Smed on PlanetSide Next Delay

[Plissket]

Two questions here:

1) Are there any tentative recommended PC specs for PSNext? SLI/Crossfire support? That information could influence my next PC Upgrade here.

2) Will we be getting Ryan Favale back to EQ2 once PSNext launches? The EQ2 engine seriously needs that guys talent, the shader updates he did were the best thing to happen to it for years, it would be great to see them completed.

As for the delay, I'm enjoying both EQ2's new Destiny of Velious expansion and the much improved Planetside (its been great since the free trial ended, I've even gotten old time friends to come back!). So I'd rather experience it when it is ready.

[Dorest0rm]

The first Planetside kinda supported Crossfire...well at least it used both my cards.

[I SandRock]

I think Smed is the only CEO of a Video Game company I actually don't want to perform a Mortal Kombat fatality on when he talks. Seems like an actual gamer to some degree and a nice person at that *cough* unlike darklord bobby kotek*cough*

PS. I'm going to stay subscribed to PS no matter how long it takes. Fuck it if I go bankrupt. PSN babeh.

[Gimpylung]

Planetside 2: The Agency Recycled

[I SandRock]

I do wonder what he means with a new internally developed engine. With my limited understanding of game design I believe you can't simply move from one engine to another that easy. Which makes me think it's either:

- The programming / coding has hardly been done yet so moving to another Engine isn't that much of a set back

- The delay is quite substantial, perhaps even meaning Planetside 2 could be released as late as December 2011

- With 'new' internally developed engine Smed actually means that Planetside 2 was running on the 'stock' Unreal Engine 3 but they are now going to bring it to the Internally developed version of the Unreal Engine 3 for previous games such as DCUO and The Agency. Since an engine can be pretty much changed so much its a new engine all together (Too Human). I can also imagine that this 'port' is relatively less complicated and time consuming as change from one engine to a completely different engine (UE3 to CryEngine for instance).

- I'm a scrub and changing PS2 to a new engine is a piece of cake.

[Mightymouser]

Originally Posted by I SandRock

- I'm a scrub and changing PS2 to a new engine is a piece of cake.

'How hard' it is to change to a new engine really depends on how different the engines are; if the API's are similar you can port from one to the other relatively easily with some wrapper code, and if SOE is 'writing' this new engine they can make the API whatever they want.

However, writing a new engine is not a easy task. There is a reason dev houses pay big bucks to use other peoples' engines: writing them from scratch involves alot of 're-inventing the wheel' and is rarely economically practical. So I would think by 'new internally developed engine' he meant an engine with new internally developed parts.

[Aractain]

I doubt he meant "3D engine" (or maybe "entire" engine as most lisenced stuff has loads of different parts). Engine could be anything. Animation, Sound, Physics. An engine could be anything that works as a system to accomplish some feature. Its still too vague.

[Rubius]

So was this news posting supposed to be the producer letter we were promised two weeks ago? I was kinda expecting something from someone higher up, but I'm too hopeful.

Originally Posted by Aractain

I doubt he meant "3D engine" (or maybe "entire" engine as most lisenced stuff has loads of different parts). Engine could be anything. Animation, Sound, Physics. An engine could be anything that works as a system to accomplish some feature. Its still too vague.

Engine usually means the main 3D world engine, unless specified otherwise. No one says "yeah, we need to build a new engine" when talking about a physics engine. I've never heard of sound and animation engines.

[NivexQ]

Originally Posted by Rubius

So was this news posting supposed to be the producer letter we were promised two weeks ago?

No.

[Geist]

I was beginning to think it was...until Hamma posted. WOOOOOO!!!! 1 hour 26 minutes to go!!!

[vikvaliant]

"You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."

-- John "Treebeard" Smedley

[Raka Maru]

Originally Posted by Helifino

Planetside: The Cloaker Menace

Although I really like this one, I suggest:

Planetside: Respawned - A New Beginning

8 is the number for "new beginnings" as PS celebrates 8 years.

[TRex]

Just throwing this out there for discussion, but should the new game have Planetside in its title ?

For all those who play now it would appear to be a simple choice. We've seen renders with nc and tr logos on them , and Smed has called it PS:N as an ongoing working title for now.

But, is it a particularly strong IP? I'm not a fan of the IP concept . I know why developers and publishers do it , but often an IP is used to create a game that is lacklustre and stick an IP on it to at least get the fans onboard . It's an immediate cash cow , just look at the regurgitated cod series .

I'm more of a fan of good game production, the IP is just merely fluff for the roleplaying element out there , not knocking them but it can have the best background story written by J.R.R. Tolkien and still be a rollercoaster ride and bad mechaincs.

So, just trying to look at this from the perspective of not being a fan , and a sceptic of soe does Planetside offer anything ? If you took a straw poll in the street , I dare say you would struggle to find anyone who had heard of it. When I talk to people IRL who say they play games and mention what I play , the reaction is a usual ''Sounds amazing, never heard of it'' . Looking on the web , you hear repeat mentions of balance and BFR's and how the fucked the game up. No character development , and how the whole 'persistance' thing is generally borked . You fight all night and day over a continent and do this and that , and the next day it was all for nothing since some ghost hacker hacked it back during the day while you were at work.

With a track record of poor support and lack of content , an over priced subscription and the above points , wouldn't it be a sound move to start afresh and work with a refreshed title ? Auraxis /WormHole , whatever . To the obvious it would still be planetside 2 , but the tainted or ignorant of the original maybe this would be more beneficial.

Makes no difference to me , as I already play the original and have done off and on since november 03 .

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by TRex

Just throwing this out there for discussion, but should the new game have Planetside in its title ?

Thats a really good question. I think that there is just enough knowledge of "Planetside" to justify keeping its name. Out in the real world, it seems theres not many people that have heard of it. However, in the gaming community, specifically the gaming media, I think there is enough name recognition to keep it "Planetside". Sure, it had its flaws, but it still holds the title as the best (only?) real MMOFPS ever.

[Firefly]

PLANETSIDE:NEXT