One of the coolest benefits of being a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/membership">Ten Ton Hammer

Premium member is that every once in a while you get to ask

the devs of your favorite MMOGs questions about their games. This week style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World

fans are in for a treat. We spoke with Ragnar Tørnquist, Creative

Director and Senior Producer at Funcom for style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World

and asked him your

questions. Ragnar graciously obliged.



Metal asks: What kind of

death penalty will

have?

Ragnar Tørnquist

The

Secret World

Metal asks: Taking into

account that there are demons in The

Secret World , does this mean that hell and heaven exist in

the game?

Ragnar

style="border: 0px solid ; width: 600px; height: 373px;"

alt="Combat in the shipward of The Secret World"

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/82562">



Combat in the shipward of

The Secret World href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/82562">style="border: 0px solid ; width: 600px; height: 373px;"alt="Combat in the shipward of The Secret World"src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/82562">The Secret World

style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The SecretWorldstyle="font-weight: bold;">style="font-weight: bold;">We don't want to mete out too much punishment willy nilly. Taking risksis part of the fun of playing. Dying - or, well, not dying; we don'thave actual 'death' in- is going to be an inconvenience, sure, butI wouldn't call it penalty. Whatever happens it's going to be closelyconnected to our lore and setting, and it's going to make sense andfeel fair. Players will be able to jump right back in and join theaction.style="font-weight: bold;">: Yesand no. Our philosophy is to be as inclusive as possible regarding allreligions, to make room for any kind of interpretation based on worldview - religious or secular. The mythical and spiritual elements ofstyle="font-style: italic;">The Secret Worldare quite agnostic...as far as that's possible. Yes, we make referencesto hell (and heaven) but we don't make any definite statements or lockourselves into a single world view. It's a balancing act, but onethat's important in order to preserve the mysteries ofstyle="font-style: italic;">The Secret World -as well as the real world. Do you really, really want to know thecapital-T Truth? Thought not.





Metal asks: Can you tell

us more about crafting in The Secret World?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar: No.

Not yet, at least!







Rocqu asks: What is in style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World to

help promote player community? (For example: player housing, guild

halls, in-game Facebooking, choke points (places lots of people have to

go to to get something done in game), raid systems?)

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar:

We've already mentioned the hub cities which are going to focus on the

social and communal aspects of the game. Aside from that, we'll have

plenty of features that promote the community - some obvious, some not

so much - but we're not quite ready to announce what those are quite

yet.







OneEyeRed asks: What are

you going to do to break the traditional 15-year-old mold and format

for MMO gaming? (For instance, the constant "Oh, it's a new NPC with

another twenty quests" dilemma.) Someone needs to break this tired

format and offer something different. I really want to get excited

about TSW but the genre has made me leery.

style="font-weight: bold;">





Ragnar: Is

that a question or are you just venting? I hear you! We hope we can

provide something a little different, and we're striving to make

changes where we feel the genre could benefit from a change - like the

role-playing system, how missions are presented, the mix of different

types of gameplay, and so on.







OneEyeRed asks: Could you

go over how combat works to some extent for us?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar: In

detail - no. But we've already talked about how players can equip seven

active powers and seven passive powers before heading out to do

missions and fight monsters, and that choice - from hundreds of

available powers - is really the driving force behind the combat. The

mix of powers, both actives and passives, and the powers equipped by

your team mates, is key, and these powers are designed to work together

to create powerful 'combos'. This makes the system really unique and a

ton of fun to play. Also, since we don't have classes in style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World,

you can buy and equip any powers you want, creating a totally unique

hybrid character - if that's what you want - or a super focused one if

you prefer to play an archetype like healer or tank. For example. It's

a very flexible and very deep system that will hopefully keep players

engaged for a long, long time.







Anacche asks: In creating

such a rich and diverse lore, from many

controversial topics, was there anything that you wanted to do, but

felt it was too taboo?





style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar:

We're not afraid of taboos! Certainly nothing that we really wanted to

do. Meaning we're probably going to piss some people off, regardless,

but we never set out to be controversial. We just wanted to build the

type of world we all wanted to explore and play in.







Anacche asks: Being a fan

and loyal slave to the Age

of Conan, should I feel pretty well at home in TSW or will

I still find a learning curve?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar: It's

a very different game in a lot of ways. But if you've played MMORPGs

before - Age of Conan,

World of Warcraft,

Guild Wars

- you'll soon feel at home in The

Secret World. We're not reinventing the wheel, but rather

focusing on those elements that are key to our gameplay and setting.

It's not a carbon copy of anything that's out there, that's for sure.







Anacche asks: AoC was

heavily criticized for being what some would describe as being

half-cooked and unpolished outside of Tortage (although it's pretty

well consensus that Tortage always has been a spectacle for all MMO

lovers to behold). Is launch polish a major focal point this time

around for TSW?





style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar:

Absolutely. My job is to make sure everything is as polished as

possible, that every little bit fits together and feels right, that

we're launching the kind of game that both me and the team can be proud

of. We don't intend to let this one go until we're all happy.







style="border: 0px solid ; width: 600px; height: 403px;"

alt="Tearing up the junkyard in The Secret World"

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/82573/preview">



Tearing up the junkyard

in The Secret World href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/82573">style="border: 0px solid ; width: 600px; height: 403px;"alt="Tearing up the junkyard in The Secret World"src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/82573/preview">The Secret World





Anacche asks: Robert E.

Howard and H.P. Lovecraft worked together quite a bit, and Howard

contributed quite a bit to Lovecraft's lore. Many people are pointing

at the perceived Lovecraft references in what little we've seen in

TSW--was this a conscious connection? Should we be expecting more early

20th century dark authors to feature prominently in Funcom MMOs?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar: I've

been a fan of Lovecraft since I was way too young to read Lovecraft,

and The Secret World

was influenced - partly, in addition to many, many other influences -

from the very beginning, before Funcom acquired the Conan license. So

it's a coincidence but a happy one. I think most people in Funcom

appreciate a bit of darkness. Maybe it's a Scandinavian thing?







centrik asks: I got into

the TSW beta via that AoC subscription offer. On my AoC account page, I

have the TSW beta icon thingy. When should I expect to hear more?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar: We

haven't made any announcements yet.







centrik asks:

Does this mean I'm guaranteed access at the beginning of the beta, or

just at some point throughout the process?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar:

We're not ready to talk about this yet.







Abyssus asks: Your

previous MMOGs have always had enough great ideas and eye candy to make

many an MMO gamer drool, but what have you learned from the

post-release failings of Anarchy

Online, and Age

of Conan, and how are you going to ensure style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World

doesn't suffer the same fate?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar: I'm

probably not the right person to talk about style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan, since

I didn't work on that game, but we hope to create a game that balances

the eye candy with solid, long lasting gameplay, and we're putting a

lot of focus on longevity this time around - to make sure that players

always have tons of stuff to do, even when they've churned through all

the content. Also, our plan is to make sure the content feels high

quality throughout, that there's no sudden dip after leaving the

starting zones. We've got an extremely stable engine and server setup

at this stage, so we don't have to worry too much about the technology.

Our focus is primarily content.







Anacche asks: AoC pushed

the bar massively in terms of brutality and violence in an MMO - where

will TSW sit on this scale?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar:

Brutality and violence isn't a focus area for us. Of course, you fight

demons and vampires and the walking dead - creatures from your darkest

nightmares - so there's definitely some blood and guts, but no more

than you'd find in your regular Hollywood movie.







Anacche asks:

Is there anything you really wanted to do in TSW that you just couldn't

due to time or technology restraints? Is there anything you really

wanted to do in previous MMOGs that you couldn't accomplish until TSW?

style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">

Ragnar:

There are of course tons of things we'd love to do that we don't have

time to do, but that's the nature of game development. And the

advantage with MMORPGs is that we're never done. We can keep improving,

keep introducing new features and new content for years and years. And

that makes it a lot easier to launch a bit smaller - focused and

polished - and then build bigger, adding to that solid base. You'll

find that we'll have tons of things up our sleeves after launch, things

that will make it worthwhile to stick around and see where the game is

heading.

