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http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6276
04-12-2003
Topic: CR4 Abilities: Orbital Strike and Jamming, etc;)
Poster 1) Omg that so uber! I wanna see a strike
Poster 2) I'm thinking ability to clear a tower out, or clear a courtyard. However, I'm also seeing the biggest grief gainer ever.
Poster 3) me hopes there's a real method in the works to keep everybody from eventually getting to CR4 and Orbital Striking each other to oblivion
Poster 4) jesus, CR4 better be damn hard to get to...
Poster 5) Sounds stupid to me. It sounds like it won't require any skill to use... and thats stupid
Poster 6) Wonder what CR5 will have
Poster 7) Yeah, CR 5 is gonna be the ultimate powergamer goal in this game.
Poster 8) CR5 will probly be crazy powerfull if you can get a orbit strike at CR4.
Poster 9) Well no matter how hard it is to get. A day will come when eventually everyone will be CR4......
Poster 10) yea, that kind of sucks because I think its actually a pretty good idea... I just think it will suck when half the people on the server are blasting everything from space...
Poster 9 has the most Foresight. But many other posters were almost on target. I wonder why there are so little subscribers left to the game.
Comments
"Wah!"
You scream for "New Content", well "New Content" is BFR's, then you turn around and complain about BFR's. I'm not the inconsistant one here. The biggest drop in subscriber numbers didn't occur after BFR's were introduced, it occured soon after the game was released.
If someone quit over OSes that would be very sad. They're not are to avoid what so ever. There for your argument is void.
The downfall of this game came with the introduction of BFRs. Then from that point on SOE neglected the game. Combine that with the warping, hacking, content, performance issues, and bad fights the pop will go down pretty fast.
nub
you want to know why people quit, because this game is a FPS, and FPS's unlike other games are updated on a obsessive rate in the sence that ever FPS you will buy has 1 thing new in it, like looking down the sights(my personal favorite) ,hit boxes, being wounded and it effecting your shooting ect.
Planetside is and has been for a bit at a point where it just needs a new engine all together, aka a planetside 2 is needed. Was great for its time, but its time has come and gone. FPs games are Fickle like that, while i did love planetside, when certain things of a game is missing that every other game has its going to die (like hit boxes)
I never said I had an issue with BFRs, I just know that a large portion of the pop left at their introduction because they were very overpowered when introduced. Also, every MMO that requires a paying subscription suffers from some pop loss at the point that the game is taken out of beta. Loyal players stay, the rest leave.
"Wah!"
although there is prolly a good amount of ppl who didnt like BFR introduction HOWEVER, it was almost at the same time WoW was released. and most who said they quit over BFR, would have quit anyway and went to play WoW
Various events and updates surrounding Planetside up to 2006 which may or may not have affected a decline in subscription numbers despite some later improvements (which have also been added for reference).
2003
Planetside released – May 19, 2003
Star Wars Galaxies released – June 26, 2003
Core Combat released – October 27, 2003
Server Merge/Vehicle Cert cost reduced – December 5, 2003
2004
Empire Pop Cap changed to allow equal numbers (3-ways become common) – February 6, 2004
Capitols added, Broadcast Warpgates (lattice bottlenecks, instant transportation) – March 15, 2004
City of Heroes released – April 28, 2004
Pop Indicators added (instantly showing location of small units) – May 27, 2004
The Bending, Battle Islands added (Broadcast gates changed to work only when linked) – August 14, 2004
BFRs released (4th Empire switches to winner of BFR Mayhem Event, unbalancing populations, Caverns flooded with BFRs) – October 18, 2004
BFRs banned from Caverns (it is also later discovered that BFR shields caused a large performance hit on player systems) - October 27, 2004
First and Second BFR balance tweaks – November 3-5, 2004
Everquest II released – November 8, 2004
Halo 2 released – November 9, 2004
Third BFR balance tweaks – November 9, 2004
Half-Life 2 released – November 16, 2004
WoW released – November 23, 2004
Run for the Guns event (4th Empire switches to winner, unbalancing populations) – November 27, 2004
Fourth BFR balance tweaks – December 21, 2004
2005
SOE Station Access Subscription Plan added - January 14, 2005
BattleRank 23, 12mm COF reduction – January 19, 2005
Fifth BFR balance tweaks – January 28, 2005
New Global Lattice, Empire Benefits – February 22, 2005
Sixth BFR balance tweaks – February 27, 2005
Seventh BFR balance tweaks – March 17, 2005
Neutral Continents attached to Caverns – April 8, 2005
SOE initiates SWG:Combat Upgrade - April 27, 2005
Guild Wars released (effect not much other than "next new thing") – April 28, 2005
Squad XP/CEP revision – May 10, 2005
Battlefield 2 released – June 21, 2005
Support XP, Pop Indicators altered to hide small units – June 28, 2005
BattleRank 25 added, UI changes – August 16, 2005
Day of Defeat Source released – September 28, 2005
Looking for Squad system, Rabbit event – October 4, 2005
Call of Duty 2 released – October 25, 2005
SOE initiates SWG: New Game Enhancements (NGE) - November 15, 2005
Tactical Overlay, Vehicle disable removed, Cert timer reduced to 6 hours – December 13, 2005
Eighth BFR balance tweaks – December 22, 2005
2006
/Appeal system changed to out-of-game pop-up – March 20, 2006
Planetside Reserves – March 24, 2006-March 24, 2007
www.visionsofthering.com
www.planetside-idealab.com
RIght there is when PS went down hill if you ask me. When CC was first introduced everyone in ther mother was down below checking out the new contant, there were hardly any fights above ground.. But when people started to come back up the word was starting to get out... And those words were WHO THE HELL DESIGNED THAT!....
CC ranks up there with some of the worst expansions that any MMO has ever had. I won't even get into the flail of back then which was BFR of 03 before there even was a BFR. I know I know to all you noobs that will say "You suck the Flail is easy to kill"... The flail of today and the one introduced back then are tow different animals, trust me.
------------------------------
You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I'm going to disagree with you, Tinybina. The true death of Planetside came with the release of World of Warcraft. The fact remains that even after CC came out, there were still lots of players still gaming on the servers, and pop caps were occurring daily. On lots of occasions, several continents were pop locked and unavailable.
With the release of World of Warcraft, many of Planetside's veterans jumped ship. That was one game that many players had been waiting for, and still play today. I've seen many TS servers even make channels available for both WoW and Planetside, for those players who didn't want to completely give up on the fragging of people they've never met
But since Planetside hasn't truly died yet, we still fight on
MMOs:
Playing:
World of Warcraft
Hellgate: London
Planetside
Retired:
Everquest (1 and 2)
RF-Online
Lineage 2
Auto Assault
Dungeon Runners
Face of Mankind
Rangarok Online
DAoC
FF XI (gave it away...too much to download}
It wasn't any one game or event that caused Planetside to lose large amounts of subs. Rather, it was a steady attrition brought about by many internal and external factors.
It did start with CC and the impressions it made on players, then increased with addition of one-man BFRs, and then further damaged by the release of WoW/ Halo/ Half-Life within just a few weeks of eachother.
The negative perception over pay-to-play, merged servers, in-game advertisement, unfulfilled content (new bases, galaxy gunship, phantasm), word of mouth about horrible game performance, seeming favoritism for Everquest II and SWG, the uproar over SOE and the NGE, and now the game's own age, helped keep potential players away. The Reserves program might have stabilized this attrition for a time if it hadn't been for the rampant cheating that came with it, driving players away and sucking up dev time to deal with it.
Having said all that, it is remarkable that Planetside still survives after everything that has happened. Either it still delivers a unique experience that players value and can't get anywhere else, or many still linger hoping someone, somewhere, taps the game's potential.
www.visionsofthering.com
www.planetside-idealab.com
make no mistake about it.
Planetside laid down on its deathbed, the day Core Combat came out. I know, I was there.
Core Combat flopped terribly due to 1) Lack of Promotion and 2)SOE promising what the Players asked for (above-ground urban-terrain combat in abandoned cities and a Base Redesign) but instead giving them the Caverns, The Bending"(the most ridiculous story progression ever, which magically turned Auraxis from a single planet with Continents into a Solar System of seperate Planets), the destruction of Oshur and BFRs. and the BFRs lead to the first real mass exodus from the game, which brought the population down so much that a server merge was necessary, because Konried could barely pop-lock one continent on any given primetime night, where prior to CC we could get 3 simultaneous pop-locks, easy, with people left over to skirmish on other continents
it's still alive sure, but it is hanging on by a thread, on SOE-financed Life Support. because SOE doesn't believe in shutting games down, as far as I can tell.
I eagerly await the day that someone besides SOE ventures into the realm of Full-on PvP Persistant-World MMOFPS, and I'll always mourn what Planetside used to be. quite simply the most fun MMO i had ever played.
I believe that there are TONS of people playing other games, that would jump ship immediately at the first sign of someone making a new game that is like Planetside was in its prime. I know I would.
and in Tabula Rasa general chat, even the mention of Planetside evokes an hour long conversation of wistful remembrances of what PS used to be from many, many players on my server.
For true users and gamers of MMORPG, and for any real gamer in general, meaning you play or have played a HUGE variety of games from console to pc to FPS,RTS,MMO and on down the line.
If you have been on MMORPG looking through the fourns of most games, you will hear whine, and moan in every forums known to man about thier game dying except one.
It all boils down to one simple fact that most of these games would still have decent pops, if not for the release of one particular game in 2004.
You say what you want, but every true gamer knows that World of Warcraft caused the death of every known MMO released since it hit store shelves.
WoW will continue to plague MMO's until something is made that can match it. You can spill on also that Warhammer and Conan will finally be the end of WoW.... wrong even IF these 2 games managed to pull even half of wows subs which right now is sitting at 9 million. Which doesn't look to promising with the graphics and feel of the games. WoW will in no way be affected by the loss. Blizzard is fully aware of Mythics RvR combat and now have started production on its own siege based warfare for thier next expansion... Yes blizzard is going to copy mythic. BUT you know what, thats business, they are on top and going to take the 1 draw in factor mythic had and steal it to maintain the #1 slot over warhammer.
Long story short... That long list you made puts alot of things into focus, but you should really just focus on 1, WoW killed them all.
WoW destroyed the following games :
EQ1
DAoC
Horizons "Empire of Istaria"
SWG (like it needed help with the CU/NGE rants)
Planetside
EQ2
AC
AO
E&B
Guild Wars (tho holds the second highest pop next to wow because it is free to play)
Oh hell the list goes on forever.
Anyway I am not a wow fanboi either, Yeah I played wow, for a few years, and have since deleted it off my computer, it is a very dry, lets run the same dumb ass raid everynight so people can bitch about not getting a drop MMO. I hope blizzard chokes for ruining the actual good games like Planetside, SWG, DAoC and many others.
Going to get the popcorn so I can pop it over the flames.
WOW is a juggernaut to be true, but trust me, it was not the direct demise of most of the above games, most managed to shoot themselves in the foot quite nicely. (i.e. DAOC's TOA expansion, Horizons crappy condition at release, AC lack of graphical updates, EQ 2, buggy launch etc etc)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You are wrong. Not much more to add. Most people that have played a HUGE variety of MMOs know that you are wrong. Period.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
I played 4 of these guys at the same time upon WoW's release,
DAoC, Planetside, Horizons, and SWG.
1 week after wow's release each of these games took at least a 25% pop hit to all of them,
When I asked a majority of these players why there were quiting,
reply : "Oh there is a new game out called World of Warcraft we gonna go give it a shot"
These players never returned,
So if your going to sit here and try to say that WoW did not affect the pops of all MMO's out at it's release
<Mod edit>
Yes it is true some of these games shot themselves in the foot, and hell even most of those did so
trying to compete with WoW, why do you think SWG brought out the CU and NGE to try and make it
a more linear and easier sandbox game like WoW. It failed.
ToA did affect DAoC, but only for the whiner cry babies not willing to work for the artifacts so they could
compete, which ToA was also brought on by WoW to try and make the game not so RvR focused and more
raid oriented and group oriented like WoW.
Don't try to flame on someone who was PLAYING the games while WoW destroyed them... I was there.
Let's examine the directness of what WoW did when it came out.
On WoW's release it was leaps and bounds ahead of all other MMO's in terms of graphics, speed, gameplay.
Blizzard not being some new kid on the block like artifact entertainment (horizons) mythic (DAoC) and many other excluding Sony with EQ. Had plenty of money to do whatever they had to do, so they could stay ahead of the rest.
Most of these games immediately had to go into planning phases to try and bring thier games up to the what is now known as a WoW standard.
DAoC updated it's graphics engine, which still doesn't compete with WoW, AC didn't have the money to do so I guess because it never got revamped. Even made classic ToAless servers. Which is why I said what I did in the last post, because ToA didn't ruin the game if that was so, now that DAoC has classic servers where are all it's players... on WoW that's where. SWG brought out the CU/NGE to become more Linear like wow, Which pissed off the players to such an extreme point they are still bitching about it to this day, years later. EQ which was already pretty much devoted to its hardcore players, brought out another 100 expansions adding content but not updating graphics to the point to compete with WoW. Planetside now Planetside might have actually killed itself, because it was a FPSMMO and prolly the best of it's kind for the time period. There have been games that are better than planet side hit shelves since it's release however that do the same thing, just not on a massive scale like BF and BF2142, you can level characters up in these games as well and they both murder planetside in graphics.
Long story short, in some round about way WoW has directly affected any and all MMO's out. and to quote my not so informed friend a few post up.... period.
Reported for starting the name calling and fighting when someone is nice enough to try and NOT start a fight. Now... lets answer for real then:
Started playing computer games 1973. Played every MMO on the market since UO, which I started playing as research for a swedish game manufacturer. If you think using 10.000 words per post and calling others names make you look experienced, lets look at the facts:
- Trials of Atlantis was released 2004-02-27 in Europe which probably means it was released somewhere before christmas 2003 in US.
- WoW was released, according to two gaming sites I found on Google, 2004-11-23, or nine months or MORE after ToA.
Your educated guess states that ToA was built in answer to a game that still had 9 months before it was even released. Now... about that name calling...
Truth is, and most experienced gamers know this no matter what you think, pretty much ALL other games that you have mentioned except EQ II had lost their main audience before WoW was even released. Did they loose even more? Sure, some more, some less. But WoW had NOTHING to do with them disappearing into obscurity (except EQ II)since that happened years before its release.
E&B. Was pretty much vacant after the initial release and the first free month. The game had a loyal following, but it got canned for the extremly simpe reason that noone was paying for it, except for a very few loyal fans. WoW effect on E&B: 0%
EQ: Please... For gods sakes, please... Put UO in there while you are at it. Heck, put Meridian 59 in there, they lost just as many costumers as EQ to WoW. Relics are relics, EQ died LONG before WoW was released, also only supported by a small following and the glorious Station pass.
Horizons: Look above, and add a snicker.
Planetside: Killed itself, mainly after the first free month, but secondly after its first not too inspired expansion. As a Sony game it lives only because of the Station Pass.
AO: I love this game, its one of my absolute favorites. Buts lets be honest here... Again, ANY experienced MMO player (but you) will agree with me here. AO killed AO. That release... Only the most devoted masochists stayed after that release and the mayhem that was AO first year. Then came an expansion that removed even more. By the way, I am sure you are wondering: Shadowlands, AO:s fantasy expansion. Nooooooo, not inspired by WoW, although I am sure you thought so.... released 2003-09-09 according to a gaming site I just googled. More than a year. Your theory is really going up in flames here, aint it?
AC... Again, go up to Horizons and EQ and add a slap to the forehead with a tired sigh.
Guild Wars lost players to WoW?! really?! HOW exactly are you thinking now? If anything WoW gave costumers to GW, not the other way around! WoW started a HUGEbuzz within mainstream media and among normal people not normally playing MMOs, especially a younger crowd that did not have a credit card. ANY kid and EVERY kid that wanted to play WoW or had heard about these new kind of games, but did NOT have a credit card.... owns Guild Wars. Lots of people that own WoW also own Guild wars. Its free, people play BOTH.
The ONLY!!! game that actually had a significant hit to its subscriber base compared to its original subscriber numbers at release.. was EQ II. AND!!! If you want to be really picky, EQ II lost most of its costumers during the beta, when both the closed beta forum, and later the open beta forum was rampant with complaints about what a mess the game was. An allout war about all the errors, flaws and just bad descisions, against a wall of developers that said :
"The Game is perfect, you just dont understand it, this is how it will work at release so be quiet or we ban you all"
At release.. they instead met a wall of angry, now paying, costumers and the ban stick was harder to grasp. Beta of WoW was going fine, release of EQ II was a tired yawn and the EQ II developers themselves admited they spent a lot of time playing WoW beta. At release of WoW, EQII developers said they enjoyed WoW a lot and that some descisions they took during the creation of EQ II were flat out wrong, or could have been done differently They have since then spent YEARS patching in things and is finally getting closer to a product they can call "finished"
So, conclusion. If audience at release is 100%. Audience before WoW release is 15% or less. and audience after WoW is 12%, then seriously... saying all games died or is dying because of WoW is.. well, you know the word, you like to use it yourself.
Done. I hope the shoe fits.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
I am not going to argue, here go look at a chart of an analysis done in 2004 on the state of the top 10 MMO's of that time period.
Numbers will speak for themselves.
WoW UP UP UP and AWAY.....
EvE online slow but steady incline ( due to being the only viable space MMO of the time)
Runescape also had an incline, do not get me started on runescape.
other 7 plummit to earth like meteroites.
http://www.mmogchart.com/
So you like to research, you go look at the analysis and come back and tell me WoW had no impression on subscriptions of the lesser games. On top of that try to tell me it still isn't affecting games subscription.
The solution is very simple for Fantasy based MMO's WoW is it, it has monopolized the MMO market and does not look like it is going to be giving up it's chunk of 9 million subs anytime soon.
Your trying to sit here and say that 9 million new gamers materialized in Nov of 2004 - Present 08 and picked up a copy of wow?? come on are you serious?
Hmm, neonaka While your right that wow did pull people from their orginal games. The thing is it did not hit them that badly. IE was not the downfall of hardly any. Furtheremore, the toa doac thing shows that you did not really live this like you said you did, but instead have read about it.
PS for recaps, Wow was released Nov 23, 2004 , and Daoc TOA Oct 28, 2003.
That would be a year and a month before wow released. YEAH so your statement that toa was due to WoW is BS. Sadly, people hated toa which was basically wow end game today, which tells me people were just tired of DAOC more than toa was bad.
However, DAOC has been impacted by wow with its current easy levels and questing etc.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Oh and I will admit to some holes in my opening argument, So I will admit to being wrong on portions of it. E&B did die long before WoW, I remember being in the military getting the server shut down notice, many were not happy about that, and about ToA. Many game companies know in advance what thier competition is going to do and plan accordingly.
This is proof with Blizzard about to adapt Mythics massive scale battle system and siege warfare for their next expansion. Blizzard knows Warhmmer is their biggest threat and to make them less of a threat t hey are going to take something that gives them an edge and use it for themselves.
That is the nature of the beast. Mythic knew of WoW game mechanics way ahead of time, just like all companies do, none of these companies can keep secrets, Microsoft knows what's cooking under Sony's hood all the time, it is how they stay so far ahead of them in the console wars. Same thing applies to MMO's and innovation of game mechanics.
The point to this entire little debate here, is like I stated WoW affects any and all MMO's out today, and will continue to do so until it is dethroned.
Most companies could care less about the state of their current games, they are to busy trying to make that next best thing to try and overcome the WoW effect.
I was there in ToA. I'm still there, I never quit DAoC, I play on the Devon Cluster, never quit and ran to the classics like everyone. Why would you quit a cluster when there is no need.
ToA is a sore subject with me, because I felt people just whined about something for the sake of whining.
"Oh noes! He has a Aten's Shield and a sword of the sun he is better than me.... I can't beat him in RvR with his great ML abilities!"
Ummm. Go get the shield yourself, and if you can't then get out of the 2 man guild your in and join one that can get it for you. Spend some time building up your character like everyone else and you wouldn't feel that way.
You wanna play sometime, Hit me up on Devon Cluster.
I personally play on the Galahad server. I play on Necrosha Nightmare or Kikku Kikke. I play every night.
I am currently in Smokin Guild which is allied with Mystic Knights.
If you still play DAoC hit me up sometime we can go to ToA and try to figure out why noone could get the crap.
Mannnn... I forgot the whole reason I came here.
It was to ask if PS has a high enough pop to warrent a come back. I got station access and wanted to add either PS or Matrix online to the lineup, I have the others already.
I have a CR3 Toon but I quit playing when 1st expansion was released the undreground core one.
So is the pop high enough to have fun on?
"It all boils down to one simple fact that most of these games would still have decent pops, if not for the release of one particular game in 2004."
Planetside really shouldn't even be on that list as, as mentioned before, its populations were affected by its own development decisions as well as the release of other highly anticipated titles before WoW even hit the shelves.
Planetside got hit with multiple strikes:
WoW doesn't deserve the credit for dropping Planetside populations. At most it is one of hundreds of factors to affect PS, but it is not the Greatest and it certainly wasn't the First or the Last. To PS, WoW was simply yet another "shiney" that came along among a sea of other distractions.
Current State of the Game
Supai Battle
www.visionsofthering.com
www.planetside-idealab.com
I played about 8 months ago and there were enough people...
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine