Since my first visit to Hi-Rez Studios, I’ve maintained intermitant contact with the staff and tried to participate in the development and viral marketing of Global Agenda. I attended Hi-Rez’s “Nerd Up” as a guest speaker, had some fun at their Dragon*Con LAN party, and I aggravate David Tyler, one of the game developers that happens to be on Twitter, pretty regularly. While I am not able to drive to Hi-Rez Studios’ main office in Alpharetta, Georgia to participate in weekly, in-house testing sessions, I am a part of their closed beta testing program, and that’s what this article is all about.
[-] What Testing is All About [-]
Before any gamer geeks out there start panting hard and fogging up their screens while they think (with all too much enthusiasm) on the possibility of playing a new game before many else gets to, realize that it won’t be what you’ve experienced before. I’m not making reference to the various features Global Agenda offers in contrast with other games, as I will elaborate on later while attempting to not repeat statements in my previous GA article, I’m referencing to that fact that beta testing GA is just that: beta testing.
All too often, a select few, anxious gaming enthusiasts are given the opportunity to join in beta testing of a game that has not yet been released. Nine out of ten times, this experience has nothing at all whatsoever to do with actual testing, but is, instead, all about you experiencing a polished and finished game before anyone else and then telling the rest of the world all about it.
If anyone out there actually thinks that they were making major contributions to games like Aion or will make a difference in SWTOR’s beta testing, think again. Most people who played Aion beta payed for the privilege, and BioWare stated before opening beta sign-ups (in an interview that I can’t find, now) that studios don’t learn anything new from beta testing. So, most studios don’t expect anyone invited to beta test to actually test anything at all. Hi-Rez Studios, however, thinks much differently.
They make sure to issue an email about one week before every not-on-site test, explaining what they want players to look for and be aware of. They also make sure to include a snippet to motivate beta participants to test, not just play. A real tester is going to find bugs, write them down, report them, and try to duplicate the bug until the studio fixes it.
[-] My Experiences [-]
GRAPHICS
I rank the graphics as one of the highest in quality for an MMORPG, which shows through even better when I play from my gaming rig at home. It takes a few seconds at the login screen for the graphics to really kick in, but I have absolutely no performance problems in-game. I’m not so big on the smooth lighting textures that Hi-Rez chose to use for character, items and environment, but it’s not a deal breaker, either. It kind of reminds me of Doom 3.
SOUND
The music and sound quality are great. I really am glad I invested in those 5.1 surround sound force feedback headphones because games like Global Agenda are definitely making use of it. Whenever you’re involved in PvP combat against other players, every queue an enemy can give you to let you know they’re attacking is worth watching and listening for. Precision gaming audio equipment will give you that much more of an edge, making the difference between number one and second best.
USER INTERFACE & ITEMS
As for the user interface, I have mixed feelings. I really like the helpful info stations that a player can query to find specific locations, such as the armor store, and it generates a three-dimensional path hovering above the ground for the player to follow. As for equipment and talent windows, they’re not quite there, yet.
It was very confusing for me to figure out how to have any equipment or abilities at all. Most players are used to filling up their skill trees, dragging combat ability buttons from a menu to a hot bar and then equipping weapons to a character slot from the inventory. Not in Global Agenda. Fill up the trees, select the abilities you want to use, and then select your weapon designated by how you set up your tree. In short, weapons aren’t items in an inventory that you need to buy or find, but are given to you after setting talent tree points.
Don’t worry, you can still upgrade your weapon, armor and more above another player’s through the use of special mod items. These mod items are supposed to have something to do with nanotechnology, but they’re used the same way as gems in WoW.
The controls and interface are a bit different than any MMO you’ve probably played before, it doesn’t take long to figure out. In fact, the only hindrance to playing the game most intuitively is not moving around the map, but using the hot bar to initiate attacks and special abilities as you run around in the same manner you would in an FPS (first person shooter).
GAMEPLAY
The game runs smoothly. I have no complaints, there. I have not yet been able to test the orientation portions of the game, including any missions that grant experience. I’ve only been able to test PvP, so far, and while it is definitely pretty good on the PvP side (that’s the part Hi-Rez wants to focus on), I really, really want to get in on some PvE.
The PvP has a few different maps and modes. There’s a capture-the-flag type map, with three flags to capture/defend until time runs out. There’s a sort of escort mission that doesn’t use an MVP, but instead forces one team to move an object from one side of the map to the other, while the opposing forces try to stop it’s movement. The object cannot be reset or reversed and moves sort of slow. The only other PvP map I played besides those two looked to be a different version of capture the flag, but my team was getting pwn’ed so hardcore, I can’t tell you what it’s about.
COMMUNITY
In general, I like Global Agenda’s community. The dev’s all have characters and play the game, though it’s usually for testing, and they’re all super nice and/or helpful in game … even while they’re stomping you into the ground in PvP. Though almost every last one of the players in beta testing, right now, are high schoolers, they’re not entirely unruly. My chat box is not constantly overfilled with cursing and derogatory comments, which is nice.
I asked a lot of newb questions when I logged in on the beta, and while most of the testers who could read me didn’t respond, there were a few that actually answered my questions, were super helpful, and even offered me in-game currency to buy equipment that was, at that point, purely aesthetic.
ISSUES
The only issues I experienced had to do with things on the game coding side. I couldn’t participate in the first beta because there was some sort of issue that prevented me and several other players from being able to run the program. That issue, however, was fixed before the second beta, during which I ran around trying to learn the classes and how to play them in the short amount of time I had. During the second test the only issues I had were (1) the game was unstable in windowed mode and would freeze or crash regularly, and (2) after leaving an instance based mission, the game would either crash or freeze.
The reason for the score? Any issue that keep me from and discourages me from playing the game is a big issue.
During the second test I had developer David Tyler in chat the entire time, so I was very well taken care of on the support side of things. Thanks, David!
[-] OVERALL [-]
It must be known by all that this game is still in development, and since every bug I’ve ever experienced or reporting has been fixed, I forgive them any problems I have had. All other aspects of the game, including, to a lesser extent, graphics, and to a larger extent, things like user interface and class abilities, are constantly being updated. Hi-Rez Studios is making sure they get class balancing and intuitive in-game controls as fine-tuned as possible before releasing their baby for the whole world to play. For that, I will delay most of my opinions concerning most any aspect of the game, until the game is released.
When is the launch date? No one knows, yet. How can you get into the closed beta? Create an account and request to join. Will you be playing Global Agenda when it is released? As long as I’m not bogged down with SWTOR or FFXIV (because I have extreme lust issues for anything Star Wars and/or Final Fantasy), I will most likely be playing Global Agenda.
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