The Secret World
- Thread starter Dr.Retarded
- Start date
don't expect a lot and you wont be disappointed. the lore is good. the mechanics not so much
read up on builds / states, having a good build makes all the difference in game enjoyment.
read up on builds / states, having a good build makes all the difference in game enjoyment.
If you go into the game thinking about mechanics and builds you're really doing it wrong, its a game about story, enjoying the weird characters and excellent writing and voice acting, learning about the secret history behind the world they made. Its like a single player game with other people in it. Considering that, the change to a one time fee makes buying the game more justifiable now. Kingsmouth alone is worth the ten bucks I paid for the game its probably the best starting area if not best area, period, in an MMO.
RobXIII
Urinal Cake Consumption King
- 3,686
- 1,834
Well yea I agree with you that the 'min/max' mindset can be wrong for a game like this, we could use some good builds to kill shiat faster. Sometimes the mobs are really close together, and seem to die slow back when I played this.
http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_..._february_2013
Joel New Head at Funcom over all MMO's.
Game Director?s Letter - February 2013
Hi all,
I was recently given the privilege to take on the mantle of Creative Director for Funcom's live titles: Age of Conan, The Secret World and Anarchy Online. It's a great honor to be able to be a part of setting the direction for three of the most original MMORPGs ever made.
As most of you know by now, Funcom has established a joint, centralized team of experienced developers who have been tasked with supporting, enhancing and expanding all three live games. That means we have a shared pool of design creativity and technical know-how that each game can benefit from, and having the live team working on site at our Durham office ? which also holds our community, quality assurance and customer service teams ? is a huge plus.
I will be leading up the team together with Scott Junior, who has taken on the position as Executive Producer. We both have many years of experience working with Age of Conan and we have a ton of exciting ideas we would love to turn into reality.
It's been almost three years since Rise of the Godslayer was released - the first expansion for Age of Conan and the project I had poured my heart and soul into for more than 18 months. A mere month after that, most of the Conan team moved to Montreal and I was moved onto a new project - The Secret World. I left Hyboria behind as a project, but still played regularly and kept track of what was happening with the game and the community.
So now, having the reins of Age of Conan passed to me feels like coming home! Age of Conan was my first game as a professional developer and, as a huge fan of the works of Robert E Howard; it has always held a special place in my heart. The Secret World has given me perspective, it has helped me to grow as a designer and it is this expertise that I am excited to be bringing back to Age of Conan.
It's an exciting time to be returning to the world of Hyboria! I'm still working to get plans into place, but there are so many opportunities for the direction of the game. From Kush to Corinthia, The Black Kingdoms to the Pictish Wilderness, Zingara to Zamora - there are hundreds of locations, lore and conflicts from the Howard stories that we have yet to explore in the game.
In addition, we have a new Conan movie on the way, with Arnold reprising his role as Conan, though this time as Conan. Because this is much closer to the timeline of our game, this represents a great opportunity to tie plenty of the content in the game to the movie and we really look forward to learning more about the video so that we can start coming up with great content for the game. We?ve done that before with our Savage Coast of Turan update which introduced content that tied in with the 2011 movie release, and we can?t wait to learn more about the movie so that we can start coming up with all sorts of great ideas on cool stuff from the movie to put into the game!
Obviously we have a lot of exciting ideas on what to bring to Age of Conan specifically, but it?s also incredibly important to keep in mind that the new setup allows each game to take advantage of many of the improvements made to the other games. This is especially true for Age of Conan and The Secret World due to the fact that they are built on the same architecture and can share advances in development.
So, let?s talk a little bit about what it means to have a single, live production team working on three games.
A core team is always more agile than larger, separate teams and is cross-functional, meaning that anybody should be able to step in and work on anything. Because we work with the Dreamworld Engine, most of our in-house tools are shared between The Secret World and Age of Conan so it is simple to hop from one project to another. Below I will list some of the advantages that this gives us:
Parallel Feature Development - If we were going to add, for example, a ranked arena system to Age of Conan, we would be able to easily port the feature across to The Secret World. With a little GUI work (also shared apart from the art style, thanks to Scaleform) and some new 3D environments, both games would have a working ranked arena system. Because the feature is essentially the same across projects, it would also mean more thorough QA testing as most bugs found would be shared. This can be extended to include almost any new feature that is not setting specific.
Quality of Life Features - One of the more important facets of a shared codebase is a shared array of features that can be easily moved between games. Examples that we have added to The Secret World are autoloot area buttons, mapable dodge keys and media pop-ups (close up of in-game objects containing information). Bringing those to Age of Conan will improve the day to day experience of old and new players alike.
Voice Acting - We hire a lot of Voice actors to do voice overs for The Secret World and we are often required to pay them for 4-5 hours of voice work - even when they are only recording 15 minutes for the next The Secret World issue. Using this extra time to fill out the voice acting in the world of Hyboria is a great way to bring more life to the world and more immersion for players in general.
Of course, those are just the advantages of a shared team and it doesn't mean that each game won't be getting unique content. The Conan team has done a lot of work in preparing Dragon?s Spine and the instances contained therein and the tradeskill revamp. I'm in the process of assessing the status of those and aiming to get them on the test server as soon as they have passed quality assurance certification.
In the same update you can expect to see over 200 code fixes and a new networking layer for the game, which should improve the play experience and reduce disconnects and lag. I am also doing an investigation into the server numbers and seeing what possibilities we have regarding bringing the population together, be it server merges or bringing over the single-server technology from The Secret World.
One of the things I would like to get rolling on Age of Conan is a regular update cycle. Obviously things are a bit topsy-turvy right now as we adjust to the new team structure and internal processes, but when things settle down, I hope that we can deliver regular updates. That may mean slightly smaller updates than you are used to, but delivered more often.
I'd like to invite the Age of Conan community to share their thoughts on the future of the game on the official forums and I look forward to working together with you all to bring further new adventures to Hyboria!
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank you Craig Morrison for the great work he has done leading the development on Age of Conan for the past few years. I had the pleasure of working with him during the development of Rise of the Godslayer, and I have many fond memories from that time. I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
And with that I give the microphone to Craig who has put together a few parting words for the community:
"It has been an honor to be a part of this project for over four years. I have worked with a series of great, talented teams, and it has been a privilege to get to work with one of the best communities out there. With the move of the team to North Carolina this marked the perfect opportunity to pass that torch, and allow a new generation to put their own mark upon Hyboria. I have tremendous faith in the new folk, and your new Game Director will be a familiar face. Joel Bylos was the lead designer on Rise of the Godslayer, and is a huge fan of the game. I trust he will be making sure you all continue to enjoy your adventures in Hyboria. I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved and the fact that the game is still alive and thriving four years on is testament to a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people. There are always those who are quick to the nay saying, and whether you wish us well or are glad to see the back of us, I am sure that we can all agree that this world is an amazing and visceral telling of the world that Robert E Howard imagined all those years ago. While I will be moving on to a new opportunity within the MMO world, the world of Hyboria will always, always, have a very special place in my heart. ? Craig Morrison?
Sincerely,
Joel Bylos
Creative Director
Funcom
Joel New Head at Funcom over all MMO's.
Game Director?s Letter - February 2013
Hi all,
I was recently given the privilege to take on the mantle of Creative Director for Funcom's live titles: Age of Conan, The Secret World and Anarchy Online. It's a great honor to be able to be a part of setting the direction for three of the most original MMORPGs ever made.
As most of you know by now, Funcom has established a joint, centralized team of experienced developers who have been tasked with supporting, enhancing and expanding all three live games. That means we have a shared pool of design creativity and technical know-how that each game can benefit from, and having the live team working on site at our Durham office ? which also holds our community, quality assurance and customer service teams ? is a huge plus.
I will be leading up the team together with Scott Junior, who has taken on the position as Executive Producer. We both have many years of experience working with Age of Conan and we have a ton of exciting ideas we would love to turn into reality.
It's been almost three years since Rise of the Godslayer was released - the first expansion for Age of Conan and the project I had poured my heart and soul into for more than 18 months. A mere month after that, most of the Conan team moved to Montreal and I was moved onto a new project - The Secret World. I left Hyboria behind as a project, but still played regularly and kept track of what was happening with the game and the community.
So now, having the reins of Age of Conan passed to me feels like coming home! Age of Conan was my first game as a professional developer and, as a huge fan of the works of Robert E Howard; it has always held a special place in my heart. The Secret World has given me perspective, it has helped me to grow as a designer and it is this expertise that I am excited to be bringing back to Age of Conan.
It's an exciting time to be returning to the world of Hyboria! I'm still working to get plans into place, but there are so many opportunities for the direction of the game. From Kush to Corinthia, The Black Kingdoms to the Pictish Wilderness, Zingara to Zamora - there are hundreds of locations, lore and conflicts from the Howard stories that we have yet to explore in the game.
In addition, we have a new Conan movie on the way, with Arnold reprising his role as Conan, though this time as Conan. Because this is much closer to the timeline of our game, this represents a great opportunity to tie plenty of the content in the game to the movie and we really look forward to learning more about the video so that we can start coming up with great content for the game. We?ve done that before with our Savage Coast of Turan update which introduced content that tied in with the 2011 movie release, and we can?t wait to learn more about the movie so that we can start coming up with all sorts of great ideas on cool stuff from the movie to put into the game!
Obviously we have a lot of exciting ideas on what to bring to Age of Conan specifically, but it?s also incredibly important to keep in mind that the new setup allows each game to take advantage of many of the improvements made to the other games. This is especially true for Age of Conan and The Secret World due to the fact that they are built on the same architecture and can share advances in development.
So, let?s talk a little bit about what it means to have a single, live production team working on three games.
A core team is always more agile than larger, separate teams and is cross-functional, meaning that anybody should be able to step in and work on anything. Because we work with the Dreamworld Engine, most of our in-house tools are shared between The Secret World and Age of Conan so it is simple to hop from one project to another. Below I will list some of the advantages that this gives us:
Parallel Feature Development - If we were going to add, for example, a ranked arena system to Age of Conan, we would be able to easily port the feature across to The Secret World. With a little GUI work (also shared apart from the art style, thanks to Scaleform) and some new 3D environments, both games would have a working ranked arena system. Because the feature is essentially the same across projects, it would also mean more thorough QA testing as most bugs found would be shared. This can be extended to include almost any new feature that is not setting specific.
Quality of Life Features - One of the more important facets of a shared codebase is a shared array of features that can be easily moved between games. Examples that we have added to The Secret World are autoloot area buttons, mapable dodge keys and media pop-ups (close up of in-game objects containing information). Bringing those to Age of Conan will improve the day to day experience of old and new players alike.
Voice Acting - We hire a lot of Voice actors to do voice overs for The Secret World and we are often required to pay them for 4-5 hours of voice work - even when they are only recording 15 minutes for the next The Secret World issue. Using this extra time to fill out the voice acting in the world of Hyboria is a great way to bring more life to the world and more immersion for players in general.
Of course, those are just the advantages of a shared team and it doesn't mean that each game won't be getting unique content. The Conan team has done a lot of work in preparing Dragon?s Spine and the instances contained therein and the tradeskill revamp. I'm in the process of assessing the status of those and aiming to get them on the test server as soon as they have passed quality assurance certification.
In the same update you can expect to see over 200 code fixes and a new networking layer for the game, which should improve the play experience and reduce disconnects and lag. I am also doing an investigation into the server numbers and seeing what possibilities we have regarding bringing the population together, be it server merges or bringing over the single-server technology from The Secret World.
One of the things I would like to get rolling on Age of Conan is a regular update cycle. Obviously things are a bit topsy-turvy right now as we adjust to the new team structure and internal processes, but when things settle down, I hope that we can deliver regular updates. That may mean slightly smaller updates than you are used to, but delivered more often.
I'd like to invite the Age of Conan community to share their thoughts on the future of the game on the official forums and I look forward to working together with you all to bring further new adventures to Hyboria!
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank you Craig Morrison for the great work he has done leading the development on Age of Conan for the past few years. I had the pleasure of working with him during the development of Rise of the Godslayer, and I have many fond memories from that time. I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
And with that I give the microphone to Craig who has put together a few parting words for the community:
"It has been an honor to be a part of this project for over four years. I have worked with a series of great, talented teams, and it has been a privilege to get to work with one of the best communities out there. With the move of the team to North Carolina this marked the perfect opportunity to pass that torch, and allow a new generation to put their own mark upon Hyboria. I have tremendous faith in the new folk, and your new Game Director will be a familiar face. Joel Bylos was the lead designer on Rise of the Godslayer, and is a huge fan of the game. I trust he will be making sure you all continue to enjoy your adventures in Hyboria. I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved and the fact that the game is still alive and thriving four years on is testament to a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people. There are always those who are quick to the nay saying, and whether you wish us well or are glad to see the back of us, I am sure that we can all agree that this world is an amazing and visceral telling of the world that Robert E Howard imagined all those years ago. While I will be moving on to a new opportunity within the MMO world, the world of Hyboria will always, always, have a very special place in my heart. ? Craig Morrison?
Sincerely,
Joel Bylos
Creative Director
Funcom
sakkath
Trakanon Raider
- 1,672
- 1,056
Just picked this game up again. It still seems to have quite a good population, plenty of spam for groups and even still people playing in the newbie areas. Plenty of new skills and quest packs for me to do with my existing character. Some of the innovation that TSW made in this genre is really wonderful and I hope development continues for a long time as I'd like to see how the storyline develops.
Yeah I bought the game simply because they tried something different I felt it deserved my support even if I didn't enjoy it that much.
Flipmode
EQOA Refugee
- 2,091
- 312
This^
I played it until I got to the end of the content and groups started being ridiculous. I rewarded them on principle for trying something new.
I still regularly pay my subscription fee even though the game is now pseudo-F2P, and I only log on a couple of times immediately after an episodic patch to play the new quest lines. This game has far and away the best storyline and NPCs of any MMO, and surpasses most single player RPGs. I can barely name a non-boss NPC from most MMOs I've played, but I can still recite NPC dialogue from Secret World verbatim. If only it was wrapped in a less buggy/clunky package. Still, they should be applauded for deviating from the DIKU norms, even if it still is a themepark.
bixxby
Molten Core Raider
- 2,750
- 47
Since this thread is active again, here's latest producer letter:http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/g...etter_may_2013
I've spoken a lot about Issue #7 in the past, so I'll just say that we expect to release the Issue in the coming weeks and that you have tons of great content and a crucial part of the TSW story to look forward to. Check out my previous Game Director's letter here, if you missed what I've written about the upcoming Issue earlier.
After the climactic ending of Issue #7, a new threat enters the picture - a threat against Agartha itself!
The battle for Agartha will begin, as filth spreads from the newly revealed entrance to Tokyo and threatens to corrupt the world tree.
Over the coming months as we ramp up towards Tokyo, players will be fighting to contain, and drive back the filth which is tainting the world tree. With every patch, this event will move to a new phase until eventually, if players have done enough, they will gain access to Tokyo itself.
This event will consist of both solo and group elements and will begin not long after Issue #7 is released, coinciding closely with the first Secret World anniversary, which we are planning several cool things for, and running right up until the release of Issue #9.
But for now let's take a closer look at Issue #8, which will introduce a completely new type of content and a new Augmentation System which allows customization of the already deep ability system in The Secret World.
Issue #8 comes with two major components - the Virtual Training Scenarios and the Augment System.
Firstly, the content: Issue #8 begins when the players are instructed to complete training with the Council of Venice in order to certify them as prepared to face the chaos in Tokyo. This is achieved by completing Scenarios.
Scenarios are virtual worlds created for the sole purpose of training the player to deal with situations that arise daily in The Secret World. Because this feature can be expanded in many ways, we will add additional Scenarios at a later date. Scenarios will be available for both group and solo play, and they will have different levels of difficulty.
These scenarios are designed to be repeatable through the use of certain highly random elements. This means that a scenario will play out differently every time and that players will need to adapt to circumstances on the fly.
We've heard this word random thrown around before, so let me provide a concrete example: Imagine a Scenario in Kingsmouth Church, where the player has been tasked with helping a group of survivors get through the night (12hrs). Every hour or so (in game time 5 minutes), huge numbers of zombies spawn around the church and move to attack the survivors. The player has multiple options to defend against these waves, including traps and tricks they find lying around.
Where the random element comes into play is the chance of something else occurring on the waves: Special bosses spawning, survivors panicking and fleeing the church, an infected survivor turning and attacking the others, a helicopter dropping additional supplies or lightning striking randomly in the spaces around the church.
While some of these elements might seem advantageous, there are tactical decisions which need to be made. Does a player foray out to retrieve dropped supplies and leave the survivors vulnerable?
We hope that the randomness of such elements will bring tactical decision making to the fore and create challenge in these scenarios every time that they are played.
All the features of Scenarios are not set in stone yet, but what we wish to achieve with them is clear: To offer a new type of dynamic, engaging, entertaining and rewarding content which ties in closely with both the new Augment System, the story of The Secret World and makes the players ready for the great challenges which await them in Tokyo.
All of this will be delivered together with a new advancement system, called the Augment system.
The Augment system allows the players to directly improve their existing abilities by providing customization towards certain roles in the game. All active abilities in the game can get augmented. The types of Augments will be Damage, Support, Healing or Survivability.
Based on the level of the Augment and the type, there are a wide variety of effects that players can use to customize their current ability set up.
The Augment System will make use of Ability Points, Skill Points and the crafting system and its progression will be tied to the Scenario System.
We will provide a more detailed explanation of the Augment System as we bring it closer to release, but I can say that it will definitely bring even more choice, depth and opportunities for progression to the already rich character development system in The Secret World!
Thanks for listening
Sincerely,
Joel Bylos
Creative Director
Funcom
After the climactic ending of Issue #7, a new threat enters the picture - a threat against Agartha itself!
The battle for Agartha will begin, as filth spreads from the newly revealed entrance to Tokyo and threatens to corrupt the world tree.
Over the coming months as we ramp up towards Tokyo, players will be fighting to contain, and drive back the filth which is tainting the world tree. With every patch, this event will move to a new phase until eventually, if players have done enough, they will gain access to Tokyo itself.
This event will consist of both solo and group elements and will begin not long after Issue #7 is released, coinciding closely with the first Secret World anniversary, which we are planning several cool things for, and running right up until the release of Issue #9.
But for now let's take a closer look at Issue #8, which will introduce a completely new type of content and a new Augmentation System which allows customization of the already deep ability system in The Secret World.
Issue #8 comes with two major components - the Virtual Training Scenarios and the Augment System.
Firstly, the content: Issue #8 begins when the players are instructed to complete training with the Council of Venice in order to certify them as prepared to face the chaos in Tokyo. This is achieved by completing Scenarios.
Scenarios are virtual worlds created for the sole purpose of training the player to deal with situations that arise daily in The Secret World. Because this feature can be expanded in many ways, we will add additional Scenarios at a later date. Scenarios will be available for both group and solo play, and they will have different levels of difficulty.
These scenarios are designed to be repeatable through the use of certain highly random elements. This means that a scenario will play out differently every time and that players will need to adapt to circumstances on the fly.
We've heard this word random thrown around before, so let me provide a concrete example: Imagine a Scenario in Kingsmouth Church, where the player has been tasked with helping a group of survivors get through the night (12hrs). Every hour or so (in game time 5 minutes), huge numbers of zombies spawn around the church and move to attack the survivors. The player has multiple options to defend against these waves, including traps and tricks they find lying around.
Where the random element comes into play is the chance of something else occurring on the waves: Special bosses spawning, survivors panicking and fleeing the church, an infected survivor turning and attacking the others, a helicopter dropping additional supplies or lightning striking randomly in the spaces around the church.
While some of these elements might seem advantageous, there are tactical decisions which need to be made. Does a player foray out to retrieve dropped supplies and leave the survivors vulnerable?
We hope that the randomness of such elements will bring tactical decision making to the fore and create challenge in these scenarios every time that they are played.
All the features of Scenarios are not set in stone yet, but what we wish to achieve with them is clear: To offer a new type of dynamic, engaging, entertaining and rewarding content which ties in closely with both the new Augment System, the story of The Secret World and makes the players ready for the great challenges which await them in Tokyo.
All of this will be delivered together with a new advancement system, called the Augment system.
The Augment system allows the players to directly improve their existing abilities by providing customization towards certain roles in the game. All active abilities in the game can get augmented. The types of Augments will be Damage, Support, Healing or Survivability.
Based on the level of the Augment and the type, there are a wide variety of effects that players can use to customize their current ability set up.
The Augment System will make use of Ability Points, Skill Points and the crafting system and its progression will be tied to the Scenario System.
We will provide a more detailed explanation of the Augment System as we bring it closer to release, but I can say that it will definitely bring even more choice, depth and opportunities for progression to the already rich character development system in The Secret World!
Thanks for listening
Sincerely,
Joel Bylos
Creative Director
Funcom
To be honest every member here that bitches and moans about MMO's being a stagnant genre should have put a bit of money towards TSW. If they were serious about wanting change in the MMO industry..
Flipmode
EQOA Refugee
- 2,091
- 312
We know how everyone loves to bitch but are their own worst enemy. Like ADHD kids that can't focus to prove their point. I keep saying it. We are our own worst enemies.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 14,614
- 10,111
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=480108
You obviously didn't play it if you think it was just like the rest.
bixxby
Molten Core Raider
- 2,750
- 47
The story was actually interesting, setting was different, skill system was tits, the dlc packs have been some of the best questlines anyone has ever put out, and it showed Funcom can make a good game (and still not win).
What it did wrong: the end game is warcraft's and the pvp.
What it did wrong: the end game is warcraft's and the pvp.
Yes the story was good, the main quests were interesting, the world was far more fascinating than generic-fantasy-land #241
What it did wrong is have probably the worst gameplay in any modern MMO and a skill system that didn't so much reward variety as invite you to fuck yourself in the ass without realizing it until the game decides to flip the difficulty switch. It's a skill system that at first makes it look like you can individualize your character, but in reality it's just a number of viable builds that slot into the trinity or allow you to solo hidden in a giant skill tree with no real indication of what you should be choosing. It's like making a road and intentionally having diverging paths that all end in road blocks, and everyone eventually gets to the end anyway. What is good about that? The only reason it's praised is because it's different, but if you actually look at it, it's flat out retarded.
These games still have nothing on Asheron's Call or UO if you want skill based character progression. I would argue praising the mediocrity that is TSW simply because of a unique veneer is far more damaging to the MMO genre than pretending you can churn out garbage as long as it looks different.
What it did wrong is have probably the worst gameplay in any modern MMO and a skill system that didn't so much reward variety as invite you to fuck yourself in the ass without realizing it until the game decides to flip the difficulty switch. It's a skill system that at first makes it look like you can individualize your character, but in reality it's just a number of viable builds that slot into the trinity or allow you to solo hidden in a giant skill tree with no real indication of what you should be choosing. It's like making a road and intentionally having diverging paths that all end in road blocks, and everyone eventually gets to the end anyway. What is good about that? The only reason it's praised is because it's different, but if you actually look at it, it's flat out retarded.
These games still have nothing on Asheron's Call or UO if you want skill based character progression. I would argue praising the mediocrity that is TSW simply because of a unique veneer is far more damaging to the MMO genre than pretending you can churn out garbage as long as it looks different.