Sinking feeling in your heart?

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

The only fear I have is that the game will get shit on after launch. I'm loving, or at least okay with, everything I've seen and heard so far.

Some of the changes, like jump jetting MAXes, will be missed. Other changes, like mandatory 2 man MBT's, I don't prefer. None if it sounds outright bad to me though. I can understand where the devs are coming from and I think the gameplay will still be fine.

I just don't want SOE to pump out a great game, probably better than the first Planetside, and then let it suffer Planetsides fate all over again. I want those massive battles to rage on for the next ten years.

F2P and that 3 year plan are keeping me hopeful on that front.

The way some people talk about PS2 not being "true Planetside" makes me laugh. We've only had one entry in the series so far. Games evolve. A clone of a game isn't a sequel, it's an expansion pack... That's the kind of shit that Call of Duty pulls. It's true that you can lose the spirit of a game with just one sequel, but Planetsides heart and soul looks intact to me in PS2. It's still going to be more like the original Planetside than it will be like any other game, and in all the most important ways.

Not every PS1 fan is going to like PS2 though. The changes will just be too much for some. I hope those numbers are small though, since the community is pretty awesome and I'd hope that as many of those vets as possible are able to enjoy falling in love with Planetside all over again.

^^^ Pretty much this. ^^^

Once again Xyn, you and I are seeing things eye-to-eye. From what I've read so far PS2 is going to be a worthy successor to PS1 and if its development continues along the same lines as we've been led to believe I will probably have even more fun playing PS2 than I did PS1 - and believe me I LOVED PS1, and still play it 3-4x/week. The Devs continue to express that this is a re-imagining of Planetside, and as such big changes are to be expected. However, for me many of the core aspects of PS1 have already been confirmed to be in PS2:

• Persistent world
• Huge number of players at once
• The same 3 Empires with the same strategic approaches
• Character skill development, specialization, and level advancement
• Outfits, squads, platoons
• Diverse, large-scale combined arms combat (light and heavy infantry, cloakers, MAXes, Ground Vehicles, aircraft) with dozens to hundreds of units (if not more) of each type in play at once
• Multi-crew vehicles
• Diverse support skills and non-combat support roles (Medics, Engies, etc)
• Very little difference in direct power between a "Day 1" character and a 5-year vet

All of the above has already made it 99% likely that it'll feel to me like PS2 is a game that will fit nicely into the PS family.

But Sighpolice, it's understandable that you feel the way you do as they are making a ton of changes to the gameplay mechanics. There are a few revisions that I think are a big mistake I have made my opinions known on these boards (no enemy weapon looting, no vehicle jacking, MBT's with no dedicated driver), others that I'd rather not see go but see the reasoning behind (VS MAX Jumpjets, freeform inventories and certs, although I still fear the classes will be a little too restrictive), and still others whose change is a mystery to me (no Sancs, no instant AP for VS weapons, Engies getting stuck with carbines), but the vast majority of changes I've heard about I absolutely love, like:

• territorial control system
• Locational damage on vehicles and infantry
• more realistic flight mechanics
• mission system
• no infantry 3rd person
• Weapon/vehicle sidegrades (note: not upgrades. Customizing a weapon to do something better will have tradeoffs)
• interchangeable MAX weapon arms (instead of changing to a whole new suit like PS1)
• realistic weapon ballistics
• Kill times that are faster than PS1 but slower than BFBC2
• some objectives capture-able by vehicles

I could go on and on (too late! ), but you get the idea. Personally I have found that the more details I read about the game, the less concerned I became because it allowed me to better see the vision the Devs have for PS2 and understand most of the changes they are making to the PS1 formula. I already have a pretty good framework in my mind for what it will be like and overall it appears to be an improvement in many ways to PS1.

If you haven't already do so I strongly suggest you look at Bags's Stickied PS2 information thread at the top of this forum and at least read the reddit thread, the FAQ's, Q&A's and any info that Bags directly pasted into his first couple of posts. Hopefully that will give you more insight into what the Devs are doing an help alleviate your concerns somewhat. It certainly will give you a more accurate depiction since it's straight from the horses mouth, not (in-article quotes aside) interpreted by some game magazine writer that may have never even played PS1 before.

One last thing: What has probably kept me most at ease is the level of communication the Devs have had with us so early in the game's development. It obvious that they all have great passion for PS2, and that they are putting a ton of thought and effort into every square inch of the game - both literally and from a game mechanics standpoint. They have been happy to address the ton of questions we've thrown at them and given us info when they can. And they are also actually listening to our feedback and in many cases making changes according. For a game that's still in Alpha (or closed beta if the friends and family rumours are true), that's pretty damn impressive...

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by BuzzCutPsycho

Given SoE's track record the OP has a very real reason to be worried/skeptical of the game. I'm not too worried though about them saying the fighting is similar to modern shooters such as CoD and BF especially since PS1's infantry fighting was an abysmal joke.

Any game where a "good" player learned how to abuse A/D and crouching to cause their character to warp is the sign of poor shooter mechanics. PS1 as a shooter was a terrible game even for it's time but made up for it in it's large scale team play focus. The moment that began to erode is when the game went down into the shitter. This was PRE-BFR mind you.

This is a good point. Although I obviously don't have quite so negative of an opinion as you about PS1 in general, the infantry combat did leave much to be desired. I've never played any of the BF series, but IMO CoD 1 and 2 anyway had superior infantry combat mechanics to the simplistic HA-biased ADADA-fest that permeated PS1.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

My opinion of PS1 as a game isn't really as negative as I may display. I think PS1 was a great game but I don't look back in time with rose tinted glasses. It had a lot of game breaking issues beyond what you may remember or even experienced.

One such issue that was crippling to us in particular was the CTD on continent load. Our outfit ran a full platoon of infantry a night. We'd respond to enemy hacks or attack continents via three galaxies. A common issue was to have the pilot and multiple players CTD after entering a warp gate and as you can imagine this was very bad when speed and surprise were two of your major benefits. This was (to my knowledge) never fixed.

But that didn't matter because in about a month BFRs made all forms of organization irrelevant.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by BuzzCutPsycho

My opinion of PS1 as a game isn't really as negative as I may display. I think PS1 was a great game but I don't look back in time with rose tinted glasses. It had a lot of game breaking issues beyond what you may remember or even experienced.

One such issue that was crippling to us in particular was the CTD on continent load. Our outfit ran a full platoon of infantry a night. We'd respond to enemy hacks or attack continents via three galaxies. A common issue was to have the pilot and multiple players CTD after entering a warp gate and as you can imagine this was very bad when speed and surprise were two of your major benefits. This was (to my knowledge) never fixed.

But that didn't matter because in about a month BFRs made all forms of organization irrelevant.

Oh yeeeeaaahh... I knew there was a reason I stopped upgrading my rig for several years. Fixed most things but it didn't stop PS's memory leaks and a chance to drop on cont load as you said.

I actually like PS's infantry gameplay when it comes to dealing with vehicles on foot. In the BF series I always feel like I'm dead if I so much as see a vehicle while on foot. PS made infantry always feel like they at least were a threat to vehicles and not just fodder.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by BuzzCutPsycho

My opinion of PS1 as a game isn't really as negative as I may display. I think PS1 was a great game but I don't look back in time with rose tinted glasses. It had a lot of game breaking issues beyond what you may remember or even experienced.

One such issue that was crippling to us in particular was the CTD on continent load. Our outfit ran a full platoon of infantry a night. We'd respond to enemy hacks or attack continents via three galaxies. A common issue was to have the pilot and multiple players CTD after entering a warp gate and as you can imagine this was very bad when speed and surprise were two of your major benefits. This was (to my knowledge) never fixed.

But that didn't matter because in about a month BFRs made all forms of organization irrelevant.

Don't get me wrong, I know PS1 certainly had its problems. Falling through the world, blackout and term bugs, getting trapped in spawn tubes that wouldn't open, numerous lockon and cloaking field visibility issues, etc. My first TR outfit did frequent gal drops (although not on the scale used by the Enclave) so I recall the frustration when our pilot CTD'd, and I still get sound- and memory leak-related session lockups every couple of days.

In fact, PS1 is probably the buggiest game I've ever played, but it was also the only MMO I've ever played so I don't have much to compare it to directly. And it's certainly the most complex FPS I've played. But even with all of its problems it's still my favorite computer game of all time, and even though I also quit once BFR's were released and they invalidated any other type of ground vehicle combat, once they were nerfed to tolerable levels after about a year I came back and have been playing ever since.

So yeah, um... Not really sure where I'm going with this.. What were we talking about again?

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Erendil

So yeah, um... Not really sure where I'm going with this.. What were we talking about again?

Judging from the thread title I think we're talking about heart disease.

So back on topic, does anyone have a betting pool going for when Higby's lunch will cause heart failure?

[Nephilimuk]

42

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Nephilimuk

42

Life, the universe, and everything?

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by ringring

If the devs create a bridge for bridge fights as they say they are going to do, for goodness sake do not make it like the bridge between Tore and Lesa!

Pro-tip: Cert Galaxy/Liberator/Scythe/Reaver/Mosquito. Go above, around, side to side, underneath, some other continent.

Problem solved.

[basti]

The Tore-Leza Bridge is awesome! Its about 600 meters long, and full of win! I fought so many awesome battlest there that i can barley remember even half of them.

Seriously, we need more stuff like this. Tore-Leza required teamwork on a new scale. A single tank did noting, you had to roll full tank collums across the bridge, supported with Air and AA. Or have 2-4 full galaxys going for the enemys base tower or the generator, just to have a distraction big enough to let the other guys push across the bridge.

Loved every single fight there!

[Raymac]

Yeah, fought that Tore - Leza battle soooo many times, and never really got tired of it. I still remember the first time I took my Reaver underneath the bridge from a steep angle at full afterburn trying to avoid those Starfire rounds. I fully expected to not make it, but somehow snuck through. Memorable moments like that are why I am really looking forward to PS2.

[Sifer2]

I can understand the fears. It's quite obvious they feel that to succeed in the market they must copy core gameplay from Battlefield/CoD. And that means making it really easy to die/respawn. Ironsights, Killcams, and they have not told us yet but I bet regenerating health is in too. Medic probably is more for rezzing like the Battlefield version.

These will be massive changes to the gameplay that wont make it feel the same. But you don't really have any other options in MMOFPS anyway. So all you can do is concentrate on what did stay the same. To be honest I had expected worse. I was worried it would be only two factions and done in a more modern warfare style. Thank god its as close to PS1 as it is.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

I can deal with modernization to an extent. I am personally worried about "e-sports" and "outfit wars" since they're so fundamently against what made PS1 so great.

In PS1 when they experimented with outfit wars (CLAN MATCHES) they were a joke. If people wanted to be competitive on a micro scale they'd do it in superior games. So long as whoever the temporary developers of PS2 are can understand what will draw the majority of their players they should be fine for awhile. If you try to cater to too many people you'll end up with a watered down experience on all fronts which leaves nobody satisfied.

I've used the example before but I will do so again - Battlefield 3.

[Graywolves]

I think competitive gameplay can work, just have little small player hosted games throughout (so people can practice and train) and a tournament once a week or once a month maybe.

Or just give it a matchmaking but require a platoon/squad that's full.

[Baneblade]

As long as PS2 sticks to the parts of PS1 that worked and avoids the parts that didn't, it can only be a better game.