Syp’s out of town this week and has turned the keys to Bio Break over to fellow bloggers. Today’s post is from Steve of Nuke the Site from Orbit.
First bits of information are starting to spread around the web about The Secret World’s monthly content and things are looking amazing. It turns out that they are not going to be calling them updates but instead they will be called Issues, which makes perfect sense for a game so focused on story and content. Each Issue will add new stories but also, and this is so damn cool, add more depth to already existing story lines. So often in MMOs once they launch early areas area abandoned by developers and content is added on to the end… thus ensuring that those early areas become ghost towns. While a ghost town would be neat in The Secret World, I think this concept is going to help keep breathing new life into areas that would otherwise be forgotten and ignored by both developers and players.
Remember those quick simple missions at the Overlook Motel, yeah, they are expanding on that a bit now it seems. Time to run back there and see what has developed in the story since you character was last there. This makes me curious what else Funcom has in store for the future of the game story wise. Will they be doing the unthinkable in modern themepark MMOs and actually changing the world gradually as the story progresses?
The last MMO that attempted to do this sort of thing that I can think of was The Matrix Online. The continuing story of The Matrix Online is what kept so many of the players loyal for so many years. The Matrix was not a great game that was for sure, in fact many of the criticisms leveled against The Secret World are similar to criticisms of The Matrix Online back when it was in operation. The combat was nothing original, just spam hot keys. The combat animations were poor. The game had lots of bugs. What The Matrix Online did have those was one of the most amazing communities and loyal player base I was ever a part of. People felt ‘involved’ in the world, they felt like part of it and they kept playing to see what was going to happen next.
I dare say that The Secret World is already looking to be a game that could very well be the same. Things are not perfect with Funcom’s newest MMO that is for sure… but people are having great amounts of fun with it and actually want to see what happens next. I can honestly say it has been 3 years for me since an MMO has peaked my interest that much and I am so thankful that someone has finally taken the chance to create a place I want to explore and be a part of. Plus I really just love Kingsmouth and its surrounding areas so any chance to learn more about it I am excited about.
TSW keeps surprising me. I like many bloggers judged this game as another Age-Of-Conan too early.
What doesn’t make sense is why Funcom didn’t actually advertise before launch that they were going to be doing all of this awesome stuff. The story-based questing (which is one of the most praised aspects), was barely even glazed over pre-beta. Perhaps they didn’t want to overhype?
If so, they’ve done a great job at not raising expectations too high (in a good way).
Now it’s being called a ‘sleeper hit’
What a strange term for a AAA game!
I like Kingsmouth and I really like The Savage Coast but the one part I didn’t take to was Overlook Motel. It would take an awful lot to make me go back there again.
Not as much, however, as it would take for me to revisit Blue Mountain, which I would be happy never to see again. The Draug can have it for my money.
Egypt, on the other hand, is fun fun fun. Bright sun, blue skies, comprehensible enemies with manageable hitpoints and some really great characters and storylines. I’m slightly miffed that Egypt only seems to have two zones compared to the other to regions’ three. Or have I missed one?
What I would probably need to keep me playing TSW over the alternatives, though, wouldn;t be additions to previous areas. It would absolutely require new areas. Fortunately, they have those on the way too.
Yeah, was doing Overlook last night with my bride, hellish place, literally and figuratively. Not eager to run my solo toons through it.