Planetside 2..Free to play..and looking awesome so far!

[imaheadcase]

was googling for release date updates, only found this:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/05/new-planetside-2-gameplay-footage-spotted-in-the-wild/

(it shows gameplay)

The gameplay was awesome looking.

 

[WelshBloke]

The gameplay was awesome looking.

Be interesting to see what it looks like when theres 300 people on a map spamming rockets everywhere.

 

[CFP]

F2P almost invariably becomes pay-2-win

 

[PrincessFrosty]

F2P almost invariably becomes pay-2-win

Yep, I just found this talk I'd watched before with Benjamin Cousins a guy running Battlefield Heroes, it's very interesting.

http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win

They basically start of with no play2win in fear of what will happen, invariably not sell enough clothing items to cover the running costs of the business, so they're forced into "drastic" action and create pay2win items.

What that tells you is that some developers basically are happy to destroy the competitive side of their game if the casual players spending habits make them more money because of it, they have no interest in the balance of the game or the fairness of the high end play, but it's whatever generates the most revenue that is what is "best".

It's very much a business model which is designed around, what will our customers tolerate, and what they tolerate is measured by the amount of money they can make, to me that's not a good business model, it doesn't make me want to do business with a developer like that, who want to offer me as worst service as they can possibly get away with before it becomes a hit to their bank account.

This is what worries me with F2P and with the overwhelming flood of casual players, they're so numerous compared to the competitive players that their combined spending power overrules the people who actually care and are passionate about the game.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Tuesday was a big day for Planetside-Universe.

SOE and The9, the Chinese developer working alongside Sony, released some in-game footage of Planetside 2. You can see the links to the video over at http://www.planetside-universe.com/.

I was playing The Old Republic with Hamma, the Admin of PSU, Tuesday night and he suddenly said on Teamspeak he needed to take care of a few things. About 30 minutes later his wife said on TS that there was news about PS2 that we needed to see. All of us found places to rest our characters and headed over there to see the video.

In a word; incredible.
In another couple of words; "Can't Wait."

 

[Red Storm]

Any game that let's me fly around I'm always open to giving a chance. We'll see how this goes.

 

[WelshBloke]

Anyone get accepted for the beta yet?

 

[Sentrosi2121]

No release data for beta yet Welsh. Though I believe we are a bit off from the Beta testing phase. Planetside2 does have beta signups here.

 

[WelshBloke]

No release data for beta yet Welsh. Though I believe we are a bit off from the Beta testing phase. Planetside2 does have beta signups here.

Oh, I've signed up already.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Here's what I'm wondering. Did the original Planetside have any strategic goals? I mean, sure there's lots of bases and everything to capture, but was there ever any point to running deep penetration attack missions to places off the front line? Could you disrupt certain assets by doing it, for example. And that's assuming you even were allowed to attack anywhere but the front line.

I never played PS1 but I'm really wanting to try PS2.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Here's what I'm wondering. Did the original Planetside have any strategic goals? I mean, sure there's lots of bases and everything to capture, but was there ever any point to running deep penetration attack missions to places off the front line? Could you disrupt certain assets by doing it, for example. And that's assuming you even were allowed to attack anywhere but the front line.

I never played PS1 but I'm really wanting to try PS2.

Yes quite a lot of strategy.

Bases existed in a lattice structure and each base had benefits, some offered advanced features such as advanced vehicles, some vehicles were unique to specific bases for example. If the generator was blown inside the base then it would take the base offline and it would disrupt the benefit that base gives to every other friendly base attached on the lattice.

Essentially you could deny front line bases certain benefts by downing the ones behind it in the lattice. Also if you down a base behind an enemies front line and they lost their forward base the read one would be easier to attack because they wouldn't be able to spawn there they'd have to spawn 2 bases back and rush to repair, you could leapfrog bases like this and speed up attacks by doing covert ops.

Quite often with organized attacks of 50 people or more on Teamspeak when attacking a completely new continent about 10 of us would go infiltrators and zip ahead of the main attack force, drop on the base, down the gens of every base on the cont so when the enemy inevitably came to retake or oppose our attack they'd be shit out resources/spawns etc.

There was also strategy for downing base energy which is used to power contruction, people had to do ANT runs from the warpgates and deliver that energy to the base, you could do covert ops behind enemy lines to deliberately fill enemy bases knowing that you'll arrive before the enemy does and take the base, giving you an upper hand when it came to defence.

There was loads of advanced tactics you could use both on the scale of entire continents and globally.

 

[Red Storm]

Yes quite a lot of strategy.

Bases existed in a lattice structure and each base had benefits, some offered advanced features such as advanced vehicles, some vehicles were unique to specific bases for example. If the generator was blown inside the base then it would take the base offline and it would disrupt the benefit that base gives to every other friendly base attached on the lattice.

Essentially you could deny front line bases certain benefts by downing the ones behind it in the lattice. Also if you down a base behind an enemies front line and they lost their forward base the read one would be easier to attack because they wouldn't be able to spawn there they'd have to spawn 2 bases back and rush to repair, you could leapfrog bases like this and speed up attacks by doing covert ops.

Quite often with organized attacks of 50 people or more on Teamspeak when attacking a completely new continent about 10 of us would go infiltrators and zip ahead of the main attack force, drop on the base, down the gens of every base on the cont so when the enemy inevitably came to retake or oppose our attack they'd be shit out resources/spawns etc.

There was also strategy for downing base energy which is used to power contruction, people had to do ANT runs from the warpgates and deliver that energy to the base, you could do covert ops behind enemy lines to deliberately fill enemy bases knowing that you'll arrive before the enemy does and take the base, giving you an upper hand when it came to defence.

There was loads of advanced tactics you could use both on the scale of entire continents and globally.

That sounds awesome. Let's hope the sequel lives up to it.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Yes quite a lot of strategy.

Bases existed in a lattice structure and each base had benefits, some offered advanced features such as advanced vehicles, some vehicles were unique to specific bases for example. If the generator was blown inside the base then it would take the base offline and it would disrupt the benefit that base gives to every other friendly base attached on the lattice.

Essentially you could deny front line bases certain benefts by downing the ones behind it in the lattice. Also if you down a base behind an enemies front line and they lost their forward base the read one would be easier to attack because they wouldn't be able to spawn there they'd have to spawn 2 bases back and rush to repair, you could leapfrog bases like this and speed up attacks by doing covert ops.

Quite often with organized attacks of 50 people or more on Teamspeak when attacking a completely new continent about 10 of us would go infiltrators and zip ahead of the main attack force, drop on the base, down the gens of every base on the cont so when the enemy inevitably came to retake or oppose our attack they'd be shit out resources/spawns etc.

There was also strategy for downing base energy which is used to power contruction, people had to do ANT runs from the warpgates and deliver that energy to the base, you could do covert ops behind enemy lines to deliberately fill enemy bases knowing that you'll arrive before the enemy does and take the base, giving you an upper hand when it came to defence.

There was loads of advanced tactics you could use both on the scale of entire continents and globally.

That sounds awesome. For the 10 guys going behind the lines ahead of the main attack force, what were the respawn options? If you got caught and killed was there squad respawning with the other 10 guys or was that basically it, if you died you might as well join the main attack since it's closer?

Also....foot speed/vehicle speed/aircraft speed....what kind of distances between the enemy's front line base and next base behind the line are we talking? 20 second flight/1 minute drive/5 min walk, 60 second flight/5 min drive/20 min walk, or what?

 

[WelshBloke]

That sounds awesome. Let's hope the sequel lives up to it.

At its best it was very, very awesome.

I wasn't particularly good at it and it did have a lot of problems but when it all came together it was like nothing else I've played.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

That sounds awesome. For the 10 guys going behind the lines ahead of the main attack force, what were the respawn options? If you got caught and killed was there squad respawning with the other 10 guys or was that basically it, if you died you might as well join the main attack since it's closer?

Also....foot speed/vehicle speed/aircraft speed....what kind of distances between the enemy's front line base and next base behind the line are we talking? 20 second flight/1 minute drive/5 min walk, 60 second flight/5 min drive/20 min walk, or what?

One thing we used to do is fly what was called a Lodestar (A heavy lift vehicle) loaded with an AMS (Advanced Mobile Station) behind enemy lines and dropped strategically in our target location. This AMS worked as a cloaked mobile spawn point that you could spawn from and outfit your troops. We would use this as a Forward Operations Center for coordinated Generator drop and holds or base drains.

We took this up another notch by using a Galaxy (think C-130) along with the Lodestar/AMS and basically created a hidden tower where we would load up troops into the Galaxy and drop on bases on the continent. The only drawback was the lack of MAX units, but this would be solved by an advanced hacker hacking an equipment terminal and having the MAX units spawn inside the base.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

One thing we used to do is fly what was called a Lodestar (A heavy lift vehicle) loaded with an AMS (Advanced Mobile Station) behind enemy lines and dropped strategically in our target location. This AMS worked as a cloaked mobile spawn point that you could spawn from and outfit your troops. We would use this as a Forward Operations Center for coordinated Generator drop and holds or base drains.

We took this up another notch by using a Galaxy (think C-130) along with the Lodestar/AMS and basically created a hidden tower where we would load up troops into the Galaxy and drop on bases on the continent. The only drawback was the lack of MAX units, but this would be solved by an advanced hacker hacking an equipment terminal and having the MAX units spawn inside the base.

Did the aircraft spawn at what would look like airfields/airports/hoverports or did they just spawn wherever at random?

This all sounds so cool, I wish there was a release date lol.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Did the aircraft spawn at what would look like airfields/airports/hoverports or did they just spawn wherever at random?

This all sounds so cool, I wish there was a release date lol.

There were vehicle terminals the vehicles would spawn out of.
Only the Lodestar and Galaxy were not available at all the bases, those you had to get at either your Sanctuary or a Dropship Center.

Sanctuary was a safe spot your empire had in Planetside. It could never be attacked (theoretically) and you could never fire in it. It was basically a staging area for attacks.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

There were vehicle terminals the vehicles would spawn out of.
Only the Lodestar and Galaxy were not available at all the bases, those you had to get at either your Sanctuary or a Dropship Center.

Sanctuary was a safe spot your empire had in Planetside. It could never be attacked (theoretically) and you could never fire in it. It was basically a staging area for attacks.

How many sanctuaries were there per side? Surely only one per continent or something, right? Or one per "lattice" of bases? I'm just daydreaming about spawn raping dropship centers now...ie, if the game had the equivalent of C4, placing it on vehicles as they leave and detonating as they get a distance away.

I bet there's a killcam though?

 

[Sentrosi2121]

There was only one Sanctuary per Empire. These Sanctuaries were connected to three "Home continents" which would then be connected to other continents in the world.

 

[imaheadcase]

I think PS2 will do very well, it did very well with BS1..and that was in dialup days when lots of people did not have HSI. I know myself and about 20 people that used to play old counterstrike just could not keep playing at after the first month because of our connections did not cut it.

But we had a blast when we could play at 2am and found places with small battles inside bases..long as we stayed indoors it was tolerable

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

you know, there's something I had not thought about with this game. What kind of hardware requirements? Did most users get good FPS with the first one back in the day, when it first came out?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

That sounds awesome. For the 10 guys going behind the lines ahead of the main attack force, what were the respawn options? If you got caught and killed was there squad respawning with the other 10 guys or was that basically it, if you died you might as well join the main attack since it's closer?

Also....foot speed/vehicle speed/aircraft speed....what kind of distances between the enemy's front line base and next base behind the line are we talking? 20 second flight/1 minute drive/5 min walk, 60 second flight/5 min drive/20 min walk, or what?

Well if it was a continent that an enemy had locked down and then left to fight else where, you'd arrive in a warpgate, the main force would attack the first base in the lattice and the covert ops guys would fly ahead in mosquitos which are small and fast single man aircraft which zip across the entire continent in a few minutes.

If you were killed you'd have to spawn either back at your empires sancturary which was an uncappable safe zone and then warp back to the continent, or if someone in the main attack force had deployed an AMS vehicle it would give you mobile spawn points. AMS's are vehicles which you can park and deploy an invisible cloak, inside you can spawn in spawn tubes and armour up, almost always these were deployed in attacks to ensure reliable places to spawn which are close to the base, there was usually a lot of tower capping as well, towers were smaller structures that allowed spawning and there was usually 1 near each main base.

The conts differed a lot in size and terrain, usually on foot to the next base was 2-5 minute run, there was never a shortage of people who had certified troop transports, galaxy dropships could carry about 12 people into battle who could all bail mid air and drop on to the base, you'd frequently see people load up maybe 5-6 galaxies, you'd fly at a base and 70 odd people would all para-drop on top of the base, sights like that were always fucking epic, and being on the reciving end, holding out a base and seeing 5-6 galaxies making a B line straight for you, you knew what was coming that you're about to get swamped, just sitting there bracing for epic setting as many mines and deployable turrets as possible.

Then you'd get people attacking in ground vehicles, once a base was taken there would be vehicles pouring out to the next destination and people would hitch a ride on whatever transport was going, so you'd have armoured jeeps, APCs, tanks and stuff moving out all the time, time to next base in vehicles was greatly reduced.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

you know, there's something I had not thought about with this game. What kind of hardware requirements? Did most users get good FPS with the first one back in the day, when it first came out?

It was harsh on the CPU more than anything else, with 400 people all attacking the same base CPU would struggle, the graphics options were scalable enough to get good frame rates even in heavy battles but for those people with slower CPUs performance was never that great.

 

[BrightCandle]

Am I the only one looking at those screenshots and thinking "that is so DX9 generation graphics"?

In no particular order there are some pretty glaring graphical issues with the screenshots listed in their media section:
1) The grass is basic sprite based "tufts"
2) The ground has low res texturing
3) The models themselves don't appear to have tesselation and while not super low polygon they are far from high detail
4) Lighting looks all wrong in the world, its pretty basic in general

This is no looker, if I didn't know better I'd say it was a console port just by looking at the screenshots, because it doesn't look much better than one.

 

[imaheadcase]

You do realize that is %99 of the games out today? Even newer games still use DX9 more than anything, the changes between 10-11 are nothing notable to most people.

I guess you are new to MMOG? They never are super on the graphics, they can't be rendering hundreds of players of on the screen players itself is going to kill even the best graphics cards. let alone the environment.

The graphics are a TON better than the original. It is better than lots of games out today just by what we can get from video.

Very had to jump to conclusions anyways considering beta has not even started, for all you know or anyone else graphics options are not even enabled, let alone we don't know what system that was on.