By Jim Rossignol on October 26th, 2011 at 7:34 pm.
Game continents: noticeably smaller than the real thing. Anyway, more details are emerging about what to expect from Planetside 2: “We have enormous, enormous gameplay space,” lead dev Matt Higby told PCG. “One of our largest development efforts on this project has been hand crafting every single area of those eight-by-eight kilometre continents.” Artillery will have a range of up to a kilometre. The official site is also starting to post regular updates, with some details about the factions.
The PCG article talks about 200-man battles. I can’t wait for this to arrive.
26/10/2011 at 19:36 The Army of None says:
Oh my goodness yes.
26/10/2011 at 19:42 TimA says:
Okay I’m ready, you can give me this game now, please.
26/10/2011 at 19:44 nimzy says:
I will shoot 199 men at a time, I tell you.
26/10/2011 at 20:07 xavdeman says:
No. You will see 199 men running around using one, badly made, animation. Seemingly floating slightly above the ground jesus-style, without activation of a jetpack. http://www.planetside2.com/ (look at the trailer). Seriously, since GTA4, BF3, Crysis I have expected animation engines to at least know how to place men’s feet firmly on the ground. Will not play this as long as the animations are THAT bad. Not >immersive< at all (shareholders pay attention!).
EDIT: Also seems like you will not be looking at just 199 men with bad animations, but AT LEAST 229! If you read CLOSELY the truth will be revealed to you: “You’re going to be fighting in battles sometimes when it’s 200 people fighting against 30 people,” said Higby. “Because there’s only 30 people defending that base and then suddenly 200 people log in from the other group and go do it.”
26/10/2011 at 20:28 Captchist says:
Watched the trailer. Agree with this guy ^
200 people is cool. 20 people standing with identical animations shooting laser pens at you. Less cool.
64 player with awesome graphics and animations beats 200 players for me. Particularly if those 200 people are spread over 8 kilometers – you’ll spend most of the game trying to find each other!
26/10/2011 at 20:28 Skabooga says:
I for one would gladly take a hit to graphics and animation if it meant I could engage with 200 individually controlled actors. The latter strikes more closely to my concept of fun.
26/10/2011 at 20:40 paxundae says:
Oh dear, the animations in the alpha footage aren’t perfect? The game is ruined…ruined I say. *sob*
26/10/2011 at 21:02 The Great Wayne says:
People will never stop bitchin’, will they ?
Seriously, Planetside isn’t about the looks.
26/10/2011 at 21:10 xavdeman says:
There’s a good chance the animations in the finished product will be the same unless someone calls them out in it. So, please do! The graphics are otherwise good enough, but this truly reminds me of games without physics like Homefront (remember trying to throw a grenade?).
Contrast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3yQUjonthA @ 2:48, notice how the NPCs go from one animation “state” to the other, they just clip from one stance to another.
with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvsctsjmkBc (BF3) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12jPZWlAZUg (GTA IV).
A better example of bad animations is Fallout 3. Where your gunshots don’t really effect enemies until the last shot when they go flying.
@The Great Wayne: This isn’t really bitching as much as just wanting an enjoyable game to play. 100 men running at you carbon copy isn’t my idea of fun and breaks immersion.
26/10/2011 at 21:38 Jools says:
Hello, developer people that xav is taking to task. I just want to say that if the animations in the final game look like the animations in that alpha trailer I will still BUY THE FUCK OUT OF THIS GAME.
26/10/2011 at 22:13 Surgeon says:
Watch out, it’s the Fun Police!
26/10/2011 at 22:34 dontnormally says:
I agree with rational-man here.
200 interneted person-shooters is a bane on bandwidth.
To do it right must involve corners cut.
26/10/2011 at 22:36 Captchist says:
Why are they releasing a trailer if not for people to look at it and say “I like this game”?
So if there is something you don’t like then you’re a dick for criticising and you’re the “fun police”?
They released a trailer, we watched, aspects look bad. I don’t see why we can’t say that.
26/10/2011 at 22:51 dontnormally says:
I also don’t see why you can’t say what you said, because you said it and it’s now been said.
That said, wonky animations are kindof a buzzkill.
As long as the Gal-drops look alright, I really don’t mind though.
26/10/2011 at 23:12 Barman1942 says:
@xavdeman
You’re writing the game off completely…because the running animations aren’t to your liking?
ಠ_ಠ
27/10/2011 at 03:53 kaiserbob says:
@Captchist:
It’s pretty clear you never played the first Planetside. Based upon my experience with the 1st game that trailer shows off incredibly incompetent gameplay, you will never have large globs of people like that standing around in the open missing that badly. You probably won’t have to hunt around for fighting either, combat shows up as hotspots on the map and most fighting takes place between bases in a fairly logical fashion.
27/10/2011 at 09:44 Wetworks says:
According to the article he was just listing an example,
200 people vs 30 people. Then 200 more log on and it’s 200 vs. 230 people. Anyone who has played the original Planetside has to be really excited about PS2.
26/10/2011 at 19:47 Nullkigan says:
Is that Helmet Customisation or are my eyes just that bad?
26/10/2011 at 21:05 The Great Wayne says:
That or, considering the missing armpads, I’d guess they’re either in different armors or the ranks change the look of the outfit even more than in PS1.
26/10/2011 at 22:52 Kandon Arc says:
Their helmets are different, though that doesn’t necessarily mean customisation. I would be surprised if there wasn’t some Halo: Reach-esque armour customisation though.
26/10/2011 at 19:48 Orija says:
That headline had me laughing for several minutes. I think I need some sleep… and an appointment with the doctor.
26/10/2011 at 19:48 Njordsk says:
Still no date or did I miss something?
26/10/2011 at 19:49 TheFlyingWooly says:
Commence happy dance.
26/10/2011 at 19:50 Turin Turambar says:
8×8 kms? Not bad! Only half the amount of 2009 non-MMO Arma 2!!
:P
26/10/2011 at 19:52 Njordsk says:
I read continent”S” :)
26/10/2011 at 20:15 Snuffy the Evil says:
Half? If I’m not mistaken Chernarus is around 225 square kilometers in size. That’s much more than two times 64 square kilometers.
01/11/2011 at 03:51 Josh W says:
If britain is an island, these things are definately islands: Times each of those dimensions by 50 and you’ll get an area similar to britain, or in slightly different terms, these things are 2% of 2% of britain!
26/10/2011 at 19:50 Reapy says:
Hopefully they will consider what it takes to spread out the gameplay over that land space. One of my chief complaints with planetside was that you spent the majority of time fighting over the same bases. So despite continents feeling different, the fight inevitably ended up at a base or tower, which were rubber stamps on all continents. So despite all the landmass and the MMO part of it, you basically ended up on crowded quake maps, and it didn’t feel all that massive a space you were fighting over.
The artillery sounds like a clever method though, set up shop way outside the base, which now is a reason to have fights around the outskirts as you hunt and defend artillery pieces.
26/10/2011 at 19:54 Moni says:
200-man battle, or 200-man dance party?
26/10/2011 at 19:55 CommanderZx2 says:
I guess I am the only person that read it as playstation 2?
26/10/2011 at 20:01 Rii says:
Real PC gamers have never heard of this so-called Pee Ess Two.
26/10/2011 at 20:04 kupocake says:
‘Phantasy Star 2′ was the name that occurred next.
26/10/2011 at 20:06 Davie says:
No, me too. And then I thought, “Wait, this is RPS! Oooooh, right.“
26/10/2011 at 20:19 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
PC gamers should immediately think of PS/2, the keyboard/mouse connector before USB.
26/10/2011 at 21:26 westyfield says:
Nah, PS2 is the only acceptable console.
27/10/2011 at 05:03 Starky says:
Seriously, anyone who didn’t own a PS2 (assuming they were old enough and had the means) has no right to call themselves a gamer – some of the greatest games in the history of the medium (of every genre except maybe fps and rts) are for the PS2. And unlike now where basically almost everything you want to play is multi-platform (damn you RDR) most of them were unique to it because Sony ruled the console market by a mile.
27/10/2011 at 07:19 Avenger says:
Fanboy much?
JK. I think you have a point
26/10/2011 at 20:05 Eskatos says:
So how exactly does this compare to Planetside? I’ve never seen any measurements but the continents feel bigger than 8×8 km. Also flails can already shoot more than a kilometer so that’s no major development.
26/10/2011 at 20:07 Davie says:
That puts each continent at roughly the size of Cyrodiil. Impressive, although in a game where you’re not clopping about on a horse it might feel a bit more cramped.
26/10/2011 at 20:14 TomEllinson says:
Battlefield speak of their ninety-nine problems and how a bitch isn’t one…
…Planetside has male and female characters.
I will soon have 199 problems, and several of them may be bitches.
26/10/2011 at 20:31 JayeRandom says:
That’s a bit of a disappointment. Current Planetside 1 population cap is 399 players (max of 133 per faction) on a continent, and the contents certainly do feel larger than 8km x 8km, as Eskatos said; more like 20km x 20km, perhaps.
26/10/2011 at 20:47 bjorntju says:
The developers already told Planetside 2 will support ”thousands of players” on a single continent. Those 200 players in the PC gamer acticle was just an example of how a battle could turn out.
26/10/2011 at 21:46 Eskatos says:
I would estimate 12-15 km on a side, but so far I’ve been unable to find any actual measurement.
27/10/2011 at 04:04 kaiserbob says:
How big is the SOI around bases? Should be pretty easy to estimate with that.
26/10/2011 at 20:42 brulleks says:
I missed the first game as I didn’t get a decent enough internet connection to play until the community started to die, but remember reading PC Gamer’s tales of gigantic land-sweeping battles with awe and bitter envy.
Can’t wait to finally have a go at it.
26/10/2011 at 21:51 AgamemnonV2 says:
“Eight-By-Eight Kilometre Continents”
Google Search: Did you Mean…Eight-By-Eight Kilometre ISLANDS?
26/10/2011 at 22:13 yhalothar says:
Arma2 did 225 sq. km, which is what, three times that? ;/
26/10/2011 at 23:07 dontnormally says:
Planetside had dozens of island/continents, so unbunch the panties for the time being.
27/10/2011 at 00:35 Spindrift says:
“On the vehicles side, the Terran Republic has two unique empire vehicles…”
Only two? Just two unique vehicles on top of what I’m guessing will be a dozen or so standard, non-faction-specific vehicles is not as much variety as I’d like.
27/10/2011 at 01:05 rhontos says:
I think the common vehicles will still have faction specific customization though. So while there aren’t many unique vehicles, the common vehicles should still potentially fill different roles in different factions.
27/10/2011 at 02:05 P4p3Rc1iP says:
Wasn’t this the case with the original PS? There was the main battle tank and the light buggy thing (Or hoover thing if you’re purple). All other vehicles were common pool.
27/10/2011 at 04:05 kaiserbob says:
They also mention the Mosquito as a TR unique vehicle. That’s pretty wtf.
27/10/2011 at 06:27 SwiftRanger says:
If you don’t like the following picture then you don’t have a heart: drool
27/10/2011 at 10:07 danteGideon says:
She’s got huge… tracts of land.
27/10/2011 at 12:20 Ezhar says:
Not that large by comparison:
http://i.imgur.com/uBWCz.jpg
(I’d expect this image to be included whenever a game developer boasts with the size of their world).
27/10/2011 at 13:32 ElvisNeedsBoats says:
Can someone in the know tell me the differences between this game and Tribes? I didn’t play either yet they sound very similar to me.
27/10/2011 at 19:22 MrBRAD! says:
I recall reading that there wouldn’t be artillery (or at least flails). Anyone got news on their now-inclusion?
27/10/2011 at 20:53 Reefpirate says:
I watched the trailer. People’s feet were on the ground just fine. If you want such perfect animations I recommend you start your own studio.