Klingons and Vulcans won't do it. Jedi and Sith (probably) won't do it (although i'd be lying if i said i wasn't somewhat interested... it's Star Wars after all). But a Lovecraft-inspired universe of terrifying creatures & magic hidden outside the perception of an unsuspecting public which shuns the level/class structure, instead relying upon skill-based gameplay which focuses on single-player PvE content?
Yeah, that might just bring me back to MMOs.
Now, the bad news. First, you have to join a faction which you cannot change once it's been chosen. Not like the WoW factions which are basically just different starting cities & skins, but factions in which player attitude is (supposed to be) a driving factor. These factions boil down to three personality types: the self-righteous, the power-hungry, and the middle-of-the-road-balance-must-be-restored faction, which according to the population so far on the forums is by far the most popular choice. I always tend to play a personality type similar to my own in real life, so obviously i chose the last option (although it could be fun roleplaying either of the other two, maybe even more so... but who rp's in games anymore?).
Oh, and the second bit of bad news? It's Funcom.
Yeah, that's really bad. I know, i beta tested Age of Conan.
So why is this game grabbing my attention? The skill-based games that have been released so far have been utter disasters for yours truly (yeah, i beta tested Darkfall too). That, on top of the fact that's it a Funcom game, should have me running for the hills. So why do i care?
Well, first of all, they've admitted the Lovecraft angle. I'm a sucker for Lovecraft... his horror is some of the most amazing stuff i've ever read in the genre. If you're unfamiliar, check out the Lovecraft creature database and tell me that isn't prime material for an MMO. Second, the main developer stated there will be a huge chunk of content which will be solo-friendly for those of us who may or may not want to deal with the rest of the community (depending, of course, on how that turns out). Honestly, I can't imagine everyone will be running for this game given that there are other skill-based games out there already which (probably) left a very sour taste in the mouths of gamers and given Funcom's general reputation with MMOs after Age of Conan. This means the core population (read = those who continue to play the game after the first month's subscription runs out) could be a very interesting set of people... assuming the game's worth playing after the first month. There are just too many factors which can make or break an MMO, and i know enough to know that basing an opinion on a game of this magnitude in the first few weeks is somewhat unfair, but nonetheless i, like many others, don't have the patience to wait for a company to figure out what they should have figured out before beta while taking my hard-earned money to basically make me test their game ideas for them. I already have rather jaded views of most games that exist these days; they either copy the one formula which has proven to be the most financially successful, thereby offering yet another similar game to one which has already existed for 5 years, or they come up with something new and different yet don't support it properly (be it in advertising, hardware/technical issues, content maintenance, or in-game personnel). For me to be really interested in a game, it's going to have to offer something significantly different, yet be something that a person can log in a couple times a week and still enjoy, not feel like they have to grind a bunch of tasks just to get to the "fun" part.
Will The Secret World be it? Heh, probably not... but something compels me to want to play MMOs, and this sounds more promising than just about everything else that's been around this past year.
