Auraxian Inquirer Issue 2

GeoGnome · 2013-07-24, 10:09 PM

Letter from the Editor
Due to overwhelming support, I have decided that I will continue to provide the Auraxian Inquirer to Planetside Reddit, Planetside Universe, and the Official Planetside 2 forums. My goal here is to provide everyone with a picture of the week's news, including some of the stories that broke that week in Planetside 2's development. When there is a slow week, there is always old information that was missed the first time, revisits of topics to provide a historical overview of what the community does or should know, and updates on events happening in Planetside 2. I will provide everything I can to the best of my abilities every Wednesday.

If you have any love, hate, or respectful disagreements, feel free to contact me, the Inquirer has its own Twitter and E-mail for this very reason. Also if by any chance you, your outfit, your coalition, or whatever have decided to hold an event in Planetside 2 and would like it to be mentioned in the inquirer, by all means contact me, and I will be sure to make mention of it the following week and on my twitter

Contact Information
Twitter: @AuraxianNews
E-mail: [email protected]

There, now that we have gotten all that boring stuff out of the way, I'll think of something meaningful to say next week!

All Power to the Amp Stations!
After many months of speculation and uncertainty, SOE announced the plans for the Resource Revamp that will be introduced to Planetside 2 (Link to Roadmap). Thankfully they have been more than willing to answer questions on the subject, Malorn has presented us with a wealth of information over the past week, as he has stepped in numerous times to try and clarify the details of the system, that is currently slated for a September release. For those who have not yet had time sift through all the available information, here you go:

Resources: The 3 resource system is being removed. Instead there will be 2 resources: Personal Resources and Facility power. The amount of resources you are allowed, is tied directly to the facility's power, and a constant drip of resources is granted to you the player, each minute. The drain of resources at a base will be tiered, so that it depends on the number of people present, but under ideal conditions the base can go from full power to no power in around 10 minutes. In order to replenish the power at that facility, Auraxium has to be brought to the base using some kind of land based transport. The only base that is incapable of losing power is the warpgate, and it will provide power to facilities connected to it slowly, so tech lining a base will mean that the base is incapable of refilling it's energy unless assisted by a players transporting resources to the base (Link)

Resource Allotment: When fighting, your resources that you have available to you, will be determined by the power level of the facility your faction is linked to. If you are defending, it will be the base in which you currently reside, if you are attacking, it will be the next base down the lattice lane, if it is a friendly base. If the base you are linked to (Or if you are not linked to any bases) is without power, you are without resources (Link)

Acquisition Timers: Acquisition timers will be totally removed in the resource revamp, and it is likely that the certs put into the timers will be refunded to players. Likewise, the hording of consumables will be a thing of the past. All consumables will refill upon respawn (Link)

Ants: For those not in the know, this is an ant (Link), but that isn't important right now... Advanced Nanite Transports (Link) have not been confirmed to be the new vehicle that will be used to transport Auraxium from resource hubs, which are either mines or some kind of mass extraction point, to bases. This doesn't mean Ants are out of the question, currently there are two options on the table: An attachment for the Sunderer that makes it into an Ant or a stand-alone vehicle that is an Ant. The only thing holding back the development of a new ant as a standalone vehicle, is that the developers want any vehicle introduced to be something greater than simply a space truck, so it needs to perform some kind of function in the game other than transporting material from the nodes to the bases. Any support for either of these options would best be expressed on your forum of choice, to help the community reach a consensus, especially if you can come up with some solution to Malorn's question: How can the Ant be more than -just- a space truck? (Link)

Neutrality: Bases in Planetside 1, when drained of power, could flip to neutral. This meant that the base was then available to anyone to capture, but would provide no benefits to either side fighting over it. It has been mentioned that this is something that is being considered in the current Resource Revamp. The concerns behind this system, is that it might lead to battles ending prematurely. Support for either side of this issue can and should be expressed as this is another one of those portions of the Resource Revamp that is currently up in the air (Link)

Total Domination
At the same time the Resource Revamp was introduced, another update was provided to us from SOE: The long awaited continental conquest system (Link to roadmap). Now the final goal in Planetside will be to not only drive the opposing faction from the base you are currently at, but to drive them all the way back to their Home. Each faction will have the unspoken obligation to not only be the ones who dominate their own continent, but the entire planet of Auraxis.

Warpgates: Currently all continents have 3 warpgates that are set up in such a way, that each faction has equal footing on all continents. In the continental lattice, each faction will have 1 home warpgate, that cannot be taken: The Northern warpgate of Indar, the Eastern warpgate of Esamir, and the Southern warpgate of Amerish. All other warpgates will be such that they can be seized like any other territory, in a way that is as of yet to be determined. The floor has been opened to the public to decide what they would like to see, when it comes to capturing warpgates. Of the warpgates that can be seized on each of the 3 home continents, one will link to a battle island, and both will link to one of the Hossin warpgates (Link)

Hossin and Nexus!
Make sure to pay attention to SOE live next week too, at SOE live, there is supposed to be a preview of Hossin and Nexus. Word from Higby, is that the two much sought after continents will be playable at SOE live. No word as to if they will be on the PTS around that time or not.
Mr. Moneybags Visits the Public Test Server
Creating new characters on the Public Test Server will now mean that you will be swimming in a ocean of certs. According to Luperza the Certs granted to new PTS characters will be 100,000 certs to start off. This is up from 10,000 certs, which was not received too well at the time of the test server's release. This seems like it could mean some attention is being paid to the fundamental population issues with the Public Test Server. As to if it will work, we will have to see.
All of the Subreddits
Each of the servers now has its own subbreddit! Announced on Reddit yesterday, all of the servers have a subreddit for events and server exclusive news. Be sure to visit your server's subreddit soon to keep well aware of all the things happening on your server. A full list of the subreddits are included here: Link

"Shut up and take my money!"
SOE has launched its new Recruitment program. Recruiting people to the game means granting recruits a nice boost after $10 spent for SC by the recruit. After someone has recruited enough people, special cosmetics will be granted to the recruiter. These rewards range from reskins of existing guns, to new reskins of the heat Cannon for the MBT. The response to these rewards has been mixed, as most of the rewards for new recruits are much sought after cosmetic rewards that have been teased at for some time, like the Black Crystalline camo. Response to the concerns thusfar, has been that the rewards need to be that good to encourage people to use the system (Link). The system also works across all SOE titles (Recruit page Link)

GU13 Launching in T-10,000... T-9,999
As of just a few hours ago GU13 successfully launched, allowing EU players their prime time on an update day for once. The official reason for the delay as stated by Higby, was that while the update was completed a couple days ago, SOE ran into difficulty when attempting to build and deploy the update. At time of writing though, the update is infact now live, so go play on Esamir 2.0! (Link to reason. Link to Patch notes)

And that's a wrap!
Next week's news will be delayed until Sunday the 4th, to take into account all the new news from SOE live. There will be another news post the following Wednesday, so we can keep on schedule.

TLDR
Contact Information for the Auraxian Inquirer is as follows
Twitter: @AuraxianNews
E-mail: [email protected]

Resource Revamp
3 resource system is gone, replaced by 2 resources: Power and personal
Personal resources dependent on power in facility you are linked to
Ants or sunderers will transport Auraxian from mines to bases to replenish power
Acquisition timers will be going away
Resources will refill once a minute
Link to Roadmap

Continental Lattice
Home warpgates will become the "Home" of each faction.
The homes are 1 warpgate on each of the 3 existing continents.
The 2 remaining warpgates will both link to one warpgate on Hossin
1 of the warpgates will link to a battle island
The battle island will serve as a shortcut between the 3 home continents
Link to roadmap

Hossin will be available for viewing and playing at SOE live

New characters on the PTS will gain 100,000 certs to start

The Recruiter Program has begun, details at the link
Recruit page Link

Subreddits have been openned for all the servers
Link

Game update 13 delayed due to technical difficulties
Game update 14 and 15 are currently in production though
Link to reason
Link to Patch notes

camycamera · 2013-07-25, 02:52 AM

i didn't know about the test server thing, nor the neutral bases thing.

easy to understand and informative as always, thanks!

Rolfski · 2013-07-25, 03:16 AM

If you put so much time and effort into this, why not make a buck out of it and reach a bigger audience at the same go? Themittani.com is always looking for decent PS2 journalists, just tell Marc Saurus or Mittens that I send you.

Snipefrag · 2013-07-25, 04:44 AM

All this work deserves a really nice format, maybe produce a pdf/ebook/kindle/iPad version that people can download and link it here along with the posts you produce? That way you could section of parts of the page for pictures etc. If you can make some money off it at Mittani then go for it, it would definitively make me go to their site more often.

Either way great stuff, keep it up. Look forward to the next edition

.

PredatorFour · 2013-07-25, 04:47 AM

It's amazing how they're going back to alot of things from PS 1 which were asked for by the so called... 'bitter vets' a while back. Great info nevertheless

GeoGnome · 2013-07-25, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by Snipefrag

All this work deserves a really nice format, maybe produce a pdf/ebook/kindle/iPad version that people can download and link it here along with the posts you produce? That way you could section of parts of the page for pictures etc. If you can make some money off it at Mittani then go for it, it would definitively make me go to their site more often.

Either way great stuff, keep it up. Look forward to the next edition

.

I am trying to decide on another format to present this in, and once I've settled on one I'll figure out how to actually produce that format! This is also the first time I've done anything like this... I mean my experience of putting together things for people on the internet, is limited to a 4 month run as a DM on a Neverwinter Nights 2 server. Kind of trying to do this a while until I can get into a routine with it, before moving forward with another form.

Probably going to do a PDF version. One thing I'm kind of waiting on is IG mail. I've considered distributing this IG through that system, depending on how the system works and if it will allow image transfer. If it does, I know there are a TON of people who play, who don't follow any of the forums, so this information would be new to them. But, that is one of those systems that hasn't been covered a ton, so I know there will be an IG mail system, but that is all I know.