Fan Faire 2008 - Session #1
Can you clarify exactly what happens with Agency moments and how they work?
[Hal] Agency Moments can be as subtle as finding the right zip line moment that will transition you from one building to the next, or they can be as significant as the one that you saw there. Basically they’re always little additive bonus experiences that either provide you with a smart bomb that you didn’t expect, or providing you with a cool boss or transition that you didn’t expect. In any respect it’s all about basically, we’re keeping in the background tracking you, your stuff, who you’re with, what mission your on.
We’re going to be activating these elements in the world, and they’re ever so subtly going to appear, like one of those giant agency moment things floating around. Knowing that you’re going to need to hit it to make it happen. That’s basically the gist of agency moments, their both passive and active, and can support solo and be able scale to support 1 to 4 players. That’s really an interesting bit of technology that we’ve been working on, on top of Unreal 3, an entire generic actor replacement system.
Can you go into a little more detail on how interactive agency moments will work?
[Hal] So the agency moments if they hit their most interactive point, will be of the button matching and stick matching mechanics that you’ve seen before in titles like God of War and of course Dragon’s Lair, no one says Dragon’s Lair anymore, they only say God of War. They’re going to be a very, very simple amount of interaction to them, the biggest challenge will usually be getting to them, and then when they activate making sure you’re paying attention all the way through the chain of events, etc., etc.
PS3 & PC, compatible to play together?
[Hal] That’s a great question, there is no technological reason why we couldn’t. It’s mainly a design aesthetic, a design philosophy in play. We will not compromise one system just to ensure that both can play nicely together. No matter how well we balance it and no matter how well we put it together. It can be rock solid. The fact is when you have PC and PS3 players playing together, here’s the dialog, and I guarantee this is the dialog. PC player: PS3 guy has aim assist and it’s all nerfed for the controller, it’s totally unfair. PS3 player: He’s got a mouse and keyboard and it’s a lot faster, it’s totally nerfed and unfair. No matter how not that is the case, that is the perception.
We decided early on if we’re going to be compromising one or the other experiences we will not do it. Instead we are looking at all this delicious persistent data that’s floating in a big cloud behind us, and finding ways to tie together or create some cooperation or competition between those two platforms. I think that actually be a little bit more compelling.
How would the voice interaction work? Would it be through station voice or PS3 voice?
[Matt] That’s something were still working on. Vivox is the technology that I’m sure you guys have seen being rolled out on the other products that you play now. They’re actually working on a PS3 version right now, and ideally we are going to be able to integrate those together. We still need them to deliver our PS3 version so we can do that, but we really enjoy playing with Vivox so far. That’s an endorsement, from we actually like playing with it. So hopefully we’ll be able to get that on and do some potential integration between the games.
One of the things Hal mentioned that is important, is we actually can play PS3 and PC together. We actually do it right now at our office when we set up our PS3 builds. The other really important part is updating, as people who are very familiar with MMO’s, you know how important that is. And the certification process on the PS3 that doesn’t exist on the PC, and that’s the other aspect of why were not considering doing that right up front. Is that there are some limitations on how we roll it out.
But as Hal said we really want to take advantage of the persistence. So one of our goals has been, if you have an account on your PC and are playing on the PC. And you go over to a friend’s house and they have a PS3, you should be able to play your account on their PS3. We really want to try to unify the accounts and unify the data. So if down the road we decide to do that it’s possible.
So my question is on accounts, some of us play more than one. Monthly subscriptions, no subscriptions, how is that going to work?
[Matt] Fantastic question, the good news is our goal has been to lower the barrier for console players into the product. We haven’t announced what our business strategy is going to be on that. Partially because were waiting on another SOE product called Free Realms to come out, they’re trying some new business model tactics that were really interested in. Ideally we want to continue to lower the entry barrier on getting people in and playing online games. Then figuring out how we use micro transactions, or velvet rope, or other business models for people to continue to play the game. Currently we haven’t announced anything, but our goal is to lower the barrier as much as possible so people can get access.
Back to the PS3 & PC, you mentioned one account and playing between. Would you have to buy both to do that?
[Matt] Undetermined, but our goal is not for you to have to buy both. If you have a PS3 product and I have a PC product, then you have an account. And an account is what you are paying for and that is where the money should be going on that side. And if you have an account and I have an account then you should be able to play, just a different platform at that point.
One last thing on the PS3, at E3 you mentioned that you had episodic content every couple weeks. How’s that going to work with the PS3?
[Hal] Our version of episodic content, we’ll of course have substantial content that introduces entirely new locales, rules, etc. Our episodic content is something we’re calling ACES right now. Every two weeks there is a short 5 to 10 minute combat or non combat mission that plays out that extends the world story. It puts Paragon and Unite into competition for point scoring, etc. We haven’t announced all the details on that because we’re actually still working on some of the guts, but it should be transparent to both the PS3 and PC players. When we say episodic, there is not an extensive download associated with it.
When we go to expansion, that’s where things get more interesting in determining how you’re going to be getting content onto the PS3 through PSN. Thankfully, the PS3 has a really robust architecture for being able to download products that you can actually add on and install to existing games that are there. Siren is a really interesting episodic model that just came out that does that. That’s what were going for.
So the ACES system in general, which may or may not have it’s name changed, is all about giving that water cooler experience that every two weeks something different is happening in the world, and you can help contribute to either Unite or Paragon ability to overcome it. The other thing that I like about it, is if you don’t play the game for a year, you don’t miss those episodes. It’s kind of like a backlog of television episodes, you’ll have like, if you’ve not played for a year, 26 of these waiting for you to go through at your leisure. It’s a very interesting adjunct into the main career story of the world.
I had a question on the flash middleware, what was the name of that? As far as web interaction and the client any idea or speculation on what you are going to be able to do, maybe at work or on the web?
[Hal] Scaleform. The biggest thing that were hoping to support right now, is the ability to maintain and manage all of your operatives. Regardless of whether you are in the main game client or accessing it through the web client. Similar to how other titles let you see or snapshot or trade from your existing character data. We’re hoping to take that and amp it up a little more with the operative game play that were supporting.
Really, it’s about I’ve sent my operatives off on assignments, I’ve gone on vacation, I access a web terminal, I can now check out how they are doing on the assignments. Support them if they are in danger, give them resources if they need it. It’s pretty neat, it makes you feel like you’re an agency head wherever you are. But don’t worry, if somebody sends you a message like “I need a response now or I’m going to die”. That’s more of the role playing element, it’s a false imperative. Hey, if you want to pretend that you’re the elite agency head and hit 2 on your phone and make that distinction right now because you don’t want to wait. But if you want to wait until you get home and think about it, and fire up your console, the operative will be waiting for you decision. It let’s you play the way that you want to.
Is this going to be just like mission play or are you going to be able to blow up the town and kill people?
[Hal] We can’t just let you go out and kill everybody all the time. There is a designer who I’ve known for a number of years and love, who’s name is Dan Rubenfield, he’s rather outspoken these days. He’s got a great line “online communities are like Lord of the Flies, and it’s our job to protect Piggy from having his head bashed in‿. So what were going to do is you’ll have a series of public spaces that you’ll have to negotiate and have combat.
And were going to have a series of contested areas in which, you’ll know when you’re going into them. And when you’re in them you’re trying to pursue your own mission objective, there may be a Paragon guy, if you’re Unite, whose just waiting to shoot up Unite people, so there will be that element scattered throughout the game world. We’re going to control it such that you’ll never be walking out of the field office, head shot, walking out of the field office, head, shot, etc. The last thing we want is our sheep to be hunted by wolves with sniper rifles.
No, I’m talking about innocent civilians.
[Hal] Innocent civilians, you bloodthirsty, bloodthirsty man. I respect that a great deal. Collateral damage is something that we’ve talked about in the past. There is a number of reasons why we shy away from it, not the least of which is we want folks to be concentrated on really amazing combat AI. So, we’ll give you plenty of opportunity to blow things up, it’s okay.
How is damage going to work in the game? Is it going to be this person has 300 hit points, or is it going to be one shot kills? Does where you shoot them matter?
[Hal] That is a great question. So unlike a traditional MMO when you have a maximum level character versus a hundred newbs, not only will they not be able to do enough damage to pass through Billies armor. But he will be able to kill each and every one of them and dance on their corpses and make them feel bad. In our game, a bullet to the head is still a bullet to the head. The higher rank you are means you might have some more mechanisms to avoid that damage, but none the less if you’re shot in the head repeatedly you’re going to die. That’s just common place, although the higher ranked guy has a slight advantage in the selection of skills and a slightly more tricked out outfit with more armor. Rest assured we reward skill as much as we reward commitment and progress?
Can you jump in this game?
[Hal] You will be able to jump, you’ll have a free form jump and kind of point interactions with objects in the world to do more advanced acrobats.
On missions, you said you can replay missions. Say you’ve down and mission and go back will there be branching?
[Hal] We do actually have some non story competitive objectives that may reside in missions. For the career missions it will be pretty straight forward, those will have minimal branching, aside from some of the secondary and bonus objectives. The side missions are where we start to playing out stories about your alignment and starting to build out who you are. So if you make the decision, if you get the secret objective to kill the guy that you are supposed to defend, and you actually go through with that. That may open up opportunities that the guy that played it straight wouldn’t get.
It sounds like you are focusing on a single avatar system. Is it possible to have both a Unite and Paragon character on the same account?
[Hal] There is no reason why you cannot have a Unite and Paragon character. The question is whether we allow you to have a Unite and Paragon character within the same world space. The reason that it’s a question is exploits, designers like to go through every exploit known to man. If Paragon and Unite have resources that they are generating that affect one side or the other, the ability to play the mole on the other side, unless we explicitly support that gets pretty sketchy.
But that’s a great question as it’s something that were trying to smooth out and massage the edges on to give people that espionage feeling that I’m doing something I shouldn’t be. But as far as being able to play Paragon or Unite, you should be able to, the question is whether we allow it on the same server or not.
You guys have only shown guns and explosions. Is there going to be silent missions where I use a knife or choke somebody to death?
[Hal] The career missions were setting up so that you can not only get through and get a bronze, but that you can also get through them with any role. The side missions, which are the optional missions, the ones where we start throwing the real challenges to you. Like you need to be a stealth guy, they’re the only ones that can access this area, and nobody can die because we cannot leave any bodies behind.
Now the same thing applies to career missions when it comes to getting the gold ratings, when we have a bonus objective in there like kill everybody in here using proximity based melee attacks. Which makes that gold really high to achieve, but it makes a team of four very dedicated Spec and Psy Ops characters, it gives them a little more motivation to go and practice. So, absolutely yes.
What about the economy? Is there going to be some sort of money based crafting? Bazaar?
[Hal] There’s two questions there, one is the economy and the other is crafting, and the two are intrinsically linked. So the way we handle that is in a few ways. Operatives really are the collectible resource that makes the foundation of whatever crafter you want to become. Whether you want to focus on weapons, gadgets, outfits, or a mix of the three. You’re going to collect the right operatives to perform those assignments. Now you’ll have to support them by gathering the right intel that they’ll analyze to turn into the blueprints and schematics that they use to build. And then provide additional resources, cash being one of them.
We’re working on the cash economy right now. Because you’re an agent traveling from country to country, having gold doesn’t seem right. So we’re working on an operating budget which will be faction based, which youre actually be borrowing money against to complete missions and trading it in for local currencies. But none of that has been finalized quite yet.
Right now we have the concept of resources within the game that are used to support both recruiting operatives and completing craft assignments, and buying craft for yourself. Also the operatives themselves are inherently tradable. You’ll be able to actually give them or trade them for cash to other players or trade them for an additional operative. Because your rank A operative is worth 3 of my rank C specialists. So all of those things are going to be working, but the key thing with the money is that as they go up in rank they have the feeling that they are getting offshore bank accounts, and that’s how their budget is rising.
There are two factions Unite and Paragon, I see both as the good guys. How come you cannot play as the anti spy faction?
[Hal] The way it works right now is that Paragon and Unite are essentially rivals. They both have different senses of honor, they both will approach things from a slightly legal or less than legal way. One of the things we want to introduce players to is the notion that everything starts out black and white. If you’re Unite, everything Unite does is golden, if you’re Paragon, everything Paragon does is absolutely necessary. And as they progress through the game, shades of grey go into everything. By the time you hit the highest ranks, you’ll discover that good and evil are things that exist within your faction itself. And you’re going to have to figure out how to negotiate that.
We have a series of other factions within the game that are the enemy factions, etc. We have plans in the future to allow people to take up those ancillary or directly competitive roles. As it stands for the first release we want to concentrate on getting these two rivals in the game. Provide them with enough motivation for that to make sense, and give them those occasional moments at the end of each act to join together in a mixed team to take on a villain that’s preying on themselves.
Can you explain a little more about RMT? There’s been a bunch of confusion out there.
[Hal] A while back there was a news story out there, OMG, The Agency supports RMT and you’ll have to buy everything to play. No, that’s not what that was about. There was a press release that went out that SOE had formed a relationship with Live Gamer to provide a similar service to the Live Auction that SOE already had. Really, that’s what that was about, SOE going to a third party to help reinforce the current auction system that exists. In The Agency you will not need to make a micro transaction purchase to succeed in our game, you will not need to make a micro transaction to be an effective agent within our game.
That’s actually been important to our design from day one. If however you want to have a secure environment to put something up for sale, we will support that.
Are missions going to be instanced?
[Hal] We’re doing a mix of those. There will be public encounters which are standard, you found the building where the guys are and there are 2 other teams in there doing missions as well. Then there will be contested areas in which you may be going to do an objective, and Paragon is to do an alternate objective, and it brings you into conflict with each other.
And lastly, we’ll have instanced missions, where we can really turn it up to 11, because we know it’s only four players in the space, and we can blow thing sup. We don’t have to worry about players blowing up a car because they can move it three feet, so they keep blowing it up until it’s in front of a field office. We’re going to have a mix of public encounters, contested encounters, and private encounters.
What about stats? Can you increase your stats?
[Hal] Most everything is based upon your rank and gear. Unlike your traditional MMO we cannot have the standard power progression curves. So the stats that go into that have to do with health, armor, stamina, refire rate, reload rate, accuracy, and a few other things you’ll be able to amp up over time. Either through the role that you’ve unlocked skills within by getting new titles for it. Or by the gear that you’ve begun to master.
I’m going to briefly tangent. As you advance your character, rather than have one monolithic ding that you’re going for. You have your overall rank within your agency, and then you have all the roles that you can choose from. And as you play a role, you’re earning XP towards a new title while advancing your rank. And as you use items and weapons you get use based experience for those which unlock a series of badges which unlock new skills to choose from. So essentially there’s going to be well over a thousand dings that players are pursuing at any given time.
Are there going to be vehicles whether player run or otherwise?
[Hal] We really are committed to the concept of vehicle challenges. Vehicle challenges are being constructed with this concept in mind; our world is a hub and spoke system of public and private spaces, and the connectors when we introduce vehicle challenges will be comprised of them. Which means it will be a car for a PvE mission that wants you to chase a guy down, and once you’ve completed it, you’ve unlocked that for cooperative play or PvP races. As far as our initial release goes, the last thing we want to do is half bake any of these systems. So as we’ve designed the game, we’ve made everything modular and that will allow us to put the focus on the most critical systems and then be able to put that focus on the next one without everything being dependent on that.
When it comes to mixed tactics combat, like the Battlefield scenario, we aren’t going to support that. The main reason is that the balancing act for getting people on foot and vehicles in a scene usually dictates a size, a space, and a complexity of engagement. You can spend three years building that game and not have AI built for it, like the Battlefield series. They spend all their time trying to balance the on foot and vehicle combat, and the mixtures of the two that some of the other story telling elements fall to the side.
We are committed to having vehicles, some of them may pop up in some of the PvE missions we’re going to have initially, in ways that I’m not allowed to discuss. And then were going to be working on building vehicle challenges in the future so that players are going to be able to race, chase, and have some fun.
Quick question on the travel. How are you covering traveling between the different areas?
[Hal] We’re going to have a series of travel points that you’ll be able to access that will let you take a jet to Central America. Or take a train or limo from Prague to Wassau or Budapest. Were going to nest everything in those mechanics. There will be transitions that we’re going to try and minimize and cover as much as possible. And we have some pretty fun ways to have some light interactive moments as were loading in a new space while you still get to do stuff while getting there?
When you think of a hub and spoke system as opposed to say EQ2 where you can roam from one end to the other end and pass some zone boundaries along the way, our game is actually a lot more sliced up. That is both practical for the kind of game play were trying to make. And if we said that we could build all of Europe that was traversable, oh we’d be lying and wearing horrible liar heads.
Instead were tackling one area at a time, and that’s actually something that operatives help out with. Operatives keep the whole world story in play, they go everywhere that you cannot. So if you need to investigate the gangs headquarters in Lithuania but we don’t have a place for you to go in Lithuania, that’s where your operative goes off and gives you the report. That allows us to foreshadow expansions. That lets us set up all sorts of ongoing conflicts that are going to introduce these new spaces to the player.
{Ed: sorry missed the question, something about concentrating on a stealth character.}
[Hal] If you pick one of our two stealth roles, and you want to concentrate on that. You have to worry about earning XP towards the titles within that role, say spec ops. And as you earn a new title that will give you new skills and new outfit abilities that will be at your disposal. While your playing that character if your using weapons you’ll be unlocking badges that will give that spec ops character a skill shot of some kind, like a poison shot that’s associated with it. Or a ricochet shot that’s associated with it. Or a penetrating shot that’s associated with a sniper rifle so you can shoot through three guys at once.
It’s about increasing your rank, rank gives you access to stuff and places. Increasing your title which gives you skills, and increasing your weapons which gives you even more stat and skill bonuses over time.
Is it going to be realistic in a way that say one of my teammates was pissing me off. If I accidentally shot him in the head would he die?
[Hal] Not to get to far in the past, but some people here probably remember purple potions in UO. If I want to be a super villain and you give me the tools to do so, it’s bad. Friendly fire in most PvE encounters, not so much. But in PvP encounters, friendly fire will be an option for players. And in fact there will be bonuses associated with folks that decide to turn on friendly fire in certain circumstances. Because if you can play with friendly fire you are truly working as a team. However, if you are playing with a stranger who simply wants to shoot you in the head over and over again, he will, and that’s not fun.
Will there be an emote for “My kung fu is better than your kung fu?”
[Hal] Exactly what would that this be? We’ll steal as much from The Matrix as Dan lets us.
That wraps up session #1 of The Agency at Fan Faire. I want to thank the team for their time, Matt ‘M’ Wilson, Hal ‘Q’ Milton, Lorean Gremore, Steve ‘Saavedra’ Kramer, Dan Myers, and Jose Araiza.
Be sure to check back soon as we have session #2 coverage and an hour plus interview with Hal and Steve Kramer.
Fan Fair 2008 Coverage: Interview – PvP Interview – Operatives & Missions Interview – Missions & Combat Interview – Death, Gambling, and Influence