Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Hi-Rez Studio's Global Agenda did a lot of things right at launch, but they have come to realize that there were also a lot of things missing. No time has been wasted in getting a massive overhaul setup for the 1 month anniversary for the game, which deployed March 2nd. Perhaps the one thing you can derive from all of these notes and changes is that this developer listens. This is becoming a rarer trait in the gaming developer world as some of the finest and most creative minds are being cramped and having features cut by publishers (I'm looking at you, Supreme Commander 2, for removing all semblance of the old Total Annihilation economy!) So let's get down to business--what will affect you from this list? 

Now you can find your favorite strike team members easier than ever!

- Added a Friends List Feature 
  Oh, thank God. With a simple /friend command, you can now pull up a menu that enables you to keep track of all those goofballs you run into inside and outside of the game that you don't mind seeing again. Of course, functionality doesn't end there; you can set notes, send messages, and even invite players to your team from this menu. Setting notes enables you to finally keep track of who has a leveled and geared alternate class, rather than having to beg in alliance for one more medic to defend your territory. 
 
- Separate PvP Queues 
  The major benefit of this is that you never have to queue for that mission type you hate; you can do what you want to do in the PvP queue now. Unfortunately, there were separate PvP queues in beta and the end result was lots of queues rarely, if ever, going into a match. We'll see how it plays out now that the game is live. 
 
- Option to Balance your PvE Team 
  It's happened to us all--we queue for PvE, and get thrown into a team that is 3 Recons and a Robotics. 2 Assaults and 2 Recons. 4 Medics. Ridiculous teams will happen and your only choice is to run with it or decline and go back to the queue. Since optimal teams fare much better in Maximum Security than sub-optimal, this option will make doing those much easier. It basically guarantees 1 of each class will be assigned to your team, but your search time will likely rise greatly as a result. Make sure you don't alt-tab and miss your team finally coming together. 
 
- Major Crafting Overhauls 
  A whole lot went on in what has been considered one of the worst crafting systems of the millennium. First and foremost, one of the main ingredients, Plates, now drop twice as often. One of the major exploits to farm them quickly was to set up a turret farm around an alarm's spawn areas and constantly spawn Alarm Responder bots for fast loot. This has been fixed; they no longer drop anything. Now everything will drop more often, and more legitimately than a 4 Robotics team exploiting an infinite spawn. 
 
  All blueprints have been renamed so that they are actually associated with what they do. No longer do you have to search through 500 Alpha Analysers to find the one that increases AOE damage for your Assault. A lot of new recipes have been added that do not provide random benefits; they now provide a guaranteed type of proc such as Ranged Protection when crafted. Specialization of your gear will be much easier to craft and fund as a result. 
 
- Conquest Changes 
  Good news if you live in Europe or the Oceanic Regions--Hi-Rez has added two new zones that are more in line with your prime time, Anvil and Tradewind. You can also view a real-time combat log of who is attacking who in a Conquest Zone. This way you can see how territory is actually changing hands, and who is active at the moment.  

Some overhauls to AvA equipment have also been put in, namely the fact that an attack is now all-in. A loss equals a destroyed dropship. However, in the evet that you pick up your equipment, you no longer have a chance to randomly lose it as a result of losing and being looted. This was an undocumented ... “feature” that lost our alliance a lot of Vandals recently. Deployables for AvA have been nerfed and now deploy at a reasonable rate rather than near instantly. This will help to put an end to those annoying missile turrets, and their placement areas have been nerfed as well with improved collision size. 
 
  Perhaps the most important part of this patch is Conquest Map Rotation. If you play at the same time every night you probably defend the same territory every night. And you used to have to play the same map every time, over, and over, and over again. No more! Unless the hex contains a key facility, there are now multiple maps that will rotate through. 
 
Of course, there have been more general improvements to graphics and sound quality and effects as well as bug fixes all over the place. One of the major notes is that there are no real balance changes with this patch. The two conclusions you can come to from this announcement are that the developers are happy with the state of the game at the moment, or that they don't have enough data and feedback to make the changes just yet.  

It's nice to see that no massive bugs exist with the skills right out of the launch though. (Anyone remember the Seal of the Crusader bug that basically handed Paladins 40% faster attack speed and attack power with no penalty in World of Warcraft?) When a small developer can release a game bug-free and give the community what they ask for in short order like this first patch, it's proof that this game will continue to prosper for some time. If you'd like to see the full patch notes, they're available here!  See you in Dome City!