TSWonline.de: The community is talking about hints to Lovecrafts Innsmouth/Kingsport, there is even a Lovecraft Lane found in the video and Ragnar mentioned it at the Q&A with GameSpot. Will there be more hints to Lovecraft and other writers in the game at other locations?

Martin Bruusgaard: Yes, there are several references from many different sources in many different places. We try to make sure that the references fit the location, and in Kingsmouth for instance Lovecraft, Poe and Stephen King are some of the writers that fit very well. Lovecraft in particular has been a great source of inspiration when it comes to conveying the message of the world being on the brink of destruction from a lurking horror within, and a few courageous men and women are the only ones that can prevent the world from descending into the abyss.

TSWonline.de: A lot of people are afraid that TSW will be about zombies only. Anything to say about this?

Martin Bruusgaard: The game is about much more than zombies! I assume people think that because of the tiny tidbits of information they’ve gotten from Kingsmouth. Let me make this very clear – Kingsmouth is just a tiny part of a big region of the game world, and that region is just one of many regions all around the world. We’ve based the population in every region on myths and urban legends in that particular country, which gives us a huge spectrum of scary monstrosities to play with. We have an amazing (and kind of twisted) group of concept artists, gfx artists, animators, scripters and gameplay designers who are crafting a healthy, beautiful and difficult challenge for the players to overcome. We all enjoy shooting a zombie in the face, don’t get me wrong, but you need a good variety of monsters, and monster behavior, to keep the players enjoying the game for hundreds of hours. This is definitely not a zombie game.

TSWonline.de: Will more locations be presented/released like Kingsmouth with a homepage, video and stuff like this?

Martin Bruusgaard: That's a question you will have to ask the PR guys here at Funcom. But yeah, the game's setting lends itself well to doing things like this, so you shouldn't be surprised if more initiatives like that pops up in the future.

TSWonline.de: Is it possible for players of every secret society to visit Kingsmouth and do missions there? If so, will every society have their own missions and/or stories there?

Martin Bruusgaard: The inhabitants of Kingsmouth will wholeheartedly welcome any help they can get at this point. Some of the characters the players meet there will care about secret societies and some only care about surviving. The factions stand united when it comes to the battle against evil, and if a player wants to join up with another player from a different secret society to overcome an… obstacle… he is free to do so. However, one of the secret societies has a stronger presence in Kingsmouth than the others, and it’s up to the players to figure out which one and why.
If a player choose to follow the story mission it will be tailored to the secret society he or she chose. That being said, we still need the players to experience certain things across all secret societies to be able to tell the story right. They might be told to kill the same monsters, sabotage equipment or spy on the common enemy at some point, but players will often have different motives for doing so.

TSWonline.de: Anything to say to the German TSW Community?

Martin Bruusgaard: I wish I could do this in German, but when I was given the option to learn either French or German in school I chose French, solely because I thought I could get more chicks. Surprisingly, girls don’t throw themselves at you when you stutter “Excuse me Sir, where is the train station” in French. Anyways… I’ve been to Germany many times, but there is this one trip I remember the most, and the least actually. I was driving through Germany on a trip through Europe with my friend’s family. His dad wanted to give me some car sickness pills, but I told him that I never get carsick and that I never take any kind of pills, but he insisted and I swallowed them. 30 minutes later I was knocked out. They woke me up 4 hours later when we stopped for food at this random tavern in the middle of nowhere. I got out, took my cap off and sat down on the pavement. As I was sitting there swaying with one and a half eye closed, my cap in front of me and the upper half of my t-shirt soaked with drool a woman walked by and threw a coin in my cap and petted me on the head. True story. To sum up: The Germans are compassionate and generous people!
Oh…. You didn’t want to hear the ramblings of my past? Well too late for that now, but keep up the good work with the site and keep following TSW – the game that will french-kiss your eyes and high-five your soul.