The Secret World seeing "big changes"

By Oli Welsh Published 23 January, 2009

Back to drawing board for Funcom MMO.

Funcom's Ragnar Tornquist, the writer-director of its in-development MMO The Secret World, has revealed that the game's design is currently undergoing sweeping changes.

Writing in his blog, Tornquist - creator of much-loved adventure games The Longest Journey and Dreamfall - said: "We've recently made some Big Changes to the game and those need to be worked through."

Tornquist wasn't specific, since the changes apply to aspects of the game that haven't been discussed yet. The most he revealed was that the graphics and setting are being retained, but the game design is changing.

"It's a bit too early to talk about the details," he said. "The story and the setting is the same as it's been since the early 00's... The gameplay is going through a redesign - for the better, let me assure you - and we’re revisiting content produced in the past two years to lift it up to a whole new level."

Tornquist hints that the The Secret World's new direction is an attempt to distance itself from World of Warcraft, whose market Funcom attacked directly with Age of Conan year, without much success.

"We want The Secret World to stand out and be remembered - obviously. To not be just another MMORPG, a WOW clone, of which there are already too many. We're going to play up the strengths of our universe and differentiate ourselves in both the setting and the gameplay."

The Secret World combines a contemporary setting with elements of dark fantasy, in which players "play a role in unravelling the vast conspiracies that span oceans of time and space," according to Tornquist.

"Players can become exactly who they want to be, their secret selves, both visually and in terms of powers," he said. "Everyday adventurers and superheroes; guardians of the secret world; champions of Gaia. Warriors. Explorers. Cryptologists. Cryptozoologists. Mystics. Magi. Demonologists. Storytellers. Historians. Travellers. Lovers."

Tornquist denied that the changes to the game will result in a delay, although they surealy quash any last hope that it might see a 2009 release. However, he confirmed that the game will be properly revealed this year. You'll know the details as soon as we do.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • justsomeone #1 3 years ago

    what does "surealy" mean in this context? or mean at all?

  • Farfarer #2 3 years ago

    Ach, there's Dreamfall Episodes getting delayed just a little bit more, then :(

  • Byzanite #3 3 years ago

    "We don't want it to be like WoW. We want it to be shit."
    Again this is where developers make mistakes; In an attempt to distance themselves from the market leader, and to claim to want a different product, they always, inevitably end up with a game that doesn't work.
    WoW doesn't need to be mentioned in every MMO dev's blog, they just need to make a game that works and appeals to its targeted audience and do it well.

  • Cthulhu_X #4 3 years ago

    This is a game of my dreams. I will definately buy it and pay subscription.

  • Dizzy #5 3 years ago

    "WoW doesn't need to be mentioned in every MMO dev's blog, they just need to make a game that works and appeals to its targeted audience and do it well. "

    True.. but in this case the target audience is not the teenager on speed but the CoC/HP Lovecraft fan. This game NEEDS to be very different to have a chance TBH. I am not gonna touch a game where a quest is "Bring me 50 Shoggoth eyestalks".

  • justsomeone #6 3 years ago

    how can you be so sure this is the "game of your dreams", and so definitive too? a game that's probably well over a year away, which has just had vast amount of unaccounted content, about which we know nothing, altered to an extent about which we also know nothing.

    i'm simply confused as to your level of commitment to something that we surely can only be vaguely aware of.

    i also recall star wars galaxies when it was still in development, and how everyone on those forums was already arguing the finer points of levelling techniques, and their dream skillsets, when the game was still a year away. the fact that the game turned out to be utter guff, and bore no resemblance to much that was promised or intimated by the devs, nor anything that the community assumed it to be, or indeed anything that anyone could have even vaguely recognised as "star-warsey" came as a surprise to everyone except, apparently, myself.

    i advise caution in your thinking.

    i also predict that your claim to definitely but it and pay a subscription will falter due to the fact that this game will never see the light of day. we can reconvene in two years time to find out who was correct.

  • Cthulhu_X #7 3 years ago

    justsomeone->Lovecraft MMO with conspiracy theories and apocalyptic theme from Ragnar Tornquist? Sorry, but I would like to play this game even if it'll be bugged as AoC. And I don't think that gameplay will be somewhat close to Galaxies. It can be something like an adventure MMO.
    Edited by 1 at 23/01/09 @ 11:15

  • Domovoi #8 3 years ago

    I am not gonna touch a game where a quest is "Bring me 50 Shoggoth eyestalks".

    This, a thousand times, this. How many times have we heard "This MMO is nothing like WoW!" and still got the same "Bring me 40 wolf pelts" "deliver this letter to X and report back to me." quests, sprinkled between endless slaying of giant rats because the only way to get the skills required for the next instance is through incessant grinding?

  • justsomeone #9 3 years ago

    domovoi, i could paraphrase you thusly:

    "this, a thousand times this. The last thing we need is another MMO in which you have to do the things that all MMOs do, and which define this rather narrow genre"

    and not lose the meaning.

    my point it that this is the core mechanic of MMOs. it is in intensely repetitive gaming, to allow you to reach a superficially different level of intensely repetitive gaming. there is no other way to create an MMO without it being either something that is not an MMO, or a complete disaster (or both). no, i tell a lie, you *could* create enough content to never repeat a single theme or quest in 3 or more years of continuous gaming for each subscriber, some of whom play 40plus hours per week, but the subscription fee would necessarily be about £500 quid per month.

    alternatively, i could have simply written "nothing to say here - MMO fans love the grind".

  • Domovoi #10 3 years ago

    my point it that this is the core mechanic of MMOs. it is in intensely repetitive gaming

    The repetition isn't the problem. All games have repetition. The problem is the completely unoriginal way most MMO's choose to package this repetition. And it is -always- by means of "get me 50 wolf pelts".

    Look at the difference between single player RPG's Morrowind and Oblivion. The former consisted of mind-numbingly boring fetch quests that all amounted to the same thing. Go to X, get Y, bring to Z, report back. Oblivion technically consisted of either fetch quests or assasinations, but they managed to dress them up in such a way that this was hardly noticable, and actually fun to play.

    Same mechanic, different execution. It's very possible, and not with $500 subscription fees as you suggest.

    And saying that this is just how MMO's work demonstrates a terrible lack of vision. It's like saying all RPG's work like Baldur's Gate, because otherwise it wouldn't be an RPG or would be ridiculously expensive. The genre isn't as narrow as you suggest, it's just that nobody chooses to explore it.

  • Dizzy #11 3 years ago

    "And saying that this is just how MMO's work demonstrates a terrible lack of vision"

    Agree.. there are very different ways to build an MMO. I think we are just at the start of all this... companies will discover and explore different ways of building interesting MMO content. TBH this game has the background to try to do things differently. I think we even brainstormed with some fellow devs here on EG a few months ago about a CoC MMO and what could be done without falling into the "combat" or the "kill x creatures" trap.

  • Eraysor #12 3 years ago

    As long as the have some Cthulhu mythos stuff in there I'll be happy. And make it scary!

  • thisisatempaccount #13 3 years ago

    Cautiously optimistic. Funcom probably took a nasty confidence knock over the Conan debacle, which would have been far less damaging to them (and also their investment prospects) if it had been a one-shot retail game of similar 'close, but no cigar' quality; people would have bought the game on the strength of TLJ and its sequel and development costs would probably have been mostly recouped (huge dollop of conjecture here).

    Instead gamers were faced with a sub-par MMO experience and the none-too-difficult question of whether to continue to pay monthly for it. So now they realise that PR hype and promises are all well and good but making an MMO fiscally sustainable requires a whole lot more than just getting a bunch of people to preorder the box. I'd like to think they can do it.

  • AOFanboi #14 3 years ago

    If it is remembered it might be as the launch that finally killed Funcom... though they have had some more investors recently, like Norwegian cosmetics millionairess Celine Middelfart who also is famous as Aker owner Kjell Inge Røkke's ex...

  • SleepyMagpie #15 3 years ago

    I'm not sure this will see the light of day at all.

    Just wait until recession actually hits oil insulated Norway around April this year, Funcom might well fold around then, methinks..

    Sad. The AoC debacle was an epic fail, but I really would like to have seen their take on The Cthulhu Mythos.

  • actionfitz #16 3 years ago

    "Tornquist - creator of much-loved adventure games The Longest Journey and Dreamfall"

    indeed, I wish him the best. But im nervous as hell about the what the AoC shitstorm will have done to this games dev cycle.
    Hopefully now that every mistake that could be made has already been made at FuckoffCom, there is only golden nuggets of love left to be used to craft Secret World.

  • TitusCrow #17 3 years ago

    i am hopefull but also fearfull for this game, really hope they can pull it off. really want to adventure in a lovecraftesq universe / occult / nameless evil / global dark cults etc.. please dont be kill 10 cultists of zan and come back to me.