RagnarTornquist.com

Since childhood, I’ve been deeply fascinated by numerous stories about the world inside our world – the Hollow Earth – a place of great wonders, eldritch mysteries and untold dangers

From Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar, to ancient legends about Agartha and modern conspiracy theories about a master race of humanoid reptilians, the concept of a hidden world – a secret world – beneath our feet has both fascinated and horrified us surface dwellers.

It’s been revealed (ostensibly by mentally unstable people who seem to believe that our game in some way closely mirrors real events) that the subterranean realm known as Agartha will feature – quite prominently – in The Secret World. We’ve dug deep (but not too deep, I hope) into all available literary and historical texts to find what we believe to be The Truth about the Hollow Earth. Or at least a truth. (There’s never just one, is there?) Exactly how Agartha will feature in TSW, I’m not about to reveal here, at least not now, but this is a golden opportunity for all of you to read up on the myths, legends and – possibly – facts about the forbidden lands below our feet. To prepare yourselves, so to speak, for the future.

Who knows, you might just stumble upon The Truth yourself. After all, there are many mysteries in this world that have yet to be revealed, and only the curious and tenacious may unlock those ancient secrets. Post your findings and recommended reading (or viewing, or listening) material in the comments for others to see. If there is a deeper truth here, it’s probably good to share.

I’ll certainly return to this intriguing topic at some point in the near future, so stay tuned.

Ragnar TSW agartha, TSW

Right. Time to answer a few of the many questions that have piled up in the past few months.

I’m sorry but I have to get this out. What the hell are you doing with The Longest Journey and Dreamfall?! Is it really going to take another 6-7 years for you guys to finish another chapter? I know you’ve used the excuse of being involved with other games, several times but C’MON! We, the fans made you famous, we bought and loved your game. And to repay us, you (possibly) kill April, leave the story unfinished and say there might be TLJ2? Awsome. When? 2045? Cool, I’ll be dead by then. Oh well, would’ve been nice to see the story end in my life-time but clearly you’ve got more passion for money than art.

Well, to the extent that I have to eat and pay my mortgage and buy clothes for my daughter – then yes, I have more passion for money than art.

Read more…

Ragnar Q&A ao, Dreamfall, nyc, nyu, TLJ, TSW

I haven’t blogged in over a month and so the most natural thing to blog about is, of course, coffee. After all, coffee has been a recurring theme of my tweets and it’s also the key driving force behind The Secret World. Forget my contributions: without coffee, that game would never see the light of day.

Yesterday I bought myself a Nespresso machine. A Nespresso machine makes espresso using little capsules containing vacuum packed coffee. You don’t have to do much. You stick the capsule in, close the lid, make sure there’s water in the tank, and push a button. Voila – extremely tasty espresso in less than thirty seconds. It is, by far, the most amazing coffee you could possibly make at home without some serious barista skills, expensive equipment and tons of free time. It also comes with a brilliant milk frother which means you can make latte and cappuccino and, well, latte and cappuccino. And it takes less than two minutes in total. And doesn’t require you to be any good at anything whatsoever. It doesn’t even require any cleaning.

Did I mention that this is possibly the greatest invention of all time? Second only to penicillin and, possibly, the internet.

Today I’ve had three different espresso drinks and the only reason I stopped was because I was going into caffeine shock. It’s. That. Good.

I feel like I’ve joined some sort of cult because I keep telling people “oh, you must try it, it’ll change your life, honest, you’ll never look back”, and also because you need to join the sinister sounding ‘Nespresso Club’ to order capsules online, but then I’ve always wanted to be part of a cult, and at least this cult doesn’t require you to donate all your money to someone wearing sandals.

Recommended. Oh, and “hi, everyone!”.

Ragnar My life coffee, TSW

True story.

Rewind a good month and a bit. My noble and honest attempt at being a more active blogger was violently disrupted by a sudden and somewhat surprising infatuation with Twitter: a byte sized alternative, requiring significantly less thought and investment on my part, and consequently being significantly less fulfilling for you – like McDonald’s instead of wholesome home cooking.

Well it’s time to toss the Big Mac and put the potatoes on ’cause baby I’m home.

(Metaphorically speaking, of course, seeing as I have been home most of the time.)

Read more…

Ragnar My life blog, twitter

I typically start travelling at least twelve to eighteen hours before I actually start travelling. I get into the zone. That place where time starts to mean something different. I’m so used to being busy, running from place to place – meeting to meeting, appointment to appointment, home, work, home, sleep – that actually winding myself down to zero takes a while. And zero is where you need to be when you travel vast distances.

Read more…

Ragnar My life, TSW life, TSW

Have I used this headline before? I must have. My imagination runs in perpetual circles and my memory is shit. I come around to the same conclusions and phrases repeatedly, thinking, hmm, that’s not bad, that’s new, but NO it isn’t NEW, it’s the same bloody headline I used two years ago.

Anyway. The dream of Dreamfall is very much alive, and it’s more than a dream. A lot of people – a lot of people – have asked about the status of Dreamfall Chapters. Not everyone checks the archives, which I would encourage. As I’ve said before, when there’s news you’ll be the first to know. Honestly. It’ll land right on top of this page and it will stay there a good while. To read whatever there is to read on Dreamfall Chapters, just click the little Dreamfall category link. That will point you in the right direction and provide you with whatever information is available. Nothing is omitted. It’s all there.

But I guess it’s time for an update regardless, so here it is:

Read more…

Ragnar Dreamfall, TLJ

Some of you probably noticed that the site has been down the past four or five days. I have no idea what happened – file permissions, apparently – but I managed to fix it anyway, which surprises the hell out of me. I’m like an orangutang in a china shop when it comes to this stuff.

Hopefully things will keep running as normal. And check back for a new blog or two within the next few days.

Peace out.

Ragnar General

We’re looking for more good people to join our ever growing and totally amazing BEST GAME EVAR!!! project, The Secret World. Available positions include:

Render programmers, plenty of experience with DirectX and/or consoles – preferably Xbox – required.

Flash designers/artists, who will create the in-game GUI.

A web developer to build our websites and create content for the super-top-secret viral/ARG team.

Concept artists, who provide the environment and character artists with fantastic and imaginative designs for locations, characters and monsters.

Experienced and senior gameplay designers, to implement content – missions, monsters, puzzles and cinematics.

(EDIT: And I should reiterate that when it says experienced it means experienced. We are not looking for inexperienced designers at this stage. Industry background is required.)

Read more…

Ragnar Game Industry, TSW funcom, TSW

It was probably a bit naive of me to believe that I could write about The Secret World in my blog without attracting the Eye of Sauron.

Read more…

Ragnar TSW TSW

First post of the new year, well into the new year; an entire 5% of 2009, in fact. What have you done with your five percent? What do you plan on doing with the remaining ninety-five percent?

Personally, I’m going to invest most of the next four weeks (or 8%) into The Secret World. We’ve recently made some Big Changes to the game and those need to be worked through. Direction is required. Funnily enough, that’s my job.

So what’s changing? Read more…

Ragnar My life, TSW TSW