A few things that Matt Higby needs to realize

[roguy]

Originally Posted by maradine

Wow.

Leaving the topic of nostalgia to the side for a moment (on that point, I agree with you) let's address the evolutionary assertion.

Wolf to Doom? Introduction of the core weapon mix that drove FPS design for a decade, pseudo 3D based on z-height, arbitrary level geometry. It was a quantum leap at the time, and playing both back to back still illustrates that easily.

I'm only taking one of you're examples, because I somewhat agree with you. But so far you've been way more generous than some people in this thread have been with BF3/COD/PS2 comparisons.

Though I'd point out that:
1-)"Introduction of the core weapon mix that drove FPS design for a decade": wasn't a revolution, it was the same-old only done better.
2-)"pseudo 3D based on z-height": barely (if that...) improved gameplay because you didn't even need to aim up, for all intents and purposes you were still fighting on a 2D plane.
3-)"arbitrary level geometry": I have no idea what that is. Could you explain?

Understand that I'm only arguing what you've pointed out in the context of people saying COD+BF3+PS2 are exactly the same, and that people who believed that the history of FPS releases in the 90s was a Rollercoaster ride of gaming revolutions instead of a long list of incremental additions and improvements, need a reality check.

But thanks for the reminder, I played all these games at the time of release but only got into FPSes from Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight onwards. You must be way older than me

[Nick]

All I'm saying is the combat and vehicle mechanics in Planetside 2 borrow HEAVILY from Battlefield 3. Why? Because John Smedley is a huge fan of that series, and he definitely has a say on the overall feel of the game.

The OP doesn't realize how solid this is set in stone. Sure, you can tweak TTK and damage. But it's not gonna be an ADADAD stafe and track game like Planetside 1 was. It's not gonna be a bunny hop unrealistic physics game like Quake/UT. It's going to have a modern feel, like the newer BF and CoD games. Strafing will be minimal and not as important. You will be aiming down iron sights frequently. Grenades will be more lethal. Vehicles will be more vulnerable.

It's a change that some people like and some people hate. I think it can work, but it all depends on level design. I hate some maps in BF3 because you just get killed by random bullets of some guy halfway across the map camping in some building. Hopefully TTK is a bit higher than BF3. From the video I saw, vehicles die way too fast. Air is going to make tanks almost useless, IMO.

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by Nick

All I'm saying is the combat and vehicle mechanics in Planetside 2 borrow HEAVILY from Battlefield 3. Why? Because John Smedley is a huge fan of that series, and he definitely has a say on the overall feel of the game.

The OP doesn't realize how solid this is set in stone. Sure, you can tweak TTK and damage. But it's not gonna be an ADADAD stafe and track game like Planetside 1 was. It's not gonna be a bunny hop unrealistic physics game like Quake/UT. It's going to have a modern feel, like the newer BF and CoD games. Strafing will be minimal and not as important. You will be aiming down iron sights frequently. Grenades will be more lethal. Vehicles will be more vulnerable.

It's a change that some people like and some people hate. I think it can work, but it all depends on level design. I hate some maps in BF3 because you just get killed by random bullets of some guy halfway across the map camping in some building. Hopefully TTK is a bit higher than BF3. From the video I saw, vehicles die way too fast. Air is going to make tanks almost useless, IMO.

Personally, thank God for this.

BF3 has probably the best combat feel (no experience on vehicles, never could get over how mouse sensitivity was quadrupled when entering vehicle lol) I've probably yet to find in any game. It has some small things that irk me (lack of lean for one) but overall it's a really solid combat experience.

So I'm all for them copy pasting the combat of BF3, but adding in to the spots where BF3 falls short (which already the whole point of the game partially fixes).

My biggest gripe with BF3 was always the totally ridicilously crap spawn system and a few other things they removed/dumbed down from the previous games.

EDIT: And before someone tries to stomp on my opinion, I have also played shooters starting from Wolfenstein 3Ds and Dooms, but I do have to say that my background is very strongly in fe. Tom Clancy's tactical shooters and games like America's Army, basically anything fairly realistic'ish damage model shooter. I also only play BF3 on hardcore only, which probably is one reason why I like the game more than many other people But still, my BF experience also starts from 1942 + all the expansions.

[Pozidriv]

Originally Posted by Nick

All I'm saying is the combat and vehicle mechanics in Planetside 2 borrow HEAVILY from Battlefield 3. Why? Because John Smedley is a huge fan of that series, and he definitely has a say on the overall feel of the game.

The OP doesn't realize how solid this is set in stone. Sure, you can tweak TTK and damage. But it's not gonna be an ADADAD stafe and track game like Planetside 1 was. It's not gonna be a bunny hop unrealistic physics game like Quake/UT. It's going to have a modern feel, like the newer BF and CoD games. Strafing will be minimal and not as important. You will be aiming down iron sights frequently. Grenades will be more lethal. Vehicles will be more vulnerable.

It's a change that some people like and some people hate. I think it can work, but it all depends on level design. I hate some maps in BF3 because you just get killed by random bullets of some guy halfway across the map camping in some building. Hopefully TTK is a bit higher than BF3. From the video I saw, vehicles die way too fast. Air is going to make tanks almost useless, IMO.

Ok now i feel stupid, i guess i should have read some posts more thoroughly. I agree with you on this allmost 100%. But i would still like that instead of saying it borrows heavily from BF3 but from the BF series as a whole, you yourself said Smed likes the series.

Also i agree on the fact that since we are more accurate now (ADS and other mechanics) that TTK shouldn't bee too high and the potential spammyness of combat needs to be kept low. Aswell we don't know the effectiveness of AA, air can be powerfull if it can be countered with dedicated units.

[Dreamcast]

How in the hell is making it the game sort of like CoD or Battlefield, dumbing Planetside down?.....I mean srsly?...have u even played planetside?


Planetside was never complicated....Anybody could play that game...It was simple as hell, you can say dumb down.....So I don't understand this dumbing down angle you are talking about.


So their is classes now and Iron sights...Wow the game is so dumb down since I can't A and D to the sides while hip firing....and I can select my Over powered load out...Planetside elitist lol



Planetside was never complicated......

[capiqu]

I guess this is what happens when you get a bunch of new peeps into the community that never have played Planetside before. They try to get their 2 cents in the only way they can. That's by comparing a game that's in alpha to games they are familiar with. Once beta is out they will see Planetside is not BF or COD. I just wish they would get some Planetside gaming experience before they comment. I guess they will realize it when they walk out of a doorway and get spammed by 100 Reavers. Yeah that's a BF experience. So with all the newcomers things will get a bit bumpy around here till the newbies come around. Sit tight.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Xaine

Fine, but if we wanted to play CoD or Battlefield, we'd be posting on Cod or Battlefield-universe.com.

Making a game more like CoD or Battlefield isn't what i want. If i wanted to play them, i'd play them. I'm here because of Planetside 1.

Now, those titles being so huge, SoE are going to try and emulate what makes them good. Thats fine, as long as you keep it firmly Planetside, which they are doing.

This. A million times this. Except for the last part. Less COD/BF crap, kthnx.

[Shogun]

i just think we need a higher time to kill. mainly because the great different weapons deserve to show their pros and cons. if every weapon kills everything with 1-5 shots it doesn´t really matter what weapons you chose.

kiddys nowadays are used to having very deadly weapons and may not like to be cought in a situation where their gun was the wrong choice, but that was such a great part of the planetside experience, and ps2 has everything on board to recreate it already. a too low ttk would destroy the whole stone scissor paper tactics and reduces the game to a large arena deathmatch with some cosmetical tactics.

apart from the ttk (and the hopefully resolved driver/gunner thing) i don´t have major problems with the modernization. just don´t dumb down too much and keep the ttk at a tactical meaningful level and the game will be great!

the mapsize seems right. if the maps feel as big as the ps1 maps, i don´t see a problem. those maps would have supported 2000 players at ease. even more if battles would spread to all bases. sometimes there were poplocked continents with big battles at only 3-4 bases. i like intense battles that look like a scripted singleplayer scene with combined arms forces at work on so many levels all around you! again a reason to have a higher ttk.
maximum players at a base and high ttk = fun,teamwork,tactics
maximum players at a base and low ttk = meatgrinder extreme, die and repeat.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

How in the hell is making it the game sort of like CoD or Battlefield, dumbing Planetside down?.....I mean srsly?...have u even played planetside?
Planetside was never complicated......

"Dumbed down" is just a buzz-term meaning "not the way I like it" for those who can't articulate a real argument.

There is one thing that has been simplified to a meaningful extent: Tank gunner/drivers.
Maybe an argument for inventory removal...but, as I see it, now you've got classes and weapon customization and so on, it's a wash if not more complex from a game-impact standpoint, rather than a "can I arrange boxes" manner.

i just think we need a higher time to kill. mainly because the great different weapons deserve to show their pros and cons. if every weapon kills everything with 1-5 shots it doesn´t really matter what weapons you chose.

You should think more carefully about this argument. 3 shots to kill to 5 is a much bigger difference than going from 9 to 12. There's simply much more to it than how many hits it takes to kill someone.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

How in the hell is making it the game sort of like CoD or Battlefield, dumbing Planetside down?.....I mean srsly?...have u even played planetside?

'Dumbing it down' is sort of a catch-all phrase for a lot of different things here. It doesn't necessarily have to do with complexity, it's also the changes aimed at the trigger happy ADD riddled children people tend to associate with the CoD fanbase. Things like the flat XP system (FLASH +200 XP for VEHICLE DESTRUCTION FLASH) and Rambo MBTs.

I honestly don't think there's much of that in PS2, thank god. Just saying that phrase "dumbing down" isn't meant to be taken literally.

[Virulence]

I feel like there have only really been two major types of FPS.

We've had unrealistic shooters that are very twitchy with high mobility. In these you spend a large amount of time jumping, strafing, and/or jetpacking around and people usually don't die extremely fast simply by virtue of high mobility, and the environments in these games support this - large, hilly open fields (Tribes), indoor environments with being able to jump off of walls (UT), or maybe you just had very high intrinsic move speed with no cover, and the game forced you to keep moving in order to not die.

The second are "realistic" shooters (mostly derived from Counterstrike) with much more limited mobility where people die really fast. Players can't move very fast. There's often a lot cover within the levels that can be used, and there are often many different routes to take through urban environments that let you get the drop on other players and kill them, which is made possible by low TTKs combined with low mobility.

Planetside was always closer to that second category, but it is defined - and set apart from other games - by the fact that it's a FPS with a persistent world and the capacity for large-scale, coordinated, combined arms operations involving scores of people, not by the moment to moment shooter mechanics. In terms of those mechanics and how they related to the environments players fought in, Planetside was not very good. I loathed so many different aspects of it. What made it unique - the scale - set it apart from everything else and made it memorable.

BF3 has solid mechanics. The gunplay feels good, the vehicles feel pretty good (even if they die really fast), and there's a decent enough basis for squad and teamplay mechanics. I think it's a good place to start looking at for the basic mechanics of Planetside 2. Details like TTK for specific things, squad spawning, capture mechanics, and so on are all things that can be adjusted as needed, and I have no doubt they will be adjusted throughout the ongoing design process. Planetside 2 isn't going to be a new version of Battlefield where you're playing on limited maps and you're just fighting against two enemy teams instead of one. From everything I've seen so far, the impression I have is that Planetside 2 is going to match - or exceed - the scale of Planetside and have solid FPS gameplay with a very rich strategic metagame, and that pleases me.

[ichebu]

Originally Posted by capiqu

I guess this is what happens when you get a bunch of new peeps into the community that never have played Planetside before. They try to get their 2 cents in the only way they can. That's by comparing a game that's in alpha to games they are familiar with. Once beta is out they will see Planetside is not BF or COD. I just wish they would get some Planetside gaming experience before they comment. I guess they will realize it when they walk out of a doorway and get spammed by 100 Reavers. Yeah that's a BF experience. So with all the newcomers things will get a bit bumpy around here till the newbies come around. Sit tight.

I'm new around here, but not new to PS1. I feel the same!

It's alpha and we don't know how it plays yet. To judge a game on a few minutes of gameplay being shown to you by someone else that's playing an alpha seems a bit presumptuous, and to continue arguing your point past reiterating it a couple times seems a bit asinine.

Of course, I'm sure this is all being spurred on by the restlessness of waiting for beta. It just seems like the majority of those being vocal are inflating small concerns into game-breaking ones. If I were in the shoes of the developers, I wouldn't be taking any of what's being said (in any thread) seriously unless the same complaints are present during beta.

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Shogun

kiddys nowadays are used to having very deadly weapons and may not like to be cought in a situation where their gun was the wrong choice, but that was such a great part of the planetside experience,

I can't speak for CoD, but I regularly curse the heavens for being caught out in the wrong kit in BF3. Lower TTK really doesn't marginalize loadout selection in the way you assert.

[Kurtz]

A few things....

#1 When you use a member of the teams' name in the title, at least be polite.
The title of this post is as disrespectful as it is uninformative in regards to its content.

#2 The average lifespan of an MMO vs FPS
The average MMO lifespan is not one year unless its a complete failure. The lifespan of this MMO remains to be seen but I would imagine determining the lifespan will require some tangibles like how long does it take to unlock everything and level up vs. how much new content will be added.

Usually new content and functionality kills MMOs, much like BFRs and Core-Combat ruined PS1.

The biggest challenge for SOE is keeping people in the game after they have unlocked all the skill trees. I'm sure core-combat was a great idea (to distribute the massive amount of people trying to play this game at one time) at the time, but as populations dwindled, you are now splitting up your populations - which is a bad thing.

In regards to time to peak level, I liked the fact that it took forever to get CR5 and I feel this was important to keeping longevity. If they make this game too easy to level up, then the game will last as long as it takes the average player to rank out.

Server based shooters (or session based shooters), however, DO have a 6 month shelf life, BF3 is latest proof of this. The game took over 2 years to develop, but yet no one is playing it ATM but rather everyone is playing Diablo3. This is why I was so surprised EA didn't do a MMOFPS with this franchise. They had to know that they servers would be empty after 6 months and releasing new DLC isn't going to really keep anyone playing.

#3 Marketing sells games, gameplay & content keep subscribers.
Call of Duty 7, Black-ops developed by Treyarch (so this was the offshoot MW2 from IW ) set the entertainment record for sales in both a 5 day period and all-time. Treyarch, fresh off probably the worst FPS ever made, World At War, takes credit for the landmark.

What propelled that game to $360 MILLION in sales over 5 days was ADVERTISING AND MARKETING. JIMMY KIMMEL and KOBE BRYANT in a RL fragfest to the tune of GIMME SHELTER (by the stones) is what sold that game, not the most horrid gameplay in the history of shooters (even COD fanboise hate this game).

So be careful when you say, "well COD is doing something right, look at their sales". This means you want SOE to do a media blitz and spend almost nothing on gameplay. I'd rather they do both.

So, if SOE wants financial success, they'll cleverly advertise this game, but if you want financial success over a long period of time, then you need quality gameplay.

#4 Massive Commercial Success vs. Making this community happy.
There is at most 100 people browsing these forums at any given point. SOE clearly isn't counting on only 100 people to play. That means they are counting on their huge PR push this summer to hook MILLIONS of players in. The only way they will do that is to steal some of the market from BF and COD. IF one looks at PS1 with no ironsights and client side hit detection, they won't even consider PS2. SOE better get that Kobe/Kimmel commercial ready or fans will be looking at PS1 videos on youtube rather than judge PS2 for its own value.

#4 PS1 gameplay 2003-2004 vs PS1 gameplay 2005-2012

This community isn't even necessary speaking about game play from the same perspective. There are many of us that played the game in its peak population and many here who did not. BOTH parties points are valid, however the developers have no clue who is who. So the guy who is used to playing with low pops and thought waiting 15 minutes for a cap was boring is obviously playing more recently, because the guy playing in 2003 never thought a 15 minute timer was too long. STAYING SHARP and ORGANIZED for 15 minutes meant your outfit had discipline. The scrub outfits TKing each other in the courtyard because they had zero attention span were the ones getting raped when an elite outfit dropped in for the <2:00 minute re-secure.

We can help the devs with insight to our POV by citing about when we were playing the game.

If there is any ONE PERSON the devs should listen to in regards to strategies and meta-game in PS1 during its heyday, it would be Malorn. Malorn was one of the originators of the conception of ASS (Amerish, Solsar and Searhus) an acroynym that mean it was easiest to take and defend these three continents because of the amount of Warpgates and access to Tech plants. ASS was huge (no pun intended) and most outfits and CR5's in the know would play to achieve these three continents at any given time.

I don't know anyone other than Warchimp (no longer active on PSU) that played the game more recently that could help the devs tell you what the meta game was like in PS1 after its hey day.

I played from May 2003-May 2005 and periodically here and there afterwards. I was the 5th CR5 for TR on the Emerald Server.

[Purple]

Originally Posted by WildVS

Anybody worth a shit knows this is a matter of fact.

ok i agree your worth a shit. how ever untill you provide me with solid stats i am not going to beleave that an no mmo can last longer then a year. so if you are going to respond to this post please provide facts not insults.