Idea: Time Limited servers.

[stick100]

Planetside is all about getting into the game quickly changing the game would and accomplishing something for your faction correct. But what happens when you log off and go back to the real world. There is a good chance the way that you affected the world (ie taking over 3 bases) will be undone by people while you are away. What about the fact that the amount of difference for you side can roughly be summerized as SKILL OF PLAYER * TIME PLAYED. Now I like the idea of a persistent world in which my actions have measureable differences, but I will only be able to play limited period of time (like almost everyone).
So here are 2 different ideas I would like to propose.

1. A server that only runs certain times of the day for example 8-10 pm Pacific time(and possiably more hours on the weekend). This server would allow skilled 14 hours a week players to have as much affect on the game world as a skilled 60 hours a week player. Also this server would allow you to be involved in the world for the entirety of the time the world exists. So under no circumstances would (if you played the 2 hours a day its up) any game action occur (losing your favorite vehcile station) that you were not in the game to witness/stop/perticiape in. Once the server closed for the day you could continue to play on another server. I think no matter how much I played if a server like this was available I would play on it because I could be a powerful presence without a terriable time draw from the "real world".

2. A server that would only let you play for a set number of hours per day or per week. This server would allow the skilled 14 hours a week players to have as much affect on the game world as a skilled 60 hours a week player. However it has ALOT of problems. 1: Outfits would have diffictly operating because members would occasionally run out of thier "time" and be kicked out. 2: Players with alot of $ to spend could have an advantage by buying multiple accounts and spending more time in the game world then should be allowed for one person. 3. Your little sister/wife/whatever could accidentially/intentionally create a character on this server and waste your "time". Also actions on this kind of server could occur without you being there. In total I don't think this is a great solution, but it would in someways equalize the reletive power between the people with little time to play and the people with all the time in the world to play.

In conclusion I hope one of these server ideas is implemented or something like it because I would like to be able with my busy life style to have even reletivly as much impact on the game world as someone with all the time in the world. Servers like this should not be too hard to create, as the game server saves the state of the world. A daily server (ex. 8-10) would have the day "stop", this would mean that players could analyize the actions of the day and have these "news reports" mean something because the world can't change for a while, also this system would heavily encourage outfiting/outfits/teamwork because players they don't have much time to accomplish the daily goals. Also except of the additional scripting/programming work to set-up the startup and shut down of the servers/timelimits this idea should appeal to SOE because there is a good chance that people will spend less time playing cutting down on thier bandwidth cost. Also this solution will allievate casual players if they start to believe that thier actions have no consequences on the world becuase the play 1/10 as much as thier opponents.