Auraxian Inquirer Issue 3

[GeoGnome]

Letter from the Editor
So we have had a big week. I would like to thank the people who follow the Inquirer on twitter (@AuraxianNews) for having some patience, as I have continually posted conflicting release times for the inquirer this week, you are all more than welcome to tar and feather me for such. Originally I didn't think there would be enough material to fill an issue this week, because I suspected SOE live would mean a period of silence by the Devs, so that many things could be revealed at a more public event, but this week has been ridiculously busy. I kept moving the release of this issue around, until last night when I sat down to start writing and didn't stand up again for 4 hours. I figured at the 3,000 word mark that I had enough content here to fill a small novel, so I went ahead and decided to publish ontime.

I tried something new this week that I'd like to draw people's attention to as well. One of today's articles is about examining some of the underlying reasons why EU Players haven't seen intercontinental promotions. If you would like to see some more of those kinds of investigative or analytical articles, please say something in the comments. Mention some topics you'd like me to look into! It was rather fun to read international copyright law, helped my chances at winning some of the obscure questions in Trivial Pursuit one day. I also asked a few questions through the body of today's inquirer, so keep an eye out.

And before I close, special mention goes to my outfit, who has graciously agreed to host the Inquirer's Archive. All back issues will be located at news.hstl.org from now on.

Sincerely,
Eric "Ash"


Player Studio
The Player Studio went live on Monday the 29th. Around the release of Player Studio, a series of interviews were done by T-ray on what people should expect from Player Studio (Link to MMORPG Interview, Link to Massively Interview). Any items that are submitted to Player studio will be reviewed by the SOE Art Director himself, before they are allowed in game. Items that are judged to be of sufficient quality and fitting with the setting of the game, will be placed in the IG Store. For each item sold in game, the creator of the item will be granted 40% of the money made on the sale. The Player Studio is only available to American customers as of now, but will with time be released to the other regions the game is available in (EU, China, Russia, etc.). If you would like to submit your work to Player Studio, start here: (Link). The forums for player studio are already hosting an abundance of guides, tools, and user reviews to help people get started, and get items ready for review.

Copyright, Lawyers, and Cash... Oh my!
In the past week there have been two controversial issues, due in part to the fact that they exclude the sizable European playerbase: Player Studio and the Squad Showdown. As more and more content is released around the Americas excluding the many players who live in one of the member states of the European Union, questions have been raised as to why EU players are being singled out. As controversial an issue as it is, it seems that it is rarely explored. To better inform the community The Inquirer set about trying to figure out what exactly was going on here, and the results are interesting.

The first, and most immediate issue caused by the Atlantic Ocean this week, is the Squad Showdown not allowing European player participation (Link). The Inquirer went straight to the source, asking Radar X what the reason for the exclusion of Europeans Players was. While qualifying his statements by saying that he [RadarX] was by no means a legal expert, nor did his response reflect the official stance of SOE, his response was that: "'Winnings' from a tournament have a similar legal status to gambling...Many countries have very restrictive tax and legal rules on winnings and would require multiple layers of support from each individual country... We are working with PSG to see how tournament could be run over in the EU where this support may already exist." So to avoid having to deal with the European gaming commission and regulations that are put in place to regulate gambling, the tournament must exclude European Citizens. That said, there will be tournaments in the EU hosted by SOE's partners there, but why is Player Studio only in the US? That isn't a matter of gambling winnings.

It's actually right here: "...Many countries have very restrictive tax and legal rules... require multiple layers of support from each individual country..." In researching the subject, the Inquirer found 2 main hurdles to be overcome when it came to publishing User Made Content in the European Union: Copyright and Taxes. As detailed in a report prepared by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] (Link), regulations on Copyrights can be handed down by the European Commission, but each member state likewise has the right to pass or hold laws formed on it's native soil, and these regulations can interfere with foreign regulations. So navigating the quagmire of regulations on Copyright and User protection can be a difficult task on it's own, before it becomes complicated by other issues. After reading this I reached out to SOE again asking for some kind of clarification, especially after a poster I encountered on the forums. The man I dealt with on the forums mentioned that the real issue was more likely to be involving tax and labor laws, and that these could be side stepped if SOE paid people in Station Cash. The response I received, which does not reflect SOE's official stance or come from someone of a legal background, was that it was indeed tax and labor issues holding this back at time of writing, but that paying people for their content in Station cash would not sidestep anything. "Even SC has a cash value and if it's provided for work done, it's compensation and thus under tax and labor laws," so nothing is avoided by going that route, thus there is little incentive for such a practice to be used.

As was said by T-ray in his interviews this last week: Player Studio will eventually come to other regions; and, as we heard from RadarX, tournaments are being planned for the EU players. It's just a matter of time really, until these issues are sorted out.

The More You Know...
Planetside Intel has started a list of the top weapons stats in Planetside 2. You can easily contribute to making these stats more accurate as well, by simply visiting the site. The kills, deaths, Bullets landed, and bullets fired are compiled from each characters searched for on Planetside Intel. Going to the site and looking up your character, your outfit members, your nemesis, or even Higby will add that person's stats into the running totals. Link to the stats, the more people you look up, the more accurate this will get, the better a source it can be for the community.

Deadlines and Details!
The Roadmap was updated on the 25th to give us more details on things that are coming to the game over the next 6 months. Some things were finally given a release date, and a few things were moved around, but here is the basic rundown:

Outfit Recruiting: (Link) August Release in GU14. According to the information provided on the page, to join an outfit will mean clicking on a 'Join Outfit' button. You will be given a list of outfits, that you can filter with various criteria, seeing what times they play, basic stats, etc. When you choose an outfit you'll be linked to the application or whatever is necessary to join the outfit. All of this will be set up automatically, but outfit leadership can always add in blurbs, media, and other such things for their own outfit's page.

Player Made Decals: (Link) Basically, this is Player Studio, or a portion of Player studio. From what we have heard in the past from the series of T-ray interviews (Check the first article of this issue for links), the outfit decals will only be available to members of that outfit.

Server Transfer Tokens: (Link=) The much sought after tokens will be available it seems, in GU14. The only reason it didn't come sooner, was simply that GU14 was not ready for July, and was pushed back to the first week in August.

Streamlined Terminal Loadout UI: (Link) There will be UI changes coming in GU14. No real screenshots or details on the matter, just that it will be happening.

Amerish Lattice: (Link) The next to last lattice, is slated for August. No details on how extensively Amerish will be changed. Given that there hasn't been much time and we have seen next to nothing about it, it could be mean that the lattice has caused few changes to the Forest Continent. This also was marked as potentially to be included in GU14, but that seems a bit much for that update (We've also been told that the infiltrator update was GU14 some time back), so it's more likely we'll be seeing this around GU 15 or 16.

Improved Tutorial: (Link) More tutorial improvements incoming. Expect to see this pop up again, around the time that the resource system and continental lattice appear.

Gifting: (Link) Around Christmas time we'll be seeing the introduction of a gifting mechanic.

Orbital Strike: (Link) Carrying on with creating items in the theme of the season they are introduced, as we already have a fireworks gun, we'll be getting more powerful ordinance around New Years! Assuming this doesn't become the next big Implants debate, the controversial Orbital Strike feature should be landing early next year. What would you, the reader like to see happen with this feature?

There has been too much violence. Too much pain. But I have an honorable compromise. Just walk away. Give me your pump, the Auraxian, the Energy, and the whole compound, and I'll spare your lives. Just walk away and we'll give you a safe passageway in the wastelands. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.
...Is absolutely what I will be shouting at people from my Harasser (While wearing a skull mask) when the resource system is introduced. FNO 39 came out last week, and after the amazing outfit spotlight from Briggs starring the Trojan Trolls, where one Galaxy Bowl was intercepted by another Galaxy Bowl, (Link, time: 1:35:20ish seconds on) Malorn came on to give us new information on the Resource Revamp slated for September (Link to roadmap). There were a ton of questions covered during this incredibly informative Q&A session, so I might miss one or two, but here are the highlights.

Your Resources and Griefing: One of the major points that Malorn wished to put across to people was that, the pulling of a vehicle by one person, should not influence your ability to pull a vehicle. Simply put, while the bases will loose some power when a vehicle is pulled, all lower energy levels at a base will do is reduce the maximum volume of resources that you have available. This raises the questions as to how griefing will be prevented, as multiple people could theoretically drain energy at a base unto a point that the base became useless by pulling many vehicles in rapid succession. In order to prevent this, there will be incentives in place that better reward people for playing the system as it's meant to be played, and the cap on resources will be relatively small. Successful resource missions and protecting the resource transport will spread the XP out over a wide area, so everyone involved will get something for their trouble. This will also carry over to outfits, with bonuses being given to outfits that specialize in certain tasks. Larger zergs and zergfits will also be addressed in the same way, in that they will experience issues with holding onto Armor or air assets, simply due to their size, and the cost associated with pulling enough vehicles for their numbers. An uncoordinated group will likely flounder around without anything protecting them from more organized and more well equipped smaller groups. Further, when it comes to chain pulling vehicles or pulling vehicles for other people, vehicles will likely have a maintenance cost. Meaning that you sacrifice part of your resource stock when occupying a vehicle. Moreover, regardless of who pulls said vehicle, you will likely end up paying to support the vehicle, as long as you occupy a seat therein.

Consumables: Items that are currently consumable and can be horded en masse, will now resupply at respawn. Because the use of these things means so much more power granted to a character, the idea of loadout options increasing the cost of respawn are being discussed. This would mean that a HA that pulls a stock gun and a stock rocket launcher, will cost less to respawn than a fully kitted out Light Asssault carrying 2 bricks of C4. Command tools will not consume resources though, they will stay as they are now.

Acquisition Timers: Certs invested in Acquisition timers will likely be refunded. The only way they would not be refunded, was if they were to be transferred to another ability of equal usefulness that would be implemented to replace acquisition timers. When it comes to acquiring resources, all resources will be provided to the player at a fixed rate based on the energy cap of the base you are at.

Ants: From the look of things, Advanced Nanite Transports, will be a module for the Sunderer. There will not be a direct Auraxian transport upgrade for any air vehicles. When using the ANT module, there will be visual indicators of how much is being transported in a sundy. To load an ant, it will need to deployed, while deployed it will draw in Auraxian from the nodes, or from an enemy Silo. The Silos will not be a separate structure, instead they will be located at the same place as the Ammo towers, with the aforementioned structure pulling double duty as Silo for Auraxian and Resupply point for vehicles. To transfer Auraxian to a friendly silo, you likewise will need to deploy near it.

Neutral bases: Bases can be drained by the enemy using sunderers. Destroying terminals or generators will not mean that resources drain faster. The primary thing that drives resources draining though, is the number of respawns at that base. Bases going neutral is being discussed and Malorn asked people to express whether or not they would like to see that included in the game.

Regional: The resource system will effect people on a local scale. How you deal with your resources in one base will not carry over to another base, because your personal resource supply is dependent on the base you are linked to, and that base's power level. The only exception is the possibility of random resource drops. It has been discussed by the dev team, that sometimes there may be special resources dropped at locations due to events like meteor impacts or what have you. These special drops could potentially figure into future features, like custom base construction, or the acquisition of special powerful items or weapons in the game.

Merchandising... Merchandising... Planetside 2 the coloring book, Planetside 2 the breakfast cereal, Planetside 2 the Flamethrower!
Planetside 2 will soon be going retail. A retail version of the game will be available soon to European players. The boxed version comes with 3 golden SMGs, 1,000 SC, a 7 day 50% XP boost, and a 3 day 50% XP boost that can be gifted to a friend. Published by Deep Silver, it is currently priced at 7.54 European on Amazon Link.

Subreddits for all!
Another subreddit just opened for people hoping to publish Content with Player Studio (Link). The new subreddit, put together by Royawesome and the reddit team, allows people to post their work done for Player Studio up on an open forum for feedback from the fans.

[GeoGnome]

That's a wrap, But: SOE Live and Hossin Preview
To those who were unaware, SOE live will be happening Thursday and Friday of this week. There are many things that will be happening during SOE live, including the reveal of Hossin, player panels for PSU, the reveal of EQ2, and company addresses to the EQ and PS communities. Also, after Hossin is revealed, Higby announced that it would be available on the Public Test Server. Because of this, there will be a special SOE live and Hossin Preview issue of the Inquirer on Monday, to document everything we learn from SOE live (Link to SOE Live scheduele. Link to Hossin Files found by Shaql)


TLDR

Player Studio launched on the 29th
Items can be submitted by players, and will be reviewed by SOE
If an item gets approved all sales net the creator 40%

Limitations on EU Players participating in Player studio and tournaments is mostly linked to EU Commission regulations on Copyright laws and Tax/Labor laws

Planetside Intel has a stats sheet the displays up to date info on all weapons
The sheet adds in weapon stats from every player searched on the site [URL="http://planetside-intel.com/data/"]

The Roadmap has changed again
Outfit Recruiting, Player made decals, Amerish lattice, UI changes, Tutorial updates, and Server Transfer tokens all moved to August to fit into GU14
Gifting moved to December, because Christmas
Orbital Strikes in January

Malorn answered questions about the Resource Revamp on FNO 39 Link
Sunderers will get an ANT module
Resources will be taken care of locally, not regionally
One person pulling a tank will not prevent another from pulling a tank
Scaling Loadout Prices might be a reality
Sitting in a vehicle will mean paying on that vehicle
Consumables will be paid for on spawn
Ammo towers will be the new Silos

Hossin will be on the Public Test Server by week's end

Planetside 2 goes retail with a boxed version being released in Europe Link

A subreddit was just openned for Player studio submissions Link

A new issue of AI will come out Monday to take into account SOE live and Hossin.

[EvilNinjadude]

Thank you kind Sir. There's so much happening with Planetside, the updates, the devs, and everything else, that it's always nice to have it summed up afterwards again, EVEN IF you've already taken note of most of it (like me).

[Sledgecrushr]

Vey well put together and well written. Thanks for the magazine.

[camycamera]

well written, as usual, great for the guys who miss out on the news

[OCNSethy]

Thankyou GeoGnome, most useful and good read.