In many MMORPGs, NPCs are little more than merchants and quest terminals that provide players with a means to sell and get quests to continue progression. But The Secret World (TSW) hopes to make their NPCs a little more memorable and representative of the world that they inhabit. In a new developer blog, TSW Lead Writer Dag Scheve explains how Funcom is working to create a living world with NPCs that can invoke emotion and make players care about more than the next shiny piece of loot.

Where characters in other games are often just vehicles for the tasks the designers want their players to undertake, our characters are about giving you the information you need to decide for yourself. Rather than asking the player directly for help, they will talk about events in the world and offer opinions, present scenarios that players can choose to react to, do something to change, or walk away from.

Read the developer blog on the official TSW website.