Confirmed: 9 Sanctuaries at launch.

[acosmo]

Originally Posted by cellinaire

I don't know why you wrote 'Confirmed' in the title when almost all people in this forum saw this coming, but great read nonetheless =)

Hope they're willing to CHANGE things this time when things go wrong. I hope...

well, that there are going to be 9 sancs at launch is something people knew since they said there were going to be empires footholds on each cont, and three conts. people knew about this for a while but i don't think they bothered much to speculate about the consequences it has for the game.

[TheDrone]

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

I don't get it. It's like people were/are playing PS1 for anything and everything but the very basic principle that made it great in the first place: massive clusterfuck battles!

Why is nearly every suggestion in here against the 3 footholds-per-continent reality essentially trying to impede that?

"For conquest!" Who the **** cares? The zerg doesn't. The zerg fights for one reason: To fight.

"A place to form up!" Don't the footholds offer the exact same capability, minus the loading screen?

All I'm seeing in this thread are people missing the sense of victory and swathing the map in their factions colors, which as far as I can tell, will happen with hexes.

Tell you guys what, maybe, just maybe, PS2 isn't being designed solely for the PS1 crowd. Maybe, just maybe... PS2 isn't for you. The current setup is designed for the sole purpose of making sure there is always someone to fight, and as few obstacles as possible impeding you in getting to said fight.

I'll play Planetside so I can shoot alongside 333 assholes at 666 other assholes shooting at me. Each kill is a stepping stone, each hex is a victory, each base is an achievement, and I don't EVER want the bad guys to stop coming at me.

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome! Stop bitching and deal with the changes. PS1 is essentially dead compared to its glory days. Good reasons for it too.

Don't say that! Blasphemy! You're not allowed to suggest that some PS1 vets might be overly influenced by their singular experiences causing them to lose objectivity and not recognize a superior game mechanic when it bites them in the ass.

Okay, kids, here's the deal.

Continent locking was a viable long-term victory condition in PS1. Since continents in PlanetSide 2 are "worth" multiple PS1 continents (due to much better use of space and the many, many more tactical/strategical options) it absolutely makes no sense whatsoever to lock dozens of percentages of a game and deny players to use it, just because you're unable to exchange the made-up victory condition from PS1 with a new made-up victory condition in PlanetSide 2.

Home continents are utterly useless as a mechanic and about the most useless and insulting use or developer's effort and time. You want a sense or achievement that's akin to that? Capture

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

ohhh, I thought we were talking about where the total population, both offline and online of an empire, and that one empire might only have 8%, meaning people just plain aren't making characters for one of the empires.

Yeah, 8% server pop. There were 9 VS players online. Total.

But PS1 is a subs game that's a decade old and has been gently fucked-over for years and years.

This'll NEVER happen with PS2.

right?

[Levente]

why not have 3 seperate islands for each empire as mainbases, and the additional 3 continents can be captured, or thats crap?

[Arius]

Regions! Divide groups of hexagons into regions with different names and add bonusses to whatever empire completely controls it.

First you fight for a hex, then you fight for a region, then you fight for multiple regions, and then you fight for the rest of the continent! It will make the continent look bigger, and you can push empires off certain regions. Makes sense to me alot more then just try to take the entire continent immediately.

Originally Posted by Levente

why not have 3 seperate islands for each empire as mainbases, and the additional 3 continents can be captured, or thats crap?

Planetside 1 did this, and it worked, however the devs think this slows down gameplay. I do like idling around a bit, and this is propably what SOE wants to prevent.

[Hmr85]

I'm fine with the 3 sanctuaries per continent right now. Since all we are going to see come release is 3 continents. Later down the line though when we start getting more continents I firmly believe SOE should do away with the Sanctuaries on each continent and bring back individual Sanctuaries like PS1. Either that or have 1 continent dedicated to a Faction that has a small sanctuary on it. That way each faction has a continent that they can call home.

[Levente]

so in the end it will be basically a 3 way baserape? not good

[Pillow]

Just call the 3 continents the "Sanctuary continents" or something and make new continents called "Conquest continents" wich offers a different gameplay similar to PS1 but improved.

The Sanctuary continents from my point of view looks like a pointless circlejerk fragfest right now
I want continents you can invade and conquer i want to paint the global map to your factions color. And i want bigger strategic gameplay then what has been shown so far.
Add conquest maps!!

[Kran De Loy]

I said it another thread and without even reading anything between pages 1 and 7 I'm sure that other people have said it already too.

When new continents get put in past these first three, slap a captureable warpgate in the middle of each of the Prime continents then throw some rare resources or higher concentration of existing resources on the new (virgin) continents and restrict entry to each new continent through Prime Wargates only.

New continents have 2-4 warp gates to defend against invasion and the Prime continents remain a major piece of the territory control meta game as they're the only access points to those secondaries if a faction gets pushed out.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Khellendros

This is a separate problem that could still happen even with a foothold on every continent...

No it is not a separate problem. It is an essential flaw with the idea. And it CAN'T happen with a foothold because while you can get pushed back to your foothold, you can't get booted from the continent and in turn, the server.

[Arius]

I guess we should just find out how this works. I do think having our foothold on the same place all the time would become a bit stale after some time though. As a certain empire, you would constantly see the same terrain.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Arius

I guess we should just find out how this works. I do think having our foothold on the same place all the time would become a bit stale after some time though. As a certain empire, you would constantly see the same terrain.

I could certainly see that too since it happened in PS1. Rotating who was which warpgate every once in awhile would help that quite a bit. It still won't be anywhere near the 'map fatigue' you see in every other shooter out there with their tiny shriveled maps.

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Knocky

Assuming 3 Conts at launch, then leave in 3 footholds.

That way WE can choose which one will be our "Home" cont by taking it over and defending it.

That's what I was thinking. And if one empire ends up with two or all 3 of the footholds, then other empries will have to just drop in from the sky and take something back on foot!

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by WildVS

I believe I know why they are doing this empire foothold per cont design. Actually I am pretty certain of it.... makes it easy to sell additional conts as DLC or updates or however you want to term it. No inter-continental lattice to worry with, just buy a new cont expansion and away you go to a new and different area to fight.

That's a real possibility especially considering pretty much every MMO does it the same way.

[acosmo]

Originally Posted by Raymac

That's a real possibility especially considering pretty much every MMO does it the same way.

yeah it makes sense except for the part where PS2 is F2P