I'm afraid this game will go the way of Hellgate London. Every single good game I've played in the last long time has either gone under or has caved into the needs of the more mainstream gamer: just imagine for a second if Modern Warfare 2 gameplay was Rainbow6-esque -- you know, the way the game was marketed based on the promo-videos. There's not a chance that such a blockbuster title (read: expensive development budget) would survive if the gameplay featured acceptably realistic gameplay. This isn't a slight on MW2 but rather, more of a eyeopener. Even epic arcady games like UT2K4 went the way of the casual gamer (have you seen how slow UT3 gameplay is in comparison?).
It's easy to dismiss the unpopular voice. Even on the Global Agenda forums where you have a minority whining "why don't you have headshots??" - they are often dismissed by armchair-sharpshooters who claim that "well then it would be too easy, everyone would just have to move their cursors up a little bit". Seriously, these armchair-sharpshooters should consider trying out for profesional target-shooting or even the services...
I digress. There are certain elements of the game mechanics that bother me and there are aspects that are ridiculously awesome. Now that I've really had a chance to burn through all the aspects of the various classes, I can give a very important and eyeopening perspective for those looking to know about the game...
Global Agenda is not an RPG-shooter. Seriously. That's the key to appreciating the game. Stop thinking about a rpg where loot matters. Even Borderlands is more of an RPG-shooter than Global Agena (discounting the fact that Borderlands has zone-damage). The critical difference here is that in an rpg, your gear determines your effectiveness. Sure I wouldnt trade my kickass epic Global Agenda gear for the base gear ... but even if I did, the difference isnt life shattering.
Once you accept that loot is mostly irrelevant and that you can freely reset your skillpoints you see the game in a different view: what separates you from your teammate (or opponent) is often a couple stat-letters but more so it's real-experience. After all, the gear he/she has, you can, eventually get, the only thing separating you is how much play time you've had. So what's the endgame appeal of the game? Flair.
No seriously. It's really the only thing left for me to shoot for (not that I dont already have a crapton of it). My characters are all essentially tricked out. Thats the massive downside of a game that doesnt revolve around loot -- after awhile you run out of a reason to play over and over because sooner or later you're going to get that epic item you're lusting after. Then it's just a matter of grinding through it a bit to get the materials (or credits) required to craft (or buy) a mod to perfect your perfect item.
Sure there's AvA and PvP. But when you get to the late-game stuff, everyone sort of fits into one or two (or three) different archtypes of their class (afterall, skills are freely resetable) and each of those archtypes has a cookie-cutter gear loadout and you're all looking for the last percentage of damage or cooldown-reduction or whatnot. Sure there's community and there are always crafters/economy-whores but I end up saying 'that's about it' alot.
What I Love about Global Agenda
- There are some special game modes (raids, double-agent etc) that happen on a schedule throughout the day. After doing dozens of these events, you find that their major appeal is either [a] it's one of the most efficient mechanisms for farming or [b] it's just different and helps to break up the monotany.
- It's brainless. Sure this can be seen as a bad thing. But part of me likes my PvE to be ridiculously brainless: sure there's a degree of randomness but for the most part there's a loose "right way" to do things. Sure makes winning/farming easy if everyone is on board. But obviously kinda makes it lame.
- It's free to play. Thank god. there's not a chance I'd pay a monthly fee to play a non-loot based game. Or I might until I run out of the need for any better gear or whatnot.
- The interactiveness: the devs regularly pop on and play with the population -- and special events like our recent Halloween themed raids are loads of fun (if only for the break in monotany).
- Hirez, for the most part, gets their act together with balance and bugfixes. As a software developer, I understand this isn't a quick thing to move along but the updates and fixes are reliable enough that, as a player, I can expect a fix sooner rather than later.
- Forced teaming and/or ridiculously silly spawns sometimes. Sure I understand ultra-max difficulty is intended to be bloody hard but more often than not, a good team doesnt fail because of the innate difficulty (which is there), but rather someone gets dragged off by a spider's tractor beam (which there is no hard counter for -- a wall is not a hard counter) or walking around a corner and having 20 grenades go off in ½ second in your face.
- Craptastic instancing. You spend 10% of your time actually in game -- the rest of the time you spend waiting in the queue. And when a mission cycles up, you have to all agree (or you have to start over). I dont understand this notion at all. So much better just to preinstantiate everyone and as teams form, merge the instances. Hellgate did this wonderfully.
- Nonexistant scaling. This is a standard concept present in damn near any multiplayer capable RPG every -- the more teammates you have, the stronger the baddies get. In Global Agenda you have "solo" and "team" modes which I guess is a half-assed attempt at implementing this except: the solo gameplay is nothing like teamplay (you dont get the same baddies -- possibly because they recognize there's forced teaming) but the teampplay experience is the same whether you have 2, 3 or 4 players on your team.
- Having a hard-defined "right way" to do things. Sure there's more than one way to do things (i.e., 2x robos and 2x recons or one of each class etc). But there are guaranteed-fail team builds (4 medics, 3 recons and 1 assault). Sure you can argue that this is "because it's designed as a team game" to which I would say "why is there solo mode?" This all leads to...
- There's no real solo play. There's really no reason they cant have autoscaling instances -- in fact it makes even more sense here because loot doesnt make all that much of a difference (in general, with any game, by the time you get to soloing epic/ultimate bosses yourself easily enough to farm, are probably at the top of your game and just looking for that tiny last percentage).
As an endgame player, there is very much a great sense of aggravation with the hate-list. It's really not so bad with a good or fun team. But the game isnt anywhere near the jump-in-and-go that Hellgate endgame was. And that's all due to the fact Global Agenda is not even remotely an RPG. Sure you have loot. Sure you have skillpoints. Sure, you have progression. But an RPG this does not make.
If you instead, think of all the fancy gear us top-tier endgame players have as just an "unlock". Since you cant sell your gear (reinforcing the this-isnt-about-gear aspect) it's just a matter of playing the grind missions until the item you're looking for rolls up. It's a much more enjoyable game when you forget about the fact that your hear is 98.5% perfect and just find that good/fun team to play with and if you're lucky the random-generator will give you that 100% perfect item sooner than later ;)
For the low price of the game (and I have 30% discount coupons if anyone needs 'emm just leave me a message and I'll get you a code) and the lack of a monthly fee (they opted for the Guild Wars 'pay-for-expansions' approach), it's a nobrainer. It makes for a decent middleground between tab-targeting MMOs and more shooter type games. Think of it as Borderlands without the zone-damage and if Borderlands only ever had green items that dropped every 1000 kills :P Then again, considering I've put in 1000+ hours, I think it's safe to say it's pretty fun.
Worth noting though, if Hellgate was out (still waiting on that revival), I'd stop playing Global Agenda so fast... That being said, there's a free, no-time-limit demo. Give it a shot! For better or worse, it's certainly better than anything else remotely like it out there :)
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