Dark Days Are Coming - New Funcom Project

[luckton]

"Due to technical difficulties we have decided to postpone the first phase of the Secret War experience and the beta registration until further notice."
http://www.thesecretworld.com/news/secret_war_and_beta_registration_delayed

I could say they might be learning their lessons from AoC, but then they should have learned those lessons from AO   

[Modern Angel]

They're taking this beta deathly seriously. They understand what's riding on this.

[luckton]

They're taking this beta deathly seriously. They understand what's riding on this.

Pfft ...why break their record of failed launches?  Imagine the resumes..

"Yeah, we kicked out not one, not two, but THREE failed MMOs.  And we're still here, dammit! 

[Amaron]

They're taking this beta deathly seriously. They understand what's riding on this.

Funcom

[TripleDES]

A fucking registration page. They can't even get that out orderly in time? 

[Soln]

reg paths are hard

[UnSub]

Word is the delay is actually a fake front to an ARG that leads people to sign up to beta.

Funcom seems to have decided a good promotional strategy was, "Let's pretend we can't even launch our beta registrations correctly! It will be so AWESOME!".

[Spiff]

Word is the delay is actually a fake front to an ARG that leads people to sign up to beta.

Funcom seems to have decided a good promotional strategy was, "Let's pretend we can't even launch our beta registrations correctly! It will be so AWESOME!".

Haha, that would be too funny. 

Actually the game already launched, you just have to solve a series of cleverly hidden clues around the net to get in!
Will you be hardcore enough to give FC your money? 

[luckton]

The beta reg is now 'actually for reals, we mean it' open for business.  If you don't have or don't like FB, though, you can officially fuck off 

[WayAbvPar]

"Due to technical difficulties

That should really be the name of the company. Funcom isn't nearly as accurate a description.

[palmer_eldritch]

Yes, you actually need to authorise their Secret World Facebook API in order to apply for the beta. I went ahead and made myself a special Secret World Facebook account for this purpose (which is against Facebook's rules, I know) and it turns out hundreds of other people have had the same idea. There are people with accounts named "TSW Andrew" or "Aux Illuminati", apparently not caring about or ignorant of Facebook's terms of service (real names only, one profile per person only). I guess if people want to play this Secret World Facebook game it probably seems reasonable to "create a character" for it, but you're not really meant to.

From Funcom's point of view this must be a little disconcerting, as I assume the idea was to get their fans to spread the word to non-fans, not to make special TSW Facebook accounts where they could have a huge circle-jerk with other Secret World fans who have also made special TSW Facebook accounts and are already planning to buy the game.

Still, I think it's an interesting marketing exercise and in general, I really hope Funcom succeeds with this MMO. As far as I know, the only AAA MMOs we are actually likely to see in the next 12 months are this and TOR, and while TOR is the game that might turn out to be the WOW killer, The Secret World appears to have far more innovation and originality and is much more interesting to me.

Edit: Oh wait, it seems that if you ever took the personality test that used to be on their site and had nothing to do with Facebook then you are also automatically taken to have applied for the beta.

[luckton]

Massively talks about how trying to do both a Paid Subscription model and a Cash Shop at the same time at launch is a silly idea for what will surely be an extremely niche game in today's cramped market.

I'm not sure if they still do it, but I believe that when EQ2 launched, the Cash Shop was only available on select servers, while other servers didn't allow RMTs.  I think that would be the best for here, yes?

[Mrbloodworth]

I recall the EQ2 exchange/thing only coming online well after launch.

[Lantyssa]

Massively talks about how trying to do both a Paid Subscription model and a Cash Shop at the same time at launch is a silly idea for what will surely be an extremely niche game in today's cramped market.

The red panda facepalm convinced me.  I didn't need to read any further.

I'm still surprised no one has tried the Free Realms model of f2p with limits, cheap sub with cash shop, and cheap lifetime member with cash shop.  I don't begrudge a company trying to make money, nor charging for vanity items, but for some reason only a handful of companies and games seem to "get it".  Turbine, ArenaNet, and Free Realms.  (Clone Wars prices are insane for what they give you, but Star Wars, so people eat it up.)

[Mrbloodworth]

I dunno, I really enjoy the model in Global agenda. They even talked me into a robot head for 8$.

[DLRiley]

Massively talks about how trying to do both a Paid Subscription model and a Cash Shop at the same time at launch is a silly idea for what will surely be an extremely niche game in today's cramped market.

My game will only keep players who are HARDCORE into whatever crappy mechanics, lore, setting, etc I have to offer. My game is the ONLY game that offers the golden cheese, which looks a lot like regular american cheese but we don't talk about that. So if I plant a big sign saying "get your in game uber potions here for five dollars" will these players leave? No. Worst case scenario they don't buy anything. Best case I've just collected 5 extra dollars.

[luckton]

Massively talks about how trying to do both a Paid Subscription model and a Cash Shop at the same time at launch is a silly idea for what will surely be an extremely niche game in today's cramped market.

My game will only keep players who are HARDCORE into whatever crappy mechanics, lore, setting, etc I have to offer. My game is the ONLY game that offers the golden cheese, which looks a lot like regular american cheese but we don't talk about that. So if I plant a big sign saying "get your in game uber potions here for five dollars" will these players leave? No. Worst case scenario they don't buy anything. Best case I've just collected 5 extra dollars.

Fair enough, but if your in-game uber potions allow anyone to overcome any obstacle or opposing force without difficulty, I will kindly tell you and your game to go pound sand 

[DLRiley]

You weren't hardcore enough to begin with. 

[luckton]

You weren't hardcore enough to begin with. 

Oh so you're a Darkfall dev/fanboi?  All is forgiven then 

[Jamiko]

Beta registration without Facebook being required:

https://register.funcom.com/signup/ctrl/register/us/tsw/TSW-BETA1

[palmer_eldritch]

"This is not simply PvP. It's player conflict and factional MMO gameplay taken to the next level."

Funcom have released a new video about the factions in the game and the PvP zones ("warzones"). Each PvP zone can have around 100 people in it, and the winning team gains some sort of reward for their entire society, including those who didn't take part in the fight. I'm not sure if any of this information is new but the fights do look pretty epic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFJTprVXHfQ

[Ghambit]

How is this world so secret if they're fighting these huge pvp battles in plain view?

[Surlyboi]

Perception filters and a fuckton of psychic paper.

[Kageru]

I remember the original description being that all the battles take place inside the hollow world we live on, which would have solved that problem. But it looks like they've given up on that, and are also generally discovering that "secret" and MMO don't go together.

Their fascination with face-book integration also worries me.

[Ghambit]

Well, the fact they're abandoning the "secret" part of "the secret world" kind of makes their game pretty generic yes?  I was hoping the internal intrigue would magically manifest somehow inside the game, similar to what we see in pbbg strat. games (and EVE) these days.  There's no reason why an actiony-mmo cant incorporate those mechanics.

Aside from that, I was also hoping they'd take a page from WoD and meta the point of staying "invisible" in the real world or that's your ass.   Oh well.  It's standard faire for us all!

[Sheepherder]

Aside from that, I was also hoping they'd take a page from WoD and meta the point of staying "invisible" in the real world or that's your ass.   Oh well.  It's standard faire for us all!

Most WoD computer games don't even go that far.

Although it would be awesome.

[Draegan]

The game looks better than the last time I saw a demo.  I'll give them that.

[Dark_MadMax]

Pfft ...why break their record of failed launches?  Imagine the resumes..

"Yeah, we kicked out not one, not two, but THREE failed MMOs.  And we're still here, dammit! 

You know I am seriously starting to respect funcom for their tenacity. I know that no matter how hard they f@ck up their games will  still be running! (unlike  some completely unrelated to swtor project)

[Outlawedprod]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/21/hands-on-the-secret-world/

BTW can someone update this thread title to the game's current announced name?

[Hutch]

Massively got a hands-on preview too.

It's a pretty glowing review. Obviously the game's not finished yet, so the reviewer notes things like "the built-in gear manager that is still forthcoming."

The two articles have the same artwork, but don't be fooled! They're written by different people, mostly using different words :)

[schild]

It’s a huge challenge, building an MMO that has so many narrative threads running through it, but I think I understand a little better how it will work. There will be large set pieces, sure, but the brilliance of The Secret World may be in the way it asks its players to piece every detail of the promised 150-200 hours of content together. The world doesn’t just contain one story, or even hundreds, the world is the story and it will continue in every conversation that attempts to understand how the world works, and what ties all these myths together. It’s not just about multiple players fighting together; it’s about them talking together, particularly during those investigations.

When in the nine shits did RPS start writing PR copy?

[HaemishM]

200 hours of content? That's less than a month's worth of content at the catassy 8 hours a day playtime level. I look forward to the "This game has no content!" whines after release.

[Kageru]

Cat-asses are always going to hit the content wall and whine, and can be safely ignored. 200 hours of content is not a bad number though of course the pace at which they can add new content and the amount of end-game repeatable activity are pretty important.

That said I expect the game to be flawed, in some fairly major ways, but I'm just so happy to see something other than fantasy. Was reading the comic "Planetary" which was full of people with powers and contemporary mysteries and it showed how much could be done with this setup.

[tmp]

the Secret World, now with nearly twice as much content

(second location preview trailer)

[WayAbvPar]

Wow, that sounds like it has some potential. How much non-questy stuff is available- anyone know?