SOE Officially Announces The Agency, FreeRealms

Today the embargo ended for news on Sony Online Entertainment's two newest Massively Multiplayer Online Games. One, entitled The Agency is slated for the PS3 and PC formats, and will feature a spies and mercenaries theme so far unseen in the Massive genre. The other is FreeRealms, a fantasy title deliberately aimed at non-traditional gamers. It will feature whimsical gameplay and offer users the ability to create their own content, another first for a Massive title. Gamasutra has an interview with Matt Wilson, the studio director of SOE-Seattle, discussing the inspiration behind The Agency . "I think our big inspiration to develop this game actually came from watching movies. If you pay attention to all of the summer blockbusters there are lot of movies that come out around the spy/espionage genre. Whether it's James Bond, or the Bourne series all the way from Mission Impossible or even TV shows like 24 or Alias, it is a really big genre of information that is out there."

Comments

And here.

[Pojut]

And here, my friends, will SOE feel the full brunt of the backlash of their raping and pillaging many games in the MMO genre.

The very fact that SOE is at the helm will cause many people to not even want to READ about these titles, much less play them (and yes, I am one of the many folks pissed off at what SOE did to completely DESTROY Star Wars Galaxies which was, at one time, probably the best and deepest MMO around)

Re:And here.

[Bieeanda]

Amen to that. If what they did to SWG is any indication of their attitude toward 'non-traditional' games and content, aimed at the so-called masses, then SomeUnlikelyDefinitionofFree-Realms is dead already.

It certainly doesn't help that SOE has gone from being the mill against which all MMO grinds are measured, to becoming the industry's elephant graveyard, where the likes of Matrix: Online, Vanguard and SWG go to die.

Re:And here.

[WCMI92]

"And here, my friends, will SOE feel the full brunt of the backlash of their raping and pillaging many games in the MMO genre.

The very fact that SOE is at the helm will cause many people to not even want to READ about these titles, much less play them (and yes, I am one of the many folks pissed off at what SOE did to completely DESTROY Star Wars Galaxies which was, at one time, probably the best and deepest MMO around)"

Yep. SOE has sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind.

They have the absolute worst reputation amongst all MMO developers and are probably the most despised company amongst MMO developers.

Hopefully soon we will have our Pre-CU SWG back, it's already playable with most combat working over at www.swgemu.com

To those thinking of trying those games: DONT.

SOE has and WILL make drastic gameplay changes, including completely invalidating your character achievements even deleting whole aspects of the game! That is what they did to SWG. If they did it before they could do it again.

SOE is not trustworthy enough to invest the time that a MMO requires into.

first for a massive?

[the dark hero]

The other is FreeRealms, a fantasy title deliberately aimed at non-traditional gamers. It will feature whimsical gameplay and offer users the ability to create their own content, another first for a Massive title.

That...uhhh...sounds like Second Life with a little WoW thrown in for good measure.

Remember SWG?

[cmize]

After what they did to Star Wars: Galaxies I will never play another game connected in any way to SOE. Why put in the time, effort and money when they will inevitably make drastic changes to the game in a lame attempt to match WoW's subscriber base?