[Guide] ►Why PLANETSIDE 1 is STILL better than Planetside 2! PART 2!

That is exceedingly harsh, when PS1 came out most of the players were still on dial-up - just think about that for a second.

There was no such thing as an MMOFPS shooter, PS1 was the first, online-FPS of the time still basically had 2 small teams on a small map on a small server and still struggled (bigger team FPS appeared post-PS1)

They were very different to current Warp Gates as they pooled your entire faction (and of course there was the intercontinental link) - with current PS1 populations they cannot function as they once did.

Last time I played they could only hack empty vehicles.

That's interesting if they've continued to do that to EQ1, because one of the inital reasons WoW did well was basically because it was EQ1-lite (literally).

But this is the interesting point I think, what you're saying is that that to help EQ1 surivive they basically WoW'd it, and you're saying the same things should/could be done to PS1.

However the reality is whether you PS2-ify Planetside 1 or PS1-ify Planetside 2 you are basically moving towards THE SAME PLACE (a better game).

Of course sensibly the only real option is to take the best bits of PS1 and add them to PS2.

I'm sure it wasn't, by far the best PS1 moments were in 100+ per side battles. It was a poor game with low pop, as indeed PS2 is, I often log off PS2 after a very short time these day (even in prime time) because there are no fights and that equals no fun.

Conversely if there are big fights going on I tend to play for quite a while.

However PS2 having no pop when I play doesn't therefore make it a genuinely terrible game.

I for one think PS1 was better in its time than PS2 is in its time.
Head to head: yeah, sure, PS2 plays better. But it's got 15 years of technological advancement behind it.

I genuinely don't believe you can go back to PS1 now and get the experience you did when it was (say) 6-12 months old. You need the population: you need the established outfits to get that, and much like PS2 is now I guess, once they've moved on the game is poorer for it.

Why I think PS1 was better? Scope and depth.

Sure: it took you 3 months to work out what you were doing. But then it rewarded by supporting multiple playstyles. You could spend an evening flying a Gal, or doing supply runs in an ANT, simply sitting in an enemy base to deny them benefits, or being the LLU run getaway vehicle. You could easily spend the entire evening trying not to have to fire at an enemy, instead simply sneaking in to sabotage a base or plant a teleporter. People got a reputation for being good at that; heck they didn't even put a K/D tracker in until later on.

There were admittedly simple, but at least alternative attack plans. You didn't have to just try to batter your way in to a base to make progress, and you could open up new fights by being a bit sneaky and draining a bases energy.

I know none of these are major things in their own right, but they added up to a different game. I guess it boils down to non-linearity. PS2 is a very A->B kinda game. PS2 is much more shooter focussed. The gun play is better than in PS1, which suffered from being built against dial up tech. Physics are better too. There are more base layouts (good) though many are poor (bad). At least the PS1 ones mostly worked (though Leza interlink was the wrong base in the wrong place).

The major shame (imo) is that logistics got the heave-ho in PS2, as that led to the platoon spawn-hopping that is manifest in the game, but I get that PS1 quickly went niche and there's little money in niche, hence they had to appeal to solo and casual players much more.

Each to their own, I know.

I was one of the last people to switch to cable in my rural neighborhood. That was in 2000. In 2003, the only person I knew to still be running dialup was my not so tech savvy sister running AOL. But she got a pass being in the Army and constantly moving around, she didn't have time to get hooked up to cable and unhooked each time.

When I played EQ in 2001-2005, I don't remember people having to reconnect through dialup or whatever. Everyone had DSL or Cable by then. Now some people were running potatoes for computers (even by 2000 standards) but their connections were all broadband.

When I played MechWarrior 3 in 1998, that was another story. It was half dial-up and half DSL/Cable.

It was also SOE's first attempt at a FPS. And it showed. However the MMO portion did do rather well. As far as handling network connections. They did know how to do that. I'll give them that much credit.

As I said before.. and have actually said for years about the Sanctuary topic.. we have warpgates that serve the same function. The only thing I could see the Sanctuaries be used for is RPing. Which is weird. As it is a MMOFPS, not a MMORPG. And this is coming from someone who does RP in the MMORPGs on occasion.

Now this wouldn't bother me so much. But everytime the idea is suggested, its with the idea of popping people out of vehicles.

There's a ton of misconceptions about WoW in 2004. I was an EQ player from 2001 to 2005 (and again since then, but that's not pertinent here). I also played WoW in 2004 when it was released. I could run WoW, I couldn't run EQ2.

From a EQ player's point of view.. one who did trials in GoD and OoW.. WoW kicked my tail in. That's right, in 2004, WoW was harder than EQ. There were way more things you had to do with your character. Enemies were tougher and smarter. And those elite monsters with elite quests to go with them were like nothing we had in EQ at those low levels.

Then you had the dungeons. With bosses that had mechanics. In EQ you had named. Slightly tougher mobs, but still ran up to you and auto attacked. And bigger named, bosses with Rampage and Flurry. Still nothing with mechanics.

In 2004-2005 nothing in EQ worked like the boss in Gnomergan. Bombs coming out of the walls to blow up on you. And of course the raids in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Naxx40. Nothing like that existed in EQ. I mean look at Citadel of Anguish. You had a boss whom you moved out of an attack and then moved back in to continue dps. You had a boss that summoned adds. Then a boss (last one) that required someone to use a mirror at certain points.

Pretty damn simple stuff compared to the group dungeon bosses in WoW.

And then death penalties. I always felt that WoW's was pretty harsh. Damage to equipment was a big one back then. It was more expensive to repair gear, especially plate. Dying in EQ never cost me coin. Just time. Sure we had exp loss. But you normally ran with a cleric or pally and 90 and 96% rezzes were there. So you lost one pull off exp at most.

Where WoW was percieved as being easier in 2004, was you could solo to 60. Every class in EQ with enough prep (bandages and food/water) could solo. But it was time consuming. WoW wasn't as time consuming. But time spent does not equal easier or harder. That was a QoL difference. I know this because I solo'd a rogue in EQ. Try that btw. Its possible, and not too bad if you keep your skills leveled.

WoW turned easy around its 1st or 2nd expansions. Well for the 1-60 game. The expansions up to Lich King were pretty tough when they were current. What WoW did up to 2010, is make it easier to get to the current content and then take the training wheels off. Most MMO's do that. And personally I don't see anything wrong with that. You do want the majority of players at the same point.

Now for what WoW did in later expansions past 2010... I couldn't comment on. I didn't play it after that. I've heard that they made the game even in current content way easier.

EQ didn't do that. Try going to Plane of War (one expansion back from current) and see if you can even one group it. You can't PUG that. EQ is still what it was remembered as being. They only did QoL changes that made sense.

MW3 was 1999, but to some degree it depends on where you lived, but claiming that most people (US or EU) were on Broadband by 2003 is utterly incorrect:



I was on the very bleeding edge of cable broadband in my country, and I didn't get it till 1999, and I hardly ever saw anyone with a ping as low as mine for a couple of years (did my TF1/Firearms ratings no end of good. ).

Loads of people playing PS1 in the first few years were still on dial-up of some sort or ISDN.

The relatively high TTK was a design choice, the devs said so at the time, it was because of the scale of the game, the potential for lag, combined with relatively slow internet connections of the time (when PS1 was first being developed remotely fast internet connection for home users were unheard of being almost 100% dial-up, ISDN would have been your fastest with a very low user %).

Really low TTK FPS online games were only starting to come into play, a lot still were relatively high TTK (especially when PS1 development began - at that point really there would only have been Firearms and Counterstrike mods for Team Fortress IIRC).

Again they don't!

In PS2 you have A warpgate on each continent. In PS1 you has A scantuary that everyone dropped into before they looked at the map and decided where to go. This allowed for build ups that just don't happen in PS2. Also with the inter-continental lattice it would be THE place to build up to retake home warpgates....... which of course in PS2 you cannot lose.

There's no magic to it, just that instead of effectively 4 seperate warp gate "sanctuaries" in PS2 there was ONE big one in PS1.

I've only ever seen people ask for PS1 type hacking (which only is possible if the vehicle is empty).

I dunno, maybe you found WoW hard, after playing EQ1 from 1999 (and several other MMO before WoW) I found WoW ridculously easy, so easy in fact that if I hadn't found EQ2 player models so horribly ugly I'd have definately played that, as WoW was boringly easy (I nearly didn't play it at all after playing the the WoW Beta because I basically never died or really felt like I was going to).

It was only with the competitive PvP R14 system that I thought it became difficult (more to do with the sheer amount to time you hard to put in - and that didn't last long).

You'll want to read up on Expert Hacking.

Fair enough, that wasn't around when I played. I don't think that would work well in PS2 at all, and in fact unoccupied hacking should be harder than in PS1, as there is no cert point cost effectively (or rather in PS1 it required specialisation).

That chart doesn't represent gamers. As I said, the only person I knew at the time still on dialup wasn't a gamer. Now I don't know the situation of your country. Everyone I played with was either in the US or Canada.

I wasn't talking about TTK. Long TTK's didn't and still don't bother me.

We might have to agree to disagree here. I have no freaking clue still what the big fuss about Sanctuaries is. To me its a nostalgia thing because everything that has been explained to me that a Sanctuary is, a Warpgate functions as.

Early EQ2 and WoW was about the same from what a few buddies told me. Just different art styles. And class progression obviously.

R14 varied by server. On Silverhand you had to get a group of friends together to play in shifts on a single account. At least at first. Since the honor gains were based on totals, it was the only way to compete. After a few months that slackened as they couldn't keep it up and then it became more fair.

Now if you want to try a game that kicks your teeth in. Final Fantasy XIV will do it. Pretty fun game if you've got 3 buddies to play with. PUGing is a chore. Your current day EQ-player would fail in that game.

PS1 you had to cert into the MBT, and because you had to specialise most people didn't have MBT available to them, if you certed it you could pull one every 5 minutes.

It meant tankers had tanks, pilots had planes, infantry had heavy armour and weapons. It was a far better system.

In terms of grenades and stuff you had to fit them into your load out, you could carry 10 grenades if you wanted but you'd be short of ammo or health packs. That system wasn't perfect but it was more imaginative, and allowed far more customisation. I.e. bring a rifle and a shotgun if you want to focus on infantry but hope you don't run into a MAX. That system was also excellent for team work, you had to balance your ammo with your rep and med juice and when you ran out of something you were screwed.

All continents were connected, you could loop around and join one continent from behind but it may have meant flying through another cont to do it, it took a bit of time but gave a tactical advantage, so more options.

You could fly to locked continents and force them to open if you drain a base of resources before an opposing commander noticed what you were doing.

If you got your **** kicked off of one cont you got pushed onto the next, you often would recall the entire empire (easy to do with worthwhile outfits) and select a new target anywhere on the 12 map to attack. You'd be aiming to get a foothold before defenders noticed and pulled their own forces back.

Overall it was just more tactical. Rather than now where it's just zerg the next base on the lattice.

Connect the warpgates and you still have the same thing. Again, I'm not seeing it.. you're going on about inter-continental lattice, and from the pics of how it would work in PS2, there is no need for a sanctuary nor were they present. So again I give you all the option to agree to disagree, because I still don't see the point behind them.

In fact I'm going to say we already have the Sanctuary. Its called the VR. Its a place you can meet up always without any enemy action stopping you. And you can go to any open continent from there.

Feel free to try again if you think you can explain it better.

Well, I know from my experiences in PS1 it was about being unpredictable and coordination. It was like a game of "Chess" melded with "Battleship" with moves and counter-moves.

From the attacking side...
We would wait in the Sanctuaries and not have to worry about being monitored by the enemy. With three available warpgates going to three different continents, that meant the enemy wasn't sure where the next attack would be. So we had the time to form up with a force big enough to almost lock the continent and wait as the cr5s decided which continent would attack. It wouldn't be a long wait, but it gave everyone enough time to get the combined force.

Sometimes, an outfit would volunteer to be a decoy during the buildup - like my old outfit. In those instances, our objective was to attack and drain bases on the decoy continent and divert the enemy forces. While they were trying to figure out what was going on, the main force started their attack. By the time the enemy realized what happened, we had our foothold on the other continent.

Lastly, if our empire was pushed off a continent the Sanctuaries gave us a chance to step back and take a breath. There wasn't a rush to fight, psychologically, we knew we were going to form up for a new attack so outfits, squads and platoons had a chance to plan their own individual attacks within the empires directive. When you were in the Sanctuaries, at least in my case, your mind clicked with coordination and "for the empire" elements rather than getting into the fight to just shoot the enemy.

Alternatively, from the defending side...

We had to constantly monitor our territory and check the map. When I mean we, I mean the leadership and quick reaction outfits. Was that base by the warpgate at 60% being drained for an invasion, or did it just need to be replenished? If we noticed a hack, a decision had to be made. The best thing to do is send a quick recon or scout to check it out. No sense diverting forces if it was a loner. However, if it was an invasion force resources needed to be diverted. How many people though? Again, a lot of times a cr5 would send a request for a recon mission. Intel went up the chain of command to make a decision. Again, the strategy with this is the unknown element since we don't know what the enemy is up to in the Sanctuary.

Additional standpoint...

PS1 had a lot of massive two-way fights, where the third empire wasn't even on the continent at all. That being said, if the third empire wanted to stir the pot, they very well could easily do that just to disrupt things and frustrate the enemy.

Overall, there were a lot more variables to keep track of, not just from a tactical view, but also a strategic view. It was much more challenging trying to figure out what the enemy was doing and then balancing the counter-punch to maintain your current offensive while dealing with the new threat.

From the standpoint of PS2.

With only four continents, it's tougher to set up the system the way it was in PS1. I'll admit that. Perhaps they could set up two warpgate options? While you can argue the current warpgates perform the same function, it can be said that it is not with secrecy. The building force can be watched by the enemy from outside the warpgate (excluding 4th factioners), and the surprise attack is voided.

Additionally, with only two continents open at any one time, it is very difficult to achieve a real surprise attack. You're either on continent A or continent B and there are x options available. Even tougher is to sustain what little surprise you have with the way the deploy system is set up. You could say that someone can log in and see what they are up to and log back out. That is true. I've always felt there should be a time limit to changing factions within the same server. That could serve as a strong counter.

The other thing about above is...why wait to organize when you can just fly to the battle. You're already on the continent. There's no sense of waiting, unless you're in an outfit. If you're in a Sanctuary and you see a big force forming, you're more likely to participate in it because there's no rush to get out there.

Lastly, one thing about the inter-continental link. It just felt complete. In PS1, you had to win every base and tower to lock the continent - not win a majority of the bases. When you pushed the empire off, you really felt like you accomplished something and you got to enjoy it for a few minutes. That is, before you had to rush to the aid of one of your other continents or push on to the next territory. It's still doable with PS2 but they would have to reduce the number of outposts on each continent by a lot. Hopefully, they do that when they incorporate the base-building feature.

Here's a little gem I came across. At 1:44, you can see alarge, combined force preparing to invade a continent.

It does represent everyone however, and that 16% of people with broadband, may well translate to a higher % of gamers with broadband, but given that 37% of people still had dial-up at that time it is highly unlike to have been everyone playing Planetside 1 and indeed it wasn't because plenty of people (almost certainly most people in fact) still did use dial-up when it launched.

You used to be able to tell this even as a player as LD was much more common in both EQ1 and PS1 in those days.

Many people were still playing on dial-up even by the time WoW came around, although the uptake had increased rapidly by then.

That's the major difference.

It is simple:

PS2 faction population - WG1 + WG2 + WG3 + WG4

PS1 faction population - Sanctuary

I don't know what else to say, maybe there isn't big build ups from the Sanctuary in PS1 these days, but that doesn't in any way mean that there wasn't regular big build ups from the Scantuary in PS1 ever. (much more regular and larger than anything I've ever seen occur in PS2).

EQ2 models were ugly, they'd gone with whatever the new directX features where of the time, Ogres for example looked like they had warts on their skin, but then looked like that skin was make of plasticine.
Dwarves were even worse.
Where as WoW made the (in hindsight) stupendous decision to basically use a similar system to EQ1s original models only with the quality as high as they could make it.
No idea if EQ2 was as easy, as I didn't play much past the starter island due to the above, WoW was definately the easiest of any MMO I'd played properly uptil that point (UO, EQ1, AO, AC, SWG, DAoC, SB etc.).

Play in shifts? No you just rearranged your entire life and nearly died from lack of sleep. (I was queuing a 22 hour day at one point) Which is likely why so many of the first R14s quit not long after doing it (because it was a monumentally stupid thing to do and totally and utterly burnt you out doing it).
They loosened the system a LOT after a couple of months, then loosened it again not long after, loosened it again, then totally changed it after that.

To be honest you're not going to, I think.

It is like me trying to explain what EQ1 was to a newbie, back before their were in-game maps, no corpse decay/lose, no experience loss on death, and before they changed the light-system.

I can explain how terrifying it was to be basically completely blind, lost in Qeynos Hills at night trying to find your corpse with all your rubbish but insanely precious gear and gold (well copper) on it, being constantly chased by wolf pups and hoping you didn't stumble into the certain death of the skelly ring........... but only people that experienced it will really understand.




I mean do you honestly think that everyone but you is having a mass delusion about the role Sancturies actually used to provide in PS1? Or it is it just you not seeing it?

PlanetSide GOTY 2015
It's ok guys, when I win the Lottery, I'll buy the PlanetSide rights and remake it on forgelight!
and it wont be a MLG, Try hard, Point Scoreboard Farming Simulator.
It will have a scoreboard, but it will be like the old one, where it's left to thirdparty websites to do the MLG Try hard KDR sh**, and the in-game scoreboard will be about actual score based on contribution and squad/outfit points.

Why would you do that? Forgelight I mean.

I think Unreal would handle it better. Maybe. I know it can do large maps alright. Not so sure about the hundreds of people in an area. Actually maybe CryEngine.. as much as it makes me cringe to suggest it. That handles vehicles well. You could pile people on MBTs for transport. Its netcode is a bit dicey.

MECHS

But corpse recoveries from the bottom of Droga, the Hole, SolB, CoM, LGuk, and Karnor's were FUN.

TRAIN LEFT! NO NO NO IT'S TRAIN RIGHT MAN WTF111!!!