The Secret World's progression system doesn't subscribe to labels, man

Though most other MMOs allow their players to use level ranking and class like some kind of shorthand calling card ("Oh, me? I'm a Lv. 43 Powermime!"), Funcom's The Secret World will ditch that system for a more versatile approach, according to a recent Rock, Paper, Shotgun preview. Instead of levels and classes, players will be able to pick and choose from 500 skills that they'll be able to swap between at certain points during a mission, making strategy and foresight far more powerful tools than patience and grinding.

Players will be able to specialize as one of the MMORPG genre's many archetypes, though this broad system won't lock them out of other job types should their interests shift. We appreciate any MMO that allows us to reenact our collegiate career, during which we double-majored in Animal Husbandry and Astronomy with a minor in Healthcare Management and another minor in Racquetball.

Reader Comments (17)

I love the setting, I really hope the gameplay follows.

So D10 instead of D20?

Odds are this game will never be released. I think there have been twice as many MMO that get cancelled than have ever been released.

@FriedConsole

The "free to play" MMO market alone disproves what you think.

MMO's don't die nearly as often as people seem to think, and when they do, it's usually a symptom of greater ills felt by their publishers.

From what I read, RIFT does something similiar, and while alot of people like it, some people criticize it because it removes class distinction, and everyone becomes a "mush" of everything.

@Drakkenfyre RIFT is more along the lines of pick a major class and then combine three specialties. So a mage can have different schools of magic, but you're not going to have someone take the Warrior class and the Mage class and put them together. You can do things similar to that sort of thing, but you're still within confines.

Something like this sounds more like Fallen Earth... where you get points to spend on certain stats and abilities.

joystiq your Rock Paper Shotgun link is broken

That is good to know.

Kinda sounds like perks in Call of Duty to me. The setting seems interesting so I might have to give this a go.

Probably works better for this setting than strict classes. The only time skill freedom like this bugs me is when it's mixed with a traditional class system a la Rift. I think any game that has classes should make them unique and well-defined, but this sidesteps that concern rather nicely.

@Drakkenfyre

Rift still restricts you to archetypes of mage/warrior/rogue.

TSW just hands you the skills. Nothing prevents you being a heavy-handed tanking guy who hurls fireballs at enemies as long as you get it to work with what you choose as your skils :)

Its literally: here are the skills, pick the passive and active ones however you want, type of thing with TSW :)

@Kitanishi

From eveything I heard from people playing RIFT, it was similiar.

Pick your clas, but it doesn't matter what you spec as, because you can change whatever you like, and be a tanking Mage, if you like.

class*

@Drakkenfyre
RIFT's system has more in common with WoW's talent trees, although it's more free-form and allows for greater customization. You're still operating within an archetype that has a distinct flavor and gameplay mechanics, and you're restricted to three classes within your archetype. Once you've got your three "souls" chosen, you can put points into each of their trees, but you still have to unlock skills by putting points in along the correct branches (meaning that you'll run out of points long before you can unlock certain skills in your secondary and tertiary souls).

With TSW it's more like, "You like this skill? Awesome, it's yours." How that will work out in the long run remains to be seen, but while it may look similar on paper, it's very different from RIFT.

@Drakkenfyre
To add, the difference is here: "[...]while the many-spoked and multi-tiered 'skill wheel' that’s featured lets players specialize in one or another branch of magical, biological, psychic or other powers — without locking them out of any others." In RIFT, when you pick a particular archetype and three souls, you're locked out of the others.

Wow. I've been waiting since Asheron's Call to see another game with a skill-based progression system instead of a class-based system. This sounds awesome.

If I ever make an MMO, I'm going to make sure there's a class called Powermime.

The Secret World

The Secret World's progression system doesn't subscribe to labels, man

Reader Comments (17)

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 12:22PM KazamaSogetsu said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 12:28PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 12:32PM FriedConsole said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 7:22PM Chareth Cutestory said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 12:38PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 12:44PM Softserve said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 12:43PM sohcahtoa said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 1:08PM Leafhopper said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 1:09PM Odog4ever said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 1:41PM hereafter said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 1:48PM Kitanishi said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 3:01PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 3:02PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 3:50PM Irem said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 3:59PM Irem said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 3:25PM Babelfish said

Posted: Jul 12th 2011 3:40PM EliminatorZigma said

The Secret World Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is a stranger in a strange land

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW