Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Sony have sent out a survey to Planetside players, asking for feedback. Here’s what it says:

We plan to expand the PlanetSide® universe with another game and we need your help with the design. After all, who knows the game better than you, our customers, the people who actually play it! Don’t worry about the original PlanetSide, it isn’t going anywhere.

We want to hear your opinion and to do so we have put together a short survey. The information you provide will play a critical role into helping guide the development and direction of the next hit Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter.

More thoughts below.
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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.
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Back in the dim and distant past, anyone who was anyone and had a (for the time) pornographic amount of RAM was playing Planetside – the MMOFPS that was surely surely the bright future of PC gaming. Actual FPS, not vague cursor aiming and damage based on your stats – it was about reflex and precision, and military tactics.

Four years later, we’re not playing it any more. Well, some of you probably are, but we Men of RPS at least lament for a dream lost.
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