[For Mikes] Oh-nine, one

[Annatar]

A small The Secret World update from the blog of Ragnar Tornquist

Oh-nine, one
January 18th, 2009

First post of the new year, well into the new year; an entire 5% of 2009, in fact. What have you done with your five percent? What do you plan on doing with the remaining ninety-five percent?

Personally, I’m going to invest most of the next four weeks (or 8%) into The Secret World. We’ve recently made some Big Changes to the game and those need to be worked through. Direction is required. Funnily enough, that’s my job.

So what’s changing? It’s a bit too early to talk about details. Rest assured that little of what you’ve seen so far will change dramatically: it’s the stuff we haven’t shown (or, indeed, made yet) that’s gone back to the drawing board. The story and the setting is the same as it’s been since the early 00’s. The locations, the conspiracies and mysteries, the vast history, intriguing characters and fantastical creatures, the light and the darkness - it’s all there. The gameplay is going through a redesign - for the better, let me assure you - and we’re revisiting content produced in the past two years to lift it up to a whole new level. Not necessarily graphically, because the game already looks amazing, but to link everything thematically, to emphasise the importance of the story, to add contrast and drama and spectacle, to create a world that people will want to experience and live in. Permanently.

We want The Secret World to stand out and be remembered - obviously. To not be just another MMORPG, a WoW clone, of which there are already too many. We’re going to play up the strengths of our universe and differentiate ourselves in both the setting and the gameplay - and particularly in how players can become exactly who they want to be, their secret selves, both visually and in terms of powers. Everyday adventurers and superheroes; guardians of the secret world; champions of Gaia. Warriors. Explorers. Cryptologists. Cryptozoologists. Mystics. Magi. Demonologists. Storytellers. Historians. Travellers. Lovers.

And just because we’re not talking much about the game at this point doesn’t mean there’s no game, or that we’re going to take longer than planned to finish the game - it just means that we want to wait a little longer before we reveal our deepest, darkest secrets to you (yes, even you, faithful followers, although you will be the first to know - the reveal will, hopefully, begin here). Another year? No, certainly not. 2009 will be the year where you learn about the secret world and begin to D2D (though I did warn you about that part) and play a role in unravelling the vast conspiracies that span oceans of time and space.

Oh yes, it’s going to be a fun year. All ninety-five percent of it.

[Mikes]

Annatar, I'm sending good karma your way Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I completely missed it.

The more I learn about TSW the more excited I get. So far it's really speaking to the part of me that used to play pen and paper RPGs (back in highschool, before I realised that girls were more than just boys without doodles) and especially Kult - possibly the best P&P RPG made.

[Annatar]

I am still keeping an eye on the game, but I am waiting to see a bit more of what is planned for some of the systems of the game (crafting etc) before I get too involved. After playing games like WAR etc, I think that I am sort of looking for a bit more of a sandbox-ish style game for the next one I play.

That said, they need to start looking a disseminating some information about the game to the TSW community, as they have been spending the past year or so theorycrafting and building up in their minds what they want for the game, and I fear there might be more than a few tears when the the ball drops.

[Bansaw]

Even though I'm not Mikes.. .or am I muhahaha Thanks for the post, I knew absolutely nothing about this game until reading this and now I'm very interested. The thought of a game that's not sci-fi or fantasy is exciting indeed.