Was decision to invest development time into Escalation, Shattered Warpgate, and Outfit Wars over Oshur the right one? Could we argue that a new continent like Oshur would have maintained or increased population levels as it caters to everyone? Or, did the current decision tree lineage (Escalation, Shattered Warpgate, Outfit Wars) help with more engagement (which would otherwise bleed with a continent)? Could the studio have launched Shattered Warpgate which seemed to have brought lots of old-time players back temporarily as a preface to an Oshur launch?
I would have preferred the variety of a new continent over the stuff they have added in to this point. However, I would rather than anything being added that long standing issues were fixed first.
The campaign and OW was definitely a wrong choice, it's not what the community wanted. I was kinda disappointed they cancelled Oshur again, but not surprised. Hossin isn't even finished, the lattice system was supposed to be temporary, and it seems everytime they revamp a map/base it gets worse. As exciting as I want Oshur to be, realistically it would've been likely as bad or even worse than than the new esamir. The continent would've likely attracted players, but everything about the game still screams "under construction". As weird as it may seem, massive lag spikes, falling through maps, drop pod etc - all the game breaking bus we've gotten used to over the years - it's shocking for a new player and ruins the experience. Not to mention they have to deal with vets, cheese and amplified effects of clientside. Not many games will you have someone who seems to be able to take an entire mag of your bullets yet drop you before you can even see them. New/returning players always experience these same problems that have never been addressed. Even the massive grind and the tutorial are still there, and those were the two main issues that always arose in feedback/reviews. While it's nice to reflect on what could've been done, or even what could be done, we have to realize that there's no stopping what the team has in mind. So far that means nothing good for the game
This was obviously Andy’s vision before he left Planetside 2. I am going to give Wrel the benefit of the doubt as we haven’t really seen the freedom of developments from his end yet, as everyone has a boss. To stay on topic: 1. Escalation reminds me a lot of the first Planetside when they introduced Battleframe Robotics and the meta game is what lead to it’s destruction. So when BFR’S ruined the ground fights and they lost people they nerfed the meta game and then lost what they had left by pissing off the BFR mechwarrior dorks. Same has happened with the Bastion users, they loved the camping but when the fight got took to them and they saw the nerfs and they couldn’t camp, they left. 2. Shattered warpgate reminds me of the first PS expansion into core combat except at least back then it was a separate map. They made big design mistakes with Esamir, it’s bases and locations that needed to be improved, not a map reduced to half it’s original size. They need more maps and more improved based designs in my opinion. Core Combat was an odd fit just like Shattered WG. 3. Outfits and the Wars reward oversized Platoons for big battles when the client hit detection, sound and graphics can’t handle many fights beyond a single squad of players. I find it ironic that with so much advancements in technology most gaming companies would never tackle such a project and always limit players to zone sizes for obvious reasons. The ISP server get’s strained from to many players in one location. Big outfits was a step in the wrong direction for PS and Outfit Wars was just another way to ram Planetside Arena down our throats in another form. Arena was another example of a failed product, but they moved forward with it anyway and pretty much ported it over to Planetside 2. Some things I do like, the Hoverbike and some of the weapons, but that’s it. Planetside 2 is an aging engine, but even Minecraft which is just as old got a graphics upgrade..... All the original works are pretty much in front of them from Planetside 1 that they could build on, they just don’t see it. I could go down a laundry list from Assault Buggies, a Skyguard that was a buggy, Deliverers and their variants, emp grenades that actually jammed vehicles or base turrets, a true minefield carpeted with 50 mines a 10 turrets, shadow turrets or Cerberus turrets, jammer mines, doors to hack, enemy vehicles to hack, being able to go underwater, vehicles that could go on water, cargo trunks on vehicles, backpacks to loot, lockers, being able to customize how and what you carried, implants such as audio, dark light, a light aircraft, a medium aircraft and a interceptor, phantasm cloaked aircraft, Max suits such as sparrow and star fire with real lock on AA, I can just keep going........
Minecraft is as much of a platform as it is a game AND it still drags in millions of dollars. PS2 does not.
New continents would have been just as bad as the other options. A new continent costs time and effort to make, but it would only be open for about as long as the other continents. The devs would likely keep it open for the first few months like they did with Hossin so the shine of the continent will be off in one, maybe two months at best. The time required to build such a continent is longer than that. Another problem is that such a continent would suffer from all the same problems current continents suffer from. It'll suffer the same problems with bases that are only visited when a zerg goes down a lane, battle flow issues where players feel the game momentarily stops after a base is captured, lack of viable ways to really counter attacker vehicles without a large facility, the bad balance between infantry, tanks and air leaving almost all dissatisfied with many parts of it. And I haven't even talked about how it spreads preferences of players or how we could end up with another Hossin disaster. TL,DR: Continents are too time consuming and expensive, give too little in return and won't solve anything the game really suffers from. First we need to solve those problems before the devs should even think of adding even a small continent.
I hate to sound negative (I know someone's laughing, but I actually don't like being negative) but I'd guess that Oshur would probably have been a mess, based on the current state of Esamir. One thing a lot of people forget is that the old Esamir had major problems, and needed an overhaul. While I'd like to see Oshur eventually, I'd like them to prove they know how to make a continent first. I'd like them to work on one continent at a time, learn from their mistakes, get Esamir right first, once players seem happy with Esamir then finally finish Hossin, then work on Oshur. I'd rather have fewer, better continents than more incomplete continents. Regarding armouries, outfit wars and the campaign: the game needs to continuously add more toys to play with, armouries aren't what I would have come up with, they have problems, but overall I don't hate them. The game suffers from being the same thing all the time, I've brought up ways to mix it up in other posts, but Outfit Wars added a highlight event which I both enjoyed playing in and watching. Sure, it has plenty of room to grow, if they re run it with no changes I'll be upset, but as it stands I enjoyed having a variant of Planetside with a controlled number of players and higher stakes. I enjoyed having to earn my place on a team who are hard capped at 48 players and having to contribute enough to get brought back the following week. So I know that I'm going against the opinions of the self proclaimed "kings of planetside" solo players, but Outfit Wars is a good thing, it helped keep many of the established players interested, and I look forward to the next season of it. Campaigns, yeah, bloody stupid. If they spent a dollar on the campaign they wasted the dollar. 20 packs of bubble gum to boost morale at the office would be a better use of a dollar than producing the campaign. As for where the money should go, de-bugging! There are some major bugs which have had multiple birthdays for crying out loud! Tldr? I'd like to see Oshur... eventually...but there are other things to look after first.
