Planetside 2 - Defeated Dreams?

[typhaon]

The following is quoted from Smedley's blog - less than a year ago...

"1) Player Owned bases - we plan on releasing continents that are empty or partially empty where players can build their own bases. These are open world bases so others will be able to attack them. We're also planning on having these continents heavily resource based with new resource types that will be very rare..and lots of cool new stuff that can be built out of these new resources.

2) Harvestable resources - imagine SC II style resource harvesting with physical vehicles doing the mining or the harvesting.

3) Water between continents - seamlessly - this is really hard tech, but our goal is to make the whole planet seamless and allow water based vehicles.

4) Lots more vehicles and weapons - just what it sounds like. Many of these will take very rare resources to make.

5) NPC enemies - I don't want to call this PVE. That's not exactly what we have in mind. More like a global invasion that goes after everybody. This isn't a bunch of quest givers saying "go kill 10 rats" - this is bad ass aliens that want to gut you.

6) NPC armies - imagine as the commander of a base sending an NPC army towards another base MOBA style except it's in the middle of the Planetside 2. This isn't another game mode. It's all part of the same game.

7) Esports support - we plan on doing this pretty soon after launch. We plan on making this a big big thing and putting a lot of our resources behind it.

8) Weather

9) Mac version (soon after launch)."

Of the 9... I think only #7 and #4 have been really addressed. #7 appears to have received the greatest attention... though we still have nothing working - hopefully soon.

We've definitely seen more weapons and a single new vehicle (we can debate their value to the game, elsewhere) - but it doesn't appear to be exactly in the manner Smedley was talking about... unless the rare resource he referenced was real world $$$.

#9 was ditched for the PS4?

The remainder... we've heard little to nothing about - and for my money, these were the type of really attractive/unique ideas that I thought could define PS2.

Whither the grand ideas?

[ringring]

#5 has been addressed?

and tbh I'm rather glad these have fallen by the wayside.

[Sentrosi]

When has Smed said the game will be finished? That's right. He never said that. Why? Because he knows that the game is ever-evolving. I'm sure a year ago those things were on the plate to be done and haven't gotten around to.

[Maginnis]

It happens... anyone recall Blizzard's plans for aerial combat in WoW which was outlined on one of the expansion boxes?

Things evolve, change, get scrapped, etc. No worries.

For the OP, I'd highly recommend listening to the X-Cast episode 3 with T-Ray (SOE Developer).

[Geist]

I thought all of that stuff was referring to their 5 year plan? Be patient, it hasn't even been a year yet and considering the continent revamps that have come and are coming, it's not like they're sitting on their asses.

[typhaon]

#5 has been addressed?

and tbh I'm rather glad these have fallen by the wayside.

Sorry, I meant #4 - I think that was clear from the continued description... but I'll edit.

Geist - I think he was referencing a 3-year plan. My concern is we've (I) haven't heard anything on the bigger ideas... or on replacements.

Sentrosi - Every MMO says those things... reality is that development will slow down, not speed up.

RingRing - I find it hard to believe you aren't interested in these ideas. Implants got your motor running?

Maginnins - I'll take a look.

[SixShooter]

Weather is the only one on the list that I really want to see but will probably never happen since it would probably slow everone's machines to a crawl.

[ChipMHazard]

I just think they've been focusing on the MLG part for now. We should be hearing about the other ideas soon enough, when they start focusing on meta gaming. I do doubt that we will be seeing or hearing anything about a weather system any time soon though, perhaps some time after the PS4 version's release.
I still don't want to see NPC armies unless they're a common threat for certain events.

[The Degenatron]

I missed the part where he said they'd have all of that in the game within a year after launch. Can you just go ahead and point that part out?

God forbid they have some long term goals. I know that for a lot of you "long term" is the span between breakfast and dinner, but most of these goals have a development schedule of years, not months. I imagine most of this is still written on a white board and a scratch pad somewhere around Smedley's or Higby's desks.

Higby had mentioned Searhus in a couple of interviews. I'd rather see that after Hossin rather than anything on that list.

At some point, people are going to catch on to the fact that this game is not carved in stone and that the version of Planetside 2 that will be running 5 years from now will look very different than the one we have now.

[Greenthy]

Tbh you got to give credit to the OP

Add this to the list btw:
Player made missions (I've heard it again a few months back, but still not much)


The thing is, the SOE team had all these ideas be their selling points/goals during beta / tech test to hype the crowd up.
That's something you normally don't do with things that'll eventually, someday, get implemented.

It's not the first time I think the SOE team talks before thinking.
Time and time again they say they're going to do something before they've even made the groundwork for it (decent brainstorm and making a workplan for it)


The same will happen with PS4:
At first you hear Higby say things like "The ps4 will have the same graphics", but 3min later on "having the same graphics is our goal". Here's my 10cents that's not going to happen :)
It feels like the pressconference was even before the entire team had but even looked at the PS4 or touched the coding...


Aside from the push to monetize everything (as compared to PS1), this is the one thing I dislike about the SOE dev team.

[Xaine]

Pretty standard cycle of 'Make promises for hype, release game that is unfinished'.

Makes me scared for EQ:Next.

[camycamera]

it is nowhere been 5 years since launch; we should be concerned when nothing has been delivered after 5 years, not now. they have a 5 year plan, and 1 year has not even past yet.

[Hamma]

Honestly, you can't expect all of these things in less than a year. Point by point:

Player Owned Bases - This has still been talked about and I'm fairly certain it's still on the roadmap.
Harvestable resources - I am disappointed we haven't at least heard SOMETHING about this. I think it has huge potential to be a fun metagame.
Water Between Conts - This honestly is a pie in the sky goal. The team has said they'd love to do this but it's extremely complicated.
Lots more vehicles and weapons - This implies a resource system and some sort of crafting the way he described it. Which would rely on #2 probably.
NPC Enemies - They have talked about this a bit.. but I honestly don't care if that ever makes it :lol:
NPC Armies - ditto to above
eSports - This obviously is well under way.
Weather - Haven't heard much on this recently at all.
Mac Version - Haven't heard much on this recently at all either.


So sure only a few have been "addressed" and I doubt 9 was scrapped for console, but if it was I wouldn't argue that decision.

[Lonehunter]

To me weather and "volumetric clouds" were a big selling point on graphics. PLANETSIDE 1 had weather! lol Yes it was shitty and people turned it off but the point is we have no indication they've put any resources, time, or even conversation into this topic. It was always mentioned with the day/night cycle (which barely exist) how you could move with the cover of clouds, or aircraft could go through them.

Hasn't been mentioned once since Alpha

Yes player owned bases have been touched on, but Smed's comments from the very first video interview talked about the tower in the PS2 reveal trailer. It had giant struts supporting it, and he pointed them out and kept hinting it landed there, that it was called down from above and deployed.....


I call BS....

[Mordelicius]

Pretty standard cycle of 'Make promises for hype, release game that is unfinished'.

Makes me scared for EQ:Next. The way they are hyping EQ: Next, I'm guessing it has buildable/destructible cities especially in frontier areas. What else could it be ? lol.

@OP, that's their long-term plan. And NPC stuff has been soundly rejected by the community as well. As for the weather, they've always said that they will add it as soon as every core elements have been in place and once the game is ready, performance wise (something to those effect, not verbatim).

I believe the last time it was mentioned was on FNO preview of the dome shields (I could me wrong :D ). But yeah, I doubt they would implement it soon.

[ChipMHazard]

Hasn't been mentioned once since Alpha


Incorrect. TRay mentioned that weather is still a planned feature to be added in some time after the PS4 version's release.

[kubacheski]

The way they are hyping EQ: Next, I'm guessing it has buildable/destructible cities especially in frontier areas. What else could it be ? lol.

@OP, that's their long-term plan. And NPC stuff has been soundly rejected by the community as well. As for the weather, they've always said that they will add it as soon as every core elements have been in place and once the game is ready, performance wise (something to those effect, not verbatim).

I believe the last time it was mentioned was on FNO preview of the dome shields (I could me wrong :D ). But yeah, I doubt they would implement it soon.

NPC's is not part of PlanetSide in any shape or form. A large attraction to PS, my mind, is that you can't "practice" in PlanetSide. You actually have to go out and match youself against a player. PVP at its finest as that's all there is. There is no option to grind exp on mobs, you have to grind your exp on real people.

Now for the 5 year plan and such, it's a given that MMO's change over time, but it's another issue completely to hype up all of the things you are going to do with the game, release it at say 50% (I'm being really generous there) and then instead of following your defined roadmap, you fix a couple of known bugs and develop towards what's making the most money. (I get it, SOE is a business. I really do get it, but be a little more honest about it ffs. You're not dating me, SOE, so you don't have to lie to me.) If the game were at 80+% i doubt there would be the complaints of posts like this one, so hype is an accurate description.

A few too many EVE comparisons and a few too many "we're gonna do (this)" from the devs when it should have been phrased as "we could do (this)".

I really hate to say it, as it will bring up the old "bitter vet" topic, but we were once told that PS2 would be better than PS1. It's not. Talk about defeated dreams. I wish they would have had the time and ability to be able to do PS:Next (graphics update to PS1), then try all of this bullshit with PS2 and ForgeLight.

I really am hoping for EQ:Next to be worthwhile now that they're describing it as "the biggest sandbox ever". I worry about that as so many titles in the past few years have had trouble with the sandbox design. Maybe they'll test player built structures and areas in PS2 before releasing it in EQ:Next. Only time will tell.....

[typhaon]

I'm not sure NPCs have been soundly rejected by the community. I think it would depend what they look like and how they are implemented.

I think very few would want anything along the lines of NPCs to farm for XP, but beyond that...

I could certainly see how NPCs sprinkled throughout bases, or used in some capacity as tools for the players, would flesh out the world. I certainly can't see SOE pulling off RIFT-style events that were actually fun and well done... but if they were, I can't see most players not like them.

I did see T_Ray mention weather and "destruction" - as things they are interested in down the road. Glad to see it brought up... though he was clear this was after quite a lot of other stuff... Russia, Brazil, MLG, to name a few... I thought "destruction" (i assume he's talking about objects) was an interesting comment, as I DO believe it's going to be very hard for PS2 to make any kind of AAA claims as we move down the road.... despite the size of the conflict... this feature almost already IS... and will certainly BE a feature in the BF4 and beyond. PS2 is certainly going to look 'old' when the only game objects that explode are turrets, terminals, and generators.

[Angrytortoise]

I vaguely remember an interview a while ago that mentioned the implementation of weather and why it wasn't apart of any of their more immediate plans.

I'm pretty sure the performance hit it would bring is a large part of why this isn't being mentioned much. In a game that has a a lot of performance issues as it is even with very high end machines, I think they figured there wasn't a lot of point trying to push out something like that until they had better optimization overall. I would hazard a guess that this is likely something we will almost certainly see in the future though.

[wasdie]

Actually a mac version would be much more viable after the PS4 because the PS4 is going to be using an OpenGL based renderer, not DirectX.

[Rolfski]

I'm pretty sure we will eventually see all that stuff there but more like in 3 years with PvE probably latest on the list. PvE was down voted by the community so for them to go ahead with it means they better present a good plan for it.