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The Secret World, Funcom’s upcoming MMO, is said to help ex-World of Warcraft players overcome the necessary learning curve in order to jump from traditional classes into free-form classes.
In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, the game’s lead content designer Joel Bylos explained that despite players being used to traditional class roles in an MMO, testers invest in a wide range of combat skills.
“The first time we gave the systems to the developers to play with, the first time they were played internally, people went in with this class idea. They thought, ‘I’m Mr Hammer, that’s what I am, that’s what I want to be”.
“So then they are hammer guy with the dash. And then they think, ‘when I do the dash I can also knock people over, so let’s take another skill from elsewhere that hits the prone monster hard’. By the end of the process they’re playing a character totally different from what they used to be at the start.”
Funcom does allow users to play more typical class-role by providing them with “templates”, suggesting certain builds for the player, however the game counts on players to experiment.
“It”s very natural to experiment, sometimes just for the sake of coolness. It works on an aesthetic level but also on a pure mechanics level. It’s a metagame. You start playing around in there, maybe to be the best of the best, maybe just for fun.”
He adds: “For new players coming from World of Warcraft, I think there is a hump and the templates can help them over that. But I do think it’s very naturally evolving as you play.”
During group-based dungeons, however, users will adopt more traditional roles of tanking and healing, says lead designer Marten Bruusgaard.
“When it comes to roles in dungeons, when people sign up, they will choose a role.
“That role will play on fairly standard archetypes, such as tank-crowd controller, or support. Those kind of rules. The system will say, if you sign up for the Polaris say, these are the optimal things you will need – this, this and this. But we don’t look at individual players, we look at the group as one entity and what it can bring.”
The Secret World is set to launch April 2012.
We recently got the chance to play The Secret World. Check out our preview.
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The Secret World
- Platform(s): PC
- Genre(s): Fantasy, Massively Multiplayer, Massively Multiplayer Online, RPG
