Post by Morbidangel on Jan 17, 2008 14:05:07 GMT -5
No, it's not a CIA game, but you wouldn't be that far off either. The Agency uses the super-spy fiction that made James Bond one of the best-known larger-than-life characters and powered popular shows like Alias and the Bourne movie trilogy as the foundation for a massively multiplayer online game. As either a polished, tuxedo-style operative working for U.N.I.T.E. (the United Nations Intelligence and Technology Experts) or the more rough-around-the-edges mercenaries of Paragon, you take on the evil masterminds that threaten modern society.
If it helps get the idea across, go ahead and add the role-playing game part to complete the tag, but don't make too many presumptions from that. This is not a game of selecting actions and waiting for dice rolls to see what happens. It's a first-person shooter, and one powered by Unreal Engine 3 at that. While only at what the developer terms a pre-alpha state, in the video we watched of the game being played, the action looked exactly like what you'd expect given the engine. Fast paced firefights swirled through nicely detailed environments with the emphasis clearly on gunplay that delivered a hard-hitting punch.
At the same time, it seemed to borrow just a touch of the comic style seen in Team Fortress 2. Not so much that it intends to skew towards being an Austin Powers sort of spoof, but just enough to play up your being not just a spy, but a super-spy. This theme should also play out in the exotic villains you face as the bosses of each act. While the development team won't say much about these bad guys, they did explain that taking them on could be thought of as the equivalent of a raid in World of Warcraft. It's not such a leap to figure that they intend to have fun playing evil genius as they design the lairs.
Making an MMO shooter, though, poses some tough challenges. Modern shooters typically run no more than 12 or so hours, but that would never suffice here. The solution the team hopes solves the problem comes in two parts. First, using an off-the-shelf engine allowed them to focus on building a quick level building tile-based toolset. In conjunction, they also came up with a modular A.I. with strong tactical fundamentals and the ability to key actions off of what are called "smart objects." The result gives the designers a utility with which they can drag out a level, populate it with enemies, and use key items around which to develop missions very quickly. For instance, once they establish a basic mission where you have to track a target and eventually eliminate it, they can then duplicate it in a number of variations. It's the equivalent of developing the basic quest types in a fantasy MMORPG.
The other element keeping the game from simply being something you want to sit down and blast through comes from all the non-combat things you can do in the world. Some of these are pretty straightforward intelligence gathering assignments, like finding secrets or observing hidden things in the environment. The bigger part of the non-combat game involves developing your agency. You begin the game not as a peon, but as the head of your own agency. To get the ball rolling, you're also given your first operative. Operatives are support personnel who can fill a number of roles for you. In a basic support mode they can help out during missions by, say, creating a diversion or bypassing a security system.
Operatives can also be put to work on special jobs for you, such as building you a well-equipped spy car. On tasks like this, the operatives work for you in real time, whether you are online or not. Say you commission that car and the operative comes back to say it will take a week to build; it really will. And in a week, regardless of whether you logged in or not that car will be ready. Over the course of the game, you'll have the opportunity to recruit a number of operatives with different various specialties. Which of them you get to join your agency will determine its capabilities.
As an online shooter, the potential for a number of different team games also holds promise. From the beginning, PvP has been part of the plans. Not limited to just the end game, having teams of agencies opens up plenty of game type options. The team plans to design levels especially suited to this more traditional sort of play. They expect to offer just about any sort of thing you've seen in games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress, with the added bonus of the regular update schedule of an MMO allowing them to regularly introduce new types.
Whether they can put all these pieces together remains the biggest question. The video of the game in action, though, gives plenty of reason to be optimistic about their progress towards that goal. The engine alone gives reason to be confident in the shooting action. Provided they can produce the volume of content necessary to feed an MMO player's appetite with their toolset, the Agency could help PC and PS3 owners start to shed that assumption that all MMORPGs must be a fantasy game.
Here are some screenies:
www.1up.com/do/slideshow?pager.offset=0&mt=0&cId=3160203&mId=3466274
www.1up.com/do/slideshow
www.1up.com/do/slideshow
I like the fact that this is a non-fantasy mmorpg (since I'm not really into fantasy stuff per say). I believe this is in alpha form right now and it still isn't decided weather or not PS3 and PC players can play together.
If it helps get the idea across, go ahead and add the role-playing game part to complete the tag, but don't make too many presumptions from that. This is not a game of selecting actions and waiting for dice rolls to see what happens. It's a first-person shooter, and one powered by Unreal Engine 3 at that. While only at what the developer terms a pre-alpha state, in the video we watched of the game being played, the action looked exactly like what you'd expect given the engine. Fast paced firefights swirled through nicely detailed environments with the emphasis clearly on gunplay that delivered a hard-hitting punch.
At the same time, it seemed to borrow just a touch of the comic style seen in Team Fortress 2. Not so much that it intends to skew towards being an Austin Powers sort of spoof, but just enough to play up your being not just a spy, but a super-spy. This theme should also play out in the exotic villains you face as the bosses of each act. While the development team won't say much about these bad guys, they did explain that taking them on could be thought of as the equivalent of a raid in World of Warcraft. It's not such a leap to figure that they intend to have fun playing evil genius as they design the lairs.
Making an MMO shooter, though, poses some tough challenges. Modern shooters typically run no more than 12 or so hours, but that would never suffice here. The solution the team hopes solves the problem comes in two parts. First, using an off-the-shelf engine allowed them to focus on building a quick level building tile-based toolset. In conjunction, they also came up with a modular A.I. with strong tactical fundamentals and the ability to key actions off of what are called "smart objects." The result gives the designers a utility with which they can drag out a level, populate it with enemies, and use key items around which to develop missions very quickly. For instance, once they establish a basic mission where you have to track a target and eventually eliminate it, they can then duplicate it in a number of variations. It's the equivalent of developing the basic quest types in a fantasy MMORPG.
The other element keeping the game from simply being something you want to sit down and blast through comes from all the non-combat things you can do in the world. Some of these are pretty straightforward intelligence gathering assignments, like finding secrets or observing hidden things in the environment. The bigger part of the non-combat game involves developing your agency. You begin the game not as a peon, but as the head of your own agency. To get the ball rolling, you're also given your first operative. Operatives are support personnel who can fill a number of roles for you. In a basic support mode they can help out during missions by, say, creating a diversion or bypassing a security system.
Operatives can also be put to work on special jobs for you, such as building you a well-equipped spy car. On tasks like this, the operatives work for you in real time, whether you are online or not. Say you commission that car and the operative comes back to say it will take a week to build; it really will. And in a week, regardless of whether you logged in or not that car will be ready. Over the course of the game, you'll have the opportunity to recruit a number of operatives with different various specialties. Which of them you get to join your agency will determine its capabilities.
As an online shooter, the potential for a number of different team games also holds promise. From the beginning, PvP has been part of the plans. Not limited to just the end game, having teams of agencies opens up plenty of game type options. The team plans to design levels especially suited to this more traditional sort of play. They expect to offer just about any sort of thing you've seen in games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress, with the added bonus of the regular update schedule of an MMO allowing them to regularly introduce new types.
Whether they can put all these pieces together remains the biggest question. The video of the game in action, though, gives plenty of reason to be optimistic about their progress towards that goal. The engine alone gives reason to be confident in the shooting action. Provided they can produce the volume of content necessary to feed an MMO player's appetite with their toolset, the Agency could help PC and PS3 owners start to shed that assumption that all MMORPGs must be a fantasy game.
Here are some screenies:
www.1up.com/do/slideshow?pager.offset=0&mt=0&cId=3160203&mId=3466274
www.1up.com/do/slideshow
www.1up.com/do/slideshow
I like the fact that this is a non-fantasy mmorpg (since I'm not really into fantasy stuff per say). I believe this is in alpha form right now and it still isn't decided weather or not PS3 and PC players can play together.
