Archive for the ‘News & Announcements’ Category

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/#

ATLANTA, GA, November 10, 2009 — Hi-Rez Studios, currently developing the action MMO Global Agenda, announced today that the game includes built-in voice chat and a number of other voice features powered by Vivox. 

The feature set upon release will include:

• In-Game Player Voice Chat - push to talk voice chat enables team communication within co-op player-vs-environment missions as well as competitive player-vs-player missions.
• In-Game News Broadcasts -  delivery of voice broadcasts within the game that describe key victories and events associated with Global Agenda’s persistent territory control gameplay.
• Out Of Game Player Voice Chat (Subscriber Only):  Subscribers gain the ability to talk with Agency members and other Global Agenda players while playing other games or simply browsing the web.  Players can use a variety of access methods including the Vivox Web Voice within the toolbar controls, Vivox Voice on Facebook, or calling into a specified chat channel from their phone.

"Global Agenda’s combat is very team oriented, requiring close and real-time coordination between teammates in a mission," said Todd Harris, Executive Producer at Hi-Rez Studios. "Voice provided by Vivox allows our players to easily communicate with each another without requiring a separate, non-integrated solution.  Our beta community has rated the voice quality to be superb and we are excited to work with Vivox to bring this capability to our player base."

Global Agenda is a fast-paced massively multiplayer action game set in Earth’s near future, a spy-fi world of advanced technology and player-driven conflict. Players determine which factions to aid and which to oppose.

“Global Agenda re-defines  fast-paced MMO gameplay,” said Rob Seaver, CEO of Vivox. “With Vivox voice built into the world, players will be able to link up, strategize and coordinate their battles in real-time.  It is a pleasure to work with Hi-Rez Studios to craft a distinctive universe where player experience ultimately rules the world.”

Upon release in Q1 2010, players can experience Global Agenda’s award-winning multi-player PvP and PvE content after a one-time purchase of the game at retail or digital distribution outlets without a monthly fee, supporting character progression to max level and unlocks of full device inventories.

For those that subscribe to the optional "Global Agenda: Conquest" package, additional elite-level missions will be available that benefit your agency in the Alliance vs Alliance campaign for persistent territory control and scarce resources.

Hi-Rez Studios will be hosting a dev chat in their Vivox Voice on Facebook room on Wednesday, November 18^th – 10:00pmEST/7:00pmPST. RSVP to the event at http://www.facebook.com/globalagenda.

To participate, download the Vivox Voice app at http://apps.facebook.com/vivoxvoice/ then join us at http://bit.ly/TC4Hy

Not near a computer, call-in with your phone! +1 646-727-4472 x365884

About Hi-Rez Studios

Hi-Rez Studios, Inc. was established in 2005 to create exceptional online interactive entertainment and is located just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.   For more information, visit www.hirezstudios.com.

Follow Hi-Rez news and updates:

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hirezstudios

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/globalagenda

About Vivox, Inc.

Vivox is the leading provider of community-building voice services for online games,virtual worlds and the social web. Supporting over 15 million users in more than 180 countries, and over 2 billion minutes of voice chat per month, the Vivox Network is the world’s largest voice network for gamers. Vivox customers include game and virtual world developers and publishers such as CCP Games (EVE Online), EA, Gaia Online, Icarus Studios, Linden Lab (Second Life), NCsoft, Sony Online Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast. For more information on Vivox and the power of voice, visit www.vivox.com.

Follow Vivox news and updates:

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Vivox_Inc

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vivox 

LONDON, Oct. 30, 2009 - Attendees at the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds and London this week were among the first to experience Global Agenda’s  player-vs-environment (PvE) content, participating in four-person co-op missions that pit teams of elite special agents against the Commonwealth, an oppressive one-world government of the 22nd Century.

"After showing off our award-winning player-vs-player content during the Global Agenda Tour at venues across North America, we are excited to unveil player-vs-environment content in the UK at the Eurogamer Expo," said Todd Harris, Executive Producer of Global Agenda. "We are working hard to craft a PvE system that maintains the same high replayability and addictive gameplay as our player-vs-player gameplay. And our beta testers and early Eurogamer participants have reinforced that this will be a fun and important part of the game."

Gamers that play Global Agenda may earn experience points, in-game credits, achievements, upgrades and loot through either player-vs-player (PvP) or player-vs-environment (PvE) missions.  Reinforcing the game’s team-based gameplay, PvE missions feature teams of four player agents infiltrating Commonwealth facilities and working cooperatively to defeat an end boss.

Upon release in Q1 2010, players can experience Global Agenda’s award-winning multi-player PvP and PvE content after a one-time purchase of the game at retail or digital distribution outlets without a monthly fee, supporting character progression to max level and unlocks of full device inventories. 

For those that also subscribe to the optional "Global Agenda: Conquest" package, additional elite-level PvE missions will be available that benefit your agency in the Alliance vs Alliance campaign for persistent territory control and scarce resources.

The Eurogamer Expo continues through Oct.31 at Old Billingsgate in London. This is the final stop on the Global Agenda pre-launch tour. For more information, please visit www.globalagendagame.com

About Hi-Rez Studios, Inc.

Hi-Rez Studios, Inc. was established in 2005 to create exceptional online interactive entertainment. It is located just outside of Atlanta, GA. For more information, visit http://www.hirezstudios.com.

Global Agenda, the debut title from Hi-Rez Studios, is a fast-paced, action-oriented, massive multi-player online game set in the Earth’s near future — a spy-fi world of advanced technology and player-driven conflict. To learn more visit:http://www.globalagendagame.com.

Media Contact:

Michal Adam

madam@hirezstudios.com

+1 (404) 550-4756

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.

In their round up of activity at GameX 2009 in Philadelphia, Oct. 22 – 25, PixalatedGeek.com gave Global Agenda “Game of the Show” honors, commenting:

The addiction of the convention and clear winner of Game of the Show in my mind was not from the industry juggernauts of Ubisoft, EA or Sega.  No, the winner was Global Agenda from Hi-Rez Studios.  Global Agenda is addicting, promising, fun, pulse-pounding and seems to being crafted by people with a passion for the game they are making.  I’m going to give a detailed write-up on it very soon, so I’ll leave it at that for now.  Watch this game, it is going to be epic, mark my words.

For more photos from GameX, check out the Global Agenda Facebook page.

ATLANTA, Oct. 20, 2009 - Global Agenda players will be able to experience the major features of the game after a one time purchase via digital download or box sale, with no monthly subscription required. An optional subscription package called  Global Agenda: Conquest will be available for those players who wish to participate in the persistent Alliance vs. Alliance territory control game-play and access ongoing content updates.

"Throughout our Beta process, our fans, players and reviewers have consistently told us that Global Agenda’s combat system is exceptionally fun and that they would love to play it as a multiplayer shooter" said Todd Harris, Executive Producer. "This single-purchase, non-subscription model will enable players to fully experience Global Agenda’s award-winning persistent shooter gameplay."

"At the same time, many players are seeking a deeper experience, and want to engage in large-scale campaigns between player-created groups over limited territory and resources.  These players can opt for the Conquest subscription plan which includes our persistent AvA world domination gameplay, and other features typically associated with MMOs."

The specific features associated with each pricing option are as follows:

Global Agenda (one time purchase - $49.99 MSRP) includes:

• Creation of up to eight different agent characters
• Character visual customization
• Access to all combat weapons and devices 
• Cooperative Player vs. Environment missions against the Commonwealth NPC faction, AI-controlled enemies, and Boss Fights
• Matchmade Player vs. Player missions with five different game types and over 20 unique maps
• Character progression through 30 levels
• Achievement and unlocks system for individual characters
• Player Inventory for suits, flair, dyes, upgrades, and loot
• Virtual Reality practice fighting area
• Vendors and accumulation of in-game currency
• Text chat with multiple channels
• Built in voice chat during missions
• Ability to join an established player-created agency
• All play is on our single-shard, hosted server environment to ensure convenient and consistent gaming experience. 
• Ability to sign up for one free month of subscription at registration (credit card required, can be cancelled at any time)

Global Agenda:  Conquest ($12.99 per month, $11.49/mo for 3 month, $9.99/mo for 6 month) includes:

• Access to Alliance vs. Alliance (AvA) World Domination gameplay
• A massive scale campaign between player created agencies and alliances over scarce territory and resources on a persistent world map.
• Attack and Defend Territories in zones that match your agency’s schedule
• Agency and Alliance Management – Create and maintain persistent player groups and officer ranks
• Creation and Upgrading of Facilities - Control production and output
• Base Raids – involving up to 60 players per side; coordinated between 6 different strike teams within linked territory instances
• Agency Achievement System, Leveling, and Recognition
• Auction House with bidding and buyouts
• Mail System
• Upgrade Text and Voice chat to support multiple channels and strike teams
• Player Crafting with blueprints
• Additional character customization options including elite character suits, dye colors, and seasonal flair
• Ongoing Co-Op content at max character level
• Ongoing AvA content, multiplayer PvP content, and new social areas

Global Agenda is currently in closed beta testing and scheduled to be development complete by the end of this year toward a Q1 2010 release.

For more information, please reference the Pricing FAQ in the Global Agenda Answer Center..

Global Agenda Executive Producer Todd Harris recently met with MMORPG.com to discuss details on the games’ Agency vs. Agency Campaign system.

Read the full article here.

“[We wanted] a gameplay style that would be more emergent, as far as the politics that come into play,” explained Harris. “We thoughts the community would enjoy the shifting alliances, diplomacy and backstabbing that come from that.”

At a high level, this end-game revolves around territory control, resource management and a dynamic, player driven war over that territory and those resources.

The game will feature a series of HEX Maps. These are collections of instances linked together in a group of roughly 100 or more per map. At the map level, players will be able to see which guild controls each area, what is in that area in terms of resources, and what structures await them.

There will be multiple HEX Maps for players and guilds to fight over, each with its own engagement rules. This largely divides players by how hardcore they want to be about the entire enterprise.

Global Agenda’s FX and Environment artist, Scott Warren talks with us how he got started with Hi-Rez Studios, lighting environments and his excitement for AvA battles.

Scott, tell us a little about what you do at Hi-Rez Studios.

I’m an FX and Environment artist. While I don’t directly build environment assets, I focus on adding the final lighting and effects passes to the playable maps of the game.

How did you get into the gaming industry? How did you get to Hi-Rez Studios?

This is my 3rd year at Hi-Rez Studios, which has also been my first industry job. I found out about the studio in late 2006 thanks to a website called Beyond Unreal. They had a tiny little one-sentence blurb about a new startup developer in Georgia that was using the Unreal Engine who were looking for artists of all kinds.

I was working at Old Navy at the time and going to Kennesaw State University but I had very much wanted to work in games. I sent an email to Todd and basically said, "Hire me, I’m awesome!" I didn’t think he would take me seriously but a few days later I had an interview at the studio where I had an opportunity to speak with the small group of artists who were there at the time. And a few days after that I got an email telling me to show up for work the next week, and I’ve been here since :).

Describe your video game experience; when did you start playing/making games?

My first real gaming experience was with Super Mario and Duck Hunt on the NES console. I can’t remember how many ducks I shot out of the air but I remember having a great time doing so! From then on I moved onto the Sega Genesis and wasted many afternoons playing VectorMan and the Sonic and Knuckle games.

When Resident Evil 2 came out (I first played it on the N64) I was starting to become interested in how developers were creating game environments. Especially with Resident Evil 2 since, to me, it’s still one of the most interesting story lines in a video game that happens to take you to interesting locations. So I did some research but didn’t really pursue it. But when Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec was released, I couldn’t believe how real everything looked. The cars, the camera effects, everything. That was the point at which I downloaded a trial version of Autodesk’s Maya to see what the whole 3D thing was about.

What is your favorite class/character to play in Global Agenda?

Robotics. I get a cheap thrill out of watching my machines kill people. The idea that I can inflict harm from a safe vantage point is hilarious to me. Fight smarter, not harder!

What are you most excited for in Global Agenda?

Definitely the large scale Agency-vs-Agency territory control aspect. It seems like it will play similarly to a continent-sized king of the hill game. Who doesn’t enjoy king of the hill on a large scale?

What experiences do you draw from when creating content for the game?

For my lighting reference I use tons and tons of reference photographs of the real world. Light really only behaves in a certain way, and it’s useful to study how those interactions work in different environments. There’s a reason why a dark wine cellar feels different than a sunny day at the beach. When you learn why they’re different from each other, you can better understand what light is doing. Through everyday observation and educated guesses, you develop a good sense of how spaces should feel even though the locations you’re lighting may not actually exist in the real world.

And on the FX side of things, videos are invaluable. Making fire look like fire is relatively straight forward, but if it doesn’t move like fire, then the effect will look all wrong and will be strange to see in motion.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to break into gaming?

I would say that the best thing you could do for yourself is to pick the one aspect of game development that interests you and to become skilled in that one thing by actually doing it. Want to be a character artist? Study anatomy. Build some character models. Want to be an environment artist? Study architecture and machinery. Learn how things work and how they’re put together. Develop a curious attitude toward the natural world and then be keen on making observations. There’s always something you can be learning from!

Favorite game(s)?

Resident Evil 2 - Great story and fascinating locations. Tons of atmosphere and lots of creepy moments.

Red Faction - I played this for over two years on my PC when it first came out. Being able to destroy the environment was a new technology at the time and it made the multiplayer so much fun!

Left 4 Dead - It’s a co-op survival horror zombie shooter game. What else needs to be said?

What do you do in your free time?

Traveling, taking photographs, learning and playing my guitar, listening to music and recording little riffs of my own, cooking, bike riding on the weekends… I try to stay off my computer when I’m not at work but I just bought a Mac so I feel like I’ll be on it more than ever!

What is on your iPod/MP3player?

The entire Incubus discography, Muse, Coldplay, The Bravery, Leo Kottke, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, No Doubt, Aphex Twin, Bloc Party, Matt Costa, Melodium, Metric, Movits!, The Raconteurs, TV On the Radio, 311, U2 and a lot more.

Some Personal Art From Scott.

“World geometry constructed by Eric Hartz and Rick Ruiz, lighting and FX done by Scott Warren” –Scott Warren

Yesterday, the HexAgenda fan site published a new Q&A with Global Agenda Executive Producer Todd Harris on Player vs Environment (PvE) missions inside Global Agenda.

HexAgenda was one of the winners of our fan site contest earlier in the year. They are also technology innovators within the Global Agenda Community, launching such features as the Global Agenda Feed Aggregator, and the Global Agenda Dev Tracker. They are also leading the pack in helping us test the Global Agenda Stats API, which will allow fan sites, guild sites and other interested parties to develop custom applications from Global Agenda data.

Excerpts from the Q&A are below. For the full interview and more art, see the article on HexAgenda.

PvE Q&A with HexAgenda

1. Many MMOs are considered to focus more heavily on either PvP or PvE, with the other element being somewhat of a supplement to whichever takes center stage. What role do you see PvE playing in Global Agenda, which clearly has a strong PvP component? How extensive a role do you envision that being?

With Global Agenda, our ‘center stage’ focus has always been the AvA Campaign - the massive, persistent world conflict between player-driven groups over territory and resources. So, we really intend for the Campaign to provide the overall game context and then allow players to contribute to the Campaign and level up their own agent character via either PvP or PvE as they choose.

From a balance perspective we started with PvP for combat, classes, and devices. Once that felt fun and balanced we introduced PvE enemies and missions that were compatible and balanced against the core player gear and abilities. In this way we can continue to develop additional PvE enemies and content and give PvE a very rich role without watering down the PvP one bit.

2. Hi-Rez has stated that the goal for the game is to be "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master." How might this play into the design of the PvE side of the game?

One simple example is our implementation of tiered difficulty levels for PvE missions. So, when my team is playing the Rookie level difficulty we are facing NPCs that are fairly basic in their behavior and have relatively low levels of health and damage output. At the harder difficulties the bots do scale up in their stats, but we also introduce entirely new enemy types now protecting that same mission location. So, instead of just facing Commonwealth androids I might now be dealing with an Elite Assassin coming out of the shadows or a Hunter that targets and relentlessly pursues one specific member of my team.

3. How extensively do you plan to tie in a continuous storyline to the PvE (and possibly even PvP?) portion of the game? Should we expect something along the lines of Guild Wars’ campaign-long story arcs, or instead something closer to the free-form universe of EVE Online?

Global Agenda definitely presents a free-form universe closer to Eve Online rather than a scripted story arc, but at the same time we plan to provide narration around key world events and happenings. So, our continuous story-line is based upon the major in-game actions of players and player groups. Basically we intend to deliver an audio newscast summarizing the major conflicts and accomplishments across the persistent world

4. A common complaint among players of PvE content in many games is that the available content inevitably becomes boring since players can experience content far faster than developers can produce more interesting content to be experienced. What plans might Hi-Rez have to tackle this issue in Global Agenda and keep the content fun and interesting in the long term?

Well there is no escaping the fact that it does take a lot longer for us to develop new content than it takes players to go thru that content!

There’s really no silver-bullet solution, but we do have plans and tools that help with this challenge. First we have developed a fairly efficient PvE production pipeline thanks to our experience with the Unreal 3 engine and some additional homegrown tools. So, we can actually produce PvE content fairly quickly.

But, ultimately we are going for quality over quantity and that involves designing our mission spaces to have a high degree of replay-ability. A single environment supports multiple difficulty levels as we discussed earlier. And, even within the same difficulty level, the missions also have a degree of randomness in terms of which enemies spawn and even the distribution of cover objects. So you can revisit the same mission location multiple times and have very different experiences.

Finally, another defense against boredom comes with the nature of our shooter oriented combat. You really cannot auto-macro your way thru our combat since you have to target the reticule on your enemies and move your character to avoid enemy fire. You will be quite active in mission regardless of what class you are playing and this tends to keep our PvE very engaging rather than feeling like a grind.

5. What would you consider one of the "coolest" aspects you’ve implemented so far for Global Agenda’s PvE?

We have a bunch of cool new NPCs and encounters planned; but of the content currently playable in Beta I really like the Scanner. This hovering droid patrols Commonwealth areas and casts a rotating detection beam that players need to avoid or risk the Scanner calling in a wave of reinforcements. It is a cool mechanic and one that reinforces how our PvE involves managing environment aspects like cover in addition to the enemy bots themselves.

In terms of systems, we are also getting positive early feedback on the PvE auto-grouping support we recently added. Our PvE is built for 4-man squads and players can certainly pre-form their entire team, or use chat or Agent Search functionality to LFG. However, solo players and partial teams now have the option of selecting the mission type they are interested in and then be automatically matched with other PvE players. Grouping for PvE can be a hassle in some games and auto-grouping helps players find one another and quickly get into the action.

ATLANTA - SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 - Global Agenda Community Members Sponsor Auction to Benefit Child’s Play

The Global Agenda Community Auction closed the bidding floor of its virtual charity auction last week after raising over $2,000 for Child’s Play charity, an organization dedicated to improving lives of children in hospitals with toys and games.

The auction event was organized by members of the Global Agenda community and Global Agenda fan sites - a society of enthusiasts around the upcoming massively multiplayer online action game, Global Agenda®, from independent developer Hi-Rez Studios - including Noxxious, OBC (the Orange and Blue Clan), AgendaSource, GA Wiki and CC Gaming who joined together to organize and accept bids on game-related items from Sunday September 13th through Wednesday September 16th.

"Child’s Play relies heavily on community events for our support, and we are deeply grateful to the Global Agenda Community and Hi-Rez Studios for putting together this successful charity auction on our behalf," Says Kristin Lindsay, Project Manager for Child’s Play. "We recognize the healing power of play, and thank our fellow gaming communities for sharing their love of gaming with sick children across the US and around the world.  When gamers give back, it makes a difference!"

The auction items included a limited edition Global Agenda Poster signed by the entire development team at Hi-Rez Studios, a Microsoft Sidewinder Gaming Mouse, a Genius G-Pen 450 Computer Tablet, a Nintendo 64, and 10 Global Agenda Beta Keys.

"This event was 100% driven by our fan community," said Stewart Chisam, VP of Game Operations. "The auction was primarily organized and run by one of our active Community members — Peebojam — who helped gain support from various fans and fan sites. We are grateful to our Community for this great display of generosity."

ABOUT HI-REZ STUDIOS

Hi-Rez Studios, inc. is an independent developer, established in 2005 to create exceptional interactive online entertainment and located just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, Hi-Rez Studios is in development with an action based massively multiplayer online game titled Global Agenda. For more information, please visit www.hirezstudios.com and www.globalagendagame.com.