Dialogue and cinematics push the narrative but it’s ”only a portion” of how the world communicates. PvE follows freeform development ”far beyond” others out there.
Some missions have players stepping beyond the game to “blur the lines” with reality. Its PvP is “restoring something gone” from MMOs, boasts Joel Bylos.
“In the narrative sense, TSW pushes the concept of the “jigsaw” narrative. It has all the narrative elements that other games have – dialogue, cinematics – but these elements cover only a portion of what the story is all about. In addition the world tells the story through elements such as phone books, newspapers, radios, cell phones and dozens of other objects,” he said.
“Everything provides the player with information that they can use to construct their picture of what is going on at the heart of The Secret World.”
“In the PvE sense, the game allows for freeform character development far beyond that seen in most MMOs. In addition we have mission types that will ask the player to step beyond the game and blur the lines between the real world and The Secret World.”
“Most of the innovations in the rest of the game also carry over into PvP, and I feel we are restoring something gone from many MMOs with our conflict between three secret societies. Three sided factional combat has all but disappeared from the MMO genre in recent years and we are bringing it back with our persistant warzones where players engage in The Secret War for world domination.”
Funcom is no stranger to the MMO market having Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures under their belt. They’ve been building up their experience on what does and doesn’t work.
“In terms of the technology, Dreamworld is an incredibly powerful engine which has been developed over years of blood, sweat and (sweet sweet) coder tears. It allows us to push pixels like no other MMO while still meeting all the demands of a modern MMO engine,” he explained.
“On the design side, MMO design is significantly different from single-player design. There are always dozens of ways that players can break any scripted sequence in an environment where any player can interfere. As designers I think a large part of the experience we bring from our other games comes from lessons learned about what works, what is fun and what players really want.”
Check out the full interview between Joel Bylos and NowGamer.
