If you're in need of some quiet time - and I certainly am, because the people upstairs are having their kitchen refitted, and the resulting powerdrill noise is literally shaking things off my desk - I recommend a stroll across the plains of Planetside 2. This might seem odd advice, given that PlanetSide 2 is a shooter in which hundreds or even thousands of players fight each other simultaneously, but the thing about planet-sized wars is that they require plenty of legroom, and the thing about crowds is that you can lose yourself within them.
]]>Sci-fi MMO shooter Planetside 2 has overhauled its underwater combat with the suitably named Surf and Storm update, live now. The ageing FPS has also brought in water vehicles, updated the island continent of Oshur added last year, and left some bug fixes in its wake. Get your cossie on and dive into the trailer below.
]]>PlanetSide 2's developers teased the creation of a new, fifth continent to be added to the aging MMOFPS back in 2018. Now it's actually happening. The islands of Oshur are a tropical paradise and a "return to the game's roots," say the developers.
]]>Three-way mega-battle FPS MMO PlanetSide 2 is about to unveil another big update. The Shattered Warpgate will introduce hazardous storms to one of its maps and some new equipment, but most importantly, a campaign.
Its big update back in March, Escalation, bought thousands of players back, but where that was focused largely on organised groups of experienced players, Rogue Games' Andy Sites declared that "our goal for The Shattered Warpgate was to improve the experience for a much broader audience". Central to that goal is a series of campaign missions, and a host of smaller side quests that will reward more of PlanetSide's many playstyles, even if all you're interested in is driving around for a while.
]]>Unless you're in one of those international versions of Big Brother that are still going on, you've probably noticed that we're in the midst of a pandemic of something called the Covid-19 virus. I can tell it's serious because my dad's American girlfriend isn't allowed to visit him, which means he's bored and phoning me in the middle of the day. Haha, I joke. But he is 70, and has a weak heart, plus he's immunocompromised on account of catching Lyme disease from a tick once (which is exactly the sort of ridiculous thing that only happens to country dads).
If you're anything like us, you're now at home, staring at the walls of your living room because of this social distancing thing. But it's not just you. In fact, all of RPS is now working from home for the foreseeable future, too. So in the spirit of camaraderie, I've pooled some suggestions for video games to play while we're self-quarantining. We've got some multiplayer ones, some board-gamey ones, and, of course, a healthy dollop of free ones.
]]>After several delays, PlanetSide 2's biggest update for years, Escalation, went live overnight.
Players of the massive scale three-way sci-fi FPS will now have access to giant shields, orbital bombardments, tank airdrops, and the most exciting bit: carriers. You see the big fellers up there? You could be in one. Or, more likely, have to team up with enough people to take it down.
]]>It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.
]]>H1Z1 and PlanetSide 2 developers Daybreak Game Company went through another round of layoffs yesterday, though the number of employees affected is unknown. This is the third wave since the beginning of 2018.
]]>Raise the purple flag, comrades. PlanetSide Arena came out yesterday, bringing some royale to PlanetSide 2’s vast battles in a spin-off game of jeeps and jetpacks. Its big thing is that everyone has a quad in their back pocket, but another major draw are the big 12-person team battles. That’s in keeping with the scale of the bottomless futurewar, but is it as shooty and adrenal-gland-taxing as other battle royale games? Sin and Brendy crash landed on the murderplanet and joined some big fights to find out.
]]>The spaceman 'n' vehicle murderfest of MMOFPS PlanetSide will soon be condensed for PlanetSide Arena, with developers Daybreak Game Company today announcing an early access launch on September 19th. The PlanetSide spin-off will have folks shooting each other to bits while romping around on foot, in vehicles, and dangling precariously from jetpacks, just in a big battle royale rather than persistent faction wars. At launch Arena will support 300-player matches in modes with squads of three soldiers or teams of twelve, then is due to grow larger.
]]>Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. That’s the sound of your alarm, it’s Delay o’clock. PlanetSide Arena, the battle royale made from the bones and skin of quite-large multiplayer shooter PlanetSide 2, has been delayed. It was supposed to zip straight to a full release next Tuesday, January 29. But developers Daybreak send word that it’s been knocked back a couple of months. To needlessly keep up the alarm clock metaphor, they woke up and slammed the snooze button. But, ach sure, don't we all?
]]>The sci-fi generals of PlanetSide 2’s never-ending conflict will be waging a new kind of war early next year. PlanetSide Arena is a battle royale shoot-the-lads that will launch as a full game on January 29, developers Daybreak are telling everyone today. It’s going to have a shrinking battleground, reworked guns, spacebucks, jetpacks, orbital strikes and big group matches that see 250 boots-on-the-ground shooting at 250 other boots-on-the-ground. Also, everybody has a quad in their pocket that they can whip out whenever they want and drive across the hills.
]]>The endless open-world war of PlanetSide 2 will add a fourth faction who switch sides, mercenaries who will fight for whichever proper faction has the fewest active players on the battlefield. The robotic Nanite Systems Operatives sound a neat idea, keeping the war lively while also reducing faction queue times and giving lone wolf players an option to always play on their back foot and fight fight fight. You'll need to pay the MMOFPS's optional subscription service to play as a mechanical man, mind.
]]>It's been a while since I've dusted off PlanetSide 2 [official site], admittedly. When I last played Daybreak's mega-scale FPS for any length of time they had only just recently introduced base-building to the game, with the resoruce-carrying ANT units returning from the original PlanetSide. With the release of the massive Critical Mass update this week (the first major overhaul of 2017), they've introduced sweeping changes to the balance, including how infantry and vehicles interact, but most notably changing the overall flow of the game and concluding the battle for each continent with one last massive all-in fight.
]]>For the third day in a row, our outpost was under attack. Some enterprising yanks had discovered they could take opportunistic raiding parties through an undefended snowy field and get within grenade-throwing distance of our forward operating base – a walled-in barracks full of tiny toy soldiers all sitting around grunting that they didn’t have enough rifles, ammo, or best friends to clutch to their breasts as they died in the snow. Someone lowered the iron gate for me and I drove the truck into the compound, during a mercifully quiet and shrapnel-free moment.
“Who wants b-mats!” I shouted, employing the shorthand for ‘basic materials’ I’d learned from wiser, fightier men. “Get your b-mats here!”
Everyone in the compound rushed to the truck.
“Oh YES,” said an engineer, as he unloaded the essentials he needed to build up defences and do his own job. “Buddy, you are the real MVP.”
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Pew pew pew. Zap zap. EXPLODE. Those are the sounds of Planetside 2 [official site] which is a videogame you may have heard about.
]]>Construction arrived in PlanetSide 2 [official site] this week, letting players build their own little bases. If you've been hoping to build a quiet little get-away spot, put up a shed, set out a few lawn chairs, fire up the barbie... yeah, that won't happen. Especially given the sort of people pootling around, tooled up and looking for trouble. No, this is warconstruction, letting players build little warbases as waroutposts and even to help contribute victory points to the free-to-play MMOFPS's wareffort.
]]>Ridealong is our regular feature where Brendan travels deep into game worlds to meet, question and journey with the inhabitants that dwell within. This month, he visits the war-torn plains of Planetside 2 [official site] and meets the commanders still fighting for prestige, glory and XP in a war that can never be won.
]]>Light a candle for the genre, it's basically done. Oh, it'll keep ticking along, of course. This month we've seen Black Desert Online, there's others on the way, and there'll always be some audience for both the mostly Korean-born clickers and the occasional new idea. Personally I'm hoping for City of Titans to scratch that superhero itch that Champions Online sure as heck can't, and for Shroud of the Avatar to bring back some of that Ultima magic. (Take a shot.) But as a genre to actively watch for cool stuff? Stick a fork in it. Sony- sorry, Daybreak was pretty much the last great hope of breathing life into it in any form remotely close to how Everquest did it back in the day, never mind giving it back the cultural clout from World of Warcraft's heyday.
]]>On Saturday March 5th at 7pm, the RPS PlanetSide 2 community is gathering once again for an evening of war. Call To Arms is where hundreds of players from our community pile into a server together with the common goal of capturing enemy bases and having fun.
]]>It's been a while! Over November and December, the RPS community have indulged in tonnes of different games. Read on to find out what we've been up to in Clicker Heroes [official site], Guild Wars 2 [official site], PlanetSide 2 [official site], Terraria [official site] and more.
]]>October is when the nights draw in and evenings are best spent gathered around a fire, playing board games. Or hunched in front of a monitor, playing on Roll20.
On the other hand, what better way to warm up than with big gatherings of the community - either online or off? Read on to find out what we've been up to in Blood Bowl 2 [official site], pen and paper games, PlanetSide 2 [official site], real life and more.
]]>Hi folks!
Here's what happened in May in the RPS community.
In this alliterative edition: Blood Bowl [official site] brethren batter and bludgeon in preparation for the new game; Cities: Skylines [official site] succession games subsequently succeed; Dirt Rally [official site] roadsters rack-up a riveting league; Guild Wars 2 [official site] troopers take to hammering out their differences; and PlanetSide 2 [official site] players participate profoundly in another smashing of servers.
]]>Hi folks!
I'm Scott and I help moderate the RPS community forum. There's some great discussions going on over there but what I'm really interested in is what the members of the community do together - whether that's in games or out of them. Every month I'm going to provide a summary of what RPSers have been up to and how you can get involved.
This month: Cities: Skylines [official site] succession games; our Guild Wars 2 [official site] guild get more involved in PvP; the PlanetSide 2 [official site] outfits do battle in a server smash; and how to join the capers of our Grand Theft Auto V [official site] crew.
]]>A name change to the awkward-sounding'Daybreak Game Company' isn't the only consequence Sony's recent shock sale of its MMOy division SOE to management firm Columbus Nova. Barely more than a week after the acquisition, Daybreak is making lay-offs, reportedly including the long-time lead and public face of the Everquest games. "The operation of current games" won't be affected apparently, so while this is sad news at least we needn't panic that someone's going to take Planetside 2 or H1Z1 away from us.
]]>Every Sunday, we reach deep into Rock, Paper, Shotgun's 142-year history to pull out one of the best moments from the archive. This week, Quintin's tale of Planetside heroism, originally published September 2008.
Planetside, then. Do I have any veterans in the audience? At ease, gentlemen.
It might not have dredged up the subscribers Sony were hoping for, and you personally might have found it a disappointment, a bully, a bastard, or most unforgivably, a bore. The developers were perhaps overambitious, and in any case they managed to screw up both on paper and in practice. But their game has achieved one beautiful thing, and that's the creation of the same invisible veterans' club that results from a real life war. If you played Planetside you might have already encountered this phenomenon: the mutual respect that instantly exists once you find out someone's an ex-Planetside player. Since I can't think of a name for this whole process, I'm going to dub it "I WAS THERE, MAN" syndrome.
]]>Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will now be known as Daybreak Game Company after being acquired from Sony by investment management firm, Columbus Nova.
SOE is the studio responsible for games including EverQuest, PlanetSide 2, and the early access zombie survival game, H1Z1. The company notes that the acquisition will not disrupt any of its current games, but will allow them to pursue multi-platform projects.
]]>I'm being flown westwards in a Galaxy dropship transport along with the 11 other players in bravo squad. A couple of dozen friendly fighter planes pass below us, heading north east, moving to support another battle elsewhere. Red tracers begin to fill my screen as we take fire from enemy flak positions supporting a battle in the north. Veering left, our pilot moves to approach our destination from the south.
I ask for a sitrep: delta squad have arrived in advance, and are watching enemy positions for activity. Alpha and charlie squad leaders report that they now have ground support vehicles en route. Seconds later I arrive with bravo and we drop onto our objective; a small building in the east of this base. Alpha and charlie squad begin finding placements for Sunderers (mobile infantry spawn vehicles) and I see another platoon drive up with support vehicles, take up positions and begin assaulting the western side of the same base.
Over half an hour ago we broke the world record for the largest number of players in an FPS battle, but there's still an hour of laser war left in Planetside 2.
]]>It's all full now. Go home. Go break your own record. Or start planning your attempt to break this one.
"Dedication's what you need if you wanna be a record breaker," goes an old song. But ugh dedication is such an effort! Trying is a real hassle! No thank you. No, what you need is to find someone dedicated to organisation, then ride their coattails to a world record by joining in a 'most people...' attempt simply by turning up in a place at a time. Far easier.
And why, here's just such an opportunity! PlanetSide 2 players are aiming to break the Guinness World Record for Most Players Online in an FPS Battle, and you could be one of them. The current record is 999 players, held by a game created solely to beat the first PlanetSide's playercounts.
Planetside 2 is two years old today and still going strong. It's a Planniversary, if you will.
Ahem. I've written a bunch about my time with the game, including this. Yes, I like it a lot. One person who has been at the forefront of that long campaign of making me like something for two whole years, and who was also implicated in the complex saga of development beforehand, is Matt Higby. He's headed up the SOE team throughout the twenty-four months of the game being live, and still seems to have plenty of energy for the future of this peerless F2P shooter. With those two years in mind, I had a chat with him.
Read on below for a myriad of thoughts on the game that does a war of red, blue, and purple like no other.
]]>There have been so many beautiful and clever games appear in the past two years that I find myself surprised to be saying this: Planetside 2 is my favourite game of the past two years. Sure, I've practically lived off Teleglitch at times, and actually been made to like an adventure game via KRZ, but Planetside's bright and sparkly sequel has truly colonised my PC. Can a sci-fi shooter sequel really have been the game that held my attention for the longest? There have been prettier games, there have been smarter games, games which were more innovative, moving, or simply better designed. But SOE's giant red-blue-purple MMOFPS has been the one for me. It'll be two years old in a couple of months, and I like it more now than I did when it launched.
What's going on?
]]>Playing Planetside 2 with RPS doesn't have to be about purple trousers or giraffe textures, no sir. In fact it can be entirely about freedom, unfloating tanks, and impressive armour (above), thanks to Rock Traitor Shotgun, our New Conglomerate faction outfit on the newly repopulated Miller server. (Man, it was busy this weekend.) This alternative team are having a bit of a shindig on the 16th of August from 19:00 BST, and they'd like you to join. Since Planetside 2 is free, there's nothing stopping you. Aside, perhaps, from a weakly PC. But anyway, you should join in - I shall! - because the details are all over here.
]]>Hello you.
We're going to be streaming Planetside 2 at 8pm, and you'll be able to watch that in the further expanse of this post if you tune your computer to Twitch-o-vision at that time (that's two hours after the publication time of this post.) We have a special guest, Planetside 2's senior art director, the tremendous Tramell Isaac, who will be talking us through the new swamp continent, Hossin. Then we'll join our VS Planetside 2 outfit for some purple battle action. Needless to say, we'll post up the full thing after the event.
In conclusion: Join us!
]]>It's sometimes easy to forget about poor ol' PlanetSide 2 with all these Battleline Hardmen and Advanced Warfaces duking it out for our attention. And while the MMOFPS has still, even after nearly two years of being available in various forms, arguably not lived up to its full potential, there's nothing else quite like it. That's why we go there to ruthlessly bop PC Gamer's legions on the nose so much. Come to think of it, maybe another eat/sleep/play/war-date is in order, seeing as SOE just launched a big update that includes an entire new continent, Hossin. You want swamps? Well, Yoda, you got 'em.
]]>PlanetSide 2 has been very good (or at least very impressive) for quite some time, but no one can deny that it continues to be a work-in-progress. It's a massive, multicolored jelly bean bowl of coordinated carnage, yes, but when you're not rolling with friends or a full-blown outfit, the whole experience can be a bit aimless. The solution? Well, SOE seems to think it's a mission system, but that too is a work-in-progress. The imposingly named Phase One is now live.
]]>Unusual competitive gaming news: Our beloved Planetside 2 community is in for the fight of its life this evening, as it faces one of the best clans from their home server of Miller in a Planetside Community Clash match. You can examine the competition brackets over here, where you can see that the team's opponents are an NC outfit called "The Jesters", who hail from the Cobalt server. No idea if we'll get completely flattened, or heroically win the day, but either way it should be interesting to watch.
]]>If you haven't already heard, we're at war. Eternal war, truth be told, but of a friendly, (typically) only virtually fatal sort with the PC Gamer lot and also everyone else who's ever played PlanetSide 2. You can enlist right here for a giant community play session that's kicking off at 12:30 PM PT/7:30 PM GMT, but if you'd rather not risk life and level one limb, there's another option. You can watch me, a person who has never played PlanetSide 2, attempt to be some kind of war correspondent. On the docket: witnessing spectacular catastrophe firsthand, stumbling around and dying a lot, and then probably interviewing key players on all sides after they've emerged from the carnage. I honestly have no idea if this will be any good, but let's find out together, like a big, argumentative family on a Sunday picnic - only with more, you know, war.
Update: We're done! What an insane, nearly overwhelming game. Absurdly strategic and fascinating, though. You can watch the whole thing below.
]]>Hello you. We're going to be running about in Planetside 2 (it's free and awesome!) from about 7.30pm UK on Sunday 9th on Miller. We'd love for you to join us, and the RPS Planetside community will once again be making heroic efforts to enable an entertaining evening for all involved. You'll need to get on the RPS community Mumble to get involved, as the whole thing will be co-ordinated via the marvelous technology of voice communication. Don't worry, you won't need a mic to get involved, just the ability to hear the command folk saying where you should go for victory/death. You can find out plenty more about the community PS2 activities over here on the forum.
]]>Back, Back! BACK! With a call to arms on Sunday night. Yes, this Sunday night, the 9th of March. Never played Planetside 2? Join us! And if you have played before, dust off your battle trousers and come help organise the masses. The game is free, so that's a good thing, but it's also full of lovely friendly people, many of whom inhabit our own Planetside 2 forum. There's a tonne of information over there, and plenty of help community links to get you on your way to a voice-enabled game of soldiers.
]]>The jungle territory of Hossin won't arrive in Planetside 2 until May but the Amerish region is changing right now. A major revamp was implemented just before the weekend, adding nine new outposts and redesigning those that were already in place. Most significantly, perhaps, the Lattice System is now in play on Amerish, meaning that conquest of outposts must be conducted along supply routes, as on Indar and Esamir. A more strategic first-person space-biff awaits. There are other tweaks as well, including an increase in resource rewards and improved roads. The appearance of the continent has changed as well. Judging by the before and after shots in the video below, the forests and mountains no longer look like they've been plucked from Earth. It's all a bit more sci-fi.
]]>It's the greatest tragedy of our capitalist system that our economy can't yet support a world in which I just sit around all day and play PlanetSide 2. Instead I need to live with the guilt of never playing it enough, and assuage that guilt by writing about it coming updates. The game's public roadmap was just updated to outline the next six months of development, and it looks like the massive, multiplayer shooter will be getting a new continent called Hossin in May.
]]>A modern first-person shooter without a slow-burning, arsenal-amassing progression system is like a clown without big, poofy pants. The absence is glaringly noticeable, and then someone gets arrested for public indecency. PlanetSide 2's equivalent of that is the cert system, but in a game that's just as much an MMO as it is a shooter, that poses some continent-sized content issues. This isn't Call of Duty. There isn't a new treadmill to hop onto every year. SOE, then, wants to get off the oh-so-trendy gear-and-guns train entirely with additional, entirely separate means of progression.
]]>If I didn't know any better, I'd say SOE wanted to keep PlanetSide 2 all to itself. That would explain why the technicolor dream MMOFPS has been the stuff of mid (and even some high) range rigs' nightmares since day one. But then, nobody likes the idea of being desperately poor and all alone forever, so I'm guessing SOE just made a gigantic boo-boo on its priority list. But now, finally, it's managed to set all of that right with a huge optimization patch. If your machine choked, sputtered, and excused itself from the table (or life) after trying a bite of PlanetSide 2, now might be the time to give it another go.
]]>... but you should watch it, anyway. In my very casual time with Planetside 2, I haven't ran into that many egregious technical troubles. I think I must be in the minority, or perhaps even the only person who hasn't had his game hitch or crash or exhibit any slowdown, because SOE has (virtually) downed tools on a lot of content updates to focus on making the game run better. They're also documenting this process for the fans in least visually exciting gaming video series, ever. You know how seriously they're taking this when they have a game with Planetside 2's visual oomph but put out a video of people talking in a room. Operation: Make Faster Game's (O:MFG) first video is below.
]]>2013 was the beginning of the end for PlanetSide 2. Before then, it was everything we'd dreamed of: a constant, continual laser meatgrind. It never ended, and we never wanted it to. You ever found a purpose in life? Ours was to spot and kill anyone not in purple. It was glorious. War squared. Then the Player Studio opened up, enabling the players to redesign game elements and sell them in the store. It was the helmets that became our undoing. Ever tried to shoot a man in the face when he's wearing a grey helmet with a love heart on it? It changes you, man. We laid down arms. We'd all take long walks together. Vanu, NC, even those grumpy Terrans, gathering and watching the sun dip over the edge of Auraxis. That was the end of war.
]]>Planetside 2 has three giant battle-continents so far: vanilla continent, frosted-icing continent, and biscuit continent. Soon, though, they're going to change things up a bit for some jungle/swamp continent. That one's called Hossin, and SOE have been teasing its flooded, leafy wonders for some time now. It looks like this might play a little differently to the standard flavours, as you can see in a video below. (What's with the crazy laser canopies?)
Will it have snakes? Apparently not. That seems like a shame. Everyone likes snakes.
]]>And we want everyone to be there. Planetside 2 is free, so there's no excuse. The honour of our internet is at stake: we will be taking on the PC Gamer outfit in a battle to the warpgate. Forum details over here. We need as many folks online as possible. You will need Mumble installed and set up to get in on the action.
]]>The news that Planetside 2 was about to introduce Implants slid past me, like a stealthy and handsome Vanu sniper. The time-limited buffs would have slipped into a new loadout slot, enabling non-class based powers for a brief time. They could be bought with both Station Cash and certs, which is where the problem lies. Lets take a look at one of the powers that SOE had planned to implement, that anyone could buy: "Enhanced Targeting - Enables an enhanced targeting HUD that displays the health of any spotted enemy that you target; it also increases the range of the IFF system from 8 meters to 25 meters". Other buffs included auto-spotting enemies that damage you, and being hidden from enemy sensors. WHAT? People can buy that? Luckily, that was the same reaction that a lot of the community had, and Sony heard their outcries. The Implants have been yoinked from the next update.
]]>The evil empire has risen once again, and must be crushed under the magnificence of our all-encompassing purpleness! Yes, Chris from PC Gamer threw down the gauntlet and told me to "bring it on" and "put my Station cash where my air-filter DLC is". Something like that, anyway. The point is: you are all contractually obligated to appear in Planetside 2 on the 21st of July. Since it's free to play, you have no excuse. No, not even that.
]]>Auraxis has fallen into night. We are Vanu (All hail Vanu), a small group of us are purplishly sneaking through the bracken. The New Conglomerate base is quiet, with all the meatbags snoring arrogantly, believing in their dominance. Never believe the map! Us Vanu, handsomest and best of all the races and cloaked in the night's purple hue, approach. The quiet is deafening, the darkness near complete. Only the glow of war on the horizon flickers. We freeze: I spy a lone guard patrolling on the edge of the Amp station. The fools! I can destroy their defenses with a well-placed bullet. I steady my aim and fire.
FASHOOOOM! KRSHHHHHHHH! WHEEEEEEEEE! SPLOK!
And that's why I shouldn't be allowed to buy Planetside 2's firework gun.
]]>Like Snake Island, Pulsing Wart Peninsula, and Angry Infected Monkey Lake, I can't help but feel that PlanetSide 2's upcoming Battle Islands have had their fate decided for them. You know what you're getting into when you visit Snake Island, and the same goes for the newest chunks of Auraxis. The Battle Islands have twin purposes: giving the game smaller maps that are separated from the larger continents for e-sports purposes, for events and the like, but for the live game they'll also act as mid-point maps that link the continents together. The name that's been given to this first lovely, foresty chunk of land: Nexus. Want to see it in action?
]]>Planetside 2's missions are pretty general. They're mostly focused around the push and pull of attack and defense at specific spots on the map. That's fine for just getting teams to fight each other, but it doesn't take advantage of Auraxis. All those valleys and mountains, all the connecting roads, all that space can feel unused. While there's probably an argument to be made for letting the game generate smaller missions for people to take part in away from the larger territory control meta-game, SOE are doing it differently: soon they'll allowing players to request support via player-generated missions, mini-alerts that will create hotspots on the map for players to drop into.
]]>So it turns out a big bunch of the RPS Giraffe-based Planetside 2 outfit are here at Rezzed, and tomorrow they're all going to be playing the game from the show from 1pm. We need you to come and fight with an against them, as onlookers gawp at their plasma-toting prowess. Jump in tomorrow afternoon and give them hell/heals.
]]>A last-minute addition to the Rezzed 2013 line-up will be my current favourite game, Planetside 2! I'm sure there will be plenty of our determined PS2 players there, and if you haven't tried it yet, you'll be able to sit down and have a go. We also have word that the developer sessions, which include things such as Chris Avellone mud-wrestling with Ragnar Tornquist (I can dream), will be streamed online via the Eurogamer YouTube channel. So even if you can't make it, you can feel like you are (in some weird, solitary way) part of the party.
]]>We're calling all RPS soldiers to the front on Sunday 16th from 7pm UK on Miller. Planetside 2 is free-to-play, so this is an ideal time to get acquainted, and see what happens when several hundred RPS readers are deployed in the same theatre of laser-death.
Details below.
]]>Continuing our Twenty Bucks series, which looks at what $20 can actually get you in various 'free' games, Jim focuses his wallet on Planetside 2. Can he pay to win? Why does his jeep look like a giraffe?
These and many other questions are answered below.
]]>Yes, that's an order. We're going to be doing a big old call to arms on the Miller server on the 16th. The last couple of these have been completely fantastic, with hundreds of RPS readers working together in multiple platoons to set the various continents on (purple) fire. It's a Sunday evening this time, too, which should make things easier for many. You'll need to be able to listen in on our Mumble voice comms to participate.
]]>REVELATORY NEWS. Did you know that PlanetSide 2 - free-to-play titan and king among first-person Jimshoots - had a prequel? That's right: the two in the title isn't just for show like everybody clearly assumed it was. There is another. It's still about refreshingly colorful spacewars and shootouts with more moving pieces than an upturned ant hill, but the graphics are worse and wobbly netcode is a mightier enemy than any mecha tank. Also, it still costs money for some reason. SOE's not crazy, though. It sees the writing on the wall. Soon, PS1's subscription fee will be extinct just like all the others, and it'll join the F2P era.
]]>The Call To Arms event was another huge success, with the Vanu group peaking at about 235 concurrent RPS players across five platoons. The NC Outfit was also in action, and there were dozens of other allied and opposing groups which made the evening a splendid brawl across the continent of Indar. We saw several large tank battles across open ground, and dozens of smaller, intense battles for territory. It has to be have been one of the most spectacular multiplayer events I have seen, and I enjoyed leading one of the platoons enormously.
]]>Tonight on Planetside 2's Miller server, from 7pm UK, we will be doing laser war. Everyone is invited. You are doubly invited if you haven't played the game before. On the Vanu faction, our heroic team of giraffe-fatigued warriors will be organising platoons for you all to play in, making an ideal introduction to the game. They've provided a guide to play which you can read here. That's presented as a video, if you want to watch it as such, below. Also: action video!
]]>The last RPS Call To Arms event was a thing of legend, with hundreds of readers teaming up for colossal conflict on the Miller server. We're doing it again this Thursday. Organisation will once again be done via our forum, and via the RPS Mumble server. You should not miss out on this, it will be memorable.
]]>Remember a while back I posted Six Things I'd like to see in Planetside 2? Well, one of them just got ticked off the list. The two-man Harasser buggy is happening, soon. Except it's three-man, now. It's Happiness Day at Rossignol Towers. See it in action below.
]]>Thanks to everyone who showed up to play in our Call To Arms last night, and particular thanks to PC Gamer and the other TR and NC Outfits who showed up to batter us with tanks and rockets. It was a resounding success, with hundreds of RPS readers working together in multiple platoons. I had a great time running one of the squads, and I'd like to say thanks to reader CMaster for attempting to co-ordinate such an enormous number of players. I think the twelve-galaxy hot-drop might have been the highlight for me. Amazing scenes, and we'll be doing that again soon. If you want to catch up with the folks you played with, or want to get involved on our PS2 community, head over to the forum.
]]>Tomorrow night, then. Here's how it's going to go down.
]]>You're not doing anything on Thursday (11th) evening, EU-time, right? I didn't think so. And that's convenient because everyone is going to be playing (my currently favoured timesink) Planetside 2 - which is free, by the way - as part of an official RPS call-to-arms. The main event will be from 7pm UK on the Miller server.
]]>Right! Tomorrow night: Planetside 2, EU server "Miller". Everyone get your fighting trousers on, and get in there. The game is free to play, so you have no excuses. It's Strategic Thursday for Vanu, which means getting on Mumble, getting in the outfit, and working together to explode things. It's the most fun I've had all year. And I have a lot of fun. Too much, perhaps. Also you don't have to go purple, because there's even an NC outfit, which is welcoming new freedom fighters every day.
]]>Brave soldiers of Vanu, I bring you news of the war. This is classified, so don't let it slip into enemy hands. First off, manicures are now manditory. You are mean and nasty, but that's no excuse for the level of nail-care I've been seeing. Buff, people. We are Vanu. We have standards. Secondly, there are new quadbikes and rocket launchers on the way for all of the Planetside 2 sides, but if we don't tell the others they might not realise. All hail Vanu.
]]>As surely as night follows day, as surely as "meh, not a game" comments follow enthusiastic posts about Proteus or Dear Esther, most every big online game will at some point suffer a scary hack. Latest to fall prey to Internet Badmen is SOE's Planetside 2, or at least the ProSiebienSat EU-run aspect of it. The outsourced operators reckon their encrpytion tech means player details are likely safe, but someone has indeed found a way to access "one of our systems" so players are advised to do the password-changing fandango.
]]>There are quite a few communities bustling away in the General Sociability forum, and some of those have produced of videos of their antics. I've embedded just a few of those below. There are many more, and I am sure others still I haven't seen.
Are you doing video stuff with the RPS community? Link your work/play in the comments!
]]>I've made a list! The items herein are probably not all entirely likely or reasonable, but neither am I. These are just the things I think would make the game 5000% more like the ultimate space manshoot that I am searching for. I know everyone playing Planetside 2 has their own quibbles and developmental priorities, this is just my pie in the sky wish list.
Onwards!
]]>These days, plenty of developers talk about how they're going to work side-by-side with their fans, but PlanetSide 2's actually doing it. Case in point: a newly launched Reddit-esque "Roadmap" system. In short, it outlines every last plan SOE has for the next six months in fairly exhaustive detail and then allows players to both discuss and up/down-vote based on their personal preferences. Do not, however, take this to mean SOE's now at the beck and call of ravenously hardcore players. It promises to listen, but acting's another story.
]]>So I've been playing this game called Planetside 2. It's a multiplayer thing. So multiplayer, in fact, that it feels a bit like a crowd. A crowd of tanks. Purple tanks. And some of them are on fire. If that's not really your kind of thing, then this probably isn't for you. However, it does feature cataclysmic laser-war, spectacular sci-fi landscapes, and some of the most entertaining fast-paced FPS combat of recent memory. And it's free. So it has a lot going for it.
That's not to say it's without problems. It's chock full of those. But it's also full of stars. And it could be going places. Here's wot I think.
]]>PlanetSide 2 is quite good. We've actually pointed this out on a couple very rare occasions. But it's by no means perfect. What puts it head and shoulders and a bottle of Head and Shoulders above the rest, however, is the fact that SOE acknowledges this. Constantly. And instead of trying to cover up fundamental flaws with new features no one asked for, it (usually) rallies its development legions in an effort to tackle glaring flaws. So then, what's next on the docket? How do GPU performance fixes, a total XP system revamp, and the addition of an SMG weapon type sound? Probably not like anything, because they're just bullet points on a list right now. But soon. Soon.
]]>Sony have released three trailers (captured and laid out for your interrogation below) detailing the factions in their free-to-pew MMOFPS Planetside 2. Crudely speaking these are the red dudes, the purple dudes, and the blue dudes. But it's more subtle than that: the blue dudes also have some yellow detailing, while the red guys actually have a lot of black in their uniform. Also, there's some kind of underlying political battle-philosophy. My battle-philosophy is that I'd rather die wearing shiny purple war-trousers.
What's yours?
]]>These days, when an MMO maker declares its intention to carry on until the day the sun reveals it's actually been a giant Pac-Man the entire time and devours us all in one fell wakka, it's easy to be skeptical. Extremely skeptical. But PlanetSide 2 seems to be off to an especially strong start, and no one ever got anywhere - except maybe off the edge of a cliff - by being shortsighted. And so, in a blog post outlining his three-year plan for the truly massive MMOFPS, CEO John Smedley explained that "we're thinking about a game we plan to have running in 2025." Which, as you may have noticed, is a bit more than three years from now. But that comparatively short span is the part SOE's really focusing on, and by the end of it, Smedley's hoping for player-owned bases, harvestable resources, seamless oceans between continents, NPC armies, and tons more.
]]>As you may have noticed, Jim's been quite taken by PlanetSide 2. And when Jim gets taken by something, we at RPS make a policy of paying attention - even when that thing's not some form of megalomaniacal game journo kidnapper. But, in spite of the supermassive time black hole's distinctly PC lineage, mods have always been out of the question. Obviously, adding weapons and new shades of purple willy nilly would destroy the game, but what of simple interface tweaks and usability apps? Turns out, they're also completely, 100 percent off-limits. But why? Well, the short version is - somewhat predictably - cheating.
]]>I thought I'd just drop into Planetside 2 on Sunday afternoon. Four hours later...
]]>I've been playing lots of lovely fresh organic Planetside 2. Sometimes during this process my eyebrows were raised. Sometimes they were furrowed in a frown. Other times they were sort of neutral. And other times still they were gyrating up and down like tiny face-wings.
What does this mix of expressions mean? I'll tell you.
]]>Do you have plans for this evening? Do you have plans for any evening in the next, um, forever? Well, cancel them, because it's time for war. RPS wants you - yes, you, with the hair and/or complete lack of it - to enlist today and help us fight the good fight for all that is free and purple in PlanetSide 2. Can you do that? Can we count on you? Because we don't have the budget for a bunch of rah-rah-rah propaganda posters and videos. Sometimes, instead of eating food, we just eat pictures of food. But we do have this launch trailer. Well, for now, anyway. I can't promise I won't eat it.
]]>By and large, I'm very glad that free-to-play exists. It's brought many fine, exceedingly hi-fidelity games back into the PC gaming fold, and I can't argue with the option to jump in without spending a cent, coin, point, spacebuck, gorgle, or smarnx. Well, except when I can - and usually, that's when the subject of unlocking comes up. The reason? It's almost always excruciatingly slooooooooooow. Because naturally, those darn developers - who apparently need to eat occasionally and sleep under roofs (the nerve!) - want you to drop a few extra dimes to speed up the process. It is, then, somewhat shocking - but no less appreciated - that SOE's taking steps to buck that trend with PlanetSide 2. Or at least make it a bit less of a bitter pill to swallow.
]]>With huge changes appearing in the latest Planetside 2 patch, I decided it was time to pull my purple battle trousers, and head back into the fray.
Or, more accurately, amble like a lamb in the ultra-picturesque verdantly-carpeted meadows of temperate third continent, Amerish. Ooh, flowers!
]]>What do MechWarrior Online and PlanetSide 2 have in common? Well, they both have robots, guns, cold levels that affect gameplay, free-to-play options, explosions, planets, sides, walking, death, life, founder's programs, other kinds of robots, rocks, trees, smoke, and battles that tickle fancies and funny bones. Also, war.
Oh, and they're both in beta. I knew I was going somewhere with this. Anyway, videos!
]]>Temperate and spectacularly mountainous terrain features in the reveal trailer of Amerish (below), which will be the third continent that Planetside 2 will feature at launch. It's disgustingly pretty, probably more so than the other two, as you can see. I think I'll end up playing here as much as I can, so that wearing purple armour and murdering an infinite army of similar begarbed space gentlemen can feel more like a nice holiday.
Oh and if you're looking for RPS types to play with, we're getting organised over here.
]]>Right then, it's official: PlanetSide 2 isn't facing a delay or staying in closed beta until 2013 just to taunt you. One day more than one month from now, it'll be live and freely available for all (well, those with gaming PCs herculean enough to handle it, anyway). It's been quite some time in coming, but - during SOE Live's opening keynote in Las Vegas - John Smedley announced that this is it. So the day of reckoning is nearly at hand, but what exactly will it entail? Well, wouldn't you like to know. And you can, after the break.
]]>I keep forgetting that Planetside 2 is in closed beta. It's so big and busy that my brain tricks me into believing it's been launched. But there's still a lot to do, and SOE have shared the more immediate fixes with the players. SOE President John "Smed" Smedley took to the forums to outlay a bunch of upcoming changes, including some dramatic changes to the in-game economy, the announcement of another continent, and he even teased when the release date would be announced.
]]>I'm beginning to think gaming industry people don't actually know what the word "dead" means. Back in my day, it was a pretty final thing - oftentimes even considered fatal. Now, though, if something doesn't have all eyes on it, it's apparently dead and gone forever. Just ask adventure games and, oh right, that whole "entirety of PC gaming" thing. And now, with the era of WoW's incomparable dominion drawing to a close, MMOs seem to be getting the same treatment. But that's a knee-jerk reaction. Nothing's six feet under just yet. The writing is, however, on the wall, and its message is quite clear: change or lose your audience to boredom's creeping clutches. But how? Well, if you ask SOE president John Smedley, it's time to stop railroading players and start letting them live their virtual lives as they see fit. I know because I did, er, ask him. I also asked him about replicating the success of EVE Online, PlanetSide 2's eventual planet-based metagame, EverQuest Next's new incredibly player-driven reboot, and tons more.
]]>PlanetSide 2 takes place on a planet. An entire planet. If it didn't, it'd be named Countryside, LargeLandmassSide, or Fred. And so, in that spirit, SOE's adding a whole new continent - one of two more that are ultimately planned for the launch version. This one's called Esamir, and it appears to be the estranged landson of the ice planet Hoth, what with all its frigid unpleasantness and potential for series-defining moments starring Harrison Ford. Take a peek at its peaks, valleys, and dangerously low-flying aircraft after the break.
]]>There was something I neglected to mention in my previous observations about Planetside 2's version of the venerable Galaxy drop ship, and that was the tactical implications of having it as the mobile base and spawning point. I'd been meaning to discuss it for a while, but then SOE went and fixed the problem. They promoted the Sunderer – Planetside 2's bus-like person-carrier – to the role they had originally designated to the Galaxy.
Thoughts on this, and more besides, resides below.
]]>By membership, of course, they mean subscription. While Planetside 2 will be completely free to play, a subscription confers a number of benefit. In response to the beta feedback the $15 a month sub will now confer: "25-50% increased resource gain, 25-50% increased XP gain, 25-50% increased passive cert point gain." Each of these "start at 25% and increase by 5% per month of sustained membership up to a total bonus of 50% each at 6+ months membership." Then there's a priority login queue for subs, early Access to new cosmetic items on the store and 500 StationCash each month. Personally I suspect I will be paying for one of these for at least the first few months.
]]>Redundancy police, beware. I'm about to commit a heinous crime the likes of which will make you physically ill even after your 30 years on the force. I will now use the word "impressive" until it loses all meaning. Here goes: PlanetSide 2 is an impressive game. It's impressively large, yet also impressively free-to-play, and that impresses me. Not only that, SOE's been impressively open about the development process and its intentions for the gigantotronic shooter behemoth. And now, based on a new post from creative director Matt Higby, I get the impression that SOE's impressively dedicated to steering clear of pay-to-win's slippery slope.
]]>PlanetSide 2's beta is up and running (and flying and shooting and doing whatever tanks do), and it has many things. Jim, of course, has chronicled a large number of them in his characteristically handsome fashion. But, if you believe SOE's rhetoric, that's only the tip of the iceberg. And it's not particularly difficult to believe, seeing as it's getting ready to drop an entire continent on us. And then another continent after that, but probably not until much, much later. Also headed to our side of the PlanetSide planet: performance improvements, gunplay tweaks, and, well, maybe a delay - if need be. According to SOE, this one's launching "when it's ready, and not before."
]]>Thus far, PlanetSide 2 has proven to be pretty great, but it's definitely not perfect. The main issue, as I see it, is that it's not currently being played by everyone on Earth. But then, it is only in beta, and that's simply the nature of the beast. It doesn't have to be, though. Not anymore. SOE, you S-O-see, just kicked off a new "Alpha Squad" program. Yes, it'll run you $40 for a planet-sized shooter that is - technically speaking - free-to-play, but this is actually a pretty nice deal. Allow me to explain.
]]>MMOs are pretty much about two things: breaking and taking. Kill ten things, take six things, etc, etc, etc. Monsters, boar gizzards, fish, barrels - nothing is safe. But all that destruction can get a bit exhausting at times. I mean, who hasn't met an Orc, ogre, or space marine who just wanted to paint? So now SOE's letting players balance out their wanton destruction with a little creation. Player Studio, as the new system's known, will allow players to submit custom items to the likes of EverQuest, EverQuest II, Vanguard, and (eventually) PlanetSide 2 for potential use by everyone in each respective game. It does, however, seem a bit less community driven than, say, Steam Workshop.
]]>Blimey, I really am enjoying Planetside 2. Even more than I thought I would. But the initial excitement of epic ultra-war is passing, and I have begun to gather my thoughts more sensibly. And they have begun their precipitation upon the changes made to the Galaxy dropship – a lumbering skybeast designed for hauling folk around the wide open maps – which is central to both the original Planetside, and the opalescent sequel. Its role, however, is a little different in the new game, and something about the way Planetside 2 works means that one of the most thrilling aspects of the original game - the hotdrop - seems to have fallen into disfavour. I'll try to explain, as well as bundling in a bunch of other thoughts on the ongoing beta, below.
]]>Planetside 2 is in beta. You can sign up here. You should sign up, because it's brilliant.
I've been in there for a week, and with the NDA having dropped, I've posted a few thoughts below.
]]>AND I'M NOT ONE OF THEM WAAAAAAAAAAH.
That's all this post is, really - a public lamentation that I'm not part of the latest New Hotness, said New Hotness being fab-looking MMOFPS Planetside 2, which will finally open its doors to a selected few members of the public later today (about 7pm UK time, I believe). Hopefully I'll be welcomed to the ranks of the eternal tri-war before too long - meantime, how have you lot go on? Clearly, we shall have to form some sort of enormous RPS faction once this thing is up and running for more of the public. No doubt the recent reveal that Planetside 2 is coming to Steam in addition to SOE's Station platform will help make what's already likely to be a huge playerbase all the huger. Sign up for the beta here, though it may be sometime before you're given the king's shilling.
]]>It may come as something of a surprise to you that you aren't waging futuristic war on a massive scale while listening to "Ride of the Valkyries" right now. Speaking personally, it's a thought that crosses my mind every day. Thing is, it's actually not a minor form of mania today, as PlanetSide 2's beta was supposed to have touched down by now. It is, however, nowhere to be found, and there's a very good reason for that: a last-second delay - albeit, a pretty minor one.
]]>Ready for war? How ready? Ready enough that being on the edge of your seat is starting to feel comfortable? So ready that you don't merely dream of epic battles on continent sized maps, but consider the time spent doing so to be mental training? If someone said "You might be able to play Planetside 2 as early as Monday?" would you nod politely, or explode with excitement? If the latter, read no further - at least until you've put down lots of plastic sheeting.
No, really. You wouldn't want to get giblets in the carpet now, would you?
]]>PlanetSide 2 has a CGI trailer. And of course it's as pointless as all other CGI trailers. But I post it more to say, look, Sony are spending enough money on this game for there to be pointless CGI trailers. And weirdly, as much of a waste of that money as it was, and as galling as it must be for the developers to ponder what they could have done with the cash, it makes me realise that this is a game the flailing PS3 owner is taking seriously. If you see what I mean.
]]>The PlanetSide 2 beta approaches. If you gaze off into the distance, you can see it lumbering our direction - largely because the more-massively-multiplayer-than-every-other-massively-multiplayer shooter looks to be bigger than Earth. SOE's officially rolling out the red carpet in the form of a conveniently organized what-you-need-to-know list, and - as it turns out - it translates roughly to "a lot of things." Let us slip into our most comfortable sifting gloves and have a go at it after the break.
]]>
.png?width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&enable=upscale&auto=webp "שחרורו של Assassin's Creed Shadows נדחה למרץ כאשר מועצת המנהלים של Ubisoft שוקל מכירת חברה")