For those of you who are avidly following Funcom's upcoming MMO, The Secret World, community manager Glen Swan has just posted a Q&A with game director Ragnar Tørnquist on the official forums. As Funcom has been known to place strategic hints about the game on the forum before, fans are already examining this one for possible clues in what others might brush off as typographical errors.
TSW is best described as a modern-day supernatural MMORPG set in real cities around the world like New York City, London and Seoul. The game is expected to be largely story-driven with an overarching linear plot and will feature voiced-over NPC dialogue throughout it.
Here are some of the highlights from the Q&A.
Q: Would you say TSW is more of a story-driven MMO or an action-based MMO? (Ironfeet)
I’d say it’s a heavily story-driven MMORPG with tons of cool action! Obviously, the setting and the story are incredibly important to us. We’re putting a lot of work and attention into the universe, into the characters and the voice-overs and the lore, into all those game mechanics that are geared towards immersing the player in the storyline, making them feel part of something grand and ancient and secret, part of these age-old conspiracies and powerful secret societies. But you also spend a lot of your time fighting creatures of darkness – that’s what the story is about. It’s about the rising tide of evil, about these normal, average people being granted incredible powers, and about how they use those powers to battle darkness - in service of their cabals.
Q: The Secret World exists so far from the mundane world... how elaborate/visual will the magic in game be? How varied? (Azaris)
The Secret World isn’t very far from our everyday world at all; we just tend to look the other way. It's the world down that dark alley, beyond the tall fence, through the door of the rundown house on the edge of town. It's the world that we glimpse when we take a shortcut home one night and see shadows lurking off the beaten path.
It's the world we see in the corner of our eye but are afraid to acknowledge because it would make us question everything we hold to be true. It's the world behind the curtains, where puppet-masters pull strings, making governments, religions and corporations dance to their tunes. It's our world, without the coat of white paint, and it's right here, right now, if you only knew how to look.
There’s going to be tons of variety in terms of what kind of magic players can learn and how they can use it – both in terms of visuals and gameplay – and that also goes for the magic weapons players get to wield. But it's still magic of our world, not a world of elves and dwarves and dragons (well, um, sort of), and it'll feel as such.
There's voodoo, illusionism, demonology - magics that belong in the darkest corners of Earth, not in some high fantasy world.
You can find the full interview on Funcom's official forums.
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