When are we going to get some coverage here for Secret World?

This game has to be near the top of my list of games with potential.  No idea if it will reach it... but it's something new, original.  A blending of reality/fantasy/horror...  The interatctions between factions could make for some intense pvp...

The game is being put out by Funcom and a few folks are not real happy with those Dev's me being one of them. Funcom's track record says that The Seceret World will be heavily hyped and delivered unfinished. Funcom has recently layed off another 20% of employees leaving alot of questions as to how well the company is doing. With anything Funcom " Let the Buyer Beware".

Jihad works both ways

Originally posted by Elsabolts

The game is being put out by Funcom and a few folks are not real happy with those Dev's me being one of them. Funcom's track record says that The Seceret World will be heavily hyped and delivered unfinished. Funcom has recently layed off another 20% of employees leaving alot of questions as to how well the company is doing. With anything Funcom " Let the Buyer Beware".

Jihad works both ways

Why does funcom always come up with cool MMO ideas to fuck up....=(

There is some decent coverage here and on the official site.

The fact is that there isn't a whole lot of info out there other than what you can find here and on the official site.

As for Funcom:

The 20% layoffs were so Funcom could move some of it's production to Montreal.  From what I have heard, most employee's put on furlough were given the option to relocate. 

As for Funcoms financial status, they are a publicly traded company and the info is there for anyone that wants to look it up rather than spread speculation hinting at Funcoms financial demise.  For the record, Funcom has roughly 50 million in it's coffers right now.  They are doing fine financially.

OP, take everything about Funcom with a grain of salt from this site.  There are a lot of haters here and they will not give you an accurate picture of the company, as I demonstrated above, because they are so jaded.  That's not to say their feelings towards Funcom aren't justified, but I think so go a little over the top.

Originally posted by Elsabolts

The game is being put out by Funcom and a few folks are not real happy with those Dev's me being one of them. Funcom's track record says that The Seceret World will be heavily hyped and delivered unfinished. Funcom has recently layed off another 20% of employees leaving alot of questions as to how well the company is doing. With anything Funcom " Let the Buyer Beware".

How is the part marked in red different different from any other MMORPG?

I hope they learned their lesson with AoC and can improve.

I'd prefer to see some coverage of the "World of Darkness" game supposedly in the works. I have absolutely no care for "Secret World" because Funcom more or less just pisses me off. They launch Age of Conan, pull back on resources, funding and manpower and then announce they're "making" a brand new game. Give me a break.. They should have invested nearly all of their resources in Age of Conan.

So, I'll not follow it at all, maybe I'll let it surprise me if it's good when it comes out.

World of Darkness I am far more interested in. Vampire: Bloodlines was great, so is the rest of the Darkness lore. It's very easy to work with, very versatile.

As for Funcoms financial status, they are a publicly traded company and the info is there for anyone that wants to look it up rather than spread speculation hinting at Funcoms financial demise.  For the record, Funcom has roughly 50 million in it's coffers right now.  They are doing fine financially.

 OP, take everything about Funcom with a grain of salt from this site.  There are a lot of haters here and they will not give you an accurate picture of the company, as I demonstrated above, because they are so jaded.  That's not to say their feelings towards Funcom aren't justified, but I think so go a little over the top.

yes anyone can look it up though you obviously didn't.

37mill in cash with a short term debt of 14 million to pay. Not 50 million. So thats equivilent to 23 million and since they lost 36 million over the last 18months having 23 million isn't really fine. Theres no real short term worry sure but if the secret world was another age of conan they would struggle to survive.

Next quarter won't be too bad (though still a loss) because it includes all the subs from the winback programmes but quarter 4 is going to be very nasty for them as subs are now significantly lower than before the winbacks and especially as setting up a new area in montreal and getting rid of 20% of staff has got to be very expensive even if it is benefital in the long run. One month away from the Q3 numbers but as I say it's the Q4 ones that will give an accurate picture of how the company is now (though their predicted Q4 revenue in the Q3 presentation will give a very strong hint) since it will be made with half the data at hand.

The stock is also 5 times lower than in the couple of years running up to Age of Conan and 12 times lower than the high it reached around launch time.

Originally posted by maimeekrai

Originally posted by Elsabolts

The game is being put out by Funcom and a few folks are not real happy with those Dev's me being one of them. Funcom's track record says that The Seceret World will be heavily hyped and delivered unfinished. Funcom has recently layed off another 20% of employees leaving alot of questions as to how well the company is doing. With anything Funcom " Let the Buyer Beware".

 

How is the part marked in red different different from any other MMORPG?

 

 

 

 

 

There is of course varying levels of unfinished, Age of Conan and Vanguard are the two most unfinished big budget mmos ever at release and it cost them both very badly. It's a shame I was really looking forward to both of them.

Of course there has been even more unfinished mmo's in the past but none of those spent 10's of millions in production. Games like the horrible dark and light for instance.

does anyone know how much it cost them to develop aoc?

 This is Funcom.  Have they made a decent MMO?  Nope.  Expect more of the same.  Niche games that squeek by, almost borderline failures is what they're good at=)

AO was an excellent game for its time. I don't know the state of AoC, haven't touched the game since launch.

Ao had horrible launch issues but was an awesome game. Fantastic deep and engosing skill and implant system. It was the game that really got me into mmos

Originally posted by aeroplane22

I'd prefer to see some coverage of the "World of Darkness" game supposedly in the works. I have absolutely no care for "Secret World" because Funcom more or less just pisses me off. They launch Age of Conan, pull back on resources, funding and manpower and then announce they're "making" a brand new game. Give me a break.. They should have invested nearly all of their resources in Age of Conan.

So, I'll not follow it at all, maybe I'll let it surprise me if it's good when it comes out.

World of Darkness I am far more interested in. Vampire: Bloodlines was great, so is the rest of the Darkness lore. It's very easy to work with, very versatile.

The Secret World was know but under another name Cry Gaia, when Funcom was still only most know for their other game Dreamfall, we are talking 2004 here, 2005 it was already know to become The Secret World.

Personaly I like to see both these games to succeed as both seem very intresting.

Originally posted by madeux

When are we going to get some coverage here for Secret World?

This game has to be near the top of my list of games with potential.  No idea if it will reach it... but it's something new, original.  A blending of reality/fantasy/horror...  The interatctions between factions could make for some intense pvp...

As others have said.. the biggest problem is Funcom.  A lot of people dont' think Secret World will ever be release because Funcom is doing so poorly.  The other part is that people just have no faith in funcom to release a finished game.   Both AOC and AO were highly hyped and released completely unfinished.   Other games might have problems at launch.  For instance, War had a lot of 'designer errors' where things were finished, but the designers just made mistakes the ruined gameplay (ie no faction balance and making scenarios way too rewarding).   However, that is a far cry from what Funcom does.   Funcom releases games that aren't even finished.

Funcom hasnt' set a release date for TSW, and then they come back and say the release date has been delayed because they had to fire a bunch of people.

With Funcom's record, this is just one of those games you should forget about until 2 months after it launches.

Originally posted by Caleveira

I hope they learned their lesson with AoC and can improve.

That's like saying they learned their lesson from AO and improved.

Oh wait, they didn't.

Originally posted by noggy1980

Ao had horrible launch issues but was an awesome game. Fantastic deep and engosing skill and implant system. It was the game that really got me into mmos

AO became a good game in spite of itself.  Funcom released it entirely broken, servers that didn't work, people couldn't log in, etc.  You'd think they would have learned from their mistakes, but they did it again, almost verbatim with AoC.  Now they want us to trust them with yet another game?

Sure guys.  I'll trust you six months after you launch.  Otherwise, forget it.

 In response to the OP, its called secret world for a reason... everything about it is secretive, most likely because they don't have anything to show right now... and if they did, they couldn't show you, because its a secret.  so... catch 22

Originally posted by noggy1980

As for Funcoms financial status, they are a publicly traded company and the info is there for anyone that wants to look it up rather than spread speculation hinting at Funcoms financial demise.  For the record, Funcom has roughly 50 million in it's coffers right now.  They are doing fine financially.

 OP, take everything about Funcom with a grain of salt from this site.  There are a lot of haters here and they will not give you an accurate picture of the company, as I demonstrated above, because they are so jaded.  That's not to say their feelings towards Funcom aren't justified, but I think so go a little over the top.

 

yes anyone can look it up though you obviously didn't.

37mill in cash with a short term debt of 14 million to pay. Not 50 million. So thats equivilent to 23 million and since they lost 36 million over the last 18months having 23 million isn't really fine. Theres no real short term worry sure but if the secret world was another age of conan they would struggle to survive.

Next quarter won't be too bad (though still a loss) because it includes all the subs from the winback programmes but quarter 4 is going to be very nasty for them as subs are now significantly lower than before the winbacks and especially as setting up a new area in montreal and getting rid of 20% of staff has got to be very expensive even if it is benefital in the long run. One month away from the Q3 numbers but as I say it's the Q4 ones that will give an accurate picture of how the company is now (though their predicted Q4 revenue in the Q3 presentation will give a very strong hint) since it will be made with half the data at hand.

The stock is also 5 times lower than in the couple of years running up to Age of Conan and 12 times lower than the high it reached around launch time.

Easy there fella!

You would be correct, I did not look it up before I made that post.  I saw this thread and responded with info I was recalling from an article I'd read some time back, hence the "roughly 50 million".   It's also why I suggested looking it up if one were really interested in the exact specifics(which you obviously did, thanks).  

The main point of my statement was that Funcom is in no immediate financial crisis as some here would have others believe.  Despite my being wrong on the exact figure of their assests, that remains a true statement for the immediate future.

I will agree with you in that should TSW launch like AoC, Funcom will be in some serious trouble.

I can never understand this obsession with a MMO companies past success or failures. Would you trust a company you had never heard of more than Funcom? They turned AO around and are still struggling to do the same to AoC. I treat them like every other MMO company, don’t believe a word before launch, wait for the reviews, then decide.

It is too early for SW to feature here yet, I would be perfectly happy if MMO's did not appear on this site until six months before launch.