Global Agenda Message Board

Updates to Global Agenda have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Server downtime: The Global Agenda Servers are expected to be down on FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2011 from ~11:30 AM to 3:00 PM US Eastern (16:30 to 20:00 GMT) while the patch is deployed. Watch GAServerStatus on Twitter for the latest server availability information.

Changes since Version 1.5
- Vendors and the Agent Profile now list item/weapon types
- Vendors show the items required player level only when you are below it.
- Item tooltips now show the required player level at all times.

Bugs Fixed in Version 1.5.1.0
- Fixed numerous terrain and geometry issues in North Sonora.
- The NPCs spawned for the Enemy at the Gates assignment no longer reward loot or XP.
- Some assignments were incorrectly configured to be considered complete when you accepted them; those are now fixed.
- Fixed a bug in the HUD Assignment indicators that occasionally made them invisible.
- Fixed a number of incorrect item icons.
- The vendor screen has an option to purchase Agenda Points, to reduce confusion on how to acquire them.
- The tutorial should no longer show the movement help during the opening cinematic.
- Exiting the tutorial will now always direct your character to Dome City.
- Improved feedback for vendor items that require achievements before purchasing

Hi-Rez send word that their new expansion for moderately entertaining free-to-play jetpacks ‘n shooty sci-fi MMO combat game, Global Agenda, has arrived. It’s called Recursive Colony, and is free to all players. But what is it? Well: “Recursive Colony puts the players against an army of self-replicating robots invading the once-safe haven of Dome City.” It also adds new PvE and PvP maps, the ability to transfer between open zone instances, as well as new crafting stuff, pets, and so on. It’s quite the download of additional content, some of which is illustrated by the trailer which I have posted below.(more…)

Updates to Global Agenda have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Version 1.5 is the first release of the Recursive Colony expansion and includes major new features, new content and fixes for Global Agenda, including the North Sonora Open Zone.

Server downtime: The Global Agenda Servers are expected to be down on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 from ~11:00 AM to 5:00 PM US Eastern (16:00 to 22:00 GMT) while the patch is deployed. Watch GAServerStatus on Twitter for the latest server availability information.

Major Highlights since Version 1.4

General
- A new Open Zone: North Sonora - continues where Dr. Bolonov left off in observing the Recursive Colony at New Yuma. The Colony has grown increasingly aggressive and is now encroaching heavily on ARM territory. This zone leads players out into the northern part of the Sonoran region to discover the Colonys origins and attempt to suppress its threat to the freed people of Dome City.
- Quests are now referred to as assignments in game to avoid confusion with missions.

Maps
- Significant additions and reworks to Intro missions, including class-based tutorials
- Push - Dust: Reworked first objective point
- Push - Dust is now available in the Mercenary PvP queue
- Acquisition - Colony Cavern: A new Acquisition map in a Recursive setting. Now available for testing in the Beta Maps queue
- North Sonora has numerous new instances available for play as you progress through the assignment line.

Features
- The assignment system has been improved considerably to allow a greater variety of game play in North Sonora.
- New Repeatable Daily assignments are available in the new zone.
- Assignment rewards may now include random items that help your character progression.
- Improved interfaces on the assignment dialog and log.
- Elite Agents now earn a 50% bonus to XP and credits received from assignments.
- Boosters now earn a 50% bonus to XP and credits received from assignments.
- Boosters may occasionally receive an additional random reward from assignments.
- Beacons have been networked together in the open zones, allowing teleportation to specific, previously explored areas of the open zone.
- You can now change what assignment you are tracking from the HUD. The default keybind is G, and allows you to quickly scan the area for your assignments.
- You may now switch to a different instance of an open zone without having to return to Dome City. See the transport kiosks just outside the Dome for more details. Note: VR Arena instance kiosks were fixed in the process.
- Added a zone chat, which connects all instances of an open zone together.You can switch to the zone channel by starting your chat message with /1 . /z also works, as does using the existing UI.
- City chat continues to support /c, though it is now considered a zone channel and also respects the /1 chat directive.
- Dont be surprised if you find random chests with loot when traversing North Sonora.
- Elite Agent and Boosters are now available in-game for Agenda Points.
- Disconnect now returns you to Character Select screen instead of the login screen.
- Leveling up now grants a full health and power pool restore.
- Clients should no longer freeze for a few seconds between login attempts.
- Added various help and tutorial systems. More will be added.
- Removed the old detailed help menu, which was out-of-date.
- Rare Goods Vendor was banned for using AvA exploits.
- On-screen notifications when raid and other timed events become available.

Bots
- Juggernauts should now award XP when killed.
- Ticks now award XP when killed.
- Increased XP awarded from Colony Snipers that appear in Raid missions.
- Colony Wasps should now better pursue their targets out of LOS
- Many previously unseen enemies have been sighted in North Sonora.

Bugs Fixed in Version 1.5
- Weapons with right-click secondary fire modes now correctly use the initially fired attack to determine damage and effects (commonly known as the Beat Stick bug)
- Fixed Helot Minigun not having improved accuracy when using right-click turret mode.
- Robotics HEL-TAC Rifle now has less visual sight-blocking effects whiled firing scoped
- Fixed missing invulnerability in attacker tech pod in Hex Plant 03 and Hex Missile Facility.
- In the open zones, you should no longer be respawned in an unexplored location.
- Network and system improvements should eliminate most of the previous lag-related assignment issues.
- Improved the received item UI: you now should be able to see the full item name.
- The promotion systems feedback has been bugfixed and improved.
- When equipping, changing offhand or dye slots should no longer set your equipment back to the first page.
- Fixed a client crash caused by whispering target names of a certain length.
- Boosted Agents should now be able to fly in Dome City irrespective of their client machines settings.
- Your chat should default to the zone chat channel when appropriate, rather than starting you in the local channel.
- Assignment-specific missions should have a simplified end-of-mission screen rather than the standard screen populated with no data.
- Right-click inspecting Agents no longer shows you their currency.

In April, Global Agenda expanded its free-to-play model to encompass those who had bought the game digitally. It seems that this was a very good thing for Hi-Rez Studios because the game is due to receive its largest update yet and that too shall be free. To everyone, no matter how or when they joined the game. As well as adding plenty of tweaks and new stuff, a full list of which is below, the expansion will add an entire new open zone, the Recursive Colony. According to the press release this place is controlled by a “hive-mind faction of robots constructing robots”. That’s a lot of robots. Hi-Rez say this is the biggest update in the game’s history and it suggests free-to-play is working out, attracting enough new players to remain sustainable and turning a profit. It bodes well for other upcoming attractions that hope to thrive using a similar model, not least of which is the studio’s own Tribes: Ascend. Full details of the expansion, due this autumn, await.

(more…)

ATLANTA - Today, Hi-Rez Studios announced that the Recursive Colony expansion to Global Agenda will be released in early Fall and will be available to all players with no purchase required. Version 1.5 will be the largest content update in the history of Global Agenda. Attendees of the Penny Arca...

It's not that Tribes: Ascend won't come to Xbox Live Arcade ever, it's just not happening soon.

When Global Agenda developer Hi-Rez announced its Tribes reboot, Tribes: Ascend, it was coming to both PC and Xbox Live Arcade sometime this year. Though a console version could still happen, GameSpot UK's reporting the studio has turned its focus to the PC version for the time being.

"An eventual XBLA version--and even PSN version--is not out of the question but neither will be this year," said the company.

Part of the decision may be attributed to transforming Tribes: Ascend into a free-to-play game. There have been rumors of Microsoft working to enable free-to-play experiences on Xbox Live, but so far, that hasn't come to pass.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Hi-Rez COO Todd Harris said of the decision to take Global Agenda free-to-play: “We have many many more people creating accounts every day, many more people playing concurrently, our revenues are higher than they ever have been before which means we can develop content and put it into the game faster than ever before,” and also: “We now have five times as many interested players every day going through that same experience knowing that it’s free to play and it’s not a demo.”

I suspect this is going to be a story that we hear regularly in the next two years. What will be interesting will be to see who survives, and who fails. As with retail, there’s only going to be so much money available for these games, and it’s hard to judge their long-term appeal, or ultimate lifespan. As f2p competition intensifies, I suspect we might see some parties forced out of the race entirely. Whether Hi-Rez are one of the major contenders is going to be a combination of extending Global Agenda’s life and making Tribes Ascent into a big hit. The competition is going to be fierce, and predict Firefall will be the big player in the shooty-jetpacks arena.

ATLANTA - Hi-Rez Studios announced that Global Agenda: Free Agent will be this Saturday's featured title within Steam's newly revealed Free-to-Play category of games. The shooter MMO Global Agenda transitioned to free to play last month and has already experienced dramatic population gains with daily new account creation tripling since the announcement. Hi-Rez Studios expects further population growth as the game joins Steam's Free-to-Play lineup this week...

Get into the action of Free Agent's Dome map!

Attention all agents: Global Agenda is now free-to-play! This trailer features an epic facepalm.

ATLANTA - Hi-Rez Studios today announced the launch of Global Agenda: Free Agent (GA: Free Agent), a free to play, sci-fi, jetpack-enabled Shooter MMO. GA: Free Agent features fast-paced class-based shooter combat, AAA graphics powered by Unreal Engine 3, accessible RPG character advancement, and a diverse set of mission content including OpenZone, PvE, PvP, and Agency vs. Agency...

As Quintin mentioned was about to happen last week, Global Agenda is now free to play. Which it sort of was before. But now it’s all free to play, even if you didn’t buy the box. What they’ve done here, right, is called it, okay, “Free Agent”. See, because it’s a game that’s ostensibly about spies (except it really isn’t) and it’s free, see? Geddit?! No, me neither.

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ATLANTA - Hi-Rez Studios today announced that "Global Agenda: Free Agent", the latest update to the Shooter MMO, will enable free-to-play access to all of the game's current playable content and levels with no purchase required...

#freeplay The mid-April Free Agent update for Hi-Rez Studios' online multiplayer shooter Global Agenda will drop the game's purchase requirement, making it free-to-play for anyone that has the urge. More »

Yes! Massively mediocre multiplayer shooter Global Agenda will soon join Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online as the latest subscription-based game to go completely free. Except it’s a bit weirder in Global Agenda’s case, since it always offered the option of playing a cut down experience if you just bought the boxed copy, but whatever. Come “mid April� the new 1.4 patch will bring the new monetisation model, revised skill trees, a new CTF-style game mode and a new raid. Full press release and a fan video showing some game footage can be found after the jump. (more…)

Hi-Rez Studios, the dudes behind Global Agenda and that large, more MMO-like Tribes title dubbed Tribes: Universe, will be cutting its teeth on a much smaller Tribes project before it moves on to Universe. The studio has announced a downloadable offering called Tribes: Ascend for release on both Xbox Live Arcade and PC in 2011. We don't know much about it other than it's being positioned as a multiplayer-exclusive shooter, which is kinda a given considering this is a Tribes game.

As you’ll see in the footage below, Hi-Rez isn’t backing away from the praise that Tribes titles have received over the years. You still remember Tribes 2, right? Yeah, that was a good'n. 
 
            

“Before Halo, before Modern Warfare, and before Battlefield, there was Tribes,” Hi-Rez’s COO Todd Harris said, according to PC Gamer. “Tribes fans appreciate the game’s essence--athletic FPS combat combined with teamwork and strategy.” 

“As we began development of Tribes Universe, we focused first on capturing that essence--refining and modernizing iconic elements like jetpacks, skiing, and vehicles,” Harris continued in his statement. “We’ve had tremendous fun play-testing and realized the potential of a multiplayer focused title ahead of Tribes Universe. The community has been waiting for a multi-player shooter that is the modern successor to T2. Tribes: Ascend is that game,” he added, boldly.

Haven't you always wondered about what kind of rich, storied cultures surrounded the vertically-centric gunfights of the Tribes series? Like, what's the historical significance of all those jet packs, you know? These pressing questions may soon find an answer -- developer Hi-Rez Studios has acquired the rights to the Tribes franchise, and is using those newfound rights to make a PvP-focused action-MMO titled Tribes Universe.

A post on the forums for Hi-Rez' other flagship title, Global Agenda, revealed a few scarce details for the new project, the most intriguing of which being, "a significant rewrite to the Unreal Engine servers to allow for 100+ players to be fighting in the same map." An alpha testing phase for the game is currently set for early 2011, and players who have reached the Global Agenda level cap will be given priority for invitations. Here we'd hoped we'd have priority for invitations, because we own an actual jet pack. It's true! We made it ourselves.

#hirezstudios Taking advantage of the closure of Realtime Worlds' All-Points Bulletin, Hi-Rez Studios is giving APB refugees 30 percent off the purchase of its massively multiplayer online shooter Global Agenda. More »

Six months on, what's changed in Hi-Rez's ambitious online shooter?

#freetoplay Dungeons & Dragons Online did it. Lord of the Rings Online is doing it. More and more massively multiplayer online games are switching to a free-to-play model, but none quite as fast as Hi-Rez Studios' online shooter Global Agenda. More »

Price-to-content ratio now in line with Team Fortress 2 two years ago.

#upgrades Atlanta-based Hi-Rez Studios launches phase one of the massive Sandstorm patch to Global Agenda today, bringing many much-needed additions to the massively multiplayer online shooter, including revamped Agency-vs-Agency combat, epic weapons, and single player content. More »

It's an MMO, it's a shooter...it's Global Agenda

If your not careful technology will outrun our humanity.

The official launch trailer for Global Agenda, exclusively on GameTrailers.com.

The fast-paced shooter MMO nears completion.

We join the fight in the upcoming MMOFPS.

Fluid third-person shooter action promises to reinvent MMO combat.