The Agency has come to New Eden!
Wait, what?
No, not that Agency, though probably about four people even recognize that graphic these days. No, The Agency is the latest event in EVE Online.
Welcome to The Agency, not a spy MMO
Unlike the never realized SOE spy MMO, or past events in EVE Online, The Agency here lacks for any background lore that I can detect. The announcement page about the event gets straight to what it is, but not why it came about in the game. CCP Falcon must have been too busy watching Game of Thrones in his disturbingly symmetrical sitting room to get to that.
Lacking for official lore, I went and made up my own.
The Agency appears to be the capsuleer temp agency for New Eden, existing for those pod pilots who can’t be bothered to maintain a relationship with their local mission agent.
And it is a temp agency with an advertising budget! You cannot get through logging in without seeing its logo on the launcher, the character selection screen, and of course in the UI once your in game both on the neocom and up what I will call the “info corner” of your screen where you see navigation and star system information.
If only the CSM election could get such penetration into the game, right?
Every day you get some tasks you can pick up and complete.
The Agency menu of tasks
Some of them are easy, while others are oddly specific… or exclusionary, if you choose to look at it from that direction. I logged in with an Alpha account I have been training up… just in case I need such a thing… and saw The Agency trying to tempt me with running a combat site in a Tech III cruiser.
My Alpha in his best ship
Not only can’t he fly such a ship, an Alpha can’t even train the skills to fly one. (And such ships are called Strategic Cruisers elsewhere, so yet another terminology thing with the game.)
Of course, he could train for it if he was an Omega clone… which is to say a subscribers… and there just happens to be a sale on subscriptions currently.
Hey, here is what you need! Help offset the current decline!
Of course, even if he subscribed, he could train up in time to complete that task as the event only lasts through August 1st… making it a temp temp agency of sorts. Maybe he should load up on PLEX and buy skill injectors.
Meanwhile, The Agency is like any temp agency in that they make it difficult to get paid. You don’t get ISK for running their task but tokens that you can use to buy things in the company store.
You also get a 30 minute booster applied to your character when you log in… so if it is useful, you had better undock and take advantage of it quickly. Of course, it isn’t likely to be all that useful.
A Speed Boost only Asher could love
At least the booster seems to affected by your skills, so I got about an hour of boost out of mine, even though I did not undock.
All of which makes me sound pretty cynical I suppose. I’ve been told it is a genetic disposition in my family. But my main characters… the ones who could, for example, fly a Tech III cruiser… are out on a deployment in null sec space where hostiles abound. And I likely won’t be back before the event is over, so I won’t be able to participate directly. (Though I’ll be looking for some of those reward SKINs on the market later.)
Pulling out from my own issues, if this gets people undocking from stations and out and blowing things up, then it is likely a good thing for the game. It just doesn’t feel quite like other events. Who knew I needed the lore so badly?
Anyway, if any of this confuses you, CCP is holding a live developer demo of the event tomorrow, July 20th, at 19:00 UTC.
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