Questions from a new fan!

[Liwen Diamond]

Hi everyone, I'm obviously new to this game and these forums and I had a few questions that needed anwsers if you would be so kind to do so :

Traditionally, MMOs tend to have restrictions which annoy me greatly, such as my inability to switch servers and keep the progression in my levels (or in the case of PS2, certificates), or the impossibility to switch from one faction to other. Usually they will charge an extra fee to be able to perform these actions.

I understand that for a major part of the community, this won't bother them that much, because they are greatly loyal to their faction and have deep ties with a given server, but let's just throw in the idea that myself and others might not, yet or possibly ever, have any faction loyality or server ties whatsoever...

Now I took the time to read up the new player faq and saw that they currently plan to lock you into one faction per server. From that I'm almost positive that I won't be able to switch server or faction on a dime and keep my progress. Am I correct? Is this situation still accurate? Have the devs remained open to the possibility of changing this?

A couple of reason why I would want to allow this :

- Testing the factions. I understand the different weapons, vehicules and tools for each faction are not identical. Each has a different feeling of gameplay and I would like to be able to test them freely before settleling on the one which I find more enjoyable.

- Fighting for the underdog. I've always enjoyed joining the losing side of a battle and help balance the fight. It is likely that if allowed to do so, I would hop in on whichever faction has less territory/soliders at the time and fight to reestablish a fair balance and fight. And what would happen if I joined a faction that was so good they'd have 90% of all territories on the server under their control all the time? Joining a battle that's allready won is not appealing to me.

- Server load. This is more specifically regarding the ability to switch servers and keep my certifications/customizations saved. With a 6000 player capacity, it would not surprise me to sometimes find that server I've been playing on for a while is currently full. Would be awesome to just pop into another one with all of my stuff, not to mention they might one day open a new server closer to home with significantly lower ping and I don't need to tell you why I would want to switch to that one.

Lastly, regarding how certificates work, are certifcates faction specific, or if I put time to train my Galaxy skills, I will be able to perfrom as well regardless of the color of the hull? (assuming of course, that switching factions is or would be a possibility on a given character.)

Thanks for your time and sorry for the lenght of the post.

Liwen Diamond, Currently factionless :P

[Absentis]

You will have to make a new character for each server as I understand it from the devs.

I'd personally like to be able to server hop with the same character and not having to re-earn my progress. To supplement this sort of system, I'd like to be able to make a character for each faction and select whichever faction I'd like to play on whatever server and add a time limit to switch characters on that server to prevent team switching.

Back on topic:
For testing factions, I'd find a server you or some friends plan on playing on and not making a character until you've made one of each faction on separate servers without progressing too far one any unless you plan on using one of those as an alternative.

The underdog will always be changing on a server, so that's just something you'll have to put up with unless they end up allowing server hopping with a single character. To avoid this, you could make a new character on each server after testing which faction you want to go with. Unfortunately, using this workaround isn't particularly efficient in that you'd have to go through your progression again on each server which would be very monotonous.

I don't think you will be able to move certifications between multiple characters.

[asdar]

I think PvP games in general try to avoid faction swapping on the same server.

It's easy to see how you could abuse swapping both from a spying angle and from a boosting scam with a friend to get kills, then swap so you're both on the same side. That's not even touching the Eve like Bank robbery spy thing.

[Captain1nsaneo]

You are correct, you can not switch factions on one server. There's several reasons for this some of which have already been posted in the thread.

Fighting for the underdog. There will always be a fight where you are the underdog. It's part of the nature of a 3 way fight.

Another thing you should be aware of. At the moment we do not know if they will allow us to change our certs once we put them into certain abilities.

[xnorb]

Especially because it's an MMO, you shouldn't be able to switch faction.

You joined a faction because that's "your" side.
You fight for this faction because that's "your" side.
You die for this faction because that's "your" side.

It's like you're in the US army and would never switch over to russians
or Al Qu'aida because ... you know ... you're american.


Server switching on the other side would be a nice feature.
Although that's for sure causing some issues with your friends being
distributed over a few servers ...

[Zaerath]

Especially because it's an MMO, you shouldn't be able to switch faction.

You joined a faction because that's "your" side.
You fight for this faction because that's "your" side.
You die for this faction because that's "your" side.

It's like you're in the US army and would never switch over to russians
or Al Qu'aida because ... you know ... you're american.


Server switching on the other side would be a nice feature.
Although that's for sure causing some issues with your friends being
distributed over a few servers ...

For new players, it might be difficult to understand, but xnorb is completely right. Especially in Planetside, faction loyalty is huge - most of us would consider it outright blasphemy to switch factions.

You're welcome to have more than one character, but only one faction per server (as we've been told).

[Zulthus]

At this point I really don't care about multiple empires per server as long as there is a long timer on switching; however, I don't think they should allow server roaming with a single character. If a server is full I think you should choose another one and start from scratch. IMO.

[Electrofreak]

I'm pretty sure I heard that they were going to allow multiple empires per server but there will be at least a 30-minute timer after logging out of one empire before you can play one of your other empire characters.

Don't quote me on this, but I keep up on the news pretty well.

[Boof]

Let me shed some light on some of your questions using some of the past experience I have from PlanetSide 1... Answers are highlighted in New Conglomerate Blue

Now I took the time to read up the new player faq and saw that they currently plan to lock you into one faction per server. From that I'm almost positive that I won't be able to switch server or faction on a dime and keep my progress.
In PlanetSide 1 each character was locked into an empire once the empire was chosen. There was absolutely no way to change your empire on one specific character. That did not stop you, however, from making an entirely new character on the same account with a different empire.

You may not be able to switch servers without keeping any characters you have before the switch but I don't know that because I never switched servers (other than The Great Server Migration).

Testing the factions. I understand the different weapons, vehicules and tools for each faction are not identical. Each has a different feeling of gameplay and I would like to be able to test them freely before settleling on the one which I find more enjoyable.
I would suggest you just make a character for each empire and test the weapons. If you really like the weapons of the New Conglomerate, you can delete the tyrant (Terran Republic) and geek (Vanu Sovereignty) :lol:.

There's also a lot of emphasis from the devs that even though you play one empire, you can customize your weapon to be similar to other empire's weapons. In PlanetSide 1 this wasn't even close to an option. There was no customization. Therefore, I have no idea what that will be like.

Fighting for the underdog.
The underdog? YOU MEAN NEW CONGLOMERATE, RIGHT??

All jokes aside, you won't really need to worry too much about underdogs since there are three empires. If one empire is doing really poorly and doesn't have much control, the other two empires will still be duking it out. This will give the "underdog" a chance to fight one empire and cause a kind of three-way for one base. The only time there was ever an empire with total map control in PlanetSide 1 (which DID happen) was when the game had already lost popularity and there weren't enough guaranteed players per side to even things out. It was rare, but it did happen and it was remarkably easy and FUN to take territory back using some underhanded tricks.

Defending 90% of the PlanetSide 2 world will be almost impossible.

Server load.
This is something I never thought about. The PlanetSide 1 servers never really reached a maximum capacity although I'm sure it had one. I really don't for-see server load being a problem for PlanetSide 2 but you never know!

Once again, I don't predict characters being transferable from server to server. However, if they open a new server they might allow for character transfer. I have seen that done in other MMOs.


Are certifcates faction specific?
No, certificates are universal. Every empire will have the same exact certificate options except for the differences in empire-specific vehicles and weapons. If you put certifications into the galaxy in one empire, you can put in the exact same certifications on another empire. There wouldn't be any difference whatsoever other than the color scheme.


I hope I was able to answer some of your questions effectively and I hope to see you on the New Conglomerate!

~Boof