. so here’s to hoping they can make the combat great in the next few months.
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Zoey? Louis? Fancis?
Oh my god, Bill! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!
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I really like what they’re doing with it, very much excited for the final release. The lack of cohesion with monster types doesn’t bother me, as we aren’t really meant to fully understanmd what’s going on all time. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
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Hmm, I’m really, really interested in this game for the atmosphere and core concept alone. But I have a growing sense of foreboding about what exactly is actually going to land on our hard drives. All the pretty graphics and interesting concepts in the world won’t help this if it’s another generic click-click-hotkey-loot-level type system.
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Couldn’t agree more. Still I remember classic wow style push buttons and don’t aim fights for that one. Did I miss something ?
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You remember what? Wow combat has always been the same.
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They did this instead of the next Dreamfall?
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