CGN: The Secret World has moved! http://crygaia.net Check us out at http://crygaia.com Mon, 07 May 2012 09:26:42 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Pre-Orders Now Available! http://crygaia.net/news/pre-orders-now-available/ http://crygaia.net/news/pre-orders-now-available/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:38:58 +0000 Selzi http://crygaia.net/?p=3312 http://crygaia.net/news/pre-orders-now-available/feed/ 0 Cry Gaia Journal: February 2012 http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-february-2012/ http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-february-2012/#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:43:31 +0000 Vengeful-frog http://crygaia.net/?p=3202

  • Fashion Week Live:

    • FWL “is currently in the later stages of limited beta testing. This phase has been extended somewhat primarily due to approval and partnership coordination.” “Funcom expects Fashion Week Live to launch and initiate monetization within the next 4-8 weeks” (i.e. between end March and end April). Source: Funcom’s Q4 presentation


GAME INFORMATION

  • Lead Content Designer Joel ‘Nusquam’ Bylos made this comment on DDCG:

    Hey guys, I thought this was fairly common knowledge but I guess maybe not.

    We use a similar system to AoC, but with a higher player cap per zone. In addition, the playfields are more “connected” due to the Agartha hub.

    We have single player instances (though not many and mostly for the story mission or something we need to be particularly atmospheric) and we do not have “phased” areas like in ToR. (except the “death” state)

    In terms of area design, we try not to put in corridors unless it makes sense (i.e. it’s hard to do windy canyons without having that windy canyons feel )

    In Kingsmouth Town, for example, you can pretty much pick a direction and head off in that direction until something stops you (house, car, fog which turns people inside out e.t.c)

    Hubs will not have a player cap; we may instance some features like the Stage area to give roleplayers some privacy and control.

    Source: Joel Bylos’s post on DDCG

  • GamesRadar.com published an interview of Lead Designer Martin ‘Snow’ Bruusgaard about the decks: Introducing the deck system – Lead designer at Funcom reveals the details behind various decks.

    Martin Bruusgaard later made this comment in reply to discussions related to the interview:

    Just to clear some stuff up.

    A deck is just abilities, since we only focus on ability synergy in them. How the player chooses to gear him/herself is up to them.
    In the *gearmanager* you will be able to save abilities AND the gear you have equipped.

    And I saw some concerns if the decks were optimal or not. Optimal is a somewhat incorrect term to use, as some decks are good for one type of content, and another deck might be better for something else. You should think of the decks as a premade deck from any collectible card game. It does the job, it works, but in time you will probably start tinkering around with swapping certain cards, and try new combinations out.

    Source:
    funcom_tsw’s tweet
    Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

  • In answer to xRedd’s question about “a search bar to find a specific kind of skill. Like, search the name of the skill, find all skills that do x effect, or what ever”, Martin Bruusgaard said it’s “already in the game. You can search for names, tags, states, trigger fx, weapon type, etc”. Source: xRedd’s and Martin Bruusgaard’s posts on DDCG
  • The release date is 19th June 2012 instead of 24th April. “Funcom intends to spend the additional development time focusing on polish and tweaking to maximize the potential of the game. The beta feedback so far is showing very positive reactions to core game features such as the role-playing systems, combat, missions, dungeons, story and immersion. Among the beta testers surveyed, almost 9 out of 10 say they will play the game at launch.” “The additional time will also allow [Funcom] to carry out even more quality beta testing, and soon [it] will also be announcing several public beta events where hundreds of thousands of gamers will get to test the game prior to launch.” Source: thesecretworld.com – The Secret World to launch June 19, 2012
  • Joel Bylos talked about the weapon skills:

    Abilities and Ability Points – Purchased in the Ability Wheel. 500+ unique. No requirements of any kind on them and they only scale with gear.

    Weapon Skills – Purchased on the Skill Screen. (see above). These are basically equip requirements for gear. You can rank up every single weapon without restriction, but as with the ability system it will take time.

    Why the addition of weapon skills?
    It became very obvious in the early beta rounds that it was possible to bypass all the content in the game by having a friend hand you the most powerful equipment the day you started playing. Yes you would not be versatile, but you would be able to bypass almost all of the general content immediately.
    The ramifications of not changing it should be obvious – gold sellers running rampant, a destroyed economy, content becoming trivial the instant people begin playing etc.

    The skill system does not impact the freeform nature of the game:
    You can still play how you want to play.

    He then added:

    No you do not have to rank up both roles of a weapon to be able to meet equip requirements.

    It is 3 Ability Points for every 1 Skill Point.

    Some numbers for consideration – filling an entire weapon type in the ability wheel is something like 588 AP. Filling a single weapon skill line is 55sp.
    So by the time you have purchased all abilities in the inner and outer hive for a single weapon type, you’ll be able to max out 3.5 weapon skills!
    All numbers are considered beta and might change by launch ™.

    No, these are not levels, or even remotely like levels. Levels are used for many purposes in games: item restriction is one of those purposes. But then you are forgetting about things like content gating, XP scaling, general power increase. e.t.c. We don’t use this for anything except item restriction.

    The small “feats” you get from increasing weapon skills are trivial but do provide a small sense of progression and flavor for your build.

    Martin Bruusgaard added this:

    Chakras, has stats, not visible
    Weapons, has stats, visible
    Clothing, does NOT have stats, visible

    You can look exactly the way you want to look :)

    Besides, Martin Bruusgaard said:

    Yes you can mod the look of your weapon, but no sorry you can’t split up the clothing rewards from decks. They’re too intricate :)

    Source:
    Joel Bylos’s post 1 on DDCG
    Joel Bylos’s post 2 on DDCG
    Martin Bruusgaard’s post 1 on DDCG
    Martin Bruusgaard’s post 2 on DDCG

  • New hands-on previews have been published. Among others, we learnt that Shambala is, at least temporarily, cancelled for PvP. It will however be used for PvE (source: tsw.mondespersistants.com, Google translation). Joel Bylos gave on DDCG the following explanation:

    Frankly as the game got closer to launch we had to make the hard calls about the ranked arena. It was the only 2-sided PvP in the game, it had large code requirements (ranking system) and we guessed the player base was more excited about large scale 3-way pvp.
    So we cut it.
    “Kill your babies” is unfortunately a part of the game development motto.

  • Some questions about crafting found their answer:

    • To Leck’s question “What I want to know is, if crafting is truely like Minecraft then can we ‘discover’ a crafting recipe via experimentation? Because that would be cool.”, Joel Bylos replied:

      “That is how you discover all crafting recipes. That is all.”

      Martin Bruusgaard added:

      It’s not driven by a skill stat, but rather player skill. You don’t unlock/buy recipes. You disassemble and learn from it. Crafting is supposed to be a support tool for player playing the game. If you really want crit/pen/damage/health on your lower chakra you can play and hope it drops, buy it on the tradepost, or craft it. Keep in mind that our items consist really of 3 items; prefix core and suffiix. If you want the gear to compliment you build you will need very specific gear (depending on what you want to achieve ofc).

      The shape of the item (3×4 grid) defines the item type (shotgun, sword, misc chakra types, etc) and the materials used define the stat type on them. (crit chance, penetration chance, block chance, etc)

      Leck: You will be able to craft similar items to what drops around in the game, but also unique items.

      We really want crafting to be a support tool for people playing the game :)

      Source:
      Joel Bylos’s post on DDCG
      Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

    • Zikari’s question “Just for verification, you won’t get any materials out of disassembling items, right? You only need to do so once to per prefix, suffix and weapon to get it’s blueprint in your recipe-book? All the materials you will get from somewhere else?” got the following answer:

      No this is incorrect.
      There is not a recipe book. You learn them. Not your character. You. (Though there is some internal discussion of allowing basic recipe patterns to be stored somewhere for reference)
      Materials come from breaking down items.

      I see your concern about everything being useful to everyone – but this was always the case in a system where every weapon would be of value to everyone – before the crafting system was mentioned.

      Source: Joel Bylos’s post on DDCG

    • Martin Bruusgaard said this:

      Yes we have items which are BoE [Bind on Equip], and BoP [Bind on Pickup], and some that are neither.

      We have item degradation, and other money sinks, to stimulate the economy and prevent inflation.

      I believe crafting can support trading quite well. One thing that I don’t think has been mentioned is that item deconstruction is always done with a “loss”, meaning you don’t get to keep the prefix, core and suffix. This is another tool for us to extract items out of the system. It also makes specific affixes and cores more valuable.

      I also read some concerns about how a game where everyone can potentially equip everything can be straining on a guild. This is a valid concern, however it’s a matter of design ideology. We don’t believe that adding arbitrary restrictions to who gets to use what items, in a game everyone can be whatever they want, makes sense. We do have the skill system, which ensures that you have some experience in a weapon type before you can equip the best items of that type, but yes, at some point a lot of players will have maxed out all their skills. In some games those rules makes total sense, but we feel it doesn’t fit TSW.
      But as I said, it is a valid concern, and we are actually working on a way to handle loot distribution in a slightly different way than people might be used to. I don’t want to get into how and what because it will *not* be in for launch. Just wanted to mention it, because there are other ways to make looting as fair as possible without adding equip restrictions :)

      Source: Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

  • Martin Bruusgaard said this about progression:

    A few words about xp that might make things a bit more clear. The xp bar at the bottom of the screen is divided into 3 segments. Whenever you fill up 1/3 you get an ability point. Whenever you fill up you whole bar, you get a skill point. The amount of xp needed to fill up the bare is static, and the further “out” into the secret world you go, the more xp you get from monsters and missions. This means that if you are playing in for instance Transylvania, you will be getting xp, and points, faster than what you did in Kingsmouth. This makes skilling up new weapons faster.

    Source: Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

  • Martin Bruusgaard revealed new information about the server structure:

    • ZAM.com’s interview:

      ZAM: Alright, moving on then, another hot topic is server architecture. The Secret World is one of those rare games where you have players from all over the world interacting with each other and expressing a real desire to play together. In terms of architecture, do you have plans to make EU-exclusive servers? Will you employ region locks?

      Martin: At the bottom, it’s a single server that we will split into shards, basically. Originally – and this was four years ago – we said, “One server,” and that was it. But because of the persistent PvP, we realized it wouldn’t really work if you had one server. The playfields had to have a population cap, and if we did employ population caps, then only a very small percentage of the player base would be able to do the persistent PvP. So we decided to split the player population up into servers. All the mini-games, however, will be cross-server.

      When it comes to if we’ll split between EU and the US, we’re still testing that out. We’ve seen that if we put a server on the East Coast in the US, we get a ping of about 70, which is fairly acceptable.

      ZAM: From Europe?

      Martin: Yeah! We haven’t made a decision yet, and we’re trying it out. But even if we’re going for one or two splits, the foundation is still a single server split into different shards.

      ZAM: So there won’t be region locks where I can’t play with someone from Europe just because of hard barriers.

      Martin: Nope.

      Thanks to Betalloid and Katelin for pointing out this information.
      Source: zam.com – An In-Depth Interview With TSW’s Martin Bruusgaard

    • Martin Bruusgaard also confirmed what Kazzamo said:

      El Dorado and Stone Henge = battlegrounds. Not persistent, cross shard. 15v15v15 for El Dorado in a capture and hold relic style timed match. Stone Henge 5v5v5 king of the hill style timed match.

      Warzone = Persistent, not cross shard, never multiple instances, faction wide buff to owner. At minimum 33 reserved spots for each faction to keep balance. It doesn’t need 33 of each to start it’s just the limit for that faction in the example given there could only be 5 dragon, 10 templar, and 30 illuminati in the zone. There is only 1 at launch for each shard.

      Source: Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

  • Funcom released its 4th quarter financial report for 2011:

    • A timeline has been communicated:

      • February: Press hands-on events, Oslo and Montreal
      • March: GDC demos and press hands-on
      • March-June: Ramp up of closed beta tests for tech, content and functionality
      • April: PAX demo and hands-on
      • April-May: Launch of pre-order-program
      • May-June: Extensive open beta events, Funcom only and with global partners
      • May-June: Final dimensioning of server park
      • June: Launch

      Source: Funcom’s Q4 presentation

    • Then, they summed up the feedbacks they got:

      The Secret World gets positive feedback on several aspects such as combat, role-playing-systems, content quality and variation, immersion, story and setting. Comments on improvement areas have focused on improving the accessibility and presentation of the new RPG-system, on easing the difficulty level of the game and on polish.

      Source: Funcom’s Q4 report

GENERAL INFORMATION

  • MilitaryGamers.com is “a community of US military veterans who play a variety of games together.” Their friends and family can play thanks to the Auxiliary program. Applicants “must be 18 and mature to join”. The guild plans to be present in all factions. Announcement militarygamers.com
  • The cabal list is in a census phase again, hence the announcement of the cancellation of several cabals in February and, probably, March.
  • Impact Gaming Community “is a multi-game gaming community currently hosting Final Fantasy XIV [Neutral Impact], Star Wars: The Old Republic [Radiant Impact], and a startup for Guild Wars 2 [Violent Impact].” The community operates in North America. The alignment is not yet decided. Announcement impact-gaming.us


CABALS


CABALS

  • Despair describes itself as “a seven-year-old mature gaming community that has been a[n] end game raiding guild in Everquest 2, Vanguard, Rift, Warhammer and SWTOR. Many of the members of Despair have also played most of the AAA MMO’s out there. [Despair's] focus is on the community and killing end game raid bosses.” It also does PvP. Announcement mmo.despairguild.com
  • Pax Agnitio will be present in the PVE, PVP and RP aspects of the game. This community exists since 2001 and is present in SWTOR (both factions), Star Trek Online, Eve Online, Rift and LOTRO. It plans to add divisions in PlanetSide 2 and Warhammer: Dark Millenium Online. Regarding recruitment, they have no age limit but a level of maturity is however required. Announcement paxgaming.com


CABALS

  • Templar Combat Brotherhood (TCB) is a guild for people who keep in mind that RL comes first and like PvP. Members will enjoy a certain freedom, there won’t be someone trying to tell them what to do and can solo if they feel in the mood to. The guild will play Guild Wars 2 as the “Tyrian Combat Brotherhood”. Announcement
  • The Tech-Organization “is a cabal based on team work, brothership and fighting for a cause worth fighting for.” The cabal accepts both weak and strong gamers. Announcement
  • Cerberus won’t be present as a guild.
]]> http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-february-2012/feed/ 0 Cry Gaia Journal: January 2012 http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-january-2012/ http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-january-2012/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:27:21 +0000 Vengeful-frog http://crygaia.net/?p=3082

  • Age of Conan:
    • House of Crom has been released. This “is a massive new location, with a lot of great new content for maximum level players to enjoy. [...] This epic location brings with it many new dynamic encounters [and] new loot”. House of Crom is composed of two dungeons: ‘The Threshold of Divinity’ (“a social dungeon for up to four six-player groups”) and ‘The Vile Nativity’ (“six-player group dungeon”). “These areas are the largest indoor dungeons [the AoC team] have created to date”. Source: ageofconan.com – House of Crom


GAME INFORMATION

  • In Remyx99′s article ‘Martin Bruusgaard’s holiday answers‘ brought new information.
    • Clothes and outfits:

      Clothes will be available from vendors, shops and marketplaces, but many items will also be reward based. One thing I’m particularly excited about is the template deck outfits. Template decks are a set of powers that enable the player to fulfill a certain role, and this is comparable to Magic the Gathering’s starter decks. On completion of any of these templates the player is given an outfit that reflects what that deck is. So for instance, if a player completes the Ninja deck, he or she is given a Ninja costume. All of the templates are faction specific, meaning that there will be different outfits for Templars, Illuminati or Dragon!

    • Cross faction organizations:

      We have plans for umbrella organisations that can go cross faction, but this will not be in for launch. We need to focus on getting the core gameplay tight, but we plan to make steady, and plenty of, content updates.”

      Then, he added on DDCG:

      All I can say is that it won’t be in for launch, and if you want to be 100% sure to be in the same cabal as your buddies, you should roll the same Secret Society.

      With a studio audacious enough to break from now long established concepts such as classes and levels, one could speculate about plans to make factions face internal dissensions and re-group differently. Time will tell…

    Source:
    crygaia.net – Martin Bruusgaard’s holiday answers
    Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

  • Senior Designer Brent Ellison explained how dungeons are designed. “Dungeons in The Secret World are challenging and intense, an opportunity for players to test their builds, skills and teamwork to the utmost. They serve as very focused content, in sharp contrast to the wide sandboxes of the playfields. In a dungeon, players live and die by the strength of their team and their ability to strategise to meet the odds.” More details on TheSecretWorld.com.Source: TheSecretWorld.com – BLOG: Dungeon Making Process
  • Week of the Illuminati:
    • Lead Content Designer Joel Bylos attended a Q&A session organized on Facebook.
      • Nathan Hart’s question asking for more insight into Kirsten Geary got the following answer:

        “Kirsten is the model Illuminati – ruthlessly capable. The last decade of Illuminati stars all owe their start to Kirsten, and usually end up owing many other things to her as well. She is upfront about the viciousness of the organization – she honestly wants her charges to succeed, not least because of the kudos she racks up because of it, but she is absolutely prepared to sign a death warrant on your third strike.”

      • Sarah Thomas’s question “Will there ever be a chance to befriend those in the Illuminati if you’re not part of it or is the rivalry in the game pretty set in stone?” got the following answer:

        “Players in the Illuminati are free to form alliances (PvE grouping) with who they will. NPC’s in the Illuminati will talk to the members of other factions – even work with them if they need to – but it would be a stretch to say that they will ever be friends.”

      • Reed Dickerson got the following answer to his question “How will the Illuminati being located in New York affect gameplay? Will there be chances to interact with city?”:

        “Players will travel to locations within the city to complete some missions, but perhaps you refer to other types of interactions? I can give one example: Very early in the game, the player follows a trail of Illuminati surveillance cameras through the city. Later the player will be able to access a computer which allows them to view live feeds of the city streets through those very cameras.”

      The complete Q&A session can be read on TSW’s Facebook page.

  • The Hydra Initiative interviewed Lead Programmer Øystein Eftevaag who gave interesting details:

    • HI:In a video released in March of this year, an investigation mission was showcased. In that mission, the player had to use their browser to look up information on said individual. Will The Secret World still be implementing an in-game browser? How will this work? Since you used Google Chrome, would that be the browser of choice or would the player be allowed to use their default browser? Will use of the in-game browser affect performance? If the in-game browser is not implemented, will users with one monitor (who play in full-screen) be able to alt+tab effectively?
      ØE: The in-game browser is already in and working, and is looking great! Due to the way browsers have to interact with our client there can’t be a choice of browser, unfortunately. In practice, it’s a version of Chrome (wrapped in a 3rd party framework called Awesomium) which is tightly integrated with our client; and not a browser which is already installed on the player’s machine. When the browser is closed, there will be no performance impact at all. Even when it’s running, the browser runs in a separate process and not have any noticeable impact.

      Note Eve Online uses Awesomium since 1st December 2009, which should prove the technology is mature.

    • HI: nVIDIA APEX was stated to be implemented as well. Is the APEX system going to be used in The Secret World?
      ØE: APEX is something we’re looking at with great interest, but it’s not something we’ll have ready by the time The Secret World is released.

    Source:
    hydraInitiative.com – Interview with Lead Programmer Øystein Eftevaag
    wikipedia.org – Eve Online: Dominion expansion

  • Lead Designer Martin Bruusgaard talked about gear and chakras:
    • Gear:

      There will not be pvp-gear in TSW. You will be able to obtain gear through pvping, but they will not have a particular pvp stat(s). Power wise they can compete with the best PvE gear.

    • Chakras:

      In addition to stats, they will have triggers like:”Every time you block an incoming attack, you knock the attacker down.”
      “Your crowd control abilities last 10% longer”.
      “Every 10th time you receive healing, you do a pbAoE” (imagine that with leech heals from assault rifle…)

      These arent abilities. These are stats/triggers on chakras!

    He then added that “getting the right gear to complement your build will be an important part of deckbuilding, and when building group builds, and that’s why we have gear in pvp”.

    Source: Martin Bruusgaard’s post on DDCG

  • Senior Community Manager Oliver ‘Tarib’ Kunz confirmed ‘The Secret War’ is still on the agenda. Source: Oliver Kunz’s post on DDCG

GENERAL INFORMATION

  • The Hydra Initiative launched the last of its three bi-monthly contests, in partnership with The Secret World Uncovered. This time, contenders will have to produce a faction-based fanvid. “No use of previously released material from Funcom and The Secret World (i.e. videos and pictures)” is allowed. The prize is an XFX NVIDIA GTX 540 TI. The contest is open to all factions and will run from 2nd February to 18th March. Source: Announcement
  • Hermetic Order of Trinity describes itself as “the largest and the oldest Polish Cabal”. It numbers 20 members and was founded last 24th September 2011. The cabal focuses on PvE, RP and, to a lesser extent, PvP. Announcement
  • Knights of Astoria is “organizing a Valentine’s Day event”. Contenders must produce a letter or a comic or a story fulfilling the requirements detailed in the announcement of the contest. “The Winner will receive a $25 iTunes Gift Card”. The contest is open to all factions and will run until “February 20th 11:59 PM 2012 (EST)”. Source: Announcement


CABALS

  • Duplicity is a social and casual cabal founded and led by Luisa. Although it is based in Europe, it accepts members from everywhere. Its goal is “to have fun, explore the content of The Secret World and progress at a steady rate”. The cabal wants to be friendly and do some light RP without drama. Applicants must be at least 18 years old but exceptions can be made depending on the application quality. Announcement duplicity.guildlaunch.com


CABALS

  • LooT Junkies will be present in all aspects of the game and is looking for active and mature players. Both casual and hardcore gamers are accepted. The guild is however limited to the US Eastern time zone. Announcement lootjunkies.com


CABALS

]]> http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-january-2012/feed/ 2 Location reveal: Blue mountain http://crygaia.net/news/location-reveal-blue-mountain/ http://crygaia.net/news/location-reveal-blue-mountain/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:03:07 +0000 Remyx99 http://crygaia.net/?p=3161 http://crygaia.net/news/location-reveal-blue-mountain/feed/ 0 Week of the Illuminati is here! http://crygaia.net/news/week-of-the-illuminati-is-here/ http://crygaia.net/news/week-of-the-illuminati-is-here/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:08:14 +0000 Remyx99 http://crygaia.net/?p=3123 http://crygaia.net/news/week-of-the-illuminati-is-here/feed/ 0 Martin Bruusgaard’s holiday answers http://crygaia.net/news/martin-bruusgaards-holiday-answers/ http://crygaia.net/news/martin-bruusgaards-holiday-answers/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:12:52 +0000 Remyx99 http://crygaia.net/?p=3084 It’s a new year, and that means new opportunities. With Funcom slowly collecting themself after a little internal relocating of office spaces during the Christmas and New Year holidays, it’s time again to put the foot down on the pedal for a release in April 2012. Thats only 4-5 months, a little more for a late release, but “we will not dissapoint” we hear a Funcom voice say.

It’s Lead Designer, Martin Bruusgaard. Everything is on track so far and all is as planned, he says, as he teases us by sharing just how much everyone is enjoying “playing” the game – just as much as making sure it gets finished in time. It’s all good and well meant, and they are surely eager to show us their baby soon enough. It won’t be long now, and within that short period there are still a lot of secrets we would like to learn about this world.

He makes sure to calm us down by telling us that the offices never are completely empty, not even in the holidays.

“Holidays or not, you will always find someone at the office working on their game. People are incredibly dedicated. We feel such ownership over what we do, and we know that in just a few months a heap ton of people will play our game, and everyone wants it to be as perfect as it can be. A developer might be 99% done with something, but he will still come in on his day off just to get that 1% perfect. This is something I love about working for Funcom, and in the game industry in general; seeing the dedication and the hard work people put into the games they make.”

That is so nice to hear for any player and fan, but holidays  can often bring more to the player as they often come with special events. Martin tells us that TSW will be no different, but it might not be as predictable as a normal holiday event:

“I remember an event from when I was playing Anarchy-Online (before I worked at Funcom), where the Dust Brigade (an NPC faction) suddenly started assassinating the biggest guild leaders on the server as a part of an event. I remember how the rumors started to spread and how it engaged a whole server, and I find stuff like that incredibly fun.”

Fun indeed! Often events are not just a holiday thing and the addition of something that’s a little tougher can make a game far better. It can create more fun than normal for any player participating. Special events with something behind them are great for the community and create a spark that makes everyone happy.

But what will those happy people look like? Of course they will have big smiles on their faces, but they can’t walk around nude either. Well, in this game maybe they can, but usually everyone likes to have their own style when it comes to in-game clothing. We have heard lots about how many pieces of clothing there are in the game, so everyone will be able to look the way they want to, but we still haven’t heard how we can get hold of them. It seems like we won’t just be able to go shopping for them right away either:

“Some of the clothes are purchasable from vendors, some are available in the item shop, but most of it is reward based. One thing I’m particularly excited about is the template deck outfits. Template decks are a set of powers that enables the player to fulfill a certain role, and this is comparable to Magic the Gatherings starter decks. On completion of any of these templates the player is given an outfit that reflects what that deck is. So for instance if a player completes the Ninja deck, he or she is given a Ninja costume. And all of the templates are faction specific, meaning that there will be different outfits for Templars, Illuminati or Dragon!”

And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to have a ninja costume to run around in? Yeah, thats what I thought! Of course we all want one. Many are sure to come with mandatory bragging rights. Showing of that new cool outfit, throwing out some cool dance emotes while at it… or not…

Did you know Martins favorite ice-cream is "Maple Walnut"?

But what if our friends are in other factions? We already know we will have to fight it out in PvP on game realease, but there are hints of more. In PvE it is confirmed that we can create collaborative parties with friends or help out anyone that needs a hand. Helping out is a key to defeat the evil that lurks in The Secret World, regardless of the faction the one you are helping is from. But there might be more, and it’s exciting to hear Martin give little hints about what is to come after release as well:

“We have plans for umbrella organisations that can go cross faction, but this will not be in for launch. We need to focus on getting the core gameplay tight, but we plan to make steady, and plenty of, content updates.”

Ohhh yeah! Lots of steady, plentiful content updates! We like the sound of that, but we aren’t forgetting the idea of umbrella organisations, which is already a pretty neat addition to the faction specific cabals we will have on release. What’s equally as neat, Martin says, are the sounds and music of the game:

“Funcom has always had an amazing sound team, and fantastic composers, and The Secret World brings it to a new level. It’s hard for me to describe the sound, but it’s beautiful, eerie and motivating depending on where you are and what you’re doing. We also have a really cool system for the combat music where the music intensifies depending on how many enemies you’re fighting, what type of enemies you’re fighting, if you any get adds etc.”

Aaarrrggghhh!!! How ready are we to see, feel and touch these systems, and to explore a world filled to the rim with secrets and mystery? We keep comforting ourselves with the fact that after years of waiting it’s not long now, and there is still so much we dont know about the game. Soon™, I hear a voice in the back of my head say,  maybe soon™ we will know more about crafting and character customization.  4-5 months is not that long, but still lots of time to release loads of information, and the community is eagerly waiting for it, just as the developers are eager to get the game out on time. For some it might give them chills of the good kind:

“I hope it’s going to be like when we launched Conan. The whole team gathered in a room and watched server statistics. Might sound weird, but I got really emotional seeing tons of people pouring into the server and into our game we worked so hard on. I felt really proud and happy, and hopefully I can feel the same this time!”

And we hope you will as well. We hope you can be just as proud of this game as you are with your Skruf castle building.  Such dedication to both projects is sure to bring success! But, after you enjoy the success of The Secret World, what will be your next project?

“Good question! I just moved my desk so I decided to change it up a bit! Instead of making a mini castle, I started building a real sized one! I figured I snus enough to complete it in 2016. Currently working on the walls, with those thingies archers can shoot from.” (See picture)

With that we will like to thank Funcom and Martin for answering some questions this holiday, and we would like to wish everyone a happy new year!

]]> http://crygaia.net/news/martin-bruusgaards-holiday-answers/feed/ 4 Cry Gaia Journal: December 2011 http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-december-2011/ http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-december-2011/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:16:10 +0000 Vengeful-frog http://crygaia.net/?p=2907

  • Age of Conan:
    • The House of Crom update should be released around 11th and 12th January 2012 and take “advantage of the new lighting tools that came with the infrastructure update”. Public testing will be held “over the holiday period”. Source: ageofconan.com
  • Anarchy Online:
    • At the end of December, Producer and Game Director Colin ‘Means’ Cragg will be replaced by Dave ‘Ilaliya’ Williams as Producer and Fia ‘Lindelu’ Tjernberg as Game Director after having been a member of the AO team for eight years. Source: anarchyonline.com
  • Bloodline Champions:
    • Stunlock Studios announced its “Child’s Play Charity Pack”. It costs 240 Funcom Points and the profit goes an organization which gives toys to children’s hospitals. “The pack contains an Avatar [...] and a Title (Santa’s Helper).” Source: bloodlinechampions.com
    • Bloodline prices have lowered. “The 16 original Bloodlines now cost 360 Funcom Points and the Bloodlust ones 480 Funcom Points as standard price!” Source: BLChampions’s tweet
    • The Steelseries Sensei Winter Tournament is taking place from 15th December 2011 to 22nd January 2012. The teams ‘x6tence.ESET’ and ‘ZEPH NO DISBAND TEAM’ qualified. For the record, ‘x6tence’ is the team which won the Bloodline Champions tournament at DreamHack:winter. Source: bloodlinechampions.com
  • Funcom:
    • Funcom is recruiting:
      • Durham, USA is looking for customer service representatives fluent in English, French and German (one per language) and a French-speaking community manager.
      • Montreal, Canada is looking for a text coordinator, and French and German localization QA testers. The text coordinator should preferably have a “knowledge of the works of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker…” So, Howard (author of ‘Conan the Barbarian’) because of ‘Age of Conan’, Lovecraft and Poe because of TSW… Stoker (author of ‘Dracula’) perhaps because of TSW too.

      Their job descriptions (except, weirdly, the one for the German customer service representative) state “Funcom is currently developing the Massively Multiplayer Online game The Secret World and one unannounced project. They are also operating the MMO’s Anarchy Online and Age of Conan”. It seems to confirm what Senior Assistant Community Manager Glen ‘Famine’ Swan said to JeuxOnLine.info here last October:

      JeuxOnLine.info: In which languages will be the game for its release in April 2012?
      Glen ‘Famine’ Swan: In French, English and I believe German.

      Besides, Montreal, Canada is also looking for a Senior Rendering Programmer.

      Then, what “unannounced project” could they be talking about? Could this mean the long-awaited return of April Ryan?

      Source:
      funcom.com
      Interview of Glen ‘Famine’ Swan by JeuxOnLine


GAME INFORMATION

  • An interview of Creative Director and Senior Producer Ragnar Tørnquist performed by Gamespot brought new information and clarification:
    • “The idea behind death in The Secret World is that you lose consciousness. You are separated from your body. Your spirit is left to roam inside this shadow world. While you are in the spirit state in The Secret World, you might see things that are invisible to players who are sort of conscious. You might have certain missions that might have to be solved in this spirit state”.
    • Ragnar Tørnquist confirmed players will make Internet research thanks to an in-game browser so they don’t have to leave the game. There could be more linkings with Twitter and Facebook.
    • Funcom prefers to see more activity on the console MMORPG market before entering it. An Xbox 360 version should not be expected short-term although Ragnar Tørnquist “really really want[s] to make a 360 version or” a version for the next Xbox console generation. For now, the team focuses entirely on PC which it estimates is the core market of the game.

    Source: gamespot.com

  • Comments from Age of Conan’s Game Director and Executive Producer Craig Morrison to Zam.com seem to hint the single server technology will be ready for TSW’s launch although some features might require more time.Craig Morrison talking about the implementation in Age of Conan:

    “Early next year the technology infrastructure will go in, essentially pulling all the players together onto our new single server technology. Then we will start to roll out the features that this opens up over the course of next year.”

    Source: zam.com

  • Joel Bylos explained you can have simultaneously:

    1 Story Mission
    1 Main Mission – These can have any kind of goal but are always given by NPCs
    1 Side Mission – These can have any kind of goal but are always given by items found in the world.

    If, for example, you had a story mission which asked you to kill zombies, a main mission that asked you to kill zombies and a side mission that asked you to kill zombies – all three would tick upwards on a single zombie kill.

    “Paused” missions are restarted by returning to a quest giver (or having a friend share the mission!)

    You can make custom markers with custom notes on your map.

    There are a few reasons for restricting missions. Some of them are:
    - The oft quoted “immersion factor”
    - We don’t want you to spend 30mins in cutscenes when in a quest hub, while you run around and gather all the missions.
    - We have many mission types and we want people to “switch” mindset when they choose between action, sabotage or investigation.

    If I had to compare it to anything out there, I’d say the restriction feels somewhat like in GTA or Red Dead Redemption. You take a mission – you can leave it and do something else – but you have to return to the mission giver and pick it up again (and because we are nice, you pick it up where you left off).

    Try not to think of “paused” missions as something you care about. For all intents and purposes they don’t exist on you until you return to the quest giver.

    He also gave an example of item mission: You’ll have to find Danny’s iPhone and bring it back to him. “Yes, item missions can be that simple as they are often about directing you to people”.

    Other missions can ask you to “follow strange footprints in the sand” or ask you “who has been ravaging these boxes of fresh squid”.

    Source:
    Joel Bylos’s first post on DDCG
    Joel Bylos’s second post on DDCG
    Joel Bylos’s third post on DDCG

GENERAL INFORMATION

  • TSW received MMORPG.com’s Rising Star award. Source: mmorpg.com
  • The Hydra Initiative launched the second of its three bi-monthly contests. This one, running from 2nd January to 4th February, is “strictly for fan art inspired by The Secret world”. “A poll will be opened up for the community to vote on [the] submission[s]. After the polls close the top three submissions will be voted upon by the commentators from The Secret World Uncovered” and they’ll announce the winner on their podcast. The winner will receive 2400 Funcom points. The contests are open to all factions. Source: Announcement


CABALS

  • The Fallen is a casual guild moving from Age of Conan (where it is “known as Kaaos/Circle of Mercenaries”) to TSW. The guild will focus on PvE and PvP. Expanding to RP is however possible if members wish so. Despite its laidback gameplay, the guild aims for good ranks. It is “looking for mature (+18) players” from all over the world. Announcement thefallen.guildlaunch.com
  • Mayday made an Illuminati Christmas card. DDCG thread
  • The Gentlemen describe themselves as “a friendly, relaxed and mature” cabal composed of 30+ year old gamers from Finland and UK who played numerous MMOs. They will be present in all aspects of the game and intend to remain a rather small group. Applicants should ideally be at least 18 years old. “There’s no geographical limits, but most of [the members] are at GMT +2 time zone”. This is the cabal behind the Leaflets from a Crazy Guy. Announcement

CABALS

  • Ludere is a French-speaking cabal with a family atmosphere. Their goal is just to have fun while keeping in mind that RL goes first. They however intend to achieve great things in-game and are expanding to multigaming. The cabal accepts all kinds of players. Announcement ludere.fr
  • Agora is a social French community of gamers aiming to last and stay together, to regroup people by regions so they can have RL contacts if they wish so and to regroup players having the same profile. Members are generally 25+, preferably able to speak English, liking to out-game read & write and in-game chat rather than in-game VoIP. Agora is not looking to be the best of the best but is not casual either. It is involved in Age of Conan, Aion, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings and Rift. It intends to expand to Guild Wars 2, SWTOR and The Secret World. They have groups in Aquitaine, Ile de France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Rhône-Alpes and more are coming. The Agora community has chosen the Templar faction. Announcement guilde-mmo.com
  • Nine Swords is a cabal formed by ex-members of Ouroboros. Their creed is “teamwork, community and order”. Regarding the RP, it is a “melting pot of new bloods and old guards” who “don’t favor or shun, [they] get the job done”. The cabal has “nine divisions, with their own dedicated officer. Members will be able to participate in as many divisional activities as they want, and can even join a department to help along their fellow cabal mates.” Recruitment will start in January 2012. Announcement nine-swords.com
]]> http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-december-2011/feed/ 0 Exclusive Location Reveal – The Scorched Desert http://crygaia.net/news/exclusive-location-reveal-the-scorched-desert/ http://crygaia.net/news/exclusive-location-reveal-the-scorched-desert/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:57:11 +0000 Remyx99 http://crygaia.net/?p=2975 http://crygaia.net/news/exclusive-location-reveal-the-scorched-desert/feed/ 0 Cry Gaia Journal: November 2011 http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-november-2011/ http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-november-2011/#comments Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:58:04 +0000 Vengeful-frog http://crygaia.net/?p=2771

  • Age of Conan:

    • “More than 600,000 players have tested the free-to-play version of Age of Conan since July”. To reward all gamers, Funcom enabled them to claim the pack of potions “The King’s Reward” if they log in before 21st November. Source: ageofconan.com.
    • AoC’s “development team [supported] Movember in efforts to help raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer”. Source: ageofconan.com
  • Fashion Week Live:

    • “The development of Fashion Week Live progressed well. The game will soft-launch during 4Q11, with the marketing push following shortly thereafter” (“significant marketing for the product in early 2012″). Source: Funcom’s Q3 presentation
  • Funcom:

    • “Due to the positive development of The Secret World, Funcom has decided to strengthen its cash base mainly to maximize the potential of the game. Funcom will raise USD 10-15 million through a convertible loan.” This “additional funding will enable the Company to:

      • further increase the amount of PR and marketing spent on TSW before launch and also directly after launch
      • start the development of the new high-end MMO game to follow TSW
      • increase the Company’s cash reserve in general”

      Source: Funcom’s Q3 report

]]> http://crygaia.net/journal/cry-gaia-journal-november-2011/feed/ 1 The Fool’s Journey, Act 2 http://crygaia.net/news/the-fools-journey-act-2/ http://crygaia.net/news/the-fools-journey-act-2/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:05:30 +0000 Remyx99 http://crygaia.net/?p=2854 http://crygaia.net/news/the-fools-journey-act-2/feed/ 0