Planetside 2

[Ingmar]

Let me qualify then, he can be getting constantly rolled because his *side* is doing badly, but it shouldn't be because he's not participating in the larger social constructs/metagame.

EDIT: So for example, maybe the people who want to get all hardcore determine in some way where fights are happening, and what the consequences of a win/loss are, and then the sides are filled out by the pubbie types, etc.

[Ghambit]

Sure a 'soloer' could just login and shoot dudes, but as soon as he picked a mission-op or outfit he'd be at the mercy of the commander no (unless he chose to ignore the CO)?  Much the same as 2142, BF3, etc.
As solo as you think it can be, it really never is.

And in the latter games a CO can boot you from the squad.  

I mean, you're pretty much nixing half the game when you decide to completely lone wolf it.  Remind me how the objective/mission system worked in PS1 (if there even was one).

Anyways:

The mission system in PlanetSide 2 is partly automated and partly controlled by commanders and outfits. It provides focal points for players to attack and defend and to help players get into the fight a lot quicker than the Instant Action button in PlanetSide

edit:
We had a LOT of lone wolf types in WW2O, but they were always still within a squad's AO.  For instance, we had this multi-accounted soccer mom who just liked to run gear by herself back and forth between fronts; she was solo but she was still contributing mightily.  Eventually though, they just formed a "Quartermaster" Division and made her run it.     Then she was no longer truly solo.

[Ingmar]

Sure, all of that is true and it sounds like they've learned at least something based on that quote.

The idea I'm arguing against is the idea that it needs to be just like PS1. If it is just like PS1, it will end up just like PS1.

[Mrbloodworth]

Let me qualify then, he can be getting constantly rolled because his *side* is doing badly, but it shouldn't be because he's not participating in the larger social constructs/metagame.

EDIT: So for example, maybe the people who want to get all hardcore determine in some way where fights are happening, and what the consequences of a win/loss are, and then the sides are filled out by the pubbie types, etc.

The new mission system should do this. Its like a session, inside the wargame.

[01101010]

The new mission system should do this. Its like a session, inside the wargame.

Global Agenda?

[Sky]

When I said "solo" I was talking about "guy who logs in and doesn't have a guild or set group of people to play with". Can he hop on a transport somewhere and go shoot dudes and have fun without just getting constantly rolled? If he can't, game is dead. The end.

This.

[Ghambit]

It's possible the mission system may be the ONLY way you can get into the action, and since objectives are likely linked to xp and resources, there's really no benefit (or way even) to solo.  You may THINK you're going solo when you're stealth-hacking by yourself, but there's likely at least a few other people on the same mission who can interact with you even if it's AI-generated.

So in the sense you guys are talking about, if you get "rolled" it's EVERYONE on-mission getting rolled... not just you.  Want a solo shooter?  Go play Deus Ex.  'Cause they're not building this one with soloers in mind.

[Sky]

Not solo rambo, but as I said before, if I can't have an epic stealth hack/CE battle on the sidelines or just kind of tag along in a random fashion contributing to the general chaos; the game has failed for me.

If they build it just for PS1 vets, clans and organized players, they will fail. Period.

As you say, they will go play something else.

[Speedy Cerviche]

The bigtime  PS1 fans here have their perspectives schewed because the game has been distilled down to just hardcore players for so long. If PS2 is modestly successfully, then the big frontline battles will be populated by large blobs of players where basically anyone can show up and start pew pewing (so solo players). This was kind of the original gimmick of PS1, as opposed to normal fixed slot servers. You have a giant ass battlefield that you show up to anytime, and it shifts around the world based on faction progress.

If you execute this part well (it was not executed well in PS1, which is why everybody left), and then add in depth options for more organized players, it could be a large success. It would be a huge mistake for SOE to overlook strategic and tactical depth, and just make a simplistic CoD clone. If they do it will kill replayability and retention. Even if the "solo" pubbie playe is not participating in the depth areas right away, he likes the idea them going on, that makes the game "epic". When he's pew pewing he wants to look up and watch a galaxy fly overhead, escorted by fighters. He wants too see a tank column roll up to the front and start kicking ass. He wants to see unique base fortifications built up cuz someone in strategic command is managing special resources they captured.

Also SOE can do a decent job of shuffling newbies into organized outfits. Even BF3 does this by giving people lots of extra point bonuses for working with your squadmates, to the point that randoms on a server work together to get these points. Stuff like perks that even low level outfit grunts can benefit from will filter people in there (also give outfits who do take in tons of terrible pubbie players some bonuses, for the effort of trying to organize that kind of gong show).



It's definitely possible to let "solo" people blob it out while having depth for organized players. People here need to stop comparing it to PS1 tho, because PS1 didn't have these issues once everyone left and  it turned into a small playground for organized vets. You need to think of it now as something along the lines of a cross between BF3 and DAOC/WAR pvp systems.

[01101010]

The bigtime  PS1 fans here have their perspectives schewed because the game has been distilled down to just hardcore players for so long. If PS2 is modestly successfully, then the big frontline battles will be populated by large blobs of players where basically anyone can show up and start pew pewing (so solo players). This was kind of the original gimmick of PS1, as opposed to normal fixed slot servers. You have a giant ass battlefield that you show up to anytime, and it shifts around the world based on faction progress.

If you execute this part well (it was not executed well in PS1, which is why everybody left), and then add in depth options for more organized players, it could be a large success. It would be a huge mistake for SOE to overlook strategic and tactical depth, and just make a simplistic CoD clone. If they do it will kill replayability and retention. Even if the "solo" pubbie playe is not participating in the depth areas right away, he likes the idea them going on, that makes the game "epic". When he's pew pewing he wants to look up and watch a galaxy fly overhead, escorted by fighters. He wants too see a tank column roll up to the front and start kicking ass. He wants to see unique base fortifications built up cuz someone in strategic command is managing special resources they captured.

Also SOE can do a decent job of shuffling newbies into organized outfits. Even BF3 does this by giving people lots of extra point bonuses for working with your squadmates, to the point that randoms on a server work together to get these points. Stuff like perks that even low level outfit grunts can benefit from will filter people in there (also give outfits who do take in tons of terrible pubbie players some bonuses, for the effort of trying to organize that kind of gong show).



It's definitely possible to let "solo" people blob it out while having depth for organized players. People here need to stop comparing it to PS1 tho, because PS1 didn't have these issues once everyone left and  it turned into a small playground for organized vets. You need to think of it now as something along the lines of a cross between BF3 and DAOC/WAR pvp systems.

I would like to just point out that the vets of PS1 played from beta onward and many many vets quit after 6-8 months. They were a catalyst to PS1 being "distilled" down to the remaining playerbase - whether this was due to CC, BFRs, watching the dev team fumble around repeatedly... that is debatable. But once outfits started losing these players, the remaining players either left or jumped to another outfit. The game was a wargame from the start and the attrition came after the changes to the game made it into a more k/d orientation.

I consider myself a vet and I left shortly after the BFR debacle came to pass (roughly 8 months - though the first 3 were very time intensive), thus I was not there for this mythical, lengthy duration of hardcore veteran play. In fact, my contention to this whole reskinning of a BF/COD game is the fact that PS1 was a shooter second and a wargame first. It started falling apart when the dev team went sideways, the expansion no one wanted, the lattice which pissed off people, and a slew of other changes that cascaded from then on out. BFRs were a highlight point that the community, or what was left of it, railed against - main reason is that it emphasized solo play and a walking death machine to rack up kill counts, forgoing any attention to the purpose of the game, taking bases (territory) and pushing the other factions off continents. Basically, the game was being changed into a shooter first complete with DON'T DROP THE TUBES, I NEED TO FARM THESE GUYS chat spam, and a "meh...take-that-base-i-guess" second.

So my perspective is not influenced by what happened years after release. It has to do with how I saw the progression of an incredible concept get torn to shreds over the course of a few months into a subpar shooter. I came from session-based FPS games - I headed into PS under the guise of space shooter and learned quickly the power of squads and teamplay over a single player/team deathmatch feel... Prior to PS1 release, no game I played in the FPS genre has ever measured up to, not only the feel of a massive firefight/battle, but the purpose behind it.

PS2 is shaping up to be a BF/COD type with 3 factions on a grandiose scale, but what is not talked about is the purpose other than to pew pew. Without that purpose and goals and mechanics behind getting to those goals, you lose the Planetside soul. I would have been fine if they would have named it the Agency and given them 3 aribitrary faction names, but they didn't. They instilled the PS name which carries with it a hell of a lot more than a three faction headshot, bunnyhop shooter. That is where my angst and disappointment are festering.

[Speedy Cerviche]

I don't disagree that for PS2 to succeed it will need to be more than a CoD sci-fi re-skin. if it is it will probably fail since without MMO depth it will give little reason for a player like me to leave my current FPS fixes of BF3 and M&B warband.

SOE will definitely need a meaty outfit system, dynamic goal systems & tangible rewards for successful outfits, and a somewhat sophisticated (but not tedious) economic and resource system to add unique goals and challenge beyond raw combat dick waving. These things will provide the base incentives and structure for players to form organizations that will give PS2 MMO persistance that will keep the playerbase hooked in and make the game distinctive from CoD/BF3 it competes for players with, stuff like factional strategic commands that will give the warfare more meaning than opposing blobs pew pewing each other over a random tower.

[Ghambit]

It really feels to me like they're leaning more towards a WW2O type design rather than a CoD/BF3 or even a PS1 design.  It's simpler, yes, but every other mechanic really steals from Cornered Rats.

Non-horizontal progression, resource use, long maps, the mission/outfit system, terrain use, teamplay, and on and on.  And I definitely dont get the "session" vibe that MBW keeps harpin' about.  Frankly, PS1 was more of a session than this game seems it'll be.

So let's not write it off quite yet.  

In other news, here's the loadout screen.  Kinda simplistic, but whatever:

[Mrbloodworth]

Redeem beta code has appeared on the main site.


I still do not see any AV weapons. Also, seems everyone has a shield now ala Halo. MAX units seem to just be more-health-armor infantry.

[Venkman]

It has to do with how I saw the progression of an incredible concept get torn to shreds over the course of a few months into a subpar shooter. I came from session-based FPS games - I headed into PS under the guise of space shooter and learned quickly the power of squads and teamplay over a single player/team deathmatch feel... Prior to PS1 release, no game I played in the FPS genre has ever measured up to, not only the feel of a massive firefight/battle, but the purpose behind it.

That.

There's a number of good MMO concepts that have been introduced in games that never got popular enough to inspire other games to knock them off. The whole mechanic of PS1 is one of them.

There's really no way to know if the mechanic had mass appeal. It was sorta dead on arrival due to some wierd business decisions (long since a dead horse) and then it just got worse for the players they did have. One could make the argument that it's a dead concept because nobody else has done it. But the video game industry is largely people showing up with money they only got because they could pull off the Hollywood-esque "like X but..." argument. So not being knocked off doesn't mean it's automatically a bad idea. At best it means either "we're not sure enough to fund it" or "we're not sure we can build it well".

Basically, the game mechanic is still unproven. And that's really all they've got to go on. Because really, it's not like the name has any cache, or that they have anywhere near a big enough marketing budget (intuitive, though just a guess), or that they have an inspiring group of FPS industry vets, or that their company name carries any cache, or that they can rely on the "MMOFPS" moniker at all (MMO=WoW). And, a new problem for them now is that all the FPS game types have ripped off the important diku/skinner box components of MMOs anyway.

So they have one strength to go on: that their unique and experimental massive FPS game mechanic can be interesting for the 18-24 dispoable incomers.

Diluting that into some pale immitation anything else will result in another try we can talk about in 2022 

[Mavor]

It seems to me that the ever-increasing budget sizes of games has lead to a pussyfication of new game ideas, especially in the MMO market, where it costs a ton of money to even do a basic game.

Perhaps new technologies that allow indie game companies to get into semi-mmo territory will bring in some fresh gameplay?

[Sky]

It seems to me that the ever-increasing budget sizes of games has lead to a pussyfication of new game ideas, especially in the MMO market, where it costs a ton of money to even do a basic game.

Hail to the King, motherfucker!

[Lantyssa]

Raph's been saying that for years.  No one wants to take a risk on a $50+ million project.

[Sky]

I'm just going to go ahead and say Raph has never uttered the word 'pussyfication'.

Not that I disagree with what I think is the sentiment (the usage of that word kinda blurs the meaning, thus my DNF reference).

I wish game development were more like music development, where you get a rough idea together on a demo and then a studio matches you up with a producer and refines and polishes the idea. I've been listening to Van Halen's early demo stuff, so it's forefront in my mind right now. Great ideas and raw product, add Ted Templeman and big studio bux and you get a Diamond-seller.

Like if you took Minecraft and gave it $50M.

Unfortunately, it seems like the addition of money and producers has a negative effect; rather than refine a great idea we just move to iterating on the same old shit without a Beatles or NY punk scene or Seattle grunge to break out of the current mold. We've been stuck in the late 70s excess or late 80s glam for quite a while now. Something that hits big as an indie isn't much of a risk IF you can distill what made it cool and then refine that rather than mainstream it to the point of mediocrity.

[Lantyssa]

Wouldn't that early stuff be giving a small company the resources it needs to make a refined product, but not necessarily big bux?  Those came after the success and on future albums.

[Mrbloodworth]

Vehicle Terminal screen.

[Venkman]

I'm just going to go ahead and say Raph has never uttered the word 'pussyfication'.
g as an indie isn't much of a risk IF you can distill what made it cool and then refine that rather than mainstream it to the point of mediocrity.

LOL yea probably not.

But the eff-this-genre sub-text in the SWTOR forum thread is pretty much about this topic.

At the same time, it's not so much pussyfication as much as it's us all having been there and done that. We only see bland versions of these games because we've been playing since they were experimental. Any genre that matures, heck, any consumer goods industry that matures, requires the old guard leave to make way for the new-to-them crowd. That crowd needs to be bigger than the group that was in the experimental phase. And you are entering the mature phase of something when you think you have a handle on the rules. That's "like <this> but with <these tweaks>", the root of all presentations by the business folks who show up after the "shit let's make it up as we go" creators and audience have moved on.

And eventually, those largely non-experimental/have-the-money folks bland-ify things so much that someone new comes along to make shit up as they go.

It's kinda of a macro-pattern, if that's the right way to put it?

[Nebu]

But the eff-this-genre sub-text in the SWTOR forum thread is pretty much about this topic.

I think some of the anger comes from the fact that there's little point in making a game with beautiful graphics if you have to set your graphics to 'low' in order to get a playable framerate in an area with more than 10 people. 

You should make a good game first.  If you have a good game, then spend the resources to make it pretty.  If you don't have the resources or the engine to support the resources, then stylize.  Blizzard has done this masterfully.  They have a beautiful world that runs smoothly on a variety of machines.  That's the first lesson any MMO developer should take away from WoW.  Ok, that and a good UI is vital.

[Malakili]

I think some of the anger comes from the fact that there's little point in making a game with beautiful graphics if you have to set your graphics to 'low' in order to get a playable framerate in an area with more than 10 people. 

I actually think it has less to do with this sort of thing and more to do with the kind of the Darniaq is talking about.  We've been over it dozens of times, but there are a lot of people, particularly the kind of people on this board, who desperately want a game to recapture the feeling they had when they played MMOs for the first time.  It isn't just a technical question.  Some of us want games that are more like they used to be, some want the newest shiniest thing available, but I think a lot of it stems from wanting that "feeling" again.  That is the reason something like Planetside 2 excites me in principle, not because I think it will be the greatest game ever, but I think that a game which deviates from the last 7 years of DIKU MMOs has a better chance of recapturing that feeling I used to get playing MMOGs. 

With SWTOR, I think people felt it had a chance to bring that back with the story focus, and some people, I think do feel that way.  But a lot of people feel like it fell flat, particularly after reaching max level - which is an experience we've had in Age of Conan, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, whatever.   I really think its a question of emotion more than game design at this point - the last few years of MMOs have utterly failed at making me have any long term emotional connection to the game.

[Nebu]

With SWTOR, I think people felt it had a chance to bring that back with the story focus, and some people, I think do feel that way.  But a lot of people feel like it fell flat, particularly after reaching max level - which is an experience we've had in Age of Conan, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, whatever.   I really think its a question of emotion more than game design at this point - the last few years of MMOs have utterly failed at making me have any long term emotional connection to the game.

Rereading it, I agree with the both of you.  It's a tough business to chase nostalgia. 

[01101010]

I'd say chasing the nostalgia is part of it - but being down that road before, we also can say what did and didn't work and come to some agreement on improvements on said game and experience while holding true to what the idea and depth of the original game had in it.

 While it is true most of us chase the memory of a game, I think we are all aware that it can never be recaptured like it was.

[Nebu]

While it is true most of us chase the memory of a game, I think we are all aware that it can never be recaptured like it was.

I think you can have success capturing some of it.  A Tale in the Desert recaptured the grandness of the world that I had in EQ, for example.  DAoC helped rekindle the love I had for pvp in pre-Trammel UO.  Both games also taught me to appreciate new aspects (crafting in atitd, team pvp in daoc).  Even AO (random missions and terminals), SWG (ability to generate player created villages), COH (felt like a hero slaughtering hordes of mobs) and Vanguard (interesting class mechanics) brought some joy back to gaming for me.  

You can recapture glimpses and even revitalize the spirit of nostalgia if you create something.  Sadly, most newer games attempt to emulate rather than create... and they emulate poorly.

[Venkman]

I think a lot of it stems from wanting that "feeling" again. 

For me it's that sense of newness with a sufficient budget to do it justice and capture enough people to make it feel dense. For me it's mostly diamonds in the ruff: micro-events, like the rifts or flying or playing instruments or some other smaller system in a world that was otherwise the same.

Nothing wrong with that of course. Hundreds of thousands of people are only now experiencing their second MMO. After they jump through a succession of <whatever next game> that promises <relevant crafting|real PvP|customizable housing|cool IP>, they too can sit back and wax nostagiac about the group of newbies feeling something they themselves need to leave the genre entirely to try and discover again.

For me the most recent "holy shit this is awesome and keeps getting awesomer" was Minecraft. A whole different type of life-suck :)

[Slayerik]

MMOs, for me, are basically just about those great moments of awesome. 90% of the time it's decent filler.

The outpost battles in Neocron. Scoring the winning goal in a Subspace Powerball playoff match. My first flight in AO. The insane bridge fights, or an awesome 80 man raid in PS1. SB.exe sieges. UO everything. The sun coming up over the palace in Naboo (sp) in SWG. First time time taking down Onyxia. A 10 bil suicide gank or a great roam in Eve.

SOE, just let me get something I can add to this list.

[Ghambit]

... winning a map you spent weeks/months trying to conquer for your country/faction   

[Malakili]

MMOs, for me, are basically just about those great moments of awesome. 90% of the time it's decent filler.

The outpost battles in Neocron. Scoring the winning goal in a Subspace Powerball playoff match. My first flight in AO. The insane bridge fights, or an awesome 80 man raid in PS1. SB.exe sieges. UO everything. The sun coming up over the palace in Naboo (sp) in SWG. First time time taking down Onyxia. A 10 bil suicide gank or a great roam in Eve.

SOE, just let me get something I can add to this list.

This sums it up so well for me.  I'd honestly rather have a game that delivers those moments every so often and is average otherwise than a game that is consistently a bit better.  It seems like MMOs have moved in the exact opposite direction though, take out the high highs and the low lows in favor homogenizing the whole experience.

[Kitsune]

One of my best times in Planetside was very near to the game's release.  The PUG squad I was in was doing pretty well; we'd just finished taking a base and needed to move out to follow the battles.  Only thing was, we had no transport.  "No problem, I'll go back to sanc and train as a Gal pilot," one member said.  This seemed like a great idea, so we stood around by the base gate waiting for her to get the Galaxy and fly back to us so we could hop on for our epic aerial drop onto the next target.

After a couple of minutes, a Galaxy appears on the horizon, with our colors, heading towards us.

"She's coming in pretty fast," the squad leader comments, right before she plows into the archway over the base entrance, flips over, and explodes.

We wound up walking to the next base.

[Mrbloodworth]

Good times.

[01101010]

One of my best times in Planetside was very near to the game's release.  The PUG squad I was in was doing pretty well; we'd just finished taking a base and needed to move out to follow the battles.  Only thing was, we had no transport.  "No problem, I'll go back to sanc and train as a Gal pilot," one member said.  This seemed like a great idea, so we stood around by the base gate waiting for her to get the Galaxy and fly back to us so we could hop on for our epic aerial drop onto the next target.

After a couple of minutes, a Galaxy appears on the horizon, with our colors, heading towards us.

"She's coming in pretty fast," the squad leader comments, right before she plows into the archway over the base entrance, flips over, and explodes.

We wound up walking to the next base.

Lmao... yep. Mine was about the 3 month mark... early August. My outfit squad was taking an outter rim base on Searhus and one of the guys I was with got killed trying to stop a back hack. On Johari, this kind soul NC was named Antarres. My buddy and the kind NC had a torrid affair of back and forth trade offs for a good two months prior. So three of my squad went back to clean out Antarres and his friend. I was still at the base waiting for them to get back and I heard a door open in the base. Antarres had respawned at that base and was moving out to get his vehicle. At this point, you had to place your order, then walk down to the pad to get in. So he and now his friend must have been on  a wait timer for whatever vehicle, so they were horsing around on the pad. All the sudden, I hear over TeamSpeak, "I SEE THAT FUCKER! YEE HAW!" (my outfitmate had a distinctive southern accent - Austin I believe.) Next thing I see is my buddy flying through the courtyard hitting every god damn mine on the way and plowing into Antarres at full speed and exploding the AMS into the back of the vehicle pad. I immediately and carefully said over teamspeak "that. was. awesome." Followed by him laughing manically for the next two minutes. I sent a tell to Antarres and told him I watched the whole thing and it was beautiful.

He agreed and said it was the first time he'd been killed by an AMS. I replied with "it can not be topped, therefore you will always be remembered for it."


Love these old stories. Amazingly, I don't have any for most of the MMOs I have played... even WoW don't have many salient ones.

[Ingmar]

One of my best times in Planetside was very near to the game's release.  The PUG squad I was in was doing pretty well; we'd just finished taking a base and needed to move out to follow the battles.  Only thing was, we had no transport.  "No problem, I'll go back to sanc and train as a Gal pilot," one member said.  This seemed like a great idea, so we stood around by the base gate waiting for her to get the Galaxy and fly back to us so we could hop on for our epic aerial drop onto the next target.

After a couple of minutes, a Galaxy appears on the horizon, with our colors, heading towards us.

"She's coming in pretty fast," the squad leader comments, right before she plows into the archway over the base entrance, flips over, and explodes.

We wound up walking to the next base.

Pretty much all my favorite memories of MMOs are of me or one of my friends doing something completely retarded rather than actual accomplishments, now that I think about it.

[shiznitz]

Yeah, I think that goes for me too.  Just stupid shit teenagers would do if they had magic or swords or guns or aircraft and couldn't die permanently.

Although, I always liked savings someone else's ass, be it in Guk or a tower.