An ORIGINAL Planetside 2

[Greensbr]

Take a deep breath because this is a bit of a long idea. I don't like the direction that a possible "Planetside 2" will be taking according to the ideas I have researched so far on this site. From what I have seen, the forums are still filed into the mindset of Planetside, without much originality. I hesitated to share this, but here it goes.

First and foremost what made Planetside good, and is still to this day the main factor that makes it worth paying for, is the massive amount of PvP you experience. While Halo, Crysis, and many other popular games can fill a maximum or 32 clients at a time on a server, Planetside easily offered combat of up to 50 versus 50 players, even sometimes 100 v 100 or more. However with the recent release of ARMA and many other such games, you will find that attaining massive scale PvP can no longer be monopolized by this game or others, as the technological advance allows more than just 32 players to be accommodated at a time. The only other attractive feature of Planetside as a mmo, is the fact that it doesn't allow level or "Battle Rank" to exponentially increase the advantage of some players over others, such as you will see in Eve Online or WoW. In otherwords, Planetside at least treats its new and low level players well.

However, you might wonder how much that can go for. What can keep Planetside 2 fresh and creative? Something that is enough to make it worth paying for.

That thing is my idea.

Planetside as of now is a static "First Person Shooter." The players are in a first person shooter from the day they enter into their factions world for the first time, till the day their accounts expire the last time. However, as the player journeys along that path, increasing in level, players gain certain perks, like new weapons and skills of course, but more importantly, they gain the ability to use battle chat and more global chat as they increase in military rank. Obviously you would think that a "General" in an army should get more privileges then a "Private"?

What if a general had more responsibility, not as a soldier on the battlefield, but more behind the lines in the command of bases, structures and what not? Hmm what if those who were higher in "rank" got a little more than the ability to drive a vehicle, but to make that vehicle available in the first place? Yes. You can see where I am going with this; I am talking about incorporating "Real-Time Strategy" elements into Planetside 2.

But you must be wondering; How in the world can you have the elements of a real-time strategy game in what is supposed to be an MMO? You might be envisioning a single person, sitting at the computer, commanding an entire faction of units while other players follow his command! But this is not the case. As a matter of fact it is a rather relative idea, whereas the command will not fall into the hand of a single person but to those who are highest in rank, starting from the top to the bottom.

Sounding weird? You have to recognize that this genre of gaming is growing steadily in popularity. Take a look at the game "Tiberium", for example; http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/tiberium/index.html

So how will it work? Well there are many ways to begin... but first let’s talk about whets important, the average player.

So one of you are playing Planetside 2... you are walking along the surface of an alien planet, when all the sudden, a green message and an arrow is displayed on your hud. Could it be? Yes it is, that is you being selected by a commanding officer watching you from above. "What is it?" you wonder. The arrow turns red and a bar below it appears. Ah. He wants you to attack a base, with orders to destroy it. Well thats good, because destroying a base is one thing, but being selected to destroy a base means a little extra experience on top of what you'll get. So you walk toward the base when you notice that the bar on your hud slowly decreases. Ah.. heres the downside... that little bar is a timer for you to complete your mission.. it sort of "guarantees" that your mission wont expire. "Well thats fine." you say, as you try to walk away from your target. Ouch! The bar begins to decreases even more rapidly.. "Argh." It seems this is in place to guarantee that you move steadily toward your target and not away from it. "Well cripes" you say, "I guess I just gotta move toward it more logisitically, and hopefully I'll avoid enemies along the way." So about two minutes later you get to your target. The small base stands unguarded. "Well, this will be a piece of cake." you say as you load your rocket launcher. You aim and pull your finger down on the trigger, shooting at the base. To your surprise, the half depleted timer bar stops depleting... as a matter of fact, it looks like its increasing slightly, giving you more time to destroy this base! "Looks like I will stay and shoot at this base to get my extra experience points." And surely you do, since attacking the base is rewarded with more time...



Got your attention? What you have just read was what I call the concept of "Missions". If you've ever played the game Starcraft, Command and Conquer, or any such RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game, you will know that when you click on a unit and order it to attack, it will follow your orders without hesitation. Players can be just as loyal too, and maybe even better a unit then an NPC, they just need an incentive first. Our commanding officer in Planetside 2 will have the option of selecting a player to complete a mission he/she thinks is necessary from a birds eye view.

But what about abuse of this system? Would a player and a friendly "officer" work together to gain large amounts of experience easily? Would it be used to spy on other nations giving them an unfair advantage? No, because there will be systems in place to prevent this from happening. For instance, a player won't be able to be selected for a certain period of time after he/she has been selected. He/she might be selected with another group, increasing the chance that the mission will be a success. But any experience gained from completing the mission will be equally distributed among players, making the prospect of gaining a large amount of experience, for a single individual null. Factor in the fact that enemy units are in short supply to achieve this, and you will find that abusing the "Missions" system to gain extra experience, is impossible.


If you've read this far, I can tell you probably find this idea interesting to say the least, because now I am going to talk about the most innovative and challenging part of this idea; "Bases." As you already know, Planetside's bases and towers remain at set locations, as a matter of fact, every single structure and landmass in the game remains unchanged throughout the course of the entire war. Now don't get me wrong, because from my experience playing Planetside, most players don't find this unchanging aspect of the game boring. This is frankly because there is plenty of land to explore, to run, and to hide. That is why this portion of the idea is most controversial.. but it is pretty much necessary within the game, if the generals of a faction wish to build bases.

Yes, thats right, build bases.

It will work something like this. A planet will have a set of factors regulating its environment. For instance, and ice planet will everywhere be covered in ice, and a tropical planet, will everywhere be dominated by sand, hurricanes and green plants. When a war begins, an untouched planet will have no set landmasses... until it is scouted by a faction for valuable resources. Resources are the material required to build a base, units, supplies, and pretty much everything fueling an empire. The server will decide that the "scout" has found a location on a planet that as an ample and lasting supply of resources. More specifically it will state that is has found a location by which a faction can draw and mine resources. Yes.. thats right. If you have played any game in the "Warcraft" series, you will know that the scout as found an entire Faction, one of these things;

http://bnetd.org/war3/images/human/s...b-gold-orc.gif

The general(s) of that faction will peer with interest. "It will cost you 2,000,000 initial resource to begin a base here sir. Shall I proceed." Gazing upon his losing battle at Cyssor, the general decides, "Yes."

(continued)