Core Combat Interview

[Hamma]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/?newsid=547

[Doppler]

GWJ: Current gameplay can be frustrating on lower populated continents or whole servers. What measures have you taken to ensure that the new underground areas won't dilute the population further?

DD: We're confident that this expansion will bring in a whole new group of players, including those who have adopted the "wait and see" strategy to joining MMO games. PlanetSide is still growing, and the game gets better and better with each day, so we fully expect the injection of new players to push server populations to the limit. In addition, the underground areas are meant to be places players and squads go on "missions." You wouldn't really want to stay down there too long, as the point of being down there is to secure the Ancient Modules for installation on the surface.


>>>>>>>
This sounds like rain dancing to me. Rather then confronting an issue were really praying that by gouging people more and spending more money on marketing then development the steady dowtun in our palyerbase might (god willing) be reversed.

[Hamma]

They are a company arent they?

SOE is in this to make money. Just like every other gaming company on the planet It will have more "content" thats what people have bitched about from day 1

[Doppler]

I'm not dispariging them for releasing content in an expansion pack as much as I am for ignoring the other problems that are causing people to leave this game and failing to come through with all the "free" content they've promised since way back in the day. I seriously doubt their going to get an influx of new players because of an expansion pack.

[Hamma]

They will, we are also getting free content, base incentives.. platoons. All free content. People are just impatient.

[Doppler]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/f...threadid=13788

My other post on the subject. I dont think were being impatient when they promise things since beta and then begin talking about an expansion pack before we see any real progress update.

[Hamma]

Expansion was in dev well before release im sure.

Things take time to program and test, would you rather they release 300 buggy features or 5 good ones. Thats how I look at it hehe

[X-113]

Doppler, are you somehow forgetting that the test server is closed for extensive internal testing? I smell new content.

[Doppler]

Originally posted by X-113
Doppler, are you somehow forgetting that the test server is closed for extensive internal testing? I smell new content.

Fair 'nuff Fair 'nuff But if they come back up with a beta of the expansion you owe me a soda.

I guess Hamma iw hould like to see a timeline for implementation of things, hell they can give us a timeline for when the expansion is coming out but not for platoons, puhleeze. That to me hints their not even working on the one that doesnt make them money.

[Happy lil Elf]

The whole free content thing has always bothered me. Not that it's not coming fast enough, but that there are too many people who don't think they're getting enough. Yup you were promised free content in Beta, and you've gotten free content. Are you getting new weapons and vehicles every month? No, because that's not a reasonable goal or expectation in a game where balance is important.

There have been quite a few additions to the game already and there are more on the way. Granted quite a bit of the updates have been dedicated to bug fixes and balance issues, the same as any other MMO ever released. The content will start to flow more smoothly, but it will take time.

I think one of the problems is that you can only cram so much into one FPS. With RPGs you can always add new zones to kill in, new items to get, etc. With a FPS though there are so many guns or vehicles your going to have in a well balanced game. PS hasn't reached that mark yet, but if they went at the rate some people seem to think they should they'd probably reach it before very long.

As far as this expansion goes, I have a feeling it was released as an expansion to try to get new people into the game. While there are still enough people playing the game currently, there is room for quite a few more. What I would rather have had them do is release the new areas and relic type things as the expansion for say 19.99 and release the weapons and vehicles in patches as free content.

Obviously that's not what they're doing and the reasons are very apparent, they're in this for money. That's not really a bad thing, I mean if they weren't there'd be no PS, right? But I'm not sure releasing this as an expansion will be able to bring back the "wait and see" people. I have no problem paying for the expansion, in fact I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it, but I'm sure there will be those who become indignant at the thought of paying for an expansion, most likely the same ones who thought they weren't getting their moneys worth out of the monthly fee.

[shadowseed]

I think i can see both points of view:
SOE are upholding promises to release new content, but only just... and anyone that says the bug fixes are "new content" or that we should somehow be grateful for it should go get there heads checked.

The expansion pack is a good thing, although im not sure if i should pay good money for it when im paying subscription fees for "Bug fixes" and not "new content" (other that servers & stuff ).... it does kind of knaw at me a bit...

[Happy lil Elf]

You've gotten new content. Liberators are widely used by all empires. The Skyguard less so, but I still see at least a few every night I'm on. The LLU while not really essential did indeed add a new aspect to the game. Lightnings now have turrets which imo makes the vehicle entirely different and much more usefull. The HA weapons are now good for all empires. The Sparrow is no longer the monster it once was. The Starfire is now worth taking as a cert. The Pulsar is worth using as opposed to it's initial shittiness. Crashes to desktop have been greatly reduced from what they once were. Invulnerability bugs have been fixed as have a couple hacks that people have managed to pull off. Yes a lot of work has gone to correcting balance and fixing bugs, but that's because it was a new game. As I've said before, no MMO has ever had a flawless launch. To expect one is foolish.

Now that many issues have been resolved it frees people up to work on new content. The Lodestar is still coming as are Platoons. From the sound of it base benefits are coming and will be rolled out to the test soon. They've also talked about some changes to AV which could be a very cool thing depending on what they do not to mention they're still working on base defense incentives and outfit ownership of bases.

New things are coming but they need to be done very carefully to keep them from breaking or ruining the game. I would rather have things come out and work well while maintaining the balance of the game then have useless, shitty and buggy content released that completely upsets it.

[Vis Armata]

I think I'll hold out for the 30-passenger Galaxy.