Planetside 2

[Mrbloodworth]

Zero casual input, testing done by the most hardcore of the hardcore, outfits still playing after all these years?

Hmm.

No, they just get first dibs at beta.

[Sky]

APB didn't kill that deep font of optimism, eh?

[Mrbloodworth]

No, as I still think APB was a fun game.

[UnSub]

A Smedley approaches!

He says, "Planetside Next is seeing its team expand, but the layoffs mean that we've decided to switch game engines and now Planetside Next is delayed but I'll totally keep you in the loop about what is happening, promise!"

You are confused!

[Mrbloodworth]

Yay new engine, booo Delay ( IMO )

[Malakili]

Too bad about the delay, the closer this launches to Battlefield 3, the worse it'll be for sales I suspect.

[bhodi]

Lame. Fuck Smedley. I bet this was all planned.

[01101010]

Jesus christ, switching the engine?? See you in 5 years.

[Paelos]

SOE might as well admit they are a vaporware company at this point.

[01101010]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36152

Smed should give Jacobs a call before he gets too far under. However... Smed does suggest it's a sequel and all 3 empires are in play. Makes for a very good story, but alas, mostly fiction. 

[Speedy Cerviche]

New engine is good. The crappy engine was the downfall of the game last time.

If they released a poor quality FPS game mechanics-wise again, it would get killed by BF3 anyways (like the way planetside did not match up well to BF1942).

[Lantyssa]

New engine is good. The crappy engine was the downfall of the game last time.

Did they pick a new engine because it allows more functionality and better performance, or because making it in-house is ultimately cheaper.  The 'why' is important.  It'll probably also delay things more than the "end of the year" they expect.

[Mrbloodworth]

Original was also in house. I have serious doubts that an off the shelf will work for Planetsides unique requirements.

[Lantyssa]

<points at various shooter games with multiple vehicle types>

Yes.  So unique.

[Mrbloodworth]

Not comparable.

[Sky]

You need some goddamned pom-poms.

[Mrbloodworth]

Um, ok.

[HaemishM]

New engine? Yeah, fuck it, we won't see it this year. We may never see it the way SOE is laying off people and shuttering studios. I'm still amazed they kept Planetside Next and ditched The Agency.

[01101010]

<points at various shooter games with multiple vehicle types>

Yes.  So unique.

Pretty sure the bend on BW's post was about the population in a fight. Now let's get down to the point everyone wants to know:

Lean? 

[Mrbloodworth]

Lean? 

Lasher-ball-target. 

[slog]

New engine? Yeah, fuck it, we won't see it this year. We may never see it the way SOE is laying off people and shuttering studios. I'm still amazed they kept Planetside Next and ditched The Agency.

I agree.  It's probably dead.

[Mrbloodworth]

New engine is not correct.

Smed: The layoffs had nothing to do with PS Next being delayed a bit. That's simply a function of us updating the underlying technology to allow some cool new things we are doing.

DO they mean the original, or the one they have been developing on? I have no idea.

What I have been trying to do is to keep the folks at PSU updated because you guys are the most loyal Planetside fans. Ive released stuff ahead of any marketing or PR push. Recently ( a few weeks ago actually) we made the call to update the game to a new internally developed engine. Doing that meant delaying the game, but we thought it was in the best interests of Planetside Next. It also means delaying releasing further info for a little while. I will let you all know more when we firm up the schedule. The likely next step is a larger scale release of information and the beta signups going up. As I've said previously current Planetside subs will be included automatically.

Normally when we do game announcements we do a much bigger concerted information push all at once and these kind of one off posts don't happen. In this case I feel like the Planetside audience has hung in with us for a long time and I really want to involve you all more in advance of the official info. However what happens is everything gets carried across the net and the actual info gets changed. I'm sorry for that happening. We will do our best to keep you informed early. But that necessarily means that sometimes when things change you have to be ready for that too.

Smed

Ah, more info on the subject. Let the doom casting resume.

1 - PSN is a skill based game at it's core. Player skills ( as opposed to character skills) are always going to be the most important. That said we have some cool new things to offer in this department. Not ready to share just yet but we have some cool new things here.

2. Planetside IS a massively multiplayer game. That's what makes us different than Battlefield 3 ( which looks awesome btw). You wont see fighting on the scale we are going to offer anywhere else period. Not even close.

[slog]

I look forward to Duke-NukemPlanetside Next

[UnSub]

New engine? Yeah, fuck it, we won't see it this year. We may never see it the way SOE is laying off people and shuttering studios. I'm still amazed they kept Planetside Next and ditched The Agency.

The Agency would have been more single- and multi-player as a title (lobby / hub and instances) because there is no way you could set up a 'cinematic' event for 100 players. Plus it hadn't any SOE legacy. SOE is all about the legacy titles at this point.

PSN is in the realms of the MMOFPS that has a bit more scope for mass battles, but 1) it has to be F2P  to keep server populations up and 2) it will need a huge amount of player testing and 3) a huge amount of anti-hacking work (2 ties in with 3 here). Does SOE have the guts to release a title like PSN as a F2P (or Buy-To-Play, with no sub fee)? I'm not sure they do, because sub fee money is just so attractive. And I'm not sure how much they get from it, but if PSN is F2P / B2P, then the sub-based Planetside is basically dead. They'd have a few stalwarts and zombie accounts left, but the majority would transition to the non-sub-based alternative.

As for player testing: not enough was done on DCUO and players were complaining about hacks / exploits all the way through beta, but a substantive patch was released about 20 days prior to launch that changed quite a bit of the combat systems but left no time for testing. PvP was one of DCUO's highlights, but exploits quickly drove away a lot of players. At least DCUO had PvE to fall back on - PSN doesn't (well, not to my knowledge).

I'm not sure if it is fair to use the DCUO team as representative of SOE overall, but it certainly contained a lot of their more experienced devs. The fact that DCUO still doesn't have any public test servers, so that Live is the first time players see the new content / find all the new bugs is a worrying sign. As was DCUO's "we only need a short beta, our game is super-fun" attitude. Makes me wonder if SOE doesn't value (or can't afford) public testing and thinks they can get players to pay for the privilege.

[eldaec]

Literally all they need to do to get a few months subs out of me is update the engine, remove CC, add a few novelty changes, and give the game a marketing push so it isn't full of hyper organised vets.

I don't see me permasubbing no matter what, but equally this should be a fairly cheap project to run.

[HaemishM]

I'm not sure if it is fair to use the DCUO team as representative of SOE overall, but it certainly contained a lot of their more experienced devs. The fact that DCUO still doesn't have any public test servers, so that Live is the first time players see the new content / find all the new bugs is a worrying sign. As was DCUO's "we only need a short beta, our game is super-fun" attitude. Makes me wonder if SOE doesn't value (or can't afford) public testing and thinks they can get players to pay for the privilege.

It's almost as if SOE has a legacy of releasing half-finished, broken shit dating back as far as 1999. 

[Triforcer]

New engine?  Jesus fuck, we won't be seeing this until 2015.  How hard can it really be to reskin this, remove BFRs, remove all that cave shit, and call it a day? 

[Strazos]

And fix long-range TR accuracy, while you're at it. 

[01101010]

And fix long-range TR accuracy, while you're at it. 

Here we go... First it was the striker 5-clip FaF, then the pounder...

 

[Sky]

Thumper for life!

[HaemishM]

New engine?  Jesus fuck, we won't be seeing this until 2015.  How hard can it really be to reskin this, remove BFRs, remove all that cave shit, and call it a day? 

This is SOE. There is no design so imperfect they can't fuck it up even more.

[Mrbloodworth]

Thumper for life!

 

[Ratman_tf]

This is SOE. There is no design so imperfect they can't fuck it up even more.

I remember when they nerfed XP gain at launch and I was not disappointed so much as just tired of their ineptitude.

[01101010]

XP when the game started was nice, but I agree, reluctantly, that it needed to be changed. As an infiltrator the day of release, there was no way I could killwhore for xp and that 5k base flip was bread and butter to leveling up. I loved doing the sneak sneak hack on bases or the sneak into the spawn room and hack out a term into a pounder max for the lulz, but once SOE switched to a more "contribution" xp model, I was screwed. Luckily I leveled to cap before that happened, but still. And yes, this was before I found the magic of "boomers in the spawn room" or "boomers on the ceiling for tank kills."

I doubt this game will see the light of day before the end of the world comes, but I will definitely be in line for beta if it does.

[Sky]

Hell, I played tactically and never worried about xp whoring...and paid for it. I forget how levels worked, but I think my 'main' guy was halfway to the cap after years of playing on and off. I ended up making alts for different roles because it was the only way to do it without xp whoring.