So, whats next?

[Xaine]

'When the game is launched, thats when the real work begins'.

I've heard the devs from many a game say this over the years, and now that i've seen several games launch I am finally understanding what that means.

Now, I'm not for one second suggesting that the work the devs have done until this point has been easy. Far from it.

My mind is still swimming over just how you get 1000+ people in the same square kilometer of map, with maybe 50 people on my screen at once.. and yet I'm still running the game at 30+ FPS and i can shoot and hit someone like I'm plaing an 8v8 in CoD.

But (and here it comes) this is where the 'real' test begins.

Now that PS2 has launched, i'd assume that alot of people are being drafted away to go and work on EQ3 (Sandbox game, can't fucking wait for that. We need a good one to come out. Love you SoE).

While Planetside 2 is a good foundation for a game. Its really just bare-bones.

To use a stupid metaphor. Its a ham sandwich. The meat is good, the bread is soft and there is just enough butter. But where is the garnish? The tomatoes? The lettuce? The dressing? The olive on a stick through the middle? Why does it still have crusts? etc.

The next few months (2 or 3) are really going to speak volumes. The current lack of any real meta game means (for me, and a few people) that the game is only fun for the 'moment by moment' play, which is great. But it needs something more. Something else. A light at the end of the tunnel. A reason to fight. Some persistence.

Now, SoE know this - but the real question is. How LONG will it take them to make it happen?

In my mind, it needs to happen within the next 1-2 months because any longer and this game will stumble, and it won't be easy to recover.

There is a reason why people played PS1 for almost a decade, and i'll tell you right now, it wasn't because of the warping/hackers/weapon imbalance/BFRs/caves. It was because the game was DEEP and it MEANT something when you booted the NC off their home cont, or when you held that gen long enough to deny that tech, so your empire could break that 2 day stalemate at Wele.

Planetside 2 currently has none of this.

I remember one of Matt's go-to phrases about this game vs other shooters was something like. 'When you take a base, The map doesn't flip and its a new round. Thats your untill someone takes it back. '

While thats true. When i take a base, i don't feel like its 'mine'. I look at it as something that won't be mine in about the next half an hour. Its neutral to me. I don't get attatched. I just see it as a few buildings. Where as in PS1, people dropped back and defended their land untill the last man because they wanted to keep THEIR LAND.

If you could get this feeling, this involement, this almost sandbox like attachment to your land, if you could get that into PS2 ontop of the foundation you've made?

The sky is the limit.

[DirtyBird]

I think they still need more people playing the game so the advertising needs to continue to increase now the game has bedded in.

Its all very well having continents that hold 2000 people but are they currently getting that many on each continent now?
As players do you see the same intense fighting on all continents or just the one?

[GTGD]

The game JUST launched. Yes, I know it shouldn't have yet, but it did. They need to fix all the technical issues, deal with optimization, address billing, and provide content for microtransactions. Once that is done, assuming people are still playing the game, they will release free game content.

I'm sure that soon (if not already) they will begin to develop new continents that will allow us to achieve less fleeting victories.