Originally Posted by kaffis
This still doesn't get around a very simple problem:
Yes, "continent locking" is a goal Planetside vets are familiar with, and think is a good idea.
HOWEVER, the devs have repeatedly stated that the reason they've removed continent locking is that it quite simply removes large areas of land from the fight, for all the reasons that players feel like it's an accomplishment.
You can do that when you procedurally generate over a dozen continents, and don't have the subscription numbers to demand that each continent remain full.
You can't do that when you're handcrafting 64 square kilometers per continent. That's a huge amount of developer man-hours sunk into a big space that you've just said isn't in play so that some of the players can have an arbitrary sense of accomplishment.
Here's another idea: Let's get in beta, and figure out what kinds of arbitrary, emergent goals the system that's in place will support!
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Well, I never attempted to address that problem because I don't think it can be addressed, because the two ideas, "locking" (a nicer term is ownership) and "open for all" are completely different stances.
Think of continental ownership in terms of the hex territory ownership system hypothetically. If there was no territory/facility ownership, you could potentially have people fighting eachother on every square km of land at ALL times. HAVING the hex-territory system means that at any one time, most of the land is well within somebodies borders and nobodies fighting there...
But it's necessary, because you have to create a feeling of ownership for the players. You can't just have them spawning and running at each other.
The same is true on an intercontinental level. By having no proper system of ownership and progression of owning continents, there's no feeling of ownership by the players. The sense of ownership is literally EVERYTHING in a tactical game. If there's no ownership of continents, then there's no intercontinental play AT ALL, and the game's scale is therefore reduced... The only thing players will feel like they're fighting to control is hexes/facilities, and not continents or planets like in PlanetSide.
And then, I mentioned this in another thread. You're looking at it the wrong way if you think it's a good thing for people to be able to play on any continent they want at any time. Locking continents means that continents that are locked will feel like PREMIUM content in the eyes of a player. They'll log in one day and see that the battle is taking place on their FAVOURITE cont which hasn't had any fights on it for a couple of weeks, and you can bet that they're going to spend as much time as they can playing that fight, because they don't always get the chance. It's exploiting the "string in front of the cat" psychology of people, and it's perfect too, because most of the time what continent their fighting on doesn't really affect their actual gameplay experience and it's not something they're actually going to feel dissatisfied by... when they DO get to fight on a continent they really like, it will feel like an epic bonus.
So yeah. Plus remember, locking isn't that common especially with a big population. The only continents in PS1 that were ever truly "locked" for extended periods were the home continents, and that was just to do with the way the lattice system rules worked.