The Secret World: Conspiracy addict
The Secret World is in an interesting spot right now, promotion-wise. That it’s a hot franchise, I have no doubt, but it also seems like it’s lurking in the background, unwilling or unable to take the spotlight just yet. Maybe that’s the plan — after all, with SWTOR and Guild Wars 2 hogging the limelight, Funcom could be waiting until the initial furor of launch passes by before ramping up publicity for TSW’s April release. Or the company could just be aiming at a modest launch that will be (hopefully) propelled by word-of-mouth testimonies.
While that’s all speculation and who really knows, I have a good gut feeling about TSW. It shows confidence (or a desperation to put some dollars in Funcom’s wallet) that the launch window is set this far out — especially when you consider SWTOR still can’t get more specific than “holiday 2011.” Ragnar Tornquist is a personal game designer hero of mine, especially after his storytelling brilliance in The Longest Journey (and to a lesser extent, Dreamfall). Tornquist’s name escapes any of the baggage associated with Age of Conan, which may help TSW get off the ground without too many presumptions by grumpy gamers.
And there’s a lot of fun ideas involved here: a contemporary setting, a level-free skill-based system, secret societies, and so on. I think Funcom may be tapping into a huge reservoir of geek love with its embrace of the “Everything is True” mantra that guides The Secret World’s lore. People love a good conspiracy, even though they’re almost always ridiculous and untrue, and to play in a virtual world where the most hair-brained idea is actually real has a huge amount of appeal.
I’m perhaps most intrigued by the devs’ proposed use of the internet and ARGs (alternate reality games) to tie-in with the MMO as an optional side-feature. I’ve never been the hugest ARG lover, but used properly, and especially with TSW’s setting, it could serve well to further blur the lines of reality and fiction. MMO gamers often are looking for ways to be involved with their favorite games when they’re not — or can’t — play them, and being able to spend a few minutes investigating an in-game mystery using Wikipedia or some obscure website might do the trick.
Yes, there will be wikis spoiling everything, but from the sounds of it, the devs are planning steps to keep ahead of the spoilers by holding back content and mysteries until certain points, and to hide some secrets so deep that it’ll take a long time to discover them.
Good secrets and good mysteries are wonderful elements to a gripping story, and like several other contemporary MMOs, The Secret World is unapologetic in its attempt to bring deep, involving storytelling back to online games instead of bland text boxes and 50-word summaries. I’ve hated seeing players turned off of the mere mention of “story” as if it’s a plague to be feared in our combat-centric MMOs, instead of the foundation upon which RPGs were built. Whether the devs or players take the role of master storytellers, the best upcoming MMOs are going to be the ones where a tale lingers in the mind a long time after the loot is discarded and sold as mere vendor trash.
- Posted in: The Secret World
I’m pretty much all in with TSW for many of the same reasons you mention, and I think this game has the potential to not only build hype but lasting impact for the game during their pre-launch buildup.
Certainly they could fall flat, but I like the risks they’re taking.
My hope for TSW is that it becomes a very specific niche game, perhaps like Fallen Earth. What I mean by that is that there is no where near as many pedestrian players in FE as in some other games and my experience with the community has been much more enjoyable as a result. Of course they need to be profitable and that is the puzzle, how to appeal to enough to be profitable but still maintain a good community.
I was going to say that perhaps the reason they are keeping the hype low key is that after the travesty that was the AoC launch they don’t want to repeat it. AoC was a good game, I certainly enjoyed it (or at least the Tortage part) but it took them a long time to fix the problems and that scared a lot of people off.
TSW cannot top the marketing machines of SWTOR and GW2 and I do not think they want to either.
The somewhat lurking/mystic approach and perhaps entice people to investigate themselves a bit more rather than blurt out in huge letters all over the place is also in line with the game’s theme.