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The Secret World : Interview with Ragnar Tornquist
Posted Oct 22, 2009 by Michael Bitton
The folks at UGDB recently got a chance to sit down with Funcom's Ragnar Tornquist to talk about their upcoming MMOG, The Secret World.
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In this latest interview, Ragnar Tornquist reveals a few nuggets of interesting information, such as the fact the game will make use of instanced dungeons (although they won't be calling them that) and even reveals a bit about the conspiracy theorist in himself, saying he believes there is "much more to this world than most of us are aware of..."
Ragnar Tornquist on grinding and how The Secret World differentiates itself from other games:
UGDB: The constant grinding for better equipment and XP is the plague of modern day MMORPGs. We already know that there will be neither levels, nor classes in The Secret World and the player’s character will be build through a skill-based system. What can you tell us about this system and if there is no grinding, then what are we going to do in this game?
RT: You're going to have fun! Our goal is to make sure that players can sit down and play this game and enjoy themselves from the very beginning. You don't start out fighting rats with a rusty sword. You get cool firearms, black magic, occult weapons from the outset - and you're fighting demons and the undead, not wild boar or petty criminals.
There will be tons of missions, spread out across an open world - there's PvP if that's your cup of tea, there's weapon upgrades, there's exploration, achievements... If you want to focus on going around and killing monsters, you can do that, and if you like the grind you can do the grind, but you don't have to - and that's the point. You get to create your own experience, and you get to have fun with it. This game isn't a full time job. It's entertainment, first and foremost.
Read the full interview here.
This game just sounds amazing. I hope they can pull it off.
The details are too few and far between to glean just what the gameplay will be like...but it has amazing potential.
While I am looking forward to the game until we can see some game play it is all typical marketingspeak and I am in a wait and see mode.
I definitely think this game has promise and i'd like to see it do well. especially after the let down of AoC, AoC could've been a great game but it just lacks decent end game. On a side note....whoever did the editing for that review should be freakin fired....good god, worse job i've seen in a long time. I wonder if they actually read it at all?
The game sounds better every time we get more information. It really does look like they've learned their lessons. And they have definitely set out to do something different, trying to give us an alternative to the standard MMO.
Maybe they won't deliver. If that's the case, I won't play it, no big deal.
I am keeping my eyes and ears open on this game and am hoping for the best. Ragnar truly did deliver with the Longest Journey, let's hope he doesn't drop the ball just when he is about to score another touchdown. :)
This is one of my last big hopes for the Genre. The way they started community building long before the game would be available was quite refreshing.
Agreed. It's kinda like hype, but with more depth.
yeah, just wish along with the hype they would give us something tangible, some actual gameplay trailers, even just some early stuff to give us the slightest clue of what it will actually look/play like. vague & fancy cool looking trailers/ads, as badass as the ones for this game are, are nice and all, but we are playing a game, not watching a movie.
Im definitely interested in the game, but its pretty much nothing but a fancy story and cool sounding concept with a few nift features at this point. until i see some real footage, not gonna get my hopes up too much
Of course, if they released some early stuff, that would just be more fodder for the haters to latch onto. Better to leave it up to hype for a while until they have something worth showing us.
I kinda like the mystery though... the way they reveal a little at a time... seems very appropriate considering the theme of the game.
I don't get how people are again and again falling for this kind of marketing hype.
Potential....learned their lessons....something different????
Would some of you please consider to read the early interviews of people like Gaude Godager and other funcomedians about AoC, just to find the exact same babbling like in this interview?
i enjoyed AO and AOC .... i think from their past games i'll enjoy TSW.
i enjoyed AO and AOC .... i think from their past games i'll enjoy TSW.
At least for AoC it's save to say that the majority didn't enjoy it as much as you did obviously (and btw you does't even list them in your favorite mmos)
Im definitively going to try this game no matter what (after its been out for 2-3 months ofc) and think the setting theyre building will be a good variation on the more common fantasy theme... except it will be very difficult to pull off. I really think we should cool our expectations about this game because it seems specially vulnerable to the effects of hype. I can see it coming, a good half of the people quitting the first month will complaint about how the concept was "betrayed" and did not live up to its potential regardless of the more tangible and legitimate complaints they may have.
I do trust it will be a good game regardless of wether it becomes succesful, but im also sure it will piss a lot of people off.
Agreed. It's kinda like hype, but with more depth.
I agree on here too. The community has been working on puzzles for years now. Trully refreshing and a more fun way to build up hype for sure.
There are some true Sherlock Holmes on those forums over there lol.
At least for AoC it's save to say that the majority didn't enjoy it as much as you did obviously (and btw you does't even list them in your favorite mmos)
That was because the majority couldn't run the game.
And the difference between Gaute Godager and Ragnar Tørnquist. Is that Ragnar actually delivered highly succesful and very popular games.
At least for AoC it's save to say that the majority didn't enjoy it as much as you did obviously (and btw you does't even list them in your favorite mmos)
i can careless if the majority liked it... i said I enjoyed it... i didnt say they were my favorite MMOs either, i just said i enjoyed them. You're drawing at straws.
I definetly give this game a try. Its something new and fresh, so far.... lets see wahats comming out the next months. I hope they gonna release it as soon as possible (without making the same mistakes with AoC in the past)
Same.
First of all,games need to start bringing life to themselves.Sure it is nice and easy for a developer to use static meshes,but the entire game world seems dead using those.Then you figure those same static props look unrealistic when they just sit there motionless,it's like looking at character models with George Jetson hair doos.
I want to see that car moving or able to move,i want to see that gas pump actually pump gas,i want to see the wild life move about the game like they are real and not stuck to a node radius.I want to be able to blow up oil drums,pick up a pipe off the ground and throw it,the same faults FE have,games are just too stagnant and still stuck in the old school days.
For some time now,he Epic games people were showing off how easy it is to implement destruction in a game,and it looks real good too.This is what games need to do to warrant me buying them.Heck i will pay 200 bucks for a game that is worth it.
http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=UE3+destruction&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=3IbhSs_hD42OMY-C0a8B&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBYQqwQwAw#
The Phys x engine has been around for a bit now,it would be nice to see more games using it.
video.google.ca/videosearch
www.youtube.com/watch
Fancy graphic effects like those are a distraction from actual gameplay. I want devs designing good systems, not devoting too much time and money to trivial gimmicks.
MMOs are no place to be looking for state of the art graphics.
Be aware - this is FUNCOM speaking. Do not take their words as the truth in any sense.
Do NOT preorder this game or any game from FUncom. Wait for trial and then judge if it is worth your money.
Funcom has released two MMO games that both came out half finished and buggy - with very badly implemented core systems. It sounded great in the interviews - but the reality was totally diffrent. You can hope this game is diffrent - but experienced players should look at the trackrecord of Funcom and realise the most likely outcome.
You have been warned - simulare messages will be shown alot over the next few months and we will do our best to let ppl know the true story when it comes to Funcom.
Not interestingly, this sounds a lot like people who said sound in film was gimmicky and a distraction from the actual visual art form.
We? Who you and the gerbil you take orders from?
The only truth here is that you're some spiteful frothing at the mouth hater.
The other truth is that this Ragnar talking, and he's already delivered the goods with Longest Journey.
I bet people said it about 'Sensaround' and 'Smell-o-vision', too.