Frag this game

[Ait'al]

I'm sorry, but if a game like Half-Life or Battlefield 1942 can release patch after patch and only introduce problems 1 out of 10 times, surely the money pit that is SOE ought to be able to do the same. The sad thing is, when Valve launched a buggy Half-Life patch they would have a fix for it in days, not weeks.

We are paying these people to keep the game running smoothly and to add content. I hate to say it, but EA's track record with BF1942 makes SOE look like a bunch of lazy incompetent saps, and EA has always been one of the lamest/greediest game publishers out there.

This game is alot more complicated programming wise than an FPS. This is not souly an FPS thats jsut what stupid people who dont know anything about anything but FPS's think.

I know how to make games like this. Hell ive designed them out in full. (and i mean full!)

Part of the problem with the doors etc seem likethe programming for individual stuf is too chppy. They seem like they underdesigned thme on the programming side and just slapped together lots ot things for each opperation of objects instead of finding one way of writing htem that would deal with all there designed operations and leave enough ways for htem ot add on stuff later.

Not to mention htey dont seem to broudly or thouroghly enough test programming there upgrades against other ingame stuff off server. Like they need to make there simulator for testing stuff able to add more variables, more complicated scenarios.

[TeraHertz]

/me gets his book of "The Management and Control of Quality, 5th Edition by James Evans and William Lindsay" out and proceeds to use it the way it was meant to be. By beating the publishers over the head with it till they stop grabbing so much money and start allocating more to the dev team for more/better staff.

[Ait'al]

[Veteran]

we get an expansion that was really luke warm at best and in general a product thats just treading water

No need to be diplomatic, CC rather sucks as it is, but I think the situation will improve with time and a few masterstrokes on the part of the devs. Don't think they can't reach into their sleeves and shock the shit out of the community, because they can. Just seeing that they're willing to listen to players' ideas on the modules is pretty cool if you ask me. Not many devs are willing or able to cut through the corporate bull and ask the most important people (us) what's on their mind. In my whole MMO experience, devs have been those who decide on rollbacks, pwipes, nerfing, banning, vapes, excuses and in some cases apologies. Having seen PlanetSide on its good and bad days, I have to say there have been a hell of a lot more good ones than bad ones, and in turn I've always had faith in the devs to do the right thing.

If I were SOE, I would send a free copy of CC to everyone who was in the original PS beta. It's enough justification to keep post-launch players from feeling unfairly excluded (myself included) and would bring hundreds of new players into the caverns, which would in turn improve the experience of everyone who bought CC. Of course it's easy for me to be so benificient, because it's only a half-assed idea and the money isn't coming out of my pocket. Still, I think getting more players into CC with incentives is a good idea.

The drama level indicates that the game can invoke emotion, which means it's got to have some good qualities.

[TeraHertz]

100s of players into the caverns? The werner server needs to get those 100s of players into the game first, the numbers have dropped and dropped ever since I started. It's gotten so bad that I really can't be bothered playing today. I could go to another server I suppose but the difference in timezones would probably make that pointless, + a 40ms greater ping kind of puts me off wanting to try.

[Veteran]

A lot of people are going to get new computers this Christmas, like they do every year. Computers able to play PlanetSide are becoming more common, but until recently, a lot of people naively thought that 512mb was enough for any game. It's cool that we're seeing games with such resource requirements, but naturally the average computer-owner is going to take some time to either buy a new computer or get the gumption to install sticks of RAM.

More players are bound to get in on PlanetSide. It has a decent marketting campaign and offers something that no other game can: battles with hundreds of players at once. Don't forget that school is in full-swing for a lot of people, and that PS' population is likely to fluctuate pretty widely because of that.

[DramaticFanatic]

The Devs recently stated that they intend to improve the game rather than add new content right away. This is what the whole OF have been bitching about, fix the game before adding things. And now, when they want to fix things, they are put down for not adding new content.

[Manitou]

Is the glass half empty, or is it half full?

A friend of mine, who is currently playing Everquest, had not seen PlanetSide before, and as far as I know didn't know much at all about it. He sat down and watched me play last night. There were only 4 or 5 of us Dragon Wolves ("only" being used in a relative sense ) in the squad. We were busy doing what we could to make the Congs miserable in a locked continent, tower jumping, gen busting, spawn tube busting, etc. You know, spec ops stuff.

Anyway, to tie this in with the thread, my friend was watching us and asking me questions about the game, such as bugs, hacks, playability, etc. I was objective and filled him in on it. After watching me for about an hour and hearing us work on TS2 and seeing the action, he summed it all up nicely from an objective viewers angle:

"This game looks pretty cool! I think I might try it out. I have never seen anything like this before."

Three sentences - three statements that speak volumes. This first-of-its-kind game is how old? Six months?

Is the glass half empty, or is it half full?

[Happy lil Elf]

Where THE FUCK IS MY NEW CONTENT? WHY THE FUCK AM I PAYING A SUBSRCTIPTION FOR THIS CRAP?

Here we go again >_<

You're paying a subscription so you can log on and shoot things. Can please show me where you were promised a quantifiable amount of content in a given period of time? No? Damn I was hoping someone finally could. The best you'll find is a statment making a rather lame attempt to justify the fee through, partially, new content. Not a new thing every month. Not a new thing every other month. Not even a new thing every 6 months. You were promised new content, which you've gotten, and that is allyou were promised.

If the new content is not coming out fast enough for you, that's perfectly all right, you as the customer have every right to choose to spend you money elsewhere. But let me make this clear. You have one vote, one voice and most importantly one fee. The loss of you will not matter. Not even a little bit. Hanging out on PSU and bitching will also do nothing to assist your cause. So if you do go, actually go. Don't end up being one of the little shit-sticks who hang around and bitch about how bad a game they haven't even played in 6 months is. Also realize that walking away accomplished absolutely nothing other than saving you the cost of a movie every month.

Now if you were to oganize some sort of mass cancellation? Sure, you could make a difference. Are you going to be able to do that? Nope, because there are a lot of people who like the game the way it is.

[infinite loop]

I guess I did come across as a fanboy, but I'm just frustrated that my favorite game has people complaining and leaving left and right. But the reason being based on lack of content? What do you expect? It took them like 3 years to code Planetside, you think they can just keep throwing new stuff out, while fixing bugs and doing other maintenance too? Yeah, CC sucks ass, and is a major disappointment. So don't buy it. The main game still kicks ass, and nothing else gives me the same thrill. Every game has bugs, and yes, every game introduces new bugs with every patch. I think this game is just more visible because of the community.

That said, being a developer myself, I do see some troubling things about the development cycle from SOE. It's obvious that their QA is extremely lacking. Unfortunately, this is a common problem in the software industry. Shortsighted management only wants to spend time and money on the development effort, and hope that QA just kinda works itself out. That's a horrible way to do things, because maintenance (i.e. bugfixing) is 75% of a software product's life. 75%! Would you say they are spending 75% of their resources on maintenance? I highly doubt it. This is a major problem, and seriously needs to be addressed. But the core game itself, and what has been developed, bugs aside, is an amazing piece of software. I choose to bear with the shitty QA, because I love the game, and I know how fucked up management can push bad software development methodologies on you, or not even follow one at all. From what I've seen in games, there's not alot of truly good examples of good software development. Blizzard and Valve are pretty good at what they do, but after that it gets pretty bad.

To sum up - bugs suck, but they happen. Give em a chance to fix them, and they will. New content? Who cares, the game kicks ass. New content will come eventually. If you're tired of the current content, then stop playing until more stuff comes out. Fair nuff?

[Doppler]

Alt' : When you get english to a proficent level I'll begin to think you might be able to cut code.

Elf, yes i am aware what the promises are made, adn yes if you see thats one of my biggest complaints are the devs are too vague on what their working on, which tells me something is very fishy. I'm not asking for a short term fix just a roadmap to improvement.

Nowhere at any point did i say that i was quitting, however since were talking about futility of one person gosh i'm glad i dont live in east germany where i cant get food or a newspaper. Whats that you say? the berlin wall came down Damn how could all those individuals have done that.

Finnaly if your so put out on the efforts of one person in any sosicety etc, to the point of putting down those who are not I sincerely recommend suicide.

[Happy lil Elf]

Nowhere at any point did i say that i was quitting, however since were talking about futility of one person gosh i'm glad i dont live in east germany where i cant get food or a newspaper. Whats that you say? the berlin wall came down Damn how could all those individuals have done that.

You realize you comparing you displeasure with SoE to East Germany, right? Try learning a little more about it. The people of East Germany didn't have a lot to do with the wall coming down. Had Russia decided to not let the wall come down, you would have had a lot of dead East Germans and not much else.

Jesus what a bad comparison.

[Jagd]

Hey, it sounds like pretty much everyone is pissed off about Core Combat, so why are you beating on the guy for voicing his displeasure? And why are you defending an uber-rich development company that can't get its act together and is alienating what is left of a steadily shrinking playerbase?

[Katanaboy]

Alt' : When you get english to a proficent level I'll begin to think you might be able to cut code.

His name is Ait' , not Alt'. Also, proficient is spelled with an "i" after the c, and before the e.
How ironic.
Anyway, I think this game rocks. It is uncomparable to any other FPS because there is no other quite like it. If you wish to leave, then leave. But, if as you stated, you never said you wanted to, then just live with it. I have my discontent with the game just as much as the rest of us, but I keep it to myself.

[BUGGER�GHO�T]

Originally Posted by Doppler

It becomes harder and harder to stomach playing planetside, I'm getting to the point where I just cant even defend them anymore.

Where THE FUCK IS MY NEW CONTENT? WHY THE FUCK AM I PAYING A SUBSRCTIPTION FOR THIS CRAP?

Why are there so many reoccuring bugs why dont we even get the hint that your working on them.

Why dont you work on the weapons balance a bit. Why for example do the nC get a medium assault weapon with the smallest clip and the worst bloom. No body other then NC stands still on the battle field for us to use our puny ass clips on them. Every tr user in the world knows they got ammo to burn so they just keep circle strafing till we die.

WHY IS AV STILL THE MOST GIMPED CLASS IN THE GAMe. Riddle me this batman, how the fuck do you get more tank shells into the same size box then you get phoenix rockets.

Why the fuck did CC suck so badly. All these new play areas that no one ever uses because A) the modules are too easy to steal B) 90% of the new stuff is crap. Seriously are you telling me a race that perfected ressurection couldnt get down a little thing like waterproofing? I know what wiped out the vanu they were having a cook out and they got rained on, poof dead ancients.

Why the hell do you get made aware of a hart bug, then decide "hey were just gonna go the oposite way of what the community thinks and keep it dinked up".

Ask yourself this, whould you really as it stands right now recommend this game to a friend?

Planetside: Great concept, shitty implementation.

And your still playing?