Tag: hi-rez

Global Agenda Going Even Freeer To Play


I’m not entirely sure that “freeer” (the comparative term for “more free”) is a word, but if it isn’t a simple phone call and bribery of my glass D&D dice should get that added into Webster’s Dictionary toot sweet. Global Agenda technically went free to play back in June last year, following its February launch. In a post today, Hi-Rez announced that Global Agenda will be going entirely free to play, removing previous restrictions on free players. For a one time fee of $20 (with those who had purchased the game already receiving this bonus) players are upgraded to Elite Agent, and receive bonuses to experience and loot.

Free players are not entirely devoid of restrictions, however. Going by the news post, free players will have limited or no restrictions to various features, including the auction house, mail system, chat, agencies, and will also receive ads over the in-game voice feature, as well as being lower on the login priority list.

“Global Agenda has never required a monthly subscription to play and, for a while now, we have offered a generous free trial for the game.” said Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO.  “Our experience with the limited free trial has demonstrated to us the great demand among free-to-play gamers for a AAA-quality Shooter MMO like Global Agenda. We believe this latest change will further broaden the game’s popularity and appeal.”

This comment from the news article confuses me, unless Todd Harris is spinning words. On second thought, I get it now. Global Agenda never required a subscription, in the sense that my crab legs at Red Lobster didn’t require me to pay, if all I wanted was the free water. The side of the game no one would have paid a subscription for anyway, the lobby-based shooting, was free. With restrictions. It does remind me of what I said last year, however:

I do get the hunch that, much like a certain Cities XL game that came out in 2009 and shut down in March, Global Agenda’s paid MMO side is not doing as well as the company had hoped. Oddly enough, this seems to be a trend with games that release with one half free, one half paid content, unless the game’s name is Guild Wars of course.

If it is any consolation, I still stand by that Global Agenda is a game worth getting into, and if you want to get into the game, the best time to do so may be before the game goes free to play. There is no guarantee that the coupon codes will still work after the game transitions, so you still have an opportunity to purchase the game (and obtain Elite Agent status) for $10, using one of the 50% coupon codes below.

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Global Agenda: 100% Sales Donated To Japan


Pitting companies in competition with each other over who can donate the most money to charity is a cruel, rude, and disgusting way to advocate for more donations by offering publicity as a reward. But hey, where there’s smoke there is fire, right? With news of CCP reigniting the PLEX for Good campaign to aid the Red Cross in their mission to help the Japanese, Hi-Rez has joined in to offer their own contribution:

Anyone who purchases Global Agenda between now and the 28th will be able to get their hands on the game for $10, but also knowing that 100% of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross. Yes, a 66% discount and a charitable contribution to show for it. If I didn’t already own Global Agenda, I’m sure I would have bought it during this sale.

Again, the sale lasts until the 28th. The $10 sale lasts until Sunday. More on Global Agenda as it appears.

Global Agenda 50% Off


It could buy Hi-Rez?

Since launch, Global Agenda has seen a myriad of updates and content releases along with the transition to a free to play title with boosters in the cash shop. Those of you still on the edge for buying Hi-Rez’s game will be happy to hear that the game will be 50% off for the next four days, until November 29th.

Up to the 29th, you can find Global Agenda in the Global Agenda store for 50% off, so $14.99 USD. Meanwhile, those of you who already own the game will be happy to hear that boosters are on sale for 25% off. A ten day booster is now about six bucks, and so on.

More on Global Agenda as it appears.

Relevance In IP: Relevance In Market


 

Tribes 2: The Not MMO

 

Back in my “autopsy” of The Matrix Online, I mentioned that the game’s poor reception had a lot to do with timing: the game being released in a time where the third movie had come out and did its part trashing public interest in the franchise. Adding to that, the game was never advertised on a major scale, and many of you may have never heard of it. Of course, the Matrix Online was online for four years which many would bill as a pretty successful run.

“If you’ve never heard of the Matrix Online, that wouldn’t be surprising. The game had very little advertising going for it, leading to the low sales that eventually brought the game down to cancellation four years later. The poor reception of the following two Matrix movies did little to ignite enthusiasm for the game, and eventually the number of players leaving outweighed the number of players entering.”

I’ve seen a few MMOs announced this year that have me worried about timing and its effect on the longevity of these titles. Earlier this year, The Mummy Online was announced by Bigpoint for release this winter, and I noted that the game’s possible only saving grace was that it will be free to play with a cash shop, as well as powered by the UNITY engine, making it browser based. There isn’t much research into the Mummy video game franchise, although the movies have done pretty well (not by critic’s standards, but the latest iteration sold over two million dvds).

Hi-Rez Studios, makers of Global Agenda, announced that they not only own the rights to the Tribes series, but they have an MMO in the works for the jetpack-induced shooter, and the only thought running through my mind at the time was: disgruntled fans. If there is any fan-rage to match that of Star Wars versus the New Game Enhancements on Galaxies, it is Tribes vs Tribes: Vengeance. In fact, asking a Tribes fan what they thought of Vengeance is likely to put you at just as much danger as asking a Star Wars nerd his favorite line from Jar Jar Binks.

The Mummy Online will only be a two year dead franchise by the time The Mummy Online launches this winter, assuming it hits its release date. Tribes won’t be going into alpha until 2011, likely for a release in 2012, by which time the IP will be eight years dead (Tribes: Vengeance was 2004). Couple the last title’s performance with a franchise thought dead, and you have a recipe for a blasé launch.

Then again, hopefully I’m wrong. The quality of the game isn’t what I’m worried about, the naturally warm embrace of the MMO community *ahem* is what scares me, especially with what I said a few weeks ago about how one project tanking can financially destabilize the entire company. How about a new non-MMO Tribes game to test the waters? The initial cost is much lower, and it’ll be a nice gauge of the market.

Global Agenda Going 100% Guild Wars Model


Free stuff, free stuff everywhere.

Before I go into the news story, I’d just like to make one of my opinions public: I have a very big hunch that the era of B-list MMOs keeping the $15 a month fee is moving towards its end. Obviously I can’t predict where the market will wind up, but I earnestly believe that we are in the beginning of a shift where we will see a number of MMOs lower their subscription price, go freemium, or entirely free to play. Developers are seeing how many more players they can grab at a lower price, with the influx of new people paying far outweighing the group who was willing to pay the full price. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and despite complaints by a very vocal minority, the benefits can far overshadow the negatives if done correctly.

Global Agenda, being a part-MMO title that launched this February, became so successful that Hi-Rez had to add a new server to accommodate overseas players. I do get the hunch that, much like a certain Cities XL game that came out in 2009 and shut down in March, Global Agenda’s paid MMO side is not doing as well as the company had hoped. Oddly enough, this seems to be a trend with games that release with one half free, one half paid content, unless the game’s name is Guild Wars of course.

Hi-Rez Studios announced today that Global Agenda is going free to play (well, the subscription portion was), and speaking of Guild Wars, Global Agenda will be channeling Arenanet’s policy of having the game itself be free to play, with option paid expansion packs. Expansion packs are expected to release only once or twice per year, at rates similar to non-subscription game expansions (I haven’t purchased a non-subscription expansion since the Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons. Twenty to thirty dollars sounds about right). Token awards for pre-subscribers will end on the 25th of June, and Hi-Rez has assured us that if the level cap expands, players will not need to buy an expansion pack to access the higher level cap.

Global Agenda is one of the few MMOs I don’t follow too closely, and I’m quite certain that the community will fill in the blanks behind this change, but look at it this way: At least Hi-Rez didn’t take the path of Cities XL and simply close up shop because not enough people were subscribing.

By the way: Global Agenda is 33% off on Steam until July 5th. What great timing.

Gamespot Vs Hi-Rez: What Journalistic Integrity?


When it pays to have an intelligent community.

Eurogamer! To many gamers, Eurogamer is a great source for gaming news, reviews, and other editorials. To Darkfall fans, on the other hand, Eurogamer is just another shady “unbiased” review website that backs up writers with questionable journalistic integrity. It feels like only a year ago that Eurogamer was launched into a controversy regarding the then-recently launched Darkfall. A contributor by the name of Ed Zitron wrote a scathing review of the title, scoring a 2/10 (Or a “Don’t touch this game”), and causing quite a stirrup at the Darkfall community. Aventurine, the title’s developers, shot back quickly: Publicly revealing logs from the accounts that revealed not only did the reviewer spend less than two hours in-game, but the majority of that time was spent in the character creation screen, with only a few minutes of login time each session. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer did nothing to fan out the flames when he announced that Eurogamer was backing up Zitron. Of course, it was Zitron’s word (And who wouldn’t trust a man who laid out in writing his complete inability to do the most basic tasks in Darkfall?) versus Aventurine’s log files. Eventually, Eurogamer had another reviewer take a look.

Like water down the Niagara, the slip ups just keep flowing. This time, Gamespot is in some hot water after a review giving the recently launched Global Agenda a 5.5/10. Being as loyal to the title as one would expect a community, the Global Agenda community quickly did some dirt digging on the reviewer, and found quite a dearth in play time. The reviewer’s account, fittingly named DoofusJones, clocked in less than six hours of gameplay, making it to level 13 and wholly ignoring the subscription areas of the game.

I don’t get paid to write for MMO Fallout, but I often get the idea that I have more integrity than some of those who do get paid. Although Ed Zitron was not paid for his review of Darkfall, the Gamespot reviewer was, even though the review has since been removed. Myself, along with a legion of millions of other gamers, would kill to have the opportunity to be paid to write reviews for MMOs. Hell, if MMO Fallout paid my college tuition, you’d see me here every waking minute I wasn’t at my regular job or at classes! Alas, my future is in political talk, but the legion of millions still stand.

As if Gamespot needs to hand out more stakes to the people who are still angry over the Kane and Lynch fiasco several years back. I vet my own articles before I publish them, and I do my own fact checking in-house, but I still do fact-checking. For the companies that actually pay people to be “main editors,” do your jobs and make sure the person doing the review isn’t skimming off the top and putting out a half-assed piece of work.

More importantly, and I regularly reinforce this, if you are looking for a source to base your purchase on, don’t read a review. Don’t listen to what Gamespot tells you, or any other review website. I even tell people not to listen to what I say in the “month in review” articles, foremost because MMO Fallout is not in the business of reviewing titles, and secondly because I don’t want people basing their purchases of a genre where enjoyment comes out of the player’s own experience, to come from a piece of text no matter the size. The Month In Review is meant to be an, albeit morbid, comedic article about my own failed attempts to reign in spending.

So I’ll say what I always say when it comes to choosing your MMO: Go window shopping, almost every MMO on the market has some form of demo available, and in cases of Champions Online and Warhammer Online, you can try entire sections of the game for absolutely free, without limits. You may go through a large number of MMOs before you find the one that suits you, but look at it this way: You’re not spending thirty dollars a pop for each title that eventually ends up gathering dust. And if a title doesn’t have a demo, that is their loss, not your own.