Alpha Protocol - Roundtable Discussion

Back in June there was a press event to show off Obsidian's Alpha Protocol - you may recall some of the previews that resulted.  There was also a roundtable discussion with five developers lead by Chris Parker and the invited press, which has now been posted between the Sega site (Part 1) and Obsidian (Part 2).  Here's a bit from Part 2, which focuses more on the actual gameplay:

Do the actions by the player in previous missions affect the world through news or mission set up in the next mission?

Nathan: We wanted to keep all of the missions available regardless of what the player is doing. The actions of the player will affect the news but it will also affect all the different missions across the world. In particular, you’ll end up seeing a lot of the little things you did show up in the end game. It will show up depending on who you allied with, which factions are friendly with you. They may come in and hinder or help your ability to complete the end mission.

Is there some sort of central hub that allows you to roam around freely, before actually going into a mission?

Chris: We don’t actually have a central hub. We considered that but we ultimately decided to limit most of the free roam aspects of the game down to the safe houses because they’re really quick to use, you can get all the stuff you need to take care of and get right back into the action. So out in these safe houses you’re able to do prep, you are able to contact people, have conversations or whatever else you want to do. So we kept all of the free roam aspects limited to the safe houses and took the more exploration aspects that you apply to a big hub and placed those into the actual missions you are going on rather than using the hub.