I can’t help but feel a little disappointed in CCP/White Wolf if Funcom comes out with an onion-layered dark world MMO before the makers of EVE do. Massively gives a peek at Funcom’s upcoming game The Secret World, which honestly seems pretty cool. It is a story-driven, time traveling, action-oriented, classless MMO in the vein of Call of Cthulhu or The King in Yellow, from what I surmise. And, the producer is Ragnar Tørnquist who brought us the excellent The Longest Journey games. It sounds very intriguing, but still I have that little pang of fanboism hurting.
CCP/White Wolf announced the World of Darkness MMO sometime in 2007, shortly after the two companies’ “merger” (read:acquisition). Since then we have heard nothing. According to Massively, on the other hand, The Secret World started concepting in 2002. I have not seen when official production began, but I do not think we will get The Secret World until 2011. On the other hand, World of Darkness has been running like a submarine, and one can only guess if and when that game will come about.
I guess I should be a little thankful that this game genre is finally coming to an MMO. I think that The Secret World is going to take a lot more from Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (one of my top ten games of all time) rather than having vampire and werewolves, especially as protagonists. Still, the two games would be like brothers, each in their own dark world. If anything, maybe this will push CCP out of the deep to counteract any of Funcom’s marketing “firsts” and “onlys.”
–Ravious
lost carcosa