The Agency HQ has gone undercover and found some screen shots to share with us!

Our contingency plan is starting to show some success. We've gathered some new camera shots and present them to you for analysis.

Some of these have been seen before, but were missing from the gallery. And if you haven't checked out the pictures from the ION trailer, make sure you do.

They've got a great collection going over there.  Their operatives are certainly being pushed to the limit!

As I previously reported, OGR went to the SOE Seattle event that happened during the ION gaming conference last week!  Now that the Friday Ravecast is done, it's available for download, and you can hear all about what happened at the event on the recording.

If you're looking for pictures, Leonai has those for us too!

You can find the original write up of the experience here, while you're waiting for the Ravecast to download!

The Agency HQ has come through yet again with a new piece of intel regarding SOE's upcoming MMO, The Agency.

This time, they have seven exclusive shots of weaponry and some operative cards in their gallery!

Online Gaming Radio's Leonai had a chance to visit SOE's Seattle office a few weeks back during a super seekrit get together they were having, and she has some coverage for us up on her blog!

Walking in showed a few others walking around, some with early drinks, some just talking and hanging out. I got a chance to quickly talk with Hal who reminded me of someone who’s had a little too much caffeine in his system, but he’s in Seattle. If you’re going to live in Seattle, you may as well be part of the caffeine scene, right?

In any event, this was more a mingling level of an event. Lots of people talking and making light conversation, lots of awesome artwork hidden in the back where there wasn’t supposed to be photography, an ice sculpture of a gun, and an open bar for most of the evening.

Hal is, of course, lead designer of the upcoming MMO, The Agency!  If you're looking for more details, be sure to listen to the Ravecast tomorrow on Online Gaming Radio!

A fan site for SOE's upcoming MMO, The Agency, has released part two of their interview with Hal Milton, lead designer of the game.

[00G] On to operatives, which I think are one of the truly unique and really cool concepts in the Agency. A recent preview mentioned a roster limit of 100. At Fan Faire you mentioned that the roster limit was based upon your overall ranking / level. Can you give examples of how the roster limit would work.

[HM] All final numbers are subject to change as we test and balance the feature. With that in mind, we start you off with very few operatives. As you increase your rank, the number of Operatives you can have in your roster, and the number you can have actively doing stuff for you will increase.

We’re setting a limit that gives players lots of flexibility, but also ensures that players aren’t able to collect all the operatives in the game. That allows those players who don’t care much about Operatives to generalize, get whatever ones they get, and successfully advance their Agent through the story.

However, if you’re one of the ones that really care about operatives and want to specialize in either crafting, providing services, or providing your joint agency with stuff; well then you’ll be focus on collecting the best combat support social operatives, or stealth operatives that meet your goals.

You’ll just need to balance out what Operatives you keep versus which ones you recruit over time. You’ll want to keep advancing to keep expanding your options.

Read the entire second part here.

SOE's development of upcoming MMO The Agency has turned from cross platform support for both the PS3 and the PC, to not allowing cross platform play.  In an interview this week with GamesRadar senior world designer Kevin O’Hara only commented on whether or not they should allow cross platform spying.

As well as a de rigueur stylised cartoony look, Sony Online are currently developing The Agency for the PlayStation 3 with half the team playtesting with controllers and the other half with mice and keyboards. However, whether PC players will be able to spy on console players is still undecided according to O’Hara: “We could allow it, but the bigger question is should we allow it? We’re well aware of the arguments against doing so. In fact, our own internal rule is: we won’t compromise one platform’s gameplay just to support both.”

But last time we heard from SOE's president John Smedley he bet against cross platform play.

“If I was a betting man, I’d bet that we don’t allow it,” said Smedley of cross-platform play. “You’ll still be able to log in with your character on either [PS3 or PC].”

SOE still plans on giving cross-platform play a shot, but the shooter mechanics of The Agency make for a tough translation between a console’s controller and a PC’s mouse and keyboard setup.

It remains to be seen which options will be available for both platforms, and how things will work, technically, for both types of players.

One of the first fan sites for SOE's upcoming MMO, The Agency, has posted their first interview with the development team.  Hal Milton, Lead Designer for the game answered quite a few of our burning questions!

[00G] You’ve mentioned an intel camera for taking pictures of handoff’s, liason’s, etc. How is this used in the game? What benefits does it give?

[HM] So intel is a pretty big system. There will be visual intel, physical intel, and maybe another type which I’m not going to mention. You generate visual intel by bringing out your camera and taking pictures of events or objects that are going to highlighted when you look through the view finder. That means that A) I see a teddy bear with a gun sticking out of it’s stomach, “I bet that’s an intel object that I’ve never seen before”, I take a picture and get credit for it. B) I see a liason between two people, I bring up my camera, “Hey look that’s an intel object!”, take a picture of it and get credit.

It's really a huge look at a game we haven't seen much from!  For more details on The Agency, including our own coverage, try the game list entry!

There's a lot of excitement about this upcoming game, not the least of which stems from it being a dual platform game!  Hooked takes a look at the PS3 version....which in no way currently differs from the PC version!

The missions in The Agency fare very different from the usual “go kill 10 wolves, return with their pelts”. Missions (not quests) are more epic and definitely more intense, involving infiltrating, assassinating, sabotaging, stealing, impersonating and more. Spies from UNITE often solve matters using handy gadgets and silenced weapons while the Paramilitary Global Operations Network (ParaGON - the mercs) fellows rather use their latest piece of explosive equipment. This doesn’t mean that if you are part of either one of those agencies you have to play it that way but rather that each one of them favors one form of playing over the other. So whichever way you address a situation you have got to know what you are good at, gear up so you have the correct skills and make sure you are in the right role before playing. It’s good to know that if you’re no good at, say, sneaking you could easily switch outfits for instant role change.

There's a ton more, and we have our own Agency coverage for you as well!