Game Director Letter - January, 2013

Most of you have probably already heard this week’s news. Funcom has announced the creation of one joint, centralized team at our studio in Raleigh, North Carolina, and that team will be working on all of our live games going forward. This is part of the restructuring process that was started in order to create a better foundation for implementing the new company strategy of developing smaller, more focused online games at the same time as we keep our existing games going with both updates and support.

Obviously this means a few changes for all our games. The good thing is that we are now bringing all the developers into the same studio where we have previously only had customer service, billing, quality assurance and our community teams. Allowing all these different people to work together directly with the developers will hopefully be very beneficial for The Secret World as a live game. Having one centralized live team also allow each game to benefit from a shared pool of people with exceptional competence, experience and skill working on MMOs and especially live, operating MMOs.

Not everyone on the current team will join the centralized live team. The developers on The Secret World were given the opportunity to relocate, but it is only to be expected that people are not always willing to relocate. I would ask the community to join me in wishing those team members the very best in their future careers. You have been amazing and I know that you will continue to be amazing. It has been a pleasure and an honor.

How then, does this affect the production and development of The Secret World? In particular, how does it affect the milestones for the development and improvement of the game?

Firstly, some reassurance. With the recent re-launch of the game to a buy-to-play model, we increased overall sales with more than 30% and the activity levels on the servers soared as more people came in – both new and returning players. This success is inspiring and we will continue building on that success going forward by expanding the game regularly and supporting our community.

We still have a strong, veteran team of designers and artists working on the game and working towards regular content updates. The move to North Carolina will cause some "development turbulence" - people will be moving and getting adjusted to new circumstances and thus you can expect things to slow down during this period, but our plan is still to deliver regular DLC and updates for The Secret World.

So, on that note, let’s have a look at what’s coming up next in Issue #6 which we are aiming to launch end of February.

The Issue #6 DLC, primarily set in Egypt, sees the player working with the Marya against the cultists of Abdel Daoud. The player learns the location of a prison, where Maryan captives are taken and tortured by the Atenists. Infiltrating the prison reveals information to the player about an Atenist plot to cause a second event on the scale of Tokyo. The player must race against time (and through time) to prevent the event from occurring!

Issue #6 will also see the return of the characters Said, Nassir and Zhara, as well as the villainous Abdel Daoud. Through the events of the issue, players will also gain access to the newest Auxiliary weapon, the whip. More details on the whip and its abilities as the DLC gets closer to launch.

Players will also see new features in Issue #6, including improved Cabal management functionality. New functionality will include things like Cabal logs, custom ranks and permissions, notes and a cabal news feed. We see this as the first step in improving the cabal system in The Secret World and we will continue to listen to our community and make improvements based upon their feedback.

PvP will also see some new updates in Issue #6 including a revamped matchmaking system and PvP ranks. More details will be available in a developer blog in the coming weeks.

As I mentioned in a forum post, we have always been looking at ways to improve the value of the subscription for our players. One of these initiatives is the Veteran Reward System. As players spend time with The Secret World, they gain veteran points, which can then be spent at in-game store to purchase both cosmetic and convenience items. Here is a list of some of the veteran rewards that you can expect to see:

• Automatic Item Repair Consumables
• Portable Combat Dummy with Feedback
• Veteran Outfits
• Veteran Pets
• Veteran Titles
• Mission Cooldown Removal Consumables
• Portable Bank/Tradepost/Mail Consumables
• ... and many more to come.

The first iteration of the Veteran System should be available in Issue #6.

In addition to the Veteran System, we are also going to sweeten the deal for members and Grandmaster account holders by allowing them 48 hour early access to the DLC content.

As you can see, the plans for The Secret World are as ambitious as ever. The development of the game continues to be a priority and there is plenty of story left to come!

Sincerely,
Joel Bylos
Game Director
Funcom

Tribe Clears Tier 14 Content!

Congratulations are in order for the WoW Chapter!

Tribe clears all of Tier 14 bosses and has already begun the epic journey of heroic modes. One of our goals was to complete the tier before patch 5.2 "Throne of Thunder" is released sometime in February or March.

Shop Changes and the Veteran System

"Hi guys,

I am back from my recent trip to Montreal with some exciting news regarding the shop and the Veteran System. More information regarding the restructuring process at Funcom will be in my next Game Director Letter, which should be out some time this week. But this is the less formal place for me to talk a little bit about some upcoming shop changes and the Veteran System.

Shop Changes
Later today, we will be rolling out account-wide unlocks for pets in the store. We will expand this system to clothing as we move forward, but consider this the first step towards that. I would like people to report any bugs with the system.

You will be able to pay 25% more on top of the base cost of any pet to unlock it for all characters on an account. If you have purchased the pet on any other character before, you will only be charged the cost difference at the time of purchase (25% of the sale price) to unlock it across accounts.
Once the pet has been unlocked it can be claimed from the Delivered Items screen.

Veteran System
Still nailing down the final details of the system, but it will essentially work as an alternate currency which can be used to purchase veteran system items in the store.
Every month of subscription earns you Veteran Points.
Purchasing a subscription period provides you the veteran points for the period immediately (so a 6 month subscription purchase will provide 6 months of points).

Grand Master players will be awarded Veteran Points on the same day that they receive bonus points each month.

Here is a preliminary list of veteran items which will be available:

• Auto repair consumables - automatically repairs all gear when consumed
• Combat Dummy (faction flavoured) which can be summoned anywhere and used to get accurate DPS reports. We will create a healing version if we can script it.
• Veteran outfits/titles/pets
• Portable Bank/AH/Mail consumables and permanent item
• Secondary conduit/ region teleport
• Mission Cooldown reduction consumable"

Sign Up for The ESO Beta Test Today!

The moment you have been eagerly awaiting is finally here! Now is the time for future members of the Aldmeri Dominion, Daggerfall Covenant, and Ebonheart Pact to rally and show your support!

You can now officially sign up for The Elder Scrolls Online beta program starting today. If selected, you will be one of the first people to embark upon the newest Elder Scrolls adventure, and help us beta test The Elder Scrolls Online. Please be aware that this is just beta sign-ups. Once our first beta test begins, we’ll make sure everyone knows—watch our official website, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter for an announcement about the first round of invites.

In honor of opening beta sign-ups, we have released The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliances Cinematic Trailer. Watch it below! (For the full experience, we recommend watching it at the highest resolution with your sound turned up.)

To learn more about The Elder Scrolls Online beta plans, be sure to listen to the newest Bethesda Podcast, featuring Game Director Matt Firor, Creative Director Paul Sage, and Director of Social Media Jo Burba. The trio discuss what you can expect from our beta, and provide answers to some of your questions from Twitter. Also, please check our new beta FAQ entries for answers to many commonly asked questions about the ESO beta.

Thank you all for your enthusiastic support. We’re thrilled to share this very important day with you. Please be sure to sign up for beta, and help us spread the word about ESO beta sign-ups being open!
Discuss this on the official ESO Facebook page.

Crafting Attribute System

We wanted to highlight one of the new additions added to the crafting system in December, the attribute system. Though briefly mentioned in our change notes and on the forums, the attribute system was a fairly major modification in the crafting process. The exciting part about it is that the attribute system further impacts the customization of your character’s equipment.  Before we start to walk through the system, it might be important to do a quick run over how our system works for those who might not be familiar with it.

As many of you might be aware, The Repopulation has no levels. Instead we offer over 70 independent skills. For Trade Skills we offer a mix of resource collection and crafting skills that intertwine. In addition, some crafting lines include collection skills. The trade skills also include skills for creating fittings which are like sockets, stems which are like boosters, traps, robotics, vehicles, and so much more.

Without levels, we have no artificial restrictions placed on crafting by other aspects of the game (such as needing to be level 30 to craft something even if your crafting skill is high enough). Naturally, you cannot create the biggest and best stuff early on. You will need to hone your skills over time. If you want to make a name for yourself as a crafter in The Repopulation you will be able to do so without other barriers restricting you.

We have a rather distinct configuration for our equipment using what we call “shells” and “fittings”.  The armor, handguns, rifles, and swords are simply basic shells that have basic stats. Weapons all have base stats and different uses such as automatic weapons are best against lightly armored foes where sniper rifles and heavy impact weapons do the most damage against heavily armored foes.  However, there can be multiple visual representations of this rifle or that piece of armor, which have the same core stats.  This lets you choose your equipment based on a certain look and then you can customize the armor to match your play style.



Each piece of equipment holds a specific amount of modifications slots that we call fittings. These modification slots are similar to a socket system where you can place certain types of fittings in an item based on their major attribute types. The fittings have a letter label (“A”, “C”, “E”) and based on the label, their attribute type will make them modify damage resistance, accuracy, energy regen, and other stats associated with a shell. This lets you modify the base shell of your armor however you see fit without having to choose specific weapons or armor because of their stats.

Now that we have taken that minor detour lets look at the new change we implemented, the attribute system.  Our crafting system already featured a flexible recipe component system where putting different parts into the recipe produces different results. We also have a quality/grade system to differentiate the results of beginning crafters and experienced crafters.  We wanted to add a bit more flexibility to the system by allowing more control over some of the stats associated with the fittings.  To overcome that hurdle we introduced the attribute system.  

Each resource in the game used for fittings has primary stats that are directly associated to that resource in some fashion such as Physical Resistance, Accuracy and so on. These resource attributes are not randomly assigned. Each material has multiple attributes that are assigned into 3 categories: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary.  Primary attributes have the highest values (typically 7-10) with secondary in the middle (4-6) and tertiary at the bottom (1-3).  These values are static so a chunk of calibrite will always have the same attributes, but it can have a random grade value associated with it that impacts the rarity and significant worth of the material (grade A being the best).


The next step in the process is refining the material.  Calibrite ores' primary attribute is Physical Resistance, there is no other ore that can provide as high a bonus to Physical Resistance as Calibrite. As part of the crafting process, refinement requires the player to take the harvested ore and create a refined metal bar. Based on the agents players use in the recipe, they get to choose which attributes are on the final product. With more than ten attributes available on each ore, players must decide which ones are most important to them as they create the refined metal. The refinement system does not only use pure ores, but allows for combinations of ores and minerals to create alloys which have unique attributes of their own. The refined results are then used by another craftsman (or if you are skilled enough) in another recipe to create a fitting with the refined materials.



As mentioned with fitting there a letter classifications for fittings such as “A” or “C” or “E”.  These are typically comprised of primary, secondary, and tertiary stats much like the materials such as calibrite.  “A” class fittings primary consist of the core combat attributes dealing with damage increase and mitigation across the different damage types (physical, energy, fire, etc) and have secondary and tertiary stats that are more limited in value.  “C” class fittings deal with recovery/retention style stats for health, energy, momentum, and endurance and might include some secondary and tertiary stats available in “A” class fittings.  Across the spectrum, players can add multiple stats and make detailed choices about customization, but the system is tailored to prevent people from stacking full damage on everything and creating an excessively unbalanced weapon or piece of armor because each fitting has a limit of each attribute that can be placed on it from the refined metal used to create it.  The crafted fitting takes the attributes passed to it by the refined metal and its grade to spit out the stats. When the fitting is slotted in a weapon or piece of armor equipped to a character, those stats are added to the character or used by the weapon or armor when used.


One of our goals is to create a fairly complex crafting system. Our economy and ecosystem are designed around the idea that there will be no moderate to high end fitting drops, facilitating a fully player driven world. We feel this will provide a diverse crafting experience, offering both a quick learning process and the complexity of refinement and producing sought after end products along with a high level of customization that will satisfy players of all backgrounds.

We hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the crafting attribute system.  We look forward to doing more of these in the coming months and soon you will be able to get your hands dirty experiencing it for yourself.

ESO: Alliances at War

The Repopulation: 2013 Preview

Hello and welcome to our 2013 Preview for The Repopulation. 2013 should present itself as a great year for us with the next major milestone in our development, Beta release, around the corner. We are also looking forward to opening the doors for more people to start testing and eventually playing The Repopulation. 2012 offered a lot with us attending GDC and getting an excellent chance to show an early Alpha build to the public and that resulted in a few nice write-ups much like this one here.

Around the same time during the summer we started Alpha testing and our Kickstarter campaign. The additional capital helped to offset some of our costs and bring in some additional help. We are still taking Alpha requests, and plan on at least one more small wave of alpha testers before we open for private Beta testing. Your applications will still be valid as we move into Beta.

After a busy summer things have been fairly silent from us in comparison to the first half of the year. Our primary focus has been on development. During that time we have seen an engine upgrade or two, significant improvements and adjustments to many major systems in the game bringing them closer to completion. A major world design overhaul provides a better seamless experience while allowing us to complete the work even quicker than before, and a considerable amount of content has been added or updated.

Now, looking forward to 2013 our first major milestone that is quickly approaching is closed Beta. We are not to the point where we can announce a date yet, but our best statement on the timeframe is Spring 2013, with release tentatively scheduled for the end of the year. We are not under any major deadline, pressure, or financial duress to release by a certain date or time so we want to make sure the game is ready to go when we set an official release date. This will of course depend on how well the Beta goes and the feedback we receive. Our top priority is to ensure that the game launches in a polished and solid state.

One of our shifts in 2013 is going to be the amount of information/press features that will be releasing this year. Starting this month we will be doing more frequent press features focusing on a variety of topics and will start to do more video updates as well in the coming months and more as we enter into Beta. We have a large amount of information available on our website and our forums, but having a more detailed approach on certain topics should help get the word out, allowing those on the fence to evaluate their interest a bit more without drudging around in our forums. We should even have an update to our website/forums early this year with a new sleeker look as well.

Last year we attended GDC and this year we will be attending PAX Prime (Labor Day weekend in Seattle). If you plan on attending or live out in the area and want a chance to come check out the game or just stand around and talk with us please be sure to stop by and visit. We will have additional information once everything is taken care of, but for the time being it is the only planned conference we plan to be at for 2013. We will also be open to talk with the press and show off the game and field any questions during that time so please be sure to get in contact with us if you are interested in an interview as we would be happy to talk to you.

That is mainly all we have for now. We will be putting out weekly updates along with increasing more screenshots to our website, facebook, and email lists. We are still taking Early Adopter pledges that get most of what we were offering during Kickstarter and those will be good till we open for Beta testing. You can find more information about Early Adopter on our website. We want to thank everyone that has backed us so far and all of those who have been putting in a good word for us as it has helped to bring attention to this project and make our goal of getting this grand idea of ours out the door and ready for everyone to enjoy. We look forward to hearing from everyone in 2013 and hope 2013 ends up being a great year for everyone involved.

'End Of Days Contest' Reward Changes

The "End of Days" event and contest ended today. We hope you enjoyed saving the world and thank everyone who participated.

In the announcement of the contest, we mentioned that the top 1000 players will receive the unique title "Hero of Ages" and the top 100 players in addition receive the exclusive "Hatchling" pet.

During the course of the contest however we noticed that some players were able to exploit the mechanics and reach impossible amounts of points which in terms altered the rankings to unrealistic results. This of course is not what we had in mind with this contest so we today decided to change the way we give out rewards for the event:

Everyone who participated in the "End of Days" event receives both the title as well as the pet today. You can get your rewards over the claim window.

Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game #2

It has been an amazing couple of months since my last State of the Game blog. It feels like a good time to jump in again and give you a brief rundown on how we are doing, what is coming up next, and to tackle some issues head on. Let’s start with some comments about now and the future:
As you can probably imagine, the launch of the Free-to-Play option with our new Cartel Market has been an amazing event for our game. The game is incredibly healthy with an ever increasing number of players who are actively playing (the servers are rocking!). Having said that, we know we haven’t gotten everything perfect, and we are still working hard to make The Old Republic everything you guys desire. More than anything we wanted to get folks back in and playing the game, and bring back the excitement and camaraderie - we feel like we've made great strides over the last 6 months towards these goals. All signs point to a very bright future for our game!

Speaking of the future – we have two excellent updates coming your way in the upcoming months. In our Game Update 1.7 you should look forward to some interesting changes to a special PvP area that you have all been asking about (sorry for being cryptic, but this is technically not announced yet), as well as a visit from some old friends, The Gree Enclave (though maybe not in a way you would expect). And later in the spring, our Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel! The team has been working for a long time on this, and is very excited to get it out to you. We have greatly expanded on the original concept with several new systems, 5 new levels, a big new planet, new storylines, new skills and abilities and more beyond that. Keep your eyes open for more information over the next several months.

Now for everyone’s favorite section – Hot Topics. I will try to be as frank and open as possible.

Topic #1: Elder Game Content – What is our intent for keeping level 50’s occupied? Answer: Introducing new content and activities for the elder game is a top priority in the coming year. We’ve got new Operations, new Flashpoints, new difficulty modes, new PvP areas, and of course, the entire Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel (which is targeted at our high level players). We have a plan mapped out for the upcoming year that will keep the elder game fresh and interesting for players of all types. Overall, we’re aiming to introduce a more diverse array of activities – more stuff to do with your Companion, more challenges to tackle with groups, and more reasons for guilds to recruit. We’ll also be improving our itemization, introducing new incentives to revisit existing areas, and a lot of other exciting things that will be revealed as we move through the upcoming year.

Topic #2: World PvP – What happened to making Ilum better? What is going on with Open World PvP? Answer: We have not forgotten Ilum! I think you will see (fairly soon) the answer to this question in the game itself - something big is coming to the Western Ice Shelf, but it’s quite a departure from what was there before. As for pure Open World PvP…well, that’s a more difficult proposition. We are dedicated to providing excellent PvP experiences to our players, but we intend to focus our energy on PvP Seasons and new Warzones. We will be experimenting with a different approach to Open World PvP, something that encourages organic PvP in contested areas in a new and interesting way, but do not look for massive new Open World PvP this year (outside of what I mentioned above). It is still on our design wall, but is taking a back seat to other forms of PvP.

Topic #3: Character Copy to Public Test Server (PTS) – What is taking so long? Answer: As of the writing of this letter, we are in focused, internal testing on character copies for PTS. You should expect to see this come within the first part of this year. It will provide free character copies to PTS at any time (with possible restrictions dependent upon our testing needs at any given time). This will also lay the foundation for our new live character transfer system that will be coming later this year.

Topic #4: Same Gender Romance: Any news on this front would be great… Answer: First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game. I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of.
Secondly, I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future. More details to come!

Whew! I think we got through this State of the Game pretty well. The team and I will continue to scan the forums, read the boards, and listen to feedback. We’re dedicated to giving you the game that YOU want to play and are making changes and improvements at a rapid pace to keep up with your desires. Please keep posting and keep talking about The Old Republic. Together we will continue to care for and expand this fantastic game.

Blog: http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20130102