Planetside Idea Lab

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by EarlyDawn

Ooooh, comtech window!

Any ETA?

Before Christmas.

Mwahahahahah!

I'll finish it as soon as I can.

Part of my todo list:

Urban Outposts
Deployable Emplacements
Squad HUD improvements
Command Squad updates
Empire Tech Levels
Sanctuary Capitals
Outfit Camps and Barracks
Player Salaries
Continents (w/standard, geographical, and tactical maps)
Comtech, Tech, Adv Tech
Personal Inventory additions
Current Weapons
Current Vehicles
Current Facilities
Tower cut-aways
Squad compositions
Engineer version of Medic-location feature
Player tracker
Outfit privacy filters
Outfit audit features
Custom addons for Standard Armor (berets, caps, etc)
Hacking status above terminals
Damage status above terminals
Battleplan improvements
MP3 player concept shots
Empire-specific emoticons for forums
Various Wishful Patch Notes illustrations
Navy concepts (zones, lattice, certs, vehicles, etc)
Space concepts (won't develop until # of players rises)

[EarlyDawn]

Bump the comtech stuff up. I think along with command squads, comtechs would add a lot more organization to the game and that's one of the biggest things the game is missing.

Outfit barracks sound cool too, though. Where do you start when you design all this stuff? I have a few ideas but I can never form coherant thoughts or designs for it.

[7ruth]

Hrm... thats a lot of stuff. Well, personally, I think the in game community could use some lovin. If you look at EVE, eve-online.com, I think that game has the whole community thing right.

Thanks, but I've got copies of those shots too. I'm creating a Comtech window with a lot more content to it though.

Good deal man, didn't think you knew about those.

I remember ELH. Weren't you guys on Konried, one of the largest TR outfits?

Yea, we were untill we were sabataged within our own ranks Twice! No repercussions for the perpetraitors either... I was in that outfit from release to about Christmas. The funny thing is that it has the second highest OP on the server and its been inactive for 6 months! That was a long time ago though, I have stuck with the name and created a new outfit which I command. My sig is actually a link to our website, and we are still trying to get a decent host...

I really want the Command Interface, because some time i will be commanding 5 outfit squads at once again, while running my own, and not feel like using paper to keep track of things. Its an odd thing when your MMOFPS game requires pen and paper to coordinate properly... Or its just I play to much and don't get enough sleep to be able to do it in my head...

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by EarlyDawn

Bump the comtech stuff up. I think along with command squads, comtechs would add a lot more organization to the game and that's one of the biggest things the game is missing.

Outfit barracks sound cool too, though. Where do you start when you design all this stuff? I have a few ideas but I can never form coherant thoughts or designs for it.

I'd rather work on those other things first than Comtech, seeing as the new certs take advantage of the proposed improvements. Some details for the Comtech will surface anyway as I release the deployable emplacements and towable equipment concepts.

I guess I start designing by either asking myself what's missing from a given feature, or I look at what we have in the real world and rework it so it fits with Planetside. I keep a pad and pen with me as well to jot down any thoughts that come upon me when I'm drive or watching a movie or something.

It's kinda like sculpting with clay. You start with a lump of ideas and sketches for one concept, then you start pulling, pushing, and scrapping away at parts till you get something that looks and feels right.

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by 7ruth

Well, personally, I think the in game community could use some lovin. If you look at EVE, eve-online.com, I think that game has the whole community thing right.

Funny you should mention EVE. Their website is actually my inspiration for the game-info webpages of Idealab (the history, continents, vehicles sections, etc.).

Yea, we were untill we were sabataged within our own ranks Twice!

That sucks. I'd heard something screwy was going on. That's too bad. You guys were respected by most of us NC. I'd say you were the Enclave or Sturm of Konried. Glad to see you're still keeping the legacy alive.

Its an odd thing when your MMOFPS game requires pen and paper to coordinate properly...

You've got a point there. Hopefully the Task Force concept can help with that. When I get back into town Monday, I'll look into getting more of those Command Squad graphics out, but I can't promise anything as I'm also job-hunting at the moment.

[7ruth]

hrm... the Enclave... they were a bunch of trouble makers when they were TR. We all hated them really, they blew up everything in bases we had hacked. There is one person i really hate and i'm pretty sure hes in the Enclave, FluffyJr, because he is one of the people that sabataged ELH in the first incident...

Anyways, I hope you find a job man. So... good luck with that man.

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by 7ruth

hrm... the Enclave... they were a bunch of trouble makers when they were TR. We all hated them really, they blew up everything in bases we had hacked.

Wow. I thought it was only a few characters within that outfit that were bad apples. That sucks if it was the whole group, because they've seemingly turned over a new leaf as NC and as far as I know those bad apples didn't cross over with them, thank goodness. Fallen Soldiers has done joint ops with them occassionally and they've been nothing if not professional about their work.

[Firefly]

I didn't read through all nine pages of this- that's a very professional looking site you have. I am curious if you work with Zombieside at all. I'm also curious what program you use to do your graphics, what your web engine is (like php, PostNuke, etc), and what program you use to design that page.

[jsloan31]

hmm, player salaries?

could you elaborate? (if this was already explained, sorry, didn't read all 12 pages.)

[Onizuka-GTO]

Oh, i've been looking at your site, Hayoo. and i just saw that Hud you got for Aircrafts, and thoughts of putting that for Tanks too? In Flashpoint they had the exact same Hud targeting system for the commander, and it made driving and gunning much easier.
Of course because Vanguard and Magriders only have two people, only the gunner will see it. But it would be great if say, your infantry part of your squad laser a target and it will show up on your Target Hud, or you could fire a missile that will be laser guided to the target.

Edit: Oh! perfect missile Artillery! Your Infantry people, laser any target call for a Barrage, you sit in your missile launcher vehicle (Far behind friendly held territory) and fire it into the air (at certain angle so that they will fall within that general area) and they will be guided down on to the designated target. If the laser is broken the missiles will just revert to dumb missiles and come down as normal.
What do you think?

[7ruth]

Well i don't know exactly what the Enclave have been up to on the NC side, but i'm thinking they don't like us TR much any more. I don't doubt that there wea only a few in the outfit that were giveing the outfit a bad name. What really got me though was when the whole outfit just up and went NC...

Oh, i've been looking at your site, Hayoo. and i just saw that Hud you got for Aircrafts, and thoughts of putting that for Tanks too? In Flashpoint they had the exact same Hud targeting system for the commander, and it made driving and gunning much easier.
Of course because Vanguard and Magriders only have two people, only the gunner will see it. But it would be great if say, your infantry part of your squad laser a target and it will show up on your Target Hud, or you could fire a missile that will be laser guided to the target.

Yea the Tank commander position was an ok deal, really helped if you had one. This would be a perfect solution to the V-W-V problems, because it really doesnt tell ya much =).
I played OFP a lot before i ever got my hands on Planetside. Good game, but it had a lot of lag, and warping problems. My favorite part about that game were the fan addons, like those f-18s that had cockpits that closed when you got in them. Man... I got so close to Mach 2 in one of those =) course i had to fly straight down. It was also cool to fly jumbo jets, cause you never really new how they would react when you tried to turn=). The Helicopters were fun to play with, hell the whole damn game was fun!
I did enjoy the way you controled a squad though, how when you told them to get into a formation a small wp would appear. Another part to that was when you selected an individual to go somewhere you could use your mouse to pinpoint the spot.

"Shilka 11 O'Clock, 500"

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I didn't read through all nine pages of this- that's a very professional looking site you have. I am curious if you work with Zombieside at all. I'm also curious what program you use to do your graphics, what your web engine is (like php, PostNuke, etc), and what program you use to design that page.

Thanks, Firefly

ZombieB and I haven't collaborated on anything yet but I did make a "Zombieside" banner for him which he liked enough to use for his site.

I use Fireworks, Flash, and Photoshop for graphics. When I start making models they will be done with Lightwave or Inspire 3D. To assemble the site I used Dreamweaver. I've done things the old fashioned html way rather than use php or coldfusion. It's just regular pages and server-side includes. It was much quicker to get the site going.

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by jsloan31

hmm, player salaries?

could you elaborate? (if this was already explained, sorry, didn't read all 12 pages.)

I haven't really revealed details yet but I might as well reveal more here since the idea ties into the Urban Outposts concept.

Many of the outposts have hackable "goods terminals" scattered in some of the public buildings or PX stores. Basically it's a way for soldiers to get standard ammo or basic supplies in town when an AMS is not available or the outpost is under enemy control. You can't get missiles or rocket launchers or vehicle ammo and other heavy equipment. They also allow for the purchase of other one-time devices that I'm still working on. And perhaps some individual perks like increasing garage storage space or something like that.

Essentially, the player salaries (or rank-based salaries) is a seperate system with supplies that help but don't overpower a player (I'm hoping).

The way it works:

Imagine each player's matrix has only so much space, like a hard drive. As a player rises in rank, this space gets taken up with virtual memory to hold implant slots and certification points. So a BR6 guy has a lot of matrix space left. A BR20 guy has very little space left.

Now every cycle, salaries are paid (in amounts depending on rank). So the BR6 guy gets $30/cycle and has matrix space for up to, say, $1000. The BR20 guy gets paid $200 every cycle, but only has space for $250 perhaps. If the max limit is reached, no more money is deposited. Besides the moderate items like AP ammo and med-tool, some minor one-time use items can be purchased 'in town.' It's just another little self-sustatining goal for players to strive for. It also allows a sense of 'foraging' for the non-advanced hacker grunt if say an outposts power goes off. The goods-terminals are always open. Kinda like the Gun's and ammo department at a 24-7 Walmart.

BR6's can afford to buy multiple bigger-ticket items at once so long as they take the time to save up. BR20's can only afford to buy one bigger-ticket item and then must wait for the next cycle to get another.

(edit Also, money cannot be exchanged or traded. Items cannot be sold back to goods terminals for money either. You got what you got.

Obviously the major expoit for this is "muling": creating multiple characters to get more salary or buying the more expensive items and hoarding them in a locker.

I have some ideas to counter this, such as,

• only the last avatar you logged off with gains salary while offline. The other avatar accounts are in stasis until you log into them.
  
• Another idea is to space out the cycles in such a way that players logging off a low-BR character would have to wait for days in real time to build up to their max amount, and logging onto their high-BR character would halt the low-BR's salary accumulation. Naturally, players would try to play their high-BR avatar, then after they're done switch to the low-BR and let it accumulate salary while the player sleeps. Cheesy bastards. I'm thinking of other methods to counter these exploits.

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by Onizuka-GTO

Oh, i've been looking at your site, Hayoo. and i just saw that Hud you got for Aircrafts, and thoughts of putting that for Tanks too? In Flashpoint they had the exact same Hud targeting system for the commander, and it made driving and gunning much easier.

Well, I don't think I'l be having radar ability for ground vehicles. The best they have is the ground-sensor emplacement that warns you on the global map if a heavy vehicle has driven by. However, I am for the idea of a laze used to mark a target and every squad vehicle nearby would see it on their HUD so long as the beam's contact was made. Not a bad idea. Not sure about the laser guided munitions though. People are pissed off enough about the Flail and will be pissed off about artillery emplacements. I probably won't add the ability for vehicles to do that kind of precision.

It's slightly different for artillery, of course, so I'm a supporter of lazing for that since it promotes teamwork and someone is sacrifcing their gameplay to laze for the greater good.

[Hayoo]

Originally Posted by 7ruth

What really got me though was when the whole outfit just up and went NC...

They said they weren't appreciated by the TR and were generally scorned for their 'overkill' galaxy and gen-drop tactics.

I downloaded the OFP demo cause I liked the trailers and gameply footage, but I never got around to playing it.

Instead I've taken to viewing the modding sites every so often. Granted they're completely based on real units, but even reality has some nice concepts I need reminding of at times.

For OFP was it multiplayer based? As in your squad made up of players? Or was it players controlled their own seperate squads?