My Community Day Write-Up

[cryosin]

Bullet Points(TLDR Version):
- The game looks amazing, runs smooth and plays like any other shooter.
- The night time is gorgeous beyond belief. You really have to see it in person to appreciate it.
- The classes are all designed well with unique attributes. It never felt like one class was useless or had no purpose.
- There where some bugs as expected, but the bugs where quite clearly a "beta" problem. None of them seemed to be a detrimental and felt like any other game's beta bugs.
- Scythe is really hard to fly. Air vehicles in general are hard to fly, but the scythe is a whole other thing.
- The map is HUGE. We had about 60-80 people playing at Hvar, but I occasionally wandered off and looked at the vastness. I saw the bio-dome from a distance and couldn't believe that was a part of the game, it looked unbelievably gorgeous. T-ray said they wheren't even finished with it yet, but it still looked really good.
- The pace of the game is very solid. A while ago I had made a thread about TTK which got a lot of responses on here. Not sure if that had an impact on the pace, but the TTK in the build I played felt finely tuned and solid. You need fast reflexes to really escape an engagement and survive, but its very doable. It doesn't feel like COD where you die instantly, but it's still much faster than Planetside by a large margin.
- The game was very unique. I always point to other shooters to explain how it felt, like Battlefield meets Halo, but there really isn't anything on the market to compare it to. It's not Planetside 1 with better graphics, it really is a whole new experience. The people saying "This is an [insert X game here] clone" are honest to god idiots(or payed by the respective companies). The closest this game can be compared is Battlefield 2142, but there is so much more going on that it's not a fair comparison either.

Now onto my experience:

So after LA traffic and meeting up with Matthew Peters from Azure Twilight, we began the drive towards San Diego. After a roughly hour thirty minute drive, we had finally arrived and hopped in line. Another AT member, "Nuke", had made T-shirts the night before! These T-shirts looked great. The vanu symbol was on the back, AT Logo on the front and army-like patches on the sides representing AT divisions. There where about 6+ AT members at the event, and some serious VS ass kicking was about to ensue.

The event was coordinated very well. They handed out water, red bull, sodas and pizza to everyone. We joked about how SOE should've adertised with, "Free Pizza and Red bull come play our game", to attract every gamer in San Diego. After about thirty minutes we where finally allowed inside. They had a little over 30 Alienware computers running the game and the room felt like a new-age cyber cafe. I finally sat down and grabbed a machine running VS.

The game was running flawlessly smooth. In fact, I remember when i used to play Battlefield with 64 player maps and the game would be very glitchy and laggy. The engine could barely handle that many people even on LAN. Planetside 2 was running smooth as silk and looked gorgeous. The lighting, the desert wind and the character models looked high quality just as you would expect from any modern day shooter. My first playtest really consisted of playing a lot of classes and finding out what was going on. I setteld on a class called Infiltrator as I was getting multiple kill streaks with it. It was basically a stealth class with a semi-auto snipe rifle. During this first play test my game crashed, but a staff member reloaded it and i was literally RIGHT back to where the same spot in less than a minute. The loading times where fast. During this playtest I met Clegg in person. I joked about how the drop pod looked slightly better than Planetside 1(it looked unbeleivably good). Clegg was real nice in person and we had a blast, but the sparse 30 minutes I had in the playtest made me really want to play the game instead of chat. Sorry Clegg, you're awesome, but your game is REALLY REALLY awesome =P.

One run is not enough so we quickly headed back in line. Before exiting, I saw Matt Higby and introduced myself. He was extremely friendly and it was nice to finally meet him in person. One playtest was definately not enough, so we went back in line for more. On my second play test I got to chat with Tramell Isaac. He didn't know me from streams but we still had a nice chat about the insanely beuatiful bio-dome and other methods of finding combat in the game. Tramell was very friendly and a cool guy. He was happy to see the VS tearing it up.

The third round of playtests was when I finally hit that, "OMG, this is amazing", moment. The night cycle was kicking in, I customized my infiltrator loadout, and a giant mountain and base battle was ocurring between the VS and TR. I was using cloaking to both enter and escape combat, quickly darting around mountain tops when people saw me and then re-engaging with a few headshots. Clegg came up as I was having fun and was happy to see me enjoying the game. He saw how much fun I was having and told me to keep playing and stop talking. Even Clegg agrees, his own game requires more attention than himself =P. This battle raged for a while, as tanks on each side kept driving by the mountain side. The VS where finally making the last push to the base, and time was called. It was at this point that I finally saw Planetside 2 working like it should. Giant battles, front lines, tanks rolling in and everyone duking it out. It was truly epic to play.

Me and Matthew Peters went to go get some beer before we played some more. We came back a little more relaxed and waited in line again. For the rest of the playtests, I tried a few other classes and attempted to fly the Scythe. I also saw Margharet Krohn and got to talk to her, mainly about how wierd it was trying to fly the Scythe. She was also very nice and helpful to others and myself. The last playtest of mine ended hilariously. Matthew Peters was given a command to spawn Scythes, so he told me to try it. I respawned a scythe in the spawn room and killed a few teamates. Apparently you're only suppose to use that command outside, go figure. Anyway, everyone was spawning and looking at a random scythe in the spawn room. I felt bad, but it was pretty funny. All in all a great way to end the playtest.

Before we left a few of us had a nice chat with Matt Higby. He was very open about the bugs, plans and details about Beta. It was a nice dialogue between the fans and we got to hear it on a more personal level. I had a new respect for a lot of the Dev's again. Many game companies release sequels without any of this community involvement, but you guys truly do care.

[OutlawDr]

The topic you are trying to see does not exist.

Thats what the page says

[rTekku]

Topic does not exist?

[sameer]

Why not just copy paste here?

[GreatMazinkaise]

- The game looks amazing, runs smooth and plays like any other shooter.

This sentence is the complete opposite of helpful... but the response I got later was...

[cryosin]

This sentence is the complete opposite of helpful...


Like "on-par", play just like they do in terms of quality.

This post wasn't suppose to be helpful really. I wasn't doing QA testing for the dev team over there. I got to play 30 minute snippets, that would be a different experience if I was actually QA testing and they wanted feedback.

I came to meet the dev's and enjoy the game, and this is my write up of that experience. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. :groovy:

[Xyntech]

Sounds pretty good.

With the tech test now being live, and intended to run about two weeks give or take, did you see Heavy Assault weapons in game yet?

[DarkChiron]

Sounds pretty good.

With the tech test now being live, and intended to run about two weeks give or take, did you see Heavy Assault weapons in game yet?

HA weapons were not in the game for the event.

[Xyntech]

HA weapons confirmed for vapor(hard)ware.

[GreatMazinkaise]

Like "on-par", play just like they do in terms of quality.

This post wasn't suppose to be helpful really. I wasn't doing QA testing for the dev team over there. I got to play 30 minute snippets, that would be a different experience if I was actually QA testing and they wanted feedback.

I came to meet the dev's and enjoy the game, and this is my write up of that experience. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. :groovy:

Fair enough... I'd just like to know how it felt. Are we looking at fluid, quick movement and aiming or gluey and unwieldy like Bad Company 2?

[Kran De Loy]

Yeah the community event on Friday ran on a sort of a older gutted version. Smedley said it was about 5 days old by the time we got to it. A lot of the customization was taken out. Like the certs weren't available it looked like, (we only got 30 minutes to play so I didn't bother even trying to look into it, a mistake in hindsight for me :( ). There was variety of different choices of scopes and a few weapon mounted attachments, but there was only one primary weapon, one secondary, one class specific tool, etc... Same with the vehicles.

All in all the Community Event on Friday was more of, "come play PS2 at SOE and Meet the Devs!" than it was any kind of demo or test build to be able to pick apart and analyze.

Was still lots of fun and glad I could thank (I think I thanked him for it) Higby in person for dealing with a problem with my PCGamer mags when I mailed them to get signed.

Edit: Also the game was only with about 30-50 when I played (30+anydevs that may have tried sneaking in). So everything was super chaos, so no where was ever 'secured'.

I can't wait to get into the game again ><

Fair enough... I'd just like to know how it felt. Are we looking at fluid, quick movement and aiming or gluey and unwieldy like Bad Company 2?

I'd say fluid, but I'm no connoisseur of FPS's...
Game didn't feel unwieldy at all. Well except for the aircraft. God those were a pain to control.

Edit:

Aw, saw what you wrote in the ADS thread:
That ship has already sailed (though I'm not incredibly convinced that the devs know what they're doing; they seem to be terrible at playing their own game). The key thing in the end is getting a balance of ADS/non-ADS shooting and movement that feels natural instead of forced. It has been done well in some games... others, not so much...

Yeah the distance between being able to go without ADS seemed short to be honest. However it was entirely possible to go without ADS with most weapons up to I would guess about 30-40 feet. At about 50ft I was wasting about 20-30% of AR bullets on empty air instead of hitting the target. Using better controlled bursts would up that effective distance up by 20 feet, maybe 40 I would guess. I'm not a terribly effective player. ADS however was fluid to get into and out of and it was much more precise.

[RadarX]

We are glad you guys had a good time! The turnout was significantly higher than we expected. It was one of the best events Ive had the privilege of planning and participating in.

[fb III IX ca IV]

Do you know what graphics card was in those Alienwares?

[Furber]

This sentence is the complete opposite of helpful...

The irony...

[cryosin]

We are glad you guys had a good time! The turnout was significantly higher than we expected. It was one of the best events Ive had the privilege of planning and participating in.

Radar I didn't get to meet you!

We all had a blast thanks a lot for hosting the event.

Fair enough... I'd just like to know how it felt. Are we looking at fluid, quick movement and aiming or gluey and unwieldy like Bad Company 2?

It was very fluid. You could run around, quick scope then un-scope and run around the other direction all very easily and quickly.

[GreatMazinkaise]

Thank you cryosin and Kran De Loy, sounds like just the sort of feel I'd find enjoyable.

[sumo]

could someone tell me what ADS's are?

@ Furber: that cat is damn hypnotic!

[Malorn]

Did anyone ask Clegg for galaxy piloting tips?

[Vydofnir]

could someone tell me what ADS's are?

@ Furber: that cat is damn hypnotic!

Aim Down Sights.

And that cat is hypnotic isn't it.

[Hamma]

Great writeup Cryo!

[DirtyBird]

thanks for the posts cryosin and Kran De Loy.

[cryosin]

No problem guys, thanks for reading.

[Kran De Loy]

I swear, that one guy outside, (I'm sorry I forgot his name, the one with the TR tags and the PS2 shirt) said apparently RadarX was one of first people we would have met going in.

I swear I didn't know! I was actually curious and almost asked Jo or Jaclyn who Radar was ><

[cryosin]

I swear, that one guy outside, (I'm sorry I forgot his name, the one with the TR tags and the PS2 shirt) said apparently RadarX was one of first people we would have met going in.

I swear I didn't know! I was actually curious and almost asked Jo or Jaclyn who Radar was ><

Oh that was RadarX? The guy who was greeting and talking to everyone outside?

@Radar: I was the guy who you kept asking if I was sleepy or not, and I responded with half asleep but really excited lol.

Edit: Oh never mind I thought you meant that guy(TR tags + PS2 shirt outside) was RadarX. Ya I don't think i met him =(

[TerminatorUK]

Excellent write-up - thanks a lot for sharing this.

I would have given my left nad to have had the chance to attend but, being in the UK, alas this wasn't practical so it is very much appreciated to have such a detailed account if the day.

[ThermalReaper]

I have two questions.

A) Did you ever feel you died against someone only because he had another weapon/class regardless of whether who shot first or the starting Hp?

B) How was the sway on snipers? I heard there would be a cert to hold shift while scoped to reduce/remove the sway.

Edit: Almost forgot, How was the spotting?(If there was any)

[Biohazard]

I have two questions.

A) Did you ever feel you died against someone only because he had another weapon/class regardless of whether who shot first or the starting Hp?

B) How was the sway on snipers? I heard there would be a cert to hold shift while scoped to reduce/remove the sway.

Edit: Almost forgot, How was the spotting?(If there was any)

A) no never. With the exception being a max or two. :)

B) The sway was manageable; I'm not sure if it was cert related but we could hold shift to steady our rifles momentarily.

C) Spotting was Reasonable and helpful. When you spot someone, the red triangle that appears only last for 3-4 seconds. I think this will be necessary for aircraft, when flying around it is very difficult to see enemy anythings on the ground. So having that little triangle is massively helpful. But at the same time, one needs to pop back out and spot again every 3 seconds to keep it there, making this most useful against vehicles or snipers.

It was so much fun and the game is BEAUTIFUL! The six hour drive was well worth it.

[Talek Krell]

How convenient was it to acquire vehicles? Are the pads only in bases, do they appear in every territory? What's the average time to get back into a fight like compared to infantry?

[Hamma]

There are pads at outposts and towers as well. Time varied depending on where your points were :D

[Anubisstargate]

What kind of classes did you two focus on mainly? And if you don't mind giving the time would you be able to tell us how differently they worked or how not differently they worked. Just that a lot of people will probably be spec-ing out in one specific class to specialise in to shoot cert points at them.

[cryosin]

ffff

What kind of classes did you two focus on mainly? And if you don't mind giving the time would you be able to tell us how differently they worked or how not differently they worked. Just that a lot of people will probably be spec-ing out in one specific class to specialise in to shoot cert points at them.

I mainly got the hang of Heavy Assault and Infiltrator. I tried out the MAX for a little too, but I felt that it really needed an engineer to shine so I stopped using it.

The infiltrator felt really powerful to me. Unlike Battlefield 2142, you can have your weapon out. So I would run around zooming in(while stealth) and be able to aim at someones head while invisible. You can't shoot while stealth, but you can manually de-cloak, fire a shot, then manually restealth. Its on an energy pool and not a cooldown. You can also reload. I had a nice ring around the rosy with a Heavy Assault by shooting a few shots, re-stealthing and reloading, then appearing behind him and doing it over and over until he died.

At first I didn't like the heavy assault. I thought they where just a medic/engy with a rocket launcher. But after I found out they had a personal shield I realized how strong the class was. I had a nice stairway run where endless TR where coming through and I was picking them off 1 by 1 simply by taking damage and dishing it out.

A lot of us had concerns that the medic was gonna be bad. You are pretty much dead when your shields go out, so healing health felt somewhat trivial. But after using the medic i realized just how powerful reviving teamates is. You still have a gun, so you can be effective, but simply reviving a bunch of dead guys is extremely powerful. Its not like Planetside where you are extremely vulnerable and someone walks by and kills you. It takes about 2-3 seconds and you can retreat right after a revive.

The only class I personally did not like was the Light Assault. I feel that players with good shots will be able to shoot it down quite easily and they give no teamate bonuses like the other classes. Matt Peters had a blast playing the light assault, but i personally couldn't get the hang of it. My current worry about Light Assault is that there is no benefit for teamates
Infiltrator: Spots, great long range suppression, sabotage(spec'ed out)
Heavy Assault: Tank + DPS
Engy: Repair MAX's, Turrets
Medic: Revive/Heal
Light Assault: Scouting? Surprise attacks.

From what i can tell Light Assault is really only good for scouting and surprising people. I'm not sure what role they would play when teamwork kicks in. I can now understand why they originally gave Light Assault Ammo packs.

How convenient was it to acquire vehicles? Are the pads only in bases, do they appear in every territory? What's the average time to get back into a fight like compared to infantry?

Ground vehicles where easy to get. They had a random resource amount, but it seemed like the only obstacle for us was a cooldown. Air vehicles seemed a bit tricky. All of the terminals where located at a higher spots in the buildings. I occasionally had trouble finding where to get air vhiecles. One time i spawned and tried to get a scythe, but couldn't reach the terminal. I changed my loadout to Light Assault so i could get up there. I'm guessing there is going to be some kind of elevator in the future that takes you up there, but that's how i had to do it. This was of course a building not even part of the area where we were suppose to fight. I was just trying to get an aircraft.

I have two questions.

A) Did you ever feel you died against someone only because he had another weapon/class regardless of whether who shot first or the starting Hp?

B) How was the sway on snipers? I heard there would be a cert to hold shift while scoped to reduce/remove the sway.

Edit: Almost forgot, How was the spotting?(If there was any)

A) That's a hard question to answer. I know that one time I was a Light Assault and it was tough killing a Heavy Assault. He had a powerful shield and stronger weapon and we where indoors. My jump jets didn't seem to help a whole lot there. Outside of that, the Medic + Engineer are going to be at a slight disadvantage 1 on 1 vs any other combat centric class. They don't have any special ability like stealth, shield or jump jets. That doesn't mean they suck, I definately took out a few people as a Medic, but I think players will be engaging in combat only when necessary as those classes. If im the only medic at a base, I wouldn't want to risk dying to anything.

B) I noticed the sway, but it was very minor. I was able to snipe without crouching by just running around. I saw a lot of snipers sitting on top of roofs and crouched, easy headshots for me. However, over long distances the sway and projectile speed seemed to have a large impact on my shots.

The spotting actually was very powerful. I wouldn't say its that important against infantry, even though you should be spotting anyway. But against Tanks, it pretty much gave my whole team intel.

Clegg kept reminding me to use it because i was new to the mechanic and kept forgetting lol.

[shadar]

Yeah the distance between being able to go without ADS seemed short to be honest. However it was entirely possible to go without ADS with most weapons up to I would guess about 30-40 feet. At about 50ft I was wasting about 20-30% of AR bullets on empty air instead of hitting the target. Using better controlled bursts would up that effective distance up by 20 feet, maybe 40 I would guess. I'm not a terribly effective player. ADS however was fluid to get into and out of and it was much more precise.

Were you tap or burst firing, stationary, strafing, or runing, what weapon were you using was it an assault rifle, smg or somthing else entirely?

[Synapse]

Were you tap or burst firing, stationary, strafing, or runing, what weapon were you using was it an assault rifle, smg or somthing else entirely?

It was emphasized repeatedly to me that weapon balance is really just starting, so I think you're digging into it too much. All of this will change and the info won't be helpful ot you.

I can say though that all the shooter mechanics you expect are there. I played a lot of the assault rifle and You can't spray and pray unless super close range, aimed or not. Expect to aim and the fire groups 2-4 at a time to be effective at the longer ranges.

As I said, don't dig on it too much, all the mechanics are there but the balance is only starting and will continue through beta.

Holding this post for my own write up of my experiences. I played about 4 times over 6 hours.

Met my clanmates from Future Crew, who all went drinking afterwards (i had to head back to meet friends at the hotel, damn). We had our part to play in the Vanu dominance that day, and I got a ride back with a another vanu from a "Warriors" clan. The vanu really showed the most organized players.


What I can tell you guys before i complete my writeup is the game is FUN. There were significant bugs in our build as others have said (else it would be released) but even in it's current state the game is a BLAST to play, and smooth. Our 30 minute sets went by in what felt like 5 minutes. You are absolutely doing the right thing waiting for this game, it's great.

[LegioX]

Can you please tell me about your experience flying?

1. How did the planes feel?
2. Can you freelook and do flying maneuvers at the sametime?
3. Do you have a 6 view? and if not how far back can you look?
4. Any energy retention on planes when you dive/climb?

Thanks. Good write up!

[GhettoPrince]

The light assault can flank, they find a high spot and drop grenades while firing down at you, by the time you get into a position to shoot back at them they've blasted off to a new spot.

Well, at least that's how I would play it, seriously, jet packs give you a lot of possibilities.

[GreatMazinkaise]

The light assault can flank, they find a high spot and drop grenades while firing down at you, by the time you get into a position to shoot back at them they've blasted off to a new spot.

Well, at least that's how I would play it, seriously, jet packs give you a lot of possibilities.

Don't forget jumping over a tank and dropping a boomer on top of it... that's bound to get done at some point.

[Comet]

I'd like to know more about the flight mechanics too! :)
Thanks for sharing guys :)

[cryosin]

Can you please tell me about your experience flying?

1. How did the planes feel?
2. Can you freelook and do flying maneuvers at the sametime?
3. Do you have a 6 view? and if not how far back can you look?
4. Any energy retention on planes when you dive/climb?

Thanks. Good write up!

1. I only flew the scythe for the most part. I tried flying a lib for a little and it felt like a really big helicopter. You have to plan where you're going to go. The scythe was really wierd. You could literally tilt it sideways and keep flying the same direction without loss of control. Very interesting and hard to get used to, but could be really powerful in the right hands.

2. I didn't see any way to free look, but i might not have known how.

3. Just cockpit view from what i saw.

4. Ya physics definitely had an effect on your vehicle.

[Comet]

By physics having an effect on your vehicle, do you mean that you actually gain momentum in a dive ect?

[Xyntech]

The scythe was really wierd. You could literally tilt it sideways and keep flying the same direction without loss of control.

I came.

[LegioX]

By physics having an effect on your vehicle, do you mean that you actually gain momentum in a dive ect?


Yes please elaborate more :)

[Khellendros]

Its not like Planetside where you are extremely vulnerable and someone walks by and kills you. It takes about 2-3 seconds and you can retreat right after a revive.

Hmm, I'm a little worried about that. Medics should be vulnerable while rezzing, it's part of how you balance it....

[LegioX]

I never played PS (wish i did) im not understanding the difference in medics. What? can they not be killed while reviving in ps2?

[cryosin]

Hmm, I'm a little worried about that. Medics should be vulnerable while rezzing, it's part of how you balance it....

Sorry let me elaborate:

In planetside 1, to revive you had to:
Get your med tool out. Look onto a corpse. And then after that it took a little over 5 seconds to revive. It also takes longer to switch weapons in planetside 1. So in total it was probably about 10 seconds before you had your weapon out and ready.

In planetside 2 its really easy to swap to a med tool, point at a corpse and in 3-4 seconds you are back in the action.

It may seem powerful, but the pace of the game is significantly faster than planetside 1.

[EightEightEight]

Sorry let me elaborate:

In planetside 1, to revive you had to:
Get your med tool out. Look onto a corpse. And then after that it took a little over 5 seconds to revive. It also takes longer to switch weapons in planetside 1. So in total it was probably about 10 seconds before you had your weapon out and ready.

In planetside 2 its really easy to swap to a med tool, point at a corpse and in 3-4 seconds you are back in the action.

It may seem powerful, but the pace of the game is significantly faster than planetside 1.

That's cool so it's not instant but it's not game breaking either

This is needed to get the gameplay flow going so that if you have medics they can work without pulling the entire game to a pause to get people up.

Since medic is a class and not something you cert you don't want to pull them out of the game for long periods of time. If they did no one would enjoy medic.

[Kran De Loy]

Oh that was RadarX? The guy who was greeting and talking to everyone outside?

@Radar: I was the guy who you kept asking if I was sleepy or not, and I responded with half asleep but really excited lol.

Edit: Oh never mind I thought you meant that guy(TR tags + PS2 shirt outside) was RadarX. Ya I don't think i met him =(

Yeah, that guy outside (I'm seriously bad at names >< ) said he was a Community Manager for Everquest and whenever SOE makes some convention him and Radar get roomed together. Always. Lols. Anyway he was outside the whole time, but when we were leaving we went over and talked to him a bit more since he was a super cool guy and he said that Radar should be like one of the first people we met once inside the building. I had no idea. T_T

Were you tap or burst firing, stationary, strafing, or runing, what weapon were you using was it an assault rifle, smg or somthing else entirely?+Can you please tell me about your experience flying?

1. How did the planes feel?
2. Can you freelook and do flying maneuvers at the sametime?
3. Do you have a 6 view? and if not how far back can you look?
4. Any energy retention on planes when you dive/climb?

Thanks. Good write up!


Burst firing mostly with some full auto spray, almost entirely stationary with some strafing Not enough for me to be able to tell the two apart, tho. Sorry. I only played twice (30 minutes each). Burst firing to me means 2-5 rounds per burst.

The first play through I went VS and liked pretty much everyone's weapons. The SMG had a little bit more spread, but a very high rate of fire compared to the HA's AR. I was basing my earlier numbers off of the HA's/Engi's rifles (Recap of the guesstimations: 30-40 feet no problems, 50 feet seeing moderate rate of missed shots, controlled tap bursts may increase the range +20-40 feet depending on customizations and player skill all without ADS). Got into a Mag once and shot down a Lib with the main cannon. Not too hard at only 100-150 yards, tho I do well at arcing projectiles.

The second play through I went NC just for the hell of it (population the second time with 2 of my friends and I going NC was 42% VS, 34% TR and 24% NC or something close to that). I found that while the NC LA SMG may have had more damage per shot the recoil and spread on their weapons are drastically increased. Same with the rifle variants on the HA and the Engi/Medic. They were just too spread out for my skill to handle. On this play through is when I got into the vehicles more than the infantry. The Vanny is a BEAST. I jousted with three different Prowlers in a solo vanny, got two of them and got ruined by the third. Jousted meaning that I ran the vanny past them while already spinning the main cannon turret to blow out their backdoors. Did the same thing to the second one before the third one finally got me. It probably would have been much more fair balanced if the Prowler pilots weren't incompetent. I also tried flying a Lib, but forgot to invert the mouse controls for air vehicles and ended up swinging up and down in the air for a good 2 minutes before I finally crashed.

Physics DOES have a major impact on all vehicles, ground, air and even the MAX I would say (sprinting takes a second to build up or slow down). The I'm not sure if I could say that the Lib built up a whole lot of momentum while diving so that the dive went faster, but pulling out of a dive sure was a fairly difficult accomplishment and sort of drawn out compared to leveling out of a climb.

[Comet]

Oh neat Kran - thanks! I know there was chatter about aircraft staying at a steady speed while diving and that didn't feel correct.

[Synapse]

You should all take Kran's discussion of what he played with a grain of salt. It was clear to me that everything was not only possible to change, but very likely to change between now and release and in many cases between now and beta.

Still a lot in flux people, what we should take out of this event is that the game is beautiful, fun, and in the right hands. I wouldn't stretch for more.

[ThermalReaper]

You said the recoil wasn't "at the miniumum". CAn you explain that more?

[Kran De Loy]

Edit: Who are you quoting Thermal?

You should all take Kran's discussion of what he played with a grain of salt. It was clear to me that everything was not only possible to change, but very likely to change between now and release and in many cases between now and beta.

Still a lot in flux people, what we should take out of this event is that the game is beautiful, fun, and in the right hands. I wouldn't stretch for more.

This is definitely true and I completely agree to that people shouldn't take just my word for it since I was having too much fun to really analyze the game. Also like I said with about the Aircraft, I didn't fix the controls before I got into one so it is entirely possible that I am mistaken about the physics. I'm going purely by memory and how it 'felt' without being able to actually test it by the numbers.

By the time I could get into another air craft the 30 minutes was up. Felt like more like 3 minutes. :(

[ThermalReaper]

Edit: Who are you quoting Thermal?


I could have sworn someone said the recoil wasn't at the miniumum. So rephrasing question, how's the recoil? Is it call of duty as rough as a slight wind change or A.V.A obnoxiusly hard to control or somewhere in the middle?

Edit: also, Was there the horrible mechanic of "Omg relaasdascadtic sun blinds you" because it's realstic and not for fun?

[Synapse]

I could have sworn someone said the recoil wasn't at the miniumum. So rephrasing question, how's the recoil? Is it call of duty as rough as a slight wind change or A.V.A obnoxiusly hard to control or somewhere in the middle?

Edit: also, Was there the horrible mechanic of "Omg relaasdascadtic sun blinds you" because it's realstic and not for fun?

I've posted this twice already and people aren't listening. Recoil. along with 90% of the gunplay is going to change so much between now and beta it wouldn't help you to know, so stop asking. >:(

[GreatMazinkaise]

I've posted this twice already and people aren't listening. Recoil. along with 90% of the gunplay is going to change so much between now and beta it wouldn't help you to know, so stop asking. >:(

Case in point, right now non-ADS CoF bloom is non-existent outside of movement.

[BlueSmiley]

Your wall of text makes me want to play even harder! :cry:


No, seriously. Great text, man! It's also wonderful to see that the developers are honest and close with the community. :)

[RadarX]

Yeah, that guy outside (I'm seriously bad at names >< ) said he was a Community Manager for Everquest and whenever SOE makes some convention him and Radar get roomed together. Always. Lols. Anyway he was outside the whole time, but when we were leaving we went over and talked to him a bit more since he was a super cool guy and he said that Radar should be like one of the first people we met once inside the building. I had no idea. T_T



Piestro is a trooper for staying out in the sun half the day talking with folks in the line. I was the guy who was letting all of you in and moving everyone out after 30 minutes (yes I was the good guy and the bad guy).

Developer participation was outstanding. A lot of those guys stuck around until the very end of the event.

[cryosin]

Piestro is a trooper for staying out in the sun half the day talking with folks in the line. I was the guy who was letting all of you in and moving everyone out after 30 minutes (yes I was the good guy and the bad guy).

Developer participation was outstanding. A lot of those guys stuck around until the very end of the event.

Ah so you're the guy who said "everyone but SOE's gotta go". It's okay you where very nice about it. I remember you said that when I really wanted to get that last kill, and you let me stay for a little bit without bothering me. I know how hard it is to be "that guy" but you did great.

Your wall of text makes me want to play even harder! :cry:


No, seriously. Great text, man! It's also wonderful to see that the developers are honest and close with the community. :)

NP man thanks a lot for reading it all. Just trying to freshen up my essay skills haha. Glad they aren't terrible :lol: .

[ThermalReaper]

Was there any signs of "relastic sun glare"?

[sylphaen]

One small question: does the med-gun use ammo for healing ? For revives ?

In short, will we run out healing/revives after a while unless we reach a supply point ?

[GreatMazinkaise]

One small question: does the med-gun use ammo for healing ? For revives ?

In short, will we run out healing/revives after a while unless we reach a supply point ?

For healing at least it seems to be infinite (displays ---/--- in the ammo display while Higby uses it in the latest Alpha footage).

[sylphaen]

For healing at least it seems to be infinite (displays ---/--- in the ammo display while Higby uses it in the latest Alpha footage).

Thanks.

We'll have to wait and see how it plays out but, a priori, I hope it will change to not being unlimited.

[Talek Krell]

There are pads at outposts and towers as well. Time varied depending on where your points were :D
So they are still planning on that? They seemed uncertain when you and Jenny went to Cali, so I didn't want to rely on it too much.
Ground vehicles where easy to get. They had a random resource amount, but it seemed like the only obstacle for us was a cooldown.
It sounds as though ground vehicles are pretty readily available. I'm trying to figure out if there's any real place for a Lodestar replacement, is why I have an interest. If it makes more sense for a group to just take a backlines tower and pull tanks, then there's not much reason to develop something like that.

Thank you for the write up and the Q&A incidentally, it's awesome to have a reasonably up to date picture of how everything is developing.


Unrelated:

One time i spawned and tried to get a scythe, but couldn't reach the terminal. I changed my loadout to Light Assault so i could get up there. This was of course a building not even part of the area where we were suppose to fight. I was just trying to get an aircraft.You know I've noticed some really odd structure design choices in the videos we've seen. Like the way the air pads on towers aren't connected to the base by a walkway, so the only way to get back to a landed plane would be to roll LA. I kind of hope that's temporary.

The scythe was really wierd. You could literally tilt it sideways and keep flying the same direction without loss of control.
Yesssssssss. :evil:

From what i can tell Light Assault is really only good for scouting and surprising people. I'm not sure what role they would play when teamwork kicks in. I can now understand why they originally gave Light Assault Ammo packs.Don't underestimate the value of those two things! I imagine the life of an LA will be short and glorious, jumping behind enemy lines, killing the engies, medics, and snipers supporting the front, and just generally making life hell for the enemy.

[wraithverge]

pretty sure the unconnected places are supposed to have teleport pads.

[DarknessOne]

Great read, thanks man!

[NapalmEnima]

And if those LA happen to have some C4 (something we saw in TotalBiscuit's very first PS2 video), suddenly then can do a lot more than take out the squishies in back.