"Good news for Planetside! We've just started work on Continent Locking! "

https://twitter.com/muldoonx9/status/469623761449127936

Wow.

Oh boy its so bad they havnt even started until now. No Hossin or cont lock this summer. September perhaps? Expect these features to be pushed back on the roadmap tomorrow. Also even when its ready its going to be Nexus fot battle islands for a year my bet is.

The PS2 Dev team seems to have a similar sized workforce to that of Ultima Online.

Literally about 15 people D:

There really are some loooong waits ahead of us. And lots of them.

At least it's started. We're going to have some massive (and sustained, at all population levels) fighting going on once this hits PTS.

Can someone explain why locking continents is a good thing? I always thought it was just supposed to be a stopgap for low pop servers, surely if they're starting work on that it means admitting the game is on its way out?

I think the hardest part has been planning of the mechanics of how it would work and how to crush an overflowing server's faction onto one continent without issues.

In short, metagame - with it this game will hopefully end up being more than just a massive team deathmatch, capping bases and holding strategic locations will finally matter something (Take a look at how it was in Planetside 1 if you are interested).

What's really involved with making the lattice? It seems devastatingly easy to make.

Better late than never I suppose.

Because it's not just, "push them off the continent, they can't spawn here." Continent locking is the continental lattice system, making all 4 continents connected. Warpgates that are actually for warping, and not just the base spawn areas. It means that each faction will have a unified front line, not multiple front lines on multiple continents. In short, continent locking is what turns planetside into a war, and not just circlecapping around a continent. There will be no more, 80% VS on Indar, 80% NC on Esamir, 80% TR on Amerish, all doing their own thing, then hopping to another continent when they finish capping it. Instead, you have ALL of the faction pushing together. In whatever direction that may be.

Edit: just saw they aren't putting in continental lattice along with continent locking at first, according to Higby on Reachcast. So big surprise, it'll be another feature that spends a year half finished. Continent locking doesn't do much except help concentrate populations without intercontinental lattice.

I was wondering what happens when one faction captures all the continents? does that mean no one plays and i have to log off and do something else?

I assume one would be reopened instantly but that cheapens the entire experience. Unless we set up enough continents that its practically impossible to do.

From what I remember each faction will have a "home" continent warpgate, and it can't be captured

In fairness they couldn't really do locking till they had at least 4 continents (although it's going to be seriously ghetto compared to PS1 with just 4).

But yes, it's not something I'd be holding my breath waiting for it to go Live.

From what I remember, there was 1 continent we spent most of our time on, forgot which one, but everyone go really sick of it.

Continent Locking alone will not save PS2 ... also it will not work in the current environment, there are just not enough continents ...

Not to mention the silly warpgate rules that were once discussed ... making them bases is still a bad thing, they are transit points. Can we atleast learn one thing from PS1, instead of reinventing the wheel all the time from scratch? Seriously, what is so wrong from stealing from your own original IP?

One of the major things that like made PS1 was it's global conquest, I'm sure there are lessons to be learned from it ... but if SOE would suddenly look back at PS1 to atleast "learn" from it ... I let other PS1 vets finish that thought ...

"good news, everyone! we've just finished all the unnecessary stuff like cosmetics, implants, pointless guns and are now going to work on the core game experience. but fear not, we are making so little progress that you'll probably see this by the end of 2015. in the meantime, MOAR COSMETICS/GUNS/IMPLANTS!!!"

Save it? It's more likely to kill it. With in the first month I'd expect the following scenario for VS (used as the most common low pop side for reference purposes only): Log in, have 1 continent available ("home" base one) which is pop locked (because NC/TR took the other three and don't attack each other in enough force to open them). Yay, sit on char screen and wait for someone to log off so you can actually play the game is so much fun!

Continent locking worked in PS1 because we had Sanctuaries(uncaptureable home continents which were nothing more than a giant staging ground for assaults).

And more importantly, each Sanctuary had a connection to 3 different continents to which the other two empires could only connect through other continents, because PS1 launched with way more continents ...

Oshur, Easmir, Cyssor, Amerish, Hossin, Searhus, Ceryshen, Forseral, Ishandar and Solsar ... I probably forgot one or two ...

But PS1 had 3 safe continents(to stage up assaults) with each 3 different routes out of them to over 9 continents ... You always had primary and secondary continents, directed by Player CR5s ... in the good times ...

As someone who doesent like scavenging the internet,reddit,twitter,facebook and whatnot to try and find these things SOE try their best to hide from us, thanks for posting this here.
(god knows SOE wont)