Question on scale/population

[morf]

So I have a concern about the population/scale of Planetside 2:

In July, after the official announcement, we were told that the game would support "thousand player armies". When asked about how many players a continent would support, the reply was "the plan is thousands". Additionally, early on we were told there would be "at least one continent at launch" - then at one point someone said more than likely only a single continent. This to me would suggest that they were planning on a continent supporting a TON of players.

As time went on, the term "hundreds" started replacing the term "thousands" - also we're now being told that there will definitely be multiple continents at launch, which suggests that the entire playerbase won't fit on one continent. In the most recent interview, Higby mentions that we may see (for instance) a 20 vs. 200 battle. Additionally, he said during the lunch interview that latency is the biggest challenge in building an MMOFPS with this type of scale.

So with all of this in mind, my question is this:

Has the population cap of Planetside 2 continents been scaled back from what was originally intended due to issues with latency or other technical concerns?

[Bags]

Do you really think a SINGLE battle will have thousands of people, on average? They said thousands per continent. I highly doubt thousands of people will be fighting for the same objective often, if ever.

[Traak]

Latency?

Get more and faster servers.

Latency on an individual level?

Get a better internet connection.

I used to joke when playing and seeing the SOI CY lag spike:

Hey, Sony, get AMD servers! (more bang for the buck at the time than the Intel servers, especially in regards to power consumption.)

[cellinaire]

I rather think, by '200 vs 20 fight' he was actually saying about the power-imbalance situation where one faction is out-manned and out-gunned. Why not 100 vs 100, 200 vs 200 or 250 vs 250 when he is trying to say the scale of the game? Weird.

(and I don't know. Maybe the pop-cap have even gone up from what was originally planned(not likely, though. But in Higby's twitter I remember I saw "thousands is still a goal man. We are trying/optimizing really hard to achieve that") or maybe scaled back.

[morf]

Originally Posted by Bags

Do you really think a SINGLE battle will have thousands of people, on average? They said thousands per continent. I highly doubt thousands of people will be fighting for the same objective often, if ever.

Right. I understand that there can be multiple battles on a continent, but still assuming 4 battles of 220, that's still less than 1000 total, and that's not "thousands", and it's not "thousand player armies". For all we know there could be 10 battles on a continent, so it's hard to say from this example. But my point being that the numbers they're quoting keep getting smaller. So I'm simply asking if the scale has been reeled in from what was originally intended.

And to the guy who said latency, you can check the lunch interview with Higby. He called it the biggest challenge in building an MMOFPS by far. This suggests to me that they might have had some difficulty, hence my speculation and concern.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Traak

[latency misinformation]

You can't really effect latency by doing those changes. Latency generally is based solely on your network. Bandwidth on the other hand is based more on hardware limitations and processing power. I imagine what Higby meant was either processing power or bandwidth limitations.

On that note I imagine they're hoping people spread out to get rid of any bandwidth issues thus their imagined smaller skirmishes.

The mission system sounds like it'll be used for precisely that. Luring people near targets to go there while sending other squads other places.

[Bags]

Originally Posted by morf

Right. I understand that there can be multiple battles on a continent, but still assuming 4 battles of 220, that's still less than 1000 total, and that's not "thousands", and it's not "thousand player armies". For all we know there could be 10 battles on a continent, so it's hard to say from this example. But my point being that the numbers they're quoting keep getting smaller. So I'm simply asking if the scale has been reeled in from what was originally intended.

And to the guy who said latency, you can check the lunch interview with Higby. He called it the biggest challenge in building an MMOFPS by far. This suggests to me that they might have had some difficulty, hence my speculation and concern.

Uh, 4 battles of 220 on each side is 1,760 people, assuming NC vs TR.

[morf]

Originally Posted by Bags

Uh, 4 battles of 220 on each side is 1,760 people, assuming NC vs TR.

The example he was giving was 200 vs. 20. This is still not a great example to speculate off of, so let's not focus like a laser on it. The point is the verbage being used has slipped from "thousands" to "hundreds" - just wondering if the original plan was too ambitious and whether things were reeled in.

[Bags]

Thousands per continent.

Hundreds per battle.

This isn't rocket science.

[morf]

Originally Posted by Bags

Thousands per continent.

Hundreds per battle.

This isn't rocket science.

Hope you're right.

Still ambiguous enough to warrant clarification.

[Xyntech]

I share your concern only in as much as the fact that large battles are extremely important to me, however I am not completely shaken by the verbage.

Planetside is about the huge battles, that's to be sure, but it's also about the many different ways that those huge battles manifest themselves. For example, he used a small group of defenders suddenly having to fight a huge group of attackers.

Most multiplayer shooters give you 8 to 32 players on your team, so giving a nice number like 20 is a good example of a team size that many FPS fans can relate to. Fighting against 1000 enemies with 20 team mates sounds impossible and absurd, so it has to be a little smaller than that. 200 is a nice number because a) it's exactly ten to one, b) it will blow your average FPS players mind to be thinking about holding off those kinds of numbers with a more average number of alleys and c) it is actually plausible and seems to be a game balance focus for 20 players to actually be able to slow the advance of 200 zerglings if the 20 players use appropriate tactics.

I would definitely like to see the numbers they describe to go back up, but I'm not too worried about it yet either. We don't even know when beta is coming and it is obviously a huge priority of theirs to make these battles as large as possible.

If I can get Planetside 1 scale battles, the way they were shortly after the game launched, I will be satisfied. Especially if the netcode is vastly superior. If I can get battles that are significantly larger than PS1? Icing on the cake.

The biggest problem with Planetside for me is that the populations have gone away. If they can even match the numbers of the original game and keep those numbers for years to come, I know I'll still be able to get my Planetside fix.

Of course, if they do what I'm hoping with PS2 and dwarf the number of players from the original game, I may wonder how I ever thought PS1 had large battles

[Mastachief]

a free to play game of this quality should have no trouble getting 10 times the original planetside release subscribers

As for the pop cap i suspect a continent cap of 1000 players. Server power is just a matter of money.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

a free to play game of this quality should have no trouble getting 10 times the original planetside release subscribers

As for the pop cap i suspect a continent cap of 1000 players. Server power is just a matter of money.

I just saw in the other thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/f...=37704&page=13

cellinaire quoting Tony Park stating that it will be 500 vs 500 vs 500, so 1500 player continents.

If they stick to the 10 player PS1 squads, that's 50 squads of players on one empire. Account for a lot of zerglings and that's still 20 to 30 squads.

How many players could Planetside support per continent? 500? That'll be three times larger in PS2. A single empire will be able to have as many players on a continent as all three empires could have combined in PS1.

[Hamma]

I wouldn't worry to much about the specifics of what Higby mentioned, it's just an example of balancing.

[morf]

Guys I realize the 200 vs. 20 is not a great example. You can stop hammering on that 1quote now.

Originally Posted by Xyntech

I just saw in the other thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/f...=37704&page=13

cellinaire quoting Tony Park stating that it will be 500 vs 500 vs 500, so 1500 player continents.

If they stick to the 10 player PS1 squads, that's 50 squads of players on one empire. Account for a lot of zerglings and that's still 20 to 30 squads.

How many players could Planetside support per continent? 500? That'll be three times larger in PS2. A single empire will be able to have as many players on a continent as all three empires could have combined in PS1.

I have no doubt that planetside will be massive, but on what scale?

500 v 500 v 500 isn't what they communicated. They stated "thousands" (with an s) - meaning more than 2000.

500 v 500 v 500 also isn't "thousand player armies" - assuming that they were talking about an army on a single continent - and I think they were since at the time, they were saying likely only 1 continent at launch.

I realize that I'm reading between the lines here, but anyone who says "oh its so easy dude, 100 player battles, 1000 player continents" is also reading between the lines. The statements made by devs have been somewhat vague.

So the question remains: at some point was the pop limit scaled back from what was originally intended due to technical concerns?