These guys understand immersion. They understand what the RPG in MMORPG stands for. I want them to make a modern-day occult/horror MMO. Did they mess up with the launch of Age of Conan? Yeah, probably, and I hope they learned from that. But they also did a lot of stuff right, stuff I want to see again in The Secret World.

I stay out of the AoC debate, especially since I didn't see the "huge flub" everyone else saw. It was just a high-end game that ran fine for me, lacked 1v1 PvP balance (to that point, I could care less sometimes), and didn't have enough content to maxout on without grinding the last levels... with all that in mind - what game did not have the exact same issues at launch?

I think it's just a popular target for some reason, maybe because people were expecting too much. I remember when people got to the point where VO acting ran dry on NPCs they went rabid over it. It's like they set a bar in Tortage that had to be kept up, but isn't that the folly of all "first impression" noober zones?

I think TSW is setting itself up for the same insane amount of expectations and already has enough of a hater crowd to make sure it gets bad press, no matter how many people enjoy it. I wish em luck though, because I liked AoC (but hated the people) and would like to try the next one. Surely it's going to have some FPS elements, and as long as they play out in a tight fashion, I'll be all over it.

 Out of curiosity, what exactly do we know about Secret World?

I agree with this post

The writer/director of Funcom's previous single player adventure game (The Longest Journey) is also working as a writer for Secret World. The Longest Journey is considered by many the best adventure game ever made. I have extremly high expectations for the Secret World.

 Also, what exactly do you do in WURM Online. I went to their website and I'm intrigued.

Yep couldn´t agree more. Funcom knows games that´s for sure and even with the buggy release of AoC i´m going to give them a second launch chance for sure.

Originally posted by evilgreen5

 Also, what exactly do you do in WURM Online. I went to their website and I'm intrigued.

I guess it's a "Medieval life-sim", where you build out in the wilds or join player-villages... but I would call it a "terraforming sim" first. That's what I do mostly in that game, dig and mine dynamic changes to the world geometry and expand my awesome spot, but crafting is incredible too. Just try it out and get an idea for yourself, just remember that the game has a complex learning curve and is unforgiving. People in the free trial server suck too, don't let them influence you on how it goes down in pay servers.

Funcom may have learned form thier mistakes with AOC. Ill give them a 2nd chance....a hesitant 2nd chance.

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH continues Aquilonian river dance)

I have never played AoC. I now see my reluctance was based on my desire to try this game without hating FC in advance (before I even knew this game existed). If you will excuse me...I have some lottery tickets to buy.

I too am glad to see Funcom make this.  But for me it's more of a sink-or-swim matter.  For me, Funcom has a couple strikes against it, and it remains to be seen if Funcom can make up for it.

You guys are kidding right? Especially with whats going on in AoC right now!

I wouldn't let a Funcom employee (so much as) get me a cup of coffee..because they'd probably fuck it up.

This is an lol-viral marketing thread.

As long as we check the informations they give out before purchasing the game like... DX10-ready for release, we should be fine, although I don't purchase MMOs without playing some kind of trial first.

I don't know what Funcom does good since I didn't get to play AoC besides a free trial, but it certainly must have something, the game is still up and running and with an incoming (or already active?) expansion.

About the bad... well, I read these forums, if there's something negative to be said about a game/company, it certainly gets its own thread over here.

The only reason I can agree with the OP is that Funcom fired the dipshits management on AOC.   Since they are gone there's hope.

I believe in Funcom. Having played both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan for sometime, I know they have the potential to make a great MMO. They have made management changes, and I think for the best.

Don't get me wrong though, I am a consumer too, and if they fuck up The Secrete Worlds launch like they did with AO and AoC, I don't think I could invest into another Funcom product either. But time will tell and for all our sake (the ones waiting for this title), let's hope for the best.

My opinions on AoC have little to do with the launch, the perceived problems of the game content, or even the game itself.  Why I canceled and refuse to resub is the general impression the community of the game gave.  As long as those types of people aren't rampant in Secret World, I have no qualms about trying it out.  

 Fucom is nothing more than modern day snake oil salesman,They are good at making promises and never deliver on them.Thats been there track record since AO including all the expansions all the way up and through Age of Conan.Funcom is driven by a board of directors who had that get any kinda money they can asap and are not in things for the long term.Think if they had released AO with all the promised and in a stable state it would have been huge.AoC had alot of big promises then half of them got cut before beta and they still couldn't put out a decent game 3-6 more months on either of those games and you may have seen stable versions and a game people may have stayed with.

  Secret World will be no different if it even if it see's the light of day which I doubt giving funcoms Q3 earnings I think they will be lucky to make it through to next spring/summer before they go belly up or someone buys them out.

Originally posted by rznkain

 Fucom is nothing more than modern day snake oil salesman,They are good at making promises and never deliver on them.Thats been there track record since AO including all the expansions all the way up and through Age of Conan.Funcom is driven by a board of directors who had that get any kinda money they can asap and are not in things for the long term.Think if they had released AO with all the promised and in a stable state it would have been huge.AoC had alot of big promises then half of them got cut before beta and they still couldn't put out a decent game 3-6 more months on either of those games and you may have seen stable versions and a game people may have stayed with.

 

  Secret World will be no different if it even if it see's the light of day which I doubt giving funcoms Q3 earnings I think they will be lucky to make it through to next spring/summer before they go belly up or someone buys them out.

Bullseye my friend. They live and thrive on suckers and fanbois. They had so such hype and pr around aoc the fanbois on this site and others were on the verge of murder when confronted with the truth and factual evidence of what fc had planned for aoc. We all know what happened to them they got burned bad and learned a valuable lesson. I for one remember the same old mantra "fc has learned from their mistakes" that was posted on here in dozens of threads. I can see it happening again here now too a new group of suckers ready to be taken to the cleaners. Hell even an old ao org named angels of rubika had formed a group along with other ao players and aoc beta testers to expose what was going on. Look at the third link in my sig its over 20 pages of leaks and warnings about it and all the fanbois laughed it up with glee and most of it came to pass and bite them in the ass.

I don't think Funcom meant to come off as they did. They got a lot of PR with a lot of "AoC will have this and it will have that" and got way over their heads. I think if the game wasn't hyped as much and the director didn't go on record with most of the ideas he had for the game that never made it at launch, we would be singing a different tune then what we are now.

Being a fanboi of Funcom myself I didn't fall for the hype of the game. I know better. What they were promising at launch didn't fool me. Can I blame Funcom? Hell no. That's how you sell a product. Promise this and promise that, problem is they ran out of time and the game just didn't meet to the standards the people and devs wanted.

I think WE as gamers and MMOers are putting the bar way to high. Developers are always trying to do the next big thing, to wow us all, and get over their heads because we all demand perfection, or close to it. Heck I think most of us just want a solid playable core of an MMO. Something that can built up over time....but even then to many people would complain about a lack of content and want to bail anyways. If you think about it, to be a MMO developer your almost damned if you do, damned if you don't

Just my take on things.

Originally posted by xenorace

I believe in Funcom. Having played both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan for sometime, I know they have the potential to make a great MMO. They have made management changes, and I think for the best.

Don't get me wrong though, I am a consumer too, and if they fuck up The Secrete Worlds launch like they did with AO and AoC, I don't think I could invest into another Funcom product either. But time will tell and for all our sake (the ones waiting for this title), let's hope for the best.

I have high hopes for TSW, but then again im not going to get my hopes up.

I loved Anarchy Online, even with all its flaws because it was something a bit different than what was availible at the time (EQ and other EQish games set in high fantasy).

AoC I knew was going to have a lot of issues, of which I blame Gaute for most of it (He was an ego-maniac and didnt like anyone calling him or the game out on its flaws, which if anyone was in the beta they could easily see how anyone who showed concern were either given a genaric "Its all being tested internally and will be there at launch" or flamed directly by him and some other members of the team).

I think Funcom realized the mistakes that were made with Gaute and his handling of AoC's development, hence the whole canning of Gaute and allowing Ragnar almost full control over any info about TSW that is given to the general public. If you read interviews with Ragnar, or watch videos, you will notice that unlike Gaute and the AoC devs, the TSW team likes to only answer on things they know are working and really shy away from mentioning beyond "We want to but cant talk about it at this time" anything that has to do with aspects of the game they are not totally sure of. Also if you notice, when AoC was in development there were tons of ads and interviews, even upto 2 years before the game was in a beta state. TSW development has been fairly quiet save for the random 'Dont forget about us' style viral puzzels that appear from time to time.

Again, I hope TSW ends up being a good game. I love Ragnars writing and ability to craft a great world and story (find AO's Prophet Without Honour book online and you will see what I mean).

But I will not get my hopes up and no one else should either. Look at the people who were burned with recent games such as WAR, AoC and Aion. So much promised and yet so much not delivered.