JR writeup from Devchat and Interview!

[basti]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/07/08/soe-fan-faire-2011-planetside-panel-and-interview-with-creative/

[Firefly]

Thanks.

[2coolforu]

"When asked about populations and managing a balance among the tree factions"

ENTS ARE CONFIRMED!!!

also , "they will be able to build structures like turrets and sand bag walls," w00t we can build defences? I'm sure that Smed has just been looking at Planetside Ideas Lab, and that's frigging epic.

[CutterJohn]

"He also said they don't want players to be able to create characters from different factions and be able to listen in on the enemy. Players will be able to play multiple factions, but they'll have to do it on separate servers."

Dammit. That restriction is so baseless its laughable. People into spying will just buy another damned account.

[Lunarchild]

"He also said they don't want players to be able to create characters from different factions and be able to listen in on the enemy. Players will be able to play multiple factions, but they'll have to do it on separate servers."

Dammit. That restriction is so baseless its laughable. People into spying will just buy another damned account.

Which is more $$$ for Sony ^^

[p0intman]

"He also said they don't want players to be able to create characters from different factions and be able to listen in on the enemy. Players will be able to play multiple factions, but they'll have to do it on separate servers."

Dammit. That restriction is so baseless its laughable. People into spying will just buy another damned account.

it nerfs 4th empire hoppers.

which is good. 4th empire hoppers suck!

[Sifer2]

"He also said they don't want players to be able to create characters from different factions and be able to listen in on the enemy. Players will be able to play multiple factions, but they'll have to do it on separate servers."

Dammit. That restriction is so baseless its laughable. People into spying will just buy another damned account.


Maybe but it will cut down on it a lot. I agree it with it totally. Especially with this class swapping system they have. You really don't need another character on that server.

[CutterJohn]

it nerfs 4th empire hoppers.

which is good. 4th empire hoppers suck!

Can't jump to an empire with >36% pop.

There, I solved your empire hopper problem without needless restrictions. :D


The 4th empire is not a problem. It is an asset. It should be used to balance the populations. Let those that care little for empire RP turncoat and defect to the underdogs. Give them incentive to do so.



Maybe but it will cut down on it a lot. I agree it with it totally. Especially with this class swapping system they have. You really don't need another character on that server.

I've met many friends by fighting them. In a normal FPS, they don't have these silly restrictions about what side you get to fight for. If I can't make a character on their side, or swap my character over, I can't play with them unless we organize a play date. :P

The spying argument is ridiculous anyway. What can be spoiled in PS? One should play EVE to get an idea of what real spying can accomplish. Its not a night that can be ruined. A spy or a traitor can ruin months of planning and effort. Learn a bit of opsec. Wars have spies.


Also, you seem confused about what the class swapping system entails. Yes, you can swap classes, but you only have so many cert points. Picking a new class means you are a scrub in that, with none of the certs trained in it.

[Dreamcast]

Spy should be a class bye itself IMO lol........I remember smuggling guns lol.


Somebody mentioned Resources/money on planetside......I wonder if smugglers are gonna be really important this time around.


maybe thats why they are against hacking enemy vehicles.

[basti]

Can't jump to an empire with >36% pop.

There, I solved your empire hopper problem without needless restrictions. :D


The 4th empire is not a problem. It is an asset. It should be used to balance the populations. Let those that care little for empire RP turncoat and defect to the underdogs. Give them incentive to do so.





I've met many friends by fighting them. In a normal FPS, they don't have these silly restrictions about what side you get to fight for. If I can't make a character on their side, or swap my character over, I can't play with them unless we organize a play date. :P

The spying argument is ridiculous anyway. What can be spoiled in PS? One should play EVE to get an idea of what real spying can accomplish. :D


Yesterday was my outfits outfit night. I wait for this every week, because it always is a blast running with 2 full platoons dropping in galaxys with maxes and Heavy assault guys, taking territory far behind enemy lines, defending against double amount of enemys trying to kill us.
Sadly, i couldnt play with them, Vanu pop was above 36% for the entire night, so i had to switch to a different empire and play AGAINSt my mates.



Seriously, are you crazy? NO NO NO to several empires per server. ONE EMPIRE, ONE SERVER!

The empire hopping killed the fun for alot of us people loyal to their chosen empire. It sucked every time seeing the pops shift because one empire was loosing. It somtimes got to a point that you lost a SINGLE base after a long and hard battle, then quickly getting pushed back to the next base, just to get raped by all those empire hoppers that left your empire. Caused more people to log off to avoid being completly frustrated, causing a chain reaction sometimes ending up with one empire at 10% global pop.
Empire hopping is one of the things that destroyed planetsides playerbase. It should be banned, forever.

[Sifer2]

Also, you seem confused about what the class swapping system entails. Yes, you can swap classes, but you only have so many cert points. Picking a new class means you are a scrub in that, with none of the certs trained in it.


I admit i'm ignorant of exactly how the class system in Planetside 2 works. But I had not heard anything about cert points yet. Maybe you can explain that. Since I was under the impression each class levels up independently now with some skills being trainable offline too. With the ability to switch class's whenever. Meaning Vets eventually becoming really versatile as they level up many class's.

But if i'm wrong then explain the system I want to know.

[Vancha]

Cutter didn't say you couldn't play an empire with more than 36% pop, he said you couldn't jump to an empire with more than 36% pop. That effects people who play other empires, not people who play that empire only.

[basti]

Cutter didn't say you couldn't play an empire with more than 36% pop, he said you couldn't jump to an empire with more than 36% pop. That effects people who play other empires, not people who play that empire only.

Even that would suck to be honest. It would still allow people to go for the third empire, till that also hits 36%. In the end, it would be 36%vs36%vs28%, and with 28% you are screwed. Even if you would tune the numbers to only allow 34%vs34%vs32%, it would still cause some problems while making the entire idea of having several empires per server pointless.

One empire per server, fact. It is good that way, as it was good that way back in the day.


What you just need to think about is this: There wont be just 3/5 servers this time around. There will be more, much more. Sony isnt just playing around here. They invest a large chunk of money into PS2, and obviously they want to earn that money back and get profit in the end. Heck, they scrapped their SPYFPSMMO thingy and put a large chunk of those devs onto Planetside 2. They created a Engine just for planetside 2. The Cash put into the game is already in the millions, and will grow alot.
There will be a kick ass marketing campain coming sooner or later, A LOT of people will be around, and alot of servers. Plenty of servers in your time zone with good pings for you to allow you to play all 3 factions. :)

[Vancha]

I'm pretty sure I just read somewhere that they were going for less servers. There's so much information everywhere I can't begin to think where it was.

[CutterJohn]

I admit i'm ignorant of exactly how the class system in Planetside 2 works. But I had not heard anything about cert points yet. Maybe you can explain that. Since I was under the impression each class levels up independently now with some skills being trainable offline too. With the ability to switch class's whenever. Meaning Vets eventually becoming really versatile as they level up many class's.

But if i'm wrong then explain the system I want to know.

From the way it was described, I'm pretty sure its this.

Each 'class' and vehicle has a cert tree. Separate from the others.

You also have a battle rank.

I'm 90% sure that as you play the game, and level up battle ranks, you unlock additional levels of the cert tree, for every class. The battle rank also determines how many certs you can have trained.

So you might have access to first tier certs from battle rank 1. But 2nd tier certs need battle rank 5. 3rd tier, BR 10.

Putting certs into the medic class will not help you when playing max/engineer/etc.

[CutterJohn]

Yesterday was my outfits outfit night. I wait for this every week, because it always is a blast running with 2 full platoons dropping in galaxys with maxes and Heavy assault guys, taking territory far behind enemy lines, defending against double amount of enemys trying to kill us.
Sadly, i couldnt play with them, Vanu pop was above 36% for the entire night, so i had to switch to a different empire and play AGAINSt my mates.



Seriously, are you crazy? NO NO NO to several empires per server. ONE EMPIRE, ONE SERVER!

The empire hopping killed the fun for alot of us people loyal to their chosen empire. It sucked every time seeing the pops shift because one empire was loosing. It somtimes got to a point that you lost a SINGLE base after a long and hard battle, then quickly getting pushed back to the next base, just to get raped by all those empire hoppers that left your empire. Caused more people to log off to avoid being completly frustrated, causing a chain reaction sometimes ending up with one empire at 10% global pop.
Empire hopping is one of the things that destroyed planetsides playerbase. It should be banned, forever.


I said not allowing empire hopping to the over populated empire. Other FPSs use team balancing mechanics all the time, though generally are more hamfisted in their approach. With enough players, you leave it open to be an option, if incentivised properly.

I'm sorry SOE didn't think on the matter for 5 minutes and implement the easy solution. Sucks that it ruined the game for you. But that is no reason to abandon it. The solution IS easy. Give incentives to shift character to low population empires. Give disincentives, or block entirely, jumping to the high pop empires.

I'm not you. I don't feel any brand loyalty for a color. Yeah, I had a favored set of weapons, and plenty of friends on one color team, but its just a game. I don't care about the RP or anything. Victory for my color was not a source of pride for me. Its meaningless blather. Video game nonsense. I played the game to have fun, not see my team win. If the guys I played with won, great. If not, great.

People with loose affiliations can be easily accommodated with a simple set of rules and incentives to balance the populations, and it would benefit the game, by balancing populations in a straightforward manner.

[Sifer2]

From the way it was described, I'm pretty sure its this.

Each 'class' and vehicle has a cert tree. Separate from the others.

You also have a battle rank.

I'm 90% sure that as you play the game, and level up battle ranks, you unlock additional levels of the cert tree, for every class. The battle rank also determines how many certs you can have trained.

So you might have access to first tier certs from battle rank 1. But 2nd tier certs need battle rank 5. 3rd tier, BR 10.

Putting certs into the medic class will not help you when playing max/engineer/etc.



Ok then what offline skill training are they talking about? I know they said battle ranks must be earned by actually playing an killing. So what then the cert points have to be earned over time including offline?

[CutterJohn]

Thats how it sounds. Its a queer system.

[Sentrosi]

It might be as simple as this; skill points are earned while you are offline. Certs are accumulated while playing and are correlated to your BR/CR. Skill points could be learning to steady your chaingun better, a quicker hack using your REK, modifying the Med Applicator to heal faster, etc. Certs are picking up a chaingun, piloting a Mossy, getting a MAX, etc.

[basti]

Something like that, yea. No worrys guys, it wont be like eve where you dont play for the first 3 month because you have to get your learning skills up. :)

[SKYeXile]

It might be as simple as this; skill points are earned while you are offline. Certs are accumulated while playing and are correlated to your BR/CR. Skill points could be learning to steady your chaingun better, a quicker hack using your REK, modifying the Med Applicator to heal faster, etc. Certs are picking up a chaingun, piloting a Mossy, getting a MAX, etc.

thats the way i understand it.

they talked alot about, say your rifle might shoot faster, but half less accuracy sort of mods. some might be direct upgrades, but not a great advantage.

but to unlock those skills by the sounds of it you need to have obtained some battle ranks and brought the cert, then you can begin using your resources to skill up those certs further. they said you level skills faster while online anyway.


it does not seem like a bad system now after they have unlashed it, when they say its like EVE's, yea people at first freak, but if its like planetsides current cert system to obtain the initial certs, then the offline skilling to slowly make them slightly better, i see it been fine.