Remember Funcom’s The Secret World, the fantasical MMO from 2012 that didn’t quite pan out? The studio behind Conan Exiles and The Park has announced that it will be relaunching this Spring as Secret World Legends.

Executive producer Scott Junior made the announcement recently and also revealed how things would be changing. “One of our biggest goals in relaunching the game has been to reimagine the core gameplay experience in a way befitting a modern-day action RPG.

“Secret World Legends features combat that feels more natural, deep systems that are more intuitive, better structuring of the early game for new players, and improved mission flow to strengthen the pace of progression for players.”

If you were dedicated to the original, your progress sadly won’t carry over. “Given the sweeping extent of the changes being implemented, Secret World Legends will reset story progression for anyone who joins, offering a fresh start for all players,” said Junior. Since the game is on a separate server, it will be possible to play with an existing character.

Furthermore, if you have an existing membership, this can be transferred over to Secret World Legends. “Any remaining time on your membership will turn into Patron time in Secret World Legends. If you are a Grand Master and link your account, you will be a Patron for life!”

Head here for the closed beta in-progress. Secret World Legends will release this Spring on PC.

Along with the tons of new content, including a new story arc centered around Tyler Freeborn, a new auxiliary weapon and hotkeys for inventory items, Issue #5 will see the undead rise as part of the End of Days event. Players will need to band together to fight against three harbingers and the Lord of the Nine Underworlds to survive Armageddon.

And go all Gangnam Style for good measure.

Check out The Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn now for The Secret World, available on PC.

In light of the MMO’s less than stellar success, and even the new team lead trying to get players to commit, it’s finally happened: Funcom’s The Secret World has finally abolished the subscription system, now only requiring a one-time fee for playing. This was outlined in a new video released by the developer which can be viewed above.

As of now, Funcom hasn’t really talked about any plans for micro-transactions and such, but if they’ve given up any hope for continuing their subscription based model, things might be even bleaker for the game than initially revealed. Funcom itself has seen some pretty bad times over the past month, and we’ll get to know whether this the last gasp of the company or a new beginning.

There’s certainly a massive helping of content and Funcom has provided a helpful preview featuring Game Director Joel Bylos, who details what we can expect in the newest Issue.

Some of the new features include the Manhattan Exclusion Zone, a raid area raid in the middle of a destroyed Times Square for groups of 10 players and the Albion Theater, a London theater venue where players can set up their own stage plays. You’ll be able to plan everything out from props to lighting and other players can be invited to watch in the audience.

Additions have been made to the combat as well, including PvP enhancements and new weapons like the Chainsaw, which opens new abilities for players to procure. There’s also a new, optional Reticule combat mode that lets you target enemies using the mouse.

“I need to do everything in my power to convince gamers out there who still have not played The Secret World that this is a universe worth immersing yourself in. It is a crowded market out there and we have a lot of competition, so I know that we will need to make improvements but also expand on the game’s unique strengths to make it stand out even more clearly. It is definitely going to be a challenge and fortunately I am bringing one of the most talented teams ever with me into the fray. Our sleeves are rolled up. We have our war paint on. We are ready for battle.”

A new issue is forthcoming for the game, called “Big Trouble in the Big Apple”, although a lot more fixes and additions will be planned, including some work on the raid investigations seen in the game.

In conversation with Penny Arcade, Bruusgaard states, “Unfortunately I think that in order to be a success in today’s market, you need to make the game a bit more commercial. I think you have to consider what sells. You just have to. Not doing it is a huge risk. Yes, you might get lucky and everything works out great, but I would not do that again.”

Of course, having heavy-weights like Guild Wars 2 didn’t do any favours.

“I think it was a very difficult window to launch in, between Star Wars and Guild Wars and TERA. A lot of big MMOs out there. I think we also could’ve done a better job when it comes to marketing and making sure people know there is a game called The Secret World. I think too few people had heard of it, even though again, our numbers seemed like we were tracking really well.”

Source: GamesIndustryBiz

At a time when most studios are turning to free-to-play for MMOs, The Secret World will stay at the subscription model of a while, according to Funcom. The game wasn’t a massive hit commercially and MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic has already gone F2P after seeing a decrease in subscriber base.

What could be the reason preventing Funcom from turning it into F2P? Well, here’s what they had to say.

“It’s a fast changing business and we have to adapt ourselves. But right now there’s currently no plans,” Funcom communications director Erling Ellingsen told Eurogamer.

“It’s really important to us with the business model we’ve chosen. It sounds very emotional, but I almost feel like we need to prove that this business model has not gone the way of the dinosaur by delivering content constantly to people, and making people feel like there’s value in it,” director Joel Bylos revealed.

Do you agree with their decision? Let us know in the comments section below.

“In my opinion, the whole game rating business doesn’t necessarily do a great justice to MMOs. MMOs are designed to grow over time and get better with every major release. It might be better if sites like Metacritic could find a way to rate MMOs by releases instead of just the initial day one. There are plenty of MMOs that have made huge strides since days one and some that have even gotten worse. Until then, we will continue to offer the game for free and ask for people to try it out and decide for themselves.”

Game reviews depend on a multitude of factors. Say it’s a game where knowing and experiencing everything within the game is tantamount to a useful review. Oftentimes, if the game is terrible, even for a good portion of the gameplay, it’s not hard to pan it even if the ending is gold (or unusual, as was the case with Inversion).

But MMOs are different – they are constantly evolving beasts, receiving fixes and additions like no other genre. A game like Mass Effect 3 may receive the periodic DLC update, but The Secret World needs to be putting out more new episodes and quests each month. It’s the very nature of the genre – if players have finished everything, and have nothing to do but level grind, why continue playing?

And then there are the patches and fixes, that might have made a previously unbearable aspect of the game quite fun. Some gamers might right off these little fixes as insignificant. But ask any fighting game fan who’s moved from one sequel to the next about balance issues. For ordinary people or reviewers, it may seem minsicule but for the gamers themselves, it could be worlds apart from what they played before.

How does one go about keeping track of every single MMO, be it RPG or shooter, with every new update and quest that comes about? Because our role isn’t to iron out every single possible scenario and then conclude if it’s just right. That’s a QA tester’s job. A reviewer should know if it’s fun or not, and if an update improves something, a quick run through of the game should be made to see just how different the experience is. But again, in order to notice the change, one has to be constantly playing these games, observing the nuances firsthand. Not an easy task when you consider all the other games that demand a reviewer’s attention.

However, in light of Stahl’s views, let’s look at PC games in the late 90’s to early 2000’s, which began demanding more patches than usual. Were those games, some buggy and unplayable, others featuring minor nuisances, judged differently? Was there a “scope for improvement” scale when evaluating a game? How much fun the game would be if all the errors were rectified? Understanding the core gameplay, and identifying what makes it fun is vital. So even if there’s less bullshit in the way of enjoying it, the game automatically goes up in value.

Then again, many games were looked down on at release for needing to be patched – it was even cited as a lazy route by developers to be able to ship on time, while working on fixes later. Why can’t they just delay the title and ensure it’s perfect, rather than shipping a buggy game and patching it later? Some developers even went ahead and did that, but such a tactic is unthinkable in today’s high-pressure, AAA environment. Maybe it’s the reason most blockbuster come to consoles first – a fixed architecture to optimise for reduces dev time significantly, not to mention the number of users is significantly higher for all consoles combined compared to PC gamers. But that time is being cut short, thanks to yearly sequels. Either way, don’t expect to see Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed delayed for any other platform but PC. In fact, when the first Black Ops was released simultaneously for PS3, PC and XBox 360, it was notorious for being almost unplayable on the former two.

Coming back to MMOs, should they be given special treatment? It’s definitely a worthy avenue to explore, even in a limited capacity, but shouldn’t be interpreted as a clean slate for devs. If the core gameplay wasn’t fun the first time around, no amount of polish or additional content is going to fix that.

Funcom CEO Ole Schreiner stated, “We definitely have the tools to turn The Secret World into a free-to-play game – or even hybrid – should we decide to do that somewhere down the line. We did that with Age of Conan with significant success.”

But is there much scope for F2P titles to overtake subscription based models?

“I do think that as that as free-to-play offerings keep raising the bar in terms of quality and longevity, it’s becoming more and more difficult for subscription games to live up to player’s expectations. If you’re demanding a monthly fee from someone they obviously expect more value than they get from a similar free-to-play offering,” said Schreiner.

So quality over reviving and retooling properties then. Are the concerned parties listening?

Issue #2: Digging Deeper is the second content update for Funcom’s modern-day massively multiplayer online game ‘The Secret World’. This issue introduces several new missions, the rocket launch auxiliary weapon, the ability to visit a plastic surgeon and a barbershop to alter your character’s appearance, and more. For more information, visit www.thesecretworld.com.

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