Make Planetside free for the sake of PS2!

[jollytraveller]

Anyone who has ever subbed to Planetside should have their account activated for free.

This is not a request for a re-introduction of trials, merely a request for all paid accounts to be turned on.

I see absolutely no down side to this. The amount of money Planetside must be making is an absolute drop in the ocean for SOE and there are already other SOE developed games with a higher population than Planetside that are now free to play.

It's a guaranteed way to ignite interest in PS2 from all those Planetside veterans that no longer play because paying the sub is not worth it.

Seriously....... only a fool would not consider doing this.

[Draep]

I'd jump right back in. Also, check out my new avatar

[Mastachief]

like

[Kwintus5]

Yup! The population now is ridiculous :p we are with like 18 soldiers and that's half our "army" :(

[ShadoViper]

This seems like a fairly good idea and could be a great way to give Planetside a final send off. They would obviously have to be careful with implementation because of all those damn hackers. (anyone see a loop hole a hacker could exploit in the op's idea?)

[MooK]

We're having a mild discussion about this in IRC. They're definitely (edit: Kwintus says 100 average players right now; can't imagine <$5,000 sustains bandwidth/server costs?) not making any money and it would (1) be good practice for veterans and (2) maybe increase some promotion for new players.

[Kwintus5]

maybe i just play at bad hours :P but having not even a platoon online as an empire is just sad. In this state the game will never reach a "red alert" state anymore in a SOI :P

[Firefly]

Or they could just close the game so nobody has to get into hipster fights about how they're only playing the original.

[Vash02]

I dont think this is a good idea. Free PS1 == lots of hackers. if people are going to come back and get repeatedly stabbed in the back by the guy teleporting behind him I dont think its going to go down too well.

[Xyntech]

I dont think this is a good idea. Free PS1 == lots of hackers. if people are going to come back and get repeatedly stabbed in the back by the guy teleporting behind him I dont think its going to go down too well.

They could make it free only for people who have payed at some point in the past, to prevent a bunch of new, free hacker accounts.

[Raka Maru]

Anyone who has ever subbed to Planetside should have their account activated for free.

This is not a request for a re-introduction of trials, merely a request for all paid accounts to be turned on.

I see absolutely no down side to this. The amount of money Planetside must be making is an absolute drop in the ocean for SOE and there are already other SOE developed games with a higher population than Planetside that are now free to play.

It's a guaranteed way to ignite interest in PS2 from all those Planetside veterans that no longer play because paying the sub is not worth it.

Seriously....... only a fool would not consider doing this.

To start with, I like the idea because I can get on for a few days at a time/month.

The bad, is they do not have the micro trans shops running in PS1 so you can't really compare this to the others that went FTP deliberately. I doubt any development time will be allocated to this since PS2 is soooo close.

SOE may surprise is all however and just take the loss and consider it a send off gift.

[Goku]

That is assuming people who previously subbed will not come back to grief. I highly doubt that will be the case. There will be griefers who will come back to just get the entire populace going. What other game can you cause such destruction in the FPS gaming world like PS if each side has a pop lock going on one cont? None.

[MooK]

That is assuming people who previously subbed will not come back to grief. I highly doubt that will be the case. There will be griefers who will come back to just get the entire populace going. What other game can you cause such destruction in the FPS gaming world like PS if each side has a pop lock going on one cont? None.

1.) Why would they want to tarnish their SOE account? If they did so, they would lose any "bonus" being a PS vet would entail.
2.) That being said, why not just grief the second game if they wanted to grief?

[SniperSteve]

as much as i would like to play again for free, I think it might leave potential PS2ers with a bad taste, and then lead them to not bother with PS2 once it came out.

[Kouza]

Or you guys could not be cheap asses and pay 15 bucks.

[Xyntech]

Or you guys could not be cheap asses and pay 15 bucks.

There is hardly anybody on currently. I'm not going to pay $15 per month for a game that is no longer really Planetside in my eyes.

Now if they made it free, the populations may possibly go up. It isn't a sure thing, but what is a sure thing is that the populations aren't going up with the subscription fee in place.

I'd pay $15 a month for a Planetside if it had decent populations, but I'm glad PS2 is going to be F2P. It will mean higher populations which equals better Planetside style gameplay.

[Mastachief]

The current ingame issue is population, there is no zerg left so the organised players are having to be that FRONT and its just a constant stalemate

As for being cheapskates.......... i've played maybe 5 times in the past 5months and yet i have had a constant subscription since July 2003 pretty much (cancelled a couple of times but always came back to subscribe within a month or two).

Make the sub free or perhaps doing a Christmas free period as they have before would drive the populations up and re-kindle some fires for the development of the new game. Talk breeds talk and i know that current players are discussing the development of planetside 2 over mumble/teamspeak etc.

Forumside is dead due to the unimaginative trolls and the over moderation.

[CutterJohn]

That'd be cool.

Also, give everyone BR40/CR5 and give access to all empire weapons, just for kicks. Go out with a bang!

[MooK]

That'd be cool.

Also, give everyone BR40/CR5 and give access to all empire weapons, just for kicks. Go out with a bang!


Err, no.

Would be pretty awesome to do a massive database export, set everyone BR1 (keep CR, I think) for a month.

[Zulthus]

Also, give everyone BR40/CR5 and give access to all empire weapons, just for kicks. Go out with a bang!

http://www.cyclonesworld.net/upload/files/154_tbk0a/mj-laughing.gif

[CutterJohn]

Err, no.

Would be pretty awesome to do a massive database export, set everyone BR1 (keep CR, I think) for a month.

Err, no.

I can think of few things that would make me less likely to play again than having to rank up again after I spent all that time getting it out of the way so I could play.

[Traak]

Witnessing the massive cheat-fest and preening strut of the cheaters in the present game is nothing I would recommend unless you wanted to turn someone off from gaming, permanently.

[LordReaver]

Just because there are hardly any people playing the game, doesn't mean that there are hardly any people subscribing to it. SOE is currently making enough money off of PS1 that it is worth dedicating resources to. Removing that profit, removes any reason to keep it going. SOE is a company, not a friend.

[Coreldan]

I would definitely jump back in as well. I'm at a pretty tight financial situation, which is why I havn't subscribed. Also with PS2 "so close", I don't really wanna "waste" my little money on an old game, even if PS is still totally enjoyable.

I also don't have overly much time to play at the moment or interest to play Planetside as my main game, but I very often feel like jumping in to take a few bases, but not wanting to pay 15€ just to log in occasionally.

I understand their reasonings as to why not, the server is probably online only cos the current playerbase still pay the bills. Going F2P with no marketplace, they would bel osing money.

[Hamma]

Seeing anything change with PS1 is extremely unlikely, I don't see them making it free or making any changes to it at all. SOE is solely focused on PlanetSide 2.

[MooK]

Err, no.

I can think of few things that would make me less likely to play again than having to rank up again after I spent all that time getting it out of the way so I could play.

I can't imagine that giving everyone BR40 wouldn't negate the whole purpose of all of that time ranking up. One thing about Planetside, BR1 or BR20, it doesn't matter, still as lethal.

The people continually stating that cheaters will infest the game, seem to forget two major points:

The original concept, so far dictated to me, is that only previous subscribers would have the option to play for free. That, and, why would anyone willing to play Planetside 1, a game which is, what, almost a decade old, waste their potential in playing Planetside 2, by cheating in Planetside 1? I can't see hundreds of people wasting their time like that.

Hamma is right though.

[Mastachief]

Go here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000028136

Voice your opinions

[Traak]

I say they put up PS2 billboards all over PS1. I mean EVERYWHERE.

Even have restrooms, so they can include those little above-the-john mini-billboards.