Entice me back into playing PS ^^

[Wanderlust]

Hi all,
I doubt very much anyone will know me - I used to play under the name LoonySaint back in the original PS beta (Yes, TR DC owned all :P I used to run a guild but it was so long ago I've no idea what it was called) and when the game was first launched. I stopped playing sometime in 2003 (wow was it THAT long ago!?!) just before CC was released I believe. Basically, I'm wondering how PS has changed and what there will be to come back to - I'm a UK player and so im interested about this free month AS trial on the new PC Format. If anyone who has played the game for a long time (even back to beta) could tell me just how it has changed please do. I WANT to be enticed back into playing this game, me and some friends were having a chat about it whilst playing WoW and we realised what a damn fun time we had playing it.
I mean ultimately we all stopped playing because you just never seemed to 'get anywhere' but I was hoping by now the game had had a chance to mature and become a more balanced and tactical game than the deathmatch luck-fest it sometimes used to be.
Please tell me its a complex and rewarding teamplay oriented game :P I await your replies!

[Hamorad]

Well, there is in some ways more teamwork and in some ways less.

There's more teamwork because, for one, there's more people. The more people you have the more chance you get to do something as a team.

Unfortunately, BFRs killed planetside for me. They're big, walking things that can have a maximum of 2 people in them and they killed all those fun infantry battles you used to be able to have (thank god we still have the caves for that).

[FatalLight]

There are now benefits for owning continents, such as more veh armor, bio lab benefits, dropship center benefits, and tech plant benefits. Also if you cap both of an enemy empire's home continents you get their vehicles to make you feel like you're working towards something a bit more.

New deliverer varients that are beasts (except the VS one IMO )

[Wanderlust]

Any graphical updates?
Are the factions well balanced now? When i first started playing TR were easily the strongest, then it was Vanu for a while.
Which is the least popular side now? (I like to side with the unfortunates :P)

[Hamorad]

Based on what i've heard, people think that the TR is the weakest, VS strongest i think.

[Wanderlust]

But when you say that i'm assuming its still far more balanced than it was. I think my friends planned on going Terran this time around anyways, so I'm sure I'll see :P

[Electrofreak]

Its pretty well balanced right now I think... though I prefer fighting the TR over the VS any day.

As for graphical updates, yes and no, the Devs brought back high-rez textures, and the engine has been tweaked to run a bit smoother. As long as you have a 2.5+ ghz CPU and at least 512 megs of RAM it should run fairly well for the most part.

There are a number of new items in the game since you quit playing. There are, of course, the Core combat vehicles, which are mainly used in the caverns but are still used occasionally above ground. Theres the Switchblade, a deployable Ancient Tech vehicle that falls under the 1-point ATV cert, which essentially turns you into a mobile energy wall turret. The Flail, a once-overused artillery piece, is capable of doing incredible damage over long distances, and is generally used to supress enemy troop movements in open ground. The Router is the last Core Combat vehicle, and falls in with the AMS certification. It is essentially a teleporter, and while rarely used is extremely effective in turning the tide of a battle. Just imagine spawning at an AMS, grabbing your gear, and then teleporting directly onto the top of an enemy tower.

A few new weapons were also included with the CC release. The Spiker, a MA pistol, does more damage the longer you charge it up, to a certain point. Deadly in the hands of a cloaker, or an excellent backup weapon for a sniper or AV trooper. Next is the Radiator, a truely unique Special Assault weapon that fires sticky grenades in a linear arc, or traditional bouncy grenades. However, the grenades produce a radiation field that effects a several meter area for several seconds, and completely bypasses armor. Useful for frying someone who is firing on you from a vehicle or a wall turret, or defending chokepoints in a base. Its ability to do damage straight to health can be extremely handy at times. Lastly is the Maelstrom, the deadliest of all CC weapons, falling into the Heavy Assault category. In primary fire it produces a steady crackling beam of energy that you can sweep across your enemies, tearing them apart at close range. Secondary fire mode fires a grenade that, upon detonation, sends a lash of energy jumping from hostile to hostile, allowing you to kill clustered groups of enemies with ease. It might also do to mention the Laze Pointer, a laser targeting device often used in conjunction with the Flail. Anything you paint with the Laze has a waypoint assigned to it for a short period of time afterwards.

Shortly after CC, the Lodestar was released. Ugly as all hell and also a bit underused, it is still a pretty useful vehicle. It is an aircraft capable of transporting vehicles (including BFRs), and ejecting them out over hostile territory. I used one of these to place AMSes behind enemy lines yesterday, and it definately gave us a strategic advantage. They also have the nice side effect of providing repair/rearm services while landed, making them very handy to have around for patching up friendly vehicles and aircraft.

A short while ago, the Deliverer and Basilisk variants were introduced. The Deliverer variants are quite powerful and can often take on a Medium Battle tank and come out victorious. Each empire has its own variant, which is slower but more heavily armored and armed than the original Deliverer transport. The Terran Repulic have the Raider, which possesses 4 of the new 15 mm cannons which are equally capable versus vehicles or infantry. The Raider is able to fire upon multiple targets at once, or have all of its gunners focus devastating firepower upon a single target. While it requires more gunners, the sheer firepower it can put out when fully manned is greater than that of the other variants. The New Conglomerate have the Thunderer, which is equipped with 2 powerful linear Guass cannons that fire large projectiles in a straight line with good accuracy. Relatively slow firing but powerful, the Guass Cannons are particularly effective against vehicles but are still capable of killing infantry with a direct hit. The Vanu Sovereignty get the Aurora, a variant which focuses on infantry-killing ability, launching salvos of energy orbs in an arc that devastate soft targets and still pack a fair punch versus armored targets. This weapon has 2 fire modes, one allowing it to fire orbs at a normal rate, the second firing a quick burst.

Lastly comes the Fury, the new Basilisk variant. Available to all empires, it is essentially an AV rocket launcher mounted onto the ATV frame. Firing its Hellfire rockets in a one-two punch, it is capable of doing hit and run attacks on larger vehicles using its agility to catch the enemy off guard and retreat quickly when encountering return fire. Difficult to use, but deadly in the hands of skilled user, the Fury is best at chasing down and destroying damaged enemy vehicles.

So that does it for new content as far as I can remember. Theres tons of changes to gameplay that have happened as well, but I can't get to it all here without writing a novel. Suffice to say that a capture-the-flag style of base capture has been introduced, bases provide all sorts of benefits for capturing (such as shields for your vehicles, faster respawn times etc), theres incentives for capturing specific continents now (such as getting an enemy empire's vehicles if you capture their home continents), incentives provided for installing cavern modules into a base, capitol bases on every base that possess a huge inpenetrable shield that the enemy must disable by capturing sub-capitol bases, and much more. Really, the only way to see understand it all is to take that trial offer and check it out for yourself. I hope you like what you see.

[Wanderlust]

Thx so much for all the feedback Electrofreak, and everyone else that contributed. It certainly sounds like the game has changed and I'm really hoping I'll enjoy it.
Luckily the new edition of PC Format was out today so I have my free trial and am patching the game as I write this.
I hope to see you in game!
(Well, if u play Werner ^^)