The Secret World
Oh! Oh oh.. here's news of a new MMO, and it sounds like the sort of thing that would get me out of WoW. These things don't come along that often..
"We always wanted a different kind of online world, something scary and contemporary, something deeper and closer to our reality," says the game's producer and director. "Our goal now is to create a detailed world where players feel empowered and part of something big, something mystical and epic."
Woo-ah! It's called The Secret World, and it sounds very Gaiman-esque, which is only a good thing. However, Funcom?
From the creators of ‘Age of Conan’, ‘Anarchy Online’, ‘The Longest Journey’ and 'Dreamfall' comes a brave new massively multiplayer online role–playing game for the PC and Xbox 360. Taking place on our earth, in our times, ‘The Secret World’ (TSW) is inspired by history and mythology, modern conspiracy theories and ancient mysteries.
Age of Conan.. Crecente's favourite. AO.. long history. Never heard of the other two. There are teaser sites up, apparently where concept art and such will be available.
This one's got a weird flash gamelet on it (click the flashing light), but rotating these flower poles does aught. I suppose there's a clue somewhere I should find.
Meanwhile, pretty overexcited about Stardust. I wonder whether MMOs of the future will include the 'movie' format, an MMO with a story of the sort of length played out during a movie, a shorter experience designed to be completed within, say, a few months?
The Longest Journey and Dreamfall are excellent (single-player) story-driven adventure games... well worth a play. The Longest Journey stands as my favourite ever game on the strength of the writing and the sci-fi/fantasy stylings.
The prospect of an MMO with a good, well fleshed-out story, by Ragnar Tornquist no less, has me very excited for The Secret World :)
Posted by: Jon K | May 14, 2007 at 01:03
You've never heard of The Longest Journey? Omgz.
Fantastic adventure game with a strong female lead character. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?
Dreamfall's the 3D slightly actiony sequel. Funcom roX
Posted by: Jodi | May 14, 2007 at 01:16
Both are on sale at Steam now too ($9.95 for just TLJ, or $24.95 for both). It's a shame they're not going to finish out the story.
Posted by: Michael W. | May 14, 2007 at 01:57
Obligatory plug for a game I haven't played in four years: A Tale in the Desert has done the "MMO with a definite ending" thing -- multiple times, in fact. Of course, ATITD was never particularly story-driven or very good at moody drama (other than the usual guild drama, of course).
Posted by: joshlee | May 14, 2007 at 04:35
This does look interesting. The one thing that concerns me is whether Funcom will actually have enough money to make all this stuff.
I played Age Of Conan the other day and I can safely say "Hmm". It's packed with interesting ideas, but I just can't see it working long-term.
Posted by: Rossignol | May 14, 2007 at 09:37
Michael W: According to Ragnar Tornquist's blog they are going to finish it off, using an *episodic model* win! (although that may happen after the MMO launches) Oh and if you don't want to grab it on steam you can pick up a cheap Xbox dreamfall and it's backwards compatible on the 360 (which is what I'm doing right now). It's yummy.
Posted by: nedrichards | May 14, 2007 at 10:18
There's more than just flower poles, there's 4 sets of 3 symbols you get by clicking on various places - only one of each group of 3 is right, and that one has to be put around the circle in the right place/orientation...
Posted by: Jonathan | May 14, 2007 at 12:30
You really should look into the two you've not experienced, they do lend extra weight to this being a 'potential'.
Posted by: WS | May 14, 2007 at 14:47
I'm keeping an eye on The Secret World. It looks really cool. Part Gaiman as you said, but from another picture, also part Lovecraft.
Posted by: Brinstar | May 14, 2007 at 15:51
I'd like to add my recommendations for The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. TLJ is a little dated now, but it's a good story-driven adventure game. Check 'em out on Steam, or scour the bargain bins, they're out there. I've seen them lumped into RPG categories lately, though, and they're definitely not RPG's. They're classic adventure games.
One huge tip for enjoying both games...if you get stuck on a puzzle, don't hesitate to look up spoilers on something like gamefaq.com. I found that I got stuck a couple times on my way through both games, and I would get needlessly annoyed by trying not to "cheat".
There's so much gameplay in both stories that it doesn't make sense to punish yourself by getting annoyed by a puzzle and giving up on the story. I'll take a spoiler to get me back on the right track so I can enjoy what's been created for me. I'm old enough now that I can't spend an entire Saturday figuring out mysteries and puzzles :) If I can't figure it out in a reasonable amount of time, I'll cheat and move on.
Posted by: Rick M | May 14, 2007 at 17:18
With so many new MMO, do you think the average gamer will have enough available time to play them all? Do the multiplication of MMO will change the way they are played? I wonder, will they dev specialised MMO to target different audience or will the new MMO will be made for casual gaming? The MMO marked must be somewhat different from the marked of other video games.
Posted by: V | May 14, 2007 at 18:02
I'm absolutely going to check out those other two now.
Posted by: Alice | May 14, 2007 at 18:34