Castle Magus

Fuck.

I would have been pretty ecstatic for this... if I hadn't already bitten on a Steam sale for this game a few months ago (which, apparently, I never even bothered to post about here on LJ). *weary sigh*

Oh well, maybe the redesigned and (hopefully) improved combat will get me back into it. I only made it up to the third area (Blue Mountains) before losing interest in it, before. The setting, the storylines, the general atmosphere of the game were great. It was the tedious gameplay that was not so great.

"Subscription is no longer required to play The Secret World! Purchase it today and enjoy everything the game has to offer without ever having to pay a monthly fee again. Pay once, play forever -- it's that simple!"


Huh. Well.

I have to say, that just piqued my interest in this game once again, given that the monthly subscription fee was pretty much the only real reason I had to not want to get into it before (well, that and the fact that it is a MMO in the first place, but I was willing to overlook that part of it before, and I can again). It also doesn't sound like it's going to one of those crappy free-to-play/pay-to-win models either. I might just take another look into this when I get back from NC in January.

(EDIT) More in depth links. It does look like any extra updates to the game, aka DLC, will cost an additional amount per pack. Eh, well, I guess they'd have to make their money off potential moochers like me somehow. *shrug* I don't see that as too awfully bad, honestly. (/EDIT)

(As a mostly unrelated aside, it looks like Livejournal supports Youtube iframe code now, which it did not before. Not sure when this change occurred, since I've always been using the old embed code until now. It's a good thing too, in this case, because the "Use old embed code" option was missing from this particular Youtube video for some reason.)

Hmm, wonder if I should try to get in on this thing since it's apparently available to everyone who's registered now (and I've been registered for a while).

(EDIT)

Downloading it now. ¬_¬

I'll treat it like a "demo" rather than a "beta."

(/EDIT)

It seems that Secret War thing for The Secret World on Facebook has finally gone live. And though I haven't bothered to try it myself yet, it apparently really, really sucks just like every other Facebook "game" I've ever tried to play. Not even sure why I had kind of expected this to be any different at all, despite the fact that I have been burned by every single other Facebook game I've ever tried. So, yeah, I don't think I'll be participating in the Secret War, sorry. Oh well.

Seriously, between things like this and things like that, my enthusiasm for The Secret World itself is kind of starting to cool. :/

(EDIT)

Hmm.

(/EDIT)

(EDIT 2)

Okay, so I gave it a shot myself, just for the heck of it. And... it is just as lame as I figured it would be. I set it to disallow auto-posting to my FB wall, so hopefully it shouldn't be spamming everyone (and if I see that it does so anyway, I'm immediately blocking it completely). So far, it seems like the only thing you can do that doesn't require spamming for clicks on FB itself is to deploy agents to various places in the world. I have one (1) agent to my name, apparently. I will never have more than the one, because I refuse to spam my FB for this crap. And I can only use that agent once per hour, as is stated in the above linked article. At the very most, this might be something that I would fire up for 30 seconds or so, send out the agent, and then close the window and forget about it. Don't know if I'll bother with even that much, honestly. The whole thing really is not very interesting at all, from what I've seen of it, nor do I care about the unlockables or other incentives to play it.

I mean, this thing is even worse than Dragon Age Legends, and that's saying something given how asinine that was. At least it had some small resemblance to an actual game going for it, for what that's worth. The Secret War doesn't even have that much. Seriously, people who make Facebook games, please stop making stupid shit like this.

(/EDIT 2)

I haven't read any of these yet, as I don't have time at the moment, but there they are for anyone who wants them. Twelve different previews on the list, at least so far.

Okay, while I don't give the slightest crap about the game itself, as far as MMOs or just games in general go, I would think that one of the most important things you'd want to be in place, especially for launch, is the ability for people to actually, you know, play your game.

The makers of Star Wars: The Old Republic apparently don't agree with this concept.

(I hope Funcom is watching this and taking notes. But then, given that they inexplicably let EA have a piece of their pie already, who can say that the launch of The Secret World won't be just as poorly handled as this?)

Lately, I've found myself increasingly avoiding news regarding The Secret World, but I did read this. I'll probably read the upcoming interview they mention in that as well.

(EDIT)

And here's the two-part interview.

(/EDIT)

GamesCom 2011 interview with Ragnar Tørnquist.

(EDIT 2) Embed removed because it doesn't fucking work anymore. *weary sigh* Just click the link above. (/EDIT 2)

I think the only really new bit of info that I gleaned from that was "the game launches in April of next year." That's the first I've heard of a definite release date window. I wouldn't be all that surprised if it gets delayed though, as that tends to be the norm for most big game releases.

(EDIT)

Oh, and when he's talking about vampires and cities on the moon, I totally hope it's like this. *nods sagely*

(/EDIT)

How did I miss this? (Found via this.)

I seriously don't know what it is, especially, but something about this game just sings to me, despite it being a MMO, a genre to which I am usually incredibly averse*. It's a sure-fire definite at this point that I'll be getting this when it is released, unless word about it takes a drastic turn for the worse as it nears release. Doubtful if I want to go so far as to try to participate in any sort of beta, though.

However, one of the things I'm afraid of, which is a fear shared by many others, is that all of these "investigation missions" that they keep talking about (and a rather interesting example of which is given in the preview above: "It's the first time I've seen Bible Gateway used during a game demo.") will be ruined shortly after the game's release by people posting the explicit answers all over the place, which would definitely skew the whole "search Google for clues" dynamic. This is why I'm partly hoping that the game will have a built in web browser that would attempt to limit that sort of thing, but then that would also somewhat detract from the more immersive nature that they seem to be going for.

In any case, I'll just say it yet again, please please please don't mess this up, Funcom, and especially don't let others (*cough*EA*cough*) screw it up either.

* - Not so much because I think they're stupid or whatever. Quite the opposite, actually. It's because I've always been somewhat afraid that if I ever did start to play one, I'd be forever lost to the world (as I have heard horror stories about happening and, in fact, have personally seen happen on more than one occasion).** While I think I have more than enough self-control to keep from becoming a drone, slaving away at a MMO 24/7, developing disgusting habits like poopsocking (have people really done that, or is that just an urban legend?) and the like, I've seen other people who I'd have thought equally unlikely to be forever lost end up becoming pretty much exactly that. Well, be that as it may, I think TSW will be worth that risk, at least based upon what I've heard about it so far.

** - Then again, this can be, and often is, also true of immense single-player games as well, such as the upcoming Skyrim, for instance. At least that will very likely be the case for me, anyway. ¬_¬ Which, in a way, is actually probably more sad than getting sucked into a MMO would be.

When I first heard of The Secret World, my reaction went something along the lines of "A new game created by Ragnar Tørnquist?! Well, while it may not be Dreamfall Chapters as I would have liked, that's still pretty swee- wait... MMO? Bah. Could not care less in the slightest. Next?"

And then, much later, here's the first LJ post I made that mentioned it. The only reason at the time that it piqued my interest at all was the talk of that supposed "single-player mode" which now doesn't seem to have had much merit to it, as I haven't heard anything about it since then. Beyond that I still didn't care a fig about the actual MMO aspect of it at all.

The more I read about it over time, however, the more the game began to interest me in general, even despite my typically anti-MMO nature.

Fast foward to today. I just read this, which contained the line "Most of the content in The Secret World is true massively multiplayer content, and it's definitely something we feel is important in an MMORPG, and we're not trying to compete with single-player RPGs." And, you know what? It doesn't bother me. Somehow, it doesn't trigger my rabid antipathy for all things MMO, even though it totally should.

The Secret World is something of an anomaly for me. I still don't much care about any and all of the other MMOs that are being released lately and have been released in the past. Ultima Online... World of Warcraft... City of Heroes... Final Fantasy XI... Final Fantasy XIV... Star Wars Galaxies... EVE Online... Guild Wars... Star Trek Online... DC Universe Online... The Old Republic... Rift... none of those games or the many other MMOs out there really interest me at all, precisely because they are MMO games. Don't get me wrong, as I'm not saying those are all bad games (and I wouldn't know one way or another because I haven't played them and don't really follow them, aside from whatever 'Net Natter I hear about them). I'm just saying they don't do anything for me, because I am not, generally speaking, into MMO at all, or even just regular run-of-the-mill multiplayer, for that matter. And yet The Secret World, which is also most definitely a MMO, has me very much interested in it. And, in many ways, it is a complete mystery to me as to why this is the case. I'm still trying to figure that one out. The only real reason I can definitely put my finger on is the second point in this other article I just finished reading, i.e. my primary interest in it, at least initially, was because Ragnar Tørnquist has such a big involvement with it. The Longest Journey and Dreamfall are both incredible games, and knowing that the guy behind those games is one of the driving forces behind The Secret World, and what that implies, is a big part of why I care about it. If he hadn't been involved, I'm pretty sure my interest in it would have been and would still now be equal to my interest in all of the other MMOs I listed above. In other words: almost completely non-existent.

Anyway, as I've said before and will probably say again, I really, truly hope this game doesn't end up being all hype and no real substance to back it up. I'd hate for my first ever foray into the abyss that is the MMORPG to be a lackluster one.