The Secret World 1.4 update to tweak rewards, currency and PvP

The Secret World's upcoming 1.4 update will focus on making the massively multiplayer online role-playing game's player versus player offerings "more rewarding, more persistent and fairer," according to a post on the game's official blog by Rasmus Harr, senior PvP designer.

The first change will come to Fusang Projects, the game's persistent PvP arena where players complete missions and capture objectives. The changes encourage combat and defending captured areas, and Harr said that the developers at Funcom have retooled the reward schemes reward those accomplishments.

As part of that retooling, the developer is wiping currently-collected White Marks of Venice. Harr's research showed that players tended to hoard the form of currency instead of spending it it at PvP vendors. With update 1.4, players can earn White Marks at three minute intervals and trade in 100 White Marks of Venice for a Black Mark. The update effectively converts White Marks into cents and Black Marks into dollars to remove "a virtually worthless currency," according to Harr.

Funcom will also add a new PvP mission called "Council of the Underdogs," which is desgined to help factions who haven't won much lately in Fusang Projects, as well as tweaks to matchmaking and more. You can get a full rundown about the update on The Secret World's blog.