The day before Funcom’s latest MMORPG, The Secret World, launched, their CEO stepped down. At the time, many people took it as a sign that the MMO was going to struggle, but few saw it as something illegal.

Today (opens in new tab) however, the ex-CEO Trond Aas is being investigated for potentially violating insider trading laws. At the crux of the issue is that fact that Aas stepped down from CEO into a position as a stategic advisor, which allowed him to sell off his 1.5 million Funcom shares while they were still highly valued. He ended up selling 650,000 of those, which would have been worth millions of dollars at the time they were sold.

Today, the shares are of much lower value (roughly 15% of what they used to be) and Aas is essentially charged with being the Captain of a ship who realized it was sinking, but chose to sail away on a lifeboat quietly rather than alert passengers. These remain just allegations though, as there has been no formal charges or verdict.

Funcom maintains that the timing of Aas’ departure was merely because he wanted to stay on as CEO until the game launched. “Trond is staying with the company in a different role, so it’s not like anyone was fired or demoted. It has absolutely nothing to do with The Secret World, although Trond was an active participant in all discussions regarding the game before launch and played an instrumental role in ensuring that we shipped a great game on time.”

The post Funcom ex-CEO under investigation for insider trading appeared first on Game News.

GamesRadar: Could you tell us about the deck system and what it entails?

Martin Bruusgaard: A deck in The Secret World is a collection of 7 active and 7 passive abilities that work well with each other. Each deck will enable the player to fulfill one or several roles, either soloing or teaming up with others. Upon collecting all 14 abilities the player is also given a kick-ass outfit, so he won’t only be able to play the part, but also look the part!

GR: How did the idea of the deck system come about? Or was it strictly because the game is so freeform you wanted to give people some suggestions?

MB: Yes, that was how the initial idea came about. We have such a free form progression and ability system, and we wanted to give the players who want it a bit of guidance. Keep in mind that we have over 500 abilities and thousands of combinations! However, this should not be looked at as playing in easy mode, because the execution of the deck is still strictly in the player’s hand. We also rank the decks from easy to medium to hard. If you’re new to MMOs, or skill based games in general, I would recommend starting out with one of the easier ones and build on it from there. If you’re a pro player and been raiding every night for the last 10 years, you can probably start on the harder ones, but don’t stop there! Keep thinking and building YOUR deck with YOUR flare and wreck some havoc.

MB: No, not really. I believe a lot of players will take a look at the decks when they start playing, and start working towards one. This process has some great treats to it, since we can use it as a tool to teach players the different layers of synergy. Players will soon realize that, in many cases, wielding two weapons is optimal. Later they will realize that the abilities have synergy through the state system, meaning that an ability can do X, but if target is in state Y the X AND Z happens.

Quick example: Active hammer ability X does 100 damage, but if the target is weakened, then it deals 100 damage andknocks the target down. Later the players will also learn about trigger synergy, meaning different cool things happening on combat rolls (normal hit, critical hit, penetrating hit, evade, block, etc). Quick example: Passive sword ability: Every time you land a penetrating blow you heal yourself for 100.

GR: Will there be strong combinations not bound by decks?

MB: Absolutely! Some of the beauty of the system is allowing the players to come up with cool stuff themselves. We want to reward the players who dive into this and take their time to tinker with this, and there are lots of cool combinations we will save for these players.

GR: How many decks are there to “collect”? Can you give us some examples?

MB: There are 10 decks per secret societies.

GR: Thank you for your time, Martin!

What kind of decks are you looking forward to? Let us know below!

The post Exclusive: The Secret World Introducing the deck system appeared first on Game News.

By the looks of it, Funcom isn’t leaving any myth, legend or nut-job conspiracy theory behind. As lead content designer Joel Bylos explains at the onset of the five-minute video: %26ldquo;When you’re creating a massively multiplayer online game set in the real world, the amount of material and inspiration you can draw upon is simply staggering…players will go to iconic locations all of the world. One minute they’ll be battling ancient mummies in the shadow of the great pyramid in Egypt, or perhaps be exploring a haunted amusement park along the coast of New England -or in another they’ll be hunting for werewolves in the forests of Transylvania.%26rdquo;

Yikes. Here’s hoping our travel insurance covers ‘dismemberment by fictional creatures’. You can keep tabs on The Secret World’s progress atFuncom’s website (opens in new tab).

Aug 11, 2011

Yikes. Here’s hoping our travel insurance covers ‘dismemberment by fictional creatures’. You can keep tabs on The Secret World’s progress atFuncom’s website (opens in new tab).

Aug 11, 2011

By the looks of it, Funcom isn’t leaving any myth, legend or nut-job conspiracy theory behind. As lead content designer Joel Bylos explains at the onset of the five-minute video: %26ldquo;When you’re creating a massively multiplayer online game set in the real world, the amount of material and inspiration you can draw upon is simply staggering…players will go to iconic locations all of the world. One minute they’ll be battling ancient mummies in the shadow of the great pyramid in Egypt, or perhaps be exploring a haunted amusement park along the coast of New England -or in another they’ll be hunting for werewolves in the forests of Transylvania.%26rdquo;

Yikes. Here’s hoping our travel insurance covers ‘dismemberment by fictional creatures’. You can keep tabs on The Secret World’s progress atFuncom’s website (opens in new tab).

Aug 11, 2011

Yikes. Here’s hoping our travel insurance covers ‘dismemberment by fictional creatures’. You can keep tabs on The Secret World’s progress atFuncom’s website (opens in new tab).

Aug 11, 2011

The post The Secret World explored in globe-trotting dev diary appeared first on Game News.