PS2 has no sense of community. Why does this matter, you ask? PS2 is an MMO, communities are what make MMOs thrive. MMOs are expected to have lifespans greatly exceeding your average game. When I hop on BF3 for a few quick rounds, I could care less about the people in game with me. They may as well just be AI. I'm just looking for a quick fix. But I'm in PS2 for the long haul. I want to know the people I see in game, day in and day out. What makes Stew360 tick? Is Vonic a robot? Is Phrygen actually a prowler? These are the hard hitting questions I need answers to. Knowing the players in your community is what separates an MMO like this from a regular FPS. As a long time PS1 vet, one thing that kept me coming back and built the community while I was playing were the server specific forums. I could hop on and chat it up with people I was killing and getting killed by every day. This created rivalries and friendships, trash talk and competition. It made every battle more personal, and that made it more fun. There were always more mechanically sound FPS games than PlanetSide, but I came back multiple times just for the sense of community that was unrivaled in any other game. I've seen lots of arguments that server specific forums would create a toxic environment, and this confuses me. People talk about competition and drama and rivalries like they're a bad thing. This is an FPS, it's going to have competitive players. Whether or not you want to admit it, people love drama. It creates the rivalries and those rivalries create players with a vested interest in the game. Players that want to do well are more likely to stick around and spend money on the game. Take WoW for example. Were the server forums pinnacles of friendship and sportsmanship? Hell no. But they made world PvP really, really fun. And if you didn't like it, all you had to do was not look at it. But for those of us who want something more out of an MMO, server forums are such a simple addition that adds an important dynamic to the game that's been missing.
It wasn't even the persistent world or scale that set PlanetSide apart, it was the players in that world. Don't get me wrong, PS1 had more than its fair share of knuckle draggers and window lickers. The difference was, for lack of a better way to put it, that players knew their spot on the PS1 totem pole. There was a strong divide between the top tier outfits and the rest of the herd, and players knew this. There are several things that helped create this player hierarchy in PS1 that aren't present in the sequel and I think it has a much bigger impact on the game than a lot of people realize. Metagame: The lack of command structure and any sort of earned command ability puts the flow of the continent game entirely in the hands of zergfits. Combined with the lack of behind the lines or rapid resecure gameplay, this has lessened the strength of small outfits in PS2. Small outfits were the breeding ground for top level players in PS1 to make a name for themselves, here they're just lost in the herd. Server forums: You might be saying "wut" but hear me out. Server specific forums provide a focal point for all the **** talking, drama, and rivalries that are needed to drive the community in a PvP game. Low skill cap: Anyone that's spent a good bit of time reading the PS2 forums might've noticed this trend. There is no player accountability in this game. Anyone better than you obviously does nothing but abusing movement mechanics, and anyone worse than you or suggesting anything you don't like is a terribad who needs to learn to play. This is a stark contrast to PS1 where, for the most part, bad players knew they were bad. Here, because of the amount of low skill, instakill weapons, there are so many excuses for why your K/D is .4 that anyone can rationalize their deaths and everyone thinks they're an MLG All Star. These points (particularly the last one) and a few others come together to create an absolutely awful playerbase. There are far too many BR12s spouting off about gameplay balance and design without having the slightest clue what they're talking about. Obnoxious players aside, there is nothing being done by SOE to create a sense of community within the playerbase which was one of the few things that ever brought players back to PS1.
I don't know... at least in the air there is a lot of rivalry and camaraderie. I know a lot of the top fliers on Waterson and we have fun either flying together or trying to kill each other. The game is just still at a point where there are a lot of players that aren't in it for the long haul and don't care about building relationships with other players. As time goes on I think you'll see the core of dedicated players strengthen and build a stronger internal community. It takes time.
Of course it has to be built, and server specific forums provide a great base for that at no real cost.
I don't think SOE even cares about their websites at the moment. The mobile app hasn't been updated since it came out, the players page doesn't offer half the info that is in the in-game stats page. I don't even notice SOE employees taking part in threads as often as they used to.
If corporations meet all the criteria of being psychopaths then what makes anyone think a game model based on personal gain and corporate greed is going to produce...a community? In PS1 we paid a monthly due to take part in a club to enjoy each other's company. It was simple and it was honest....PS2 is not.
I think that PS2 has a decent community right now. A lot of the players that are in it for the long haul and trying to remain in PS2 for the remainder of it's (hopefully long) lifespan are trying to make PS2 a better place, not just in game by creating rivalry and competition, but on these forums offering feedback and making these forums an awesome place. There are plenty of people out there who don't really care about the game, but we can just ignore them. I think that, based on how many people we see on these forums, that we have a good community here and that we can help SOE make PS2 into an even better game than PS1 was, we just have to hope that SOE listens rather than pushes our demands aside (I heard they made that mistake in a different game of theirs and they vowed not to do it again). C'mon everybody, voice your opinions, let SOE know what we think, and while you're at it lets all continue to make this game an awesome place for all those who play it. I bet we can all keep PS2 afloat given that we can overlook SOE's previous mistakes. Server specific forums will be a great way to bump up the game's competitiveness a bit, but lets hope that instead of people being pure d*cks about their actions that people will actually respect that person that killed them. I see lots of well-known names on my server (Waterson) and it is pretty fun when you are not fighting the zerg (usually TR, who tends to steamroll all in it's path). I would go as far as to say that zerging is what makes this game un-fun, because you are lost in an endless crowd, and while zerging is what makes this game different from some others (Lots of people is what this is also known for), once the Metagame matures I think some of the zerging may disappear.
We set up server specific subreddits to try and fill that gaps, not every server subreddit is very popular though.
Well the problem with reddit is that it's a terrible looking website that seems to have been made in 1995 full of kiddie diddlers.
Good video from Wrel on Gaming communities: The rest of Wrel's PS2 stuff is well worth a watch as well: http://www.youtube.com/user/WarpathWrel/videos
That video covers a slightly different topic. It deals with the overall atmosphere that a game has around it. What Sock is talking about is server-specific investment from players.
The community on Briggs is quite good, the small toxic parts that shall remain unnamed are mostly not very annoying, until recently a large VS outfit decided to Make a NC branch just to Troll NC. (Ifuknowatimean)
Lack of rivalry is a result of the game being so massive. There isn't much sense of competition because the opponents are constantly changing and the game doesn't really give you any special attention for dominating a certain area. Battle islands seem like a perfect smaller scale competitive environment that will surely induce some rivalries, rage and drama which are really the spice of FPS games.
There are a few ps1 vs ps2 differences I've noticed that I think have made a large impact. In ps2, players can't see the names of enemies over their heads, and the killspam feed ui element is completely worthless. There is no name recognition. If I were to spawn in to a contested base in planetside 1 I could read the killspam easily and determine what outfits were attacking and defending. I could take a glance over a wall and read the names of the players that I would have to fight with. Now all the name recognition occurs when you are killed, which is just such a miniscule experience. Also you actually have to put forth effort to read the names of the allies around you at any given time. MBTs were consolidated into one-seaters. The skyguard was consolidated into a one-seater. This kills the culture of teamwork for vehicles. I know too many players that would rather pull libs that anything else just because they could have teamplay with their friends in a meaningful way. Players (infantry) don't interact with each other unless they specifically pull medic or engineer. In ps1 everyone would repair everyone else. You would understand to drop a REK or medkit if needed. Little things like topping off an ally's armor and health were widespread and ubiquitous. Every player could be in that mindset at all times. This is no longer the case because infantry are completely restricted in their actions by whichever class they chose at spawn. Even the engineers barely interact with infantry, they just place an ammo pack and leave. There is poor infantry interplay. There are no official server subforums. A killer. Self explanatory.
