Characters

Faction

There are 2 factions within the game UNITE (United Nations Intelligence and Tactical Experts) and ParaGON (Paramilitary Global Operations Network).

  • UNITE – the classic James Bond type spy. They have the coolest gadgets, the best clothes, and can get into the nicest establishments.

The United Nations Intelligence and Tactical experts are the world’s most elite secret agents. They are at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, corruption, and rogue states around the globe. UNITE agents are deadly specialists in stealth and subterfuge, with access to technology the public has never seen before.

  • ParaGON – rough and tumble mercenaries. They have gadgets too, although you might find them duct taped together with Soviet era technology, perhaps even tubes sticking out the sides.

The Paramilitary Global Operations Network is on the largest private armies in the world, serving clients both upstanding and unsavory. ParaGON’s efficient, honorable, and often unconventional mercenaries can be found putting duct tape and high explosives to new and exciting uses on every continent.

What we know about factions in the game:

  • The 2 factions will not be able to group together, except for limited crossever missions at the end of each act.
  • They will have different mission lists completely.
  • There will be some cross over missions where a team from each faction will be in the same mission but with different objectives.

You are what you wear

Most MMO’s require you to choose a class when you create your character. If after a few hours you don’t like the class, you need to create another character and then are stuck playing through the same intro content one more time. The Agency gets rid of classes, instead your skills will be defined by the clothes you wear and your experience in those clothes. The following types of outfits are available:

    You can see me, drat!Support reporting for duty!Nice Alias

  • Combat – if you want to blow things up, put on your combat outfit and start shooting. Specialties include:
    • Weapons Specialist - This speciality can use all the weapons and is the best at all of them
    • Tactical Specialist - This speciality is the combat guy that you want to have up front to breach doors, to provide good suppression fire, etc. They’re the ones that really help you advance you advance through the space.
  • Stealth – if you feel like sneaking around, try the stealth outfit. Specialties include:
    • Spec Ops - This speciality is all about infiltration, disabling security, etc.
    • Psy Ops / Assassin - This speciality is about manipulating enemy AI, getting close enough to do stealth take downs, confusing them. Essentially the kind of things that you’d assume a mezzer would do in a standard fantasy game.
  • Support – if you want to buff the others, heal them, use auto turrets, then support is for you. Specialties include:
    • Field Tech - this specialist can lay down turrets, custom check points, rehab certain features on a character like armor repairs, etc.
    • Field Medic - this speciality is about reviving, adding buffs, clearing buffs, etc.
    • Both support roles are very capable with short and medium range weapons.
  • Alias – try entering some biker bar dressed in a tuxedo, or entering a high class casino in combat fatigues carrying a big machine gun, and you’ll find out quickly that access to different areas requires different clothing. You’ll be able to purchase different outfits which when combined with influence you’ve earned will create different alias’. These alias’ are used to gain access to different locations within the world. Check out the Alias page for more information on aliases, accessories, and credentials.

As you use each type of specialty you will gain experience for that type of suit that will give you access to new skills. This leads to a couple of really intriguing ideas:

  • When looking for a group if you don’t have someone to play the healer, no problem, throw on your Field Medic suit. This should improve the dynamics of looking for group members drastically.
  • Say you’re hardcore and you play a ton, but have a friend that does not. Use one of the specialties only when you play with that friend and you’ll be on a somewhat even playing level. Although because your rank will be higher you’ll have access to better weapons and gadgets that they might not have.

As you gain rank within your agency you’ll gain access to new versions of each of the outfit types (combat, stealth, and support). We don’t know but think that these new versions may have more advanced skills associated with them. We do know that the higher ranked outfits will definitely look cooler.

Character Progression

Character progression is different than in most MMO’s as you progress in 3 different categories.

  • Agency Rank – this is most akin to level in other MMO’s. It is based upon all experience earned while playing. Higher ranks gives access to higher rank outfits, weapons, gadgets, items, etc. As well as the ability to have more active operatives and a larger operative roster.
  • Specialty Rank – as you earn experience towards your Agency Rank it is also applied to the specialty outfit that you used to earn it.
    • This new experience earns new titles for that specialty. These new titles unlock new skills.
    • There are currently three titles within each rank, and five ranks for each specialty.
  • Weapon Expertise – as you use weapon types you will earn experience for that weapon which will unlock new weapon specific skills.
    • Weapon experience is applied to a weapon family. Weapon families include pistols, shotguns, battle rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, etc.
    • Within the family, experience is applied to the equiped weapon’s rank. So if you are using a rank E weapon, that experience will apply to the weapon families rank E.
    • This experience will earn badges within the families rank. The badges open up new skills.
    • You will the ability use weapons of the same rank as your overall rank. Even if you haven’t used the lower rank versions of those weapons. You’ll gain the extra damage and faster refire rates of the weapon, but you would not have access to the skills from the lower ranks.
    • You would have the ability to go back and earn these skills by using a lower rank weapon and getting experience in that rank.
    • Some skills in the higher ranks might also be dependent on skills within the lower rank. This is designed to keep demand up for lower ranked weapons.
    • There are currently five badges within each of the five weapon ranks.

Character Looks Customization

All agents can’t look the same, it just wouldn’t be right. The team has plans for tons of customization for characters to allow them to stand out in the crowd.

  • Players will have the ability to create an action figure that they want to use, and make it look like they want to look. First the players will choose a body type, ie. thin, tall, sturdy, fat, etc. This body type is for allowing the player to look the way that they want to and will not affect game play.
  • Different body types are available for each faction.
  • Players will be able choose a head type, there probably will not be sliders for the head due to the following.
  • The players expressions will be dynamic based upon what’s going on around them. Normally in an MMO expressions are stone faced, you might emote and it switches to a smile, then back to stone. The agency will dynamically change the expressions so that the characters look like more than stick figures.
  • You will be able to change skin tint, hair color, and the usual gamut of choices in order to build a character that you can identify with.
  • You’ll be able to purchase new outfits and accessories to change your look. You’ll need these to create aliases in order to gain access to new locations in the game world.

Gadgets

What kind of agent would be caught dead without cool gadgets. Actually, most likely they would be caught and dead without their gadgets. The Agency plans to have all sorts of neat gadgets created by your operatives. Some examples seen so far include:

  • Cars – a fancy sports car sporting a rear dropper, stinger missiles, side mounted droppers/rocket launchers, hood mounted machine guns, and a front mounted rocket launcher.
  • Weapons – neat weapons and upgrades for weapons.
  • Night Vision Goggles
  • Grenades
  • Turrets
  • Radar Systems
  • Checkpoints - support will be able to create checkpoints that you’ll go to if you die instead of going back to the field HQ med center.
  • Hal also talked about potential to teleport to dropped checkpoints if you rejoin the mission, or have someone else join the mission.

They also mentioned that if you’ve crafted a neat weapon but end up needing to drop it during a mission to pick something else up, that you’ll still have it when you go back to your headquarters.