Colin Torretta

Haha, Ben -- you know I already covered this right? http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/26/impressions-the-agency-ps3-pc/

Though Wilson and his partner were playing together on separate platforms, cross-platform functionality might not be in place at launch. The development team is still struggling to balance the two platforms' controls, so that a keyboard and mouse setup isn't superior to using a PS3 gamepad -- or vice versa. There's also the issue of patching. Traditionally, MMOs receive a steady stream of patches to fix bugs, add new content and tweak gameplay. On the PC, a patch can be released the day it's finished, but on the PS3, all patches have to go through a certification delay

Gotta read your own site! ;)

-Colin

Still too early to tell for subby fees. They mentioned a variety of options last year, but when I was there last month they said they had not decided yet. They go into it a bit more during my interview with them which should be up this week.

I would assume it would be a BD game though.

-Colin

Err, if it makes it any clearer what I mean -- this is not an SOE formed spin-off studio. SOE bought the company that Matt Wilson founded and renamed it.

-Colin

The company was formed explicitly for console MMO development -- it's a bunch of ex-Msft guys who got mad at how Msft wouldn't let them make a console MMO (cough -- Mythica). They're just doing a PC one as well, since financially that makes sense -- with the PC market being tried-and-true for MMOs.

-Colin

Yeah no subbie fee. Just the initial cost like in BF2.

Not sure about the demo, but I know there's a beta coming up soon!

To be fair to Russ, I was asking a lot of more technical and gameplay specific questions, and he is the Art Director -- so it's not entirely his forte. I may have been too hard on him. :)

-Colin T.

Fall '09 -- no specific date. They sounded quite confident that they were going to nail that time frame.

-Colin T.

There is friendly fire on, but the damage is reduced by 50% or so (sounds like they're still tweaking it).

They've put a lot of effort into making sure griefers are easy to take care of, and I know they have systems setup to punish naughty players and make it easy for teams or squads to kick out somebody who is TKing. I don't know specifics though...

-Colin T.