More News regarding Hossin

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/599/feature/8415/page/1

Is Hossin still locked for May?
Matt Higby: It’s on test server now, so we’re continuing to grow it. Our plan for Hossin right now, this is kind of a scoop, so we’re going to be releasing Hossin before we feel like it’s finished, because Hossin will take probably six to eight months for us to get completely done and players really want it now. And we know as soon as we get a continent in front of players, we very quickly realize all the things that we did wrong.

We’re going to be releasing Hossin with all of the facilities and all of the bases are going to be there. But a lot of the smaller outposts between the different facilities and the bases are not going to be the 100% handcrafted ones that we have on the other continents, they’re going to be more like stamped out ones, and over time, each week as we release new content, that stamped out base will be replaced and this one will be replaced by a fully featured tower base or maybe even a full facility.

So we’re able to get the continent out very early, we’re able to see what the battle flow is like on there and understand what type of bases we really need to put in these types of areas, and that will hopefully allow us to speed up the development a little bit, to where we’re not waiting for the thing to be completely finished, and then putting it out to players and spending three months fixing all of the things.

inb4 people complain that Hossin isn't finished.

Well I suppose that works.

I find it hard to believe its taking them this long to release it.

One thing I liked about planetside is the good amount of fresh places to go. There were some that felt similar to others such as esamir and ceryshen. One was darker in the setting one felt like a frozen forest.

This doesn't surprise me. If you've looked at Hossin on test lately, many of the bases not quite what you'd expect, having seen the Amerish revamp. Hossin's been delayed so long, it already needs a revamp before it's even released.

Fortunately, it's getting released before said revamp.

Now I'm trying to decide if, on the day Hossin releases, forumside is going to be full of rage because the continent isn't finished or full of joy that Hossin is finally out. Hhhhmmmm, choices, choices...

I know SOE is doing its best, but how on earth does the continent need six-eight more months of development time? This was the continent that was promised 4-6 months after -launch-, over a year and a half ago. I mean what is the hold up here?

Esamir and Ceryshen were very different. Esamir had rolling hills with a big lake in the middle with an island in it, and Ceryshen had this enormous impassable cliffs, long bridges, and winding switchbacks.

The hold up was forumside demanding the three existing launch continents be completely overhauled. Hossin could have been out 10-12 months ago.

Now I'm just waiting for the Indar shattering to happen so they can reuse all of those biome assets to make three different continents.

As long as it works and is optimized for client performance the way the other continents were, they can release it early. Incremental changes to bases will be fun rather than having to re-learn everything all at once; which is what happened to me with Easimir and Amerish.

I don't care of it won't be perfect I want a new continent. Amd Personally I love the idea of an infantry friendly place.

Well, they did basically have to completely redesign their game to fit with the lattice system, not to mention everything else they had to put off because of community demand.

It's a good thing they held it off anyway. Because it would've needed a performance overhaul anyway. No point playing on a continent when most your guys crash out as soon as two squads meet on a hex.

Meh, I wanted a Hex system that worked to avoid that, but everybody said I was a ghostcapper.

Hex system was counterproductive to the games goal, large scale fights.

Personally, I was against the lattice. It's in the past now, so I'm not going to spend much time fighting for my position anymore. But quickly, for the sake of argument and reflection, I'll concede Indar lattice. Hossin was supposedly nearing completion around that time. If you wanted an Intercontinental Lattice (which I was against, but again, I'll concede), put Latticed Indar in the middle and Esamir, Amerish, and Hossin in their original form as the surrounding continents feeding into Indar's lattice.

We probably could have had that last summer, and maybe more conts or battle islands out now or very close. No one will be able to convince me that redoing everything in the last 12 months wasn't a waste of developers' time. Developers that are now being moved to other projects.

More continents is kind of pointless if they suck or the population can't support more than indarsaide.

"Yay new continent finally! Wait what is this? There's s much fog! I hate fog! I thought Amerish terrain was bad, this is Amerish on crack! This is pure infantryside continent! "

From the little wandering around on Hossin that I have done, it looks awesome! Instead of using walls like on Esamir they use natural terrain to close off bases and steer fighting in a preferred direction. It is very impressive! Many underground places to explore also. (somehow the walls seem right for Esamir I hope they stay)

I can't wait to see how it will perform with some population attacking and defending.

If hossin is released and its bad, i would expect the majority to leave planetside. This has been a source of hope for many, imagine if resource revamp or continent locking was done wrong. The only "hope" for a better game would have gone and therefore people will leave. It would be a let down and an embarrassment