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Massively Exclusive: Joel Bylos talks The Secret World's endgame (and a bunch of other stuff)
Funcom is ramping up the publicity for The Secret World this week, and Massively's getting in on the action via an exclusive interview with lead content designer Joel Bylos. Earlier we told you how TSW's devs are hard at work putting a supernatural (and conspiratorial) twist on some of the world's most well-known cities, and we recently sat down with Bylos to talk about everything from using Google Maps to navigate Funcom's version of New York, to the nature of the term "open world," to the use of random game objects by the player. Bylos also has some interesting things to say about The Secret World's sandbox elements and its endgame, and you'll find all that and more after the cut.
Perpetuum's Terra Incognita expansion coming May 4th
Avatar Creations has a bit of a surprise in store for fans looking forward to Perpetuum's next patch. The update will be a full-blown expansion titled Terra Incognita and will be free to download despite the fact that it's crammed full of content. Avatar has also announced the official release date as May 4th, 2011. So what's in store for the sci-fi sandbox's first expansion? The game world is doubling in size, and six new islands are being made available (three Alpha and three Beta zones, PvE and PvP respectively). Since you can't have a huge game world without providing players a way to avoid traversing it, Avatar is also introducing a new highway system, which will speed travel by an additional 36 kilometers per hour. Terra Incognita is also bringing a new event notification system to the table (and by events, Avatar means UI pop-ups, not in-game shindigs). Gameplay additions include AoE damage from exploding robots, new armor and weapon modules, internal corporation markets, and various mineral and mining tweaks. Head to the official Perpetuum dev blog to get the full scoop.
Perpetuum doubling world size, offering free trials
What's new in the world of Perpetuum? Well, free trials for starters, as Avatar Creations has officially introduced a 15-day grace period for each newly created account. Trial players will not be able to trade items or currency, and they also will be prevented from joining corporations in order to safeguard the game's economy from exploits. Perhaps the biggest update in the world of Perpetuum is, well, the world -- or rather, the world as it will look in an upcoming patch. Avatar's official dev blog details plans to effectively double the size of the planet known as Nia in a patch "planned for about a month from now." The new territory will include six new islands (three of them safe zones and three free-for-all areas). All of the zones will boast infrastructure, NPCs, and materials, and Avatar plans on introducing missions shortly after going live with the update.
Guild Wars Nightfall larger than Azeroth?
We here at Massively love to lurk on gaming forums. Aside from the occasional breaking news bit or entertaining discussion, we sometimes stumble across something so interesting that we can't help but share. In this case, a discussion concerning game world size over at GuildWars2Guru.com piqued our interest. The thread, originally started to discuss a preview article on ArenaNet's forthcoming Guild Wars sequel, quickly veered into new territory, namely the sizes of various worlds both online and off. A user by the name of IceD'Bear even produced a couple of images showing direct map comparisons of games as diverse as the Elder Scrolls series, Grand Theft Auto III, Lord of the Rings Online, and of course Guild Wars. Now, we know what you're thinking. A game's map size doesn't automatically translate into playable area, and therein lies the rub with these types of comparisons. That said, it makes for a nifty trek down memory lane with regard to old games, and it might add a few onto the list of titles to check out if you're of the explorer persuasion. You can view the map comparisons here and here, and be sure to let us know what you think about the largest game world to date, as well as any games you'd like to see measured against those listed.
Player vs. Everything: Loading...
A few weeks ago, I was reading an Age of Conan interview with Shannon Drake where he was discussing several of the features that would be present in the game. One of the questions he was asked was why Funcom made the choice to use world zones for AoC instead of a seamless world. If you haven't heard the terminology before, games with world zones are games like EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and Guild Wars, where you have a loading screen when you pass from area to area. Seamless worlds include games like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, where you can pass between different game areas without a loading screen. Seamless worlds still have loading screens, of course-- just not for most major zones that you'll be traveling through. Shannon's answer was interesting. He admitted that their choice was partially due to the trade-offs required when designing a next-gen game (graphics are a major resource hog), but then he also talked about immersion and world design. Although Hyboria was supposed to be an enormous landmass, they didn't want to make a game that took forever to walk across. On the other hand, they didn't want to reduce the epic scale of the world by reducing a cross-continent journey to five minutes. Now, maybe that's just their canned answer to keep the fans happy with loading screens, and maybe it really was part of their game design-- probably a nice helping of both. Either way, it's worth considering. Do loading screens really help your game immersion?
