Posted September 22, 2008 by Ryan Lodata

GamePlasma was recently given the opportunity to have a chat with Matt Staroscik, game designer for SOE's The Agency. Matt is currently hard at work on The Agency and we were given the opportunity to pick his brain on the various features players can expect to see.

You can check out the full interview by clicking Read more.

The Agency Q&A with Matt Staroscik
Monday, September 22, 2008 – by Ryan Lodata, Executive Editor

 
How long has The Agency been in development? 

SOE Seattle officially got the green light for pre-production with a team of around fifteen people in the fall of 2005. So, about 3 years give or take. For the first year we stayed a small team of around twenty getting our pre-production underway. We have since staffed up to full production mode over the last nine months.  
 
Developing an MMO seems like no small task. In your opinion, what were the biggest obstacles you have faced with the features you plan to implement into the game? 

The big challenge is to take our grandest ideas and from them distill the essential features that will produce not just a great game, but one that a real team can produce in a reasonable timeframe with plenty of room for testing and balance. Now, we’re a title that will live and expand after we ship. This has guided us to develop a modular feature set that puts us on the road to building The Agency into not just a great launch, but something that amazes folks over the months and years that will follow.

 
What are the differences between ParaGON and UNITE. What are their roles in the storyline? 

ParaGON is the “Paramilitary Global Operations Network.” It’s the world’s premiere private army and intelligence service, offering combat and subterfuge services to the highest bidder. This isn’t an evil company, but they do have a certain moral flexibility and penchant for ignoring inconvenient laws. If you need rebels squashed, plans stolen, or your own air force for a weekend, give ParaGON a call. Easy payment plans are available! 

UNITE, the “United Nations Intelligence and Tactical Experts,” is a multinational agency charged with combating global threats from rogue states and powerful villains. They’ll be going head to head with world-spanning organized crime syndicates, rogue CEO’s with chilling agendas, and other deadly adversaries. This isn’t a police force. UNITE handles what the police can’t and they play dirty if they need to.  

The two agencies are very different in style and technology, but both are highly effective. A UNITE agent will probably have an elaborate chrome gadget to accomplish a task. A ParaGON agent will have something built out of an old Soviet field radio and held together with duct tape to do the same job.  

In the story, these agencies are rivals, but not enemies. They do find themselves in opposition at times, but they will also uncover threats that require them to cooperate. It is also important for players to understand that while their style may differ, their capabilities are very similar. ParaGON is a mercenary company, but has soldiers and spies. UNITE may seem to emphasize the slick superspy vibe but they also have plenty of heavy firepower.

 
Many MMO's limit players to only certain weapons, how many weapons can players expect to see in The Agency and can you provide details on the various classes? 

While I can’t give away a number just yet, you will find a multitude of weapons in The Agency. I think people will be happy with the variety of weapons and the special abilities they provide. We’re killing each other with a nice set of things in our internal play sessions.  

The “classes” in The Agency aren’t really like classes in the typical MMO. Instead, agents have “roles” and they can switch roles when they feel like it. There are three roles: Combat, Support, and Stealth. In MMO terms, the Combat role is the tank and crowd control player. Support handles, well, supporting the team with tasks like healing. Stealth does your sneaking and single-target high damage attacks like sniping. Each role also has a couple of specialty paths. For example, the Support role can specialize in healing or dealing with machines.  

One of our design goals is “you are what you wear,” so if you want to stop being a shooter and start being a healer, just hit your locker room and change your gear. You’re not stuck with whatever you choose at character creation. Of course, you’ll have to unlock your new gear through missions. You get starter sets for each role, but you’re going to have to earn the elite stuff!  

In addition to the three roles, characters can put on an alias to sneak around in places they shouldn’t be. That’s where you’ll find your tuxedos, delivery driver uniforms, and other costumes.

 
What kind of game environments can we expect to see in The Agency? 

The game takes place mainly in Central America, Eastern Europe, and other secret future locales. You’ll see all kinds of urban environments in those places, and some of the countryside too. There will also be a lot of very exciting environments that play up the larger-than-life feel of The Agency, like supervillain headquarters, secret labs full of forbidden science, and even a luxury airship.

 
What do you feel sets The Agency apart from other games other than being an online action shooter? 

It is great that we are developing our own property and not using a license. We have the freedom to make our own bad guys and earth-shaking threats, without having to get everything approved by Hollywood. The conspicuous lack of elves and orcs is also fantastic. I love fantasy games as much as the next guy, but it sure is nice to be doing something different. 

The Agency also features “Operatives,” which are like NPCs that you can collect. Best of all, they work for you, even when you are offline, analyzing intelligence, researching, and building gear for you. In this game, you are not only in an agency, you are creating an agency.  

Lastly, we are putting a lot of emphasis on making the game easy to pick up and play while giving you frequent, tangible rewards.

 
Are you using a third party graphics engine or are you developing everything in-house? 

The Agency is built with the Unreal engine. Using a third party engine is not a silver bullet, though. I have seen some comments online like, “all they have to do is build some missions and they’re done!” and unfortunately, that just isn’t the case!  

We’re building plenty of MMO centric enhancements to handle needs Unreal was never built to handle.  We’ve built our own weapons systems, AI, and otherwise overhauled just about every feature beyond the renderer to address the scalability an MMO requires.   

 
Will PC players be able to play against PlayStation® 3 gamers? What kind of interaction can players expect between the two platforms? 

This is something we are still exploring. The bottom like is, we will not compromise the game play for one platform just to support both. Technically there’s no reason we couldn’t, but between the game balance and the logistics of patching between fairly open PCs and the certification requirements for the PS3 make the overall endeavor less than trivial.

 
Are gamers going to be able to create their own "guilds" within the game and will it matter if they are ParaGON or UNITE? 

Right now “guilds” are called Joint Agencies.  Joint Agencies have their own light progression and even shared Operative assignments that improve them.  Whether or not your UNITE character and your friend’s ParaGON character can be in the same Joint Agency is something we’re playing with right now. Since there will be competition between the two Agencies, we’re seeing whether blending imbalances that gameplay.

 
When can we expect to see beta testing for The Agency? 

I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you. Then, they’d kill me and probably put my body in the lounge by the big TV as a warning to the rest of the staff.

 
How do players travel from place to place? Will there be planes within the game that players will be able to hijack? 

Players will hop on cabs, trains, planes and other conveyances to get around the game world. Travel will be represented as brief in-engine cut scenes and other transition mechanisms. In other words, we won’t make you pace around on the deck of a virtual boat for 45 minutes to get somewhere.  

Currently there isn’t an airplane to hijack, but you do fight on board a zeppelin. That’s even better, I think!

 
There was an interview conducted recently that said you were looking for ways of making the game both an online and offline game. How do you plan on implementing this idea? 

Operatives are the primary bridge between online and offline play.  They keep working even when you’re at work, school, or on vacation.  You’ll be able to keep up with them via the web, your cell phone, and more.  In this way, it’s not offline play like a single player game, just that you don’t have to be tethered to your PS3 to guide your Operatives or connect with the community.