Hello Planetside Universe

[Vydofnir]

Hello everyone! I just found out about Planetside 2 a couple of weeks ago, and it was love at first sight. Since then I have watched and re-watched just about every PS2 video the internet has to offer, I made a twitter account (something I never thought I would do) for the sole purpose of following the game's development, and I was ultimately compelled to join a video game forum for the first time.

PS2 is an odd choice of game for me because I despise MMOs, and I generally shy away from online multiplayer in general. I have had a great deal of love for FPS games in the past, but have become somewhat jaded over the years by the nature of their online play. It is my experience that as game developers have become better at immersing players in an interesting and exciting virtual world, competitive players have become better at using cheap exploits to dominate others and break that sense of immersion. Not being an exceptionally competitive person, I start to lose interest quickly when playing in a way that is interesting and playing in a way that is effective are mutually exclusive. I love a challenge, but there are only so many times you can get killed over and over by someone playing dirty before it stops being fun. PS2 strikes me as unique in this sense because it is on such a huge scale, and the design team has done a superb job of balancing multiple play styles to provide a challenging and rewarding experience.

I feel like MMOs have a great deal of potential in theory, but in practice they have always left me bitter and disappointed. However, PS2 seems to avoid all of the pitfalls that have killed MMOs for me in the past. Firstly, I can't imagine paying a subscription fee for a game, but SOE went and blew my mind by making it entirely F2P. Secondly, MMOs are generally so slow paced that after a while it starts to feel like I'm doing work (and that they should be paying me $15 a month), but PS2s action is all about being fast paced and instantly gratifying. Finally, I dislike the fact that in a typical MMO, new players and veteran players are usually so disproportionate that the former can provide no challenge whatsoever to the latter, and the latter has little or no incentive to play alongside the former; in the case of PS2 everyone can be killed by anyone, and the time you invest in the game rewards you with versatility of play rather than the ability to completely dominate.

So that's who I am and why I'm here. I just want to thank PSU for being so welcoming to a newcomer like myself. It has become clear to me that the PS community is the by far the most passionate and appreciative game community I've ever seen, and it's no wonder the developers of the game show so much love for you guys. I'm happy to be a member of PSU, and I look forward to enjoying massive first person combat on a strategic scale with (or against) all of you!