What is the point?!?!

PanickMe · 2003-08-14, 04:48 PM

I have logged in and played this game for a week now and I'm lost. All the ads for the game portray it as a massive war, but it's not. Wars aren't fought just to be fought, there are reasons behind them (often ill concieved I'll grant you, but they still exist). Planetside is just a massive, continuous and very boring game of musical chairs. There is no point to taking a base because you don't get anything special for taking it besides the ability to take the next base down the line and that one won't matter either because 2 hours later you'll just end up losing them again to the enemy, not that that will matter either.

I now understand why there are so many people bowing out of this game before their free month is up. The game needs a purpose or there's no real incentive to keep on playing. One of my friends played in the beta and bowed out a week before they killed the servers to prepare for the retail launch. He said even for free he couldn't find a reason to keep on playing. That's pretty sad for a game that they're charging $13 a month for.

So heres an idea to make the game better. On each continent should be a facility that only comes online when a faction controls every base on that continent. Once a faction takes a whole continent the special facility gives them a special weapon or armor or vehicle that gives them a subtle advantage (that could be countered by the special facility on another continent). The "war" proceeds across all the continents until one faction has taken over a certain percentage of the bases or a set amount of time has passed (for example, a month of real time) at which time the faction with the most land under it's control is declared the "winner" and maybe they get a little XP bonus and the game resets and all the continents are wide open for the taking again.

I believe this would keep people playing longer than a month (or seven days now that the free downloadable version is out there).

BigTexas · 2003-08-14, 05:12 PM

The Devs have all sorts of half assed plans in the works to give the game some sort of purpose, none of them seem very good. Personally, I dont care if the game has a purpose or not, the game has enough moments, enough massive battles, enough daring maneuvers by a single squad, to make the game interesting enough that a meaning to it all is the last thing on my mind. I dont particularly care if a purpose is ever put into the game, because just capturing a base after a long days battle is enough reward to make the game fun, even though I know that I will probably be fighting for the same base in a few hours. Maybe I played games in a simpler time, the era of 2 Crude Dudes, NBA Jam and Metal Slug. A time when you didnt play to win, but you played to hear the announcer yell "Boomshakalaka" or throw a car through 15 ninjas. Nice work progressive parenting, way to pump out a bunch of cynical asshole children.

Uh oh, that was a little harsh, maybe I need a few of these

There, thats better

Happy lil Elf · 2003-08-14, 05:17 PM

What's the point of UT2k3 or Counterstrike? To win. In Planetside when we take a base after a long fight I feel like we've won. Sure there are other bases to take and that base will proably no longer be ours when I log in tomorrow, but how is that any different from playing the same UT or CS map over again?

Personally I imagined something very different when I first heard about the game. I am not, however, very dissappointed with what I've gotten from the game thus far.

00AgentDuck · 2003-08-14, 05:18 PM

Well I play this game just for fun and the fun of killing people. I don't really need any special "prizes" for taking a place over, I like the game how it is and alot of other people do also. They play it just for fun because they don't care about getting anything out of it. I do agree though that I wouldn't mind having those "prizes" for victories and continent captures. Well to bad you didn't like the game, maybe you should try some other certs or something, like if you where a grunt become a vechcile or infiltration person. I think I'll stick with PS for awhile, alot of people like it. The reason why it seems so many people are leaving is because all the ones that leave say so. We don't really know how many people like it because how many threads have you read that said I like planetside. Alot of people post on what they don't like rather then what they do, I gusse that's just how people are. Well world of warcraft is coming out sometime probably a freat ways away but you could try that, it's like everquest.

niplan · 2003-08-14, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by 00AgentDuck
everquest.

GAHH!!!! NOOO. 3 months former eq addict here.
The game is the same thing over and over and over and over and over. its mind bashing repetivive mob smashing. And if you want to PVP you have to go on a pvp server, and on one of those servers there no way to saftley hunt the mobs.
EQ SUCKS DONKEY BALLS! *destroyes his EQ cds and sells the CD keys on e-bay for 300$$ to some shmuck* hehe.

Anyways. i really like this game alot better. i was getting board with the NC for some reason they just seam repetitive, maby it was the fact i looked like a GDI ripoff. and i switched to VS and its like a whole diffrent thing now

You have to give the game time to enjoy it, if you dont get past BR 5 your gonna hate it. because you cant do anything cool.

Madcow · 2003-08-14, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by 00AgentDuck
The reason why it seems so many people are leaving is because all the ones that leave say so. We don't really know how many people like it because how many threads have you read that said I like planetside.

No, the reason it seems like so many people are leaving is because the number of people on any server at any point during the day is dramatically decreased from what it was a month ago, which was dramatically decreased from the month before that. Honestly, I don't think I've seen 2 continents pop locked at one time in at least 2 months and I've seen a single continent pop locked about 5% of the time I've been on in the last month. Fixing how people can get around the pop lock just makes me laugh, that they spent time working on that one. Nero fiddling while Rome burns it seems like.
My subscription is up on the 20th, and I've decided to renew for another month. Every single month I have an internal debate on whether it's worth another $13. I honestly wish it was a no-brainer decision but it's not. I have fun playing, but I'm not convinced I have $13 worth of fun each month and I'm sure one of these months I'll just shut it down.

00AgentDuck · 2003-08-14, 05:52 PM

Hmm well I never played everquest, and I wasn't saying that alot of people haven't left. Quite alot have but not a very huge amount like 50% or something I think. Well i don't know maybe 50% have left, I'm just trying to cheer myself up. Well anyway I still like the game.

niplan · 2003-08-14, 06:02 PM

Well if 50% do leave, there whiney little bitchy newbies. I noticed you have to spend time in this game to be able to become good at it. Its nothing like most FPS and i think thats what most people expect.
They want to be able to use their "L337 5|<1||5" From CS. Hlf, TFC, URT3K and so on, and be able to kick everyones ass, and they can't, so they get pissed off and quit.

Madcow · 2003-08-14, 06:17 PM

Originally posted by niplan
Well if 50% do leave, there whiney little bitchy newbies. I noticed you have to spend time in this game to be able to become good at it. Its nothing like most FPS and i think thats what most people expect.
They want to be able to use their "L337 5|<1||5" From CS. Hlf, TFC, URT3K and so on, and be able to kick everyones ass, and they can't, so they get pissed off and quit.

You're right, that's the only reason somebody would quit the game.

NCG JMan · 2003-08-14, 06:18 PM

Originally posted by BigTexas
....I dont particularly care if a purpose is ever put into the game, because just capturing a base after a long days battle is enough reward to make the game fun, even though I know that I will probably be fighting for the same base in a few hours....

I agree with ya here. There doesn't need to be a purpose. Okay, here's one (or should I say two)...kill and capture. That's enough for me in a FPS type game. Especially like BigT says, the large battles for the base is where it's at for me. I too feel the same way. Bring on the Zerg. Granted, I would like to have more structure with a map with coordinates and platoons. That would enhance the game for me. But it's only fun if hundreds of others are logged in on the same server. Now if somehow they (SOE devs) could make it more (or as) fun when the population is down. For us "late-nighters" I dont' get to see the action/zerg as much. Oh well, it's still a lot of fun. I am still having fun with this game. I am glad to see others are too.

Celedon · 2003-08-14, 06:34 PM

Agreed. No purpose needed. It does need reasons to hold bases though (defense). It's much more "profitable" to screw the other team by leaving a base and getting your xp elsewhere. I frankly think it's a pretty damn good pop lock incentive, and would encourage the idea.

Not only that, but I think you should have to break a pop lock by taking one specific base on the continent and all it's surrounding towers, thereby insuring a massive fight. Come to think of it, I have no idea how a cont lock is broken, thats how meaningless the whole thing is now. If it's locked, you go elsewhere no biggie. But...

How about a unique vehicle, weapon, or skill that is only available when the cont is locked. You make it fit into a certain weap slot. Imagine a decimator that tracks like a striker - AV, SA or a super powered lasher with balls that fly 1/3 faster. Imagine the fighting over that continent. Or a skeeter with missles, a personal forcefield, etc....

This way the goal for the night is not xp but to take a continent and to take it back would always result in huge fights. Tell me noone would want a high powered lasher.

All this being said this does not really provide purpose as the original poster discussed, just a way to get bigger, nastier, and funner (I know, not a word) ways to smosh the smurfs and barneys. Which is fine with me.

PanickMe · 2003-08-14, 07:24 PM

I'm not saying that there aren't moments when the game is cool, just that there does need to be an incentive to keep going at it. It's not worth $13 a month to go and do the exact same thing I've done hundreds of times before for no discernable reason and with MMO games that is what matters. Microsoft is having financial problems with AC2 already (although I hear that after a server consolidation they're pretty much breaking even) and I'd rather have a game like this live up to it's potential and survive than have it's player base dwindle down to the point where it's no longer financially viable for Sony to keep the servers up. As it is it's sometimes hard to find a decent fight going on that won't be over before you manage to find your way there.

I don't mind the waiting around in what's supposed to be an action game, I don't mind the "you must be in a group but not this group" attitude that many players have towards newbies, and I don't even care that the graphics don't nearly live up to the early "screenshots" that Sony released, but there must be something that drives a player to continue in a MMO game and in an action game "leveling" is not that great an incentive.