Dark Days are Coming
Weeeeell, I have a new MMO to sink my teeth into. Or I should say I WILL have a new one, seeing as how it isn't out yet. The upcoming game is called The Secret World (TSW) and the best part is, my favorite director is seeing it along- Ragnar Tørnquist. He was the one who directed my favorite game of all time, The Longest Journey (NOT to be confused witth Dreamfall The Longest Journey, which is in fact its sequel and NOT as good, but more people know about it). So I am looking forward to this new game...even though I grow impatient with the man for not working on TLJ saga. Yes indeedy, he pretty much ditched the story after Dreamfall came out and went to go work on TSW. But according to him, he had been planning TSW waaaay before TLJ was ever thought up, so now he is finally working on it. Alright, I can deal with that I suppose, but damnit it better be worth it, and by that I mean it better be really really good. And as far as story goes, I don't know much because Ragnar won't tell us fans anything ._. because he says if he told us any tiny thing, something might be figured out and the mystery ruined. TSW is supposed to be a puzzle, adventure, MMO, and alternate reality mix game (sorta like TLJ, but it lacked the MMO), and Ragnar LOOOOVES to keep his fans guessing, so its not likely that he will tell us anything more than we already know. And what we DO know are simple clues, such as pictures with symbolic meaning, poems, number codes, the number/letter/roman numeral (?) "III", the character of "The Friend" and a consipracy about a clockwork society. Oh not to mention the code word for TSW is "Dark Days are Coming", hehe. I'm sure...by now...I have left the ready rather confused =/ and I would try and clear some of this up, but honestly if I go into detail about the clues...this might as well be a novel. The largest reason why I can't really pin down anything, is because nothing has been finalized....yeaaaah. There are only theories that surround these pictures, poems and whatnot, but I CAN say officially...a while back there was a series of clues that people had to figure out in order to get to TSW secret forum. It took people a couple of weeks to figure things out (I looked at the puzzles they were CRAZY hard!) but eventually the forum link was given out so everyone interested could go there. Unfortunatly I missed out on all the puzzle solving fun, and was just able to click on the link to go straight to the forums, but hey what can you do v_v. The interesting thing was, this whole puzzle thing was used as a sort of "advertisement" for the game, and those secret forums no longer exist (but in our memory XD). I wish that wasn't true, but luckily TSW fanatics discovered that Ragnar worked on Dreamfall, and flocked over to those forums when TSW forums died. So now people go and theororizes their little hearts out over at the Dreamfall forums and I am happy with that. After all thats basically all they did on TSW forums...theororize like crazy and try to gather more information about the game. Information like, who is The Friend character? Is he good or evil? What does he know? What is significant about the "number" III? Lolz, after a while it just gets to where you want to scream WHAT DOES ANYTHING MEAN ANYMORE?!!!
Well, I should probably shut up about the vague clues already and just got to the basic story and setting. At least those things are certain. The setting is supposed to be in the modern world (convenient), BUT some ancient myths are real, and some things that are thought to be real, are in fact just legends. There is a hidden world behind what we see, and it is a world of darkness and shadows and mysteryyyyy (woooo). Also, there is some funky thing going on with time and eventually...somehow...you go to civilizations and places set approximatly 100 million years in the past and so on. All this apparently has roots to the backstory (which we don't know yet), but I like the sound of it. The gameplay is supposed to be like a regular MMO, as in you run around in a virtual world and kill things. However TSW doesn't really incorporate the whole RP aspect, as in you don't really gain experience the way your used to, and you don't level up. You do have a choice of weapons and professions, but fighting really isn't in the spotlight for this game. What is, is the adventure aspect (this is my favorite part X3), as in the outcome depends on what you say or ask. I LOVE adventure games...I think they are the most engageing, and when you have a good story to go along with it, then damn its something I like to get sucked into. That is what happened with TLJ, the story was progressed by you conversing with others, using items to get through obstacles, and just following the story. I know it doesn't sound very exciting written down, but when you actually play it...you'll see what I mean. And true, it is one of those geners that you either love or hate, its definatly not everyones cup of tea, and it really shouldn't try to be. Unfrotunatly game designers try to make a classic adventure game that will attract every type of gamer out there, and the end result is something like Morrowind or The Witcher. Now now I am NOT dissing these games, they are alright for what they are, but they just aren't a classic adventure game. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, I was saying that TSW story changes with what you say and puzzles are what takes the spotlight. You are...after all...trying to unconver conspiracies, and that isn't likely to happen through just hacking and slashing through zombies. Also, there are no technical NPC played by an AI. The NPCs are actual people (thats what Ragnar claims anyway) and will give you complex answers, not computer generated ones. That...sounds a little unbelievable to me o_O, but if it happens, it will rule. As of now I don't know what to expect from that, so I try to expect nothing XD
Well, there you go. I have been anticipating this since, oh, 2006 maybe, and in a few weeks its going to have a rather large promotion. I'll have to keep track of it. At any rate, this game will probably overcome my cheap addiction to WoW. Mmmm :D WoW is like the McDonalds of MMOs, honestly I think the only thing that saves it from being truly half assed is the Night Elf history, the High Elves and the new found Blood Elves and Draenei. Gaah sidetracked again! I was gonig to go on and say that I'll post pictures of the clues and poems, and a few screen shots below. I just need to find them...
"They are coming" was the title of this picture on Ragnar's twitter page.
Ragnar just posted this picture, no title, but it has a meaning.
Same picture BUT with all of them combined. WTF? Now I shall show you the original three clues we got: Number I- the poem
Number II- symbols
Number III- Photograph
Lastly I would like to say, that there are SO much more clues out there, its just that I don't want to post about 30 pictures on this one post XD. There are letters, diagrams, more letters, symbol translations and lots more -_O
Well, I should probably shut up about the vague clues already and just got to the basic story and setting. At least those things are certain. The setting is supposed to be in the modern world (convenient), BUT some ancient myths are real, and some things that are thought to be real, are in fact just legends. There is a hidden world behind what we see, and it is a world of darkness and shadows and mysteryyyyy (woooo). Also, there is some funky thing going on with time and eventually...somehow...you go to civilizations and places set approximatly 100 million years in the past and so on. All this apparently has roots to the backstory (which we don't know yet), but I like the sound of it. The gameplay is supposed to be like a regular MMO, as in you run around in a virtual world and kill things. However TSW doesn't really incorporate the whole RP aspect, as in you don't really gain experience the way your used to, and you don't level up. You do have a choice of weapons and professions, but fighting really isn't in the spotlight for this game. What is, is the adventure aspect (this is my favorite part X3), as in the outcome depends on what you say or ask. I LOVE adventure games...I think they are the most engageing, and when you have a good story to go along with it, then damn its something I like to get sucked into. That is what happened with TLJ, the story was progressed by you conversing with others, using items to get through obstacles, and just following the story. I know it doesn't sound very exciting written down, but when you actually play it...you'll see what I mean. And true, it is one of those geners that you either love or hate, its definatly not everyones cup of tea, and it really shouldn't try to be. Unfrotunatly game designers try to make a classic adventure game that will attract every type of gamer out there, and the end result is something like Morrowind or The Witcher. Now now I am NOT dissing these games, they are alright for what they are, but they just aren't a classic adventure game. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, I was saying that TSW story changes with what you say and puzzles are what takes the spotlight. You are...after all...trying to unconver conspiracies, and that isn't likely to happen through just hacking and slashing through zombies. Also, there are no technical NPC played by an AI. The NPCs are actual people (thats what Ragnar claims anyway) and will give you complex answers, not computer generated ones. That...sounds a little unbelievable to me o_O, but if it happens, it will rule. As of now I don't know what to expect from that, so I try to expect nothing XD
Well, there you go. I have been anticipating this since, oh, 2006 maybe, and in a few weeks its going to have a rather large promotion. I'll have to keep track of it. At any rate, this game will probably overcome my cheap addiction to WoW. Mmmm :D WoW is like the McDonalds of MMOs, honestly I think the only thing that saves it from being truly half assed is the Night Elf history, the High Elves and the new found Blood Elves and Draenei. Gaah sidetracked again! I was gonig to go on and say that I'll post pictures of the clues and poems, and a few screen shots below. I just need to find them...
"They are coming" was the title of this picture on Ragnar's twitter page.
Ragnar just posted this picture, no title, but it has a meaning.
Same picture BUT with all of them combined. WTF? Now I shall show you the original three clues we got: Number I- the poem
Number II- symbols
Number III- Photograph
Lastly I would like to say, that there are SO much more clues out there, its just that I don't want to post about 30 pictures on this one post XD. There are letters, diagrams, more letters, symbol translations and lots more -_O