Dark Days Are Coming - New Funcom Project

[Yoru]

Looked up some art assets from Dreamfall, and to I'm impressed for something 7 years old would be an understatement.  Great looking visuals and art style.

Uh, Dreamfall came out about a year ago. Really, the one thing that worries me is that the damn thing felt so unfinished along two of the storylines, and especially the ending of the whole thing. Pretty polished, technically, for a Funcom project. I don't recall any major showstopping bugs.

[SnakeCharmer]

Looked up some art assets from Dreamfall, and to I'm impressed for something 7 years old would be an understatement.  Great looking visuals and art style.

Uh, Dreamfall came out about a year ago. Really, the one thing that worries me is that the damn thing felt so unfinished along two of the storylines, and especially the ending of the whole thing. Pretty polished, technically, for a Funcom project. I don't recall any major showstopping bugs.

Ah nevermind.

I read here "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is Ragnar Tornquist's long-awaited follow-up to The Longest Journey, GameSpy's Adventure Game of the Year for 2000" and just kinda stopped.

Reading comprehension.  It's a bitch sometimes.

[Furiously]

I think I could have listened to Zoe talk for hours in that game.

[SnakeCharmer]

/necroleghumpage

Like AoC, the game will be playable on the 360, and mentions the PS3 as well.

See here.

[SnakeCharmer]

In keeping up with my obsession with this game, I found this over at a fansite.  Quite impressive for something playermade.  Sounds like Dan LeFountaine, but not quite sure.  I guess they just did a shitload of audiosampling of his voice?

[Signe]

Who is Dan LeFountaine?

[Mandrel]

Who is Dan LeFountaine?

Isn't he the lounge singer on the Holodeck?

[CmdrSlack]

The movie voice over guy.

"In a world where nobody knew who Dan LeFountaine was...."

[Slayerik]

The movie voice over guy.

"In a world where nobody knew who Dan LeFountaine was...."

Its crazy how I can hear him saying that exactly as it would sound :)

[SnakeCharmer]

For those that have not been following over at www.darkdemonscrygaia.com:

Over this past weekend, and thru tomorrow, Funcom has hosted Dreamhack over on Norway.  The clock that appears at http://www.darkdaysarecoming.com/ will hit the date 2012:12:21:00:000 (in that format as it appears at that site) at 11:39 hrs GMT June 18, 2007.  That date (2012:12:21:00:000) is supposed to be the end of the world according to the Mayan calender, as well as the date in 1928 that explorer Roald Amundsen disappeared or died (and not found).

An announcement of some sorts is expected (or something as mild as a change in the website) at that time.

Stay tuned!

[Miasma]

Is that Mayan thing true?  Maybe I should stop contributing to my retirement savings and pick up a cocaine habit instead.

[SnakeCharmer]

And...nothing happened 

[Signe]

I am very disappointed.   

[schild]

Oh, Funcom.

[SnakeCharmer]

I am very disappointed.   

I am too.  Was really looking forward to some more news.

The next dates/times of significance people are looking towards are:
June 18, 2007 @ 19:28 hrs - For the year that Roald Amundsen disappeared or died
June 22, 2007 @ (unknown time) - The timer reaches another significant point for the Summer Solstace.  A connection has been made, but I'm not sure what.

[Signe]

I'll keep an eye out.  I really did think the initial event was good fun.

[SnakeCharmer]

I'll keep an eye out.  I really did think the initial event was good fun.

Yeah it was.

Ah well.  Back to waiting mode :shakefist:

[SnakeCharmer]

RISE FROM THE DEAD!!! I COMMAND THEE!!!!

Producer/director/write/lead whatever of The Secret World is giving presentation to FunCom in a few days.



Because I want this game to be teh awesome, it will suck.  Do not get your hopes up.  You have been warned.

[UnSub]

Yep, TSW interests me a lot more than AoC or WAR, but there will be plenty of time between releases to assess them individually. Especially since TSW is currently a great concept with not a lot of detail about how that concept will be implemented.

[Draegan]

Interesting fun.  I'm not sure how I missed all of this.  I must of been napping.  Interesting game.  I'm just to lazy to go get into the conspiracy.

[Falwell]

Yeah really not much to hear about this the past few months outside of the Ragnar blog quoted above. With him stating that there will be nothing officially released until post AoC launch I doubt we'll hear anything big on this till probably late spring early summer. That, of course, is assuming AoC hits it's March release date.

This setting seems right up Funcom's alley though. It's niche enough for them to have a lot of freedom creativity wise, yet I think that it will generate enough interest (at least initially) to turn a few heads in the MMO scene should the architecture be sound. FC has proven they have no problems developing mature, gritty content and to do a modern horror / cyberpunk settting properly, it needs to have grit.

Definitely on my radar.

[Cadaverine]

It's definitely in the "keep an eye on" catagory, along with the WoD MMO, as I yearn for something outside of the usual Elves & Orcs, or Mining in Spaaaaaace thing.

However, despite their single player games, they've got one MMO under their belt.  And while they did turn AO around from a shitacular launch, they really didn't seem to do much with it, other than flail around haphazardly as far as expansions go.  So, I'm mostly curious how the AoC launch goes, as well as post launch.

[Rendakor]

tl;dr

What is this? I skimmed and saw something about a conspiracy?

[DarkSign]

This game lost me with the picture of the hawt chick with a katana. Cthulhu my arse.  The only way this fits the mythos is if he girl has utterly failed her SAN check and now believes herself to be invincible and her player has already resigned himself to the fact that Cthulhu will eat her in the next turn.

It is shaping up, however,  to have heavy doses of adventure gaming/puzzles which i like, but as far as being Lovecraftian it's missing the mark already.

[Hoax]

Good.
Lovecraftian = failure when it comes to MMO's.

Funcom is at least trying their own IP & considering AO had a much more interesting world then most other AAA titles I'm looking forward to what they come up with.  This is super true because it seems like their are no elves.  By all means include some elements of cosmic horror, but if that's your only plan as a gameworld designer?  Your plan sucks.

Protip:  Games that really on atmosphere and surprise aren't going to make good mmo's.  Other players will quickly ruin those things for you.


P.S.  +5 points for pissing off DarkSign.  wtg Funcom

[DarkSign]

They arent creating their own IP....they're bolloxing up the Cthulhu mythos. Sure it's not technically Lovecraftian, but that's where the whole idea came from. So yeah, if they're going to do Cthulhu stuff there are certain things you cant mess around with. That would be like doing some comic that has a character that's a rip-off of Batman then putting Disney characters in it. OMG it's new IP! Barf. Internal consistency wins. You fail.

btw, not really pissed off, just disappointed.

[Surlyboi]

Hoax is right though, you can't do Lovecraft/Cthulhu in an MMO.

Here's a quick reason why...

OOC: H4RKN355: "Where do I find Shub Niggurath?"
OOC: Yithkicker: "Lern 2 summon, nooblar!"

*shudder*

[SnakeCharmer]

Some sort of 'event' is supposed to happen today, about 4 and half hours from now...No idea what.  Follow it here.

[Falwell]

Some sort of 'event' is supposed to happen today, about 4 and half hours from now...No idea what.  Follow it here.

Nah, this is about the 3rd or 4th time the early fanbase has come to the conclusion that at x day and x time Funcom is SURE to have some sort of super special event, they just HAVE to. This is also the 3rd or 4th time that they got kicked in the balls.

The thing that disturbs me the most so far is that this early fanbase well, they just freak me the fuck out. Maybe it's their knack for over analyzing things to the point of bold faced retardery, or the fact that they have this huge list of assumptions based on zero evidence.

Okay, yeah that's like the internet in a nutshell I know, but these cats take it to extremes. Really disturbing extremes.

[Tale]

Why they would they want to do Lovecraft/Cthulhu or even mimic it? Funcom writes original stories well.

[Signe]

Whatever was at that link has gone poof about.

[Tale]

It was just two fansites combining, not an official event. The result is at http://www.crygaia.com

[Modern Angel]

Some sort of 'event' is supposed to happen today, about 4 and half hours from now...No idea what.  Follow it here.

Nah, this is about the 3rd or 4th time the early fanbase has come to the conclusion that at x day and x time Funcom is SURE to have some sort of super special event, they just HAVE to. This is also the 3rd or 4th time that they got kicked in the balls.

The thing that disturbs me the most so far is that this early fanbase well, they just freak me the fuck out. Maybe it's their knack for over analyzing things to the point of bold faced retardery, or the fact that they have this huge list of assumptions based on zero evidence.

Okay, yeah that's like the internet in a nutshell I know, but these cats take it to extremes. Really disturbing extremes.

'Lost' fans.

[DarkSign]

Darksign is right though, you can't do Lovecraft/Cthulhu in an MMO.

Here's a quick reason why...

OOC: H4RKN355: "Where do I find Shub Niggurath?"
OOC: Yithkicker: "Lern 2 summon, nooblar!"

*shudder*

Fixed

[Surlyboi]

sorry, you didn't fix it. You seem to WANT a Cthulhu/Lovecraft thing, despite the fact that it will fail horribly and may leave an honest fan of the mythos drooling on himself like he just had a serious run-in with a Great Old One.