Last we heard, Hi-Rez Studios was considering adding more "open" mission areas around Dome City, giving players an open-world feel to their game. Well, Hi-Rez's Erez Goren stopped by the forums on Saturday to lay out the full plans for not only the areas outside of Dome City, but also for some new weapons appearing in the game, new maps in AvA, and new options to help agencies compete and hold ground in AvA. All of this is scheduled on a very ambitious timetable -- available by the end of March. If certain features become pushed back or delayed, Hi-Rez will also reconsider extending their current "free subscription" policy.
However, it was surprising to find that the open-world areas mentioned in the last newsletter literally will be open world areas. Multiple mission teams and players will find themselves on one gigantic map, completing PvE and PvP objectives for experience and loot. Missions on these maps will be for a varied number of players, starting out at the solo player and going all the way up to a 10 man strikeforce. And, of course, some areas of the map will be "unsafe" and open for agents to beat on other agents. Now you too can gank in Global Agenda.
AvA players will find more changes in their favor as well in the form of new missions, such as resource raid types where players can steal resources from other players without flipping the hex, defense facility hexes which will put players in a domination style match but also provide missile barrages against enemies on any hex they touch, and two point control style missions on unbuilt hexes. AvA players also have a new facility, the Upgrade Production Facility, which will produce PvE components for crafters to make personal upgrades to weapons and armor.
However, what's a patch without contention in the player base? With the addition of "rare and epic" weapons and devices being added to a crafter's arsenal, some players worry if the game is going to become more stat-based than skill based -- especially if these new weapons are upgraded forms of the current weapons. Erez has taken the stance that he, and many other players, prefer increasing a character's stats, but also that these new weapons will only be for players level 30 to 50 and they will continue to look for the balance between skill and stats in their design.
Reader Comments (14)
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 1:16PM Psychotic Storm said
Overall all these sound great.
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 1:29PM Damn Dirty Ape said
This sounds great. It's obvious that Global Agenda is HiRez's baby and that they will likely putting a lot of work into it rather than just jumping to their next project.(*cough* cryptic *cough*)
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 1:33PM Neurasthenic said
Sweeeet.
Last time I defended Global Agenda somebody accused me of being "the kind of person that keeps costing innocent gamers $50" or some bologna like that. But I think Hi-Rez is on the right track here, and the fact that the subscription is not yet necessary makes me feel completely comfortable with the game still being a work in progress. It's a different scenario when a fully pay-to-play game is released with missing features.
Last time I defended Global Agenda somebody accused me of being "the kind of person that keeps costing innocent gamers $50" or some bologna like that. But I think Hi-Rez is on the right track here, and the fact that the subscription is not yet necessary makes me feel completely comfortable with the game still being a work in progress. It's a different scenario when a fully pay-to-play game is released with missing features.
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 1:33PM Zaetal said
Interesting, you definitely can make some pretty big map areas in the UT3 engine. While I'm not subbing to this anytime soon, I do have the game purchased, really just waiting to be able to choose what map type I want to pvp on in March to play again.
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 1:58PM (Unverified) said
i think we all saw this coming, its necessary to keep the subscription portion alive.
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 2:03PM Tizmah said
Won't people get pretty upset, or not understand why the features they have been getting for free for so long to then suddenly become sub?
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 2:04PM Psychotic Storm said
care to explain this comment, you lost me there.
Reply
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 2:18PM (Unverified) said
Only if they don't read the games website, their email, the forums, or the login news feed, or any MMO websites such as this one.
If their that out of the loop, well, thats their own fault :P
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If their that out of the loop, well, thats their own fault :P
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 2:51PM MrGutts said
So these "open world" things they are talking about, it's not going to be one of there many instanced zones? Are they saying 200 guys and gals can go out there and shoot each other for the hell of it?
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 3:28PM Seraphina Brennan said
I dunno if it's going to be that big, and it will most likely still be instanced so the server doesn't explode (a la Dome City) but I'm sure it's going to be more than your standard 20 person in an instance.
Plus, if they can pull it off, they can most likely apply the same technology to other areas of the game. And that means it can only go up. ^_^
Reply
Plus, if they can pull it off, they can most likely apply the same technology to other areas of the game. And that means it can only go up. ^_^
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 3:51PM spamero said
NOW I am interested, gonna keep my fingers crossed for this one, hope it will develop to be fun!
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 3:58PM Joshua Przygocki said
I love this game, it has some of my favorite things from TF2 but it also gives me a reason to keep playing. I do hope, however, that the new weapons and devices are just different methods of doing the job that my current weapons and devices do, I'd hate to see this game go stat based...
Posted: Feb 16th 2010 11:06PM (Unverified) said
i would rather see them go the other way and make a lower subscription fee and boil the action down into what makes this game good rather than try to justify a traditional MMO subscription with traditional MMO staples that don't fit.
still, if they do fit, then great.
still, if they do fit, then great.







