At gamescom 2011, Ten Ton Hammer took
a break from the crazy announcements and million dollar tournaments to
sit down with the creative direct of Funcom's style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World, Ragnar
Tørnquist. In the process, we learned more about elder game PvP, the pervasiveness of Internet lore in the game, fast travel, and much more!

Ten
Ton Hammer : Today we got a quick look at 'warzones' - The Secret World's large scale PvP encounter pitting dozens of players against each other. Numbers alone are greater than in the previously discussed battlegrounds of Stonehenge, El Dorado, Cimbala, and warzones are exclusively focused on endgame players. Given the size and scope of these encounters, what happens when a player dies in a warzone? What happens when an entire faction is put out of action?

Ragnar
Tørnquist : Well, of course
you still respawn and we have a variety
of respawn points, but those can be captured.   But
you are going to get sessions where
people gang up and a faction gets kicked off the table temporarily. style="">  I think the question that
should be asked is –
isn’t one faction going to dominate while the other two try to take
their
throne?   And
hopefully the answer to
that is no, because dynamic play is what everyone enjoys in PvP.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/102003?size=_original"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 640px; height: 360px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/102003/preview">

style="font-style: italic;">If you're looking for less orcs
and trolls in your MMO, The Secret World will deliver.

TTH
: When can players enter Warzones, and what rewards are associated with conquering and holding these areas? 

RT
: It’s not the first thing you’re
going to do when you
jump into the game, you’ll probably head into the battlefields and get
an
understanding of PvP.  You’ll
see the
more experienced players competing there for certain. 
As long as you have something to add, via
specialization in a weapon type or the like, you can compete there. style="">  Even after 40-60 hours,
you’ll be a force and
a benefit to your faction.

Also, the buffs from these warzone
capture points are
faction-wide, giving players all the more reason to pitch in to the
fight.

TTH
: In the presentation,
Lead Designer Martin Bruusgard used the word
'persistent' to describe Warzones.

RT
: They are not instanced and they
are always active.  On
each server, that warzone is persistent
and possibly filled up.  As
for how many
we have, we’ve announced the one we have here – it's a city in China. style="">  We don’t have a name for
it just yet, and we’re
not ready to reveal how many there are in the final product just yet.

You’ll also be gaining ranks within
your secret society via
missions in PvE and PvP.  Your
relationship to your faction and your war against the other factions’
secret
societies will be the focal point of the game to some players. style="">  Each society will have its
own story.  You will
go to some of the same locations,
and see what even seems like the exact same story—but different results
and
things will happen.  You’ll
have to see
it to believe it.  The
full story can
only be gleaned from talking to those of other factions who have seen
the
events unfold from another angle.

TTH
: Will any of these missions that
unfold differently
have a PvP element to them?

RT
: That’s something we’re still
discussing.  It’s
always dangerous to make some content
PvP only.  A lot of
players don’t want
anything to do with that.  We’d
like to
do something with that though, so we’re still seeing if we can come up
with
some mechanics to make it work.

TTH
: Moving away from PvP, let’s talk story. 
We’ve known you’re going to be hiding little fragments of
it all over the
internet.  No doubt
the in-game browser
you guys are integrating will be great for that. 
But just how integral are these storyline
bits going to be to the game?  Just
how
much can we expect to search outside of the game as opposed to inside?

RT:
I don’t want to downplay these
cool little bits you’ll
find online, but you really don’t have to if you’re not interested in
that.  With all of
the different mission
types, you’ll find enough to engross you from gameplay or story. style="">    We’ve
created an amazing world though, and
these optional side things will help you explore it.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/102005?size=_original"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 640px; height: 360px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/102005/preview">

style="font-style: italic;">A lot of you might be confused
and think this is a different MMO from the screenshot on page 1.
 Rest assured, they are one and the same.

TTH
: So how deep are these
investigations?

RT
: Some will have an answer you can
just look up like most
players would these days.  Others
will be
more dynamic.  All
of them will have
experience rewards as an incentive. 
We
also have the capability of changing the answer to these, which means
make
things fresh whenever we want.  
We can
also put the answer on one of these websites to keep providing
incentive to
diving into the story of The Secret World.

Don’t worry, we’re working on some
that will be near
impossible to crack.

TTH
: Some really cool locations were
on display today – Stonehenge,
el dorado…. How exactly are we traveling to these places.

RT
: There are these persistent rifts
that link each
culture, we call them Agartha.  The
idea of a second earth -a spirit world that exists in the hollow of the earth we know about- is very pervasive in myth; the Buddhist idea of Shambhala, for example. 
The portals to Agartha link cultures together, and in the
story, hint at a more
evolved being or beings watching over us.  When
people enter Agartha via any of the entrance ways in the play fields,
there
will be a place where time and space change considerably. style=""> 

Agartha will play an increasingly
bigger role in the game as
we expand the game.  You’ll
be exploring
Agartha itself.  You’ll
ask yourself
questions such as who built this city, why is it here… those won’t be answered at
launch, but we will reveal the answers soon enough.

TTH
: As far as content at launch
goes, how long do you
think people are going to be able to sit down and play nonstop? style=""> 

RT
: It’s hard to put a number on
that, but in terms of pure
PvE content, we have several hundred hours. 
The experience differs between the factions as well, and
then you add
dungeons and PvP and you’ve got a complete game. 
New content will be added after launch, and
most missions will be repeatable so you can check out your favorite
missions
after a patch change.

TTH
: How close are we to actually
getting our hands on
this?

RT
: We started our first beta phase
in May, and we just
started our second one.  We’re
adding
more players all the time. style="">  We’ll let you know when
it’s ready!

Remember that we are making this
first and foremost for our
role-players.  When
the story and the
respective events are ready to show off, we are going to blow your
minds.