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.