Just found these two pics on Tony Park's blog

[Rbstr]

What you say is certainly possible, however, if this guy was trying to convey topography he should be fired. Three shades is not nearly fine enough (especially when you can do gradients as demonstrated in the picture) and white is nearly always the lowest level on a topo.
Plus...it looks like a coastline and rivers. Which seems like something you'd want to avoid..if it isn't, you know, a coastline and rivers? (he shouldn't have had the dark gray, in the land-only case. The dark and light are never against one another, so the contrast simply wouldn't matter, and it's where the problem comes from, otherwise)

The reason that doesn't make sense is because all along the white/dark interface you have sharp line drawn with then a gradient white to gray. It looks exactly like a beach. Go look at an elevated picture of a coastline.

Then you've got the little rectangles, which I'd conjecture are towers, that only exist on the white portions. You have meanders and the classic river delta going on.
The base-looking icons seem to me like they're icons plopped on top of the map and simply covering up the islands they're on, especially if you check on the left, where you can see

Why would you draw the plateaus/bowls on the upper right by hand if you're already using gray scale for elevation?

Do you not remember the original PS's nonsensical water ways on hossin and cyssor?

[otomotopia]

The bottom right looks like a delta. I think it's rivers.

[BorisBlade]

yeah i think that dark almost black color is prob water, esp with teh coastline effect. The other tho is prob just terrain type or elevation indicators. otherwise why not just make those the same color as the darker ocean areas. Now of course it could just be an even lower area elevation wise, who knows. Its all just speculation at this point. Its like when scientists looked at mars a hundred years ago, they saw canals and indications of what they thought were cities and signs of intelligence. Thats kinda where we are right now. We have no clue at all and could all be completely wrong....or maybe there are martians on Auraxis after all!

[Vancha]

I understand our need to analyze any little bit of information we can get on PSN into the ground, but I think this picture's being taken a little too seriously. It looks far more like a concept than something way into development.

[opticalshadow]

Originally Posted by Vancha

I understand our need to analyze any little bit of information we can get on PSN into the ground, but I think this picture's being taken a little too seriously. It looks far more like a concept than something way into development.

im sorry but they starve us of information, and we have no choice but to apoint this as the end all to map designs for the entire game until were told otherwise.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by opticalshadow

im sorry but they starve us of information, and we have no choice but to apoint this as the end all to map designs for the entire game until were told otherwise.

We're not information starved.

We're being impatient about a game that isn't really even "official" yet.

There's a big difference.

[Aractain]

Well right now Arma3 has more info than this game and it was just anounced and launch is probably over a year away...

When are we going to see PSN? If its this year they are doing it wrong.

[Raymac]

I guess I'm on my own on this one, but it still makes more sense to me. If the dark gray is water, then the light gray is water because of the "delta" area. If the light gray is water, then nearly every base is surrounded by water and connected by rivers. This would essentially destroy the usefulness of infantry since you would need a boat. That just sounds extremely unlikely to me.

At first glance, I thought it was water too, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made for all that to be water. If you guys think the bases are going to be surrounded by water, so be it. Thats just not very logical to me. (Insert Sony = illogical joke here)

[Tiberius]

You guys crack me up.

Just wait till you log ingame to see what the map looks like lol

[Tikuto]

Originally Posted by Tiberius

You guys crack me up.

Just wait till you log ingame to see what the map looks like lol

*HYPOTHETIC REACTION OF LOG-IN*

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by Raymac

This would essentially destroy the usefulness of infantry since you would need a boat. That just sounds extremely unlikely to me.

Bridges? Or perhaps the difficult access is the point? (You're also forgetting the supposed larger role of the Galaxy)

Bases on islands existed in the original as well. The drop ship on Hossin, one an Amerish IICR.

[opticalshadow]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

We're not information starved.

We're being impatient about a game that isn't really even "official" yet.

There's a big difference.

concidering the big man stated that the game is being made, id concider it official. he may be lying, it owuldnt be the first time. but they have gone out of their way to prove otherwise.

so id say were information starved, we know its in the works, or atleast we were told that it was, and we got a few screens so far, and here we have some screen about ingame content perhaps. unless they tell us anything about it alls we have is what we have. so the only assumptions we can make are the ones they give us information to lead to.

[Noyjitatps]

Kinda looks like esamir or something.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Noyjitatps

Kinda looks like esamir or something.

It's a black and white drawing projected on a white board, of course it looks like esamir :P

[Brusilov]

Planetside 2? well thats the most stupid name ever... :S PS 2.0 would be somewhat okay but just 2 is plain silly