I hope this one has headshots. [Planetside Next]

[LC]

To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better. Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organization, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics.

http://john-smedley.livejournal.com/833.html


I hope it's a bit more than just "capture the next fort" this time. It better have headshots too.

[UnSub]

Nice.

But we'll see.

[Mrbloodworth]

No one shot kills is a staple of planetside.

I'll just quote someone who said it better:

Well you can't really have fewer shots-to-kill without ruining the combat.  Skill should be important.  Getting the first shot is part of skill, but shouldn't be the only skill a game rewards.  Maintaining a good CoF while under fire was one of the parts that made PS's gameplay solid and enjoyable.

[tazelbain]

There is only room to move up, I guess.

[Ratman_tf]

Fucking woot! But no headshots please.

[pxib]

There is only room to move up, I guess.

Yes. Up. Not, for example, into a cave.

[Falconeer]

I am happy.

[Nebu]

Lots of players + awesome graphics?  If they can get that to run smoothly, I'll be impressed.

[01101010]

I really can't take Smedley's journal too seriously... Planetside suffered more from neglect than anything. Don't want to place too much blame, but if you have that kind of passion for a project, I'd hope you would try harder than it looked with PS, regardless is SWG was coming down the pipe or not. I have that twinge of hope, but for the most part - vaporware.

[tmp]

To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better.

Planetside had a lot of really great things about it, but it also had some frustrating things. The whole Sanctuary concept is something that slowed things down too much. We also didn't get people back into the action quickly enough.

Are they actually in touch with what it was that's "fun" in Planetside? Because if the Starship Troopers-like insertion into the battlezone is supposed to be "not fun"... 

[Murgos]

I read the title and thought they were announcing an MP Dwarf Fortress.  I am Jack's massive sense of disappointment.

[JWIV]

To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better.

Planetside had a lot of really great things about it, but it also had some frustrating things. The whole Sanctuary concept is something that slowed things down too much. We also didn't get people back into the action quickly enough.

Are they actually in touch with what it was that's "fun" in Planetside? Because if the Starship Troopers-like insertion into the battlezone is supposed to be "not fun"... 

Hot dropping onto a tower out of a galaxy was one of my favorite things about Planetside.

[Goumindong]

Are they actually in touch with what it was that's "fun" in Planetside? Because if the Starship Troopers-like insertion into the battlezone is supposed to be "not fun"... 

I think the point is that you don't need to use 3d space as your UI to do that. I.E. instead of wasting time running around and picking up people you just select "galaxy" from your 2D UI menu and make it public[or private for your outfit/whatever] and then everyone sees that a galaxy and can click and join in. When you're full/you want to go, you just click "go" and pop you're at the warp portal and on your way to the fight.

[01101010]

Are they actually in touch with what it was that's "fun" in Planetside? Because if the Starship Troopers-like insertion into the battlezone is supposed to be "not fun"... 

I think the point is that you don't need to use 3d space as your UI to do that. I.E. instead of wasting time running around and picking up people you just select "galaxy" from your 2D UI menu and make it public[or private for your outfit/whatever] and then everyone sees that a galaxy and can click and join in. When you're full/you want to go, you just click "go" and pop you're at the warp portal and on your way to the fight.

problem with that is the fact that you can just go whenever, which reads: by yourself more often than not. Sanc and the HART worked as a controlled release of troops to the battlefield. Troops trickling into a battle is just shooting at ducks, but when you have a ton of people descending onto one area, it feels better.

I agree with the comment on Smed's journal entry that PS started out with a massive military sim focus and it got watered down to silly skirmishes.

[eldaec]

Start using a menu to form groups and select your route into battle, and before you know it people will accuse your game of not really being a MMOG.

[Trippy]

It's still an MMO but it does ruin immersion.

[Mrbloodworth]

Are they actually in touch with what it was that's "fun" in Planetside? Because if the Starship Troopers-like insertion into the battlezone is supposed to be "not fun"...  

I think the point is that you don't need to use 3d space as your UI to do that. I.E. instead of wasting time running around and picking up people you just select "galaxy" from your 2D UI menu and make it public[or private for your outfit/whatever] and then everyone sees that a galaxy and can click and join in. When you're full/you want to go, you just click "go" and pop you're at the warp portal and on your way to the fight.

No. The sanctuary was used as a staging ground for major assaults. It encouraged combined arms, and teamwork, also a sense of identity with your faction.




This idea, only fuels the Zerg. The Zerg was created and came about by FPS players from others games, where no one worked together and it was all about kill stats.

The Zerg in PS was only effective as a distraction, while the organized teams came in and changed the map. Sadly, my gut reaction to his sanctuary comment is, they are going to pander to the Halflife/counterstike crowd.

[01101010]

bloodworth I am disheartened by your pics. Being a fellow TR, I am just going to assume you found random web pics to illustrate the point.

That point is a good one. Sanc locks, while very infrequent, were also a huge draw for my outfit when we first started. Talk of locking Solsar and Cyssor always ended up with the NOW HOSSIN mantra in which the NC would mount a full scale counter. Hacking bases was not the object at that point, it was a means to an end. Somewhere, the players and the game forgot about that. The Next PS needs that, along with keeping tradition of the 3 sides.

All this talk makes me miss PS now...god damn it

[slog]

I always thought the population locks should have been done to ensure an even number of players from each side could get in.  Maybe it was this way, but it never seemed to work out correctly...

[Mrbloodworth]

I always thought the population locks should have been done to ensure an even number of players from each side could get in.  Maybe it was this way, but it never seemed to work out correctly...

Being supported, or unsupported, was a major part of the Command tactical game play, and there were tools provided to be able to gauge how much a force was in an area, or needed. Addition of poplocks for a 1 to 1 ratio would kill all of that.

Planetside was never a session based game, and should NEVER incorporate that mode of thinking. Its was a war simulation, and a scenario. Scenarios were player emergent behavior, and encouraged.

[Mrbloodworth]

Sony Online's Thornblad explains his 3DS Max function library and tools, a light mapper and polygon unwrapper, originally created for MMO PlanetSide.

Here is part of the reason plantside was never updated. Who can spot the problem?

[tazelbain]

Sony Online's Thornblad explains his 3DS Max function library and tools, a light mapper and polygon unwrapper, originally created for MMO PlanetSide.

Here is part of the reason plantside was never updated. Who can spot the problem?

English pls.

[slog]

I always thought the population locks should have been done to ensure an even number of players from each side could get in.  Maybe it was this way, but it never seemed to work out correctly...

Being supported, or unsupported, was a major part of the Command tactical game play, and there were tools provided to be able to gauge how much a force was in an area, or needed. Addition of poplocks for a 1 to 1 ratio would kill all of that.

Planetside was never a session based game, and should NEVER incorporate that mode of thinking. Its was a war simulation, and a scenario. Scenarios were player emergent behavior, and encouraged.

While I understand your point, it really hurts immersion when a players wants to join a battle and can't because the other sided organized a ZERG before the other side could react. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Sony Online's Thornblad explains his 3DS Max function library and tools, a light mapper and polygon unwrapper, originally created for MMO PlanetSide.

Here is part of the reason plantside was never updated. Who can spot the problem?

English pls.

1. Max scripts used that left with the artiest (He later released them to the public, and he currently works for the EQ team)
2. Bases were broken up into parts, but this was only pre-engine, post engine, bases were one single piece of geometry. So part reuse or "new base layouts" could not happen without crating the one, single piece.
3. Light maps done pre-engine (AKA The Static shadowing). (Point of note, all shadows on objects other than world, were decal/projects of an image, not calculated)
4. The direct descendant to the tribes/plantside line of engines, solved the indoor/put door BSP to exterior issue. (old BSP based games, such as quake ETC.. created the entire game level from interior editors, the sky you would see in game, was really just a wall, with a fancy shader)

This may have been the limitations of the tech at the time, and I would not fault them for any of this, however with out a major engine upgrade, and a reworking of assets and tools. Updating Planetside was next to imposable, with exception to adding more server objects..such as BFR sheds. The only real update ever done to Planetside was the creation of the battle islands, but those were entirely new maps (done int he same way) and replaced an existing continent. No new base layouts were done. I also believe Planetside never had a scripting layer, hence changes to data was difficult, as it was all in the executable, that I believe was 55Mb in size, all text.

I also realized i put this in the wrong thread.  

[Nija]

How are they going to get lots of people to play it if the gameplay is as simple as FPS games were 15 years ago? To have large, meaningful battles you'll need a large community of active, somewhat intelligent players.

Good luck accomplishing those two goals when your game is less complex than ROTT.

[Mrbloodworth]

How are they going to get lots of people to play it if the gameplay is as simple as FPS games were 15 years ago? To have large, meaningful battles you'll need a large community of active, somewhat intelligent players.

Good luck accomplishing those two goals when your game is less complex than ROTT.

Not sure why you would consider Plantsides game play, as a "Simple FPS". Honestly, this is what I hope they do not do, make it a simple FPS like counterstrike/quake/half life. It was anything but and gave way more play options than those games did. Planetside is rather deep, if you don't stay as a field zerg grunt looking for kill counts.

[slog]

How are they going to get lots of people to play it if the gameplay is as simple as FPS games were 15 years ago? To have large, meaningful battles you'll need a large community of active, somewhat intelligent players.

Good luck accomplishing those two goals when your game is less complex than ROTT.

Good luck creating meaningful battles period.  I would argue it's harder than ever to prevent the losing side from canceling their subs and playing some other game.

[01101010]

Good luck creating meaningful battles period.  I would argue it's harder than ever to prevent the losing side from canceling their subs and playing some other game.

you start by keeping the THREE factions the same, VS/TR/NC which brings back the vets and renews those bloodfeuds. then the new blood comes in and hopefully watches and takes note. and all this talk made me get my vespid avatar back out of storage.

[Nija]

Not sure why you would consider Plantsides game play, as a "Simple FPS". Honestly, this is what I hope they do not do, make it a simple FPS like counterstrike/quake/half life. It was anything but and gave way more play options than those games did. Planetside is rather deep, if you don't stay as a field zerg grunt looking for kill counts.

I'd say that structure of the game - taking bases and large battles and so forth - is somewhat deep, but the actual meat of the game - shooting people - is too simple to hold the attention of all but the most easily amused player. Especially when you have literally hundreds of shooter games that do shooting better.

It reminds me of that Novalogic game that had servers supporting 128 players. I forget the name of it. Supporting tons of players doesn't matter when you can't get more than a few dozen in the mix at the same time. You're better off playing a Battlefield (year) game.

The only people playing Planetside these days are hardcore or on free trials. The same kind of people who still bother playing WW2O.

[March]

.....or Planetside [Next] will be to Planetside what War was to DAOC.

Everything you thought they'd learn and make better... turns to ashes.

[UnsGub]

How are they going to get lots of people to play it if the gameplay is as simple as FPS games were 15 years ago?

A small part of the gameplay was shooting people common to FPS games.  The draw of PS is everything beyond what FPS games provide.  There is nothing simple about getting +25 people together to do a specific thing in any game and PS provided more then the classic three roles.

[tmp]

Incidentally, for all the talk of love for Planetside and what amazing game it is and how proud they're to pull it off years ago, they still can't be bothered to give it a free trial/play tier.

"Ha. ha."

[Mrbloodworth]

Not sure why you would consider Plantsides game play, as a "Simple FPS". Honestly, this is what I hope they do not do, make it a simple FPS like counterstrike/quake/half life. It was anything but and gave way more play options than those games did. Planetside is rather deep, if you don't stay as a field zerg grunt looking for kill counts.

I'd say that structure of the game - taking bases and large battles and so forth - is somewhat deep, but the actual meat of the game - shooting people - is too simple to hold the attention of all but the most easily amused player. Especially when you have literally hundreds of shooter games that do shooting better.

It reminds me of that Novalogic game that had servers supporting 128 players. I forget the name of it. Supporting tons of players doesn't matter when you can't get more than a few dozen in the mix at the same time. You're better off playing a Battlefield (year) game.

The only people playing Planetside these days are hardcore or on free trials. The same kind of people who still bother playing WW2O.

There was more to the meat of the game than most FPS, driver, air, support, stealth, hacking......

[angry.bob]

john-smedley

Why are any of you even the least bit excited about anything from this guy? Granted, he's not as bad as McQuaid but there is an absolute guarantee anything he's involved will will be the videogame version of getting cornholed by a well hung leper and then having to beg him for the opportunity to clean his musky pin off with little kitten-like licks. You are all tools with the memory of a goldfish.

[Ratman_tf]

No. The sanctuary was used as a staging ground for major assaults. It encouraged combined arms, and teamwork, also a sense of identity with your faction.

Agree. If anything, Planetside needed more things like Sanctuaries to give players a chance to hobnob and dink around and build espirit de corps between sojurns into the battlefield.