Is there going to be a major storyline in this game ever?

[OpolE]

I might have missed Core Combat or caught some other event once in PS1 but the patch was massive and at the time I remember as a kid and there was a bit of a story line with Osher splitting.

Does anyone see anything exciting happen or should we just keep on playing Call of Planetfield 2?

[Taramafor]

Story? In Planetside? And 2? Bzzt. Error. Does not compute.

[Sarloh]

Hard to say. There isn't one planned and we have a lovely lore written for Planetside 2.

Come to think of it, Planetside is ran by players and the people in it so I wonder how would dungeons and quests work. Possibly say; kill 12 Vanu to get a new 50 page essay about the quest's story?

[OpolE]

Bring in a planet like Oshur that has a storm and another planet evolves. Or Make hossin go mental and spawn another planet FUCK KNOWS

[Figment]

That's not story, that's filler to explain changing content.

[KesTro]

Space President KesTro here.

My fellow Auraxians, I would like to assure you that there is very much a story in motion on Auraxis. You can witness the brunt of the movement on the Connery sector of this galaxy. As you space president I vow to clean up the chemical spills on Amerish, develop Hossin into a nice suburban neighborhood. We will cease the drilling of space oil on Esamir and instead move to hydrogen powered machinery (Vanu approval pending).

It is worth mentioning that under my presidency every friday will be Mini Skirt friday*




*Effective to Vanu only.



KesTro 2016: A cleaner Auraxis!

[Babyfark McGeez]

Hard to say. There isn't one planned and we have a lovely lore written for Planetside 2.

Come to think of it, Planetside is ran by players and the people in it so I wonder how would dungeons and quests work. Possibly say; kill 12 Vanu to get a new 50 page essay about the quest's story?

You don't need quests nor dungeons to convey a story though. :p

I would have loved this allready in PS1. Imagine faction specific sanctuaries with NPCs milling about from the lore of planetside, that you can ask about the lore or some general tips. Just like the main cities in WoW, in my short stay there i loved to hang around ironforge between battlegrounds, so immersive.
And the factions need iconic figureheads anyways, i have no idea who my boss in the vanu or tr is - hell i barely know why we are fighting in the first place - and i first started playing a planetside game in 2004. The whole mmo aspect beyond "shooting dudes", from immersion to social interaction, was allready paper thin in PS1 and in PS2 it is just totally and completely non existent.

This game has screamed for a hub area from day one, you can put all your tutorial and mess-around stuff there, players know where to meet up, it adds a shitton of immersion and you can use it to tell your story.

That is if you have a story...or an idea what you are about or what you want...beyond "hazcashshopisfreewereallyneedmoneyguyz"...

At this point i would allready be happy if they removed the stupid out of bounds areas though. That would be a phase one. :p

[Blynd]

That's kind of what ps1 had in the sanctuarys. But npc's no thanks and if you want to know why we are fighting read the lore section of these forums it has the official back story for ps2 in there.

[Babyfark McGeez]

I know all that story jizz, that wasn't my point. My point was that planetside allways sucked in conveying the setting and story...PS2 just sucks more at it.
Infact PS2 just flat out misses ANY form of context to the "shooting in the face" which is why i still hesitate to really call it a MMOfps.

And your grumbling "npcs not want. read story on usermade forums" really doesn't do the topic justice.
What does a bunch of figurehead npcs in sanctuaries hurt anyways? Right, it doesn't, all it would do is add atmosphere and context, which after engaging game mechanics are the two most lacking aspects of PS2.
I'm sorry, how can you possibly argue against a bunch of "lore" npcs standing around who wouldn't affect you in the slightest?

[Figment]

The thing that throws people in a fit with NPCs is that they fear combative NPCs messing up PvP gameplay and interfering with squad gameplay through random deaths in an already inhospitable combat environment. Or otherwise chew up framerate and keep coders busy with less essential stuff.

But that isn't the kind of NPC proposed here...

[Babyfark McGeez]

Absolutely not. What i was talking about here is basically an animated object that can be interacted with. Best comparison would be the big shots in WoW standing in the main cities.
They wouldn't do anything, but you could get game tips or some story background. And if that would impact the performance just delete one of the way-too-many terminals in the warpgates.

[ringring]

To be honest I'm struggling to understand why you need a storyline.

[Rivenshield]

To be honest I'm struggling to understand why you need a storyline.

Oh come on. One of the things that sets apart PS from the competition is how nationalistic people get about their faction. A brief 'Why We Fight' video in each sanctuary -- if we HAD sanctuaries -- would be awesome.

They wouldn't even have to change that much from link related for the Terran Republic. :rofl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTz9nIUkGc

[ringring]

Oh come on. One of the things that sets apart PS from the competition is how nationalistic people get about their faction. A brief 'Why We Fight' video in each sanctuary -- if we HAD sanctuaries -- would be awesome.

They wouldn't even have to change that much from link related for the Terran Republic. :rofl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTz9nIUkGc

I never got partisan because of the storyline. I was partisan because I would be fighting alongside friends and colleagues.

The storyline was fiction whereas friends and colleague was reality.

And of course the annoyance of repeatedly bumping into X outfit from the other side who would try and often succeed in thwarting your plans.

[Taramafor]

Maybe a menu which has vids and text of the lore. Surely that's possible.

[Babyfark McGeez]

To be honest I'm struggling to understand why you need a storyline.

Truth be told i don't really care that much for a story.
But i'm a sucker for virtual worlds. Living, breathing, immersive virtual worlds that make you feel like you are a part of it.
PS1 allready was fairly thin in those regards aside from the player stuff (conveying emotions via macros and animations for example).

PS2 on the other hand barely even has a virtual world (out of bounds bullshit), let alone a living and breathing one (I noticed they now have one moving prop though, a fan. Hooray!).

Imo creating a (somewhat) believable (breathing living, immersive - hehe) world is one of the most important things when making a MMO. Immersion is the key word here. That's why i liked WoW, even though i'm not a MMORPG player. Those guys created a fantastic virtual world.
SOE didn't create a shitty virtual world, they didn't create a virtual world period. They made some maps.

[Figment]

And of course the annoyance of repeatedly bumping into X outfit from the other side who would try and often succeed in thwarting your plans.

:groovy:

:3

[Figment]

Truth be told i don't really care that much for a story.
But i'm a sucker for virtual worlds. Living, breathing, immersive virtual worlds that make you feel like you are a part of it.
PS1 allready was fairly thin in those regards aside from the player stuff (conveying emotions via macros and animations for example).

PS2 on the other hand barely even has a virtual world (out of bounds bullshit), let alone a living and breathing one (I noticed they now have one moving prop though, a fan. Hooray!).

Imo creating a (somewhat) believable (breathing living, immersive - hehe) world is one of the most important things when making a MMO. Immersion is the key word here. That's why i liked WoW, even though i'm not a MMORPG player. Those guys created a fantastic virtual world.
SOE didn't create a shitty virtual world, they didn't create a virtual world period. They made some maps.

The original PS1 concept intended to have some NPCs that would either just graze or prey on other AI, but also to hunt players away from battle. The intention was that there'd be herds that for instance would flee for combat. But also birds large enough to interfere in the skies. They scrapped most of that.

Personally, what I like about the world like you have in say a single player game like FarCry 2 is that the world itself breaths life. That there's something other than war going on too. The story itself is bullshit and uninteresting and the things like finding diamonds complete and utter meh.

But PS1 only had the Monoliths. And I liked that sort of history to a random spot. Simple little things like markers in PS2 that explain why this territory is called the way it is called would already give a place some history.

But beyond that, yes, things like kitchens, toilets, labs, etc, they make the buildings feel built for people to live and work in. Especially in large bases, you'd expect such things. If you need NPCs there... Not really. But alien animals roaming the countryside would be good IMO. Though I'd refrain from having them attack players.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Yeah, there is this one page full of nice pics and infos from one of the former PS1 devs (i assume you know that one), loved skimming through it.

And i like your idea about having some info about the territories, that's exactly the "spirit" i would expect from true (MMO) world-building. As i said, in PS2 we don't have a world, we have maps. And the bases look like your run-of-the-mill prop clutter without much thought put into it.

BUT, credit where credit is due, maybe they are getting a bit better in that regard. I noticed a base on hossin that felt like a real place simply by using exisiting assets in a clever manner; "Genudine Holographics". Check it out, that place felt convincing and not like prop clutter. The "treehouse" bases and the "dam" are also not bad.
Aside from those exceptions though they might aswell just put "construction sites" everywhere, why handcraft 42398478392 bases when they just look like random assets glued together?

[Gimpylung]

SOE were never good at lore, 'The Bending' anyone? It's pointless anyways, as someone else stated above, it's just an attempt to explain gameplay.

Higby and T-Ray decals, novelty car horns; explain that with lore.

Some kind of urban cityscape battle island in the works. Components of which are in the PTS client, it includes sections that look like highway overpasses. Such a city would imply a corresponding civilian population on Auraxis at some point and would have significant impact on the existing lore.

http://imgur.com/a/MhQim

I'm not in any way against such a landscape from a gameplay perspective but is there any point making up some paper thin lore to explain it.

My 'lore' is all the community drama that goes on, Dramaside essentially, it just keeps on giving.

'LOL Drama' to quote Ocelli from a long time ago.