Last week at PAX we had our first look at the latest project being developed by Funcom, "The Secret World". Words cannot express how we already feel about this game. Funcom has created one of the coolest premises for an MMO that we've seen to date and combined it with years of experience and an enhanced Age of Conan game engine. Enjoy our interview and stay tuned for an upcoming article with even more information!
Ragnar Tormquisc: My name is Ragnar Tormquisc and I'm the Producer Director on The Secret World.
Martin Bruusgaard: I'm Martin Bruusgaard, and I'm the Lead Designer.
ZAM: First one I'm going to ask; can you tell us a little bit about the individual persistent elements that will exist in the game?
Martin: The important thing to mention is that we don't have classes and we don't have levels. We have a very... linear progression, very result-based. It's all about gathering items and equipment, and also different powers. It's all about playing how you want to play and gathering the powers that matter to you, that let you play how you want to play. If you want to be a healer, then you gather the healer powers, and if you want to be a tank, you can gather the tank powers. You can also create hybrids. It's also important to say that you can design different powers to work with different powers, so you and your buddy can create specs that work well with each other, that feed each other. So, in that way, you can become very good at something very quickly, but to be able to master all of the powers and have a 'spec' for every situation - that will take a long time. So it's quick to get into the game and excel at something, but to be able to have all the tools, that will take a long time. So it's a very open progression in that way.