PS2 Gameplay: Planetside 2 vs. Eternal Crusade (Warhammer 40K)

(NOTE 1: I am a huge fan of "Planetside 2" (PS2), am a Premium Member, and have been playing since launch. I don't know a lot about "W40K: Eternal Crusade" (WEC). I've only learned about WEC today and skimmed their website and some forum posts and the 2 vids linked below. But I am a longtime fan of the 40K game and book series.)


Planetside 1 & 2 have long ruled the MMOFPS genre (much like EQ ruled MMORPG). But what does the development of W40K: Eternal Crusade mean for the future of PS2 Gameplay and the MMOFPS(/MMO3PS) genre? This post is to explore how Eternal Crusade might affect PS2 Gameplay. This is not a WEC ad or FAQ, I'm only exploring how it impacts PS2 and what PS2 can/might get out of it.


(NOTE 2: PS2 is an MMO-FIRST-PERSON-SHOOTER while Eternal Crusade is an MMO-3RD-PERSON-SHOOTER. So they are not in the same exact genre. But there is a lot of overlap and they can be bundled into the broader MMO1/3PS.)
WEC Reference Link:
Vid #1 (Angry Joe's vid)
Vid #2 (some footage from a live stream)


PS2's Future: Renaissance?
=====================
PS2 is now in the hands of a new owner (Columbus Nova), PC PS2's Roadmap is reportedly getting back on its feet after a long hiatus, and we also have PS4 PS2 about to hit the public scene. PS2 looks to be positioned for a potential new Renaissance (aka "time of growth and prosperity"). Will they be more nimble now and able to borrow ideas from upcoming MMOFPS titles and respond to a potentially changing (and crowding) MMOFPS landscape?


MMOFPS Genre Future Landscape
==========================
But "in the grim darkness of the far future" (that's a well known 40K quote), looms the emergence of "W40K: Eternal Crusade" and potentially other challengers onto the MMOFPS scene. How will this affect or motivate Daybreak and PS2, and how will this potentially influence the direction of PS2's Roadmap and PS2 Gameplay?


40K & Games Workshop History
========================
Many of us know the tremendous influence Games Workshop (maker of 40K license, Warhammer, etc.) has had on the game industry across genres (Warcraft, Starcraft, etc.), and on the longstanding epicness of the 40K theme. But we also know GW has struggled to get themselves any dominant toe hold in Video Games industry.... for like forever. Based on the GW licenses in vid games track record, Eternal Crusade may not be a true threat/competitor for PS2 or anyone. And since Eternal Crusade is only on PC/Mac, it doesn't look to be any direct threat toward the PS4/Console PS2 game.


Design: Planetside 2 vs. Eternal Crusade: Innovation vs. Renovation
=================================================

(NOTE 3: I tried to put the proper features in Innovation or Renovation, but the amount of stuff got carried away so I apologize for stuff put in the wrong section of each)



Potential Renovation
------------------------------
A lot of Eternal Crusade looks like it is just copying PS2 (NOTE 4: I am not an FPS vet, so I apologize if I credit PS2 here with stuff that is from other games). Vid #1 shows a Troop Carrier that "deploys" as a "spawn point", they have light assault troops with jet packs, each character has a "loadout" screen, players capture lettered points, etc. These are things PS2 already has in their game, so any influence in this area would be from potential *changes* or additions that Eternal Crusade makes which add something new and interesting to the existing recipe: potential "Renovation".

Off hand, I noticed these changes to some of the "PS2 borrowed" systems in Eternal Crusade:

Light Assault - duel wields, and also carries a fulltime, full melee Weapon (chainsword seen in game, powerswrod and power hammer seen in loadout screen). I think both these have been discussed as additions to PS2, perhaps this will motivate them being implemented sooner.
Duel wield + chainsword gameplay
Power sword + power hammer inventory images
Looks like Melee Weapon can have a 3 stage attack combo.
Chainsword 3 stage attack combo

Light Assault - while airborne with jetpack, a reticule will show on the ground where their trajectory would have them land if they cut thrust.
Jet pack landing Reticule

Light Assualt Jet Pack Dive Attack
Footage

Light Assault Wall Spring Off
Footage + Voice Commentary
Footage

Command - Per Commentator in vid, WEC will give Command more power than PS2, a different UI, and you can be "shot down" (not sure if Commander's are in Dropships or the Strike Cruiser)
Commentary

Bases - each Base has cosmetic touches that reflect the Faction which controls it. Base in video is controlled by Chaos Space Marines, and the base is covered in skulls and spikes to reflect their "evil" theme. Once it's captured by a different faction, it will change the cosmetics of the new faction over a span of time (hours? minutes?)
Footage of Base w/ Chaos Cosmetic + Commentary of Base Faction Cosmetic Changing

Knife - can use a knife for more than just a single strike. Looks like it can have a 3 stage attack combo.
Footage

Classes -
1) Tactical (like PS2's Engineer)
2) Assault (like PS2's Light Assault)
3) Devastator (like PS2's Heavy Assault?)
4) Apothecary (like PS2's Medic?)
5) Terminator (like PS2's Max)
6) Chaplain ("Hero" Class - see "Heroes" below)
7) Librarian ("Hero" Class - see "Heroes" below)
Class Loadout screen

Inafntry POV - PS2 Infantry is 1st Person and WEC Inafntry is 3rd Person. This makes for a very different player experience, and different genres. Each genre has pros and cons, including mechanics that can go with them. It's probably a personal preference thing for each player. (NOTE 5: both PS2 and WEC have 1st & 3rd Person for Vehicles)

Vehicle POV -
Footage of 3rd Person Crosshair in Vehicle
Footage of 1st Person Crosshair (only for zoom?) in Vehicle

Flying - Flying as stated won't be in until post launch (which is weird cause they stated having Drop Ships...). So no influence on PS2 there... other than the lack of Air maybe, and how much ground players like or don't like that. They do say they want to bring in Flying vehicles that move at speeds much greater than those in PS2. But they sound like they have not work and no real problem solving into how to do it.
Commentary

Big Tank - In WEC's Big Tank (or at least the Space Marine one), you can't drive and shoot. It also has 5 Tank Guns and what looks like 5 occupant/crew positions. This is a massive change from PS2's 2-man Big Tanks (MBTs) that are often played by just 1 person. I suppose PS2's Sunderer is more similar in operation layout, but WEC's Big Tank doesn't deploy like the Sunderer. For the solo player (like myself) this WEC design seems scary because it seems like playing the Vehicle game might be shut off for solo players. Also, there are issues about how many XP/$ it would take to Cert out a WEC Big Tank (5 guns!) *if* they have the same type of XP/$ Cert system as PS2. And also it asks what the power level different will be between a 2-man WEC Tank and a 5-man WEC Tank.
Big Tank footage and commentary

Troop Carrier/Mobile Spawn Point - WEC version has 1 Driver, 1 Weapon position, and 8 Passenger seats. Seems like it would be vulnerable with it's only 1 gun. 40K tabletop game allows up to 2 guns and also has hatches that passengers can use to fire their own guns.
Footage Entering and Driving
Footage Deploying

Start Location - PS2 in Delpoy Sreen or VR. WEC in Strike Cruiser in orbit w/ Strategarium (Command? or like PS2's Map?), Sensorium (is that like PS2's Map?), Training Cage (like PS2's VR for melee?), Shooting Range (like PS2's VR for Vehciles/Projectile Weapons?)
Commentary

Drop Pod or Tomahawk (drop ship) - Not sure what a Drop Ship is or does
Commentary

Scope-In Scopes - In PS2 they have Clear Visible area and the rest is black. In WEC they have Clear Visible aea and the rest is transparent so you can still see around.
Footage



Innovation
--------------
Taunt - Players can animate a Taunt/Cheer in game.
Footage
Footage

0 life is notDead. 0 Life players are near dead players and are incapacitated and other players can choose to Heal (ally) or Execute (enemy) them. Icons to Execute or Heal them is located above their heads of Near Dead players, and performing each leads to the corresponding effect plus an animation sequence.
Explanation of Near Death
Execute and Heal
Execute

Cover system - I think they're talking about players activating terrain to enter states of less vulnerability to enemy fire.
Commentary about
Commentary mentions the term

Block vs. Fire: protects you
Commentary

Break Blocks: kick, bash, shoulder charge, aerial attack
Commentary

Heroes - "extremely powerful" can do things like opening rifts to summon demons on 200 advancing troops. When spawn a hero there is an angelic chorus and everyone knows, When he exhausts power he is very vulnerable and gives lot of loot and requisition points if killed. need requisition points from the whole squad to spawn, have to decide who will spawn as him. Once spawn, everyone on Map (Base or Continent?) will know: allies must protect and enemies will try to kill.
Footage in Game
Footage in Game

Loot - They mention look from killing Heroes. I don't know what this entails. Is there loot on the Hero corpse? Is it just Requisition points? (and if so, will a lot of stuff be locked out of player use by Requisition points? PS2 is Resources are currently VERY easy for many players to get an run their Vehicles full time) Or is Requisition just for Heroes?
Commentary mention of Loot
Commentary mention of Loot

Races (Factions) -
1) Space Marines ("Astarte" = modified super soldier humans)
2) Chaos Space Marines (Ex-Space Marines Sould Corrupted by Demons)
3) Eldar (Space Elfs, like Protoss)
4) Orks (Space Orcs... hence the "k")
5) Tyranid (like Xenomorphs in Aliens license, like Zerg)(Non-Playable Chracters - NPC)
So they have 4 different playable Factions instead of 3... unless they are going to run mixed Ally events/conditions to reduce them to less than 4. Not sure how 3 (PS2) vs. 4 (WEC) compares. I'll cover the NPC faction below.
(Note 6: this is my understanding of what are in it, I may be wrong)

Sub-Factions -Each Faction will additionally offer a choice of 4 Sub-Factions to play as. Each of these factions will have custom versions of Weapons to choose from. This sounds like PS2's Empire Specific notion taken to extreme lengths. Can you imagine the nightmare of choosing the "wrong" Sub-Faction and get stuck having leveled up a weak version of your Class? And what kind of Design + Art Team nightmare in making (and balancing) 16 Versions of every Sub-Faction Weapon variation? And think of all the Characters and Character Slots you'd need to be able to play all those different characters. This also makes a 40K game that adds more factions (Nercons? playable Tyranids? Dark Eldar? Imperial Guard? etc.) or Sub-Factions, into either an Exponential Development nightmare or a game that just isn't balance policed.
Commentary on Sub-Factions

Melee Attack: Kick - Infantry player (or at least Space Marines) have a Kick attack
Footage

Movement - Roll: can role forwards, sideways, and backwards.
Footage

Lore & Writer - Graham McNeil (Writer for GW books) is doing the lore, tying it in to 40K book universe. PS2 has some great lore, but they don't bring it into the game much. I like Graham McNeil's writing, but I have no idea in what capacity WEC will use their lore, or if it will be used more than PS2's Lore.
Commentary

Elite Player Bling (aka Progression System) - Purity seals, head of enemies, chaos blessing
Talk about Progression System
Talk about Progression System

Revenue Model (aka how game makes money) - PS2 is F2P, Eternal Crusade is Founder System with full cost pre-order game (different tiers, $40? base buyin) + buyable cosmetics. Average player prepaid so far is stated as $100. These are 2 very different Revenue Models. I don't think PS2 can really get much from this, unless it's what influences the Revenue Model for PS3. Also, Eternal Crusade is still in early development and may never come to market, and it may also change it's Revenue Model at some point as well.
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary

Squad Leader AoE Bonus - Squad members near the Squad Leader get a mitigation bonus
Commentary

Infantry Model Interacts With Objects - Infantry plants his hand on and leaps over boxes
Game Footage

Campaign System - lasts from 1-2 weeks, changes the pace, everything is based on positive reinforcement. I'm not really clear on what it is from the explanation. But it sounds like a system that we should find out more about so we can figure out the pros and cons.
Commentary
Commentary

Squad Member "Engagement Radar" -Shows symbols for Class and relative position, or each member in the Squad.
Game Footage

Destructible Base Components - Shoot a gate (vs. activate a Generator Self Destruct to destroy it)
Game Footage

PvE -They will have an NPC Faction (Tyranids) and Instance PvE player content options.
Commentary on NPCs

PvE in PvP: thematic - they will have fodder NPCS that are in bases to flesh out the theme (like Chaos Cultists in Chaos Bases)
Commentary on NPCs

PvE in PvP: punishment for bad play - If a faction does not protect their captured territory and gets over extended, NPC Tyranids will spawn and eat up the empty bases and attack the player forces
Commentary on NPCs

PvE in PvP: Hero Players can summon Demons that will attack enemies. I assume these Demons are NPCs.
Commentary

Super Big Tanks - Land Raider (for Space Marine) in WEC... maybe? Unlcear. Also not sure how it's different from PS2 Vehicles.
Commentary

Asymmetrical Balance -PS2 attempts to balance Factions, give them different but comparably powered Empire Specific weapons/units, and allow each Faction access to key strategic type Weapons/Units (with some exceptions like VS Lancer which has no Equal on TR or NC), In WEC it sounds like they're just gonna make wildly different weapons/units across Factions and let players work it out.
Commentary


Conclusion (Questions)
=================
So how does all this impact PS2 and what can/might PS2 get out of it? Which WEC ideas are worth borrowing to the PS2 Roadmap? Even if WEC is never more than Vaporware, it's still a neat fishbowl situation to see some alternative ideas that might be great for PS2. And if WEC does come to fruition and joins the MMOFPS shelf space, what does that mean for PS2 (or PS3?) and the future of the MMO1/3PS?

You should probably compare Eternal Crusade with Firefall, not Planetside 2. For starters, the EC is not an FPS.

Are you the EC shill in the /ps2g/ Threads?

WEC is a PS2 Clone with the notable change of Infantry in 3rd Person vs. 1st Person.

Firefall has Mining, Crafting, Quests, and Raids. Firefall dropped their PvP last I heard. And I've also heard Firefall Dev is a mess that is burning and falling.

No.

I didn't know EC existed before yesterday. I ran across it in Angry Joe's videos. I don't know anyone on the EC Dev team, nor their company, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. In contrast, I've been playing and enjoying PS2 (and PS2 forumside) for 2 years.

I do love a lot of 40K theme (Dan Abnett ROCKS! and I enjoyed a lot of their books) and I am a longtime enjoyer of GW (White Dward in the 90's [yes, I read like 10 issues that long ago]), Table Tops (40K once, and a couple WFB battles), Board Games (Talisman has a great vibe), etc. But GW Video Games have been largely terrible. I did enjoy the first Dawn of War game.

As I said, I'm more interested in what PS2 can pull from EC. And what this means in terms of motivating Daybreak now that another MMOFPS is on the potential horizon.

I love 40K theme, and I'd love to see more MMOFPS games. But PS2 is here today, and it's fun, and has so much in it that could easily be improved. And EC is a coin flip if it'll actually launch at some unknown distant future date.

Sidenote:

Holy ****, angry joe is probably the most annoying youtuber that ever lived, my god he is a ******.

I find him "quirky personable" and fun and enjoy the persona. And as a Designer I find the bullet points in his reviews both consistent and great insight into the wants of large player demo that I am not really a part of (fanboy weekend warriors). But I know a lot of people can't handle him.

Do you go out of your way to only look for what you want?.

WEC FAQ https://www.eternalcrusade.com/faq

It will be a different kind of game with the grand scale of ps2.

It also utilises picotech technology with it's servers which is some decent stuff.

As I said, from the looks of it and from the early version that we are seeing, it seems that EC is not a First Person Shooter. While Firefall dropped their PvP aspect, it seems that EC shares more common ground with that game than with Planetside 2.

Major differences between Planetside 2 and WH40kEC include but are not limited to:

1) There WILL be a PvE component, instanced dungeons to crawl through and ones to battle hordes/waves of enemies in.
2) There will be NO "airgame". At least not to start with.
3) Factions have subfactions. Further factions and subfactions may be added.
4) LORE that more people are familiar with than is the case with Planetside.

If you have a lot of time I recommend checking out the streams at:

If you look at the WH40kEC forums you will find many Planetside 2 players (both current and former) who mostly DON'T want EC to turn into a reskin of Planetside 2. Yes, several elements have been "copied" because it makes sense, but you can count on the EC devs trying their very best to avoid Planetside 2's mistakes.

None of this matters. If 40kEC on release plays anything like the combat in Space Marine, I'm dropping PS2 in a heartbeat. That **** was intense.

Different tastes ... for me the multiplayer aspect of Space Marines was as enjoyable as the multiplayer aspect of Dragon age: Inquisition.

When I heard about this game I was hoping this was going to be a FPS but its not....

What it does have is a HUGE fan base and tons of background/lore to work with.

Making it an fps would be bas idea. Aesthetics is a huge part of wh400000. Players want to see their space marine wearikg its blue armor with gold trim.

I'm pretty sure if you could bring the 40K universe to a PS2 style of game it would be a success.

The PvE part is pretty pointless to me. Space marines don't get the day off to go herb hunting.

No servant of the Emperor shall fall if I can help it!



Unless, you know, I run out of space herbs for space health potions. I'll need about 20 of them, which are oddly enough found in space Squigs. The red ones, not the purple ones.

K thnx bai! <3

Although mainly a TPS I can see why it will compete with PS2 when/if it releases. It will have large scale battles like PS, combined arms and multiple factions. Heck, it even have PvE for those who are into that.

40k, is one of those beloved universes, Though one problem with the game will most likely be really nerfed space marines, in the lore they have two hearts...(ones back up maybe?!!), and can survive getting limbs removed due to supper human clotting. so there tough little bastards

I played the table top game when I was a kid, I played as the dark elder platoon strength against a 5 man team with a land speeder, I killed the land speeder pretty quickly but the 5 man squad of space marines slaughtered me..... that how powerful space marine are.

be cool if the game progressed that say after few hundred hours you had a chance to becoming a space marine.
new player should start off as imperial guard and then progress maybe end up in the storm troopers with the end goal of becoming a space marine.

It's pretty much a given that lore is going to have to kneel to balance. The Imperial Guard have a possibility of becoming either their own faction entirely (although Tau I think were leading the 5th faction polls last I heard with Necrons pulling second) or as NPC base defenders for the SM. Same reason I'm expecting Eldar vehicles to be lesser from what the lore makes them out to be since from what I've read they seem to be super magriders.

Also don't think the hundreds of hours to become a SM will work well especially in keeping close to the lore when that would leave you as an Imperial Guardsman trying to fend off that blur that would be the Eldar.

Anyway back on topic of PS2, I'm actually hoping that ETC shakes things up for PS2 so that more than just the first phase of plans will be implemented. I'm desperate for more faction diversity, especially vehicle related, and a shake up from the usual same battles at the same bases that usually devolve into who has the bigger MAX crash.

Although honestly if ETC makes good on all their target goals I'm going to have a hard time coming back to PS2. Chucking a Singing Spear into someone's face and blasting psychic powers around inside a PS scale battle with the lore backing things up has me very interested.