Planetside another Earth and Beyond?

[MrVicchio]

I bring this up for discussion reasons only. If you HAVE not played Eand B.. go play it. Beautiful game. Stunningly so in ways. Easy leveling, combat looked neat.. wow.. a whole galazy to explore.

But sadly, after les sthen 2 weeks.. I realized the obvious. It lacked that special something ot keep one playing. The FUN factor. It just got BORING REALLY REALLY REALLY FAST.

I had a Terran Tradesman. And while that was cool cause I didn't have hours on end to play, it was also dull doing runs over nad over for cash and exp.

Combat was... pretty, but very empty. You either Powned the bad guys, or they owned you. There were no give and take, on the edge fights... And the loot system was lame too.

Now that I have explained a few things, how in the heck does it relate to PS? Well, there been a few comments over on the PS Official forums ot this effect, so I thought I would come here and expound upon them for our reading pleasue.

PS LOOKS great, SOUNDS like a great Idea. Both of which E&B did as well. Course, we haven't played PS so this is all hypothetical bs at this moment... But... Where could PS go wrong?

1. CEP The system to me, if it has a flaw, it sthe uberguild mentality. I really don't think small units are gonna get very far. Only the 1337 players in the UBER outfits are gonna get to play Commander before long. This is something have seen far too many times in AO, EQ, DAOC and other games. Also, look at CS or DoD and the CAL-i and other leagues.. you have to belong to a 1337 krew to get the nod... That bothers me.

2. The game is too easy... What I mean is, in 2 months.. many people are gonna be BR20.. and then what? I STILL Play CS after 3 years, and to behonest.. its stale. I play out of habit really... but part of that is its FREE. I drink of the PS koolaide.. but will that sustain me after taking the same base for the umptteenth time?

3. People. This is the biggest problem facing PS. While the Dev team has done what it can.. People still suck. I played BF1942 for about 2 months, and that game is fun.. but peopole ruined it. I hate playing the game because of the stupid people that get childish amusement in ruining othersgames. I know all the arguements as to why this should not occur.. but trust me.. it will..

4. The mentality of the FPS player. We do NOT like waiting between death and getting back intot he action. But if it is too fast.. it gets old too.. DoD and CS playstyles are PERFECT examples. Waiting on two campers ot finish a map on CS is lame, but so is respawning 50 times in DoD.... Will the PS system meet the fineline.. or will it drive us nutz... Whichleads to...

5. Travel Times. The PS team is doing a hell'va job of lowering this, but it still there. Nothin would irk me more then to take more then 2 min to get back to a battle, only to die and do it again. The getting there better be fun too...

Now, mind you, these are al concerns either I have, or I have seen as trends, and I am bringing them in the worst manner to provoke thoughtful discussion. I hope it makes sense...

[Derfud]

I hope PS will be like E&B in the bug sense (or should i say bugfree).

1. I agree totally
2. Once you get to lvl 20 and start to get bored with what you are doing, make a new character! Give him different certs in something that you have not tried yet.
3. Most of the stupid things were TKing, and Vehichle stealing, but with PS there are the certs, so if you are certified, just get your vehichle, and non one can take it if they dont have the cert, or even then, they could just get thier own. Tking will be mostly avoided by the greif system i'd say.
4. I'm sure that if you die, you have an option of going back to the battle, or you can respawn by another battle. As for travel times just take a light vehichle, like a basilisk or something. And if you can't, then surely you aren't the only one to have died, so you could hitch a ride in a sunderer or a Galaxy.

[Cao_Cao]

I'm afraid to say something to that lol... hes so right....

BUT, i'm sure the devs have thought of all of these considering they have so many games to look at and see the flaws etc :0

Once again,

Just an opinion

[Headrattle]

About number 5:
I wouldn't mind 2 minute travel times. I wouldn't mind 5 minute travel times. I want people to hate dying.
I don't like a constant stream of the same two players. because once you kill them, they respawn and are on your ass in less then 10 seconds.

Just my opinion though

[Incompetent]

1. CEP The system to me, if it has a flaw, it sthe uberguild mentality. I really don't think small units are gonna get very far. Only the 1337 players in the UBER outfits are gonna get to play Commander before long. This is something have seen far too many times in AO, EQ, DAOC and other games. Also, look at CS or DoD and the CAL-i and other leagues.. you have to belong to a 1337 krew to get the nod... That bothers me. A smaller outfit that is very active but meerly ok could easily contribute more and get more credit than then some lazy ass huge guild that only comes together for scheduled offenses every once in a while and totally stomps their foes. Who would you prefer, the huge guy that comes once in a blue moon or the little guy that fights 24/7 and is always there when you need him.
2. The game is too easy... What I mean is, in 2 months.. many people are gonna be BR20.. and then what? I STILL Play CS after 3 years, and to behonest.. its stale. I play out of habit really... but part of that is its FREE. I drink of the PS koolaide.. but will that sustain me after taking the same base for the umptteenth time? Did you stop playing BF1942 because you didn't gain any XP, the game is about the fight and the kill on a massive scale, not staring at stats and XP. There will ALWAYS be someone on the other team who can kick the crap out of you at a moments notice, there will always be a challenge.
4. The mentality of the FPS player. We do NOT like waiting between death and getting back intot he action. But if it is too fast.. it gets old too.. DoD and CS playstyles are PERFECT examples. Waiting on two campers ot finish a map on CS is lame, but so is respawning 50 times in DoD.... Will the PS system meet the fineline.. or will it drive us nutz... Whichleads to... good points here, unfortantly these things vary from person to person, they can never please everyone
5. Travel Times. The PS team is doing a hell'va job of lowering this, but it still there. Nothin would irk me more then to take more then 2 min to get back to a battle, only to die and do it again. The getting there better be fun too... Then you better hope your medics are on the ball and the AMS is kept safe, if it takes you to long to get back into the battle then you need to change your tactics or the people you play with
edit: i skipped three because, well, thats impossible to control or predict

[The Prudential]

1. That depends. If you want to be Level 4 or 5 commander, yeah, you'll likely have to be in an outfit. However, if you are happy being a squad leader, then I don't see this as an issue. Also, as PS tries to make a FPS into a huge wargame, then the outfit commanders will be more effective simply due to the fact that they will, by their very nature, be more organized. I don't think there is anything that the Sony Dev team could do or should do to change this.

2. I agree w/Derfud. What happens in an on-line RPG or a regular RPG when you have a 500th level ubergod who has absolutely no challenges left? Well, you make a new character. Also, in PS, just because you are level 20, doesn't mean the game will be less of a challenge. Basically all level 20 means is you have a lot more options at your disposal.

3. I'd have to say that the Dev team has put a lot of thought into making it more difficult for people to ruin the fun. Of course, some people will still try to do this. However, I don't think it will be as much of a factor as it is in other, free FPS games.

4. Well how fast you respawn is largely a matter of taste. In this regard the Devs cannot accomodate everyone. I personally despise the CS route where you are forced to wait for the game to finish. That's why I don't play the Para Maps in DoD. I do love the respawning in DoD since the action is so violent. In effect the respawning in DoD is more of a product of the realistic damage in the game than an actual design. In DoD random, one shot kills are not at all uncommon, this type of thing in PS, imho, will likely be more rare. Except with the really big weapons there won't be alot of one shot kills in PS (or so it seems). Due to this the 'action' period may be longer than more realistic FPS games dependant upon your style of play. If you run into the firelane of an enemy MAX, well, you'll respawn alot, however, if you play relatively conservatively (i.e. realistically), your 'action' period could be very long.

5. This, again IMHO only, is largely 'your own fault' so to speak. If it takes you two minutes to get back to the battle you either need to A.) Pick up a vehicle cert of some sort, or B.) Make sure your team packs an AMS w/them to battle! Also, a lot of this will be on your choice of spawn points. A tower might put you back in the battle quickly, but if you spawn at the base that is farther away you can rearm easily. A difficult choice.

Again, all of the above are just MHO, and to truly answer these questions we'll actually have to play the game. Cheers. :)

[OmnipotentKiwi]

1. CEP is very flawed in my opinion, for the reasons you stated, and the fact battles are going to be 100-200 people, AND they only expect at max 3 commanders to get that? Yeah... great system, really... :rolleyes:

2. You can make a new character, but as you said, your right, it is pretty pointless, but same as CS.

3. Same as CS, but I still played it for a long time.

4. Remember, half of us are the MMORPGers too, I did that routine thousands of times in DAoC, so I will be able to handle it here.

5. Again, MMORPGers know this already, and I have done so for DAoC already.

Basically it has the best of a FPS and RPG, but the worst as well.

I really think the biggest mistake is the monthly fee, unless it is under like, $5, the fee may outweigh the plusses of the game.

[Zoolooman]

It's an FPS. I'm planning on playing what sounds like a good FPS.

I want a game like BF1942 with a more effective FPS gameplay style. This is what PS might be. Remember, any FPS game is just the same thing over and over.

Plus, if it gets really boring, I can change empires... ;p

To me, the entire point of the game is going to be the excitement and the rush of being a dogface in a HUGE assault on a base. Even if it's the umpteenth base, if the gameplay doesn't appeal to you, you may wish to change the game you're playing.

Plus, if they do well with our money, they'll change and spice up the game every year or so.

[Lexington_Steele]

What will make this game different than E&B?

I can boil it down to one thing: Skill based combat.

PvE gets boring. Stat based PvP is lame. E&B is very Care Bear.

This game will provide the sanctuary for anyone who has been searching for cut throat skill based combat in a persistant environment.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

I can boil it down to one thing: Skill based combat.

Yes, but is it worth a monthly fee?

[Zoolooman]

Exactly Lexington.

I want to play an awesome fast paced FPS. And best of all, I want scale. I want 50 people by my side, rushing madly forward, gunning down the opposition. I want medics to pick up my dead corpse, and let us wear away the opponent. Our engineers to repair our MAXes and vehicles. Our hackers picking apart the enemy.

And in the turn, I want to see our engineers, our MAXes, our everything being used to defend a base, to repel the attackers and smash their vehicles actively. To fight even the losing battle down to the last room before being wiped out to the man...

And then coming back 10 minutes later with my outfit on a return force. :] We'll take that base back baby.

(And I could do that over, and over, and over.)

[Lexington_Steele]

With regards to Mr. Vicchio's points.

1) I don't think this will be a problem. However, if only uber guilds and "l337" players are getting CEPs then you must rely on the old addage: if you can't beat 'em join 'em. IF you can't get CEPs join a "l337" outfit and work your way up the ranks of the outfit. Think of the climb up this Outfits command structure as a game within a game. Once you have achieved a certain Command rank, you can part company from this outfit.

2) Not ever gamer is an "achiever" type. I hate running the leveling treadmill. Powerleveling is not fun. I love the fact that I will reach a point in this game where I have reached the uper echelon of combat abilities and I don't have to worry about leveling ever again. I see it as once I reach level 20, the game really begins for me. At that point, all I have to do is fight for the glory of my outfit and empire.

3) I think assholes will be kept at a minimum due to the monthly fee. Why be an asshole in PS, when I can be an asshole in CS and BF1942 for free. Assholes will also get hit with the ban stick. However, you will get the people who are quitting the game and go out in a blaze of asshole glory.

4) People will adapt to the speed of play. No game will appease everyone's desired speed of play. If you play Ghost Recon at the speed you play CS you will be dead quickly. I think I will like trying a different speed from both of them.

5) If getting there isn't half the fun, then you will start playing the game more conservatively (you know all about conservative, don't you Mr. V ;) ). This will reduce rambo type players which is a good thing IMO.

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by OmnipotentKiwi
Yes, but is it worth a monthly fee?
To have professional administrators banning assholes and working to prevent cheats, Yes.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

To have professional administrators banning assholes and working to prevent cheats, Yes
They won't ban assholes, assholes pay, same as the rest of us, trust me on this one. They would rather change the game to the assholes can't abuse something, rather then ban their paying asses. :-D

[Incompetent]

They won't ban assholes, assholes pay, same as the rest of us, trust me on this one. They would rather change the game to the assholes can't abuse something, rather then ban their paying asses. :-D better to ban one asshole then lose two or three people because of them

[Lexington_Steele]

Originally posted by OmnipotentKiwi
They won't ban assholes, assholes pay, same as the rest of us, trust me on this one. They would rather change the game to the assholes can't abuse something, rather then ban their paying asses. :-D
But like I said, if all you want to do is be an asshole why pay $10-$15 a month. You have oppurtunities to be an ass in many non Pay-to-Play games. This won't remove the asshole element, but it will reduce it.

If they are pure team killers, then they will eventually recieve a ban. If they are constantly cursing, they will eventually recieve a ban.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Well if you have played any MMORPG you would know they are still quite present, and in force, and there are even guilds made JUST for annoying others. But you are right, it WILL be less then like CS, maybe. ;)

If they are pure team killers, then they will eventually recieve a ban. If they are constantly cursing, they will eventually recieve a ban.
Team Killers will only get bans through the grief system, that is why they put it in, so CSRs don't have to deal with it. And also, cursing does not recieve a ban, as it is allowed, and why there is a chat filter. The only way language will recieve bans if for being racist, sexist, or against any religion.

[Validuz]

There better not be a damn word filter in PS.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

There better not be a damn word filter in PS.

There is, but you can turn it off, therefore by having it off you revoke your right to bitch about the language.

[SVoyager]

omnipotent, i dont agree with "is it worth the fee" stuff.

to me, it is and by a long shot. First, you have to think about server costs, i work for an isp and i can tell you, it costs a lot. A single dsl customer wich can download max 120k/sec with a limit of 6 gig/month (if the customer uses his 6gig total), the company makes about 1.5-2$/month CAN (about half US) with him, yup that little. Imagine a server that hosts thousands, you have some major bandwith usage on a constant basis. Also you have to pay the coders to help expand the game, have future patches, new features etc etc. Also i pay for the scale, i wont see any other game wich has more than 64 players in it that isnt mmog and doesnt ask a fee, if there is, they are very rare.

I play wwiiol and even if the game isnt the best of the world, the scale is just astonishing and the future dev and the possibilties this game can be is well worth my $$/month. Yes i kinda pay for the devlopement of an alpha game (i refer to wwiiol) but thats something we dont see anywhere else.

Other games suchs bf1942 for example doesnt ask a fee cuz u have 2000000000 million servers with tiny 64 players max (barely runs) with tiny lill worlds. If they wanted to make a big bad world, im sure it would have costed a monthly fee for their servers n all but right now _most_ of the servers are player run. They still run their own servers yes and im sure they are losing bunch of $$ over em but i guess its part of the deal. But bf1942 has minimal devloppement, you will rarely see, if any, new major features (besides expansion packs....).

No i think, my money is well worth it for a game that can last years and years and can have the potential of being a totally new game 1-2 years later. You wont see that in other free games (or exception cases).

Feel free to comment.
.02$

[SVoyager]

and to answer vicchio's main subject:

1- i agree some on that point. I agree that the smaller clans will have some more trubble out there, they'll have less impact and will have to rely on the cooperation of the bigger ones. But still, it depends on the type of clan u wanna be, single clan of 10 players maybe could be a bunch of peeps doing covert ops. U dont need 100 players for covert stealthy ops. The smaller clan would specialise more but the bigger ones would be a bit of evrything. But for the main stuff, yup, the big clans will be better, have more impact. Not that bad tho.

2- I think i agree with the others on that point, why just not start over but another thing. I compare to wwiiol but it might not be the case in ps, altho i hope it would be, it depends on how things will turn out. in wwiiol, often people plays for kills n stuff but mostly clan people plays for the land. They want to gain ground, attack and win the towns, then ultimatly win the map. (it wont happen in ps but we might have the same gaining ground need). After a year and a half, im still not tired about it :). PS is a whole different thing, but still, some of these points might still apply.

3- yea bf1942 is the worst ive seen as far as tk and greifing goes. Just their voting system is so crappy i cant beleive they havnt tough about it. To me 1942 wasnt the most well tough out game ever. So far from what ive seen about PS, the greifing system seems to be well tough out and i think it will do a good job. You leave the kids behind while they try to tk and after a few kills they endup not being able to shoot at anything at all cuz the system locked them out, most frustrating for them i can assure u that lol. Also the monthly fee indeed can help _reduce_ it but not kill it of course. At least the kids will have to beg their parents for some $$$ then they will waist it doing nothing cuz their guns will be turned off...

4- unfortunatly i dont apply too much on this one. Im a simulation player, having to wait 45 minute for a good fight i dont mind, he11 i even like it. To me it gives value to your in game life. __you dont want to die__. Other games are just, "woop he got me, bah ill get him in a sec" stuff. minimal strategy and tactics, just rush. Fast paced game does have sometimes tactics and strategy but defenatly not on the same scale as a slow paced one. I see PS being in the middle wich isnt too bad, of course i would have liked slower but its a good trade off for having a good FPS population. Maybe its gonna give the FPS peeps some taste of strategy and major battle planning, they might like it :). Nothing more fun than after having planned a battle for 5 minutes that you endup capping a base and owning your enemy badly because you managed your attack well.

5- well it kinda applies to my #4 answer. to me travel time is direcly related to the pace of the game. the longer, the slower. the shorter the faster. Its not too bad waiting to get to your target, usualy when ur attack is well planned, u actually try to think about how its gonna be, what you will do, what to expect. You come well prepared and you have more time to react to emergency situation. Again it all goes with battle planning. Lone wolfers will not like this simply because they will be those who will mostly like rushing attacks or just simply fight alone. In this case he has nothing to do, nothing to plan, hes just waiting to get dropped off then he will do whatever he wants. But since i always want to promote teamplay, i dont mind too much about them, i only try to recruit them into a squad so they can taste real teamplay, real fun :).

again these are my opinions only. .02$ :).
feel free to add ur comments!!

[OmnipotentKiwi]

First, you have to think about server costs
I TOTALLY agree with you there. This, is what I feel I should be paying for, and this is the only thing, which is why the most likely $10-15 fee (if not higher...) I will be paying for is overcharging for this.

Also you have to pay the coders to help expand the game
Yes, that is why games like BF1942 sell expansion packs for $50, and I guarantee they will gut us for that much too on an expansion back considering how many they managed to pump out for EQ, but maybe as little as $30.

have future patches
Patches to fitch bugs should be done, and is, for any game, regardless of monthly fees. Extra content is mentioned as above.

Also i pay for the scale, i wont see any other game wich has more than 64 players in it that isnt mmog and doesnt ask a fee, if there is, they are very rare.
See first comment, that is all server side, don't mind paying for the server costs.

I play wwiiol and even if the game isnt the best of the world, the scale is just astonishing and the future dev and the possibilties this game can be is well worth my $$/month. Yes i kinda pay for the devlopement of an alpha game (i refer to wwiiol) but thats something we dont see anywhere else.
You nailed something right here, that I think reinforces my point. The devs have ALREADY said they aren't building in retention features AT RELEASE. That means my monthly fees, are going to them making something, that should have been in there in the first place to keep me playing, and that has always urked me.

you will rarely see, if any, new major features (besides expansion packs....
Most of the stuff we will see added besides expansion are either:
A. Things that should have been in the game in the first place, and they left out to hurry up and release in time.
B. Stuff they fubared in the first place and we are paying to fix

No i think, my money is well worth it for a game that can last years and years and can have the potential of being a totally new game 1-2 years later.
Here is how I see it, there is one thing that makes it completely different from any other MMO, and that is its total lack of need for any real form of Customer Service Representitives. Yes, they will have them, but mostly they are only responsible for the purest forms of harassment (if you have played ANY MMORPG you know how much someone has to do to actually get in any real trouble, it literally is pretty much sexual, racist, or religious harassment only as long as you have access to a filter and block, you have the ability to get away from the problem.) The grief system is in place, so a CSR almost NEVER has to worry about griefing. Most game-stoppage issues fall in the realm PvE issues, and since this is pure PvP based, there probably won't be much besides bugs, which again aren't a CSR issues. Basically the only other thing besides the type of harassment listed above a CSR should be dealing with is physically being stuck in game. Overall, that and servers are what you pay for an MMO game. Given how much they can lighten the CSR load, this game really should fall in the range of the $5-8 price range of per month fees, not the $10-20 we will be seeing. I am guessing they will hit the price mark at about $13-15 (Everquest is $12.95, same as Dark Ages of Camelot, although I think they are going to press upward to help with SWG as well since Sony is pushing the MMO prices up).

Also, I am still not sure how great this stuff is really going to be, and I think even though I will enjoy it more then CS or something, and on that level alone it will be great, it needs a fully new level since it is online, which I don't think it will ever live up to, making it a mediocare MMO, much like E&B.

[SVoyager]

-ok, about the overcharging. i kinda disagree. Ill give you some numbers.

First i expect it, as you also said, to be around 12.95$ like EQ or so, if higher shouldnt be too much more higher.

Ok, where i work, i think we pay close to 5$/month per gig of bandwith, we ask more from our customers but i expect this to be what we are asked for (CAN money). I cant imagine the amount of bandwith the servers of that scale could need /month. Im sure it could go near the hundreds maybe but i have no idea really. Its hard to prove my point but from my perspective i defenatly think it costs more than 5-8$/month as u said to maintain the servers.

-for the expansion packs, yes we know ps will have expansions and i agree eq has some a lot also. the thing is that bf1942 lives with expansion packs. Once they bought it, no more money for the coders, thats it. Im sure ps will have expansions but i dont think it will have as much as some of the games ive seen so far. It helps secure a game yup. To me i would buy only expansions if the game is worth it. I havnt bought BF1942's expansion and i will not buy anything else about bf1942, cuz they just simply dont deserve it from my perspective.

I havnt played EQ but i dunno, maybe the expansions of eq helped secure the fundings for more, new stuff and a future for the game.

Its a tough subject, it depends how often they want to use expansions, and what you get out of them. If i compare to bf1942's expansion, it is worth nothing. Few more maps, few more vehicles. I prefer to get a mod instead wich will get 100 times more than what they gave with their expan. Bf1942's expansion is, to me, just a way for them to make quick money out of nothing.

If ps puts good content in an expansion then it might be worth my money. it depends on how things will play out.

So for the expansions it can be worth our $ but yes they use it to secure some funds for them. I wont mind putting the $ as long as they dont come out with 20 expansions a year with little contents in each of them. Also i think they said that expansions will be optional so you will not be forced to buy them.

-Patches to fix bugs needs to be done indeed, bf1942 will have to or they will have some riot on their hands, i think they already do lol. PS, depends. The first few months it might be for bug fixes, its not fun but its part of an mmog, all of them went tru this. As for content additions, i beleive we will have considerable contents addition without necessarly being an expansion pack. But i could be wrong, only the future will tell. wwiiol has had only bug fixes and feature patches since they opened and no expansion packs ever. So it depends on what side ps will be, if they will want to be money hungry or if they want to keep a big player base long.

-about the game releasing as beta status. Unfortunatly i havnt seen any mmog not being that case. It depends also on the way you see it. wwiiol's release was defenatly alpha, and in a way i think its still not feature complete (well for what it was advertised for). But the way i see other mmog's that pasted their beta stage 2 month after release, i feel i had a full complete game. The rest was additions, of course once you had them you do think you should have had them from the begenning but still you had a ready game when you bought it and you got what was advertised for. If you expected more, then you should have just bought the game a year later when you had the contents that satisfied you in it. But for those that bought it at the begenning, they were well aware of what they had.

Agree it is bad seeing sometimes how bad mmog launches are, but you have to keep in mind that this is a new trend and for most of the games out so far, its been a first in the game industry. You cant expect evrything to go right, i think in a few years from now you will see much more complete mmog's coming out and much better prepared ones, as they will have learned from their past mistakes.

-as for customer support, yup its bad, it will be for a long time. nothing we can do about it, its part of the deal.... but i dont think our money will be spend too much on that. It goes for the dev of the game. I say 85$ of the money we give will go for the servers, the rest will be to give a future to ps (devs). Wich i still think, even considering expansion packs, is worth my money. If PS endsup being a darn good game and my money helps keeping it alive and making it better, then go for it. Else if it were half the price, maybe there would be nothing after the release of ps, maybe bug fixes but once they would call their game stable and you had what you were advertised for, then thats it. They would move on to something else.

Quick example: Allegiance, not mmog but it was microsoft zone run only. Once they put their zone servers free after a year i think, few months later the allegiance link to the microsoft servers were ded and the game was gone. Its not on the same scale but still, im sure that if they had enough paying people and they actually kept their servers paying, the game would still be running today. Of course they had no contents upgrades after a few months so thats what helped the game to die, microsoft prolly cut their fundings and kept the profits for another project altho if the game had enough revenu maybe it could have kept going or maybe we could have seen an allegiance2 (and darn i luved that game). So this is what i think when i ask myself about a monthly fee and a mmog.

I hope that makes sense to you, im not sure it still to me hehe, its 5 am here and im getting darn sleepy cant concentrate anymore. Altho, very good discussion were having here, i like it. Feel free to answer, ill prolly make a stop tmorrow. gnight :).

[MrVicchio]

Great answers guys! This post was not a slam BTW on Ps, and i am glad everyone so far hasn't asked if I lost love for PS, hehe.

Points 4 and 5 were just long shots, and yeah, I want a penalty to death.

As for the cost of the monthyly fee... I would be SHOCKED if it were under 12.95. This fee pays for not only PS, the servers, and all the things all ready mentioned.. but no one has pointed out the obvious reason behind the fee.... PROFIT. Sounds cold I know, but these games are not made just to amuse us... they are also there to make money. Perhaps it does only cost 8 dollars, and at 12.95 Sony is gonna make about 5 bucks profit off us.. IMHO thats fine, ts capitalisim at work, and ensures we shall see more games in the future.

[Zatrais]

The fee, well it really isn't an issue to me because well if you play PS an hour or 2 a day thats alott more entertainment that those 12.95 can get annywhere else.

1.) I don't see the CEP system as flawed because well if you can't get people to follow you you don't deserve the CEPs. I don't think the bigoutfits will steam roll over the smalleroutfits when it comes to capping simply because of the number of bases there are to capture.

2.) I won't touch nr 2 much because what options you have at BR 20 is still blackboxed. You could make a new char whit a new skillset, play on another server on another side or go for CEPs.

3.) Well people are idiots, people suck but those who suck won't pay to get owned. They'll either learn or quit, and the monthly fee + greifing system will cut down the amounts of llamas that TK + players will be self policing. I will shoot a llama if he does something to hinder a base attack. Also playing whit your outfits and it's allies is also a good way to get away from llamas.

4.) I don't think this will be to much of a problem, between the basilisk, HART, AMS, towers and reviving getting back into the fight shouldn't be too hard.

5.) Get a mosquito, use the HART, a basilisk. Theres plenty of travel options. Will there be some waiting and traveltime, sure but i don't see it as a overly large problem... then again i'm used to EQ traveling times so hehe.

[Derfud]

12.95 american, is $20 Canadian. That is quite a bit more money for me :(

[Denali]

I agree with all of your fears to a T Mr. Vic, I had the unfortunate experience of playing EQ for 3 1/2 years, without being in an Uber Guild or having a bunch of friends in an Uber Guild you had no chance see some of the neatest areas and monsters in the game. Also, if you weren't in a big Uber Guild it took forever to find groups to hunt with, and most of the times the groups would either be full of stupid people or would only last a few minutes until someone left and you had to start over. I hope clans are really only good for the social aspects, that any player can pick up his trusty gauss, or SMG, or purple plasma slinger, and join the fight without having to look around for a unit to let them in for half an hour...

[Sputty]

E&B was crap after you played for awhile. Anyone, download the demo, play for 7 days and explore. Just look at the sights and hear the sounds. There's not much else that's really good. I should've stuck with a traditional fantasy MMORPG maybe. I was so disappointed after a few weeks. Joining a guild made me play a few more days but I generally wasted money. Anyone want an account with one over lvl 50 TR enforcer and about 1.5 million credits? I'm not sure his exact level. Also, I think the fact it'll be playing against people and there'll be skill fighting rather than anything else will help.

[Kyonye]

alot goes into making a game. this will not be like E&B. PS will be constant fighting between people. if you've played AoC, you have to go looking for a fight with an animal of sorts. that is also the fighting in E&B. PS will be more like BF42 in the sense that you constantly are fighting with people.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

1.) I don't see the CEP system as flawed because well if you can't get people to follow you you don't deserve the CEPs. I don't think the bigoutfits will steam roll over the smalleroutfits when it comes to capping simply because of the number of bases there are to capture.
In the dev shoutcast the other night, he said that he expected battles to rage in the 100-200 player range, or more. If you do the math, if everyone gets into a platoon, that is 7 platoons, and out of those 7 almost full, organized platoons, 1 of them gets any CEP for capping the base which is incredibly stupid. All it will be to get the CEP is the person to get the hacker in first, not who actually led the thing, nor which platoon was the most benificial. Hell, with the system now I could just partner up with one guy, sit in a wraith, wait till there is a whole in the defense when my team is on the final push and rush in there and hack the base. I currently think while the CEP system is very well done as far as known rewards, the actual CEP XP is very stupid.

Ok, where i work, i think we pay close to 5$/month per gig of bandwith, we ask more from our customers but i expect this to be what we are asked for (CAN money). I cant imagine the amount of bandwith the servers of that scale could need /month. Im sure it could go near the hundreds maybe but i have no idea really. Its hard to prove my point but from my perspective i defenatly think it costs more than 5-8$/month as u said to maintain the servers.
Ok, using Dark Ages of Camelot as an example, which I am positive makes less of a profit the Everquest, and they just released an expansion pack which makes it easy too:
Shrouded Isles (The expansion) sold 111,000 copies in the month of December (when it was released) alone, which is, and I quote, "�Almost 90% of Dark Age of Camelot's US-server player base has purchased Shrouded Isles and we look forward to continuing this 'top of the charts' trend as we expand our player base in the US and around the world." Now, we will assume those other 10% of US-PLayers don't exist, just to undercut the numbers.

111,000 players, paying $12.95 a month is $1,437,450 a month. Let's assume that half of this goes JUST to servers, so $6.48 a month, that cuts down the amount of money incoming a month for servers to $718,725. They currently have 20 "servers" in operation in the US for DAoC. So each "server" gets $35,936.25 a MONTH. Each server is really a server cluster, and we will ASSUME that each zone, including dungeons, is a seperate server within itself, then each server cluster is 89 seperate servers, that is $403.78 PER server per month.

Now that may look small, but look at the bigger picture again. $403.78 per server per month. There are 89 servers over 20 clusters, "servers". That is 1780 servers in the US. Between 111,000 people SUBSCRIBED that is 62 people per server, with the server getting $403.78 a month sent to it. Since the data stream is fairly small, considering they are designing this game for a 56k'er, I am pretty sure that money covers it fairly well. :D

[Kyonye]

PS will definately make a profit. there's alot of people out there who want it and even more people who will just here about it when it comes out.

[MrVulcan]

:eek: wow, where to start.....

Uber Outfits: I do not see them being an issue in this game. There will be so many people running around that you will always have a battle to join. I do see them deciding where some of the major battles are held though. Even small outfits will be able to assault bases, esp if they teem with other outfits in doing so. I (leader of the Freedom Corp) have already made several alliances with other groups to work together with. So we (as having 13 people so far) will still be able to assault a base, and pick up rand people along the way. Thus if we go in, and are able to get 1 or 2 other small groups (6-20 each) to go in at the same time then we would have enough to overrun many of the bases out there.

I truly think that as far as things like finding a fight, getting back into battle, finding pilots, getting enough people together to assault a base, etc WILL NOT BE A PROBLEM, you guys have to understand the huge scope of this game. If 13,000 people signed up for the beta in 8 days back in November, I can see that when the game is out, 8,000+ will be online in any given server easy. That�s 2500 people per side even with that very lax estimate you will have 2499 people at any given time looking for a fight. Im sure that you will be able to hitch a ride, find a gunner, join an assault, etc with 2499 people around to join up with.

The majority of the outfits that I have dealt with (I know this to be true about the FC) don�t just do planet assaults (though we will do those) we also just try and hang together when we are roaming through the map. When we are going to go attack somewhere, if we don�t join an assault in progress, of course we would try and just have some people get in our transports/tanks, hang with us, etc so we could get a bigger group together to attack a base.

I truly do not think that most people have yet to understand the true scope of what it will be like to play on the same map as 10000s of people!!! There will ALWAYS be someone looking for what you do, and always be that tank needing a gunner, and always be that guy that wants to be a tank gunner, etc. :thumbsup:

You guys just worry to much. :p

--Well, I was going to respond to the rest of it, but I guess that that is enough for now =) :D


P.S.
I cant speak for the other outfits out there, but the FC will never "fill up" and will be accepting people 4ever. If a year from now the FC went from 13 to 1300, I wouldn�t be more happy.
:rock:

[Zatrais]

In the dev shoutcast the other night, he said that he expected battles to rage in the 100-200 player range, or more. If you do the math, if everyone gets into a platoon, that is 7 platoons, and out of those 7 almost full, organized platoons, 1 of them gets any CEP for capping the base which is incredibly stupid. All it will be to get the CEP is the person to get the hacker in first, not who actually led the thing, nor which platoon was the most benificial. Hell, with the system now I could just partner up with one guy, sit in a wraith, wait till there is a whole in the defense when my team is on the final push and rush in there and hack the base. I currently think while the CEP system is very well done as far as known rewards, the actual CEP XP is very stupid.

Well, lets see, out of those 7 platoons how manny of them will actually have commanding commanders? 7 independent platoons working whitout one overall commander will be less effective than the 7 platoons that has 1-3 commanders that does the actual command work. Sure, making sure it's the real commander, the guy/gal whose organising it all will be harder but perfectly doable. Just have to be sure that the correct guy hacks the control terminal. I don't agree whit the quoted statement, cept for stealing the "hack" by waiting til someone else does the work. That should be prevented somehow.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Just have to be sure that the correct guy hacks the control terminal.
Yes, because at the heart of every FPSer we are all generous, carrying, sharing.... ROFL, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA..... :lol:

:thumbsup:

Seriously though, no way in hell people are going to let the "real commander" get the hack. There is no real downside to stealing it besides being considered an ass, and have you played CS lately? People don't care what others think of them, and I really doubt this is going to happen.

[Zatrais]

Hmm, beeing an ass and steal caps will get you frozen out of the community.

You seem to be arguing from the point that there will actually be 7 platoons of strangers attacking 1 facility at the same time..... not bloody likely whit the size of the continents, number of facilities to capture on 10 different continents.

Getting together 7 platoons to attack a base and work together whitout that beeing one huge outfit or allies will be next to impossible. Outfit members are less inclined to be an ass when their own outfit are whit them or an allied outfit. If they can't behave they'll more than likely be thrown out.

But can some jackass whit 1 person in his group come in and hack and get CEPs, sure it's possible. Not something i think will happen after the people who do it gets known... the community and outfits remember the asses hehe.

People don't pay to play CS either, they don't have a fixed name that follows their char and they don't have a chareter they want to advance in CS.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

People don't pay to play CS either, they don't have a fixed name that follows their char and they don't have a chareter they want to advance in CS.

I wish people would stop using the pay-to-play excuse for people who make enjoyment out of ruining someone elses good time. There are PLENTY of griefers in online games, and with an RPG you would expect less alone, especially with the pay to play, but there is a ton.

I still think CEP will be an issue, and if they really wanted to, they could find a better way to implement it. In any form of PvP, getting 100+ people on your side, all to listen to 1 guy, is hell. Doing raids in DAoC with 50 people JUST doing PvE was hell, and there was a bigger risk there because being an ass could get you cut off from loot, not just have a bunch of people mad at you. Add into the effect that this IS A FPS you will get more asses. Add into it there is no loot risk, no loss from you capping for CEP instead of someone else BESIDES the community, and since you can just as easily tag along, and there is no real way to prevent it... I think we will mostly be SOL with the current system. I just think the whole thing is a poor idea.

[Zatrais]

Kiwi i'm not saying there will be no greifers, i'm not that naive. I do however think you're missing something important here:

Friendly fire goes 2 ways...

Organizing 200 people won't be as hard, not whit all the nice tools that we know are available so far thats been completely unavailable in previous games. And theres more commanding tools to come.

[Mopo]

Im going to have to interject into this argument and say: Jiggy-miggy-fo-wiggy.

But I agree with Zatrais BTW. Partially because he's right, partially because I don't like Omni. :D

[CrazyJoker]

I'm finding it hard to believe that there will be that many people in one area because commanders would have to have some sort of foresight to know that a lot of resistance will be encountered at a base. Considering the size of the continents and the number of bases/towers on them I seriously doubt people will consider that a) that many people will be defending a base for it to warrant 4 platoons to attack it (for one side only, 7 would be for both sides). b) that many people are going to rush to defend a base knowing full well that even if they organized a squad or platoon real quick they'd also probably get shot down real quick because they would be extremely outnumbered.

Now on the other hand there could be ongoing campaigns which might result in these larger battles. If 4-5 platoons manage to get organized then they could probably manage to put together a string of base/tower captures as part of an ongoing plan to capture a continent. Eventually people are going to figure out whats happening and this or that base could be the place where the big stand is made.

As for the person that tries to sneak in and hack/cap the base while everyone else is doing the dirty work for him, how many people are going to defend him from attacks? I won't and I know a lot of people won't. Use him as bait, wait until he's dead (which won't be long) and take advantage of his death by killing all the defenders that were to busy hunting him down.

[Hamma]

Quite a big thread here - I dont have time to read all of it lol.

I will say this, yes planetside is an FPS - there is no denying that. But, PS is also a MMO. Which is why I would not be so quick to judge exactly what will happen once we get in the game. I don't think its going to be your typical FPS enviroment personally. Once the game gets into full swing we will know, but until then its's all speculation. This type of game has never been done before.

[Falcon]

EnB Sucks!!!! I beta'd it and it sucked a nut. big fat nut!!

[Sputty]

E&B should be burned. WW's last game...and it sucked..:tear:..They sucked after EA bought them....Go Dune!!!

[MrVicchio]

I just wanted to provoke some thoughtful discussion.. and it worked hehe..

I personally believe PS is gonna big bigger then even SOE thinks.. may take a few months.. but it will...

[Derfud]

I concur Mr. Vicchio

[Sputty]

I think it's important they release it before SWG. If not then PS will lose alot of customers.

[SVoyager]

ahh ha, yea totally agree with ye vicchio. Ill prolly sound a fanboy but wth... Since i heard that game, it is very close to what ive been hoping to see one day. From what ive seen so far, i dont beleive this game will be a fiasco, still there can be chances but i dont think it will happen. They seem to have planned their stuff pretty good so far. Time will tell :)

[Lexington_Steele]

I wonder how Eve is going to turn out?

Any Eve beta testers here?

[SVoyager]

i tryed to get in it. but one thing is missing. space to planet stuff. A very few games did that. Elite, darn old game, did that, was the best game ever. Not sure if its gonna be too good, better than earth & beyond im sure tho.

[Falcon]

Again I reiterate EnB sucks!!!! :blowup:
ok... i have to calm down now.

to be quite honest PS offers more than SWG I think, all SWG :father: is, is a moded everquest that's all, but only for the Star warsies. and im a SW fan but I ain't gonna play that im gonna play PS

[txMaddog]

I agree about E&B. Beautiful game, some awesome music, very easy to use. But after about a month I was bored so canceled my account.

1. CEP system - I believe it was stated that all leaders in a platoon (3 linked squads) got CEP if somone in one of the 3 squads hacked the terminal and it resulted in a cap. Perhaps they will implement something like EQ now has where everyone on a Raid gets exp not just the group doing all the killing.

2. Too easy - Maybe but you also need to factor in the people you play with. I have been playing TFC for 3+ years in a Clan envronment and one of the things that keeps me playing is the people I play with (and killing people with my dispenser :D ).

3. People - There are always going to be llamas, arse-wipes and just plain stupid people. My EQ Guild keeps a 'No rez, no buff, no group' list, this is a list of players we don't help because they are one of the above. In a MMO people will earn a reputation, weither it is good or bad it is up to them. People will help the good ones and ignore the bad ones, if the bad ones decide to group up and cause problems (and I've seen it happen), fine; now we know who to avoid (or frag on sight) and to warn the newbies about.

4. Waiting - Can be frustrating but if you can still talk to your squad (Voice comms, in game) then you could use this time to tell them what happen and where that bleepard who just fragged you is!! ;) There is a fineline between too long and too short a respawn, hopfully PS will get it right; or at least mostly right.

5. Travel time - That's one of the reasons I'm going to be taking at least 1 vehicle cert with all my charactors. I've had my fill of long travel times while playing EQ waiting for that $%#@ boat to get to BB or OT or where-ever (GJ to SOE for Planes of Power!). And at least in PS I won't have to worry about being jumped by some green con mob (grey to the DAoC'ers out there) while I'm runing through a zone. /rude a decaying skeleton

[OmnipotentKiwi]

(and killing people with my dispenser ).
Oooooh, you were that type too? I guess we Vanu are all similar players. :D Good people, good people (not wanting to turn this thread into a flame war between empires, just stating similar play styles may gravitate to similar empires.)

[EineBeBoP]

I did a stupid thing, i prepayed EnB for 3 months. figured i'd either love it or hate it. I should have gone month by month. I'll be smarter this time with PS.

now I wont be renewing my EnB account.

[SpaceDrake]

EVE is... not as good as one might suspect. That's all I dare say for now. Let's just say that right now PS is looking way better than EVE to me, and I used to be a drooling EVE fanboy.

As for keeping the game fresh: http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2655

It's a long way off, but it could work. It'd be stuff like that which would stave off the "boredom" Vicchio mentioned, IMHO.

3 is always a random thing. There will always be smacktards. However, given this game's cooperative nature, I don't think the smacktards will stick around for long. Either they'll lose their smacktardiness or they'll get bored and leave, leaving all the more for us.

As has been said, 4 depends just as much on the strategy of the assaulting team as it does on game mechanics. If your forward bases bite the dust, you essentially "lose" that particular raid. Which is quite cool IMHO.

As for 1, I don't see the problem here. So some guys get lots of CEPs. Those are command points. The guys who can hold together effective guilds should be the high commanders, IMHO. It's an intended effect.

[Jaged]

Just the thought of PS having anything in common with E&B makes me sick. E&B sucked.

[MrVicchio]

Originally posted by Jaged
Just the thought of PS having anything in common with E&B makes me sick. E&B sucked.

Thankfullly, they share only two things in common.

MMO and both are trying something new.