[Firefly]

I played because it was never-ending nonstop battles. I played because I didn't have to worry about the match ending. I played because the leveling system only meant unlocking more weapons - a BR1 could theoretically still gun down a BR20. I played because of the game mechanics and the possibilities of virtually limitless tactics and strategies.

I believe there's a time and a place for "e-sports" shooters, and indeed I have fun with the ones which interest me. However, those games have an entirely different set of tactics and strategies. Planetside brough something to the table the likes of which have never been seen before.

I could take two squads of BR5s, arm them with Suppressors and Standard Armour, and using the lessons we learned and the tactics we developed, we could practically decimate competition if we chose our battles and our battlefields. I recall a "Pajama Party" that my outfit ran, where we had three full squads using aforementioned Suppressors and Standard Armour. In addition to the kills we racked up, we also dropped a Vanguard tank and a Reaver.

I can't recall having ever reached "end-game", where an empire was Sanc-locked. I know I was Sanc-locked on more than one occasion, and I'd hear every now and then that the TR managed to Sanc-lock someone but I was never on so it was second-hand hearsay to me.

An economy in an FPS is about as useless as tits on a bull. Really, what the fuck do I need economy and crafting for? That's my opinion and I'm open to having my mind changed by coherent, rational, valid and interesting arguments.

The biggest problem with Planetside, for me, was the stunning lack of marketing, support and the overabundance of attempts to after-birth abort the game by the company that created it. I got tired of trying to get people interested in playing that had never heard of the game. I was also turned off by SOE's decisions to pull developers off a perfectly playable game so they could make more expansions for some nerdy elf game.

Core Combat isn't so bad. It was hyped to be urban combat, close quarters battle, but it wasn't. It was just a different playing field for the same run-and-gun. Unfortunately, I don't really see a purpose to it aside from maybe some base benefits.

From the beginning, I was all for BFRs. And initially they were very interesting. But the waffling back and forth on their mechanics, function, design... coupled with the poor implementation... followed by the utter disregard for player feedback and complaints, and the subsequent nerfing all to hell made them a revolting pariah to me. When I first heard about them, I had hoped they could be used like BattleMechs. When they were used as base door-camping, in spite of the fact that something that large shouldn't even be inside a base, it ruined the fun for me and I started avoiding them. This gave way to "revenge syndrome" and I set out with my outfit to figure out how a squad of infantry on foot could utterly destroy something that required so much resources just to drive.

To me, Planetside is about truly massive battles. Take your 32-person server with a 15-minute game and get bent. Why would I settle for the same people using the same tactic for 15 minutes when I could literally spend 8 hours online at a stretch and repeat the same tactics maybe once or twice in that entire span? Unfortunately, with dwindling numbers due to a flagrant lack of care and concern for the ONLY MMO-FPS in existence...