Planetside 2

[Ghambit]

From the latest community Q&A webcast:

Vehicles will have Performance, Armor and Utility slots that are customizable.
Vehicles will also have customization slots for visual changes, hood ornaments, camo, racing stripes etc.
Lightning will be best AA Vehicle at launch
Can be modified as a tank killer
Won't be screenshots for a bit. Will be very similar to Lightning as is.
Sunderer will have 4X the armor of Tanks
Liberator will be similar to AC130, guns will shoot downward so even though there won't be bombs it will be similar.
3 Seats in Lib, Pilot, Gunner, Tailgunner
Galaxy Weapons can be changed out. Possibly ground effect weapons.
Galaxy will not have a cloak bubble.
Guns can be used while it is deployed in the AMS role.
Guns do not change location on Galaxy when be deployed (yet) but can or may be moved.
Lodestar won't be returning.

Full webcast here:
http://youtu.be/mSuiL4kv3OM

[shiznitz]

Steady as she goes.  I am fine with all of that.

[Mrbloodworth]

I Disagree with what they said about the AMS. Also, the face that the designer did not know what a spitfire was, made me sad.

[01101010]

I Disagree with what they said about the AMS. Also, the face that the designer did not know what a spitfire was, made me sad.

What the fuck are they doing giving the Gal AMS capabilities for in the first place? A flying mobile spawn point? ugh.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Why not?

[Venkman]

Looks freakin' awesome. Don't really have an opinion about the nuancy changes. It's been 7 years at least since I last played it, barely remember much of how things worked. But if I did have one request, it would be for splash damage to make sense.

[shiznitz]

I Disagree with what they said about the AMS. Also, the face that the designer did not know what a spitfire was, made me sad.

What the fuck are they doing giving the Gal AMS capabilities for in the first place? A flying mobile spawn point? ugh.

If it does not have an invis bubble, I think that is fair.  I like the idea of landing and being a spawn point until the enemy armor zeroes in and you have to get the flock out of there.

[Mrbloodworth]

Galaxies are literally a flying barn.

AMS + Engi was a play style all its own. I worry about the support role game play.

[01101010]

I Disagree with what they said about the AMS. Also, the face that the designer did not know what a spitfire was, made me sad.

What the fuck are they doing giving the Gal AMS capabilities for in the first place? A flying mobile spawn point? ugh.

If it does not have an invis bubble, I think that is fair.  I like the idea of landing and being a spawn point until the enemy armor zeroes in and you have to get the flock out of there.

Galaxies are drop ships. They are a troop ship that haul a squad around and drop them into incursion points. They should not feed the battle as a spawn point location. That is what the AMS is for and should remain ground-based only. It took talent to stealthily plop an AMS down near a base. I cannot see flying a big ass dropship anywhere around a base to land (and god forbid there are trees) without people focus firing on it as soon as it is rendered on the screen. To me, that means having to deploy further from the base which makes it a duck shoot of troops filing in. This is all my opinion of course, as an ex-psycho-AMS driver.

[JWIV]

I Disagree with what they said about the AMS. Also, the face that the designer did not know what a spitfire was, made me sad.

What the fuck are they doing giving the Gal AMS capabilities for in the first place? A flying mobile spawn point? ugh.

If it does not have an invis bubble, I think that is fair.  I like the idea of landing and being a spawn point until the enemy armor zeroes in and you have to get the flock out of there.

Galaxies are drop ships. They are a troop ship that haul a squad around and drop them into incursion points. They should not feed the battle as a spawn point location. That is what the AMS is for and should remain ground-based only. It took talent to stealthily plop an AMS down near a base. I cannot see flying a big ass dropship anywhere around a base to land (and god forbid there are trees) without people focus firing on it as soon as it is rendered on the screen. To me, that means having to deploy further from the base which makes it a duck shoot of troops filing in. This is all my opinion of course, as an ex-psycho-AMS driver.

Nope, I pretty much agree.  Galaxies are meant for jumping out of, not for spawning.

[Ghambit]

The Gal being an AMS really depends on how much resource-management crap they inject into the game.  If it's 'spensive, I doubt people would risk it as anything more than an initial wave spawn point to cap towers.
And Gal can carry AMS right?  I forgot.

[Mrbloodworth]

And Gal can carry AMS right?  I forgot.

No, you needed a loadstar to carry an AMS.

[shiznitz]

Galaxies are literally a flying barn.

AMS + Engi was a play style all its own. I worry about the support role game play.

I hope the support game is robust, too.

[01101010]

Galaxies are literally a flying barn.

AMS + Engi was a play style all its own. I worry about the support role game play.

I hope the support game is robust, too.

Well every indication is that SOE is going to hamfist this game into a BF/COD mode because fast paced quick skirmish fights are what makes moneys! Persistence will be a novelty I fear. So I would not get much in the way of hope up for this, or even the game itself. I'd be very surprised to see this game ever get released or if it does... that it even comes close to resembling what the pictures think it will look like.

[UnsGub]

Well every indication is that SOE is going to hamfist this game into a BF/COD mode because fast paced quick skirmish fights are what makes moneys!

How do they do that?

PS is about constant fights all the time 24 hours a day.

Long live the zerg!

[Speedy Cerviche]

Well every indication is that SOE is going to hamfist this game into a BF/COD mode because fast paced quick skirmish fights are what makes moneys! Persistence will be a novelty I fear. So I would not get much in the way of hope up for this, or even the game itself. I'd be very surprised to see this game ever get released or if it does... that it even comes close to resembling what the pictures think it will look like.

They really need some semi-sophisticated persistance going on to distinguish the game from other FPS', especially when they expect ongoing payments from people. A resource economy as the basis of it.

Transport choppers as mobile spawn points work fine in BF3, and can be a lot of fun to crew also. Easy to fly, buddies on the chainguns and keep the repairs up. Make the galaxy like that, expensive but a shitload of armour and guns on it, it should be a mobile base. If the position comes under heavy attack and your forces are collapsing, the galaxy should even have a decent chance of taking off under fire and trying to limp back to the airbase.

[Mrbloodworth]

Did you play PS1? I'm sure the 10 people that noticed the BF3 "chopper" are just like the 100+ that shoot at galaxies when they come into render/radar range.

The lack of the AMS is not a good thing. The lack of support roles and vehicles is a mistake for this title. I am really hoping they just have not revealed the support side of PS2. Tacking the design to be more like BF whatever, is a mistake. It seems like they are sucking the uniqueness out of it.

I like the idea of landing ............

AHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahhahaaa..............

Good one.




Lets see. What highly disappoints me:

Driver is the gunner in tanks.
No Innovatory.
No Faction looting.
No Hacking.
No AMS. (The reasoning they gave for removing the AMS is that they don't want "hide and seek" gameplay. )
No ANTS.
No loadstar.
No mixed abilities.
No Vehicle boarding animations. Just pop on and around to different seats!
Kill cams.
Faster TTK.
No support roles as of yet.
Per continent/Planet Incapable bases.
ALL Equipment will be available at this incapable base. ( IE: Base type logistics gone )
Spawn on squad leader.
No Skyguard. The Lighting is now AA.  
OSOK snipers
The over all movement away from teamwork to cater to BF/COD gamers.

[shiznitz]

No faction loots? Damn.

[01101010]

I like the idea of landing ............

AHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahhahaaa..............

Good one.

I, for one, loved landing my Reaver and ending up in the middle of the ocean after a 4 second skiing frenzy.  

And yeah, that list is what made Planetside function. Not having it in there, this game becomes, like i have said before, BF/COD with a planetside skin. It feels like they are trying to advance the numbers on the map and the graphics and resting on that being the big thing that set them apart from the console shooters. Hoping for the worst here so I can be pleasantly surprised if it turns out even half-way decent or mocking SOE with a big smirk knowing what a steaming pile my beloved game sequel became.

[HaemishM]

What did you expect SOE to do? COD sells like millions of copies, makes billions of dollars. BF3 sells less, but seriously, if you are talking about multiplayer FPS, there are those two games and EVERYTHING ELSE. The players of those titles are the target audience, NOT the PS1 user base which was always too small for SOE's number crunchers. Their design starting point has to be "make COD/BF3 players happy" then build from there. Anything less is going to be a dismal failure.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Did you play PS1? I'm sure the 10 people that noticed the BF3 "chopper" are just like the 100+ that shoot at galaxies when they come into render/radar range.

You're basically under constant target lock, constant small arms fire, and have every jet & gunship on the map hunting you since you are hovering around in a big fat hog of a chopper with 4-5 kills for the guy who brings you down. Hella fun with a full crew, the miniguns blazing, moving from objective to objective deploying people into the action and frantically trying to keep repairs up.

A lot of the stuff you listed is really geek nitpicking, and the kind of weird design that put people off of the initial planetside. It was never supposed to be a niche title, it was supposed to be mainstream game with widepsread FPS and MMO appeal. SOE just didn't know how to make an FPS properly so you got all this weird stuff and it got killed in the market by games like BF1942 and reduced a little niche product for a small sliver of population. Now in the sequel SOE is trying to keep it in line with modern FPS games and then to distinguish it add the hooks of open world, persistance and (hopefully) some kind of resource economy.

[Mrbloodworth]

Sure. They could make a BF/COD clone and up the numbers. But after playing this title for 5+ years, I would enjoy them not throwing out the parts that made it Planetside. I am extremely pessimistic about this design, and highly jaded. I own that. I'm just expressing the things that disappoint me in what they are releasing. Other than art, I'm not seeing Planetside, but "Yet Another FPS".

That's the problem. This was already done. M.A.G was a fine title that already did all this.

[Speedy Cerviche]

You might be an ultra-loyal PS1 fan but your PS2 dollar is the same as anyone elses.

[Mrbloodworth]

[01101010]

You might be an ultra-loyal PS1 fan but your PS2 dollar is the same as anyone elses.

Highly doubt I will have any PS2 dollars at this point.

[Lantyssa]

Sure. They could make a BF/COD clone and up the numbers. But after playing this title for 5+ years, I would enjoy them not throwing out the parts that made it Planetside. I am extremely pessimistic about this design, and highly jaded. I own that. I'm just expressing the things that disappoint me in what they are releasing. Other than art, I'm not seeing Planetside, but "Yet Another FPS".

Which is why I thought people were crazy to get all excited.  This is SOE.  They can royally screw up any good idea they have.

[DayDream]

From the little that i've seen, the design document has literally been

1. Call it Planetside 2!
2. ? ? ?
3. Profit!


And i don't think that's changed since day 1.  From the paradox of "We're gunna have a deep character tree where specialists can excel!  But low level characters and jack-of-a-trades just as good as the specialists too!" to whatever this latest complete lack of support gameplay is.

I enjoyed the planetside i played in fodderside.  I'm hopeful about planetside 2, but i wouldn't say i'm surprised that SoE seems to be doing this poorly.  This has looked like the flailing of upper management since the beginning.

[Ghambit]

The key to this game will be how the map is won/lost and the resources involved with such, not if support classes exist or I can pinstripe my mag.
Support also exists in more than just repairing stuff or hacking shit.  It can mean moving resources around, hotdropping, running commander strikes, training newbs, organizing ops, bombing runs on resource nodes, etc.

So basically the depth of the territorial/resource meta is where the rubber meets the road here.  It's still a bit vague how vast and/or intricate it's gonna be so who knows, but one good sign is they cite battles lasting days-weeks instead of hours-days.

Command structure is still a big "?" too yes?  They may not have any at all.   

[Mrbloodworth]

AGN Community Night January 2012

"We were very surprised at how many people were upset we would not have vehicle boarding animations" - Higby


That's because, SIR, its part of what made people connected to the world, its also part of what made PS unique.


There is also some good info in that vid.


EDIT as I watch:

Oh for fucks sake. You can squad spawn as a MAX unit.  

No Equipment terms, you spawn fully geared.  

Combat Engi gear, Boomers, jammers ETC.. Are considered consumables and will take resources every time pulled. But Guns and side grades are permanent buys. Support again, hamstrung.  

[Malakili]

No Equipment terms, you spawn fully geared. 

Ugh, this is a big problem in Tribes: Ascend (which they refuse to address).  I hope they don't make the same mistake here.

[Mrbloodworth]

They are, because instead of making Planetside 2, they are making a si-fi Battlefield game.

They have battlefield ( Not the game ) mechanics in a Wargame. Small scope elements in what is supposed to be a larger engagement.

[Speedy Cerviche]

This is all nitpicking over minor balance issues and other gimmicky stuff most players besides hardcore PS1 players couldn't care less about.

The game will succeed/fail on 2 merits:

Quality of the engine: Smoothness/graphic/latency performance in big furballs and feel of physics. This was not done well in the original PS and it hampered the game's appeal vs hquality FPS competition.

As Ghambit mentioned the depth of the territorial/resource system. This is the meat of the MMO persistence factor which is the edge they need to make it a unique alternative to all the FPS competition out there, and alsol hook people in and get them to keep spending and playing no matter what new shiney games come out.

[Mrbloodworth]

This is all nitpicking over minor balance issues and other gimmicky stuff most players besides hardcore PS1 players couldn't care less about.

Hardly. It's a complete shift in the games original design. Its a given that the engine/net and territory control needed an update. That does not mean you remove the uniqueness of the original.

This article has a lot I agree with, it captures some of what made Planetside great, i just do not share his conclusion that this is not impacted by session based design elements creeping in to a WAR game.

Specifically:

Logistics

Logistics. The forgotten part of warfare. How do you move a hundred guys from one area of the map to the other? How do you make sure they can continue to spawn there? How do you get resources from point A to point B?

These are all questions that never come up in most games, likely because developers thought they would be boring, grindy things.

The original PlanetSide, however, proved this wrong. Winning a battle in PlanetSide wasn’t just about numbers or who brought the bigger guns, it was often about who had the better strategy for how to deal with logistical issues. When you were assaulting a base, for example, you had to have people drive mobile spawn points close enough to whatever you were attacking to keep a constant wave of reinforcements flowing toward your enemy.

When you would assault a continent, you’d have to bring everything with you – this meant multiple vehicles, both on air and land, to support your attack. There’s nothing quite as awesome as seeing six massive transport ships fly overhead escorted by friendly air. While that’s a scripted background event in most games, in PlanetSide, it’s another player helping you kick ass.

I do not agree with him this is a larger influence in PS2. It seems all but gone with the removal of the AMS, Terminals, No Staging areas, Spawning fully equipped, and addition of squad spawning, even as a MAX unit. Goodby max crashes. You also no longer have to bring everything with you. Some of the most important, and engaging game play was opening up a new continent. Now, everything is already there and there is no way to deny logistics to the other side.

Massive Combat

When PlanetSide launched in 2003, I was certain that we had just begun an FPS revolution.

Here was a game that wasn’t content with shrunken battles and small-scare warfare. Certainly, when other companies saw that truly massive combat was possible, they ‘d hop on for the ride, right?

Well, not quite. Despite PlanetSide proving that it could be done so long ago, no one has bothered to take up the massive battle torch since. As I mentioned in my Dust 514 column, while many studios have claimed to be in the MMOFPS market, none have actually produced an MMOFPS. Sure, we’ve had shooters set in “MMO” worlds, but none have embraced the tactical, massive combat that PlanetSide brought to the table.

And one has to seriously wonder why that’s the case. Battlefield 3 – one of the most anticipated titles of 2011 – boasted about its 32 on 32 person battles. That was one of its largest (if not the largest) selling points. PC gamers boasted that they’d get to enjoy huge battles, EA even ran a “Only in Battlefield 3” ad campaign – as if 64 person combat was the epitome of “large scale” combat.

While the other points on this list are all important and worth getting excited about, it’s the promise of true MMO-style warfare that really gets my blood going. Massive is being able to fly for minutes without hitting a wall, it’s transporting a dozen – not three or four – players into the heat of battle. It’s rushing a base with twenty tanks, not just one. It’s fighting against wave after wave of enemies who are desperate to break into your tower. It’s taking a base after five hours of combat, not five minutes.

I agree with most of this, however, many of the current design elements point are from session based games. It's currently closer to a 64 man game than Planetside. IMO. They have also broken the cardinal rule of Planetsides PVP. They added vertical progression to a cap of 20%. Planetside was a horizontal progression where even a day one noob could take out a 5 year vet. Now we have power increases where snipers can one shot one kill, and Maxes can have armor and resistance increases.

[01101010]

This is all nitpicking over minor balance issues and other gimmicky stuff most players besides hardcore PS1 players couldn't care less about.

Hardly. It's a complete shift in the games original design. Its a given that the engine/net and territory control needed an update. That does not mean you remove the uniqueness of the original.

Oddly enough, it does feel, reading through all that shit, as though this is just going to be a dumbed down version of Planetside. Planetside had such a wide scope, you would have thought SOE could have included every aspect of it 8 years later rather than neuter all the meaningful shit. Planetside worked and had a ton of aspects to it, but the more I hear of PS2, seems like all those quality aspects are being thrown out to chase the masses. Meh.

I have to keep reminding myself, SOE SOE SOE. duh.

[Ghambit]

I guess we could use the logic that if they're dumbing down the design this much that it's likely the strat. layers of the game will be equally "dumb."  Saddening. 
The next step will be adding chokepoint mechanics to funnel the playerbase to larger battles, rather than letting them lone wolf it somewhere. (after people unsub in droves)