Smart poster on the OF!!!!!!11!!

[Navaron]

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/p...ML/009604.html

This guy seems to be asking some of the same questions I have...

Read into it all you want, but Spork replied so it's worth at least a look.

If you are not Spork, please keep your replies to a minimum. Better yet, if you're not Spork, please don't reply, except to say, simply, "bump" if you agree. Just in case, I'll email this message to whatever Planetside dev/support addresses I can find. On to the subject:
What, exactly, is Planetside supposed to be? Is it a standard first person shooter with lots of players on the server at a time and where you can use futuristic weapons? Is it a sort of futuristic sporting event, where the only thing to win is gloating rights? Is it a money-making scheme by Sony to make money by pandering to the lowest common denominator and fixing immediate problems for as long as people keep paying for the game? Or is it a simulation of a war, where, hundreds of years in the future, the inhabitants of the very first colonized alien world have been cut off from Earth and now fight amongst each other to decide the very fate of the planet?

Despite what the box and the manual say, Planetside's current incarnation could be described as any of these EXCEPT the last one.

If this is a war between three factions on an alien planet, where are the cities? Where are the civilians? For that matter, besides the Vanu hover/beam weapon technology and the spawn tubes, what is so alien about this planet?

If this is a large, multiplayer, first person shooter set in the future or some sort of future sport, why is there no real purpose to capturing a base, a continent, or the world?

If this is a money making scheme, why are you making so many people unhappy by adding a "capture the flag" idea so many people are obviously opposed to, as well as waiting to address bugs until the fix can be included in a patch that also adds little "features?"

Someone, somewhere at Sony HAS to know the answers to these questions, and I as I suspect many of my fellow players, very much want those answers. You can't simply try to do all these things. You have to choose one, or two at the very most. As I see it now, this game is an attempted amalgam of all four ideas.

Please, Spork, tell me what the developers want this game to be. I signed up to be a soldier in a grand war in the future. NOT to be a paying subscriber to a shooter/sport/money making experiment of a game set, arbitrarily, in the future. The only thing currently keeping me going in battles is my own imagination; willing myself to imagine that we are actually fighting for something worth having.

Now, with the above stated and out of the way, here are a number of ideas which could be (and in some games, already have been) implemented to both give the game a "purpose" as well as give the game the feel of being a real war set in the future.

Before I begin, however, let us get one thing straight. This is not a wish list. These are things which, I feel, myself and others were promised by this game, and which we did not get. If nothing of this is implemented or even considered, I will be, at the very least, canceling my subscription. If even a fraction of the ideas I mention ARE implemented, you will have earned yourself a very loyal customer, to say the least. Now, on to the ideas.

First, give an empire bonuses for capturing entire continents. If an empire has taken a continent, wouldn't they then, logically, be able to use the resources of that continent to further their war effort. I know this could create a balance problem. After all, once an empire starts getting bonuses, won't they become even more powerful, thus letting them get more continents in an endless cycle until they have taken everything? Well, there are a number of ways to solve that problem. You could give the losing empire or empires different bonuses. You could have the empire who is winning have defensive bonuses. Their base turrets could do more damage (their advantage in resources allows them to use more expensive, but more effective ammo in bases), the time it takes for an REK to complete the hack on various facilities of their bases could be dramatically increased (their IFF identifiers don't have to . The empire who is losing could get offensive bonuses. They could have knife damage increases and a weapon accuracy bonus (desperation and fervor give a desperate edge to their fighting techniques), or they could have increased ammunition capacities (since they are losing, they are likely closer to home. On their own, more friendly ground, their ability to supply themselves is enhanced). The details and the implementations are limited only by your imagination.

[Navaron]

If this is a war, shouldn't a nation be able to "win?" Perhaps one empire or another completely defeats the third. They have most of the continents, as well as the sanctuary, defined as being normally "owned" by the third empire. The third empire is not out of the game, however. They could be forced to be slave warriors, using their empire specific weapons (which only they know how to produce) against the remaining empire which did not conquer them. Then, perhaps the third empire is conquered, or an undefined period of time passes. The conquered empire or empires could suddenly re-emerge as an independent empire with a new base of operations on a continent or continents where the people are unhappy with the "ruling" empire and become sympathetic to the rebel cause. Or perhaps when one empire wins it is written off as an "alternate" universe, and the battle begins from the start again, as though nothing had happened. Again, the details are yours to choose from.

On a self-sufficient planet how can there be no cities, no civilians? The addition of such things could actually add more to the flavor of the game. Each continent could have a city or cities which could be totally or partially taken by an empire, and after being held by one or the other for a period of time would confer bonuses either locally, on the continent, or globally. Empires could destroy (either intentionally or unintentionally) the civilian sectors of the city, thus negating the bonuses the city will confer until the areas can be rebuilt, as well as giving some sort of slight or moderate temporary disadvantage to whichever empire destroyed the civilian area. Griefers who destroy their empire's cities on purpose would get grief points for hitting friendly buildings of course, but you could have a player get penalties for destroying too many civilian areas (enemy, neutral, OR friendly) as well.

On this alien planet there is flora but no fauna? And are there no atmospheric differences between this Auraxis and Earth? Is this simply because the planet was originally barren and the human settlers brought the plants with them but felt no need to install the animals, or because you simply haven't implemented them? There could be enormous swarms of miniscule insects, behaving and perhaps looking much the same as a dust storm, which reduce visibility, as well as slowing vehicles and slowly damaging them, or perhaps eating slowly at the armor of infantry and MAXes. There could also be atmospheric storms which destroy any aircraft within them, effectively grounding the battle until the storm passes.

If soldiers are being produced via nanotechnological reproduction from the preserved "matrix" of their bodies and minds, why wouldn't there be radically new ways for individual soldiers to fight? It is obvious that dying is not a substantial penalty on this world, so why is there not a fanatically psychotic class where the soldier carries almost no weapons, but is loaded with nothing but heavy explosives, to try to take out heavy fortifications or clusters of enemies? Why, also, is there no class of soldier genetically designed to be faster, stronger, better? Perhaps their "unique" physique does not allow them to wear armor or wield most weapons, and their diminished mental capacity renders them inable to operate vehicles, but they are able to move very fast and able to fight at melee range.

I don't expect you to do ALL of this of course. To do so would require an entire production cycle to achieve. Perhaps, over time you could do all of them through numerous feature additions and patches, but I'd be happy simply with at least some of these ideas implemented.

If you want more specific or general ideas, or if you want to know the exact programming method to implement them, if you have an answer to my question, or even if you hate my very ideas and presumptuousness, you have my email address. For I will, as I said before, be sending a copy of this to all of the Planetside developer/support people I can, just before I post it here. And you could, I suspect, get my address by using your administrator priviledges, I wouldn't mind.

[Lonehunter]

Dude that's long. I didn't even read most of it.

[kidriot]

it's an interesting post. the questions he asks about the direction of the game. sporks answer seemed to be "we're not sure, yet." then he tosses the carrot in front of the ass w/a "this Planetside is not all that it will be."

I don't agree w/the cities and all that but the technology aspect of the individuals sounds interesting. winnable conditions reset after month, or winnable conditions at all is what a lot of people are asking for.

this is also a post I think everyone here ought to read:

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/p...ML/009480.html

[Indecisive]

Fucking devs need to listen to this guy

/edit/ just read kitriots link....wow..... if soe would hire these 2 dudes, we would have such a kickass game...they might be able to get away with 15 bucks a month..ouch.

[1024]

Originally posted by kidriot
http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/p...ML/009480.html

i agree wit hthis guy more.

[TheAngelOfWar]

spork:
But a lot of these items are so significant to the current playstyle that we have to do some serious thinking about the ramifications of that system.



and they chose CTfreakinF????????