Smedley on PS2 over the coming months

Purestorm

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This is taken from a reddit thread:

Hello PS2 players both current and hopefully the ones that have played and moved on. I want to lay out our direction moving forward for PS2.

The development team continues to work on many things at once. We have the PS4 version launching very soon here. We've had to spend time getting the codebase to merge, and yes.. that's led to some problems like we all saw with the flight controls.

I realize there are people who think that means it's all about the console versions going forward.

It isn't. We won't let it be that way because we like the PC way too much for that.

In the near term, we're adding more people to the Planetside 2 team (hopefully bringing some people back that were former team members) to help us get our development bandwidth to where we want it to be. However, we have plenty of horsepower to deliver on some amazing things this summer already.

The plan is simple - We are going to be taking Planetside 2 to where it needs to be and finally address the stuff should have already. The metagame. We will once and for all be getting the Meta to where it just has to be. That means a comprehensive change that will involve completely revamping resources, changing what territory control means and spending a lot of time giving you reasons to fight. All of this will be done in a fully transparent manner in which we actually put our internal design docs out there for your comment and feedback.

We will be moving towards a system where resources are actually going to be a fun part of the game, and you'll be able to harvest resources directly (in fact, that's how you're going to get them). and you'll be able to use them to finally get to some of the end-game things we've been wanting to do - Outfit bases on new continents (and potentially on existing ones). We're also going to be spending a lot of time to make sure capturing a facility actually matters, as well as looking at the overly-complicated capture system which can be pretty obtuse at times.

The simple problem with Planetside 2 has always been "Why are we fighting?". We intend to make the focus of the time between now and our 2.0 release in September working very hard on this core issue. We have put it off way too long, and honestly the stuff we've done up until now hasn't been enough and we know it.

The team is also committed to a much more regular update schedule on the PC. We want to be honest about only having a finite amount of resources, but a significant portion of them will be dedicated to the PC and advancing the game itself. We will absolutely be adding more resources to this team to assist in this.

We'll be making announcements about the 2.0 release in the near-term future with a lot more specifics. In addition, we have a nice surprise for you... we're also going to be adding another game mode to Planetside 2 for the first time. You can expect to be seeing that in the upcoming week on Live servers (it will be a beta of the game mode). This will actually be a game mode with a win condition! Hopefully you like it. It's meant to be the kind of thing you pop into for an hour match and then go back into the main game. Hopefully in the short term we can make it so outfits can directly compete against other outfit in this game mode. Also, we aren't charging to get into this mode. The entire reason for it is to try something new and see how we all like it as a community.

Why do this instead of just doing the Meta stuff? Simple - we are experimenting and trying something new. Before you judge, try it. It only took a small subset of the team a few weeks to put together and we hope you like it.

In the months between now and September we're going to be putting all kinds of new things into the game on a regular schedule. We're also going to be committing to doing a better job on the Roadmap. The criticism that we do a poor job updating it is something that I think is both fair and accurate and it's simply going to be done right.

So for those of you that thought Planetside 2's best days are behind it... you are going to be pleasantly surprised, but the proof has to be in what we do not in what we say.

Planetside 2 is one of our core franchises. It will be here in ten years and assuming we can make the right choices it can be 10x as big as it is right now (on the PC, not even talking about adding console users).

To those who think all we care about is the console - no, no, no. PC is our lead sku and is always going to be. We are very excited to bring PS2 to the Playstation 4. It's really fun. Our console players are every bit as important to us as our PC players, but in terms of how we develop stuff, expect the PC to be the lead sku.

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for playing Planetside 2. We're in this for the long haul and we're going to work our asses off to make sure you are too. The only way we do that is to take this game to the next level, so that's just what we're going to do.

Smed
 

Purestorm

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There is a potential problem here, possibly a big problem.

The new game mode. Sure, it's good for scrims and other competitive crap, but what's to stop some or most of the casual playerbase to migrate from the actual game to this new game mode?
 

Edgewalkr

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www.youtube.com
liess.png
 
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StriKe_jk

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I'm excited and mad at the same time. Excited of his speech & the future plans of PS2 but mad because I heard his promises way to often without anything happen. You may fool me once at the alpha smed, you may fool me twice at the anniversary but for fuck sake you won't fool me again. I'll wait & watch.
 
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bpostal

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"Overly complicated capture system"

...ooookay. You stand next to the thing to flip the thing and then you wait. The fuck is so complicated about that?

And that 'other game mode'? My money's on 'Battlefield mode' where they take this entire game and shave it down to round based bullshit. Fracturing the playerbase even further between COD kiddies and Planetside players should be the last god damn thing they want to do.

Where the fuck is my god damn mission system?!
 

ChipMHazard

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Yeah... I get nervous when they start talking about being creative with proven systems. Harvestable resources? Creating a game mode with a win condition instead of improving the core continental conquest system.
They have a lot to prove.
 

welph

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It's ok to let them test stuff.......as long as they listen to the crowed when they say it's shit or needs to be changed in a way.
 

Thundestrucks

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So basically he means "we will screw you even more without telling you shit"

On a side note i'm more excited about this new rocket rifle:

 

JerusalemWolfe

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I'm intrigued as to how they will implement the harvesting. Worst case (for me), would be having to pause the fight so I can run off and do some mining with a pick axe or gather some pretty flowers so I can make a Revive grenade. Best case would be having it linked to doing constructive actions so it becomes an incentive to good play (although, to an extent, I feel certs already do that). I've very little experience with the current game but didn't feel resource acquisition was an issue. Has active resource gathering been something the community has been clamoring for?
 

StriKe_jk

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No no no guys, you are thinking way to big.

With harvesting resources he means that you will get resources like implants, based on XP. Nothing more, nothing less.

Do you really think they would build a whole "harvest & resource" system when they need months of work to do a number change? :D

Hell, they don't even have an automated system to change your ingame name and they are also incapable of re-building the cert-tree.

Also the new game mode will most likely be a battle-ground (WoW) thing on Nexus. You queue up, wait and then you can play on the battleground with a fixed number of ppl. That is basically what they are telling us for 1.5 years now.
 

wonderlove

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You are overthinking what the new game-mode is. My bet is on... Nanitestone! It will be brilliant, starting with Vanu Purple card pack etc.
 

ChipMHazard

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I'm intrigued as to how they will implement the harvesting. Worst case (for me), would be having to pause the fight so I can run off and do some mining with a pick axe or gather some pretty flowers so I can make a Revive grenade. Best case would be having it linked to doing constructive actions so it becomes an incentive to good play (although, to an extent, I feel certs already do that). I've very little experience with the current game but didn't feel resource acquisition was an issue. Has active resource gathering been something the community has been clamoring for?

What people have been clamoring for is the nanite system from the original Planetside.
http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/index.php?title=NTU
A lack of a similar system has been an issue in Planetside 2 since the beginning, and it was made even "worse" when you could no longer stop a region from giving players resources by cutting it off. This is basicly what's behind biolab fights sometimes going on for longer than an alert.
In the original Planetside you could besiege a facility and starve it out and win that way. Would take longer than taking over the base by force.

The ANT runs gave those in vehicles something else to do in the original as well, important since they couldn't spawncamp the tubes, and it might bring that form of gameplay to Planetside 2 as well.
 
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wonderlove

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ANTs, hmmm.
"Fully-charged ANTs have a significant secondary blast radius when destroyed", i feel my inner martyr calling. The zerglings shall fear the battlecry of our suicide squads - NO SPANDEX IN PARADISE!1