Planetside 2 Announcement - 07/07/11

Karstein

Senior member
Mar 31, 2011
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http://www.planetside-universe.com/news-planetside-2-facebook-page-2491.htm

SOE are making a Planetside 2 announcement on 07/07/11 @ 7PM.

Apart from Tribes: Ascend, this is probably the only other FPS I've been looking at with interest for a while.

Spent a lengthy period of time in the beta/Retail when the first game came out, but unfortunately there was never really enough to keep you coming back to play ('we captured a continent... again... woohoo?'). I'll be interested to see what they have in store for the sequel.

Probably the most memorable part for me was running into other established clans during continent sweeps and having massive all-out wars against them while both sides tried to call in more big names, so I hope they really focus on that aspect of it personally. Such great camaraderie and rivalry emerged as a result.
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
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Jesus, for some reason I read this as planescape 2 announcement. And I was like no fucking way.

Planetside 2 is cool also, will be interesting to see what they do.
 

Queasy

Moderator<br>Console Gaming
Aug 24, 2001
31,796
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this could be the first subscription game i might go for.

I wouldn't be surprised if they made it F2P. Lots of MMOs seem to be headed that way. DCUO recently added a microtransaction-based marketplace so it looks like even that $15 a month MMO is likely headed to F2P at some point in the near future.
 

Beev

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2006
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I don't see it succeeding unless it's F2P. I enjoyed the first one, but not past the free trial. They would need to change a ton.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
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I don't see it succeeding unless it's F2P. I enjoyed the first one, but not past the free trial. They would need to change a ton.

Free 2 play is not free 2 play, it's free 2 run around, microtransactions for meaningful play. Fixed monthly fee, please.
 

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
38,416
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Hopefully, they shut the first one down a few months after the 2nd one is released. The demise of the first one is quite legendary and at this point, likely euthanasia.

SOE is bad about product cannibalization because they are too afraid to shut failed MMOs down quickly. If they are afraid of losing confidence in their base, surprise, they lost it long ago (see NGE in SWG).
 

Sentrosi2121

Platinum Member
Aug 8, 2004
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SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
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www.neftastic.com
Sony Fanfare Planetside 2 Community Q&A:

On the Class System
The skill tree and classes go hand in hand, you can switch between roles as often as you want depending what is needed at the time. Things like weapon attachments will be based on the skill tree. Also you will be able to queue up 24 hours of skills to train so you can train your characters offline. However there will still be battle rank involved which will prevent you from training all skills unless you advance in battle rank. Skill training will also occur quicker when you are online.

On Resource Collection
On a continent you will have multiple regions that can be captured that have specific resources tied to them. Some areas may be more rich in rare resources some in common materials. Auraxium will be one of the rare resources that can be obtained. You will be able to unlock secondary weapons such as mortar cannons and AA guns on tanks. You will do this based on resources collected by your empire or outfit. Resources will make gameplay more strategic, for example denying resources to empires to gain an advantage.

On Outfit Customization
Outfits will have skill trees also that will be customizable. Outfits can spec specifically to increase certain aspects such as focusing on being an air cavalry outfit, or infiltry and max outfits.

On long term plans.
There will be a three year plan for PlanetSide 2 for all of the players to review and and provide feedback. Based on feedback the plan could be changed or moved around.

On Game Focus
It's about giving back to the players, SOE wants to make PlanetSide 2 for the players who have stuck to the game for years, and the hardcore players who participate day in and day out.

On the scale of gameplay
There will be multiple continents in the game just as with the original PlanetSide. Down the road there will even be multiple worlds.

On gameplay systems
There will be an extensive mission system in PlanetSide 2 to assist in coordinating PlanetSide 2 combat on a much larger scale than seen in PlanetSide 1.

On the Territorial Control Systems
Due to the structure of the systems there will be a large variety of heavily contested areas such as large forests. Large and open areas could be conquered entirely with vehicles, this goes for air and ground vehicles. Much of the territorial control system will be based similarly on bases where if you capture a base or structure you own the territory. There will be bonuses to capturing territories that are connected. It will also add more vertical gameplay to the game.

On the pace of Gameplay
Moment to moment pacing for PlanetSide 2 is much faster than PlanetSIde 1.

On external access to data
Most data will be accessible from outside so webapps can b built on top of the game. Services such as signature generators and statistic pages could be built around the data feeds.

On urban combat.
There will be "Urban Like" combat in PlanetSide 2.

On the Flight Model
They want skill based vehicle driving to play a much larger role in PlanetSide 2. There will be much more advanced flight mechanics with barrel roles and flips. Real skill will be required to fly vehicles so quality pilots will be in demand.

When is beta?
Beta will ready when we feel the game is ready for people to play and test in. There is no solid date at this time.

What are you most excited about in Planetside 2?
I am most excited about the world system and the territorial control system, for example being able to capture a ridge or a river bend. Also the engine is capable of things volumetric clouds where vehicles could fly in and hide in the clouds.

Can you tell us if 3rd person will play a role in PlanetSide 2?
There will only be a 3rd person view for certain air vehicles, infantry will not have a third person view at all. There may be things like cameras that an infiltrator can throw on a wall to monitor who is coming up the stairs or around a corner.

Can we expect more varied base layouts?
Currently we are coming up with a way on how interiors are going to work, we are working on predictability vs randomness and we are leaning towards more standard base layouts rather than random. But this time around combat will be less centralized on bases. There will not be specific purpose built facilities such as drop ship etc (ie you won't require a dropship center to build dropships)

Are there any plans for a larger variety in towers?
Right now there are two types of towers and we hope to have more variety in towers.

Are there any plans for more in-depth character creation, like what was done from EQ to EQ2?
There will not be a large variety of character creation due to the large scale of the game.

Game Appearance - How will weapon-customization be implemented into the game?
There will be weapon customization in the game. The customization will be very sensitive to player gaining to much power. An upgrade may allow you to unlock different variants that are less accurate but do more damage. There will be a 15&#37; to 20% maximum difference between players who are new compared to experienced.

Will base names remain similar in PlanetSide 2?
Hope to use similar base names as well as continents, there was a new continent featured in the teaser trailer and we are currently working on Searhus.

Will wreckage remain on the battlefield?
Wreckage will stay around on the battlefield for a period of time, hopefully minutes but it is still up for balance.

Are you currently planning to make an expansion pack or periodically add content?
There will be large scale content releases rather than expansion packs in PlanetSide 2.

What are your plans for the storyline? Will it be expanded upon?
The PlanetSide 2 story is the re-imaging of PlanetSide, you are still in Auraxis and allot of the story from PlanetSide will be re-examined in PlanetSide 2

Part 3

Will there be more of a detailed hitbox in PlanetSide 2? For example will we see Headshots this time around?
There will be headshots in the game as well as locational damage on Vehicles.

Can the terrain be altered (destructable terrain)?
At this stage of development this is still up in the air.

Do we still have a sanctuary? Or is it replaced with something else?
The sanctuaries and shuttle system do not exist in PlanetSide 2 since they slow down the gameplay. You will be able to spawn directly on squad mates based on skills, squad spawning can only happen outside since squad spawning actually drops a capsule from the sky. Additionally you will be able to spawn in Galaxies.

What changes will we see in the command system in Planetside 2?
There will be squad level command systems that allow tagging of targets as well as outfit based command. There will also be orbital strikes in the game, all of these abilities will be based on the skill system in the game.

What kind of new features can we expect for Outfits?
Later on down the road (likley not at release) we hope to provide a skin system to allow outfits to customize their armors so the will be more recognizable on the battlefield. This type of system would be approved by the PlanetSide Team to cut down on inappropriate submissions.

Will there be a merit system?
Yes we hope to have a merit system in PlanetSide 2
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
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Does Planetside 2 have forums yet? One question I would like to know is whether it will be designed to never ever be won like Planetside 1 or if it can be won like WW2OL.
 

Sentrosi2121

Platinum Member
Aug 8, 2004
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I don't know if SOE has an official forum set up for Planetside 2, but if you head over to Planetside-Universe.com I know they have a PS2 forum already setup. The admin of Planetside-Universe has written up an 'initial impression' of the game from a development standpoint.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
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I don't know if SOE has an official forum set up for Planetside 2, but if you head over to Planetside-Universe.com I know they have a PS2 forum already setup. The admin of Planetside-Universe has written up an 'initial impression' of the game from a development standpoint.

I actually went to SOE's original Planetside forums. I read a couple of posts saying that there are a lot of doom and gloom posts about PS2 but I stopped because I don't have time to figure them out because I spend enough time on BF3 forums lol.

If anyone figures out what the doom and gloom for PS2 is let us know lol.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
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What we know about Planetside 2 (So Far)
Lovingly reposted from Planetside-Universe.com

The only bad thing I see is no prone, while annoying, not the end of the world. Can't see anything else in there that might be bad? Of course, I never played PS1, so I take a BF2-centric view, and am possibly incapable of recognizing bad things. I notice they mention Squad Spawning, which i something I am familiar with from Battlefield. I assume PS1 did NOT have that?

Here's something I would like to know. Do players have personal shields and stuff that make it so that sneaking up on someone and blasting them in the back with heavy weapons might not be as fatal as you hope?
 

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
3,731
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The only bad thing I see is no prone, while annoying, not the end of the world. Can't see anything else in there that might be bad? Of course, I never played PS1, so I take a BF2-centric view, and am possibly incapable of recognizing bad things. I notice they mention Squad Spawning, which i something I am familiar with from Battlefield. I assume PS1 did NOT have that?

Here's something I would like to know. Do players have personal shields and stuff that make it so that sneaking up on someone and blasting them in the back with heavy weapons might not be as fatal as you hope?

PS1 did have squad spawning to a certain degree. You could get troop transport bus or whatever with your skill points (when you level, you get a point, and you can use your points to be able to use certain gear/ships/tanks/etc, which all require different amount of points to get)... The transport "bus" could be driven to a location and people could spawn from them.

Those buses could (or was on by default, not sure) also have a shield around it to prevent spawn camping... It would be a cloaking shield, so anybody within the shield is not visible unless someone was really close to the shield location. I vaguely remembering it also shielding from attacks. These buses were also ammo carriers so people could run back to them and recharge their ammo.

Not sure why they'd have squad spawning when they already had a decent way of handling it.

As far as personal shields. I can't remember, it's been too long. I do know some classes (it was a skill based system) but with your points you could buy an infiltrator suit which allows a personal cloaking device. Sort of like the spy in team fortress 2.
 
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SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
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Free 2 play is not free 2 play, it's free 2 run around, microtransactions for meaningful play. Fixed monthly fee, please.

Go play DDO or LOTRO and tell me what you CAN'T do in a properly done F2P game? I'll give you a hint... you can do anything you want. A properly crafted F2P title gives you all the tools you need to play the game. Anything purchased is just for convenience, cosmetics, or to unlock content. Not an I-win button.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
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Go play DDO or LOTRO and tell me what you CAN'T do in a properly done F2P game? I'll give you a hint... you can do anything you want. A properly crafted F2P title gives you all the tools you need to play the game. Anything purchased is just for convenience, cosmetics, or to unlock content. Not an I-win button.

I haven't played DDO and LOTRO but correct me if I'm wrong, both of those were released as monthly fees and changed later, right? I personally think there might be a difference between a game that chooses to go F2P after a couple of years and a game designed for F2P + microtransactions from the ground up.

Also, I did say "meaningful play", not for an I win button.

either way, I do prefer to be able to access the entire game for $15 per month flat, even if it's only for pricing efficiency.
 

Arsinek

Senior member
Feb 9, 2010
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The only bad thing I see is no prone, while annoying, not the end of the world. Can't see anything else in there that might be bad? Of course, I never played PS1, so I take a BF2-centric view, and am possibly incapable of recognizing bad things. I notice they mention Squad Spawning, which i something I am familiar with from Battlefield. I assume PS1 did NOT have that?

Here's something I would like to know. Do players have personal shields and stuff that make it so that sneaking up on someone and blasting them in the back with heavy weapons might not be as fatal as you hope?


Ugh, no prone? fail.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
14
81
Ugh, no prone? fail.

I didn't spend long on the forum but I did see an "OMG no prone plz otherwise there will be camping overpowered snipers" comment, lol. Same thing that you get in the Battlefield community.

Which I don't agree with, based on BF experience, but PS1 may have other aspects that affect it.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,675
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www.neftastic.com
Never had a problem in PS1 as a sniper without having prone. Helps that the sniper 10x scope skill made it fairly easy for you to hide well enough away from your target's clipping range.
 

Sentrosi2121

Platinum Member
Aug 8, 2004
2,567
2
81
Ugh, no prone? fail.
No.
Buggy release is fail.
Unable to cert in the tree you want due to technical difficulties is fail.
Hyping a product then pulling support from it in the last minute is fail.
Tabula Rasa is fail.

This? No prone sniping? This is not fail.