[Suggestion] This game is dying rapidly! @DBG we need a server merge!

Emerald has lost a quarter of its peak concurrent users in the course of two months. The same goes for the two EU servers. Connery is even worse losing roughly 35%. Source: http://www.therebelscum.net/world-population/?world_id=1&zoom=2 modify the zoom to what you prefer.

Server merges are desperately needed as this issue is just snowballing into more players quitting the game everyday. When fully completed games such as Battlefront and Siege hit the issue is only going to get worse. Those games have dedicated companies and multiple person developer teams supporting them and players will realize this and jump ship since this game's developers are only developing cash grab patches!

Losing even a few players is too many on Connery especially where the population is substantially lower than prior to last merge.

When can we see a server merge of the 2 USA servers into one and the 2 EU servers into one? Perhaps shuttering the entire game is in the cards when the year changes? Player counts are at record lows and rewriting the records on a weekly basis. This will only get worse, potentially far worse in the next 2 months!

And at peak on Miller, we have three continents open: two of which are complete ghost towns.
I can't think of any time in the last year where we've needed three continents open to spread fights.

If we drop a base these days (24-36), it seems the entire enemy playerbase descend upon it. I'm thinking this is a sign of how desperate players are to find a decent sized fight.

What happened in the last two months??? Classes started.

Numbers have never increase in June-July when classes stop. A merge would still be needed by then.

Probably. But merging the two U.S. servers??? I dunno. I think a better advertising campaign than word-of-mouth is in order. Put a sale on DBC on steam, get it onto the front page again for Christ's sake. My reasoning is that how would you un-merge the 2 servers if there is a second wind? You really can't you'd be splitting people up.

Maybe Im all too hopeful, I love this game and wish it the best. I'd like to see it be popular again.

what is needed is more game modes... a handful of balanced 15-15 TDM or CTF maps would draw a lot of players in, some of whom would move into the big servers. No reason to change the present classes or factions. Players could design their own maps with present PS2 bases and host them on their own servers or DBG servers.

this would also give present players more choices... I was just on CS source having a great time in a small balanced TDM. If I could play this kind of map in PS2, using my present weapons and classes, I would.

Think outside the box, boys

(this would also allow DBG to charge a bunch of new players for helmets and premium memberships, or charge 5 bucks for the expansion that includes TDM and CTF)

Ah

Ah this lovely explanation that people bring up evrrytime.
Its spring, school started. Its summer, people are being outdoors. Its autumn, school started. Its winter and soon christmas, people are spending more time with their family.

Its convenient lol.

I love the game. But never thought the advertising was good. I went into Gamestop to get SOE SC over a year ago and the clerk looked at it and said "hmm, never heard of this one". I only heard about it because it came free with a video card on a computer I was building. I popped it in because I was bored one day.

I think people leave because of the current capture mechanic.

Let's be honest here, most people like this game due to the infantry aspect, not the vehicle one.

However, if one team captures a base or pushed the other out completely, the infantry game stops and the vehicle game begins. Often this resorts to a ping pong phenomenon. But after a capture or after being pushed out a lot of players go look for another fight and the map remains the same. Because they are unwilling to pull a vehicle and go through the 15min-1.5 hours of munition exchange between vehicles before infantry combat becomes available again. Besides, it's not as if you get a auraxium weapon for your vehicle if you get 1160 kills with all the weapons available for it anyway, so what's the point.

This is why people ALWAYS prefer to fight in biolabs or towers. Basically any area where vehicle farming spots are neglected.

But this is what makes planetside Planetside, but that doesn't mean that everyone enjoys that aspect.

This is probably a horrible suggestion, but I would actually like to have 2-3 extra spawn rooms added to every base. But these spawnrooms become available when the enemy owns a connected tile and then the enemy can spawn. Then they can simply redeploy to said spawn room and begin the next base assault directly. I just fear that this would encourage more spawnroom camping/warriors, so no need to bring that up. But something along those lines.

Either that or a map where vehicles don't frikken exist at all. Not on all maps but at least one. I know you hardcore planetside fans love the traveling aspect in this game. But personally I don't. Save your "go play BF or CoD" comments please. The reason I personally prefer planetside is because the infantry and infantry weapon mechanics, and the weapon selection in this game is far better than in any other fps. Not to mention that this is a MMO allowing it to have more than 16-32 players in a single map.

I want a Koltyr, with more buildings for infantry combat only and no vehicles what so ever. DM! TDM! CTF! DOM!

That's never going to happen in a 3 year old FPS. This is about as long as Planetside 1 lasted before it really went downhill fast. People need to face the reality that this game is going to be on life support for PC in a year.

Which is why they need to advertise.

How are they going to fund an advertising campaign when they can barely pay their employees skeleton crew developer team? Last time i remember SOE-er DBG was going downhill hence why SOE was sold off.

Just came from Miller.
Ghost town.
In the face of Battlefront's impending release, it is becoming more and more clear to me that the game losing players.

I usually log in for about 2 to 4 hours daily not counting weekend, but lately, due to the lack of players, i end up quitting within half an hour.
The end is near.

more people need to spread this game by word of mouth.
SOE aint gonna do nothing'
Go ahead and tell your family, your friends, cousins, who ever you think they would like this game.
Tell them how good this game is, tell them why you love to play it and why you want them to play it.
Tell your favorite youtuber about it
Make youtube videos about this game. Do what ever.

lol, find another game... plenty of them out there
fwiw, I was on miller today during prime time and dropped into an alert and there were plenty of big battles.
If i drop in and can't find a good fight, i'm off to one of the other 12m game out there

(steam has a stealth sale, btw... some tasty titles on big discount)

I think we have to face the two realities that maybe an open world MMOFPS just doesn't work all that well (player population balance is never a guarantee) and that PS2 is plagued with a ton of bad decisions, which I could list off, but most players would be in denial.

Like... I can lay the poor state of class utilization balance and enjoyment right at the Heavy Assault's feet, and some *** will come in and say, "That's his job." "This game isn't balanced around 1v1." Now... how often is it that you see multiple people shooting at a single guy at a time in a target rich environment? MOST exchanges of fire are intimate 2 second long 1-on-1 affairs, and the guy with more health and ammo inevitably wins. Take away the HA, maybe give the bazooka to the medic and, suddenly, balance.

Medkit spam.

Availability of tanks.

The air game just being REALLY F***ING HARD to get into because it's so different and awkward.

OHK Snipers... with INVISIBILITY.

Really crappy base design. I mean, like, all of it. Either too defendable, or so open to invasion it's not even worth trying

Homogenization between empires. Really, pick a side, save for a few exclusive weapons, you can set up a VS to feel like a TR.

"Lag compensation." Read: Hit detection issues.

Too many locations on the lattice.

Indar "T."

Outfit redeploy zerging. Really, a good fight can be ruined by one side pulling out en masse, only to ruin ANOTHER fight elsewhere by swamping the enemy in bodies and bullets. Leaves a very sour taste.

Obviously, lack of content updates is not helping at all.

There's more. There's always more, there's just too much to remember in one go.

The game is complex, but has no depth. That's pretty fatal as far as design goes.

Honestly, it's no surprise this game is on the way out, and I think that the open world aspect just isn't helping. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but bases are essentially arenas and everything in between is just a waste of time. If this were an actual match game, then DGC could cap player numbers to 128 per side in a very large arena and balance vehicle availability. Maybe create a more involving sequence of objectives for an attacking side. Don't know how many of you have played MAG, but it's only crime was development stagnation and being too much for the PS3 - it surely would have done much better on the PC.

They'd have to approach the thousands of other little niggling issues that pile up into a frustrating cluster f***, but at least some big outfit/alliance can't just swoop in with 200+ players and ruin a good fight. I figure most players now log in and hit redeploy or instant action and if they can't get to a good fight within 2 minutes, they go and play a game that can get them into a good fight within 2 minutes.

Finally, we also have to realize we're coming up on the holidays, and there are a lot of BIG, POPULAR titles coming out this year. Let's not pretend because most are on consoles they won't impact PS2... people can have a PC and a console, and enjoy playing on both. The next few months are going to be rocky as hell. Not sure if PS2 can take the hit even.

Its only going to get worse, Halo, Fallout 4, Battlefront, and COD BLOPS 3, all in the next month or so,

No reason not to agree to a merge if it's needed .. Only one's that might suffer a slight ping change would be the NA ones depending on which coast they decided to go with . But that would be no different to how it was in Beta ..

That level of popularity won't happen. And advertising is too expensive to do at this point. The Executive Creative Director in his Q&A alluded to that throughout the session on reddit. He didn't come out and say it directly, but if you read inbetween the lines, PS2 is in bad shape. And the PS4 release didn't help.

At this point its got to be player done. As one entity Daybreak's PS2 section can't advertise, the money isn't there. They'd need an investment from Columbus Nova which won't happen. Individually the players can't do much but maybe as a group they could. I wonder if someone could get a kickstarter project going. But at the very least, when you're with your bros, make sure you talk awesome stuff about it.

That's what I do when I'm out and about. At a bar or other gathering and the topic of games comes up (lets be honest, everyone plays video games nowadays). And when asked what game I play, I tell them what ever MMORPG I'm currently on and Planetside 2. Which is the damn truth. I've played a variety of MMORPGs over the last three years, but my shooter that I play at least 2-3 times a week is Planetside 2. I haven't played constantly for 3 years, but frequently enough to stay up to date. What other shooter will I play? Its the best.

I'm five minutes from the water on the east coast (I knew how to swim before I knew how to walk) and I've played on Genudine-Helios-Connery (in that order due to merges) since November 2012. My ping hasn't gone above 80ms since. Its fine.


On another note, they could simply use Landmark's server structure. In Landmark they have a ton of continents. Like two dozen. At the center of each one is a Nexus Spire. The nexus is like a warpgate, you can go to any other continent from there. But you can also switch servers. You're not bound to one server. In fact you don't create a character on one server at all.

If they did that, they could reduce the servers or increase them as the populations rise and fall. They could even do it dynamically so when the population is low at 'night' (for EU/NAish), they reduce the number so everyone is pushed to a few servers, and then during high traffic times they could increase them.

Heck they could even use the equipment and locations OF the Landmark servers when that puppy goes down in flames. Because lets face it.. Landmark isn't that great and isn't going to survive the eventual launch of Everquest Next.