"America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism.

This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world."

Dinesh D'Souza

Happy Independence Day from Everyone at 3-PG

"There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada with its virile, aspiring, cultured, and generous-hearted people."
Winston Churchill

Happy Canada Day from Everyone at 3-PG

A battle-hardened MMO player I am not. I've dabbled in WoW and a few beta/free2play short runs, but that sums up much of my MMO experience. Global Agenda by Hi Rez Studios captures my attention in a way other games haven't. It has been described as "Team Fortress 2 goes Sci-fi and Awesome." It is no surprise that our 3-PG community (a die hard TF2 group) has taken a shining to it, as well. This game is a part of a continuing genre of multi-player militaristic futuristic shooters*. Virgin Interactive Entertainment's 2D 3rd person online shooter Infantry was the first of this style I had any real experience with. It was great until Sony bought up the rights and started the subscription fee. It had vast maps on distant planets with tons of customizable gear.

Then there was Planetside. When I saw this game, I thought "It is Infantry with upgraded graphics and a fantastic sprawling meta game war!" It was fun, briefly. In all honesty, the game was a real let down and not really worth the cost. But the concept was a good idea. Futuristic quasi military groups duking it out over territory and upgrading gear all the while. As I said, Global Agenda continues this tradition and concept. At the moment it is an entirely instance based MMORPGFPS. Players have their choice of four classes: Assault, Robotics, Recon, and Medic. Each has their own specialties and spec trees, which is to be expected. These four classes have often been compared to TF2 classes for reference. Assault combines aspects of the Heavy, Soldier, Demoman, and a hint of Pyro (some weapons light shit on fire). Robotics is essentially the engineer class. Recon encompasses the specialties of the Scout, Sniper, and Spy. The Medic...is the medic. (Come on people.)

Once you have your class selected there is a helpful tutorial that introduces you to the basic mechanics and a little bit of story. I really do mean a little bit of story. Unlike a lot of MMORPGs, Global Agenda hasn't quite invested much time in a storyline for the game. This seems to phase very few players, whose main goal seems to be, "shoot stuff." Stuff meaning other people. Basically it is the future, the government is oppressive and cannot be stopped. As a result small bands (agencies) of resistance fighters (agents) do what they can to undermine the status quo with force. The government does not like this, so they have formed counter agencies to stop the agents. You are sprung from becoming a potential counter agent to join the resistance. You have no choice in the matter. Blah blah blah. Eventually the story goes and sits in a corner and you can actually start playing the game. Right now there are PvE zones for 4 players and 10v10 PvP zones. The PvP matches include Capture Point maps and Payloads (again very similar to TF2). In addition to all of that there is an ongoing meta game/territory war based around specific PvP matches. Players join up into Agencies (read: Guilds/Clans) and they have the option of fighting over a hex map of territories for a season. The Agency with the most territory at the end of the season, wins.

Global Agenda is ramping up to release a new expansion, Sandstorm. It is to bring in new weapons and customization for players and offer an open world environment along with higher PvP player caps in instances. The game is getting ready to go through some big changes and receive some hearty patches and updates. The biggest change has already happened and it is the driving force in 3PG's interest/excitement for the game. Global Agenda has gone free to play. This is an ongoing trend we are starting to see with many MMOs. The game is on sale through Steam for 33% off until July 4th. Buy it while you can and join 3PG as we attempt to conquer this beast called Global Agenda.

*Author's Note: Notice I didn't include anything from the Halo series. You can't point a gun with your thumb, people.

For those of you interested the new Fallout MMO made by interplay is now accepting beta sign-ups.  Now whether I want to to get sucked into a MMO again is another story, trying out the beta looks to be interesting.  Be warned though that this is made by Interplay and not Bethesda.  Bethesda only made Fallout 3 and the expansion packs while Interplay made the Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics.  There was even a brutal court battle between the two.

Hit up the link for information about the game, the court battle and the link for the actual website for more information.  Be warned that the website is cracking under the stress of signups, so be patient.  Always a good sign for a beta signup.... Right ?!?

Interplay's Beta Signup Page

Court Battle