A third look at Global Agenda (v1.3)

Ok so I was a bit harsh with my first impressions of the v1.3 patch. I guess that was to be expected, coming from a quick stint in Killing Floor (a more 'proper' FPS... you know, where headshots count for something). Now that I've had a few days to settle into it, let's a have another go at it.


The Good

• Solo mode is available. This is not to say you can solo, but at least the option is there. In reality, soloing in Global Agenda isn't a feasible/practical option. Sure there may be fewer baddies and they may be squishier but it's just has too much of a ugh, slow feel to it. It's nice that it's at least an option.
• What I do love is the ability to launch with limited team size - no longer do we have to wait for three other people to be ready (which is, for reasons unknown, much more challenging than you might think). The upside is that it is feasible to play with teams of two and three and the loot/experience is boosted to reflect the handicap of not having the fourth player.
• The revamp of the device handling is awesome. No longer do I have to juggle 20 device points worth of items (five devices each ranging in tier 1-4) into an available 15 points. With this patch, all the devices (i.e., weapons and such) automatically are upgraded to tier4 and we can carry all five. The differentiating factor is now handled by suffixes that give micro stat boosts etc. Different/better devices/items are acquired as loot now. Awesome! I should disclaim that by opinions might be a bit biased because I already have pretty much the best gear I can for my class... if I had to grind for it, it might not be so favorable. That being said, the difference between plain and uber isn't really all that big.
• Game/Map tweaks: always a good thing. Generally speaking, they've fixed all the major map exploits and such. In-town, to accommodate the new inventory/loot system, there are class specific stores where players can buy gear for that specific class.
• The new uncommon baddie: a robotics guy! This is absolutely awesome: he's got a sweet (read: very annoying) gun, he puts down buff stations (50% damage reduction) and spawns lockdown drones (slows your movement + causes minor damage). If you're busy with a boss/mob it's absolutely lethal. It'd be even more challenging if, on the harder difficulties, instead of the drone, he put up a gun turret
• All the special gear they added for each class is a very nice touch!

The Bad

• Connectivity, stability and performance are atrocious still. Whenever a window pops up (i.e. you want to go to the in-town store to buy something ... a good chunk of the time the window will pop up empty -- leaving you to wonder if [a] you've been disconnected or [b] it's just loading the store really slowly).
• There still needs to be balance fixes (IMO). While none of these are absolutely critical fixes, they fall under the "this should really probably be done" category (Support spiders/guardian does ridiculous amounts of damage for the amount of skittering/health they have)
• I guess there's the growing pains of the massive content release -- so many players have no clue  how all the new toys work and what can be done with them.
• You still have to queue up. Seriously. Even if you have a premade team (hell, even if you solo), you still have to wait for a mission slot to be available. In 2010, this is ridiculous. Maybe I was spoiled by Hellgate's "get up and go" system where everyone was individually instanced (and when you grouped up the instances just merged) . While one could say "well they need to manage server load", I would counter with "this isn't a console game -- so don't give me console-esque limitations).
• They still kick you for idling in town after say 20 minutes. Which again comes down to a "we dont have enough computing power to handle so many idlers" versus "get a bigger server". For something so trivial, it's pretty annoying to be kicked (after all, I *could* buy the game *just* to sit in town, sure it's not normal, but it's a legitimate activity - sit in town and read the intown chat or something). For consoles it makes sense, with limited server capacity etc, but for serious PC gaming, this is silly. Get a bigger server (lol it'd be like Google search denying you a search if you took too long typing out what you wanted to search for)
• For a game that is so PVP-centric, to not have headshots... (especially running on UnrealEngine3) is kind of pathetic. I think the bottom line for these last three points are: get a better server - you expect players to run with relatively decent machines, you (as the gameserver) should run a datacenter capable of supporting your playerbase.

All in all I'm happy with the update (although I wish they would change it so that headshots matter and get the stability/performance down pat). As a patch: it's a definite 9.5/10 (a few additional balance bugs were introduced) but the game as a whole needs to be more. There are simply too many ugh moments for it to be a blockbuster.

Related

• My Initial Impressions of Global Agenda
• Global Agenda Round 2 (v1.3)
• Global Agenda Round 4 (v1.3.8.5)

A second look at Global Agenda (v1.3)...

Well the monolithic v1.3 update came out today and I am happy to say, I'm finally getting [quite] sick of the game. The update is really what the game should have launched as really. A quick summary:

• An interface that (usually) saves settings as you go. No more having all your options and such reset because you didnt click a "Apply" button. Welcome to proper UI design and how everything else works (sure, there are interfaces that dont save changes .. but those interfaces have Ok, Cancel, Apply not Apply and Reset).
• More variety for jetpacks and boosts and such. Now you can fly and shoot at the same time... but not really because remember, energy powers your jetpack and your gun.
• No more having to wait for people to accept. You can finally solo. But not really. This game isnt like Hellgate (no, it's not that good) -- they force grouping on you. Sure it's an MMO you say... but so long as it has soft aim, it's clearly not a gamers game. Sure you can solo, but it's not going to be fun. This arises from a few (good and bad) things
• They've added a new special baddy, the rough equivalent of a Robotics specialist. He fires an amped up Rumbleblaster and spawns drones and power stations. This is awesome. Now baddies will properly reinforce each other. Horrah for legitimate difficulty.
• The fancy rumble blaster he has (just like the various other opponent-wielded rumbleblasters) has magical detonation properties. Sure, it's a splash-damage weapon, I totally get that. But splash weapons ... by their very nature, need to explode to do splash damage (duh) ... and to explode, they have to hit something. Not here. You think that rumbleblaster shot that's clearly zinging past your head is gonna zing past your head? Think again. It magically explodes as it comes near you. This isnt a fancy proximity rocket launcher folks. It's a friggen ball of electrical energy (that bounces no less).
• They still haven't got the Recon class's stealth down right. I wish the developers would just decide on how the mechanics for cloaking work. Common sense indicates that when you activate cloak, you should be bloody invisible unless  [a] you are within range of a detector [b] you are within range of a special baddie or boss [c] or you get hit. In Global Agenda there is a fourth scenario: random.

This all stacks onto the two base issues I have with the game (the lack of soloing is partially addressed, not without caveats of course): the exceptionally slow pace of the game and the artificial difficulty.

I cant stand games with artificial difficulty - regardless of wheather the ultimate [artificial] product is actually hard (like Global Agenda) or easy (like Left4Dead). If you dont want to artificial difficulty, then it's a giant plot/common-sense hole. Consider this: my assault rifle does ~100 dmg/hit. The assault rifle that the basic bad guy has, does 800dmg/hit with the same range and fire rate. So either [a] this is artificial difficulty or [b] a plot hole that skips over the fact that any common sense soldier would, after killing his first baddie, immediately pick up the rifle and use that instead....

Global Agenda is a different genre of game. It's got some aspect of FPS/TPS and some elements of RPG (and some strategic elements but those are relatively minor/indirect). It's clearly not a real RPG as there simply isnt any loot, and once you settle into your basic gear families, there's not a whole lot of need to expand into the more specialized loot (perhaps in PVP, but i'll get to that). It certaintly isnt an FPS/TPS -- there's no body zone damage -- a shot in the toe does the same as a shot to the head.

Now you can argue that this game is primarily PvP and PvE was tacked on as an afterthought (which, based on the feel of things, is probably true), then I would suggest that it fails as a PvP game as well. No body zone damage in a PvP game? Seriously? How is that supposed to be competitive when neither party even has to hit the target (it's actually got soft aim).

For all this criticism, you'd think I hate the Global Agenda. To be honest, I'm not sure at how I stand: the 1.3 patch definitively makes the game what it should have been at launch. No doubt about that -- as a patch, this is phenomenal (and from a developer's perspective, it's an assload of stuff they've done in a relatively short time period). I'm just not sold on the underlying game itself.

Forced teaming, lack of hard aim (or even something resembling zone damage) and artificial difficulty -- makes me feel this is a casual gamer's game (but it certainly isnt). I cant quite put my finger on it, but it's a hell of a turn off. Do I regret buying the game? Nah. Would I buy it again knowing what I know? Probably. But it certainly doesnt have the attractive power that it could have had. All I know is I'm crossing my fingers for Hellgate Resurrection...

Related

• My Initial Impressions of Global Agenda
• Global Agenda Round 3 (v1.3)
• Global Agenda Round 4 (v1.3.8.5)

Running Series: Little Tweaks, Tips and Apps (Part 2)

Contents

1. Automated System Cleaning

[Back to series]

Automated System Cleaning
So I do a lot of ASP.NET development on my personal system. I have bursts of going through online videos. This results in a lot of garbage showing up on my system, both in the system's Temp folder as well as the Temporary Internet folder (my primary/only browser is IE). There are guides out there to show you how to Clear IE's cache and even to clear the cache for a specific domain (i.e., site) but there are a bunch of drawbacks and concerns:

• It takes damn near forever (depending on how much junk you have accumulated)
• Does it really clear your temporary browsing cache? (after all, your browser is still open and as a general principle, you cant delete files while applications using them are open...)
• What if you use multiple browsers?
• There's no easy convenient way to empty you system's temporary folders

This is where a neat little free application call CCleaner ('C' for 'crap) comes in. It's handles the deletion of temporary files, browsing cache (of multiple browsers) and general removal of "crap". It has a built in whitelist system to let you mark certain cookies you want to keep (say, your Facebook login cookie). It's pretty straightforward to run too - you just click 'analyze' then 'clean' and wait (depending on how much crap you've accumulated) and poof it's done!

It's pretty easy: double-click (to launch), click (analyze) and click (clean) and click (to close) and you're done! Normally this is something I run every so often manually (i.e., during development, when I really want to wipe cookies etc or after a particularly long session of Youtubing, or 'just because'). Being the lazy old fart I am, I figured there's got to be a better way to do things with less work. Turns out there is.

A quick little investigation yielded command line parameters for CCleaner. Turns out '/AUTO' (without the quotes) runs CCleaner in the tray with the current settings and exits when finished. Brilliant! Now just make a shortcut with the auto parameter and double-click and you're done!

There are two issues still outstanding:

1. It still takes damn near forever (depending on the amount of crap accumulated) and
2. What about all the cookies I do want to save? (i.e., login cookies and such)

Well there's not a whole lot you can do about the latter (you have to manually fire up CCleaner and whitelist the cookies yourself... so you'll still have to do work every so often). As for the former, common sense suggests that if you run CCleaner more often, the individual cleanings should be a relative breeze. So I thought: why not have the automated cleaning happen on a regular basis .. sure it would 'accidentally' wipe out cookies every so often, but in time, my cookie whitelist would get longer and longer and it would be less of a hassle. Worth a shot!

Here's how to make your life simpler and cleaner:

1. Fire up Task Scheduler (taskschd.msc) .. you can find it under Administrative Tools
2. On the right hand side, click 'Create Task'. A window pops up [sample]
3. Setup your trigger to determine how often you want to clean your system [sample]. When you're done, it will list all your triggers [sample]
4. Now setup what your want this automated event to actually do [sample]. When you're done it will list all the actions [sample]. For my system, I have the cleaning done every two hours.
5. Determine the scenarios you want the cleaning to run [sample]. This will realistically only affect notebook users and those who put their system to sleep often.
6. Set the various misc settings for the automated task [sample]. For my case, I have the system force-close if there is a crash/lock.

And that's it!

You can test the task simply by right clicking on the task in the task scheduler and selecting 'Run'. You'll see a little CCleaner icon in your system tray as it runs and it'll automagically go away when it's done it's thing. I would suggest, while you're in the Task Scheduler window, to export the task so that you dont have to do all this if you decide to format the system!