NPC's in planetside? - Page 5

artifice · 2012-02-19, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Redshift

PS2 has no competitors atm, nothing offers the scale of PS2, shit nothing offers the scale of PS1 still.

I disagree that nothing has the scale. EVE is a massive sandbox MMO that involve hundreds of ships battling each other and the entire game being played in a single universe. In the upcoming games, Guild Wars 2 will have 2,000 players in their WvW.

A game is limited by its netcode, graphics engine, and the servers it runs on.

Whalenator · 2012-02-19, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by Magpie

Just no, it would take too much Programing to make the world lag. I get what your saying but coping with 666 vs 666 vs 666 and all the actions that go with Nearly 2000 people is a ground braking challenge. They tryed and tested it in ps1 but if was too much CPU space on the severs

Planetside 2 has got a big dinner to eat it don't need a side order to be sick over, it would make the dinner nasty

This is not WOW

This is PLANTSIDE 2

^

Conq · 2012-02-19, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by Redshift

PS2 has no competitors atm.

What a silly thing to say.

You think people will magically coalesce out of thin air to play PlanetSide 2 and buy shit off their cash shop? In it's prime PS1 only had around 75k subscribers and even if they all returned for the sequel, it wouldn't mean squat. Games take a lot of money to make and maintain these days and PS2 will need more than most since it's starting off f2p.

Every mmo and fps on the market is their competitor and they will have to fight them for players. If you veterans can't realize that and can't learn to cope with alterations (like the new class system) that are necessary to bring in new players then you are going to be sorely disappointed with this game.

SniperSteve · 2012-02-19, 07:08 PM

One of the huge draws that PS1 and now PS2 have is that everything is 100% PvP. There are other games with PvE (think Global Agenda - and how bad that turned out) that you can play if you need your FPS PvE fix.

PvE is so stale and boring. It is just a pointless grind for levels or pointless quests. You are not interacting with real people that you can become mortal enemies or strong allies with. PvE feels empty and alone. PvP feels like an epic war where things matter.

My argument that I propose is that as soon as you add any PvE/Bot element to the game, it cheapens it, even if the bots are like shop keeps or some retarded thing like that. The reason why I say this is because then you start identifying things as 'fake', and you loose the immersion. When every moving character in the game is controlled by a real person somewhere, everything you see is essentially alive.

When you look onto a battlefield you will see hundreds of people, each one of them a human being that has a story and a reason for fighting you and wants you dead. THAT is why 100% PvP is so powerful. This PvE stuff makes me sick, because you are seeing a game that is coming as close to a real full-out war as you can possibly get with today's hardware, and you are asking for us to accept playing against/with computers instead of in an epic battle where each person on the battlefield is REAL.

I strongly suggest you stop advocating PvE for two reasons:

Firstly: Wait and see. If PvP is as awesome as we claim it is, you will love it and never go back to PvE. I have.

Secondly: There are plenty of other games you can play that have PvE. We want something different than the current main-stream PvE with PvP areas/instances that are mainstream right now. Kindly don't mess this up for us.

Sirisian · 2012-02-19, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by SniperSteve

One of the huge draws that PS1 and now PS2 have is that everything is 100% PvP.

I joined up for the large battles mostly. Sure PVP is nice, but 100% PVP isn't necessary for that. I'm reminded of that Vanguard: SOH game and their free for all PVP servers. The PVP was a small part of the game and the PVE was a large part seamlessly brought together. Planetside 2 would basically focus on PVP and have a living world where PVE (non-experience) existed in the continents.

Also no one is asking for PVE content like an MMORPG. I think you're reading into it too much. (Someone would have to speak up. I've never seen anyone ask for that).

Originally Posted by SniperSteve

My argument that I propose is that as soon as you add any PvE/Bot element to the game, it cheapens it, even if the bots are like shop keeps or some retarded thing like that. The reason why I say this is because then you start identifying things as 'fake', and you loose the immersion. When every moving character in the game is controlled by a real person somewhere, everything you see is essentially alive.

100% agreed when it comes to bots that do what players could be doing. Adding other humanoids that are identical to players does cheapen the game. Adding creatures that fill their own nitch in the continents however is something I feel would add a lot to an MMOFPS. Adding things doesn't necessarily have to detract from the core PVP gameplay, if that makes sense.

Tatwi · 2012-02-19, 07:39 PM

Originally Posted by artifice

If I was writing a review for an MMO that didn't properly immerse the player which NPCs are very much apart of, I would probably deduct points. Especially when that MMO will be going up against competitors that do have that aspect.

Huh.

Personally, I would give Planetside 2 bonus points for being the only MMO with the balls to force players to learn from each other and therefore have no need for NPCs.

Want to learn how something works? Ask that Engineer over there. I bet if he doesn't know the answer, he'll point you in the right direction. That's how a community based game is supposed to function and PS2 will nail it like no other game has. Really, we can call it a PvP game, but it's more of a PwP game.

PwP: "Play with People" - your side vs. everyone else!

If you expect to do well in PS2, you'll have to become part of the community, which makes your character light years more interesting than some static NPC ever could be. And the best part is that EVERY character you see on your screen is controlled by a real person, so you really CAN interact with the whole universe. The only down side is if you're simply too introverted to want to interact with other people and if that's case, well, you're missing the whole point of these kinds of games anyhow.

Senyu · 2012-02-19, 07:57 PM

Animals.....maybe.

But only after entensive testing on how they effect gameplay. So no time soon.

Tatwi · 2012-02-19, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Adding things doesn't necessarily have to detract from the core PVP gameplay, if that makes sense.

I love the virtual world aspects you're going for here and I'd say, "Sure! Go for it! That would be beautiful!", if all of those things were able to instantaneously magically appear in 100% functional form and at no cost, both instantly and long term, for SOE. Picking sea shells by the sea shore and feeling the sand between your toes are wonderful things, but spending the time and money on putting them into a PvP shooter game "just because" seems like a waste of time and money to me.

As an example, the folks who made Ultima Online spent months creating a functioning ecosystem for the game. It was apparently a very hard thing to program, but in the end the animals, plants, and areas were all intertwined such that effecting one effected the whole, similar to real life. Sounds great, right? Amazing achievement guys! Except for the fact that they removed it later on because.... it turned out that players just killed everything far too quickly for any ecosystem to evolve beyond the initial beginning spawns. So, all that work, all that time and money, was 100% wasted and they just removed it from the game. No matter how you slice it, that's time and money they could have spent on something else.

Virtual world stuff would be great in PS2, if it were free for SOE and without bugs.

That said, SOE can't over look the importance of community building systems... stuff that gives people incentive to actually DO things together and what not. A great start is not making everyone on the battlefield a master of every possible thing there is to do, making it so they don't need anyone else - that was a stupid aspect of PS1.

DaddyTickles · 2012-02-19, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by basti

I want a little pet midged that i can send into a door of an enemy base to check if its safe.

I think you play different hours to Higby

fod · 2012-02-19, 08:56 PM

no
because it WILL degrade performance - anything that remains persistant for all people in the game will need to be tracked by the server which will increase server load, also anything that has to be drawn on screen will affect local (your pc) performance (you allready have to draw hundreds of players on the screen at once)

i play for pvp and if there are any server resources left after they did end up making the game then id rather those resources be put to better use - like more players

Livefire · 2012-02-19, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

This. PVP is the POINT of the game, having even passive NPCs just distracts from the focus of the game. Adding in NPCs doesn't raise the standards of the game, in fact it would make it worse. I don't want to have to fight off rhinos and zebras when I'm trying to fight off other players.

I agree that you should not have to fight them in anyway, I want them 100% PASSIVE but they can fill intricate story plot lines of the game and could be used in the xp system, objective base cap system, equipment system, training system, and enhancement of the worlds immersion as a whole.

DaddyTickles · 2012-02-19, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by Livefire

I agree that you should not have to fight them in anyway, I want them 100% PASSIVE but they can fill intricate story plot lines of the game and could be used in the xp system, objective base cap system, equipment system, training system, and enhancement of the worlds immersion as a whole.

Or we could just not have them at all.

Lol "intricate stroy plot lines", indeed.

Sirisian · 2012-02-19, 09:40 PM

Originally Posted by Tatwi

Virtual world stuff would be great in PS2, if it were free for SOE and without bugs.

That's a really good point. It's important for SOE to prioritize content. (Been waiting to see what their 3 year plan looks like).

It's also important to realize that forgelight is the same engine being used for the new Everquest game which is an MMORPG according the wiki so it might already have stuff in that would make adding creatures later in the 3 year plan faster for low development cost and low performance cost.

Originally Posted by fod

it WILL degrade performance

I don't know about that. I mean sure there will be a performance impact of adding anything to the game. Does that mean nothing should ever be added? Like I said before it's best to leave it professionals to decide that. Having a few creatures spread throughout a world between bases in the 8x8 km might not be as intensive as you imagine since there's probably less of a concentration of players.

The way I was imagining it before was as someone else mentioned more of a virtual living world. So if you're heading to the battle and just grabbed a vehicle you might see a creature. Or if you were going through a forest with your squad you might see them. Some might prove to be very strong so messing with them might mean you just keep driving. (Like if a larger creature charged a tank and pushed it like a Sunderer does you might be inclined not to mess with them during battle or go near them).

Livefire · 2012-02-19, 09:41 PM

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that people championing this idea either haven't played Planetside, or sucked really bad at it.

Wrong, Wrong big time I have played since beta and can hold my own just fine

And I also know that at 3 in the morning hanging out in a dead world when ever it is not packed with players sucks. I want a fully immersive living world in planetside. And I think it can be done in 2012 with out performance drop.

Aurmanite · 2012-02-19, 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by Livefire

Wrong, Wrong big time I have played since beta and can hold my own just fine

And I also know that at 3 in the morning hanging out in a dead world when ever it is not packed with players sucks. I want a fully immersive living world in planetside. And I think it can be done in 2012 with out performance drop.

Planetside isn't about fully immersive living worlds. Planetside is a multiplayer shooter.

Do other multiplayer shooters have NPC's and fully immersive living worlds? No.

It's just a bad idea, man. Global Agenda and Tabula Rasa tried similar stuff. It was just bad.

You're trying to cross boundaries and blur lines and add something that is essentially nothing.