Poll Is it A flop or a long laster

[nsain00]

Enter your thoughts... Do you think that planetside will be a long laster like everquest or a flop like motor city online which only lasted for a year... Do you think it was over hyped and now people are seeing that its not as good as they thought....

[1024]

We wont know for sure unitl after a few months or so after now, aka release.

[Skitz]

IFit flops, it could never flop as much as MCO.

[Jaged]

I don't see how this could flop. I personaly have never enjoyed a game as much as this.

[RUEN]

It will definately not flop as long as SOE keeps adding things (ala EQ expansion) there will always be something new for people to try out. but they really do need to add an objective or two... just something like world domination... then the server resets...

[Stregone]

I doubt it will flop, some peopla get addicted to this crap too easily.

[SC385]

i dont think it will because infantry has been out for several years and i'm pretty sure its still going strong.

[Lise]

A friend tells me Jumpgate has only a 100 or so active members left and it's STILL around. EA only closed MCO because they can't stand to have something that isn't as big as EQ (which means E&B is on the chopping block too, despite what they may say.)

I suspect PS will be around for some time to come. As it stands we have at least 15,000 users on every night (if I'm doing my dot math right.)

[Skitz]

Of course, when other companies jump on the MMOFPS bandwagon, there will probably be something as good as/better than Planetside that will attract people. Market competition must always be taken into account :)

[Jaged]

Yes but PS is the orignal. EQ wouldn't be around if it osent the first one out. There are better MMORPG's, but EQ is still near the top because it came out first. I hope this happens with planetside.

[TekDragon]

Yes but PS is the orignal. EQ wouldn't be around if it osent the first one out. There are better MMORPG's, but EQ is still near the top because it came out first. I hope this happens with planetside.

Cmon Jaged, think. The reason why EQ is still popular due to its being first is because its a MMRPG. People devoted hundreds upon hundreds of hours to their charachter. Of course they wodnt want to leave.

Comparing EQ to PS is silly, at best. PlanetSide is a game you can log onto and do some random stuff and none of it will matter. Charachter development simply doesnt exist. SOE has said they do not see experience and charachter development as a means of getting people to stay.

This means the only way people will stay in PlanetSide is if it offers the most bang for the buck. In my opinion, it does not. I have played Tribes, Tribes 2, and HalfLife for years. I will continue to play them (and/or their sequels) for years to come? Why?

1. Modding. Modding and the competition between mods provokes great gaming opportunities inside the game itself. Even if I get tired of playing Tribes 2 base (which will never happen) i can always go over to a Meltdown, Shifter, Renegade, or UltraRenegade mod.
2. Price. I payed 40-50$ for those games. Nothing more. They havent asked for a single dime in addition.
3. The game design of Tribes and HalfLife made player skill a huge requirement. You hear about people training for days and days on counterstrike. Why? Becuase practise = skill = advantage. PlanetSide simply isnt that well made. The weapons are all cookie cutter. Player skill, while playing a part, does not play a LARGE part. The game design focuses more on rock/paper/scissors then it does player skill.

To sum up these reaosn and put in my own opinion: I believe PlanetSide will flop. I believe it will flop for the same reason Ashersons Call 2 flopped. Great graphics with little content coupled with a high box AND a high monthly fee do not equal a lasting consumer market.

SOE has given us a FPS. A FPS that has less content then games released years ago. A FPS that is less inspired than games released years ago. A FPS that has very little going for it besides pretty graphics and the advantages that a massively multiplayer game entails. SOE has also given us a beta. A beta that crashes consistently and constantly on a relatively large amount of machines. A beta that has little to no compatability with one of the most popular video cards out there (the Radeon9700 Pro). A beta that they expect us to pay $50 for plus $150 a year.

I wasnt even able to play my copy of the game. I can pick any other graphic intensive game off the shelf and put it in and play with max settings. PlanetSide i can take 3 steps and my PC hardlocks. I have played it on my nephew's computer at my brother's house. The gameplay is entertaining. However, after having played it for 4 days straight my nephew (14yrs old) has already given up on it and is playing Ragnorak (i have no idea what it is). I asked him why, he said PS is boring. Yesterday i caught him playing Soldat. A free multiplayer shoot-em-up with piss poor graphics but a heavy emphasis on player skill. He was having a blast. The PS CDs were on the floor next to his desk. That alone speaks volumes. This kid played CnC Generals and WarCraft 3 for months. He still enjoys getting his ass handed to him by me on Tribes 2.

PS will flop, in my opinion. It charges too much for too little. Screwing the consumer is an old Sony habit ive experienced first hand since the axeing of 10six a MMFPS they released years ago (despite claims that PS is the 'first' MMFPS) that had a large following that disentigrated on the realization that Sony was charging them top dollar for a game that simply did not have enough content (despite having at LEAST 20-30x the content of PS).

Draw your own conclusions.

[Lise]

Originally posted by TekDragon
PlanetSide is a game you can log onto and do some random stuff and none of it will matter.

This is an argument I keep hearing and it really jerks my chain. This is different from other games how? In Halflife/Tribes/etc., the game is reset after every round. In EQ (to follow the example Jaged beat me to), you might get your character further but you don't affect the world at all. EQ's word is completely static - there is nothing you can do to change the world (unless you're willing to shell out $40 a month, from what I've heard.)

In PS I can help take bases, conquer continents. It might not last forever, but it DOES matter, even if for a little bit. I help secure my own empire's territory so that more of our forces can go on the offensive, or I help with an offensive so that my empire can once again claim dominance and bragging rights for that day.

As far as player skill goes... you've barely played the game. How can you even make that judgement? Surge-rushing, crouch-bursting, surveying the terrain during an AMS hunt... there is so much more to this game skill-wise than you think, and while I'll admit not all of it involves lining up pixels perfectly, I have to wonder if that's really such a bad thing.

As a final word... I don't mean to knock your nephew, but I haven't seen a lot of pre-and-early teens in this game yet; I think it's because many of them don't have the patience for long-term teamwork. Just a thought.

[TekDragon]

This is an argument I keep hearing and it really jerks my chain. This is different from other games how?

Your 100% correct. Its not different. There-in lies the problem.

In EQ (to follow the example Jaged beat me to), you might get your character further but you don't affect the world at all. EQ's word is completely static - there is nothing you can do to change the world

Your not changing the world one bit in PlanetSide either. I, as Terran Republic, could capture a base and hold it for one second, one hour, one month, or one year. It wodnt matter. There is no end-game. I could capture that base twice or two thousand times. None of it matters.

If you have ever played a good game of Tribes 2 you would understand whats lacking. People put their 'all' into a match of Tribes 2. A person would gladly sit in the gen room for 45 minutes waiting for the occasional enemy to try and crack it. Why? Because in the end you got the message "Red team WINS!". I would see the text bar filled with excited exclamations of glee or dismay when a game ended. People knew that what they had done directly influenced that win.

Im not saying that PS should have an end game like Tribes 2. If you get that impression your going in the wrong direction. The point is there is NOTHING holding you into the game other than the simple fun factor. ALL games have a fun factor, however, they also have other things that hold us in. EQ had charachter development. You may say thats nothing but try telling someone with a level 70 wizard to delete it and start over cause its 'nothing'. Youll get placed on his ignore list so fast itll make your head spin. Tribes 2 has something other than the simple "fun factor". It had the ability to win or lose a game based on your actions. What does PlanetSide have besides its basic "fun factor"? What keeps you playing? Once i get tired of the thrill of capping someone in the head why will I stick with this game (requiring 150$ a year) over a game like Tribes 2? Simple.. nothing.

As far as player skill goes... you've barely played the game. How can you even make that judgement? Surge-rushing, crouch-bursting, surveying the terrain during an AMS hunt...

Those are all tactics. Yes. But they involve no skill. They are simply what I called them, tactics.

In Tribes 2 ANYONE can use a jumpjet. ANYONE can use a disc laucher. ANYONE can hit the jump key. Those are all tactics. Ski-jumping down a hill, hitting the jump jet to fly 80mph, skimming off another hill to gain altitude, firing off a disc launcher (a projectile with noticibale speed), and hitting someone who is a mere 10 pixels tall on your screen who is also moving 80mph is SKILL. It takes PRACTISE.

PlanetSide will NEVER have that level of skill. In PlanetSide ANYONE can crouch. ANYONE can use burst fire. Thats it. Period.

As a final word... I don't mean to knock your nephew, but I haven't seen a lot of pre-and-early teens in this game yet; I think it's because many of them don't have the patience for long-term teamwork. Just a thought.

You thought wrong. Judging someone like that just because they are younger than you is ignorant. My nephew (Tony), may not have the real life experience i do. He may not have quite the level of maturity i do. He does, however, have enough maturity to play a FPS in a MM environment. Any kid that can get to a level 70 something agent in Anarchy Online has plenty of patience and focus.

He didnt stop playing because "Its too hard" or "Its too confusing". No. A one armed monkey could play this game. He told me it was boring. He was sick of capping the same damn base over and over and over again and never getting anywhere.

When he plays me in CnC Generals he puts his all into it. He knows the game has a point to it. He knows if he jerks around and does nothing i will win the match. In PlanetSide there isnt a feeling of that. I can sympathize with him. Im not mad hes not playing a game i spent $50 on for him. If anything im mad at myself for not following my gut instinct that this game was all flash and no content (like Asherons Call 2) and not doing research do determine if i was right (like i did with Asherons Call 2).

[Incompetent]

In PlanetSide ANYONE can crouch. ANYONE can use burst fire. Thats it. Period. anyone could fuck it up and have a bolt in their head too because they didn't know when it was safe to shoot and when to sprint to cover. Anyone can drive an AMS (well, not technically but realistically), anyone can park one, anyone could put one in a fucking horrible spot and turn a practically garanteed cap into a pathetic fighting retreat across a continentI, as Terran Republic, could capture a base and hold it for one second, one hour, one month, or one year. It wodnt matter. it does if you don't have to have your victories spoon fed to you, for me, knowing that somewhere in the world there is a barney pulling his hair out because of what my squad did is enough.Those are all tactics. Yes. But they involve no skill. They are simply what I called them, tactics. Skill is not limited to twitch, just because for the first time you don't automatically win because you have the most caffine in your system doesn't mean the game takes no skill.

[Lise]

... A person would gladly sit in the gen room for 45 minutes waiting for the occasional enemy to try and crack it. Why? Because in the end you got the message "Red team WINS!". I would see the text bar filled with excited exclamations of glee or dismay when a game ended. People knew that what they had done directly influenced that win.

...It had the ability to win or lose a game based on your actions.

I could leave the tower I'm guarding just to go get some action inside the base, and oh hey, a ninja hacker nails the tower and 30 of his friends waiting to spawn in suddenly do so. The actions of a single person can CERTAINLY influence the outcome of a battle in Planetside. And I've seen the broadcast channel flood after winning a hard-fought battle.

I think one of your problems is that you're too used to having the "end" of a game spelled out to you. In CS/BF1942/T2/what have you, each game has a set beginning and end. You are right in that it doesn't work that way in PS - if one side were to "win", then the game would end and we know that an MMOG cannot end. You have to break your victories down - I capped that base, yay! We hunted down the AMS in the back edge of nowhere, yay! Our empire has captured this continent, woo!

If you look at it that way, suddenly the game becomes so much more rewarding. I think both you and your nephew have lost sight of that.

I think Incompetent summed it up far better than I ever could have, though:

it does if you don't have to have your victories spoon fed to you, for me, knowing that somewhere in the world there is a barney pulling his hair out because of what my squad did is enough.

^_^

[TekDragon]

Thats cool. Im glad you two enjoy the game as it is right now. I, however, feel the game is uninspired and lacking greatly from its potential. Im returning both copies of the game until both of the following happens:

1. The game is more stable than it currently is (read as: not hardlocking a large percentage of peoples' PCs every 2-12 minutes)
2. The game has content added that gives the combat a purpose other than "Hey guys, you wunna cap that base?" "Yeah, i guess so.. 5000th times the charm right?"


How would number two be accomplished? Well.. my opinion is only one of many on how it should be done, but ill be happy to list it.

1. Do away with exp system. Everyone is BR20. Period.
2. Give squad leaders and commanders better tools to lead their forces. Ability to see equipment of each player and an easy way to assign people within a squad into sub groups with their own squadleaders and objectives.
3. Ability for outfits. to control a base. By control i mean CONTROL. Logos. Restricted acess through lockable doors. Placement of permanent (at least until destroyed) turrets and stations. Perhaps even allow manipulation of the structure based on time held like adding a bunker or a small wall. All of this would give bases a personal feel. Outfits would gladly hold a base if they felt it "belonged" to them.
4. Ability to completely destroy another side. This one is big. Getting into the sactuary is a step in the right direction. Now we need the ability to stop the enemy from spawning in their sanctuary. This should be a HUGE undertaking requiring days to complete.. and only then if everything goes correctly. Once completed the enemy side is completely wiped out.
4a. Doing this would require more servers. Once a side gets wiped out they move to a different server to play. Since there is no experience it wont be too much of a set back. Outfits could even remain in place and transfer to another server.
5. The ability to WIN THE DAMN WAR. Using the ability to destroy a side it is possible to win the war on a server. Once a side wins the server would be completely under the control for a period of, say, 24 hours in which everyone would have time to party and congratulate each other. Once the 24 hours is up the server resets and everyone is back in fighting the war from the beginning.

^^^
Now THATS combat on a massively multiplayer scale.

THATS what i had invisioned for PlanetSide and THATS what this game has the potential to be like.

Finally, THATS what will be the downfall of PlanetSide when developers decide to stop being lazy and actually make a revolutionary MMFPS (which, as i recall, is what SOE claimed to be making).

[TekDragon]

Thought of something else that would add into my "vision" of what PS should/could be like.

6. GM events. Lets say the war has been going back and forth for between 2 sides (or even a 3-way stalemate) for a period of weeks or even months. The GMs could intervene. GMs could go on each side in "super armors" and organize a HUGE battle between the stalemated opponents. The battle would have GMs on both sides leading their troops in an all-or-nothing battle to crack the stalemate. The GMs would be like elite troops or heroes and could possible be given command status and outfits could pledge their allegiance to a GM and be directed during the flow of battle.
7. "Hero". GMs should monitor the game. Did an outfit play an extremely pivital role in winning the game for their empire on a server? Give those players (or only the ones who deserve it) a reward. Perhaps a special vehicle they can use once a week. Perhaps an 'experiemental' armor they can use once every few days. Perhaps even allow them access to vehicles/weapons periodically that are in the pipeline to be released later (would allow testing and reward). These rewards to "heroes" would last until the end of the next war. Perhaps they would even carry over if that empire won again (probly not though, it would lead to an imbalance eventually).

[Incompetent]

Well, I havent had any problems with one, and niether any of my outfit to my knowledge since the latest patch, at least, not unless were on emerald during peak hours, but it's got six thousand people on it sometimes, so i can understand where the problems are coming from.

I do agree the bases could use a little more variety, but im sure that in some of the new continents in the future we will get new setups.

1.) Getting rid of the XP system, that i agree with wholeheartedly, XP doesn't do much other then hurt the game in my eyes, but then again, its never gonna happen, but i can live with that.

2.) This would be nice to, i believe they had planned to implement fire teams of some sort at one point, but just never got around to it at one point, the equipment viewer would be very cool too, half the time when I loot a dead guy im tempted to /tell him about how badly he laid out his inventory and how he could cram another four grenades if he just dumped his pistol and thought about the organization for a few seconds.

3.) This would be cool too, but it could lead to problems as well, people used to TK each other over caps for a lousy 2000xp back when only the hacking squad got credit, so i can only imagine what some of the smalller startup outfits would do to each other over a base. However the ablitity to organize it and ban specific accounts (not chars) from its use could be very cool.

4.) I'm a bit iffy on this, on one hand, yes it would be cool, on the other hand, it would be incredibly frustrating not to be able to play on your favorite server (best pings, best people, ect.) for possibly months at a time because of something that happened while you were sleeping.

5.) See above

I'm fine with the game without all this stuff, i have just assloads of fun playing with my outfit, the above would be nice, but it's not neccesary for me to have fun, if you don't like it the way it is, return it, maybe play some at your friends house when the first xpack comes out to see if you like it better at that point. People just like different things, its just not possible to give everyone what they want.

Edit

6.) that would be incredibly cool, although i don't think the GMs should be supermen, i do think that a massive dev organized battle could be awesome, as long as they took precautions such as boosting the pop cap for the area and the resources available to make sure the terrans final triumph over the smurfs doesn't become the terrans final zone crash.

7.) Again, i agree, to an extent, i think that if an outfit is just doing a damn good job for there empire, they should get new equipment available to them, maybe a week before it is available to the general public, but nothing special that would not eventually be given to everybody.

edit: and yeah, what warborn said, XP is just a stopgap to keep people busy and to keep the EQers happy, so were stuck with it unfortantly.

[Warborn]

The exp system is in place to keep people occupied until the devs can get some other stuff for people to do. While killing the enemy is good fun, people want to see their work pay off, too.

[Happy lil Elf]

/yawn

[TekDragon]

Happy lil elf.. go away. Ive seen how you post. You do nothing but insight flames and never say anything productive.

I might not agree with some people's opinions but i respect them for having one and i try to adress them in a well throught out way. I like them to do the same.

Every post i see from you (on my threads and on other people's threads) is nothing but an ignorant attempt to prove yourself childish and provoke a flame war. Go Away.