Your thoughts on PS2 story decision.

[IceyCold]

I have not seen anything talking about this and yet it is something that I probably would rate as a major up for Planetside 2. And what is that you ask?

Making the sequel a revisit to the original story.

Basically I always liked the story for Planetside but always felt it didn't really get fleshed out very well, the devs put some thought into it and you can tell with how they explain everything from respawning to vehicle husks despawning. But I felt that we never really got a feel for the people and ideologies behind the different factions; or even the exact events that led to the Auraxian War. And once the bending happened I felt they kind of abandoned that attention to detail for more absurd story elements.

With Planetside 2 it seems the devs are retconing all of the silly Bending crap and making a game that once again tries to give us a solid understanding of the world we are fighting on; even more so it seems they are trying to etell the original story, only better. And I really hope they keep with that, and give us some interesting lore to look at and read to give the new Auraxian War a sense of scale and magnitude besides just the scale of the actual game.

It might just be me, and I might be alone on my own little lore island here, but I would really like to see more of the lore of Planetside and it's universe.

So how about you guys (and gals), what are your thoughts on the lore of Planetside?

[Death2All]

Apparently the story was actually ripped from another game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Fatigue


There are some similarities. I haven't played the game but apparently they copied it down to the very three empires, colors and everything.

Personally, the story was alright. It was there, and that's all it really meant to me. The game came first, story wasn't all that important.

[Bags]

Wait, Planetside had a story? I thought this was a shooter. :p

[MgFalcon]

I've always loved back stories to games, hopefully in PS2 they'll nail it. And for once I feel that this lore will be good for a change. None of the WoW crap!

[Death2All]

I've always loved back stories to games, hopefully in PS2 they'll nail it. And for once I feel that this lore will be good for a change. None of the WoW crap!

I'd be so thrilled to find out that the ancient Vanu aliens are actually Night Elves.

[Bags]

I'd be so thrilled to find out that the ancient Vanu aliens are actually Night Elves.

Reminds me of that one Radant video.

[stylus]

The story line that I noticed most were the stories that we made every time we loaded the game up. Sure, there was a setting - but the game play was so open ended that we just made our own story lines in that setting without even knowing it... and I'm not talking about role playing.

This was made apparent to me when I reviewed some of my old videos.

[Desoxy]

I usually like to dig a little into the backstory and for PlanetSide 1 it was alright at launch. I am very glad that PlanetSide 2 is a reimagining of PlanetSide 1 rather than a continuation of the story.

Since this is a shooter I acknowledge that we won't be going on epic quests and read a lot of backstory. But I would like it if there were clues to Auraxis' backstory in the environment that you see (or ignore) while playing. In addition to that the story could be further expanded via special events etc down the line.

[Soothsayer]

Around launch, it gave me comfort thinking that the original Auraxians (the actual Vanu) were watching over the fights, biding their time to exert the omnipotent powers they had gained via by ascending to a new plane of existence (possibly by fighting over the control of nanites which gave them their immense power and technological abilities).

This aspect was minimally developed. The Oshur fossil could have played into the mythology, the Aftershock was an afterthought to the story. It was my understanding that the Vanu Sovereignty worshipped the Auraxians (not necessarily just their technology) but that idea also petered out.

There was a lot that could have been done, but it just never happened...

[SKYeXile]

I still think ps2 will tie with the story if ps1, I think the bending will still have happened, but taken place in another system with duplicate clones. While ps2 will take place after the bending on the original auraxis that still exists, and follow A different evolution...eg no mention of bfrs.

[opticalshadow]

i know most of the story in ps1 was told in the orginal install screen. it was kind of a cool concept, empire stranded and then it schisms into an un ending war. i wouldnt mind some farther back story on it, at the time it was enough.

[CutterJohn]

The 'story' in PS1 was completely irrelevant to anything. All it did, if you even bothered to read the manual, is explain why you didn't die, and why they were fighting.

I expect the story in PS2 to be just as irrelevant to gameplay. They can change it how they wish.

[Talek Krell]

I liked the backstory in PS1 alright. It provided a little context beyond "red mens shoot lots, blue mens shoot hard, purple mens are shiny, GO".

[Synnoc]

If they (re)do the story right, it could add a lot to the experience. It's important from a social and team-building perspective to identify with your empire and against the other empires, so if there are story reasons to help reinforce that, I think people will embrace it. It may only be superficially for some, but creating friends and frenemies is made smoother by story.

[Sir B Smythe]

Nice to have a story for those who want it, me.... I just want to kill stuff!

[Quovatis]

The current backstory for the VS is very different than PS1 and will twist your mind. Hope Higby chimes in here and can tell you publicly some of his ideas, as they are pretty wild.

[Vancha]

Oh Quo, you tease.

[Whoknowswhat1]

Hope Higby chimes in here and can tell you publicly some of his ideas, as they are pretty wild.

That would be most excellent... as long as he tells about TR and NC also, but mostly the TR :borg:

[Lartnev]

The current backstory for the VS is very different than PS1 and will twist your mind. Hope Higby chimes in here and can tell you publicly some of his ideas, as they are pretty wild.

The VS twist my mind already :sick:

I'm glad the story will be a re-imagining of the original storyline since it wasn't much to build a sequel on top of. Wouldn't mind seeing a novel or two like some other games have done.

[Aractain]

Planetside: Origins?

Could make an awesome RPG about the inital break up of the TR Expeditionary Force! You could be investigating the simmering tension and...


Anyway I hope the NC isn't such an obivous "FREEDOM AMERICA NUMBER ONE!" this time. Sounds like its much closer to anarcists this time which makes me happy. Because I like to shoot them. A lot. Purple or Red, never Yellow.

[Duriel]

i agree that i want them to tell the story from the first game....it was a nice start however, they never did anything with it except drop meteor's on our heads which was great too bad it brought BFR's with it...:doh:

i would love to see more of why each split and how also maybe they could continue as the game goes on with more weather effects etc...

anything is better than pick a color and go...

[MgFalcon]

The current backstory for the VS is very different than PS1 and will twist your mind. Hope Higby chimes in here and can tell you publicly some of his ideas, as they are pretty wild.

Well it was a lonely night for the TR commander... His wife and child still safe on Earth, he just... He just needed some one, no something to cuddle up next to. But the only entity there was the imprisoned Vanu naked in chains next to his bed.

9 Months later the Vanu stork brought about the new leader of the VS.

:eek:

[Aractain]

Thats not very wild.

Im thinking a certain cult of technology feitshists within the TR holding weekly techno sex parties. When all this new alien tech is found by the scientists they go into overload. They can't help but be intimate with anything Vanu they see.

The TR looks down on techno fetishes. They don't mind all the rest but technology is not okay. This forces the TR command to jail the vanus but they easily escpaed (you don't want to know how) and formed

THE VANU SOVERENTY.com

A dirty website for technology lovers.


Am I close? :)

[PsychoXR-20]

Apparently the story was actually ripped from another game

According to that wiki page, that game came out in 2000, I first read about planetSide in early '99, and at that point the story was already in place (despite knowing nothing about the Vanu, or even of their existence) so I find it highly unlikely that PlanetSide ripped off the storyline of that game.

Besides, reading that page the only thing the two stories have in common is that both games have 3 sides, and it takes place in a scifi setting.

[Alduron]

With as much love and respect for PS1 I can muster: I barely knew there was a story, or "point" to the game.

To learn anything decent about the lore I had to turn to online sources (which there still isn't a large amount of information). They basically got enough story to cover some of the technology and reasons to fight then fired their writers.

The funny part is, I like it like that. The one paragraph faction descriptions were enough for me to understand why VS and TR need to die, and allowed me to carry out countless battles with no remorse. It also frees me from sitting back and going "well, that's very uncharacteristic of the NC." when I see one with a lasher.

It's not like they're going to have narrative NPCs in PS2, so it really doesn't matter what they put in the booklet for you to read while you install it.

This game has never been about the story. :)

[MgFalcon]

With as much love and respect for PS1 I can muster: I barely knew there was a story, or "point" to the game.


This game has never been about the story. :)

Very true, as soon as bullets started flying over my head I was like "Shoot anything that's blue or red!"

Clearly ended up shooting purple as well but that was for shits and giggles, by which I mean grief-lock.

[Desoxy]

This game has never been about the story. :)

True, but considering they have long term plans with this game it could add another layer of immersion; at some point you might want to read up on it and then find hints cluttered all over Auraxis here and there..
Or have events that last for a few days/weeks (tops) that each explore different aspects of the story.

There is only one crucial thing: Make it entirely optional!
Some people will never care and no one should be forced to sit through it..

[Vancha]

This game has never been about the story. :)
I think you mean the last game. :p

PS2 could probably benefit from a little additional lore. Stories don't need words to be told.

I'm fairly sure Extra Credits did a video about telling narrative through the environment and other non-textual methods. I'm not sure this was the exact one, but it certainly enters that territory.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1887-Video-Games-Bad-Writing

[Operations]

I am very glad that PlanetSide 2 is a reimagining of PlanetSide 1 rather than a continuation of the story.
Though for some reason Higby keeps saying reimaging, which is surely what it would have been when they were just going to do a graphical update for Planetside.

"red mens shoot lots, blue mens shoot hard, purple mens are shiny, GO".
Lol I like that, and I must admit it is about as much of the original planetside lore as I could remember.

[Naeadil]

I think it's all been pretty much confirmed the Vanu (race, not faction) will appear in special GM events and attack all 3 factions. Either Smed or Higby said this in one of the press conferences or Q&A videos. While it won't be a persistent element in the game, maybe the story will progress through these "alien invasion" GM events.

[Talek Krell]

This game has never been about the story. :)
I don't think that's quite true though. I think it's important to have the story for the sake of guiding the design in a coherent way.

Like Desoxy said though, it needs to be optional. Just because it's there doesn't mean we should be expected to pay attention to it.

[boblikesoup]

A storyline will actually give outfits something to work with if they want to flush out their background.

[Sifer2]

I always thought something they should do if they had the time was expand on the VR stuff. Instead of just a place to test weapons/vehicles. They could have made it into an actual campaign with bot AI an cutscenes. Each one would be set in the past an explain why the faction started fighting the others. Each one would be propaganda too an try to make themselves look good an the others bad guys that started the fight.

So as a new player you would go through VR for a few hours playing the campaign an come out of it knowing how to shoot an what you were going out into the world to fight for.

[cashfoyogash]

planetside now had a story?? smh