Identity Crisis

I don't know, I am not having THAT much fun and PS2 seems to have messed up. It is the only MMOFPS I'll play and currently, the only FPS I actually play but it's because nothing else out there looks legit. FireFall does, but no Vehicles? Bah.

So I'm just droning, farming KD and Certs, curious but not excited about new systems and features. I'm paying but that's only because I don't think there should be "Free" stuff. You use it? You pay for it. People have to eat and I'm paying for NOTHING else right now. Later I'll be paying for some other FPS I guess, it's not that PS2 justifies the $ I give it, not completely.

It is competent in that I get to fire my weapon(Well, HitReg issues but still) and drive my MBT. And capturing Bases works(When they don't flip on their own). It's SciFi... What else is memorable? Yeah, that's about it. But because that's all I need, and because it's easy to offer that minus the problems, I don't think I'll be staying for much longer.

I think PS2 is glorified, mystified and riding on ripples, not really making them. No other title offers what it does COMBINED, but that not enough for more than picking it over First-Gen FPS. It won't save it in the long run. MAYBE if it offered double what it does now and it worked flawlessly or close to it, MAYBE then... IF it did that 1.5 YEARS AGO. Now? It's just an experiment, a Test Bed, a prototype, a Beta and they charge an arm and a leg if you want to really support it or if you ilke your pixel crack. And it's LATE. It doesn't feel 2014 at all. Not even 2012.

I am aware of all that, I still pay because of the reasons I mentioned and because it IS kind of fun, better to drone here than in BF. But I've decided finally that when August goes, so does my $ for SOE. And I might just take a break and a look at other FPS because I'm tired of HitReg, latency, FPS drops, bad balance and of the pace SOE gives us new stuff.

Yes it is. There was an actual study I believed performed in Europe which used a program that measured length, rhythm, time signatures and harmonies.
Most music today is extremely predictable and all the same. I used to love making fun of LinkinPark because their crap is so effing obvious that I'd purposely sing lyrics from their other songs over a different one and it would match perfectly, make sense and never miss a beat. And people wonder why I like Prog-Metal and Classical music so much more...

I've seen those guys before on a live show once. It was hilarious. Not many people were laughing. I think they were confused more than anything. The truth may have been a bit much for most of those people to handle so they like... broke... mentally.

to me, this game is a purebred MMO FPS


but it really should be something else


this game needs to be an MMOFPSRPG

its got lost of players- MMO
its an first person shooter- FPS
it needs to have a story and a reason to fight-RPG


right now, this game is great to play, but there is no real reason to, there is no motivation, no story behind it all, there are no cutscenes that explain anything, or develop plot, there are no missions that culminate into a storyline, only war, and war is fun, but war is not engaging. which is where i think this game falls apart. it fails to hold players on longer than 3-4 months because there is no development in the war.

they could fix this with a novel way of making it episodic, 10 episodes per season, 1 season a year, or 1 season every 6 months if you are ambitious. they could have players in the community help them out by doing animation work and cutscene and voice acting work, they could leave these to be internships and help college students get credit. they could have people who are trying to go into movie production help write scripts and stuff. player studio could help make new gun models. there is so much that could be done to help the game have a more stable community that has a deeper meaning that just

hey guys lets go do a gall drop and 360noscope some yolowsagalicious420blazeit smurfs

because currently.......thats pretty much the whole point of the game


the point should be something more like

"alright soldiers, lets go kick those NC scumbags out of our bases" "after what happened last season, i dont think i can stand them having that base anymore, we lost too badly to let them live"

its cheesy, but it would be certainly more motivating

Firefall and destiny are both upcoming MMOFPS games, tho destiny is also RPG and AAA

but destiny comepletely stole the concept from firefall

Thanks, I'll check both then. I'm seriously turned off by FF having no vehicles though. What about Eternal Crusade? Might not be AAA and the Devs seem too excited to take our $$ without even releasing a proper video(Derp Pre-Alpha vid not counting), just spewing promises... I'm also sure I read that that team of Devs has repeatedly dropped the ball in the past. Smells like The Secret World/FunCom if you ask me.

The game leads to more Sandbox in terms of it's progression system. Progression is based on rather you're linear, varying or free-form. The first two usually require some structure, IE a Storyline and some questing. The latter, Free Form, requires the player to be their own storyline.

Now to many this might sound great at first but remember some games like "Second Life" are about Free Form. Simply "doing" what you want with no real purpose well... defeats the purpose in many situations.

And yes, Planet Side is guilty of this.

I envision something of a ladder season with Planet Side that resets every 30 days. The idea is that each Empire would push as hard as possible to capture more territory than the other factions across all continents combined by the time the season ends. Other things would be recorded like total resources spent, lives lost, victories over losses from each major battle and what not.
Everyone then gets a Ribbon that is separated into 3 ranks; essentially a Bronze, Silver and Gold medal. Each Season would be a "War" or a "Campaign".
When you look on your character sheet, you'll see each "War" or "Campaign" you were involved in, how many major battles you participated in and how many of them were won or lost.

This would be akin to like some one going over their service record and seeing "Yup, that's my Operation Overlord ribbon, the African Campaign Ribbon, the Italian Campaign Ribbon and the Battle of the Bulge Ribbon" and seeing each major operation or front you were involved in.
(As a side note, that was my grandfather's true service record too... didn't pull that out've my butt...)

What this would do is it would create an end goal. We already have something of a "season" as is when ever home bases reset and rotate. This season tracking system would be a part of that. Every seasonal reset and rotation is also the end of a War or Campaign.
I'd also like to see proper rewards for those who win so that you have something to tangible to show in-game for your factions victory; however that's still up to debate.

This is something game companies are still learning (well, they learned it long ago, but then the corporations got into it and applied their general entertainment model for movies, music, and books, which they are learning sucks as well).

Whatever you are doing needs to have vision. If you have vision, even if that vision doesn't get you a perfect score card during market tests, you will do better in the long run. Certainly, you can have bad vision. It happens. But if you have a good vision and you get a good following, and have a decent (not even perfect or great) execution, you will get players. Dedicated players. When you hedge that vision, things tend to go sideways. Listening to your player base doesn't always mean doing exactly what they want. It means hearing them out, then responding. It could be with a change, it could be with an entirely different change that alleviates the original problem, or it could be (and often should be) with a statement of "This is how the game is intended to work. Is there something missing that would help you adapt your play style accordingly?"

that would certainly be a step in the right direction, but there also needs to be a story, because otherwise, those seem like little more than achievements, and a service record is meant to be a record of your efforts, not just an achievment log

i mean, if you said i was in operation overlord, out of context, i doubt most people would even know what you were talking about. but if everyone in PS2 was aware of a story, or of a "history" then if you said you were in some epic battle like, "operation defiance" then everyone would know that you were involved in the huge push to take hossin on date X/X/X



(yes i know what operation overlord is btw, every American and European should know too)

Planetside 2 has something and it has awesome potential. But server merges and declining player base have shown that it also has a ton of problems.

The game isn't going to change fundamentally anymore. That's a pity as I feel there was so much more possible but PS2 is a good, even very good game even in its current state nevertheless.

*Very good for F2P stock FPS and only by those standards... Change it to that, Longasc, and I'll agree. Potential flew out of the window before we even cared to admit.

I have to agree with most if not all of what you are saying,

SoE NEED to make Planetside Unique again.

Dont get me wrong I love this game. I just wish they would:

1. make sure this game plays like a tactical shooter
2. make sure it is clear what everyone should be doing in a team
3. make lonewolf play very un-rewarding (sorry lone wolf guys, its supposed to be a team game), maybe a nerf to incoming XP when not part of a squad or something of the like.

Also, stop with the god damn nerf bat......... Its getting silly now. SoE are just giving in to EVERY "this is OP because i got killed by it" rant, or "my thingy isnt very good because i have no idea how to use it" cry.

Anyways now im ranting, nice post dude!

#makeplanetsideuniqueagain

Yes, every one should. Though, my grandpa use to say to never forget Italy. He was a fifth wave survivor of D-Day at Normandy but said that under Patton, the campaign in Italy was utterly horrific. There was a lot of Hand to Hand combat so the blood shed was a fair bit closer to your face than normal (primarily because you were face to face with the man who was trying to kill you).




Anyways, I wanted to reply to this post specifically in terms of the progression issues of PS2 and the whole idea about Lore and Storylines.

Progression fundamentals in gaming.
Progession via Setting/Immersion

You have 3.
Linear, Multi-Linear and Free Form (Sand Box).
Since the beginning of even table top RPGs back in the 50s, we've been used to all forms of progression. Free Forming, Multi and Linear forms. Video gaming however has restrictions because you're gaming on a system that has a terrible sense of awareness. You know DnD? Yeah the game engine is a HUMAN (your DM) and He/She is capable of creating alternate results on the fly. Game Engines won't do that. Some games come close but you're looking at games so complex that very few will ever find them attractive.

Linear progression You follow a straight line of progression to one finale and that's it. There is no choice. There is no variance. This doesn't mean they are the simplest. American RPGs that follow linear formats may have detailed game-play mechanics where as JRPGs generally have WAY more story content and less playing altogether.
Multi-linear Popular method of progression once more as this lets you either choose the path to the final goal? Or choose a new final goal altogether. However all goals are still preset. You choose from predefined destinies regardless of the choice, giving you more or less an illusion of choice.
Free Form Requires players to immerse themselves into their own plots and requires an Open World engine. A basic setting is placed but other than that? You're on your own. You create from the tools you have to become your own goal and finale.

Now, all three of these are only dealing with progressing from the Element of Setting and Immersion. Progression is far more than that. Progression is also game mechanics such as leveling up or unlocks. However you're addressing the "Setting" issue with PlanetSide 2 so I'm focusing on that only.

There reason why PS2 is more or less stuck in Free Form is because it's a MMO and it's purely PVP. All content that drives the game forward perpetually is in the form of PVP. Having "Missions" would be great but we're taking away "content" from the core game if we do that.
Why?
Because it's PVP. YOU ARE THE CONTENT. For every co-op mission we place in the game that details some event we lose people who fight in the core game giving it the proper content it needs to survive. Thus the only way "story missions" would be any good was to have them be a one time reward where you get like... an achievement or something. They absolutely cannot be repeatable and their only incentive if to either act as a tutorial or to provide lore information for lore buffs. People need to run them and only run them once so that they can get back into the true core of the game.

Story-line IN the perpetual game is impossible due the reason that I explained above about GMs in the table top DnD games. We are flexible, but the game is not. So creating static events will hurt the game more than push it forward. Why do you think there are so many that actually dislike the Alert System? It does nothing but create this false arbitrary "All or nothing" event that hampers the true content of the game - the players. It forces the player choice and adds nothing to the content other than "Times up".

Now with that said, I've still got some cool ideas (i hope) that helps with the Immersion of the game's setting.


1: Tutorial - Relive the past
For each faction, there could be a nice set of missions for the intro-tutorial only. It unlocks only once and is played only once per new character. For completing it, you may reach BR 5 and get a nice handful of certs plus an achievement but that's it. It isn't repeatable.
The Objective is have a few missions for the tutorial play out like single player campaign that acts as an intro to the planet side universe. You play missions from years ago that will tell your faction's POV on important events and skirmishes that lead to the War.
The lore for explaining this is easy enough. When you play Planet Side, your soldier is actually a resurrected veteran from countless deaths. Nanites resurrects everyone. This lore point alone is enough to make it easy to add these missions. It also opens the door to some really creative tutorial missions acting as flash backs from decades ago or more.

2: Training - Learning through Immersion
One thing that PS1 had that PS2 doesn't have is a Sanctuary. A Sanctuary is an area where you and your outfit/platoon/friends could gather, meet up, set up and deploy to home continents from. It was exclusive to your faction only; no enemy could ever tread there. Also, unlike a Warpgate, Sanctuaries were stepping points to more than one continent. While I wont get into the details here as it's primarily a Meta-game design, Sanctuaries were important as they prevented "Camping" and always allowed a faction to make a new campaign versus an enemy even if they were pushed off a home continent.
However; we could have Sanctuaries take on another role as well: It's Home.

I have in mind a new Sanctuary system that would be in the form of a detailed base on the home front (at a faction's capitol so, the sky line would be dominated by faction stylized Cityscape while the base faces out towards the seas). There would be a Barracks, Academy, Mess Hall, Control Tower, Depots, Hangers and launch pads + run ways. There would also be a shooting range and a small VR styled training arena.

Each section of the base will add to the immersion by performing functions suggested by it's design. The Barracks is where infantry terminals are, Garages and Hangers are where land and air vehicle terminals are; run ways and launch pads provide room for traffic. The academy is a facility that players can access terminals to view the Planet Side Wikia WITHIN THE GAME (remember, immersion is important here). This would not only include access to the articles for each item in the game, but also have a "history" section written by the devs. Each History for each Empire is written from their POV as to promote a level of bias and also a level of curiosity when it comes to trying a new faction.
It would even be suggested to find a way to have streams run within the game (meaning the game at these terminals would act as a mini-browser and you can follow PS2 streamers and get their war stories). Also within the Academy is a simulator which plots you in micro-mission to train you in different classes of weapons, vehicles and roles.
The Mess Hall would have TVs that would act as news channels. They would have scrolling banners with server updates from SOE, population numbers, continents owned by whom and what not; all in the immersion that it's a constant news broadcast from the populace nearby.

3: The End Game - Closure
With my earlier post, I suggested a season based system where factions compete til the end of each season as a "War". The Faction who has the most of what ever requirement we set, wins the war for that season and just like the Warpgate rotation cycles, the season resets and a new war starts.

It is my humble idea that with each win, the victorious faction is revealed a continuing plot of the universe from their POV. For example, if the VS won a war, within the following week the devs will release a Journal Entry in-game via the Academy terminals that depicts the future of Auraxis if the VS did win. This plot would be unfolded slowly in constant teasers and cliff hangers so as to last many victories. This is because we hope that PS2 would have a 10 year life cycle.

beautiful idea, tho for the missions, they could be server wide missions and it could be a campaign for each faction something like, liberate the Stronghold, or capture Esamir, or something like that, it would be like WDS, only with more purpose

it's that kind of thinking that stopped space sims being made for so many years, then star citizen comes along and shows that people are more than willing to pay for what they 'want'....... despite what the 'business' heads say. 60 mill and counting.

i agree
but it's unrealistic to expect a game that has flying, driving and shooting to be better than any other game that solely focus's on JUST driving, or JUST shooting. or JUST flying.
GTA will never have the car handling of gran tourisimo. it will never have the gunplay of CoD/BF and it will never have the flight model of xplane.......... and generally, people don't judge it specifically against those 'focused' games.

i disagree, Planetside was the first MMOFPS so PS2 is not genre defining. it has more players granted, but i expect if the technology of the time allowed it, PS1 would have had just as many. 500 people per continent is still above average even by todays standards.

and devoted obsessed fans for 2 years........... PS had enough population after 5 years to still be played as intended(just).............just saying 2 years doesn't seem much to shout about yet.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I love space sims and that style of genre, Starlancer is still one of my favourite games of all time, but... Until SC is out, I'll consider it as a very well running scam.

Then again, if you call your game an MMOFPS, you better least do a semi decent FPS part of the experience. As it stands now, PS1 is a multiplayer logistics simulator with FPS and RPG elements.

nah, it wasn't that logistics heavy, it had an ant.
though it's mix of genre's is exactly why it was more than any other fps, and why i liked it.
it's not for everyone i grant you, no game is, including PS2.

Ant, galaxy, sunderers. Players were the resource, getting them from place to place is logistics.
Honestly, I'd be fine with PS1, if the game hadn't have issues with being tedious. And most of those issues PS1 vets seem to like.

yep, i like that, and the people still playing PS 4 years after launch seemed to like it.
why is that a problem for you that we like it? it's not like there aren't a billion(exaggeration, but there are lots) games for everyone to get what they want.......... unless you want an even bigger PS in all ways, not just number of players.

i want a high player count planetside, not a high player count BF. there's room for both.
(sry meant to edit but hit reply for some reason)