News: Chinese Interview with John Smedley

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by basti

This, at least for the shop, F2P and "crafting"

But what worrys me is drops. Lets face it, TF2s system of completly random drops suck. YOu get the borderland issue where you get guns you dont want at all, and sooner or later you got spammed with crap till you find the one gun you like. Random is always just annoying.

i totally love the weapon system of planetside 1
the way certs, loot-drops and merit based certs go together is working sooooo good!

wasp is still a good example. you need to win a lot of dogfights with the reaver to gain access to the wasp. if ps1 had a shop, i would like to see the wasp cert be buyable there, so players can decide, if they want to take on the hard challange and get rewarded with the cert in a few weeks/months or if they just want it NOW and pay some bugs for it. there are still the same chances for everyone and everyone can get the same equipment, its just a choice if you want to work for it and spend a lot of time or buy it instantly.

about random drops:
i liked the idea of the soldiers only dropping what they are carrying like it was in ps1. dropping random stuff the soldier didnt even have on him while he was still alive is stupid. just doesn´t feel right. it works for tf2 but it makes no sense at all, and in planetside 1 there was a "reason" for everything that happened. not always a very good one, but everything made kind of sense, and that was good for the atmosphere of the game.

it would even be a nice idea, to have a weapon research base in the game, that drops special weapons in the labs, but only for the empire owning this base. so there is actually another reason to take a base.

[basti]

Originally Posted by Shogun

i totally love the weapon system of planetside 1
the way certs, loot-drops and merit based certs go together is working sooooo good!

wasp is still a good example. you need to win a lot of dogfights with the reaver to gain access to the wasp. if ps1 had a shop, i would like to see the wasp cert be buyable there, so players can decide, if they want to take on the hard challange and get rewarded with the cert in a few weeks/months or if they just want it NOW and pay some bugs for it. there are still the same chances for everyone and everyone can get the same equipment, its just a choice if you want to work for it and spend a lot of time or buy it instantly.

about random drops:
i liked the idea of the soldiers only dropping what they are carrying like it was in ps1. dropping random stuff the soldier didnt even have on him while he was still alive is stupid. just doesn´t feel right. it works for tf2 but it makes no sense at all, and in planetside 1 there was a "reason" for everything that happened. not always a very good one, but everything made kind of sense, and that was good for the atmosphere of the game.

What about you actually play Planetside? The wasp is a cert, just as the reaver. Its Mossy (3 points), then reaver (2) or wasp (2).
What you propably mean is the Vulture, that requires quite a lot of bomber kills, means you fly, a guy bombs stuff, and at some point you unlock the vulture.

I love it that way, the entire game should work that way more or less, and the cash shop should be a shortcut, giving your access right away. This way those who want to spend cash to get certain vehicles or equipment faster can do this, other just play for a while and get it that way. You could even go that far and account your progress torwards a certain piece of equipment into the buying price. Lets say buying the vulture would cost 100$ (just a random number, dont go crazy), or you need to get 1000 kill assits as a lib pilot. If you already have 500 kills, vulture would only cost 50$. This would make me buy stuff actually, if i just cant be assed to spend all that time into getting something and want it right away.

Get enough stuff like that, add new stuff every now and then, and you have a good balance: You dont ever need to spend cash to get access to all the stuff, but if you do, you save time.
Now, just get some special colors for weapons and vehicles, some special armor pieces, and some other special cosmetic stuff that is only optainable through the cash shop, get enough players and you earn loads of cash while keeping players happy.

But, and this is important, if you go and sell faster skill training or something like that, give the game a subscription option where you have such stuff automaticly. Star Trek online is going to do something similar, just look at it.
More important: dont EVER sell ANY piece of equipment in the shop that you cant get ingame for free. Even if it is a pony gun that shoots rainbows that does literally nothing, players will complain. Not because the pony gun may be cool or strong or whatever, but simply because they have to spend cash.

[Shogun]

sorry, i meant the system of the vulture. mixed it up with the wasp because i have no piloting certs at all ;-)

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by basti

Get enough stuff like that, add new stuff every now and then, and you have a good balance: You dont ever need to spend cash to get access to all the stuff, but if you do, you save time.
Now, just get some special colors for weapons and vehicles, some special armor pieces, and some other special cosmetic stuff that is only optainable through the cash shop, get enough players and you earn loads of cash while keeping players happy.

But, and this is important, if you go and sell faster skill training or something like that, give the game a subscription option where you have such stuff automaticly. Star Trek online is going to do something similar, just look at it.
More important: dont EVER sell ANY piece of equipment in the shop that you cant get ingame for free. Even if it is a pony gun that shoots rainbows that does literally nothing, players will complain. Not because the pony gun may be cool or strong or whatever, but simply because they have to spend cash.

that´s exactly what i wanted to say!
acess to every equipment for every player is a must have.
speedups for paying players are ok and will be bought without any doubt. cosmetics, too.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by The Desert Fox

Guys guys guys I have solves the F2P and Alien AI problems, Smed recently said for anyone who doesn't like free to play, send 14.99$ to my Paypal every month and this way it is no longer F2P. As well, we have developed this new revolutionary way to get rid of the alien AI encounters. Our scientists believe that if you, and hear me out on this one, don't actually log into Planetside while the encounters are happening, you won't have to see them, therefore they won't exist too you.

Logic=Use it when you need it.

THIS.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by noodz

Not liking these new additions/features just give us the old game with new engine! That's all I care for! Old school ps pre BFR was so fun they should focus on giving us this experience again and after release add in new ideas

Oh, well if that's all you care for, that's what they should do. To hell with the rest of us, right?

A mere Planetside revamp might be fun for some of us, but it probably wouldn't be very successful by comparison.

[noodz]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Oh, well if that's all you care for, that's what they should do. To hell with the rest of us, right?

A mere Planetside revamp might be fun for some of us, but it probably wouldn't be very successful by comparison.

True - all I care for really is the game being the shit! which it will be regardless :P

[Physed]

I know that there are plenty of arguments for and against it, but I just wanted to throw in my opinion of microtransactions:

I dislike the microtransaction system because I don't want to be forced to think about money and purchases while I'm playing. I just hope that PS2 offers an OPTIONAL monthly fee for players like me that gives me access to pretty much everything. I don't even care if it's not the most cost effective method for me.. I just don't want to see all of these microtransactions on my creditcard/paypal account or whatever. I just want to see one fee per month and be done with it, and play my game without thinking about it.

World of Tanks has a great system that allows both microtransactions and a monthly fee. In that system, the monthly fee is actually a better "deal" for the player. From a business standpoint, I know that the corporation I work for prefers to have steady, predictable income. Microtransactions leads to spikes and sags as products are added and removed (and nerfed and buffed).

All I'm asking for is the viable option of paying the fee. It doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do.

[Lokster]

F2P with no box sale = hackers. Bottom line. I don't care what kind of dedicated "team" or "technology" they have. When you make a game entirely free it BEGS for hackers to come and ruin it.

I assure you, hackers will try to hack PS2 and they will succeed. And they all know, when they get banned, they can wash their hands -- tweak their bot -- make a new account and be back in less than an hour. Hacking again. Especially with the recent court ruling regarding HWID bans, 3rd party anti-cheat companies and online games.

Everyone knows, with little to no knowledge you can change your IP and MAC Address in 3 minutes and circumvent a ban.

Also, I can't wait to sit in queues for hours at a time, waiting for a bunch of F2P groupie, leechers to finish playing. Furthermore, I can't wait to be the one who buys the "not powerful" weapons and armor to support the game so everyone else can play it for free.

And I don't even feel like getting into the types of people F2P games attract. PS will go from the best community of gamers around to a community equivalent to the APB player base. Which is less than lacking.

F2P = FAIL.

/end rant

PS. Disregard the above wall of text if playing the game requires a box purchase.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Smed

F2P has nothing whatsoever to do with hacking. We just need to have resources dedicated to the issue which I'm stating categorically we will.

The business model can be more or less inviting to hackers. The concern with F2P and hacking is the low (no) barrier to entry. If it is truly "free" to play and it costs nothing to make an account (and nothing to lose an account) then it will be more inviting to hackers than something that has a monetary barrier such as a $59 box price to acquire an account.

Of course the barrier works both ways and also reduces the chances that non hackers will play the game as well. You could argue that its just a matter of scale, but the population of hackers is not simply a function of the population of the game. Risk, investment, and reward all come into play.

Could you clarify whether PS2's model is intended to have a modest barrier to entry or if it is truly 100% free to play?

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Smed

...This is currently in the game only and is a rare drop (yes you read that part right).

Could you elaborate on how "drops" are expected to work?

Are "drops" auto-looted as a sort of random reward for play? Do you get them for support actions? Do you get them for other objectives like capturing a tower/hex/base?

I would expect that if a random reward is given out that reward could be given out for anything that I could get experience for doing, whether it is direct or indirect. It would also make sense to me that the larger the xp reward the larger the chance of the drop. That seems like a fair way of doing it.

(I think something physical I have to go pick up or only "drops" from kills then I think that's a pretty crappy system.)

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Lokster

Also, I can't wait to sit in queues for hours at a time, waiting for a bunch of F2P groupie, leechers to finish playing.

Actually I was thinking sarcastically a while back when people were talking about how they wanted F2P that they could allow people to purchase queue priority. I remember when I used to play with friends and we used to wait for the queue we'd all jump into galaxy to make sure we could get in at the same time so I don't think that would work very well.

Should be interesting to see how the queues are handled.

[Firefly]

I read the original Chinese page, not that it makes a difference. Basti's Google translation is more or less accurate. Whilst not verbatim, it delivers the gist.

Speaking Mandarin for the win.

[GTGD]

How does SOE plan on handling the amount of traffic that will be generated by a F2P game of this magnitude? I understand that each map will support up to 1500 players, but in PS1 terms that means each server would be quickly saturated. Obviously you guys have thought about this. Would you be able to elaborate on how you will handle all the players and servers?

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by GTGD

How does SOE plan on handling the amount of traffic that will be generated by a F2P game of this magnitude?

Hoping they're smart this time and go the route of single username/character name for all servers. Makes merges less of a headache especially if they quickly expand to say 20 servers to handle everyone at launch then drop down afterwards.

Would suck to play on a server with friends just to have it get killed by a more popular server. (If you can't tell I'm against having to make a new character for each server. I find it boring to manage 15 characters essentially for each server just because people I like to play with don't all jump to one server).

Actually separating players and characters from the actual servers would be my preference. So you just select whatever server you want to play on when you log in.