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Old 2012-10-14, 06:23 AM   [Ignore Me] #94
Captain1nsaneo
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Re: Joining the PS2 Team


Originally Posted by Malorn View Post
5) Variety & Freshness. This goes to fun factor... keeping the game fresh is important, like seeing new continents or seeing the same content in a different context. The day-night cycle helps with this, and weather will help also. Cross-continent warfare is another way this will stay fresh. Having a unique fight and seeing places the player may not have ever had a fight before, or perhaps a very different fight from the last time. Keeping the battle moving along is a bit part of this and not letting every day devolve into the same fight at the same place. New weapons to unlock, new certs to try out, having something to look forward to. This is all what I would consider essential to long-term success so players don't get bored of the same thing all the time.
I highly recommend reading your new boss's ideas on that.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10...-fu/#continued

I agree with Smed that players are eating through content at a much faster rate than can be produced. We've gotten better at breaking down games and there are more of us for better parallel processing. Making new content should be looked at how to maximize effect. Let's take some quick looks at examples from the past.

Battle Islands, when they were released they were actually quite fun to play on and people would jump at the chance to fight on one that lined up with their desired game play. (This was before the last rule change that homogenized their rule sets and effectively made them terra non grata) The thing that drew players to them was not the territory but the rules that went along with it. New ground can be scouted out and processed in a very short amount of time by any old commander but the restrictions on the tools available made specialists hunger for fights there. Quick example would be the tank fights that raged on desolation where the only AV was other tanks as aircraft were banned. Actually, I can think of salient examples from each of the 4 BI right after release.
Good times gone, ne'er to be again.

CE update, firstly can I just say I really hope that we get CE, infils, and squad exp soon because those are things that fight against needing good frames per second? Anyway, the update added the aegis, field turrets, cloaking turrets, flack turrets, and anti-tank traps. People came back to try these things out like you would expect from an update so you don't need large radical things to draw people back to a game they already like. These new tools allowed for greater creativity and leveraged PS's greatest asset of non-linear combat by which I mean that it is rare to be in a situation more than once. These new deployables added more variables that players could come into contact with in the field.
Chalk up another argument for CE being in PS2 in a larger role than it is now.

Caves. Let's not go into too many details as the caves on a whole bring up a whole range of emotions (Annwn anyone? It's Tubular!). The question is which added more gameplay to Planetside, the caves or cave lock? I'd say Cave lock as it could change whole fights around and added a lot to the meta game players had to consider.



There is something that occurs to me, in PS the speed of the game could swing from absolutely breakneck speeds to slow ambles through the countrysides. In PS2 there seems to be a much greater homogenization of speed and now I'm going to tell you that's bad because I'm a PS1 vet who hates change. No, just kidding. I'm going to tell you its bad because in those breathing spaces you can stop and look at the map and pick where to go or do what's even more important from a player retention point of view: Shoot the Shit.
We aren't here because Planetside was a flawless gem. Planetside has flaws. We are here because of each other and them.

I would like to see Planetside 2 learn from history.

If you find flaws or want me to try to elaborate on anything feel free to pick my brain.
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