News: PlanetSide 2 Editorial

[Canaris]

Yeah I flogs me a dead horse but QFT:

Don’t Sell Power-ups

Now that it has been announced that Planetside 2 will be free-to-play, SOE has to make the players a promise.

Under no circumstances can they sell players anythingthat gives them an advantage over anyone else.

My friends recalled me to play some of the new APB with them, assured me I'd love it.....it was fun up until the point people started buying those over powered guns and once again ruined the game, glad it was F2P too didn't feel like a rip off this time around.

[Tigersmith]

Originally Posted by Shogun

i´m all for ads on the login screen or even the certification windows, etc. but keep the ads of the maingame. the approach they tried to take on ps1 to put up big advertisement screens in the gameworld was bad because ads are offtopic and kill the atmosphere of the game.

what i would totally love to see are customized ads. if a NC REXO soldier on an ad screen shows me a soda can of a certain brand, and tells me never surrender, never drink another soda, this would be cool. but totally normal ads would suck ingame.

but i agree with everything that was mentioned in this "what ps2 has to do" article!
indoor fights were not too bad for me, but i was one of those medic-engineers who enjoyed repairing the indoor cannonfodder right from the start. because of my horrible lag, i never even tried to be a grunt. the lag was not so gamebreaking for supporters, so i took that route.

i just hope SOE reads this article! especially the part about PR for planetside.
just look at world of warcraft. they had a massive pr campaign even with iconic celebrities running on tv internationally. planetside needs that from the start. put in the biggest mass battlescene you can produce during beta and show it off to the world.

oh please smed or matt, please please comment on this article and share your views and ideas about this!

Ill pay 10 dollars a months for no ads at all.

[Sentrosi]

And I'm sure there will be a model like that Tigersmith. I would pay that to keep my game ad-free.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

Have you played modern FPS games? 90% are these little hitlers. Have you looked at CR5 chat since early 2004?

Also the confliction this irritation would cause with outfit coms would be an ass.

Which is why there needs to be excellent in-game voice options.

I've never considered 3rd party com options to be superior to in-game ones. Yes, there are probably some games out there that have shitty quality, or are bandwidth hogs with their voice coms.

But 3rd party solutions are a non-starter unless your play experience is completely insular, and never interacts with people outside a specific group (like an outfit).

In the event that it's NOT completely insular, or that your insular group wants to interact with and coordinate with outside people or groups (inviting nearby people to fill out your platoon, pick up groups, alliances with other outfits, etc.), 3rd party voice solutions are a royal pain in the ass to work with. You have to share server information, often including passwords and/or setting up login credentials for the guests, who have to take time out of playing to enter that data while alt-tabbed. Then, they have to alt-tab to adjust volume levels for individual users, etc.

Heck, even within those insular communities, things like channel organization is a nuisance that takes time and attention away from the game.

Contrast with an in-game solution of sufficient quality and feature set. Now,
channel organization can be done automatically on the fly, with squad, platoon, and outfit (and potentially outfit officer) channels being set up by default, just by virtue of assembling those groups in-game. No time or attention need be directed towards managing channels, or server information. Nobody gets excluded because they haven't downloaded your 3rd party solution of choice, and nobody has to shell out the money to lease a host (or, I suppose if you want to be technical, that money is rolled into the cost of the game, and/or the hosting duties can be delegated to clients that have sufficient bandwidth and processing power to spare).

The in-game solutions have the capability to deliver a better quality experience, every time, by virtue of being integrated into the game. They have access to featuresets that 3rd parties can't deliver because they aren't integrated. In short, integrated solutions can deliver a lot of value to the game and the play experience with a fairly low (especially when you're partnering with an established system rather than building one from the ground up) investment of development resources.

[Scow2]

Originally Posted by Goku

There was multiple reasons for the game dying out. Among the major ones being BFRs, but I still think the sub was the final nail in the coffin. How many FPSes do you know of requires a sub? Next to none as far as I know. I cannot tell you how many gamers I know refused to even try PS due to the monthly sub. If SOE can do F2P and get most people to spend a few bucks here and there on the game it will be far more successful then the original in terms of pop and revenue. Hence why they are doing this.

Anyone who plays online on the Xbox 360 pays a subscription fee, or at least did.

I wish there was a better way for me to figure out how to give them my money... I can't bring myself to pay subscription fees, and I can't bring myself to purchase most F2P addons.

Personally, I don't mind being able to pay an "Elite subscription" and get slight edges such as faster/cheaper Vehicle/weapon acquisition, faster XP gain/skill training (It's not like there won't be people higher level than me anyway, and I still reach a level-cap at some point), and/or extra character slots. Just a bit more versatility, and nothing a non-subscriber can't acquire with extra time, or remain competitive without, and if I run out of discretionary cash, I can revert to the slower progression/wait times.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

I'm strongly against any F2P model that sells anything other than cosmetic upgrades. A "pay-to-win" scheme is the death of any game for any serious players.

[Scow2]

Originally Posted by BuzzCutPsycho

I'm strongly against any F2P model that sells anything other than cosmetic upgrades. A "pay-to-win" scheme is the death of any game for any serious players.

I don't see how faster character advancement = "pay to win"

Now, if paying increased the level cap, that would be one thing, but letting you catch up to a level of ability on par with other free players isn't.

And less wait time for vehicles/weapons for me just means more experience for everyone, because I'm absolutely terrible at the game.

As for anyone else... it doesn't make the guns any stronger, or vehicles any tougher. Just less downtime between getting a chance to use them.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by Tigersmith

Ill pay 10 dollars a months for no ads at all.

if they don´t give you THAT option, they are stupid. paying customers get adfree game. like in most software nowadays

[SgtMAD]

Originally Posted by kaffis

Which is why there needs to be excellent in-game voice options.

I've never considered 3rd party com options to be superior to in-game ones. Yes, there are probably some games out there that have shitty quality, or are bandwidth hogs with their voice coms.

But 3rd party solutions are a non-starter unless your play experience is completely insular, and never interacts with people outside a specific group (like an outfit).

In the event that it's NOT completely insular, or that your insular group wants to interact with and coordinate with outside people or groups (inviting nearby people to fill out your platoon, pick up groups, alliances with other outfits, etc.), 3rd party voice solutions are a royal pain in the ass to work with. You have to share server information, often including passwords and/or setting up login credentials for the guests, who have to take time out of playing to enter that data while alt-tabbed. Then, they have to alt-tab to adjust volume levels for individual users, etc.

Heck, even within those insular communities, things like channel organization is a nuisance that takes time and attention away from the game.

Contrast with an in-game solution of sufficient quality and feature set. Now,
channel organization can be done automatically on the fly, with squad, platoon, and outfit (and potentially outfit officer) channels being set up by default, just by virtue of assembling those groups in-game. No time or attention need be directed towards managing channels, or server information. Nobody gets excluded because they haven't downloaded your 3rd party solution of choice, and nobody has to shell out the money to lease a host (or, I suppose if you want to be technical, that money is rolled into the cost of the game, and/or the hosting duties can be delegated to clients that have sufficient bandwidth and processing power to spare).

The in-game solutions have the capability to deliver a better quality experience, every time, by virtue of being integrated into the game. They have access to featuresets that 3rd parties can't deliver because they aren't integrated. In short, integrated solutions can deliver a lot of value to the game and the play experience with a fairly low (especially when you're partnering with an established system rather than building one from the ground up) investment of development resources.

its like you don't have any experience with vent/ts/mumble at all,I could take the time to pick this apart line by line but why bother.

by its very nature an outfit is insular,its set up like that for a reason but if you don't know or can't figure it out,I am not going to take the time to explain it all.

it takes less than 5 minutes to set up any third party voice system, I have been inviting ppl on to Ht's vent server for 8 years now and haven't had near the difficulty you are talking about.

[kaffis]

I have experience with Vent and TS. Including some fun with version mis-matches when they do updates, and having some half-dozen servers saved.

Still, 5 minutes is > 0 minutes spent configuring voice when you join a squad.

I welcome line-by-line arguments against my points. I consider them solid, and, as I said, I've got experience with 2 of the 3 systems you've mentioned, including self-hosting both in the past. If you don't feel up to picking them apart, that's fine -- but don't declare victory without engaging.

[Redshift]

Both systems are useful tbh, ingame voice is handy when you just want to jump in a squad and vent/TS is better for outfits.
Wow did a similar thing, the ingame was a bit crappy but good for PUG's vent/TS was still used by most guilds because of the better quality and control