f13.net

Parabellum (http://parabellum.xg1.net/)


(http://parabellum.xg1.net//pictures/screenshots/character.jpg)

(http://parabellum.xg1.net//pictures/screenshots/taxirumble.jpg)

Trailer (http://parabellum.xg1.net/PB-Trailer2008-final.wmv) (60mb, direct Download)

Previews:

GDC 09: Parabellum Update – Counter-Strike meets MMO (http://pc.ign.com/articles/966/966941p1.html)

The Five: Parabellum (http://www.crispygamer.com/features/2009-04-08/the-five-parabellum.aspx)

There's something I can't put my finger on here, but the characters feel like little action figures on a little battlefield. If that was intended, bravo. If not, eeeeek, because I can't see it any other way. Those pictures above are beyond bullshot though (and only add to the whole tiny figure on a tiny battlefield problem - should not have been released IMO). Obviously, this says nothing about the quality of the game itself.

I was not aware Acony's game was in closed beta already though. Hm.

Sadly, as i looked deeper, its not a Planetside replacement. But it could make for some fun, free, FPS action.

It's the depth blur. It's used to make pictures look like scale models.

Oh hai!

A lot of those promo images are from very early versions of the client. I'm not sure why they're still being waved around as current tbh.

Currently we're still in closed beta and gearing up for a release with K2 (http://www.gamersfirst.com/parabellum/) in the summer. You may have also seen that we're signed with Aeria (http://pb2018.aeriagames.jp/) in Japan.

Point me to some new ones? Those are the first few on the site.

Damn, i'd kill for something to replace Planetside. Loved that game to death :(

The K2 site seems to have the new shots on it.

In game footage my ass.

Limited depth of field, really? Exactly how much fun would it be to have to worry about what range your game camera focuses on?


Also, which geniuses in this industry still think it is a good idea for every character in a mmog to wear identical outfits so nobody can tell them apart or figure out which team to shoot at?

I'm not sure where you're coming from with the limited depth of field. Regarding your other point, there are a lot of customisation options but you don't sign up for one side or the other exclusively. You can choose who to fight for before (and during) each mission. You're a mercenary and you can take whichever side you want to at any point.

Second screenshot above, how irritating would it be to play with the opposing team ten yards away and out of focus?


I'm sure this won't happen in any released game, I can't believe that ten seconds of playtesting wouldn't identify the problem, and tbh, it seems doubtful anyone would ever even build a client this way in the first place; limited depth of field is the sort of clever clever trick some graphic artist would apply when building images for PR bullshitting in photoshop.

That's why you don't. That screenshot has had some kind of filter applied to it for dramatic effect as mentioned previously by Goreschach.

On the side note--I'm back to playing Planetside again for a bit--10 days in to my 14 day free trial, and I did hook up with a decent outfit, so it's "fun"--sometihing to waste time with at least.

Wicked cool to hear someone giving Massive FPS a shot again, regardless of the form though!

I'm sorry, but this called out to me:

(http://images.mmorpg.com//images/galleries/formatted/162009/8db90dab-9791-473e-ab43-4862a998b187.jpg)

Like i said, sadly, this is no planetside. Its limited to 16 x 16 battles. =/ Planetside also has tons of cool vehicles. This seems to have nill. Cant even say its massive, its like..counter strike with a 3d lobby.

Seems Developers still don't get what a MMOFPS is supposed to be, all we keep getting is instanced, small battle, common hub games. Huxley, the agency, this, war rock.

Seems to be they think:

1. make 20 counter strike  maps.
2. Make one map for a hub of sorts.
2B. Use high end graphic techniques so you can ONLY have small numbers of players.
3. Call it a MMO.
4. Profit!

EDIT: Oh shit, i was wrong, its not 16 x 16, its 16.

I like the idea of no vehicles or at least vehicles intended for trasport only.   I also agree that a 16 vs 16 is not an MMOFPS.  If I can't fight in large scale battles that are created organically on a continuous timeframe, then it's not very worldly in feel. 

If you don't call it an MMO game, you can't charge per month AND have to provide content beyond killing other PCs.

Such is the way of all future PC games.  :why_so_serious:

8v8?  :awesome_for_real:

Srsly, go play Planetside for a while and learn what mmofps is. If the game even has enough subs at this point to rate the name, maybe the day of 100 vs 100 vs 100 is gone?

Also, three-way battles is genius. Two-way battles is tired and old.

SRSLY PLANETSIDE WTF But don't release and then let it languish for four years before adding some decent content, wtf soe dammit.

If planetside was truly successful people would be making a billion planet side clones by now. Fact is counterstrike, halo, unreal tournament and their clones is where the real fps crowd is playing the fuck out of, anything else with the fps label at the end can only hope to attract mmo players tired of dwarves and jiggly night elves and to be honest that's not a lot of people.

That was a valuable contribution.

The real fps crowd is a bunch of broke losers in their mother's basement. See, I can do it, too!

You wanna go down the list of failed mmofps.

I honestly don't get it.

Planetside had a few serious flaws over other FPS games such as the subscription model, the movement controls and the minimal attention to creating an immersible world. Yet for all of their issues they had a lot of things no other FPS didn't have at the time or rarely replicate that well with modern games such as support for 360 players within close proximity of each other (the best for non-subscription FPS is only 128), a plethora of vehicles and racial/faction specific weaponry and a very robust set of tools allowing players to communicate with each other if they lacked voice chat.

I was strongly considering paying for this game until Sony decided to increase the subscription costs which forced me to compare it even more to other MMOs out there. The content to make it feel like you are in a unique scifi world is grossly lacking.

Go on, I'm interested to know what bullshit you're going to try and claim is a mmofps now.

Sure, right after we go down the list of FPS that wouldn't make it using a subscription-based model. 

Damn its like I entered the WAR official forums and said DAOC was craptasicilar.  :drill:

PS failed as a business. We were all there and this cannot be argued. But it did succeed as a game for a time and there's some good qualities to emulate (three sides, persistent rolling control points/flags, land and air vehicles). Unfortunately, that can be said of every financial failure that should have been emulated too. History is written by the same people who set the patterns to be followed. Hence, the #1 FPS game has no vehicles nor anything persistent besides client-side character stats.

Whatever Parabellum turns out to be, it feels no more an MMO than Battlefield Heroes, which is smart enough to not dub itself an MMO even if it does try and borrow one of the business models.

I went to sign up for beta. Apparently I'm signed up. The things I do and forget about.

Correct. I would never argue this, we also don't really need to recount what went wrong. Its quite simply most people loved Planetside (unless your a RPG/autoattack/TR looser =p ), it just got repetitive.

But Planetside was before its time, still does things no other FPS can do, and is an excellent benchmark to building on top of for new generation MMOFPS. Its still unmatched. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8GJUfhyLCA)

If your MMOFPS plays nothing like Planetside, you are doing it wrong. Pure and simple.

100v100v100 BATTLES

I do not care about this 'business'. I'm a gamer. It was a good game with the potential to be the single best game ever. If for some reason you can't find a way to market that, or at least budget around a realistic playerbase...I just want a good game.

Not only is PS the only mmofps, it could be argued it's one of the very few mmo games at all. What other games engages ~300 people in the same experience? A 24-man raid? Hell, BF1942 had that beat by 40 people.

I do agree, however, that it's difficult to market good games. People are fucking moronic douchebags unworthy of good games, so instead of Will Wright's Amazing Science Sandbox, we got a shitty RTS. The weight of WW at the helm was really my last hope of making a truly good non-standard game with high production values. I believe that the aborting of Spore, for whatever reason, was really the deathknell of good gaming. Enjoy your consoletard overlords.  :why_so_serious:

EVE.

But yeah, hundreds of people all shooting each other up with projectiles and shit just hasn't been done.


Also, While I agree PS probably wasn't a huge success commercially, does anyone know how successful it even needed to be? The team running it and the marketing always seemed pretty small scale.

Granted it has been a million years since I've played EvE, but my impression was that EvE was a far better simulation than it was a game.  PS was most definately a game.

Ya, EvE metagame and economy with PS combat mechanics.

Sounds accurate from my play time in EVE.

I'm not going to be surprised if I see others (including this) trying to create 'a better planetside' as developers start to shy away from fantasy titles after WAR/AoC. I sure would like a good MMOFPS (with an emphasis on the MMO part, I agree that if there's no persistent world don't label it an MMO).

It was the 100s vs 100s vs 100s in the same battle thing I was talking about.

It's certainly not an FPS ofc.

I think you clarified this later, but this is actually Sky's point (and should have been mine). Outside of some occasionally-functioning SB battles, nobody except Planetside has supported 100v100v100 battles. Nobody. Everyone else either wimps out because they think their players will cry, because they'd rather have better screenshots on pack, or don't want to invest in risky technology for a still-unproven model.

They thought it'd be huge enough to justify a $14.99/mo subscription fee. The team scaled down to where reality pointed them. Rather than, like, lower the monthly fee though, they stuck to their guns while players continually diminished to wherever they landed at their "peak".

So close to what coulda been.

I remember a lot of "but Quake is FREEEE" stuff going on. I don't think you want the average fps gamer. They're shitty for monetization, they want one box and free mods out the ying, and they will hack the fuck out of your game. You want old farts like me. I'm your perfect demographic. Ask EQ2, who I happily give money to every month, without the slightest clue about what all the latest drama over class imbalance or shitty itemization is, because I'm not some powergaming raidtard (with apologies to the f13 raidtards :)).

$15/mo? Not sure. Tough part is making the judgement only based on what SOE did, which for the first few years, wasn't a whole lot. Station Access, though, was great. It definitely fit in there amazingly, play EQ2 for the mmo fix, jump into PS for the action fix. If they had a better lineup....I mean right now SOE's stable is pretty scary looking. Maybe if the Agency doesn't suck, but even then, why not just get two subs? You need at least 3 titles to make it worthwhile to pony up $30/mo imo...rambling...

75,000 peak was planet side. Obviously planet side was doing something horrible wrong if it couldn't keep even 75k.

I see what you did there.

Oh what am I doing replying to this..

EVE does the battles every day, just not with projectile tracking, which is obv a big deal for FPS games.

Well Darkfall does this as well and it is a full on FPS mechanic game.

Heh... Darkfall...

This one can stay imo.

Bill Roper, is that you?

Slightly more seriously, MMOFPSs haven't done well. PlanetSide was an interesting experiment that didn't last. WWIIO might be playable now, but it wasn't at launch and it is definitely a niche title. Haven't heard anything recently about Welken (or whatever that is called). A number of MMORPGs are moving into the action area already which is impinging on the FPS space to some degree. MMOFPS is a niche that is also competing against the highly competitive FPS games market. There's a reason why it is such a niche sector and why MMOFPSs (especially with mass RvR) are in short supply.

MMOFPS is niche in part because it has not been defined by there being a singular success that everyone emulates (ala EQ1 defining the success model for the MMORPG side of things).

Ultimately, the whole MMO* is still not defined. Which is the reason why anyone with an MTX model can come alone and call their game "massively multiplayer online <whatever>". I'd rather see a new game, one that's more technical in description (just as "FPS", "RTS" and "RPG" are technical in description). Persistent online game (POG) could work but might be too catchall.

But what I want is irrelevant. The term will be defined by the categorization of the next big title is that isn't a fantasy themed fullscreen retail MMORPG.

Fun question time since we are on a huge tangent anyway:

If Planetside was close, what would you do different to have hit hit the mark?

Play producer and tell me what the missing link is.

On the broadest level, players have no control over their destinies.  No way for Empire building.  And the IP is very bland like Starcraft with only Terrans.  Needs to be more non-combat roles for scrubs like me to contribute.

Tough one, because PS pretty much hit it right imo. I think it's problems were more due to the fps audience (too slow for bunnytards, too expensive for folks who expect free mods, etc) and the mmo audience (not enough 'depth', not 'meaningful'). Which would also be the reasons I liked it. Apparently people don't think 100v100v100 battles with mechs and planes and tanks and stealthy hackers etc etc is a good game. Because people are horribly broken.

Planetside is still running, I think the biggest problem was lack of initial support. I think if stuff like BFRs and new vehicle types, new CE gear, etc, had come out in the first couple years, the following would've been a bit stronger. Maybe a better badge system, people love their little pellets of achievement (because they're horribly broken and fun isn't enough, or even really much of a reason at all, apparently).

Not sure how you could design around some of the more core issues that I didn't necessarily have a problem with, but seemed endemic to most: lack of "reason" to defend, hunting xp, etc.

One thing is sure: No Caves expansion. That was awful. Keep the dev team small and manage expenses going in, I would run it skunkworks UO style so you could keep it niche and still make a nice dribble of profit. It's not like mmofps could ever be in the WoW profit arena. Maybe possibly with the Halo franchise and pc/360 crossover, maybe.

Most of the things that would broaden the appeal for mmo or fps fans would make the game less fun.

My biggest problem with PS was the gameplay. It felt sluggish to me. I have no problem with SLOW per se, but the controls didn't seem that responsive. Put its gameplay next to say a BF2, TF2 or BF2142 and it pales in comparison - yet I would have to pay $15 a month to play it whereas the others have free multiplayer. Whether or not the others SHOULD have free multiplayer is irrelevant, because the market has dictacted that they should. If you're going to charge me more for the same type of gameplay, its gameplay should be superior and it wasn't. The 100x100x100 battles were very cool but as an individual, it wasn't enough to get me to pay for it. Adding an xp curve on top of it gave it some stickiness, but again, not enough for a subscription. I think that due to the history of FPS games being littered with free multiplayer, the only way an MMOFPS will work is as a free game with micropayment extras.

Mmm, lots of things did it in for Planetside. That said, it was a game I slathered after on its release, bought a new comp for, and was pleased with the results.

A lack of 'persistency' was really the biggest issue, I think. After a couple of months of running about and swapping bases, people just got bored with it.

There's other things, though. Surgile jackhammers, while not in game outside of six months, probably caused a lot of ragequits. The overall imbalance of power in favor of NC for the first few months of the game was pretty problematic. The constant balance changes also threw a lot of people off; you get ragequitters every time you do balance sweeps and the evangel population of PS was never large enough to recoup them.

The Caves were a terrible idea, and was the first expansion in MMO history to actually cause subscriptions to dip if you go by Chart(tm) Methodology. The amount of terrain in the game was NEVER an issue. Adding more terrain to a game that was already so reliant on critical masses of people was perhaps the worst idea in MMO history, ever. Seriously.

I mean, there was so much more at the time that the playerbase was asking for. Noone was asking for artillery or little swoopy pod things... they wanted the AC-10 Galaxy for YEARS until they just got it a few months ago. They wanted guild/clan persistency, and that's still never happened. They wanted, for God's sake, more than three base designs. I'm not sure where that stands.

There's so much more that could have been done with an expansion. Make each facility a very unique one, for one. Put in environmental effects and give each continent its own character, for another. Clan vs. clan tournaments for a third, with special skins/weapons for rewards. Less goofy looking new vehicles. Redesigned air combat without the lift restrictions. A sub-orbital platform (just ONE) that controlled various things on the ground, like the availability of OS strikes. Headshots. Hitboxes for vehicles.

If they hadn't been trapped into the mindset that expansion HAS to equal new terrain...

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I just really think Planetside was a golden goose that croaked too early.

I'm not sure it was ever the right game for me for more than a month or two, but my biggest problem was paying over $5 a month.  It certainly didn't provide a great enough experience to warrent $15.

While some games can balance the population with what they charge, people are your content in Planet Side.  More people means more targets, so it is important to price accordingly.  Fewer people means less fun which means people leave in an ever game-shrinking cycle.

I think Planetside really needed some sort of individuality and identity aspect.  Some way for the average player to make themselves distinct, and some way for them to form and join a permanent group identity.  Like, guild tabards or color schemes and the like.  Visual distinction for individual players a la CoX.  Whenever I tried Planetside it was nearly impossible to do anything other that fade into the zerg.  Some sort of avenue to leave that would have been good.

Getting group impact on the world, such as "battlement construction" with giant legos or something, would have been pure gravy.  Some sort of way to invest energy and have permanence until it got destroyed.

The problem with all of that is technical resources.  Probably on both sides, client and server.  There's a certain amount you can do to limit use with CoX style armor pieces, tinting and mixing armor schemes, but if you've got enough variation, you're gunna have a lot of resource use there no matter what you do.  Basebuilding would be its own nightmare, one I'm ignorant of.


So, as a producer, what single change would I have made to Planetside?  I'd bump up the system requirements.  I would NOT increase the polygons of the models, if I could at all help it, but instead implement some of these ideas.

I'm not arguing that the WoW concept of low sys-reqs is irrelevant for MMOFPS.  I think low-fi visuals with great style is the way to go.  I AM arguing that you have to be careful how far your low sys-reqs extend.  When they chop your gameplay into bits, I think some evaluation is in order.  So I'd try and balance my high gameworld requirements with a low polygon style, hoping that the stylization carries the presentation.

PS had an identity crisis. A twitchy RPG that didn't feel right because it lacked the personal permanance of the character optimization side of MMOs and the actual FPS feel of FPS games. And the business model was decidedly for the crowd looking to optimize unique characters, not play generic proto-Halo.

If it was launching today, it'd have been the perfect MTX game for appearance and buff stuff. Back then it would have been too ahead of its time. I feel like Battlefield Heroes is the spiritual successor.

If the game felt a bit more intuitive, and didn't have such a high fee, it might not have alienated FPS players so much. Yes, missile shots from a Reaver should have decimated a foot soldier. Take that and apply it to most of the game at launch and SOE ended up launching a twitchy RPG that didn't "feel" right. Years later, TR would try again and got it a bit closer. But that wasn't trying to be an FPS game for that audience.

Other than that, it's still a risky pursuit. At this point I think an MMOFPS is going to come from the FPS side of things, taking and expanding on the COD4 formula. Rather than ask how to get RPG gamers to want a different combat system, the smarter question to ask is what are FPS gamers looking for in terms of persistence, and what would they be willing to pay for.

Isn't this what we do everyday? Tell devs how they went wrong?  :grin:

As someone who lives outside the US, PlanetSide was never an option due to lag. You can't play on FPS servers past a certain point with a ping of 300 - 400. So: lag issues reduce your population potential to only the US market OR you need to have mechanics in place to adjust for lag which makes the game feel slow to the local FPS players OR have servers everywhere that will just end up fragmenting your player base (which is death for a PvP game).

The second major issue is a lack of world progression in the game. You take a base, the enemy comes to take it back that night when you are asleep. You win a major battle. Nothing changes in the game world. It's a a difficult design issue that makes or breaks a game - do you have a never-ending war where nothing changes (and thereby having players quit due to boredom / pointlessness) or do you allow for a side to 'win' (thereby opening the door to players quitting because they've won / lost the game)?

Third issue is major competition from established FPS specialists that offer multiplayer games for free. Darniaq is right - what are FPS players willing to pay for that they can't currently get for free from other FPS titles? Exteel offers MTX to buy weapons, but you can also earn similar weapons through play.

Give me WWIIOL with BF1942 gameplay.  Ranks, large battles, historical areas, and more game/less sim.  Tack on personalization and badges/medals/titles/skills and I'm handing over my cash.  I agree with Haem and Lantyssa about PS.  Fun game, but lacked any stick to take my money.  I could play BF1942 and several mods free. 

Planetside was simply too expensive. If it had been $2/month then I would probably still be playing it.

For me it was the base you just fought 5 hours over will get flipped at 3am by a group of 3 people because no one was on from your side. Make it require like 20+ people to swap a base or something stupid. I loved sniping in PS. I think it was one of the first FPS's to "do it right".

New maps, Variation in base layouts, More urban environments, A supply logistics system ALA WW2 Online. Essentially, things that add variation to game play, Planetisdes major downside is there are always 2 engagement areas, Bases and towers, and those two areas have little variation in game play regardless of the fact most bases have varying layouts. Also, Compatibility with windows vista, and over all performance on modern hardware are also key. Anti cheat measures, through whatever means, are also needed, but part of that is people have had almost 5+ years to figure them out.

(http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/revisedlattice_cyssor_maglev.jpg)

As for customization as people above have asked for, Conscription needs to be kept, Planetside was doing right with ranks at a glance and high level things like berets, taking your helm off, backpack and shades, and the merit system, however the military structure must be kept. A more robust command system is also needed, as 40 CR5 shouting over global was always stupid, i realize that having a voting system or a command structure was always shot down as "It will be a popularity contest", but, it always has been, the most popular CR5 was that one that people listened to.

(http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/taskforces.jpg)

(http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/commandmap_commenu.jpg)

The rest, i would not change.

For more reading of over 4 years of suggestions made by the player base, and distilled into full blown, feasible and thought out ideas, read here (http://www.planetside-idealab.com/index.shtml).

Examples:

(http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/meddelvariant.jpg)

(http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/emplacement_types_b.jpg)

(http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/emplacements_placementb.gif)

This also brings me to, LISTEN TO YOUR FUCKING PLAYER BASE. Also, UNBEND.

Dude.  It's SOE a MMG studio.

My point was, that website is a collection of PLAYER ideas, that SOE/The developers intentionally ignored, there have only ever been two items that were added to the game from that site. As one of the most volatile player bases, having them come together under idea labs and put together such presentations, was a miracle endeavor, and fueled by the love of the game. There was/is at least 5 more years of content/expansions on that site alone. But the developers thought they knew better, so we got caves, and are now getting instances/arenas. WTF?

Planetsides LARGEST attraction was that it inspired people endlessly for years, until the last person simply stopped caring, because SOE did.

So, to answer his question, its already and has been answered for years now. Take those ideas, put your real developer knowledge on it, and profit.

And this surprises you....why?

Dude.  It's SOE a MMG studio.

lol.  :heartbreak:

Another thing that comes to mind, a lot of time with traditional fps (which I've given up on as hopeless online, so I'm talking bf1942-bf2 and tf2), finding a server is a pain in the ass. Whether it's the administration of the server, the pings, player density or makeup, it's always dicey to find a good game experience. With PS, log in, jump into action and you're pretty much going to have a good gaming experience, that can become great if there's a really dense battle over a good chokepoint going on.

And Mr BW is expanding on what I said, SOE basically didn't do shit for PS for a looong time, and the first significant thing was a shitty expansion. While we can debate fps audience vs mmo audience (while I would favor 'build it and they will come'), you have to do something, and that something shouldn't suck.

Planetside failed because, while it had grand battles, it didn't really have anything else. Everything else in the game was pretty much flawed except the big battles, and once people left as a result of all these flaws, the big battles also vanished, ensuring that Planetside could never grow.

I played Planetside from the beta up to about 3 months into launch before I grew tired. The world was dead, uninteresting and unchanging and the gunplay was dull.

I really do wish someone would take the concept of Planetside (How is it even possible that no one has? :oh_i_see:) and refine it into something great.

I'm just waiting for the day I can dance on planet sides grave, cause Shadowbane with guns is still a bad idea  :awesome_for_real:

Uh, what?

Someone doesn't like PVP. Apparently after the blood left his penis from Shadowbane closing the leftover blood went to his head and he got the smart idea to post in here.

I love pvp. I hate the craptasticular piece of mother hating shit called pvp which has persisted in mmo's for a long time. So I'll dance on any shit faced mmo that closes while claiming to be a pvp game when its only a safe haven for the "i breath through my mouth while I talk" kids who get slaughtered in any real game.

Want to give us an example of a 'real game' so we can see what baseline you're drawing on here?

There's not one. 

All the 'real' games exist in his head.

You're wrong.

It's just that he has a shit fetish. Read his posts. It's all 'this is shit, that is shit, it's like eating a shit sandwich, shit shit shit'.  :why_so_serious:

If your making a pvp mmo and your game isn't as fun as team fortress 2 when it lags like a server located in south east asia (me being located 2 blocks from D.C), than your doing something horribly wrong. Guild Wars was a real game, by well gaming standards and not the pseudo quality mmo are famous for. I mean geez, i don't want to wave the "I played that game you didn't ahahah" flag (considering I don't think anyone of you played less games than I have) but for christ sake, even lagging to fucking hell while some jackass is using the infinite nade hack WarRock has given me more fun per hour then anything with an mmo acronym attached.  Which for all intent and purposes must change if you expect anyone to pay for a new mmo period.

In the hopes your asking so SOE can make it...

Take Battlefield 2142 style graphics and weaponry.
Stick it on some other planet
Link all the zones together
Add Robots as NPCs
Have battlegrounds ala Warhammer where all the PVP goes on.
Capturing a "Keep" gives you control over certain areas. Allow engineers in those areas to reprogram the robot spawns (players control NPC behavior)
Have a skill system like eve's. You can pilot ever more sophisticated mechs/tanks/aircraft the better your training is.
Of course Mechs can't go everywhere so 1v1 combat should still be very important.

There should be at least 2 military factions.
Also some sort of cyberpunk smuggler faction that could travel in either territory.
Assailable orbital weapons platforms that, when captured can be called to send down bombardments on battlefields bellow.

etc etc etc

I didn't mention planet side anywhere in there... oh well. lol

What happens when one side out numbers the other....

Well, A. The sides would be nearly identical. Just different uniforms. Unlike Warhammer where 1 side was a lot more attractive to the average player.

and B. How about a "Command Bandwidth" skill. Whomever is the commander for the battle could allow a certain number of other players into the command structure based on how much bandwidth he had. If there were more players than whatever his cap was, they could still play but would be severely hampered by not having access to the command network. They could use the maps, see where the enemy was, use any of the equipment like mechs and what-not. If 1 team was capped out and the other was only at say 80%, the difference could be made up by assault robots. They of course, would have lame UI... but you could say they take up less bandwidth so there could be more of them. An undefended base would have hordes of robotic gaurds that would go off line as more and more Players joined the battle.

PCs, too, please.  They don't need different capabilities, just a neat skin.

Never underestimate how stupid players are. People will crowd one side over the other because the uniforms look more badass. Fuck the only reason fps's have even sides is because most of them force you to have even sides. But the rest of your ideas seem pretty solid, but you might want to count on the a large number of people interested in said game not giving a shit about the war'ing side rvr, blah, blah, blah and just want to feel like getting a good head shot in for 20 minutes of play time. Which is was generally missing from planet side.

I would rather see something along the line of EVE's skill system. The higher level some of your skills were the more sophisticated your cybernetic implants could be. When you had earned enough money you could swap out an arm for a stronger robotic version. Eventually, you could go full cyborg. Or, perhaps genetically enhanced replacement would have other advantages. The end result would be some players would be totally mechanical, while others would still look nearly human.

I'd like to see realistic nukes in the game as well. For example, a base may be owned by one faction... protected by a domed force-shield. The other faction would have to fight their way in, disable the shield generator, at which point the nuclear strike would come in and wipe out the entire zone. Not these little fake nukes you see in games... I'd like to see it light up the sky in every zone anywhere near the one attacked with a mushroom cloud that lasted for hours afterward. Then, as the radiation died down both factions could rush in to try and control the zone... once controlled, start rebuilding infrastructure.

Eh, my biggest issue with Planetside (putting aside the numerous other issues) was that no matter what anyone did in the world, it did not make an impact at all. On my server we had factions taking over the entire world - and for what? Nothing. The next day it was all usually reset and it all started over again. Endless random skirmishes without meaning, goal or reward. Nothing in the game supported a metagame. Nothing in the game supported player politics or rivalry or faction pride or any of that crap. It was always just purple guys vs red guys vs yellow guys fighting eachother randomly because that was how things were. The world was entirely void of life, the game entirely void of anything else to do other than "shoot gun at guy", and even that portion of the game failed in comparison to other shooters.

Man, the game was so flawed, but I'm still one of its biggest fans. I am very dissapointed to not see any other 'proper'  MMOFPS games coming out at all.

 When are we going to get a nice persistent, not incredibly flawed, living world where we can shoot mans and have fun?

I think your over looking the "sounds good on paper but in practice people quite" factor. Anything permanent is inherently flawed, because you really have to understand where the player is coming from when he lost something important (which is generally in the form of advantages to the winner and shit for the loser). Which is the biggest flaw in the concept of pvp needing to have a meaning. But then again its really at its best a poor man attempt to replace to competitive element in actual pvp game like street fighter, and move toward the "internet is serious business" mentality which seems to be the bases of most ffa full loot, losing shit should matter, blah blah blah which is constantly brought up as new ideas in forums.

I can't even begin to think of what other MMO your going to compare Planetsides combat too.



No.

Planetside had a tough "come-back-and-try-us-again" curve. At least for me, if I quit for 6 months, my first month back in PS was spent dying - A LOT. The fun depended on being part of an organized guild. The good guilds usually required training sessions. I found them helpful, but still tedious.  What always impressed me about PS was how well-balanced the equipment was without being cookie-cutter. Skill mattered but organization and practice mattered more.

It's about your audience. There's two sources here:

• FPS gamers: get them to pay for something more by slapping "MMO" on it. Well, not so much, because they're already used to not continually paying for a game mechanic that has been refined ad nauseum. They'll pay for server hosting, but not to the publisher.
• MMO gamers: they already pay for anything with the word "MMO" on it. But they only like certain types of games. Even in a world without WoW, the dominant style of game would be diku. We'd just have a few million less people playing it.

This is a dilemma for businesses. It's a lot easier to get people who are used to paying extra to pay extra in a new game; however, those people have proven themselves resistant to change. And while there's plenty of other genres out there, companies are struggling to monetize them beyond the initial purchase.

But that's ok. They'll get there eventually. You just need an EQ1 for the other types of MMOs you can make. Some of the thinking in this thread could work, but none of it matters until you can find a way to get those players to be willing to pay extra for it. That'll either keep these games from getting developed at all, or only with indie-level budgets for indie-size crowds.

Don't know where the 75k for PS came from. I doubt they came anywhere close to that and I don't recall SOE ever breaking out PS numbers. So I'll guess the source is MMOGcharts.

Its really just an estimate that is on wiki to be honest. The problem with the Mmofps is that there isn't a novelty in it like you would have in a Mmorpg. The Mmorpg is by all means inferior in every way that matters compared to an RPG, but ultimately doesn't compete with the single player RPG because RPG's are for the most part single player games. Back when Planet Side was out it has counter strike, quake, and unreal tournament to contend with, and yes FPS gamers DO value gameplay and to be honest if Planet Side offered superior gameplay then it would have been better received, but because it didn't and had no real incentives or even ways for the individual to gets his jollies it crashed and burn struggling to keep mmo gamers interested in a twitch oriented game that didn't have anything to do when your not in a 100 man battle. I hear planet side was before its time but be for real, the fps market got a shit ton better, if planet side was arcane to fps gamers 6 years ago, it would be fucking ancient if it was released now.

I'm going to be honest, the real dollars in a pvp game is competitive pvp, rts, fps, tcg's, fighting games. The only game to prove said theory wrong was DaoC in the first year of release. But by the looks of things, I really don't think that play style is going to translate to big bucks now. The market for "big world, kick your nuts" games is ridiculously small despite the amount of forum love it receives. Its hitting a evolutionary dead end that needs to be look at from the ground up, under the assumption that 99.99% of gamers will ignore said game and your job being to attempt to change that to something like 99.97% at the very least. Yes its attempting to main stream your game, but unless your indie, you NEED to figure out someway not to alienate 99.99% of gamers in some sad attempt to milk cash from the .01% who probably won't be able to pay your light bill. 

After 100v100v100, I'd say the best part of PS was the 1v1 tower battles between CEs.

Yeah, I'm still not sure what he is talking about. I may be a huge fan, but i am trying to compare my experiences in playing it for 4 years, and his assessment. It's just not matching up.

I don't get this.

I think there's a lot of money to be had in a persistent pvp world.  Problem is, it's a tough thing to implement.  You need to corral the exploiters without eliminating all possible venues for creative play.  That's a thin line to walk.  Then there's the problems of a) Rewarding longevity without punsihing noobs and b) rewarding victory without overly punishing losses to add to the mess.

Bottom line: Making a balanced, fun, and deep MMOFPS is hard.  REALLY hard.   

I do, though I may be defining "real dollars" differently than DL.

PvP is about skill first, accoutrements second. MMORPGs generally get that formula backwards, which is why PvP is generally only for those who got bored of PvE, whether in the current game or in some predecessor game. I don't imagine people coming from the RTS or FPS genres into WoW Arenas as a step up. More than likely they came from EQ1 raids to WoW BGs and then Arenas. Even more likely they came for WoW and then went to PvP after their fifth capped alt. Nobody is looking for TF2 here. Because there's already TF2 and it did it better than any MMO has (not because of the tech, but because the game more adequately hit the target audience).

Meanwhile, every other multiplayer genre has been fundamentally competitive since the days of token rings. Doom wasn't popular because of theme. People didn't play Dune for the story. The longevity of the games and these genres is about the competition they offer, the brinkmanship, the clear advancement of personal skill.

That's why you can have sponsored competitions around FPS, RTS, TCGs and fighting games. Yea, you can have them around WoW Arenas too, but that's more because of the sheer size of WoW and brand awareness than anything else. Take "WoW" out, and any MMO with Arenas doesn't have sponsors banging on the door.

PS couldn't launch today. It'd close faster than TR. Back then it was ahead of its time, just for the wrong audience and not a good enough alternative for the right one. Particularly with the fee.

I still don't think this is about how to make a better PS either. I think it's more about finding out what FPS gamers want that they aren't getting, and how to monetize it.

Nebu your forgetting c. Giving a good reason for individuals to log on. You have to approach the problem in this sense; player logs on, player wants to get into the action as quickly as possible, socializing comes eventually.  The problem with all persistent world pvp games is that they are by design expecting players who have logged on for exactly 5 minutes to already be socializing and/or already having a friend/guild group to organize and play with. Don't get me wrong entire guilds DO migrate from one game to another and a good numbers of players DO play games with their friends, but on the other hand NOT accounting for the player who isn't in a guild or finds himself in no rush to be in one and/or NOT having a friend or playing with said friend regularly during the course of the game is faulty and down right bad game design.

Darniaq we're on the same page.  Guild Wars came close, but didn't have nearly the amount of accessibility even in the "casual but still competitive areas" leaving you vastly 2 qualities (no competition vs highly competitive) of pvp with no middle ground for the vast majority of pvp'ers new or veteran.

Planetside was more FPS with a RPG system on top. So i am not sure how that's relevant. The rest, was real role playing, not a RPG system. Again, Planetsides issues were that each base was fundamentally the same, and the game play became repetitive because of it, toss in that your 5 hour battle could be flipped later, undoing everything, and an expansion that added nothing really, and then years of letting the game sit, and you have why Planetside is where it is today.

The game already gave everyone things that other FPS did not give (and STILL does), huge battles, persistent world, Outfits that matter, Hacking, Place able objects (CE), tons of play styles were supported, Configurable weapon sets (Cert system), and an achievement system (Merits). As far as players with no outfit, this was never an issue in reality, as there were entire groups of players that would tutor the noobs,  and outfit ALWAYS invite new players, not to mention the tutorial that the last thing it told you to do was find an outfit.

The community was quite strong, more strong than you may find in any MMORPG. Entire groups did marketing, ads, videos...who do you think got SOE to do the fodder program? (That should come back by the way).

Some of you guys, i think are thinking that Planetside wasn't like FPS of the time, or even now, when this is incorrect, it already offered more than most FPS, there are over 30 weapons, 30 vehicles , 6 armor sets, and thousands of load outs, multi-passenger land and air vehicles.

I'd like to see you list any FPS that has even half of that.

It was the lack of varied encounter areas, delinquent development staff, and lack of a real territory system or linguistics.

Guild wars is completely irrelevant to this discussion, its a RPG with arbitrary stats that are used to cancel out other, arbitrary stats. It is no where near a FPS. TR also, was not a FPS, neither is Fallen earth.

Hmm I'm pretty sure Guild Wars was more competitive than zerg and die planet side. And just because planet side offers something fps games don't doesn't mean fps gamers need those things. I haven't seen it proven that large battles, achievement systems, and big worlds sell First-Person-Shooters the last time I checked.

Zerg and die? So this all comes from bitterness? Because yes, the Zerg did play, but they didn't matter. It was organized groups that mattered. I, like many other FPS players, do not consider anything with die rolls, Competitive. (Yes i play a lot of MMOG's don't give me the strategy talk, i already fucking know.)

I could really give two shits about mass market appeal, a MMOFPS will never EVER be as large as say, Wow.. And any developer shooting for that target, will fail. Because a lot of gamers simply do not wish to die, or would rather have stats and more stats determine the outcome of a battle. This is NOT the game play or design you want for a MMOFPS, you will just piss off the FPS crowed attracted to your game, and the RPG players for equality valid reasons.

This conversation we have had before.

It's funny you bring up that i listed things, that you don't think FPS games want, because I even typed them in modern FPS terms. Many FPS have added such systems AFTER Planetside did. Not saying they invented it in any shape or form, but yea, the surely do want them, as evidenced by all FPS's now have them.

Planetside also already tried the PvE thing. (http://jratcliffscarab.blogspot.com/2007/08/planetside-screenshots.html)

I don't think anyone that wants a planetside 2, cares if the unwashed masses play it as well, no, they want an itch scratched that no other game to date has filled, with the possible exception of Warhawk. (And M.A.G, that is still not talked about)

It simply needs to be sustainable enough for continued development.

It could simply be that its not for you. i mean, how long did you play? What other FPS do you play? Are you more of a RPG player, or some other game type?

I am trying really hard to separate my inner planetside fanboi, and reality. Planetside was not far off from brilliant in its features and game play. Those things, are not what have driven it to its current state.

Have a list. (http://www.massivefps.com/)

This. Embrace the niche.

You are not in the niche, DLR, so kindly go fuck yourself.

 :awesome_for_real:

I mean lets be serious. A real attempt at a mmofps, would probably be extremely successful. But there ARE problems with the current rule set past and present that needs to be addressed BEFORE said block buster game happens, because honestly anything remotely less than that is simply a waste of time and money. This isn't nearly as hopeless as sand box genre, but it could find a new level of suck if done wrong multiple times. But no planet side didn't scratch the gameplay itch or the competitive itch of fps gamers or even more basic pvp'ers, then and I doubt it would now.

Niche games are free to play games and EVE. If your not one or the other, why are you charging me a monthly fee again?

Still waiting for someone to do a modern version of 64 player BF1942 servers (skillful but arcadish/balanced combat + vehicles) + basic planetside style character advancement/customization that doesn't give powerlevelers any kind of real advantage.

Now that will be fun, still won't pay to play it though  :awesome_for_real:

It's not about whether you would... it's about their being enough of a marketshare to justify the game's existence. 

I think there is a lot of money to be made in MMOFPS games.  Someone just needs to do a good job of making one first. 

I was being sarcastic about not paying for one of the most awesome fps experiences in my child hood. There isn't a lot of money in MMoFPS games, there is a shit ton of money to be had. Its not a niche genre, you just have to making a FUCKING GOOD GAME that f'ing rocks the socks off of gamers. Shit we STILL doing that with the new fps games it doesn't make sense someone with a decent amount of money and brains can't do that with the mmofps. I'm personally waiting for someone to make a mmofps that isn't a water down fps. You just can't do with the mmofps what the idiots in charge of the UO and EQ did to the MMorpg, you won't make money selling a water down version of the genre by just slapping the mmo label on of it.

While I suspect at this point you're just trolling, I'll bite. Niche games are those with a niche audience, meaning you don't go into things expecting 400k+ users. You have to tailor the dev budget to 75k (or whatever) users, but you can deliver a much more specialized gameplay experience. PS was a great example of a niche game. A better-done PS would still be a niche game.

~Nothing~ is going to bring in the FPS crowd to sub-based mmo. Maybe, ~maybe~ Halo Online, for the name. But I doubt it. They'll say "why should I pay" and go back to CS. Which, by your ridiculously broad and vague definition, is a niche game. And twitch games aren't going to bring in the core mmo audience. In fact, even casual fps players find things like PS annoying because the good players dominate twitch games.

All of which is why development must be scaled to a niche audience.

Anyway. Since you seem to think there's all this money in mmofps, why don't you quit vaguely saying how awesome it would be and start bullet pointing some shit? Otherwise you're waving your magic wand to create some fantasy in your mind, and we all see you standing there with a twig looking like a jackass. Since you derailed an honest question from someone who does community relations for the company that would be developing PS2 with all this stupid bullshit. How about you answer the man, or take my earlier advice and shut your fucking slobbering piehole?

Thanks.

Is 75k players actually enough of a playerbase to justify spending money developing a polished product with the gameplay/game mechanics needs of said playerbase and charge said playerbase a monthly fee? Nichie mmo's are made with Indie money, not actually publishers dollars who are more interested in doing something besides paying their light bill.

If someone had the bright idea to expand the concepts used in L4D to accommodate a unknown number of players on multiple sides of an engagement, then you will probably make more money doing that then attempting to make a reskinned planet side.

Depends on the monthly sub.  All the suits seem to think it has to be the same price as all the other MMOs.  We're only now starting to reach the point where that mould is being broken.  A $2 sub fee "to cover server costs" (even if it doesn't) for example.

The problem is, can a indie company make a stable planet side. Though arguable a $5 a month planet side would have had more stickiness than a $15 a month planet side, but you also have to consider whether the cost of running planet side, or even the residual cost of development of planet side can even support a $5 a month sub model, without 3x the amount of players actually playing planet side.

EvE seemed to make it work out rather well. They also don't charge for expansions.

I think it dropped to 75K at its lowest and fought its way up the ladder for 250k subs (and this was through mainly allowing the pve to be played as separately as possible from pvp). For some reason EvE is simply the exception to the rule rather then the rule itself, you wanna ask someone who doesn't have indie money to invest into a game that at best will manage 75k subs and if it got really lucky might see the day (several years after launch) that it triples the paying subs? Good luck.

Not certain but i believe it was below 75k subs for a good while after it launched. Seems to be no problem finding 10's of millions for games that will close down within a year or two. So why not?

The only Space mmo of its time... geez you do know that this was before devs understood the weird concept of mmo's closing in their face. Fuck I didn't think investors knew they could actually lose money on mmo's. Look how much money Ncsoft spent propping up auto assualt. The market changed your not going to see that shit again.

So true after Auto assault ncsoft learned their lesson. Of course WW merged with CCP to create another indie MMO so its not exactly unheard of. Im not sure how large of a corporation WW is but im sure its not small.

World of Darkness....................................................................

And i bet the game launches with sub 100k subscriptions yet still will make a profit. Since it is pretty obvious trying to go for WoW type numbers just is not realistic, i imagine its far more likely for a publisher to invest in far smaller scale niche titles than another financial disaster.

You have to know the budget, development time is scheduled in 4-5 years which was announced 3 years ago back in 2006. I say, today unless your truly have a tight grip on the wallet and a ready or not attitude about releasing it, than ultimately even if your not aiming for wow numbers (and no you can't use "they were aiming for the mainstream wow dollars as an excuse for every failed niche game..." since no one, well except Ncsoft believes they can achieve WoW numbers) your bench mark for successful better be a tad better. Put it this way at 250k AND solid your safe, anything below that and your entering into the territory of countless f2p games which were probably made with a quater of your budget and can do a better job of not competing with world of warcraft then you can. Though I am curious how a table top series going to manage 100k subs.

I am going to pull some things from my ass for you all to enjoy.

That sentence and that avatar together? Mighty disturbing.

Frankly, that avatar is winning every thread on these boards at the moment.

Haha, I missed that one. Now I'm lolling.

Apparently, and quietly, this game went into a "soft" open beta (http://www.gamersfirst.com/parabellum/). Basically you can log in and play, with some restrictions. But it doesn't look like much has happened since 2009.

There are a lot of things here I can't talk about at the moment, I will say though that the soft beta Mr B linked to is a *really* old build and shouldn't be taken as indicative of anything for now. Hopefully there will be some official statements coming along soon and I can be a little less vague.

Understood. I was going to check it out myself, even if I was harsh on before. I have to say though, you need to do something, your forums and, well everything makes it seem like the game has stopped development.

If I wasn't such a forum whore, I would never have seen the link, and I think I got it from a buried posting from your biggest fanboi.

If it's a soft "open beta" then why the vaguery?
Are we back to the days when OBs have NDAs?

And why would you open beta a really old build? Are the devs shorting the company stock?

Like I said, there should be some announcements coming soon that should clarify things a lot.