[Suggestion] A Major Content Update Should Lead To A New Game, PS2 Is Dying!

I have noticed this game has been adding features that were in Planetside 1, with the mining and construction. If they ever created what Planetside 1 was on this new game engine then I think it should lead into a new game. There has been a huge decline in player numbers, currently, the 2 European servers have 1000-1450 on them daily for at least 5-8 hours, Emerald has 1000-1300 daily for 5-8 hours but Connery has declined a lot, they don't even go past 1000 anymore. This is all according to this site which I think is very accurate, if you compare the numbers with steam numbers, more people are online at anyone time than on steam since about 75-80% of players use Steam for PS2. This site isn't always online though.

http://www.therebelscum.net/world-population/

This new game would be called Planetside World Conquest or something like that. It would also let Planetside 2 players clone their character into the next game so they still have all their certs and weapons. As for servers, since the game world would be so huge then it should all be on one server but due to lag issues and distance between players, it should be divided into EU, NA and Oceania/Asia. You can also only choose 1 faction with this new game, you can't be in multiple factions at once, you can only switch factions if you delete your character and make a new one. Multiple characters of the same faction would be allowed, this would help balance population and encourage faction loyalty more.

As for Planetside 2, it should be connected to this new game in some way. Planetside 2 needs more content, I was thinking that there could be special maps every week, like an Urban warfare continent, which ever faction wins would have a big cert bonus for the following week until the next battle on a different map. All players on the server would play on this continent, these battles will take place every week on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Every week would be a new map or the same map until they create new continents to fight on. You would select your primary character to take part in these battles, like if you had 2-3 characters in multiple factions on 1 server, you would select your primary character and this character will always take part in the weekly battles and you can't use your other ones. Don't know if that would be a great idea though, would have to see how the population numbers are if they ever developed something like this.

Anyone like these ideas? I think it would really help increase player numbers, especially if a major huge content update lead into another game. Marketing a new game would bring back former PS2 players and new players in addition to having current players play it.

No reply? I guess it is because I wrote too much.

It's too expensive to develop new game. This game's 3d engine is also getting too old for new games, so new game should come with new engine to be attractive. That's easily 3+ million dollar investment over 1 year, more realistically 5+ million over 2 years. It's just not worth it. That's not even counting the massive marketing costs to hype up the game to increase player base

No, this is not correct. Planetside 1 has never had resources collection and construction. It has the ANT, but it's not for construction.
And developing a new game is not realistic so let's be honest. Once PS2 will be dead and buried there will never be a Planetside 3.

The problem is SOE / DBG have made and are still making the same errors they made with Star Wars Galaxies: trying to make a game appealing the widest audience they end up with something that does not appeal anyone. They basically wanted the game to be more enjoyable for the same category of players who buy COD or Battlefield, thus a lot of features of PS1 have been simpyfied: inventory, ANT, logistics... just look at the only existence of Redeploy. But PS2 cannot compete with those modern shooters, it doesn't have the graphics, it requires high specs machines, it lacks all the shiny things modern game engines can grant, it has no campaign, and blah blah blah.

On the other hand Planetside 2 is not even ok for those who look for a strategic approach or depth. The focus is on KDR instead of being on score per minute and territory control, it's possible to teleport to another fight almost instantaneously, leadership tools are rudimental (brutally inferior to what PS1 had on release!), resources mean nothing, we have no real metagame... from this point of view Planetside 2 is much closer to a team deathmatch than a real massive MMOFPS. The fact is having a massive scale means nothing when this is not supported by "strategic" features.

And guess what? They are too blind to see it. They didn't see Star Wars Galaxies running full speed down the precipice, they won't see it happen for Planetside 2 regardless what we say. Their marketing gurus probably told them this is the right way to develop a MMOFPS and they still think they're doing it right and the reason why their losing money is external outside their control (something like "the market is changing, modern players prefer MOBAs").

The true plain and simple is if they want to save Planetside 2 they have to take a final decision: either this must be a deep war simulation, or it must be a shooter for casual players. Imho the first is the way to go: PS2 has unique massive features and they have to use em as a competitive advantage against the other arena shooters. It's like Star War Galaxies: it was poor as theme park, but it wasn't even a full sandbox so no one was happy. When devs eventually decided it had to be a Wow clone it was too late and they made a mess (NGE anyone?). Until Planetside 2 will try be some kind of hybrid too simple for tacticians but not cool enough for FPS lovers, it will gradually die.

I've heard people predicting the death of PS2 for a couple of years now. But DBG bought it recently and in my commercial experience it is rare to buy something that is moribund unless you are going to asset strip it. I don't think it was an asset stripping purchase, otherwise why would they be investing in the new content (of which there has been quite a bit in small packets).

Dbg didn't buy ps2. It's just soe that cjanged name when sony sold them to Columbus Nova. Which is NOT a videogame maker. So if there is no profit they won't think it twice to shut down servers and fire everyone.

Imho the future of the company is strongly connected with what they will manage to do with eqn. PS2 can instead shine again but it has to take a clear path.

I don't think it needs a new graphics engine or game engine, both things are fine. First they need to update planetside 2 with more content, what I said in my original post is what I think they should do first.

"As for Planetside 2, it should be connected to this new game in some way. Planetside 2 needs more content, I was thinking that there could be special maps every week, like an Urban warfare continent, which ever faction wins would have a big cert bonus for the following week until the next battle on a different map. All players on the server would play on this continent, these battles will take place every week on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Every week would be a new map or the same map until they create new continents to fight on. You would select your primary character to take part in these battles, like if you had 2-3 characters in multiple factions on 1 server, you would select your primary character and this character will always take part in the weekly battles and you can't use your other ones for this. Don't know if that would be a great idea though, would have to see how the population numbers are if they ever developed something like this."

How about Project Reality, the fan base is stable, the structure is good,you don't die and respond every 40 seconds. Teamwork and strategy is actually apply to this game, I occasionally play once a while.

new content? like space pumpkins and the 'get revenge' button? seriously, there has not been any significant new content since hossin, which was a disaster. bad guns and unbalanced vehicle weapons don't count as new content, imo

congrats for using 'moribund' in a sentence... you're the only person in the world who does, btw.

They really need new content that all players would be forced to play on! Like one battle every week Saturday,Sunday and Monday, which ever faction wins gets a major cert bonus for the rest of the week until the next decisive battle on another new map. It would be amazing if they had a huge space warzone map, a huge space battle over Araxis where factions fight over control of the moons. There would be 1 moon you can have ground wars on and over it there would be a huge space battle with huge capital ships and boarding enemy ships. The capital ships would also spawn, bigger ones taking much longer.

But realistically, don't think a huge significant content update in the form of new continents/regions will ever come. Adding more will only divide the declining population across a bigger game world even more, unless they did what I suggested. Doubt it will ever happen, this game will slowly die and within 5-8 years it will have an active player base that Planetside 1 has now.

Pray and hope they learn quickly.

Planetside 2 has 5 years left until they decline into another dead MMO, 3 servers currently maintain 1000-1400 people online for 5-8 hours daily but Connery has lagged behind and does not go beyond 1000 anymore. I think it will hold steady like this for the next 5 years, then the game will start to decline massively instead of small declines and small gains every month. If they don't bring out some new content soon then this game will be dead. I started PS2 in Sept 2013 but I took some huge breaks, I currently have 670 hours logged on it, don't think I will play it for more than 2500 hours, 5 years should be enough time to play that much considering I also play other multiplayer games/MMO's.

Ugh. Another post about making the game more for a niche audience. And complaining the game suffered because it tried to appeal to the masses.

PS2 is a game that NEEDS massive user numbers to thrive or survive. It just can't get those numbers from the niche audience you are talking about. It can only get them from the masses.

And PS2 did NOT tune itself to the masses. It started fairly well setup toward the masses, but then it progressively tuned itself toward the hardcore organized niche players. New Player experience went to heck, Instant Action was castrated, vehicles disruptive to hardcore organized play were nerfed, etc.

I live in San Diego. I knew/know many people at 989/Verant/SOE/DBG/Sigil. I've been to and in their building a number of times. I was in the EQ1 beta and played through Planes of Power. I worked at Sigil on Vanguard. Their entire culture is consistently fixated on tuning the game to serve the niche audience of the hardore organizde players, to the point of making the game progressively more unplayable for everyone else. It's why I quit playing EQ1 shortly after Planes of Power. And as an Associate Designer I TRIED to fight for casual players and buildng out the solo player support in Vanguard and was shot down, the best I could do was (on my own) make sure there was enough generic overland pop of each level so players could solo limp along on them.

I never played Star Wars Galaxies, and do not include that game in my rant or claim Devs behavior about it: cause I just don't know enough about it. My ~SOE game experience is EQ1, PS2, Vanguard, a very little early PS1, knowing people at ~SOE, and working for a ~year at Sigil (inlcuding game launch). And in those games, I do see the design bias toward niche playerbase, and how it's a mess for the general playerbase of the game.

So which parts of this game are currently geared towards a niche playerbase only in your opinion?

(You won't get brownie points from me for mentioning "flying." That's the low-hanging fruit of answers.)

Of course the game needs tons of users. But what would you prefer? A big population which is kinda stable because it enjoys unique features of the game, or an even bigger one but quickly decreasing over time because players always jump to the next newer fps?

Trying to emulate streamlined arena shooters Planetside 2 gets in a battle it cannot win. It should instead lure more players highlighting its very unique traits.

This doesn't mean it will die tomorrow but it's rather interesting that the hemorrhage of players never ends.

Thks - I do like introducing new content to forumside as I don't have the skill to do it in game. But really, weapon changes, new weapons, VP system, cosmetic changes like cert lin page, objective markers, Koltyr...........there have been quite a lots of things plus, on my servers at least, the FPS, stability and lack of crashes after updates is noticeable after how they used to be under SOE.

Is there a reward when I open up another "game is dying" post or do people really think that?

Maybe also a graphical update.

I mean, on Ultra the game looks pretty nice (the shadows eat sooo much performance :S), but the textures are pretty blurred... also some more Flora (and Fauna?) would be nice.

1) The problem of the core design of Outfits as the hub of the game for higher level play
2) The permitted power creep broken gameplay in things like HA and Server Smash Meta and exclusive tools/advatnages of Organized play

It starts with the problem of the core design of Outfits as the hub of the game for higher level play, choking off gameplay and capping the depth of the standard gameplay experience in the kiddie pool and breaking Faction interaction (a quality gameplay experience that is actually commonplace in most other games). And it continues with the permitted power creep broken gameplay in things like HA and Server Smash Meta (due to lobbying rather than best design).


1) The problem of the core design of Outfits as the hub of the game for higher level play
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Outfits should be in the game. All manner of neat clique gameplay experiences should be in the game. I would layer on wondrous textured layers of content and gameplay for such things to play in. But they should not be the narrow pipe by which the entire game's non-base level of play is built upon.

Outfits should NOT be the narrow bottleneck through which the entire Organized game is channeled. Starting players and people playing outside Outfits should have a WEALTH of communcation, tool, and support options that are completely bankrupt in the game. When they have a Server Smash event, the players aren't routed through Outfits first (scattered like the Confusion of Tongues), they are stacked all up together inside their Faction. Where they can all be synced up and working together.


2) The permitted power creep broken gameplay in things like HA and Server Smash Meta
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Organized players don't understand the difference between hitting a triple and being born on third base. They have the skill to overachieve, they could win/overachieve at this game even if it were designed for an even playing field, but instead they use and cling to (and defend with lobbying) exclusive in-game advantages that just pervert/warp/doom the game itself.

They are much more interested in results and winning, than they are in actual quality gameplay. I saw this at Sigil/Vanguard too, where players (even many of our Designers who were racing to level up) only cared about personal progress, and didn't care about the actual quality of content (how many MMO players just skip reading the Quest in MMOs? that's a sign of time stressed players but even more so of badly written/made quests. Not a lot of people skip reading really fun/cool quests)

HA has become a crutch for people. The Server Smash Meta has become a crutch for people. Exclusive access to a Faction trait, or a broken unit, or a broken camo, or a broken tactic, or a broken squad only tool. All these are loopholes. They are loopholes taht are hoarded to get an edge on others. And the more PS2 chases protecting those loopholes, the more warped and bad the gameplay becomes.

Some players love typing in the code on a game to get God Mode. They speed through the game, ruin all the surprises, and then ditch the game. PS2 players are looking to type in God Mode to get their in-game results, they are fighting to keep their precious personal shortcut, and it just dooms the game.

The second PS2 because a grind, stats, performance recognition, game. Players jumped to looking for loopholes to get an edge. And the Devs just went with it.


I'd rebalance the game to be Combined Arms. Both the Standard Game AND Server Smash (I'd sync them up). Change it to use more of the Map. I'd rework the communication tools so that it was routed Faction 1st, Outfit (or other niche like subchannels pilots, tanks, etc.) 2nd. I'd hand out the Squad/Outift only tools to be open to all players. In short, I'd make a game that played and supported pan-Faction high end gameplay in a Combined arms and full Map fishbowl.

I would make some adjustments to flying, etc. But that is farther down on my lists of major core problems with the game. (but it is there)

Thye cut down on textures during opt update, so not much hope there. They could make better cjaracter faces and better and more numerous weapon models. Improve sky texture and sun color, glare and movement and interaction with fog. More proper fog color, its too bright often. Better ice texture with less specular, for snow too. Remove stupid not-good-enough color bleedeing from underneath everything. Remove stupid chromatic aberration. Reduce bloom.