PlanetSide Next Spring 2011?

[Der Baron]

SHIT YEH

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Straws

Either way, considering the lack of information and how close we are to the release date, this game is not going to be of the scale of Planetside.

I share come of your concerns but not that one. They could have been developing this for years in secret. We first heard about it just over a year ago, which means it was probably being worked on well before then.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Straws

Either way, considering the lack of information and how close we are to the release date, this game is not going to be of the scale of Planetside.

Yes, I'm sure you are 100% in the know.

[Tigersmith]

Originally Posted by 321

Name drop.

321 yea it was i feel bad now haha

[Sifer2]

Interesting. It had been so long with no news since they took that poll that I was wondering if it got canned. An now I hear out of no where that's going into Beta soon? LOL

I don't even know what to think about that. Most games don't wait that late to release some kind of news. We don't even have a screenshot yet do we?

Anyway yeah I hope its not a reskin of MAG or something. Would not surprise me if it was. Since he didn't say it was an MMO he just said FPS action game. Guess we will know "soon" whatever that means. Please not Valve time soon.

[Straws]

Originally Posted by Firefly

Yes, I'm sure you are 100% in the know.

I apologise for making that statement as a fact instead of making it a clear opinion. I was wrong on that side of things.

However, the basics of testing a new MMO. Stress testing is required. Stress testing is usually performed as a final test and usually during the last 1-2 months of a looong open beta test.

In order to properly stress test they usually issue a "come one come all" beta invite which is holds no restrictions what so ever (unlike early alpha and beta where participants are limited to people with machines which are above the target spec).

Three months away and they haven't yet issued beta invites to test mechanics and gain public feedback.

For this to make sense to me, either;
- The game is of a scale where stress testing is not required in addition to very basic gameplay mechanics that exist already in products that already belong to SOE.
- They have an immense internal beta testing ernvironment which runs into the thousands of simultansous testers (and none of them have violated NDA so far).
- It has been openly tested now under a different product and they've just decided to claim that that product is Planetside Next (see the other concerns in this thread about 'The Agency').
- SOE completely forgot the importance of open beta testing.
- They're lying that the release date is in March or they're highly likey to miss that date by half a year.
- Their games are now made using magic and they can ignore the basics of producing an MMO.

[Firefly]

I work in the gaming industry. Let me assure you, it is incredibly rare that a company releases a game (specifically, an MMO) on schedule. Mostly this is for the same reasons you mention. Unless there's an evil overlord behind the scenes, as was the case with EA Games and the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning MMO, a company will most likely push the date back until they're ready to go. And even then, there will usually be a patch on launch day.

We're also overlooking a major fact, here. This is SOE we're talking about. Remember them? Rather, remember their staggering lack of publicity for the development of the game? And the lack of publicity surrounding the launch and continual operation of the game? It doesn't surprise me one bit that there's very little news here - and in all honesty, that doesn't make me very happy and it doesn't give me great vibes regarding the success of the game. I firmly believe that the lack of marketing for Planetside is what kept the game from being a huge game. I *STILL* talk to hardcore FPS gamers who are in my age-range that never even heard of the game.

[Kyonye]

If there is a beta early on in the year, I'll make sure to try for it. I'm somewhat excited about it. I'm sure once I see game play footage, I'll be very excited about it.

[RapidShot69]

sounds very good so excited

[RapidShot69]

so excited

[321]

so excited!11!1

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Firefly

We're also overlooking a major fact, here. This is SOE we're talking about. Remember them? Rather, remember their staggering lack of publicity for the development of the game? And the lack of publicity surrounding the launch and continual operation of the game? It doesn't surprise me one bit that there's very little news here - and in all honesty, that doesn't make me very happy and it doesn't give me great vibes regarding the success of the game. I firmly believe that the lack of marketing for Planetside is what kept the game from being a huge game. I *STILL* talk to hardcore FPS gamers who are in my age-range that never even heard of the game.

That reminds me that PS was more of an experiment than anything else. MMOFPS is still a very unusual genre and so the market size for it is unknown. There also isn't any competition outside of Planetside for Planetside Next so a large marketing campaign wouldn't make that much sense right now as once they start advertising they can't stop until release. The gist is that it's too early to make a decision as we just don't have enough information. It's kinda like when the 3 deliverer variants first had screens posted, there was a big fuss about this and that but we didn't know how they actually worked until we got our hands on them in the beta server. So let's save our energy to rant about things once we have numbers.

[Straws]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I work in the gaming industry. Let me assure you, it is incredibly rare that a company releases a game (specifically, an MMO) on schedule. Mostly this is for the same reasons you mention. Unless there's an evil overlord behind the scenes, as was the case with EA Games and the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning MMO, a company will most likely push the date back until they're ready to go. And even then, there will usually be a patch on launch day.

We're also overlooking a major fact, here. This is SOE we're talking about. Remember them? Rather, remember their staggering lack of publicity for the development of the game? And the lack of publicity surrounding the launch and continual operation of the game? It doesn't surprise me one bit that there's very little news here - and in all honesty, that doesn't make me very happy and it doesn't give me great vibes regarding the success of the game. I firmly believe that the lack of marketing for Planetside is what kept the game from being a huge game. I *STILL* talk to hardcore FPS gamers who are in my age-range that never even heard of the game.

I understand, and fully expect within the MMO market that projected release dates are missed, but since I feel that MMOs are still within the video game market that the basics of PR are still adhered to, and one of those basics is early hype, and the key to that is the dreaded projected release date, or "the promise" as most blinkered gamers will claim them to be.

The thing is, when those dates are missed, as long as it's not Duke Nuken Forever-esque, it's not an entirely bad thing. The announcement that the date has been missed is still an announcement. When reasoning is applied to the missed date (and it's based on an existing franchise), the fans of the product get hyped by the promise of extra work on the game because it's an indication of care from the developers.

However, two sides as always, the conspiracy theorists, you know the guys, the ones that think that the developers are hacking your accounts or using their position to cheat their way through their own game, will happily say that a missed date is caused by incompetance in the early stages.

Now, since PSNext's first announcement was buried within an article based on something completely irrelevant, and the first major announcement was from their "help us design the next Planetside" a mere 15 months ago, SOE really haven't helped themselves. The conspiracy nuts can easily come up with a craptonne of negative spins on any announcement, because there's no arguement to the contrary.

Now, yes, this all ties in with what you said, this is SOE and their PR is awful. A failed project like Duke Nuken Forever has more positive PR if only for the fact that they see the importance in it. However, as someone that works in the gaming industry, this wont be news to you, but there are levels of PR. Yes, Planetside had bugger all PR for it'soriginal release, not quite non-existance as I just hyperboled, but I only found out about it because a friend of mine was intricate to the modder community of C & C Renegade and one of the other modders was testing it.

But this is where I go back to what I said about 4 paragraphs ago. The basics are being missed here. Again. And it seems much worse because, frankly, first time round people weren't looking for the information, but it was there to be found. It's not there to be found now, not unless we, the players, cobble together all the e-mails we sent to SOE 15 months ago and try to through the design process on the collection of ideas and see which amalgamation makes most sense financially and for the product.

One of the few facts we have is that vague release date. To announce a release date 3 months from when it is due, then to miss it will be catastrophic for a product that has very little hooks into it's existing community, let alone the past community that wants to return and the biggest fish of them all, NEW PLAYERS, to announce such a near release date with almost nothing to tantilise the playerbase with is very disturbing. It's like SOE have forgotten that they are one of the pioneers of this section of the industry.


BTW, on a personal note, please don't bring up what you do for a living into a debate of ANY kind. It's a cheap way of belittling the knowledge of other people who have more respect for other people than to do the same thing. It's also misnomer of knowledge. As someone who I assume follows the gaming industry as a whole very closely, I'm sure you're aware that there are many people within the gaming industry that are clueless. Some of these clueless twits are in very high places, and they're just dragging everyone around them down.

A person's physical standing within any industry does not automatically mean they know what they're talking about. The best way to work out how much sense someone has within their industry is their ability to debatee it passionately, but only to a point. They have to be prepared to accept that they are fallible and that what they know is just that. It's not "right and wrong", it's just experience, and experience isn't always learnt first hand. If it was, then no one would learn anything through the teachings of others.

Maybe this should've been a PM...

[Firefly]

Yeah maybe that should have been in a PM. I wasn't attacking you or attempting to argue with you, nor was I trying to belittle you by telling you what I do. Evidently you seem to think so, sorry. But thanks for making me seem like an even bigger prick than I really am.

[Hamma]

Yikes, it's been years since we've seen chicanery on this order.