Planetside 2 and Professional Gaming

[Tapman]

I propose that development includes a way for event competition to exist in Planetside 2, I seriously think that people would love spectating highly competitive groups of players on the scale that we will be enjoying, especially with the relative diversity of the playerbase already, the ability to specialize your play style, and with the accessibility (will work on machines that are VERY old!) I came up with an idea to track and display mission performance data in the idea vault, if that was implemented then you could base a competition off of that, other contests could just be in-game events scheduled where the squad/platoon/outfit/faction that controls the most territory or a particularly large facility/area for a certain amount of time. You could let people sign up for these events in advance with their username which would give the host access to data needed, that way other people can be part of the fight even if they can't afford the sign-up fee or the flight to Vegas or wherever we all decide to host these! :D

I think that the conventional video game competition could be totally changed up with this game, perhaps they could work with devs for when new locations are opened up (space, moons, new planets, etc.) but I think that there could be a lot of ongoing corporate sponsorship interest for stuff like this!

[Bags]

Planetside is not an e-sport.

[Gandhi]

Planetside is not an e-sport.
But this isn't Planetside, it's Planetside 2 :doh:

[Talek Krell]

"Match called on account of rain.....ing bombs from the sky."

[Death2All]

Seeing outfit wars again would be nifty.

[WellWisherELF]

i recall either smedley or higby mentioning that they may add an outfit war or competitive arena type system into the game at some point in time, but they seemed sure that it wouldn't be a focal point of the game.

[Tapman]

"Match called on account of rain.....ing bombs from the sky."

I was thinking that was part of what would make it that much more exciting because stuff like that could happen in the middle of a huge match from players that aren't even officially part of the tournament or at the event, being able to command well enough to mount a proper defense from a liberator carpet bombing or an incoming MAX crash on the fly is how people gain recognition on the leaderboards and later on professional gaming circles. I remember seeing this video and the crowd reaction and thinking...people would totally react this way if they could witness the glory of a solid battle.



All of the professional gamers seem to use noise-cancellation over-ear headphones so announcers can talk about the major threats and they can truly show the scale of attacks and defenses. You could invite a zerg rush on a server to focus on a particular location and see if they can beat the waiting elite players that are fortified and organized. Also, giving other people access to affect the competitive battles gives newer players the chance to capture the spotlight and perhaps be a regular player on the pro circuit.

[Captain B]

It would just detract from the game. You give people arena style combat, they'll go fight in a vacuum where some newb that sneaks up behind them by accident and sheer, blind luck and kills them can't occur. It's like sandbox MMOs where you get MOBAs and open-world PvP. You get your ladder players talking crap in arena fights and never set foot in the "end game".

This is a persistent world in constant battle. There are no "mini-games". The only "mini-game" is a play on mini-guns and all the fun stuff you can do to bodies with them. I hope they don't focus on MOBAs; get the game right the way it's supposed to be. Leave all the arenas and 1v1 - be it individuals or outfits - to clan-based games with instanced maps on special servers.

Stay in Karkand for your e-peen stroking. On Auraxis, you fight and you die and you deal with it.

[Kalbuth]

Just a question, is there an e-sport featuring teams bigger than smtg like 12vs12?

[Crator]

This shouldn't be implemented in-game. As others have said, it will detract from the main purpose of the game. Perhaps something like a fantasy football system offline, in a web browser, would be neat though.

[BlazingSun]

Just rebuild the map Face II from Unreal Tournament with Planetside towers :D

[Hamma]

ohnoes not this again! :lol:

I don't think this game is appropriate for that. But as I said many months ago in a similar thread I would not be against an area off limits to players that Developers can use for things like outfit wars. Like it or not that was a pretty big success and fun for many players.

AN AREA ONLY DEVELOPERS CAN ACCESS AND BRING PEOPLE TO.

Just wanted to make that clear.. last time people went off the handle like I was asking for instancing. :lol:

[Talek Krell]

pro circuit.Yeah, fuck that. If somebody wants celebrity then they can walk their ass out onto the battlefield and earn it. No sponsorships, no advertising, and no spectating. If you would like to hold competitions then do it, no dev resources need to be wasted on this.

[basti]

ohnoes not this again! :lol:

I don't think this game is appropriate for that. But as I said many months ago in a similar thread I would not be against an area off limits to players that Developers can use for things like outfit wars. Like it or not that was a pretty big success and fun for many players.

AN AREA ONLY DEVELOPERS CAN ACCESS AND BRING PEOPLE TO.

Just wanted to make that clear.. last time people went off the handle like I was asking for instancing. :lol:

This, exactly.
Everything else that players could use as they will would make the entire thing pointless. It would drain away from the big fights, while making the "special" expirience not so special anymore. Outfit wars should be a very special event, happening very rarley (once a year at max).

[Goku]

I already beat this topic to death a few months ago. I still want to see some kind of area for outfits on opposing factions to able to fight with 1-3 squads against one another. Could easily put limitations on how this can be done. Between number of matches per night, some kind of cost involved (say OP), and even limiting it to certain days/times. Just to make sure it doesn't take away from the fights. I still do not buy the argument either. People are going to be getting this game for the massive fights not some side play that is fun a couple times a week. I wouldn't be shocked if people actually get the game for that feature, but they will may not not the massive fights in the first place.

[Graywolves]

On the Reddit AMA I asked Higby if they would include any small-scale competitive game play similar to when they did outfit wars.

His response was that he is a big fang of e-sports and that later in the future they will probably include something small-scale for competitive play. But right now they are focusing on releasing the game and that means the large-scale warfare (the main game).

[Crator]

If it was event based, every other month or so, I wouldn't care. Might even be fun.

[Graywolves]

The only possible issue would be that you'd have people doing arena-games-w.e instead of the main game's conquest. But I think outfit policies and possibly the need to have atleast a good squad would prevent this from effecting too much.

[Tapman]

I don't think I made myself clear. I do not want instanced/arena games. I don't think they have to be a fundamental part of a highly competitive environment suitable for tournament/professional gaming. Part of the draw to me is that in order to be the best at Planetside, you and your team have to be ready to deal with just about any threat you come across, whether that is a surprise attack from a single organized outfit or a massive push from an entire faction, in an eSports scenario that could mean that the elite team gunning for the big prize has to deal with every scrub or fellow elite player in highly variable and volatile situations.

AFAIK, the devs are setting the game up to have a LOT of information collected about each player and outfit to be used in third party apps, leaderboards, etc. and I think that a system could be developed to monitor and compare those metrics and rank players/teams against others. SOE has alleged that preventing hackers will be a primary focus and as long as they are successful, we have a reliable basis of comparison.

TL;DR Player/team performance metrics could be used in eSports without arenas/instances. No need to get worked up about them in this thread.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Perhaps something like a fantasy football system offline, in a web browser, would be neat though.

Could definitely see this happening. Where player performance ingame affects how your roster does. Heck, would be pretty realistic as there would be cheating and bans!

As for pro circuit ingame, I can't see it happening without a devolution of gameplay to a smaller scale. Now you could have tournaments held over a weekend for all 3 sides where whoever has the most territory or holds an objective at a set time gets points or something. Maybe the reward is a giant statue in the foothold or something.
Could also have lan events where those at the lan become ubar commanders and can make missions worth a lot of resources/BEP and if their side wins the people at the lan get a reward of some sort. It would be a competition of leadership and strategery.

[Talek Krell]

I don't think I made myself clear. You made yourself perfectly clear. You'd like to take a game about an endless, knock-down, drag-out, throat-slitting war and turn it into a spectator sport, complete with corporate sponsored supermen, more arbitrary metrics than a baseball fanatic can count, and a crowded event calendar (Brought to you by Fanta!) and my answer is no.

This is not a game about watching other people play a game. This is not a game about some unshaven guy whose wardrobe gets picked out by the video card manufacturer paying his rent clicking away on camera. No heroes, no villains. If somebody in Planetside 2 becomes a legend it should be because they are legendary not because Athlon is footing the bill for their publicity department.

[SavageB]

You made yourself perfectly clear. You'd like to take a game about an endless, knock-down, drag-out, throat-slitting war and turn it into a spectator sport, complete with corporate sponsored supermen, more arbitrary metrics than a baseball fanatic can count, and a crowded event calendar (Brought to you by Fanta!) and my answer is no.

This is not a game about watching other people play a game. This is not a game about some unshaven guy whose wardrobe gets picked out by the video card manufacturer paying his rent clicking away on camera. No heroes, no villains. If somebody in Planetside 2 becomes a legend it should be because they are legendary not because Athlon is footing the bill for their publicity department.

Well said. Leave the E sports to, CS, CSS, Sc2, BW, etc.

[Graywolves]

Esports is going to happen eventually. You don't need to participate or spectate it.

[Tapman]

You made yourself perfectly clear. You'd like to take a game about an endless, knock-down, drag-out, throat-slitting war and turn it into a spectator sport, complete with corporate sponsored supermen, more arbitrary metrics than a baseball fanatic can count, and a crowded event calendar (Brought to you by Fanta!) and my answer is no.

This is not a game about watching other people play a game. This is not a game about some unshaven guy whose wardrobe gets picked out by the video card manufacturer paying his rent clicking away on camera. No heroes, no villains. If somebody in Planetside 2 becomes a legend it should be because they are legendary not because Athlon is footing the bill for their publicity department.

First off, I was referring to the posts where people seemed to be under the impression I was demanding arenas/instances. I was clarifying that I was not.

You seem to be suggesting that I am looking for a celebrity culture where corporations pay tons of money to market a couple of assholes that they think will look good on-screen so they can hock their products. The thing is though, if a player wants recognition they will get it by doing well enough to get on the leaderboards. If they want to be, as you said, legendary they will do that by staying on the leaderboards. The phrase "pro circuit" was used because as time goes on there will be certain people who dedicate themselves to maintain their positions on the leaderboards and that level of talent and dedication would warrant calling them a pro. There will be enough of these people that cycle in and out on a periodic basis that you could call it a circuit. If these people want to try and make a living doing it and there is someone out there who will pay them for it, what the fuck is that going to do to you or the majority of the players out there? Here is what just came to mind for me:
- More exposure for the game which means more players on more continents. Don't want to participate in the big bad corporate event? There will be tons of other battles that need to be fought, any eSports involvement would make up a fraction of the total activity throughout the game.
- These elite players are going to exist whether or not they wear a patch on their shirt or exclusively drink slurm while they play. The larger scaled exposure and real-world ramifications are great motivators for people to organize and follow orders.
- If there is ever a player out there who is falsely elevated by a corporate sponsor who you just hate everything about, guess what? You can find him in the game and kill him until he loses his sponsorship and ragequits forever! Hell, you could probably make a case to organize mass groups on every faction to do the same if they were that big of a douche.

One of the main reasons we have all stuck with Planetside over the years are because of the war stories. Judging by the response to my idea about recording battles, most people agree that this game will be awesome to watch. I agree that SOE resources shouldn't be wasted catering to eSports, the only people who would put any work would be in the legal department if it was being used for-profit. The burden of resources is on those who want to broadcast it and those who want to watch, if you don't want to support it then all you do is don't watch! Chances are you will be playing the game already anyway and won't even notice. I actually watch live streams of games sometimes for big tournaments and replays sometimes of popular matches, and I know that I am not alone. I also think there will be a fair amount of interest in studying how the top players/groups play which will make the game more competitive. Don't forget, there will be plenty of top players/outfits who will want nothing to do with it as well.

I just don't see Planetside 2 suffering from any of this.

[Xyntech]

I just don't see Planetside 2 suffering from any of this.

This is why I don't have any problem with 90% of the stuff I hear people complaining about. Why can't the game feature stuff that someone else will enjoy? You don't have to participate. As long as it's done in a way that isn't interfering with regular gameplay, bring it on.

[Captain B]

It's the "not interfering gameplay" that's the problem.

When outfits take 30 people and do a 1v1, that's 60 people NOT fighting for a base. If a few outfits do it at once, that's potentially hundreds of people NOT on the battlefield. They may like the "MMO that's not an MMO" that's become so prolific these days with safety nets and instances, but personally, if this is to be MMOFPS, it needs to STAY an MMOFPS. That means MASSIVELY multi-player, not 30v30.

[Talek Krell]

I just don't see Planetside 2 suffering from any of this.
As I said, if you want to organize events then knock yourself out. I love when I log in and find out that somebody has put together an Ant race across Searhus. It's delightfully emergent and community driven. But that's not what you're asking for. You don't need a thread in the idea forum or special consideration from the devs in order to organize that. What you're asking for seems to be some sort of online genitalia comparison engine and I see no reason the game should try to attract the sort of people that would appeal to.

War is all the competition we need. To ritualize it would just reduce it's unpredictability. To rank, and classify, and assign numerical value to it's participants would just divide them and reduce their coherency. And I don't know about the rest of you, but I liked telling war stories because they're about interesting things that happened to me.

[Raka Maru]

Why not use the built in mission system for this? Commander sets a goal to set up a portable tower in grid xy kinda thing. Then the "sponsors" must create squad leader characters designed to do this stuff. The problem with this is that esport game area may become a battleground.

[Accuser]

Sounds like a good feature that's easy to implement that will draw in more players.
Just allow a self/squad/outfit que system, make a small map with two bases, and let the teams go at it in an instanced version of PS2. Let it end by time-out with the winner being the team with the most kills, if neither team takes a base.

There are a lot of "arena junkies" that play games for the glory of a clearly defined victory, and they'll put out the cash for cosmetic customization...

[Graywolves]

I like esports but I suck at RTS. But I'm good at Planetside....Why does everyone not want me to make money off of playing Planetside forever!?

[Effective]

This is why I don't have any problem with 90% of the stuff I hear people complaining about. Why can't the game feature stuff that someone else will enjoy? You don't have to participate. As long as it's done in a way that isn't interfering with regular gameplay, bring it on.

This. Even if the games WERE instances, I do not see how it will detract from regular gameplay. If anything these types of games will attract MORE players to planetside. Not wanting to add a outfit wars type system is no different then saying "Cloakers don't have a place in Planetside 2 simply because I don't like cloakers".

[Captain B]

Who cares if you bring more players to PS2 if they're just gonna' be an instance the whole time?

I guess what I want out of PS2 (epic, massive, global-war style combat) is different than what you want out of PS2 (BF/CoD-style instanced maps where nothing you do is important outside of that 10 minute fight).

[SKYeXile]

I think having random tourniment or outfit wars or say TOD's would be awesome, but having it run all the time would be a bad idea. For one you detract from the overall massive scale warfare and then you also have issues with XP and what not.

Now its not real rocket surgery to workout that if you have 60 people in a confined space, more times than not its going to be better XP to fight people in a confined space, then hunt 1000 people spread accross a vast open world. Devs seem to alsways make this mistake of giving the same rewards for fighting in the instances as open world, giving people a higher incentive to do instances...in notime open world pvp is dead...see WoW after battlegrounds were introduced.

[Xyntech]

Who cares if you bring more players to PS2 if they're just gonna' be an instance the whole time?

I guess what I want out of PS2 (epic, massive, global-war style combat) is different than what you want out of PS2 (BF/CoD-style instanced maps where nothing you do is important outside of that 10 minute fight).

I think it would only work if instances were only created for the actual event. That way, all of those tourny players would have to spend time practicing in the real game, which would be good.

Just having an instance option in the regular game would be counter productive though. Besides, I would hope that if they did go down the esports road, that they found a successful way to hold the matches in the middle of the regular gameplay.

[Captain B]

Instead of making instances, why not just look at the empire as a "team" instead of the outfits? Then it'd be like news coverage of a war instead of some announcers talking about video games...

Which I gotta' say, e-sports is worse than the WNBA... That's some sad shit to watch right there.

[Xyntech]

Instead of making instances, why not just look at the empire as a "team" instead of the outfits? Then it'd be like news coverage of a war instead of some announcers talking about video games...

Which I gotta' say, e-sports is worse than the WNBA... That's some sad shit to watch right there.

Maybe some sponsored objectives that the developers could implement for the event?

I like the idea everything being held in the main game space.

Again, as long as someone logging in isn't negatively affected by it, I think it would be okay.

[Captain B]

I'm all for devs making the game itself more intriguing and putting stuff into the game like, "An NS shipment of Auraxium has plummeted from orbit after a ship malfunction, and the resource is spread amongst the debris. Go 'n get it!" Not something "regular" but from time to time that people can all get behind. It's good for the game, stays within its massive scope, and is an extension of the normal gameplay rather than a separation from it.

[Effective]

Who cares if you bring more players to PS2 if they're just gonna' be an instance the whole time?

I guess what I want out of PS2 (epic, massive, global-war style combat) is different than what you want out of PS2 (BF/CoD-style instanced maps where nothing you do is important outside of that 10 minute fight).

What makes you think they're going to be instanced the whole time? And it's not even a COD/BF style game I'm talking about.

Outfit wars. Or even simple things such as the Kingpin tournament. As it turns out, a pretty high portion of gamers enjoy competition. Especially with rivalries against specific groups of players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX4IuQrLVYs&feature=player_profilepage#t=385s

These things aren't bad things like you and some other folks are making it out to be. If something like this were created, would some folks play a lot of it? Probably, will all the PS players play it? Probably not. Especially if they were held at specific dates and run by the GM's.

Guess what? You don't have to play if you don't want to (and face it, there's a good chance it will happen). Occasional events like these would change the pace up occasionally and give players something different to do rather then to fight for more territory control, which I can see as getting boring occasionally if you play a lot.

[Bags]

I'm not against occasional OW, but I don't think they should be running constantly. Once a month at most.

And probably added after release if at all.

[Captain B]

"Will all the PS player play it?" What, you mean all 50-100 of us? That's not gonna' be very epic seeing a few hundred people TOTAL fighting over continents. I'm hoping for 200+ on every side, at once, at a minimum. Take away from that, and it's looking like the battlefield will be dead before year one is up. This is basic mathematics.

You're not gonna' get e-sports crap in a massive scale battle. People are gonna' whine because some noob lol'd and drop podded in behind them and got a few lucky rounds off. The skill of the individual is rendered insignificant in major battles. There's just too much chance involved to think you'll run through a massive battle time and time again unscathed, no matter how good or fast you are.

Who here hasn't screwed around or gotten bored driving around the land and started firing randomly, or missed a shot, and suddenly an infiltrator appears and dies from your stray shot? You didn't see him; he was doing his job staying invisible. But he still got killed for no other reason than you were bored gunning cross-country and wanted to see an explosion, or you suck at gunning and COMPLETELY missed your intended target, but sadly clipped the cloaker with an anti-tank shell.

Shit happens in PlanetSide, and life is cheap. This game isn't about e-peens or competition on the individual level; it's about pushing your empire forward. I've said it once and I'll say it again: the difference between excellent K/D ratios in other games and PS is "Wow, you're awesome at this game" compared to "Stop being a fucking pussy and push into the goddamn base, you lazy piece of shit." That gameplay does not support e-sports.

[SKYeXile]

"Will all the PS player play it?" What, you mean all 50-100 of us? That's not gonna' be very epic seeing a few hundred people TOTAL fighting over continents. I'm hoping for 200+ on every side, at once, at a minimum. Take away from that, and it's looking like the battlefield will be dead before year one is up. This is basic mathematics.

You're not gonna' get e-sports crap in a massive scale battle. People are gonna' whine because some noob lol'd and drop podded in behind them and got a few lucky rounds off. The skill of the individual is rendered insignificant in major battles. There's just too much chance involved to think you'll run through a massive battle time and time again unscathed, no matter how good or fast you are.

Who here hasn't screwed around or gotten bored driving around the land and started firing randomly, or missed a shot, and suddenly an infiltrator appears and dies from your stray shot? You didn't see him; he was doing his job staying invisible. But he still got killed for no other reason than you were bored gunning cross-country and wanted to see an explosion, or you suck at gunning and COMPLETELY missed your intended target, but sadly clipped the cloaker with an anti-tank shell.

Shit happens in PlanetSide, and life is cheap. This game isn't about e-peens or competition on the individual level; it's about pushing your empire forward. I've said it once and I'll say it again: the difference between excellent K/D ratios in other games and PS is "Wow, you're awesome at this game" compared to "Stop being a fucking pussy and push into the goddamn base, you lazy piece of shit." That gameplay does not support e-sports.

and i think thats the point of outfit wars, the individuals, classes and certs being rendered insignificant. when its that many people it comes down to teamwork and who plays better as a group, yes im sure there will be some people who dont pull their weight, thats upto the OL or SL to fix.

I loved it in outfit wars fighting "dream teams" but most of them still playing like the solo killwhore heros that they're, unable to adapt to a proper team environment.

if people still want further satisifaction of whos more skilled at straight up combat then you can have your TOD,s 3v3's or 1v1's whatever, though that really does not have a huge breaking on whos the better player in the proper field.

[Captain B]

I mean, if you want outfit wars, go for it; have your OL and the other OL organize a night where you meet up in a distant location and play it out. But if it is a separate map or a vacuum, it will detract from the game.

Whether it's a lot or a little is not the point; it's the fact that it will at all.

[Naeadil]

E-Sports = Awesome. They're actually starting to explode because of Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. You don't have to watch them, but at least give it some respect as a gamer. Shit.

Higby already stated they're focusing on the main game first, and probably adding what I assume would be a smaller scaled, instanced area of the main game for even Outfit fights. 30 versus 30, or something.

In case anyone here is a youngster, or just seem to forgot in your senile old age, Planetside 1 is based off another "larger scale" FPS game. Yep, Tribes. A game that was often played competitively and even shoutcasted.
Tribes 2 Classic |R| vs -IA- on Surreal - YouTube

[Hamma]

Having participated in many Tribes 2 Matches, some that were shoutcasted I will say it is to date one of the funnest times I have ever had as a gamer. The adrenaline was pumping the entire time and the competition was fierce.

The AGN has always envisioned covering the wars of PlanetSide (And now PS2) in a similar fashion but the tools aren't there to do it easily.

This topic was filled with over reactions the last time we had it too - people don't seem to grasp the concept this isn't something that would be every day. It should be built in for very special events, not weekly matches or tournaments.

[xSlideShow]

Having participated in many Tribes 2 Matches, some that were shoutcasted I will say it is to date one of the funnest times I have ever had as a gamer. The adrenaline was pumping the entire time and the competition was fierce.

The AGN has always envisioned covering the wars of PlanetSide (And now PS2) in a similar fashion but the tools aren't there to do it easily.

This topic was filled with over reactions the last time we had it too - people don't seem to grasp the concept this isn't something that would be every day. It should be built in for very special events, not weekly matches or tournaments.

^^


Would be cool imo

[Effective]

"Will all the PS player play it?" What, you mean all 50-100 of us? That's not gonna' be very epic seeing a few hundred people TOTAL fighting over continents. I'm hoping for 200+ on every side, at once, at a minimum. Take away from that, and it's looking like the battlefield will be dead before year one is up. This is basic mathematics.


I think you're deliberately being stupid. When I said "All PS players" I clearly meant for planetside 2 (That be why we posting in PS2 section derp).

The idea behind outfit wars wasn't for epic huge battles, it was for uninterrupted outfit vs. outfit combat. JUST LIKE THE ACTUAL GAME, but with only the outfit + fill ins fighting. Do you honestly think that if 2 outfits go to a "distant" continent to fight, no one else is going to show up? Are you really that dumb?

Don't like e-sports? You don't have to play. There still isn't a good reason to argue against it for any game nowadays. Provide something other then "IT DOESN'T BELONG IN PLANETSIDE RAWR" please.

Think of it this way. If more people ended up using a esports instance system (if it were added hypothetically) and not playing for territory. What does this imply? It means PS 2 failed to attract the attention of those gamers. Meaning that eventually they're going to leave anyways. If the game is good, then an added e-sports system is barely going to scratch the surface of the population on the battlefield.

Oh sorry guys, it's not like an actual battle, no more Christmas or Halloween events or anything along those lines.

[Crator]

So, Effective got me thinking, what if these e-sports in PS2 integrated with the regular PS2 system in some sort of way. Perhaps winners would unlock some sort of continental or global benefit or something?

[Graywolves]

So, Effective got me thinking, what if these e-sports in PS2 integrated with the regular PS2 system in some sort of way. Perhaps winners would unlock some sort of continental or global benefit or something?

Like if a TR won then all TR get Dropship Center benefit? Or something?


Would give incentive for people to participate but I don't think that's necessary.

[SKYeXile]

Think of it this way. If more people ended up using a esports instance system (if it were added hypothetically) and not playing for territory. What does this imply? It means PS 2 failed to attract the attention of those gamers. Meaning that eventually they're going to leave anyways. If the game is good, then an added e-sports system is barely going to scratch the surface of the population on the battlefield.



no it would mean they have a higher reward incentive for doing instanced fights rather than open world.

[Effective]

no it would mean they have a higher reward incentive for doing instanced fights rather than open world.

Then add no reward system other then bragging rights.

@Crator I think anything benefit other then bragging rights/cosmetic changes to armor etc that affect the consistent world is a bad idea

Edit = At best, MAYBE a free sub for a month for the winning team, but that's it (and I doubt SOE will do it since they'd lose money for "x" amount of players for a whole month lol)

[Captain B]

Don't like e-sports? You don't have to play. There still isn't a good reason to argue against it for any game nowadays. Provide something other then "IT DOESN'T BELONG IN PLANETSIDE RAWR" please.

Tabletop.

I play 40K and WFB. When I got into the game, I loved the idea of creating my own army and customizing it how I wanted to, around my playstyle, my aesthetic, and so on. I loved it; I had a personal hero on the field and he was designed to support or lead his forces into battle appropriately.

Tournaments have always been run for tabletop. But if you're also in that scene, you know very well what RAW and WAAC mean; for those who don't, it's Rules As Written and Win At All Costs. These are the foundations of what what has ruined the games a little bit at a time with each new edition, each new Codex (although WFB is less susceptible to this, and 8th Edition WFB is an excellent rule system, while 5th 40K is utter shit). Instead of the game being played "rules as intended", people find loopholes in the game, ways to break the game and min/max so that their "strategic advantage" lies in statistics and can easily be played with a calculator rather than utilizing on-the-filed tactics. Now, I'm not saying clear and concise rules are BAD, just that they are abused.

When "professional gaming" (and I chuckle even typing that) becomes incorporated into games, it completely redefines the game. I spend hundreds of dollars on my armies, buying bits to make 'em look cool, all the vehicles and troops and whatever else I want for 'em, but in the end, if the list itself isn't WAAC, that severely limits what I can do. I'm not talking about slight disadvantages; I'm talking about not taking one unit or character and my army losing before it's put on the table (save for some miracle of the enemy rolling all 1s or me all 6s). It means I have to find like-minded players who don't roll cheese-dick lists so that I can have fun, too. So that there's some variety rather than "Oh, you have that Space Wolf guy that blunderbusses krak missiles out of his asshole 18" around his Land Raider every turn... didn't see THAT one coming..."

It stales the playing the field. Players get tired of it. For every one "professional gamer" there are at least 100 who don't give a shit (proportions reversed in Korea). It isn't limited to tabletop, either; MMOs become all about the specific stats and gear make-up for your class. If you don't have the right combination of gear, it doesn't just affect your ability to game, but it can often be a point of contention in groups. "Go up and tank that guy with Berzerker Buttfuck Ability." "Um, I don't have that." "But you're a warrior!" "Yeah, but I put some points into archery so I could be a little more versatile." "WHAT?!" "Well, I know I can't shoot bows as well as a ranger class, but I thought it'd be more fun-" "YOU ARE FUCKING WORTHLESS! GTFO MY GROUP!"

Because game devs and players are aware of this trend, whether they want to admit to the source of it or not, they dumb down the game. What happened to skill-based games, where you pick skills instead of classes? "Oh well Classes are easier to balance." No, actually, they aren't; they're easier to NERF and make ANOTHER class outrageously powerful come patch time, but not easier to actually balance. Come next patch, that class will get nerfed and onto the next class! (See DAoC.)

Eventually the game comes down to focusing on making the competitive players happy and forgetting all about the casuals. Free-to-Play is about casuals. It's about getting a lot of people who "like" the game, not "love" it, involved so that there's more than a hundred people playing. On the ground, so to speak, the players themselves become more competition-oriented with people thumbing their chests and challenging each other for best outfit, squad, individual soldier, etc. I don't care if they do, but when mechanics are placed into the game to facilitate that, then mechanics used to expand upon or enhance the epic scale of the rest of the game are lost. You can't argue that. Even if you say "they can do both at once", the argument of "yeah, but they could have taken that time to put even MORE into the actual game instead of these little side games" comes up.

Sadly, there IS precedence for what happens when mechanics are included to allow for this. Actually, there's more evidence to show this occurring than the other way around. If you don't see it, you're either tunnel-blind in your own playstyle or you just haven't been gaming persistent, online worlds long enough to witness it. We've gone from sandbox, in-game world-wide battlefields with open-ended possibilities - that is, the Massively Multiplayer Online Game - to MOBA - Multiplayer Online Battlefield Arena. We've taken the potential for entire armies to face off on scales that make single-player games with multi-player function look like child's play to stuffing them into a gladiatorial arena.

Do I care? No, I don't. Do I have to play? No, I don't.

Does it take away from the potential of the entire reason I'm playing the game in the first place? Yes, absolutely.

You brought up that I was stupid because I didn't think of other armies coming in and crashing the party. I did think of it. If you put instances into the game, you are detracting from the play. You are taking outfits out of the game - outfits that could be 30 large on either side. That's a solid 60 people for just two outfits. What if there are several outfits doing this? It's just dividing the players. It's like adding new lands and expansions to MMOs with a dying populace; thanks for the updated content, but now we're more split up and separated than ever. When the newbie areas are left behind because there isn't more interesting stuff to do there at higher levels/skills, they become wastelands to be traversed alone, and all people can see in the far distance is the higher levels having a party. It becomes "Shit, I gotta' grind fast so I don't miss out on all the fun!" instead of "Hey, let me enjoy all of this shit by myself," or more preferably but nearly impossibly so, "with others."

You could, in all of this, argue that I don't HAVE to play with these jerks who WAAC or focus on e-sport type gaming. On the contrary, I do HAVE to play with them, because if I don't, that's an additional portion of the population I don't get to hang out with and enjoy playing the game with. When the game becomes less and less massively, the game has lost my interest. When I HAVE to use X weapon or Y gear, or die incessantly if I don't, the game has failed. When I HAVE to participate in an outfit battle or get kicked out of my outfit, or I HAVE to participate in these instanced battles for glory and "proof" of my skill, or I HAVE to join these mini-games to get benefits for my empire outside of the normal gameplay, you are forcing me to get involved in some way, either directly through the mechanic or indirectly by keeping me from a significant portion of the game.

Devs can do all sorts of things with every good intention in mind, but it's ultimately the players who define the game. "The road to hell is paved in good intentions." Devs may want players to work together, rely on each other, make dedicated crafters or build up a town or encourage sieging and ship battles (rattling off all sorts of game concepts that have DarkFailed recently...), but if the end-game, the cost-vs-reward, or the difficulty (or more specifically, the EASE) of soloing contradicts those intentions because of faulty or misjudged game mechanics further pushed and expanded by player interaction, peer-pressure and player-level over-(or under-)emphasis of the system, all the happy thoughts and pure intentions are out the window.

From there, we go into why drivers shouldn't be shooters and how the class system would actually work in terms of PlanetSide (or rather making certs incompatible with one another simultaneously if we stayed cert-based), but either way, it isn't the topic of this thread.

[Crator]

@Crator I think anything benefit other then bragging rights/cosmetic changes to armor etc that affect the consistent world is a bad idea

Meh, was just a thought. Some global empire thing that doesn't give a very big advantage would be cool. Perhaps to open up a foothold on another continent or something. To sway the tides of battle sort of thing. Was trying to think of something that would lessen the fact that you are taking players away from the main cause.

[Effective]

Huge post

If e-sports types events are managed carefully (run by a GM or some sort of player event manager) and only once every couple of weeks or somewhere around there. Then the amount of people they remove from combat will be minimal, because the majority of the time they'll still be playing PS2 then. Were you not here for outfit wars? Or the kingpin tournament? Kingpin lasted 2 hours at MOST, and removed a grand total of 12 players (+ a few spectators, so maybe 20-25 at the most).

And while outfit wars removed up to 60 players, so what? The impact of 30 players on the grand scale of a game that's supposed to have THOUSANDS playing is so incredibly minimal it's stupid to argue about it. If done right, even if you do participate in outfit wars, if your outfit loses quickly, your obligation to participate (if you had any at all) is done right there, because until the next start up, you can't participate now.

I'm not saying add a matchmaking system or anything along those lines (though I'm not against it either).

[Captain B]

Sorry, but if you think PS2 is going to have thousands of players on a single server at any one time a year after launch, you're sorely mistaken. That's simply not how games work these days. Too many games, too much ADHD amongst gamers - they'll move onto the next big, shiny thing their computer can run.

Also, requiring an event to be run by GMs being limited to 60 people? Why not use that GM to make a global event everyone can play in?

Clearly, you love this kind of e-peen brandishing shit, and there's no sense in discussing it further with you. If you want to play in a massive scale game for shits and giggles just until your outfit match opens and waste precious GM time organizing a "small portion" of the population, then fine. I think it's a serious waste of everything that could be used to better the game as it was intended, and based on nearly 15 years of watching games falter with these sorts of mistakes and devs STILL NOT LEARNING from them, I'm not going to discuss this stupidity any further.

[Effective]

I'm not going to discuss this stupidity any further.

Excellent

[Tapman]

with this, I have said a thousand times (and actually a couple dumb fucks did it with me but never payed) a wager website where you place bets on kills / deaths / wins... If someone could create this legally, id be sittin' large.

Hah! I bet if the statistics were able to be streamed live, Vegas would have a field day in this business! It's a numbers game after all, they could set the odds and everything. The best part is that you could then theoretically match two even players/outfits up on a server with a fight that is selected by the judges, handicaps could be placed on players/teams based on the conditions and difference in stats. Players and groups can sign up to do it and get a % of the prize money although they have to have valid identification proving they are of legal age, and throw a decent entry fee for players (don't offer discounts for squads/platoons/outfits, but they should garnish more bets and therefore win larger amounts from the bookies) into the microtransactions shop so that you will keep the majority of the population away and force it to support SOE to make up for the licensing and resource-use fees. I wouldn't be surprised to see a drop in hackers overall and none in this field if there was a chance that some thugs could show up at your house to break a finger or two.

Unfortunately, US law has issues with certain types of online gambling. It would need to be set up properly.

[razor851]

Planetside is not an e-sport.
Video games are not a sport.

[Bags]

If chess and golf are sports then video games can be a sport.

[Graywolves]

Sports are just games too.

[Talek Krell]

This topic was filled with over reactions the last time we had it too - people don't seem to grasp the concept this isn't something that would be every day. It should be built in for very special events, not weekly matches or tournaments.Not to drag you back into it Hamma, but I wanted to clarify. What you describe would be great, but you wouldn't call it an e-sport any more than you'd say that the annual school Field Day was a "sub-national league". "E-sports" is generally used to refer to videogames aping professional sports, such as Starcraft in Korea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-4DN8RKNDc#t=0m57s

Unfortunately e-sports (not entirely unlike professional sports) tend to create a poisonously overcompetetive atmosphere, Captain B already explained the how and why in his post, and the end result looks something like:
http://www.themarysue.com/all-about-eve-the-story-of-starcraft-2s-first-female-pro/

Vegas would have a field day in this business! It's a numbers game after all, they could set the odds and everything.
That's what we need, is it? Planetside re-imagined as a horse race?

[Xyntech]

That's what we need, is it? Planetside re-imagined as a horse race?

And he's out of the gate! He has the LLU! He's running for the finish line and... OH! He got reaver spammed.

[Captain B]

Or if the LLU makes it:

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL!! !!!

Also, good read, Talek.

[Kalbuth]

And he's out of the gate! He has the LLU! He's running for the finish line and... OH! He got reaver spammed.

FFS, don't make me laugh @work, plz!
:love:

[Tigersmith]

Really like Esports but this idea is kinda weak. This is a MMOFPS. :)

[Captain B]

I just caught up on my Colbert and heard about this:

http://www.topshotta.com/double-xp-in-modern-warfare-3-with-doritos-and-mountain-dew/

I put this here because e-sports is incorporating corporate sponsors, and we already have it directly affecting our games. Talk about a cash shop: if you eat healthy food and have a busy schedule, you're getting doubly screwed in gaining XP compared to those who sit in a pile of broken Mountain Dew cans covered in cheese dust playing marathons of CoD. Like wtf...

And we were SO CLOSE to getting over our gamer stigmas! Way to take us back 20 years, capitalism!

[Bags]

That bit was pretty funny.

[Graywolves]

When I go Pro in PS2, I'm gonna get sponsored by coca-cola, and get customized avatar covered in coke logos and my ATV is gonna be a polar bear and my mozzie/galaxy will be a sleigh.

[SKYeXile]

When I go Pro in PS2, I'm gonna get sponsored by coca-cola, and get customized avatar covered in coke logos and my ATV is gonna be a polar bear and my mozzie/galaxy will be a sleigh.

I'm already sponsored by Burger king, not the burgers though, just the coke and Ice.

[Bags]

Burger king? It's the B.K. Lounge.

[Traak]

Wonder if we will have billboards by the highways. Or roads. Or paths.

[SuperMorto]

Hold on loads of gamers.............. 1 game.................hmmmmmmmmmmm.

This could work big time.

[HELLFISH88]

I'm going to play devil's (lol) advocate here for a minute and purpose an interesting direction. Cannot Planetside 2 utilize in E sport's characteristic's while at the same time altering it's format? "Round type" match's would be cool but who's to say streaming the game itself isn't as well? Think of it as something similar to 24 hour news. I remember one of my favorite "icing on the cake's" from Planetside was the ability to log on to the Website and track the Auraxis live map. It was always fun to monitor that at work or school; especially if you knew other people who played the game. Really brought the magic out. Imagine in 2012 when we can pick up even quicker more detailed maps on our Smartphone's or even stream specific "Camera streams" from points in game. Maybe not at strategic and tactically relevant location's but at least in dynamic settings that would encourage interesting combat. People would intrinsically be brought there out of lust for attention and glory(good luck getting all 300 of our vanguard's off this hill Assholes <3) or even some negligible but interesting bonus. Like a cave mod type concept.

This idea would of course fulfill the attention and Spectator-centric side of E sports.

This concept could be built upon with idea's like the streaming map as well as building stat tracker's around it. Like a Gross overall "time held" Race:

Lapis Lazuli Server:
NC: 27 months, 18 days 23 hour's and 59.9 seconds
VS: 9 month's 23 day's 16 hour's and 33.5 seconds
TR: "Like 17 hour's or something right?"
[SERVER GROSS: 37 MONTH'S, 31 DAY'S FIFTEEN HOURS AND 92.14 SECONDS]

(Fucking sexy pie chart's and graphs)

E-sport's is a form of stage just as conventional sport are.

All you need is a good stage and the magical will follow.

[Zulthus]

Lol @ Professional Gaming

[TRex]

Liking everything Effect said so far in this thread . I think there is a place for this as long as its not an integral part of everyday playing. Or else it could end up with people queuing up to do the esport and not bothering with the main game.Once a week, month or whatever.

[Hyncharas]

I think the best way to incorporate it would be every few months; perhaps integrating these "division" (clans) of each empire into the continuing story of the PS2 fiction with some objective gameplay. In turn the divisions that take part are mentioned as part of a storytelling log of events during the days-long conflict, which is then posted on the official website for everyone to read.

I'd be happy to help SOE with that since I do a lot of story writing these days, and each clan could record a voice transcript as an MP3 to assist with the battle report process.

[Captain B]

I think the best way to incorporate it would be not to incorporate it.

Leave the game a game. There's a reason my fiancee' loves PlanetSide and hates most other shooters. The feeling of camaraderie in PS and the lack of "you suck newb" on an individual level makes it feel more like a game instead of a sausage fest. Honestly, it's one of the reasons I enjoy it so much and don't get into multi-player shoot-'em-ups very often.

See a previous post for why making an FPS (or any "competitive" game) more competitive than it is naturally is bad.

[Talek Krell]

Things.You mean like continuing news coverage? There may be some merit in that idea, although I could also see it working poorly.

Announcer: And now the latest from the frontlines
Field Reporter: I'm here at Leza...again...still...

[Metalsheep]

Trying to make a game an E-sport is what kills more games than anything else i've seen in my time gameing.

I am not against the idea of Esports, i used to play Halo 2 professionally sponsored, but i also watched the "MLG" craze kill Halo 3 and majorly divide its player base and never wanted to touch it again. If a game is meant to be an Esport, the Esport community will choose your game on their own regardless of whether you want it to be an Esport or not. This happened with Halo 2 and Starcraft. Neither game was created to be an MLG game, but that's what they turned into.

SoE shouldn't go out of their way to make PS2 a MLG game, if MLG wants to play Planetside2 and add it to their games, they'll do it on their own. From what i have seen, trying to sell a game as an Esport brings in the wrong kind of crowed for a game that's meant to be fun. Elitist Jerks that will play dirty to win as efficiently as possible, at all costs that take the game too seriously to actually have fun with it.

An E-sport/MLG environment does not fit in with how planetside should be played. I don't mind occasional events, like Outfit Wars once or twice a year. But there shouldn't be a constant, instanced off area whose sole use is for these players to try and "be the best" because then they will bring this out into the regular community and slowly degrade the game.

I have watched too many games I've loved follow this fate and i would hate to see it happen to Planetside.

[HELLFISH88]

You mean like continuing news coverage? There may be some merit in that idea, although I could also see it working poorly.

Announcer: And now the latest from the frontlines
Field Reporter: I'm here at Leza...again...still...

Yeah essentially. I know many people here play EVE and I think one of the coolest part's of Incarna was the big Ass Screen they put in captains quarter's:

The Screen's feed you relevant information and new's about market price's, territory change's and even bounty's or invasions. It's really quite interesting and useful. Not to mention some player's have managed to mod it like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biacyzAPW4o&feature=related

Perhaps something similar to that concept but fit for Planetside. You could even host custom content. Something like this could be streamed in game somewhere and perhaps even just online in general.

[Hamma]

Long drawn out discussion on this tonight on Twitter.. was rather interesting :lol:

I wish I knew how to link the entire conversation :rofl: but here is the start of it.

http://twitter.com/#!/CDLHamma/status/138475611680284672

[SKYeXile]

Long drawn out discussion on this tonight on Twitter.. was rather interesting :lol:

I wish I knew how to link the entire conversation :rofl: but here is the start of it.

http://twitter.com/#!/CDLHamma/status/138475611680284672

man i have no idea how to follow that convo, twitter sucks ballz.

[Hamma]

Yea.. :lol: I couldn't figure out a way to show the whole chain. Where is Gryphon when you need him

[Elude]

No thanks :(

It's not easy to develop a game for both non competitive play and competitive play. You'll end up with nerfs or buffs specifically made around one or the other which could cripple one side of the audience, unless they split the community (HELL NO TO THAT!).

Let's also not forget to mention that Planetside 2 would be horrible competitive content even if made around it, no offense. You're talking about a game with incredible customization in a world filled with random conditions and designed to be persistent.

I don't think esport players would flock to it, they don't care how big the battles are or how cool the game looks, they would rather play something that ends within 20 minutes or less, and is extremely balanced. Everything that Planetside 2 stands for would be a turn off to most esport players.

[Tigersmith]

As much as I love E-Sports this game is totally different. Please no.

[Mastachief]

I'm against it.

I'm just not a fan of progaymers and the children it attracts. They have already ruined LAN parties is nothing sacred.

[Verruna]

I don't think anyone can argue e-sports/pro scene in a game can make that game vastly more successful. But i agree with others, PS1 and especially with what we've seen of 2, isn't e-sports material. Outfit wars is something i fully support though, as long it isn't a 24/7 whenever you want sort of thing.

[MyMeatStick]

Don't worry guys, PlanetsideTV is working on events that will be enjoyable to watch in PS2 with streaming several different viewpoints on one stream :)

[raidyr]

I'm okay with Planetside being the one FPS on the market that doesn't appeal to the MLG ego-driven socially-inept 1337 proscopers crowd.

There are plenty of other games like that if you are interested OP.

[bpostal]

If there's going to be pro gaming it should come from the game organically. SC:BW wasn't designed for the Korean pro gaming market, it was designed to be a great game.
PS2 (from the looks of it) is designed to be an amazing f'ing game and if pro gaming gets into it then, welcome to the PlanetSide 2 club (You're not quite so special here).

[ThermalReaper]

I don't get the reasoning behind E-Sports. What's the point of playing a game IF YOU TAKE IT MOST OF THE DAMN TIME SERIOUSLY? It makes no sense.

[goneglockin]

I don't think professional gaming is the right phrase here. Professional gamers shun games like BFBC2/BF3 because they are essentially stipped down console shooters that are designed so that a player can play while having a hand free to eat doritos or chug mountain dew.

They do not require you to MOVE and SHOOT, and generally frown upon you doing both at the same time. Hence, the game is not competitive.

[ThermalReaper]

I don't think professional gaming is the right phrase here. Professional gamers shun games like BFBC2/BF3 because they are essentially stipped down console shooters that are designed so that a player can play while having a hand free to eat doritos or chug mountain dew.

They do not require you to MOVE and SHOOT, and generally frown upon you doing both at the same time. Hence, the game is not competitive.

Wait, so what's a competive game? CoD? That game where you can die twice in a row from both edges of the map? Sorry I got a little over my head with the CoD hate. But seriously, what's a competitive game? Tribes and unreal pop into my head.

[Zar]

Every E sport i have ever seen or tried has had the worst Community on the internet. LoL Hon *one place i will say is not like this is starcraft but its getting there* Cod halo all of them are just horrid freaking community's. This is planetside, now we might hate the other side i for one wish many deaths on the NC as a TR but we work together as a faction to win. This E sport stuff needs to stay away now special dev run events for some hard core outfits for brag rights hell yeah let's do it but never all the time never a que system and never ranking. Please for the love all that is holy if you want ladder and arena play go play cod or hon or lol and leave my lovely game awsome with out this fail ass system =3

[james]

This game is not meant for e-sports. It would require a scaled down version to do it and i would rather they focus on the actually game, and not something a small percent of the community actually wants or would use.

[HEISTT]

I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of official tournament a couple of times a year. If it happens like once a month or even less frequent, it wouldn't detract those outfits from the game completely. I personally won't be participating in them, but I can understand the people that are interested in it.

[Espion]

I wouldn't mind seeing an outfit challenge system, but it should be a lower priority for well after launch.

Anyone that has any delusions of esports for Planetside needs to forget them now. Even if matches were getting 2500+ viewers per night no sponsor would even consider getting involved, the teams are just too big no matter which way you look at it. Even 7v7 is a huge stretch/risk for sponsors. The support just isn't there right now, and it won't be for a very long time. (Not that I wouldn't support someone trying to setup a way to broadcast PS)

[Revanmug]

I propose that development includes a way for event competition to exist in Planetside 2, I seriously think that people would love spectating highly competitive groups of players on the scale that we will be enjoying, especially with the relative diversity of the playerbase already, the ability to specialize your play style, and with the accessibility (will work on machines that are VERY old!) I came up with an idea to track and display mission performance data in the idea vault, if that was implemented then you could base a competition off of that, other contests could just be in-game events scheduled where the squad/platoon/outfit/faction that controls the most territory or a particularly large facility/area for a certain amount of time. You could let people sign up for these events in advance with their username which would give the host access to data needed, that way other people can be part of the fight even if they can't afford the sign-up fee or the flight to Vegas or wherever we all decide to host these! :D

I think that the conventional video game competition could be totally changed up with this game, perhaps they could work with devs for when new locations are opened up (space, moons, new planets, etc.) but I think that there could be a lot of ongoing corporate sponsorship interest for stuff like this!

Just a question... Have you done any recent fps eSport? Because most fps team are around 5-8 players. And there are many good reason outside of the game for that...

That is far from entertaining to watch and doesn't make any sense in a game were everything is persistant and contain thousand of players...

Edit: necro thread joy...

[goneglockin]

Wait, so what's a competive game? CoD? That game where you can die twice in a row from both edges of the map? Sorry I got a little over my head with the CoD hate. But seriously, what's a competitive game? Tribes and unreal pop into my head.

Yep. Competitive games are more about lining up your shots and dodging people shooting at you than micro-managing an artificial cone of fire and finding cover.

It looks like that's the way it's always gonna be too and im glad that not much in the way of e-sports is seen with modern consolized shooters.

[cryosin]

i suggested something like this and the community didn't like it. I personally think it would be awesome to watch, but it boils down to whether other people would care.

I think with planetside 2 it would be awesome. The game is just so pretty to even watch lol.

And nobody has done esports on a 100+ player team before. Would be something truly epic.

[Espion]

And nobody has done esports on a 100+ player team before. Would be something truly epic.

Because by any reasonable standard within the esports community, that wouldn't be esports. It would be a clusterfuck that would never see a single LAN, live tournament, or sponsor.

[Hmr85]

I don't believe E-sports should even be associated with this game. With that said though I do realize a few people enjoy the outfit wars. I am fine with that if they limit it to a once or maybe even twice a year thing. A every weekend or every month thing is imo a huge no no. Anything that detracts away from the core of the game play is just meh.

[ArmedZealot]

Because by any reasonable standard within the esports community, that wouldn't be esports. It would be a clusterfuck that would never see a single LAN, live tournament, or sponsor.

Pretty much. And for "professional" gaming to exist you need prizes money and sponsers etc. How do you handle a team with 100 or even 20-30 players with that stuff?

[Rumblepit]

i recall either smedley or higby mentioning that they may add an outfit war or competitive arena type system into the game at some point in time, but they seemed sure that it wouldn't be a focal point of the game.

^^^^^^ i saw this aswell.

im looking forward to outfit wars !!!!!!!!! we will have to wait and see what system they come up with for outfit wars before we know if there is the possibility for e sport/ professional gaming. nobody can say for sure if this is even a option yet. but the devs have hinted at it many times already.

[lolroflroflcake]

If this ever happened on the live servers I would make it my sole mission in life to screw up their silly little tournament just for fun, and it has to happen on the live servers otherwise its not really Planetside and they may as well play BF3. And its not like it would be hard to do so, modern FPSes are so much easier then the original planetside, at least in terms of getting kills. :)

[Pride]

Planetside is a game about scale, about thousands of soliders fighting it out in a never ending battle and quite frankly that's fucking amazing, however that sort of thing doesn't work in E-Sports. You can't expect a team to play a match against each other literally forever, and the team sizes would not only make forming teams ridiculously difficult but make any prize money minuscule once it's shared out among said team.

The only way I could see this working is if, for e-sports, they turned this into the E3 demo, you have 3 limited teams fighting to control one base, whoever had the most up time over an hour was the winner. At this point however the game is no longer Planetside, it's just a sci-fi Battlefield and if they wanted to play professional Battlefield why bother playing Planetside 2?

[Tatwi]

Can't a game just be a game?

This "e-sport" thing is laughable. Sure, the quake LAN tournaments of the late 90s were cool, but that was because normal people came from all over the place to battle it out, not some corporate sponsored whatevers doing corporate sponsored blah.

Tournaments for actual players? Great! E-sportifying Planetside 2? /vomitcopter

[Espion]

Yep. Competitive games are more about lining up your shots and dodging people shooting at you than micro-managing an artificial cone of fire and finding cover.

It looks like that's the way it's always gonna be too and im glad that not much in the way of e-sports is seen with modern consolized shooters.

CoD is not big at all in the esport scene, please at least make an effort to have some idea what you're talking about.

[Pride]

CoD is not big at all in the esport scene, please at least make an effort to have some idea what you're talking about.

That's not true in the slightest, out of the 6 professional E-sport leagues that have an FPS in them, 4 of them contain at least one incarnation of the CoD franchise. Halo however does have a larger E-sports following, but that's not to say CoD has no place on the E-sports circuit.

[cryosin]

Pretty much. And for "professional" gaming to exist you need prizes money and sponsers etc. How do you handle a team with 100 or even 20-30 players with that stuff?

Your right, but at the end of the day i think people would still compete.

Because the monetary gain would be minimal, the players would be playing mainly for fame and glory.

I'll paraphrase day 9:

"if people cast it, it can be an esport."

We saw TB casting random people sucking at the e3 demo, I could easily see that scale of fighting going on.

You make a new smaller continent, put two or three outfits on there, and they duke it out.

You would probably wan't to implement some kind of win condition, but a sub-resource would also work.

Ie: you gain this new resource for as long as you control a base.

At the end of the timer the team with the most of the above resource wins.

Simple, easy, and works.

If people cast it and watch it then its gonna be an esport. It doesnt matter if the players arent spending every waking hour preparing, its still going to be awesome to watch.

A game like planetside is actually perfect. It would be like watching a journalist record a war.

Outfit wars is honestly good enough for me, but that could easily spawn a new style of esports or at least a shoutcasting event.

[Zulthus]

Lol @ "Professional Gaming"

[Baneblade]

I think there should be a PlanetSide Olympics. Annually at most.

[Pride]

I think there should be a PlanetSide Olympics. Annually at most.

Only if it comes paired with a PlanetSide Para Olympics.

[Baneblade]

:P

Outfits would be the 'nations'.

[Espion]

That's not true in the slightest, out of the 6 professional E-sport leagues that have an FPS in them, 4 of them contain at least one incarnation of the CoD franchise. Halo however does have a larger E-sports following, but that's not to say CoD has no place on the E-sports circuit.

It's there because Activision puts up prize money for the bigger tournaments, but it gets very few viewers. Even TA is more popular than any of the CoDs since MW1 and that has pretty much dwindled off too. Current MW3 comp is mostly 3v3, it's boring as fuck, and a good match is lucky to get 1000 viewers on twitch.tv, it's a joke

[DerFurst]

No PS pro gaming. PS is amazing because of the logistics and real war tactics involved in the metagame. "MLG" metagame revolves around knowing every inch of each map and the best way to kill without dying.

[Kurtz]

All you really need is someone like TotalBiscuit doing a shoutcast once a week from random servers and people could watch. That would be so much better than instancing, as it would never split the pop.

This game is already a epeen contest. With the new social tools in place it should be off the charts.

[psychosiszz]

I think you've missed the whole point of planetside. Its about mass fighting and huge battles on a persistent and constantly changing world.

[Nash]

Planetside is not an "e-Sport" and will never be.
I wonder why certain people feel the need to turn everything into an e-Sport... it's totally ridiclious :\

[Goku]

I still want to see an area that outfits can duke it out without outside interference from outside groups. That area can even double for Outfits to train as well. I don't think it would be that hard at some point after release to make a way scaled down map to allow for such matches or training grounds.

[Tapman]

Another thread of mine resurrected, cool. Honestly, I just wish someone would pay me to play this game, enough to cover my bills.

It also deserves mentioning that if Planetside 2 is half as successful as it could be and as we want it to be, you can all bet your asses that the game will evolve to accommodate the people who want to take it more AND less seriously.

[Top Sgt]

Could not care 1 bit about E-sports games are mean't to be fun

not think it's a "sport"


E-sports are one of the reasons gamers today play like A-hats..abusing glitches, OP items and other tool typer play. because everyone wants to think they are "elite" and "1337" "MLG"

Like it or not It's my opinion from years of PC and console gaming.

[Furret]

I think a lot of you are missing the point, because i think the first post was poorly worded.

First off, when we say e-sport, we're not talking massive corporations with sponsorships, etc. Just because something is an e-sport doesn't mean it has to be massively marketed and aimed solely at making money. These events don't have to take place in a massive stadium in front of hordes of fans, they can easily take place online.

Second off, I don't understand why people laugh at 'professional gamers'. I'll agree it's not easy to make a living playing a game, but if you think good professional starcraft broodwar players haven't won a shit ton of prize money, you need to do a bit more research.


How about this:

Every 3 months or so, one group (be it SOE or an affiliated group) organizes an 'outfit war' tournament. This tournament consists of outfits of 30-50 players each competing in outfit vs outfit situations on an INSTANCED (keep a firm hold on your drinks please) map including two identical bases with two identical towers. These two outfits each start in possession of one base and its tower, then play REGULAR PLANETSIDE with the intent of taking over the other outfit's base. An overhead map showing both outfits personnel and vehicles would be available to spectators and commentators.


Now for all of the popular arguments against this idea:

"It's not what planetside is about."

This argument has no merit. If you don't enjoy a competitive instanced planetside, you don't have to play it.


"It will take away too many players from the supposed persistent world."

If these events took place only every three months, and outfits did not all compete at the same time, a MAXIMUM of 100 players would be removed from the game at any time. If Planetside 2 is a good game, then 100 players for an hour or so will mean nothing in the large scale. It has been stated that there will not be an e-sports scene in the early stages of the game, when 100 players would actually make an impact.


"It will make balancing the game more complicated."

It will not assuming instanced planetside is played the same way as persistent planetside. And even if there are massive differences in play styles between persistent and instanced, whats to say instanced planetside cant have its own separate patches and/or balance changes.


"It will ruin the community by making everyone over-competitive."

Competitive assholes will be competitive assholes regardless of the existence of an e-sports scene. At least with an easy way to prove your mettle, you can shut them up for good.


Now for the good reasons for competitive planetside:

- Its a good e-peen measurement tool.
- If it becomes even moderately popular, it will not only give planetside some extra advertisement, but it will showcase the most important part of planetside: strength in coordination.
- Newer players can learn tactics from the veterans/pros (I believe these terms to be interchangeable in a game where knowledge and intelligence is more important than sheer individual skill).
- Easier-to-manage (and likely play) fantasy planetside.
- ITS FUN! If you haven't competed in anything before, competition is a great adrenaline rush, and what's better than competing while playing your favorite game?
- If you don't like it, IT DOESN'T AFFECT YOU!
- If outfits are able to purchase more cosmetic items for these 'outfit wars', (Teams are not restricted to their outfit colors, one team can be fucking rainbow if they want ;D) SOE will make more money, and would presumably put it right back into development or advertisement.

So lets put all our biases and personal opinions aside, and think about whether this will do more to harm or hurt the game, and make our decision that way.

[TaintedPaladin]

I for one fondly remember the outfit wars going on. Still I wouldn't want them to become so prevalent that they take away from the main event.

[Irish]

I realize that with just the slight mention of "e-sports" it takes a select group of planetside gamers and simultaneously unites them against he who uttered the words. i realize within the current structure of e sports, it was and looks to stay mostly a small scale 5v5 type niche market. since planetside is going to be a kinda a catalyst in what i feel the fps genre is heading towards wouldnt it be nice to see it catapulted to new heights by capturing a NEW genre of e sports?

i played ps1 for about 6 years, from 03 to 09. while playing i also played competitive counter-strike, hauling my comp to lan tournaments and partaking in CAL. of course i had my share of wow, and played in the arena tournaments they offered (play games for its competitive nature)

now before you all flip out, open your mind to this possibility.....so here you are taking your outfit seriously (like i intend to see most doing) and really use awesome tactics and strategy coupled with twitch shooting (or support if thats your thing) and use it to enforce dominance on your opponent. currently the reward is changing the bases color to your factions, and maybe some smack talk. while playing maybe you record some sick shots or battles to show off your talents on you tube, striving to be "famous" in game, earning that notoriety. imagine taking the time invested into the game and putting it towards something BIGGER.

i dont want to get into the details of how the e sports setup would be for a game like planetside, because with the support and MONEY that comes from the fame competetive gaming brings to a title, comes potentially new funding and attention from the game creators....to feed into the hysteria.

tournaments bring in HUGE numbers i dont see why we cant be open to the idea of 50v50 or 100v100 hell even more outfit style battles, on custom BALANCED maps, in a lan setting.

could you imagine the coverage, and beauty this game can bring if it would be covered by MLG or sponsored by intel.....


this is my opinion on why i think videogames are fun, they are fun because they are competitive..i dont play rpgs by myself, i play to compete against other players

planetside represents all sides of the TYPE of people that play games, and with the release of ps2, your going to see competitive twitch gamers, and slower less skilled shooters playing the support role. IMO your going to see the D&D nerds, and the CS players all under one roof....i guess now thats like saying the World of tanks guys, and the cod/bf crowd... obviously im the latter.

can someone post a pic of a massive lan...im totally a forum noob

[PhoenixDog]

It just wouldn't work. I read the whole thread and sorry...But no.

Planetside is designed to be a huge game with a massive amount of people. Oh sure there will be small skirmishes across the map but the entire thing is designed around the Meta-Game. Having a 50v50 or 100v100 e-sports thing for Planetside is like someone using the "Okay 1v1 me" in a team-designed game. I certainly get where you're going...And applaud you thinking of how to incorperate something like e-sports with PS2...But with the massive scale of the game and how it's designed...You wouldn't be able to get the same ebb-and-flow of the game at that low of scale.

Even when XoO ran outfit assaults every week...We could get 100 of us going...No matter how good we were or how coordinated...We still relied on the rest of the Vanu to aid us.

[Synapse]

Logistics aside, I think there's a reason RL games dont have teams much over a dozen.

That seems to be the sweet spot for what people can follow in terms of complexity, and what people can identify with in terms of a "team."

I think if you went bigger than that, people would start rooting for squads instead.

[zomg]

Although I like the idea of sort of competitive 50v50+ play in the style of PS2, I do get the feeling of it being a nightmare to coordinate for anyone. Heck, just consider sending your team to play at a LAN party...

I'm also not sure if it would be very spectator friendly in a way. In order to accomodate strategic gameplay and the player amounts, the maps would need to be relatively large and there would be a lot going on simultaneously. That in turn would make it hard to follow what's going on - perhaps you have a favorite player or squad, but they can't be covered all the time.

In games with small teams the problem doesn't really show and solo performances can also be highlighted more.

I can imagine there being the possibility of doing the sort of videos you talk about though. It would indeed be fun to watch well coordinated plays by outfits to capture bases and such. However, to properly capture tactics and such, I don't know if the individual POV of a single player would be the optimal position, and instead requiring a "free view" spectator/recording/playback system for nicer angles and scenes.

[super pretendo]

What's the point of it? Sounds like tryhard garbage. E-sports are dull because they demand a very simplistic set of tools and anything fun is instantly removed in the name of balance. It's the opposite of what makes games enjoyable.

[Irish]

It just wouldn't work. I read the whole thread and sorry...But no.

Planetside is designed to be a huge game with a massive amount of people. Oh sure there will be small skirmishes across the map but the entire thing is designed around the Meta-Game. Having a 50v50 or 100v100 e-sports thing for Planetside is like someone using the "Okay 1v1 me" in a team-designed game. I certainly get where you're going...And applaud you thinking of how to incorperate something like e-sports with PS2...But with the massive scale of the game and how it's designed...You wouldn't be able to get the same ebb-and-flow of the game at that low of scale.

Even when XoO ran outfit assaults every week...We could get 100 of us going...No matter how good we were or how coordinated...We still relied on the rest of the Vanu to aid us.


well understandably the meta game wouldn't really be there, but as far as tactics for a single base assault or continent takeover, everyone would have to be on a even playing field to begin with resource wise.


moreover a more pressing matter of organizing a group to show up for lan would be difficult....forcing it to be more like wow arena status, a single tournament server. where the elite players and outfits could go and compete faction to faction. maybe with a time limit, say a week to cover the most percent of the map or something. maybe e sports is a bad title, im just trying to make it competitive. in a way that is different then what the players can provide....ideas > arguments

[Irish]

What's the point of it? Sounds like tryhard garbage. E-sports are dull because they demand a very simplistic set of tools and anything fun is instantly removed in the name of balance. It's the opposite of what makes games enjoyable.

like i mentioned before, everyone has their own playstyle....yours is not similar to mine.

[Otleaz]

No reason to rule out a specifically designed map. A small map scaled for 100-200 players meant for 2-5 hour "wars".

[zomg]

No reason to rule out a specifically designed map. A small map scaled for 100-200 players meant for 2-5 hour "wars".

Good luck getting 100-200 players to be around at the same time for 2 to 5 hours... It would rule out almost all but the most professional and organized groups.

Even in Counter-Strike where teams are 5vs5 or 6vs6 it can be hard to get a group of people to show up at the same time. Of course the teams are smaller, but the time requirement from them is smaller as well.

I mean it's cool and all, but it doesn't feel very practical to me :)

[moosepoop]

planetside 1 gave me a strange fuzzy feeling of epicness, the feeling of participating in a war, and being united with my teammates. competitiveness isnt what made planetside famous, and isnt the hook that draws people in the game.


in a grand battle, individual actions does not matter, it is the action of the whole faction that affects the battlefield in planetside. theres no way to isolate e sports events for the rest of the game.

[PhoenixDog]

im just trying to make it competitive. in a way that is different then what the players can provide....ideas > arguments

I'm not sure if you played PS/1, or are/were invested in the game...But for a lot of veteran players the game was always competitive enough.

I can only speak for myself...But when I play I have a very internal hatred towards the NC and TR. Whenever I am on the game I want nothing more than to turn the whole world Purple and Teal. Many in my outfit feel the same way. When you have your faction hate boiling the game is much more competitive. This is more than just *what the players provide* because it's beyond just them. I hate every single person wearing red or Blue. It's beyond just a will to win, it's a need to win. You can't get much more competitive than that.

Again however...I'm just speaking for myself.

[Irish]

No reason to rule out a specifically designed map. A small map scaled for 100-200 players meant for 2-5 hour "wars".

thats what im saying, or a weekend event, with resources orrr special vehicle access for the week

imagine the elite of your factions outfits competing to bring the rewards home.... this is more off e sports, but more of a structured competitive aspect

[Dairian]

There are plenty of other games that appeal to the e-sport market. The e-sport market if very small and planetside is for the masses. Bringing this to planetside will bring an ego that changes the way people perceive the game. And how people act as well. I played WoW in an Elite Raiding guild. And at one time we were 10th in the US. And I know first hand what this can do to a game. We do not need that kind of mindset for PS2.

I know there will always be trolls and people with big egos in every game. But the Elite ego is much different.

http://pull.imgfave.netdna-cdn.com/image_cache/1313250529949824.gif

[james]

Good luck getting 100-200 players to be around at the same time for 2 to 5 hours... It would rule out almost all but the most professional and organized groups.

Even in Counter-Strike where teams are 5vs5 or 6vs6 it can be hard to get a group of people to show up at the same time. Of course the teams are smaller, but the time requirement from them is smaller as well.

I mean it's cool and all, but it doesn't feel very practical to me :)

I agree, Getting 6 players together for COD Competive without major planing is a pain. Then move to a game like battlefield, 16 v 16 or 32 v 32, its just so much work and such a pain in the ass to get everyone together. If you move up to 100-200 players it will be near impossible to have a majority of your outfit/clan all on the same time.

[Otleaz]

COD Competive

wut

[Espion]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=43196

[kaffis]

Not to mention, by the time you're talking 100 vs. 100 teams, that's some RIDICULOUS prize support, not to mention participation rates. Instead of e-sports being about the top 100 players in the world, or whatever, you're talking about the top 2000 players in the world... and e-sports just aren't big enough, even if you accept the assertion that Planetside e-sports would subsume the whole market, to support that many professional players.

Finally, Planetside *is* the metagame. Restricting a match to one map castrates and handicaps 90% of the strategic and tactical considerations that go on in Planetside warfare. Look at Planetside 1 command decisions, and then look at the gameplay shown in the E3 stream. All of the *most* interesting choices have been removed, leaving some pretty basic shooter mechanics and mostly individual twitch-skill gameplay.

E-sports are a way for the masses to see their favorite game played at very high levels of skill. Planetside, by virtue of being a game OF the masses, already allows you to fight alongside and against those elite players, and still have a part to play.

[RandomNPC]

since planetside is going to be a kinda a catalyst in what i feel the fps genre is heading towards wouldnt it be nice to see it catapulted to new heights by capturing a NEW genre of e sports?

...with the support and MONEY that comes from the fame competetive gaming brings to a title, comes potentially new funding and attention from the game creators....to feed into the hysteria.

tournaments bring in HUGE numbers i dont see why we cant be open to the idea of 50v50 or 100v100 hell even more outfit style battles, on custom BALANCED maps, in a lan setting.

could you imagine the coverage, and beauty this game can bring if it would be covered by MLG or sponsored by intel.....


The problem is if you take Planetside and scale it down for a tournament, it ceases to be Planetside - it's not a new genre of esports, it's just more of the same.

Tournaments bring in huge numbers, most of which watch online, having dedicated streamers that can spectate freely and comment on the action would effectively bring in the same numbers as a tournament, because of how unique the scale of the battles will be. If not more, because it will maintain it's uniqueness instead of just being another generic FPS tournament.

[Sensator]

Original post

I agree that it would be awesome if there was some mechanic to challenge an outfit in a controlled 50v50 scenario, and to add tournaments would be awesome. The problem is that it just isn't feasible, you played CS and probably know the perils of fielding 5 players, imagine fielding 50+ players for practice scrims and tournaments.

How would prizes be split with teams of 50 people? A large sum of money for a game like Quake or SC2 is 50 grand for first place, but each player on the winning team for PS2 would get a measly $1,000 with such a prizepool.

Also, the logistics of having a venue that has to accommodate teams of 50 or more is almost out of the question. Not to mention how hard it would be to get an outfit to and from a venue when you usually play with people all around the world.

I can give a pass to the whole 'it just wouldn't be planetside' argument though, because I don't see what's wrong with having controlled Outfit vs Outfit scrimmages. It would provide extra competition and show which outfit really reigns supreme.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love a 'dueling' mechanic between outfits, and I think it could have the potential to be much more than just competitive dueling--but eSports really has yet to work for the MMO genre (outside of WoW Arenas), and I doubt the format would work for Planetside.

[GreatMazinkaise]

It's all tacticool now... there's no e-sport to be had.

[SKYeXile]

This again :/ somebody post up The Architect picture.

[RandomNPC]

That said, there's nothing stopping SOE from hosting live events.

If there is ever a competitive scene it would have to play out more like a RTS than a FPS to be feasable as having prizes and on location players. 3 Empire leaders (or a team of leaders) who we would watch make the decisions, they get a couple outfit leaders under their command, with multiple platoon leaders under their command, with squad leaders under their command, with a squad, all filling up a 2000 player continent - no footholds for competitive mode.

How bad ass would it be to watch the Empire leaders try to organize a real war? Sure it would take days to play out, but that's awesome. There's your NEW esport genre, real war simulation.

[GreatMazinkaise]

There's your NEW esport genre, real war simulation.

Er, real wars are boring most of the time, and feature mostly guys hanging out, milling around, or even possibly starving to death. As soon as you've become bored to tears the excitement hits, and it's as quick as a horror movie aural sting but it feels like it lasts for a thousand years.

I'm no Rudyard Kipling, but I'm sure that's a fair description of the lack of suitability for a war simulation as an e-sport.

[Dacrim]

I dont think its a bad idea. it would definietly take some tailoring to make it work but i think its doable if people really wanted to do it.

Maybe a private server could be used to isolate the 2 outfits, the outfit leader and platoon leaders could go to the actual location of the competition and be the ones to recieve a cash prize while the other members of the outfit could recieve some sort of ingame reward (provided that SOE is affiliated with or are the ones holding the competition).

To prevent ending up with outfit members who decided not to show up, outfits of 150 or more players can be chosen and provided that your in a 100vs100 match or even 50 vs 50 there will be 50 to 100 alternates. I really believe if an organization REALLY wanted to organize a competition like this then they could make it happen with a few conditions as previously mentioned

[Dacrim]

In my mind im imagining a couple air support platoons, a couple tank platoons and the rest would be infantry platoons and Max platoons...Seems like it would work fine to me if,like i said before, certain conditions were met to make up for potential problems

[RandomNPC]

Er, real wars are boring most of the time, and feature mostly guys hanging out, milling around, or even possibly starving to death. As soon as you've become bored to tears the excitement hits, and it's as quick as a horror movie aural sting but it feels like it lasts for a thousand years.

I'm no Rudyard Kipling, but I'm sure that's a fair description of the lack of suitability for a war simulation as an e-sport.

Just like RTS esports, the strategy would be the draw more than the action, seeing how an Empire leader delegates and moves his resources and whatnot.

Besides its not really real war simulation, its real fake war simulation, with infinitely respawning soldiers :P (until they get cont locked).

Honestly, if people enjoyed playing it in PS1 (was a lot of waiting around organizing things), there's an audience for it to be streamed in what appears to be a faster paced sequel.

[Xaine]

I threw up a thread like this a while ago and got my head bitten off by angry fan boys.

I really like the idea, think it could be really good. Biggest 'competitive' game ever? Yes please.

[Mark Olsen]

32 vs 32 and 64 vs 64 is a regular appearance in the project reality community a mod for battlefield 2, it can be done flawlessly unless people are idiots.
SISU 128 (+Anders Sound Mod): Project Reality v0.973 - Kashan, Infantry Bunker Assault - YouTube

[diLLa]

A lot of you seems to forget the most important thing, which is that an e-sport first and foremost needs to be spectator friendly. The reason e-sports is dominated by 1v1 and some 5v5 type games, is because it's easy to watch and understand.

Planetside with 50v50 and 100v100 would be incredibly boring to watch. Matches take too long, not enough action to keep people interested, hard to keep up with what's happening over the map, etc etc.

The game just isn't suited for competitive e-sports!

However, you can make a competitive touch by adding a 100v100 ladder or something for outfits to enter. But it won't ever ever become an e-sports with spectators and sponsors. Leave that to the games that are actually suited for it.

[SniperSteve]

E-Sports in PS2 won't look like other games. It would look more like reality tv, I think.

[Stew]

I agree, Getting 6 players together for COD Competive without major planing is a pain. Then move to a game like battlefield, 16 v 16 or 32 v 32, its just so much work and such a pain in the ass to get everyone together. If you move up to 100-200 players it will be near impossible to have a majority of your outfit/clan all on the same time.

Disagree !

Esports as it is made of 5 vs 5 or less than thats NOT because it take more skills or its more competitive its because this indutry are buch of horse with blinders ! And also they want to have a easy way to setup tournaments and to split lower price its easyer to set up a Lan party with just few computers Having 1000 + of them for a single game will not be profitable for them !

Thats why !

Also with a decent structure and great players and leaders (rts) specialist you can organise 100 or even 1000 players in a same team

organise randoms who dont have headset who dont care or dont know the game is different

Setting up great players it take more work and needs more training and tactics and structure but its more than Doable !

Ive seen it myself In MAG or in Ps1 ! Coordonate serious gamers is a piece a cake with the proper training !

[cryosin]

This subject keeps being brought up.

Here's what we know:
Higby plans on making planetside competitive, beyond just outfits and hexes.
Planetside has the capacity for doing what many of you are asking(100vs100 scheduled battles). Its doable.

There's no confirmation on how or what will be done, but I know higby wants a competitive environment. He wants to see EG participate in planetside 2. With that said, i look forward to see what the dev team comes up with.

[Sledgecrushr]

I think it might be able to work. All of the rules for esports would have to change. Heres my idea, the lan party would be comprised of one team. This one team would have a series of predetermined goals to accomplish in a set amount of time inside the general gaming world. You achieve all of your goals and you get your win, fame, money. But everything would operate within the gaming world that we are all playing in. You would be hamdicapped by the resources that your empire has at that time. The objectives could be defended by hundreds of people and probably would be since everyone would know about theses esport elites being there. This is how I imagine esports working in ps2, more dynamic, more random elements, more fun.

[Hamma]

Threads have been merged. We have had tons of discussion on this topic in this forum. ;)

[Khrakhan]

get 1,998 players to sign up (so it's an even 666 for each faction) and give them their own server.

Take away each factions safe zone. The map starts with all territories being neutral except for each faction's starting base. Decreased capture times. No health/shield regen. With no safe zones and maybe another tweak or two that could make it more likely to push another faction off the map, and they just go at it until one faction is left standing.

Of course the battle can be split up, say they play for 6-8 hours and then the servers are 'paused' so the players can rest, then pick it back up the next day, for as many days as it takes for one team to win.

[Lorgarn]

I definitely approve of E-sports.

Having said that, as long as the awesomesauce that is PlanetSide(2) goes before everything else, I'm fine with SOE developing some king of E-sports element to PS2. If they think they can pull it off in a great way, I encourage it even. :)

[Dacrim]

I feel like you guys are just being pessimistic "oh its gonna be boring!", "It takes too long!", "its hard to follow!","100 players are too hard to get together at once!", "how can they all be present at the competition?", "how do you distribute rewards?"

"oh its gonna be boring!",
If people can watch an rts game and be entertained they can surely be entertained by large scale planetside 2 battle! i watch Planetside 1 streams with organized outfits all the time and its very entertaining. just think what that would be like if i could follow the actions of both teams and really experience the complexities of a game like Planetside 2. I enjoyed just watching 1 guy run around on the E3 stream, just think what it would be like to watch dozens of organized squads battle for supremacy! EPIC!

"It takes too long!"
Even if it does take long, there are solutions to that..simple solutions. like time limits. the winner is who controls most of the map at the end.

"its hard to follow!".-
I dont think it would be hard to follow considering we can follow who is winning/owns the most territory on the map as well as use multiple cameras to spectate

"100 players are too hard to get together at once!"
This problem has an easy solution...alternates. Outfits that exceed the # of needed players would be used, even though i doubt serious gamers who are in a competition would fail to show up.

"how can they all be present at the competition?"
They dont need to be. only squad and/or platoon leaders need to be present.


"how do you distribute rewards?"
Possibly use ingame rewards for the soldiers and a cash reward for the platoon/squad leaders?(assuming SOE is running the competition or the esports organization makes a deal with SOE. Higby and the others seem very open minded, im sure it wouldnt be an issue.

These are all minor or non-existent issues imo. Im sure there were problems with many e-sports similar to the problems mentioned but they found a way to work them out! Almost every problem has a solution

[TripX]

Personally I dont think there should be any type of outer game play for outfits to compete. I think this way cause it would pull outfits that empires will rely heavily upon out of the fight.

Old school leaderboard we used to have like planetsidestats.net would be great. You see what outfits are killing the most resecuring etc with how many players they achiev this stuff with as competition.

With that I hope there is some kind of way for PS to award a kill to the player that does the most damage and not to whoever got the kill shot. Big flaw in PS 1 you could widdle a guy to 5% health and have some random guy with medium assault cowering in a bush afraid to push forward snag and get credit for a kill that some guy deserved to get cause he realized if you didnt push in and sacrifice to get a foothold you would be in a long stalemate.

TripX

[shamE]

You people need to calm down. Having an esports side of planetside 2 wont hurt the game in anyway. If anything it would make the game much more popular. Saying "there are other competition games out there, go play them" If there were other good competitive FPS games out there we would be playing them now wouldn't we?

I'm not talking about the horrible redundant gameplay of CSS or CS:GO, I'm talking about planetside or battlefield type gameplay. The size and how dynamic the gameplay is what we are looking for. Having that along with tournament esports is an experience unmatched by any other game.

I think planetside 2 can and should be a competitive friendly game but for some reason the old vets are scared of it, but why? It wont affect the game or the gameplay at all. Competitive players are just asking for the ability to play the tournament competition that we love.

[Malorn]

How do you take a game designed and balanced around massive combat with hundreds and thousands of players, and also balance it for small-scale combat with only a handful of players (as all gaming competitions are)?

That's two different games entirely. Balancing the game for one will screw up the balance for the other. No thanks.

[EVILoHOMER]

I hope not I always find esport games to be the most generic games with the worst community.

[Algo]

The thing with esports (the ones that are popular) that's important is that the normal, pubbie game type is exactly the same as the pro, 100k dollars final. Lol,Sc2,cs:go are exactly like that.
That's why football is watched by billions.

Also, teams need places to practice in a controlled environment and the game is balanced around limited numbers/exact kits, and there must be an easy way to cast it so people can explain what's going on to the average player.

Nothing against a tournament mode in PS2, but it would just be hard to do without it looking like just another arena shooter.

[shamE]

How do you take a game designed and balanced around massive combat with hundreds and thousands of players, and also balance it for small-scale combat with only a handful of players (as all gaming competitions are)?

That's two different games entirely. Balancing the game for one will screw up the balance for the other. No thanks.

No, lets say there could be and option in main menu that allow to host a arena game separate from the rest of the game? We don't know what they plan on doing but I'm sure if they did do anything it would be a separate option from the main game.

I hope not I always find esport games to be the most generic games with the worst community.

In some cases yes. The counter stike and call of duty series are like that. But the communities from games like battlefield, tf2 the the esports and pub communities are tightly knit and usually come from the same places.

[Mezorin]

Like it or not, the whole e-sports aspect of gaming is kind of a big thing these days. League of Legends, MW3, BF3, and even World of Warcraft all have sports ready modes in them. So we'd all be missing out if the devs didn't entertain the idea a bit.

A monthly, or bi yearly outfit tournament or a return of the Outfit Wars may not be a bad idea, but if they do them they should do them Planetside style. Forget this 5 on 5 or 8 on 8 COD bullcrap, one hundred players per team clash over the space of a dozen hexes in large scale combat. There could be tailored maps, or the developers could just have a duplicate version of some of the popular hot spots for these guys to do battle in.

The idea here is that organized Planetside 2 competitive level play would bring something new to the e-sports scene rather than just being a "Me Too" for boring assed 8 on 8 game play. The game play with massed battles would also be closer to how things work in regular PS2 gameplay, so it'd be more relevant to a regular PS2 player who is more likely to be in a zerg scrum than some Counter Strike style tower duel.

[Espion]

The idea here is that organized Planetside 2 competitive level play would bring something new to the e-sports scene rather than just being a "Me Too" for boring assed 8 on 8 game play.

More happens in a 15min 1v1 SC2 match than what would happen in a whole day of PS1 gameplay. The amount of teamwork and coordination that happens in a ~5v5 pro level match in any game is immense compared to what goes on in 60+ players raids in PS (not to mention the skill/versatility requirements since you have a very limited amount of teammates to fall back on), and it helps to understand that before you go comparing it to other games and going on about esports/competition.

From what Higby has said so far, it seems more like the aim is to just make PS2 fun to watch as a spectator at a casual level (like watching a friend play a game in his livingroom), rather than gearing the game towards high level competition (since that's practically impossible), then rely purely on high viewer counts to push the game into the scene (like D3)