Q. To Higby - new continents

[ringring]

Hello Higby, if you are reading this thank you.

Would it be possible to answer a question on the topic of new continents beyond Hossin for PS2.

Bearing in mind your recent quote on the number of weeks it takes to be able to create a 'good' outpost and the number of outposts there are to a continent:-

a) what do you expect the forward outlook is for additional continents including Battle Isles, Searhus and Oshur?

b) are you looking at ways and means to speed up the creation time for continents and would it be possible for you to let us into your thoughts on this?



Thanks

[Canaris]

well Searhus was slated as the next continent on the "to do" list after Hossin but since that was way back when who know's ;)

If they haven't done anything on Searhus the dev's should do something fun with the community and make a big thing about picking the next one for creation

There's all these to choose from
##Ceryshen - Winter Forest
##Forseral - Grassy plains woodlands, lakes, rocky peaks, wide beaches
##Solsar - Arid plains, cliffs, mountains, plateaus, oasis, rocky shores
##Cyssor - Rivers, hills, lakes,
##Searhus - Volcanic
##Oshur - Desert plains

[Gimpylung]

Forseral was my favourite PS1 continent.

Dagda Dagda Dagda

[Mastachief]

Taking the temp of both my outfit and the community around it that i know.

I have to say that in my opinion what ever comes next needs to be here by February that's 2015 not 2016 otherwise the game will likely have gone below the threshold of population thus making future development (Map wise) impossible due to lack of funds.

So any chance of battle islands (all 3) and *Insert Main Continent Here* before Feb2015?

Really 6 continents should have been the absolute minimum that this game should have had at release.

The sheep are restless, and other games are looming. What is absolutely unacceptable is that Hossin is only coming out now and not only that it isn't even close to being finished and Indar is in need of a redesign too. Also it seems that until Smedley gets involved nothing meaningful happens (Smedley asks for top 5 bugs and boom 1 week later 2 year old bugs are getting patched.)

[Gimpylung]

Yeah, I sincerely hope they don't sit on their laurels for months thinking they deserve kudos for delivering only the 4th continent a year and a half after launch. While I'm happy they are launching it, it's about bloody time.

This is a very critical phase in the lifespan of a typical MMO. Fizzle out after 2 or 2.5 years or sustain and continue to the 5year milestone.

After Hossin is launched they no longer have the big lump of content they were dangling like a carrot in front of players for so long, they need to at least write up a post-Hossin development plan i.e. they need to develop the next carrot so players know big things remain on the horizon.

[PredatorFour]

I'd like to see a new cont with less lattice flows/outposts and more open terrain to fight in. Aswell as being to cool to fight on, less channels to fight down will congregate the action and stop the ghosting whack a mole that will invariably happen when the pops are spread out across auraxis. Altho i admit we are yet to see how cont locking will play out and that will affect the fights.

[Baptist]

It all depends on how well PS2 is received on the PS4.

[Gimpylung]

It all depends on how well PS2 is received on the PS4.

True and I'm curious how their feedback will compare to the PC feedback

[Edfishy]

You'll get an indication of that soon as the PS2 beta starts on the PS4.

[Figment]

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02100/star16_2100637i.jpg

to

http://i.imgur.com/WvNhQ.jpg



What could go wrong?

[ZephyrBurst]

I'm thinking that some future continents don't need so many bases. A continent like what Esamir used to be where there were fewer bases spread out more could be a nice change. They don't need to change the existing continents, there's nothing really wrong with having the bases close together. They could get another continent or two out quicker if a few others simply had more space between those bases. Would also be a change in how fights are approached on those continents.

[Canaris]

I'm thinking that some future continents don't need so many bases. A continent like what Esamir used to be where there were fewer bases spread out more could be a nice change. They don't need to change the existing continents, there's nothing really wrong with having the bases close together. They could get another continent or two out quicker if a few others simply had more space between those bases. Would also be a change in how fights are approached on those continents.

yeah I agree some distance is needed between bases, the more interesting fights we had yesterday seem to take place at them, the minimum should be about if you know the Ziggurat in eastern Hossin from the base north (Zotz Agri) or South Nettlemire. That's a good decent range, some of the bases in the north and interior of the cont are very squeezed together.

Say if they are going to do a cont like Forseral with grass plains and woodlands / forests definitely reduce the outpost amount.

[ZephyrBurst]

Thinking about it now, one of the big complaints I've seen with Hossin are the bases being so close together, at least in some regions of the continent. Since Higby said about half the bases are unfinished, maybe they could remove a few of them, and adjust the nearby bases accordingly.

I agree about Forseral, and Searhus could use the same treatment of less outposts.

[ringring]

Well higby hasn't replied.

I'll try DM'ing the link ... edit DM doesn't work......

[ZephyrBurst]

I believe you have to be following someone on twitter to DM them there. Try the official forums if you'd rather not follow there.

[ringring]

Well it seems like they do have a way of creating continents more easily, by that I mean creating the bases and outposts that make up the continents, more quickly via copy+paste.

This is from the Hossin dev blog.
Stampables

To fill out the continent we decided to try out the concept of “stampables”. We took some bases iterated them extensively and “stamped” them out in a bunch of different places. This saved us significant time without losing the density of bases that we planned for. The bases on Hossin named “Construction Site <Greek Letter>” are our stampables.

It does seem their next intent is to go back and redo these 'stampables' so that they are unique bases and also to redesign the interlink.

This will clearly (I think) hold back development on other additional continents so I hope they don't go even more overboard on it.

[Stanis]

Well it seems like they do have a way of creating continents more easily, by that I mean creating the bases and outposts that make up the continents, more quickly via copy+paste.

This is from the Hossin dev blog.


It does seem their next intent is to go back and redo these 'stampables' so that they are unique bases and also to redesign the interlink.

This will clearly (I think) hold back development on other additional continents so I hope they don't go even more overboard on it.

They said at one point they were considering lifting Old Oshur from PS1 fairly intact.

It would be great if they 'stampabled' the whole additional continents thing.
Got 4 more out the door asap ..

then went back to iterating over perfect bases and tweaking.

Hell I really like the greek construction site bases.
PS1 was to samey.

PS2 could benefit from a bit of same.

[Baneblade]

Base/Outpost counts need to be cut at least 50% on all continents.

And if that isn't an option, merge some territories and just have them turn contested until an empire controls all the 'bases' in them. An example would be TI Alloys, The Crown, and Ceres into one territory.

Once faction ownership loses integrity in that territory, the territory becomes contested. Might make the map feel less frivolously small and condensed.

Also, increase the reward for territory control, but scale it based on the amount of time it took. If it only takes ten minutes to turn a territory's three installations to your side, you get less reward. If it takes hours, you get an alert smiting reward.

[Chefkoch]

Base/Outpost counts need to be cut at least 50% on all continents.
.

This !!

Less is more. In the Original we had less bases to capture but way more fun doing it.

I still can't believe why they "canceled" Planetside Next and made Planetside 2.

A simple Remake with the Forgelight Engine as it was planed would have been awesome.

[Rolfski]

Well higby hasn't replied.

I'll try DM'ing the link ... edit DM doesn't work......
Tbh I seriously doubt if Higby checks this forum any more. There was a post the other day where the devs announced they would use reddit as their main platform for interacting with the community.

[Baneblade]

Fuck reddit.

[Canaris]

latest WIP had a lot of kewl stuff about future continent design concepts and the challenges of doing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOarUSoSF2c


URBAN MAP *gush* ;)

repost of my thoughts after watching it.
OH PLEASE DO THE URBAN MAP!!
A good way going about doing a planned city for PS2 is to plan it out by district, each district would be unique style that can include facility benefits for the continent but from seeing that video Devin you can really cut a lot of normal corners by using the current assets and making it a very NS prefab city overall with less unique stuff but still retaining a fantastic new warzone layout.

Government/Administration district (The fancy real centre part of the city with the tallest buildings regular district: no benefit)
Manufacturing district (techplant district + benefit)
Airport/Dropship district (Unique new dropship center facility district + new benefit for air vehicles)
Storage (lots of shipping containers and warehouses: regular district)
Power Generation (amp station + benefit)
Outlying suburbs and Construction zones (surrounding the districts) each suburb/CZ can house a warp gates and be the maps boundary.
Parks (large lush grassy, tree"forested" and rocky areas with only a few buildings) open space design.

then you can build on what all districts need like a spawn room/"medical centres" or garages for vehicles, capture point layout.
Or you could break each district up into a few parts that work like the outposts/base territory control on the current continents.

What I wouldn't give to get my hands on your map designer program for awhile.

Hmm player studio map design....... :eek:

[Vanir]

well Searhus was slated as the next continent on the "to do" list after Hossin but since that was way back when who know's ;)

If they haven't done anything on Searhus the dev's should do something fun with the community and make a big thing about picking the next one for creation

There's all these to choose from
##Ceryshen - Winter Forest
##Forseral - Grassy plains woodlands, lakes, rocky peaks, wide beaches
##Solsar - Arid plains, cliffs, mountains, plateaus, oasis, rocky shores
##Cyssor - Rivers, hills, lakes,
##Searhus - Volcanic
##Oshur - Desert plains

##Ceryshen - Winter forest, cliffs

[Baneblade]

##Ceryshen - Winter forest, cliffs

***Ceryshen - Frozen Mordor

[Babyfark McGeez]

They should release the tools and do a competition against the community, who can design a whole continent faster? :P

Or without a contest, just give us the mapping tools and let us go wild, hell if we can organize us enough to come up with a full continent SOE might have a free continent.
I don't get why for all the "we are so involved with the community" talk we are not being given more opportunities and they are not tapping the skills of their players more...well aside from filling up their cash shop with helmets and camo tiles. But the quality of those helmets tell me they are missing an opportunity there (because most of them are damn good).

[Gatekeeper]

The player-created helmets aren't just damned good - they make the official helmets look totally amateurish in comparison. They should just let the community skin the game completely, I'm pretty confident the result would look a lot nicer ;)

Slightly more on-topic: I actually agree it'd make sense to give players access to map-making tools. A whole continent might be too big, but player-created battle isles could work - or failing that just a replacement base here or there, there's plenty of room on Hossin with all its placeholder bases.