Tags: pvp, rating, skill

A question that has been popping up often on the official forums lately is "how do those Skill Rating stars get calculated, and how do they play into matchmaking?"

According to Erez Goren, the lead designer of Global Agenda, the system in use is "a modified version of TrueSkill." For those who haven't heard of it, TrueSkill is a rating system developed by Microsoft which they employ for matchmaking on the Xbox Live gaming service.

Tags: launch, official, release

February 1st, 2010 is launch day for Global Agenda. The servers are scheduled to come up at Noon US Eastern Standard Time, which is 9 AM Pacific Time, or 17:00 GMT. This is the planned time, but keep an eye on GAServerStatus on Twitter for any potential updates.

Tags: conquest, scott zier, video

In a YouTube video recently posted, Hi-Rez Studios' Scott Zier walks us through Conquest, the persistent campaign component of Global Agenda.

Tags: go play, head start, live

Not much to say here... go play!

Tags: ava, oceania, stew chisam

Since the schedule for the initial AvA zones was posted a few days ago, there's been some concerned expressed from Oceanic and other "odd time of day" players about the gap in coverage of AvA zone openings. HiRezStew has posted on the forums to offer an explanation for the current schedule and a look at how things are going to progress from there. The full content of the post is after the jump.

Tags: Erez Goren, massively, podcast, todd harris

Throughout the course of development we've seen Todd Harris all over the place when it comes to interviews, Q&As, et cetera - but it's far less frequent that we see the big cheese, Erez Goren himself, responding to questions from gaming sites, let alone on a podcast discussing it in real time. Today Massively released the latest episode of their "Massively Speaking" podcast (#86) which features both Todd and Erez talking about Global Agenda.

Tags: download, install, launch, live, release

For those eagerly waiting, the "Global Agenda Live" client is now available for installation via the Steam client. While the servers are not scheduled to open for the beginning of the limited play period until later in the week, you can begin downloading the client (6.5 GB) now so as to be ready as soon as they do come up, and the ability to reserve your name once installed is also live (right-click game in list, choose Manage Game Account...).

Tags: guide, robotics, septumus

Now that Global Agenda's official release is less than a week away, it seems like a good time to be preparing for competitive play the best you can. One way to improve your own play is to draw on the knowledge of others, and Septumus is hoping to help you do just that by sharing his knowledge of the Robotics class in the Ultimate Robotics Guide. It's the first of what we hope to be many guides posted on HexAgenda.

Tags: escapist, interview, todd harris

There's a new video up on The Escapist talking with Todd Harris, focusing mostly on the similarities and differences between the subscription and non-subscription portions of the game. Take a look!

Tags: interview, michal adam, pax

         It's been a while since PAX but it's stream of interesting info is still flowing. I've dragged myself away from the beta long enough to finalize these short interviews, graciously given by the devs at the show. The game is constantly evolving but these glances behind the scenes haven't lost their relevance.
 
         I first met with associate producer and PR specialist Michal Adam who gave me a few insights into the marketing process. Unfortunately, I ran into some technical difficulties with my audio recorder but with the background noise of the loud convention floor, this turned out to be the preferable option.