competition pressure

[Shogun]

now planetside 2´s competitors call for arms!

i just got a beta invite for the new version of the only game that was compared to planetside 1 in the old times.

haven´t checked how massive and persistent tribes ascend will be, but it´s a franchise everybody knows and it´s already going beta. so if tribes can deliver real mmo feeling, planetside2 may loose it´s claim to be the very first real next gen mmofps!

[Sabrak]

haven´t checked how massive and persistent tribes ascend will be

Simply not massive at all.

32v32 isn't massive, is it ?

[Coreldan]

Not to mention little to no persistancy, from what I've gathered.

Perhaps if you enjoy the Quake kinda online shooting, but other than the general futuristic setting I don't see Tribes Ascend share much with with PS.

[Shogun]

ok then ;-)

i did not gather any information on tribes ascend. but before ps2 was announced i registered for any beta of scifi online shooters. and i assumed that the next tribes would aim for massive multiplayer.

by the way what happened to huxley ;-) ?
wasn´t that a game, promising planetside-like epicness, several years ago but then took the road of vaporware?

[Coreldan]

Wikipedia says Huxley went Open Beta in 2010 and that Webzen would be hosting it in US. Webzen sucks, though.

[Hamma]

I think there is going to be another Tribes after Ascend that will be an MMO. It has been talked about so you aren't losing it. ;)

[Graywolves]

Planetside has no competition.


The veterans are gods and Auraxis is our Olympus. No one can fuck with this.

[Fara]

Planetside has no competition.


The veterans are gods and Auraxis is our Olympus. No one can fuck with this.

+1

[TheRagingGerbil]

Yup, Tribes Ascend is just another tribes game. And a fun one at that. Hi-Rez is creating Tribes Universe that will be an MMOFPS. They wanted to get the feel of tribes right so they are baby stepping into it with the free to play Tribes Ascend.

[RedKnights]

Planetside has no competition.


The veterans are gods and Auraxis is our Olympus. No one can fuck with this.

Isn't it rumored the game Bungie is slowly spending away it's entire fortune on is an MMOFPS too? That would be some competition...

SOURCE! http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/02/17/wow-in-space-bungies-mmofps-named-destiny/

[FastAndFree]

Isn't it rumored the game Bungie is slowly spending away it's entire fortune on is an MMOFPS too? That would be some competition...

SOURCE! http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/02/17/wow-in-space-bungies-mmofps-named-destiny/

Blizzard's upcoming project codenamed Titan will also be an MMOFPS though Blizzard being Blizzard I doubt we will see that game before 2030

[Tigersmith]

its 16vs16 been playing a fair amount. add tigersmith to your friends list :)

[FIREk]

PS2 has no competition. I'm extremely glad I can play Tribes: Ascend, though. It's a truly EPIC game that will keep me alive until PS2's release. :)

It's amazing that they kept it pretty hardcore and haven't really dumbed it down for the casual peasant scum. This could translate into a low playerbase in the long run, though...

[Tigersmith]

PS2 has no competition. I'm extremely glad I can play Tribes: Ascend, though. It's a truly EPIC game that will keep me alive until PS2's release. :)

It's amazing that they kept it pretty hardcore and haven't really dumbed it down for the casual peasant scum. This could translate into a low playerbase in the long run, though...

I still dont like HP regen but i will get used to it

[Graywolves]

Isn't it rumored the game Bungie is slowly spending away it's entire fortune on is an MMOFPS too? That would be some competition...

SOURCE! http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/02/17/wow-in-space-bungies-mmofps-named-destiny/

They call it a WoW in space. I'd anticipate more RPG elements than not with that angle. Were it anything like Planetside's scale I'm sure they'd say "It's like Halo....but bigger..."


But there's little to no information on it. All we know is they plan to do something that's like WoW in space as their projected intent and that it will be by bungie and probably activision.



Planetside 2 is practically around the corner at the end of the block.

[FIREk]

I still dont like HP regen but i will get used to it

What's there not to like, though? It removes a pointless meta-game of looking for health kits, rep tools, equipment terminals etc. ;) PS2 can afford having no health regen since there will be a lot more players moving around you at a time, moving at a much slower pace. :)

[XPquant]

I like the health regen, it's good for disc jumping.

If anything ps2 is going to steal tribes players looking for more depth and less flying in a shooter. Arena gets old after a while. We have nothing to worry about.

[FIREk]

What about Tribes Universe? Is this happening or is it just an urban legend?

[SKYeXile]

What about Tribes Universe? Is this happening or is it just an urban legend?

its going to happen, it will just be a steaming hot turd served up by hi res.

[Roy Awesome]

I'm playing the hell out of Tribes:Ascend.

While it looks good, is HELLA fun, it is no planetside.

[Talek Krell]

by the way what happened to huxley ;-) ?
wasn´t that a game, promising planetside-like epicness, several years ago but then took the road of vaporware?I was in the Huxley beta. It seemed functional, but I haven't heard anything about it since the beta ended. It was about a 50/50 split between PvP and PvE, with a fair bit of depth to both. The part I actually played was all instances and arena combat though. There were apparently battlefields with larger player counts and a smattering of vehicles, but for all I know they were never actually functional. And certainly not Planetside style open world.

[Alaska]

I don't think it has any real competition for now, maybe in a couple years. The only games I can think of that might come close to becoming competition are Blizzard's Titan and Bungie's new project "Destiny". (Personally, I think Bungie would be the one to pull it off, that is..if anyone were to compete with PS2 in the future)

Titan will probably be an MMOFPS. Blizzmmo (http://www.blizzmmo.com/). << No real info about Titan..though I think with some of the few things they do say, we might be seeing an MMOFPS from them. ^.^ (just speculation)

..and with the Bungie project. I found this a few weeks ago. Waiting for Destiny (http://misriahsolutions.com/articles/waiting-for-destiny/). << Oh! I don't know if that site says anything about the Kotaku report saying the game being "WoW in space" and all that, but it was later confirmed from Bungie that it would not be WoW in space and that they never fired any of their employees. ^-^

[Raka Maru]

I don't see any competition on the horizon, there hasn't been. I hope SOE doesn't get complacent tho. :)

[Bittermen]

Yup, Tribes Ascend is just another tribes game. And a fun one at that. Hi-Rez is creating Tribes Universe that will be an MMOFPS. They wanted to get the feel of tribes right so they are baby stepping into it with the free to play Tribes Ascend.

They're approach towards the MMO is great. I just wish they were as vocal as the PS2 devs are with this community.

Also I think it's safe to say PS2 has no competition at-least for a few years. If Bungie enters the fray... well... I'll be playing their game. They have a great track record.

[Xyntech]

Isn't Bungies MMO said to be more like WoW in space, instead of Halo on a huge scale? Sounds more RPGish than FPSish, although I guess there really isn't enough info to say for sure.

[Alaska]

Article about the Bungie matter (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/115/1153617p1.html)

Not that "massively multiplayer action game" automatically means FPS, so who knows. Oh! I forgot, I had posted this earlier.
>> Waiting for Destiny (http://misriahsolutions.com/articles/waiting-for-destiny/), but yeah..sounds like there will be a few RPGish parts. :)

[Blackwolf]

I like the idea of a PvPvE MMOFPS game (not planetside though. Pure PvP is a good niche to have). I thought Tabula Rasa would have made an awesome FPS game but they put too many typical RPG elements into it.

[SuperMorto]

I like the health regen, it's good for disc jumping.

If anything ps2 is going to steal tribes players looking for more depth and less flying in a shooter. Arena gets old after a while. We have nothing to worry about.

Health regen was made for nancy Americans who couldnt shoot their way out of a paper bag. And thats coming from somebody who played Halo more times than he can remember, and long before XBox live was even switched on. BTW every other Halo game was a piece of shit. Americanized for the mass of kids that would buy it. Did you know Bungie is not Halo, they have proved more than once, they couldn't make a good game without a certain few people!!

And on the second note, SOE has everything to worry about, and so do we. The world isnt going to stop for PS2, PS2 has to stop everybody in there tracks and make them play. Today I still have not seen one form of advertising apart from everything on PSU, witch I log onto every day. I searched for PS2, it didnt come to me much like PS.

Also other games are being made right now, and they will be massive. I just hope the smaller SOE make a fucking good job of it. And to be fair I have high hopes they will. But untill the game is out, we cant say for sure how big or how long it will be.

But as I said I have not seen one form of advertising for it. And that is bad news. But on the other hand I have no complaints apart from a few minors about what I have seen so far as far as the game goes.

[Shogun]

sigh

the old pr question again.

soe has failed a lot, and i still have hope that they have learned their lesson and will put up the pr ps2 deserves.

just look at wow and their advertising! soe, please look and learn ;-)
they don´t mind hiring william shatner, mister t and even chuck norris for their advertisings! and thei still spam their spots on tv to this day!

i just hope soe knows about the force and might of a good pr campaign and they only think it´s too early to start the big bang! i would be very disappointed if they neglect this again like they did with ps1. because this time, the masses need to know about the game! with ps1, there still was the limitation that you didn´t only need to know about the game, but also had to be in the lucky (and rare) position to have broadband internet and a descent hardware! at least the internet connection is not such a big problem any more, so the worldwide targetgroup has grown by several thousand percents.

[BorisBlade]

I'd bet that the blizzard project will be an FPSMMO, but not like ps. It will be more like an mmo version of Borderlands. FPS meets WoW sort of thing. The PvE aspects will get an entirely differnt crowd that the pvp parts would not. Its also easier to keep people playing longer in a game like that with the constant story recycles and gear updates keeping people grinding away for the best stuff, just like wow does. They will have pvp too but done like wow with some open world but mostly instanced stuff.

[Hamma]

Health regen was made for nancy Americans who couldnt shoot their way out of a paper bag. And thats coming from somebody who played Halo more times than he can remember, and long before XBox live was even switched on. BTW every other Halo game was a piece of shit. Americanized for the mass of kids that would buy it. Did you know Bungie is not Halo, they have proved more than once, they couldn't make a good game without a certain few people!!

Yay for Stereotypes! I'm sure that no other kids on the planet are lazy.

You fail, failed post.

[SuperMorto]

Yay for Stereotypes! I'm sure that no other kids on the planet are lazy.

You fail, failed post.

Im looking inward, your looking out Hamma. Its a fact Halo 2, 3, and 4.5.6.7. or how ever many there was, were redesigned for the American market. It was a pure gold advertising campaign to attract 8 to 20 year old gamers and it worked. It ruined the Halo franchise, but made it one of the biggest gaming names ever. Halo 1, was a milestone in gaming. I wont list all the things that were good about it as you should know a few. But no game has come close to it since. Success to me isn't always how much money something can make.

And about the kids, well there are lazy kids all over the world. There is just more of them in America, and that where you make your name (Bungie) and make it big.

I win.

[Hamma]

Nope.. you still fail. :lol:

[GuvNuh]

Hate to say it Hamma, but i agree with morto on this. Halo 1 rocked, no arguments or i beat you to death. It introduced us to a whole new way to play. But each successive game felt dumbed down to me. Gameplay was made simpler and combat easier. I stopped playing after the 3rd halo game, i couldn't take it anymore.

Morto, i should beat you for your lazy kid comment, but i get where you're coming from, unfortunately. Just remember that kind of thing depends entirely on how you're brought up. My parents were workaholic perfectionists, and in their eyes if you didn't work 15 hours a day and do your job perfectly, you were a failure. Believe me, i didn't have time to get fat or lazy when i was young, even though i'm american.

Overall agree with your points though Morto, Success isn't measured by how much money you make(Bungie) and most of the upcoming online multiplayer games will not hold a candle to PS2, not for the next 2 years minimum. If SOE does their promoting right they stand to corner a huge chunk of the MMO and FPS market.

[SuperMorto]

Hate to say it Hamma, but i agree with morto on this. Halo 1 rocked, no arguments or i beat you to death. It introduced us to a whole new way to play. But each successive game felt dumbed down to me. Gameplay was made simpler and combat easier. I stopped playing after the 3rd halo game, i couldn't take it anymore.

Morto, i should beat you for your lazy kid comment, but i get where you're coming from, unfortunately. Just remember that kind of thing depends entirely on how you're brought up. My parents were workaholic perfectionists, and in their eyes if you didn't work 15 hours a day and do your job perfectly, you were a failure. Believe me, i didn't have time to get fat or lazy when i was young, even though i'm american.

Overall agree with your points though Morto, Success isn't measured by how much money you make(Bungie) and most of the upcoming online multiplayer games will not hold a candle to PS2, not for the next 2 years minimum. If SOE does their promoting right they stand to corner a huge chunk of the MMO and FPS market.

That means I win Hamma! :P

Thing is if your cleaver you will sell you game where there is the most XBoxes. And that my friend is the US. And lazy kids play on XBoxes so there is more of them! (just remember I had 3 XBoxes at one point!)

:)

[SKYeXile]

Hate to say it Hamma, but i agree with morto on this. Halo 1 rocked, no arguments or i beat you to death. It introduced us to a whole new way to play. But each successive game felt dumbed down to me. Gameplay was made simpler and combat easier. I stopped playing after the 3rd halo game, i couldn't take it anymore.

Morto, i should beat you for your lazy kid comment, but i get where you're coming from, unfortunately. Just remember that kind of thing depends entirely on how you're brought up. My parents were workaholic perfectionists, and in their eyes if you didn't work 15 hours a day and do your job perfectly, you were a failure. Believe me, i didn't have time to get fat or lazy when i was young, even though i'm american.

Overall agree with your points though Morto, Success isn't measured by how much money you make(Bungie) and most of the upcoming online multiplayer games will not hold a candle to PS2, not for the next 2 years minimum. If SOE does their promoting right they stand to corner a huge chunk of the MMO and FPS market.

I agree with this, everything bar Halo 1 can suck a cock.

The only one decent enough to bring to PC.

[Ailos]

That means I win Hamma! :P

Thing is if your cleaver you will sell you game where there is the most XBoxes. And that my friend is the US. And lazy kids play on XBoxes so there is more of them! (just remember I had 3 XBoxes at one point!)

:)


I don't really have any point to the Halo argument, but the only reason there is more boxes in America than elsewherein the world is cos they're almost always cheaper than their Sony counterparts, and God forbid American consumers look at anything other than price for our deciding factors.

[Tasorin]

It's not bad for practice for planetside 2. If you can put hits on the box with someone skiing and then elevating on the z-axis then you can put hits on the box in planetside 2.

[Hamma]

That means I win Hamma! :P

Thing is if your cleaver you will sell you game where there is the most XBoxes. And that my friend is the US. And lazy kids play on XBoxes so there is more of them! (just remember I had 3 XBoxes at one point!)

:)

I still win, I agree with your comments it's the blaming Americans thing for it that fails.

[Peacemaker]

Aye, lets not get into the whole "American's are lazy" vs "You could all be eating rice and Sauerkraut" argument.... Anyways... If theres competition for PS2 out there It better start showing its self.

[SKYeXile]

Aye, lets not get into the whole "American's are lazy" vs "You could all be eating rice and Sauerkraut" argument.... Anyways... If theres competition for PS2 out there It better start showing its self.

Everything is competition.
MMO competition is: Guild Wars 2, as a PvP game that you can count on been good

Firefall: sorta a MMOFPS, but it will have PVE so it may attract more players than PS2...well see though F2P is rather effective and PS2 offers something rarly, if ever, seen by people.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Everything is competition.
MMO competition is: Guild Wars 2, as a PvP game that you can count on been good

Firefall: sorta a MMOFPS, but it will have PVE so it may attract more players than PS2...well see though F2P is rather effective and PS2 offers something rarly, if ever, seen by people.

Hadn't seen any of the Firefall stuff until tonight. Its action feels quiet, smooth, and graceful. Three words that should never be near combat. Really seems like an MMO Borderlands with a dash or two of Global Agenda. It's half way between visceral and slick when it should be one or the other. I'm obviously biased but when I see those item drops I can't help but see an inevitable power creep and unbalanced PvP where you need to grind to be competitive. I left WAR after rise of the tomb kings as it opened my eyes to how much grinding I'd need to do to be worth my salt in PvP and I wasn't willing to do it just to have the goal posts moved even farther out. It's that gear will matter more than skill which will make me shun Firefall despite whatever cool stuff they may have.

[Graywolves]

It's easy to say Americans have more lazies when our population is larger....


I really want to make some racists jokes but I don't think it's appropriate.

[SuperMorto]

It's easy to say Americans have more lazies when our population is larger....


I really want to make some racists jokes but I don't think it's appropriate.

Fact is lazy idiot kids are in every country. I stated that. So if you want moeny you sell to the lazy kids. If there is more in America you sell there and make sure they are all happy! I know I would, its maths and it works.

Fact this is what killed XBox live for me. And notice. Its both British and Americans. They sound the same. Both young idiots and lazy.

American Gangster Wanna be Vs. British Fat Kid - On Xbox Live - YouTube

You just have more of them ;)

[SuperMorto]

Aye, lets not get into the whole "American's are lazy" vs "You could all be eating rice and Sauerkraut" argument.... Anyways... If theres competition for PS2 out there It better start showing its self.

Now im goin g to post some ideas, about PS2's competition on the gaming market. Now as there isnt to many MMOFPS's then MMO's and FPS's come into the equation as new gamers must come from somewhere.

WOW is still competition. Its pops are dropping but it will still have the majority of the market for MMO.

SC2 is still competition, its an on-line RTS, but its the community, competitions, casts and prizes that make this game. Also most SC2 gamers love other kinds of games, so steal a few of them and your winning! Also look at the community it has, SOE could learn from it. Its the best gaming community ive seen. (apart from PSU ;))

Modern Warfare and them other FPS games. they are the biggest competion. Take just 10% of them and your epic winning!!

Other MMO's like EVE? Is that one of them, well any MMO online is competition.

The biggest competition is the XBox and PS3. Its hard to get gamers off them as they are so easy to use. And the lazy folks just dont like the headache of PC's. But grab just 5% of them and you will double your gamers! (that was a guess btw!)

[Captain1nsaneo]

Morto I can't read your post with out the word "Winning" reminding me of this.

Songify This - Winning - a Song by Charlie Sheen - YouTube

As for competition, there's no law that says you have to only play one game. I know Root's Minigun plays PS, heck, even ran into him one time and got star struck.

[Sifer2]

I actually disagree that all the other Halo's were trash. I actually think Halo 2 was the best one. I'm sorry but the Pistol in Halo 1 was overpowered an too easy to win with to the point it was the only thing to use. The battle rifle concept they came up with was better IMO. Was a lot like the pistol but less effective close up an really far away. Just all around better balanced in a game like Halo where different weapons were supposed to excel at different sweet spot ranges. I would use it often for medium/longer ranged fighting an use my beloved Plasma gun+SMG dual wield combo to rape up close.

Now Halo has since sold out I agree. Halo 3 had bad maps. Reach was really silly with all the broken imbalanced armor abilities. And the campaign was dumbed down for casuals. Beating Halo 2 on Legendary though took a real man.



Anyway as to the primary topic. The only real competition I have noticed for Planetside 2 would be Dust 514, and Firefall. Dust 514 is arguably kind of irrelevant since its PS3 exclusive an will as such surely not match the same scale or graphics. Planetside 2 will probably just be better than it. As for Firefall I don't think its a full scale MMO. It may offer hundreds of players but i'm not sure how persistent or large scale it is. It does have things that Planetside 2 doesn't though like PvE.

But yeah for the moment at least I don't think Planetside 2 has any other game on the horizon quite like it. Except the rumored Blizz/Bungie projects but that's all speculation.

[Xyntech]

I was just reading a thread on the Firefall forums about open world PvP combat. The game currently only has instanced PvP matches, while it's on the agenda to add open world PvP later on.

Some of the people in the thread are hilarious. Talking about how they would hate to have full time open world PvP because they would be constantly getting "ganked." I understand that Firefall is a different type of game and requires different ways of balancing it, but it just amuses me that I don't think some of those people have even considered the possibility that it could be a GOOD thing to have people always trying to "gank" you in an open world battlefield.

Of course, it wouldn't work the same in Firefall as it does in PS2. Planetside has the advantage of having 3 specific sides to align yourself with, on top of making your own outfit/army/group of players. Trying to run around an open world PvP environment without the backup of thousands of allies could be horrific.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Of course, it wouldn't work the same in Firefall as it does in PS2. Planetside has the advantage of having 3 specific sides to align yourself with, on top of making your own outfit/army/group of players. Trying to run around an open world PvP environment without the backup of thousands of allies could be horrific.

And you've hit the reason why open world PvP in firefall won't work unless heavily modified.

[Coreldan]

The thing I love about APB is how easy it is to work as a team with clans. The only problem is you are limited to 4 people. Planetside sorta takes the easy teamwork (harder, but way more options and freedom), and removes the artificial cap on the people involved.

I currently have like 40 guys ready to go for PS2. Given, they are APB players so I wont solely trust in their activity so I will be recruitin heavily from PS2 as well to ensure dedicated players. Can't wait to get some biiiiig teamwork ops going. I've been stuck thinking for weeks now of all the amazing possibilities we can do and tacs we could use just with what we know at the moment.

[Missundaztood]

Tribes 2: Ascend, cant say I'm a fan. Your usual FPS online shooter faire.

PS2 is a completely different kettle of fish!

[Shogun]

nice discussion going on here!

after reading through, i think i really have to erase tribes from the list ;-)

but i am still very interested in dust 514. not because it could be competition for ps2, but because i totally love the concept of one big persistant universe where several different games take place and influence each other.

i always wanted to have a planetside realtime strategy game part for commanders. they would play their rts game but the units they command are egoshooting players that get the commanders choices as direct missiongoals.

but i guess this is impossible because there could only be a few commanders on a server.
maybe planetside will get some other gametype integrated at some time down the road, when it has proved a success. auraxis has a lot of potential to host more than one game, just like the eve universe.

[NewSith]

http://event.mmosite.com/gameprize/webapps/?action=gamelist&id=25

WtF??? I mean WoWP??????

[Zulthus]

That invokes both a WTF (why the hell is it ahead of us) and a LOL (World of Warplanes) from me. Was that game even on the list??

[Khellendros]

I was just reading a thread on the Firefall forums about open world PvP combat. The game currently only has instanced PvP matches, while it's on the agenda to add open world PvP later on.

Some of the people in the thread are hilarious. Talking about how they would hate to have full time open world PvP because they would be constantly getting "ganked." I understand that Firefall is a different type of game and requires different ways of balancing it, but it just amuses me that I don't think some of those people have even considered the possibility that it could be a GOOD thing to have people always trying to "gank" you in an open world battlefield.

Of course, it wouldn't work the same in Firefall as it does in PS2. Planetside has the advantage of having 3 specific sides to align yourself with, on top of making your own outfit/army/group of players. Trying to run around an open world PvP environment without the backup of thousands of allies could be horrific.

Yes, I agitated for open world pvp in GA forums back in beta, and also posted on it on Firefall forums, and that notion invariably comes up from people who have never experienced open world pvp. If the open world pve coexisted with the pvp, that could be a valid concern, tho personally I would keep those separate.

[Sifer2]

Yes, I agitated for open world pvp in GA forums back in beta, and also posted on it on Firefall forums, and that notion invariably comes up from people who have never experienced open world pvp. If the open world pve coexisted with the pvp, that could be a valid concern, tho personally I would keep those separate.


There is a militant anti-PvP crowd in MMO's these days. That feel PvP is fine so long as it cannot effect them in any way what so ever. And so long as they can get all the same rewards from grinding mobs. So in other words it can't have any meaning at all in the game. They are a bit entitled and selfish. Though its true no one likes to be ganked. And Planetside avoids that by ensuring you got lots of backup, and so when you die your more a casualty of war than a victim who was ganked by a roving Player killer group and teabagged.

I think if they ever add PvE to Planetside 2 they should be careful how they do it. Definitely don't make it something you farm for goodies or that will just attract that crowd that likes to farm mobs, and screams in rage when any player comes along an interrupts them with PvP. I think PvE mobs should be more an obstacle that adds extra chaos or intensity if they do them and don't respawn. So not something you farm.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

The only competition PlanetSide 2 has to worry about is the next SoE game they allocate funds to. When that happens it'll take a back seat in development and funding while being left to rot. Think back to PS1 and EQ2. Other than that it really has no true competition.

History is on my side here.

[Coreldan]

Just tested Tribes: Ascend. The game has nothing in common but the general futuristic setting. I'm also not surprised at all at T:A, I guess that's good, cos at least I didn't get disappointed, I knew it would've been that lame (for me).

[BuzzCutPsycho]

It's also made by the same garbage company that made Global Agenda.

[Coreldan]

I don't think T:A baseline bad as a game (never played GA, but heard how bad it is :D), but I don't see how it would sate the needs of any Planetside fan or people who like the idea of Planetside, unless the only thing they like is futuristic combat.

The two games just really have nothing else in common.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

They're both F2P and that's about it.

[Shogun]

The only competition PlanetSide 2 has to worry about is the next SoE game they allocate funds to. When that happens it'll take a back seat in development and funding while being left to rot. Think back to PS1 and EQ2. Other than that it really has no true competition.

History is on my side here.

that´s something i´m afraid of, too!
and you are right, history is on your side.

but keep in mind, that this is a time of change! there are very successful companies around now, that have learned their lessons. look at wow! this game is rather old right now, but the company knows about its value and tries to keep it up to date!
ot look at eve online! they have learned to listen to the players the hard way, but they finally did!
and if you compare the developement of ps2 with ps1, soe has learned a lot as well. maybe mainly the ps2 devs, and not the beancounters, but the devs have the balls to stand up and support their idea of community involvement against the odds!

so if soe watches the competition closely, they must have learned that it´s never a good idea to neglect a successful game. the 3 year plan is a good thing for the start! and if ps2 keeps bringing in cash, i am sure they will expand the developement for much longer! they have lost so many good games to this error before. and ps2 is built differently than ps1. if i remember some old dev statements right, ps1 hat too much stuff hardcoded and couldn´t be changed too much without having to build it up from scratch! but ps2s engine is meant to be used for more than one game and i am sure that this means it can be developed and changed easily. it is built to last. i don´t think at the developement of ps1someone would have believed that the game will be played for 8 years! but today everybody knows that it´s possible! so they will take that into account!