News: Community Interview with Jon Weathers

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Higby

Connections to a VOIP server have no adverse effect on your connection to the "game" server except for potentially on your end if your connection was unable to handle having both open. The game server isn't processing voice at all.

As for why you'd want to talk to a random player, maybe to help them learn the game? Maybe because you want ammo, or you saw an enemy squad around the corner and want to warn them? Maybe to coordinate fire on an enemy tank? Maybe because they're going the wrong way? There are lots of reasons.

Planetside is a complex game that focuses almost entire on massive player coordination and cooperation, having experienced players who can say "Hey come over here the command room is this way" to someone whos lost without having to jump through hoops to do so goes a long way towards getting the player community more closely knit and ultimately make the game work as well as possible.

If all you want to do is interact with the friends you already came into the game with and the entire rest of the playerbase is just background noise to you, that's fine, you can turn it off, but I think you'd be missing out on one of the more unique aspects of Planetside.

Also, with the autojoin squad feature mentioned in the video, if you end up with random people, they may not get "lost" but it's still nice to be able to say something as simple as "look out behind you".

[Dreamcast]

Originally Posted by Higby

Connections to a VOIP server have no adverse effect on your connection to the "game" server except for potentially on your end if your connection was unable to handle having both open. The game server isn't processing voice at all.

As for why you'd want to talk to a random player, maybe to help them learn the game? Maybe because you want ammo, or you saw an enemy squad around the corner and want to warn them? Maybe to coordinate fire on an enemy tank? Maybe because they're going the wrong way? There are lots of reasons.

Planetside is a complex game that focuses almost entire on massive player coordination and cooperation, having experienced players who can say "Hey come over here the command room is this way" to someone whos lost without having to jump through hoops to do so goes a long way towards getting the player community more closely knit and ultimately make the game work as well as possible.

If all you want to do is interact with the friends you already came into the game with and the entire rest of the playerbase is just background noise to you, that's fine, you can turn it off, but I think you'd be missing out on one of the more unique aspects of Planetside.

Local Voip sounds awesome.....I would love to hear nearby enemies and talk to randoms..It will make people immerse more into the game.

Don't listen to these Planetside 2 Elitist who thinks every new player is gonna ruin the game.

[Atheosim]

Originally Posted by Hyiero

Someone please get this man a cookie...what ever kind he wants...man is a damn genius in my book

Yep, yet another excellent post by Commander Higglebottoms.

[IMMentat]

Good work Hamma, a good mix of useful and new info there.
Continental resources could go either way, we'll see in Beta I expect.

#edit#
Some nice feedback on voip, personally my use will be dependant on how mature the average user proves to be (I have no problem muting individuals as long as they are the exception).
If my experience of playing public multiplayer games on the Xbox 360 proves anything its that:-
Push to talk should ALWAYS be the default setting . Also, keep the voice controls easy to access as adjusting volumes and muting players should take only a few key/mouse presses.

Babies crying, random coughing/spluttering/nose blowing, swearing, shouting, loud/annoying music and tv are just a sample of the unintended stuff I have heard over public party voicecomms. I only bought the xbox in january of this year. . . .

[Hamma]

By the way those of you wondering more about the mission system, Higby and I talked about it more in our interview with him which you guys will be seeing next.

[Dreamcast]

Originally Posted by Hamma

By the way those of you wondering more about the mission system, Higby and I talked about it more in our interview with him which you guys will be seeing next.

Like right now, next?

[Hyiero]

Can't wait for tomorrow's video! Thanks a lot for doing these!

[DviddLeff]

VOIP sounds great, been playing Day Z and the VOIP feature in that looks awesome, even though I tend to avoid player interaction with anyone not on my TS for fear of betrayal!

[SniperSteve]

Great interview!


Thanks Hamma and Jennyboo, and of course, Jon!

Yeah - and regarding VoIP, hopefully there will be a system in place where if someone gets enough mutes on them within a few minutes it auto-mutes that person for a while. Basically have a community driven approach to solving the issue of annoying people. Because if 10 people take action against a person, they are obviously doing something mute-worthy.

[Kurtz]

Originally Posted by Higby

Connections to a VOIP server have no adverse effect on your connection to the "game" server except for potentially on your end if your connection was unable to handle having both open. The game server isn't processing voice at all.

As for why you'd want to talk to a random player, maybe to help them learn the game? Maybe because you want ammo, or you saw an enemy squad around the corner and want to warn them? Maybe to coordinate fire on an enemy tank? Maybe because they're going the wrong way? There are lots of reasons.

Planetside is a complex game that focuses almost entire on massive player coordination and cooperation, having experienced players who can say "Hey come over here the command room is this way" to someone whos lost without having to jump through hoops to do so goes a long way towards getting the player community more closely knit and ultimately make the game work as well as possible.

If all you want to do is interact with the friends you already came into the game with and the entire rest of the playerbase is just background noise to you, that's fine, you can turn it off, but I think you'd be missing out on one of the more unique aspects of Planetside.

Hey Higby thanks for replying and clearing that up for me. I've never coded a VOIP in one of my games and always assumed you would need more data in a packet to the server if you wanted to do voip.

That said, I spent the first year of my MMOFPS playing WW2online without voip and when I got on a TS it was a completely different world.

By the time I got to Planetside, I had my outfit set up channels for AIR, INFY and ARMOR with a command channel just for leaders. We had set up whispers to the leader of each division so only he could hear and would repeat the orders to the folks in his channel.

So, you could see why I would find VOIP in the game somewhat redundant as most large outfits will be better suited using their own VOIP systems.

But hey if it doesn't effect my ping, or how many players you can fit on a server then knock yourselves out. APB's ability to hear nearby enemies is a nice feature.

[kaffis]

Very nice video.

I'm rather disappointed at the answer on platoons.

I'm really concerned that caving on platoons appears to demonstrate a lack of confidence in the mission system, and including platoons will ultimately hinder the accessibility of the game in the sense that they keep wanting to talk about getting new players into the action and feeling like they're contributing quickly and lowering the steep learning curve/intimidation factor that MMOs can have towards people not accustomed to them.

[Bags]

I don't understand how platoons add to the learning curve and make the game less accessible...

[JPalmer]

Originally Posted by Mechzz

They've said from early on that it will be like this (auto-generated missions), at least when the game goes live. Once players level up they should be able to cert into the mission system. Sounds like we'll be having our hands held in the early days, but that won't stop the outfits self-organising I would imagine.

I remember someone saying you can just say "fuck off" to the missions and do as you please. The mission system is there so the entire server isn't in one location.

[Mastachief]

being a persistent mmofps i would hope the addition of platoons is a given (lets not take a step back from the original) it will not detract from the mission system only serve to enhance players experience.

Also to note the feature would be nice for those outfits that choose to ignore the mission system.

[DirtyBird]

Thanks to Hamma and Jon for the interview.

on VOIP:

Originally Posted by Higby

Planetside is a complex game that focuses almost entire on massive player coordination and cooperation, having experienced players who can say "Hey come over here the command room is this way" to someone whos lost without having to jump through hoops to do so goes a long way towards getting the player community more closely knit and ultimately make the game work as well as possible.

Some of this might happen but I dont foresee a great deal of it taking place.
If you are in a squad of random players and someone says "Hey come over here the command room is this way", the first hoop you have to jump thru is who the hell just said that and who the hell are they talking to?
Identifying voices can be hard enough when you know the people.
Not to mention players with obscure names that you cant pronounce.

I like the idea of trying to make the community more closely knit but imo this wont do much.

Anyway, not much use for those playing at a great distance from the servers, the delay is usually sub par but I look forward to testing it out and being proven wrong!

Thanks again for the interview.