Planetside 2 Obituary. Goodbye & Farewell.

Well, mission accomplished then. I'm not personally invested in the company. I just play for fun.

1-2 hours a day after my kid was born, and 3-5 hours prior - Per day....

Emerald was merged more recently than Connery was, so its population is larger.

It gets just under 400 players per faction for a moment during peak primetime, whereas Connery gets about 300.

Make no mistake, though: Emerald's population is on the decline as well.

A good way to test whether you'll still enjoy finding fights in Planetside after a year would be to play on Briggs. It gets about 100 players per faction during its primetime, and 60 players per faction across the entire server on average (1 platoon + 1 squad). At its lowest point, you can expect about 30 players per faction. That's where PS2 is headed.

All of the hype about PS2 in gaming communities is long dead. It's on life support. The veterans drive away the noobs by farming them for the directive/statpad meta (AC/FCRW players enjoy inflating their egos by hunting clueless BR15s instead of fighting against equally-matched opponents in CS:GO matchmaking), and the bugs (and boredom) drive away the few remaining veterans.

That's why PS2 on PS4 is so pivotal for DGC: It's a community who hasn't had the opportunity to be disappointed in PS2 yet. But with DGC pushing the release so soon (before the admittedly "necessary" changes to meta), I'm certain that most will lose interest before the changes ever occur.

SOE was sold to Columbus Nova. SOE was renamed to Daybreak Games Company. Why did they rename? Because they are no longer affiliated with Sony in any way. It's a fresh start for them.

Do I have to define 'sold to' to you? I probably do, because I know from experience how thick you are.

We know the devs are the same people. That's what we've been telling you. The people who have changed are the ones supplying the funds and dictating the game's true direction, this is also what we've been telling you. You've got the blanket pulled down over your eyes so far that you can't even see your own feet. You fail to understand anything that is presented to you, either through text or spoken words, you blatantly refuse to harbour the possibility that you have been maybe even slightly misinformed, and you act like your word is law. These are only the relevant issues.

So you left this game too, cool story. At least you give valid reasons pertaining to the game itself instead of ranting about your latest soap drama exploits. Maybe Soph and I can get an invite to NQS from Fool, if we want to hang out with some old people who camp vehicle terminals as Infiltrators all day long. We could even get DW back, since he's still out in the cold.

Have fun wherever you go to. May we not meet again.

lets face it, the 100% not ready PS4 version is being released for one reason.
they need the players if they are going to continue development into the game or even keep it running. 2000 players cannot be on one server as the game boasts, the World record proved that. with a 6-8 second hit detection lag it was shotgun/lasher spam shooting in all directions. and thats why they dont merge it all onto one or 2 servers right now.

in all seriousness, if the PS4 version flops, its likly the axe might be something to worry about. likly it wont, as F2P games on PS4 will attract a croud, even if its buggy. and that may have players look into it more than discovering its also on PC. cuz you can plug ur PS4/Xbox controller into ur Pc n play it that way....

While your prediction of the demise of the game (as we know it) is likely correct, the conclusions above seem to be based on the viewpoint of a gamer, as opposed to someone who's focused on bizdev. There are a number of reasons to buy PS2 in its current state - in fact, if a firm like DGC wanted the IP (intellectual property) for something specific, it's likely that they would wait until the numbers drop before making a move - that brings the acquisition price down. Keep in mind that there's always a technical diligence phase for this sort of acquisition as well -- DGC probably had several months of their technical teams crawling all over the source code and infrastructure specifications of the entire PS2 platform; they knew exactly what they had - bugs, dwindling population and all - before they signed the check. As far as PS2 being a lame horse, and the likelihood that someone is going to lose their job over the transaction - that's probably doubtful in the extreme, because there are valid non-game potential reasons for them to make the acquisition:

** They want the IP. Maybe they think they can do it better, maybe they have a similar title in the works, and it's cheaper to buy out the Sony sub just to get it out of the way.

** They didn't want the IP, they don't care about PS2 so much, but Sony 'bundled' a couple of losers they could sell at a multiple of the fair market price into the deal - if DGC wanted some other title or asset that Sony had, Sony may have said 'Well, if you want xxxx, we'll sell it to you, but you also have to buy PS2 as part of the deal', knowing that their valuation of the PS2 platform was inflated.

Those are just a couple that seem obvious off the top of my head. I remember a lot of complicated deals in the late 90's with the tech startups I worked at/co founded/etc - they were always wayyy more complicated than they looked to a casual observer, and occasionally didn't seem to make complete sense - but you could be sure that whoever was signing the check knew exactly why.

Keep in mind also that, regardless of the name, Daybreak Games Corporation is *not* a games company; it's basically a logical entity invented out of thin air by Columbus Nova that holds IP and assets as part of the portfolio of Columbus Nova, which is an investment group in NYC with nearly $16B in assets, and ties to *huge* Russian oil and gas interests. With their technology-based entertainment interests, it's even possible that they made the buy for no other reason than to establish more marketshare; this works even if the population is dwindling, because PS2/Sony still has everyone's contact information, and everyone sure remembers how great PS2 was - even if they're not playing it anymore. Jason Epstein (one of the managing partners at Columbus Nova) also owns Harmonix, so he owns the Guitar Hero franchise as well - they also own Fiverr and Rhapsody.

It's likely even more complicated than I've outlined here, but you can be sure of this: it's very rare that a $16B investment group would purchase something from Sony Corporate (SOE was a subdivision) and then be 'surprised' because things didn't turn out the way they expected. The guys at the top of this food chain are sharks, and they know what they're doing.

yea, they wanted EverQuest Next - the WoW killer if its done correctly

...

How are there still people who don't understand that SOE and DGC are and always have been one and the same, the exact same dev team ( minus the layoffs). DGC is the company that made PS2.

MMOGames @MMOGames
The news #EQN fans have been waiting for: Daybreak have shifted their development focus to @everquest_next! #mmorpg http://www.mmogames.com/gamenews/45002/daybreak-shift-development-focus-everquest-next-last/ …

I think what really sunk this game was SOE pushing it out the door WAY too soon. I remember us beta testers practically begging the developers here on the forums not to release the game because there was still so much work to be done, but they didn't listen to us one iota and, well, the rest is history. It's a crying shame, too, because the game has (or rather had) so much potential. I often wonder just how great it could've been had a more competent group of people been behind it.

Never fear, DBG hasn't learned a thing...they shoved PS2 out the door before it was ready and are actually getting players to cough up $20 to play the buggy hacker-infested H1Z1 (beta version)...and at least 30K people were so impressed with H1Z1 that they bought "cheats" to ruin everyone else's fun...

Of course, DBG swung the Ban Hammer over there after awhile...quite profitably...as they hoped all the banned accounts will splurge for another $20, make another Steam account, apply a HWID hack, and continue on...

Here's why. These guys could easily go right back in, make a new steam account.. use an HWID hack and play anyways. Yes, that's the reality. It's ugly, but there it is. And it's true for every single PC game out there. Even the ones that say it isn't.
(http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/36ne71/my_thoughts_on_the_public_apologies/)

Of course, a good percentage of that 30K simply moved over to PS2 (FTP for the win!) and we get all kinds of "funny stuff" here instead...why go where they are watching and it'll cost you $20?

I too noticed that it seemed sort of "quiet" on Connery the other day...but I did see one guy "in the floor" holding a cap point while there was quite a bit of chat about him in /yell...he had a strange name...00OO0000OO0OLOL0000OO0OO and quite the impressive kill board... https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/5428345446431235345/killboard

It would seem that another VS player had quite enough of his shenanigans and started TK'ing him via "unknown" means...wonder what that means exactly...

What's going to kill this game is the "perception" that there are a large % of cheaters...some quite obvious, and others quite subtle...but once that "perception" is out there...and the "casual player" (who is a FTP game's "bread & butter") actually sees opponents "in the floor", as well as other "How the Heck...?" similar nonsense...they are simply going to play something else...and the population will continue to decline.

Somebody in upper management at DBG needs to pay attention and root out these guys...but then again, even Smedley knows they will simply come back and continue on...

Yes I remember you all too well "Mythologic". And your toady "Sophisani" (the hacker), "Wolf" (the screaming wanna-be Russian drunkard), and all your so-called buddies from my Tribes 2 days. I left Tribes behind to get away from people like you and some, but not all, of them. The game itself was great till it ended about 10 years ago. And as I remember I was also eventually a server admin over you and Soph and knew even during that time that you guys were no good. Now I see you and Soph are here to cause trouble yet again.

You have about as much credibility with me (and a few others around here I'm sure) as a tourist trap con-artist which means none in case you're too stupid to figure that one out. Funny how you mentioned "sharks" in your diatribe, excuse the pun, takes one to know one as they say. I hope people around here aren't gullible enough to believe your some kind of college educated business economics guru as your post would suggest. A high school drop out car salesman talks a good line of crap just as well. I know you for what you are.

You don't have to worry about being re-invited to our outfit by the way. Never going to happen. You and your ilk are not welcomed in our outfit because of your self blackened pasts. You were, for a brief moment of sympathy, and because of the begging of your one and only advocate, but then we saw immediately what a mistake it was so you were kicked out permanently. So once again I choose to ignore anything you have to say and could not care less about you. Peddle your B.S. to other people who you think are impressed by you. I never was never that stupid and you knew it which is why you're hounding me all this time later. It's an itch you just can't scratch isn't it!

(Thanks for writing so I can click ignore on you yet again. Soph was clicked last year by the way so tell your toady to save his breath on your behalf. Geez talk about bad pennies!)

Except soe became theybrakegames because of their incapability to read

Looks like I pressed the right buttons!

Lol @ the outfit invite part. Being the leader of a group of only 10 or so people on a game that you no longer play makes you really influential.

you seem to be a person that is the exact definition of a newb casual your excessive use of smileys indicate call of duty audience and you hate the game because "MY COD" or something similar like with the rest of planetside 2 community whom is just full of sh itters that hate when call of duty formula is getting revamped(SDI). These types of people usually just want that there are other games than call of duty BUT they should only do call of duty same or better way. This is what FPS as a genre has formed into, people do not want any other shootters that cod.

"This is no testimate how great i am(you know that i am pretty great), but it's more of a testimate how terrible that game was, and still is. That game was doomed from the very start, when i played it first in the alpha i saw it had a lot of hope & it had a lot of potential, it was a bit rocky, had some things you've could've improved; but overall it had it's hope, it's chance to be something great. Apparently a lot of people thought so too because when it finally came out, there were thou- millions, i'd see million people were interested in that game, this was easily the biggest chance that SOE- when they existed (laughs), when SOE existed to actually have a shot at being something other than generic, "free-to-play" garbage....." - Best planetside player "Buzzcutpsycho" in the video #Buzzwasright

So in closing Güd Bai, and F*** You SOE/DBG

OP is spot on about the game really. 9 out of every 10 great players to ever play this game have since moved on and most do not even follow it with any hope anymore. The game is down to just the ultra casuals and the unfortunate less than 1 month old noobs. It also has a small sprinkling of dedicated normal players who play for their outfit, however that is rapidly drying up. The average committed PS2 player works 40+ hours a week, has kids and gets on the PC for 60 minutes or fewer a week and therefore misses a lot of the deficiencies the game has such as the fact Emerald has 88 players online currently.

I also do not think you are looking at the big picture enough. Columbus Nova likely got a very good price on SOE and mostly bought it for the EQ next/landmark and h1z1 which at the time was the leading survival game on the market (now surpassed by ark perhaps). PS2 was just a foot note in the purchase like the other weird games they have that are incredibly niche and borderline cancellation.

Yup, it's just got different $$ backers now.

I see fewer 96+ battles on Cobalt and Miller but plenty of 48-96 and 24-48 fights (I play evenings and weekends). Hossin population is pretty dire, but then was it ever high? Personally I log out or redeploy to another continent as soon as possible afterI see the Hossin load screen. That's just my preference but I was surprised recently to see so many posts on these forums expressing the same feelings. Was it Mark Twain who said, "the reports of my death are premature"?