In this week's dedicated The Secret World column, Managing Editor Bill Murphy takes a look at what we learned from the EA Showcase's dungeon reveal.  The classless system, the combat, the story, and more were discussed. 

Last week we sent our own Carolyn Koh down to EA's Summer Showcase where Funcom's The Secret World was on hand for an exclusive and semi-private demo of the games combat, skill system, and dungeon mechanics.  Finally, after a whole lot of waiting I feel like we're getting something to talk about! The focus of the event was definitely the dungeon where the freighter Polaris ran aground on what used to be the habitable Solomon Island.  The team, for the first time that I can recall, talked about the "four pillars" of The Secret World: the modern day setting, the classless skill system, the secret societies, and the games deep sense of storytelling.  Let's dig into what we learned and saw, and opine on it all shall we?

Read the rest of Bill Murphy's The Four Pillars of the Secret World.

They have talked about the four pillars for some months now. Love the sound of the skill system so far!

Being "shipped off to the internet" to do research sounds like it could get a bit tiresome. 

Everything about this game looks very cool -- but all the demo videos I've seen thus far have looked like group content virtually everywhere all the time.

Yah, I know it's an MMO, but if it's not a reasonably solo-friendly MMO, I won't be playing it, cool or not. My days of messing with the typical MMO PUG/LFG crap are pretty much over. 

If I can play the game and have fun on my own or with a couple of friends, then fine, but if I always have to find 4 other players (1 tank, 1 healer, + 3 DPS -- blah, blah) to do anything worthwhile, then ... forget it.

Awesome a game that focuses on group content, atlast!

One thing I am sick of is people who think that just because they can solo through levels they are gods and dont need to show even the basic amount of human courtesy to other people.  I miss the days when community and grouping were required and if you were an arse word got around.  I miss the days where combat was tactical where you had to actually consider what you were doing and where.

This is my standby mmo incase ToR doesnt work for me, i am still leery of Funcom but its getting my interest more and more...... i may even try it regardless.

They have said that you will be able to solo all the time, but you will prly be missing some of the content. Still wondering where you seen all these group contents, this is the first time i saw it. The other demo from gdc was more like public missions, no need to group for that. (They just added more players to play with so it didnt look desolated)

Let's hope that EA and Funcom doesn't screw with this one, as the features sound very good indeed.

The only thing missing so far is information about PvP. If there's no meaningful PvP and territorial warfare then it'll be just half the MMO I'm looking for. ArcheAge, allthough very different setting sounds good in that regard, so we'll see who get's my money in 2012.

Sounds like Overwolf was made for this game ;) should contact them and see if they can do a promo deal togetter ;)

Originally posted by Yalexy

Let's hope that EA and Funcom doesn't screw with this one, as the features sound very good indeed.

The only thing missing so far is information about PvP. If there's no meaningful PvP and territorial warfare then it'll be just half the MMO I'm looking for. ArcheAge, allthough very different setting sounds good in that regard, so we'll see who get's my money in 2012.

Meaningfull pvp does not exsiste in mmo's anyway DaoC,Eve or any other game were pvp is considered "good"and active its still about Epeen smack talk rigths.  anyway 3 fractions game so it should have some fun tho I expect it to be limeted as the game focuses more on the 4 pillars game itself then pvp. (can argue that the secert sociaty pillar is pvp but doubt that.)

I like the idea of classless level free skill driven character design and I love the setting.  One thing I think is missing from MMOs at the moment is the mystery and unknown we had so long ago.  The imagery is very nice as well.  Now on to a couple criticisms and concerns.

The Publisher

Now for the cynical.  The industry doesn't get a free fluffy pass of positive enthusiasm from me anymore.  Funcom and EA are certainly not exempt from this either.  Funcom's recent transition to F2P is a debacle at best and their mismanagement of AoC doesn't give me much confidence they will run this game any better.  EA is all about numbers and I expect they will push Funcom to deliver on tight release schedules whether the game is ready or not.  We'll have to see how that pans out in reality, but my confidence in both developer and publisher is really low.

Open Character Design, The Same Old Roles

One of the neatest things that drew me into RIFT was open class design.  I could actually be a healing ranger with a pet.  My mage could heal, cc, and damage deal, to greater or lesser extents, and switch my focus on the fly.  One of the most disappoitning aspects of RIFT for me was when I realized that class flexibility was nearly useless because traditional rigid role concepts and very archaic content design meant that players were only effective in certain builds that we've all seen before.  Fast forward to TSW and we have the same formula for disaster.

While people will likely enjoy collecting skills to build their own flavor if content requires a trinity role, then people will expect others to build that way to fulfill the role, effectively killing that innovation.  Not only that, but RIFT has shown that even though anyone can shift into the role of tank or healer that doesn't mean people will want to or will be willing to do that.  Being able to shift into a healer/tank role doesn't mean the 80%+ DPS people are going to do that.  Even with a dungeon finder RIFT has a hard time filling those roles.  Even with a cross server dungeon finder WoW has to bribe thier players, with better rewards, into playing those roles.

Conclusion and Hype

No more hype with MMOs for me.  There are some anticipated games coming out soon, among them TSW, but I'll wait to see how they deliver and how they actually handle the known speedbumps of the genre before I give them the 'ooh ahh'.  The game does look exciting through the hype and press release window.  So have many others in the last few years, until release day or the first nerf pass after patches 1 and 2.  I haven't been impressed with Funcom or EA for years and I'm not sure they will really address some of the deeper game flaws inherent in the genre despite the nice eye candy they've presented.

EA is barely co-publishing TSW, selling boxes in america. They have nothing to do with the game and when its done.

I like almost everything about this game. The reason I won't play this is the same as swtor. Quest based storyline, no matter how good, is completely the wrong direction in my opinion. If there are quests in a game I might play one or two. But I'd probably get bored halfway in the middle.

The setting is okay, the horror not so much but we definately need more urban fantasy.

skill system is good.

combat is okay. not a gamebreaker. But I hate missions and sucvh a reliance on them IS.

As a member of a large group of people who play games solo most of the time, if you force group play, you will alienate that pretty large group.  I am really looking forward to this game and many others I know are as well.   Please don't ame group play mandatory at all/most fo the time, this would be a deal breaker for myself and many, many others.

DING! DING! DING! DING!

I think we have a winnah!

See you in '12

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Funcom's recent transition to F2P is a debacle at best and their mismanagement of AoC doesn't give me much confidence they will run this game any better.

I really, completely disagree here, but to each their own opinion.

Originally posted by tmr819

Everything about this game looks very cool -- but all the demo videos I've seen thus far have looked like group content virtually everywhere all the time.

Eh? I indeed saw group content but not exclusively, at least I didn't get the impression that it was all only group content. Could be something like public quests ingame though.

This game looks like almost everything I hope for.  Yet on behalf of every Bruce Campbell lovin' maniac out there I have to ask this question:

Can I use a chainsaw?

Good article Bill.  Keep on them about three-faction warfare!

Originally posted by arcanist

The reason I won't play this is the same as swtor. Quest based storyline, no matter how good, is completely the wrong direction in my opinion. If there are quests in a game I might play one or two. But I'd probably get bored halfway in the middle.

 

I'm curious what your alternative is.

I can see what you mean about SWTOR, since it seems to be on the traditional "follow the yellow brick road" model where you have to do certain quests in a certain order simply because there is only a limited amount of content created for each level range. I've grown to hate that, too, so I can definitely understand your frustration.

But from what I've seen so far of TSW, the "horizontal" idea seems to include the freedom to travel to whichever zone you like and do whatever missions you feel like, because there are no levels limiting you to specific content. I could be wrong about this, I guess, since the info we have to go on is incomplete.

I just wonder how you imagine a game with no sort of quest/mission structure at all? The only alternatives I know of are either aimless wandering or dynamic events. And note that even GW2, which is pushing the idea of events really hard, also has the "personal story" which sounds suspiciously like a questline - just one that has been tailored to the choices you made at character creation, which injects a little more variety.

Originally posted by Halibrand

This game looks like almost everything I hope for.  Yet on behalf of every Bruce Campbell lovin' maniac out there I have to ask this question:

 

Can I use a chainsaw?

 

Yes you can use a chainsaw!! Heck they even have zombies/golems with chainsaws in the game..

Originally posted by Eladi

Sounds like Overwolf was made for this game ;) should contact them and see if they can do a promo deal togetter ;)

 

The Secret World will have immersive in-game browsing... Each player will have a PDA or iPad equivalent on their character.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Funcom's recent transition to F2P is a debacle at best and their mismanagement of AoC doesn't give me much confidence they will run this game any better.

I really, completely disagree here, but to each their own opinion.

 

Originally posted by tmr819

Everything about this game looks very cool -- but all the demo videos I've seen thus far have looked like group content virtually everywhere all the time.

Eh? I indeed saw group content but not exclusively, at least I didn't get the impression that it was all only group content. Could be something like public quests ingame though.

I would like to know how you could possibly disagree.  While our opinions and evaluations are subjective, mine isn't based on the quality of AoC.  I have fun playing Conan and like the game.  However, Funcom has taken an iconic IP, an incredible visual and audio experience, and interesting combat mechanics and flushed it down the toilet.

Conan is down to 3 to 4 servers per region and that includes the new single server special rules pvp server.  If they hadn't mismanaged the game and customer experience they would more servers and a larger player base.  You can only blame poor population on a bad launch for so long.  After a timie the problem with the game experience lies with how it's managed and that ball is squarely in Funcom's court.  They've done a bad job.

Fast forward to their "Unchained" F2P launch which is another dismal failure.  It's not a hater flame-bait opinion.  It's pretty much right there in front of us.  Outside of their new blood and glory server they haven't added any for F2P.  They aren't courting the F2P crowd  with the way they have their model setup - which is a cluster frack.  The F2P model can almost be called a marketing sham it's so lame (even SoE gets F2P better than Funcom does).  They are pissing off the few newly subscribed customers with account and forum bugs.  Visit their forums (both F2P and Premium) and see how it's going.  It's not.

I really want AoC to be successful because it has some fun game play, but Funcom really is a bad development studio, or at least the Conan team is horrendous.  Every aspect of their management with regards to Conan is bad.  That cannot bode well for TSW unless there is a completely unrelated entity running it, but we know that isn't true.