Archive for the ‘Media Coverage’ Category

Seraphina Brennan over at Massively.com wrote a couple of great articles about Global Agenda last week

First, his thoughts on Global Agenda: Conquest:

Global Agenda: Conquest mode is the game’s take on a real-time strategy game versus an FPS. Your alliance of agencies can take ownership of the Global Agenda world and lay claim to valuable resources to build agent modifications, weapons of mass destruction, and even more fun little tools. But you must guard your territory carefully, as other alliances will have the option to siege your land, forcing you into battles for domination of the map.

Read the whole article here!

Also, his take on how Global Agenda’s squad-based combat still creates a massive experience when you overlay the game’s unique framework for territory control:

Why is there so much ado about the nature of an MMO? Why are so many fixated on the 10 vs 10 nature of Global Agenda and not the bigger picture of what the game has to offer? Why do we scoff at the idea of 100 person instances when it was designed to give the player more flexibility?

Today, I want to play the devil’s advocate, as I do in so many of my opinion columns. I want to take on the defense of Global Agenda as an MMO title, and I think I have enough evidence to prove that it’s massive — just not in the way you normally consider MMOs to be massive. And, personally, I think this is only good news for the industry at large.

Check out Brennan’s full take on it here.

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

Time Magazine featured the lovely gals of Global Agenda in their Techland blog:

Since both men and women are available as player-characters shooting guns, the developers thought it was silly to have cleavage-baring ladies with no protection. “It’s a little easier in fantasy games as it could be explained away with magic, or her ability to finesse around the other characters,” explained lead character artist Sean McBride. “It’s a little different when you put guns into the mix and think about someone not wearing body armor around their heart.”

Read more here!

TenTonHammer talked to Todd and got some details about PvP gameplay.

“The promise of Global Agenda is an MMOG that has both the story and comfort level to convert shooter-averse MMORPG fans into territory conquering PvPers, yet has enough grit to appeal to hardcore shooter fans. While the maps mission types may seem familiar, interesting twists such as jetpacks and movable, destructible… respawn beacons may change the contours of now conventional online shooter gameplay. That Global Agenda ties all this and more into a full, persistent, large-scale PvP oriented package makes this title one to watch in early 2010.”

Read the whole 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.

The Escapist reports on the recent outcry from the Elven community regarding insensitive treatment toward their kind in Global Agenda’s No Elves Video.

On Wed., November 18th, Hi-Rez Studios held a developer chat using Vivox Voice on Facebook. The chat featured Q&A between the Global Agenda Community and members of the Global Agenda Developer staff, including:

• Todd Harris, Executive Producer
• Chris Larson, Product Developer
• Michal Adam, PR & Marketing
• Chad Heath, Community Management
• Stewart Chisam, Operations

The developer chat features Q&A on a wide range of Global Agenda-related topics and lasts about one hour.

To listen to the chat visit: http://hirezstudios.podbean.com/#

By Susan Arendt, The Escapist Magazine

Global Agenda is kind of hard to describe. Part Call of Duty, part Eve Online, its creators promise that it will deliver a satisfying experience not just for shooter aficionados, but also for MMOG junkies. You can buy it once, or you can choose to subscribe. You can hop online for a quick match with strangers, or your can put the time and effort to creating an Agency with your friends. Trying to mesh two distinctly different types of gameplay seems like a herculean undertaking, but according to the game’s executive producer, Todd Harris, it just makes sense.

"We wanted to remove subscription as a barrier for people to try the game," he explains. Players who might find Global Agenda’s shooter-style gameplay appealing might not want to dive headfirst into an MMOG experience, especially if they’re more used to deathmatches than raids. But Hi-Rez is confident in what their game has to offer. "We thought that we could carve out enough from the Global Agenda gameplay that it would stack up very well as a multiplayer shooter," Harris continues.

He’s quick to stress that Global Agenda isn’t some sort of MMOG-ized shooter, where you click on an enemy and wait for the fight to sort itself out. "You freely aim your reticule, in our case when you do a melee attack, you actually have to land it on your opponent. [There's] a lot of player skill involved. It plays like a multiplayer shooter would, whether that’sTF2 or Battlefield." Or maybe even a little bit like Tribes - each player has a jetpack, but you can’t fire while jetting around, so it’s more for transport than aerial combat. (Still…jetpack.)

Playing the game in its non-subscription form gets you access to "match-made PVP, or also PVE content so you can level up your character that way." You’ll also get loot drops, there’s a social area, you can visit vendors, customize character with new suits and dyes, and make use of the built-in voice chat. And if that’s all you ever do, you’ll have a very satisfying shooter experience comparable to other online shooters, but as Harris puts it "We also say come for the action gameplay, then stay for the game of territory control."

Can a single game please both Shooter and MMOG fans?

Weigh in on the comment thread!

Read the entire article http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/6763-Global-Agenda-You-Got-Shooter-in-my-MMO

As part of their continuing series on the Global Agenda Character Classes, TenTonHammer has published a Q&A with Executive Producer Todd Harris on the Assault class. Read the full article here. Excerpts below.

Ten Ton Hammer: It seems like the assault class fills the gaps between the classes - assaults can anchor an attack, they can draw fire away from more fragile teammates,and  they have the ammo capacity, firepower, and durability to pin down enemies and hold objectives on defense. Is that an accurate assessment?

Todd Harris, Executive Producer: I would say it’s accurate that he’s flexible and can cover the gaps. But I’d also categorize the assault class as being all about damage - whether dishing it out or soaking it up. Recon really excels at concentrated offense (against a single target or location, typically using surprise). But the assault class is typically the class that is doing the most damage overall, and over a broad area using a lot of area of effect weapons. They’re all about damage.

Ten Ton Hammer: We’ve seen assaults carrying rocket launchers, grenade launchers, miniguns, and various melee weapons as well. In other games, this class packs a punch but burns through ammo quickly. What kind of ammo considerations does an assault class have in Global Agenda?

Todd: All the weapons in Global Agenda draw off of the common power pool mechanic rather than using ammunition. Being that assaults are all about damage, they really do have to carefully manage their power pool to make sure they’re not caught in the wrong spot at the wrong time with low power. That’s something that players can spec (using the talent trees) to have either higher maximum power or faster recharge or have particular weapons draw less power. All of those are popular  choices for assault players.

Ten Ton Hammer: What options does an assault class have at melee?

They wield basically a futuristic battle axe that also has the ability to set opponents on fire. So as compared to Recon, which has the more precision instrument of the katana, Assaults are definitely more brute force.

Ten Ton Hammer: Is there chaining with the fire damage in melee?

Todd:  No, not at this time, it’s strictly single damage. There’s no contagion or chaining of the fire right now. But in general, as far as characterizing the class, Assault is always very much in the middle of the action. Not many characters can survive long under direct fire, but the Assault players typically thrive on being in the middle of everything.

Ten Ton Hammer: Another popular motif with big guys wielding big weapons is the ability to catch several enemies with one swing. Is that something that’s a part of the class as well?

Todd: Not as much with melee, but with the primary and off-hand weapons they’re able to deal out damage to more than one player at a time, moreso than any other class.

Global Agenda’s Assault class in action.

Ten Ton Hammer: At first look, the Assault class seems pretty straightforward. How were you able to mix up the talent tree options of this class?

Todd: At the highest level, you’re basically going for a tank build to soak up the damage versus an explosive build to deal out damage. Those are the two names of the class-specific trees, and then there’s a balanced tree as well. You can go extreme down either of those trees or go more hybrid. The talents combined with devices really do let you spec a number of different ways. For those familiar with Team Fortress 2, you could basically spec our assault class similar to a demoman (using grenades and sticky grenades), or a soldier (using a rocket launcher), or a Heavy (using a minigun). But you could even go more exaggerated - our tank would be much more of a tank than a heavy, and you could also come up with hybrid builds.

Finish the article on TenTonHammer.