The Secret World
A real world fantasy MMO? Sounds really, really interesting to me. I was thinking of making Aion my next MMO but I might wait for this, need to look up some more info.
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The Secret WorldFollow
It sounds great, but only if they can pull it off.
It seems to me that they are going to attempt what a lot of other people have wanted in the past: the ability to affect the world around them without the need for instances.
Pulling this off is the real challenge.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the whole "You're going to be getting more powerful skills instead of armor" thing. While I do like a fully customizable appearance, I also enjoy walking around in that brand new robe, or trench coat as it may be.
The way they describe the combat system seems to be a mix of FPS and RPG to me...
The story itself seems to be very... Lovecraftian.
Definitely a game I'm going to be keeping my eye on.
Also: Strawberry milkshake undead horror pwn. :D
It seems to me that they are going to attempt what a lot of other people have wanted in the past: the ability to affect the world around them without the need for instances.
Pulling this off is the real challenge.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the whole "You're going to be getting more powerful skills instead of armor" thing. While I do like a fully customizable appearance, I also enjoy walking around in that brand new robe, or trench coat as it may be.
The way they describe the combat system seems to be a mix of FPS and RPG to me...
The story itself seems to be very... Lovecraftian.
Definitely a game I'm going to be keeping my eye on.
Also: Strawberry milkshake undead horror pwn. :D
The setting can work, but the concept is far too focused on atmosphere. This leads developers to ignore game design when creating mechanics and instead have an RP focus, which leads to typically bad games. AoC leaned toward having this problem and suffered extensively because of it. Funcom still hasn't learned their lesson.
The classless formula has been tried many times, but continuously fails. MMOs simply are not well suited to unbounded options. Instead of creating more options you actually contract the options, because you make optimization far too easy and potent. They can create 30 possible skills but players will still use the same 10 because those skills are the best skills. It also becomes very boring. The extra freedom doesn't feel meaningful because you have so many skills you have no interest in, and everyone else is like you. Essentially there is one class in the entire game, with several specs. This also erodes character identity, as classes help players distyinguish and separate themselves from the crowd. IT also makes simple grouping painful, because now you can't tell who to invite to fill a roll.
Some of the design philosphies mentioned could lead to a good game, but ""You can't make an MMO without having a focus on items, on progression, on getting the cool stuff, because otherwise there's no incentive; people would enjoy it for 30, 40, 50 hours and then they would go away," agrees Tornquist." tells me that they may be saying the right things, but they're saying them for all the wrong reasons.
If it's going to be in the genre of typical MMOs the game will most certainly be a flop. If they are instead creating an entirely new genre then there is hope. But Funcom is a company too focused on appearance and not enough on substance for me to believe they are capable of that.
The classless formula has been tried many times, but continuously fails. MMOs simply are not well suited to unbounded options. Instead of creating more options you actually contract the options, because you make optimization far too easy and potent. They can create 30 possible skills but players will still use the same 10 because those skills are the best skills. It also becomes very boring. The extra freedom doesn't feel meaningful because you have so many skills you have no interest in, and everyone else is like you. Essentially there is one class in the entire game, with several specs. This also erodes character identity, as classes help players distyinguish and separate themselves from the crowd. IT also makes simple grouping painful, because now you can't tell who to invite to fill a roll.
Some of the design philosphies mentioned could lead to a good game, but ""You can't make an MMO without having a focus on items, on progression, on getting the cool stuff, because otherwise there's no incentive; people would enjoy it for 30, 40, 50 hours and then they would go away," agrees Tornquist." tells me that they may be saying the right things, but they're saying them for all the wrong reasons.
If it's going to be in the genre of typical MMOs the game will most certainly be a flop. If they are instead creating an entirely new genre then there is hope. But Funcom is a company too focused on appearance and not enough on substance for me to believe they are capable of that.
Allegory wrote:
The classless formula has been tried many times, but continuously fails. MMOs simply are not well suited to unbounded options. Instead of creating more options you actually contract the options, because you make optimization far too easy and potent. They can create 30 possible skills but players will still use the same 10 because those skills are the best skills. It also becomes very boring. The extra freedom doesn't feel meaningful because you have so many skills you have no interest in, and everyone else is like you. Essentially there is one class in the entire game, with several specs. This also erodes character identity, as classes help players distyinguish and separate themselves from the crowd. IT also makes simple grouping painful, because now you can't tell who to invite to fill a roll.
I guess they are going to have faith that some people will like tanking and picking tanking skills and some people will like healing and pick those skills. That's a pretty big leap of faith though. I really like the setting and the fact they are using real life lore, so I'm probably going to try it regardless. But the way it was described now it doesn't sound like a game you can play for months, nay, years.
I like the concept, but I think it would be much better suited to an offline game. I agree with Allegory about the classless approach. People will quickly find out what works best and everyone will eventually be practically identical in terms of skills. I'd like for them to be able to pull this off, because on paper it sounds intriguing, but I just don't think it's going to work in practice.
MaxsOwner wrote:
Allegory wrote:
The classless formula has been tried many times, but continuously fails. MMOs simply are not well suited to unbounded options. Instead of creating more options you actually contract the options, because you make optimization far too easy and potent. They can create 30 possible skills but players will still use the same 10 because those skills are the best skills. It also becomes very boring. The extra freedom doesn't feel meaningful because you have so many skills you have no interest in, and everyone else is like you. Essentially there is one class in the entire game, with several specs. This also erodes character identity, as classes help players distyinguish and separate themselves from the crowd. IT also makes simple grouping painful, because now you can't tell who to invite to fill a roll.
I guess they are going to have faith that some people will like tanking and picking tanking skills and some people will like healing and pick those skills. That's a pretty big leap of faith though. I really like the setting and the fact they are using real life lore, so I'm probably going to try it regardless. But the way it was described now it doesn't sound like a game you can play for months, nay, years.
MaxsOwner wrote:
I guess they are going to have faith that some people will like tanking and picking tanking skills and some people will like healing and pick those skills. That's a pretty big leap of faith though. I really like the setting and the fact they are using real life lore, so I'm probably going to try it regardless. But the way it was described now it doesn't sound like a game you can play for months, nay, years.
Oh people will be tanks and healers, but that isn't the problem.
The problem is when you have a full group ready to go, except for a tank. So instead only having to tanks classes if they want to join your group you have to ask everyone.
"Can you tank zombie tombs?"
"No, I'm sword DPSer, go away."
"Can you tank zombie tombs?"
"No, I'm a healer, stop bothering me."
"Can you tank zombie tombs?"
"No, I cast magical spells to disable enemies, do you need one of those?"
"No."
This makes putting together a group for the most simplest of endeavors infinitely irritating.
Quote:
This makes putting together a group for the most simplest of endeavors infinitely irritating.
As if it wasn't already.
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