PVP:Yes | Distribution: | Retail Price:$49.99 | Pay Type:Free | Monthly Fee:n/a
Desktop Client | System Req:
Global Agenda Interviews: Launch Day Interview
MMORPG.com's own Bill Murphy spoke with Global Agenda Executive Producer Todd Harris about the game's launch and future.
By William Murphy on February 01, 2010
| MMORPG.com: | Traditionally Open Betas are seen as a sort of marketing exercise, do you think shirking the traditional practice was beneficial? |
| Todd Harris: | Definitely. For this final Beta phase we had a number of goals but two of the most important were: 1. tune server stability and 2. see how players and groups would behave within Conquest so we could tweak some meta-game rules. These goals both required a large population. The Conquest dynamics are very emergent and require tens of thousands of users participating. Fortunately our pre-order campaign was very successful and so our pre-order customers were able to experience the game early and provide more than enough people to satisfy our Beta testing goals. |
| MMORPG.com: | Launch day arrives... thousands of players start flooding the servers. These are the things that the Open Beta usually helps prepare for. Aside from crazy, hectic and harrowing what's the mood like in the office come launch, now that your baby is finally unleashed upon the world? |
| Todd Harris: | Being a father of two children I think your 'baby' analogy is spot on - lots of work leading up to the birth but even MORE work after the baby is unleashed. The point being, we already have big plans for post-release enhancements to Global Agenda. In fact the studio as a whole is continuing to support and update this game rather than moving to a new project right now. Of course, we have to survive Launch Day first but we are fairly optimistic based tuning done during our pre-order head start this past weekend. Assuming things go well, the Dev team will be in-studio with a cold beverage playing Global Agenda alongside everyone else. |
| MMORPG.com: | Were there any specific goals you had for development that you had to put off in order to make launch? Features that you wanted to add or anything of that nature? |
| Todd Harris: | There are certainly some 'nice to have' items that we decided to wait on. But all the core features were included and well-tested. We'd rather release a solid core and then enhance and add content over time. We'll continue to do surveys to help prioritize new development and ensure that we are delivering the items most important to our community. |
| |
| MMORPG.com: | Are there any plans post launch for content updates? |
| Todd Harris: | Yes. We have already started work on a first content update that will include new Conquest territory types, new Conquest-specific devices, and new PvE content. |
| MMORPG.com: | Are said updates going to be available to subscribers only, or will certain additions also be available to the retail owners? |
| Todd Harris: | We'll introduce matchmade PvP maps and core device additions to the entire community including non-subscribers. But the bulk of our ongoing content additions are focused on Conquest and PvE and these will be subscriber only. |
| |
| MMORPG.com: | Balance is key in a game like Global Agenda. How does the team keep track of the metrics necessary in order to level the playing field as evenly as possible? |
| Todd Harris: | We track everything - individual player statistics, team statistics, device-statistics, Conquest production rates, heat-maps to show hot zones within each map layout, and more. Everything in maintained in a SQL server database and we have some powerful visualization tools that let us report and graph trends. This way we can use objective metrics to compliment the subjective impressions around what seems overpowered or underpowered to the community. |
;)
;)
About damn time
God, I want to play that game..
They turned the servers on EARLY! I'm in.
No open world but this game is pure fun! Based on my Beta experience it is well worth the purchase price.
not trying to flame or anything but why would i want to pay to play (yes i understand there is a free to play option) this over games like MW2, bad company 2 or even MAG?
See the Conquest video just posted on the site.
^^This, plus ongoing content updates.
Sometimes money is a good filter. ;)
I do not know much about this game yet though.
Conquest is a bit broken and silly atm. With that being said I gladly bought the game just for the public server experience. Nothing wrong with paying $45 to pub.
Once they tune the AvA a bit more they will get a monthly sub from me.
awesome game and community. GA has a bright future. conquest rocks, and will only get better. tons of new stuff in the works.
Lovin' it so far. It pulled me away from both WoW and TF2...
nice game, but i am bored after few weeks in beta.... becos not much of content.. not worth for subscribtion but worth for casual...
Played GA all day today, it was great. I'll be subbing to get in on the good content coming. If you love pvp and shooters then it is for you. The game is tons of fun. If you are tired of the same ole same ole then you should give GA a try. It is addictingly fun to play.
The Launch went verry well
. In the 5 hours i had to play yesterday (rushing home from work with reckless abandon) the servers only went down 2 times .. and each time it was only down for 15 minutes. As for game play , it was even better than i hoped for. My expectations were high since i was waiting for this game to come out for 1.5 yrs and i was not dissapointed.
Hats off to the Devs for a pretty darned smooth launch
But for how long?.. a new game is always an exciting distraction. But we'll see after the first month if it has the staying power.
That's a question for all new games...who knows?
Damn, i missed beta...
Any way i could get 1-day or even 1-hour pass to try it out? paying 45€ to try is a bit Expensive....
Looks very nice so far!
It will be a good game until the subscription phase kicks in in May. Charging money to play a FPS is just not going to fly even if it is attempting to be billed as a MMO.
I think they will make radical changes to be more like MMO and especially more RPG when that monthly fee phase kicks in.. They either do something or end up like Warhammer..
The monthly fee model didn't work very well for Planetside. I recall seeing may people complain about paying to play a FPS. Planetside was even more of a MMOG than GA, given the amount of people that could be fighting on the map at the same time. GA seems more like Tribes with a subscription.
I wish GA the best of luck, I just wonder if it will be able to maintain a population.
People will pay for anything no matter what it is. As long as they are happy and gaming then it doesn't matter to them.
There are many gaming companies that are going to be sad to hear the above comments about not paying a monthly fee for FPS. This is part of their strategy now, first get FPS online, create a lobby style ‘community’, add DLC you have to pay for, start to add features which you pay for in a cash shop, add some extra content every couple of months and introduce a monthly fee.
They will feel sad for a short time then crack on with making FPS cash cows. We preorder, we play before the game is reviewed, we buy DLC which just happens to be ready at launch but can’t be included in the game. We look like idiots as far as these companies are concerned and a bit of mooing as you are led into your milking stall won’t put them off.
“The Conquest dynamics are very ‘emergent’ “ - What the hell does that mean?
means always changing as the population and circumstances change. rules are generated by the players for the most part. not sure what you mean by the rest of your post, there are no DLC's for GA. it's one sub fee in return for new content, like any other major MMO.
im loving GA's pay model right now. those who love AvA in its current iteration can pay right away, those who love the game but dont "trust" the new content will be worth the money can just stick with f2p until the MMO aspect is updated to their liking.
I was thinking of DA Origins for the DLC that was released at the same time as the game was launched. I was talking about games generally in that paragraph, not GA.
If you can subscribe or F2P with less options that’s fine, if you can buy items to boost performance in a PvP environment that’s Pay to Win in my eyes and a no-no.