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

Ten Ton Hammer: It seems like earlier in development, we saw more screenshots and concept art with more pronounced glowing poison / healing vials on the medic’s “silhouette” or distinctive shape. Did you reduce the silhouette of the medic, putting the glowing vials on the belt and backpack, or am I dreaming all of this?

Todd: No, we still have these tubes of healing or toxins – that’s still the main element of the silhouette, whether it’s on the backpack or belt. Probably what you’ve observed is a much larger library of suits for the players to choose from, and some different ones have been featured in videos and screenshots. Over time we’ve been introducing new suits for every class – they still maintain the basic silhouette, but do have some variations. For the medic, some of the suits have more tubes, some have fewer tubes. It’s really going to be up to the player which look they want to go with. Between the suit choices and the different ways to dye your suit (players have three different dyes they can apply to their suit regardless of class – primary, secondary, and emissive), we preserve the silhouette but also have a lot of variety on the battlefield. You’ll have some players that look like pure medics and others who are trying to disguise what they are.

Mobility is key for Medics in Global Agenda.

Ten Ton Hammer: Mobility seems like a pretty big thing for medics, whether rushing to heal someone or making a quick escape after a well-placed poison DoT. Are there any special skills that allow medics to move around faster or more efficiently?

Todd: A popular skill choice that’s not limited to Medic (because it’s in the balanced skill tree, so any class can take it), is a skill that decreases the power consumed by your jetpack. It lets you fly a lot farther and longer without draining your power. It only costs one skill point in the current iteration to get it, so that’s a very powerful choice for medics, whether they want to get to their allies or out of danger quickly. Medics are very, very active because they’re usually the primary target, maybe of an unseen recon sniper. They’re moving around quite a bit.

Ten Ton Hammer: It’s good to hear that medic’s can become their own sort of M*A*S*H* units.  (laughter) Regarding the user interface, I know that sometimes healers can have a tough time seeing who needs healed in the heat of the battle. Have you done anything with the UI to make a medic’s life easier?

Todd: One, we have a variety of HUD elements that you can enable or disable based on player preference.  The medic uses most, if not all, of them. They typically use a team panel - which is a fairly conventional UI element for MMOs, a little less so for shooters  - with which they can see everyone on their side and their health at a glance. Two, if you mouse over players with your reticule, you’ll see their health bar. So most of your attention is going between looking at your reticule, because you do have to aim when using both your damage devices and your healing devices, and team status panel. We wanted to provide medics a way of tracking distant teammates too, perhaps a robotics that’s setting up a position over in the corner.

Those are the two primary UI mechanics used by medics. As far as players looking for medics, we wanted to give them some tools as well. So there’s a key that shouts out “Medic!” and puts an icon over the injured players head. Also, on the minimap (in the lower right corner), where you see enemy players as red and your teammates as blue, medics are shown as green.

Ten Ton Hammer thanks Todd Harris and Hi-Rez Studios for another great Global Agenda class Q&A. Tune in next week for our fourth and final class interview, where we’ll discuss master tacticians and droid wranglers of Global Agenda - the Robotics class.