Following up on last week’s Global Agenda pricing announcement, the editors at TenTonHammer have published an in-depth Q&A with Executive Producer Todd Harris that provides in-depth information on the new pricing model, as well as more information on the Global Agenda: Conquest gameplay.

Read the full article at: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75772

Here are excerpts:

Ten Ton Hammer: The pricing options really seem like an interesting way to offer subscription-phobic gamers more than just a window into the game, but a complete standalone game that works hand-in-hand with the MMO portion of the game. Do you view the pricing options as a way to layer in or introduce the game to an unfamiliar audience? What makes the non-Conquest experience of Global Agenda different from what some gamers might be used to with a typical lobby-and-instance online shooter?

Todd Harris: Whether or not you view it as layering in the MMO experience - we’ve always thought of the game as an MMO from the beginning, and always thought of the AvA [Alliance vs. Alliance campaign game] as a big draw- I think about it more as carving out the really fun multiplayer gameplay and making that available in the core single-purchase package. 

Ultimately we wanted to give people an experience on-par or better than online shooters or even multiplayer shooters that are adding a little bit of persistence. We get a lot of comments that ‘Wow, this game really is different… the gameplay is super fun… I’m not sure if it’s an MMO, but I really like it.’  With that core game, we wanted to remove any obstacle that people might have about a subscription or hangups about what an MMO is or isn’t, because it’s instanced.

And again, just really capitalize on the strengths people have recognized: really fun multiplayer gameplay. We looked at the feature sets of multiplayer games that are single-purchase - Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty, Battlefield - and we wanted to make sure that core single-purchase package stacked up really well against them. You can level up your character to max level by doing PvE or match-made PvP or mixing them as you choose. Obviously we do have a city that we think compares well to just a menu-based lobby, we have currency, vendors, and allow those players to not create their own agencies but join other agencies and members of a persistent group, we’ve got built-in voice chat. A lot of the features that are listed there measure up well against other games in that category.  So if people just want that experience of fun online mulitplayer combat, they can buy the game once and try it.
Of course, we’ve always thought that the real stickiness of the game comes from not only ongoing content, but competing in the conquest gameplay. That’s where the MMO aspects come in, plus other features common to MMOs like auctionhouse, crafting, and some of the other features.