Posted By James C. about 2 years, 1 month ago
Good things come to those who wait. Like me, because I chose to wait.
In the reoccurring trend of massively multiplayer titles going from Pay to Play to Free to Play models, Hi-Rez Studios has announced this morning that Global Agenda, its flagship title, will be indeed changing with the times. Global Agenda: Free Agent will see the game go completely free to play and allow for an “Elite” one-time payment option for an experience/loot boost along with other features. But the question still burns that if the sudden switch could save such an average MMO.
Read on for the full list of changes being implemented immediately along with the new features added in the Free Agent update.
Hi-Rez saw that their extremely generous demo version was a massive success and so, effective immediately, Global Agenda will be dropping in price on all digital sale services (EX: Steam) and game retailer copies to $19.99 (£13.99 GBP, €15.99 EUR). If you buy the game now before the Free Agent update, your account will be set to Elite before the change happens.
The F2P model itself seems very fair, allowing the player to reach level cap, access to all the game’s content, including various forms of PvE and PvP encounters, and the ability to acquire all forms of in-game currency without having to pay a dime. Elite players (players who pay the flat fee before or after the update) gain all of this and more, gaining bonuses in the gathering of experience, loot and currency, access to the auction house and in-game mail, alleviation in regards to chat capabilities and login priority, and the ability to create Agencies (Guilds).
The Recon's reaction to his pay cut due to "Economic Stress"
In addition, both types of players can purchase Boosters in the game’s webstore that allows them to accrue twice as much experience and currency in game, earns a set amount of “Tokens” (currency that it used for rare combat devices and cosmetic character upgrades) per day, and an extra loot drop at the end of every mission. These boosters are also available now and are all sold in different denominations (10, 30, and 90 days).
While I was never a massive fan of the game when it came out in February 2010, this switch over to a free to play model will definitely be cause to picking it up and checking it out. As for if I will purchase Elite status… well I guess I’ll just have to see if the game is worthy of it before I commit to it. What do you guys think of it? I’m kind of miffed that there would be no access to in-game mail, but everything else has an easy circumvention. I would really appreciate some former players’ opinions on the game and if you think it will be a great game to return to much like LotRO or Champions Online.
Source: Global Agenda Official Blog
Global Agenda, stated to being Team Fortress: The MMO upon its release in February of 2010. With a dwindling player base and the general dislike of MMO subscription fees, Hi-Rez Studios decided to adopt a free to play model in place of its massive demo, but can the dull brown of post apocalyptic earth shine?
Global Agenda was not exactly the greatest game to be released last year, but there was definitely a solid player base to the game. With Free Agent, it’s only going to get bigger from here! Read on for more info.
Global Agenda, stated to being Team Fortress: The MMO upon its release in February of 2010. With a dwindling player base and the general dislike of MMO subscription fees, Hi-Rez Studios decided to adopt a free to play model in place of its massive demo, but can the dull brown of post apocalyptic earth shine?
Global Agenda was not exactly the greatest game to be released last year, but there was definitely a solid player base to the game. With Free Agent, it’s only going to get bigger from here! Read on for more info.
Posted By James C. about 2 years ago
Global Agenda: Free Agent Review
I remember what I was doing the day Global Agenda initially appeared in February of last year: I was not caring about it. While the underlying story did interest me a bit, I also knew that the game borrowed heavily from Team Fortress 2, a game that I was still enthralled with upon the MMO’s release. Another major factor was that my first belief that the game had a pay to play business model, something that I thought to be a major detractor from such a mediocre title in both idea and presentation, and the fact that a scant few of my friends online dared not even get close to this title.
Fast forward a year and a half later. The advent of free to play conversions with micro transactions of pay to play games is starting to become a very popular design switch, as Lord of the Rings Online and Champions Online seem to have shown various degrees of prosperity. Hi-Rez Studios, while adopting a very generous free demo in 2010, has completed its conversion to the F2P model with Global Agenda: Free Agent. It is a welcome sight to those who were eternally sceptical (like a certain Canadian MMO reviewer for Blistered Thumbs that isn’t nicknamed Oda) to check up what the game is ultimately about.
| PROS | Effective class balance, Lots of different game play modes, Free to play |
| CONS | Illusion of quest content, Lackluster presentation, Tedium sets in very quickly |
| WTF?! | Why kill off questing content so fast after offering it? |
Congratulations! After being vat born by the Commonwealth, a corporation conglomerate that takes over all governments worldwide, your player character is released by operatives of the Agency, a resistance group seeking to overthrow the Commonwealth worldwide and return to a more tribal way of rule. Once freed, you must escape the high security compound and regroup with the freedom fighters to help retake the desiccated world back from both the Commonwealth and the horrors of the post-apocalyptic world.
While the story of Global Agenda is very interesting at the get go, it quickly tapers off and dies after about less than ten hours. Now ten hours is great for some games, but I never said that the game ITSELF was ten hours long. If you want to get into the later parts of the game, be ready to spend a lot of time on it.
The Commonwealth will stop at nothing to make sure the Agency submits to their will.
Once the tutorial mission and the only major quest line in the game end, that is where the story ends and the real game begins. While the back story to this title is quite interesting (End of the world, rise of the Commonwealth, the purpose of war between agencies (guilds)), there is not a whole lot of in-game methods to learn about it. While the latter part of the game deals with Agency versus Agency (AvA) conflict, the “introductory” story to the game is quite weak.
Once the intro story comes to a close, the real game begins: Canned arena combat. But before we get to the game’s many modes, let us take a look at your character and what it can potentially do. At character creation, you have access to four different class types: Assault (Heavily armoured class, effective at short to medium range), Medic (Light armoured healer, can use poisons to damage and leech enemy health), Recon (Light armoured attacking class, can be effective at either extremely long ranges or in melee range, stealth capable strike), and Engineer (Medium armoured support, can establish fortifications for defense, push offense, and quick travel across arena maps, uses turrets for point defense).
I’m going to have to disagree with your “Avoid it” recommendation. I’ve been playing GA off and on since it went for purchase on steam about a year ago and experienced most of it’s evolution into what it is now. I think one of the main reasons why they put in the quests in the beginning of the game was to help speed up leveling in the earlier levels, because all the interesting stuff tends to open up around level 30. The fact that the game taunts you with “Oh you totally could of gotten this if you bought the premium access and a booster.” is a jerk move though. It can be a lot of fun doing the PVE with friends because the way the game plays, you have to work as a team to pass the stages else you’ll die again, and again, and again. Once you figure that out it’s a pretty fun game to play on occasion.
Personally, I say anyone should try this game out, especially if they can rope 3 of their friends into joining with them to make a balanced team to party with. Voice chatting is a MUST in this game. This isn’t what I would call a great game, but it is pretty good.
I wish I could say “how could you come to this conclusion!?” and be appalled, because I paid the full 50 bucks for this thing when it was brand new. I followed it with the purchase of APB… maybe I’m just an idiot investor?
At any rate, good review! Summed this atrocity up in four pages.
Music Mondays revisits the band that brought us tunes from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Bit.Trip Runner.
Didn’t they already do something like this?
I remember when I bought it, the only thing free was the matchmaking. The whole open-world deal was subscription based, then they made THAT free. And now essentially everything is free…
Well that’s cool.
Aaaah, yes, Global Agenda…
The ‘fun game not quite good enough for me to fork over the cash’ in my book.
From the start, I somehow knew this thing would go F2P.