The Secret World Comments by Oli Welsh

Sounds like an MMO version of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Aren't CCP, the makers of Eve Online, doing a similar MMO based on the World of Darkness (which the Vampire: The Masquerade stuff was part of)? I'm not generally interested in MMOs but these might make me reconsider.

That makes me quite sad. I don't want to play an MMO and I enjoyed the first two games and even if I enjoyed the storytelling more than the gameplay in the first two games the gameplay in MMOs just makes me sad.

This is an entirely new IP... it's unrelated to either TLJ series or VtM series.

I would genuinely pay for this, if, and only if, it has real-time combat. You know, combat that, when you click the mouse button to fire, or punch or whatever, causes your character to immediately attack the target, and then when, and only when, your fist, bullet, sword, or kitchen implement hits something, does a reaction occur.

None of this icon-queuing nonsense you get in every other MMO ever made, bar Planetside...

Is there any info on who their publisher or investor is?

I'm curious as this is a very thin reveal and seems earlier than we'd otherwise get, and I wonder why?

Farfarer: Reading this article it sounds like this is the game they are making instead of a sequel to TLJ and Dreamfall. The writer is the director. He is putting his efforts into this.

This sounds sweet and MMO is the way to go with this, you can set up your own Scooby gang with friends.

MMO is the way forward for long games are all types. I can see three main markets growing over the next few years

Block buster fast paced single player games (with value added online "Match" play) that you can get through in a few evenings of play while enjoying a film style plot

MMOs, that give you a community to game with and a slow developing story akin to a TV serise

And then the casual/party game - that are about having fun play a game, with out much in the way of story, some what like playing board games with the family.

The setting is interesting but the gametype isn't. I used to play a lot of different MMO's but the one thing 99 procent of the Massive Online games lack is skill. Th guys who put in the most time, get the best equipment and win.

Like I've said: "the best they could do is include as many diverse and unique quests as possible, and insert them between dull quests". You don't have to do every single quest in MMOs. In fact, you can level up without doing a single quest, save for possible class advancement ones.

So why add the boring ones, if you don't have to do them and they aren't fun to do? You said filler, but filler is just that: filler. It's the stuff you pay for but don't really want.


So you'd rather chop half the content

If that content is boring and not fun to play? Yes.

and let people kill n amount of monsters for nothing but XP instead of killing n amount of monsters for XP -and- a quest reward? Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

No, I don't want them to offer any reason to go out and "kill n amount of monsters." I want them to offer interesting quests.


The GTA IV was a somewhat bad example, considering you disliked it. Oblivion did the same - mingled good quests with bad ones so that they could write 'over 200 quests!' on the game box.

Oh, I liked GTA4. I just think they should've cut 30% of the missions so you'd get a storyline that was thrilling from start to end, rather than making you grind through some boring stuff in between the good parts.

Oblivion did the same - mingled good quests with bad ones so that they could write 'over 200 quests!' on the game box.
True, but the ratio of good versus bad quests was much better than with any mmo I've played so far. In any MMO I've seen you were bound to run into a Kill X Baddies quests within the first day, and forced to do it within a week because you've exhausted all the local quest givers for all other quests, and aren't leveled up enough to get to new questgivers. In Oblivion, you could play for months and encounter perhaps three of those quests, and even then you could still easily ignore them and go do something else.

And Ragnar implicitly states it at least twice in this article that is what he's trying to achieve in The Secret World.
I'm not reading that, either on or between the lines. We'll see though.

didn't AOC have a single player, offline quest before you ventured online?
No idea, didn't play AOC. If that's the case, then it might happen for TSW too, but will it really be worth the money for just the single player?

Sod Oblivion - one of the emptiest and generically boring RPGs on the planet.
Ah, I loved that game, and enjoyed it for months, but now that some random guy on a website proclaimed that it sucks, I obviously have no choice but to dislike it as well.

but as he says there will be elements of the healer/tank/damage dynamic, to me this basically says its no different to other MMO's regardless of what you call the classes.

That's what I'm afraid of too. And the fact that nobody has seen any gameplay stills or footage could either mean that it's something really special that they're keeping under wraps to avoid others stealing their thunder, or it could mean that they're keeping it under wraps because it's not as hugely different as they are claiming, and they don't want to kill the hype this early.

And to be honest, the latter has happened a lot more than the former.

Edit: why is this above the thing I'm replying to?

Disc: Dreamfall Episodes is the project that's happening after The Secret World, so hopefully TSW won't collapse Funcom :P

Domovoi: I stated an opinion, not fact. My point being that people were saying Oblivion somehow stepped itself above the average RPG fare when really it didn't go much further. It was still very thinly veiled RPG fodder. And that Bloodlines managed to take that and raise it far above it's peers with only a little bit of extra effort.

If they went the same route as Demon Souls and it was a single player game with online crossover elements, this would be really rather special.

As it is, until i see it, i doubt it will end up that revolutionary, it sounds like they are trying to do something different, which is commendable, but as he says there will be elements of the healer/tank/damage dynamic, to me this basically says its no different to other MMO's regardless of what you call the classes.

@Domovoi
Edit: why is this above the thing I'm replying to?

Obviously, Eurogamer has become dislodged in both time and space. No doubt extra-dimensional creatures have broken through and are currently slaughtering the staff. Don't worry, I'm sure some burly, power-armoured, space-marines are on their way to save them (or Ellie at least, the blokes are on their own) as we speak.

That's what I'm afraid of too. And the fact that nobody has seen any gameplay stills or footage could either mean that it's something really special that they're keeping under wraps to avoid others stealing their thunder, or it could mean that they're keeping it under wraps because it's not as hugely different as they are claiming, and they don't want to kill the hype this early.

And to be honest, the latter has happened a lot more than the former.

Yeah, that's the risk I think, they talk about how there's no grind no strict structure but in fairness I can pretty much guarantee that as you stand face to face with the shoggoth you'll see red numbers with minuses before them scrolling above both your heads in combat and you'll have to taunt to pull him off the witch/white mage/shaman or whatever the healer happens to call them self. I have the same feeling with the new Star Wars MMO the talk about how other MMOs "don't do story right" could just be a smokescreen to hide the fact that lightsabres are apparently not quite as lethal as they led us to believe.

sneetch: ellie is the only ones the marines need to bother saving to be honest :P


domovi also has a great point about games sometimes having too much padding...for example, I thought half life 2 is a good game but there were far too many sections that dragged and almost took me out of the game entirely (the whole sewer chase for example went on far too long, which could be said for many of the vehical sections, and the prison). But half life episodes 1 and 2 cut out all the chaff, trimmed it down to just the excellent stuff, and imo, were superior to HL2 because it has no extra, uneeded padding.

Whitewolf's World of Darkness setting (especially Changling: The Dreaming) did it better, I think.

But half life episodes 1 and 2 cut out all the chaff, trimmed it down to just the excellent stuff, and imo, were superior to HL2 because it has no extra, uneeded padding.

I actually wanted to mention the Half-Life 2 episodes, but I figured there'd just be some random guy going "xcept HL2 episodes sux so your wrong", and didn't bother. But yeah, that's what I meant. The action and story are really condensed in the HL2 episodes, and I think they're better games for it. They could've added padding to Portal and made it last 15 hours, but it'd be a terrible game whereas it's a classic at the 3-4 hours it lasts now.

Still it would be nice to see a proper big budget rpg based around this concept, its kind of an intersting RPG drought there hasnt been a peep from a modern rpg or interesting rpg setting in ages, and while dragon age could be good its still sodding medievil.

+ tounquist is wrong about co-op puzzles they work easily in that the chat channel will be filled with people who are crap at them like me asking for help from people who are. Although that could in itself create an interesting game structure in itself.

The real problem is i don't see how it can work that well withought instancing, nevermind grind.

It would in my opinion to have the entire game as a co-op experience that could be soloed where people found each other through a vitual world before the game proper begins.