Why are we locked into one server?

No, really.

Planetside is a game that depends ENTIRELY on large player populations as the basis of its balance. The more people are playing, and the more evenly matched in numbers, the less idiotic the game gets. All of the cheap tactics being used on both sides cancel eachother out and you get a nice dynamic game. Developers clearly intended and built Planetside to have dozens of people in each fight.

The problem is, the game doesn't reliably have enough people playing it to support that. Player populations per faction veer wildly between extreme minority and zero challenge zerg rush depending on the server and the time zone. In most MMOGs, you can simply change your instance to get a different set of people and a different set of conditions. But in Planetside...You can't. Wherever you make your character, you are stuck forever.

Now, I cannot conceive of a universe where this functionality is a *technical* obstacle for a development team that can crank out an entire game of Planetside's scope. Which suggests that it was a deliberate design choice. I am wondering if anybody can clarify what exactly we are gaining from this design choice? What is the "pro" side that justified this and got it pushed into release? Because all I can see right now is "con".

It builds communities and gives identities to the people you are fighting with or against.

It would be a lot harder for in-game aquaintances, notable outfits or even faction alliances to establish themselves if people played on different servers each time they logged in.

Plus, it reins in some of the 4th factioning at least. If you want to join the winning team now, you have to abandon your high BR toon. What would keep you from jumping ship if you could take all your stuff with you?

You think players should be able to change server at will? Then populations will cluster. The contrasts will increase.

Again, one only has to look at the nearest MMOG which isn't Planetside to see how this is addressed. When players can freely move around it isn't an issue. "Join other player's instance" is a standard feature of games like this. The fact that outfits can only functionally exist on one server adds its own logistical problems (you might have two outfits with a similar NAME on different servers, but they aren't related in any way and there is no reason to care what they do over "there"), and exacerbates the problem of unequal populations because the mega-outfits from popular sites create unequal desirability.

First off I am NOT suggesting that people should be able to change their faction or have their different characters affect eachother in any way. All I'm saying is that people should be able to change servers when local populations get really stupid.

Secondly, I am completely in favor of bonuses being given for faction loyalty, where you get higher and higher rewards the longer you play a specific faction without changing. Right now you get an XP bonus for playing the losing side, but it's obviously not really working properly since people just zerg across the map one way until the XP bonus is high enough to switch sides and then zerg back across it the other way.

The concept of a team balance mechanic is hardly revolutionary: You aren't allowed to move to a different server if your faction is already leading there by more than 5% population. Problem solved.

Which MMOs let you change servers at will? I have never seen that before. Changing servers isn't a simple task on most games nd they make you pay for it.

Do you know the difference between instances and servers?

The only MMO that I know that let you switch servers/shards at will was Guild Wars, a game in which other players simplly felt like scenery.

If this was applied to PS2 you'd have zero reason to care for your territory, organize with your empire or f*ck up and learn from your mistakes. You'd simply switch to the nearest server with more territory, less enemies or otherwise greener grass.

PS2 is a game with a persistant battlefield, persistant servers and persistant players. Let's keep it at that please.

Rift let's you switch at will for free.

Yeah, I can't get my head around this decision. When pop is low, I have three choices. Play crappy low pop battles, play on an alt and have no certs/get no certs for my main, or just not play.

It says you can only do it once every 7 days so that isn't exactly at will. And i'm betting its only free for people with subscriptions.

Imagine the 4th factioning if servers could be crossed openly.

Nope it's free for everyone, at least it was back when it was officially a free mmo.

It's all tied to incentive for SC purchases.

Arent allvthose rpg games 98% about doings stuff tgat has little to do with tge presence of other players? Like fighting AI monsters and explore caves to find treasure. Ps2 is all aboyut fighting players.

I'm going to throw out something I already admit is unrealistic all-around.

What if SOE connected servers in a lattice the same way PS1 conencted continents in a lattice? We'd be able to set up temporary connections to each other and transfer servers through that link.

At this point, it's probably more realistic than getting an intercontinental lattice per server.

Isn't Hossein going to have an instanced 48 vs 48 option?

I could see that working across the servers if you can join as a squad. I can also see it sucking a whole lot of players away from the main game as well. That would probably kill the small Briggs pop though.

rift has free server transfers, or well was free last time i played it with like a 24hour cd or maybe a week.

edit: checked, yupp still free server transfer, once a week cd.

once a week cd per character that is. and i should mention it's instantaneous and no, you don't need sub or any kind of purchase, besides, you can buy subs with in game gold anyways.

actually, other than creating the initial program that does it, it should be a simple and automated task which just happens to be used as an easy source of extra income for most mmo's.

actually, in most mmorpgs the pvp only parts use players from a group of servers if not all of the servers in a region combined. in other words you normally end up in groups of players from every single server in north america when doing dungeons/raids or pvp.

some even let you travel to other servers in the regular 'world' not just dungeons/battlegrounds. like Rift, you can party up with someone from another server and /join them in their server with a simple command. you can even join and use chat channels of other servers while on your server. they've pretty much annihilated the barriers between servers.


all that being said, personally, i have no issues with the way things are now.

Free or for Certs, right now I'd take my ticket out of Woods. VANU! VANU EVRYWHEAAAAAR! Wait no, they aren't Vanu... It's the ZOE SOVEREIGNITY!

this. this is one of the reasons why PS2 is unique, and one of the reasons why i absolutely love this game. i love the "omfg it is x! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" or the "oh look, y is here! we have been saved people!" etc that this game has, outfits/players in other games such as Battlefield will find it very hard to have an identity in the game simply because of the limitations of the amount of players on each server, and the amount of servers each player has to choose from. in fact, i kinda find outfits almost non-existent in BF games, simply because i dont notice them.

It wasn't so much of a design choice as a choice on the timescale that different design elements would be introduced. e.g. the ps1 model inter-continental conquest mode with the lattice and continent capture would mitigate for population imbalances. However SOE wouldn't be able to deliver the number of continents required within the launch timescale, so it became a downstream development.

Being able to switch servers to avoid population imbalances wouldn't solve anything and would have downsides, possibly game breaking ones. A proper solution as above would be much more preferable and long lasting too.