Free month

[flownalk]

well its gone tomorrow... im still in 2 minds if to cancel or keep zergin on. might give it a rest then come back in a month or 2 and see whats been added

 

[Xavier]

i love how they market the first month as a 'free' month

seeing as the CDs are useless without a subscription - it's technically the first month you've paid for with your £25-£35... utter rape0rage

I really think any MMO-only game should give a longer initial "free" period - if you paid full retail for PS month one costed you 3x what subsequent months will...

network providers give away free DSL or cable modems when you connect - subsidised by your subscription fees - why can't tosser publishers like SOE adopt a slightly more ameanable tact and if they're not going to reduce the cost of the media at least make the initial bundle slightly sweeter? :/

 

[Cronn]

Yes of course devlopment for PS didn't cost a penny.

 

[Cadire]

My 'free month' is up on July 5th, and I'm now in two minds whether to continue or not. There's no doubt that Planetside is easy to just dip into now and then... but it's also true that if you're not in a decent squad/outfit it's a pretty frustrating game.

I think I'll probably extend for at least one month, perhaps to see if the population matures a little (I mean in gameplay, not age!), and then decide (hopefully the product itself will have matured also).

One thing I've been thinking about is the 'end game'. Once everyone has the highest BR/CR ranks, how will the game evolve then? I'd hope that there would be some sort of squad/outfit based scenario yet to be announced, otherwise I can see it getting stale pretty quick.

 

[.Cask]

I'm starting to get really disillusioned with persistent world games. Traditional games have a beginning and an end where you either win or lose. But with persistent worlds there isn't really a beginning or an end, it just is constant all the way through. How many people would play chess if the king was removed and your pieces respawned at the sides of the board. It would be totally dull, pointless. Ok Planetside can still be fun, pretty and entertaining but it's still fundamentally pointless.

There are BR's, I spose they add some feeling of progression in the game. But I can't say I've really had much feeling of euphoria when achieving a new rank. And when you reach 20 you haven't won anything, not like winning a tournament or something.

And there are the leaderboards on the official site which they'll be adding to in the future. But as they stand no normal people stand a chance of getting their names up there. You'd need to play an enormous amount and most simply don't have the time for it.

I just think there needs to be an objective above taking the nearest base and killing the nearest enemy. Deathmatch games have been around for ages and I don't think they cut it anymore. But at least with most games you're working towards winning the map or the round, but with planetside you don't even have those minor victories.

I'm not really bitching about planetside in particular. It's just games companies are really churning out the persistent worlds now but don't seem to be improving on the genre at all. Perhaps 24/7 accessiblity to anything in life ultimately makes it become cheap and pointless. Would people be happier paying monthly for a few quality hours a week, or 8 hours a day of the same old thing. It's like a theme park. People are happy to pay out the arse for perhaps 1 or 2 trips a year, but I think if they lived next door to it and went every day it'd become old fast.

EDIT - Course 24/7 access to food and oxygen can't really be described as pointless

 

[Jonaldo]

Originally posted by .Cask
EDIT - Course 24/7 access to food and oxygen can't really be described as pointless

Why not? ultimately we all die, breathing and eating only serves to prolong the inevitable. May aswell stop now and save a lot of time and trouble if this is the way you view everything.

I don't really see what you want done to make any on-line games better. As you say, everything gets boring, thus nothing is good. Oh well that's blown pretty much any chance of there ever being anything worth spending any money on.

 

[.Cask]

I had thought about that argument but I was using games like chess as my medium rather than comparing it to life. I think my analogy of a chess game with no king and respawning pieces was far more apt than a comparison of Planetside and the futility of our existence

What I wanted is a beginning and an end. Perhaps some kind of round system. Maybe a way of having all the bases your side owns contribute in some way to a grand industrial project that when complete would win the round for your side. I don't know, just an objective beyond survival.

I'm not dissatisfied with all online games. Just how persistent worlds are turning out to be little more than a zoo with a few attractions and little substance. Perhaps these games just aren't for me, or maybe I'm trying to recreate feeling that I had when playing my first MMO type game. I don't know, at least I didn't just write "OMG DEVS SUX I QUIT HA HA".

 

[flownalk]

done it.... cancel button has been pressed Ill keep an eye on the patches see if it turns into anything but a massive FFA

 

[SilverHood]

off 2 minds whether to renew here too

get wrist pains from sniping, the only part of the game I find enjoyable

and SWG is out in a week!

guess I'll wait and see if I crave PS once my account expires

 

[Spinky]

I won't be subscribing after the free month for the sole reason that, in Sonys infinite wisdom of accepting credit cards, I can't pay (not that i couldn't if i had a visa, I just refuse/can't be bothered to get one). Game cards don't seem to help much either, since when i ask in Game stores they point me to some crappy game account that appears to have feck all to do with soe and payment of their mmog.

So ner

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Cronn
Yes of course devlopment for PS didn't cost a penny.

You don't have a clue by the sounds bud - the game rotates around a subscription model - they're not selling us anything other than game time, we don't 'own' anything tangible - the offline training hardly counts... So if there's nothing to 'take away' in an offline sense - why should we be funding their initial development?

the hosting is pretty cheap once the game is up and running, our ongoing monthly subscriptions should be paying for that development over time - it's outrageous to get raped twice. If the game they're selling us is any good they should have the confidence to make the initial investment and recoup those costs (and of course profit) from their hoardes of hooked customers.

There are more impressive, complex offline games than PS and once bought we own them - MMO games have been able to follow the same price structure because we've let them - it should be one way or another IMO.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Originally posted by Spinky
I won't be subscribing after the free month for the sole reason that, in Sonys infinite wisdom of accepting credit cards, I can't pay (not that i couldn't if i had a visa, I just refuse/can't be bothered to get one). Game cards don't seem to help much either, since when i ask in Game stores they point me to some crappy game account that appears to have feck all to do with soe and payment of their mmog.

So ner

!!!

 

[Xavier]

At the moment SWG is sucking more than a cheap h0... I've dropped my beta-age, it totally lacked any real adventure for me, more canned content and repetitive monster beating :/

 

[Jonaldo]

Originally posted by Xavier
There are more impressive, complex offline games than PS and once bought we own them - MMO games have been able to follow the same price structure because we've let them - it should be one way or another IMO.

Pretty much wrong there though when you buy a game you not buying the 'game', you're only buying the license to use the software. Hence you're not allowed to alter it, copy it or redistribute it. Same as an online game the initial price is for the right to play the game and for the advertising, dvelopment, the actualy CD's themselves and any packaging etc..
The monthly fee is to pay for continuing updates, server hosting, hardware upgrades to the servers. And to rip us off of course

btw not sure how long I'll play this either, especially if Spinky & Sminky leave

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

I will actually renew my sub for PS (hoping that the better part of PL will do the same - great outfit *suck-up mode*) and play until EQ2 is out.. or DE - whichever is better.

I used to play MoH:AA, Team Matches only.. and that's exactly what PS offers - fantastic team matches in grand scale. Therefore worth paying for.
... I miss my StuG44, though.

 

[solothores]

Well the trend in mmogs is heading for pocket-zones... and driving away from the dogma, that mmogs have to involve all players for all activities in a single persistent world which has to interogate all elements.

If you think about it Pocket Zones are not a bad thing at all, they can be designed more specific in traditions of single player games, can be made modular, more stable and thus be more entertaining and intense as experience on a small group of players with scripted stuff which involves them personally etc. and have the potential to deliver an alternative of the standard boring leveling threadmill and text based "deliver/collect" & "search&destroy" schematics which never transport you into the gameworld and make you a part of it. Think about it, what if you had the storyline of Baldurs Gate 2/Planescape Torment in a PVE Pocket Zone Setup MMOG, while going through it would bring you and some of your mates up to level 3x at the end?

You can also go so far to even cross pocket zones for several game scenarios and thus setup plots which involve Groups of players which maybe fulfill the role setup of Hero/Villain and have to act against each other. However it brings a lot of challenge to the authors/storyboard writers/level designers. Furthermore you can also spice up the visuals etc. since you don't have to take into account dozens/hundreds of other players in the same zone... (One of the reasons why EQ2 Dungeons will be much more detailed in terms of Enviroment Design than all other stuff out there) Additionally you don't have to create it as open-ended as possible, which in fact turns out into boring meaningless crap - as for example the dungeons in DAoC - so that it doesn't contradict with the fact of several hundred ppl gathered exping in the same zone.

I assume what we will get in future is some sort of hybrid which will be designed around the key point to breakup the structures of gameplay and make them choiceable for a player or a group of players and match them to activities which are chained to mmog, mog or even single player scale, you will still have the driving mmog social centre from which all is connected to each other, though - in which a community can exist and develop and even act - and from which you decide what to do. However all the scenarios are specifically designt for their single purpose and not limited to one experience but envolving and sensefull.

We will see, but I am also pretty much bored of MMORPGs and their level progress concept without any targets which you can fulfill except those you set for yourself. Neverwinter Nights for example did a pretty decent job in delivering a platform of neverending story quests, however they failed to deliver a platform (except forums) on which a community could grow together and develop ingame. There was also not really a working fraction system, you had a lot of guilds/clans however it was way to chaotic to keep an oversight and to establish a working "Part-of-the-World"-Feeling.

 

[[PS]Mung]

I've given it the benefit of the doubt and subscrtibed for another month.

However it's starting to tail off as entertaining now.

More often than not I'll "ctrl + alt + delete" out of it rather than go through /quit etc to exit.
Which goes to show how eager I am to get out of it sometimes.

As many have said about this game already, it's the lack of goals that are wearying. Without them it's nothing more than a "kill for exp" fest that is just like DAOC. You may argue that in PS it's against other players and not computer drones, but essentially it's all about exp....and nothing else. I don't believe this "Continent lock" thing whereby you can attack the enemy sanctuary will ammount to anything but a minor pulse raiser and no ammount of new vehicles will raise the games longevity by more than a day or two (enough time to respec certs to try them out).

Frankly, more work has to be done to raise this game out of the "glorified FPS" that it currently is.
We're not asking for it to be turned into another DAOC, just make it more, er, interesting.
At least with DAOC it was involving enough to keep you distracted from the exp grind for a substantial period of time, but with PS there's a thin camouflage.

Although I'm sure that PS in it's current format appeals to many thousands of people, I'm sure that many more would stick it out if the rewards were improved.

I expect there's a few holes in my argument which I'm sure some of you will find and point out for me. Many of you will have the same feelings. Lets just hope that the emerging tone of others like myself are picked up by the developers.

Cheers

Nick

 

[Turamber]

Admittedly I've only been playing for 8 days - but it seems fine to me. I used to play Counterstrike happily every night for months before DAOC appeared ... and this game is certainly better than Counterstrike, and has the extra appeal of content being added over time.

 

[Gabrial]

Sometimes it is a bit naff - I *HATE* the zergs where you just spawn in the tower/AMS, charge the gate, die, repeat.

Usually I just log off or go somewhere else when it gets like that cause there is no challenge as such.

Me and my outfit went to a continent the other night totally owned by TR and started to reclaim towers and so on. There was roughly one full squad of TR there aswell. It was some of the best fun Ive had in game in ages! Small scale squad on squad fights are much better - shame there arent more of them I suppose.

 

[Jonaldo]

Will someone please come up with some ideas instead of just saying 'well its not good enough.. its just like a big FPS..' well actually it is just that, a big online FPS, nothing more, nothing less and never claimed to be anything other than that.
I really don't see what can be added to preserve any longevity.

So far Ultima Online has been the best online game I've played but am hoping something will come along soon with as much variation that had.