The Secret World (April 2012)

latest video here.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/tsw/gdc11/gdc2011-videos

the only thing i am not sure i like about tsw is the classless system since u only allow to equip 7 active and 7 passive skill

it kinna make ur char less unique in my view.they should consider just follow a tree branch and slowly advance in different skill tree instead.

nevertheless i will test it cos i love modern mmo and there isn't any good ones atm

Hmm it might have less destinction between the same classes, but if the classes themselves are very seperate from each other you won't have much of a problem not being super special compared to others in your class.

At the same time, the little ammount of skills, if a class has a lot of good skills, will actually promote different kind of builds inside the same class. Since if you can only take 7 skills and there are 20 GOOD skills, you ll have to pick 7 out of 20 leaving 13 other GOOD skills out of your skillbar.

DCUO has only 6 skills on bar, so that's what I'm reffering to here.

ya that why i will test this and not just skip it.from gameplay video it does look pretty decent.might not be a good choice for long term gaming but short to mid term i think this will be fun like dc universe hehe

:O now this game got my interest aswell, after watching this video. I have to say I had my doubts if it was worth looking after, but this video shows some really promising stuff.

ya snow.already posted this video snow hehe but ya i will test this game cos i like modern doomsday mmo style.basically i like all the features like 3 faction/graphics/weapons etc except for the battle system which i have some doubts so i will need to test it.

out of 500 skills u can only pick 7 active and passive pffft

Shu wrote:

out of 500 skills u can only pick 7 active and passive pffft

You do realize, that Guild Wars, had about 300 skills per class and could only put 8 on skill bar yet it was a huge success

Small skill bars, with loot of stuff to choose from is a very good system, as long as they allow changing, so you can build your own skill setup, and adjust your toon to your own liking once you realize you prefer to play differently during the actual game-play

What I was wondering about, if the combat system is not too action type for you though :O?

well i never play such system before so i cant comment if its good or not.just have to test it.

action base combat system is fine.i do play action game console games.like arpg types but ya i prefer a mixture of action with mmo/rpg elements.

The Secret World developers just sat down with Gamesnafu and revealed more secrets about the upcoming skill-based action game, including the death penalty, PvP and quest mode. Read on to find out more details.
Though in the interview, the developers from Funcom aren't ready to
talk about some specific details, as usual, they shed some light on the
death system. According to Lead Designer Martin Bruusgaard, they don't
want to give players the chance to exploit this system as a fast travel
system. He reveals that players will be penalized on time, instead of
stuff, items or experience. Bruusgaard doesn't go deep into the
mechanics of time penalty but he points out that "we don’t want a
situation where our players will quit playing because they feel the time
penalty is too harsh."


PvP is free for all in the fight club of every hub city. What's
special is that you can even make a gank. Although it's a little bit
dirty and unfair to some of you, it seems that it's really what the
developers want to see, "what we usually see in games like this is that
these areas are being self-policed by the players. If a player plays
dirty, he will be punished by the other players." Besides, fighting club
can be occupied by other factions. For example, a group of Illuminati
players burst into Templars' fight club and occupy it while Dragon
players may suddenly come and kick Illuminati out if it.



There will be a mission type called Sabotage. Described by the
developer as a similar gameplay style to the original Deus Ex game where
you avoid security cameras, disable traps and hack computers etc,
Sabotage's traps can be disabled/enabled by everyone. "This becomes
interesting when other players can accidentally trigger an alarm in the
camp you are sneaking through," says the developer.


At last Martin Bruusgaard talks about the clothing. We've told before
that all clothes in the game are for aesthetics and have no stats. The
items that have stats are body modifications, which is invisible. "In
The Secret World you will see people dressed up the way they want to
look, not the way they are forced to look if they want to have the most
optimized character."
Source: gamesnafu

I know about as little about The Secret World
as the name of Funcom's next MMO implies. In the five years since its
inception, I've only seen a few of the game's playable zones, little
actual combat, and have never played it myself. It exists though, and
today IGN brings you the latest trailer.


But even the "Everything Is True" trailer shows off very little of the
actual game. Instead it gives context. The Secret World is set in a
world very similar to ours, except, as the video says, all the nutty
conspiracy theories out there actually exist. I caught up with Ragnar
Tornquist, who is directing The Secret World, to find out just how all
these crazy ideas come together.


Though The Secret World allows players to jump around due to the virtues
of having a level-free progression system, the story is meant to be
linear. "Players can go anywhere they want," Tornquist says. "Of course,
having an open world and no levels doesn't mean we have a completely
flat game. The difficulty scales, and players have to get the right gear
and the right powers in order to tackle the tougher challenges."
Despite this, by raising the right skills early and grabbing some
friends, the creators admitted at GDC that players could theoretically
jump straight to the endgame, but that they may find themselves unable
to do large portions of the rest of The Secret World.


Many of the missions that make up much of the structured content of The
Secret World revolve around small story arcs that are tied to the area
they are in, but they might hint at a broader, overarching story. Then
there's the story of your faction. Depending on which you choose -- the
Dragon, the Templars or the Illuminati -- your story mission will be
different. "The Templars are all about their crusade against evil,"
Tornquist tells us. "The Illuminati only want to manipulate and control
and, hopefully, put a boot up the ass of their sworn enemies, the
Templars; and the Dragon...well, the Dragon's ways are mysterious, and
players aren't necessarily given a lot of information to go on, but
suffice it to say that the Dragon likes to cause chaos." The different
motivations of the three factions will hopefully provide plenty of
motivation for leveling alts, although whether you'll be able to
maintain multiple characters on the same server is undecided at this
point. Funcom
wants your faction choice to be significant, and at GDC earlier this
year they told us they were still weighing the pros and cons of allowing
characters from multiple factions for the same player on the same
server.


The settings promise to span the globe.




Regardless of your faction choice, your story arc, Tornquist informs us,
will have a beginning, a middle and an end. Sort of. "Players will have
an arc to follow, through the story mission that begins with the origin
story and the first visit to their hub city, and carries on through
every location in the game, leading to an epic conclusion...and
cliffhanger." He tells us they already have a few years' worth of
post-release content planned out (and some even currently in
production). This includes new powers, just in case you somehow manage
to learn all 500 within like three days.


The assumption, of course, is that in actuality there will be hundreds
of hours of content, a sentiment echoed by Tornquist himself. Though he
believes that, given the nature of the not-so-simple investigation
missions, which he says may require the cooperation of the entire
community, some investigations "could take months."


Your choice of faction affects more than just your story -- it affects
which skills you are able to obtain. " There is a sizable selection of
really cool and unique powers that players will earn as they gain ranks
and progress within their secret society," Ragnar Tornquist says. "These
are themed to match the philosophies of each society." This could lead
to interesting player-versus-player scenarios, but also the potential
for imbalance. Tornquist is confident that the 1v1v1 nature of their
faction system means that even if one society becomes stronger than the
other two, there's nothing stopping the remaining factions from "ganging
up on the schoolyard bully."


Funcom wanted to make sure we were aware that this was a demon and not a dragon.




Funcom plans to make the time spent as enjoyable as possible, of course,
and part of that is ensuring that everything -- from cinematics (of
which we are told there are over 300) to conversations with NPCs -- will
be fully voice acted. I've seen some samples, and remember at the time
thinking that it walked the line between dramatic and over-the-top
hokeyness.


I have a feeling that's mostly intentional, as Tornquist sites a vast
number of sources as inspiration for the story The Secret World, from
H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and Clive Barker to Joss Whedon,
Hellblazer and the X-Files. The best stories, however, have endings. We
asked Tornquist, given the interconnectivity and the planned
"cliffhanger," if he had an ending planned for The Secret World as well.



"Yup"

Content is something that can separate good games from common games
and it's what the developer of some huge projects really care about. The Secret World
is Funcom's big deal in 2011 and the developer, of course, tries to
make impressive story to back up its gameplay features. Ragnar
Tornquist, the producer and director of The Secret World, just told Eurogamer that they've prepared for "seven years" of post-launch content and story.


Although Funcom keeps this project in darkness without telling the
public too many gameplay details, they've already begun to work on the
content and story after launch. And one of the new features that will be
added in the future is mount. But according to Tornquist, they just
plan to make the mounts as an aid to travel.


On the other hand, Ragnar Tornquist talks about the story of The Secret World on the game's official site.
The story in The Secret World is a giant jigsaw puzzle, says Tornquist,
there are thousands of pieces scattered all over the game world, both
figuratively and geographically, that form the whole backstory. What's
more, all these pieces are infused into every corner and everything in
the gaming world, the mission cinematics, dialogue, gameplay mechanics,
the environment and monster ecologies, even the sound and music.
Everything has story, everything has context and everything has meaning.

Next week we have an interview on all things TSW with none other than Ragnar Tørnquist
himself, but for this week let’s focus on something that will likely
play a very key role in the shaping of Funcom’s Secret World: the
factions. Each one has their own goals and designs for the future of
mankind and Earth, and there’s a whole lot of reason to start thinking
now about just which one you wish to pledge allegiance to. I’m
personally hoping that the three-faction setup of TSW leads to some
long-missed “realm pride” in Funcom’s upcoming MMO.
In
terms of the game itself, it seems that you’ll be able to play together
and quest together with members of the opposite faction with the idea
being that the NPCs are a larger threat than opposing factions.
Additionally, while there will be certain skills and items which are
only available to one faction, Funcom is promising that each faction
will be balanced accordingly. All that said there’s got to be a reason
for three distinct groups to be at each other’s throats, right? Let’s
recap what each of these sects stands for.





The IlluminatiThe
Illuminati are sort of the pirates of TSW. Now hear me out. Their
motto is “Sex, drugs, and Rockefeller” and they pride themselves on
their cutthroat tactics and bad boy persona. Throw an eye patch on them
and give them a sabre and you’re set to rule the seven seas. Their
whole existence is founded on the principle of looting and plundering
the many mysteries of heaven, hell, and the mortal realm. They will
exploit every advantage they can in the search of power and wealth.
There’s no honor or rules… there’s only the pursuit of the shiny. This
one’s for the gear-driven folks, eh?





The TemplarsThese
are the “Lawful Good” characters of the The Secret World. The Templars
truly believe they are the righteous in a world filled with
ne’er-do-wells. Their only goal is to rid the world of evil and
deliver it unto the light by force… and everyone knows they have the
capability to back up all that trash talk. They’re brutal and
uncompromising, but they know that their cause is just and ample reason
for any eggs that must be broken along the way.



The DragonThey’re ninjas.

Oh,
you probably want more than that. The Dragon are the stealthy,
espionage driven faction in Funcom’s recreation of the world. They
excel at playing their enemies against each other and assassinating the
right people behind a cloak of shadows. While the Templars outright
declare war, the Dragon wait in the wings, slip a vial of poison into
the right cup, and live to fight another day. They don’t care for
spoils of war or “righting the wrong”. The Dragon is all about
respecting the balance between dark and light, and they’ll do anything
and everything they can to make sure that balance is maintained and the
scales never tip.




So
now the question is: which of the above three do you find the most
appealing? Is it the shrouded and mysterious keepers of the balance,
the power-hungry and obsessed, or the zealous and righteous militaristic
type? One thing I know for sure is that it’ll be really interesting to
see how the numbers shake out and what sort of driving force the war
between the factions has on the rest of the game’s direction.

new video link here ^^

http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/new_video_the_secret_world_developer_diary_story_and_missions

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/view/videos/gameID/404/videoId/1971

looks really good. looking forward to trying this out!

ya fors i will try this for sure also.but better don't rush into pre-order this time untill after we tested hehe.

i like so far most of the feature but the limited skill slots need to be tested.also since this game have designated pk zone and non pvp zone the questing must be fun or will end up boring as well.but looking at the video i think this will be a pretty good horror gene mmo.just hope they have loads of content for us ^^

also hope the release date don't crash with the other good mmo lol.will give us time to test each one and see which one is best

Hahaha yeah i've learned my lesson not to pre-order any MMORPG anymore. Almost all the games pre-ordered usually end up a flop or last only for a few weeks.

posting the new video here from a few post back since its out on youtube finally ^^

the mission quests look very good.cant wait to test.

You talking about FFXIV issit! lol but we already knew ffxiv would be a good game after like 10 years....O_O!!!

Throughout the week, Funcom has revealed three new locations that players will visit in The Secret World: Atlantic Island Park, the Accursed Woods and Innsmouth Academy.
While the lore surrounding these areas is certainly interesting, we
want to know what they look like in-game. Funcom must have read our
minds because they just posted three screenshots of the locations on the
game's Facebook page!

In the above image, a character shoots at one of the "hideous things" you'll find in the Accursed Woods.
You can view the screenshots for the abandoned amusement park and the
Illuminati school after the jump. Click on any picture for a larger
version, or check them all out in our gallery.Atlantic Island Park

Innsmouth Academy

Joel Bylos, Lead Content Designer for The Secret World

After my philosophical post of a couple of weeks ago, I thought this
would be a good opportunity to get into the practical side of building
the world in The Secret World.

But keep in mind that this is the short version of a process that takes months!

Identifying Purpose

Every location that is in the game is there for a reason. The first
step in creating a new location is identifying its purpose. How does
this fit into the story? What does this area showcase that is unique to The Secret World? Who lives here, and why?

The answers to these questions give us the broad framework for the area.

Research and the Secret History

Because our locations exist in the real world, the history of a
region is often already well established. Solomon Island, for example,
has to adhere to the general history of Maine and the United States.

The writing team goes to work, digging through dusty online articles
and reading by flickering LCD light to compile a comprehensive guide to
the back story of an area.
Layered onto this, however, is the secret history. This is the history of an area as only a member of The Secret World
can experience it; the footprints of the secret societies and their
past conflicts; the truth behind the local myths and legends; the echoes
of ancient magic and forgotten rituals.

Meanwhile the art team is doing research of a different kind. What is
the time period and architectural style? What are the seasons like in
this particular location? They prowl the web, watch movies and even make
visits to the actual locations – all in order to create a visual style
for the world which captures the spirit of the location while still
adhering to the overall vision of The Secret World.

Now that both the artists and writers have done their research, enter the Content Designer.

Building Flow

Using the research provided by the two teams, the Content Designer
creates an overview design for the area. This design can include story
points (this is where we place the character who tells the player about the bird flu conspiracy), art points (this is an opportunity for us to make an amazing lighthouse in true New England style) and includes important gameplay points as well (wouldn’t it be cool to let the players blow this f*!%ing building sky high?).

In general Content Designers are very concerned with the concept of flow.

Flow is how the environment design, content production and story –
using any of the mechanics available – direct players through an area.
It’s a tricky thing to get right; some players prefer to be guided step
by step through the content while others prefer complete freedom in how
they approach things.

Flow can be intrusive (a one way corridor which a player is forced to
walk down) or subtle (a flickering light off in the distance which
draws the curious player to investigate). It is one of the strengths of a
good content designer to understand where to be heavy handed and where
to use a light touch.

In The Secret World, for example, different mission types require a different feeling of flow.

Action Missions – We
tend to be fairly heavy handed here. Action missions will lead the
player from point to point, dealing with enemies and obstacles along the
way.

Sabotage Missions –
These are more open, but not completely freeform. Yes, we want players
to use their skills and abilities to find the way into the pumping
station, but we still tell them where the pumping station is!

Investigation Missions
– Here we tend to be completely freeform. We don’t guide players at
all. We let them find the path with no attempt to guide them beyond the
most subtle of clues.

Once the Content Designer is done with the overview and keeping in
mind the importance of flow, it is reviewed and approved and the
preliminary production of an area begins.

Prototyping and Production

So the design is Complete™. And by complete we mean as best as a
design can be on paper which is an incredibly difficult way to judge
actual fun and atmosphere.
So now we actually have to stop speculating about how an area will work, and start actually building the area.

As this involves all kinds of professions from across the company
working in a variety of tools, I won’t go into detail now. But in the
next blog, I will talk more about how we build the physical environment
of our games using our world design tool.

Until next time!

shu:cant wait to try this game ^^

Shu, go get used to action mmos then before ya vomit all over this game :O

^^ will only do that for game i enjoy or plan to play long term snow heh.nowadays game are so realistic even vami say he feel giddy if he turn on apb at max video setting in certain resolution if play too long heh

i remember i vomit 2-3 times in aion before i got used to it after 2 days lol.anyway tsw is not action style mmo.but i will need to get ready for blade and dragonnest since they are :)

Lol Shu, I wanna see you play Zelda on the 3DS

actually i recall i dont have issue playing that last time long ago on console heh.but i dont really like legend of zelda so i didn finish the game ^^