So I was planning to do a first-impressions piece on patch 7.2 for World of Warcraft as my next post, then I saw that Funcom has released details of the announced relaunch of The Secret World: it’s being rebooted as a “shared-world action RPG“.
So as expected the relaunch includes a free-to-play conversion for the game, and all content will be free. Major changes to the combat and character customisation are happening – characters will have levels for instance. It sounds like gear will play more of a role in our character’s growing power also – so more stats on equipment?
In the Q&A linked above there’s also a commitment to making coop play more seamless, fewer solo missions would be a nice improvement in my opinion. But the game is moving away from the MMO space, so I imagine world bosses and related events will not survive the transition. We play this game mostly as a trio for the story so the transition should represent an almost ideal situation for me and my two friends playing. The MMO aspects haven’t really engaged us that much in TSW since we joined years after launch; we really only interacted with other players for those boss fights.
The big negative so far of this announcement is that this relaunch is just that, a separate game. TSW will be left open in maintenance mode with no new content, just like Guild Wars 1. Most importantly for many players, everyone will have to create a new character for this new game. That’s a really big issue for me, all that play time, all those missions and character progression – gone. If it were a new game with mostly or many new missions then I might be more willing to consider that. As far as it seems we’ll need to play through all or most of the old content just to then be able to see any new content released in future (i.e. whatever follows on from Tokyo). That’s too big an ask for me at the moment, I dislike repeating stuff, it’s actually a potential negative of the game having such strong story-content – I remember what happened too well!
Never say never and all that, TSW does have amazing world-building and story. But I will be sitting on the fence until I see what other reviewers say about the reboot, at launch; I may even wait until the first of the new content has been released to get an opinion on the quality of what comes after the relaunch before I start climbing that mountain once more…
GamingSF 
I don’t play TSW, but I’m baffled by how anyone could think this is a good idea. Not only are they splitting their player base, they are also asking people to start over for no new stories, just different combat and levelling? I just don’t see how this can end well, unless we’re missing some major piece of the puzzle here…
I bought the Grandmaster account within the first month the game launched. I have over 154 days of playtime on TSW. I have met my girlfriend in this game and several members of our cabal are invited to our wedding this year. I keep logging into the game because i have friends there. Hell, i spend one evening a week in the Albion theatre… People on the blogsphere know that i up to now was very loyal to the game, i love it.
But this announcement really breaks it for me. Sure it will still be possible to play TSW. But they clearly stated that it won’t get any updates any more. So by all means, it’s dead.
So what do we get instead? A replacement with less content. Sure they promise to bring in Tokyo soon, but the group and raid content is dropped. Now let’s compare: they state that the game has about 100 hours of gameplay on the storyline. So where to my other 150 days of playtime come from? It’s because of the people i met there, the great community and everything. And they plan to rip this all out.
So all i get is a single player game, replacing the MMO i loved. They take away everything i have there, my friends list, my contacts, all the rewards for raids and dungeons, which which enjoyed to do with the people there.
I fail to see the benefit for me and honestly, i also fail to see the profit for FC. Do they really expect people to put a lot of money into cosmetics and social features in a game where they clearly state that they work hard to reduce the social factor? Sure it sounds harsh, but the letters NGE are really strong on my mind here.
I will try the new game, but my optimism is very much limited. So i fear that I will be forced leave TSW behind with more than one tear in my eyes.
I love the story and world of TSW that I think I could have put up pretty much anything from Funcom short of erasing my characters and the hundreds of hours of progression I have invested in them… which is exactly what they’re doing.
I’m just flabbergasted. How anyone inside or outside of Funcom can find this even remotely acceptable is beyond me.
As a Grandmaster for this game, I love the idea and I think it will be the best move the game has done in a long time. The major pitfalls of TSW are (a) the combat and (b) lack of people, mostly due to the combat being subpar. Everyone I know claims that TSW is this little unkown and unpopular gem, and it is true to a certain degree. The storytelling, the investigations, even the dreaded (for me ) abotage missions… they all are superb. But the game desperately needs players, and thus a rebranding is pretty much necessary. And to keep those players, they need to go about it in a way that they can capitalize on the momentum they gained by Conan Exiles, as well as promote the game as something a group of players can play together as a co-op RPG (which is brilliant considering the setting).
And frankly, I don’t worry much about rerolling. I can always change factions this time around to see the Illuminati-specific bits and pieces, Unlocked clothes, mounts, pets and purchases from the store will carry over and name reservations will make sure you don’t lose your circle of friends. All the while people will be rushing to try it and (as long as the comabt delivers this time) you know they will be hooked after the 1st dungeon they do.