Sinking feeling in your heart?

[basti]

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

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.

Question is, what worked and what didnt? Ask anyone, they will have a different opinion...

[Aractain]

Thats because they are WRONG!

[Sifer2]

Originally Posted by 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.

You would still be better off doing that in games designed for it. Of which there are plenty. Planetside 2 should focus on the unique things you can only do with a large scale persistent world IMO. I think they are on the right track drawing inspiration from EVE. Since that game is not e-sports competitive but has lasted quite a while with people telling stories of things that happened like corporate take overs an so on. If they can get something like that into Planetside 2 in a way that fits I would take that over instanced small scale competitive maps.

In fact I would consider instanced small maps kind of a threat. Look what they did to world PvP in World of Warcraft. There was a time before the Battlegrounds were added where people fought out in the world. Back an forth battles over villages out in the wilderness. Even occasionally raiding each others faction cities an attempting to kill the hero NPC's. But then the faster more convenient Battlegrounds were added and all of that died over night. Fun dynamic world PvP replaced with people standing around the city with blank stares waiting for the que to warp them to some instance to grind the same old little minigame over again.

Who is to say the same might not happen to Planetside 2 if they added that? Instead of having to drive somewhere to fight an deal with possibly being outnumbered I can just que up for a nice balanced little quick match. It could potentially ruin the game if too many opted for it instead. Since the open world PvP needs lots of people to work.

[Crator]

Idea on this... What if the e-sports could be incorporated into the existing game world, no instances, with a UI overlay/elements for those participating in the e-sport events. Just make the goals required to compete inside the open PvP world... This UI for participants along with a nice web site that tracks all the events would work, no?

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

You would still be better off doing that in games designed for it. Of which there are plenty. Planetside 2 should focus on the unique things you can only do with a large scale persistent world IMO. I think they are on the right track drawing inspiration from EVE. Since that game is not e-sports competitive but has lasted quite a while with people telling stories of things that happened like corporate take overs an so on. If they can get something like that into Planetside 2 in a way that fits I would take that over instanced small scale competitive maps.

In fact I would consider instanced small maps kind of a threat. Look what they did to world PvP in World of Warcraft. There was a time before the Battlegrounds were added where people fought out in the world. Back an forth battles over villages out in the wilderness. Even occasionally raiding each others faction cities an attempting to kill the hero NPC's. But then the faster more convenient Battlegrounds were added and all of that died over night. Fun dynamic world PvP replaced with people standing around the city with blank stares waiting for the que to warp them to some instance to grind the same old little minigame over again.

Who is to say the same might not happen to Planetside 2 if they added that? Instead of having to drive somewhere to fight an deal with possibly being outnumbered I can just que up for a nice balanced little quick match. It could potentially ruin the game if too many opted for it instead. Since the open world PvP needs lots of people to work.

I'd rather compete on a platoon/squad scale of Planetside 2 with mixed unit tactics than run and gun.


I love planetside 2. And I'd love doing competitive play in it too.

Obviously a quick match battle would be very different than the full scale war and with what they plan on doing with the mission system and getting players quicker into battle, no one's going to do quick match just to enter a quicker battle.

And WoW is very different. The game was built around PvE. Battlegrounds and the Dishonor system may have killed world PvP but ultimatley, world PvP hindered overall gameplay, especially lower levels. You needed a large and organized raid to successfully attack cities and cities. And I actually did alot of that while Battlegrounds were out. It was fun but ultimatley had no purpose.

As long as the matchmaking doesn't reward close to what world gameplay does, people will do large scale battles in the world more often. If there's no solo queue for it either, then unless they got a full team that they trust to go in with, people won't flock to that. Given the number of PUGs overall.....I don't think this is an issue.


Competitive play in this game, when and if it does come....will only be a feature and not overshadow the main stage of gameplay. If it gets anywhere in eSports, people will giggle their pants off when they see their favorite people in the battlefield.

I really think it would compliment the gameplay more than anything and would require dedication from the people who do it (organize and train a couple times a week and all show up for tournaments etc.) while not effecting the main stage at all.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Crator

Idea on this... What if the e-sports could be incorporated into the existing game world, no instances, with a UI overlay/elements for those participating in the e-sport events. Just make the goals required to compete inside the open PvP world... This UI for participants along with a nice web site that tracks all the events would work, no?

I'm in agreement with Crator on this. I don't know if it would work, but it's the direction I'd like to see them take if they do anything like e-sports in PS2.

Why copy what other games do? Try blazing a new trail in e-sports history. Take advantage of the open, persistent world and the three empire nature of the gameplay. Make an e-sport like the world has never seen before.

If it doesn't work, meh. At least it didn't hurt the rest of the game. If it works, Planetside will make history, once again.

[Raymac]

With regards to Planetside and e-sports, I can't help but be reminded of lacrosse. Originally, lacrosse was called bagataway and played by various native american tribes. It was a massive event played on "fields" that were typically just the land between 2 villages, so they were miles apart and played by hundreds at a time. (Massive zone, hundreds of players...sound familiar?)

Nowadays, it's called by the french name "lacrosse" and played on a more manageble field about the same as a football field with 10 players per side.

My point is, while the regular Planetside game's massive scale really doesn't lend itself to e-sports, it can be scaled down to make it more e-sports friendly. Now this will make it no different than any other arena shooter, but that's what e-sports has to be. You can't have a massive game between villages, you need to scale it down to fit in a stadium.

Will it damage Planetside? Not likely, since the draw of the game will always be those massive scale battles, or even just the smaller skirmishes that directly affect those larger battles. And hopefully, Planetside 2 is such a huge success with sooo many people playing that a few players going off and playing some side arena instances won't even be noticed. I just wonder if it will really catch on and compete with other games that are actually designed as arena shooters (i.e. pretty much every fps out there).

[BuzzCutPsycho]

The fact that some of you are actually entertaining the idea of e-sports is pretty disturbing. You know as well as I do that it'd be a death-knell for PS2.

Think about what it did to the MMO juggernaut that is WoW. WoW took a huge hit due to arena and is considered to be one of the shittiest things they've ever done with the game.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by BuzzCutPsycho

The fact that some of you are actually entertaining the idea of e-sports is pretty disturbing. You know as well as I do that it'd be a death-knell for PS2.

Think about what it did to the MMO juggernaut that is WoW. WoW took a huge hit due to arena and is considered to be one of the shittiest things they've ever done with the game.

Frankly, if there was ever a time to entertain any and all possibilities for PS2, I'd think now would be that time. Do I think it is the best idea? No. But I also don't think it is as cut and dry as you say.

Also, WoW is not really a fair comparison for many reasons. Like it's a 7 year old game, and they are tacking on the e-sports thing after the fact, and there are dozens of similar games out there, and the new Kung Fu Panda expansion is the shittiest thing they've come up with.

Like I said before though, Planetside won't be able to compete with arena shooters on the e-sports front because they are designed specifically for that kind of play. They are minnows and Plantside is a giant fuckin krakken. Just different fish.

[Zulthus]

E-Sports is a shitty idea for a game like PlanetSide 2. I remember when the devs were trying to add content to PS1 a year (2 years?) ago, the MAX Factory and those urban trench combat things as instances. We were all soooo against it and convinced it would just draw away from the main battles, why would we support it now? You were right back then and should still have that opinion. PlanetSide is not an E-sports game. It is competitive without instancing. Why not just go to an empty continent to fight instead of wasting resources on something like this?

[Sifer2]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Frankly, if there was ever a time to entertain any and all possibilities for PS2, I'd think now would be that time. Do I think it is the best idea? No. But I also don't think it is as cut and dry as you say.

Also, WoW is not really a fair comparison for many reasons. Like it's a 7 year old game, and they are tacking on the e-sports thing after the fact, and there are dozens of similar games out there, and the new Kung Fu Panda expansion is the shittiest thing they've come up with.

Like I said before though, Planetside won't be able to compete with arena shooters on the e-sports front because they are designed specifically for that kind of play. They are minnows and Plantside is a giant fuckin krakken. Just different fish.

We can make comparisons to WoW. It's an MMO and a good study of how people behave to changes in design. The Arena's are not really a new feature I think its been around since Burning Crusade. There were a lot of things added to WoW that arguably damaged the game and made it less fun. Much like the stuff that was added to PS1 were bad ideas mostly.

Battlegrounds killed world PvP in WoW. Guy above made a good point that world PvP was kind of pointless beyond humiliating your enemy by raiding their city. But they could have easily just given it a point. Something they eventually tried to do I think much later on. But by then it was too late Battlegrounds/Arena's were just faster, and more convenient. There would never be enough people running around to get world PvP going again.

I see the same as a threat to large battles in Planetside. I think everyone knows that the dynamic nature of real world PvP that isn't confined to a small box has a very different pace to it. You cant just order up a battle at this specific base like a Hamburger made your way at McDonalds. You have to go with the flow and sometimes its slow or frustrating. If they add the McDonalds style instances then its possible a lot of people will opt to do that which will only slow down world PvP even further cause less people will show up.

It would go from only a handful of battles during off hours to no battles during off hours cause everyone is in instances. Only way to try to curve that behavior would be by making instance fights give very little reward. Or just be for bragging rights/leaderboard score alone. Even so I would rather see all their development effort go 100% into improving the world PvP experience rather than bother with instances. I just don't think tacking it on would make the game better.

[Elude]

I don't understand people who think graphics don't make a difference in a game when it's 50 percent of what makes it a video game. I would most definitely play a my little pony game if you could fucking touch the horse and feel it, who the hell wouldn't want to experience a breakthrough like that? I guarantee you if PS2 looked like PS1 it would not sell nearly as well.

Graphics support gameplay, there are gameplay elements in 3D games that you couldn't otherwise have if it were a 2D game. Do you have any idea what type of new gameplay potential games could have if you could fucking touch shit? Sure there are great games with bad graphics but to say that graphics don't matter is just wrong.

Back to the rest of the OP...

I don't think anything can really be claimed as "is this Planetside" when Planetside wasn't really much of anything to begin with. The only thing Planetside actually had going for it was large scaled battles in a persistent world with 100s of players and three factions competing against each other, everything else is irrelevant. Iron sights and jet packs will change the way Planetside 2 is played for sure but even these I'm sure are small in comparison to some of the other additions they have in store for us, so be prepared for more.

If Planetside 2 fails I highly doubt it'll be because of additions like jetpacks and iron sights.

[Captain1nsaneo]

If you're looking for a small instance or a place for duels or squad on squad fun, I don't see a reason that there couldn't be something like we had in PS.
Around the edges of a few conts there were small islands and a few of them worked for squad on squad brutality. I don't see why they couldn't make some tiny hand crafted islands along the periphery of one of the conts. Just need to fly your AMS out there and everything's good.

[Graywolves]

Okay, let's look at something that was successful in competitive gameplay with it not being the main attraction.....Such as Guild Wars.

Many people say that Guild Wars was successful in their arena, competitive gameplay, guild battles, automated tournaments, etc.

Now the developers of Guild Wars 2 are looking back at this and acknowledging the success of it but saying that it could have been more successful because the way that it was set up was not good for casuals, you needed a team, an organized guild.

Alot of people played Guild Wars and never did PvP. Some did nothing but.

With a F2P business model we are going to have these excess players who will be more interested in some battles than others. If it takes having 9-29 other people that you need to practice and regularly play with then I really do not see competitive play/eSports scene overtaking the rest of the game.

[Coreldan]

The difference is that GW was all about instancing. Instancing is what is required to make competetive gameplay.

PS has no instancing and it is directly against the nature of the game.