Why didnt PS make it big?

[DviddLeff]

PS quite simply never made it, it almost did as it certainly had some decent reviews at release and all of them were talking about the potential the game had to develop.

From my experience many people tried the game, but left after a few months and the retention of players was poor due to the shoddy Core Combat expansion followed by the BFR disaster, not to mention the lack of content bar the Skyguard and Liberator, and then recently the Gal Gunship, Phantasm and engineering certs, which were 4 years in the making.

I believe that SOE thought it would be much bigger at release; we had 5 servers which never got filled even at launch and following that they slashed any development funds as the game had not made the impact they had hoped.

But why didn't it make it initially? I think it boils down to a few reasons:

1. Graphics were sub standard for the time, not by much, but enough to discourage the FPS market that it was aiming for. This is however a sacrifice that must be made to allow the massive scale of battles.

2. Game play was substandard when compared to its nearest rival, Battlefield 1942, which was released a year earlier but had a proper recoil system, head shots, decent flight physics, etc. Again this is a sacrifice that seemed to be made at the time due to the network demands, however many of it now seems to be due to poor design choices (BFRs had multiple hit boxes, so why cant players?).

3. FPS players are not used to subscribing, which was a massive turn off for many. Yet Guild Wars has proved that a different method can work, and PS has now proved that there is a core that will subscribe for an FPS.

4. Too much competition. SWG and EVE were both launched in 2003 along with PS, with SWG drawing many bored MMO players into the fold.

5. Not enough variety. Bases, towers are always the same, 5 different base layouts is no where near enough, making people bored very quickly.

6. Too much downtime; 15 minutes for an uncontested base hack is way too long to sit around defending, as is spending 10 minutes travelling just to be killed by a tank; back at launch there were very few AMS drivers (or drivers at all) so it was a long way to travel every time you got killed.

Those are the main issues I see that need addressing, in addition to the obvious like lack of post release development and support, and disappointing expansions.

[JackEarthrider]

I would say thats part of the reason battlefront never took off as a shooter. I was great fun and all to play, but eventually the lack of distinct objectives or variable victory methods made it boring (after about 6 months, lol).

I personally don't know what would make PS "better" but I think many of the suggestions on these forums would be a good start.

[DviddLeff]

They key is making it appeal to a wider audience, as it was PS was very much a niche game.

[JackEarthrider]

Well ya, but it is hard to make shooters have a lasting attraction. The longest I ever played a shooter was about 4 months (battle front 2). Most of the rest of the time it gets boring after you've done all the missions and killed all of your friends in multi a few dozen times.

Basically what I'm saying here is you have to give them a Big Picture reason to play, and not just making the whole map their color, you have to give them something cool to work towards.
(part of the reason warhammer flopped is because the end game was borked)

[DviddLeff]

I dunno, CounterStrike has lasted for almost a decade... and those games are over in 5 minutes.

Its having short term objectives, but mixing them in with longer term ones that actually mean something. PS manages short term (capturing a base, although base fights can last for hours) and mid term (capturing a continent) but there is no long term goal for any of the conflict.

The game needs to cater for those that want to pick up and play the game for 10-15 minutes, as well as for longer stretches, so there should be more short term goals that can be achieved in that time; instant action fills some of this aspect, but its not as rewarding as a quick round of CSS or MW2.

[JackEarthrider]

Maybe if there were more targets that you needed to destroy instead of capture (blowing up towers, blowing up vehicle terminals, and of course blowing up AMS's)

That way people who don't want to wait around all day for a capture can still have a short term (guarded) objective to accomplish, then move on.

I'm not saying this should be easy, quite the contrary, it always needs to be challenging.

Also I think the towers need to be more diverse than they are, instead of just having 3 variants of towers they should be different field outposts. One should be like a field gun, another could be like a field vehicle terminal/rearm station, another should be like a radar tower.
(instead of the concrete tower for protection you could mix that up too, one could be tower, another could be in a big bunker, another could be surrounded by trenches or be in a big trench, etc etc.)

That way the mobile areas provide more than just an area to respawn and become a Target of the enemy instead of just another random obstacle. Know what I mean?

[Kumoblade]

The answer is really simple as for why PlanetSide didn't success. No Lasting Appeal. There's no reason to fight whatsoever. Shooting people and capturing bases can be done elsewhere in other games that have a stronger standing and without 15/month. Its not like you could conquer an enemy Sanctuary. With only what, 6 bases per continent, theres really no reason to fight as they're all essentially the same maps with a different color theme.

Then came the in game advertisements. Welcome to the Future! Enjoy this new movie coming out! Then came core combat. Then came BFRs. It was 1 bad decision after another after another.

Smedley says he loves PlanetSide like no other. If that were the case, I don't think he would have wiped his ass with it the way he did. The great battles are still fresh in my mind from the old hay-day and i'd love to relive them, however theres nothing really to relive. Like eating the same Sandwich everyday, its gotten old, and it needs a bit of a new spice.

Theres hundreds of things that could have been done right to PlanetSide, and SOE managed to miss all of them.

However, I also think its partially the players fault for PlanetSide's lack of success. People are always trying to cut corners/take cheap ways out of things or try to accomplish the most with minimal effort.

One of the things that really made planetside weren't the fights in the bases, but the journey to the bases while fighting the whole time. Fighting to gain ground on a bridge, etc.. etc.. It was those fights that were truly incredible.

Then overtime, just like in WoW, people want to cut out the journey and get to the end game content. The base. So skip all this in between stuff and go straight at the base. And thats where we stand right now it seems. Just zerging bases back and forth and cutting out the heart of what made the experience so grand.

[DviddLeff]

Very true about people just racing straight to bases to get the job done; particularly in air cav that can simply strike in a group and you are pretty much certain to land probably 80% of your group on the target ready to fight.

If combat vehicles could only be piloted by standard armour (rename it to "pilot suit" and make people spawn in agile armour) it would make those who strike in this way bypassing the outdoor fight incredibly easy to kill, and would discourage it, while still giving them the same effectiveness in the air. This would then make air and ground transports much more appealing as they would be able to transfer troops with combat armour on, rather than everyone just travelling in combat vehicles to the bases and then fighting in agile.

[JackEarthrider]

I don't know if a agree with that. On the one hand your right that the field fighting gets really interesting and is probably one of the better features of PS; however, sometimes people end up field fighting because a ground of entrenched people sticks to their base and waits for the attackers to splash against their defenses.

In cases like that you need air cavalry in order to circumvent their heavy defenses and drop on top of them; the fighting is by no means easy at that point and probably 80% of them end up failing hard anyway.

I think if you want to increase the intrigue of the game you need more base like objects to deploy in the field (id say the only thing that's missing is vehicle terminals). That way people can set up their outpost and fight from a ridge, hill, valley, whatever. But at the same time without the big walls and underground sections they cant camp their own outpost while under attack for very long.

I think also that if they made less bases, but made them larger and more complicated that would be better. Large enough that they are not easy to defend, but small enough that they are still manageable.

Just some thoughts

[DviddLeff]

Field battles are often centred around destroying AMSs, and unless the enemy is stupid they quickly send air cav/tanks to wipe it out, as infantry on their own have little chance against vehicles.

Perhaps in addition to a deployable vehicle term (alter the Lodestar to do the job?) there should be a heavier AMS that can supply MAX armour?

[Kumoblade]

The big problem is that all the combat is localized to the bases. The bases have everything in them and don't extend out past their walls.

There needs to be more objectives out in the field. Like a Defensive Anti-Air outpost that eliminates any chance of Air Cavalry getting into the base and making it a higher priority to take before directly attacking the base.

This could be applied to many things. having the airfield set apart from the Main base would mean you have to hitch a ride on a ground transport to get there to get some air off the ground. This would make it a high priority to defend as well as take.

Everything is just so centralized around the bases that it restricts what kind of gameplay you can experience.

If they made bases damn near impossible to directly assault without fulfilling several objectives first (such as taking out enemy air field and Defensive turrets), you'd get to experience a much more rewarding challenge than waves just crashing against each other.

This would also require a LOT more variety in the terrain to be successful.

[JackEarthrider]

Thats a good point, the bases and field facilities (towers) need to fulfill much more roles than they do now.

Also I wouldn't mind seeing some small towns or city sections mixed into the map so that infantry have a definite advantage against vehicles.

[Kumoblade]

Thats a good point, the bases and field facilities (towers) need to fulfill much more roles than they do now.

Also I wouldn't mind seeing some small towns or city sections mixed into the map so that infantry have a definite advantage against vehicles.


I hope to see sprawling Multi-sectional/Multi-Level Metropolises as well as beautiful alien jungle scenery.

Be it Desecrated or in great condition, Urban combat could be incredible and give Infantry a fair chance against vehicles.

[DviddLeff]

In urban combat infantry should have the advantage, as they would have plenty of opportunity to set up ambushes and once they strike, if the do not have the advantage then they can fall back to areas vehicles cant go.

[Sifer2]

Yeah like was already mentioned in the other topic the core of it was the game was just the same thing over an over. Much like any FPS. Though for 15 dollars a month one expects more from it. That's why I think if SOE either cant come up with something better or isn't willing to invest the resources for it then Planetside Next had better have free to play options if its to succeed.

But yes ideally the game needs to cater to a wide variety of people. Cool weapons,vehicles for the Unreal Tourny/Halo crowd. Headshots an tactical crouches,leaning an such for the Counterstrike/Battlefield crowd. And more persistant elements for your character an the game world itself for the MMO crowd. It needs to do all that plus update at least every 2 months IMO if they want to do subscription fees.

[XedoeSR]

First off Planetside was amazing before they started messing with things, starting with the magmower (and all tanks) ability to simply roll over people WITHOUT slowing down or in some cases stopping or otherwise. When they did that I all but quit the game. I stayed with it till the BFRs hit, and shortly afterwords I left for good. Mechs belong in games like Mechwarrior and Starsiege, not Planetside. My huge hope is they do the game justice and have it set in a time before the warpgate to the other worlds was cut off. This way we will never see BFRs, we will see limited future tech weaponry, and we may get a chance to use things like small battleships.

I would have personally loved to have seen a small amount of ships in the game, but that was not to be. Instead they gave us BFRs that could fly and do all sorts of things to unbalance the game hugely.

I am anti-BFR, even though I was among the first of many to use them on Konried (Emerald now).

[Vancha]

First off Planetside was amazing before they started messing with things, starting with the magmower (and all tanks) ability to simply roll over people WITHOUT slowing down or in some cases stopping or otherwise. When they did that I all but quit the game. I stayed with it till the BFRs hit, and shortly afterwords I left for good. Mechs belong in games like Mechwarrior and Starsiege, not Planetside. My huge hope is they do the game justice and have it set in a time before the warpgate to the other worlds was cut off. This way we will never see BFRs, we will see limited future tech weaponry, and we may get a chance to use things like small battleships.

I would have personally loved to have seen a small amount of ships in the game, but that was not to be. Instead they gave us BFRs that could fly and do all sorts of things to unbalance the game hugely.

I am anti-BFR, even though I was among the first of many to use them on Konried (Emerald now).

Lets see...fairly steep learning curve for new players, terrible CSHD, quite hefty system requirements for it's time...

I think there probably could be room for "walkers" in PSN, but they'd have to be more along the lines of tank-sized MAXs, rather than towering above everything like they do.

Edit: Wait...this thread has a first page! I thought this was Xedoe's thread.

[Baneblade]

You wrote too much. I can tell you why with three words:

Sony Online Entertainment

[XedoeSR]

Hehe, Sobekeus, I guess it has been too long for me. I nearly forgot SOE is doing Planetside until I read that last line. And as for you Vancha, good to see you around (assuming your the one I knew in-game on NC-Konried back in the day). Learning curve though wasnt very bad, but the system requirements could have been for some or alot, all I know is the game was coming out as I was building my next PC. So, given that I cannot speak for it. Also, as far as FPS games go this one has been by far (pre-caves and BFRs) the best FPS game out on the market even today. The reason, massive amounts of people and things to do. As for the quest junkies, go play WoW, plenty of quests in there. Right now im playing STO and BC2, so thats keeping me occupied till I get more information on PS2 and the new star wars mmo in the making.

[Vancha]

How far back are you going? Is it possible you're thinking of Emerald? I played 2 years+ (around 05-07 I guess), mainly a sniper and infiltrator, got 25/5 and all that lark. I never came across anyone who confused me for another Vancha before, so I'd be surprised if there was a Konried one.

Edit: I think I was playing for some of 04, having done some google searches.

[XedoeSR]

Well, Konried was renamed Emerald after the server merger. I still call it Konried because thats the one I played on when I first started up. I remember a Vancha, being guilded with them too, and im assuming the spelling is the same. I was with only two outfits during my whole time with PS on Konried/Emerald. First one was Blue Lions, but the second one that I was with escapes me at the moment. I do remember they had vent or teamspeak that we would use. I played mostly as a Maxx, BFR, and Tank driver. I did a search on my name and found that the toons still there sitting idle. :doh:

[Vancha]

Well, Konried was renamed Emerald after the server merger. I still call it Konried because thats the one I played on when I first started up. I remember a Vancha, being guilded with them too, and im assuming the spelling is the same. I was with only two outfits during my whole time with PS on Konried/Emerald. First one was Blue Lions, but the second one that I was with escapes me at the moment. I do remember they had vent or teamspeak that we would use. I played mostly as a Maxx, BFR, and Tank driver. I did a search on my name and found that the toons still there sitting idle. :doh:

That was definitely me then, which means either "Super Troopers", "Hostility" or "Double Agents" must have been your other outfit?

[2coolforu]

Planetside made it big considering it had balls-all advertising and was far too advanced for its time.

When it was released quite a large amount of people still had dial-up and the game was a computer destroyer. However it had a huge amount of players, the estimates vary wildly but I oft see it quoted between 75,000 and 100,000 which for a totally new breed of game with horrific lag issues is insane.

Basically SOE did everything they could to not sell the game and it still turned out epic, it was the best game I've ever played - period. If its made to appeal to a larger audience then we will just get another CoD clone, by definition it must be anything but mainstream to do what Planetside did. The game won't have any appeal if it isn't the unforgivingly team-based shooter of massive scale that it was back in 2003/2004

[Raymac]

Planetside made it big considering it had balls-all advertising and was far too advanced for its time.

When it was released quite a large amount of people still had dial-up and the game was a computer destroyer. However it had a huge amount of players, the estimates vary wildly but I oft see it quoted between 75,000 and 100,000 which for a totally new breed of game with horrific lag issues is insane.

Basically SOE did everything they could to not sell the game and it still turned out epic, it was the best game I've ever played - period. If its made to appeal to a larger audience then we will just get another CoD clone, by definition it must be anything but mainstream to do what Planetside did. The game won't have any appeal if it isn't the unforgivingly team-based shooter of massive scale that it was back in 2003/2004

^ this

[LesserShade]

Planetside made it big considering it had balls-all advertising and was far too advanced for its time.

When it was released quite a large amount of people still had dial-up and the game was a computer destroyer. However it had a huge amount of players, the estimates vary wildly but I oft see it quoted between 75,000 and 100,000 which for a totally new breed of game with horrific lag issues is insane.

Basically SOE did everything they could to not sell the game and it still turned out epic, it was the best game I've ever played - period. If its made to appeal to a larger audience then we will just get another CoD clone, by definition it must be anything but mainstream to do what Planetside did. The game won't have any appeal if it isn't the unforgivingly team-based shooter of massive scale that it was back in 2003/2004

What you said, plus I think the pool of gamers in general who were willing to pay per month for a FPS, mmo or not, was small. MMOs really hit their stride in general after PS and anybody who owns an xbox is used to paying to play games online now, so I think we as consumers as a whole are more willing to buy into the pay to play model to some extent compared to 7 years ago.

All that said, I hope SOE does something different with PSN as opposed to the standard $15 a month model. I would love to see some form of freemium particularly in the form of a permanent reserves program, or something to that effect to draw big numbers.

[BlazingSun]

I don't think the game ever had 75.000+ players. 50.000 maybe. The biggest problem was, as was pointed out so often, the non existant marketing and advertising. When you have a look at the manual of Planetside, it also lists a marketing team in the credits, which makes me laugh.

I hope they don't make the same mistake twice. In times of Web 2.0 and Social Media it got alot easier to spread the word about something. Apart from that you see ad-banners on every second site advertising all kind of games these days, including those free to play browser games. SOE has to make some investment this time!

Like Warhammer Online has shown us, it is possible to create a big hype about a (crap) game with the right actions during the development stage: Monthly Newsletters including video podcasts, a chance to win a closed beta spot when signing up for said newsletter, etc. WARs marketing team was the only one, who did a proper job. (OK .. the concept Art was great also)

[Infektion]

Like Warhammer Online has shown us, it is possible to create a big hype about a (crap) game with the right actions during the development stage: Monthly Newsletters including video podcasts, a chance to win a closed beta spot when signing up for said newsletter, etc. WARs marketing team was the only one, who did a proper job. (OK .. the concept Art was great also)


I beg to differ. On release, WAR was an outstanding game. I saw it's demise about 4 months after release. Scenarios destroyed what originally was a open world PVP game. Sadly, it just became another PvE cookie cutter. Who is to blame? I'll tell you, it's the carebear community of players who do nothing but complain, and the Dev team did what we all want... listen to the players. I'm sure the age group of all these pushy complains and suggestions to "even out" the game was. 17-20 and then 30-45. I understand why the older gen did it, lack of prostate exams.

[Robert089]

Planetside made it big considering it had balls-all advertising and was far too advanced for its time...

2cool you really hit the nail on the head. I heard of Planetside in an issue of PCgamer when they did a preview on it, however I didn't even realise it had been released until I spotted it in a store and remembered that preview.

Hopefully there is some sort of advertising this time around other than word of mouth. Can anyone actually remember any advertising done for Planetside?

[Hamma]

Other than the initial media blitz I don't recall anything.

[Raymac]

I didn't hear about Planetside at all until a friend told me about it. I was explaining to him how much I'd love to see a game that was a fps, but with a large persistent world and you could control vehicles and planes, etc. I'll never forget my feeling when he said "I think there already is a game like that. I think its called Planetside or something." Yeah, that was a fairly life changing moment, at least in my gamer life.

I feel like as fans, we should do what we can to get the word out. Beg the media for interviews and "first looks". Get the word out that the massive fps that people have been waiting for is on the way. I still want SOE to do a serious blitz, but there's nothing wrong with some grassroots support.

[Bags]

Lack of advertisement. Pure and simple.

[Gogita]

One of the arguments that people often give why it didn't become big is that Planetside is too repetitive. Can anyone explain that to me? How is Planetside repetitive? If people say that the only thing you do is capturing a base and that there is no real end to the game as in winning; is there something like that in any shooter?

In other shooters, you play a match, it ends, and then you play the next match. In what way is that not as repetitive or more repetitive as Planetside for those people? Do they really need the game to say "YOU WIN" or "YOU LOSE" for it to have an 'end'? Can't they see that managing to take over a well defended base or keeping enemies from taking over your base is also a win or lose situation. The only thing that is different is that instead of going to the next match, you move to the next area to attack or defend.

Sorry that in the end it was more a rant than an argument... I just cannot stand people talking bad about Planetside :)

[Bags]

Repetition is the worse argument against games because I have never played a non-repetitive game.

Recently:

TF2 -> Repetitive
WoW -> Repetitive
ACII:BH -> Repetitive
NFS:HP -> Repetitive.

etc

[SgtSnarf]

Planetside was far ahead of its time in terms of massive game play and a near perfect blend of FPS and RTS elements. Despite having poor marketing and advertisement, it thrived on word of mouth and the first three months of the game were probably some of the most fun I've ever had in a game, period.

The main features of Planetside that set it apart from the other FPS games out there, and made it infinitely playable, were:

1. Massive Scope

This wasn't 5v5 or 10v10 or 20v20, which was about the most you'd ever find in any other kind of FPS online game, it was 200v200. It was entire squadrons of air support, heavy tank columns, specialized tactical units, defensive support teams, and every step in between. It was unlike anything you'd ever experienced before or would experience again.

2. Perfect Balance of FPS and RTS

Unlike traditional FPS games, where you might have use of a few vehicles and weapons, Planetside had several options for a variety of game play to suit nearly any type of player.

> Want to be on the front lines, blasting away enemies up close and personal? No problem.

> Want to skirt about the edges of the battlefield, infiltrating bases, relaying intelligence and sabotaging the enemy defenses? No problem.

> Want to dedicate efforts to managing and driving support vehicles aimed at supporting the fighting force, healing your fellow soldiers, ensuring a steady support infrastructure for the battle? No problem.

No game to date has done as good a job as Planetside in making room for nearly every type of player and blending aspects of both FPS and RTS elements to make it entertaining and fun, no matter what role you decided to pick up. The bases might be static, but every attack was different. The points of attack, the flow of the battle, the outfits involved, all required different defensive techniques and preparation, and the battles were some of the most epic moments I remember having in my 25 years of gaming.

3. Outfit and Faction Integration

One of the biggest things missing from today's online FPS games, such as Battlefield and Call of Duty is the persistent game world. When I log into one of those games, I get randomly matched up with 10-20 other players from who knows where. Even when you're able to have guilds vs. guilds PvP on the same map, it's limited to 10 or 20 people. There's a distinct lack of roles, and a lack of feeling that this map matters for anything.

Planetside's persistent game world and outfits made the game more exciting. You might play for 12 hours, locked in a massive three-way fight over a single continent and finally give way to sleep, only to login the next morning and discover that the battle is still raging. You get to see the same people, both from your side and from the enemy outfits, on the battlefield, learn to appreciate their tactics or their game play. When you see that certain name pop up killing people downstairs in your tower, you know his 5 other good friends are likely close by and shit is about to hit the fan.

So, why did Planetside Fail?

1. Lack of marketing/advertisement

People had no idea how awesome this game was or could be, and by the time word was out -- the bad changes were in.

2. BFR's

BFR's and many of the changes completely disrupted the balanced harmony of the previous game. Yes, there were months that Magmowers or JackHammers or Lashers or Chain Guns were flavors of the month and overpowered, but it largely only impacted encounters. BFR's dominated base fights and destroyed the delicate and near-perfect balance of support/attack vehicles and combat abilities the initial game had created.

3. Caves

Feeling that people needed a change of scenery, the developers made a critical error in bleeding the already small player base by diluting them into even more area. When concentrated big battles are your niche, spreading people out between Caves and Battle Islands is probably one of the worst decisions they ever made.

4. Consolidated Cert-Packages

One of the best moments of the game for me was specializing in a particular skill set and being wanted and needed by someone. Being good at a particular skill set, with just enough left over to obtain a vehicle or two allowed you to feel special and necessary on the battlefield. People would be looking for you specifically, and that magic dissipated when they started creating 5-cert point "packages" that gave you 5 different vehicle slots or multiple abilities.

I realize that some people wanted to be able to do everything, but being completely self-sufficient took away a lot of the really nice dependencies that helped make the game so awesome.

5. Game Performance Issues

I never understood how the game began so awesome, capable of handling 200 vs. 200 fights raging all over the continent and then, suddenly, I had a hard time flying around the Sanctuary by myself without lagging. And this was on a better machine than when I'd started the game.

Poor frame rates, lag, and other technical issues really killed the game experience for me and made it difficult to enjoy it in the way I had before. It wasn't that it stopped being fun, but compared to what you knew it -could- be, the limited game just ceased to sparkle quite as brightly.

Anyhow, those are my observations. I got this game on Day 1 and played the holy living crap out of it for months. I loved it then, and I love the idea of it now. If it could return today with simply a few graphical updates and all of the original pieces, I'd be pleased as punch.

-SgtSnarf (3rd CR5 on Emerald)

[LesserShade]

4. Consolidated Cert-Packages

One of the best moments of the game for me was specializing in a particular skill set and being wanted and needed by someone. Being good at a particular skill set, with just enough left over to obtain a vehicle or two allowed you to feel special and necessary on the battlefield. People would be looking for you specifically, and that magic dissipated when they started creating 5-cert point "packages" that gave you 5 different vehicle slots or multiple abilities.


While I agree to some extent, I think some of the cert packages were a nice way to get underutilized vehicles (marauder) out on the battlefield.

[SgtSnarf]

While I agree to some extent, I think some of the cert packages were a nice way to get underutilized vehicles (marauder) out on the battlefield.

I agree. Like everything, there are some good parts and bad parts. I thought, on the whole, it became too easy to become a super-soldier that no longer required on other teammates or specialists to help them achieve their goals.

I'm all for cert packages that help make underutilized vehicles attractive without making it so that someone can easily get a host of land and air vehicles for a handful of cert points. I would just like a -bit- more limitation imposed on people that try and tackle multiple roles.

-SgtSnarf

[Traak]

One of the things that really made planetside weren't the fights in the bases, but the journey to the bases while fighting the whole time. Fighting to gain ground on a bridge, etc.. etc.. It was those fights that were truly incredible.

Then overtime, just like in WoW, people want to cut out the journey and get to the end game content. The base. So skip all this in between stuff and go straight at the base. And thats where we stand right now it seems. Just zerging bases back and forth and cutting out the heart of what made the experience so grand.

As one of the support gods, I can attest to the fact that the boredom-O-meter spins fiercely after hitting infinite with the "blood clot in a door" base zergs we have now.

I was kicked out of one of the many outfits I briefly tried to tolerate for leading our whole empire in a massive, beautiful field battle that covered many hectares years ago. I was a CR3, and was leading the empire through Squad Leader chat.

The problem with the game isn't the mechanics, or Sony, or the buffs and nerfs. It is the idiots playing it.

Most people are selfish, immoral, craven, weak-willed scum who try to lie, cheat, steal, and, if possible, whine and cry to get laws, rules, or whatever else is in the reach of their selfish little claws warped to suit their tainted black-hole-of-selfishness character.

This leads to a game that is supposed to be team-oriented turning into the TV show Survivor, which, as the first season proved, should have been named Best Homosexual Backstabber because that is who won. If someone in your outfit proves you are a moron, you kick him out. If someone disagrees with you, and proves by his actions that his way was better, you kick him out. The outfits are run by such craven buffoons that as usual, the biggest liar and coward will end up leading them.

One of my favorite themes is "You have to be on TS to run with us." Maybe some of us don't like to hear 12 year olds talking about how they are raping their dog or some of the insane drivel that has been barfed over the TS wires. So you discard good players because they don't like to listen to your immature cussing, endless, ENDLESS sex jokes, and general idiocy.

When an outfit comes along that has a firm but relaxed command style, doesn't punish competence by ejecting the person who proves he is right from the outfit, or the more insidious method of seizing on some one small thing that he might have been wrong about in a sea of things he was right about, then PS will be far more tempting to play in an outfit.

Until then, watching homosexual little dictators prance around like Xerxes in the movie 300 demanding everyone bow down to them or they will have a tantrum and kick them out just ruins the outfit experience.

PS: next will blow if it doesn't, by its nature, actively enforce field battles, actively attack cheaters with very lucrative (For Sony) financial penalties, and have outfits that aren't run by preening little madmen whose greatest nightmare is that everyone will notice how incompetent, selfish, and stupid they are.

[Bags]

I don't know what PS you've been playing but I've seen two field battles in two days.

[Hamma]

Yikes!

One of my favorite themes is "You have to be on TS to run with us." Maybe some of us don't like to hear 12 year olds talking about how they are raping their dog or some of the insane drivel that has been barfed over the TS wires. So you discard good players because they don't like to listen to your immature cussing, endless, ENDLESS sex jokes, and general idiocy.

I think this is a bit much, my outfit is like that because it allows for much better organization. Not every outfit that has that requirement is a bunch of 12 year olds. Sure they are out there.. but try to to paint with such a large brush.

I do agree that the majority of gamers, now moreso than ever are more interested in ME ME ME and not team. It's just the nature of things today and it isn't only gaming that is that way.

[Sirisian]

I remember buying the game when it was released like probably a few others here. It was said before kind of, but four things hurt Planetside in my opinion
1) Marketing
2) 56k in 2003
3) Learning curve
4) Subscription

I only heard about Planetside since I followed random gaming sites. None of my friends heard about the game at all until I told them. (After showing it to them some of them played it for 5 years :P) I played the beta on a friends computer and bought it and tried to play it on 56k, but since it didn't run well at all I had to wait until I got DSL. This was true of two of my other friends.

When the game got bigger near 2006 I had two new friends try to play the game. The first joined when the battles were small and didn't like the slow paced gameplay. The second person though I had playing for 5 hours straight, but ended up not liking the game because he died too much. I kept trying to show him how not to die, but not everyone is good at FPS games. (He kept running in the same door hoping to get a kill. I sat back sniping into the door way getting kill after kill :P). Anyway, what I want to say though which made them definitely not want to play it was the subscription. They couldn't justify paying for an FPS game every month. I didn't mind paying for it since I thought it meant continued development.

[Firefly]

One of my favorite themes is "You have to be on TS to run with us." Maybe some of us don't like to hear 12 year olds talking about how they are raping their dog or some of the insane drivel that has been barfed over the TS wires. So you discard good players because they don't like to listen to your immature cussing, endless, ENDLESS sex jokes, and general idiocy.

When an outfit comes along that has a firm but relaxed command style, doesn't punish competence by ejecting the person who proves he is right from the outfit, or the more insidious method of seizing on some one small thing that he might have been wrong about in a sea of things he was right about, then PS will be far more tempting to play in an outfit.

Until then, watching homosexual little dictators prance around like Xerxes in the movie 300 demanding everyone bow down to them or they will have a tantrum and kick them out just ruins the outfit experience.
I'm sorry. I had to plug my ears to block out the sound of the WAAAAAAAmbulance coming to put some salve on your granular vaginitis.

You know what? You strike me as a relatively intelligent person, even though I'm technically ripping on you. So why it never dawned on you to start your own outfit and set the pace is beyond me. If you don't like what outfits do, make your own. It's not rocket science.

Jesus.

[Bags]

Anyway, what I want to say though which made them definitely not want to play it was the subscription. They couldn't justify paying for an FPS game every month. I didn't mind paying for it since I thought it meant continued development.

I don't get how those same people justify $8 movie tickets or a daily $5 meal at mcdonalds.

[2coolforu]

As one of the support gods, I can attest to the fact that the boredom-O-meter spins fiercely after hitting infinite with the "blood clot in a door" base zergs we have now.

I was kicked out of one of the many outfits I briefly tried to tolerate for leading our whole empire in a massive, beautiful field battle that covered many hectares years ago. I was a CR3, and was leading the empire through Squad Leader chat.

The problem with the game isn't the mechanics, or Sony, or the buffs and nerfs. It is the idiots playing it.

Most people are selfish, immoral, craven, weak-willed scum who try to lie, cheat, steal, and, if possible, whine and cry to get laws, rules, or whatever else is in the reach of their selfish little claws warped to suit their tainted black-hole-of-selfishness character.

This leads to a game that is supposed to be team-oriented turning into the TV show Survivor, which, as the first season proved, should have been named Best Homosexual Backstabber because that is who won. If someone in your outfit proves you are a moron, you kick him out. If someone disagrees with you, and proves by his actions that his way was better, you kick him out. The outfits are run by such craven buffoons that as usual, the biggest liar and coward will end up leading them.

One of my favorite themes is "You have to be on TS to run with us." Maybe some of us don't like to hear 12 year olds talking about how they are raping their dog or some of the insane drivel that has been barfed over the TS wires. So you discard good players because they don't like to listen to your immature cussing, endless, ENDLESS sex jokes, and general idiocy.

When an outfit comes along that has a firm but relaxed command style, doesn't punish competence by ejecting the person who proves he is right from the outfit, or the more insidious method of seizing on some one small thing that he might have been wrong about in a sea of things he was right about, then PS will be far more tempting to play in an outfit.

Until then, watching homosexual little dictators prance around like Xerxes in the movie 300 demanding everyone bow down to them or they will have a tantrum and kick them out just ruins the outfit experience.

PS: next will blow if it doesn't, by its nature, actively enforce field battles, actively attack cheaters with very lucrative (For Sony) financial penalties, and have outfits that aren't run by preening little madmen whose greatest nightmare is that everyone will notice how incompetent, selfish, and stupid they are.

This rant is just...
Woah....

I think I can actually feel the hate radiating from my computer monitor.

The first hilariously ironic topic was how you cried on and on about the outfit leaders being idiotic and childish, cussing all the time and being generally crude. Then you go onto call people homosexuals, because it's always good to take the moral high ground by being homophobic clearly.

Second, the last time I went into TS I don't recall being surprised to find it populated by nothing but 12 year olds. In fact I doubt many 12 year olds even played Planetside because it was a game that required a lot of patience and most kids have basically got ADHD when it comes to games. It's the reason consoles average age is significantly lower than PC Gaming average age. That's a bit of a digression though, I know that the most populace gaming age group is 25-34 year old males. From my experience of Werner -TR's empirewide Teamspeak nights that age group was most represented. Or even more funnily OsteKake constantly commanded the empire and all people did was bitch and moan, the Terran Alliance consistantly held good events and mass armor/aircraft armies. We organised among other things one of the biggest mass galaxy drops and one of the biggest HART drops.

The organisation was there, when people decided to try and hold some stupid bio lab in the middle of nowhere while an interlink or tech plant was being attacked elsewhere on the continent the spawns and gen of the biolab would just be destroyed so that the zerg would be redirected. Every once in a while if it was a perfect moment and a friday night, everyones been drinking and will listen and have a laugh then yeah, you might be able to command a battle and get people to do stuff. But beyond a CR5 saying 'go to this continent' getting a zerg to do anything useful apart from migrate between the most killwhorey of battles was like dragging a heroin addict away from his fix.

Thirdly the reason that TeamSpeak is generally a required aspect of the more organised outfits is because you kinda need it to get anything done properly. The ingame VOIP was laggy as hell, useless and had a terrible quality. Text was far too slow to warn anyone of anything in a fast paced interior battle so the only option is to use Ventrilo or TeamSpeak. Take your pick.

And lastly, you are obviously butthurt from being kicked by one guy in one outfit for saying he was wrong/correcting him. Yeah that's not a good way to lead an outfit, but, what is important is how you said he was wrong. If you said it disrepectfully and called him a homosexual moron backstabber or something along those lines then I can see why they will kick you. If you respectfully suggested a better way then yes, it was dumb of him/her to kick you, but still, correct someone respectfully then if they still do it the wrong way the egg is on their face.

But I can safely say from many, many years of Planetside I never saw absolutely terrible outfit leadership or hordes of 12 year olds. There was piss-poor CR5 communication at times, leading to people bickering about primaries or whatever but other than that it seemed fine to me.

[Nephilimuk]

No Marketing and very high system specs at launch. The last one made it unplayable on a lot of PC's the minimum specs on the box was below what was required.

I added more memory to my PC at the time and then it ran but it would have put off a lot of players.

Also Planetside is like EVE it only really shines if you get in with the right crowd a lot of the larger outfits in its hey day were not very friendly and had no community to speak of.

I really do hope SOE get this right as PS is my favorite game ever and nothing has ever compaired to those early days gamewise. EVE comes close at times but that is very very rare and normally involves podding goonies.

[Hamma]

The ingame VOIP was laggy as hell, useless and had a terrible quality. Text was far too slow to warn anyone of anything in a fast paced interior battle so the only option is to use Ventrilo or TeamSpeak. Take your pick.
This reminds me, why do games continue putting VOIP right into games when literally nobody uses it? Why can't they spend that dev time on something else. VOIP is already covered pretty well by all sorts of other apps.

[LesserShade]

This reminds me, why do games continue putting VOIP right into games when literally nobody uses it? Why can't they spend that dev time on something else. VOIP is already covered pretty well by all sorts of other apps.

It's definitely an appeal to get the more casual gamer to use voice comm, but it's a waste because you have to be a relatively hardcore gamer to A) bother with pc gaming in the first place and B) want to use voice comm enough to buy and setup a headset to work on your pc. Those are the real hurdles. If you have a headset and you want to use voice comm, using a third party app is not a problem.

I can sympathize with the devs though. After taking a few years off from pc gaming, I have definitely come to appreciate the superiority of the console when it comes to voice communication. Xbox live voice chat definitely lacks the bells & whistles of a TS or vent, but the ubiquity of voice comm across the platform is pretty great, even though I choose not to use it 90% of the time.

[Bags]

I can sympathize with the devs though. After taking a few years off from pc gaming, I have definitely come to appreciate the superiority of the console when it comes to voice communication. Xbox live voice chat definitely lacks the bells & whistles of a TS or vent, but the ubiquity of voice comm across the platform is pretty great, even though I choose not to use it 90% of the time.

I take it you've never played one of valve's online game. Voice chat works fine in it. Consoles don't have superior voice communications.

[Hamma]

Im not sure if superiority was the word he was looking for. But one thing is true about consoles, it's always the same config and there's no options for alternatives. Which means that it's standardization across the platform does make it superior to PC.

Sure valve's in game voice works pretty well as far as in game voice systems go. But it's not a standardized system.. if that makes sense. :lol:

[LesserShade]

Im not sure if superiority was the word he was looking for. But one thing is true about consoles, it's always the same config and there's no options for alternatives. Which means that it's standardization across the platform does make it superior to PC.

Sure valve's in game voice works pretty well as far as in game voice systems go. But it's not a standardized system.. if that makes sense. :lol:

Yeah that's what I was getting at.