Originally Posted by Greyed

And I don't think FPS players dislike levelling up. BF2 and BF2142 both employ that mechanic through the unlocks. Several popular mods to CS (the original, not source) employed it. Both PS and WWIIOL employed it. The difference between FPS "levels" and traditional RPG "levels" is that being higher level in an RPG means you're more specialized and should win against someone of a far lower level whereas in an FPS it means you're able to do more but doesn't mean you should be neigh invincible against those of a lower level.

Exactly what Greyed said. FPS's can easily get monotonous if you play them enough... even something as simple as the achievements in the Battlefield series made them more interesting. Not just because it's something to do, and to aim for, but because it helps level up! The leveling then increases what you can do in the game, though you could get there without any achievements if you simply played enough. Equating to the more you played the game, the more you got out of it. That's something which FPS's without levels miss out on, especially since they are rarely Pay to Play. And Battlefield managed to make itself rather succesful, going down the leveling road was obviously a good decision.

Global Agenda is even more interesting for having a leveling aspect, that both unlocks more skills and devices, and makes you slightly more powerful - not so much that you can pwn someone by being a few levels higher, but enough so that you do feel more powerful and certainly improved. On top of that, it IS pay to play, if you WANT to, so there will be more content. If not, you can even buy it like any other FPS - AND still level up.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a huge FPS, with infantry, vehicles, air targets and whatnot all over the place. I think every FPSer wants more interaction like that because in real life vast distances and large numbers of soldiers fight, so it's more realistic. As well as the sense of achievement when you win something that large. Or even just for the chance to shoot more people.

The fact is, the problems with making a top notch FPS game with that many players still remain. You can't fault every game currently being produced for not being like that yet. The only real difference to modern games is GA has gone in almost the opposite direction and lowered the match population. However, they are taking the game in a new direction, one focusing on tactics and teamwork from the start, with fast paced combat (similar to TF2), classes and cohesive teamwork between them (similar to TF2 and BF2142), very nice visual graphics, linked matches (so that some battles can effect others), revisiting an overal territory system (as seen in PS, which became very successful) as well as combining the replayability of MMOs, with the action of an FPS.

That's the real dream for why people want an MMOFPS amalgamation: to blend the strengths of both genres, and in doing so, eliminating eachothers weakness'. As far as I see it, GA is making a brilliant attempt at this - by mixing succesful ideas/projects from multiple games, and adding in their own flavour and ideas along the way. Whether it succeeds, is still in question... but I still think it could interest TG quite a bit. We shall see.

*Unreal Engine 3, nothing very new - but then again, it's worked wonders for plenty of other games, and must be good to be used so much.