Planetside Beta Analysed As Release Approaches

An anonymous reader writes "Another Planetside preview can be found over at Dailygame.net. It discusses the scale of the game, and what you can expect from the overall playing experience." The official Planetside site, courtesy Sony, has much more info on this PC MMO shooter title as release (on May 19th) rapidly approaches, and about 30,000 beta testers continue to stress test the game, which is another in a multitude of massively multiplayer titles vying for your money.

Sounds great

[Asgard]

If they can create a game that truly handles large-scale FPS battles, I am going to join up! Unfortunately I suspect that there will be significant lag issues, plus perhaps the WW2 Online issues with only a small subset of players being visible at once, causing 'invisible killer issues'. It'll be great if it succeeds though.

Re:Sounds great

[disc-chord]

As long as you have a beefy system (People with 1GB Ram need not apply) you will be very pleasantly surprised. The server clusters handle like a dream for the most part and it's always non-stop action. Almost every night I find myself deep in a battle of 50+ vs 50+ vs 50+. You might think that this would promote chaotic and completely spastic combat, but this is only true of people with little-to-no FPS experience. If you know what you're doing you can stay alive, at least long enough to take out a dozen o

(People with LESS THAN 1GB Ram need not apply)

[disc-chord]

Blah I had a sign there, but I must have hit back space.

I started playing with 512 PC2700 DDR and was "okay" ... but once I upgraded to a gig things really started flying. Memory is dirt cheap, and if you're a FPS fan you should probably already have a gig anyhow.

Re: large scale FPS

[Kyriani]

I have to agree with disc-cord, I'm in beta and it handles up to several hundred (100 on all 3 sides) battles flawlessly as long as you have a computer that is up to spec with the game. It can be amazingly hectic and fun, especially if you have a good squad. Its invigorating and addictive. :)
The major problem I have with the game is the friendly fire issue, in large scale battles I get killed by my own side as much as any other side. People with itchy trigger fingers not taking time to check whether that sn

Hmm...

[Jainith]

Looks alot like tribes...

Jainith

Re:Hmm...

[Asgard]

True, but Tribes is max-64 players (on an imaginary high-powered server and infinite bandwidth), and this sounds like it has much larger scale and variety. Tribes was pretty great though.

Re:Hmm...

[The Evil Couch]

not on an imaginary system, I've seen my share of 64 player servers and tribes 2 expanded that out to 128 players, and I've been on servers that had that upwards of 100 people in massed battles.

those same massed battles are what makes me look forward to getting my copy of planetside.

Re:Hmm...

[Grinn]

Yes, the game borrows a lot from Tribes, but expands upon so much that the experience isn't at all the same. Putting the incredible graphics engine aside, the gameplay is simply amazing; with 3000 people on a server, you're never far from action. And unlike tribes, the map is persistant and territorial, so the player feels accomplishment when gaining ground in enemy territory. With this comes a greater sense of urgency and ferociousness in player defenses, making both sides of combat intense.

The game s

Not quite that many (simultaneous) testers

[YodaToad]

I'm participating in the beta right now and from what I've seen there's nowhere near 30,000 people stress testing the system. There may be 30,000 people included in the beta, but there haven't been that many people playing. Most I've seen is around 3,500 on the "main" beta world and around 2,000 on the other two. Even so, it's still a blast to play and you can bet I'll be playing when it's released later this month. I can't wait to see what kind of battles break out when there's multitudes more people in the worlds.

Tribes with more depth...

[Wheaty18]

I am also participating in the PlanetSide beta. It is very much like Tribes in many ways, with the addition of a semi-deep character development system (something you'd expect out of any pay-to-play game). While it can be quite entertaining at times, I don't think I'll subscribe once it goes retail. I can get just as much enjoyment out of Tribes/2 as I can PlanetSide.

But will it work?

[Ritorix]

It will be interesting to see if a subscription-based FPS will profit. MMORPGs are constantly updated, and are practically designed to addict the player with timesinks and level treadmills. I suspect a MMOFPS will have a harder time retaining players over the long-term.

Re:But will it work?

[Grinn]

WWIIOline is FPS with a much smaller niche than Planetside will have, and despite the rocky start and initial skepticism, it's still going "strong".

With the marketing power of Sony, the resources for online development of Sony Online, and with Planetside's near-monopoly of the MMOFPS marketspace, it's hard to believe Planetisde will flounder.

Grinn.

Re:But will it work?

[The Evil Couch]

that's a point that one of my writers keeps bringing up to defend his Anarchy Online addiction, however FPS games rarely need to have time sinks or have people experience the XP treadmill to be successful. in various FPS, the clans that form tend to perputate themselves.

while they vary wildly in devotion to the game, the way the game is set up (battles for land) players will rapidly lose track of time in trying to get their faction ahead in the land grab and wind up burning hours at a time. combine that

FPS MMORPGs

[Winterblink]

A little off-topic, but planetside really isn't the first FPS MMORPG out there... Neocron [neocron.com] is in the first person, and while not quite as twitch-based action style gameplay as Planetside, it's incredibly fun. It draws heavily from Deus Ex, yet putting it in a MMO setting works for it. Planetside seems a bit too much like just Tribes with a monthly charge.

Definitly NOT twitch-based

[Ransom342]

Planetside is definitly not a Twitch-Based game. They have a cone of fire system that makes it quite a bit different style of play than UT and QUAKE. variable like your rate of fire and speed of movement decrease your accuracy. its not a pixel perfect firing system.

Public beta?

[moonbender]

Arrr. I've not been accepted to the beta so far - perhabs because I'm in Germany, or maybe I'm just not very lucky - so I hope they do release a public beta before the game retails. I really would like to try the game, I've been following it since it was mentioned for the first time and it sounds awesome. So I'll likely buy it even if I don't get to try it, but it doesn't feel very good.

Heck, I even considered to subscribe to FilePlanet to get into the beta, but, gawd, no.

release already?

[nekoes]

I'm participating in beta, and while it is rather fun, it still has that whole "This is a massively multiplayer game, so that makes it fun!" type of feeling. But really, I still can't believe they are releasing it so soon. Unless they aren't giving us the full version, they are going to be releasing a half product to the public. There are still a lot of bugs in the interface and the game itself. The voice chat is really spotty and crashes the clients that use it, the game refuses to save configs, and whate

I'm very dubious on it

[analog_line]

I was participating in the beta. A friend of mind got a second CD Key from Sony which he gave to me. There have been several gameplay changes along the way that pretty much require you to have a guild (or outfit, as Planetside calls them) if you ever want to see any real action. As I already play Dark Age of Camelot and don't think I'm quitting soon, and am messing around with Everquest because I'm curious and got a deal on the Gold box, I just won't have the time to maintain a position in a hardcore gui

As a tester....

[Sarcasmooo!]

...first I should echo the performance issue. It's really the only thing keeping me from wanting to pay $10 a month to play. I run a 1.2GHz Athlon with an ATI Radeon 8500LE 128mb, and 256mb DDR. Not the greatest machine, but something that I feel should let me play newer games at around medium detail. That's just not the case with PS. I've tweaked it enough lately that I can stand to play in large battles, but there are just annoying little oddities, like a 1.5 second pause when opening a new door.....usual