Just found these two pics on Tony Park's blog - Page 5

Raymac · 2011-05-23, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by Brusilov

Planetside 2? well thats the most stupid name ever... :S PS 2.0 would be somewhat okay but just 2 is plain silly

You're kidding, right? Calling a sequel "<name> 2" is not something new or original. There's kind of a long history of it. In fact, I think it would have been cheezy if they called it 2.0

Did you think Battlefield 3 was a stupid name? Or Super Mario Brothers 2? Or the Godfather Part 2?

Planetside 2 is vanilla, but not stupid.

EDIT: Also, is it really "official" when it's not directly from SOE?

TacosWLove · 2011-05-23, 01:50 PM

Nice to have some more info! btw:

1) That is definitely water, who cares that its the same shade of grey as the area by the bases, that the thing with gray scale, you cant change the color! I hope we get warships!

2) Smedley is quoted in these forums (too lazy to pull it up) but he said the battles are going to be bigger then anything out there right now ".. period." So then yes, thats more then the current(and always has been) 399 player count. Previously there was no reserved spots for each empire, thats the only thing that changed, not the player count.

3) hurry sonys 3.2 billion loss doesnt mean there cutting this game.. yet! nice to see pop locked conts in Ps1 though

Keep it coming

Tigersmith · 2011-05-23, 01:53 PM

Fantastic news. i still would love to hear more about the Gameplay and features then actual screenshots

Jamini · 2011-05-23, 02:02 PM

What I see in that picture

1. Dark Grey - The dark grey on the south eastern side is almost certainly water. It appears we have at least one aquatic WG and an island base. If it's not water, than it's probably low elevation.

2. Grey - Canyons. Specifically, steep canyons like what you see on Ceryshen. The walls of the canyons here would help streamline combat a bit and possibly ward off a predominance of air in that area.

3. White - High Elevation. The tops of the canyons and the cliffs above them. probably relativly open area that favors tank and air combat.

4. Icons, likely base icons, with faint lines drawn between them

-4.a. Shield - Mostly early bases, going by the links. Something like an AMP station maybe for benefits?
-4.b. Factory - Three are visible on this continent, all of them either one or two links into the map. I'm thinking these are probably tech plants.
-4.c. Gaget thingy - Mostly out-of-the way bases, none of them in a direct path for any advance from the WG to take. I'm thinking Biolabs or something similar. Supporting type bases.
-4.d. Swirly thingy - Only one on the continent. I'm thinking it's probably the capital or a base with a powerful benefit (like a DSC)

My Thoughts on this map

1. Aquatic Combat
2. The Lattice will still remain
3. A focus on making combat rely less on air dominance
4. More base variety (The southern "AMP" station looks like it's directly on the water. Maybe a floating base?)
5. More densely packed maps: This particular map doesn't look much bigger than the northern section of Amerish, but the way the canyons are designed would have much more of it being used at any one time?

I'd say keep your eyes open and look for something substantial during the Fan Faire

otomotopia · 2011-05-23, 02:33 PM

Did anyone else think that the renaming I pointed out could simply be localization?

monody · 2011-05-23, 02:43 PM

Just wanted to ask.

Why would there be rib-cages noted in the water?

At least I'm pretty sure those are rib-cages from the looks of it, denoting skeletal doodads and what-not.

You sure this ain't a desert continent?

Raymac · 2011-05-23, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by monody

Just wanted to ask.

Why would there be rib-cages noted in the water?

At least I'm pretty sure those are rib-cages from the looks of it, denoting skeletal doodads and what-not.

You sure this ain't a desert continent?

Well I'm the 1 person who doesn't think it is water. BUT, if it is water, then those symbols could be representing waves.

Frankly, I have no idea what they are, and I think we're picking apart this rough sketch way too much. (and I'm as guilty of that as anyone)

Aractain · 2011-05-23, 03:40 PM

I still think this isn't anything more than a "This is the kind of idea they are going for" sketch.

We need info and SOE... what? Dosn't have any to give? Who knows?

millo · 2011-05-23, 04:21 PM

4x4 km looks like a bit cramped.
Just went in game and took some rough measurings of the size of the maps by flying around with a mossie and a stopwatch

Hossin looks like being 7.15x7.15 km (from the area where you start losing power link, so there's one more grid column per side).
Your average Battle Island looks like being 3x3 km.

So we're looking at slightly bigger than a battle island, something more than half of an average continent size.

Didn't bother measuring cyssor o searhus... Also i don't really like the square edges of the map, i liked the self confined isles more (even though you ended up wasting lots of space with seas).

TacosWLove · 2011-05-23, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by millo

4x4 km looks like a bit cramped.
Just went in game and took some rough measurings of the size of the maps by flying around with a mossie and a stopwatch

Hossin looks like being 7.15x7.15 km (from the area where you start losing power link, so there's one more grid column per side).
Your average Battle Island looks like being 3x3 km.

So we're looking at slightly bigger than a battle island, something more than half of an average continent size.

Didn't bother measuring cyssor o searhus... Also i don't really like the square edges of the map, i liked the self confined isles more (even though you ended up wasting lots of space with seas).

did you figure out how big each square is on the grid by chance? Seems like a reasonable size for how many bases they had and if they up the player count that smed said, this could be quite fun!

Gaff · 2011-05-23, 05:37 PM

As someone pointed out previously, Smed had said in the past that they were unlikely to use the name PlanetSide 2 because they tried that with EverQuest 2 and found that people saw EQ2 the newer version of EQ, which hurt their sales of the first game since they were trying to sell both simultaneously.

I suspect that this could well mean that the original PlanetSide is going to be killed off in favour of PlanetSide Next / PlanetSide 2, since it's likely that Sony have been running it at a loss for quite some time now.

This would explain why they would be willing to use the name PlanetSide 2.

basti · 2011-05-23, 07:37 PM

Planetside 2 is not just fine, it fits perfectly. And im certain Sony just sees this the same way as i do: THe Moment Planetside 2 reaches beta, Planetside will be dead.

YOu got to rememver that the entire "we cant call it planetside 2 because of everquest 2" reasoning they came up is rather crap. Everquest and everquest 2 are very very different games. They share some aspects, but most of the stuff is just different, they are in fact ages apart, because everquest 2 was never ment to be a sequel to everquest.

Now, planetside 2 is in fact ment to be a sequel, smed himself said that on these forums here. And you call a sequel "game name 2", simply because you want to attract those guys from the first game, while telling everyone else that this game is a sequel of a game that was worth to get a sequel.

About the map: Thats a concept art, taken out of a presentation that is not ment for public eyes. It holds little information. Read what you want, but dont take anything as fact there.

Sifer2 · 2011-05-23, 09:41 PM

I'm leaning towards it being canyons instead of waterways. It would not seem to make much sense having all these bases in the water. It looks to me like they are making the map more of a choke point fest. Probably an attempt to force some ground fighting on the way to the bases instead of everything happening only at the towers/base.

Secondly it looks interesting that there are all these different types of controllable structures. Makes me wonder how that will be used.

Though I am very worried about the scale. The map doesn't sound that big an if it is very small canyon type map designed them i'm scared the reason might be to try to fit it onto the PS3 which can't handle long draw distance or something. I really don't want it held back so they can make a console port.

Infektion · 2011-05-24, 12:15 PM

wow... them being canyons would make an insane fight!

Raymac · 2011-05-24, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by Sifer2

Though I am very worried about the scale. The map doesn't sound that big an if it is very small canyon type map designed them i'm scared the reason might be to try to fit it onto the PS3 which can't handle long draw distance or something. I really don't want it held back so they can make a console port.

I've been kinda thinking the same thing. There seems to be a disconnect between John Smedley's claims that Planetside 2 could be even more massive than the original, and the 4km x 4km Oshur Island sized maps that are being mentioned now. One of the two will be wrong, and I hope it's the powerpoint, because I want massive, like Christina Hendricks' chest massive.

For me, this 4km x 4km raises the question, how big are the maps in the PS3 game MAG?