Debunking some myths regarding PS1 playerbase demise.

[Figment]

Time and time again, I see players who create personal pet peeves and make up "facts" with supposedly "horrible PS1 mechanics" to blame the entire demise of the playerbase on.

The latest example of such an utterly false "fact" I came across, was one person who said that not only the lattice was introduced AFTER the player populace dropped, supposedly to group them up as a response to a declining playerbase. This is utter bullcrap, to put it mildly. The lattice was introduced DURING PS1 beta, in response to randomised backhacking and no large scale fights forming as the populace was simply too dispersed over the continents (something that might just happen to PS2 once more continents are added, mind you).

The lattice then, already existed at release. So this person who keeps clamouring that the lattice was introduced later (in fact, he argues it was added after Core Combat), is simply spreading lies.

And that same thing happens for a lot of different sub-systems of PS1. "Oh everyone always hated that". No, they did not. Quite often players who like a certain PS2 system (or think they will like it anyway), will create some sort of pet peeve with a PS1 system and pretend it's a fundamental, globally hated system that almost brought upon the apocalypse. Not to mention supposedly drives players away en mass, or even prevents others from entering the game.





http://www.docstoc.com/docs/52076451/An-Analysis-of-MMOG-Subscription-Growth

Page 11/30 shows the playerbase growth for PlanetSide.

It clearly shows a very steep rise from release (May 2003) up to Core Combat (October 27, 2003). The response to Core Combat which was a small drop in players. Next, you see a pop stabilisation as Flails got patched, followed very shortly by another temporary positive response to the Bending (August 14, 2004). Then came Aftershock (October 18, 2004) and in november 2004, World of Warcraft was released. This was the biggest doublepunch to PlanetSide.

You can clearly see the effects of all these expansions and patches. And... marketing.

Core Combat:
Three main issues: split up of playerbase over TopSide and (empty, campable) CaveSide pay-2-win, easy-win-button-long-distance-killing (tape mouse button down for dozens of free kills per Flail shot - when Flail wasn't nerfed yet). Maelstrom was rather overpowered back then as well and still used en mass (later on next to nobody used it anymore).

The Bending:
Removed the feel of a single planet and made fights feel more independent. Added Battle Islands which were poorly implemented due to their internal "Oshur" lattice (instead of being added separately to the lattice, like caves). The problem with the sub-continents, was that you split up the playerbase into multiple sections, each increasingly independent from the other, while your opponent would leave one side to ghost, get bored and leave, while fully concentrating on the other portion, camping warpgates, or simply waiting till everyone grew tired of ghosting. Furthermore, players were arbitrarily barred from using and acquiring particular weapons systems on the islands (even though necessary, due to for instance Skyguard being bound to the Tech Plant - something a lot of players have always considered a mistake due to aircav being omnipresent and counters being needed).

Had these islands been added somewhere in the continental lattice, this whole issue would have been avoided and they'd have been considered fun, quick conquest maps. It's their grouping that made them fail first and foremost, second it was design with for instance next to no cover and long distance travel on Extinction (sniper heaven and thus farmable footzerg).

Aftershock (BFRs) and WoW
Upon their introduction without any significant play testing and not hindered by any knowledge of the law of leverage and fair balance on part of the design team, the BFRs (paid expansion for back then) made another pay to win addition to the PlanetSide "team". They were so powerful upon introduction, that a Magrider could not outdamage the repair rate of a crouched GV BFR. FV BFRs would just bunny hop, camp base and tower doors, screw over 'normal' vehicle combat, created stalemates, there'd be 8-20 covering each other in every battle and the impact on the frames per seconds of most players was a drop below 20 fps and well into red digits where people used to get 60fps or more. And... oh well dead horse. You can read up about this everywhere: suffice to say, they pretty much stomped on whatever game play and balance there was in outdoor battle, completely ruining the experience for most players. Basically anyone that wasn't manning one and LIKED manning one, considered leaving.

The playerbase literally gave the dev team about two to three months to balance the BFRs (took about a month for a lot of players to come back and check out BFRs and then to acquire FV BFRs, in which period you see a slow, but steady decline as players cancelled subs hoping to force SOE to take action, while others gave them the benefit of doubt and some time to come up with a solution. After patience of most players ended and disgruntlement with SOE management was at its peak, a very, very, very sharp player decline (free fall) occured, which in turn removed content (read: players to fight) from the game, making the game itself also less self-sustainable.

Soon after, SOE stopped providing subscription numbers and other data, so we had to guess based on unique character logins per day per server (planetside stats).

Marketing
In the period 2003-2005, SOE only marketed expansions mildly and mostly to former players. Marketing for PS1 was very poor.

On november 8, 2004, EverQuest II was launched as a direct competitor to World of Warcraft and basically took the entire marketing budget and all marketing efforts for itself. From there on, more games were introduced and PlanetSide had lost so many subscribers by then it was deemed uninteresting to spend money on.

Once FodderSide began, thousands of new players came in and old players returned. The battlefield livened again for a good period of time and clearly showed the effect of a good marketing plan. Unfortunately, PlanetSide by then had a reputation and stigma of "very nice, but apparently its concept must have failed".

Plus then a small group of extremely disgruntled old players and cheaters thinking they were funny used the opportunity to start a harassment campaign using extreme hacks to disrupt combat. This was one of the final nails in the coffin, next to server mergers.

Cost
Other FPS games did not use subscription models, but one time purchases. SOE instead of lowering cost over time, actually INCREASED subscription costs "to be on par with all other games in the SOE game plan", without there being anything more in return for players. Now, players were ALREADY paying a subscription fee for a promise of "continued development", which we hadn't seen for years by then. You think some players might just be a wee bit pissed off about that. Especially Europeans, who, due to EU VAT taxes for "imported games" already paid higher subscription fees than their American brethren - even if they were in Europe, but not part of the EU (lol?), like Norway. This just rubbed the wrong way.

Effect of other patches
In fact, there is one other event that structurally raised the population for some time: new CE. This however occured in a period of time where SOE ceased to provide services for stat sites.

The introduction of the Phantasm and Galaxy Gunship caused a temporary surge, though the Phantasm's 12 mm gun then probably caused quite a few (temp?) unsubs as well.

Then of course we had the infamous balance patches, which again were poorly tested. Where the Lasher suddenly became something "completely different" and "rather overpowered". Not to mention the Reaver getting a completely unwarranted armour buff. Poor testing has always been a bane of SOE, typically they would test any and all new weapon systems with play tests on Desolation, where only one base design exists (tech plant) and they would typicall do this by providing all ES vehicles to all empires, telling players NOT to fight inside bases or try to capture them and never even considered the effects of new systems on other bases and combinations of bases and systems, such as you know... Interlinks/DSC (siege), Capital shields (Gal Gunship at Ceryshen bridge anyone?) and typical campable bases (Bio Labs, AMP station).

I mean, what's the point of testing HA rifle and ES MA pistol balance with a primarily outdoor playtest, particularly on a continent where you'll in the live game will never be able to use HA and doesn't even resemble any other continent in layout and skewed empire benefits? Hence I consider SOE test setups to be one of the largest structural problems, because no patch or expansion set that came out of it could ever hope to be balanced for the real game.

"Betrayal" of core philosophy
Next to the two introductions of pay2win expansion sets (later made freely available to all), there was another fine example of erring from the core design philosophy that all players have to make trade-offs so a new player can compete with any other player.

BR40 was another nail in the coffin according to many PS1 players. If you ask around, most longer term players will tell of you of "BR20". The time when balanced trade-off setups were still enforced by the cert system. The introduction of new CE caused an increase in available cert options, without a re-evaluation of cert cost for pre-existing certifications at the new amount of cert points available per player. This lead to an overall rise in the much complained about cookie-cutter loadouts and the spreading of many innate abilities that till then had been reserved for specialists. It reduced the feeling of uniqueness amongst players and disrupted the numerical balance of high power weapons (aircav, HA and MAX numbers increased sharply).

Server mergers
The effect of server mergers was felt quite significantly. The first significant server merge occured right after release with Jackson (European server) being merged with Werner. Werner itself kept growing in size, but there simply never was enough population to warrant two servers. In late 2003, the same was admitted for Konried and Johari (player growth had not been as high as hoped, even though there had been substantial growth, just not enough for four US servers).

After all the above events happened and their effects wore out and low pop downward spirals occured for all three remaining servers, something had to be done and the second server merge occured. Gemini was born out of Markov and Emerald, who together equaled more or less the populace on Werner (source: SOE employee, won't name him).

However... the immediate effect on Werner was that droves of people left Werner to "merge themselves", due to the promise of a big server with a bigger fight. Werner emptied almost over night (span of a week from several hundreds online to mere dozens, total). Players who did not want to make a new character on the US server or didn't consider a US server playable due to ping, simply quit because there was no alternative left. Some players who fell in the first category (no new character) returned after Werner was merged into Gemini too.

Aging
Of course in the meantime, graphically PS1 hadn't kept up to date. This was also why the PS Next program at first aimed for a graphical update of PS1. of course a number of other systems had also aged and the design of the map and other systems had never evolved in all this time, simply because nobody at SOE worked on the game. Particular systems that hadn't aged well were the CSHD (which was more noticable on a merged server due to higher pings being more common) and gun mechanics (cof/recoil systems, no customization options or even at least many weapon options to pick from).

However, the concepts behind most systems never did age, as much as they had stagnated in development since 2003. In 2003 they had been extremely innovative to the point where other games didn't even dare try them. Many PS1 systems simply never have had the chance to evolve and be refined and yes, many needed that: base design, lattice, cert system. That doesn't mean they're inherently bad, they just never been given a proper chance to live up to their potential. It also doesn't make PS2 "loaned from other FPS systems" inherently better alternatives to a 2012 evolutionary update of those systems.



Thank you for having the patience to read it all. :)

[exLupo]

The lattice was introduced DURING PS1 beta

I can confirm this and will pretty much agree with everything else in the post. Nice collection, sir.

[Firearms]

You put this in the PS2 section by mistake :)

[Figment]

You put this in the PS2 section by mistake :)

Perhaps the wrong section officially, but not by mistake: I want PS2 players to read this and realise they can't use PS1 as an example of random failing systems.

If you look at the above, pretty much ALL reasons of failure are related to mismanagement. SOME systems can be blamed, BUT these are always development mistakes that the players have always immediately pointed out.


Often in advance.

[ringring]

You put this in the PS2 section by mistake :)
It's valid for it to be there. There are many to try to describe their 'love' for PS2 by linking it to a 'hate' of PS1 (I'm exaggerating of course).

But there's no need for it. Just say you like whatever it's supposed to be better and not the 'everybody hated X - no they didn't.

If PS1 was as bad as some are making out, why tag this new game with the planetside moniker?

[Pavilo Olson]

Its sad to see some would twist the facts.
Thanks for the real story!

[fod]

yes this is true

the only thing imo that ever needed changing was the gun "feel" to modern standards (only because of the age of ps1) and the rest of the game kept the same - ps1 had great gameplay mechanics imo

but yes lattice was beta

edit: also br20 was MUCH better than do it all br40
editx2: i left during the bending - making oshur into battleislands sucked bad (came back a few years later though)

[username]

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TL;DR make ur things shorter there to long to read -_-

[MasterCalaelen]

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TL;DR make ur things shorter there to long to read -_-

If you can't be bothered reading the post, or make any useful contribution it's better to just not post.

@Figment, well written and spot on!

[WiteBeam]

Nicely put. It's easy to see where SOE dropped the ball on a number of things concerning PS. But they made an awesome game overall and we can just hope they continue to listen to the player base and our suggestions.

[Mongo]

Excellent post, the biggest exodus for me on werner was aftershock and the BFR fiasco.

[NoDachi]

This is all nice and everything, but it doesn't help that with playing PS1 now it doesn't feel as 'good' as it used to.

It hasn't aged well. But you still find some of the most fantastic gaming experiences you'll ever have (for now).

[Boomzor]

Well put Figgy!

[JHendy]

Well, my issue is this: There are a lot of half-wits on PSU who insist that this game must play, handle and essentially be an upscaled version of Battlefield to have any chance of real success.

I'm with you Figgy. Nice post.

[Syphus]

This is probably the best summation I've seen so far. If we went in here discussion all the balance patches we'd be writing a novel. But this should probably be stickied and people should be forced to read it.

[Klockan]

Well, my issue is this: There are a lot of half-wits on PSU who insist that this game must play, handle and essentially be an upscaled version of Battlefield to have any chance of real success.

I'm with you Figgy. Nice post.
According to that graph PS1 did barely breach 60k subscribers, that is a failure. Just because it failed even harder later doesn't mean that it wasn't a failure from the start, it just means that their desperate tries to fix the mess didn't work. Gaming companies should learn that if you give the consumers shit then don't touch it, people that actually liked the shit were really desperate for something different which gets ruined by mainstreaming the game and none else will be satisfied by sugarcoated shit.

EVE is a great example of this, it is downright a shitty game. But its concept is really unique and pure which is drawing the attention of gamers looking for something they can't find anywhere else. Eve started out with less players than planetside, but they didn't try to fix that. Instead they continued to build upon what made eve unique and thus the game has had a small but steady growth over the years. If they had tried sugarcoating the game to fit a wider audience it would have died instead since the game is way too terrible to survive any form of competition. Its only saving grace is that it is one of a kind. It was the same thing with planetside, it sucked as a game but was legendary as a concept so when the concept got ruined it died.

[Sturmhardt]

Great post, thanks for that.

[Syphus]

I wouldn't call 60K back in 2003 - 2004 a failure for a niche game back at a time when broadband was far from the standard and MMOs were not as well known as they are now.

With the advancement of broadband, and multiplayer FPS games with larger maps and players amounts becoming more and more commonplace, the game was in a perfect position to move into the six digit range. However, SOE themselves ruined the game.

[xSquirtle]

TY OP, you share my thoughts on this matter as well. I see far to often people bashing lots of PS1 idea's and mechanics with no logical reasoning what-so ever. Not to mention the lack of Planetside history knowledge of development. So many people forgot the total black out of development for PS for nearly 3 almost 4 years(during reserves), and Sony's lack of testing things thoroughly when finally introducing something.

PS was a great (and still is) game that kept me motivated to play everyday. PS2; the hype is kind of there but not nearly as much as I had with PS1.

[Klockan]

I wouldn't call 60K back in 2003 - 2004 a failure for a niche game back at a time when broadband was far from the standard and MMOs were not as well known as they are now.
It was a failure compared to the other games of SOE.

With the advancement of broadband, and multiplayer FPS games with larger maps and players amounts becoming more and more commonplace, the game was in a perfect position to move into the six digit range. However, SOE themselves ruined the game.
Yes, I said that in my post. My point however was that it wasn't a good game, it had a great concept though. If infantry combat was as good as UT99 with lots of viable but different weapons and great feel the game would have gotten really big, maybe even up around seven digits. The biggest problem with the mmo's wasn't that they were a niche it was that there were no good mmo games before wow. Planetside could have been the first good mmo and thus would have revolutionized peoples view on the mmo market but as it was that didn't happen.

[igster]

Well put Figment.

SOE will do well to take note of previous mistakes and try not to repeat them.

I've never heard a COD or Battlefield player go all gooy eyed about the time that they spent playing their respective games.

[Syphus]

It was a failure compared to the other games of SOE.


Yes, I said that in my post. My point however was that it wasn't a good game, it had a great concept though. If infantry combat was as good as UT99 with lots of viable but different weapons and great feel the game would have gotten really big, maybe even up around seven digits. The biggest problem with the mmo's wasn't that they were a niche it was that there were no good mmo games before wow. Planetside could have been the first good mmo and thus would have revolutionized peoples view on the mmo market but as it was that didn't happen.

There really weren't many other games that SOE had at that point that really draw that much of a comparison.

But anyway, it's rather disingenuous to try and say there were no good MMOs before WoW. While EQ and UO have not particularly aged all that well, they were still great games for their time, and pre-WoW and pre-screw up, SWG was quite the game and did a number of things that were unique.

I've never heard a COD or Battlefield player go all gooy eyed about the time that they spent playing their respective games.

While the first two CODs were the only ones I really liked, I have tons of great stories from BF1942.

[Klockan]

There really weren't many other games that SOE had at that point that really draw that much of a comparison.

But anyway, it's rather disingenuous to try and say there were no good MMOs before WoW. While EQ and UO have not particularly aged all that well, they were still great games for their time, and pre-WoW and pre-screw up, SWG was quite the game and did a number of things that were unique.
Think like this, would the game sell as a singleplayer game with the same mechanics(and less grind ofc)? If not then the mmo is a bad game. But yes, you are right, there were good mmo's before wow, just not as good. The point is that somehow the developers forget about the actual game and just focuses on the mmo part which makes the game lackluster. No matter how awesome concepts and unique your game is you will never make it very successful without good gameplay. PS1 had terrible gameplay compared to any big shooter that was released even well before its time, thus I conclude that it was a bad game with its saving grace being the unique concepts. WoW on the other hand would beat most singleplayer games in the same genre at the time which made it unique among the mmo's, it wasn't just a massive multiplayer online game but it was actually a really good game in itself, that was the only thing that made it unique on the mmo market.

[Syphus]

Really?

While I don't want to get off-track here, WoW as a singleplayer game is nothing but a relentless grind and then nothing at all at the top. Raiding and playing with people is what made the game.

Around that time, the big RPGs of a similar style were: Knights of the Old Republic, Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Deus Ex, even Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and Fallout 2 still got a lot of play.

WoW was simply the right game, at the right time, making the right advancements over EQ. And, taking some things away from games like UO and SWG. Such as the player towns etc.

I just don't think you can say that as a single-player game it could compete against any of those listed.

But you're right, PS would not have sold as a single-player game, but neither would Counterstrike, BF1942, Quake 3, or any of the multitude of other multiplayer games people might've been playing then.

[Klockan]

Really?

While I don't want to get off-track here, WoW as a singleplayer game is nothing but a relentless grind and then nothing at all at the top. Raiding and playing with people is what made the game.
Read my post, I specifically stated that it would get altered so that it would be less grindy.

Around that time, the big RPGs of a similar style were: Knights of the Old Republic, Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Deus Ex, even Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and Fallout 2 still got a lot of play.
Neverwinter nights is basically a worse WoW in another setting, WoW is way better than that game. If you ported the Neverwinter nights campaign to wow with wow mobs, wow classes, all wow mechanics and scaled the leveling so you leveled to 60 during it then it would have been a better game. The other games have slightly different mechanics making it harder to just make raw statements like that.
But you're right, PS would not have sold as a single-player game, but neither would Counterstrike, BF1942, Quake 3, or any of the multitude of other multiplayer games people might've been playing then.
I mean as a non mmo game, or you would make a singleplayer game based on the same mechanics, PS1 wouldn't had sold if it was packaged in the same style as UT or so. Or, all games sell a few copies but it would have been a game none would have remembered today, well below games like cnc renegade.

[Canaris]

you forgot to mention SOE stripping the PS1 dev talent pool and reassigning them to SWG, leaving a lot of.... well very DNA shallow pool ones to make do.

[Baneblade]

OP would make a good article for the wiki.

[MrBloodworth]

You forgot something that lead to the breaking of the cert system.

Cert bundles.


All the stuff you mention in the OP is SOE chasing the session based players. Session based thinking does not belong in a team based, objective based, persistent game.

According to that graph PS1 did barely breach 60k subscribers, that is a failure.

Not for the time. No. Not for the Budget. No. Also, it was the only FPS with a subscription requirement. Failure means they did not recoup the development investment. They did, many times over.

Perspective.


Sad thing is, for Planetside 2. Its session based thinking all the way. Coupled with the idea that scale is the only defining feature. They scraped everything else ( to a point ) in the hut for speed. But have thrown many thing out with the bathwater.

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TL;DR make ur things shorter there to long to read -_-

You are part of the problem with modern gaming.

[Bocheezu]

The key with PS1, above any other MMO, is maintaining the population. Kind of a "no shit!" thing to say, but PS1 gameplay gets significantly less interesting when pops are low; it just devolves into a 3-way battle on some random continent because nobody has enough pop to open two fronts at a time. Other MMOs (especially WoW with all the cross-server stuff they do) don't suffer as much with low pop. So this sort of game has to be very careful that they don't add shit that people don't want.

My personal opinion on the stuff they added during my time:

1. Caves. I started PS1 a couple months after Core Combat came out and I played a good 3-4 months without buying the expansion. When I finally did, most of the time the caves were pretty empty with small-scale battles. As TR, I felt I was at a disadvantage against the other two factions. VS Max is absolutely broken in the caves with its ability to fly; in PS2, I am glad they are giving jetpacks to every faction with the light assault class. Jackhammer was a nightmare with the small, confined buildings. Maybe not "broken," but I sure as hell couldn't beat it. I just felt useless in there and couldn't kill anybody.

2. BFRs. Personally, I didn't hate them that much. They were overpowered, but at least it was overpowered for everybody and there wasn't faction bias. My outfitmates had a much more severe opinion and ragequitted after a couple weeks. My outfit left en masse to WoW, and I went with them.

After rejoining during the free 30 days, I found that the game hadn't changed much since I left it. The only things that were different were the continent/planet incentives and the new CE. Pops were nice and high and they actually had to raise the pop cap on continents. It was like the good 'ol days. Now it's back to sub-100 populations per faction and nothing but 3-way battles.

[Figment]

You forgot something that lead to the breaking of the cert system.

Cert bundles.


All the stuff you mention in the OP is SOE chasing the session based players.

Well if we're going to look into this in particular, yes.

UniMAX was definitely a problem. It was mostly introduced to make the AA MAX more popular, because they wern't popular due to their extreme specialist role and because solo aircav was a bit too popular and needed counters. The AV MAX had similar problems, but was more popular for obvious reasons: it was multipurpose.

The Reaver was made cheaper by being an option on top of Light Scout, which in itself already was a combination of buggies and Mosquito, which was done just to make buggies more interesting (instead of giving buggies better advantages, like they did later in the game by giving them more anti-mine endurance and a bit more armour).

Electronics Expert (Virals and Expert Hacking) and Advanced Engineering (combination of Fortification and Assault Engineering) were created because these specialisations took up loads of certs - as they should. Unfortunately, few people would specialise this deep, because it was more important to keep up with the HA folks. Again, it was primarily added to make it more affordable due to expecting little use. Instead, they should have made HA and Aircav more expensive...

IMO, after the addition of more cert points, they should have taken the opportunity to make Raider and Sunderer the basic Ground Transportation cert, switch Deliverer to TR and create a second 1 point cert for Advanced Ground Transportation. Three good vehicles for two cert points was a steal.



But, if we're talking about simplifications and catering to the masses while making certs less meaningful, then the certification timer reduced from 24 to 12 to 6 hours should be mentioned as well. That made it far easier to alter your character and reduced the impact of long term decisions.

Then there's also the secondary consequence of server mergers: Fourth Empire. Or: players that could suddenly swap empires on the same server. To this day I'm personally "one empire, one server", but I know few others that are still really loyal to an empire.

Of course, if we want to examplify just how far out of touch SOE was with its game and how its played, you can just go and name ANY official SOE event. And I literally mean, any. From Black Ops to Commander, to Home Cont Defense, Rabbit or Halloween or any of the others... They're all "meh" and poorly implemented. Even if some had potential, they would never get recoded to player's wishes simply because there were no coders.

Another fail on behalf of SOE was the code itself: there were no significant design notes left with the original code after acquisition. There was no base or terrain builder that could alter maps that were already downloaded (if they changed anything beyond adding anything on flat terrain, they would have to force a full redownload which they didn't want to due to the 56k connections: they couldn't cut through the map or edit it to fit the surrounding terrain again! :/).




If SOE had given PlanetSide a full dev team for the duration of the game... Everything would have been different.

[SpottyGekko]

Thanks Figment, that was a very good read :)

One issue which is apparent when you look at the PS1 history (and that PS2 may avoid), is the fact that significant problems were caused by new content that was added to the game via paid expansions.

PS1 had no Cash Shop, so new content had to be introduced in bundles via paid expansions. If you sell an expansion based heavily on something like BFR's, there's no going back. You cannot nerf the headline content (which everyone has paid money for) into oblivion. So you're stuck with it.

I'm assuming that new content in PS2 will be introduced in small increments and paid for via micro-transaction (if at all). If that new content needs serious re-balancing, refunding a small micro-transaction (by refunding Station Cash) is MUCH easier than giving back real money to thousands of players.

So PS2 has a lot more flexibility, and "bad" designs can be rolled back or redone with far less impact on the playerbase or SOE's cashflow.

[SixShooter]

Nice job man. That's a good history lesson with a lot of interesting info.

[Hunterzen]

It was a failure compared to the other games of SOE.


Yes, I said that in my post. My point however was that it wasn't a good game, it had a great concept though. If infantry combat was as good as UT99 with lots of viable but different weapons and great feel the game would have gotten really big, maybe even up around seven digits. The biggest problem with the mmo's wasn't that they were a niche it was that there were no good mmo games before wow. Planetside could have been the first good mmo and thus would have revolutionized peoples view on the mmo market but as it was that didn't happen.

Popularity doesn't always mean "good" Look at the new Call of Duty games hell look at Justin Bieber. "there were no good mmo games before wow." Sorry you don't know what you are talking about here. I could name plenty of awesome MMO's out before WoW, but Ill just type SWG preNGE/CU to prove my point.

[fod]

Popularity doesn't always mean "good" Look at the new Call of Duty games hell look at Justin Bieber. "there were no good mmo games before wow." Sorry you don't know what you are talking about here. I could name plenty of awesome MMO's out before WoW, but Ill just type SWG to prove my point.

yeah i agree and you can now add battlefield to popular but not good games (they sold out made it too much like COD with tiny maps)
WOW is a horrible mmo imo but its easy as hell to play - thats the only reason it got popular i think
also anarchy online was a ton better than WOW

[Archonzero]

Spot on Fig, there's a few so' so's to my interp on it, but the content/expac stuff was spot on.

you forgot to mention SOE stripping the PS1 dev talent pool and reassigning them to SWG, leaving a lot of.... well very DNA shallow pool ones to make do.

I was gonna make mention of this but Canaris did for me.

This led them releasing PS1 far earlier than they had projected (about 3-4 mnths early), tacked a sub fee onto it, then stripped the dev team to SWG. I personally know many players that unsubbed when they did that, knowing they were paying for a beta, with the funds going to another game development instead.

Came back later on to check out each expansion for 3-6mnth subs, hoping to see the game taking shape. While I have meritorious experiences of sheer scale of coordinated comradery an opposition. The holes in the game itself began to take too much of a toll.

While I liked the idea of a NEW vehicle type (BFR)) I hated the actual power/resilience and what they went with, sorry didn't like the entire Mechwarrior in PS1 idea, let alone scores of them per side (still shamelessly I piloted/gunned for one). Before they even came up with Core Combat (blergh) I was pushing the idea of a hybrid MAX/vehicle style unit, that had the power output of perhaps a Reaver mixed with a Tank/Sunderer's resilience, in around.

An yes, I recall BR20.. BR24 CR4 was my final ranking. I just couldn't handle the idea of BR40, there was no uniqueness to a character build. Just a field of do it all nostars.

So far, what I can say about the PS2 team. Is they seem to be on the ball, an really want to make this game work and remain progressive. Their involvement with the community, which as a game designer myself, IS there biggest collective for creative debate/brainstorming an I hope they stay in touch with both their playerbase an the beta test community (something they sorta dropped the ball on with the first one, so many of us were screaming for PS1 not to hit retail when it did, waaaay to many bugs/exploits not addressed), listen, but keep a distance on simply accepting all ideas.

In the end, they just need to look to Uncle Ben. "With great power, comes great responsibility!"

[Chrispin]

Very informative! This thread needs to stay in the PS2 section and I'd even say stickied (I know that won't happen though). Hopefully the PS2 team can learn from past mistakes. It looks like they already have a better advertising campaign.

[exLupo]

You forgot something that lead to the breaking of the cert system.

Cert bundles.

While it doesn't exactly play into the life of PS, the cert tree simplification (less nesting and reduced costs) started near the end of beta. Shortly before launch, it was very much a game of specialists where every choice mattered because, even with max certs, you were fairly limited and had to choose between focused power or middling versatility.

The change stuck in my craw as I was afraid of what, ultimately, would come to pass.

[Klockan]

Popularity doesn't always mean "good" Look at the new Call of Duty games hell look at Justin Bieber. "there were no good mmo games before wow." Sorry you don't know what you are talking about here. I could name plenty of awesome MMO's out before WoW, but Ill just type SWG preNGE/CU to prove my point.
I didn't say that they weren't good as mmo, I said that they weren't good as games. SWG sucked as a game but it had a few interesting concepts to it, you can't judge a games quality by its featurelist. I have also never said that popularity equals quality, however they do correlate. The problem with people like you is that you can't differentiate between a game you like and a good game. You can dislike games for other reasons than it being bad, so you might prefer games built upon different concepts but that doesn't mean that the game is a pile of shit.

It is quite laughable though that you brought up the fad to dislike Justin Bieber, since you know just because "everyone" likes to hate that music doesn't make it bad either. I am not a music enthusiast so I don't really care much about every new artist like Bieber, but I know that the main reason people hate on music is not because it is bad but because it is in a genre conflicting with what they perceive to be their preferred genre. Most do that with games as well and just like in music people love hating on whats popular. "Oh look, I am special, I am one of the few who don't like WoW, CoD, BSB and Bieber!!!!", its pathetic really.

[Hunterzen]

I didn't say that they weren't good as mmo, I said that they weren't good as games. SWG sucked as a game but it had a few interesting concepts to it, you can't judge a games quality by its featurelist. I have also never said that popularity equals quality, however they do correlate. The problem with people like you is that you can't differentiate between a game you like and a good game. You can dislike games for other reasons than it being bad, so you might prefer games built upon different concepts but that doesn't mean that the game is a pile of shit.

It is quite laughable though that you brought up the fad to dislike Justin Bieber, since you know just because "everyone" likes to hate that music doesn't make it bad either. I am not a music enthusiast so I don't really care much about every new artist like Bieber, but I know that the main reason people hate on music is not because it is bad but because it is in a genre conflicting with what they perceive to be their preferred genre. Most do that with games as well and just like in music people love hating on whats popular. "Oh look, I am special, I am one of the few who don't like WoW, CoD, BSB and Bieber!!!!", its pathetic really.

WTH is your problem? Stop acting like your opinions on various games, music, assumptions of other people are facts and open your mind to other peoples perspectives with out calling them pathetic and laughable unless you want to come off as a pompous ass which you're doing very well. Literally every statement you said about me was an assumption, and every statement you said about various games is again YOUR opinion. You've lost my respect, and attention by your extreme ignorance and arrogance, and I look forward to hopefully shooting you in the face. :evil:

[BlueSkies]

The problem with people like you...

http://beijingdaze.com/images/2009/09/douchebag.jpg

[bullet]

Why did you make all of those memories come back Fig? They hurt...so much. If only they paid attention to PS a little more back then.

[Haro]

WTH is your problem? Stop acting like your opinions on various games, music, assumptions of other people are facts and open your mind to other peoples perspectives with out calling them pathetic and laughable unless you want to come off as a pompous ass which you're doing very well. Literally every statement you said about me was an assumption, and every statement you said about various games is again YOUR opinion. You've lost my respect, and attention by your extreme ignorance and arrogance, and I look forward to hopefully shooting you in the face. :evil:

And yet you were grossly over-presumptive about your opinions as well. Believe it or not, many, many people like and enjoy call of duty, Justin Bieber, or whatever else. You not liking it doesn't make something bad, just as me or anyone else liking something doesn't necessarily make it good. There are times when you can point to things in a game that you can logically connect to bad gameplay: BFRs, for example, are one thing most people would objectively agree set the game back. Other things like shooter mechanics tend to be far more subjective, since they usually are equally applied to everyone, regardless of choice, whereas you have to choose things like weapons and vehicles, and therefore inherent imbalances may show up.

If you want to give your opinions weight and make them matter to other people, the give solid, rational reasons! Use critical thinking. If you don't like something in a game, ask WHY it matters before you take it at face value.

Also, please, let's not get caught up in emotions over this. Underneath some of his vitriol, for lack of a better word, Klockan makes good points that shouldn't be ignored. Let's all step back, take a deep breath, and continue this dicussion like rational people.

[ringring]

Thanks Figment, that was a very good read :)

One issue which is apparent when you look at the PS1 history (and that PS2 may avoid), is the fact that significant problems were caused by new content that was added to the game via paid expansions.

.

TBH I think problems were caused by a lot of the new content paid or otherwise.

New stuff tended to be way overpowered and then was gradually nerfed to something reasonable.
example: the phantasm an invisible troop carrier that had a mossie's machine gun on it's nose -- naturally it wasn't used for transport it was used to farm unsuspecting enemies, until the complaints filtered through to the developers whereupon the gun was removed and it's armour increased.

witness too the dragon, the gal gunship...

the pattern was there, new gear is overpowered at first.

[Boone]

I didn't say that they weren't good as mmo, I said that they weren't good as games. SWG sucked as a game but it had a few interesting concepts to it, you can't judge a games quality by its featurelist. I have also never said that popularity equals quality, however they do correlate. The problem with people like you is that you can't differentiate between a game you like and a good game. You can dislike games for other reasons than it being bad, so you might prefer games built upon different concepts but that doesn't mean that the game is a pile of shit.

It is quite laughable though that you brought up the fad to dislike Justin Bieber, since you know just because "everyone" likes to hate that music doesn't make it bad either. I am not a music enthusiast so I don't really care much about every new artist like Bieber, but I know that the main reason people hate on music is not because it is bad but because it is in a genre conflicting with what they perceive to be their preferred genre. Most do that with games as well and just like in music people love hating on whats popular. "Oh look, I am special, I am one of the few who don't like WoW, CoD, BSB and Bieber!!!!", its pathetic really.

Ultima Online.

It did it for me.

[Hunterzen]

And yet you were grossly over-presumptive about your opinions as well. Believe it or not, many, many people like and enjoy call of duty, Justin Bieber, or whatever else. You not liking it doesn't make something bad, just as me or anyone else liking something doesn't necessarily make it good. There are times when you can point to things in a game that you can logically connect to bad gameplay: BFRs, for example, are one thing most people would objectively agree set the game back. Other things like shooter mechanics tend to be far more subjective, since they usually are equally applied to everyone, regardless of choice, whereas you have to choose things like weapons and vehicles, and therefore inherent imbalances may show up.

If you want to give your opinions weight and make them matter to other people, the give solid, rational reasons! Use critical thinking. If you don't like something in a game, ask WHY it matters before you take it at face value.

Also, please, let's not get caught up in emotions over this. Underneath some of his vitriol, for lack of a better word, Klockan makes good points that shouldn't be ignored. Let's all step back, take a deep breath, and continue this dicussion like rational people.

Of course certain people like Justin Biber and Call of Duty like certain people loved BFR's when they were released, and I never stated my opinions as facts. I put in my 2 cents and was replied with "you people" "pathetic" "laughable" and when someone replies like that it's a waste of time to debate with someone so thick headed and hostile. "Also, please, let's not get caught up in emotions over this." Copy that click reply button under Klockan then click paste and submit comment. "You not liking it doesn't make something bad, just as me or anyone else liking something doesn't necessarily make it good." Repeat steps above. Pretty sure you're replying to wrong person. BTW "I look forward to hopefully shooting you in the face." That's a joke about PS not me being emotional, but since Klockan thinks Planetside one is a crappy game I don't see how he will enjoy Planetside 2. Besides think the playable Panda's and Pokemon system for WoW is coming out soon that seems to be more of his cup of tea.

[Goldeh]

You forgot something that lead to the breaking of the cert system.

Cert bundles.


All the stuff you mention in the OP is SOE chasing the session based players. Session based thinking does not belong in a team based, objective based, persistent game.



Not for the time. No. Not for the Budget. No. Also, it was the only FPS with a subscription requirement. Failure means they did not recoup the development investment. They did, many times over.

Perspective.


Sad thing is, for Planetside 2. Its session based thinking all the way. Coupled with the idea that scale is the only defining feature. They scraped everything else ( to a point ) in the hut for speed. But have thrown many thing out with the bathwater.



You are part of the problem with modern gaming.

Eh, can't really be session based when there is no session it's persistant.. Furthermore, all we've seen so far is gunplay (which is something Hig and the team should really stop with the gunplay streams) and nothing else really. Haven't even got a good look of the multiple bases, some of which have doors, or real vehicle combat.

So ya, it's liking judging a whole mansion by looking through a small window, wait until NDA n' beta to make real judgments.

[Drelam]

PS1 did barely breach 60k subscribers, that is a failure. EVE is a great example of this, it is downright a shitty game. It was the same thing with planetside, it sucked as a game. There were no good mmo games before wow.Think like this, would the game sell as a singleplayer game with the same mechanics(and less grind ofc)? If not then the mmo is a bad game. But yes, you are right, there were good mmo's before wow, just not as good. PS1 had terrible gameplay compared to any big shooter. WoW on the other hand would beat most singleplayer games in the same genre. Neverwinter nights is basically a worse WoW in another setting, WoW is way better than that game PS1 wouldn't had sold if it was packaged in the same style as UT or so. SWG sucked as a game. The problem with people like you is that you can't differentiate between a game you like and a good game. I know that the main reason people hate on music is not because it is bad but because it is in a genre conflicting with what they perceive to be their preferred genre. "Oh look, I am special, I am one of the few who don't like WoW, CoD, BSB and Bieber!!!!", its pathetic really.
http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/butthurt-dweller-all-my-opinions-are-facts.jpg
http://us6.memecdn.com/Ass-Hole-You-are-doing-it-right_c_113803.jpg

[Haro]

Of course certain people like Justin Biber and Call of Duty like certain people loved BFR's when they were released, and I never stated my opinions as facts. I put in my 2 cents and was replied with "you people" "pathetic" "laughable" and when someone replies like that it's a waste of time to debate with someone so thick headed and hostile. "Also, please, let's not get caught up in emotions over this." Copy that click reply button under Klockan then click paste and submit comment. "You not liking it doesn't make something bad, just as me or anyone else liking something doesn't necessarily make it good." Repeat steps above. Pretty sure you're replying to wrong person. BTW "I look forward to hopefully shooting you in the face." That's a joke about PS not me being emotional, but since Klockan thinks Planetside one is a crappy game I don't see how he will enjoy Planetside 2. Besides think the playable Panda's and Pokemon system for WoW is coming out soon that seems to be more of his cup of tea.

In that case, I apologize. I guess I read too much into some of your earlier statements.

Also, I wasn't trying to single you out about the whole emotional, rational thing. Klockan needs to chill out, or no one will take his ideas seriously.

Sorry for the disturbance, continue with the argument.

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

I feel like I've said this about this same post somewere else ;) but great post Fig!


I would also like to QFT Bloodworth's post

Session based thinking does not belong in a team based, objective based, persistent game.

Sad thing is, for Planetside 2. Its session based thinking all the way. Coupled with the idea that scale is the only defining feature. They scraped everything else ( to a point ) in the hut for speed. But have thrown many thing out with the bathwater.


WOW is a horrible mmo imo but its easy as hell to play - thats the only reason it got popular i think

If you thought WoW got popular because the early game was easy, you should see it now. They have an "easy mode" for raids now that basically you just walk in and loot the boss without a fight.

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

So ya, it's liking judging a whole mansion by looking through a small window

What if we have seen everything but a small window?

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Very interesting and informative read. It also does not reek of imagined opinions and craziness :) Sounds all very "believable". Thank you for the information! I'm a late comer to PlanetSide, but interested in the history of it all. Now I understand better the great dramas people refer to all the time :)

According to that graph PS1 did barely breach 60k subscribers, that is a failure. Just because it failed even harder later doesn't mean that it wasn't a failure from the start, it just means that their desperate tries to fix the mess didn't work. Gaming companies should learn that if you give the consumers shit then don't touch it, people that actually liked the shit were really desperate for something different which gets ruined by mainstreaming the game and none else will be satisfied by sugarcoated shit.

EVE is a great example of this, it is downright a shitty game. But its concept is really unique and pure which is drawing the attention of gamers looking for something they can't find anywhere else. Eve started out with less players than planetside, but they didn't try to fix that. Instead they continued to build upon what made eve unique and thus the game has had a small but steady growth over the years. If they had tried sugarcoating the game to fit a wider audience it would have died instead since the game is way too terrible to survive any form of competition. Its only saving grace is that it is one of a kind. It was the same thing with planetside, it sucked as a game but was legendary as a concept so when the concept got ruined it died.


Generally speaking, I disagree with your evaluations of the games, but I do agree with the point that people come seeking "something different", and if you don't continue to provide that "something different", then you lose them. If that "something" is the core of what you're offering... Well... Things go down hill quickly from there.

[Runlikethewind]

Just wanted to add my voice to the chorus, nice OP well said.

[Smed]

Well put Figment.

SOE will do well to take note of previous mistakes and try not to repeat them.

I've never heard a COD or Battlefield player go all gooy eyed about the time that they spent playing their respective games.

I couldn't agree with that sentiment more. Actually you summed up perfectly what i was trying to get across in my blog.

[GhettoPrince]

^ haha wow, the CEO of SOE reads fan forums. :D

Anyway, I like seeing the infantry fights because thats probably 90% of what we will be doing at low battle ranks, especially if MAX's cost resources, and like OP said, no one else has tried to do something on the scale of planetside. There's nothing to study or improve on, so new base capture mechanics and a replacement for the old lattice system are features they will probably be thinking up from scratch and improving in the beta.

The force field doors are fine, the doors in Planetside meant nothing anyway , since even a BR 1 carried a REK and could hack them, and door fights were even more monotonous and gamey than bridge fights.

[Crator]

Wow Figment, great history writing of PS1 life-cycle!

[Piper]

Was a good read Figment.

From my, personal, rose tinted spec's a few things will always stand out in the way the game evolved over the years.

To my mind all the "big" ideas were just done 'n' coded, they weren't, as far I knew opinion tested ahead of time. Many of them suffered from poor execution, despite sounding okish on paper, BFR's being a prime example. Other "big" ideas were just awful on paper, Super-Soldiers for instance.

One thing I don't think you mentioned was that Core Wombat fudged the code over in some way such that it messed up the game on a lot of peoples systems if you recall. It introduced the "stuttering" which took them months to iron out and it never was quite the same client after that in terms of performance. I suspect it lost a lot of subscribers who never came back after that.

Fourth empiring, due to a badly handled server merge process was the biggest nail in its slow, slow demise however, to me. That took what was a game of three sub-communities and tore it apart. Moving it from a game of genuine and friendly competition between them to rank finger pointing of empire gains achieved by population shifts.

Hacking, and the apparent casual attitude that was taken by SoE at the time really didn't help either, their was if I recall a perception that it was fine to hax because nothing would be done if you were caught.

Away from the "big" ideas there were many small patches and additions that often seldom get remembered that were good. But frankly what kept me playing for the years I did was the core of the game design, essentially how it launched, attempts to improve that mostly helped put me off.

It was, as I've said before, a gem polished into a turd. :( Despite that it is still the best computer game I've ever played, full stop. For its core design principle, in an MMO age that's all about "owning" stuff and not "doing" stuff. PS1 is still a flare in the murk.

[Syphus]

Away from the "big" ideas there were many small patches and additions that often seldom get remembered that were good.

When the Liberator got added, that was one of the best things ever in a patch.

[Piper]

When the Liberator got added, that was one of the best things ever in a patch.

If I recall it was pretty early patch wise, really one of the first biggish ones, went in with the Skyguard (which I developed a late love of driving in my time)? I liked the LLU patch, while I could do without the post bending silly star map, the lattice changes in post Bending* PS1 were an improvement iirc.

Figment touched on a very important point, re-reading the OP, the potential viscous-circle of population decay in a pure PvP game. With no friendly respawning NPC's** to whack-a-mole on, if the server seems a bit empty then no good fights develop perhaps, another person logs out and so on and so on...

...and that of course translates into friends lists as well, less people you know about, less time you spend logged in and you yourself become a casualty on someone elses friend (well we used them to track our favourite prey too :D) list.



*Does anyone remember the video launch thing they did with the Bending? It was shockingly awful, the voice over monologue was so comical.

** Which by the way doesn't mean I agree with whatever is being talked about in terms of adding NPC's to PS2. That sounds yuck.

[Klockan]

Literally every statement you said about me was an assumption, and every statement you said about various games is again YOUR opinion.
No, I am reading a lot and talking to a lot of people, it isn't my opinion it is my conclusion of "everyone's" opinions including what I know about your opinions. I like playing planetside and EVE, but that doesn't mean that they are good games because I can still see all the flaws that hurts the gameplay experience. Since I started gaming ages ago I can easily look past those flaws since I have played much worse stuff before just because it had some interesting concepts. But for most such flaws can be unbearable, especially if they come in drowes.

You've lost my respect, and attention by your extreme ignorance and arrogance, and I look forward to hopefully shooting you in the face. :evil:
Good, then we are even :love:

Edit: But the point is that I hate it how fans of small games always "knows" that their game is the best while the popular games are just so much worse. It could be true, of course, but in general it is not, they have just overlooked loads of the flaws of their prefered game while ignoring all the positive points of the title they are criticizing. In many cases my tastes in gaming do not agree with the general consensus but that doesn't mean that I can't accept that my preferred games can be inferior to more popular games in many substantial ways. Usually I can see why a game don't hit it big, just about every low profile game have giant flaws which are really easy to notice. Dwarf fortress is probably one of the most amazing games there is concept wise however there are no graphics and most importantly the UI is so game-breakingly bad that only the most staunch players can muster it which is why its following is really small.
Of course certain people like Justin Biber and Call of Duty like certain people loved BFR's when they were released, and I never stated my opinions as facts.
Really? So, what did you imply with this sentence then? Do you got any other way to interpret this than you basically taking it as facts that CoD and Bieber are bad?Popularity doesn't always mean "good" Look at the new Call of Duty games hell look at Justin Bieber.

Edit edit of edits: And as I have said before, if I don't aim for peoples attention then almost none will listen and the discussions will go really slowly. And then when I manage to make people like you angry you really lower your guard and just tries a full on assault which makes it so much easier for me to argue since you leave yourself open, thus it is easier to make people accept my ideas even if they wont necessarily accept me as an individual. But I don't really care what you think about me, I just get annoyed when there are extremely flawed arguments in the local consensus so I just want to shine light on them. The flawed argument in this topic would be that PS1 was really good before they later changed it, I strongly disagree and I know that many others would as well so taking that as a fact seems a bit strange.

End of all edits: To make it clear, I am not saying that PS1 was bad because it had an inventory system or because it had certs or because it hadn't classes. Those are design decisions and I don't consider them at all when I evaluate quality because they just govern what kind of game you are making and not how good said game is since that is mostly a matter of opinion on what is better so no real conclusion can be made. If you ignore design decisions such as those then it isn't hard to see that what you got left sucks.

[IMMentat]

CSHD = Client Side hit Detection.

One of the best features never repeated but really should have been copied en-mass was the controls setup and saving interface.
Best control configuration interface EVER!

[Cyrane]

Cool write up but I'd have to disagree with the Pay to Win expansions. In my opinion they weren't that bad and they didn't make you super overpowered and completely unbeatable (after a good patch).

[Eyeklops]

Excellent post. PS1 suffered from "power creep." New content was almost always overpowered. The BFR's, Galaxy Gunship, Phant. IMO the GG breaks tank gameplay when it's around. I still long for the balanced slow orb Lasher of old. Why they ruined a good gun I will never know, all it needed was 5 more in the clip. :/

[RoninOni]

Well, since PS2 is F2P.... no worry on that really.

They drop new content, just drop the cert points to unlock it.

To keep their player base, they'll HAVE to keep things balanced.

If they add something that everyone suddenly certs into and starts abusing, then it'll get nerfed :P They need to keep their player count up :lol:

[Ritual]

I think the lattice system was an idea created by the beta community, not necessarily by the SOE design team. Wasn't it named the "Matrix system" on the beta forums?

The moral of the story in this thread? Im not sure.

Don't use the live servers as testing grounds?

[texico]

For me the poor coding was a massive death wish too. I always remember people telling me that the current Devs had very little ability to change the game; couldn't edit terrain or bases for example. It did badly for lag too, and there were some persistent bugs that just could not be got rid of.

The terminal bug anyone? It made me chuckle attacking a base stairwell to see the VS/TR running at me in PJ's and going "yep, term bug".

And the white terrain glitch, that haunted almost my whole time playing. After about 6 hours suddenly you'd see a patch of terrain gone white and thought "here we go". You had to restart as soon as you saw it because it meant the game was going to crash in the next few minutes. PAIN IN THE ASS.

Personally, PlanetSide 1 as I knew it ended when Markov merged with Emerald and as Fig said, it killed Werner dead. Prior to that, Werner was a kind of community. After years of playing you pretty much recognized everybody on the whole server on all 3 empires, and all the outfits too. Werner had the TR zerg too, 40% population. Once it merged, all those kind of things vanished/changed.



But the point in all this is what I've been saying a lot; PlanetSide 1 worked. Despite ALL the hurdles outlined in Fig's post it was still able to maintain a playable population for 9 years, because the game worked.. But it never managed to take off because of all the things in Fig's post. What happens if you give it that? What happens if you give it a HD facelift? A lucrative marketing campagne? Get it in all the stores, on steam, in all the magazines, fix all the gamebreaking bugs, give it a massive dev team for monthly content development, give it a F2P model, fix the excessive lag, make sure the gaming world over knows and is talking about the only MMOFPS that exists?

These were all the things that needed "fixing" in PlanetSide 1. Not some shoddy false idea that the core mechanics were flawed/unappealing.

[ringring]

Having looked at those subscription figures again there is one notable thing that I don't think anyone has commented on.

It is, at release or just after the subscription peaked at 60k. They stayed steady(ish) for a while and as Figgy said the decline really kicked in at the introduction of BFR's and the release of WOW.

But, the peak was only 60K! For the only MOFPS on the market!

Why was this? Did people not know about it? Was there no or little marketing? This implies that the same game launched differently and better would have gained a much greater player base and no one would be talking about relative failure.

Or, the other explanation is that a player base of 60k is the natual limit for an MMOFPS, I doubt anyone seriously would believe that.

On the 'why people quit' thing. I would also say that the game was not stable at all. I know many game up because they crashed all the time, even 1 year after launch when I joined it did this.

[Gatekeeper]

For me the poor coding was a massive death wish too. I always remember people telling me that the current Devs had very little ability to change the game; couldn't edit terrain or bases for example. It did badly for lag too, and there were some persistent bugs that just could not be got rid of.

The terminal bug anyone? It made me chuckle attacking a base stairwell to see the VS/TR running at me in PJ's and going "yep, term bug".

And the white terrain glitch, that haunted almost my whole time playing. After about 6 hours suddenly you'd see a patch of terrain gone white and thought "here we go". You had to restart as soon as you saw it because it meant the game was going to crash in the next few minutes. PAIN IN THE ASS.

Personally, PlanetSide 1 as I knew it ended when Markov merged with Emerald and as Fig said, it killed Werner dead. Prior to that, Werner was a kind of community. After years of playing you pretty much recognized everybody on the whole server on all 3 empires, and all the outfits too. Werner had the TR zerg too, 40% population. Once it merged, all those kind of things vanished/changed.



But the point in all this is what I've been saying a lot; PlanetSide 1 worked. Despite ALL the hurdles outlined in Fig's post it was still able to maintain a playable population for 9 years, because the game worked.. But it never managed to take off because of all the things in Fig's post. What happens if you give it that? What happens if you give it a HD facelift? A lucrative marketing campagne? Get it in all the stores, on steam, in all the magazines, fix all the gamebreaking bugs, give it a massive dev team for monthly content development, give it a F2P model, fix the excessive lag, make sure the gaming world over knows and is talking about the only MMOFPS that exists?

These were all the things that needed "fixing" in PlanetSide 1. Not some shoddy false idea that the core mechanics were flawed/unappealing.

Absolutely spot on. Well said.

Some changes probably were needed - more exciting gunplay, for example - and some are probably a good idea - like replacing armour with shields. But the core gameplay of PS1 was solid in most respects, and just needed tweaking and building on - not scrapping and replacing.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Fantastic post, I agree with about 98% of it. I'll try to tease out what bugs me or I disagree with.


CaveSide pay-2-win, easy-win-button-long-distance-killing (tape mouse button down for dozens of free kills per Flail shot - when Flail wasn't nerfed yet)


The only nerfs to the flail I know of is the armor reduction and its short range damage being reduced heavily. (There were also some changes to its range and angle of fire but those aren't really nerfs per se) Flails are fine, then again I bet we fall on different sides of the artillery debate.


Furthermore, players were arbitrarily barred from using and acquiring particular weapons systems on the islands (even though necessary, due to for instance Skyguard being bound to the Tech Plant - something a lot of players have always considered a mistake due to aircav being omnipresent and counters being needed)

BI were changed and their rule sets homogenized which ruined them. When they launched they were each designed to cater to one style of fight and they were awesome at their chosen style. Your argument about ghost capping really doesn't make much sense as it could be applied to any other cont or the global system of base capping as well.

The normal argument about the bending was that it put the global lattice going through Oshur with the BI rather than Searhus which changed the way you could attack various conts making empire movement more constrained.

Also SG's being bound to tech wasn't a problem. Reavers are also bound to tech and you could always bring either back from sanc.


Aftershock (BFRs) and WoW


Nailed it.


-----
And other posts:

Cert bundles.

Bundles weren't a problem. Unless you liked buying all 3 ATVs for 2 certs apiece. There's 'specialization' and then there's 'no one ever expects to see this vehicle because the certs are better spent elsewhere sunderer'. Also lower pops at that point meant that you couldn't afford to have as much specialization as you could with larger pops.

I think the lattice system was an idea created by the beta community, not necessarily by the SOE design team. Wasn't it named the "Matrix system" on the beta forums?

The moral of the story in this thread? Im not sure.

Don't use the live servers as testing grounds?

I vaguely remember something like that, but it's been long enough for me to have developed dementia about it.

Definitely agree with the need for a beta server. SPAMMYLASHERNOOBS AWAY! (good days)
Devs please take note about the beta server. Everyone started at around Br11 or so with plenty of certs so that they could actually test the changes. (that was later bumped up to starting at 20)

If you look at the above, pretty much ALL reasons of failure are related to mismanagement. SOME systems can be blamed, BUT these are always development mistakes that the players have always immediately pointed out.


Often in advance.

Hey remember that time when they added a cloaking flying transport with a 20mm pilot controlled gun despite everyone telling them it shouldn't have a gun?
For months.

[PoisonTaco]

Never played PS1 in its "prime" but Star Wars Galaxies was my first MMO. As long as SOE doesn't pull something like the NGE again I'll be happy.

[Beerbeer]

I don't believe the game was a failure based purely on developmental missteps. Did it help the matter as the game progressed? Probably not.

In my opinion, this FPS game didn't have wide acclaim like others simply for one reason: the cost of admission and the cost to continually play. FPS games as a subscription-based game model was sure to only appeal to a select few, while others with a one time fee are guaranteed to have a wide distribution if it's fun (e.g., moh, cod and BF franchise).

The developers, in their desperation, tried things that they hoped would help, that really didn't, but could you blame them?

[Hmr85]

Awesome write up from figment as usual. I have to agree with Figment also.

[Baneblade]

PS1 was never more popular than when the Reserves Phase was ongoing.

[MrBloodworth]

You mean fodder-side. Imagine that. :)

Who would have thought 15 a month and a 20$ box fee would deter FPS players?

Never played PS1 in its "prime" but Star Wars Galaxies was my first MMO. As long as SOE doesn't pull something like the NGE again I'll be happy.

PS2 is becoming the Planetside NGE.

[Binkus]

Bravo sir an excellent post!!

one of my pet hates at the moment are people in PS2 who quote the failure of PS1 as an example of vital missing game mechanics

i cant help thinking the cert system was far superior in PS1

for player longevity and intimacy with your character

curbing the PS2 venting to... "its good, but no where near as good as PS1 for game play and community"

[Ghoest9]

56k modem lag and hacks hurt thre pop more than anything else.

But BFRs also drove people away over time. Many players found them frustrating to deal with - until later when they got the nerf hammer.