The Hidden World preview: Teamwork on the Wild Coast

If there's one thing that sets The Underground World apart, it's the exemption to act as any case you wish. There aren't any levels or traditional MMO progression - as you complete quests, you're awarded skill points that you can put into a skill wheel. Don't like using guns? Move some stuff round and get an elemental sorceress. Tired of existence on the offensive?

Rejigger your skills and be a therapist who hangs behind. It's the core principle of the game.

You'll want all the flexibility you can get. All of the known myths, urban legends and monsters have manifested themselves into the actual world. By joining one of trinity in-game factions (the Illuminati, the Dragon and the Templar), you'll struggle to master the early groups and finally rule that world.

During EA's Summer Showcase event, I was capable to find a dungeon run through The Savage Coast, a spooky coastal town home to some creepy woodlands and the horror staple, an abandoned amusement park. Of course, I didn't get to see any of that in my own playthrough: the dungeon I fought through was a river bed that ran through a craggy valley, sandwiched between two mountains.

But it was nighttime, so that's kinda creepy. I guess.

The Secret World (7/7/11)

Our party of five set out to place an artifact (of obscure source and power) for the Orochi Corporation, a shadowy group unwilling to directly involve themselves in the hunt. After a quick helicopter ride, the group prepared to get into the nitty-gritty. The company was diverse: a healer, a gunslinger focusing on ranged damage, a cooler with a sledgehammer, an elemental sorcerer with a focus on crime and a punishingly strong (and criminally underdressed) blonde in skimpy shorts, also wielding a sledgehammer.

Our first encounters were with the droug, the liquor of drowned Vikings who can dominate the short and summon zombies at will. The combat looked pretty standard for an MMO - a lot of 'there's an enemy, click the enemy, attack the enemy, the enemy falls down.' There was teamwork going on, for sure, but it didn't seem like anything I hadn't seen in other MMOs, save for the blonde in the daisy dukes swinging a sledgehammer around. After a few encounters, I was shown something very interesting: instantly switching classes at geysers of power set in the surroundings by earth spirit Gaia.

Players earn skill points - there are no levels or experience points - which can be allocated to skill wheels at one of these power wells. And each part of the bicycle has subsections players can access, "over 500 unique abilities" by the matter of lead content designer Joel Byloss.

So the high-damage output melee character was having a hard time, so she switched out her sledgehammer and melee skills for those of an elementalist (an offensive sorcerer who uses elemental magic), in all of around 15 seconds. While I would've appreciated a bit more in-depth look at the skill wheel, the rest at which the player switched abilities was pretty impressive. Then again, it was a developer playing, so who knows if it really is that easy?

Jumping back into the dungeon, Byloss explained that every area acts as a variety of tutorial for things to come; learning by doing, basically. So when players see mini-bosses reviving zombies, they know to approach the mini-boss. When they see enemies electrifying the water under them, they acknowledge to invalidate that hazard. It's all a tutorial for the last boss encounter, which calls upon the player's experience earlier in the keep and tasks them with not only recalling what happened, but employing the successful strategies that worked earlier.

After a few minutes of jumping around to different points in the dungeon, the group faced a large Droug boss. Periodically, this beast summoned hordes of zombies and electrified the water around the players, recalling the former dangers seen in the dungeon. Eventually the group prevailed and the show was cut short without giving me a search at the artifact in question.

While the show was more brief than I would've liked, I had plenty time to realize that The Underground World is doing some interesting things. By not constraining players into one permanent class, there's more freedom to turn around with what suits your work style best. And frame the back in a new setting that's being overrun by myth is a nice variety of tempo from the traditional fantasy setting of other MMOs. Even if you've sworn off killing rats in a cellar or flying on the backs of dragons, you won't need to keep The Underground World to yourself.