Who Sabotaged TR Before Launch And Why?

It's a question I've been dying to know the answer to since the beginning. Who exactly sabotaged the Terran Republic before launch? Now that PS2 has no connections with Sony, I hope to get an answer. Not sure what I'm talking about? Let's travel back in time a few years...





Notice something? Well, aside for the obvious color differences, you'll notice that just about all of the promotional materials for PS2 feature TR with... ACTUAL, LOGICAL, FUNCTIONAL FIREARMS. Crazy, right? For example, the minigun wasn't the mess that it is now (a recoil beast that would just fly out of your hands) and wait... Is that... An ejection port?! Sweet jesus! Ok, so yeah, you're probably all aware that the vast majority of TR firearms launch spent rounds magically out of the side of firearms that have no ejection ports to speak of. Not to mention that these weapons LOOKED the part. They were sleek and made sense, matching the TR design. But then beta launched and these weapons were no where to be found. Instead, we got the cluster-fk, throw a bunch of 3d assets together, blocky messes that we have now (that lack ejection ports, proper magazine placement, look more like metal scraps the NC would slap together, etc etc). However, when you look at the other factions, it's as if nothing had changed. So who exactly decided to screw over the TR right before launch? Was Sony involved in some way? Was the point to make the TR less desierable of a faction, thus avoiding the zerg-fest that was the TR in the original game? I'm sure many of us have already spoken about this and an answer has possibly been given, but I've yet to hear of one. So please, after all of these years, consider spilling the beans. I know most of the TR want to know just as badly as I do! Thanks! <3

that would be higby.

higby had a SERIOUS hardon for the NC, which persists today even though he's gone.

basically, everything that made the TR and VS unique was wiped away the second he was put in charge, in favor of the NC master race.

virtually everything wrong with this game, from the crappy bases, to the bad art can be tied directly to higby

Is that confirmed or mere speculation?

it's not 'confirmed' as in higby made a post that says 'vs and tr suck, nc forever!'

edit:no wait, he said basically exactly that at one point, but i can't find the post

it's confirmed in that the game was MUCH better in alpha, which is where the OP's screenshots came from, when higby wasnt in charge, then when he got the job, everythign went downhill FAST and we have the crap soup we currently play today

Oh my God yes. The TR actually looked like military professionals back in those days. The weapons? *Shivers*
Look at how VS soldiers would've looked. THAT WEAPON, THOUGH; it doesn't look like fish, but an actual alien weapon capable of melting people!


Also, look at the Beamer! It used to shoot an actual beam!

Obama Higby is the sole source of all the world's problems and may actually be satan incarnate. He is undeniably to blame for everything wrong with planetside 2, based on this nonexistent proof I have right here. Now that he's gone, it's been nothing but fantastic decisions and stellar content, such as doubling/quadrupling the cert price of important infantry weapons and adding a game mode that nobody wants.

lil over kill there dude, but gets a thumbs up reguardless

While I like the older Vanu stuff as much as I like the older TR stuff, I can at least rationalize why they got rid of some of the designs for more space crab looking stuff, thus making the faction far more unique in apperance. But then you look at TR and it went from curved sexiness to... Oh god, I think I'm going to be sick just thinking about it. Well, either way, at least the newer weapons for all factions are looking pretty amazing.

its funny.. back in 2013 when I joined this game nc was so severely outnumbered and a lot of their stuff was just so awful. It was through sheer will I kept playing off and on and built up some nc pride along the way. Higby was such an nc lover he allowed light ppa, zoe max, super tr tanks to exist for long long time before fixing. Hig played nc.. that's about the extent of his so called biased.

The reason why devs usually never admit what class or empire they play is because of that imaginary biased,,

I remember talking to one of the devs, whois name escapes me, during some ops and the reason why the TR minigun was changed is purely because of technical issues. They tried to get it to work from an underhanded position, like the classic minigun, but something with the animations, I think, made that very difficult to do properly.

Also, a lot of weightless arguments in this thread regarding dev 'fav' factions getting treatment. NC for the longest time had a submachine gun with a faster fire rate than almost -all- of the TR weapons even though the majority of the dev team were TR players.

The beamer.. Actually shot beams... Weapons actually looks like they were thought about in design AND function... You people need to read my signature.

These pictures are too old to even bother talking about, they never even made into alpha, something about their polygon count or something.

no, they allowed the PPA cuz theres an outfit of VS that lives near the PS2 buildings that picketed once. freaked them the fk out

I think the issue is more the design aesthetics than anything. Though I remember reading at one point that the underslung MCG was nixed because it couldn't fire over low obstacles/cover.

I do think that a lot of the infantry weapons of all three factions could use another design pass.

really?

NC actually sucked early on, TR dominated. Mainly due to flinch, and high RoF guns back then had better accuracy and didn't have the added damage drop off. VS was alright, the Magrider was overpowered and they still had decent high RoF options - Orion was still amazing too.

NC was basically the MAX faction.

I guess they still are really, though now they've got the best overall selection of infantry guns too(not the best in every category but more varied and usable guns).

___

Aesthetically, though, things did look better in alpha. Not specific to TR though, everything was just more toned down and serious/ gritty looking. And honestly I think NC looks the worst now, at least armor design wise. VS has the worst looking weapons though. :/

- I say "though" too much.

Higby was the worst developer to live. I could probably find someone better in North Korea, and they make propaganda games where you drive around Pyongyang.

I remember during the beta we were the first, i think, to actually take the entire map. the only way we did it though was my scatting all over the place. HACKSAWS, GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

But really. NC MAXs have always been the ****, but as Grumblefern said we use to get owned the most due to the flinching mechanic in the game. It was definitely a frustrating time to be NC if you were doing anything infantry based not related to MAXing it up. And the Jackhammer, lol...not the best at a distance, not the best up close. least amount of rounds.

What a confusing time its been.

Complete nonsense, why would Flinch have gone Live in a manner that was horribly biased against the NC (and taken months to fix).
Why would ZOE, Striker 1.0, Fractures 1.0, all have existed longer than pre-nerf-nerf NC AI MAX (never mind just pre-nerf NC AI MAXs).

Firstly so many things changed from Alpha (VS looked much better with their metallic rather than purple/black).



However the reason the Minigun was changed is pretty straight forward:

They didn't want it firing low as it would hit terrain/cover and couldn't work out a way that fixed that which didn't look silly (i.e. the bullets coming from above the gun).

Now whether it could have been fixed is a different kettle of fish, but that is the reason, so not sabotarge, no.

So, if aesthetics favour NC (alleged Higby influence) why do they look like Lego toys, especially in their cosmetic armour? And who gave VS females that butt? I grant you the NC weapons look better than the other factions...........(to me at least).