Secret World Legends Articles
I recently had the most meta experience of my entire gaming life. There I was, relaxing after the insanity of E3 and ready to settle into The Secret World’s Tokyo. Then I learned, you need to earn access to get there. It makes sense, they don’t want any noob to just wander in. So I started doing a bit of research. I had two options. The first and possibly most popular was to do scenarios. They aren’t really my thing though, so I opted for the second way.
As you might be aware, the game underwent some transition and the team became a smaller one. Yet the dedication to the promised content prevailed, and it is finally ready. We got a peek into the new content with Game Director Joel Bylos this week, who took us through what players can expect when they finally enter Tokyo.
As we enter the final stretch before Tokyo I’d like to pause for a moment to pay tribute to our favorite Redshirts, the Orochi. We will be heading straight to the heart of Orochi headquarters to find out what exactly happened. There is no doubt that we will meet many Orochi along the way. And maybe, just maybe one will survive. But we aren’t going to hold our breath.
While The Secret World's Tokyo expansion isn't ready to launch yet, the team hasn't forgotten how anxious its players are and have sent out a typically cryptic video called "A Message from Kaidan". Check it out and let us know what you think.
While we continue to wait for the moment when we can get into Tokyo I thought I would take a bit of time to skip ahead and look at things that would in my mind take The Secret World from fantastic to out of this world. These are all things that would keep people playing or improve the quality of life and could possibly be implemented post Tokyo. So in no particular order here are seven things I’d like to see introduced to TSW.
Fans of the lore behind Funcom's The Secret World will want to check out the new page dedicated to the characters that players will encounter, the movers and shakers, of Tokyo. These characters will be revealed in Issue #9: The Black Signal.
Mankini gate is done and gone. However in all the coverage, there's never really been enough said for me about the in game store available to The Secret World players. I have choices to be making. Do I want to fight evil while dapper in a suit? Do I want to wear a pretty little off the shoulder number? Do I want to be a cosmonaut? Admittedly some of the choices are stranger than the others, but the choices remain.
Hot off the back of the mankini-gate scandal a discussion has been born asking what the IP of The Secret World actually is. How do you define something with such broad reaching strangeness? The discussion on the official forums has been going on for 19 pages now with everyone from fan to developer chiming in. Can there really be one solid definition of what The Secret World is? And do outfits like the Mankini and Sight for Sore Eyes really detract from the intellectual property?
The Secret World's Joel Bylos has taken to the official game forums to participate in a thread with specific regard to last week's April Fool's Joke where a "mankini" was being sold in the in-game shop. The mankini, a poke at gender equality and revealing outfits, created a veritable storm of indignation when the item was not only removed from the in-game shop, but also from players who had purchased it. In the letter, Bylos goes over the timeline of the issue and offers a word of apology.
The Further Analysis mission pack for The Secret World is now live and available for purchase from the Funcom store for 960 points. Click on through for more details.
When I was considering the various topics I could cover for this week’s TSW column I was faced with so many options I really didn’t know where to start. First Joel announces new content, then there Mankini-gate, and finally there has been ARG activity. How could I pick just one? I couldn’t. So we’re breaking it down into four parts.
For many the first time they ever heard about The Secret World it was thanks to an ARG. Funcom spent years leading up to TSW with a series of ARGs meant to engage, entertain, and sometimes terrify. After the launch sadly ARGs were all but abandoned, with only two since July of 2012. Now the alternate reality games are getting a bit of a boost. Last week, on the 14th a new ARG started, dealing with Division 66.
Go to any forums for MMOs and you will eventually find people bemoaning the fact that every MMO out there is the same. Maybe they use words like “WoW clone” or “copycat” but the idea is always the same, there just isn’t enough variety in MMOs. And yes, the industry is filled with one fantasy game after another. But there are other games that get over looked. Whenever I see someone complaining all MMOs are the same I ask them, “What about The Secret World?”
Funcom has released its Q4 2013 financial statements. The numbers are down sharply from a year ago. According to the report, Age of Conan and The Secret World are still viable properties that make money but the revenue gain is leaner due to an increasingly crowded free to play MMO market.
Joel Bylos has penned this month's Producer's Letter. In it, he discusses the addition of Mystery Boxes to the game's item shop. Bylos spends time discussing what these boxes are and are not, in essence assuring players they are not "lockboxes" and contain nothing that can't be earned or found in the game world. In addition, Bylos informs players that Tokyo will be divided into two sections and will be delayed by a few weeks from its original projected release date.
