Re-Examining the UI
A while ago (right after GDC 2011) I posted about the UI that was shown there, and how I felt it would affect the game. Well, since then there have been some changes in the UI as well as several new reveals. So I thought I would take some time to go back and take another look at the HUD elements to see what’s going on.
- Mission icons are clean
First we’ll take a look at the chat. On the far left of the screen, near the bottom is a chat window. The window itself is transparent, with the text appearing against whatever happens to be behind it. It also looks like the text can be different colors depending on what sends the message (players, debug information, system broadcasts…). The lack of a background is nice, giving the player a feeling of minimal clutter and allowing them a greater view of their surroundings. However, it might make the text difficult to read depending on what background it is placed against. At one point, there’s some blueish-white text in the chat box that’s extremely hard to read against the asphalt in the background. In all though, it’s a good trade off. In high action situations players are hardly expecting to read the chat box anyway, and in low action situations it’s easy enough to move your camera or strain a bit to make out the text. I would also note that there is a background to the chat menu that appears when chatting.
Moving to the right from the chat box is the player status bar. A fairly MMO-Standard green bar shows the player’s health, with numbers in the middle for a more accurate read. Below the bar are status indicators to show any effects that the player might be under, such as blood magic or fire. As we’ve heard before, states are going to drastically change the effects of various skills, so
States and skills during combat
knowing which states are affecting you is going to be just as important, if not more, than knowing your health, so it’s a good thing that they’re so prominently featured. It also appears that the states are dimmed out if they are inactive, lighting up on activity. This may seem like a small or meaningless change, but it actually shaves plenty of time off of how long it takes a player to check their status. Instead of having to look along the bar to see what state they are in, they can quickly memorize the position of “fire” then just check that position to see if they are on fire.
Next to the status bar is the abilities bar, featuring your seven active abilities. This is also fairly MMO-Standard, with usable abilities in the middle of the screen at the bottom. What isn’t standard is the passive abilities hidden behind those active abilities. Slipping these passive abilities in behind the active abilities gives players the ability to quickly check their passives as well as their actives, without having to open any sort of menu to check which passives they have equipped and what they do. Ability icons are also color coded, which is amazing for those of us who like to click on our ability bar rather than memorize the hotkey numbers.
Accepting missions is easy
Perhaps the sexiest thing in the UI is the displays that pop up around NPCs. Rather than go with a big exclamation point or star over the NPC’s head, Funcom has chosen to go with a more sleek (if perhaps bulky) visual look. NPCs with missions will have their name displayed a bit to the side of their head, as well as icons for each mission they have. Mission icons differ depending on the type of mission (action or investigation…). This, in and of itself, might not seem all that interesting, except for the way that players interact with these icons. Instead of clicking an NPC and having a big quest dialog come up, a player can click an icon and a description of the mission will slide out to the side of that icon. The user can then click to accept the mission, and the whole display will fade out and the player will move into a cut-scene opening for the mission. This sliding in and out, as well as the style of the icons and the transparencies, bear a strong resemblance to the iphone’s UI. The player could be forgiven for being reminded of the type of display they might see if they were wearing a pair of augmented reality HUD glasses sending them readouts from their Faction. In all, it presents a hefty level of immersion, as well as an extremely usable UI.
Interacting with objects in the world works much the same way as with the NPC interaction. Many interactive objects don’t have labels all the time, but on mouse-over, a label explaining what the player can do with that item slides out to the side.
Party stats
One thing that wasn’t touched on in my previous article was the party UI. A lot of you folks who love playing healer types commented on this, and I think you’ll be happy to note that there is definitely a party UI available in mission. It takes the form of a slightly reduced player portrait, and sits in a translucent window along the left side of the screen. One thing that I find better about TSW’s party UI is that it not only shows you the HP of your party members, but also their states, so that you can best capitalize and combo using teamwork.
There are several UI elements that appear once the players get into combat, mostly related to what is happening to the player at any given time. When the player takes damage, the amount of damage and any special properties of the damage appear on the character and grow a bit before fading. You also get this type of display for damage that you do to enemies, however you do not get displays for damage done to or by your allies. Any abilities that have lasting effects (other than just pure states) will appear above your health bar, and will also appear on the party UI, providing a quick reference for the player.
Another important thing that pops up in combat is your enemies’ status bar. Whichever enemy you have targeted will have their status bar displayed on the right side of your skills, allowing you to see their health, states, and any abilities that are currently affecting them. Again, this is a great boon to allowing combos and teamwork.
The skill wheel
We also got to see a bit of the skill wheel, which is how players can select their skills at certain points in the game. With over 500 skills to choose from, Funcom did a great job of breaking the task down so that you’re not digging through a never-ending list of skills. The skill wheel is represented as a set of concentric rings, with each segment on the ring representing a different skill or set of skills. It’s somewhat like a horizontal tree structure, in that you select skills by selecting the type, then subtype, then the skill itself. This allows you to quickly run through and find the skills that you need; since you’ll want to be changing skills to fit different situations, this is extremely helpful. The skill wheel also breaks your equipped active and passive skills up, giving you a better visual reference of what you already have equipped.
Orochi map of Polaris
The map is another interesting point. Not only is it a good visual for the geography of the area you are in, but it also contains tactical details about your surroundings. It may be that you will have to gather specific items to actually activate these tactical details, but we have yet to see see a map where a player hasn’t been able to pick one up. These details are often cryptic, such as “High biological material concentration” or “Aberrant psychic signal source”. They tell the player where important things are, but not necessarily what they are. This keeps well in theme with the rest of the game.
In all, the UI primarily tries to keep the game feeling like it’s on the leading edge of technology, and does a really good job of it. With an augmented reality feel added to everything by the HUD and overlays, to the sleek polished buttons and transparencies, it really seems like something out of a sci-fi film. Add to that the excellent dissemination of information about players and enemies that assists teamwork, and the UI is looking pretty solid.
CGN is looking for skilled people
Cry Gaia Network (CGN) is one of the oldest fansites for The Secret World. From its founding in 2007, it has been dedicated to bringing you up-to-date information regarding both the development and the lore behind this exciting new game.
CGN offers many features for community members, including monthly journal releases regarding Funcom, The Secret World, and any community events (contests, creation of cabals, etc).
Besides this, CGN hosts The Secret World Wiki (TSWW), where a database of knowledge can be found regarding, among other things, the ARGs, characters, locations and monsters.
Cry Gaia Network is now looking for more skilled people to join our fantastic team of writers, developers and The Secret World knowledge keepers. If you are a true fan of the upcoming The Secret World, and want to contribute to the amazing community surrounding the game, please see if any of the positions below fits you:
- Editor
We are currently looking for an editor to aid in the day-to-day running of our webpage and features. Main duties will be proofreading and making sure the webpage is up-to-date with recent news. This position requires a person with excellent English grammar skills, a keen eye for details and a wealth of knowledge both about real-life and The Secret World history. To apply: Write about yourself, your contributions to the TSW community and attach a feature length article about anything related to TSW. Then send it to ” Remyx99 at crygaia.net” with “Crygaia.net – Editor application” in the subject.
- Writer
We are currently looking for several writers to join us in the quest to post ever more interesting articles about The Secret World universe. Main duties will include writing feature articles, interviews, quick news as well as covering game and ARG events. This position requires great English grammar skills, a natural talent to write articles that are interesting and fun to read and great knowledge of The Secret World and history involving the ARGs. To apply: Write about yourself, your contributions to the TSW community and attach a feature length article about anything related to TSW. Then send it to” Remyx99 at crygaia.net” with “Crygaia.net – writer application” in the subject.
- Web Developer
We are currently looking for skilled web developers and designers to continue to bring new features to the community. Tasks will include development of webpage features on Crygaia.net, Trackers and tools for our writers. This position requires good knowledge of web standards, PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, mySQL and several CMS. You must show dedication and be able to follow a project all the way to the finish. To apply: Write about yourself, your contributions to the TSW community and attach a portfolio of your web development work. Then send it to” Remyx99 at crygaia.net” with “Crygaia.net – Web Developer application” in the subject.
- The Secret World Wiki Contributor
The Secret World Wiki is looking for volunteers to help get new information added as it comes to light. Due to the wiki’s open editing nature, you’re free to add information without even applying. If you feel like there’s something you could add, check the how to help page for more information. If you’d like more direction on what to do, or want to play a bigger role in the wiki’s development, contact “Selzi at crygaia.net” to find out what you can help with.
*All these positions are volunteer, but we reward our contributors from time to time. If you don’t think you fit to any of the available positions but think you can lend us a hand, you are free to contact us at any time. We do use articles written freelance and any good help to better the community is received with great joy.
EA Showcase – Savage Coast walkthrough
Following the EA Showcase this past Thursday, the community got its first glimpse at an early dungeon in The Secret World. The dungeon takes place on Solomon Island, where a wrecked cargo ship, the Polaris, has brought doom upon the small island. Players battle many different types of monstrosities, including different bosses, on their way to investigate what may be the cause of the invasion in Kingsmouth. The developers show off different skills, how they can be swapped out to adapt to situations, and the combat mechanics that require the player to be aware of their surroundings.
IGN was kind enough to upload a three part live demo of the Savage Coast dungeon.
Video: Illuminati CGI finally released
The good men over at Gametrailers.com just got the exclusive release of the long awaited Illuminati CGI Trailer for The Secret World.
Taking place in the Horned God, a bar in London that might be familiar to you. The long-time discussed headless man and the mystery Illuminati guy, Alex McCall, finally get their time to show off some amazing powers. We have seen the monster before in some concept art, but now it is alive! At least for some seconds… Watch the trailer below:
Download the CGI Trailer: .720p
Thumbs up for Gametrailers.com
Video: Location preview, The Savage Coast
A new video, the joy rushes through the lurking fans of this ever more exciting game. The video itself does not contain much new information, it’s just moving pictures of most of the stills we have already seen. And tells the tale of the darkness that have been lurking in the shadows of the Kingsmouth area for way too long. Now they are coming back, for the whole world to see.
- Climb to safety
- I came to bring you to hell
- Freddy is back!
Although the video gives more to new fans, there are still a few cookies to eat for the hardcore fans. We get a glimpse of a new hell-monster daemon. Tall and bone crunching, with heavy armor.
We get a closeup of a claw weapon in the fight with the spectre. And the Accursed Woods seem to be more then just a dark place. We see a tree house as a prominent feature at the treetop, is it a safe-house or maybe its not safe at all? Its a clear indication that the “pitch black backwoods” holds more then what first greats you. And hopefully we will soon be able to learn more about what hides in its shadows.
The video is premiered exclusively on these websites:
MMORPG.com (US)
Buffed.de (Germany)
JeuxOnline.info (France)
Meristation.com (Spain)
Gamer.no (Norway)
Locations in the shadow of E3
Atlantic Island Park
“In the early 1970s, ruthless industrial magnate Nathaniel Winter purchased the land around the old Henderson farm. With its picturesque location on Solomon Island, a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean, and easy access from Kingsmouth Town — a burgeoning tourist destination — it seemed like the perfect location for an amusement park.
Despite the promise of a major financial windfall for the county, however, the locals were almost unanimously opposed to the plans. The Henderson farm had a dark history, they said, and the grounds were tainted with cursed blood. The land should be left undisturbed.
But Nathaniel Winter hadn’t built his vast empire by yielding to anyone, let alone a bunch of superstitious farmers, and amidst whispers of bribes and threats, he acquired all the necessary permits. Construction of the Atlantic Island Park began in the spring of 1975.
As soon as the ground was broken, the freak accidents began. Several workers fell to their deaths; others committed suicide, seemingly without good reason. Rides would fall apart as soon as they were switched on, employees and visitors complained of recurring night terrors, and there were persistent rumours of strange whispers and ghostly sightings.
Nathaniel Winter persevered, however, refusing to cut his losses or yield to public opinion, and despite a skyrocketing budget and numerous delays, the Atlantic Island Park finally opened in the summer of 1978.
Unfortunately for Winter, and despite precautions, the freak accidents continued unabated, and when a crazed employee in a chipmunk costume stabbed two teenagers to death, the park was finally forced to shut down — for good. Nathaniel Winter vanished along with his vast empire, and was never heard from again, leaving his estranged wife and an only son: Nicholas Winter.
Now the skeletons of the enormous roller-coaster and Ferris wheel cast long shadows over the abandoned paths and candy stands. For more than thirty years, the Atlantic Island Park has remained silent and asleep…
…until now.”
Innsmouth Academy
“As far as most people are concerned, Innsmouth Academy is a private coeducational boarding and day high-school (grades 9-12; ages 15 through 18) for privileged rich kids, situated on a tiny island off the coast of Maine.
In actuality, the Academy is an educational facility for secret worlders; more specifically, the children of secret worlders affiliated with the Illuminati, although the school sometimes admits exceptionally gifted students — and faculty — from other societies. It is considered one of the premier occult prep schools of the secret world, and a degree from Innsmouth Academy opens many doors for a budding magus and occultist.
Founded and constructed in 1798 (and rebuilt in the 1850s, 1904 and 1967, after, respectively, a devastating fire, an earthquake, and the opening of a dimensional portal in the elementalism lab) with investment from a group of mysterious benefactors — ostensibly wealthy businessmen with local ties — the Academy has endured, mostly thanks to a long row of dedicated headmasters and fiercely loyal faculty.
With a skeleton in every closet and deals with various devils inked into the very blueprints of the buildings, the Academy is an occult powderkeg primed to explode — as it very nearly has during attacks in its past. Though the few survivors do what they can to bolster the wards, it requires a great, and unflinching, magical talent to plug all the leaks, and headmaster Hayden Montag has taken that responsibility seriously and single-mindedly.
Without outside assistance, however, Montag and his motley crew will not survive long. The fog — and the things in it — are gathering strength, and the Academy holds many secrets that would be of great value to those who can get their hands on them.”
Also please visit The Secret World official web page for information about more locations.
Video: Developer diary, story and missions
With the release of the new developer diary video, we mostly got confirmations about things we already knew. In the video, the developers spoke about the regular “everything is true” concept. Along with some more detailed information about voice acting and missions. Most importantly is how the story affects every part of the game explains Ragnar Tørnquist.
“With the story in The Secret World we want to give meaning and context to every player action. From crafting, to monster slaying, to missions, to ranking up in your secret society. The story is about giving context and a meaning to everything.”
He continues eagerly telling us how the story is not told just through cinematic and cut scenes but that the story is everywhere, and you have to search for it. The story is exploration, discovering pieces of the puzzle as you move along, feeding your lust to know more.
And ohh dear, we want to know more. Lots more. So far we have pieced together the information we got to get a better picture on how the game will be. And now they are confirming some of that information.
Missions
There will be several types of missions. Joel Bylos, lead content designer, continued in the video by speaking shortly on four categories:
- Sabotage missions: Infiltrating enemy fortresses, destroying things. But doing it in sneaky ways.
- Action missions: Head on fighting, diving in, destroying and blow shit up.
- Investigation missions: Riddle and puzzle solving, also beyond the game world. Player needs to search and look for clues in the game, but also outside the game.
- Story missions: All about the player and their secret society. It’s about finding out what is going on in the world, getting to know why the world is the way that it is.
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Locations
The main focus still seems to be around Kingsmouth in this video, while we also get small glints from Egypt, just like what we have seen from London, Seoul, New York and Transylvania.
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Characters
During the video we get a little closer to Madame Rogét, aswell as Richard Sonnac and getting to know the personality of Edgar the junkyard keeper, that we have written about before. But the hot topic in the coming week will probably be about a brand new figure, a young boy with an 80′s haircut who bears quite the resemblance to our own Danny Dufresne.
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Download in full quality here!
Kingsmouth hides secrets not found on Google
Henry Hawthorne
After GDC, Kingsmouth is still the prime focus for lore and information. When Funcom finally lifted the cap of the bottle to let us smell the fumes, rotten fish, zombies and ravens tickled my nose hair. But most of all, the broad stench of a “skilled” computer user far out smelled everything else. He found secret forums not listed on Google, and told tales of what mysteries lie beneath Kingsmouth.
“I’m with the Illuminati. I don’t have a badge or anything like that. I’m what you might call a uh… a hobbyist member. I earned it. I did extensive research on the Net. The code words I found led me to forums. Secret forums. Forums that don’t show up on Google. And I’m an avid poster. A valued poster. I know there are paths in Kingsmouth not on any map. The work of the Illuminati is everywhere.” - Henry Hawthorne
With the introduction of investigation missions, a surge of joy ran through me with a flashback from all the ARGs I have been taking part in. This adds a new element of competition between the factions, by giving rewards to whichever faction is the first one to solve the mission, and will likely prove to be a valuable spark to keep the community playing even out of the game. There is still some concern though. Most of the hardcore ARG members of the community might outsmart the general player, just because this is the exact thing that captures their interest. This is not the problem in itself, as we will end up split over the three factions anyway. However, my concern is targeted towards Funcom and the developers of these investigation missions.
Gotta have black helicopters
Our magnificent community is overwhelmed by posts of members missing out on the ARG puzzles because we straight up solve them too fast. I’m not talking about a whole ARG here, because those can contain a lot of puzzles and be stretched over months and years. Have we just had too many members with excellent skills within this field? Or is it simply a matter of the puzzles being too easy? This is my concern. If the investigation missions become too easy to solve, whoever finds them first will win, and completely ruin why they are there in the first place. Lead Content Designer, Joel Bylos, shared his vision of missions lasting some weeks or even months before being solved. This means missions would either have a lot of tiers, or be genuinely hard to solve. Striking a balance between these is extremely hard to do, so I hope Funcom takes the time to do this right.
It’s obvious that Kingsmouth still hides many mysteries not indexed in any search engine, and all we can do is to keep doing research on the Net, until we find the hidden forums for ourselves. Kingsmouth smells, hopefully we get to have a taste pretty soon…
More “dossiers” will be published, soon™
Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe’s appearances
"edga" could be edgar ?
As we know, the Kingsmouth area is a wink to Lovecraft’s works. However, there are also links to Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Indeed, Deputy Andy Gardener received an excerpt of the first paragraph and the last paragraph of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The City in the Sea“. After mentioning Montag a first time, Carter said “Seems like EAP liked his puzzles, huh?Still not clear on what his connection is to the Academy. Montag would now, but not going there… :-/“. And it just so happens that in the novel “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Montag’s task is memorizing Edgar Allan Poe’s stories (source) and “EAP” could stand for Edgar Allan Poe. Then, Carter also mentioned a woman named Annabel, saying she helped her when she got back two minutes after the beginning of the curfew. “Annabel Lee” is the last complete poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe and explores the theme of the death of someone’s girlfriend (source). Finally, there’s a picture showing a wire-mesh fence with a sign displaying “Edga” on the right side and another picture showing in its bottom left corner the rest of the name: “ar’s”. It looks like this is “Edgar’s” like Edgar Allan Poe.
Overlook Motel = Overlook Hotel ? It appears so
Regarding Stephen King, Danny Dufresne, “Jack and Wendy’s B&B (21)” and the Overlook Motel seem to refer to the novel “The Shining“: Daniel Anthony “Danny” Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance and the Overlook Hotel. Andy Dufresne from “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” might have given his last name to Danny Dufresne and his first name to Deputy Andy Gardener. The last name Gardener could be alluding to “Secret Window, Secret Garden” while Sheriff Helen Bannerman might be a mix of Helen Hafner from “The Colorado Kid“, the Bannerman family and Sheriff Anna Turner from “Dead Zone“.
All of these might not be true. Some clues of reference are weak, others like those referring to “The Shining“, “The City in the Sea” and “Fahrenheit 451” leave few doubt though. Is the poem “Annabel Lee” alluding to Danny and Carter’s relationship? Does it mean she’ll die? Most of Kingsmouth’s mysteries have yet to be unveiled…
Thanks to Vallikat for noticing Jack and Wendy Torrance.
GDC 2011′s revelations
Factions can fight together against the monsters
The Secret World’s presentation started with Ragnar Tørnquist emphasizing that TSW is an MMORPG. Playing solo is possible, however, a key-element of the game will be combining skills with others, which is more efficient to defeat enemies. As there will be more than 500 skills, playing with others will therefore make the game more exciting and open up more content to a player. Teamwork will particularly be necessary to solve puzzles, make big attacks, defend the sheriff’s office being overwhelmed by zombies,… “It’s you against the world and you’re gonna need other people to help you out in certain parts of the game.”
Blending the game with reality, the ARGs will continue after TSW’s release as investigative missions. They will require research outside the game and their level of difficulty will often require players to work together. The first secret society to solve an investigative mission will receive a reward for it in the form of a buff. In a general manner, missions (not specifically the investigative ones) are divided in tiers and each time the player completes one of these tiers, the game records his or her progress. Therefore, the player can quit a mission to do something else, then continue it from the degree of achievement he left it. It is not necessary to re-start the mission from scratch.
T-Rex in Egypt
Then, Joel Bylos presented a session in Kingsmouth and explained that jumping on the top of a car triggers its alarm, which attracts zombies. Players can use this to re-populate areas. Also, objects such as gas canisters can be used to start fires and make killing zombies easier. In addition, we had the opportunity to see Deputy Andy Gardener in game. He explained to the player that the Draug drowned the townfolk in the sea. Then, the townfolk came back with pods they put on the beach. These pods are guarded and from them are born the Draug. It has been pointed out that Deputy Andy Gardener seems like having some issues with his father.
Martin Bruusgaard announced the different types of available weapons. They can be regrouped in three categories:
- Melee weapons: hammers, fist weapons, swords
- Ranged weapons: shotguns, assault rifles, pistols
- Magic: blood magic, chaos, elementalism
Elementalism is shaping and changing the world around oneself at a molecular level. No information has yet been divulged regarding the two other magics.
As it has already been said many times, there are no classes. Players are free to evolve as they wish. Having several characters like in other MMOs is no longer necessary. However, people will still be allowed to if they wish so. Then, for those who have no idea which skills they should pick up, ten suggested paths (called “templates”) have been shown to be available in order to fulfill a specific role:
- Martial Artist
- Ninja
- Chaos Theorist
- Firestarter
- Warrior
- Hunter
- Assassin
- Neoshaman
- Warlord
- Monk
The templates help choosing cells
There won’t be mana. Using a skill will launch its cooldown timer. Once this is over, the skill is ready to be used again. In order to gain new skills, players buy them with Skill Points in a Skill Wheel (its appearance is still a work-in-progress). Each cell of the Skill Wheel contains 7 unique skills. Buying the first skill allows the player to buy the second one. Once the player has bought the second one, they can buy the third one and so on. Skills are more and more expensive as the player progresses in a cell. Nonetheless, the skills don’t necessarily increase in power but they have different specificities. Actually, the power of a skill scales with the player equipment. Therefore, a skill should never become obsolete. It is worth noting that not all skills will be common to all factions: each secret society will have some exclusive skills. It has been said the game contains more than 500 unique skills. Since the inner circle of the Skill Wheel contains 21 cells and the outer circle 63 cells, there could be exactly 588 skills if absolutely all cells contain 7 skills. Fortunately, it will be possible to save & load skill combinations so players don’t need to re-select their skills one by one. Gear will be saved in them too and preset combinations will be available. Speaking of gear, it won’t alter the character appearance. Consequently, it won’t be possible for other players to guess if someone is strong or weak just from their appearance.
Transylvania
Now regarding PvP, the war between factions is governed by rules of engagement set by the Council of Venice. Characters will be the same for PvE and PvP except that they will wear the uniform of their respective faction in PvP. The purpose of the war between factions is taking the control of relics containing great magics. The Council of Venice has allowed fighting in several locations. In Stonehenge (Great Britain), each secret society has one team and these teams fight each other. Controlling the centre of Stonehenge will reward with victory points. The winning team is the one which has the biggest amount of victory points. Shambala (Himalayan Mountains) is a ranked arena where players come in premade teams. Last man standing wins. Eldorado (America) is the biggest area of the three ones. Each society can send 10 people who will fight for the control of 4 ancient magical idols. Once they have an idol, players go to an elevated spot and, from there, attempt to guard their idol. The map will have a rich asymmetrical topography offering numerous places with different degrees of efficiency in terms of defensive and offensive advantage. Therefore, there will be places better than others to set up an ambush or to guard an idol.
Eldorado seems very promising
Other places like Antarctica have been mentioned in articles but whether they will be in the first release or not is still unknown. Battles in the Hollow Earth are uncertain too. Agartha might instead be a special location allowing players to quickly go from a part of the world to another. There won’t be open PvP at launch but it might change, depending on servers…
A beta is expected in about two months (around April/May). The beta phase should be composed of several steps of two months, each step giving access to more beta testers than the previous one.
Sources:
Ten Ton Hammer
TSWO.pl
MMORPG.com
Gamereactor.no
thesecretworld.com
Community Perspective – Evaluating the UI
I recently got a chance to sit down with the developers of The Secret World at the 2011 Game Developer’s Conference for both their press presentations and later for the invite only Nordic Games Party. What I saw pretty much blew me away. The game looks spectacular, especially for an alpha build. I wanted to focus on one aspect in particular though, one that can easily make or break first impressions of a game, the User Interface.
First I want to throw out this qualifier to everything I say. The user interface at the presentation was not entirely finished. Many of the aspects were in what was likely to be their final form, but a few aspects were still in the works and just had test representations. That being said, everything was very impressive.
Mission info, lightyears ahead of other MMORPGs.
The UI looks and feels almost like an augmented reality system. It is easy to feel as though you’re just looking at the world through a visor that updates you with real time information about what’s going on. Information about the world comes in the form of translucent icons that appear near important objects like quest NPCs or mission objectives.
The quest dialogue is lightyears ahead of other MMORPGs. Instead of a giant exclamation point over an NPC’s head, there are small icons floating near them that represent each quest the NPC has for you. There are different icons for action and investigation missions. There is also no massive quest dialogue window that pops up when you click an NPC. Simply hovering your cursor over a quest icon expands the icon to include a small description of the quest. Clicking the icon then activates the mission.
It is worth noting that all of the missions we were shown had cutscenes where the character chats with you about the mission. No missions had the giver directly asking the player to do something either, instead the character just told the player about something that was happening in the world, it was then up to the player to go and figure out what was going on and how to stop it. No “collect ten zombie fingers” quests here.
Other important information about the world, such as mission objectives, are overlayed as small translucent tabs with the distance to the object displayed. It’s a very simple and clean way to give the player the information they need so that they don’t get lost, and it’s extremely unobtrusive when you aren’t looking for it.
Hands on the game!
As for the HUD elements, they are very minimalistic. When we watched the developers play, there was no map, no party box, no sort of compass or chat log, only hit points, state, and skills. All of this is located along the bottom of the screen. There is also an option to track the status of another person, which will appear on the right side of the screen. Other people’s statistics appear a little more translucent than your own, allowing you to easily just look right through them into what’s happening in the world.
The skill bar is located directly in the middle of the bottom of your screen for easy access. However I should note that I never saw anyone playing the game actually click on any of the skills, implying that the hotkey usage for the skills is very efficient. This allows the players to keep their eyes on the action at all times, rather than fumbling with their skill bars for a moment only to look up and get punched in the face by Cthulu himself.
There are 7 skills shown on the skill bar at all times. These are your active skills, the ones that you use to do things like throw fireballs or put up a shield to deflect projectiles. Hovering over these skills brings up a second row of skills from behind the first row. These are your passive skills, the ones that give you increased fire damage or protection from bludgeoning attacks.
To the left of the skill bar is the states and health bars. The health bar sits below your states bar, and as the name implies, shows how much health you have left. It’s simple, but it doesn’t need to be fancy. A quick reference is all you need and then you’re back to the action.
The states bar is a bit more complicated. In the presentation we saw there were three states, though only two were discussed. The two states that were talked about were fire and blood magic, and the third looked like it could be frost. There will be both positive and negative states for each category. For example, someone could cast a blood magic spell that healed you over time and that would give you a positive blood magic state.
I'm on Fire! States do matter...
Alternately, you could have a curse cast on you to achieve a negative blood magic state. These states can stack, so if you cast a bunch of blood magic buffs you can end up with an extremely positive state, and the bar will reflect that.
It’s important that the bar reflects your state, because it directly affects not only skills used against you, but your own skills as well. Some skills can only be used with a certain state, and others become more effective once you have a certain level of positive or negative state.
Overall, the UI has a very simple and clean look. It looks almost like something you would find on a smart phone than something you would see in an MMORPG, with tons of slick effects and transparency that keep it appealing but subtle, Funcom is definitely taking MMO interfaces in a new, and better, direction.
While we wait for the 10th!
I was looking through some old archives of documents that CGN has, and came over an e-mail with some photos that was sent to us quite a while ago. I highly doubt that it was part of any ARG back then, as we solved it anyway. But it is cool assets to look over and fun “thing” to find. Now we can take a little time to look back on all the fun we have had. Awww, the memories…
The e-mail contains known info about the residents of Kingsmouth and brings us a year back in time when The Dark Places ARG started, which also is the name of the Twitter account that started the whole ARG. After a series of tweets from the account the community soon landed on the page of the fictive little town of Kingsmouth, that many believe to be a reference to Innsmouth – a town that took the setting of H.P. Lovecraft’s writings.
Finding the Kingsmouth page took our sharp community only 10 days, and it was not long after we found out more about the residence of the little town. Twitter accounts were discovered and the boys and girls in charge commanded the lurkers to commence official stalking of the accounts. As many believed the people of the little town were in some sort of “great” danger, some tried to make contact with the persons behind the Twitter accounts but to no or little success. After discovering the blog “Monsters of Maine“, the community got a little time to breathe as at least someone over there had noticed that something was going on and tried to warn the others.
As for actual game info, this was the first peak at content we had gotten in a long time and definitely something that was a pre-event for last years GDC. With the later release of the much talked about teaser video from the Kingsmouth town itself.
A note inside the e-mail describes what the photographs contain, also worth noting is the e-mail was sent from our own e-mail domain (post AT crygaia.com) without a signature.
Retrieved from the site of a car crash on the outskirts of Kingsmouth, where the wreckage of a mysterious black van was found crushed and mangled by some type of enormous collision. These recovered folders were found to contain surveillance dossiers.
It appears that an unnamed organization, perhaps a corporation, has for some reason developed an intense interest in the residents of Kingsmouth.
The reason behind the surveillance, and the cause of the accident, are both unknown.
More “dossiers” will be published, soon™
The 2010 Carving Masters Have Been Chosen
The winners are… (drum-roll)
They each win a 3-piece TSW Faction Buttons Set and +10 to Pumpkin Carving as a token of their mastery craftsmanship!
The next TSW Contest is already underway, but is very limited.
It’s the 2nd-Annual TSW Halloween Contest!
I can’t believe it’s been a year already since the last Halloween Contest.
The goal this year is to carve a TSW-themed pumpkin! The CGN Staff will select 3 winners to receive some sweet TSW Swag.
Don’t have a real pumpkin? Carve a virtual one HERE.
For your contest entry to be eligible for a prize you must:
- Follow @TSWAlerts on Twitter
- Post the pics of your original “Conspirumpkin” must be posted to @TSWAlerts on Twitter.
- Be sure to include the #TSW hashtag with your post.
- Be registered on the official forums and at here at CryGaia.net
That’s it! You can also post your creations here, but it won’t be counted unless you also post an update on Twitter.