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PlanetSide: SOE's Forgotten MMO?
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Christopher "Pwyff" Tom, Editor of ZAM.com examines PlanetSide in an excellent article over at ZAM.com. In the article, Christopher asserts that SOE has essentially forgotten about the game, and dissects some of the game's finer points.
All in all, Planetside had a lot of potential to be a great demonstration of what a real MMOFPS could have been capable of. I'm making very sure to say 'had' here instead of 'has,' because it is clear that this is a game that SOE has forgotten entirely. I find it troublesome that there continues to be a $13 USD subscription fee, yet even its very loyal fan base (and having such a fan base is a testament to the fun of this game) is the first to note that "while EQ's ten year gets a huge blow out celebration; PlanetSide's six years was all but ignored," and when talking about SOE's Fan Faire, "even Matrix Online (which is officially scheduled to be terminated July 31, 2009) has a scheduled item for Fan Faire. But, Planetside does not." I think that it's time Planetside's fans got some attention from their absentee landlords - this game ought to go Free-To-Play, or perhaps give the option of purchasing a lifetime subscription for a small fee or, dare I say, maybe come under the development scope once more?
I've heard many good things about PlanetSide from various friends and fans over the years, and so there are some things I'd like to know:
Have you played the game, and if so, what were your experiences like? Are you still playing? And what do you make of SOE's treatment of the product since it's launch? Also, why do you think it is that PlanetSide has essentially been swept under the rug?
Let us know in the comments!
Via ZAM
Comments
OMG I miss Planetside.
SOE could have really done some great things with this game and instead they blew it. They continue to neglect it and now I understand it is rampant with cheats and hacks. As I have said so many times in the past if I had the money to buy the rights to Planetside I would and then I would rework it and re-release it. The game is just that awesome!
PlanetSide was the game which introduced me to the MMOFPS genre and I love it dearly. You could jump into the game and in a matter of minutes you could be knee deep in metal, blood and bullets. It was fast paced but also had several avenues for those who were interested in covert ops. Before the introduction of the huge and ridiculously un-necessary mechs, I would spend hours upon hours playing that game. I remember sitting on one side of a river while the enemy massed on the other. Each would lob random artillery to the other side in a feigned attempt at combat. Few people would make a run across the bridge in a symbolic attempt at the enemies front lines, but would quickly be mowed down by a strafing Reaver, some well placed mines or the occasional lone sole who would greet them in the middle of the bridge. Both would fall to a barrage of bullets from the other side and it was entertaining to watch.
But the real action, and the real enjoyment of the game, came when that single line of tanks came rolling in with a cloud of aircraft behind them. That is when the true game came out. It was borderline chaos at times. There would be the well intentioned soul telling people where to go over global chat and depending on who that person was, they would either be followed or /ignored. The aircraft would get a few strafing runs in before our birds engaged them. Explosions would erupt in the air, soldiers would fall to well placed and random bullets alike, orbital strikes could turn the tide of battle or bring ruin upon the battle field with friendly casualties. It was just so much…FUN!!!
<sigh>
I really love what that game was when I first played it and, to a far lesser extent, what it is today. If SOE started to actually work on the game I would start paying and playing in a heart beat. It has SO much to offer.
I don’t feel this way about many games but I absolutely do about PlanetSide.
OMG the bridge battles on Cyssor are just to awesome to forget. The bridge that lead from Gunuku to Itan, that bridge was just awesome to fight for and it held the key to the map. Oshur was for sure fun and so was Ish, omg fighting on Ish was a snipers dream. God I loved fighting on Ish.
I bought it around the release, but unfortunetly, the computer I had back then wasn't capable (and maybe also the connection) at running good enough, at least not acceptable in my eyes. I dropped the game for quite a while. When I bought a new computer I resubbed and played for some months again and kept doing that at the same time I played wow (as in, I played a couple of months Planetside, while playing WoW, then I stopped playing PS for some months, while still playing WoW). I had a long break at some point and started playing again 1½ year ago I think it is now and stopped again 1 year ago. Eventhough my computer is a lot higher than the requirement I still enjoy playing the game. There are many things to do and when you're in an Outfit with Teamspeak, the gameplay gets sooo much more fun. Nothing better than dropping down on a base and capture it with a platoon.
I doubt I will go back to it though, since the population has only been going downwards (and a game like that needs population, god it was nice back in the days) and the server merges wasn't really of my liking either.
I would wish they had done more to get it in a better shape though! I loved that you could get in battle (the instant battle thing, when hitting esc - took 10 sec or so) in 10 secs. and end up defending a tower with lots of enemies outside - Epic.
Hope someone makes something as good as it was back in the day
Cadde
I too enjoyed the crap outta this game. It was a lot of fun and had some much potential for choke points and battles.
The ONLY problem I had with it was the zuergfests that would happen. Did not care too much for the spawn points at the towers. I think if theose could have been left out it would have been better. Made it too hard to defend a base with anything less than an overwhelming force. Also, made zuerging an official strategy.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
How can you ask a silly question why Planetside is ignored by SOE, Smedley is in charge. That guy made his contribution to the industry with EQ and has not done one mentionable thing since. He has lead SOE into the doldrums. Without doubt the most clueless individual in the industry at this point in time.
And you are right Planetside could be a great game with a little bit of attention, there is no competition in it's niche at the moment.
I can't figure out what the suits at Sony are doing when all they see is a steady decline at SOE? What was once a golden star in the genre is now a lackluster lead one.
another reason its dead is cause drect2drive and other sites still want 20 dollars for a dead game
I bought Planetside the month it came out and played for about 6 months or so, but was forced to quit due to living situation changing. I resubbed about 2-3 years in and the server populations had declined. I played some when they had the free recruits thing and I even got a guy playing it at work about 1 or 1 1/2 years ago (and I picked it up for a month or two myself). That said the population isn't there like it used to be. I remember continents being locked because too many people fighting. This game was great and as everyone said had plenty of squandered potential. Problem now is the graphics are dated, there is no support or development for it, and there is no population. This game needs a good number of people to be fun. The last time I played a big battle was perhaps 30-40 people total on both sides. Graphics and such aside - if they had a large population surge or something and people starting going back to it.. I'd resub in a second.
On of my fondest memories from all my years of gaming came from this game. I remember a huge battle Us Terrans were pushing to capture a base from the New Conglomerate. I was hiding behind a rock (wall? I don't remember) a hundred or so yards from the base taking sniper shots at NG's when I could, ducking to try and not get hit when things got worse.. way worse.. All the sudden the Vanu rolled up behind us and I remember reavers and mossies filling the sky and there I was trying to hide on both sides of that stupid rock trying not to get killed. A reaver took notice of me, and let's just say that rock wasn't enough cover. I was sweating like hell once I died my hands clammy and my heart was pounding out of my chest. That game had some awesome moments back in the day.... *sigh*
Planetside was my first MMORPG and one of my favourite. Some of the battles that went on were nothing besides epic, it was just an amazing scale that no other mmorpg has been able to capture.
Right now the games age is easily noticed for some simple things... Things that should have been able to be changed easily, like the draw distance. When you fly in aircraft, the draw distance even at max is low enough to where you can barely see any terrian. It seems like they should have been able to make the terrian draw distance further as now obviously most computers can handle it (it makes sense that the draw distance for other players might still be smaller for lag issues, but theres no reason that we should not be able to see any terrian from the air due to small draw distance). They couldnt do this though, or some other simple measures to keep planetside feeling massive over the years.
The good thing they did though is continue to merge the servers. Now theres no more merging left to do as planetside has become so small... Ah well all good things must come to an end. It is just sad that theres no strong outlook for people who like games like planetside, no close alternative. It really was an awesome game!
I think that if you havent tried it, just try it real quick, and imagine how amazing it could be en mass.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Planetside was the best FPS if have ever played, let alone MMOFPS. Now this statement has nothing to do with graphics or anything as far as the best tech in an FPS ever. My reason is rather simple, FUN. I bought it at or just after release. I had maybe 5 RL buds who also came on board.
One of the best things about this game is the simple fact that even if you just started at Battle Rank 1 (Level for you mmo fans) there was a good possibility that you could kill that Battle Rank 20 (highest level towards the beginning of the game). While BR (Battle Rank) did give you more options per character, it did not make their weapons stronger or better if you had the same thing in your hand. So you and your friends could play together and be effective right from the get go.
For the first few years the battles were fantastic. Three factions, several continents, a dozen plus bases per continent, and up to 140ish players per faction per continent. The continent would be locked at that point and other fights would start over another continent. For the first few years at prime time there would be two locked continents and a third continents with a large battle.
As others have mentioned there were vehicles everywhere; fighters, bombers, troop transport and that is just the air vehicles. On land you had ATVs, dune buggies, one man light tanks, heavy tanks sometimes 3 manned, couple different attack/troop transport vehicles. For your person you had cloaking armor, medium, heavy, and MAX armor. Each allowing for more gear to be carried but at the cost of being slower. MAX armor was more like a small Mech outfit of which there were 3 varities; aa, av, and infantry.
Each faction had their own variations on certain vehicles and weapons. Although there was also quite a few weapons and vehicles that were part of all 3 factions. So each faction had its own feel to them.
Indoors and outdoors fighting. It was just too much fun. I have never played an FPS that was this much fun. Having so many people to fight was great. None of the other FPS games I have played have held up like Planetside did. Some were fun for a bit but that would wear off soon.
It is a shame that Sony has done nothing with it and all the hacking going on in it now. I have now been waiting for a few years hoping someone would get it right again. I just believe the game companies believe that they can't compete with the regular FPS that people get to play multiplayer for free. Most people did not get to play Planetside during the times I described above and that is a shame because it put everything else to shame IMO.
I see it doesn't do well with Vista, fortunately I am still on XP. Hackers aside, if you could get a few hundred people to play at once spread between the factions you would still have a blast today. They had just done it that well. Infantry, Vehicles, and Air were all done so well. Perfect nope, but as a total package better than anything I have ever played.
The land masses were huge. I highly recommend if you ever play it to get a fast vehicle, ATVs being the cheapest. But if you don't mind spending the points getting the Aircraft: "Mosquito" will really get you to the next battle quickly. If you try to run on foot you could spend 15 minutes just running to the next base if it is close. There is certainly a bit more of a learning curve than a normal FPS but last time I played the community was still quite helpful.
If you have specific questions, feel free to ask. I will try to remember to check back and answer any.
Planetside is still the king and the only true MMOFPS, games that are around the corner pretending to be the next MMOFPS's are nothing compared to this mega giant. It has lost many dedicated community members throughout the years due to game breaking changes that were against the community. However, the game still lives, and still thrives on it's glory of being a true twitch action based persistent world. Offering faction based first person combat and a vehicular based simulator on an epic scale between of up to 399 (133 per faction) players total on a continent game world.
The game is a masterpiece in itself and it's truly sad to myself and many others to see it slowly fade down the slope of dying off, and I wish there was somebody or a developer that would be willing to pick it up or buy it off from SOE or at least work under their belt to get the game back in line and with some heavy marketing.
Planetside currently has a 45 day free reactivation period for former inactive accounts. I'm playing Planetside again, no other game can satisfy my taste as Planetside has, it has had its ups and downs, and is down to 3 dev's. However it's a tight knit community based game, and all players basically know each other, aside from the CN's. I've been reviving my old outfit (4475th Ranger Elite) and so far things are going great, BFR's are laughable now, a sniper can terrorize them and most BFR players run off with well placed hits. Infantry grunting is still very seldom to see aside from base zerging from AMS's, tanks and aerial assaults are the norm.
But flaunting that the game is a failure also isn't fair, it's truly the only MMOFPS that exists. The game is still very much alive, as we all play on 1 server now (Gemini), fights are repetitive, I won't lie about that. Cyssorside fights are very common, and some beautiful in game places are never seen by the new players as fights never stretch beyond the regular continents. But again, if you're a Planetside veteran, with an inactive account. And want to see what the game has to offer, your account is eligible for a 45 day comeback tour. And if you're NC and without an Outfit, look me up in game, my name is Neoki, I'm with the 4475th Ranger Elite. I'll be happy to grant ya into the outfit as long as you're willing to stick to objectives and work as a team, I can also answer any questions you may have as to what's changed, because A LOT has.
Again,
Planetside veteran's are eligible for a 45 day come back tour.
How to get Planetside working with Vista? >>> (Planetside Vista Settings)
Where to download Planetside? >>> (Planetside Client)
Where to buy Planetside? >>> (Planetside: Digital Download Purchase Via Direct2Drive)
TwitchTV: iNeoki
Someone recommended Planetside to me a couple of years ago and I didn't wind up playing, mainly because I'm not a big fan of sci-fi. I love the MMOFPS style and I mostly enjoyed Tabula Rasa, I'm loving Darkfall, and I'm very excited about Fallen Earth - although I cannot confirm or deny if I am in the beta ;-)
Is the game still available?
Yes sir I even included a link to the client download on my post above, the monthly subscription is 14.99. Welcome to Planetside if you decide to join us!
TwitchTV: iNeoki
Yes sir I even included a link to the client download on my post above, the monthly subscription is 14.99. Welcome to Planetside if you decide to join us!
Cool! thanks! I just may give it a try.
EDIT: Missed you post since I replied after reading the first post.
Oh Planetside, how I miss you. It did not deserve the treatment SOE gave. Back In the day it gave such A feeling of adventure and pride. The freedom of what you can do for your empire, which of course includes killing the other faction, heh. Like another article said, there is a bright eye'd nostalgia for it, and a certain respect from one ex-player to another.
I can't hear the phrase "prep for drop" without getting a little shiver of excitement.
I get back in to PS every few months, and play for a month or two. It's an awesome game. The combat engineer upgrade was a great change. I'm a bit worried about them raising the BR cap, though. The tactical choices of loadout was always the best, but I'd love to have the option to cert the vehicles I want along with my weapons of choice (Jackhammer FTW).
Dammit. Now I want to go play.
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
This is the best mmo ever made i think and wish someone buy it from SOE and make it back into that great mmo it was
Well, I've been reading the fond memories posts here and was really trying not to log on and seem like a 'Troll' for saying what I'm about to say, but please keep in mind that this is just MY opinion on my time w/ Planetside...
That said, I DO agree that there are plenty of 'Epic Battle' memories for me, much like the rest of the posters here, I was there in the beginning when the game launched and played til the 1st expansion came out, but the ONE thing that ALWAYS pissed me off, was that there was never anything to show for all the effort and fighting that you did, (aside from advancing your character of course,) nothing...
Sure, you'd cap a base or a tower or whatever; maybe even run the enemy off and lock the continent, but sure enough 15 minutes later, the whole process would start over again because your faction would just Zerg around. Once the base / tower was capped it was just useless / pointless to defend, and that meant it was time to Zerg the next point, and the one that you'd worked so hard to cap was a ghost town... What was the point? Pretty much the same thing over and over ad nauseum...
The game had a LOT of potential that was sadly never tapped. Not even close...
But to end on a somewhat positive note, I'll continue the 'Best PS Battle' theme:
It's been a while since I've played so forgive me for not remembering the names of the locales. Vanu Sovereignty player here, (THAT'S right VS4EVA! : ) and during one battle we were deadlocked @ a base w/ the TR. We haven't managed to hold any of the nearby towers long enough to allow a closer respawn, so all of the fresh bodies are making a long-ass run back to the fight. I manage to stealth into the base and dodge several mini-gun-toting TR n00bs til I arrive @ the base core. The door opens and it's a scene right out of Star Wars, (Han running into the hangar full of Storm Troopers,) luckily I'm stealthed, and even MORE lucky that there was a TR behind me so his buddy thinks it's HIM that triggered the door! I decide to go for the core. I hop up onto the comp blocked by the TR, and wait... A few minutes go by, and I can't think of anyway to get them out of the room long enough for me to start hacking the core, and then the 3RD stroke of luck happens and the TR in the room start complaining about how boring playing defense is and after a couple minutes decide to head to the front line cause the VS are getting pushed back. They leave; I start my hack. The battle rages on for long enough that my hack completes and there's a stream of """" WTF?! We hacked it?!"" -type chatter speeding by. This spurs the VS back to fighting form and the TR can't get a hacker to save their lives to get to the core before my hack finishes counting down and flips the base. Easily the BEST PS Battle memory for me. Made me really heart-poundingly nervous while it was all playing out, but also made me feel pretty damn heroic, (for 15 mins or so... Then we lost the base cause it was undefended... : )
This was by far my favorite game (Much less MMO or FPS) of all time. I loved the massive battles and the way that there was room for every play style.
Even the zerg rushers had their place, after all you need someone to keep the enemy busy while the real attacks go on. My outfit would gather up 10-20 of our guys and steal a island that was being battled over by a max team of all 3 sides (100v100v100)
Amazing what a little team work can do.
I'll never forget the day my commander introduced me to the MAX rush. We had been fighting over a base for about a hour with little movement, we had no bases on the island and so no armor or aircraft so we could not crack their base. So he lines up all of our outfit gues in the tower stairs in whatever MAX suites we could get, even a AA suite would work. Then started shouting for everyone else to do the same.
All at once 50+ MAX suite go into run mode and run right into the enemy base, the first 2 or 3 died to land mines, a couple more died to armor or lucky Decimater hits. Then we were inside the base. 40+ MAXes running right past all the defenders, ignoring all our losses. Until at last we were in the spawn room, I have never seen spawn tubes go down so fast.
Despite a very good defense on the enemys part we had 20 or so MAXes holding the spawn room. After that the whole island fell quickly. Seems we broke their spirt with that little stunt. (And I think they got annoyed when we wouldnt fall for the same trick.)
Ah good times, I have never played another FPS where I have hardly any war stories, much less the dozens I have from that game. I still think about reupping my subsription from time to time.
Well, reading all this brought back too many memories.
Time to get back into my armor, pick up my gun and go blast some TR and VS (Well when Im not wearing the purple anyway, Jump Jets FTW)
I have never found another game that gave me the epic feel of PS, the only reason I quit is I could not play, after a patch I started crashing non-stop. Turned out to be a problem with my brand new video card and only happened with PS.
As that was 2 video cards back I think it's time. Now to see if I can find a NC (Or maybe VS) Outfit with a decent military command structure.
I really miss Planetside. IMO it's still the best Multiplayer FPS out there ... MMO, or not. Yes the graphics are dated, but the gameplay more than makes up for it. The only reasone I'm not playing it is because the last few times I payed for a month sub, I logged in to find alomst nobody on.
I really miss my old Gen-Drop days, and base captures.
My main was a Vanu - Combat Engineer/Advanced Hack/Max Pilot
I don't know if anyone has brought this up or not, but SOE has reactivated all inactive PlanetSide accounts until August 27th. Doesn't matter if you bought the game or just did the trial, you account is turned on. I only did the trial and its on for me, so I know its every one who has ever played. I might pop in the game within the next ffee 45 days, hope to see some you in PlanetSide.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
I'm so there... thanks for the heads up. Downloading the client now.
I hope we can get a number of people playing again at least for the free trial - I have an itch to hot drop in my max and storm some bases.
I DEMAND Planetside 2!!!!!!!!!!!!
/sign :-)
Uhh... what?
Thanks for the heads up that there is a free reactivation. I'll have to see how it is now. I was unaware of the complete server merge. They had merged some of them last time I played but not all.
That was the only major down fall to the game, off hours. There wasn't much going on during the very late night/very early morning and no NPCs to fight while waiting for it to pick up.
I think that is one reason I really like early iterations for World of Warcraft's Battle Ground "Alterac Valley". I enjoyed the NPC addition to the PvP.
Ok off to download to fire it up, thanks again. I'll be on my main Vanu characters... although I had some on each faction on different servers. Curious to see how that works out when I log in. Vanu is the only ones I really care about though.
EDIT: It figures I run into this post though as just a few weeks back I deleted my saved key binds and what have you for PS.
1 hour and 20 min for download to finish... not bad. I'll play tomorrow I guess.