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.

Newcomers to the game and community are welcome and you can download the game for free over here. If you’re thinking of teaming up with us, think about joining the RPS community Mumble server, as there will be group leaders there helping to steer the event on the night by giving out targets. And you can find more information about the March 5th event on our PlanetSide 2 forum, specifically this thread (ignore the poll).

RPS Social Clubs are reader-organised events meant for the merriment of all who call themselves friends of Horace. We occasionally highlight such events here on the main page and we’d like to do so more often. Below, a write-up by Ben Meredith, organiser of June’s Brighton social, with details of where the troop will be assembling next on August 14th. Want to host your own? Let us know.

Picture the scene. A pub. Brighton. The smell of freshly poured ale and a wisp of smoke from the beer garden. A man, me, sits with trepidation, cursing the fact that he’d left the sign he printed out at home and hastily scribbling “RPS Social in here” on a scrap of paper, torn from an old notebook.

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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.

See you there.

Hello, dear reader. You may think of us here at Rock, Paper, Shotgun as your cherished aunts and uncles, and we want you to know that you’re our most favourite nibling. But you can’t keep hiding behind our legs at family gatherings, arms wrapped around our knees, whenever one of your cousins comes by. You should play with them. Go on. They’re nice. You’ll like them. We’re certain you’ll all have a lovely time together.

Now that WildStar has opened up ‘head start’ access ahead of tomorrow’s launch, your RPS cousins have formed a community guild to play together. Go on now, dear.

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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.

And you can watch the match tonight on Twitch tonight at 2000 UK, if you’d like to lend support. Good luck, all.

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.

See you on Sunday!

The RPS reader – a discerning, beautiful creature raised by feral desktop machines in the jungles of the internet before being discovered by a pipe-smoking explorer in 1956 – likes to play videogames in the company of like-minded gamers. It was to this end that we erected the fantastical edifice know as the Game Clubs And General Sociability Ok forum. It is this distinguished public space in which you can find your way to games of Terraria, SWAT4, Warframe, Battlefield 3, Neptune’s Pride, Dominions, Arma, Guild Wars 2 and numerous others. The world is your oyster, where – for the sake of this figure of speech – oysters represent various possible multiplayer gaming opportunities.

Go play! And perhaps visit the RPS Steam group, should you be so inclined.

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.
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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.

And if you are playing NC or TR, well, bring it on.

There RPS readers are many, in their millions, in fact. Some of that mighty legion has organised itself into teams of beautiful and intelligent competitors in the world of electronic ludic fancies. Why who could ignore the dashing teams of purple, and other colours, who frequent Planetside 2? What citizen of the Earth could doubt the talent and commitment of RPS’ Arma 2 platoons? Who but the Frozen Synapse League would have had the incredible tenacity to reach their 18th season? (Perhaps the Blood Bowlers?) Other glowing recommendations must be attached to the DOTA2 chums, the Eve corporation, and the Battlefield 3 Platoon.

These people are splendid paragons. Hail them. Join them.

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!
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You’ve got no excuse. There’s a DOTA 2 group, for friendly lane-thrashing heroics, there’s a group playing marines and aliens (the 21st century’s Cops & Robbers) in Natural Selection 2, and there’s even a Wurm village going up. I am not saying that you have to play Firefall with poor old nCore, but you really should. And there’s always a chance for you to get involved in organised Mechwarrior nights. Hell, organise something yourself. I know the Planetside groups are always looking for squad leaders. And that Eve corporation is still going, against all the odds…

Running an organisation in a game that could do with RPS players? Want to play something niche and looking for partners? General sociability is for you.

So… what are you up to this weekend? What are you going to play? Did you risk Hitman? Or are you going Planetside? Do you ever take a weekend off just to plough through a whole bunch of indie games that you bought or bookmarked by never got around to? I have to admit I’ve been playing catchup of late – which might explain the tardiness of a few of my reviews, but anyway. This is about you: I particularly want to hear from folks playing multiplayer games – what are you playing, who are you playing it with, and does it involve the RPS gang in any way?

(There are some great PS2 threads here and here, if you want a game with friendly types.)

Speak!