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The Secret World is a Little Less Secret

09/10/2009

Tags: PAX 2009
Posted in: Feature, PC, Preview

Last Friday at PAX I was ushered into the most ill-conceived meeting booth ever erected on an Expo floor. Yes, room F, allocated to Norway’s Funcom, was adjacent to the Harmonix booth. Thank goodness those guys had mics. In spite of the auditory hardship, Ragnar and Martin persevered, showing off details of their game and swearing me to secrecy until today. The Secret World is intense, rooted in conspiracy theories and covert power struggles, so I was happy to comply. After all, maybe these guys know something I don’t.

I’ve always thought a cool concept for an MMO would be one based on the real world, the whole world, and that’s just what Funcom is doing here. Of course, they make it a little more dynamic than a whole-world rendition of The Sims, incorporating secret societies, ancient secrets and a massive struggle for resources, territory and above all power. The major players are divided into three factions, all trying to to control the world, even the fate of the world, with motives ranging from pure to self-serving and methods often void of moral compass. The first of these factions is The Templars, an ancient group around since the dawn of time. Grounded in discipline and unshakable faith, they are crusaders. With an enormous stone HQ in the center of London they are far from surreptitious and notably un-secret in their society. Holding tradition and honor dear, The Templars are the closest you can get to playing with the good guys in The Secret World, though they’ll take down anything and anyone for the greater good.

The Dragon, The Templar and the Illuminati - which are you?

Every good guy needs a mortal enemy – enter The Illuminati, the Slytherin house of TSW. Dealing in blackmail, deceit and manipulation with the motto that “You can either do or get done” they’re all grudgy toward The Templars for running them out of Europe and into the new world. Living it up in New York City perhaps the most fascinating thing about The Illuminati is the insight it has given me into Funcom’s ideas of America. With Ragnar Tornquist, Creative Director of the game, explaining that these drug-loving, new-money, ambitious and hard partying power players “are more American”, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Rounding out the power triangle are The Dragon, a society of deception and entropy that believes sowing chaos will bring about ultimate balance. They lay claim to a deeper understanding of the world and its destiny, and conceal their whereabouts in an old Monastery in Seoul. Following the teachings of the real Sun Tzu where the art of war is chaos and deception The Dragons pit Templar and Illuminati against one another.

The Templar HQ

Each HQ is your hangout and social space. Beginning as an initiate you rise in rank through the society to unlock different rewards, ideally striving to complete tasks to further your society. Within each society, however, are Cabals, player-made organizations with their own housing to decorate and furnish. A Cabal is tied to a society, so no having the ATOs over to the SigEp house. Just as you can climb the secret society ladder your Cabal can also rise in rank, and since everything in game is tracked from kills, missions, exploration and items different Cabals within a society are in competition for prominence. If you are the dominating faction on a server that is represented in game, or if you’re the top vampire slayer or maybe crafter, then your achievements are rewarded with things like titles that will be integrated with services like Twitter and Facebook.

The unifying force for all three factions is the fight against evil, which is handy since the earth is being overrun with vampires, demons and some of the nastier creatures of myth and legend right out of the Joss Whedon arsenal. You will be fighting alongside one another to take out the zombie horde, but when the battle is over you want your faction to be the one with the most power. The battle on the surface is in some ways a veneer of PvE, while the Hollow Earth is the PvP stage that allows the rivalries to play out.

Werewolf battle, anyone?

The Hollow Earth, as the name suggests, in the hollowed area beneath the earth’s surface and home to the persistent ongoing battle for a resource called “anima”. Anima is necessary for item creation and upgrades, and can be acquired by controlling cells, which harvest the valuable resource. Not only do the cells produce anima they can affect PvE benefits on the surface, so even if you’re a PvE player you have a reason to head underground and fight with your cabal for control of a cell. Once captured it is possible to build defenses for your ceil, but they don’t come cheap. The Hollow Earth will play host to additional game aspects that are not yet revealed, and one element in discussion is the possibility that the effects of PvP will affect the NPCs on the surface.

Also not yet revealed are additional societies players will encounter outside the prime three, but what is interesting is the role your society does – or rather, doesn’t – plays in your abilities. Your character’s powers and weapons will not be dictated by your society, because TSW is not based around classes. There will be no equipment or abilities driven advantage or disadvantage to choosing a particular society; those decisions will only affect your missions and the areas you have access to.

I'm rooting for the hippie chick on the right

Ragnar and Martin treated us to the first in-game footage from TSW, which was very combat oriented, and while it’s clear there is more than run-and-gun style gameplay here there is an undeniably strong combat element (as evidenced by the onscreen reticle). The combat that was shown was very visceral, with more tangible reward for striking a death blow than you find in a typical MMO. Playing like an action MMO, the camera is more like GTA or Fallout 3 than anything I’ve seen before in an MMO.

Something that Funcom seems to understand all too well is how badly gamers feel that first year of Conan went, and oftentimes Conan seemed to cast a sort of pall over their presentation. I felt bad, really. Here were these guys, really excited about what so far looks to be a really cool game burdened by the albatross that is Conan’s first year reputation. There was really nothing to do other than tackle it head on, and Ragnar asserted:

“We’re a different team, we’re different people. Of course we will look at what’s happened to Conan and what we can learn from that. We also feel like it’s such a different game and again we have a different philosophy setting out. Obviously we will make some mistakes as well, I mean no game is perfect ever and the advantage of an MMO is that you have time to change the game as you go along as long as you can keep people playing…

“We’ll of course learn from our previous games but we’ll also learn from what we do ourselves so we’ll make some different mistakes and we’ll fix those…I think the core of the game, the fundamental of the game is so much fun at this point that we’re very confident that once we’ve proceeded to beta testing that we’re going to have the time to make sure that the experience has the longevity it needs because that’s the most important thing for us. We know it’s going to be fun for a month, but we need to make sure it’s going to be fun for twelve, fourteen, twenty four months…

“We’re using the same technology base as Age of Conan. What we have replaced so far is the combat system and the RPG system which are completely different. That’s been replaced 100%. The graphics engine is the same, but we are making developments there and right now some of the elements like the quest system and everything is still the same that hasn’t been switched out completely yet. The old user interface, I mean you can play our game but some of the old user interface elements are the same as Age of Conan. That’s just a typical process when you’re working with sort of company technology that you sort of replace bits as you along. So when we release it it’s not going to be anything that reminds anybody of Age of Conan. Not that we want to distance ourselves from Conan, but it’s a very different game that’s going to feel very different so you’re not going to see any of that stuff.”

Somebody needs to drop a potion on this guy.

In response to my inquiry about why gamers, who are spoiled for choice with MMos, should play TSW Ragnar groaned, “Oh you had to ask that question. Well I don’t think actually gamers are spoiled for choice with MMOs. There aren’t that many big types of our MMOs. They are coming out now which is exciting – Aion and Champions Online – but it has been a long time since anything else came out. Last one before that was Warhammer and then it was Conan. We’re not trying to compete with WoW in a way, we’re not trying to replace anything we’re just trying to sort of create a different experience, a game that feels and plays very differently. I think it’s a game you could play together with playing a different MMO, it’s a game that has a very different setting. There’s nothing else like it. It’s not another fantasy world, there are no elves or orcs or anything like that. It’s all about being yourself in the real world fighting demons having fun exploring all these great locations and the action, the combat, is so different that again, I mean, it’s a game where the philosophy is you sit down, you have fun, you play to have fun. You don’t just play in order to get somewhere. You play to have fun and after you’ve done that you can go back to playing WoW. This is the fun break you get from playing all those other MMOs where it feels more like a chore.”

Based on what I’ve seen of TSW, I have to agree with their philosophy, and while there are a lot of MMOs made gamers are hardly spoiled for great ones. In a massive blending of historical events, myth and legend and colored by our modern day perspective The Secret World holds thrilling promise. We won’t get the final product for a long time, though what I have seen makes me long for the end result.

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I’m Community Manager and Admin for the NewsBoiler Network, home to N4G, TechSpy, AnimeShinbun, FilmWatch and 11×2. I also write for network editorial site, ZTGD.

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