After optimization, can we focus everything on metagame please?

[Calista]

With EQ:N Landmark starting beta and the attention it will receive internally from SOE and the PS4 pending launch of PS2, I don't see PC version of PS2 getting very much focus going forward. They have spent far too much time and money fixing what should have been realized as deficiencies way back before launch. Think of all the things Higby was intent (hellbent) on having in the game that have had to be unwound and put on top of that the crappy performance that caused several weeks of nothing new released and you have a great opportunity wasted by SOE. The only real growth hope at this point for PS2 is PS4 and when it comes down to it, if the PS4 guys scream for something to be changed in game, it will be done and you can count on that. Let's just hope they scream for more depth like we have for the past 1.5 years.

[Shamrock]

Originally Posted by igster

What we have at the moment in PS2 is an awesome game of paintball in the same wood. We have three woods. You can't win the war because the woods have no impact on each other. You always start at the same bit of the wood. You always fight on the same bit of land and the it's a permanent game of capture the flag on the same map. And the map sometimes sucks. And you log on and get a sense of deja vu because it is the same people fighting perpetually over the same bit of the sucky map night after night.

What we had in PS1 was a interlinked set of woods and you could force the other teams out of your woods and you could post sentries on the paths between the woods who could then call for backup. There were ways to do secret missions into the other teams woods and mess with them. The map was almost always different. You were fighting over new zones and attacking and defending from and to different places all of the time. You rarely logged on and it was the same fight you had the night before (it did occasionally happen)

In PS1 we had the classic small squad Generator holds behind enemy lines, last minute resecures, meaningful base benefits (not just numbers on your resource harvesting), radar benefits, alien technology benefits, filthy base shield benefits but also gameplay mechanics to avoid all of these (hacking, sensor shields, cloaked AMSes sitting outside an enemy owned base on a locked continent allowing you to pull a Tank where no one expected it)

I liked the woods analogy, made me smile.

[Badjuju]

For the meta game argument, as much as it strangely irritates me to see metagame constantly used wrong in planetside arguments, I guess we're all fallowing what point is trying to be made in many cases. It does feel very awkward when used this way as it doesn't make sense in terms of the words meaning.

Just to through it out there as there are allot of confusing arguments in this post. Meta game in the simplest sense is the overall strategy the community develops to play the game. It consists of the tactics, play styles, items/weapons/vehicles used and overall approach to playing the game (whether it may be completing objectives or some obscure goal the community created). Meta game typically is constantly evolving based on changing game mechanics or simply by new tactics being developed and the overall community fallowing suit.

Examples. When HE was beastly as he'll. It was the meta game to pull massive MBT tank Zergs, all equipped with HE cannons, and hammer every base you came across so nothing could survive outside the spawn. Very shallow meta game, yet still the general meta game at the time.

In PS1, a large part of the meta game was to gal drop 2-3 full loads of troops on a base, while friendly forces where at the walls of the base. The shift of focus to defend the cc or generator being assulted by the dropped troops often allowed friendly forces the break through defenses. Just a small part of the meta game in PS1, but an easy example and very memorable.

Meta game may also differ on other servers. For example, in my brief experience on Connery. Foot Zergs seem to be a much larger part of the meta game than on waterson (again brief experience so could be wrong). If a large part of the community is foot zerging base to base then that's part of the meta game. No deep strategy their but meta game non the less.

There are not allot of good examples of meta game in PS1, because the meta game is not very complex. The game just isn't demanding enough for one and people are not motivated to do anything but find a fight as objectives and cont control are rather meaningless. XP and resource rewards just don't matter of you don't feel victorious.

So I guess a better way to restate the overall argument that uses meta game appropriately is that we want a more complex, meaningful, and objective game which lays the foundation for the community to develope a deeper and complex meta game.