War is Hell

It is a little after 10am on Monday the 29th of August. I am saying that upfront because right now there are goings on in The Secret World.

Follow Mithrilendil and The Dark Places on Twitter now if you do not already. Two hours remain to ask the questions.

On topic. I have always wanted to be part of an MMO Community in some real large way. Ever since my first steps in the community around Earth & Beyond I have wanted to get to know the movers and shakers and if at all possible, make my own mark.

However that’s going to take a major effort. There are long established names, loud and proud fans and an entire community between me and the fifteen minutes of fame. Further to that, The Secret World is going to continue using ARGs and social networking. They said in an interview that combat is going to demand more of the player than the average MMO… I think it won’t just be the combat.

This then is the simple choice. Do I play the game and watch it pass me by, be like the masses in EVE for example who just do their day to day starship activities? Or do I take the time, do the research and make the effort to break onto the stage? Do I weave characters around me to hide my intentions from the chaotic Dragon and proud Illuminati? Do I have what I need to engage with a game as I never have before?

Only one way to find out.

I really hope The Secret War isn’t flammable.

Hello Anyone From Massively!

Sorry, I've not blogged anything much recently. If you fancy a damned good read though, the blogroll is still quite active and there are some fantastic mmo blogs to read on it.
If you fancy a rather not bad read, my interviews with Derek Smart and Ragnar Tornquist are linked to the side.

Temporal Rift

It is 9.04am here in Dublin and I am in the office.

I haven’t slept.

Now I know this is my fault. It may also be the fault of dinner… you know I don’t think chicken fajitas need two whole bell peppers chopped up but eh, what do I know? I will just have to coffee up, keep the brain engaged. I’ll get through this day. What got me through the weekend however was a heady mix of addiction and excitement. (In retrospect, that sentence looks suspicious.)

Rift of course. What else?

You know, for not knowing next to a damned thing about the game, I am having a fantastic time. There are so many games out now with hype machines and detractors/supporters and ads everywhere that well.. I just tune most of them out. Rift was one of those things that got tuned out. I’d get around to it in time. Fortunately for me I did.

Originally I snagged beta invite keys for Beta 6 for myself and Shannon but neither of us actually ended up with the time or desire to download it and test. Bad beta players in other words. Trion on the other hand was far more forgiving, which is to say that their database just sent the invite, and we ended up invited via email to the Open beta like approximately ten billion other people. Nothing special but enough to remind us, so in we went.

Rift has subsequently been pre-ordered for us both. Founders pricing has been locked in. Unless I have a suddenly and inexplicably awful 30+ days between the free month and headstart, Trion is going to get six months out of us both.

That brings me back to having not slept. No I didn’t stay up all night playing Rift, though I easily could have. We’re still blaming dinner for that particular detail. But I did play it endlessly this weekend. Both myself and Shannon turned to each other more than once with excitement in our voices “Want to play some Rift?”. At 3am this morning when neither of us could sleep in any way, shape or form and we finally gave into staying up. Rift.

It may have eaten a good portion of the weekend, when I wasn’t doing things I was supposed to, but it is welcome to what it took. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such fun in a new game and wanted so hard to play more. For completely missing the hype and having no clue, I am now a convert.

I won’t be playing today though, I’m going to let the rest of the beta pass without me drooling over it. There’s things I have to get done and well.. the dreaded beta wipe. I am already far too attached to one character, I don’t need to make the loss worse. Thursday though, you know where you’ll find me.

Tripping the Rift Fantastic.

No more Intellectuals Please.

IP! Intellectual Properties. If you’re in the business of licensing things, man I bet you love those.

George Lucas has vast armies of people making Star Wars games. Star Trek games come out every so often (and are usually not the best). Movies get adapted to games, games get made from tv shows and there are plenty of properties out there that have been looked at for further video game exploitation.

Given that this will never ever come to pass, I have two requests.

First, no more intellectual properties please. Take a break. Try your hand at something new. Not a universe that lends itself to being turned into an MMO. Not some existing IP that you think could crack the nut that is WoW or emulate its success.

Try new things. Try new worlds. Try making something that no one has ever seen before. Right now there is the trend of taking what someone has done and emulating the crap out of it, as though that process will somehow mystically imbue your title with the same positives and line your pockets. We’ve all seen the huge buckets of money that Minecraft just made. How long until the copies come out, reasoning that a tiny iteration on an established success equals more success?`

Just because something made the splash once, it does not automatically follow that it or any other game directly modelled on it will do the same.

Secondly, as a game company… start lying to us all. I don’t mean lie about features or release dates or content. They’re all very important. Making a good, complete and completed game is vital to you, to your market and to the genre. However…. people are going gaga for or raging at Bioware because of however they currently perceive Star Wars: The Old Republic. People will always look at Mythic a certain way. Reportedly Square Enix lost $26million worth of investment because a player who had the stock didn’t like the latest installment. I personally cannot wait for The Secret World, but there are many who read as far as “Funcom” and stop listening.

So lie to me. Lie to everyone. Spin off subsidiaries and reabsorb them later or drop them if they are unsustainable. Create new companies, new names, new faces and personalities to bring us the next wave of MMOs. Don’t bring us “Bioware presents: Some Game” or “Square Enix FF 75.23”. The same name that sells your games in a single player market brings far too much drama in a massively multiplayer one.

Bring me a new game from a new company and importantly from a new and neutral starting point. Make your success stories on the back of the hard work put into the game rather than on the back of a bought in IP that someone will say you did wrong or on the back of your own reputations which may leave many demanding things that you may not ever be able to deliver.

Would it be difficult to work out who has spun off whom and for what? Probably not. However if the one thing missing from games now days is wonder, leave us wondering and with wonderful things.

This should be a tradition.

I did this well before the launch of Star Trek Online and I am doing it again. The only difference is this time I’m not (yet, if ever) in the beta.

I do not like nor am I impressed by Star Wars : The Old Republic.

I’m not hating on your game, if you are a fan. I am not bashing the company or anything. I am just totally unimpressed. If I change my tune later and become a total fanboy, feel free to call me on it.

In the meantime, until I get my blogging regions of my brain full of coffee and come back to you all, enjoy this.

Things Man Shouldn't Know

Woo! \o/

The Secret World GamesCom press embargo lifted yesterday and with that you can now read my exclusive interview with Ragnar Tornquist over at www.OnRPG.com

A snippet?

It's incredibly hard to keep our mouths shut! All we want to do is show you what we've been working on for so long - but we're not far away from doing just that.

It'll be a sh!t game, don't buy it.

Ragnar Tornquist on The Secret World

Now Live on OnRPG.com !

Conspiracies… myths… half truths, careful lies and dark places. All of these are in The Secret World. All myths are true, for a given value. All conspiracies are being played out by the major factions, so long as it suits them.

Templar, Dragon, Illuminati. A world beneath and a game on the horizon. Whatever you know about The Secret World, game creator Ragnar Tornquist says it best on twitter.

“RagnarTornquist @RarePc No, it'll be a shit game, don't buy it. OF COURSE it's going to be a good game, worth every penny, cross my heart, etc. Peace. #TSW”

Of course he’s joking. This game is his baby and soon we will all get to witness its birth onto the AAA MMO gaming scene. If you haven’t been following the rise and reveals of The Secret World, then more than any other game before you are missing a treat. Sure there is the normal hype surrounding it. Where there are fans, there are huge expectations and opinions. Where there are fans, there are detractors and naysayers. All of that we’re used to, heck for some of us it’s how we got our start in the MMO blog scene. Hype breeds excitement, excitement breeds word of mouth and we all know what word of mouth can do for, or in darker cases to, a game.

This game though, it has been creeping around in all the dark places. It has been waiting, growing. Spinning tales and weaving webs. I speak of course of the many ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) related to The Secret World. Even if you aren’t a fan of MMOs, and if not I’d wonder why you’re reading this, it has been quite an experience.

I personally have followed the tweets of some of the unwitting souls of Kingsmouth. I have read of the Monsters of Maine and the Sanctuary Of Secrets. All of these things are being played out on the internet. Sometimes in bursts, full of action and teases. Other times subtly and over a period of time. Unlike any other game I have watched come from concept art, through the teasing trailers and into the market, The Secret World has won my adulation and interest through its mystery. Through the fact that the more I know, the more I want to. All the conspiracies and myths await, all the promises of a secret world, a hidden war and a story unlike any I personally have played with before are just ahead of me.

For people who are left looking at this entry, wanting more, expecting something other than the gushing of a proclaimed fan, there is plenty to be found. There is information close at hand and on the official game forums. Ragnar himself is answering questions every so often on Formspring.me. The Alternate Reality Games get picked apart by a rabid and dedicated fan base on more than one occasion. Of course the best information comes from community questions on the forums themselves here, here and here.

Will it be, as Ragnar joked, a sh-oh look a kitty-t game? I for one am happy with my expectations. I think it will be every bit as deep, every bit as enthralling and mysterious as advertised. In the end, every game has fans and detractors. Every game will have nay-sayers and rabid supporters. I am going for the game whose manner and mystery caught my imagination… not with pretty graphics or insane game play. They weren’t shown yet when I first was snared by it. No, they made me imagine all the possibilities and that, the promise of the mind, is why I will follow the Templar into the darkness of Argartha. Into The Secret World.