Whats the purpose in this game?

[Gandhi]

It's not just about winning, it's about having large scale goals that go beyond "capture this base" or "defend this hex". Continent locks might not have been the ideal goal, but at least it was something.

Things like "This is our home continent, lets kick these fools out" or "Lets boot the TR out of Oshur so we can have vec repair benefits". It's another layer of objectives laid on top of the constant, passive motivation of "get resources". It's the reason why every professional sport has a championship, what's the point in playing 50 games each season if they're just isolated 1 vs 1's? You play those games to secure a playoff spot, then you win the playoffs to secure a spot in the final. Throughout the entire season there's these long term objectives that give a solid reason for playing each individual match, one that goes beyond just "lets beat the other team".

I think every game needs goals like that, especially one with a persistent world without the traditional raid-for-loot mechanics. It's really tough to get right, and like I said I wasn't totally happy with the cont lock mechanic either. But it was a start. And who knows, maybe PS2 already has this covered. I guess we'll find out in the beta.

[headcrab13]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

The question really is, how often can we have these, how many people can participate in each one, how do you sign up for them, etc? And in fact, for extra revenue, something like a $2 entry fee for each one might make sense. Especially since a GM presence will be necessary that might not be necessary for daily play.

I would like to see them be able to have these as often as possible. How would people sign up? All individually? Individually and whole outfits at a time?

That's a really intriguing idea about the smaller matches and a tournament mode. Of course, that would only be to shake things up every now and then, as most people will prefer full-scale battles.

One option would be only having tournaments on weekends and only 5% of the population could be in the fight at one time. Anyone beyond that 5% could queue up, but it would take a few minutes to get in. That way you'd still have 95% percent of the players on the continent and the only downside would be a short wait for those people who were queued.

Another option would be around launch when there are possibly hundreds of people queued and waiting to get into each full server, you could give them the option to join a 20v20 or 50v50 instanced tournament, hosted on one of the other open servers. It would just be a diversion while they waited to join the normal fight, but it might be a good opportunity to see whether the community in general likes that sort of thing.

[Artimus]

What I dont understand is that the sanctuary would work fine without the hart and just have warp gates. With an uncapturable foothold on each continent that takes alot of it away for me. I would like to see the continent turn blue with a padlock on it to show the NC took it over. Even though it would just get back hacked it is still a win in my book. Also it will bring back a sense of home continents. A sanc woud also give a place for people to stage if the 3 conts. are poplocked.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Kipper

As I understood it, the discussion was about how you take a BF/MW player and persuade them they're winning things when the round doesn't end. To which I say you can claim victory when you take territory. It will be shown on the map and it will be tangible. Those players aren't interested in the war, they have no concept of it in their games - only unconnected instanced battles.

Win condition for the war is simple - hold the entire continent (or capturable area of it) - but whether that's even possible remains to be seen. If it is, I'd still expect it to take weeks.

At that point, you could give medals and reset the map, it wouldn't break things - though I think it'd be better if that was a very rare occurrence.

Well, I just mean that yes, BF does have a win declared every 30 minutes, but unless you are playing in an organized clan match, it's a soulless number. The meaningless daily rounds played on an unorganized basis are quite easily replaced by daily territory pushes in PS2.

And while an MMOFPS does present the technical possibility of a larger win condition, to do it in the main game itself is going to see 3AM steamrolls and it will happen every night, and will water the game down. World War 2 Online has a victory condition but its maps are so huge that its hard to pin the enemy down to do it. PS2 continents will make Battlefailed look like a sardine can, but they aren't that big. Until we get continents that are 64 X 64 instead of 8X8, that leaves us with no option but weekend events.

Originally Posted by headcrab13

That's a really intriguing idea about the smaller matches and a tournament mode. Of course, that would only be to shake things up every now and then, as most people will prefer full-scale battles.

Note that when I talk about 48 hour events like this, I was assuming they would be for several thousand people. Perhaps even a full 6000 people on a 48 hour event server. Depends on how this stuff can be organized.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by WildVS

I can see a real danger in these events becoming more popular than the core game. Ideally the victory conditions need to be integrated into the normal game mode. I don't know though with 3 conts, anything like that will be tough.

I don't think we can let that worry us too much BUT I do have an idea on that point.

I assume that not everyone will actually want to participate in these, SO, the idea would be this: If there are 40 servers, group the 40 into 4 groups of 10. Have 4 weekend events per month (one per group of 10); and an individual person will be able to play in the event group of which his server belongs. This means that no individual server will lose players to the event more than once per month. And if the events are more popular than I assume, divide the 40 servers into 8 groups of 5, and have 8 events over a 2 month period, which would mean no server would lose players more often than 48 hours per 2 months.

Now...to prevent people from simply creating a character on other servers to participate in the events, eligibility for the events could be limited to people who have a certain number of hours on the character.

[Marinealver]

Remove strongholds for a space station in orbit.
Side 3 has a secret after all.

[Graywolves]

The longer I see this thread go the more I think there's just an inability for some players to move away from the current mold of FPS gameplay.

It baffles me when you say that there's no victory or win or meaning in battles but argue that that the meaningless match over and reset games have purpose.


I enter matchmaking, I get a map, I win. I enter matchmaking, I get a different map, I win. Hey that's great.


I jump on a gal with 10 other people. We fly to a base, we fight over it. We take it. We hop on the gal again or continue fighting there or somewhere nearby. Now that base is where we deploy from and where other people are deploying from.

A victory in Planetside(2) has actual value within the game world. Match-based wins are nothing more than stats and that kind of stat-tracking for victories is still in the game with your facility captures.

[ArmedZealot]

It's simply to take as much territory as possible.

I'd be happy with a daily victory condition. Something posted to the website to say who had the most territory in a 24 hour period. Same with a ton of other stats to appeal to people who don't focus on capturing territory.

I'm more worried about the lack of end game content than a victory condition.

[Zulthus]

There shouldn't be end game content or a victory condition. Those don't work in Planetside... the point of the game is a 24/7 persistent war that no one can win. That's why I play it. I'm tired of shitty match based shooters with no teamwork and everyone just whoring over their K/D.

[headcrab13]

Originally Posted by WildVS

Kinda of reminds you of Outfit Wars doesn't it? Doubt that would work early on as outfits would just be forming and "leveling up", but maybe later on. The difficulty is how to keep the CoD/BF guys understanding the persistent nature of this game, while not altering it greatly. I don't know, guess that isn't our problem but I just don't want to see a much anticipated "sequel" to a cult legend game go up in smoke in a year or so.

Yeah I was mostly responding to Higby's musing about a few smaller instanced maps, but to be honest we both know that massive-scale combat is the only thing to really focus on.

I guess the "win condition" is a hard thing to describe to someone who hasn't played the first Planetside, but once people start seeing E3 demos, open beta footage, and player-made videos around launch, I think they'll start to get the picture.

As you and others have said, just the persistent nature of Planetside alone is enough to satisfy that need for a "win" confirmation, and once people begin playing I think they'll be totally content with the way PS2 is turning out.

[RawketLawnchair]

Originally Posted by headcrab13

Yeah I was mostly responding to Higby's musing about a few smaller instanced maps, but to be honest we both know that massive-scale combat is the only thing to really focus on.

I guess the "win condition" is a hard thing to describe to someone who hasn't played the first Planetside, but once people start seeing E3 demos, open beta footage, and player-made videos around launch, I think they'll start to get the picture.

As you and others have said, just the persistent nature of Planetside alone is enough to satisfy that need for a "win" confirmation, and once people begin playing I think they'll be totally content with the way PS2 is turning out.

I hadn't heard of PS1 until last year, most likely because PS1 was shut out by its competition. Unfortunately. But I really don't see that happening this time around. I can see all of the BF3 kids jumping on the PS2 bandwagon.

Just makes me wish I had gotten in on all the fun the original had to offer.

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by WildVS

I think you have the inability to page up and see that your Lord and Master Higby is also concerned at the lack of a victory condition. Bow down to your Master, minion.

I read it and expanded on it.


-edit- in the thread that he actually posted in.

[Kipper]

Originally Posted by RawketLawnchair

I hadn't heard of PS1 until last year, most likely because PS1 was shut out by its competition. Unfortunately. But I really don't see that happening this time around. I can see all of the BF3 kids jumping on the PS2 bandwagon.

Just makes me wish I had gotten in on all the fun the original had to offer.

Nah, PS1 suffered because it was ahead of it's time in many ways (subscription? MMO? Fast connection required?) PS2 is just what PS1 should have been, had it been possible at the time - and including features from modern FPS which weren't conceived back then.

In fact, I wouldn't mind if they dropped the 2 and just called the new one Planetside. Though it could be confusing I suppose

[headcrab13]

Originally Posted by RawketLawnchair

I hadn't heard of PS1 until last year, most likely because PS1 was shut out by its competition. Unfortunately. But I really don't see that happening this time around. I can see all of the BF3 kids jumping on the PS2 bandwagon.

Just makes me wish I had gotten in on all the fun the original had to offer.

Yeah, PS2 has a lot going for it and it could very well be The Next Big Thing. Here's hoping!

Although Planetside's playerbase has waned a little in recent years, there's still a respectable number of players and even more now that the sequel is in the news. If you can appreciate games for their gameplay over graphics, you might still be able to enjoy Planetside quite a bit if you want to check it out before beta starts.

Up to you :)

[headcrab13]

Originally Posted by WildVS

Yeah you know when I think or refer to events I am mainly talking about in-game events. As cheesy as they were, they still broke up stale fights from time to time and also provided a victory condition. Hell if you won a rabbit event, you locked a cont for 24 hours. Things like that. Maybe that can be done before release, maybe not, but also they could come up with land mass, or resource tally victors for the week, with a small reward of some kind.

Yeah, definitely. I think the initial gameplay will draw in a ton of players and keep them playing for a good year or two without the devs releasing many content patches.

I like your idea of adding in challenges, occasional weekend modes, and various optional minigame events that could be added in the coming years and reward players with small bonuses or even exclusive items like a unique visor or a uniform badge signifying the event.