Set Sail for Oshur

Discussion in 'Official News Feedback' started by Mithril, Nov 9, 2021.

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  1. Mithril Community Manager

    Throughout the past year (let alone over the past nine,) there's been no shortage of ambitious projects. Exploring tournament-style competition, raising up a monumental new facility type, overhauling an entire faction, and revamping the new player experience... it's a lot for a single year, and we're not quite done. During the anniversary last year, there was a bullet on our slideshow that I was really looking forward to. It just said... "New continent".
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    Featuring... Andy Sites' suit, Andy Suits, if you will.

    If you search for "PlanetSide 2 Oshur" on your favorite internet browser, you might stumble across some content from the 2018 time period (with a team size of 6) where we were looking to introduce a new continent then, too. While it was certainly feasible, the game would have suffered elsewhere during the time it would take to develop, and the quality was unlikely to hit our standards. You can blame it on some unbridled optimism, and my excitement as a player for new places to wage war.
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    Remember this? Shadespire Farms remembers.

    Creating a continent is a massive undertaking that shouldn't be understated, and with the constant pull of improving the game, meeting deadlines, and trying to ensure that our niche title has enough players to remain healthy and happy, there are valid reasons why PlanetSide 2 hasn't received a full-scale continent since Hossin's release in 2014.
    Fast forward to 2021, our team is much larger with long-time industry veterans, and now a track record of making amazing things for PlanetSide 2 since Escalation's release in March of 2020. So we decided to give it another go. The building blocks are in place now: new players now have a better introduction to the game, we have Campaigns to tie the stories of the world to, we have Missions to provide guidance within the sandbox and direct players to interesting new experiences, populations are balanced and queue times are reduced at most hours thanks to NSO, and in general, many of the long-time bugs that existed for years have been squashed. It's a decent time and place to try something new, something that expands that constant four-ish continent loop we've been living in for the past seven years.
    Through the hard work and dedication of the team here at Rogue Planet, we're pleased to announce (once again?) a new continent to explore...

    The Islands of Oshur

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    An abandoned island paradise

    Once a tropical paradise brimming with research opportunities, the island populace was evacuated as the Auraxian War began. With tensions high and no access to rebirthing technology, the risk to stay was too great.
    Many years later, and with events of the Shattered Warpgate only a recent memory, Nascent Expeditions takes on a contract funded largely by the Terran Republic to enable a return to the abandoned islands. However, they're not the only interested party.

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    Strategy, teamwork, and transportation

    Gameplay on Oshur is a return to the game's roots, in some ways, with a heavily logistics-based experience. Construction, transportation, and strategy will be vital to maneuver this chain of islands.
    Cortium veins will be found in abundance, making life a bit easier for our builders. The construction system itself will also be receiving a tune-up to address balance concerns, and revisit some outdated concepts.
    Construction bases forming beachheads and guarding open-field capture points will exist alongside hand-crafted "dev" bases, as well as new facility types.

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    Ride the waves, or dive beneath them

    Of course, islands wouldn't be nearly as fun with a simple kill-plane whenever you got your feet wet. So instead, we've developed a full-featured water system that allows every vehicle, infantry, and projectile to interact with water in new ways.
    Wheeled vehicles putter along the surface, hover vehicles float above (ala PlanetSide 1,) treaded vehicles and infantry will prowl the oceanbed, and the most nimble air vehicles can maneuver beneath the waves like submarines.
    Water is primarily a traversal mechanic, as most traditional weapons can't be fired under water. Your knives and new amphibious combat rifles will provide some limited combat capabilities beneath the waves, but plunge at your own peril.
    We also made sure to keep performance in mind while designing a beautiful, immersive environment, complete with new audio and visuals for your travels above and below the waves.

    Ready to celebrate?

    I hope you're all as excited as I am for some pretty freaking sweet new mechanics, an entirely new continent to do battle on, and even some lore to dive into. Expanding the world of PlanetSide 2 is something that we've been inching toward over the past few years, and it's great to actually be able to realize that by the end of this year.
    Would you like to know more?

    Join us for a special 9th anniversary Livestream, and gameplay preview of Oshur on November 17 at 2pm PST on www.twitch.tv/planetside2
    (Check for local times: https://savvytime.com/converter/pdt-to-cest-japan-tokyo)

    Thanks, everyone. Keep fighting the good fight.
    -Wrel, Lead Designer

    We want to hear what you think! What is your favorite part of this update? Drop us a reply down below!
    • Up x 4
  2. Nicekiwi

    "An abandoned island paradise" brings back memories of FarCry Original and the first C&C Renegade Mission and all the excitement that came with it, Combined with the scale of planetside leaves me almost in a coma of educed excitement.

    The cover image also has memories of Halo Evolved Combat too! :)
  3. SgtBlacksmith

    Thank you to the dev team!! I'm so excited to see the new continent, and I'm so happy that this game is continuing to get love going into its 9th year. Walking, driving, and flying underwater sounds absolutely silly and I love it. That river on Esamir makes a lot more sense now. :D

    I know the community is often very critical of the developers (I'm so sorry Wrel), but I genuinely believe that with every bit of forward progress you make you'll win more and more people over. Don't forget to really listen to feedback, though!
    • Up x 1
  4. Stopper

    Very, very good news ! I was very excited when I read this !

    This game is so beautiful and the ingenuity of some bases design is so great, especially on Hossin (Kessel's crossing, Naum ravine overpass, Naum forward barracks, Roothouse's distillery, Fort liberty, Nason's defiance, Four fingers...).

    I can't wait to discover Oshur and the new bases and landscape.

    But, please, please, don't do the same error that in others continents : don't put bases in holes surrounded by hills, because every good infantry fight is ruined by tanks spamming inside the base.

    Bases should be places dedicated to infantry fights, and so, vehicles should not be able to go inside (Harrasser, Magriders) ou shooting into it from the exterior.

    Thanks devs !
  5. Erosion139

    Thank you for creating more use for construction. This is the main thing I have been hoping for when it comes to oshur. Battling across the shoreline creating base structures for the endless tug of war, but dynamic through destruction. I imagine this will become my favorite continent and I am sure you all realized its potential when the shattered region was so fun.
  6. MagnaCore

    NIce!.. Any chances of surface vessels in the future?
  7. bambam58

    hi
    get 3 professions in the game, thieves, cops and traders..While the intercontinental caravan is being pulled, thieves can attack the police and the caravans. All 3 sides can earn certificates from here.


    so no one gets bored of the game
  8. BlackFox

    So we get a new continent? Great!

    ... except that maybe some work on overall game balance, gunplay and player experience would polish the game up more. What do we need a new enviroment for if the same bad decisions that pull the game down will be found there, too? Alone the open fields for constructing own bases will be massive graveyards thanks to the cloaker plague, and tanks will be F-ed up by the Harassers running rampage there.
  9. LiquidSleep

    Can you please make it so loadstars count towards heavy assault air vehicle damage? It's a bummer there's all these big ships but I'm not progressing the heavy Auraxium.
  10. Tormentos

    Sooo.... Harpoon rifles, harpoon pistols and portable mini torpedo launchers ahead? Maybe we will have some paint grenades as well working like smoke grenades, only under water and twice as long

    Here's another idea: A portable seaglide like the portable flash. With the abilities of the infantry deactivated, LAs shouldn't be able to jump anymore either, so a portable vehicle for all classes able to help to elevate yourself in the water might be of aid in subnautic battle.

    Also: I've been on the Testserver already to see the lamp lighting. Although I know this to be a WIP, I sincerely hope you devs will add visible cones of light to EVERY light down there, may it be from vehicles, buildings or darklights. It just adds to the immersion that we are down there in murky, dark waters. Especially at night. And of course: The visibility down there can be a bit more blurry. The filter is good so far, yet it looks a bit too crystal clear.
  11. Tormentos

    Come all you Auraxians, listen to me.
    I'll sing you a song of Oshur in the sea.

    And it's fiery weather, boys, stormy weather.
    Battlefield burns when we all fight together.
    Boys blow ye winds fringewards, HEY!
    Blow, ye winds, blow.
    Man me that Galaxy, steady she goes.

    Up comes the enemy bastion
    in search of our home.
    Through clouds to a place that's
    beneath waves and foam.

    And it's fiery weather, boys, stormy weather.
    Battlefield burns when we all fight together.
    Boys blow ye winds fringewards, HEY!
    Blow, ye winds, blow.
    Man me that Galaxy, steady she goes.

    Come the allied zerg,
    taking us far.
    All through the conquest lanes
    and out to our war.

    And it's fiery weather, boys, stormy weather.
    Battlefield burns when we all fight together.
    Boys blow ye winds fringewards, HEY!
    Blow, ye winds, blow.
    Man me that Galaxy, steady she goes.
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