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

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CFP said:
F2P almost invariably becomes pay-2-win
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I would say this is wrong, but I would also say that there are multiple levels of payment we should consider. If you care enough about a game and play it a decent amount, YOU SHOULD PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE.

Not saying this is you and I don't know where you got your jaded perspective but, people who pay NOTHING for a game they play for over 100 hours and then complain need to get a job and a life. From my experience an upgrade price or minimum purchase of $20-30 usually solves every problem I could ever encounter in a F2P game to the point where it feels like any other game and I have now received way more than my money's worth.

The only reasonable argument for "pay to win" is in scenarios where after you have paid, whether it was for some VIP status or to remove some restriction, where unlimited amounts of cash provide a distinct and unrecoverable advantage separate than progression through playtime provides. This is pay to win. It sounds like BF Heroes was pay to win but I have never really seen any other game that has this issue whether it be Tribes, Global Agenda, LoL, DCUO, or a few others I have tried.

Your blanket statement is silly. I LOVE F2P games. I love the concept and I always feel like I get my money's worth. I am so glad I don't have to throw down preorder money for stuff I have NOT tried, in order to play with my friends. If you like the game it seems there are almost always options to be put on a normal, fair, competitive footing through the fair amount of $20, 30 or at the very most $50. Otherwise THE GAME is just bad, and you shouldn't play it, and direct your anger towards its devs and not the free to play system which has proved awesome to a lot of people.
 
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AVP, any multiplayer F2P game that offers additional advantages to those who pay money is pay to win, that's the very definition of it. It's not a matter of having to pay (I actually prefer MP games that cost money because you can expect decent balance in them), it's a matter of having a level playing field.
 
F2P piques my interest but then again I don't play many of those games. I've never subscribed to a game so this will allow me access just as the free regs for the first one did a few years back. The first game was a blast even when my side was losing. I was always in awe of those who worked as a team effectively and knew the gameworld well. One of the most funny losing moments was when a bunch of my teammates were hiding in a cloaked area healing themselves and an enemy rammed right through and gouranga'd us all by himself. Look forward to this sequel.
 
I recall in the beta of the first game one time an AMS randomly shot straight into the air, then came down, exploded, and killed everyone around it that had just respawned. Yeah.. beta was fun.
 
My friends and I loved to pick up randoms in our Galaxy, fly way out into the middle of the ocean and eject them. 😀
 
BrightCandle said:
Am I the only one looking at those screenshots and thinking "that is so DX9 generation graphics"?
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What you have to keep in mind is that this is an MMO and the world will be populated with a hugely varying amount of people, vehicles, and deployables. In the original Planetside the unit cap per continent settled at 133 per empire which meant in 3 way clashes on a continent it could be 400 players fighting over a single base.

When players can lay something like 20 mines each, place a bunch of deployable turrets and sensors, deploy vehicles, drive tanks and so on, this leads to a massive increase to models and animation and effects which hugely increases stress on the CPU and GPU.

To keep the game playable for the masses the graphics aren't going to be particularly impressive, actually having said that, comparing this to any other MMO out today it actually does look pretty good so hopefully we'll get a good balance for those of us with fast PCs.

One thing to keep in mind is that they aim to have larger battles than PS1, they keep quoting "thousands" which to me means at least 1000 units on a continent, I don't quite believe that yet since there has been no public stress testing, however it's going to exceed the original for sure, the technology to do so is clearly there.

I personally don't think it's fair to judge the graphics until we've seen the world populated with hundreds of players, an empty base looks a whole lot different from one with units swarming all over it in heated battle.

CFP said:
F2P almost invariably becomes pay-2-win
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I suspect so, however with an MMO which is transitioning from a traditional subscription what really remains important is how much money you need to spend to "win", if it's less than what I'd pay for subscription fee's then in terms of value for money I'm happy since PS1 was well worth it's sub fee.

For players just expecting a free game then obviously it has to be limited in some way to encourage them to chip in, the problem with F2P MMOs is that the MMO infrastructure has to be paid for, it's not like the players can host the servers themselves like they do in small scale traditional FPS games. So there has to be payments and for payments there has to be advantages, that's the bottom line.

Free 2 play suits Planetside 2 in one unique way and that it's value as a game is heavily dependent on large number of peak players, an MMO like WoW or any other game can afford to have fluctuating and even low numbers of players since you can solo 99% of the content in the game and PvP interaction is minimal, but Planetside 2 will live and die on player count and F2P secures a large consistent audience.
 
I personally would not mind shelling out a few bucks, considering its f2p to get some neat stuff. If its just to gain ranks faster, that is fine. But i don't see then trying to ruin game play by just making the best stuff paid for.

Since the dawn of games people who paid more got better, so thats a no brainier.

What worries me the most if balance issues..they better FORCE people to choose certain sides. Not sure how original dealt with it..but unbalance issues can devastate a game like this.
 
Didn't they use F2P for planetside reserves?

It was free but you were limited in level (which didn't really matter), or I might have that wrong. It was a while ago.
 
Yeah Planetside Reserves was basically free to play with a level restriction, the good thing about Planetside was that level didn't effect combat efficiency per se, it really decided how versatile you were and not how effective, you could buy the best combat gear but just not take loads of different loadouts/gear/vehicles.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Yeah Planetside Reserves was basically free to play with a level restriction, the good thing about Planetside was that level didn't effect combat efficiency per se, it really decided how versatile you were and not how effective, you could buy the best combat gear but just not take loads of different loadouts/gear/vehicles.
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It was a good scheme, it was free for casual players and kept the numbers up for the big battles.

Something similar might work this time although I'd imagine that they would have to give a bit more incentive to get people to pay.
 
looks decent as far as gameplay.

the asset design esthetic is a bit of a yawn but as long as you can have 200v200 battles the experience should be unique.
 
I can't find PC Gamer for sale anywhere near work, guess I gotta wait till I get home to go to Barnes & Noble or something.
 
When they started rolling out in all those tanks, i was like "wow that is going to rock". lol

But didn't PS1, i can't remember, have a limit on amount of spawning you could do time? Like a cooldown or something?
 
imaheadcase said:
When they started rolling out in all those tanks, i was like "wow that is going to rock". lol

But didn't PS1, i can't remember, have a limit on amount of spawning you could do time? Like a cooldown or something?
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NTU's. A base had an "energy tank" that spawning stuff used energy from. If you had a heavy fight going on, you'd have to have a fairly dedicated... and really brave ...crew of ANT drivers to ferry energy from the continent gates to the given base. And usually need some cover air support to go along with them.
 
Well those videos made quite the impression on me. My only worries are lag with so many players battling it out on such a big play field, and how the whole thing comes together. Considering it's free to play, there's nothing holding me back from giving it a shot when it releases.
 
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