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Operatives

Operatives are where the game starts to really stand out from the pack. These operators will work for you. Either doing tasks that you wouldn’t want to or couldn’t do. You will be able to assign your operatives to tasks, with each task having a set amount of real world time. The operatives will work on these tasks even when you are offline.

When I tried to gather information about operatives, I found that my network was not so forthcoming. I believe they felt that it threatened their job security, and perhaps even their lives, to give people much information on operatives. So I had to do it myself, I went straight to the source, “Q” himself, Hal Milton, and asked him about operatives.

...the operative types that you are collecting will be focused on combat, stealth, support, and social roles- each with a focus on providing goods and services to the player. Within those roles will be breakdowns of goods and service providers. Within them there will be breakdowns of ones with particular specialties that enable them to be weapon crafters versus gadget crafters versus outfit crafters versus intel analyzers. Those are the basic types that were shooting for. – Hal Milton, lead designer, The Agency.

Operative roles and focuses:

• Operative Roles – there are four types in the game:
• Combat – snipers yeah baby!
• Stealth – ???
• Support – fill your radar with pings
• Social – ???
• Focus – each operative will be focused on providing the following:
• Goods – the crafting side of things
• Services – which is the back end stuff like financial reports, or investigative work, intel analysis work, etc.
• Field Support – the ability to provide a distraction via the steam pipe, the ability to ping your radar with enemies that are nearby, sniper support, and more.

Several different types of tasks have been mentioned including:

• Recon – send an operative to check out a remote area, perhaps an area that you cannot get to because you don’t have the right alias.
• Hacking – they’ve mentioned having operatives hack into computer systems for you.
• They are “assign and forget”, there will be no clicking for an hour to create something. Elite agents have others do their grunt work.

Operative Management:

• You will be able to make assignments from a web page so you don’t have to log into the game to make assignments.
• You will be able to opt in and have the operatives email or text message you when they are done with a task. Examples given:
  • That sweet car that you asked me to make is done, and it has unlocked a new mission for you.
  • Those people that you asked me to track down, I found them, er. they found me. They want a million dollars or they will kill me. Text 1 to send the money, text 2 to let him die.
  • Note: These are not timed, if you don’t respond then the question will just be waiting for you the next time that you log into the game.
  • You will have a maximum roster sized based upon your agency rank. You will also have a maximum for active operatives that is based upon your agency rank.
  
  

  Operative Rarity

  • There will be different rarity levels, some will be really hard to find, others will be very easy to come by.
  • There are going to be very rare, which may be low rank or high rank, but are very rare because of the specialties that come with them. Specialties that enable abilities you cannot get access to any other way.
  • The rarity may just be in the set of skills that the operatives have, so two of the same operative might have different rarity levels.
  • Some will be fodder, as some tasks are very dangerous and there is a good chance that the operative may not survive.
  
  

  Crafting / Intel

  For the gadget crafting based assignments you will provide schematics and resources. Operatives will take gathered intel and turn it into schematics. Some of these resources are rare and hard to find. Some will only be created by other operatives.

  So, if I want to get the best gun ever, odds are that I may not get that from a mission. I may have to track down the intel that unlocks the schematics, that unlocks the blue prints for the golden gun, that my operatives can now spend a few days working on for me. – Hal Milton, lead designer, The Agency

  
  

  Roster Limit / Joint Agencies / Operative Interdepency

  • When they start each character will have a limited roster limit, probably 20. As they rank up they’ll gain more operative slots until they rach the roster limit of 100 at maximum rank. There will be many more operatives in the game, ensuring that no player can get them all. This leads to need to work together to make the most efficient use of operatives.
  • There will be an interdependency between operatives. Mine might create a resource that yours uses to turn into another resource that mine can turn into a neat gadget. The resources will be tradable and sellable, thus becoming part of the player economy.
  • The operatives will gain experience as you use them. Experienced operatives will be a major part of the economy as well, as an experienced operative will probably be worth more to others than a green one.
  
  

  Operative Morale / Faction

  • Operatives will have a faction. You will be able to trade or sell them to the other faction. They may have some morale issues working for the new faction, they may not.

  If I’ve played UNITE and you’ve played ParaGON, we have essentially been exposed to different suites of operatives, and we can trade operatives between each other. And if I am a UNITE guy who gets a ParaGON operative, does that unlock any morale stories, or does that unlock any conflicts for the operative who is working for a guy whose part of a different faction. There are some fun ideas there. But yeah, UNITE and ParaGON have their own operatives. – Hal Milton, lead designer, The Agency

  • The operatives will have personalities and may not work together with other operatives that you have. They might also like each other too much, and take a vacation at the same time, costing you a couple operatives for a week or two.
  • There will even be operatives from some of the minor factions that changes some of their motives:

  So, even though you are fighting the Bones, you may uncover a Bones operative, who you can actually hire. He is only part of the Bones because his little sister has been kidnapped by the Bones, and they are holding her and forcing him to do stuff. This unlocks a side story for you to be able to find his sister, so he is actually free from the Bones influence. – Hal Milton, lead designer, The Agency