Funcom's The Secret World seeing sweeping design changes

Funcom may still be hard at work getting Age of Conan into just the right position for Hyborean players, but that doesn't mean AoC is their only project. Indeed, after recent confirmation that The Secret World was still a going concern, we now learn that it's getting a bigtime design overhaul. Writing on his personal blog, Game Director Ragnar Tornquist notes that they're completely revisiting some underlying assumptions about the title. As Tornquist puts it, nothing we've seen so far will actually be changing; the game's look and 'feel' remains intact. Instead, all of the changes they're making are more about underlying design assumptions.

What's going to result from these changes is an MMO that actually tries to be different. Conan's run at the playspace dominated by World of Warcraft has obviously taught these designers the value of differentiation, and they want to capitalize on the unique strengths of their project. Says Tornquist, "We want The Secret World to stand out and be remembered - obviously. To not be just another MMORPG, a WoW clone, of which there are already too many. We're going to play up the strengths of our universe and differentiate ourselves in both the setting and the gameplay." Hopefully we'll be able to provide a few more details on these changes soon.
[Via Eurogamer]