News: PS2 NOT going to PS3, and new pics inside!

[Talek Krell]

Did I spot someone who hasn't read the sticky thread at the top of this forum???

[Aractain]

Originally Posted by NapalmEnima

That could just be lighting. Note the "different" helmet colors.

Thats some odd lighting. Brown to silver and silver to black?

Also it appears to be missing the magazine but the angle is really bad.

[FIREk]

I think they didn't want to add weapon swapping because they wanted to make the empires' stats different from each other. For instance, a TR soldier could have less armor, but a higher run/sprint speed. Now if he picked up a Jackhammer, he would be able to close distance quicker, making him balanced with an MCG (somehow), but (somehow) imbalanced with a different empire's empire-specific weapon.

They may have assumed that making the empires THAT much different from each other is pointless (and a balance nightmare), and therefore opted to make all characters of the same class identical.
Thus, there are no balance issues with a TR having an NC/VS weapon. It also makes the game more fun, allows for switching kit without spawning a Cycler on an NC body (so you have an appropriate gun for your class and empire), or leaving your weapon on you all the time, allowing you to puck up Medic gear and keep with an MCG.

[Lithious]

Im i the only one that thinks that the yellow "sunglasses"
look abit ugly on the TR soldiers in the new pics?

[captainkapautz]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

pssst: http://www.incgamers.com/images/scre.../28945orig.jpg

Preposterous!

How come the obvious wasn't been said about this?

I.E.:

[Aractain]

Originally Posted by Lithious

Im i the only one that thinks that the yellow "sunglasses"
look abit ugly on the TR soldiers in the new pics?

They look awesome. Yo just mad cos you don't have dat ass!

[Sighpolice]

Anybody else notice the NC not holding a gun? Just by the rocks to the right. It's nice to see they will still keep the PlanetSide bugs in PlanetSide 2

http://www.incgamers.com/images/scre.../28943orig.jpg

[Goku]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

If anything, it'd be a dumbed-down port featuring 128vs128 players released 3 years after PC. I can never see consoles being made to where you can swap out parts; just because hardware developers likely wouldn't develop aftermarket parts for consoles. And, because of this, consoles would never be able to handle games on a massive scale such as PlanetSide.

When the PS4 is released it will be far more powerful vs the current PS3. I see no reason why it couldn't handle PS2 to be honest. The rumored Wii2 specs are interesting and if Sony's are better it will have no issues run this game.

[FastAndFree]

Originally Posted by Sighpolice

Anybody else notice the NC not holding a gun?

Must be the martial arts class

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Bags

Either they've changed their positions or he was simply stating it does cause balance issues (which they don't).

There's other possibilities...
1) It's alpha and they were messing around, comparing weapon characteristics, etc.
2) The screenshot pre-dates the decision to remove scavenging.
3) It may be kit scavenging, not weapon scavenging. Kit scavenging makes a lot more sense given class restrictions on weapons. BF has kit scavenging and is a heavy influence on PS2.

And weapon scavenging can affect the game quite a lot balance-wise. Hearing a gauss rifle and knowing it must have come from a NC is quite different from it also being some TR dicking around. Same goes for all the other empire-specific weapons, and you can also derive class information from just the sound of a weapon. That isnt' necessarily the case if there's weapon scavenging.

It was a big difference for me playing Day of Defeat back in the day when they added weapon scavenging. I could no longer rely nearly as much on sound to tell me much more than someone was nearby. I could no longer discern friend-or-foe purely by sound. I know it isn't realistic to use sound as IFF but from a gameplay perspective it was a skill differentiator. That differentiator was significantly reduced when they added that.

Some weapons are distinctly tied to empires, like in PS1 it was the MAX suits. If you heard a scatmax there was no other possibility than an NC max was in the vicinity. In PS2 since there is no vehicle jacking the same will be true for tanks and other empire-specific weapons. You hear a vanguard or its cannon you know an NC is driving it. Making the same binding for infantry weapons also makes sense.

In addition to mundane but important things like weapon/player giveaways with not having scavenging, they could also have distinct and different empire-wide balancing. For example, they could balance one empire assuming you had a set of classes on-hand. Like one NC class might use a certain close-range shotgun which doesn't have long-range viability. To compensate for this a different NC class weapon might be more effective at long-range than the other empire counterparts. Likewise perhaps one of the common TR weapons has more close-range viability. So by having one TR loot the NC shotgun and the others using the other close-range guns the TR group could gain an edge that wasn't accounted for.

This in and of itself isn't a balance issue because theoretically all empires could get all combinations, but the reality of it is that in practical use it depends on the characteristics of the weapons and how they are distributed/used amongst the empires. Being able to mix and match these across empires creates more combinations to consider and might make one empire easier to achieve the more broken combinations due to the nature of their weaponry and the fact that they can scavenge a few things from their foes.

Point being that in ways not strictly clear-cut (like binding certain sounds to specific empires). It does create more balance combinations to consider which make sit harder, but it could create combinations that certain empires have a much easier time obtaining than others which would create a balance issue when theoretically it shouldn't exist.

[kaffis]

More TR? And shooting an NC in the back with his own weapon, to boot?

This upcoming trailer that they keep promising us had better be a 6 minute epic love letter to the Vanguard and Jackhammer, at this rate. I demand NC representation!

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by kaffis

More TR? And shooting an NC in the back with his own weapon, to boot?

This upcoming trailer that they keep promising us had better be a 6 minute epic love letter to the Vanguard and Jackhammer, at this rate. I demand NC representation!

I think the VS has seen the least representation. But they did get a glimpse at one of their most iconic figures - the magrider.

I'd like to see more vehicles in general. Are there even buggies in PS2? I hope so. They've mentioned tanks and aircraft and ATVs but I haven't caught so much as a word about buggies.

[FriendlyFire]

I SEE A LASHER!









NERFS INC!

[Goku]

Originally Posted by FriendlyFire

I SEE A LASHER!









NERFS INC!

Or just a crappy version that will never get changed. That I am fine with.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I think the VS has seen the least representation. But they did get a glimpse at one of their most iconic figures - the magrider.

I'd like to see more vehicles in general. Are there even buggies in PS2? I hope so. They've mentioned tanks and aircraft and ATVs but I haven't caught so much as a word about buggies.

The teaser trailer had some Vanu in it, in multiple armor types, IIRC. I think all we've seen of NC so far appears to be Standard, and the Gauss Rifle. Neither of which were particlarly exciting to behold (since they're both pretty blandly "realistic gun/flak armor" looking), hence my dissatisfaction. I won't argue that NC have at least had more screen-time than Vanu so far, but it's been mostly either from the first person perspective (looking down a Gauss at TR), or getting shot in the back by squads of other empires looking all brave and rugged.