Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

If you can imagine a world in which World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2 had a baby (though WoW always wondered if Planetside had actually been the father instead) and then they slapped a jetpack on that baby’s back, then you’ve clearly got an overactive imagination - but you’ve also got something similar to the ambitious Global Agenda.

Hi-Rez Studios is exhibiting at Quakecon in Dallas this weekend. Watch this video dev blog for scenes from the first day (Thursday August 13).

Earlier this year, Hi-Rez Studios, the makers of the upcoming action MMO, Global Agenda, received an e-mail from the wife of U.S. Army Captain Chris Ficquette.

“My husband is in the United States Army and will be re-deployed for his second tour of duty this summer,” the e-mail stated. “ To date, I have not yet found a bigger fan of video games than him. Is there any way that I could have my husband involved in motion capturing so that he could be immortalized in your video game?”

The timing was impeccable. It so happened that Hi-Rez needed additional motion capture on some special weapons handling. What better than to use a seasoned military veteran?

Soon after, Chris came into the Studio and met with Lead Animator Daniel Lilleberg. Armed with nothing but a few Nerf weapons, Chris went to work. He even revealed some funky moves that were perfect for in-game emotes (short sequences that players can have their character perform by typing a command in the in-game chat window).

In the short video below, you’ll see three emotes that Chris performed the motion capture for that have subsequently been added to Global Agenda – HoeDown, RoboDance, and, our personal favorite, Psycho.

Also see below a few pictures from Chris’ motion capture session (shown with Lilleberg).

Chris and his unit are soon shipping back to Afghanistan. As Independence Day approaches, Hi-Rez wishes him and all of his mates in the 146th Movement Control Team the best of luck and godspeed. And a hearty shout of appreciation to all of our men and women in uniform from Hi-Rez Studios.

Every motion-capture sequence starts and ends with a “T Pose”, in order to level set the capturing software.

Daniel and Chris choreograph a sequence.

Strike a pose.

Daniel watches as Chris’ motions are captured.

Having fun with melee.

View Full Album

A few days ago, we posted information about our special “Get in the Game, Georgia” program, offering fans in the Atlanta area a chance to visit our Studio and test the game. Since that original posting, we’ve refined the program some and created a new, improved webpage to manage the process. Get in the Game, Georgia!

Q100's Melissa Carter is cast as a vendor in the upcoming MMO Global Agenda

Melissa Carter is a successful and highly popular radio host in the Atlanta Area, broadcasting on Q100’s The Bert Show.

However, at heart, Melissa is a geek with a dream — to do voiceover work either in animation or gaming. So back in December, she made a New Year’s Resolution on the air. Luckily for Hi-Rez, we had some fans listening that day, and quickly placed a call to help her dream come true.

Since then, Melissa has come to the Studio for voice and motion capture work, with additional sessions on the way.

The video below shows how Hi-Rez used motion capture technology and a lot of great acting from Melissa to produce some in-game emotes. Keep watching for more updates as Melissa continues to work with us, and read about her overall experience in her blog!

One of the best ways to stay current on the latest news in Global Agenda is to become a fan on our Facebook site. The information there is often updated even ahead of our other publicly facing sites — and the posted news can be configured to show on in your Facebook stream, so it comes to you!

Follow this link to the site, or search inside Facebook for Global Agenda.

Once you get to the site and are logged into your Facebook account, be sure to choose the option to Become a Fan of Global Agenda.

ALSO NOTE: We will be choosing 5 names at random from our list of fans on Facebook each Friday and providing each them with 5 exclusive keys to our Alpha/Beta program!!

Players that use these keys must still meet our basic qualifications (minimum PC specs, age, agree to the NDA, etc), but will be highly prioritized for admittance into the Alpha (and subsequently Beta) program.

Do you think you can build the most interesting and compelling Global Agenda Fan Site out there? Now is the chance to strut your stuff.

Recently, Hi-Rez Studios released the Global Agenda Fan Site Kit. This kit includes a great collection of Global Agenda art and music assets.

To encourage our budding community, Hi-Rez is holding a special contest to reward the creators of the best Global Agenda fan websites.

The process is simple:

1) Download the Fan Site Kit from our website

2) Build and promote your Fan Site.

3) Nominate your site. To do this, send an email to globalagendasupport@hirezstudios.com containing: your name, the site’s URL, how best to contact you, and why you think your site deserves to win the contest. All nominations must be received by April 30th. Sites will be judged based on the content live during the week of May 4th, 2009.

4) Wait to win! Winners will be announced on May 8th!

The Top 3 sites will be rewarded. Prizes include:

First Prize:

125 Beta Keys
Exclusive Global Agenda Art Created for Your Site
Link to the site on our official Game Website
$150 credit toward our T-Shirt/Merchandise shop

Second Prize:

75 Beta Keys
Link to the site on our official Game Website
$60 credit toward our T-Shirt/Merchandise shop

Third Prize:

50 Beta Keys
Link to the site on our official Game Website
$35 credit toward our T-Shirt shop

Winners will be determined based on the sites’ creative design, depth of content, and innovative use of Community building features.

Hi-Rez Studios reserves the right to modify contest rules if required. The judgement of Hi-Rez Studios is final in all matters related to this contest.

Today, we are re-launching the Global Agenda News Network in a blog format. 

We believe this will be easier to read and follow than the previous method (posts on the forum). 

Some things to know:

RSS FEED: You can subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed by clicking the “Subscribe” button at the bottom of the page. This will also help simplify connecting the feed to popular readers such as Google Reader, NewsGator, etc.

SHARING: Use the icons at the bottom of each post to share on Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Google Reader and MySpace.

COMMENTING: Basic features are enabled for fans and players to comment on the posting.

What you see on-line today is very much a “Version 1″ take of this functionality. Expect to see more changes to the look, feel and organization of the site in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, please let us know your thoughts! 

From a navigation standpoint, you may use the “Categories” to the right to help filter for specific topics or areas. As the blog grows, the Archive will also be useful for browsing older posts.

(Note that we’ll be posting a number of older announcements in the blog today so that folks can always come here as a single source for our publically posted announcements).

Stewart Chisam
Global Agenda Community Management