Tag: The Agency

MMOrning Shots:


The_Agency_logo

In hindsight, The Agency probably would have done better than Sony Online Entertainment expected had they allowed development to continue and perhaps even complete. For those who don’t remember this title, The Agency was Sony’s take on an unlicensed James Bond MMO. Players would take on instanced missions that would allow them to go in guns blazing or to choose the more stealthy route and drop some poison in their target’s drink.

Unfortunately The Agency was simply a casualty of downsizing, although hopefully Sony will keep the property in mind for when Everquest Next makes them a boatload of dosh.

The MMO That Wasn't: The Agency


Looking at the success of games like CrimeCraft and the sales Tribes: Ascend during its continued beta period, I can’t help but feel that The Agency got the very short end of the stick when Sony cancelled it earlier this year. Perhaps if Sony had licensed an IP, say James Bond, the game would have gathered the internal enthusiasm to be thrown in the chopping block over, say, existing costs that show little promise. While Sony never made an official statement at the time, given their desire to release DC Universe as free to play in early 2011, it might be safe to say that The Agency would also have been released under a similar model. Instanced shooters are great, but historically have not proven to be viable subscription titles.

In the grand scheme of things, The Agency was likely a side project that Sony was working on alongside their other more serious projects, and when the company hit hard financial times and had to lay off a massive amount of people, it was the first project to get the boot. Perhaps at some point in the future, The Agency will be revived and Sony will continue where they left off.

But I’m an optimistic person.

The MMO That Wasn’t: The Agency


Looking at the success of games like CrimeCraft and the sales Tribes: Ascend during its continued beta period, I can’t help but feel that The Agency got the very short end of the stick when Sony cancelled it earlier this year. Perhaps if Sony had licensed an IP, say James Bond, the game would have gathered the internal enthusiasm to be thrown in the chopping block over, say, existing costs that show little promise. While Sony never made an official statement at the time, given their desire to release DC Universe as free to play in early 2011, it might be safe to say that The Agency would also have been released under a similar model. Instanced shooters are great, but historically have not proven to be viable subscription titles.

In the grand scheme of things, The Agency was likely a side project that Sony was working on alongside their other more serious projects, and when the company hit hard financial times and had to lay off a massive amount of people, it was the first project to get the boot. Perhaps at some point in the future, The Agency will be revived and Sony will continue where they left off.

But I’m an optimistic person.

What Happened This Week: 4/24-4/30 Edition


Welcome to the second episode of Week In Review (or whatever I’m calling it this week), your look at some stories that didn’t make MMO Fallout headlines for one reason or another.

1. Bethesda’s MMO May Not Be The Elder Scrolls

Chalk this one up as a disappointment, and actually a rather old news story by news standards. I came across an article from early April from Bethesda stating that multiplayer in The Elder Scrolls was entirely possible, but the company believes multiplayer would detract from what they see as primarily a rich and deep single player game, rather than the recent formula which appears to be a short single player story with the primary focus being multiplayer level grinding.

For what it’s worth, Bethesda was referring to the game Skyrim coming up this year, and an MMO is still possible in the future, having a game that is completely online instead of trying to split the two systems and dilute both experiences. Until Zenimax opens its doors and tells us what it’s been working on, all we can do is speculate.

2. Rift’s New Coin Lock Restrictions Prevent Banning

One of my criticisms with Rift’s coin lock system is that, although it was designed to stop commercial account theft by making the character unable to trade, drop, or deposit, the system did not stop non-commercial account theft (IE: The guy who steals your account just to ruin your day). It did not prevent the person from getting banned via chat-spam or a gold farmer using the account simply to spam advertisements for their website.

The new restrictions on Rift’s coin lock restrict access to everything Guild and Chat related, so a compromised character can no longer speak, nor can they wreak havoc on their guild. All I can say is, good on you Trion. There is the matter I brought up of tying the account lock to email, a system likely to also be compromised along with a person’s account, but it’s a good step nonetheless.

I use Rift’s authenticator on my iPad, not that I’m worried about my account being stolen. I set it up just to test it when it came out and, quite frankly, I’m too lazy to go through the channels to have it removed.

http://rift.mmosite.com/opinion/more_coin_lock_restrictions.shtml

3. I Shared The Agency’s Lack of Enthusiasm

Looking back on The Agency, I’m almost relieved the title was canned. The more I saw the game’s trailers and interviews, the more I saw a concept that worked well in theory, but in practice would not fit well within the MMO genre. More importantly, I noticed a distinct lack of enthusiasm from Sony Online Entertainment, almost reminiscent of a kid who doesn’t want to play a musical instrument, but his parents make him, so he tries his best because he’s stuck there anyway, but he’s ready to throw that thing in the trash as soon as he receives the green light. The news for The Agency was sporadic, and often went through long periods with absolutely no information.

The Agency reminds me of Dungeon Runners, an experimental title that has ceased its operations. On the other hand, however, Sony can hopefully put more manpower into its upcoming series continuities; Everquest Next and Planetside Next.

4. I’m Looking Into Culling More Categories

I’m trying to give myself a consistent set of guidelines with MMO Fallout, because I hear from the grapevine that that is what real journalists do. Being the nonprofessional dope I am, I’m pretty much winging it. I did decide on delisting MMOs that are cancelled before release, at the end of the month they are cancelled, meaning The Agency is delisted, as well as Stargate Worlds.

Looking at my editorials page, I realized I need to do a lot more with that section than I have in the past. Checking in with the BBB is a series I’m proud of, but the category became rather stagnant and unchanging, even at three months per article. So I’ve deleted the category, and the series has been relegated to once every six months, meaning I’ll put out an article in June.

I’ve also deleted Looking Back, Moving Forward, because I hate monthly recaps. I don’t want to reread my own articles at the end of every month to pick out which ones I happen to like the most. Sales is gone, because I now have a dedicated sales and where to buy page that is hard enough to keep updated by themselves, especially since I’ve broken the HTML on the Sales page so many times it’s a wonder this website hasn’t started murdering random viewers in some violent revenge plot against its human oppressors.

So my remaining articles are In Plain English, which still has a purpose. My more regular categories will be Killing MMOs, Week in Review, and Community Concerns, all of which will be weekly articles.

That’s all for this week.

The Agency Canned Amidst Sony Layoffs


SOE is discontinuing production of The Agency so it can focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties, while also maintaining its current portfolio of online games. All possible steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern.

With the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment had performed layoffs and shutting down studios (Denver, Seattle, Tuscon), a lot of the eyes on the news websites turned at The Agency, Sony’s upcoming yet secretive MMO. So, although disappointing, it isn’t all too surprising that the game is the first on the chopping block among the cost cutting at SOE.

Granted, the news is not all bad. In reaction, John Smedley has posted to Planetside Universe that the Planetside Next team has actually expanded, and a post on the Everquest forums has reaffirmed players that the game is not going anywhere.

Once again our best wishes go out to the 205 employees who are now on unemployment. Hopefully you’ll all have just as easy of a time finding a new job as the Realtime Worlds guys did last year.

The Agency Canned Amidst Sony Layoffs


SOE is discontinuing production of The Agency so it can focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties, while also maintaining its current portfolio of online games. All possible steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern.

With the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment had performed layoffs and shutting down studios (Denver, Seattle, Tuscon), a lot of the eyes on the news websites turned at The Agency, Sony’s upcoming yet secretive MMO. So, although disappointing, it isn’t all too surprising that the game is the first on the chopping block among the cost cutting at SOE.

Granted, the news is not all bad. In reaction, John Smedley has posted to Planetside Universe that the Planetside Next team has actually expanded, and a post on the Everquest forums has reaffirmed players that the game is not going anywhere.

Once again our best wishes go out to the 205 employees who are now on unemployment. Hopefully you’ll all have just as easy of a time finding a new job as the Realtime Worlds guys did last year.

Planetside Next, The Agency, Everquest Next Oh My!


Bringing the finest in Smedlertainment

Sony Online Entertainment remains the juggernaut in the MMO industry, with more than ten titles currently on the market, with more on the way this coming year. Already released is DC Universe Online, based on the popular comic books characters and worlds. Aside from DCU, SOE has three titles that are on their way, two of which should be released by the end of the year.

First in line is expected to come in March, the sequel to Planetside codenamed Planetside Next. The next incarnation is anticipated to take the large scale battles of Planetside, and make them even bigger. As John Smedley stated in an interview with Eurogamer:

“And we haven’t announced a release date for it but you can expect it… We’re looking at late first-quarter, early second-quarter [2011].”

Next up, The Agency, expected to launch late this year. The Agency may be smaller in scale than Planetside (expected to be mostly instanced with social lobbies), but Smedley has big hopes for the game post-release, and is allowing the team to take as long as they need to make sure the game is up to snuff.

“One thing that we’ve learned over our company’s history is that it takes time to make great games. And we’re not trying to make cookie-cutter MMOs. There’s some stuff coming out in the next two or three months, MMO-wise, and a lot of it is generic copycats of other games. That’s not what we want to do. We want to make new experiences for people. So The Agency is a new kind of MMO so we want to make sure it’s as good as it can be.”

Third in line is Everquest Next. Although not slated to release for a good while, Everquest Next is expected to take the world of Norrath and turn it on its head. The number of classes and races is confirmed to be reduced, less than Everquest II and likely more around the numbers in Everquest. With a new art style, new lands to travel, and no doubt tons of lore to become accustomed to, Everquest Next may also be heading onto the Playstation 3 to saddle up with Sony’s increasing number of MMOs slated for release on the console.

Planetside Next, The Agency, Everquest Next Oh My!


Bringing the finest in Smedlertainment

Sony Online Entertainment remains the juggernaut in the MMO industry, with more than ten titles currently on the market, with more on the way this coming year. Already released is DC Universe Online, based on the popular comic books characters and worlds. Aside from DCU, SOE has three titles that are on their way, two of which should be released by the end of the year.

First in line is expected to come in March, the sequel to Planetside codenamed Planetside Next. The next incarnation is anticipated to take the large scale battles of Planetside, and make them even bigger. As John Smedley stated in an interview with Eurogamer:

“And we haven’t announced a release date for it but you can expect it… We’re looking at late first-quarter, early second-quarter [2011].”

Next up, The Agency, expected to launch late this year. The Agency may be smaller in scale than Planetside (expected to be mostly instanced with social lobbies), but Smedley has big hopes for the game post-release, and is allowing the team to take as long as they need to make sure the game is up to snuff.

“One thing that we’ve learned over our company’s history is that it takes time to make great games. And we’re not trying to make cookie-cutter MMOs. There’s some stuff coming out in the next two or three months, MMO-wise, and a lot of it is generic copycats of other games. That’s not what we want to do. We want to make new experiences for people. So The Agency is a new kind of MMO so we want to make sure it’s as good as it can be.”

Third in line is Everquest Next. Although not slated to release for a good while, Everquest Next is expected to take the world of Norrath and turn it on its head. The number of classes and races is confirmed to be reduced, less than Everquest II and likely more around the numbers in Everquest. With a new art style, new lands to travel, and no doubt tons of lore to become accustomed to, Everquest Next may also be heading onto the Playstation 3 to saddle up with Sony’s increasing number of MMOs slated for release on the console.

The Agency: I'm Just As Confused…Late 2011 Release?


Sony Online Entertainment

Given that it is December 7th, you’re probably wondering why the trumpets of fanfare haven’t been going off at the headquarters of Sony Online Entertainment. Unless many of us were in a hallucinogenic daze earlier this year, I do believe that The Agency, Sony’s instanced espionage MMO, was slated for release this month. Granted, we haven’t heard anything about the game since E3, so fill in the gaps as you will: It’s not coming out this month.

So what happened? Simple answer: Sony looked at The Agency and said “we’re not happy with it.” In an interview with Kotaku, John Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment said:

“There was a moment in time in our company where we looked at our own stuff with a clear eye and saw we have to do better,”

You can read the whole article here, but The Agency will not be making it to a retailer near you before the second half of 2011, possibly putting the title in direct competition with The Old Republic, DC Universe, and others.

The Agency: I’m Just As Confused…Late 2011 Release?


Sony Online Entertainment

Given that it is December 7th, you’re probably wondering why the trumpets of fanfare haven’t been going off at the headquarters of Sony Online Entertainment. Unless many of us were in a hallucinogenic daze earlier this year, I do believe that The Agency, Sony’s instanced espionage MMO, was slated for release this month. Granted, we haven’t heard anything about the game since E3, so fill in the gaps as you will: It’s not coming out this month.

So what happened? Simple answer: Sony looked at The Agency and said “we’re not happy with it.” In an interview with Kotaku, John Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment said:

“There was a moment in time in our company where we looked at our own stuff with a clear eye and saw we have to do better,”

You can read the whole article here, but The Agency will not be making it to a retailer near you before the second half of 2011, possibly putting the title in direct competition with The Old Republic, DC Universe, and others.