Planetside 2

[Mrbloodworth]

Matter of fact, if they put any non-fictional ads whatsoever in this thing I won't be playing.

There are shop/SOE ads on Respawn now I hear. However, they likely go away if you subscribe. One would hope. The original also had Full video advertising. It's a F2P title, Advertising is not unexpected.

[Ghambit]

Yah, but why offer people who pay a patch that says the game on it?  That's just... dumb.

[Mrbloodworth]

No clue. Not even sure where its displayed anyway.

[Mrbloodworth]

and, its up:

http://www.planetside2.com/alpha-squad

Also: PAX Prime 2012 - PlanetSide 2

[shiznitz]

SOLD!

I know it seems like a sucker's deal but this is what F2P is meant to experiment with.

[Mrbloodworth]

Eh, not really a sucker deal. Because you just paid for station cash, and if you play any SOE title, you can use them where ever. That 40$ is how much 4000 points cost. So no love lost there.

[Malakili]

Until I have a better idea for what they are going to sell I don't feel comfortable investing in that many station points, especially since I don't play any other SoE games at the moment.

[shiznitz]

My personal experience is F2P is that I do spend money on the extras.  Anything that will help me in PS2 I will be tempted to purchase since my general lack of FPS skills will require all the help I can afford.

A friend is playing the beta as an engineer and his comments to me have me excited about that role.  The engy actually has its own rifle which he has found to be one of the better options for someone of his (and my) limited FPS reflexes.

[Surlyboi]

Bought it.

[shiznitz]

I made characters on East 1 (JackAsh) and 2 (Triplets), but my PS1 name was taken on both servers.  Bastards.  NC always.

[Sky]

Sold, ffs. Because GW2 wasn't killing my free time enough.

Damn you all.

[shiznitz]

My first two hour review:  This has all the fun of the first.  My concerns about it being too "FPS" have been allayed.  I have not played in a squad yet.

Night is very dark which is cool and a pain in the ass at the same time.  I have so far had issues identifying enemies from friendlies at night. 

I have spent most of my time as an engineer but I also tried the MAX.  The NC MAX AV missile has a bit of an arc to it, so there is some modicum of skill to hitting targets at range, as compared to the PS1 AV which followed a linear trajectory.

Jetpacks are just damn fun.

I like the proximity voice system.  You can bind separate keys to proximity chat, squad chat, platoon chat and outfit chat.  I am not sure how that will work when in a fire fight.

I have yet to try any vehicles.  Anyone know if you have to be light assault to pilot/drive anything? 

[Mrbloodworth]

Anyone know if you have to be light assault to pilot/drive anything? 

Anything but MAX I believe.

[Ghambit]

So this weekend was definitely an improvement in playerbase, numbers-wise that is.  But it's still a glaring problem not having the Command and Mission UI in place.  Battles are extremely disorganized and still end up being just a back/forth zerg between a few bases.   This is also a problem because the Map UI still isnt done, so you cant even tell which bases have which equipment or resources...  so pretty much everyone spawns at the Warpgates and rolls out instead.  Since this takes TIME, by the time defense is in place the base is lost.

Anyways, still definitely a beta.

I flew most of the time in a fully crewed Liberator.  /shrug  I anticipate the nerfbat on that aircraft very soon.  Carries way too many bombs (that instakill anything on the ground) and blows anything out of the sky that is dumb enough to attack from the rear.  Perhaps this will all change once people start bringing fighters with missiles to the fight.

[Mrbloodworth]

Dev Roundtable with Matt Higby Recording

[5150]

Anyone else get spammed this morning by a PS2 founder Alpha package mailshot? I got 7 plus a variation of it about Station Cash

http://www.planetside2.com/alpha-squad

[Mrbloodworth]

I got one.

[Mrbloodworth]

Devil Dogs - Drunken Adventures of Hammer

[Falconeer]

Got alpha pack myself. Between this and Mechwarrior I can say that 2012 is my favourite gaming year in... years.

[Jimbo]

I got it too, is F13 gonna try an outfit again?

[shiznitz]

I got it too, is F13 gonna try an outfit again?

I would expect too many faction conflicts for that.  All three seem to be reasonably well represented.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, but TR is best.

Hey guys!

Spawning logistics have been a hot topic on the forums lately, and it's a subject that we care a lot about on the dev team as well. As usual we really appreciate all the feedback and ideas from you guys. We've been following these threads really closely, and I wanted to take a minute and talk about some of the changes we have in progress for this (extremely important) area of the game.

Right now we have two ways for you to set up forward spawning locations. Squad spawn beacons and Galaxies. We're going to give you guys one more, the Sunderer. Along with this change we're going to do some things to hopefully redefine and expand the roles of both the Sunderer and the Galaxy. These changes aren't going to happen over night, but within the next 2-3 weeks you should see them mostly completed and up to beta.

Sunderer changes:

    Repair and Rearm functions of the Sunderer are going to be stripped, by default it'll be a 12 man transport vehicle
    Repair, Rearm, Respawn and other cool toys like Blockade Armor (which allows you to drive through gate shields) will all be certifications for the Sunderer which unlock loadout choices. Which functionality you want to have with the Sunderer will be up to your loadout, you'll be able to select one of these benefits at a time.
    Cert costs for each of those three options will be relatively low, meaning getting a Sunderer to be a mobile spawn point will be pretty easy
    Further certifications such as deploying a cloaking field, stealth so it doesn't show up on radar, etc. will be evaluated to see if they're needed.

Galaxy changes:

    By default, Galaxies will no longer be able to deploy as spawn points, but they will still be able to deploy into equipment terminals. Note: Terminals moving to a certification/attachment is a future possibility, but at first they will be available by default
    Spawn tubes will be available for the Galaxy as a high level Galaxy cert, it will be expensive and far down the advancement tree. The thought behind this is that dedicated Gal pilots will be able to use the spawning functionality, rather than EVERY pilot. Some limitations may be implemented to keep the eventual "everyone unlocks everything" effect from making Galaxies the defacto spawn tool.
    Other possible certification / loadout enhancements to the Galaxy include adding the ability to load a vehicle, have "powered" hot drops (drop pods), and allowing squad members to spawn into the transport variant while it's in flight.

Global changes:

    Coming in the next patch MAXes will no longer be able to be spawned directly into, you'll have to go to an equipment terminal and in the following patch they will have a cooldown and resource cost as well. That means that you will not be able to spawn MAXes at Galaxies, Sunderers or squad spawn beacons. MAXes will be available at the equipment terminal on gals, but we may end up limiting that as well down the road, we'll make a determination on this based on beta further beta feedback.

Our goals with this are:

    To make ground based forward spawning the primary forward spawning method and therefore enhance the importance of the ground vehicle game.
    To put some limitations on the current degree to which Galaxies allow attackers to bypass defensive chokes.
    To give hot drops and blockade running more tactical relevance, cause they're awesome.
    To layer some additional role choices into our support vehicles.

As always, we're looking forward to hearing your feedback and looking forward to getting these changes out to you guys to play as soon as possible!
Thanks,
-
mh

EDIT:

Hello everyone,

First off a big thank you to everyone that purchased Alpha Squad. We sincerely appreciate your support. As a happy surprise we are going to be emailing everyone that purchased Alpha Squad an extra beta invite in the coming days.

A bunch of stuff is coming in the next few weeks. Our goal is to have all certs in the game in the next few weeks. It's a lot of work and we may not make it but that's our goal. you can expect big changes to the gun balance in the game and a lot of changes related to spawning behavior that Matt put up in his other post.

Matt and his team are also considering adding base ownership benefits and discussing the third rail "continent locking" issue in more detail. I want to be very clear that we are listening very, very closely to what you are saying. Those spawning changes (Sunderer, Galaxy, Maxes) are the direct result of us listening to what everyone (and I do mean all viewpoints here) has been saying and carefully considering how we think they will impact game balance.
I make no promises here about what our designers are going to come up with.. just that the conversations are happening. Please be patient. you can see we're working super hard to deliver a really fun game. We're also playing the heck out of it ourselves and we see and feel what you see and feel.

We also are working hard on Esamir. It's getting closer and closer to a finished state where we want you guys to play on it. It's pretty awesome and very different gameplay wise than Indar. After that Amerish will go back to being worked on. These continents are taking longer than we expected and it's possible we end up launching with two and delivering the 3rd shortly after launch. We're working super hard but we have some resource bottlenecks. We also are going to see how the game plays with two continents before making any final decisions, so please do us a favor and don't judge any of this before you play the game with two. Too many people knee jerk react to things. There's no point. Just wait till Esamir is live and let's all see how it goes. We are showing with Planetside 2 a strong dedication to launching this game when it's ready, and not before. But that also means we need you as our playerbase to understand that this is like riding a wave that we have an idea where it's going but aren't precisely sure. Actually, that's kind of fun to tell you the truth. We've been seeing gameplay you guys are coming up with that we sure are having fun watching and being a part of.

Performance is another big thing we continue to work hard on. As I've said many times this is an ongoing fight. The single biggest issue remains CPU performance. We have a lot more work to do. We also have work to do on RAM. Right now roughly 75% of our playerbase has 6 Gig of ram or over. The ones that don't feel pain. We get it. We aren't ignoring that and are working hard to reduce that. We know the real problems in performance come in big fights. We are measuring the heck out of it and fighting the good fight. I promise no magic here. It's all hard work and our team is literally working a ton of hours to make this better. I believe this game is always going to have higher spec requirements for a machine to really play well than most other PC games. I want to be up front about that. At some point the size and scale really does cost. But we're getting it better every day and every patch.

Gunplay - expect a lot of changes here in the next patch and beyond. We've seen the average engagement distance is longer than originally anticipated and we are going to more of a recoil model with certs to calm down the recoil. Again.. judge it when you play it. The patch this week will likely have rough spots on recoil mostly because we have work to do on the animations. Please be patient and don't assume it sucks the second it hits the servers. Some stuff will be better, some worse.

Certs / Resources - right now resources don't matter enough. Soon they will matter a lot more. Certs will also be getting their closer to final times. We fully intend for the high end of certs to take weeks but the lower parts to be minutes and hours. Certs are going to matter in this game. Time invested IS going to matter in this game.

That's all for now. I'll be watching this thread and replying as often as time allows.

Thanks

Smed

Also, Smed said recently that PS2 beta has already Exceeded PS1's metrics.

[Sky]

East 2 Komoto TR, can't really play right now because the bulb is going on my tv and I'm waiting for a replacement.

Like the changes to the Gal and Sunderer, he was talking about that in the video a bit. I like the shift to easier spawning on a vehicle that's tougher to insert into the battle. Of course, it's mmo so catasses will have all the gal stuff unlocked within a week and it won't matter, but hey.

[Mrbloodworth]

Gal being a spawn is a terrible idea. Has been, and has shown to be in game. But for some reason, they really will not let it go. Another thing on the altar of "speed speed speed" I guess.

Code:

East 2 Komoto TR

I'm on East 1, TR. MrBloodworth.

[shiznitz]

Yeah, but TR is best.

RACIST!

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, but TR is best.

RACIST!

What faction are you?

[shiznitz]

NC.

I just screamed RACIST since that was the most fake ofensive nonsequitur that occured to me.

[Jimbo]

East 1, TR  Sgtskippy

Was fun today, like the idea of getting to combat a lot quicker than in the old game. 

[Mrbloodworth]

NC.

Separatist scum!

"Loyalty until Death! Strength in Unity! Order requires law. Law is enforced through deterrence. Deterrence is based on the fear of consequences, and fear is the most powerful motivating force. The separatist groups, the Vanu Sovereignty and the New Conglomerate, will be dismantled through the exercise of forceful deterrence. Dissidents will fear the consequences of their disloyalty. Unity and order will be restored."
—Terran Republic propaganda poster

 


PlanetSide 2 - Timelapse



Really fantastic breakdown, though some things are old, or changing:

ULTIMATE BEGINNERS GUIDE! - Planetside 2

I've seen plenty.  Guess you're not following or getting into the right ones.

So, how has your beta Experience been.

[Sky]

Bonus beta keys are out for anyone interested. I've got one to give away.

[Malakili]

Bonus beta keys are out for anyone interested. I've got one to give away.

How does this work, I can't check from here, but will a key just show up in my account to give away or something?

[Sky]

Email.

[Malakili]

Bah.

[satael]

Bonus beta keys are out for anyone interested. I've got one to give away.

I'm interested, but GW2 is still taking most of my free time so someone else might be a better recipient.

[Sky]

Bonus beta keys are out for anyone interested. I've got one to give away.

I'm interested, but GW2 is still taking most of my free time so someone else might be a better recipient.

Everyone who pre-ordered will get one (the 'Alpha Squad' folks). So don't worry about availability, it's basically just become an open beta.