500v500v500 or 2000?

[Miir]

Has Smed or Higby confirmed that the number of people Planetside 2 will support will be 500v500v500 (or 2000). I know the 500v500v500 came off Tony Parks site and the 2000 came off that other Chinese site. But since there was a bit of a communication break down with those other sites I started second guessing that information.

So I'm wondering if the dev's have actually confirmed a number?

[Brusi]

i think it's safe to say, shitloads

[Sirisian]

500x500x500x500 probably. I mean if you count the AI.</trololo>

[Goku]

Its just boggling my mind how we can even start to coordinate that. Zerg fit is going to take on a whole new meaning!

[basti]

For coordination, numbers mean nothing. THe only important thing is how you do it. You need a proper command chain, and people need to understand where they are in that chain, otherwise its one giant unorganised zerg that screws up everywhere.

[Lonehunter]

It's very simple but actually a good question on game balance.

If 500 people can get in a cont from each empire at a time, even at max capacity every population/army on that cont is equal.

But if you make it a flat number like 2000 that leaves extra spots for the pops to get unbalanced.

[MasterChief096]

I actually wouldn't mind it being a flat number meaning pops could get imbalanced.

[p0intman]

Its just boggling my mind how we can even start to coordinate that. Zerg fit is going to take on a whole new meaning!
If you want to begin to understand how thousands are coordinated, I suggest people read up on how alliances conduct warfare in EVE. The scales are still smaller but you're beginning to approach a number that is far bigger than anywhere else before.

You will hit a wall where you're going to need external infastructure to coordinate base assaults and seiges and defense structure between outfits on a scale that is really only approached in the real world or in EVE. You're not going to be able to completely keep this infastructure ingame, it can't be provided because everyones needs are slightly different in such a way that third party apps might be considered. For example, skill training timers, such as EVE-Mon with the api there for characters. Industrial spreadsheets for material counts and such could be looked at for character build timers, and resource allocation spreadsheets to see what is best and what is available.

I say what I do from personal experience, but when you go past a certain number on a battlefield, you'll reach the point where you'll need overall field commanders that are trusted, then you'll need subcommanders to pass that information on to platoon/wing-level command and then squad-level information so people don't get overly confused with where they need to go and where they need to be.

and then at some point, because its human nature in PVP situations, you delve into the meta-knowledge game. Thats its own issue in and of itself and breeds issues (http://www.evenews24.com/2011/03/08/pandemic-legion-com-forums-made-public-courtesy-of-test-alliance-please-ignore/) that I don't really care to get into with rooting out spies that will use alts/forum names/etc to obtain information on other outfits for their own gain on their own main empire. There are ways to catch them if you really want to, and I don't really care to delve into the mechanics of that because I don't care to breed ideas. When you get above like... 250 people per side, you inevitably run into such things as a matter of us all being humans. It already goes on in some form in ps1.


and when i say character build apps, i mean something like this:
http://evemon.battleclinic.com/images/evemon-app-mainwindow.png
http://eve.mmoaddons.com/img/eve-online-evemon-screenshot-6.jpg

[SgtMAD]

I actually wouldn't mind it being a flat number meaning pops could get imbalanced.

yea when we had dynamic poplocks ppl hated it,one side had the main advantage and the third empire was fooked

[Erendil]

yea when we had dynamic poplocks ppl hated it,one side had the main advantage and the third empire was fooked

Yep, it generally came down to whomever could mobilize their zerg to get on cont first ended up taking the cont since they could fill 50% of the total slots on cont. The defending empire would usually get 25-35%, leaving <20% for the 3rd empire.

So yeah, give me 33%/33%/33% poplocks any day, thx. :D

[Vancha]

I say what I do from personal experience, but when you go past a certain number on a battlefield, you'll reach the point where you'll need overall field commanders that are trusted, then you'll need subcommanders to pass that information on to platoon/wing-level command and then squad-level information so people don't get overly confused with where they need to go and where they need to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMTAV6eZm2M

Chris' analytical skills are really strong.

[Trolltaxi]

I think old PS alliances of outfits will work at the start of the game. But it will work in the long run is beyond being predictable.

We need more info about how outfits and outfit benefits will work. If you can't run an outfit with multiple roles, we will have specialized groups, like aircav or armour or heavy grunt (even solely maxusers or supporters?). Using that would make it easier to coordiante in large scale. (I'd like to see outfits able to do multiple tasks, but if they can't be successful in multiple fields, why would they divide their oufit bonuses?)

[CutterJohn]

Eve stuff

PS will be nothing like eve since there is none of the long term strategic stuff. People will be able to fight effectively without access to resources. Resources are a perk in PS2. A very good one, but a perk nonetheless. They give access to the sidegrades of weapons and vehicles. You can still pull things with none and get the standard model.

Spies are nothing to be worried about, since a spy disrupting a raid means you're out 15 minutes. Reform, hit a new target. In eve a spy can screw over weeks of effort by hundreds or thousands of players.

And people won't band together in the thousands. Again, its necessary in eve because its your group vs everyone else. In PS you know 1/3 of the players got your back even if you run solo, and more importantly, you can identify them.


@OP: I'd take those numbers as what they are shooting for. Until there is a beta and they run stress tests, they cannot know what the limits are. Could be higher. Could be lower. But even if its 'just' 250v250v250, it would be great. :)

[Draep]

Newbie question, what is the scope of the current PS? How many players per cont?

[Sirisian]

Newbie question, what is the scope of the current PS? How many players per cont?
133v133v133

[Draep]

Wowwwwwwwwwww. I thought it was a lot more. This should be siiick then

[Hamma]

Aye - it is funny because it does very much seem like much more than that. It feels massive already with that number.. :lol:

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

It used to be 250 per, they lowed it to 133 when pops dropped so there would be more than 1 fight.

[TacosWLove]

Lots Eve Stuff

Although I have fought with over 2000 players in Eve , and when the hamsters are well fed and on a reinforced node, its pretty fun, but this is a completely different thing. Since everything takes so much more effort to replace in Eve, all your hard earned assets are at risk of being locked away in station. Also, their really is no tangible "front" for ships to just start heading towards for some pew pew. So in EVE it has to be this well coordinated because no one will fly in major ops all willie nillie cuz they will loose ships. Plus went you take into account hours and hours of just sitting on a titan for the right time to attack or shooting things that dont shoot back, its kinda hard to compare it.
(Eve pilot details (http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&plt_id=115759):

Planetside allows for this kind of uncoordinated zerging methods because the death penalty is so much less, the mechanics allow you to run in a straight line towards the nme base and get some action and for the most part you are helping the cause. Now sure the event arises where they start another front and all the wittle zerglings would prefer to play where they are at, but It nothing like the coordination required in Eve.

Now I totally agree with the Evemon-like character planner, but again i think its going to be more of a straight forward tree where you can easily see where that path leads you, where as in Eve(a.k.a. spreadsheets online) everything is convoluted and its difficult to see exactly what you might need to train.

[TacosWLove]

It used to be 250 per, they lowed it to 133 when pops dropped so there would be more than 1 fight.

And no, it was always 400ppl max. The only thing they changed was whether a single empire could pop lock it, which they changed to 133 per side once the pop dropped...

[Aractain]

While the details of PS1 pops confuse people (500 Max changed to 400 Max, used to be 50% max for first empire then changed to 33% each) I guess good netcode means that you don't need to recive more data than PS1 so as long as the server is good enough and their pipe supports it then you could theoretically have what ever they want.

They probably want a certain amount of poeple in each 'battle' along the front line so 10 contested areas = 200 ish per battle etc. What happens if everyone goes to the same place? EXCITEMENT.

[Draep]

Well I hope they launch with more than one cont. They would theoretically need a ton of servers at launch with only 1500 per serv, don't you think?

[Miir]

I hope it's multiple continents on each server.

We definitely need some clarification on what these numbers mean.

[Crator]

They said the world will be seamless. Does that mean that all the continents will somehow seamlessly flow together?

[kaffis]

They said the world will be seamless. Does that mean that all the continents will somehow seamlessly flow together?
Hard to say. It could just be that the tech allows transitions from one continent to the next to happen without a loading screen. Say, a flash of light and boom! new place. Or whatever.

[NapalmEnima]

Hard to say. It could just be that the tech allows transitions from one continent to the next to happen without a loading screen. Say, a flash of light and boom! new place. Or whatever.

Think "Dungeon Siege" loading tech. The adjacent areas load in the background while you're playing where ever it is you're playing.

Of course DS was pretty linear. PS2? Not so much.

[kaffis]

Think "Dungeon Siege" loading tech. The adjacent areas load in the background while you're playing where ever it is you're playing.

Of course DS was pretty linear. PS2? Not so much.
Well, yes. That was a given; the question is, how does seamless transition work with non-contiguous areas like distant continents which, we assume, are connected in some way?

[Talek Krell]

I guess it could load the areas at the other end of nearby warp gates? I admit that at one point the way the devs were talking made me think they might actually be creating an entire seamless world, complete with oceans between continents. Probably not practical for gameplay, but the idea blew my mind a little.

[Crator]

^^^ Man, that would be epic!

[cellinaire]

I'm personally expecting 667 vs 667 vs 667 (2001 players total).

...and btw, the games like Planetside is technically harder to implement huge player limit than EVE(which is set in space environment)

[kaffis]

I'm personally expecting 667 vs 667 vs 667 (2001 players total).

...and btw, the games like Planetside is technically harder to implement huge player limit than EVE(which is set in space environment)
I'm expecting 668 v. 666 v. 666. The TR need their strength in numbers.