Isn’t this the same EU payment company that got lambasted for this same thing last year with another online game? Crazy.
The real burning question here though is how did the guys at RPS get a screenshot of two Vanu riding in a buggy? Does this mean we’re getting buggies back?! I miss my Harasser!
I think that was a screen shot from the original Planetside.
Damn, you’re right. I just looked again and the mouseover comment gives it away. My buggy hopes are dashed. sniff
KevinC
1864
Buggies are on the roadmap, although I don’t know if they’re common pool or not.
They’ve announced server merges which is kind of good news for me, because that means my VS character will end up being moved onto the server where most of the other Qt3 VS players are.
But isn’t the merging of servers normally a bad sign for MMO’s?
KevinC
1866
There were a few servers at launch that just never got a critical mass of players, it’s been an issue since Day 1 so I’m glad to see SOE merge them.
Eh, in this case I don’t think it’s bad. Being a MMOFPS, a critical mass of players is vital, and the more the merrier. As noted above, some of the launch servers never really got that mass, and this merge should simply mean everyone gets to log into bigger and better fights. The play dynamic is a bit different than most MMORPGs, I think, and as it’s free to play it’s not so much how many players they have but how many players who are playing intensely and want to spend spacebucks to play more intensely/better/etc.
Hmm my Vanu is on SolTech and my NC main is on Mattherson, wonder how that is going to work.
Yup, this is only a good thing. Even RPS and a couple of other places have said that this isn’t the typical “we’re losing players so we’re folding servers” move. SOE has said they are quite happy with the overall number of F2P accounts and the percentage of them that are spending real money in the store. This is all about condensing population to make the battles bigger, better and spread across all three continents per server versus just Indar every night. Part of me also wonders if the additional servers at launch were SOE’s way of counterbalancing the performance issues they launched with, which they have since made significant progress in fixing, so now they can put more people together in a confined space and not have half of them slow to a crawl.
I have the opposite problem with my characters. My main is VS on Matherson, and my alt is NC on Sol-Tech. The NC was my first character, and I invested many certs into him, but since joining Azure Twilight on Matherson I’ve pretty much abandoned him. Now perhaps I’ll trot him out once in awhile just for fun since he can go up against my AT friends.
VS numbers on Matherson are always low. Supposedly the VS pop in Sol Tech is somewhat higher, so I’m looking forward to finally having over 30% pop on any given night.
Yeah, Indar is getting old. I look for battles elsewhere but it’s always back to the frickin’ Crown.
KevinC
1871
Continent locking will be in soon!
Alan_Au
1872
I’m getting tired of the zerg-or-be-zerged thing right now, so lately I’ve started using massively asymmetric warfare to cause trouble. Basically, if I can cause opponents to massively overcommit resources to dislodging me, I’m successfully having fun. The only downside is that it’s terrible in terms of XP/cert gain, but I’m one of the f2p second-class citizens anyway, so I might as well have fun annoying the entitled jerks with their fancy camo and skull-helmets.
There is a certain joy to back-capping a facility and getting the other guys to commit, say, a full Galaxy drop to clear you out.
Razgon
1874
The few times I’ve logged on lately, its either Crown or taking over empty facilities…rather boring.
They really can’t get some of the map/gameworld changes in fast enough, I agree. One continent and often one or two locations for all the action is really getting old. Often, everyone you see on the other side (on the kill screen) is from one outfit, and the variety of outfits overall doesn’t seem as high as a while ago. I guess it’s the usual consolidation into uber-guilds in these sorts of games.
You’re complaining about being a second class citizen in planet side 2, one of the most generous freemium games, when you don’t pay anything, and claiming that someone who buys a purely cosmetic armor upgrade is entitled. Someone here is sounding entitled here but i don’t think its the person you intended.
Planetside 2 is not a charity. It is a freemium game with a business model designed around encouraging microtransactions after a player is hooked on the game by the free entry. It is also super generous to such a degree that i don’t see how they can really survive long term when you don’t really need to purchase anything once you have the few guns you want for your favorite class, since they are side grades, not straight upgrades.
As has been explained about every 5 pages, you really don’t get much combat effectiveness from spending space bucks past buying access to weapons. Once you have the weapon you want for your class, there is really no added advantage you get from space bucks. Big vehicles can take a bit more since they have more weapons, but it is still only a few items. In most cases these are not just straight “Free gun +2” upgrades either. They are weapons targeted at specific situations (like a close range smg for example rather than an all around ok weapon). The vast majority of your combat stat upgrades come from Exp.
And yes, doing what you’re doing is probably low exp/time. You’re likely getting few kills as you’re facing a superior force and attempting to stay alive, and you aren’t getting any sort of defense bonus or capture bonus. I suggest going engineer or medic in a large battle instead.
Houngan
1877
You way, way over-reacted to Alan’s post, which seemed tongue-in-cheek to me. I have $50 into this game and I also think the skull helmet people are entitled jerks.
I’ve always felt the helmets and armor bits are a strange form of nickle and diming, given that you generally don’t see them except in the load out or death screens. You’re in effect paying to affect the way other people see you. That would be more understandable if you actually saw the enemy much, but mostly you just see enough color/shape to identify friend or foe, and then shoot them. I do see an awful lot of skull dudes though in death screens, but it’s hardly intimidating at that point.
KevinC
1879
I agree, that’s what makes it great, in my opinion. It has no impact on the game, I’m not tempted at all to buy it, yet plenty of other people do so it goes towards funding shit I actually care about. Win-Win all around.
Yep, if folks want to spend money on looking intimidating to people who won’t ever see them, I’m all for it. Though if I was flush I’d probably buy some armor/helmets too, for giggles.
