What is a 4th Empire Player?

[JumpJetter]

Been hearing this term tossed around. What is it? Thanks in advance.

[Brusi]

A player who plays for the winning team, whomever that may be at the moment.

[Bocheezu]

A faction hopper that has no faction loyalty. They constantly switch to whatever faction is "winning." It causes a snowball effect where the faction that is slightly winning starts to gain more population and just steamrolls everybody. This issue has come about because there's no timer to switch factions now; compare this to PS1 where you had to wait several hours after a faction switch in order to switch again.

[JumpJetter]

Yeah, now I understand why people complain about multiple chars per server. Death to all Faction hoppers!:evil:

[RSphil]

happens in every game where you have multiple char's on the same server. very bad idea putting this in. more character slots would be nice but not same server.

[Jaged]

Wait I heard you could have multiple characters on the same server now, but also on different factions? That's just a terrible idea.

[Salad Snake]

Wait, you can do that now? They should have just added in server character migration for station cash.

I guess at least I can start a new character on Connery where I have my VS but all my friends play TR...

[Figment]

happens in every game where you have multiple char's on the same server. very bad idea putting this in. more character slots would be nice but not same server.

Due to server mergers coming, they'll have to.



That's exactly why I stated they should have had overcapacity of up to what, 30,000 players per server - even if the load was distributed over different servers (just figure out an universal, external database that can pull characters to different servers and pretend it is one big server while in fact it's clustered). >.>


Sure, at first there'd be multi-Amerish, etc. But that's a temporary thing. Meanwhile you'd guarantee server pop etc.

[Storn]

I also think this is a bad idea. In WWII online side flippers ruined each campaign chamging to the side that was winning (snowball in effect). A one hour timer at least should be in place.

[xuur]

Im going to have to go with the consensus here as to it being a bad idea at the core. frankly, I find it hard to come up with any sort of reasoning for more than a single character per server. with no dedicated class restriction, no transfer of "funds" or really even a different look to the avatars, the only reasoning behind it is to dodge from either a name/bad reputation or faction jumping.

none of which is reason enough (IMHO) to allow it.

[Alareth]

I guess at least I can start a new character on Connery where I have my VS but all my friends play TR...

If they play TR they aren't really your friends ;)



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[VaderShake]

Been hearing this term tossed around. What is it? Thanks in advance.

I thought you were referring to Smed talking about introducing a 4th faction invasion that the NC,VS, & TR would all have to battle with.

Faction jumpers I would call "Faction 0" because that is all they contribute to PS2....

[Mox]

There is no honor in playing more than one faction per server. Everybody who do it should be banned.

Edit: by the way there is no honor in playing something else than TR but what can we do... TR need something to kill. :D

[Tooterfish]

A lot of things continue to be changed per community input. Who was out of touch enough to request this?

[SGTHACK]

I play the three different factions on three different servers. I see nothing wrong with this. I have fun with each. I never look to play one because it is winning. I play for the epic battles each server can produce. It isn't fun for me to be with a steam roller. I love the even fights.

[Phantomdestiny]

we all know that the 4th empire is NS .Check out the last PS2 FPSgeneral video interview with the lead character art director to understand the reference

[AThreatToYou]

Well, I'm with the consensus of faction-hopping within a server being a terrible idea. Cross-server, it's OK.

[bpostal]

A 24/hr timer on switching at the very least.

[SGTHACK]

On the same server, no. I would never do that. That should have never been introduced to the game. It's an open door to cheating and other things....

[Ghoest9]

I play the three different factions on three different servers. I see nothing wrong with this. I have fun with each. I never look to play one because it is winning. I play for the epic battles each server can produce. It isn't fun for me to be with a steam roller. I love the even fights.

There is nothing morally wrong about it in the meta sense.

[Rivenshield]

Wait I heard you could have multiple characters on the same server now, but also on different factions? That's just a terrible idea.

Yeah. Before you had to have two clients installed, or be a double-boxer. This actually facilitates the 4th empire, rewards it, anoints it with oil. A 24-hour cooldown for empire swaps would merely ameliorate the problem, not solve it.

Little by little they are stripping away what they did right in order to placate the hordes of screaming children whose mantra is I WANT I WANT I WANT. I want convenience, I want speed, I want instant victory, I want free XP.....

It's perverse. They're putting this game into reverse gear. There's been some kind of.... sea change on the development team that is invisible to us. Some kind of political battle was lost, and we are only now seeing the visible fallout. Departmental politics. I've seen it before, and it is a son of a bitch.

[RSphil]

Due to server mergers coming, they'll have to.



That's exactly why I stated they should have had overcapacity of up to what, 30,000 players per server - even if the load was distributed over different servers (just figure out an universal, external database that can pull characters to different servers and pretend it is one big server while in fact it's clustered). >.>


Sure, at first there'd be multi-Amerish, etc. But that's a temporary thing. Meanwhile you'd guarantee server pop etc.

well not sure about server mergers. the EU ones have ques every night and seem well populated even during the day. we shall see, still a bad idea as it fucks up every game that has it due to glory hunters.

[ItZMuRdA]

Really strongly disagree with most of you guys. It's not that I condone faction hopping or jumping to the winning team -- no not at all, but I think a free to play game ought to allow this convenience and I think this change is a wonderful one.

Given you can just create a second account, the people who care enough to faction hop, grief, spy, or whatever you want to call it will do just that. The people who this was really hurting were people like me, who have been a part of the PlanetSide community for a decade now and have aligned themselves with many different people and outfits that I consider friends. It was a huge burden on legit players that just wanted to play with their friends who happened to roll opposing empires on a given server to have to make a second account to do so.

I've been playing all 3 empires since 2003, though I primarily aligned with NC in PS1 and VS so far in PS2. I never, ever, swapped empires because mine was doing poorly. If anything, I prefer playing for the underdog and helping them out where I can. Regardless, any empire switching I've ever done and ever will do will be because it's fun to play with different groups of people that I've considered friends for the past 9 years or more, never for any childish reasons like those cited in this thread.

I understand the point of the opposition to this change, but I really think that this is the right way to go, especially with a free to play model. It really is just a huge quality of life improvement for legitimate players like me who are big into the PlanetSide community, and hardly changes anything for those who would care enough to deliberately swap to a "winning" empire (i.e. they would do it anyway with a second account).

I really think this was a great change, SOE, perhaps my favorite change so far. I'd much rather this than a new weapon or something like that. It made me very happy to see it go live, and I know plenty of other PS1 vets that are in favor of it as well. If you disagree, give it some time, I highly doubt you'll notice any sort of a difference of empire influence on your server because of this, and in turn you'll be making a ton of people much happier to be able to play with more of their friends and outfits without the hassle of multiple accounts.

Cheers.

[Suitepee]

I fear the worst for allowing people to roll multiple characters on the same server WITH different factions without some kind of cooldown timer to be honest.

I do like the idea in that now I can try out all three factions on a heavily populated server (Miller) so I can test out faction differences and whatnot with action guaranteed, but I fear that we'll be seeing more and more people 'faction hopping' in this manner when the going gets tough.

I'd be happy to see some kind of timer, about an hour or so, between swapping characters of different factions on the same server.