Posts Tagged ‘free agent’

Global Agenda Two-Year Anniversary Celebration (Hint: There’s Free Stuff!)

1 February 2012 | No Comments » | Beararms

Every once in a while we celebrate great – and sadly, not so great – achievements in the MMOG industry. Today, we congratulate Hi-Rez Studios’ Global Agenda for turning two-years old. As most of you may know, Global Agenda is Hi-Rez Studios’ award winning Sci-fi MMO Shooter that was launched on February 1st, 2010. Since then Global Agenda has had over 1,000,000 registered players, over 12,000,000 PvE missions, and over 1,400,000 PvP missions. It’s been a bumpy road, with the game seeing multiple transitions, often for the better of the title, the company and the associated communities. In 2011 alone, GA made the transition to becoming a free-to-play MMOG, became the first of such games to launch on Steam, and saw its first completely free expansion the “Recursive Colony.”

Not one to miss an opportunity to celebrate its community, Hi-Rez Studios is offering a special thanks for playing the game to new and old players alike. Securing the awards is simple, play in any instanced PvE or PvP matches this week, January 30th to February 6th, and you will receive a limited edition pet, a miniature edition of the boss Switchblade. The second gift takes a bit more to earn, as in you actually have to do something. Players that participate in the special player-managed PvP tournaments will receive a dragon-themed helmet in celebration of the Year of the Dragon. The winning team of the tournament will receive exclusive flair and even a cash prize! If that isn’t enough for you, Hi-Rez has even added appearance and flair item from the past to the ‘Burning Fashion’ vendor in Dome City, so get them at a discount while you still can!

Global Agenda has reached a grand milestone for any MMOG. If you haven’t tried Global Agenda there’s no better time than now to give it a whirl. It’s free, so what’s stopping you?!

Once again, Happy Birthday to you, Global Agenda, and congratulations on the achievement Hi-Rez. We hope the next two more years are even better. I would have sent you guys a cake, but I didn’t know what flavor you guys would have liked. So I just ate it.

/nomnomnom

Global Agenda: Free Agent Content Patch Changes Business Model. Again.

7 April 2011 | 3 Comments » | iTZKooPA

At what point can we consider this a concrete industry trend. It seems if a title isn’t holding a healthy amount of subscribers, a number which depends on the title, the game will make its way to the free-to-play model (Could Fallen Earth be next?). Dungeons & Dragons did it, Champions Online followed and EverQuest II has special servers to accommodate that part of its fanbase. Heck, Lord of the Rings Online, a title that was doing fine by all accounts, transformed because Turbine made gobs of money from DDO: EU’s transition. That company struck gold twice.

Hi-Rez Studios announced today that its third-person sci-fi shooter Global Agenda will be joining the freemium ranks when the Free Agent content patch releases in mid-April. To date, the company hasn’t charged a single subscription fee, modifying from a subscription model to the Guild Wars style ‘pay for expansions’ model when Sandstorm, the previous large content patch, was released in June. Hi-Rez Studios refused to charged subscription fees until it felt the game was of adequate polish.

I did mention that Patch v1.4 is a content patch, right? The aptly titled Free Agent will include new high level content in the form of a Dome Defense mission, a Capture The Flag-style Mercenary map with pilotable robots and revamps to all specialization trees (FINALLY!). Additional content and tweaks weren’t detailed, but are promised.

Obviously, F2P titles make their money off of cash shops, and Hi-Rez is already promoting a premiere item, Elite Agent status. The one-time purchase ($19.99) gives players all sorts of perks including increased XP, credits and Elite loot, selectable Mercenary maps and more. Standard boosters will continue to be made available for all players.

Gamers that currently own Global Agenda will be upgraded to Elite Agent status upon relaunch for free.

F2P customers really do get full access to the game. Hit the jump to see all the perks to Elite Agents and the guarantees to F2P gamers. Continue Reading