Help me understand the appeal of Indar, please

1. Are people nostalgic for the old Crown ultra-meat grinder days? (This actually drove me off of the continent)
2. Was there better looking camo for Indar in the beginning?
3. Was it because it was the first lattice continent?
4. Friendlier road system than Amerish and better visibility than Esamir?

None of the points I listed seem important enough to make Indar as popular as it is. I feel like there is something about Indar that so many other players know and I have completely missed.

Some areas are reasonably well designed, but for the most part people play Indar because people play Indar.

We have our winner.

No one in this game is willing to go to Esamir or Amerish unless there is an alert, because they feel like no one is fighting there. Which is true, because no one in this game is willing to go to Esamir or Amerish unless there is an alert, because they feel like no one is fighting there.

You see what I'm saying? The population does it to itself. The best nights in-game, for me anyways, are when there is an Esamir alert. With a big pop influx, the continent usually stays hot for a number of hours, until the people enjoying it log off.

I love all the people complaining about zergs, lag, lattice system etc. that flat out refuse to play Amerish. You reap what you row.

Esamir and Amerish arn't as geographically diverse as Indar and Indar is designed to be a 3 way stalemate to keep people entertained during beta.

As i've said countless times, Indar needs to be completely deleted and made to have 1-2 distinct geographical regions and made like Esamir and Amerish.

Personally, As a Mag driver specifically... I prefer Indar for these reasons:

1) only 1 Tech plant on Esamir... so you are always pulling from Warpgate unless you have Eisa... which is annoying
2) The "inherent" lattice they put in for ground vehicles (mountain ranges to funnel vehicles into specific roads, etc) make getting around on Amerish annoying.
3) There are always good numbers of vehicles on Indar (part of the above, "people play Indar because people play Indar")

Also, the SW portion of Indar has some of the best terrain for Mag driving... rolling hills with plenty of tree cover. If Amerish wasn't so damn annoying get from base to base, it would be that way too.

As for when I play infantry... I really don't have a preference other than... go where there are decently sized fights for my current squads numbers.

The main thing? Probably because it's the first one on the list. Meaning people get thrown there often and newbies tend to flock to it. So, since people are there. People go there. Between that and lattice, it's basically about promised fights. A person may need complex reasons, but people are simple.

SOE butchered Esamir. That used to be amazing for way big fights!

New Esamir is just plain blah. Walls and stupid base design.

Don't lie. Esamir was empty before the walls.

Amerish has bad (read: no) lattice. The only time it tends to offer good fights is during alerts where the lack of lattice is well-suited to a high pop (the need for a lattice system changes dynamically, based on population. If it wasn't difficult and potentially buggy and less impactful than other features, I'd suggest that lattice itself should change dynamically based on population too, but well...it's all those things, so I won't.)

Esamir I'd play because it has just as many bad base designs as Indar, but then there usually aren't people on it (as the fist responder aptly stated.)

I play there because that is where the biggest fights are.

I prefer Amerish, I love it's geography. I love me some large green meadows. Shame no one else does

there's only enough population to fill one continent and that happens to be indar.

That was what made it a good place to fight. There was more fighting there on Briggs before the walls.

They should have done map rotating with more servers until continent lattice. Then merge servers so there can be continent lattice battles.

I have more fun on Indar.

Indar has a variety of good battles and more importantly, vehicles aren't totally denied from indar

pre-overhaul, esamir favored ground vehicles so many infantry players probably didnt like it. now it favors infantry too much.

amerish has always been the aircraft continent. fighting on the ground is a pain in the spandexbutt, all the mountains and bad roads make for a very cumbersome gaming experience.

indar offers the best infantry-vehicle balance out of the three continents and has good terrain and bases, too. that said, esamir and amerish look the same no matter where you at. indar has green pastures, canyons and open plains so it's a lot more diverse and fun to fight at

I think you mistook what I meant by empty or you're purposely playing on my words.

Apart from the canyons Indar doesn't feel too closed in. You do not have to use roads or the "correct" path from base to base. The terrain allows outmanoeuvring the enemy forces on land. If all you do is redeploy or air chav then an Amerish or Esamir style cont might be better. But Indar doesn't feel as much like deathmatch maps connected by roads.

With the vehicle "physics" we have to endure and the rocky terrain, amerish is best left to the flyboys. Not to mention the long walks/drives you have to make when you take a wrong step and slide over the magic line between stable footing and one way path downhill.

That leaves esamir or indar....

Esamir is pretty much hit or miss. It's generally low on population, and you tend to run into well organized outfits there more than on indar, so without a good squad, you won't have much chance most of the time. Other times, when indar's too full or there's an alert, you tend to get some good fights. The collections of walls they call "bases" are ugly though.

So, that pretty much leaves indar...

Indar is popular for a few reasons:

1. default continent, not really a good reason, but is worth mentioning.
2. Variety of terrain, deep canyons in the southeast, flat dusty plains in the north, and grassy rolling hills in the southwest.
3. Many easily recognizable landmarks that provide good fights. This is possibly the biggest reason. Everyone whos been playing the game a while instantly knows the crazyness of the crown (even in its current state), the constant siege warfare of quartz ridge camp, the open blitz assaults at indar excavation, the straight up urban combat of tawrich tech plant, the intense fighting from the gates of mao tech plant to howling pass, and the complex fights in the gigantic impact crater (there are more, but listng them all would be too much).

Despite people always whining about Indar, its hard to deny all of the fantastic battles that the variety of landmarks provide on Indar. In comparison, esamir is mostly vast stretches of featureless snow combined with very annoying walled bases, nothing really worthy of note as far as terrain features. It at least used to be good tank country, but even that has been largely ruined by the rougher terrain around the facilities.

Amerish could be like a green indar, but its layout is just a complete pain in the **** to deal with. Adjacent hexes divided by huge, impassable mountain ranges means the quickest route is often the long, winding roads that go all over the place before finally taking you where you want to go. Air transport is the most efficient way, but as we all know, galaxies have their own complications. Amerish is just not much fun most of the time.