From:  www.eurogamer.net/article.php

Hal Milton, lead designer of Sony Online Entertainment's in-development spy MMO The Agency, says we'll see how the game is progressing at next year's trade shows.

The Agency was first announced in June 2007, but nothing new has been seen of it since a demo was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show at the very start of this year. It was the same demo that turned up at E3, Leipzig, and SOE's own Fan Faire.

In an interview with Massively, Milton said that the game would reappear in the public eye in the summer.

"I'm not supposed to talk about any specific dates right now but I think you're going to see some stuff at a few of those 'small' shows next summer, the ones they throw every year," he said - presumably indicating the likes of E3, Games Convention and the Penny Arcade Expo.

"We went kind of intentionally dark after CES, we've been pretty quiet this year so we could go heads-down on the content," Milton explained.

He said the team was focused on creating new zones and mission content at the moment, and "the full polish mode is sort of burbling underneath. We're polishing as we go while the features come in."

Prague has already been built, the first passes on Kiev and Warsaw are in, and work has started on Central America too. "We got back this fantastic Panamanian shooting gallery, just so damned beautiful," Milton enthused.

He noted that SOE had committed a plenty of resources to making the game. "In the world of MMOs and triple-A game development we are actually a pretty reasonably-sized team. We're slightly under a hundred people," he said.

New info can't come soon enough. The Agency is coming to both PS3 and PC, and is our most-wanted MMO here at Eurogamer - for its slick espionage theme, squad-shooter gameplay and innovative design. Browse the Agency gamepage and our preview for more.

Incidentally, Milton was speaking to Massively to quell rumours that the game had been cancelled - rumours so obviously false that we didn't bother repeating them here. We only mention them now because Milton's response can't be left unquoted.

"No, no, we're not cancelled. We have actually changed focus completely, though. We're now making a 'Kitt Kittredge: live the life of an elite spunky pioneer girl' series," he lied.

"I think it's a great change for the product, I think our Eastern European assets will work well as assets for new colonial America.

"I think people will appreciate the change, we've had to make gambling games into more Thanksgiving hunter-gatherer experiences, but other than that everything is the same."  Endquote

Muhahaha Game Fly did know something.

See you in September! Muahahahaha!
 

Made by SOE don't care. NO one was gonna play it anyway. I say it cancelled.

Originally posted by PipodeMoleas

Made by SOE don't care. NO one was gonna play it anyway. I say it cancelled.

Over? Over? Its not over until the fat lady licks Smedley's  Hemorrhoids.   Look at SWG-NGE ,

A company dealing in the slightest shade of reality would have canceled that monstrosity a month after its debut and replace it with the real thing.... did that happen?.... Hell NO!

I want to know what Virtual Reality SOE lives in.

I know I'm going to be called a Sony fanboi for saying this (because everyone here is like uber1337wtfbbqpwned) but whatever Sony does, it's for a reason.  Everyone thinks Sony is such a terrible company for their history, yet everyone forgets the good things about their past, kinda like the Bush administration.

They are always blamed for the NGE, yet it was Lucas Arts' call on that one.  They are blamed for Vanguard failing, yet they never touched the game development until Sigil went belly up.

Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people.  They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects.

Originally posted by Juztinb42

I know I'm going to be called a Sony fanboi for saying this (because everyone here is like uber1337wtfbbqpwned) but whatever Sony does, it's for a reason.  Everyone thinks Sony is such a terrible company for their history, yet everyone forgets the good things about their past, kinda like the Bush administration.

They are always blamed for the NGE, yet it was Lucas Arts' call on that one.  They are blamed for Vanguard failing, yet they never touched the game development until Sigil went belly up.

Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people.  They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects.

"I know I'm going to be called a Sony fanboi for saying this (because everyone here is like uber1337wtfbbqpwned) but whatever Sony does, it's for a reason. Everyone thinks Sony is such a terrible company for their history, yet everyone forgets the good things about their past, kinda like the Bush administration."

These are the kind of comments that trip me out what was the analogy to the Bush administration supposed to accomplish or prove other than that you must be a die hard Republican?

"They are always blamed for the NGE, yet it was Lucas Arts' call on that one. They are blamed for Vanguard failing, yet they never touched the game development until Sigil went belly up."

I've heard this debate before but have yet to see a smoking gun that can be used to show that SOE had nothing to do with the NGE.

"Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people. They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects."

What are you even talking about here? The only thing I can think of is that you are insinuating that EQ has influenced the design of most modern mmo's which garners from me a big so what since we've seen console rpgs use pretty similar formats for quite sometime they didn't invent anything new and as a matter of fact SOE did not even develop EQ in house.

One thing is certain you march to the beat of a vastly different drum.
 

Here's a small tidbit about those oh so smart people over there at SOE

"You failed to mention them signing a deal with the devil over publishing, the famous quote "I spoke to Smedley and SOE have it down cold!". Many warned against SOE, I was still going to purchase until SOE f***ed up on a titanic scale. I couldn't purchase a pre-order because SOE hadn't shipped them, those that could get them (a few stores in the USA) ended up either not having the disc or the gamecode because someone at SOE forgot to put them in there!

I wanted this to work. I wanted to play it, however now it seems it'll be purchased by Smedley to add to the list of dismal faliures associated with the SOE brand name. If PotBS were a sailing ship she'd be the Marie Celeste, on a direct course to the SOE dry docks alongside Vanguard!
 

"

This does not sound like the methodology of smart people who know what they are doing.

Originally posted by Juztinb42

I know I'm going to be called a Sony fanboi for saying this (because everyone here is like uber1337wtfbbqpwned) but whatever Sony does, it's for a reason.  Everyone thinks Sony is such a terrible company for their history, yet everyone forgets the good things about their past, kinda like the Bush administration.

They are always blamed for the NGE, yet it was Lucas Arts' call on that one.  They are blamed for Vanguard failing, yet they never touched the game development until Sigil went belly up.

Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people.  They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects.

1. When that many people think Sony is a terrible company there's usually a good reason for it.

2. The NGE was all SOE. LucasArts may have asked SOE to improve sub numbers but the NGE was developed 100% by SOE developers and sold to LA as a way to get more people. Please stop spreading the rumor that SOE was innocent in the NGE.

3. Vangard...lol. SOE loaned Sigil a bunch of money so I have a feeling they had a say when the game released. They might not have been responsible for the poor shape of the game but I think they had everything to do with its horrible launch. The resulting failure allowed them to grab the game for pennies and now it runs with a skeleton staff and has *no* future.

I hope the guys are at the SOE Fan Faire this Summer so I can ask them 100000 questions :P

I liked what I have seen so far from the game but I just hope this is not just another excuse to charge a monthly fee and also add an item mall to make Smed's pockets bigger.

Originally posted by Juztinb42

Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people.  They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects.

Uh... what format war are you talking about? The only format Sony ever got right was the original Playstation, which was sort of a no brainer when you consider they were up aginst Sega's latest doorstop of a system and yet another Nintendo console that came out three years too late. Since then they have been second fiddle to Micorsoft and the Xbox, not to mention the come back Nintendo made when they stopped making Video Games and started making crap that forces you to flail your arms around like a moron.

Sony has lost nearly every format war they have ever been part of in fact. Anyone else remember how badly Sony's BetaMax got its ass handed to it by JVC's VHS? 

And just TRY explaining the purpose of SecuROM to me in a way that doesn't make them sound like evildoers.

---

Originally posted by Raltar

---

Originally posted by Juztinb42

Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people.  They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects.

---

 
Uh... what format war are you talking about? The only format Sony ever got right was the original Playstation, which was sort of a no brainer when you consider they were up aginst Sega's latest doorstop of a system and yet another Nintendo console that came out three years too late. Since then they have been second fiddle to Micorsoft and the Xbox, not to mention the come back Nintendo made when they stopped making Video Games and started making crap that forces you to flail your arms around like a moron.
Sony has lost nearly every format war they have ever been part of in fact. Anyone else remember how badly Sony's BetaMax got its ass handed to it by JVC's VHS? 
And just TRY explaining the purpose of SecuROM to me in a way that doesn't make them sound like evildoers.

---

Familiar with Blu-ray? It outpaced Toshiba's HD-DVD format quite easily to become the current industry standard. I'm going to guess that is what the poster you were quoting was refering to.

---

Originally posted by hatertots

3. Vangard...lol. SOE loaned Sigil a bunch of money so I have a feeling they had a say when the game released. They might not have been responsible for the poor shape of the game but I think they had everything to do with its horrible launch. The resulting failure allowed them to grab the game for pennies and now it runs with a skeleton staff and has *no* future.

---

Kind of a necro, but it appears a reality check is needed. SOE can screw things up on their own, and have done quite a lot to earn the rep that they currently have. However I would not count Vanguard to be one of their issues. You dont continually dump money into a black hole.

Ex-Employee Interview

Yes, an ex-employee with an axe to grind, but much of it is what fans were hearing during the development process.

The Infamous McQuaid Interview

I think it's pretty clear Brad was little more than an idea man, and in no way, shape, or form was capable or running his own successful MMO shop.

On topic....I'll wait to see how The Agency shapes up. If it brings something different to the genre it'll be a good thing. Releases of late have been pretty stale, so I'll be cautious and see where this one goes.

Originally posted by Baikal

 

 

Familiar with Blu-ray? It outpaced Toshiba's HD-DVD format quite easily to become the current industry standard. I'm going to guess that is what the poster you were quoting was refering to.
 

Blu-Ray? You mean that thing I don't own a single one of? Versus DVD which I own several of and so does everyone else I know? And is the common format for PC games to be distributed on for the last several years? Yeah... I think I've heard of that.

And I've heard this Vanguard debate before. "Oh its not Sony's fault because Sigil messed it up before Sony got there!" Yeah, right. See, here is the real bottom line: The game was messed up before Sony got involved and yet Sony got involved anyway knowing this. Sony knew it was a bad game, they knew it had no future, they knew that they had neither the motiviation or capability to fix it and in spite of all of this they took over the game anyway. Now, knowing Sony is run by such "smart business people" you have to ask yourself WHY they would do this. The anwser is simple. Sony did not care if it was a bad game. They did not care if they sold this game to people who would not enjoy it. They just wanted another game to pad the vaule of their All Access Pass. Thats it. Someone else here compared Vanguard to The Matrix Online. Thats a very accurate comprison, because Sony's motives for acquiring that game were much the same.

You need to understand that my reasons for being critical of Sony don't all revolve around Sony's inability to make a decent product. My real complaint with them is that they are downright corrupt. They exploit the ignorance and stupidity of the common man to stay in business. They treat their customers like idiots and criminals, assuming we don't even know what we want and putting spyware like SecuROM on our computers (and lets not forget the rootkits they were putting on music CDs a few years ago which was the exact same thing).

The problem I have with Sony is that they are just plain EVIL. They make Satan worshipers and cannibals look like girl scouts.

---

Originally posted by Raltar

 
Blu-Ray? You mean that thing I don't own a single one of? Versus DVD which I own several of and so does everyone else I know? And is the common format for PC games to be distributed on for the last several years? Yeah... I think I've heard of that.
 
And I've heard this Vanguard debate before. "Oh its not Sony's fault because Sigil messed it up before Sony got there!" Yeah, right. See, here is the real bottom line: The game was messed up before Sony got involved and yet Sony got involved anyway knowing this. Sony knew it was a bad game, they knew it had no future, they knew that they had neither the motiviation or capability to fix it and in spite of all of this they took over the game anyway. Now, knowing Sony is run by such "smart business people" you have to ask yourself WHY they would do this. The anwser is simple. Sony did not care if it was a bad game. They did not care if they sold this game to people who would not enjoy it. They just wanted another game to pad the vaule of their All Access Pass. Thats it. Someone else here compared Vanguard to The Matrix Online. Thats a very accurate comprison, because Sony's motives for acquiring that game were much the same.
You need to understand that my reasons for being critical of Sony don't all revolve around Sony's inability to make a decent product. My real complaint with them is that they are downright corrupt. They exploit the ignorance and stupidity of the common man to stay in business. They treat their customers like idiots and criminals, assuming we don't even know what we want and putting spyware like SecuROM on our computers (and lets not forget the rootkits they were putting on music CDs a few years ago which was the exact same thing).
The problem I have with Sony is that they are just plain EVIL. They make Satan worshipers and cannibals look like girl scouts.

---

Your comment about DVD to Blu-Ray is an amusing. I remember hearing that from laser disc to VHS, from tape and disk to CD. The reality of it, is that Blu-ray won the format war with HD-DVD. It's not an overnight process, but like all the others that have come before it, it is likely the wave of the near future, like it or not. Give credit where credit is due. (and yeah, maybe Blu-Ray will never take off, and there will be another super tech advance, but it doesnt change that Blu-Ray got accepted in the industry, and HD-DVD got shoved off to the side.)

As far as Sony buying VG, there could be multiple reasons why they bought in. Adding a game to the all-access pass is certainly a reasonable supposition. Of course it was designed by one of the guys responsible for EQ, despite being a "competitor" for EQ2, it also is a game that hits the same demographic that SOE aims at with EQ and EQ2. The reports I've read is that the game is in reasonable condition these days, although I've got no first hand experience. So a natural target for them? Yep. As a side note, you really should read those interviews, especially with the ex-Sigil employee, where he talked about the condition of the game, and how hard Sigil worked at hiding it from Microsoft, and then how it was sold to the venture capitalists, and SOE. Do you honestly believe that SOE got a true picture of the state of the game thru the McQuaid led sales pitch? Isnt that kind of a stretch to get someone to believe as being true?

No offense intended, but it appears that you want the facts to fit your pre-conceived notion, even if some of it is kind of unlikely. Especially when some of the available info supports other likely scenarios,that the facts can support as well. It's like not admiting that Blu-ray did not win out in the latest format wars, simply because you dont have one yet. Denying something doesnt make it any less accurate.

FYI....I'm really not trying to call you out, or be offensive, but it's amazing how we let our feelings get in the way of reality, and I know I'm guilty of that sometimes as well. SOE just isnt my hot button (and I'm not sharing which company is, but I know talking about it makes me see red, and disregard facts!) I think maybe Sony is that company for you!

Cheers!

So.... Blu-Ray won the format war even though nobody is using it because SOMEDAY they MIGHT POSSIBLY use it? Thats sort of the same as if I were to claim that Electronic Arts won the next console war by releasing a console they haven't made yet because they might someday make that console and we might someday all own one. But really, what are the chances that will happen? And even if any of that came true how would it alter any of the rest of what has been said here about Sony? Seems to me I'm not the only person here who wants the facts to change to fit his own notions of what is right and wrong.

And I have no doubt that the Sigil team lied about the quality of their work. In the industry these days it seems that being a lair who never gets within ten feet of a computer is the road to success (just look at Richard Garriot) so it only makes sense that most of the guys at Sigil would have made that their goal. But look at this from the perspective of Sony, they obviously knew what the score was when one of their own former employees came crawling back to them to beg for mercy after flushing several years of his life down the toilet on a game he wasn't able to finish himself. They knew what they wanted out of the deal and they got it. The customers who bought the game are the ones who got the shaft.

Originally posted by Baikal

 

 

FYI....I'm really not trying to call you out, or be offensive, but it's amazing how we let our feelings get in the way of reality, and I know I'm guilty of that sometimes as well. SOE just isnt my hot button (and I'm not sharing which company is, but I know talking about it makes me see red, and disregard facts!) I think maybe Sony is that company for you!

You really have no idea what you are saying here. I'm no fan of Sony but I also have no love for any other company in this industry these days either. In fact, I've always been very negative of many companies. For about ten years I ran an Anti-Sega website telling people about the various lies spoken and failed products of that company (I started around the time they began their "Blast Processing" nonsense and lost interest when dancing on the grave of the Dreamcast went out of style). I've never had anything nice to say about EA. I regularly retell the story of how the Shadowbane developers were liars and how their public relations manager had a criminal record. You can see my posts here on this forum about Dark and Light for yourself. And the Warnings "Amazing" Avery made sure I got for my posts in the Age of Conan forum. Not to mention I just recently got banned from the Gametap website for "insulting" their moderators after they got bought out by a european company called Metaboli that forced them to downgrade their services to a broken beta system for obviously moronic reasons.

So if I have a "hot button" then it would be the entire video game industry. I just expect corporations to be held accountable for it when they lie to their customers. Is that wrong?

Originally posted by SaintViktor

I liked what I have seen so far from the game but I just hope this is not just another excuse to charge a monthly fee and also add an item mall to make Smed's pockets bigger.

Look what they ve done with Free Realm.
It is free yes, but you need to pay $ 4,99 to get access to all the features, plus there is the lovely Item mall...............

Originally posted by Juztinb42

I know I'm going to be called a Sony fanboi for saying this (because everyone here is like uber1337wtfbbqpwned) but whatever Sony does, it's for a reason.  Everyone thinks Sony is such a terrible company for their history, yet everyone forgets the good things about their past, kinda like the Bush administration.

They are always blamed for the NGE, yet it was Lucas Arts' call on that one.  They are blamed for Vanguard failing, yet they never touched the game development until Sigil went belly up.

Sony knows what they are doing, they are smart business people.  They've won the format war after a late start with excellent ideas, which they have more of to shed into their other projects.

I don't think you are a fanboy, but there is a long history of soes misdeeds with their games and their customers that goes well beyond just the nge or vanguard.  

Yes there are smart people over there who do a lot of good things, but much of that gets undone with how they treat their customers and rip apart their games.  Who cares if they do some good things if they constantly piss on their customers?  It isn't like adding 5 cool features somehow makes up for blindsiding the players with an item mall, breaking promises or similar actions. 

Just because the sony electronics division won the format war at an incredible cost doesn't mean that will somehow translate to the computer entertainment division or deeper into the online entertainment division.  The facts are that soe is a division which had access to some of the most potential licenses and partnerships in the industry and the choices/actions they have undertaken have cost them dearly.  Many of which are considered THE textbook examples of what not to do as a company that makes mmos. 

Originally posted by Daffid011

Yes there are smart people over there who do a lot of good things, but much of that gets undone with how they treat their customers and rip apart their games.  Who cares if they do some good things if they constantly piss on their customers? 

YES! EXACTLY! THANK YOU!

It seems like over the last six months or so I've had to explain this OVER and OVER again to half the people on this site. Its amazing how quickly gamers will forget the past. They can get screwed over time and time again by the same company. After years and years of the same crap they finally start to get the picture and begin to lash out aginst that company. But then as soon as that company releases something new and pretty they will all scream "OOOH SHINY!" and proceed to fall all over themselves praising the same company they were cursing just days before.

Its also shocking how easily they can flick the switch on their selective memory. Its easy to forget how much money they lost on hardware and games that never got the proper support. But somehow they can remember "format wars" that haven't even happened yet. (Seriously? Blu-Ray somehow makes the NGE, SecuROM and music CD rootkits okay? What??)

I'm not I'm going to get the fanboi label for this, but whatever.

First is Securom. While not a fan of copy protection of any sort I understand.  It wasn't that long ago when fans were begging companies to use securom instead of starforce. Securom is actually a quite small part of the whole company. And it simply provides a service. Lets not lose perspective that this is a multinational company, not a small company with 2 studios.

About rootkits. The music industry is hemmoraging money.  It is dying.  I had an instructor for several years who was was a high level executive at PolyGram. And to be honest it's honestly the same story. People are losing money  from music downloads. And it's fine to say oh well company X is huge and star Y already has enough money. But this also effects everyone down the line.  Companies are showing how vulnerable they are from former music-centric retail outlets selling less music and more gaming/DVD/Blu-Ray/Books and even Clothing to larger companies having to merge together to survive.  And let's be honest, the rootkit is something people brought on themselves. I'm not saying you, but people are assuming they can basically steal anything.  And while it's unfair that in encompassed everyone you can't blame a company for trying, however flawed the method may have been. It's redundant now anyway, they recalled them all and there is a removal kit for them.

As for SOE, which is the big culprit because they are the ones make the MMO's, and we're on a MMO site.

The NGE. To this day I still blame Lucasarts. People don't like that because it upsets their precious Star Wars. But have a look at  Lucas.  If you want to look at the larger company there is the whole prequal disaster.  Which is eally a seperate arguement itself. But Luacasarts doesn't always make decent games.  Heck Galactic Battleground ran like a bad Star Wars mod.  They don't  have the best customer support  and as a game gets old enough they basically sweep it's exsistence under the rug.   Now from  where I stand I look at SWG and EQ2. At the time EQ2 was failing, epicly.  If I was any logical person, and I had a stable decent game like SWG or a failing game like EQ2, and I wanted to tinker with it to make it more appealing, maybe even rival against World of Warcraft, which game would I choose? LA on the other hand has no influence on EQ2, but they can put preassure on SWG. That was an utter failure, several years later TOR is announced, with an oddly similar class based system that we saw forced onto SWG. Honestly, I turned this off years ago. I see no reason still being angry over something that happened 4 years ago.

MxO. Now the closure of this hit me hard, I had a lot of fun in this game. But it's been on lifesupport for sometime.  People are angry because SOE promised never to close down a game. I think what people are missing is that the economy isn't really in great shape. We've seen things happen that have basically altered the economic landscape. I don't think anyone expected this, and that includes SOE when they said they wouldn't shut down a game.

TCG. I really don't know what to make out of this. It really came out of left field.  Not it's biggest fan. Micro-transactions and a subscription model I can live with because you can simply use micro-transactions if you don't want to subscribe.

I'm not trying to change your mind, Raltar, you've fully made your perspective crystal clear.  The thing I don't understand is why you continue to come here. Your basically trolling in a game that hasn't even come out yet, and for the life of me I do't understand why. Instead of trying to cause conflict why don't you go to forums for games you enjoy.  I think it would make both the people who actually come here who are interested in the game and likely yourself feel more at ease.