MMO Weekly Page 2

Of course, Global Agenda wouldn't be an MMO if it didn't have gear drops.  At this point, it appears that equipment drops primarily off of NPCs and in instances.  Yes, there's a PvE game, and it involves clearing instances and downing bosses.  Further, players are given missions, and are rewarded with new gear when they are completed.  Will players be able to gain equipment from PvP?  We didn't see any of that in the build we played, but it's still in early beta.  
I mentioned how quests are called 'missions' in Global Agenda and, in similar fashion, guilds are called 'agencies'.  Your character will likely join an agency, and this allows all the standard benefits just like in other MMOs.  One unique variant, making Global Agenda different from other games, involves the hex map.  The world is divided up into hexes, and it's possible for your agency to control these hexagonal territories.  Control is established by completing missions and gathering resources, eventually allowing your agency to build a domed city.  Of course, other agencies will come gunning for you once you do, but that's all part of the fun.  

Of course, the most important part of the game is the gameplay itself.  It was this aspect of things that truly made Global Agenda stand out from the crowd.  My character moved well, and his jet pack allowed him to fly for a few precious moments.  This three dimensional aspect of the game really adds a cool factor to the game, and allows players to get up high or down low easily.  

My assault agent had the thickest armor possible, but more importantly, he had a chain gun.  Ah yes, sweet bloody slaughter.  Confident in my power, I fired off round after round of high-tech depleted alloy atomic something-or-other rounds into the walls, the hillside, the ground, and the empty sky with abandon.  It was great fun, even when I got buttered from behind by a stealthed recon agent with a sword.  Upon respawning, I resolved to not be so overconfident, to stick a bit closer to my buddies, and to throw a few grenades, too.  

In a nutshell, Global Agenda plays beautifully.  It was actually hard to walk away from this game.  Please understand, I was at freakin' E3.  Beautiful, alluring games surrounded me, tempting me with their siren songs.  But the gameplay in Global Agenda was so riveting, it was like an electromagnet, and it wouldn't let me go to them.  I simply had to play for a few minutes more.  Truth is, I wanted to play for hours, and I haven't felt this way about a game in a long, long time.   

Will Global Agenda be the first truly successful MMOFPS?  Well, it's too early to tell for sure.  There are a few danger areas that might cause the game to stumble.  For one, any MMO that only allows players to be humans has traditionally done poorly.  Another potential pitfall is the conquest system (remember Shadowbane, anyone?  Hell, remember Age of Conan, anyone?).  I can honestly say I didn't even fully understand the whole hex map thing, and the game might hit a snare there if Hi-Rez doesn't execute this aspect of the game well.  A third potential problem area is the endgame.  Is there an endgame in Global Agenda?  Does an MMOFPS really need an endgame?

All those questions remain to be answered.  I can say, with confidence, that what we saw truly wowed us.  The gameplay is simply excellent, and we wanted to play a lot more of this game.

There was one interesting side note, and I thought you should be aware of it.  While we were at the Global Agenda booth, Rob Pardo and Jeff Kaplan came by to check the game out.  Maybe they were just passing by, saw the game, and dropped in.  I didn't get that impression.  I got the impression the were there with a purpose.  Considering that 1) there are a ton of rumours that Blizzard is working on an MMOFPS based on the Starcraft universe, and 2) Pardo said some very interesting things about sci-fi MMOs at the 2008 GDC, their presence at the Global Agenda booth really had me intrigued.  But then again, I see conspiracies everywhere.  :)

And that, dear friends, is all for this week.  Join me next week when we explore other parts of the virtual universe, and (most likely) get ganked by a twelve-year-old yet again.  If you can't wait for next week, you can always catch my scribblings over at WanderingGoblin.com, where I wax philosophical on a daily basis.  But for now, ciao! 

Why not listen to what Jeff had to say on last week's special E3 podcast?