Massively features their preview of The Secret World from GDC 2009, and an interview with Funcom’s Ragnar Tørnquist. Here’s a little chunk on gameplay and travel.
I want to emphasize that this won’t be something like Grand Theft Auto with magic, with a focus on huge, huge open cities. They are reasonably small places where you will start out and take the adventure from there. But one very important thing to note is that this sounds like a very fragmented world. London, New York, Seoul, those cities are a long way away from each other. But we are creating, or at least trying to create, a pretty seamless world. This means there are ways of getting from London to New York very quickly, and we are focusing on that. You won’t be just walking up to a plane, clicking on it, and getting a red line that quickly points to where you’re going and boom, you’re there. You will be moving in real-time from London to New York, just a lot quicker.
IGN Vault did a bang-up job on their preview and interview for The Secret World, from GDC 2009. Staci Krause and Charlene Sheridan quizzed the TSW developers to score as much information for fans as possible. Read up!
“No Classes, No Levels. We don’t want a game where the purpose of the game is to get to level 56 or 70 and then that is where the game starts… there is nothing like that. It is a skill based game. The whole point of the game is discovering new skills, basically like putting together a deck of cards that you can play any way you want to play.”
Tomorrow expects to see the release of whatever information was uncovered from GDC 2009 about Funcom’s next MMORPG, The Secret World. In the meantime, the anticipation builds in the official TSW forum. It began with a warning that dark days are coming once again.
The hour has arrived. No more pretenders. We are gathering. Quietly. Secretly. Dark days are coming and the fate of this world is at stake.
The Secret World fans are very clever, and instantly began to unravel the mysteries behind the lone post. It wasn’t long before a very creepy video was uncovered, along with some Twittering from from Funcom’s Ragnar Tornquist.
People continued to dig and analyze until a new website was found, more pieces to a puzzle. Every shred of evidence has been ripped apart. Some who solve the mysteries appear to receive a key of sorts, to where it leads no one knows yet.
Follow the thread in the official forum, look at the evidence for yourself!
Funcom is ready to reveal more about their next MMORPG, The Secret World, at GDC later in March. In a 2008 financial report, Funcom stated plans to start pimping up TSW early in 2009, guess they are sticking to it! Hopefully we can look forward to some new media and plenty of news coming out of the event!
Ragnar Tornquist, Game Director for Funcom’s The Secret World, has updated his blog, in which he mentions a few little TSW tidbits. In the first blog post Ragnar mentions investing most of the next four weeks into The Secret World, stating that they have recently made some “Big Changes” to the game. While the story remains the same, the gameplay is going through a redesign… for the better apparently.
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 – and particularly in how players can become exactly who they want to be, their secret selves, both visually and in terms of powers. Everyday adventurers and superheroes; guardians of the secret world; champions of Gaia. Warriors. Explorers. Cryptologists. Cryptozoologists. Mystics. Magi. Demonologists. Storytellers. Historians. Travellers. Lovers.
In his second blog post, Ragnar talks about his surprise at how quickly the press picked up on his latest ramblings; and how some twisted his words up a fair chunk.
It is nice to see The Secret World grabbing some headlines again, and though ambiguity can easily lead to speculation – “sweeping changes” and “back to the drawing board” may be taking it a tad too far; we haven’t tossed all of our original design documents, far from it – we appreciate the fact that people are intrigued by what we’re working on…
And just because we’re not talking much about the game at this point doesn’t mean there’s no game, or that we’re going to take longer than planned to finish the game – it just means that we want to wait a little longer before we reveal our deepest, darkest secrets to you (yes, even you, faithful followers, although you will be the first to know – the reveal will, hopefully, begin here). Another year? No, certainly not.
In a new interview with Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas, GameIndustry.biz was informed that both the console version of Age of Conan and The Secret World are both still on track. They also get into the recent Funcom layoffs, and the CEO explains that the need for QA is normally reduced when the first six months of a live project is over.
“The changes in the US Customer Service operations are partly a result of certain functions being moved to Europe as well as adjustments to reflect the current subscriber levels. Improvements in the game have also led to less demand for Customer Service personnel, something we are of course very happy about.”
The evolution of Age of Conan since launch has been useful for the team working on The Secret World, influencing design and providing improved technical assistance, said Arne Aas.
“The development of The Secret World continues and we are expanding the development team at a steady pace.
“This is a very exciting project for us, and the team working on it has been able to draw on the innovations of Age of Conan for quite some time now – especially from a technological standpoint.”
You can read the full interview here.
Which upcoming MMOs are you looking forward to? IGN Vault has a new poll up asking that very same question. Stop by to show your support for The Secret World!
The hammering has almost stopped here on Funcom’s Secret, so it’s time to open the door a crack! This site is dedicated to following (or stalking if you prefer) Funcom and their newest project, The Secret World!
Slap us a bookmark or subscribe to the RSS Feed, I hope to bring you plenty of news, TSW updates and some feature lovin’. Stay tuned… In the meantime, feel free to make fun of my site design and what not.
I’d also like to toss out a thanks to Wiki TSW, since I used them to catch up on some screenshots I couldn’t find!
Funcom’s Oslo job opportunities are pretty hot right now with plenty of openings to work on The Secret World. Wasn’t too long ago that all of the vacant spots were for Age of Conan. If you’re looking to break into the game industry and have some mad skills then check out the ads below!
