Can PS2 afford to forge its own path?

[Syphus]

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Was launch-PS1 really so fundamentally BETTER than later-PS1? What ground-breaking changes were there really, to "ruin the game"? Sure, everyone points their fingers at BFRs, and while I can imagine the lolBots completely screwed over anything field-battle-related, BFRs did get nerfed hard, and ever since I've played the game, they were a non-factor. So why didn't people come back then, if the game was so amazing otherwise?

Yes it was. I don't really think people played PS1 just because WoW didn't exist. At that time, if you wanted WoW style gameplay, you would play EQ, which was still a great game. I don't think there was any large drop off when SWG launched a few months after Planetside

There were some good changes and additions, such as the Liberator, but I still think by and large they had no idea what to do and were just as out of touch as they were in SWG. One of the first indications of this was at the end of Beta, there was lots of talk about splitting XP among squad members and the overwhelming feeling over the Playerbase was to not do that, and of course the devs were like, "No, we are not doing that, not at all." Launch day comes, and what do you think the first thing to happen was?

This just set precedent for things like BFRs and Caves and larger screw ups down the line.

[MrBloodworth]

If they have to remove locking doors to attract "modern FPS players", then no, its a race to the bottom.

[SwiftRanger]

We get a wrong image of the current game. TTK is one of the first things that will be tweaked if the real mass battles show up in beta. Plenty of features aren't implemented yet.

The game can and should forge its own path in order to achieve what other multiplayer shooters (PS1 included) didn't do: create multiple goals to keep on playing. Gaining Battle Rank, acquiring certs and fighting over the same bases for years on end can only get us so far. Variation is key and long-term goals should be meaningful/visualised in-game.

With the currently revealed feature set PS2 sounds like a bigger, shinier and more accessible PS1. I think we'll need more than that (and that we'll get more as well, if Smedley's comments are to be believed).