Twitch
2003-04-12, 12:09 PM
Just read this -
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I was in the beta for quite a while, as were a few others in the crowd, so maybe we can give a better perspective of what the game really is.
It's really not MMOG CounterStrike. I really liked the game for about 2 weeks, and then it just got really stale. I guess DaoC RvR flashbacks, with bases switching sides constantly, and the benefits of capturing them being, well, nothing that made me want to keep playing.
The levelling system is fairly insignificant, in the beginning you specialize in one or two things, as you gain exp/levels, you can broaden your character, but you never gain anything that someone else can't take on day 1, you just become more versatile. So while in the beginning you may be able to drive one vehicle, and use medium weapons, and fly one aircraft, later on you can pick up different vehicles, or add a different weapon specialization; sniper or anti-vehicle, or pick up an aircraft cert, or a transport cert, you get the idea.
The no hitzones was a huge turnoff, that whole twitch skill thing from Quake/CS was pretty nonexistant. Fights were usually kill 2-3 people, die, respawn, kill 2-3 people, rinse repeat til one side just got bored to tears and moved to a different area. When you die, you respawn at the closest base in your control to where you died. Late in beta they allowed you to spawn in towers (Which are normally right next to bases), so it turned the fights into endless swarms of people just throwing themselves at you, it was a little better than the slow pace of the earlier builds, but it takes a lot away from the strategic aspects of the game. When you kill someone, they're (in a lot of cases) about 30 seconds away from being back in the action.
The graphics are top notch, and the world is huge, but if the servers can handle the amount of people they'll need to have the entire world busy may be a big issue. Lag was never a problem for me, and even in fights with 100+ people, I never had a problem. But we also ran beta with less than 1k people on for the most part, and with 7? continents, you could easily fit 5 times that into the world and not have a serious crowding problem.
So, I'd anticipated playing PS with the normal 4 friends I play CS with every weekend. Instead of paying a monthly fee, I think we're just going to stick with CS.
I think it's a great game, if there wasn't a monthly fee, I'd have no problem playing it. Unfortunately, I don't think the gameplay has the longevity, or replayability to balance out 10-12$/month. While I can sit down and waste an evening in AC2, EQ or DaoC, I have a hard time playing PS for more than an hour at a time, but I have that problem with most FPS games, so it could just be me.
Anyways, it definitely isn't something I'll be playing after release, but I'm sure it will appeal to some people, so hopefully some of the others that have played it already can share their opinions of the game.
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So, as a relative noob and in celebration of the just released NDA just 2 general questions -
- Is the respawn close enough to the combat zone that dying effectively has nil penalties?
- Are there no effective bonuses / any point in capturing and holding a continent?
The reason I ask is that I was thinking that Planetside would be a strategy RPG FPS rather than, well a MMPFPS. If death has no attrition effect and ground control has no overall strategic effect you might as well be playing CS with resets every 5 minutes - hoping hes wrong.
-------------
I was in the beta for quite a while, as were a few others in the crowd, so maybe we can give a better perspective of what the game really is.
It's really not MMOG CounterStrike. I really liked the game for about 2 weeks, and then it just got really stale. I guess DaoC RvR flashbacks, with bases switching sides constantly, and the benefits of capturing them being, well, nothing that made me want to keep playing.
The levelling system is fairly insignificant, in the beginning you specialize in one or two things, as you gain exp/levels, you can broaden your character, but you never gain anything that someone else can't take on day 1, you just become more versatile. So while in the beginning you may be able to drive one vehicle, and use medium weapons, and fly one aircraft, later on you can pick up different vehicles, or add a different weapon specialization; sniper or anti-vehicle, or pick up an aircraft cert, or a transport cert, you get the idea.
The no hitzones was a huge turnoff, that whole twitch skill thing from Quake/CS was pretty nonexistant. Fights were usually kill 2-3 people, die, respawn, kill 2-3 people, rinse repeat til one side just got bored to tears and moved to a different area. When you die, you respawn at the closest base in your control to where you died. Late in beta they allowed you to spawn in towers (Which are normally right next to bases), so it turned the fights into endless swarms of people just throwing themselves at you, it was a little better than the slow pace of the earlier builds, but it takes a lot away from the strategic aspects of the game. When you kill someone, they're (in a lot of cases) about 30 seconds away from being back in the action.
The graphics are top notch, and the world is huge, but if the servers can handle the amount of people they'll need to have the entire world busy may be a big issue. Lag was never a problem for me, and even in fights with 100+ people, I never had a problem. But we also ran beta with less than 1k people on for the most part, and with 7? continents, you could easily fit 5 times that into the world and not have a serious crowding problem.
So, I'd anticipated playing PS with the normal 4 friends I play CS with every weekend. Instead of paying a monthly fee, I think we're just going to stick with CS.
I think it's a great game, if there wasn't a monthly fee, I'd have no problem playing it. Unfortunately, I don't think the gameplay has the longevity, or replayability to balance out 10-12$/month. While I can sit down and waste an evening in AC2, EQ or DaoC, I have a hard time playing PS for more than an hour at a time, but I have that problem with most FPS games, so it could just be me.
Anyways, it definitely isn't something I'll be playing after release, but I'm sure it will appeal to some people, so hopefully some of the others that have played it already can share their opinions of the game.
---------
So, as a relative noob and in celebration of the just released NDA just 2 general questions -
- Is the respawn close enough to the combat zone that dying effectively has nil penalties?
- Are there no effective bonuses / any point in capturing and holding a continent?
The reason I ask is that I was thinking that Planetside would be a strategy RPG FPS rather than, well a MMPFPS. If death has no attrition effect and ground control has no overall strategic effect you might as well be playing CS with resets every 5 minutes - hoping hes wrong.