Archive for the ‘Game Information’ Category

Greetings to everyone who joined us in launching Global Agenda over the past couple weeks, and many thanks to the thousands of people that helped us alpha and beta test the game ahead of launch.

Because of your involvement and positive word of mouth, we’ve had a great launch, and seen much stronger than expected initial Global Agenda sales.

In fact, last week we were the #2 best selling game on Steam and the only game in the Steam Weekly Top Ten based on original/non-sequel IP. Thanks for supporting independent game development and battling sequel-itis! Thanks also for your patience with initial server tuning and Conquest adjustments.

MARCHING FORWARD

We view the release of Global Agenda as the start of the journey and we are already working hard to continue delivering improvements, new features, and new content based on your feedback.

To prove it to you, we are going to extend the free-play period for Global Agenda Conquest while continuing to deliver features and content enhancements.

We feel this is the best way to prove to you the value of a Global Agenda Conquest subscription, while also ensuring that as many people as possible are exposed to our unique and innovative Conquest gameplay.

All players will continue to be able to play the Conquest features for the rest of February and March without a monthly subscription fee.

In the very near future, here are some additional enhancements and improvements you can expect:

BY THE END OF FEBRUARY -

We will deliver a set of enhancements ASAP based on fairly unanimous community input. We currently plan to have the following items in production by the end of February:

• Friend List/Ignore List - Steam has a Friends List, and we offer Agency Management as an alternate way to find your friends, but an in-game Friends List (and Ignore List) was a high requested feature that is being added.
• Player Choice on PvP Queues - For initial release we consolidated gametypes within a single PvP queue. With no guarantee around number of players we would have, our top priority was to ensure the players got into matches quickly and to make sure our matchmaking system had a sufficiently large population to balance out sides. That said, we’ve heard how much players want to specify, or eliminate, certain match types. And we do have the population to support this request. So, we will be implementing player selections per PvP gametype so you can exclude or include each type as you wish.
• Repair Kits - Non-visual Upgrades (of the Armor or Weapon variety) do increase stats for your character. And by the time you collect 16 of them they make a big difference. They also take time to craft and/or buy and, after all that time invested, having them wear away without any recourse was frustrating. Repair Kits are a new item type that will be available in-game and restore your Upgrades to full durability.
• Additional AvA zones and AvA Reporting - We are introducing new AvA zones to support play during hours more convenient for those in other locales. We are adding:
• • Zone 6 - Oceania/Australia - 19:00 to 21:30 in Sydney, 16:00 to 18:30p in Singapore (3a to 5:30a US Eastern, Midnight to 2:30 US Pacific) [NOTE: Initially, will run on servers hosted in the US but be geared toward an Oceanic audience, or for night owls on the US West Coast].

  • Zone 8 - Europe - 14:00 to 16:30 GMT (9a to 11:30a Eastern)

We are also adding a few new Conquest screens to give Agencies reporting of historical combat events. And, we will continue to publish our game stats externally via web APIs so community sites can access the data and develop custom reports. And deliver a variety of bug fixes and other improvements.

BEYOND FEBRUARY -

Generally speaking, we intend to earn your subscription. Our entire Studio is focused on continued feature and content development for Conquest gameplay, including:

• More PvP Content - New maps around a 4v4 arena gamestyle as well as a 10v10 pre-made queue.
• More PvE Content - We’ve been pleased by the positive reception to our ‘dungeon-crawl’ style Infiltration PvE missions. That said, we want to offer additional variety both in setting and mission type. Imagine being able to step outside of the doors of Dome City and assist Bancroft by doing missions within a large open area, with additional loot available in that location. We are working toward delivering this content.
• More AvA Content - New facility types and new game-styles for Conquest. Specifically we are developing a new ‘No Facility’ map based on Control style, a new Defensive Facility that grants protection to adjacent territories, and Resource Raid Missions based on Payload style. We also recognize that some of the game-board rules need to be looked at; we will continue to monitor those to ensure that AvA maintains the right balance between accessibility and significance.
• Improved Crafting, Loot and Prestige Items

We thank you for support and look forward to building the Global Agenda world together.

Todd Harris
Global Agenda, Executive Producer

Check out the latest Global Agenda trailer!

GamesRadar talks about what makes Global Agenda a different kind of MMO.

At first sight it plays like an MMO. You pick your character class (Assault, Medic, Recon, Robotics), choose a look, and then make your first picks from the skill trees. The interface continues the theme: a traditional MMO tray of icons, health and power bars and unlimited ammo. So then you try the first PvE mission – perhaps you’re a sniping Recon, attempting to take out an evil robot, and you’re dying. Many times. Until the moment it clicks, your perspective zooms out, and you realize this is actually a third-person action game you’re playing. You need to run, dodge, hide, cloak, throw bombs and dive for cover.

Read the full article here

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.

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!

We are excited to introduce our community to the world of Global Agenda, a setting of future action-espionage, advanced technology, and player-driven conflict that we call “spy-fi”.

Our gameplay trailer demonstrated Global Agenda’s fast-paced combat — incorporating jetpacks, turrets, forcefields, robots, and other futuristic weapons. However, little information has been revealed to date about our setting.

The new fiction is found here, authored by our own lead writer Nathan Knaack. The story provides a glimpse into our futuristic spy-fi world. In this piece, we learn a bit about the ways of The Commonwealth, a prominent faction within Global Agenda, that serves as an NPC enemy for player agents.

We hope you enjoy it!!