News: New Blog via Smed talks ESports, Outfit Bases and More. (Overall Discussion)

[Razicator]

Also a bit more info on PvE (near the end of the link, #5)

I mean we did have the pro-gamer CS guy join the SOE team for balance, but it was still up in the air I believe the extent to which PS2 will be an eSport. Well, check this out. Almost last sentence, #7.

http://john-smedley.livejournal.com/2412.html

What do you guys think? Good? Bad? What do you hope it'll be?

I'm thinking they're thinking more battle-islands-esque stuff, that's what Higby worked on in PS1. Isolated continents for more outfit or squad-based play.

Of course, all eSports games must have a good spectator camera, so I'm hoping for good UI stuff to come along with this. Things like being able to disable your HUD, or to have a noclip mode to fly into the air to record stuff ONLY in these theoretical battle-islands for neutral players.

[Slide Surveyor]

This won't be good.

[Boone]

Originally Posted by Slide Surveyor

This won't be good.

Did you even read it? RTS elements in my opinion would be amazing.

Anyway, before people cry in the future and claim promises weren't kept - I want to be crystal clear and say that these are NOT promises these are ideas

[Timealude]

Originally Posted by Boone

Did you even read it? RTS elements in my opinion would be amazing.

Anyway, before people cry in the future and claim promises weren't kept - I want to be crystal clear and say that these are NOT promises these are ideas

This.

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Boone

Did you even read it? RTS elements in my opinion would be amazing.

Anyway, before people cry in the future and claim promises weren't kept - I want to be crystal clear and say that these are NOT promises these are ideas

I think the biggest issue for SOE in this project (and in EQN) is that they won't have a third party pulling in the reigns and pushing them to knuckle down on some specific concepts. If they aren't careful, they can get carried away chasing all the cool ideas and never accomplish any of them, because the game has so much potential in so many areas. However, when I look at all the hard work and genuine progress the Everquest II team has made, when it comes to adding new game play systems and content, it's easy to see that the management at SOE is able to focus the company's efforts.

I'd like to see the RTS aspect, it's something that I was always dumbfounded that Blizzard totally missed out on with World of Warcraft. Having an active world to defend, capture, repair, build is so much more personal and rewarding than simply blowing up enemies and owning bases. This is the kind of "community building game play" that will keep people interested in the game in the long term. I know that if I spent my resources sending out a team of miners to get more resources, I'd make for damned sure they were heavily guarded!

I'm not so keen on the Rift NPC thing though. I don't think it is a good idea to encourage the factions to place nice and unite against a greater evil, especially if doing so grants great rewards. And if fighting the NPCs did not grant great rewards, they'd be considered no more than a nuisance. This is a tough one to justify.

The seamless planet is a must, really. Anything less is just more of the same and it's been done already any way. I expected it for Planetside 2 and EQN and if it's "hard", well, you should have bought Infinity. It's not like they couldn't use the funding...

I am on board for everything except the E-Sport thing though, because I can't help but feel that's nothing more than dollars and man hours thrown at a niche of the gaming world that majority of gamers couldn't really give a shit about. It makes me sad that time will be taken away from actual Planetside 2 game development for this. If SOE wants to sub contract a marketing company to handle E-Sports, that's fine, because they would have to meet their metrics and make it work within the frame work of the game itself. But spending man hours on it, for the five or six new players it might bring to the game, it's a complete waste.

[RoninOni]

Originally Posted by Boone

RTS elements in my opinion would be amazing.

No, no it most certainly would NOT.

End of Nations is a MMORTS
Planetside 2 is a MMOFPS

The entire draw of PS2 is that all the active combat units, all THOUSANDS of them, are all PLAYERS.


Some outfit base building, and some worker type AI's to perform menial tasks that players wouldn't be particularly interested in performing (structure building, mining, supply convoys delivering materials/resources) are all potential "RTS" elements that could fit into the Planetside formula, while not taking away the single biggest aspect of Planetside (all player battles)

These NPC worker units would even be vulnerable to enemy attacks giving players more to fight over for smaller scale skirmishes than base assaults.

And yes, I know these are just ideas and not definitive plans... ^THESE are my ideas on how to work with the ideas provided.

Oh, and for whoever asked... Planetside WILL have some streaming & spectator functions built into the system. I hope they don't go crazy with instanced outfit battles as again, 1 of the primary features of Planetside is also it's PERSISTENCE which these instanced fights would have nothing to do with.

[Emperor Newt]

"Mac version (soon after launch)"

Sounds promissing. If so getting PS2 to run under Wine should be much easier

eSports is always a very tough nut to crack. I don't think it is impossible in PS2 or that it would make the game bad/worse. But it has to be taken very carefully. And I think SOE is very aware of that.
eSports is a huge money sink and rewards are not guaranteed.

[Warruz]

I think people might be jumping the gun, most sports that take off have a theme to them in that the teams are not huge. For planetside to make it into e-sports we would have to see something aking to battle islands where the fighting is smaller scale as having an esport that requires 100 people of waring factions isnt going to leave much room in a building.

[PoisonTaco]

Originally Posted by Warruz

I think people might be jumping the gun, most sports that take off have a theme to them in that the teams are not huge. For planetside to make it into e-sports we would have to see something aking to battle islands where the fighting is smaller scale as having an esport that requires 100 people of waring factions isnt going to leave much room in a building.

What if you set it up so that people could watch what's going on in the game?

"Welcome back to Auraxis ladies and gentlemen, let's see how the empires are progressing today. Looks like the TR are trying to take Zurvan back, let's go in for a closer look."

[Envenom]

I'm down. I think it would be awesome.

[LancerNC]

Originally Posted by Envenom

I'm down. I think it would be awesome.

me too!

[ringring]

Nothing there excited me. I have to be honest.

well, maybe more vehicles.

I wish he'd said more continents (apart from the empty ones for outfit bases).

PS2 needs more continents first and foremost .. the rest is meh.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Razicator

tuff, that's what Higby worked on in PS1. Isolated continents for more outfit or squad-based play.
.

That sounds like a great option for how to deal with this segment of game play.

[Pyreal]

1) Player Owned bases - we plan on releasing continents that are empty or partially empty where players can build their own bases. These are open world bases so others will be able to attack them. We're also planning on having these continents heavily resource based with new resource types that will be very rare..and lots of cool new stuff that can be built out of these new resources.

+

2) Harvestable resources - imagine SC II style resource harvesting with physical vehicles doing the mining or the harvesting.



+

4) Lots more vehicles and weapons - just what it sounds like. Many of these will take very rare resources to make.

If you need to harvest them, can your harvester be attacked and looted?

Will harvesters need protection? Do we now have mining in PS2?

Originally Posted by ringring

Nothing there excited me. I have to be honest.

well, maybe more vehicles.

I wish he'd said more continents (apart from the empty ones for outfit bases).

PS2 needs more continents first and foremost .. the rest is meh.

Did you even read it?

"We also don't want to charge for things like new continents or new planets (in the future)."

You haven't even played retail and you are already bored with the content?

[Masterr]

I hope the priorities are

1. weather

2. mac version

3. more vehicles

4. E sports support

5. player owned bases

6. water between continents (down the list bc of difficulty)

7. NPC enemies (invasions)

everything else is meh. (harvestable resources, npc armies)