The Secret World shares details on sharing stories

This game will be awesome when it comes out!

Sounds great. I'm probably looking forward to this game and WoD more than any others.

PC Gamer has a more detailed article about it (http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/27/the-secret-world-preview/).

Some quotes from it:
"Most obvious is the lack of both levels and classes in the game. Instead, players earn points that can be plugged into skills – closer to EVE’s time-dependent research tree than WoW’s uphill crawl. Points are earned by “killing monsters, doing missions, gathering lore, crafting, PvP, just generally playing the game.” The cost of each skill varies depending on its position on a skill wheel – the total mastery of blood magic obviously costs more than the ability to fire a standard pistol.

The game caters for groups of up to five, but doesn’t rely as heavily on instances as its peers. “Most of our world is completely open, and live and massively multiplayer. There’s a mission called Elm Street Blues – an assault on a police station. The siren goes off, and you basically get tasked with holding off this attack. The beauty of it is that when the siren goes off, everybody in that location hears it. People can just flock to you, and you’ll all get credit for that.”

More standard quests fill out your journal – each player having a story, main, and secondary job at one given point. The Secret World’s quests are known as ‘missions’ to better fit the game’s contemporary aesthetic, and Ragnar sees them as different animals to their MMO peers’ questy counterparts. “In a lot of MMOs, quests are there in order to feed the level treadmill. The Secret World’s missions are about rewards, XP and progression – but they’re also about the storytelling and the characters. Our missions are longer and more involved than the quests in most other games.”

Missions are split by type. Action missions are closest to standard quest models, but involve tasks such as “infiltrating a building, or setting off a bomb”. Sabotage missions will have you using “secret agent-type game mechanics” that I hope involve gluing some kind of fake moustache to your face and speaking in a bad French accent. Even more intriguing are The Secret World’s ‘investigation’ missions – described as “the most interesting” in Ragnar’s opinion.

“They’re the most different from everything else out there,” he says. “Investigation missions are about solving puzzles and digging deeper into the mysteries of the world.”

Funcom are making their own online resources, letting the Secret World bleed further into our own. Kingsmouth.com already exists, a tourist site for the sleepy fishing village that belies the Lovecraftian sinisterness lurking just under the surface. No doubt it will be scoured for clues come launch, but Ragnar says it won’t be the only site. “We’ll make other websites that look normal – but players might have to hack into them some way, or find a password.” "

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Sounds awesome, and graphics look great. I like the idea of a modern day, Lovecraft-style horror/dark fantasy MMORPG :-)

I liked this game till they announced subscriptions and cash shops. There are too many triple AAA titles out there that aren't going out to rip people off with B2P and F2P games. I prefer subscription, but despise games with both especially if a game is build from it from the start.

WoW got away with it because it is the market leader and the monopoly. When Secret World comes out there is too much competition for them to get away with foolish business decisions like this.

TSW will definitely be a good AAA sandbox MMORPG,I don't see their business model as evil as some are making it sound.If you don't want to use the cash shop don't use it and enjoy the game.

My fear is that Funcom fucked things up as they always do with each of their title which were all unique and very promising.