Planetside 2

[91stCataclysm]

It's actually coming: http://www.planetside2.com/

To those who don't know, back in 2003 Sony Online Entertainment, then an MMO kingpin (this was before Blizzard rewrote the MMO scene) decided to do something that haven't been before and, in my opinion, haven't been done properly since - make a persistent-world MMO first person shooter. Their creation was named Planetside, because you had an entire planet - ten continents each containing dozens of bases, roads, and outposts - to fight over. No instancing, no quests, just endless, glorious 3-way virtual warfare with up to 600 combatants per faction in a single battle. You had everything from massive armored advances containing scores of tanks sweeping across a continent through frantic tunnel warfare when battling for the control of a base to surgical strikes carried out by airborne infantry attempting to deny the enemy strategic assets such as access to higher-tech vehicles or automated base defenses by sabotaging generators and infiltrating behind enemy lines.

And it was glorious. Played for it years. And now, they're making another one.

So, any other Planetside veterans who're planning to rejoin the fight?

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I haven't played it but from what I've heard and seen it looks ridiculously awesome.

Didn't know they were making a second one, will have to check it out.

 

[MorsePacific]

That sounds exactly like what I wanted MAG to be. I've never played it, but you made it sound astounding.

So I guess you can say I'm excited about it.

 

[Pr0]

Planetside was one of SOE's more ambitious and original titles when they launched it.

Given their current announcement of their "mutual agreement" to terminate the Lucas Arts license at the end of Q4 2011, shutting down SWG and their horrendous inability to remain relevant in the fantasy MMO scene against the juggernaut of Activision-Blizzard, this reboot does not strike me as a bad move.

First of all Planetside is an SOE original IP they don't owe any one license rights to use it. Secondly in its prime Planetside was probably the most fun online shooter of its type.

It did though degrade as all SOE titles degrade, under a lack of funding for development and bug fixing, servers were eventually merged down, and they eventually even merged the US/EU player populations with the Planetside: China servers, and as you might imagine over time people just lost interest due to the lack of content upgrade/update and the slow response to hacks and cheats that started becoming rampant even in an MMO shooter environment.

But given SOE's current standing in the online entertainment industry if they wanted to choose one IP to reboot to try to get the maximum bang for their buck, from PSN and the PC market together, it is Planetside, and if they do it right it will be quite a renaissance as then SOE won't be competing with LA/BioWare or Activision-Blizzard in direct content competition with them, but will be bringing something to the table that neither of its major competitors has, and thus will be servicing a niche that they can claim complete ownership of.

To me this looks like someone at SOE finally turned their brains back on. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Smedley, hes proven, time and time again, that he doesn't have one. But whoever came up with this decision made the right decision. When you cannot win a ground war using the same hardware and personnel your competition has, you don't keep throwing money into a black hole that will produce no results, you change the terms of engagement.

Planetside was the right IP for them to reboot in this situation. It will draw the most bang for the buck and help SOE define itself as servicing a niche of gaming entertainment that other major development interests aren't exploring.

So well done SOE, probably the first right decision thats been made in years.

 

[Raddra]

Honestly i'm disappointed at the trailer, and i'm a day-of-release of PS player. And i've been looking forward to PS2. Its just.. the trailer was so generic and boring. It showed nothing new.. we needed a new game with new things, not the same old game with prettier graphics.

We've seen a hundred trailers of people standing around shooting and shooting down gunsights at random avatars this year alone. They could have done something much better with the trailer, such as showing a GAL drop on a base and an infiltration and hack or something.

I really am hoping to see something new coming out of them soon, maybe a stats levelling system or something to change up the game.

 

[mcattack92]

I just hope to god that they follow the 'Free 2 Play/Freemium' model that allot of other games hvae taken. I was interested in this game when it came out but at the time, my internet was only as fast as carrier pigeons .

 

[Pr0]

Honestly i'm disappointed at the trailer, and i'm a day-of-release of PS player. And i've been looking forward to PS2. Its just.. the trailer was so generic and boring. It showed nothing new.. we needed a new game with new things, not the same old game with prettier graphics.

We've seen a hundred trailers of people standing around shooting and shooting down gunsights at random avatars this year alone. They could have done something much better with the trailer, such as showing a GAL drop on a base and an infiltration and hack or something.

I really am hoping to see something new coming out of them soon, maybe a stats levelling system or something to change up the game.

I'll agree with this to a certain extent, what we saw looked like what Planetside mostly is already, just with an engine update. ISI aiming through could indicate that they've removed client side hit scanning which was the absolute bane of every ground war specialized character in the game because you could fall down dead after going around a corner to avoid someone shooting you, only because the client to server to client actually came down on their end in regards to your actual position.

Planetside had its really good points though, some of the largest and most tactically active groups of people I've ever played in competitive situations with played that game, to see a restart of what all that was, removing the Core Combat frakkery, and sticking with the three way ground war on Auraxis, even as a "reboot" might not be all that bad really. Its not like giant mechs, the Sharding and Core Combat did the title any favors.

Perhaps removing those elements, and improving the elements that were good and are still good even to this day if you can find more than 50 people fighting each other on an entire continent that is, is really all PS2 needs to stand out and be a flagship title for the SOE PSN/PC user base.

 

[91stCataclysm]

This is an early teaser trailer - currently the PS2 website is just this trailer, a short FAQ which is basically one huge "TBA", three screenshots (taken from the trailer) and three faction wallpapers - so I think it's far too early to say "they just gave it a shiny new engine".

Though, in my opinion? Revamped graphics, better fking hit detections and increased damage for certain areas of the body (*cough*headshots*cough*) and I'd still buy it. All I really want is a revival of the good old PS before all the CC and BFR malarky, and judging by the fact that this trailer specifically stated "Auraxis" and not "some random planet with an Auraxian continent why don't us we don't know this makes no sense oh god I haven't been paid in three months why Sony why?" I think Sony are retconning away some (hopefully all) of the later slapdash additions to the original Planetside.

Oh and no more silly goggles and bubble helmets for the TR agile exo-suits! Woohoo!

 

[manythings]

God, I missed that game. It was so good. I loved the simplicity. We're Purple and Black (Vanu Sovereignty for life), they aren't so just start shooting. Loved the vehicle stuff; I once ramped an ATV off a volcano as a shortcut while carrying a bases transponder and it literally had so little health you couldn't see anything in the bar but it kept going.

I don't know if I'll be able to get into it again after all the retarded decisions they made afterwards... that and The Old Republic.

 

[Pr0]

Long as they realize that "balancing" the MCG/JackHammer/Lasher equation doesn't revolve around making them all "differently" powerful I think we'll be solid.

That was the biggest argument in the whole game and I don't think even the handful of players left have stopped arguing about it.

If they left the ground war/base war up to the Cycler/Gauss/Pulsar, and adjusted HW cert to cover AV/AA/AP, the game would be infinitely better.

HW cert was the biggest balance issue in the game, bigger than BFR's, bigger than vehicles, even the empire tank debate wasn't as hotly contested.

A Planetside where the ground war makes a bit more sense, that any soldier with a weapon in their hands is equally dangerous as any other soldier, depending on situational awareness and skill...would be a very interesting Planetside to play. None of this, this weapon is good indoors at close range, this weapon is good at medium range, and this weapon is good for spamming doorways with crap.

I'd love to see them stick with the standard assault rifles of the empires in PS2 as the generalized ground war weapons, and get more creative in regards to other things. The HW Cert is the one cert they can lose, or re-adjust to have it encompass AV/AA/AP weapons.

 

[viranimus]

I know I heard about this a while back and it somewhat intruiged me. However the trailer for the front page of the site looks more like Halo meets CoD.

Granted I know its better than that, but that trailer certainly wasnt putting their best face forward.

 

[A-D.]

But given SOE's current standing in the online entertainment industry if they wanted to choose one IP to reboot to try to get the maximum bang for their buck, from PSN and the PC market together, it is Planetside, and if they do it right it will be quite a renaissance as then SOE won't be competing with LA/BioWare or Activision-Blizzard in direct content competition with them, but will be bringing something to the table that neither of its major competitors has, and thus will be servicing a niche that they can claim complete ownership of.

I'd dispute that, though that will depend solely on if THQ can deliver with Dark Millenium (Warhammer 40k MMO) or not. If THQ played the Cards right, then no, Planetside 2 wouldnt be standing without direct competition. Especially given the fact that 40k is a massive IP to hold.

Still regardless, good news that Sony are rebooting one of their old, and original Franchises. Still it might also go the way Tabula Rasa went, for slightly different Reasons obviously but its a possibility there. MMO-Type Shooters arent as immensely popular as one might think. At least not when standing in direction to the more generic CoD-Shooters who offer, although limited, Mulitplayer as well for no charge. So its a gamble at this Point. And as said, depending on what THQ is doing, Sony will have Competition anyways.

 

[Pr0]

I have to counter the above poster that no online shooter that plays for free has ever matched the absolute glory of doing a massive 7 Galaxy (A high capacity aerial troop transport) generator rush on a hotly contested base, on a continent that had been fighting a 3 way pitched battle for an entire weekend with no clear winner and having the nearly 70 people those Galaxy transports airdropped massacre their way to a heavily guarded target and take it down and finally flip a Tech plant out of the hands of the empire with the superior number of forces on the ground at that time, to allow the battle to start swinging the other direction.

These are the kinds of moments Planetside could have that no other game could emulate, they were moments that took immense teamwork, immense tactical forethought and a ton of people willing to work together to establish a common goal.

Theres not a shooter ever thats ever seen that level of cooperative play. Theres no scoreboard, theres no leader board, theres just the tactical analysis of the moment, and the calls the command ranked players make to adapt to it, and the tactics used to achieve the goals.

Thats why Planetside was awesome, and thats why it was worth a monthly sub, as compared to most free online FPS games which are all about how big your e-peen is as compared to someone else.

Planetside was like a mass social FPSRTS. From the most experienced Command Rank individual down to the newest player, it was built around social teamwork and achieving collective goals. Thats why it was so good. Thats why as compared to any free to play shooter, it will always be better.

 

[A-D.]

I have to counter the above poster that no online shooter that plays for free has ever matched the absolute glory of doing a massive 7 Galaxy (A high capacity aerial troop transport) generator rush on a hotly contested base, on a continent that had been fighting a 3 way pitched battle for an entire weekend with no clear winner and having the nearly 70 people those Galaxy transports airdropped massacre their way to a heavily guarded target and take it down and finally flip a Tech plant out of the hands of the empire with the superior number of forces on the ground at that time, to allow the battle to start swinging the other direction.

These are the kinds of moments Planetside could have that no other game could emulate, they were moments that took immense teamwork, immense tactical forethought and a ton of people willing to work together to establish a common goal.

Theres not a shooter ever thats ever seen that level of cooperative play. Theres no scoreboard, theres no leader board, theres just the tactical analysis of the moment, and the calls the command ranked players make to adapt to it, and the tactics used to achieve the goals.

Thats why Planetside was awesome, and thats why it was worth a monthly sub, as compared to most free online FPS games which are all about how big your e-peen is as compared to someone else.

Planetside was like a mass social FPSRTS. From the most experienced Command Rank individual down to the newest player, it was built around social teamwork and achieving collective goals. Thats why it was so good. Thats why as compared to any free to play shooter, it will always be better.

Alright im quoting the whole thing and will summarize this into one line: Fanboy-Wanking. Okay not a whole line, but you get the Idea.

Yes Planetside was good, and its focus and whole Gameplay was really good at the Time, as well that i think it will be good with the Sequel, of sorts. Point being that, not everyone WANTS to play with Teamwork, or go into a massive Battle for a couple of days. They want straight up mindnumbing shootouts for a couple hours and call it a Day. Not follow some random Tactic to fit in with the other 100+ Players currently around against a Enemy doing the same exact Thing. So to the majority it will simply be a Question of "Why bother when i can do this"-Thing. Planetside even in its prime wasnt the holy grail of the FPS Genre, Planetside 2 wont be either, its merely mixing a very good Concept with another good Concept. Technically speaking, its biggest Appeal was in the fact that, you played Online, with and against human Players, but at massive Numbers, far more than any FPS Game achieved, or does now.

Yes it also needed some Tactics to get somewhere, but the Problem is, you will have the Assholes who will think their Idea of how to go about it is better than yours and vice versa. So effectively, at best you end up with a couple of Guys, all split into smaller sub-groups fighting a battle against a Enemy who may or may not be doing exactly that. Planetside, as well as its coming Sequel will appeal to a different Crowd there, it wont have "lots of Players", sure alot may be drawn in from the initial Hype/Release but not all will stay in the Game. So really its down to the Core Base of Players it will attract and keep, which wont number in the Millions. As said, there is Competiton coming, CoD and BF3 will be drawing in the generic FPS Crowd right away and once Dark Millenium goes live, and depending on how good they made it, will simply draw the rest away. If we consider Dark Millenium in a similar Prospect of Planetside, then Dark Millenium has already won, if only on the Principle that is has more Factions and Space Marines carrying Guns the size of a fucking Car.

So no, Sony wont "control" their own Niche at all, at best they get a big slice of that Niche, but they wont control it, which was the whole point of my initial Post there. And for all we know, Planetside 2 might as well be crap too, just the same as Dark Millenium could be a huge pile of Fail.

 

[Antari]

Planetside was one of SOE's more ambitious and original titles when they launched it.

Given their current announcement of their "mutual agreement" to terminate the Lucas Arts license at the end of Q4 2011, shutting down SWG and their horrendous inability to remain relevant in the fantasy MMO scene against the juggernaut of Activision-Blizzard, this reboot does not strike me as a bad move.

First of all Planetside is an SOE original IP they don't owe any one license rights to use it. Secondly in its prime Planetside was probably the most fun online shooter of its type.

It did though degrade as all SOE titles degrade, under a lack of funding for development and bug fixing, servers were eventually merged down, and they eventually even merged the US/EU player populations with the Planetside: China servers, and as you might imagine over time people just lost interest due to the lack of content upgrade/update and the slow response to hacks and cheats that started becoming rampant even in an MMO shooter environment.

But given SOE's current standing in the online entertainment industry if they wanted to choose one IP to reboot to try to get the maximum bang for their buck, from PSN and the PC market together, it is Planetside, and if they do it right it will be quite a renaissance as then SOE won't be competing with LA/BioWare or Activision-Blizzard in direct content competition with them, but will be bringing something to the table that neither of its major competitors has, and thus will be servicing a niche that they can claim complete ownership of.

To me this looks like someone at SOE finally turned their brains back on. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Smedley, hes proven, time and time again, that he doesn't have one. But whoever came up with this decision made the right decision. When you cannot win a ground war using the same hardware and personnel your competition has, you don't keep throwing money into a black hole that will produce no results, you change the terms of engagement.

Planetside was the right IP for them to reboot in this situation. It will draw the most bang for the buck and help SOE define itself as servicing a niche of gaming entertainment that other major development interests aren't exploring.

So well done SOE, probably the first right decision thats been made in years.

Origional Planetside died a painful death because they were bright enough to fire the lead programmer right after release of the game. It took them 4 years to find someone capabable of figuring out how to add even the most simple things to the game. We can only hope they've learned their lesson on this one.

 

[Pr0]

I have to counter the above poster that no online shooter that plays for free has ever matched the absolute glory of doing a massive 7 Galaxy (A high capacity aerial troop transport) generator rush on a hotly contested base, on a continent that had been fighting a 3 way pitched battle for an entire weekend with no clear winner and having the nearly 70 people those Galaxy transports airdropped massacre their way to a heavily guarded target and take it down and finally flip a Tech plant out of the hands of the empire with the superior number of forces on the ground at that time, to allow the battle to start swinging the other direction.

These are the kinds of moments Planetside could have that no other game could emulate, they were moments that took immense teamwork, immense tactical forethought and a ton of people willing to work together to establish a common goal.

Theres not a shooter ever thats ever seen that level of cooperative play. Theres no scoreboard, theres no leader board, theres just the tactical analysis of the moment, and the calls the command ranked players make to adapt to it, and the tactics used to achieve the goals.

Thats why Planetside was awesome, and thats why it was worth a monthly sub, as compared to most free online FPS games which are all about how big your e-peen is as compared to someone else.

Planetside was like a mass social FPSRTS. From the most experienced Command Rank individual down to the newest player, it was built around social teamwork and achieving collective goals. Thats why it was so good. Thats why as compared to any free to play shooter, it will always be better.

Alright im quoting the whole thing and will summarize this into one line: Fanboy-Wanking. Okay not a whole line, but you get the Idea.

Yes Planetside was good, and its focus and whole Gameplay was really good at the Time, as well that i think it will be good with the Sequel, of sorts. Point being that, not everyone WANTS to play with Teamwork, or go into a massive Battle for a couple of days. They want straight up mindnumbing shootouts for a couple hours and call it a Day. Not follow some random Tactic to fit in with the other 100+ Players currently around against a Enemy doing the same exact Thing. So to the majority it will simply be a Question of "Why bother when i can do this"-Thing. Planetside even in its prime wasnt the holy grail of the FPS Genre, Planetside 2 wont be either, its merely mixing a very good Concept with another good Concept. Technically speaking, its biggest Appeal was in the fact that, you played Online, with and against human Players, but at massive Numbers, far more than any FPS Game achieved, or does now.

Yes it also needed some Tactics to get somewhere, but the Problem is, you will have the Assholes who will think their Idea of how to go about it is better than yours and vice versa. So effectively, at best you end up with a couple of Guys, all split into smaller sub-groups fighting a battle against a Enemy who may or may not be doing exactly that. Planetside, as well as its coming Sequel will appeal to a different Crowd there, it wont have "lots of Players", sure alot may be drawn in from the initial Hype/Release but not all will stay in the Game. So really its down to the Core Base of Players it will attract and keep, which wont number in the Millions. As said, there is Competiton coming, CoD and BF3 will be drawing in the generic FPS Crowd right away and once Dark Millenium goes live, and depending on how good they made it, will simply draw the rest away. If we consider Dark Millenium in a similar Prospect of Planetside, then Dark Millenium has already won, if only on the Principle that is has more Factions and Space Marines carrying Guns the size of a fucking Car.

So no, Sony wont "control" their own Niche at all, at best they get a big slice of that Niche, but they wont control it, which was the whole point of my initial Post there. And for all we know, Planetside 2 might as well be crap too, just the same as Dark Millenium could be a huge pile of Fail.

I think the whole term "fanboy wanking" would be inaccurate as I am one of SOE's more jaded critics in many areas. I spent an entire gaming convention panel blasting an SOE rep sitting right next to me as we talked to hundreds of people.

Simple facts are what Planetside did, it did better than any game had ever done it to that point and believe me I'd played every shooter there was to that point and I believe executed correctly and properly maintained with a programming and development team that stays committed to the product, there isn't a lot that will be able to compete with it.

And to counter the "fanboy wanking" comment I've been exposed to GW's 40K franchise for...I dunno going on over 20 years and I haven't once found the titles anywhere near to compelling or interesting and we all saw how that whole Warhammer Online thing went. Its not down to having an IP people recognize because the implementation could very well be total crap, and if it is it doesn't matter, why did GW's Warhammer not interest me? Cause Blizzards Warcraft/Starcraft was more interesting to me, everyone has their taste, the issue is the draw of a title isn't in its IP but it how its executed.

Planetside presented, for a good stretch of time even previous to Halo becoming the "God of all FPS games" (pardon the sarcasm), was the most well executed futuristic team based shooter of its type. With some proper attention and a commitment from SOE to attempt to make the game its flagship product (seeing as its other "flagship" product is nothing short of "flagging"), Planetside could once again rise to bring back the days of massive aerial and armored assaults and gigantic air drops on hotly contested bases that it was back in its day.

I'm not a fan of Planetside as it is now and had so many issues with its design implementations when I was playing it that I can only say I was a fan of the team based tactical aspects of the game. I am not a fanboy of SOE, I don't even own a PS3 and the last time I would have considered SOE "good" as a company was pre-CU SWG and thats about it.

So just have to state here, I'm telling you about experiences I personally had in a game that in its time and its day were beyond the wildest dreams of every armchair commando/general, and they could do it again and it would be a hell of a nice thing to see.

 

[FFMattCR]

Really looking forward to it,
the first planetside was so good (before BFR's and all that kinda had a negative impact) and it was the simple concept and stuff that made it so enjoyable but different to everything else.
I really hope they dont change much in terms of how the game is played, although if done properly a more focused kind of class system could work rather than just buying whatever skills randomly with your skill points, but we'll see
And like an earlier comment, I agree the trailer could have shown more, but SOE have been pretty secretive about it so its expected

Uhm.. I know the no rant policy but I'd just like to express my opinion on how much this "Free to play + micro-installments" culture really sucks and is degrading online games...
I hate it, I really do, and I'd rather pay a monthly subscription to get all content rather than silly little payments here and there (whether its for items that affect gameplay or not - and especially not experience boosts and the like) or have a truly "Free to play" game such as Battlefield 2142
but forgive me, I'm a highly opinionated 16 year old and I hope SOE doesnt sink to free to play/micro-installments

 

[RagTagBand]

Really looking forward to it, Played it for 3 years (post initial merger, before the death-rattle mergers, when it was Werner, Emerald and Markov) and it is the greatest Multiplayer FPS experience i've ever had the fortune to be a part of to date.

And for me it wasn't just about the Massive 300+player, 3 day long battles; It was about the Persistent war. Everything you did have an effect, there was no "Reset" at the end of any "Rounds", No lobbies, no confined maps, everything you saw was because of the direct result of human players.

I actually quite liked Core Combat, the zip line things were quite nifty. Wasn't too sold on BFR's because I sucked at piloting them...though I didn't mind them because I was (if i dont say so myself) quite good at bringing them down. On more than one occasion I had ran into a BFR on my own and either sent it running or destroyed it.

I don't know what new things they'll bring...but I wont mind if it is just planetside for the modern age.

 

[Skuffyshootster]

I'll pick it up if there aren't any subscription fees and isn't a second job.

 

[A-D.]

I think the whole term "fanboy wanking" would be inaccurate as I am one of SOE's more jaded critics in many areas. I spent an entire gaming convention panel blasting an SOE rep sitting right next to me as we talked to hundreds of people.

Simple facts are what Planetside did, it did better than any game had ever done it to that point and believe me I'd played every shooter there was to that point and I believe executed correctly and properly maintained with a programming and development team that stays committed to the product, there isn't a lot that will be able to compete with it.

And to counter the "fanboy wanking" comment I've been exposed to GW's 40K franchise for...I dunno going on over 20 years and I haven't once found the titles anywhere near to compelling or interesting and we all saw how that whole Warhammer Online thing went. Its not down to having an IP people recognize because the implementation could very well be total crap, and if it is it doesn't matter, why did GW's Warhammer not interest me? Cause Blizzards Warcraft/Starcraft was more interesting to me, everyone has their taste, the issue is the draw of a title isn't in its IP but it how its executed.

Planetside presented, for a good stretch of time even previous to Halo becoming the "God of all FPS games" (pardon the sarcasm), was the most well executed futuristic team based shooter of its type. With some proper attention and a commitment from SOE to attempt to make the game its flagship product (seeing as its other "flagship" product is nothing short of "flagging"), Planetside could once again rise to bring back the days of massive aerial and armored assaults and gigantic air drops on hotly contested bases that it was back in its day.

I'm not a fan of Planetside as it is now and had so many issues with its design implementations when I was playing it that I can only say I was a fan of the team based tactical aspects of the game. I am not a fanboy of SOE, I don't even own a PS3 and the last time I would have considered SOE "good" as a company was pre-CU SWG and thats about it.

So just have to state here, I'm telling you about experiences I personally had in a game that in its time and its day were beyond the wildest dreams of every armchair commando/general, and they could do it again and it would be a hell of a nice thing to see.

The Fanboy-wanking Comment was meant towards the Game, not directly towards SOE as it sounded like what would be normally considered a Fanboy Argument for any chosen Game, which as you pointed out as well, can be any Game.

I dont doubt that Planetside 2 would be a good Game, or that it might actually be very popular once its released. My biggest criticism is really the Statement of yours that implied that once Sony releases it, that Planetside would basicly be the WoW of that particular Type of MMO Game. Which as far as i am concerned is very doubtful. Also for the sake of argument, yes Warhammer Online was a bit of a failure, which proves that IP itself does not exactly mean much, but it generated Hype and got alot of People to at least try it. The Question really is if that Hype can lead somewhere, i.e. keep People playing past the first few Months, many MMO's, of all types, have had that Problem.

So yes, Planetside 2 might be good, but it wont be causing Sony to control the Niche of Tactical FPS-based MMO's.