Planetside 2

[Makkah]

Looks pretty badass. Supposed to be more info out later today via some Sony conference.

http://kotaku.com/5819221/take-a-good-hard-look-at-planetside-2/gallery/

http://kotaku.com/5819356/how-planetside-2-will-blow-the-roof-off-the-massively-multiplayer-online-first+person-shooter-genre

[Makkah]

Beta keys will be included in the April Issue of PC Gamer. Game looks badass.

[Makkah]

Still looks incredible with all the new alpha footage. Check out:

www.planetside-universe.com


Anyone possibly looking to form an Outfit (PS's version of a guild)?

[TheEschaton]

I'm not usually an FPS person, but the idea of a 2k person battle is intriguing to me, as long as they can keep the 9 y.o. CoD kiddies muted or something.

[Androidpk]

BF3 set the bar pretty high in regards to multiplayer FPS games so I really haven't seen anything that impressive yet coming from PS2. I was heavily involved in the beta testing for the first game and I really enjoyed it at first but then they made a bunch of bad decisions and the game turned to poop.

[TheEschaton]

BF3 is capped at like 64 players, isn't it?

PS2 is planning on 2k servers.

[Androidpk]

BF3 is capped at like 64 players, isn't it?

PS2 is planning on 2k servers.

Which is why texture quality is so poor in comparison as is the levels of destructibility. Simply adding more players doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be more fun.

[Numbers]

I played the shit out of the first PlanetSide, the game was incredible.

By far the biggest battles you will ever have online. Some of my most memorable gaming moments came from that game.

There was once this hours-long battle for a base in the middle of an island, probably involved around 800 to 1k players. It was a 3-way battle, with one team defending, and the other two attacking the base from either side. The team defending were the best at defense, as they had heavy armor suits that could anchor to the ground to increase their rate of fire.

So this battle's going on for hours, getting larger and larger, and neither team can capture the base (though we came close many times.) Snipers everywhere, air battles going on above, cloakers causing havoc, tank battles, etc. Then out of no where we see 15 Galaxy's (big flying ships that hold 8 troops each) flying high over the base, and all of the players eject at once and land at the top and storm the base from above. The defenders were caught off-guard, the rest of us snuck in through the back door, and we finally took the base.

The game did have some very serious balance issues. And the network code, while solid for a game supporting 1k-person battles, wasn't perfect, and people abused that. The game started spiraling downhill when they implemented giant mechs, which made the previously most powerful vehicles in the game (tanks) look like pea shooters. They quickly became an "I Win" button, and people ditched pretty quickly after that.

[Makkah]

Closed Beta should open fairly soon... a lot think it be announced later this week. New video is pretty sweet.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/news-full-planetside-2-e3-presentation-2811.htm

[Numbers]

Not sure how I feel about infiltrators also being snipers. Or light assault getting jetpacks. There also seems to be a smaller selection of vehicles this time around.

[Numbers]

When the hell is beta supposed to start?

[TheEschaton]

Within the month, I hear.

[Aluvius]

External beta just started this week or this weekend.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/

[Aluvius]

Woohoo, just got beta invite to the technical test. Installing it now.

[Numbers]

Same, played for a couple of hours tonight. There's not nearly enough people on to really get a sense of how things will work, but it looks promising.

It's a bit confusing at the moment -- a lot has changed from PS1. It looks like there's no sanctuary, unless I missed something obvious. So there's no where to fuck around with vehicles, or any VR training room. That's a pain, since vehicles cost resources.

There's a refresh time on spawning vehicles (at least some of them, I guess.) That kind of sucks if you want to be strictly a pilot... I think the respawn time on the scythe was 800 seconds?

Capturing bases is also a bit confusing. It looks like each base may have four control points? I dunno, was hard to tell, nobody was really attacking or defending anything.

The menu system is shit. Layers and layers.

It looks like there's no AMS vehicle anymore, so no mobile spawn points anymore? I was finding it was tough to get around anywhere.

Bases are ginormous on the outside... they're tiny on the inside. Lots of open outdoor areas, but not a lot of tight indoor areas.

I've found it tricky to pick out players from the environment.

Sniper rifles have an annoying "sway" to them. Don't know if that can be eliminated with a mod.

Infiltrators can be brutal now, but they can't cloak indefinitely anymore. But they're way too overpowered as snipers. Simply pop your cloak, zoom in, find a target, uncloak, fire a few times, recloak, go back to cover, wait for cloak to recharge, repeat. Well-played snipers will be virtually undetectable. And sniper rifles seem really powerful. They're practically rapid fire.

Flight controls are a bit wonky. There's no way to strafe anymore... the strafe keys turn the plane right and left. Moving your mouse to the side makes your plane roll. It can get very disorienting, and it's difficult to maneuver. It may actually require a flightstick to be a good pilot.

I can see light armor jump jets becoming very overpowered. It essentially renders base walls pointless, which will make defending much more difficult.

Engineer turrets don't seem to auto-fire. You actually have to place them and then mount them. This makes you sniper fodder. Maybe auto-firing turrets require a cert?

Vehicle physics seem a bit wonky. I was a gunner in a sunderer, and the driver essentially rolled down a 500ft sheer cliff with no problem.

There's bugs here and there. I've gotten stuck in the terrain a few times already. Some of the base elevators (more like levitating beams?) don't take you all the way to the top, and simply pop you out to plummet to your death.

These are just my nitpicks. There's obviously a lot of good stuff, too. But again, tough to tell when there's hardly anyone playing yet.

[Makkah]

Same, played for a couple of hours tonight. There's not nearly enough people on to really get a sense of how things will work, but it looks promising.

It's a bit confusing at the moment -- a lot has changed from PS1. It looks like there's no sanctuary, unless I missed something obvious. So there's no where to fuck around with vehicles, or any VR training room. That's a pain, since vehicles cost resources.

There's a refresh time on spawning vehicles (at least some of them, I guess.) That kind of sucks if you want to be strictly a pilot... I think the respawn time on the scythe was 800 seconds?

Capturing bases is also a bit confusing. It looks like each base may have four control points? I dunno, was hard to tell, nobody was really attacking or defending anything.

The menu system is shit. Layers and layers.

It looks like there's no AMS vehicle anymore, so no mobile spawn points anymore? I was finding it was tough to get around anywhere.

Bases are ginormous on the outside... they're tiny on the inside. Lots of open outdoor areas, but not a lot of tight indoor areas.

I've found it tricky to pick out players from the environment.

Sniper rifles have an annoying "sway" to them. Don't know if that can be eliminated with a mod.

Infiltrators can be brutal now, but they can't cloak indefinitely anymore. But they're way too overpowered as snipers. Simply pop your cloak, zoom in, find a target, uncloak, fire a few times, recloak, go back to cover, wait for cloak to recharge, repeat. Well-played snipers will be virtually undetectable. And sniper rifles seem really powerful. They're practically rapid fire.

Flight controls are a bit wonky. There's no way to strafe anymore... the strafe keys turn the plane right and left. Moving your mouse to the side makes your plane roll. It can get very disorienting, and it's difficult to maneuver. It may actually require a flightstick to be a good pilot.

I can see light armor jump jets becoming very overpowered. It essentially renders base walls pointless, which will make defending much more difficult.

Engineer turrets don't seem to auto-fire. You actually have to place them and then mount them. This makes you sniper fodder. Maybe auto-firing turrets require a cert?

Vehicle physics seem a bit wonky. I was a gunner in a sunderer, and the driver essentially rolled down a 500ft sheer cliff with no problem.

There's bugs here and there. I've gotten stuck in the terrain a few times already. Some of the base elevators (more like levitating beams?) don't take you all the way to the top, and simply pop you out to plummet to your death.

These are just my nitpicks. There's obviously a lot of good stuff, too. But again, tough to tell when there's hardly anyone playing yet.


Seems like a great post to put on the officials or whatever they have. Keep us informed. I think there's an NDA; I hope you didn't just rape it.

[Numbers]

Definitely an NDA, and I raped it hard, but oh well.

I'm trying really hard to like this game, but I'm just having a lot of trouble getting into it. It's turned out to be incredibly frustrating. It takes an annoyingly long time to get to a battle -- this can be attributed directly to them taking the AMS out of the game. Apparently they want the Galaxy to be the new AMS, which is retarded, as a Galaxy becomes the primary target wherever it goes. It's impossible to park a Galaxy anywhere and not have it blown up within a couple of minutes.

As such, you spawn at a base, run or drive to a battle, where you'll likely get killed by a tank, sniped, or ambushed by someone 15 feet to your left that you never saw because enemies blend into the terrain so well. Then you respawn all the way back at the base and start over again. The base layout is also pretty terrible. In one base the spawn room is impossible to get back to once you leave it -- which means you can't re-equip or change your loadout.

It's also very difficult to identify friend or foe. Friend indicators are tiny, and disappear when far away, so I found myself shooting at tanks or planes from my own team.

I still haven't found a way to dropship like you used to be able to in PS1. And there doesn't seem to be instant action anymore.

Very disappointing so far.

[Numbers]

I've been spending some more time with this. I keep trying to go in with the mindset that it's just a technical test -- it's not even in beta yet. Not all of the weapons are live, none of the certs are live, etc. But there's some design decisions in the game that just make it not very fun. Whether these things can be tweaked before launch, I don't know.

- There's still no AMS, and according to posts, there's no plans to bring it back. Apparently you'll be able to cert to make the sunderer a mobile respawn point.
- The TTK is maddeningly short. You'll very often get killed before even seeing who's attacking you.
- The game generally feels very similar to BF3. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.

- Base design is totally balls. A base is essentially completely outdoors, with a few buildings/bunkers within the base that are one or two levels. Each bunker has multiple entrances, and there are no doors anywhere. So there's no natural choke-points anymore. That's it. Some bases have their inventory stations out in the open, so it's possible to get sniped while equipping. No more huge base battles like there were in PS1. There's one base type, biodomes, which are absolutely retarded. They're essentially big domes suspended on pillars -- the only way in is via teleporter. There's only four teleporters. This has led to engineers simply setting up turret farms outside the teleporter exits, making the base impossible to enter -- you're dead before your screen even refreshes after you teleport. Defenders have their spawn directly in the dome. Whoever designed that base needs a new job, cause they suck at theirs.

- Map design is totally balls. In PS1, there was a very logical flow to battle. Take the tower / setup AMSs / assault the base. In PS2, the distance between a tower and its base is equivalent to the distance between entire bases in PS1. Some towers have vehicle pads, some don't. There's no way to spawn any closer. This means when you're assaulting a base, if you get killed, you have to run all the way back from a tower. There's no natural forward line / staging area anymore. This problem is exacerbated by the short TTK. Think of how much fun PS1 would be if there were no towers or AMSs and you had to run from base to base. For the towers with vehicle pads, you can spawn a vehicle to make the trip faster, but vehicles cost resources, and resources are finite. And they're all on timers. Mobile spawns would alleviate this greatly, but galaxy's aren't lasting very long when used for this purpose. It is possible to drop pod to squadmates, but it's on a 5 minute timer, and it's very glitchy. For instance, if a squadmate is inside a base, you'll drop pod on top of the base, where it's possible to get stuck in the geometry of the base. And very often, when podding to a squadmate outdoors, you'll fall through the world and die. Drop pods have their own physics -- I once saw someone pod onto the side of a really steep hill, and I watched as his pod tumbled and rolled down the entire mountainside and out of sight. And drop pods are very visible, so if an enemy sees it, you're essentially a sitting duck.

- Each base has multiple capture points, and you need to cap all of them to cap the base. Taking one cap point won't give you a spawn in the base.

- Ammo scarcity is a huge problem. Since the game doesn't have an inventory like PS1 has, you're basically limited to what's available to your class. There's no way to fill a backpack with extra ammo. The only way to get more ammo in the field is if an engineer drops an ammo pack. You can't scavenge dead players. This may be solved with a cert. The only way to rearm a vehicle is to drive near a sunderer, which has an AoE vehicle repair/rearm function. There's no way to go to an inventory and get more ammo.

The potential for this game is huge. But I think it's clear they're trying to attract the CoD / BF player, which explains the much faster TTK. The problem with that is that CoD / BF players are used to dying, respawning, and being back in the battle within a few seconds. They're going to try this game, see that it can take five to ten minutes to get back to the battle, laugh, and go right back to CoD / BF. Unless they either increase the TTK or dramatically decrease the time to battle, they're gonna have trouble keeping a lot of players. It's no fun trekking to a base for five minutes only to get killed in less than 3 seconds by someone you never saw.

[Androidpk]

You should be going in with the mindset that it's Planetside. After you realize that uninstall. ;)

[TheEschaton]

Isn't the point of a squad-based, persistent battlefield MMO that death has to sting to some extent? That you can't simply graveyard zerg points? I mean, I feel like I read that somewhere when they were discussing PS2 design, and it seemed to make sense to me at the time, but I didn't play PS1, so I don't know.

AFAIK, it's not meant to be like a regular FPS where you go in expecting to die - while death'll be more common than in an RPG probably - it's something that should penalize you, or something.

The same thing with the multiple capture point thing - they want to make the game strategic at some point, right? A 200 person CoD isn't going to cut it. I think they actually DON'T want the CoD kids, in fact, I'm pretty sure all the design stuff I've read has been designing away from that. It has to be an intelligent, squad-based game. At the end of the day, time to kill is a balancing issue, which is exactly what betas are for. The design, though, seems to hold merit to me.

Edit: And aren't you still under an NDA?

[Makkah]

Beta opens Monday to the PS1 players. I say check it out then; should be a lot more people. Other beta key people are expected in 2 weeks afterwards.

[Jarvan]

I never played PS1, but I wish someone would re-release x10 at some point, now that was a good idea that just didn't take off. Could be so much better now.

[Neovik1]

I was in the first Planetside game and played it every day until they released the mechs. I'm in beta now at the moment. Unfortunately it looks like I will have to upgrade my computer in order to play. It's pretty much unplayable for me at the moment.

[Numbers]

The requirements on the game are pretty steep. For what the game accomplishes, it looks damn good. It has some of the best atmospheric effects I've ever seen in a game. The first time I saw a foggy sunset in the game was pretty amazing. And night battles against Vanu are like light shows.

[Makkah]

I got my invite today, but I work the next 3 days... so I'm not messing with it for a while. May DL it tomorrow or sunday night.

[Numbers]

The game is gradually getting better. It's a lot more stable now, though there still needs to be some engine optimizations (textures and explosions are a bit meh.) There's also some huge balance issues, and hardly any of the weapons or certs are available for purchase. There's also some serious problems with the ground game, as it's essentially non-existent due to the galaxy being the new AMS. Most battles are just hopping from one base to another -- there's really no in-between base battles like there were in PS1. The spawn system is also really screwy. Sometimes you'll be in an awesome battle, you'll die, and the closest available spawn point is half a continent away.

Other than that, it's pretty fun.

They released an "Alpha Squad" pack yesterday (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/alpha-squad-faq-09-07-2012.15493/) that gives you 4k station cash, and will give you an exclusive camo set and some weapon unlocks & 6-month 10% exp boost at launch. It also gives you instant beta access, so if you've been unable to get a beta code yet, this is one way of doing it.

[Reliel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LYjx07U018&feature=g-user-u

[Numbers]

Yeah, that's one of the unbalanced things right now. MAXs don't cost any resources and aren't on a timer, and it's literally impossible to stop a big one. Also you noticed he mentioned the SCU at the end. Right now most SCUs are out in the open and are totally indefensible. This means most base attacks start with the attacks taking out the SCU, plopping down a Gal, and attacking. If the defenders can't get the SCU back up, which is very hard to do, they have nowhere nearby to spawn.

[Reliel]

All that aside, it looked pretty awesome.

[Numbers]

Got an extra beta key if someone wants it. First come, first serve.

[Androidpk]

I'll take it.

[Numbers]

Sent.

[Numbers]

Have another beta key. Same deal as last time, first come first serve.

[Sean of the Thread]

Have another beta key. Same deal as last time, first come first serve.


Yessss Please!

[Numbers]

Sent.

The game is a bit of a shitshow now with the Esamir patch. Lots of population imbalances and resource problems.

I have a TR char named Bostonian, a VS named Syracuse, and an NC named Manhattan.

[Sean of the Thread]

Been playing around with it a bit now and haven't really been in any real big battles so I don't know. Mostly small skirmishes even for big bases?

MAX seems to cost 200 resource now?

I'm noob to planetside so I have a lot of learning to do.

[Numbers]

Yeah, things are all fucked up now. There will likely be a patch to address some of the issues this week. The new continent has made finding a good battle difficult, since one empire locks down Esamir (just released on Sat) leaving the two other empires fighting over Indar. But most people want to fight on Esamir, or are forced there due to population caps (but can't leave the WG because it's camped by the empire that has the continent locked down). Players are kind of pissed, as pretty much everyone predicted this would happen.

MAXs cost resources and have a timer, yeah. When they were free everyone would just switch to MAX when defending/attacking a base. They also only have one of each weapon now, so if you want dual AI or AV, you'll need to buy the second weapon from the store, but they're kind of pricey (8k to 10k Auraxium each).

[Sean of the Thread]

Heh yeah I'm not having much fun yet. Finally stuck in a huge battle on Hoth errr esamir and it's only huge because we're being fucking spawn camped by like 500 people rofl. Sucks.

[Numbers]

Yup, I gave up on playing early on this weekend when I saw how things were going. The devs are generally very receptive to feedback, and there's clearly a problem they need to fix. Give it a week or so until things are back on track. I wouldn't be surprised if they did another character wipe with the next patch/hot fix.

[Sean of the Thread]

Having a lot more fun now. Learned to fly without a stick is key. A and D being rudder.

Shift to steady on scope.


This game will shine in squad/outfit play imo.

[Numbers]

This game goes live on Nov. 20th. The overwhelming consensus from the testers is that this is a very, very bad idea. The game is no where near finished, there's bugs everywhere, the third continent isn't out yet, the metagame doesn't even exist yet, and there's tremendously bad balance issues. It's clear that this is a cash grab to get it out before holidays, which makes zero sense to me, since it's F2P with a micro-transaction model.

It could very well kill the game right out of the gate, as first impressions are everything. If people download this and see a buggy pile of shit, they're not going to bother coming back -- it's not like they've paid for the game, they haven't made any monetary investment, so they'll just uninstall and move on. And the nature of this game is that the players ARE the content -- without the players there's no game.

That being said, if they can get past the balance issues, the game could be phenomenal. The biggest issues I have with the game right now are:

- The base design is horrible. I sometimes feel like they chose the absolute worst layout possible when designing these bases. The outposts are essentially a bunch of randomly arranged shipping containers, there's no doors in the game at all so tanks just shell open windows, cover is difficult to find, and spawn buildings are out in the open and easily camped. The larger bases, while seemingly gigantic, are mostly outdoor spaces or small indoor spaces.
- Vehicle spam is a huge problem. Since tanks only need one person to operate, most battles end up being 30 1-man tanks surrounding a base, eventually working their way to the spawn building to camp it. Defenders can't leave spawn building, attackers cap, and move on.
- Weapon balance. The TTK is way too low for a game of this type. It's aggravating to spend a few minutes getting to a base, either on foot or wheels, only to get killed in less than a second by someone you never saw. Now that they released shotguns and heavy weapons, it's essentially instagib.

[Sean of the Thread]

I agree man. I found it unplayable at points. It was either instant kill after taking forever to get to the fight in the unbalanced world or getting there and taking forever to be able to kill someone. I play on 1920 x 1080 and for some reason I need glasses. I think.

[Numbers]

Game goes live on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, I think they actually managed to finish it in time. The horrible balance problems that plagued beta have all but cleared up. Tank and air zergs aren't such a huge problem anymore. Weapon balance seems to be close to okay, though the TTK is still way less than I'd prefer. They've redesigned a lot of the bases to make them a bit more defensible, also.

I joined up with the largest outfit in the game, and that makes a huge difference. Instead of playing solo or with a random squad, I'm in an organized platoon of anywhere from 80 to 100 people. The outfit I'm in, The Enclave, has somewhat of a bad reputation, but it seems to be mostly undeserved. Yeah they can be somewhat immature at times, but it always seems to be very tongue-in-cheek. But it's turned it into a whole new game that's much more enjoyable. Even with the absurdly short TTK, if you get killed, there's usually 10 to 20 medics in the outfit running around who will revive you in a few seconds.

Anyway, it's completely free to play, so I'd recommend giving it a shot. If you don't like it solo, try joining an outfit to see if it's any better.

[Loyrl]

Started yesterday on the Connery US West server as a Vanu. It is pretty fun, takes a while to learn how to get around effectively.

[Numbers]

It helps to have an outfit where everything is coordinated. We usually get around in sunderers, galaxies, or just hotdrop into an area.

When I first login and I'm playing solo, I'll usually start by studying the map to try to figure out where the best fight is, and hotdrop into it. Otherwise I'll buy a plane and fly there. It usually takes too long to get anywhere from your warpgate with a ground vehicle, unless you've been pushed back to your warpgate. If I login and join an outfit group, I just go where they are, either by hotdrop, plane, or spawn beacon.

I'm currently on Mattherson playing TR. Characters name is Boston and I'm with The Enclave outfit.

[hotelquito1]

PlanetSide 2 sets the new standard for shooters,” said John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment. “With thousands of players fighting simultaneously across several beautiful, massive continents, the size and intensity of PlanetSide 2 has no equal. You’ve never played anything like it.”



PlanetSide 2 takes features from the original game, including massive multiplayer battles, distinct empires, and enormous continents – and then adds in modern FPS and MMO features. A new Sony Online Entertainment proprietary game engine called ForgeLight is able to power advanced technology and years of development to bring a new and unique experience to the genre.