An ORIGINAL Planetside 2

[Greensbr]

Take a deep breath because this is a bit of a long idea. I don't like the direction that a possible "Planetside 2" will be taking according to the ideas I have researched so far on this site. From what I have seen, the forums are still filed into the mindset of Planetside, without much originality. I hesitated to share this, but here it goes.

First and foremost what made Planetside good, and is still to this day the main factor that makes it worth paying for, is the massive amount of PvP you experience. While Halo, Crysis, and many other popular games can fill a maximum or 32 clients at a time on a server, Planetside easily offered combat of up to 50 versus 50 players, even sometimes 100 v 100 or more. However with the recent release of ARMA and many other such games, you will find that attaining massive scale PvP can no longer be monopolized by this game or others, as the technological advance allows more than just 32 players to be accommodated at a time. The only other attractive feature of Planetside as a mmo, is the fact that it doesn't allow level or "Battle Rank" to exponentially increase the advantage of some players over others, such as you will see in Eve Online or WoW. In otherwords, Planetside at least treats its new and low level players well.

However, you might wonder how much that can go for. What can keep Planetside 2 fresh and creative? Something that is enough to make it worth paying for.

That thing is my idea.

Planetside as of now is a static "First Person Shooter." The players are in a first person shooter from the day they enter into their factions world for the first time, till the day their accounts expire the last time. However, as the player journeys along that path, increasing in level, players gain certain perks, like new weapons and skills of course, but more importantly, they gain the ability to use battle chat and more global chat as they increase in military rank. Obviously you would think that a "General" in an army should get more privileges then a "Private"?

What if a general had more responsibility, not as a soldier on the battlefield, but more behind the lines in the command of bases, structures and what not? Hmm what if those who were higher in "rank" got a little more than the ability to drive a vehicle, but to make that vehicle available in the first place? Yes. You can see where I am going with this; I am talking about incorporating "Real-Time Strategy" elements into Planetside 2.

But you must be wondering; How in the world can you have the elements of a real-time strategy game in what is supposed to be an MMO? You might be envisioning a single person, sitting at the computer, commanding an entire faction of units while other players follow his command! But this is not the case. As a matter of fact it is a rather relative idea, whereas the command will not fall into the hand of a single person but to those who are highest in rank, starting from the top to the bottom.

Sounding weird? You have to recognize that this genre of gaming is growing steadily in popularity. Take a look at the game "Tiberium", for example; http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/tiberium/index.html

So how will it work? Well there are many ways to begin... but first let’s talk about whets important, the average player.

So one of you are playing Planetside 2... you are walking along the surface of an alien planet, when all the sudden, a green message and an arrow is displayed on your hud. Could it be? Yes it is, that is you being selected by a commanding officer watching you from above. "What is it?" you wonder. The arrow turns red and a bar below it appears. Ah. He wants you to attack a base, with orders to destroy it. Well thats good, because destroying a base is one thing, but being selected to destroy a base means a little extra experience on top of what you'll get. So you walk toward the base when you notice that the bar on your hud slowly decreases. Ah.. heres the downside... that little bar is a timer for you to complete your mission.. it sort of "guarantees" that your mission wont expire. "Well thats fine." you say, as you try to walk away from your target. Ouch! The bar begins to decreases even more rapidly.. "Argh." It seems this is in place to guarantee that you move steadily toward your target and not away from it. "Well cripes" you say, "I guess I just gotta move toward it more logisitically, and hopefully I'll avoid enemies along the way." So about two minutes later you get to your target. The small base stands unguarded. "Well, this will be a piece of cake." you say as you load your rocket launcher. You aim and pull your finger down on the trigger, shooting at the base. To your surprise, the half depleted timer bar stops depleting... as a matter of fact, it looks like its increasing slightly, giving you more time to destroy this base! "Looks like I will stay and shoot at this base to get my extra experience points." And surely you do, since attacking the base is rewarded with more time...



Got your attention? What you have just read was what I call the concept of "Missions". If you've ever played the game Starcraft, Command and Conquer, or any such RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game, you will know that when you click on a unit and order it to attack, it will follow your orders without hesitation. Players can be just as loyal too, and maybe even better a unit then an NPC, they just need an incentive first. Our commanding officer in Planetside 2 will have the option of selecting a player to complete a mission he/she thinks is necessary from a birds eye view.

But what about abuse of this system? Would a player and a friendly "officer" work together to gain large amounts of experience easily? Would it be used to spy on other nations giving them an unfair advantage? No, because there will be systems in place to prevent this from happening. For instance, a player won't be able to be selected for a certain period of time after he/she has been selected. He/she might be selected with another group, increasing the chance that the mission will be a success. But any experience gained from completing the mission will be equally distributed among players, making the prospect of gaining a large amount of experience, for a single individual null. Factor in the fact that enemy units are in short supply to achieve this, and you will find that abusing the "Missions" system to gain extra experience, is impossible.


If you've read this far, I can tell you probably find this idea interesting to say the least, because now I am going to talk about the most innovative and challenging part of this idea; "Bases." As you already know, Planetside's bases and towers remain at set locations, as a matter of fact, every single structure and landmass in the game remains unchanged throughout the course of the entire war. Now don't get me wrong, because from my experience playing Planetside, most players don't find this unchanging aspect of the game boring. This is frankly because there is plenty of land to explore, to run, and to hide. That is why this portion of the idea is most controversial.. but it is pretty much necessary within the game, if the generals of a faction wish to build bases.

Yes, thats right, build bases.

It will work something like this. A planet will have a set of factors regulating its environment. For instance, and ice planet will everywhere be covered in ice, and a tropical planet, will everywhere be dominated by sand, hurricanes and green plants. When a war begins, an untouched planet will have no set landmasses... until it is scouted by a faction for valuable resources. Resources are the material required to build a base, units, supplies, and pretty much everything fueling an empire. The server will decide that the "scout" has found a location on a planet that as an ample and lasting supply of resources. More specifically it will state that is has found a location by which a faction can draw and mine resources. Yes.. thats right. If you have played any game in the "Warcraft" series, you will know that the scout as found an entire Faction, one of these things;

http://bnetd.org/war3/images/human/s...b-gold-orc.gif

The general(s) of that faction will peer with interest. "It will cost you 2,000,000 initial resource to begin a base here sir. Shall I proceed." Gazing upon his losing battle at Cyssor, the general decides, "Yes."

(continued)

[Greensbr]

When it is accepted, the server will immediately start generating a massively sized map, much the size of the maps seen in Planerside, after all, this is a "Level 3" resource find, which is the largest resource deposit possible in Planetside 2, meaning that it can support bases on the grandest of scales. The server is finished generating the map after 20 minutes. A command vehicle is launched onto the surface of the planet. Luckily this decision was a good one, because the only enemy base on this planet is a "Level 1" resource find, meaning that it is just a small reconnaissance outpost, and also, that base's resources have been used for 2 months (in real time) suggesting that this enemy base is close to expiration.

"Well the enemy won't be bothering us for some time" says the general, proud of his strategic opportunity. The vehicle he is driving can do many wonders, but first, "Lets take advantage of those resources." The commander selects the "birds eye" view from his desktop PC. Moving his mouse over the resource deposit, he begins to warp in his faction's equivalent of a "resource mine." The commander's mother yells at him to take out the trash. "Dangit," he says, "Brb" he types walking away to complete his chores. When he gets back, he find that the mine is almost 3% complete. "Wow, this is taking slow!" he types. It sure is, because buildings in Planetside 2, take often hours to complete, even some of the most expensive structures taking nearly a half of a day.

Reality check: Why is this the case? Well if buildings and structures could be built quickly then it would remove much of the strategy of building a base stealthily. On the flip side it would be overpowered if a faction found a huge deposit of resources and were able to quickly take advantage of them. Also, it allow players to savor each moment each time a commanding structure, or a small tower is created.

Hours pass. "99 % and.... 100%" the general yells. "Its completed!" The mine warps in, and an entire host of players from the faction begin to line up to warp into this new base. "Guys its just a mine, I haven't built the unit factory yet." says the general. "What are you talking about? We CAN warp into the planet through a mine!" says a lowly private player. "You can warp in if you want too, but you will only be able to drive a mining vehicle!" replies the general. Thats correct. In Planetside 2, each building has its distinct advantages. A mine for instance, will not supply the player with weaponry or items. It only serves to warp in drivable mining vehicles that are designed to mine resources, for a small cost to the faction. But it will be able to warp in as many players as it wants, 4 a time, that is.

"I think I better just help out the base at Cyssor." says the private, leaving his faction's home planet. "How will I get workers to mine resources then?" thinks the general. A sergeant comes up to him, figuratively. "Hey NPCs are cheap to the faction, but they'll mine them for you." he says. "Use NPC's for mining?" retorts the general. "You had better use them for mining now instead of combat later" the sergeant suggests "...because I wouldn’t want to pull players out of the Cyssor battle to mine here, and reinforce Cyssor with NPC's for combat." After thinking about it, the general replies, "Your right. Better to use NPCs for mining instead of combat, because players obviously make the best soldiers, but lazy miners." They both laugh.

Yes. Thats also right. NPCs will be available to all factions for a small but substantial price to perform the menial functions of a faction, and even combat if needed. These functions can include patrolling a base for security, mining, and guarding certain areas. A faction will not be able to overwhelm another simply by buying NPCs, because the price of NPC's will fluctuate depending on how many players and NPCs are already present. Their will be limitations also on how many supplies can be allocated to players. And if the player demand more supplies, the NPCs most recently spawned at a base, will disappear and more supplies to the playerbase of a faction will be generated.

All this will be relative to the resources a faction or a base has.

Many hours pass later.. "The commanding center was done 2 hours ago. The second unit factory was just done. I am starting to see enemy units pouring in... they obviously knew about this base from the start." the general proclaims, no longer in his command vehicle, but sitting in-game inside one of the main "commanding center" buildings. Doing this offers him protection, and an extra bonus to his commanding actions which reduces the cost of building bases. "Look," says another general "Cyssor is lost. We are going to start spawning into your base. I hope you’re ready." Yes I am, says the first general. "I am giving command of my base to the players." He allocates command to the players. This allows any player of any rank, to walk up to a base to gain supplies and spawn vehicles for themselves. "We have a level 2 technology here, so no BFR yet, but you can have all the tanks you need!" says the first general. "Good! Because we are going to need to push on them hard here at this new base. I am glad to see you got a head start. And the layout of this base is superior; we will have an easy time defending this location. Good job my friend. Over and out." the second general says, leaving the chat. The first general smiles.

He flips on the "birds eye view" at the commanding center main screen. This newly constructed building has 5,000,000 hit points, and would take a good 20 minute barrage of artillery to destroy it. The other buildings in this base are not too bad either. In otherwords, these buildings are here to stay so long as they have the resources to supply them. I guess the long wait to build a base was rewarding....

Spotting a corporeal, the general opens him up for a chat. "Hey you!" says the general. "Yeah." says the corporeal. "Do you want to take control of this base?" says the general. "Wow really?" the corporeal cheers. "Yes, I gtg for now so.." the general trails off. "Well I just logged on", says the corporeal. "Good. Have you done the tutorial..?" the general asks. "Yes, ever since I was a sergeant, I knew I might probably get the chance..." the corporeal explains. "Well good, because I was about to give control of this base to the server, and you know how sucky they are at strategy." the general says. "Lol, I know... Ill be at the command center in about 5 mins." the corpeal types. "Okay, I'll send you the ticket now, then you take control when you get here." says the general, "..and I gtg for now.. so good luck!" "Thanks!" says the corporeal. Five minutes later, the corporeal arrives at the command center. Looking at the birds eye view he has so longed to look through... he is greeted by the threat of three enemy tanks to the north. The corporeal flips on the world chat message. "Hello I'm currently the commander of this base.." the corporeal smiles, having rehearsed this next moment. "It seems we have an intrusion of enemies to the north. Well, we wouldn't want them interrupting our progress, would we?" The chat fills with a plethora of quirky comments. The corporeal does a "world select" selecting all the units within the world, and offers them the Mission to attack the three units in a small 50 meter radius. "Extra experience points for all!" the corporeal grins. The factions units on this planet begin to converge on this location. The three enemy players crap their pants.




Hmpf, they get owned...

Well now you've got a taste of the structure and dynamic of my perspective of this future game. Of course, it is important to recognize that this idea isn't complete, it is not set in stone, and will never be. But what I have stated in this post is quite nearly what I would like to see in a possible Planetside 2. With this idea, you get to see both sides of the war, from the gritty view in the trenches to the informative view at a battle station. This idea coalines with a rising genre in gaming, and would in my opinion make Planetside 2 an original and worthwhile game to play. Well thats all I have. Tell me what you think.

[Kumoblade]

I don't know whether or not you're trying to tell me a story or sell me a used car...

Anywho, in a few of the suggestion threads, I've posted similar requests, however, i'd prefer if you didn't give players complete control of an RTS Element of the game and let the unseen hand do it. With commanders having less control and have the ability to hand out quests for people. Regardless, its good to see someone who has similar ideas for a potentially great game.

I believe there should be resources and an economy.
I believe there should be crafting and various levels of gear. I don't think it should make a huge difference in power though.
I believe levels and battle ranks should be more meaningful than simply Certs.
Your idea would be far from a "static" FPS and would be much more dynamic.

i'd also like to stress emphasis on an actual world/planet to play on that is completely alien/unique and I don't think any 2 locations should look the same. Each fight/battle should be different.

[JackEarthrider]

Interesting ideas

I think that "missions" would have to be given to squads or platoons though to make it doable and not overcomplicated.

Resources are all well and good as long as you dont spend all day gathering (too static, makes you an easy target as well, frustrating when you get killed after gathering a lot and not being able to deposit).

And as for the bases, that sounds like a good idea and all, but bases are always going to be kinda static in an mmo format; in reality, the "commanders" are probably only going to be able to place their stuff in "preset" locations which would make it kinda boring, not to mention decrease the fun factor if you need to rebuild the base 10+ times per week.

(also you wanna make sure the time factor is reduced, anything that takes too long to build wont be rebuilt when its destroyed in seconds.)

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.
All and all interesting ideas, but they need tweaking.

[Firefly]

Keep the PvE crap out of an FPS.

The end.

[DviddLeff]

Commanders need RTS style controls, as it stands the maximum force you can control is 30 people; CR4/5 continent and global chat just doesn't work when 50% of the player base has access.

Squad and platoon leadership should be tied into the CR structure, with commanders only able to give orders to their troops if they are leading squads, platoons or even companies (3 platoons).

CR should cost cert points, and you should only get to use the toys when you are both certified in it AND leading a squad.

Squad leaders should also get Brothers in Arms style context sensitive orders control, able to quickly target an area or enemy and tell his squad to move there or destroy something, rather than have to fiddle about with way points all the time.

Regarding missions, Squad, Platoon and Company leaders could accept them and even create them, telling the rest of the force what they are doing or if there is a higher commander what his troops to do. This should all be easy to control, say just right click on a base on the map and a drop down menu allows you to select your squad to capture the spawn tubes, or a commander does the same for his company, platoons or squads giving them their orders, again context sensitive; right click on a friendly base and you tell your troops to defend it.

Regarding building bases I am all for it, as long as there is the opportunity for variety in them; we need more base designs to fight through, and not just the same buildings again and again.

[Tikuto]

A brief thought....

"Ulterior Role" - Purpose of your character.

• the Soldier - any old character in the field
• the Officer - a squad/platoon leader that grants use of commanding equipment and features. Charcter model is distinctly different than the ordinary Soldier. Constricted inventory space allowing special commander equipment (Command Uplink Device and so-on). This equipment only available to Squad leaders, Platoon leaders and Outfit leaders.
• the Commander - permanently in a commanding ulterior role (all of Officer's) by being the Outfit leader whether Squad/Platoon leading or not. Possibly includes extraordinary commanding features. Don't like the responsbility? Someone else will do it!

This ulterior role is determined by the position you are in either a leading role or not, and that's going to be either a Squad leader and/or Platoon leader or permanently an as Outfit leader.

[Furret]

perhaps CR should be a ratio between all of the other players?
Not sure if it'd be a good idea, but instead of having a ton of people at CR 5, maybe have the top 1 at CR 10, the next 4 (#2-5) at CR 9, next 14 (6-20) at CR 8, 21-50 at CR 7, 51-100 CR 6, and then you rank up to CR5 by yourself.
So really, theres only 6 command ranks, but everyone who has attained 'CR 6' is put into a ratio of the top 100 CR ranks in the empire. so if you get CR 6, and are the 34th highest CR rank in the NC, you'd be placed at CR 7. If enough people pass you, you're demoted to CR 6. If you get pushed down to #101, you get CR 5 'honors' or something.
Would be an interesting way to keep people with the best CR on top, and not have 500 CR5's spamming global chat with conflicting ideas.

CR10
- Ability to chat empire-wide
- Can give any member of the empire a general command, with a text box for specifics. Also gives green arrow pointing to objective.
- Can set empire-wide waypoints on any continent
- Can draw on minimaps, regular maps, and show up on the ground on all players' screens, seen empire-wide.

CR9
- Same as CR10 without drawings on ground/minimaps, text box for specifics, or green arrow.

CR8
- Same as CR9 without general commands, only specifics like 'crash this point, hack this CC, defend this point, etc.

CR7
- Same as CR8 without empire-wide waypoints, or drawing on regular maps.

CR6
- Only empire-wide chat

[JackEarthrider]

Good idea, making it so that people had to fight to maintain their CR rank would ensure that only the person who was still racking up kills and captures successfully could say or do anything imporant, with everyone else taking a backseat approach.

[Furret]

Right, having a single commander who makes a few bad decisions is better than having 10 commanders who don't make mistakes, but want to go about capturing bases differently.

[Galapogos]

I agree with kumoblade, I think the top command should be voted on, because not all the players who rack up the most kills or xp have much interest in their empire's welfare.

[Kumoblade]

I do believe there should be only so many Commanders barking orders on the field. At Maximum 5. I like the idea of fighting to maintain your position, and adding voting to get jerks out of office and promoting next in line to his spot is a pretty damn good idea.

Only problem I could see is if you have assholes down-voting officers they don't like. However, that happens everywhere you go even in the real world. People will kick a lot of people to try to get above them.

However, you can only restrict assholes so much before they decide to take their business elsewhere.

[Gortha]

I really would love to play THIS Planetside the OP is talking about.

Very good thoughts.

Regards
Gortha

[Sifer2]

It's true the command structure should be better in the sequel so that some especially good leaders can rise to the top through a combination of ingame accomplishment an politics. So that the people in charge know what they are doing an can lead the faction much better.

Something like successfully completely missions an taking structures as a squad leader puts you in the running an then other players can vote you up if they think your good. You would have to keep actively playing too to stay eligible.

[DviddLeff]

The key thing that was wrong about PS command structure was that the most experienced commanders (CR5s) had no reason to carry on commanding, it was even a waste of points for them to carry on doing so.

Sure not all CR5s were decent commanders, but at the very least they had put in the time leading squads.