Community Night September 2012 Recording

[Hamma]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/news-community-night-september-2012-recording-2862.htm

[ringring]

Good listening :)

I agree with manitou on the balance, in the main it's not worth getting too excited about at this point.

Looking at the horizon the biggest issue for me is the global meta game and it's total absence. Especially when the launch is presently only going to have 2 continents, I don't see how that's going to change things apart form simply having a choice of 2 to choose where to fight.

PS I love when JennyBoo puts her game face on, you know someone is about to die :p

[Hamma]

Indeed :lol:

[Hyncharas]

I agree with Manitou's point about how we should have shows that focus on other outfits. I realize that the CDL has a major stake in the running of PSU's website, but it is a representative for the community, not strictly the clan who runs it.

Like any fan-site with a connection to the studio there's no harm in performing videos for our outfit, as long as we offer an equal opportunity for those that may be our enemies ingame, but are still passionate gamers, interested in debating its current state and putting forth new ideas, for making PlanetSide 2 the best that it can be.

[WNxThentar]

I think to many people are ruling out long term possibilities because of short sighted mind set.

For example take the NPC issue. Almost every one is bagging it before they know anything about it. Even after Hamma pointed out that it wouldn't be seen for a long time.

So you don't want to fight NPCs...I don't either. But what if those NPCs where implemented in a special way that only effected certain locations? Just because you don't like fighting NPCs should your view that they shouldn't be anywhere in the game be more important then someone else's view that they want NPC's somewhere in the game? You can avoid that area if you want.

Its like some people saying, in this video, that naval battles are stupid. Others like the idea. My opinion is if they can implement it in a way that attracts more people to the game but doesn't force you into then its a no brainner.

The problem is short sighted comments. Sorry Basty, I'm VS too but some of your comments don't hold up to logic. Take complaining about not being able to defend your galaxy by pulling AA maxes fast enough. How about you equip your galaxy with AA turrets? How about you have a few of your passengers load into the galaxy already in a AA max suit and jump out before landing. It is like how we used to load a sky guard in the back of a galaxy in PS1 and drop it if air came up against it. There are tactics you can use.

I for one like the gal as a spawn point. Bases are further apart here so driving a bang bus isn't always the best answer especially when you think how long it could take to get that bang bus to your destination. I wouldn't mind the bang bus having some AMS role but if just saying the galaxy is stupid because you haven't figured out the tactics of using or fighting against it yet is just that ...stupid

[Captain1nsaneo]

The problem is short sighted comments. Sorry Basty, I'm VS too but some of your comments don't hold up to logic. Take complaining about not being able to defend your galaxy by pulling AA maxes fast enough. How about you equip your galaxy with AA turrets? How about you have a few of your passengers load into the galaxy already in a AA max suit and jump out before landing. It is like how we used to load a sky guard in the back of a galaxy in PS1 and drop it if air came up against it. There are tactics you can use.

I for one like the gal as a spawn point. Bases are further apart here so driving a bang bus isn't always the best answer especially when you think how long it could take to get that bang bus to your destination. I wouldn't mind the bang bus having some AMS role but if just saying the galaxy is stupid because you haven't figured out the tactics of using or fighting against it yet is just that ...stupid

I haven't reviewed the video but I think you missed the point of the conversation. It's not that the gal is bad it's that it's not enough. Vehicle flexibility and not needing to depend on one large, inconspicuous vehicle to carry the hopes and dreams of your assault. Right now ground forces such as tanks and sundies really can't push because they have to take a point in order to get a spawn point they can use for reinforcement. If they get out of their tanks to take said point and they get killed, well that's their vehicle gone because there isn't a nearby spawn. Having Gals as the only spawn mandates that you have air superiority before moving in.

You know what was awesome about AMSs? They only cost 2 cert points. They were cheap. Gals are the most expensive unit in the game currently (400) and have a longer timer than anything else as well (1200 seconds w/o certs I think). Losing one is a big deal. In the past people used to pull several AMS just to make sure that there was a backup spawn point if the first got killed. You'll never see someone do that with a gal, it costs too much.

And bases aren't farther apart, if anything they're closer together. It's just that you can only pull the gal at either the tech or warpgate so it seems farther. The sundy can be pulled at a lot of locations.

[WNxThentar]

I haven't reviewed the video but I think you missed the point of the conversation. It's not that the gal is bad it's that it's not enough. Vehicle flexibility and not needing to depend on one large, inconspicuous vehicle to carry the hopes and dreams of your assault. Right now ground forces such as tanks and sundies really can't push because they have to take a point in order to get a spawn point they can use for reinforcement. If they get out of their tanks to take said point and they get killed, well that's their vehicle gone because there isn't a nearby spawn. Having Gals as the only spawn mandates that you have air superiority before moving in.

You know what was awesome about AMSs? They only cost 2 cert points. They were cheap. Gals are the most expensive unit in the game currently (400) and have a longer timer than anything else as well (1200 seconds w/o certs I think). Losing one is a big deal. In the past people used to pull several AMS just to make sure that there was a backup spawn point if the first got killed. You'll never see someone do that with a gal, it costs too much.

And bases aren't farther apart, if anything they're closer together. It's just that you can only pull the gal at either the tech or warpgate so it seems farther. The sundy can be pulled at a lot of locations.


My issue is with the short sightedness like I said.

Basty seems the biggest culprit of this making lots of absolute statements like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3i05lykTE&feature=player_embedded#t=22m40s
where he says all bases should be like Zurvan and even after the other VS guy points out why funnelling everyone into one point isn't a great idea he says
"Ahhhh the server load isn't a concern because it is all in the base anyway and it is all one server"
Without haven't a clue how the network code or server manages that load.
He goes on to say "I'm playing Planetside 2 because I want to see 100 players on the screen" without thinking that 100 players funnelled through a single door is just stupid.

These bases are honestly not being attacked or defended well right now. A base, even zurvan, should have troops protecting key points in if the base is under assault. Not a mob of people running from 1 point to the next. Take Zurvan the ideal situation would be that players would be spread out. Some going to and holding the other points allowing other groups to get to the control console. Right now I think only 6 players count towards the capture mechanic ticket system. It is stupid to have 50-100 people trying to pack in that room.

As it is said this is early days. Right now most people are more focused on being where the "main action" is and not thinking "Hey we should recap point "E" and hold it so it doesn't just flip right back.

There is nothing wrong with having 7 control points. A good assault or defence should see groups staying at a control point especially if it is a tower or other very significant control point.

Right after that they brought up the seamless world and the following negative comments came up, and thankfully the obvious replies where said but ... really they are obvious.

Comment: Why water, why not just big land battles? Reply : because water is cool

Now for this one it is more then that. It isn't an either or proposition. Some people just get it in their head "Well I don't like this. It shouldn't be done because everyone must think just like me"

Comment: What is the use of warp gates if the world is seemless? Reply: for faster travel if you want to use it

You might as well say why have pistol x if there is pistol y? Because you have the choice.
Along those lines is the complaining about Indar being just a back and forth where PS1 wasn't like that. DUH! There is only one cont right now. Where is anyone supposed to go if they don't want to fight there. Think about what PS1 would be like if there was just 1 cont and if you get pushed off the cont you have no choice but to just come back.

Honestly these aren't topics that have deep and mysterious answers too.

Basty saying, at about 47m30s that who ever owns the north wins. Without working out that the while the footprint of that area is larger the resources are not imbalance and who ever is in the north also has the longest travel time to get from base to base. The only valid claim I see there is it is easier to cut the other 2 warp gates off since you don't have to capture all the territory around the warp gates.

I don't have a problem with other spawning options but a AMS style shouldn't be just obtainable by just everyone. One of the things to defending has to be the fact that you can actually push people further out from the base.

As far as the Gal goes Hamma points out that a deployed gal should be harder to kill so buffing AA doesn't invalidate the gal. The gal is expensive. Honestly it should take more then 1 person to protect that thing. It is also a nice xp machine at a good fight. Sure it needs tweaking. Sure I don't have a problem with advance certs and modifications to the bus or other vehicle for other types of spawn locations but I do have an issue if spawn locations become cheep and easy.

The bases aren't closer together. Because of the outpost it might seem that way but actually look at how long it takes to get from one actual base to the next. It isn't that close. Yes because of the way air is the cont can seem small but that is an issue with fast air craft.

Anyway...I'm waffling on. I'm going to take a day of leave and try to get in the next community night :)

[Captain1nsaneo]

My issue is with the short sightedness like I said.

Basty seems the biggest culprit of this making lots of absolute statements like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3i05lykTE&feature=player_embedded#t=22m40s
where he says all bases should be like Zurvan and even after the other VS guy points out why funnelling everyone into one point isn't a great idea he says
"Ahhhh the server load isn't a concern because it is all in the base anyway and it is all one server"
Without haven't a clue how the network code or server manages that load.
He goes on to say "I'm playing Planetside 2 because I want to see 100 players on the screen" without thinking that 100 players funnelled through a single door is just stupid.

As the other VS guy I have to agree that I have no idea what Basti was going on about with player density not mattering to tech. I do however agree with his sentiment that the core of Planetside is huge fights (it's the freaking tagline) and that efforts to spread out the fights seems disingenuous to the focus of the game even if it does stress the tech. This is why the fight at Zurvan is interesting as it focuses the fight somewhat.
However, Zurvan isn't setup as a single point cap despite appearances. To get to the point you have to disable two generators which are on opposite sides of the base and there are 3 nearby spawn points that act as staging grounds. This spreads the fight out considerably and prevents massive numbers from just trying to get into one tiny room.



These bases are honestly not being attacked or defended well right now. A base, even zurvan, should have troops protecting key points in if the base is under assault. Not a mob of people running from 1 point to the next. Take Zurvan the ideal situation would be that players would be spread out. Some going to and holding the other points allowing other groups to get to the control console. Right now I think only 6 players count towards the capture mechanic ticket system. It is stupid to have 50-100 people trying to pack in that room.

As it is said this is early days. Right now most people are more focused on being where the "main action" is and not thinking "Hey we should recap point "E" and hold it so it doesn't just flip right back.

I think you give players too little credit. I've been at Zurvan for most of my play time recently and I've seen plenty of work to protect and keep the shield gens up as well as holding the walls. Players adapt very fast and if they needed to stay in the gen room to keep them up they would. But they don't because they don't need to. The reason for that I believe is due to spawning but that deserves it's own paragraph.



There is nothing wrong with having 7 control points. A good assault or defence should see groups staying at a control point especially if it is a tower or other very significant control point.

There's a problem with 7 control points when you don't have large forces fighting over the base. Squad vs Squad would make a 7 control point base a game of whack-a-mole as I believe Basti said. PS2 is doing big fights pretty well right now but smaller fights suffer from the capture mechanics.


Right after that they brought up the seamless world and the following negative comments came up, and thankfully the obvious replies where said but ... really they are obvious.

Comment: Why water, why not just big land battles? Reply : because water is cool

Now for this one it is more then that. It isn't an either or proposition. Some people just get it in their head "Well I don't like this. It shouldn't be done because everyone must think just like me"

Comment: What is the use of warp gates if the world is seemless? Reply: for faster travel if you want to use it

You might as well say why have pistol x if there is pistol y? Because you have the choice.

As the one who made the comment about a land war in Asia I'm disappointed that no one actually got what I was referring to (though upon re-watching I can see how it might have happened). What I see is something so wonderful that I will have difficulty properly explaining it. Imagine that Indar is Britain, Amerish is Ireland, and Esamir is Greenland. Now make them seamless with water between them for naval fights. That's cool, naval warfare is cool, I would love being stuck in the belly of a battleship feeding ammo up from the magazine as long as the whole ship shook when the cannons fired. Keep that setting in your mind. Now think, Europe is just to the south, how much bigger is Europe to Britain? How much bigger is the Pacific to the Atlantic? Why can't we have spy satellites watching the NC shipyards along the Côte d'Ivoire seeing if they've launched their fleet to attack the shores of Brazil. Warpgates linking Siberia directly to Africa. I want a WORLD. With seamless tech this should be possible the only question is why are they thinking so small?



Along those lines is the complaining about Indar being just a back and forth where PS1 wasn't like that. DUH! There is only one cont right now. Where is anyone supposed to go if they don't want to fight there. Think about what PS1 would be like if there was just 1 cont and if you get pushed off the cont you have no choice but to just come back.

We're talking long-term here not short-term. The devs have said that warpgates are footholds that can not be taken. This enforces a three way at all times even if we do have several different conts. Unless footholds get split up between the conts we will continue to see this. Hamma mentions this in the broadcast and that doesn't know how he feels about it.



Honestly these aren't topics that have deep and mysterious answers too.

Then how about this question: Why did the commentators at The International 2 have both Space and Back_Space bound to items? Because that question is keeping me up at night. It doesn't even make sense! Your hand is around wasd and using Space for an item makes good sense (heck, I do it) but then why Back_Space? It's on the other side of the keyboard!



Basty saying, at about 47m30s that who ever owns the north wins. Without working out that the while the footprint of that area is larger the resources are not imbalance and who ever is in the north also has the longest travel time to get from base to base. The only valid claim I see there is it is easier to cut the other 2 warp gates off since you don't have to capture all the territory around the warp gates.

Yeah, I agree with you on this. All sides typically hold 3 bases and I've seen all 3 sides be stuck in their warpgates.


I don't have a problem with other spawning options but a AMS style shouldn't be just obtainable by just everyone. One of the things to defending has to be the fact that you can actually push people further out from the base.

As far as the Gal goes Hamma points out that a deployed gal should be harder to kill so buffing AA doesn't invalidate the gal. The gal is expensive. Honestly it should take more then 1 person to protect that thing. It is also a nice xp machine at a good fight. Sure it needs tweaking. Sure I don't have a problem with advance certs and modifications to the bus or other vehicle for other types of spawn locations but I do have an issue if spawn locations become cheep and easy.

Why do you have a problem if spawn locations become cheaper and easier? I ask because if there are more spawn points that means that we'll see more fights in more places. Right now at Zurvan the only sides of the base you'll be attacked on are the ones that face the mini-bases. Personally I'd like to see more of the cont be opened up for infantry fights.



The bases aren't closer together. Because of the outpost it might seem that way but actually look at how long it takes to get from one actual base to the next. It isn't that close. Yes because of the way air is the cont can seem small but that is an issue with fast air craft.

I think that this is actually a bad topic now that I think about it. Because distance between PS1 bases varied drastically (Kaang -> Itan, Itan -> Tore). Aja to Chuku is a freaking huge LLU run while Cetan to Heyoka was tiny. The PS2 base distance is fairly constant.



Anyway...I'm waffling on. I'm going to take a day of leave and try to get in the next community night :)

And I've been unfair by dissecting your post thereby making my own difficult to respond to in any sort of detail and I apologize for it. But still I want answers damn it! Where were you last Saturday at 4pm! WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO... oh, wait. Sorry about that, forgot where I was. Hope to see you on AGN as well. :)

[Shogun]

hmmmmm

hamma is cpt. obvious?

doesn´t this make him cpt. hamma?
cpt. hamma is brilliantly pictured by nathan fillion:
Dr. Horrible***39;s Sing-Along Blog A Man***39;s Gotta Do (+ Reprise) - YouTube

course she´s with cpt. hamma, and these ... are not the hamma ;)

[WNxThentar]

As the other VS guy I have to agree that I have no idea what Basti was going on about with player density not mattering to tech
...
I think you give players too little credit. I've been at Zurvan for most of my play time recently and I've seen plenty of work to protect and keep the shield gens up as well as holding the walls. Players adapt very fast and if they needed to stay in the gen room to keep them up they would. But they don't because they don't need to. The reason for that I believe is due to spawning but that deserves it's own paragraph.


No disagreements here for me. I'm not saying I don't want to see hundreds of people at once but the Zurvan control point is not the place for 100s of people at the same time. If they get the xp and resource bonus right then people should be spread out a bit more instead of worrying "I have to be 5 feet from the control point to get xp/resources. I have this issue where I'm capping an outpost all by myself in my scythe just hovering at it and one a few occasions some other person in a vehicle rams into me because they are afraid they won't get the 100xp for the smaller flips of the control panel.

If I know that I can earn xp and resources properly for the bases flipping then I have no issue at all pushing out further from the control points to stop the attackers or defenders trying to get back in. I agree the zerg will be the zerg but after a bit of playing you'll get the zerg doing some stuff you can predict then you'll have lots of other clued in squads doing things like, patrolling for infiltrators, protecting gen and SCU etc. I'm glad to see that even with broken AA turrets there are plenty of people willing to man them. I like how turrets at Zurvan seem to be used a lot more then turrets in PS1 often were.



There's a problem with 7 control points when you don't have large forces fighting over the base. Squad vs Squad would make a 7 control point base a game of whack-a-mole as I believe Basti said. PS2 is doing big fights pretty well right now but smaller fights suffer from the capture mechanics.



I think this is a tweaking issue. Right now since it is hard to know/get notified when one of your bases is getting attacked that you should defend it and with how much resources, personnel wise. When that gets a bit better and we start to get some real communication going on then both attacking and defending a base should be more epic. Right now conts are locked at 2,000 players but remember this is a soft limit in that the end vision is not to have limits like that. Especially by the time we get to seamless conts then you'll be working with much higher bandwidth, better networking code, better graphical hardware.

I also see the wack a mole problem but part of that, at least for me, at the moment is that spotting is TOTALLY hosed. As a pilot that provides close air support I'd like to be able to see on my mini map where enemies have been spotted but that stopped happing about a week or 2 ago. If someone can spot an enemy, do a region say of "Enemy running towards check point "C" then someone like me in an aircraft can dart over pretty quick and lay down the rain of PPA. And it becomes less of a platoon trying to wack 1 mole running around to a few coordinated people can stop annoying hack attempts. That along with the adjacent hex system should and has reduced that some what but we still have to wait for further tools to effectively fight.



As the one who made the comment about a land war in Asia I'm disappointed that no one actually got what I was referring to (though upon re-watching I can see how it might have happened). What I see is something so wonderful that I will have difficulty properly explaining it. Imagine that Indar is Britain, Amerish is Ireland, and Esamir is Greenland. Now make them seamless with water between them for naval fights. That's cool, naval warfare is cool, I would love being stuck in the belly of a battleship feeding ammo up from the magazine as long as the whole ship shook when the cannons fired. Keep that setting in your mind. Now think, Europe is just to the south, how much bigger is Europe to Britain? How much bigger is the Pacific to the Atlantic? Why can't we have spy satellites watching the NC shipyards along the Côte d'Ivoire seeing if they've launched their fleet to attack the shores of Brazil. Warpgates linking Siberia directly to Africa. I want a WORLD. With seamless tech this should be possible the only question is why are they thinking so small?


I got you and I can give you an answer paraphrasing Smed and Higby. They want a HUGE world and even multiple planets. All players are on effectively 1 universe or "shard" if you are familiar with EVE. Technology wise what most people call a server "West Coast 01, East Coast 01, etc" are not servers. Indar wouldn't even be a server. Its a server farm. Very clever load balancing can handle shuffling stuff in a seamless manner.

Now there is a balance they need to strike. Like it was mentioned you could have a massive world that takes hours to fly across and months to run across but what does that do? Right now the focus is on fighting. Thus Indar seems pretty small and crouded. Having a larger land mass just spreading things out just slows down the movement of the front by having longer travel times. While more realistic I already hear people complain about having to run a kilometre or more to which I say "pull a vehicle/request transport"

Anyway its a balance of nicely hand constructed world where there is a reason for much of what you see, keeping the fight going, Having the concentration of players to have an effective fight. I personally don't think they are thinking small at all. I think they are starting with what is technically feasible, mostly client side wise, and looking to make it expandable for later. We can all dream of the day when the world we play on is spherical, travel is not hindered by loading screens, where you could fly your air craft into orbit and maybe to another world. But as neat as that sounds what is the reality? The reality is that no one would want to play a game where if they've just flown from another world that it takes them 20 minutes to re-enter the atmosphere so we have things like "Continents" that are the size of a small town. How they get oceans into the game and make them playable and not just empty water space hardly ever used is going to be the bigger challenge then how do they actually do it technology wise.



We're talking long-term here not short-term. The devs have said that warpgates are footholds that can not be taken. This enforces a three way at all times even if we do have several different conts. Unless footholds get split up between the conts we will continue to see this. Hamma mentions this in the broadcast and that doesn't know how he feels about it.



Again I think this is a "long term temporary solution" in that it gets the job done for now. I thought having hundreds of people in the warp gate would be worse then it actually is. For now given they don't want to spend the time on sanctuaries over actual contestable land the warp gates are doing well. I'm not sure the devs even want an empire to have control of a cont for a week or even a whole day. Here is why.

Take PS1. All the conts...sure you can look at the map and say "Wooo look at all that [insert empire colour here]" but what that means in reality is "Woooo look at all that territory where no fighting is going on ... in this game about fighting. Its an issue with MMO's often. Look at games like EQ2 where newby zones can see no one there for weeks. What the devs want is a content that will be used today, tomorrow, next year, 5 years from now. Thankfully we don't have the levelling issue where Indar will be "to easy/low level". As time passes and they introduce more content, in the form of more areas to fight in, one of the things they want to do is merge the servers together with the end goal being Planetside 2 being 1 server with tons of places to fight and where you could end up fighting with or against any one of the hundreds of thousands of players that play planet side. They've said it before they are kind of flipping EVE on its head but eventually you may see much more of a meta game in PS2. More on this at the end.


I'd have to go searching but I don't believe this is the way it is going to stay. IE in 3 years we probably won't see this or we wont see it on new conts in that the warp gates will be just that warp gates. But for now, with no sanctuary, they are needed and with even only 3 conts there needed to be more then one point an empire has to push into the world.


This is exactly my impression from what I've heard from everyone at SOE.


Then how about this question: Why did the commentators at The International 2 have both Space and Back_Space bound to items? Because that question is keeping me up at night. It doesn't even make sense! Your hand is around wasd and using Space for an item makes good sense (heck, I do it) but then why Back_Space? It's on the other side of the keyboard!


I'm not sure what you are referring to. But how peopel bind their controls is up to them. Why some of the defaults are the way they are? I'm sure someone knows the reasoning even if it is "we just looked for a unused key". The more complex the game the more controls you need. I use logitech products and my G510 and G13 are configurable and programmable. I'd LOVE logitech if they came out with a gaming keyboard for the left hand with a thumb track ball :)



Yeah, I agree with you on this. All sides typically hold 3 bases and I've seen all 3 sides be stuck in their warpgates.



It is a little harder to completely block off who ever has the north warp gate from all resources but not enough for me to care especially if they rotate it every few weeks...or how about in the future if you push the other 2 off the cont then that causes a warp gate rotation?


Why do you have a problem if spawn locations become cheaper and easier? I ask because if there are more spawn points that means that we'll see more fights in more places. Right now at Zurvan the only sides of the base you'll be attacked on are the ones that face the mini-bases. Personally I'd like to see more of the cont be opened up for infantry fights.


Because it causes a whack a mole problem. Right now you can identify where the enemy is coming from. Again I'm not saying don't have it but a cloaking AMS style spawn point should be advanced certs in my opinion. I'd be ok with some larger then bang bus AMS without a cloak. Smaller then a gal, cheaper but still bigger then a bang bus, maybe 1.5 times as long ...like an actual bus. Do you remember the early AMS with actual spawn tubes? Something like that but longer with 4 spawn tubs and equipment terminals.

If you never have a hope of breaking the enemies ability to spawn then many battles will just never end. If you get pushed out of base and you are trying to re-secure it then in my opinion it should be a high priority to get the SCU up and not just roll in 20 AMS's around the base. Just my opinion tho.



I think that this is actually a bad topic now that I think about it. Because distance between PS1 bases varied drastically (Kaang -> Itan, Itan -> Tore). Aja to Chuku is a freaking huge LLU run while Cetan to Heyoka was tiny. The PS2 base distance is fairly constant.



Yes, and the biggest difference is Mao to the other 2 northern bases. The bases by enlarge are about 2.75km - 3km apart besides Mao. Kind of hard to divide a square cont into 3 equally sized and shaped pieces. I do agree that for air craft the cont do seem a bit smaller and by design these conts are designed to have fighting on on just about every square metre.



And I've been unfair by dissecting your post thereby making my own difficult to respond to in any sort of detail and I apologize for it. But still I want answers damn it! Where were you last Saturday at 4pm! WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO... oh, wait. Sorry about that, forgot where I was. Hope to see you on AGN as well. :)


No no its all good. Even with stuff I don't agree with there are plenty of times someone has said something that just totally reverse my opinion on it. I'm a bit OCD about people being negative. I am glad to see that mutliple times multiple people, including you, emphasized the fact that we are in early days of Beta. I'm just shocked that some of the comments made seem to be ignorant on what is planned. IE want to know the short term role of the infiltrator then look at the certs even if you can't unlock them you can get an idea of the direction. I laugh at some of the certs out there, IE range optics for lock on A2A missles....like why?!? But I've investigated the scythe because I love that. I love being an cloaker in PS1 so I wrote up all the certs for outfit members that haven't got in yet.

Back to the meta game.

I'm sure people will say "Oh I don't want mining in the game" or "Oh I don't want NPCs in the game" and along with those type of statements "It will just be a waste of development resources" and people have to remember that where SOE want this game to go is not just combat. Like it or not we'll probably see some type of crafting in PS2 in the far future. Like it or not we'll probably see people that just play the eventual economy in PS2. Now ... I'm not sure we'll ever see SWG type classes like the entertainer but don't be surprised in a few years when they introduce some rare resource that actually has to be mined by a player for specific weapon side grades to be used. Some might think it is a waste of time but others are going to LOVE it. And in my opinion if they implement it right then it doesn't matter if I don't want to do it. If it brings more people to the game and thus more money to SOE then we'll see more cool stuff we do like. But this stuff seriously is like 5+ years down the track in my mind. EVE has been trying to do "Walking in station" since 2006 and the closest they've got that so far is you can see your own avatar walk around your quarters that provides a different interface to the same functionality of the docking bay.

So my message to everyone about these long term ideas is if you find yourself making negative comments then pull your head out unless the long term idea is something like "We are going to remove combat completely from PS2" because just about everything else can be implemented in such a way that will have minimal effect on your game play or , surprise surprise, you might find out that it gets implemented in a way that you end up loving it. The devs are listening to us. They want us involved in the long term development of this game. The EQ slogan of "you're in our world now" isn't applicable. It is more "How will PS2 evolve?"

Stepping off the soap box now :)