IGTV: Global Agenda Developer Interview Pt. 2

15 Dec 2009 at 16:16:10 by

IncGamers' Bill Vaughan caught up with executive producer Todd Harris, and vice president of game operations Stewart Chisam to talk about the upcoming Global Agenda, its setting and how it is different to any other MMO out there.  In this, the second of our two part interview (you can read and watch the first one here), we find out more about the subscription models.  We start by asking how subscribers will benefit more and what perks they get...

TH: The first and most important is access to a set of persistent territories that non-subscribers do not have access to. It was very important to us not to create any imbalances of gameplay between single purchasers and subscribers, so any device that's usable in co-op PvE matches or standard player vs player multiplayer matches, both communities have access to. So if I get new stealth, or Stew gets better healing, whether he's a non-subscriber or I'm a subscriber, we'll have equal access to that. But there's an entire additional set of territories - new maps - that are only available to subscribers and those are actually persistent, so when we win or lose a match in one of these territories, the state of that territory is actually going to stay the same.

If we have a territory and it's a factory, and we've said "Hey, we want to use that to actually produce some of those cool robots that we can use to attack the opponents," like we were talking about, we can do that. We can decide we want to put a factory there, and we want it to produce robots, and we're actually going to take those robots and attack your base next week with them. That is a set of gameplay that's only available to subscribers. We call that the Conquest gameplay, because it's all about conquering and holding territory that's persistent. That is really the first and foremost feature. There are a number of other supporting features that are a little more associated with an MMO, if you want to hit on those, Stew.

SC: Yeah, it's kinda supporting this ongoing campaign around territory control. There are some features where you can, as a player, support your Agency through crafting, as an example. There's an auction house that's available for subscribers but not available for non-subscribers that kinda supports the economy around fortifying your territories and getting ready for what we called the AvA combat - AvA is Alliance vs Alliance. So a stronger economy, the ability to participate in this ongoing pursuit for territory control, the ability to actually create an Agency - Agencies are our version of guilds or clans inside of the game, and you can only create an Agency if you're a subscriber, but you can be in an Agency as a non-subscriber.

There are a few other features; some enhanced voice chat capabilities and a couple of other things, but most of it centres around the competitive on-going quest for territory control. That's really what you're getting for subscription content. As a non-subscriber, you're still getting a great class-based multiplayer shooter that has a full levelling system, player vs player content, player vs environment content, and you're not gimped in the content that you have access to in any other way if you happen to meet a subscriber in those areas. You just have access to this very cool additional gameplay mode around the campaign.

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