Back in the nineties, Lara Croft was actually a man. Yet Larry Croft never saw the light of day, because one sex symbol named Larry was quite enough. Okay, well, actually, Tomb Raider’s creators vetoed him for being too similar to Indiana Jones. Then, they went back to the drawing board.

This hasn’t stopped other developers from copying Indy, however. In The Secret World, my character wields a whip. She found the whip by using a “time tomb”, called the “TARDIS”. She also has a fancy fedora hat. The other day, she wielded her whip, while wearing her hat, riding on a train to recover an ark. The ark, after all, belongs in a museum.

That quest was great fun, but the obvious ripoffness of at least three IPs got me thinking: how far can a game go in blatantly copying someone else? We all know how paranoid publishers can get about gamers copying games. So what gives with the double standards?

Copyright protects the expression of an idea

The reason The Secret World gets away with blatantly ripping off Indy is that copyright only protects the expression of an idea: specific dialogue, picture scenes, and so on. The actual concepts: riding a train, using a whip, or recovering an ark, are not protected.

In games, copyright protection generally extends to the tangible assets of a game: the underlying code, the art, and the sounds. By far the majority of copyright protection focuses on what happens when the code itself is copied, for this is the most secure claim to copyright in a game. It’s easy to tell if someone directly rips your code. Not so easy to argue that Call of Duty and Battlefield are visually distinct.

Most games, therefore, can get away with being similar to existing games, so long as they don’t do something stupid like hire an ex-developer who stole the code before starting work on another game for someone else. (Which has happened before…)

Trademarks protect a name

Every so often, someone gets the bright idea to make a computer game based on a Games Workshop tabletop game without permission. It’s usually Space Hulk. Don’t ask me why Warhammer Quest never gets the treatment, but I digress.

Moving a sight faster than the Imperium’s responses to actual space hulks, Games Workshop is always quick to squash these imitations, and they always succeed. The reason is that Space Hulk is trademarked. It has nothing to do with copyright.

Trademarks protect the important name of a game. Space Hulk, Tomb Raider, and Indiana Jones: these are all trademarks as words and logos. However, they are far more secure—and important—than copyright, for they actually stop people riding off the back of others’ hard work. It is trademarks, not copyright, that prevent someone from making money off a Space Hulk game. Owning the Space Hulk trademark gives Games Workshop the right to sell development rights to make new games every so often. http://games.on.net/2013/03/new-screenshots-of-space-hulk-game-look-dark-grim-and-excellent/

To come back to our Indy example, if The Secret World had called their ark-recovery-train-ride-quest “Raiders of the Lost Ark on the Last Crusade”, then they’d be in the wrong. They’d be wrong because they’d be using LucasFilm’s work in establishing the Indiana Jones movies to sell their own game.

Hence they called it Last Train to Cairo and simply put a picture of an Indiana Jones lookalike on the cover. That was okay.

DRM is just a tool

So what does all this actually mean? Yes, I’m sure you’re all intensely interested by a discussion of copyright and trademarks.

It means that we mustn’t let all the hallulabub over DRM convince us that games have more protection than is sometimes assumed. Indy’s hat, and whip, are not sacrosanct. Games can easily have numerous references to other games, books, and movies. They can ripoff entire storylines… just so long as they don’t copy them word-for-word.

The good thing about all this is that it ensures creative games will copy and build on each other. Indeed, Indy himself was straight out of previous adventure films. Raiders of the Lost Ark was just a blatant copy of the 1954 film Secret of the Incas, right down to Indy’s entire costume. If copyright had been as harsh back then as it is now sometimes portrayed, we’d have no Indiana Jones.

However, this is all dependent on people recognising that DRM does not change actual copyright law. DRM is just a tool to address piracy. Its effectiveness is debateable, but it’s a tool, not the law. Hopefully, DRM debates won’t change people’s understanding of what is fair game to copy, and stifle creativity as a result.

Funcom has detailed the next monthly content drop for beleagured MMORPG The Secret World. Issue #6: The Last Train To Cairo takes place in – where else? – Egypt, and involves time travel.

Players will be tasked with freeing catured warriors of the Marya from Atenist cultists. Good old Said, the undead weapons trader, has advice to offer, and by following his guidance through main and side missions, you’ll uncover the truth behind the Atenist movement. It all culminates in a showdown on top of the titular train racing towards Cairo with a lethal cargo.

The update also adds a new auxiliary weapon, the whip, which is good for buffs and crowd control, and opens up a new ten-man raid in the South Pacific for those strong enough to tackle lairs.

Issue #6 is due in early March and kicks off a Veteran and Recruitment program which rewards long-term members and those who bring in newbies, as well as a new PvP ranking system.

Source: Funcom

Last month The Secret World dropped its subscription fee and moved to a pay-one, play-forever model akin to that of Guild Wars 2. Now, it seems, that move is paying off.

Funcom claims in a stock report to their investors that “activity levels in the game have increased by over 400% as original players have returned joined by thousands of new players”. Furthermore, Funcom reports that The Secret World shifted 70,000 sales in the last four weeks, which marks a 30% jump in sales figures.

It’s not all good news though — an announced restructuring of the company means that the Montreal studio of the developer is set to see some job losses, with further losses across the company. However, no games are set to be cancelled as a result.

Source: Funcom via GI.biz

As of only minutes ago, occult horror MMO The Secret World has gone free-to-play. The change was hinted at in an “end of the world” video starring Game Director Joel Bylos yesterday, but now has been officially confirmed.

Explained in this forum thread, the F2P transition places no restrictions on free players, but you are still required to purchase the game (Guild Wars 2-style). Those who do purchase ‘Membership’ can accelerate their experience gain for 1 hour every 16 hours, get discounts in the Item Store, and occasional free stuff.

Check out all the details below, or click here for our huge review of The Secret World.

What is now required to be able to play The Secret World?

Everyone who has purchased (or will purchase) the game can now enjoy the full game without being required to sign-up for a monthly fee. This means that all of the heralded story-line and all of the game content available right now can be played as you please without requiring any additional payment.

Are there any restrictions to what a free player has access to?

No. You have access to all the content available right now, including all playfields, all missions; you may enter all lairs, participate in raids, learn all abilities, use all equipment and so on.

What is a ‘Membership’?

For those dedicated to the game there is an optional Membership available which also includes some great items and services:

• ‘The Time Accelerator’. This clickable item increases experience gain for defeating monsters by 100% for 1 hour and has a 16 hour cool-down. This item can only be used by Members and Grand Masters.
• $10 worth of Bonus Points given out every month which can be used towards any product in the Item Store of The Secret World (bonus points are valid for 6 months).
• Membership Item-of-the-month gift (given out every month).
• 10% discount to everything in the Item Store except Content Packs or other Packs (discounts to the Item Store do not stack with other offers).

How much does a Membership cost?

There are several offers for different durations of a Membership. The current prices are as follows:

• 1 month 14.99 USD/EUR
• 3 month 38.97 USD/EUR (12.99 USD/EUR per month)
• 6 month 71.94 USD/EUR (11.99 USD/EUR per month)
• 12 month 119.88 USD/EUR (9.99 USD/EUR per month)

The EUR price includes VAT where applicable.

What about Grand Masters?

The Grand Master Lifetime Option continues to yield all the benefits given to Members and more! As a Grand Master customer you receive everything that Membership customers get, every month, lifelong. In addition to that we have increased the Item Store discount to 20% for everything in the Item Store except Content Packs or other Packs.

I already bought an Initiate Pack in December 2012. Why was that not free?

Anyone who has purchased the Initate Pack in December 2012 before the offer was launched, will be reimbursed with 1800 bonus points to their game accounts.

What will this discount in the Item Store be valid for?

What used to be a discount of 10% discount to only social items in the Item Store has now been extended to be a discount on everything in the store. As Members are getting a 10% discount to everything in the store, Grand Masters will receive 20% discount to everything in the store!

When are items-of-the-month given out to Members and Grand Masters?

If you are a Member or a Grand Master you will receive the items on the first patch day of every month (currently the first Tuesday of every month). If you are playing the game without a Membership, the item will be given to you immediately when you sign up for Membership or become a Grand Master. The first gift is available now and can be claimed through the Item Store.

Are the free Bonus Points for members included with the first 30 days of the game?

No, the monthly Bonus Points are only given out when additional Membership and/or Grand Master is purchased. However, by completing 30 missions you unlock the similar level of Bonus Points – so there’s a motivator to play. The client fee includes the full game (including issue 1 through 4) as well as 30 days of Membership. Until the end of December issue 5 will also be included for anyone with a registered full account.

Are there other motivators for new players?

Yes, in addition to the 30-mission reward, there is also the challenge of taking down the Ur-draug. He is the final boss of the first dungeon in the game, and being able to complete this challenge yields a special reward called “The Whispering Demon Ring”. This powerful ring gives a fixed XP gain increase for new players and is a great way for new players to get a feel for what is in store deeper into the storyline.

What happens with my remaining Subscription time?

Your current subscription will be automatically transferred to the new Membership program. As such your account will be credited with 1200 bonus points, you can immediately claim the Time Accelerator item and your Membership gift of the month. The 1200 bonus points will be credited to your account on Dec. 12th, 2012. After that you will get 1200 points every 30 days from your renewal of the Membership.

What about future content updates?

Periodically we will release packs of DLC (Downloadable Content). The main content in these packs will be a story leading to unique rewards/items through missions. These packs are fully optional and can be purchased for the Bonus Points that are included in the optional Membership, as well as with the points offered with Grand Master Lifetime service. Players without a Membership or a Grand Master Service can of course as well purchase new DLC content in the Item Store.

When can the first DLC content be expected?

The first DLC will start selling in January 2013, and is the main storyline of Issue #5. However, this content will already be fully unlocked for anyone who has a full game account registered before the end of December 2012.

Besides DLCs, will there also still be regular content updates to The Secret World?

Definitely! Regular patches with free content and updates and enhancements to the core game will continue.

Source: Thanks, Patrick!

Last month, The Secret World’s game director told us a little bit about the upcoming update and the game’s first raid. Now, there is a new devblog up telling us a little bit more about what went into designing the raid, and what we can expect.

The post goes into some of the challenges the team faced creating a raid for such an unusual skill tree, but also mentions that the raid is designed to be inclusive and introduce players who are new to the concept to the idea of raids. It’s also balanced so that you don’t need to be equipped with the best endgame gear to be able to complete it, and that it’s on a level with some of the game’s Tier-1 Nightmares such as Polaris, Hell Raised or Darkness War.

It’s a 10-person raid that will have a 32-hour cooldown upon beating the bad guy at the end, who will, predictably, drop some phat lootz and hand over some sweet achievements. The post is lengthy and I’ve only skimmed the surface here, so I suggest that if you’re interested you head over to the official site and check it out.

Source: The Secret World

Over at the forum for The Secret World, the new game director Joel Bylos has left a great big post outlining the new features in the game’s latest update, ‘Issue #4: Big Trouble in the Big Apple’. Chief among these are… well, to be honest, he talks about a lot of things. So I would recommend you check it out if you’re at all interested in the game. But let’s just talk about some of the main features of Issue #4.

This fourth update will feature one of the game’s most requested changes, namely reticule combat. If that doesn’t sound like something you want though, Bylos does mention that it’s entirely optional and not an overhaul of the combat system, so you’ll be able to freely switch between the two. Some other interesting new additions include the introduction of the game’s second auxiliary weapon, the Chainsaw, and the opening of the Albion Theatre in London, where we can all put on plays for each other for rewards.

Finally, there will of course be, ‘Big Trouble in the Big Apple’, in the form of the game’s first raid, battling an eldritch horror in the ruins of Times Square. You can “forget about trash mobs and gunning it to get to the end boss as fast as possible; in true ‘The Secret World’ style we will be using the raid to tell a story and immerse our players into our world’s rich atmosphere,” says Bylos.

If this at all interest you, be sure to check out the full post, because this really is the bare bones. Also, it would be a disservice to such an interesting and innovative game to not mention that it does have a free trial available to download (about halfway down on the right there). If you haven’t given it a shot, I do recommend trying it for yourself!

Source: The Secret World forums

The success of The Secret World seemed all but assured: a new and intriguing modern-day occult setting, a level-free system, an evolving personal story, and of course the brand-name power of Ragnar Tørnquist. But despite this, sales of the game have been much slower than anticipated — to the point where Funcom laid off up to half its staff, including the Lead Designer.

That Lead Designer, Martin Bruusgaard, has now come forward to reflect on how The Secret World reached this point. “Looking at the numbers from our (million-player-strong) beta where – and I don’t know exact numbers – but it was something like 80% thought the game was good or great and would recommend it to their friends… the numbers were really, really positive. We thought we must’ve done something right, that people really liked us.”

Asked to identify what they could have done differently, Bruusgaard pointed to the level-free system. “This may be a radical thing to say, but I think it would have helped if we actually had levels in the game. I’m sort of ashamed to say it, but I think that might’ve made things feel more familiar when it comes to players tracking their own progression and telling how strong they are, and knowing where to go. I think people got lost because they don’t have this number telling them how strong they are.”

Bruusgaard concluded: “I think we probably should’ve gone for something that was maybe a bit more familiar (…) If I’m thinking about making the game a more commercial success, I think we should’ve gone more commercial.”

Source: PA Report

We’ve all heard about the troubles The Secret World has been having: Funcom halving their studio number after poor sales, struggling to meet update deadlines. But even if they look panicky to us, these measures appear to have done the trick for the developers, as they have revealed they have no plans to make their game free-to-play any time soon.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Funcom’s creative director Ragnar Tørnquist said: “We do have subscribers and those people are getting a lot of good content with their subscription, and they don’t have to worry about having to micro-pay for everything. It is a benefit sometimes to have a subscription. But of course I understand the reticence of some people – a lot of people – to buy a game that comes with a monthly price tag. That makes complete sense.”

“Who knows what the business model will be like in a year? Or in two years or five years? But right now, yeah, the subscription model is [staying put].”

Source: Eurogamer

The day before The Secret World went live, Funcom announced that their CEO Trond Aas would be stepping down from the board to serve as “Strategic Advisor to the Board and Chief Strategy Officer”.

This went unremarked at the time with the launch of The Secret World, but it has now come to light that Aas is suspected of having done this in order to remove himself from the “primary insider list” of employees, and thus be able to trade in his Funcom shares without official scrutiny.

Aas reportedly attemped to sell 1.5 million of his shares in Funcom in secret, before being noticed by another stockholder and publicly outed. Funcom’s share prices later tanked on the back of poor sales of The Secret World, tumbling from a high of $17 to the $2 they are worth today.

Although Aas was able to sell 650,000 of his shares, he is now under investigation by the Oslo Stock Exchange and Norway’s Financial Services Authority. Aas insists that he had every reason to believe the game would be a success at the time he sold his shares, and is denying any wrongdoing.

Source: The Escapist

The lead designer on The Secret World, Martin Bruusgaard, took to Twitter with his news to claim that both he and the majority of the lead development studio in Oslo had been laid off by Funcom.

“The Oslo office got hit much much harder,” he wrote, before adding that: “I get it tho, it’s a very expensive office. Cheaper to hire someone abroad.”

Despite this, Bruusgaard remains upbeat about the future of the game. “Rest assured that TSW is in good hands,” he wrote. “We have some awesome people working on it, and it’s going full speed ahead!”

Funcom announced a round of “cost-adjustment initiatives” back in August, one of which was apparently laying off up to half of Funcom’s global staff. Which is a pity, because we thought The Secret World was really quite good.

Source: Develop

Funcom will bundle a group finder tool with its next content update, Issue #3: Digging Deeper. You may well ask why such a useful tool was missing at launch, and you’d receive a nod of agreement – but The Secret World sports some pretty exciting server technology at its core which may explain the delay. Once the tool goes live, you’ll be able to group with anybody, regardless of their home realm, thanks to that same single server tech, so maybe it was worth the wait. Funcom has posted a little run down on how to use the new tool on The Secret World’s website. The new content drops on September 11.

Source: VG247

Funcom’s latest financial report has revealed that their latest MMO offering, The Secret World, has only moved 200,000 units since its release in July. According to the firm, they are attributing its lower-than-hoped-for sales to competing MMOs and mixed reviews.

The fact that the release date for Guild Wars 2 was announced 2 weeks before the release of The Secret World is being called a contributing factor, as well as Blizzard’s announcement of The Mists of Pandaria.

As strategies to combat these less-than-exciting numbers, Funcom is saying they will be looking at various “initiatives” to draw in a larger player base, and at the same time will focus on “smaller, more focused online games”.

Source: VG247

Funcom has regretfully announced a delay to The Secret World: Issue #2, the second of promised monthly content updates for the fledgling MMORPG. Previously scheduled for August 28, the update, titled Digging Deeper, has been pushed back to September 11. Before you throw an earth-shaking tanty do recall that Funcom laid off a number of staff this week; the developer attributes the delay to “readjusting the team and our internal development processes”. Digging Deeper’s going to introduce a rocket launcher so, you know, it’s probably worth a little extra wait.

Source: The Secret World

I pay thirty bucks a month to subscribe to an eight-page newsletter. “Thirty dollars!” you cry. Pssh… well worth it. The learnings have already gained me new clients for my business. As Darryl Kerrigan said of the police radar in The Castle… “Just paid for itself.”

Monthly subscriptions are controversial, and invite these value choices. While often called outdated, new MMOs keep releasing on the subscription model.

The Secret World is trying to carry the subscription model forward by committing to monthly content updates. Marketing these as ‘issues’ in the style of old pulp fiction comics, they’re inviting you to make the obvious comparison with paying $15 for a monthly magazine.

What you get for your $15 subscription

Issue #1: Unleashed added the following new content to the game:

• Five new investigation missions.
• One new action mission.
• One new stealth mission.
• New lore-book entries to collect.

I’m not including bug fixes or content that was slated to go into release but didn’t make deadline—like the auction house. Likewise, I’ve also cut ‘hard mode’ reworks of existing dungeons out, for failing to be unique. So… just counting the new stuff added to the game, how much extra playtime does your $15 get?

The tally

The five investigations are the most significant part of Unleashed. Without using spoilers or walkthroughs, they each took between two and four hours to complete. The two other missions took about thirty minutes each. All in all, I got approximately sixteen hours of new solo play.

Good solo play? Well, the quality of these missions varied. The high point—the Hell and Bach investigation—was four hours of excellence, making me grab the old pen and paper to solve it with drawings and notations.

On the other hand, the Crime and Punishment investigation felt akin to spending two hours searching through an infuriating haystack. Still, any mission that sends you to ‘The Mancave’— complete with soiled underwear and old pizza boxes—deserves a thumbs-up. All in all, I was happy with the missions. I’ve paid a lot more for single player games with a lot less.

Is sixteen hours of content enough to keep a subscription?

MMO value is a personal choice. For some, value lies in the endgame, gearing up through repeated raiding. Solo players are happier running missions. Others just PvP all day. The great difficulty in MMO design is making something with wide appeal without reducing to the herpaderp denominator.

The Secret World’s issue updates are aimed at the casual type of player that likes to log in for an hour or two after work—not the hardcore raider or PvPer. Indeed, the game’s director, Ragnar Tørnquist, has stated that the game is exactly for these players, who, in his words—are just like him.

The Secret World’s target customer is probably employed, has money, not a lot of time, and would think nothing of dropping fifteen bucks on sixteen hours of narrative gameplay. If that sounds like you, then likely you’ll find the updates are worth the monthly subscription.

Check out our review of The Secret World right here.

For right or wrong, a number of players criticised Diablo III for its seeming lack of skill trees. They argued that the streamlining of the skill system represented a dumbing down of the game, marking it as aimed towards the casual and console market. I personally thought the skill system worked a treat but I’m not here to argue whether Blizzard’s approach was right or wrong. I’m here wondering where the sweet spot for skills actually lays – or if there is even one at all.

Over the last month or two or so I’ve found myself fairly firmly stuck into The Secret World, the first truly narrative based MMO I can think of. Unlike pretty much any other MMO, TSW also features one of the few truly open skill systems. For those unfamiliar with the TSW skill system, it is broken into a wheel with an inner and outer rim. The inner rim contains the basic abilities for a given weapon, the outer ring contains the advanced and specialised skills for the weapon. Each character can equip two weapons and synergise their abilities together. The skill wheel gives players the ability to make numerous specs for any role in the game.

It’s clever and seemingly open, but now that I’ve reached end game I’ve realised that there really isn’t as much openness to the skill system as there appears to be. It gives players the ability to fill multiples roles but not really the ability to fill roles in multiple top tier ways. There is, like most other MMOs, a right and a wrong way to spec up for each of the roles. There are a number of variations, of course, but those mostly amount to a few secondary skills for support or adding a skill to deal with AoE packs.

To get these optimal specs, however, requires the purchase of numerous unused skills that you may experiment with briefly but probably won’t use. The bloat serves to offer the player all-but-unlimited freedom but all it really seems to do is make the skill trees larger.

This past weekend I took part in a stress test for the upcoming online, semi-MMO ARPG, Path of Exile. Although a very obvious Diablo clone, Path of Exile has gone in an entirely opposite direction to Diablo III in terms of skills.

Just look at that skill tree. It’s enormous, terrifying and packed with redundancies. The game hasn’t left beta yet so there may still be some tweaking to be done, but things are unlikely to change to dramatically. The massive web of skills contains branching paths, with each node on the path representing a variation on the one ability and these abilities are all passive – active combat and utility skills are found as pick-ups to be slotted into weapons and armour. As such the skill web looks impressive but there isn’t much feeling of reward when you level and get a skill point. You don’t work your way down a path for the eventual reward of getting a new ability, but rather continue down a skill path to get another 6% health, then another 6%, then another.

I’m not sure whether these two expansive skill systems are a response to the streamlining that has been happening in MMOs and RPGs over recent years, or whether the systems were originally envisaged to be so expansive, but as far as I’m concerned, using bloat to convey the illusion of choice is just as problematic as any “dumbing down”. I throw the question over to you – where is the sweet spot for skills?

To celebrate one month of being, well, launched, The Secret World will be having a free weekend next weekend. Anybody will be able to play the game for free the whole weekend, including people who created and used beta testing accounts but did not end up buying the full game. Special in-game events, rewards and firework-related explosions will also be on offer.

Source: Massively

The Secret World, unlike Age of Conan, does not show bare breasts. Wait… it does… sort of. On the demon succubi. And the zombie broodmothers, too. You can see everything there.

But what it doesn’t show is human female breasts. And nary a male nipple to be found. This oversight—of immense disappointment to roleplayers, naturally—was explained by the game’s director as being caused by the European ratings system. The naked truth in Sweden is that games for sixteen year olds can show demonic boobs, but not human knockers.

This raises the question: how will our future R18+ rating match the American and European ratings? Each ratings system is different, making the vaunted goal of being in line with the rest of the world perhaps difficult to achieve.

What’s allowed under R18+

Once the R18+ rating for games becomes law, games will be able to show ‘adult’ material. This is everything that’s unsuitable for minors, with two important exceptions. First, anything involving explicit, offensive sexual violence, or abhorrent fetishes will be refused classification. That stuff isn’t even allowed in film.

Second, anything involving actual sex between two real people will be refused classification. Films can be rated X18+ for that, but not games. Sadly, I’m going to have to abandon my hopes for Mass Effect 4: Kelly and Shepard’s Life After The Reapers In Glorious FMV.

However, R18+ will still allow us full-frontal make-believe nudity, which I’m sure will please the makers of The Witcher. Likewise, graphic, bloody violence, as long as it isn’t sexualised, will still be allowed.

Differences with America

The American games market is huge, so America’s ESRB system will often be the first influence on a game’s content. Here we need to make one thing clear: our future R18+ rating is in no way similar to the American ESRB 18+.

America’s obsession with free speech makes government classification of games illegal in itself. Instead, games are classified voluntarily by the industry, and major retailers have agreed to only stock classified games.

This also makes the ESRB ratings somewhat… open. While our R18+ games will still have many restrictions, ESRB Adults Only (18+) is anything goes. However, only 1% of games get an Adults Only rating. Most games fall under ESRB Teen (13+) or Mature (17+).

The classification issue this causes for us is that our MA15+ games could well be 13+ in America, and our R18+ games could be 17+ in America. Games that could fit into the ESRB 18+ rating could still be refused classification in Australia.

Differences with Europe

Just as big as America, the Europe games market includes all the members of the European Union. Each of these countries is regulated by the PEGI system. PEGI has most games falling under PEGI 12, 16, or 18.

PEGI is best described as tame at the low end but hardcore at the high end. While The Secret World at PEGI 16 cannot show human female breasts, PEGI 18 is closer to America’s ESRB 18+. PEGI 18 allows sexual violence, sadism, and many other uncomfortable pursuits.

PEGI 16 games will fall under Australians MA15 rating. However, PEGI 18 games could still exceed our R18+. Incidentally, as a PEGI 18 game, Dragon Age 2 could have been much more graphic than it was. Merril could have been so, so bad.

R18+ is still restrictive

Whenever people talk about R18+, they always do so in terms of “Bringing Australia in line with the rest of the world.” However, that’s not quite true. While R18+ will open some games up, it is not a free pass for content.

R18+ will still impose on us one of the most restrictive classification schemes in the world. Much of what will be disallowed under R18+ would still be happily stocked in Britain. And if you’ve watched V for Vendetta, that is quite something.

What R18+ really does is allow the selling of games that are ‘commercially acceptable’—those games, like the refused classification Syndicate, that are graphic enough to be confronting, yet tame enough to sell.

On the other hand, a game where you play as a serial rapist may well be legal in America and Britain, but wouldn’t sell very well. So publishers wouldn’t take it on. But in Australia, it just would just be refused classification. Unlike America that uses the market to regulate, we use the government.

This, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. Who would want to play such a twisted game? But at the same time, the arguments of those who see Australia’s R18+ rating as ‘evil’ should be put in context. We’ve still got the most restrictive classifications out of the major western countries, and we’ve still got a long way to go before someone needs to think of the children.

There is a new post up at The Secret World blog, from Mr. Tornquist himself, outlining all the new features and upcoming changes that will be coming with future updates. And there are a lot of them. You’re better off checking out the post yourself for the details, but here’s a taste of what’s coming: There will be monthly mission packs, featuring fully voiced cut-scenes that will be entirely free. There are raids in The Secret World‘s future, with information about the first coming in August. There will be PvP dungeons and a handy dungeon finder, for all your dungeon-finding needs. Entirely new adventure zones are being announced in August, as well. Pets are being updated and upgraded, and combat will be getting the ol’ spit shine. That’s the bare bones of it, guys, so hit up the forum post and see for yourself what else is in store. Also, over at a different announcement there has also been another ‘dimension’ added called Leviathan, which will be marked as a roleplaying dimension very shortly.

Source: TSW Forum, TSW Blog

On 2 a.m. Saturday, June 30, 2012, the unthinkable happened. Funcom’s new Lovecraftian MMORPG, The Secret World, went live. After the launch disaster that was Age of Conan, and more recently—Diablo III, I half expected logging in to cause my modem to spontaneously combust in unholy fire.

I created my character—sexy red hair with a great choice of looks. I moved around—great graphics at fifty frames per second. Curious, I tested if a bug remained that I had reported a week prior in beta. It was fixed.

This is a Funcom game. I was confused. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! After recovering from the shock induced by this smooth launch, I started towards Temple Hall in London…

A grim story

The Secret World’s biggest draw is its story. Designed by Ragnar Tørnquist, famed for his stories in Dreamfall and The Longest Journey, The Secret World has the darkest storytelling in an MMO to date. It tells of demons spawned from nightmares. Of burning witch hunts and collapsed mine suffocations. Of murderous carnival rides made to sacrifice young children so a billionaire can feed on their souls.

Drawing you into this story is investigative quest design. Rather than “Kill ten zombies and bring me their brains”, quests often ask you questions, with the answers revealing map coordinates or computer passwords. These include puzzles like “What does this Morse Code message translate to?”, “What mythology do the ‘hands of time’ point to?”, and “What’s four times the duration of The Safety Dance?” (Seriously.)

If you want to complete the game, you’ll have to use your brain, a good deal of lateral thinking, and Google. On the other hand, if you don’t care for story, and just want to level-up, the game’s not for you—much of the best content’s hidden behind riddles.

Knives and bullets (and shotguns, too)

The Secret World has a well-balanced combat game, too. With each character being able to learn all 525 available skills, you have thousands of possible builds. However, so far I’ve been unable to determine a clear winning build. This is a remarkable feat, considering that Star Wars: The Old Republic launched rife with balance issues, and my time in Guild Wars 2 has failed to convince me that ArenaNet is faring any better.

The Secret World achieves this balance through varied encounter design. Because each character can learn every skill, encounters are designed for this variety. You’re not a class—you’re an operative with an armoury, and you do best by choosing the right weapon for the job. Even as the all-important healer, I had to swap my healing for damage mid-dungeon for bosses that favoured a damage race approach. That’s why, in addition to her assault rifle, my healer keeps a trusty shotgun handy—for close encounters.

This illustrates how The Secret World is joining the cool-developers club that’s trying to ‘kill’ the holy trinity of damage, tanking, and healing. While the trinity still reigns, versatility is king. To aid this, you’re able to save your skill builds as templates, and switch to these quickly out of combat.  Playing the trinity becomes more engaging than in the traditional MMORPG, because you’ll need to constantly tweak your build to match the encounter.

1, 1, 1, 1…

The skill system does have its problems, however. Because the game’s designed to ‘blossom’ into long-term experimentation, early combat’s a repetitive spamfest. You just don’t have the options available to play around with interesting builds, and the early encounters are simplified to match. After the first ten hours this problem rights itself with more complex encounters and an expanded armoury, but you’ll want to approach the start with patience.

Second, because the game requires such an investment into your main character, little point exists to play an alt. Even your faction choice is mostly cosmetic, meaning you’re not rewarded with new content for starting a new character. This may rankle with altaholics.

Fortunately, the game is huge, so you won’t need to play an alt just to see new content. After a hundred hours of hardcore play, I’m still in the middle of the second zone (out of nine). The game really rewards you for taking your time. There is no ‘end game’—rushing will simply leave you with a gimped character that needs to repeat content to skill up. Instead, you’re encouraged to explore, run dungeons, and train skills as you go.

Laaaaaag

The Secret World, like EVE Online, uses one mega-server. This server is then split into several ‘dimensions’, and you can change dimensions to group with anyone. This is actually a big benefit—the looking for group channel broadcasts across multiple dimensions, and finding groups has never been easier.

The only downside, of course, is that the server is in America. Worse, it’s on the American east coast—expect latency of 250-300ms. Worse again, no ping tunnels exist for the game. Terribad.

That said, the game is playable for the most part. The combat rewards planning over reflexes, so you won’t be at a disadvantage. Unlike a certain other online game (that starts with a ‘D’), all attacks are telegraphed, so if you need to roll out of dodge, you’ll get fair warning.

The only trouble I had was the occasional ping spike when it seemed my router chose the scenic route through Alaska. While the single-server technology makes local servers almost unwanted (I like being able to easily get groups), Funcom would do well to provide a ping tunnelling service to reduce lag spikes for players outside America.

It’s all swings and roundabouts, though. Unlike just about every other publisher, Funcom doesn’t price gouge Australians, and you can buy the game from them direct for $50. When you consider that the first month’s subscription is included, you’re given incredible value for a new AAA title of this quality. While its future remains to be seen, The Secret World has made one of the most promising starts of any recent MMO.

Good

• Great performance for a launch title.
• Atmospheric, good looking world.
• Thrilling Lovecraftian story in a refreshing, modern setting.
• Varied encounters make for engaging combat.
• Investigations require real thinking.
• Deep, complex skill system encourages thought and creativity.
• Large amount of levelling content that breaks the rush-to-endgame mould.
• Excellent cosmetic look customisation.
• Global server makes the game feel populated at all hours.
• Cheap starter price.

Bad

• Combat takes time to show its potential.
• Little point to play an alt.
• American east coast server with no ping tunnelling.

The launch trailer for The Secret World is out today, alongside the game itself. This reporter is not going to lie – it’s a little pretentious. But that’s okay! It’s what we’ve come to expect from our trailers. In any case, there is lots of slo-mo fighting, sweeping vistas, Dinah Washington crooning in the background and what is distinctly Cthulhu near the end there. Check it out below.

My time in The Secret World was one of highs and lows.

In the beta test, only the Illuminati and the Templar were available for testing. Naturally I sided with the Templar, and after a short introductory scene in which a bee flew into my mouth while I was asleep and granted me magic powers (yes, really), I was introduced to an NPC who, presumably having sensed the whole bee-thing, used her unimaginably terrible voice acting to offer me a place in the Templars.

I have a lot of high hopes for this game, and at this point, I really felt like we hadn’t gotten off to a great start.

Luckily, it got better, and fast. I arrived in London, had a crazy fever dream after listening to a ranting homeless man, and played out the last, desperate moments of a final stand against dripping, black tentacular corruption in an abandoned subway station. I made my way to the Templar offices, played around with all the different weapons (settling on hammers, naturally), and got sent off on my first mission. The game was moving, picking up speed. It felt good.

The dark, lost coast

Kingsmouth is the first zone you visit, a coastal town in North America overrun by zombies and up to its neck in ancient magic from the ocean. You’ll be there within an hour of playing, and it’s there that Funcom really put their cards on the table.

The first thing that hits you, and the thing that The Secret World arguably does best, is atmosphere. Being set a darker version of the real world allows them to play on modern themes, twisting them just enough to make them unsettling. Solid art direction, haunting musical stings, and a background littered with clues, scraps, hints and flavour fill in the gaps. It’s a rich, compelling production, and one that, for the first time in a long time, has actually got me giving even the slightest care about an MMO storyline.

The second thing that hits you is “Oh, right. I’m playing an MMO.”

It’s easy to forget that, sometimes, in The Secret World. Whether you’re bringing up the in-game browser so you can search the internet for references on what a man’s computer password might be, or crawling through a museum basement dodging security cameras and leaping through tripwire fields, The Secret World does a lot to make itself feel like a step away from the rote, the normal, the mundane.

Sometimes, however, it just stops trying. Some NPC’s have the most tedious, grindy side quests awaiting your attention, and are completely unabashed about asking you to fulfil them. There’s one particular quest in Kingsmouth that sees you uncovering mass graves – following the marker on the map until you get there, and then killing a completely arbitrary number of zombies at each grave for ‘research into the mystery of the town’. Right. The real mystery here is how that quest even made it past quality assurance.

This doesn’t happen often – the majority of quests are full of dialogue, story and intrigue – but whenever it does, it’s a real kick in the teeth. Most MMO’s don’t require you to suspend disbelief, because their level of immersion is laughable, and their atmosphere is so thin as to be unbreathable. The Secret World has the opposite problem: it’s actually spun an interesting tale, and so when it drops the ball like that, it hurts twice as much.

Fend for yourself

And of course, like any game, it falls apart too hard if you scrutinise it. Zombies respawn constantly, adjustments you make to the world fade out after time has passed, but that’s okay. It never feels ‘gamey’, and always has another hook ready to stop you staring too hard into the abyss. For the most part, The Secret World goes above and beyond to satisfy, and it really feels like a proper, compelling storyline awaits the intrepid adventurer.

This is supported down to the ground with the game mechanics – for example, one of the best features of the game is in how much it requires you to fend for yourself. Quest hints are often deliberately vague, and are generally along the lines of “figure out the solution”. Keeping a pen and paper nearby is a good idea, and saved me more than once. Exploration is encouraged and rewarded, with ladders around the place allowing you to scamper along the rooftops, and secret lore bonuses to collect. It’s a refreshingly respectful attitude to the MMO player, who in many games is treated as some sort of dull cattle creature that needs to be led by the nose to every solution.

One of my favourite moments in The Secret World so far was when my Templar weapon instructor pulled me aside and said “You’re not the only one, and you’re not the chosen one. You’re part of an army. Our army.” And he was right – as you progress through the world you meet other agents and operatives, and submit your mission reports back to your handler who provides you with scathing feedback and commentary. It all acts to build the atmosphere of the setting, and it acts well.

Flexing the mechanics

Combat is generally good fun, and in what is fast becoming a welcome trend in MMO design, your attacks are based on what weapon you’re wielding. It’s interestingly varied and your powers can be combined in a variety of ways by building up and expending resources, but there’s no real dynamism or action beyond dodging the very-clearly-telegraphed special powers that most enemies can drop on you. It also seems in need of some further tweaking, as some power sets seem – initially at least – to be more powerful than others.

The skill tree, or radial skill wheel rather, is massive and represents huge opportunity for players to diversify or specialise as they see fit. When you partner this with a levelling curve that has been thoroughly flattened into a line, the blissful grind-free nature of play creates a system designed to fade gently into the background and enhance the atmosphere that Funcom have created. It’s easy to try out a bit of magic, or perhaps swap to knuckle dusters instead of hammers, without having to feel like you’ve gimped your character. In fact if anything, it makes you more of a badass.

That said, it’s not all good news. There are bugs, and lots of them. Occasionally the game client will lock up for a second or three at a time, or continue to run as a background process even when it’s quit. Water textures are missing in some places, your weapon or character may disappear entirely and require a reload, clicking on things can be difficult or fiddly to the point of frustration. Most frustratingly perhaps, though, is the apparent lack of a power indicator telling you what you should or shouldn’t tackle. In many ways, that adds to the ‘fend-for-yourself’ atmosphere – but in others, it’s just annoying.

The Secret World beta is rough around the edges. And, to be honest, rough in the middle as well. In fact it’s just rough all over unfortunately, and while it’s obviously still very much in beta and such things would generally be acceptable, the game is only a scant month out from release. This is, frankly, worrying. Guild Wars 2’s recent beta tests were smooth as silk and nearly feature-complete, and while there’s a notable difference in team size and budget there, ArenaNet don’t have a deadline looming on the horizon. The Secret World, on the other hand, has until June 19 to fix and polish. The harsh reality is that it needs more time than that.

We’ll keep an eye on it, and continue to play and report back. But for now, The Secret World is shaping up to be a very promising, but somewhat mixed, bag of secrets.

“He’s an interesting guy, actually. I’ve read his blog. He blogged from prison. He’s out now. I think he’s a white supremacist and probably crazy, but it was just interesting getting to know what he was all about. He’s left prison and I think he’s living at some farm in the country making ambient black metal.”

Erling’s from Norway so I’ve taken the liberty of discussing one of my favourite topics with him, that being screeching heretical black metal. In this particular instance, we’re talking about Varg “Burzum” Vikernes. He stabbed a guy to death once and went to jail for a long time. What’s this got do with The Secret World? Wait on, I’ve got a segue app for that.

GON: So does The Secret World take any cues from Nordic mythology?

Erling: Absolutely, we definitely have. The best example are the draugr. In the game, they’re undead Vikings that have drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, and they come back to Solomon Island where you’re starting out. And you have to fight them! Draugr are part of Norwegian mythology, and they have been interpreted in many ways. I mean, when I grew up for instance, I was always told by all the adults that in the water in the woods next to our house, you can’t go there, you can’t go there, there is a draug there that will kill you. I never went there!

GON: Draugr and werewolves and vampires and the Illuminati and Templars – yep, I think that’s everything.

Erling: [laughs] The idea to combine all these crazy things was all Ragnar Tørnquist. He’s the game director. He’s the same guy who wrote the games Dreamfall and The Longest Journey.

GON: I love those games. April – what a lass.

Erling: Exactly, me too. So it was his original idea, and the original idea was that he wanted to create an MMO in a “real” world, so the first name of the game was actually “The World Online.” Of course it quickly took shape during the first months of production where you’re spending a lot of time sitting around tables talking about what you wanna make. The vision is definitely his, but it’s an extreme… I mean, we’ve set out to make an MMO where everything is true. It’s set in the real world, and everything is true! It’s breathtaking in a way. We don’t have everything yet, but we’ve identified what we think is the coolest stuff we want to have in at launch – and of course we have a long list of things that we would like to put in post-launch.

GON: Can you give me a hint?

Erling: Uh, not on the post-launch stuff, no [laughs].

GON: What about a cryptic clue?

Erling: [laughs] I would have to spend time making sure it’s cryptic enough! You don’t know our community, I think. They’ll solve anything we throw at them.

GON: That dedicated?

Erling: Oh, absolutely. There’s been a couple of ARGs – Alternate Reality Gaming – that may or may not have come from us [laughs], and they’ve jumped on it and we’ve been throwing them stuff that we’d never think they would solve, and they just solve it.

GON: Point taken! So how have you integrated the concept of three secret ruling castes into the grander scheme of a world run by dark and horrible things?

Erling: They’ve always been there, and they’ve always had different functions, but they’ve always been at war with each other. They engage in what we call the “secret war,” you know, the war that ordinary people don’t see. You have to be part of their circle, in a way, to be privy to that. They’re ruled by what’s called the Council of Venice that basically is a mediating force and determines the rules of engagement and all of that stuff.

When you first start The Secret World, that’s your only choice: You choose what secret society to join, and you choose how you want to look. When the game starts, you’re basically waking up in your apartment and you realise that you have these magical powers. You see a cut-scene with your character and, oh, your hand is on fire. And then it’s two weeks later, and your character is juggling fire. After a few weeks, there’s this secret society representative who knocks on your door and says, “We’ve been noticing you. Do you want to join us?”

GON: Very Matrix.

Erling: [laughs] It is a bit, isn’t it? And then you join them and you got to Seoul or New York or London. You meet them and they tell you all about what’s going on. They train you up and you rank through their missions and go up their ranks. The premise is basically that the three secret societies, they stand divided in their pursuit of power to influence the world – but they stand united in the fight against the darkness. They realise that once the dust settles, there can only be one left that dominates.

GON: That sounds like it lends itself well to some good ol’ PvP.

Erling: Absolutely. So when you’re just running around killing monsters, you can join up with anyone. I mean, I can be Illuminati and join with somebody who’s Templar. But once you go into the PvP area, the gloves come off, so to speak. We have different types of PvP: We have something called “battlefields,” which are smaller-scale battles that start and end after a set amount of time. For there you have, for instance, Stonehenge – which is a source of powerful magic in this world!

GON: Oh man, Spinal Tap is so boss!

Erling: [laughs] So you’re actually fighting them for the power to control the magic that is in Stonehenge. You can consider it a mini-game, in a way. Stonehenge in particular is a King of the Hill type thing. The secret society that has control of Stonehenge gets a certain buff that is active in all their players. We also have warzones, which are persistent battles that don’t start or end. You basically walk into an area: This is a warzone! You have over 100 players that are clashing and fighting over control points and so on. The ruling secret society in those areas, they gain a buff that is active for all players on a server in that society.

GON: So how do they conquer an area?

Erling: In the warzones, you basically have to capture control points, and you have to get into the heart of the area. Then you have to fight an automaton, which is an NPC that is employed, in a way, by the secret society that is currently in control of the warzone The three secret societies, they fight to capture different spawn points and so on and then they ultimately try to break through the walls into the heart of it. To get there, they have to plant explosives to get through the walls and they have to fight this automaton!

GON: Bit like a raid with PvP.

Erling: Absolutely! The three-faction dynamic is really interesting. It makes for an entirely different PvP game than, for instance, other two-sided games. For instance, when you’re playing in a warzone and you have one secret society that is doing really well and sitting on all the spawn points, then suddenly the two other societies aren’t necessarily battling each other. They’re not necessarily teaming up – the players have to decide that themselves – but subconsciously that’s what happens: Together, you’re trying to fight the secret society that’s on top. And that can switch places at any time!

Thanks to Erling for chatting with us!