Sociology of Planetside - The Great Divide

[RageMaster]

A couple of good friends and myself were recently discussing PlanetSide over a reefer outside on the porch when the conversation turned from the simple subject of game physics, to the potential social system that the game rules will create.

Let me elaborate. I'm an ex-college student with a fair understanding of sociology, psychology and computer games (having qualifications in all but one) and this is what is currently raging through my mind.

All the reviews up untill now, what does it tell us? Pretty much nothing we havent read already, we know about the guns, the vehicles the spawn-rules, grief-rules and factions. We're all hard-core fans of this up and coming MOG. What reviews cannot tell us is what the PlanetSide community is going to be like, after all its a beta, and the playerbase for the game currently is limited to Sony's employees.

Inherently the game splits the playerbase into three, and stops them from talking to each other. Instant in-game segregation. The opposition is out to cause you and your faction grief, and you and your faction are out to cause the opposition grief. Your muted to them, they're muted to you, the only way you can communicate is through kicking the she-hite out of each other. And bearing in mind that you're punished for shooting your team members you have a game that instantly fashions 3 completely seperate communities along with their own celebrities, websites, voicecomms servers, IRC channels, forums, messageboards and tactics. We'll still have forums for communication with the other factions, but I reckon a half-year after the game is released, those messageboards will be all flame. You can keep your planetside.stratics.com in your favourites, but I guarantee if you play this game alot you'll spend much more time on a faction based website.

I'll be joining the Terran Republic. I know Ill be chatting as much as possible with players on my team, and I know I won't make that much of an effort to contact other teams (even outside the game). So my community is my faction. Everyone on my faction has two common enemies, enemies which can and will only try and kill us over and over.

3 very close knit, individual communities having one huge war. I believe factions will learn to properly hate other factions, hell my friends are calling the Varu the VC's in conversation! Comraderie honour and a sense to impress piers will thrive in each faction, stronger than most people might think. You will celebrate victories, mourn defeats and give rise to hero's and legends within your own community.

MMOG communities have always been some of the strongest communities on the internet in my opinion. But I think this will reach a new height with PlanetSide.

Put simply, I can think of nothing that brings people together like a common focus of true hatred.

-RageMaster

[WhiteSun]

Originally posted by RageMaster
A couple of good friends and myself were recently discussing PlanetSide over a reefer outside on the porch

Gee, this post was a lot more coherent than I expected it to be!

[Hamma]

haha - indeed. Good post

[YoMma]

Heheh, good post.

I was thinking something along those lines, the hatred will really increase...I mean its already begun now! A lot of Vanu Dissing!

[Faust Sheck]

Personally I believe having no contact with the enemy is for the best. It eliminates friendship pacts which evens the game even more so.

For example you are with your friend "GoodGuy" and you run into two other people named "Badguy1" and "Badguy2", your friend GoodGuy is friends with both of them so he just sits back and doesen't kill them so they remain friends. If Goodguy had no idea who they were he would of helped keep you alive from these two guys.

A game which clearly demonstrates the chaos of letting you know the enemies names is Infantry, another SOE game. The zone (server) known as Chaos in EOL has so many people who make truces that they can't kill anyone without everyone killing them. Add to the fact that even the your team mates try to get you killed by their friends on oposing teams by summons, not summoning or healing, etc.

Playing World War 2 Online, a game which gives you no communication with the enemy is no problem with me, and I have never heard any of my team mates (Axis) bitch about the problem. I believe it helps your team build closer ties.

[Mold]

u lost me at reefer...


hehe, no realy i get what your saying and i totaly agree. The only exception that that would be if 2 empires where both being whooped by one (prolly the TR. >:] ) and somehow they decided to temporarily work together to fight against the overwhelming common threat.....but ya right that still wont happen. Theres always gonna be somone who joins, doesnt listen to the messages and tries to hack an allied base :-/

[YoMma]

Indeed, no contact is good. It keeps knowledge of enemy plans to a complete minimum, and keeps helps keep each empire a tightly knit community.

[txMaddog]

Sounds kinda like the DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) community, where you have 3 Realms fighting each other for forts and relics.

If one faction begins to dominate and sure the other 2 factions will probably start, if not working together, will focus more on the dominating faction til parity is restored.

[Kyonye]

I am a Vanu, always will be a Vanu, thats just the way it is. It is possible to have somewhat of a friend type within the other groups. respect leads to friendship, not always, but alot of the time.the key to having a friend in the other groups is not to let it interfere with the actual game.

[Mikedanad]

If you found a scapegoat..*ahem*..Friend (In an enemy faction of course) and became close 'Friends' in game and were almost like a spy, somehow counteracting every single attack that faction proposed and striking when they are away..You could completly over run a continent...possibly...just a thought....

[Navaron]

Like SJ said (I think it was SJ), that no one wants to kill people you know. It's alot more fun killing people you don't have any knowledge of except their faction. Nice, faceless enemies.

So you're pretty much killing people based on their colors right? Isn't that pretty racist? I thought so. Is smokejumper a nazi?

(IT'S A JOKE)

[CrazyJoker]

I was thinking about this as well and I started wondering about the rivalries that could potentially develop between different outfits. I was browsing through the different clans listed in the database and I noticed a lot of them are region-specific. Since outfits are probably going to try and have a few specific areas of operations (areas where they know the lay of the land better than others) in the game then odds are they will run into certain opposing outfits more than others.

I am really looking forward to this because I believe it will lead to more bitter fights where people will go down fighting to the last man (instead of pulling back and preparing for a counterattack) just because they hate the enemy outfit so much. Unlike other online games there isn't going to be an end to a match where everyone shakes hands and compliments each other on a job well done.

To be honest I'm really hoping this will be the case and 6 or so months from now there will be a feature on PSU entirely dedicated to intense rivalries that have developed within the game. I'm talking the kind of rivalry where a sniper will give up his perfect position above an enemy encampment to run halfway across the continent to participate in some meaningless skirmish that has started between the two clans and will eventually develop into a large-scale battle.

[Navaron]

That would be pimp-licious.

[GunboatDiplomat]

It may eventually reach the point at which as soon as people get online, they run straight for the nearest enemy, instead of forming a squad, or listening to the commands of their superiors for large scale tactics. And that CANNOT be a good thing. It would remove what I believe to be the most important aspect of the game, its large scale feel. PS would turn into another online fragfest unless blind hatred for the enemy was kept under control.

Beware unthinking hatred.

[Airlift]

The most interesting sociological aspect of the game to me would be to see how each empire develops differently, and what social orders are developed within each little community.