Friday, June 20, 2003
This wasn't very encouraging to read. I'm wondering if these guys are getting too old to review games? I watched Shane play the beta for a few hours then jumped into the game myself and had very few problems. I think I was level 10 by the time I hit 12 hours of play time.
The first thing that people need to realize is that this isn't an FPS. It's a MMOFPS. There's a lot of things different about it and a common FPS that apparently really throw people, but shouldn't at all. You have equipment, you point and shoot, you die and respawn.
The 'tricky' part isn't at all since its all explained with little popup windows that range from telling you what your selected weapon does to telling you the environmental conditions of a continent. I assume that these reviewers didn't have these turned on, didn't do the tutorial, didn't do the VR training, didn't look at the control setup (which shows binds for pretty obvious functions), and didn't have the shout channel on where people constantly ask how to do stuff. The fact that Fargo didn't know about the ejection-hot drop and he was so 'experienced' in the game amazed me...I think BoxMonkey and I figured that out in the first couple hours of play. I love Fargo and all, but he seems like such a moron in that text. Ofcourse, that was just his personal opinion and not his proffesional opinion. Sluggo, the actual reviewer of the game, was even more clueless.
Here is the actual official review from Gamespy.
Creating a character is simple enough, although new players may feel overwhelmed trying to decide which of the many options they should spend their initial 2 certification points on.
Yes, that's true. Ofcourse, if you had read any documentation about the game and what each certification does, I think you would probably know to go with your strengths from other First Person Shooters. Good at Stealth? Go hacker. Good at tanks in BF1942? Get a tank. If you don't read anything about the 70$ game you just bought and will be paying 20$ a month for, then sure, you will be overwhelmed.
Sadly, because they're accessed from a small button on the start menu and not available in-game, many players may not even realize the tutorials exist.
Once again, if you are illiterate, you will find playing a game with text to be hard.
Maybe the biggest challenge of PlanetSide is finding -- and surviving -- your first few battles.
Okay, follow me here: hit escape to bring up the game menu. Hit "i" for [I]nstant Action. It will count down for 10 seconds, 20 if you are in hostile territory. Then you will be dropped to a random location where a battle is taking place. If you can't find something to do at this point, you should format your HD, give me your computer and drown yourself in your bathtub.
"Hotspots," which in theory tell you where the action is, all look the same, so it's impossible to tell if a fight involves 10 or 100 people
By the way, those giant explosion graphics on the world map show where combat is taking place. All you need to do is look and find where a bunch of those are clustered and make your way there. When I played, I found combat 100% of the time. If there is 1 hotspot out in the middle of the terrain away from a base, you can probably guess that it was two guys who were running somewhere and ran into each other. If there's a giant cluster of them around a tower, it probably means there's a big battle.
So far we have determined that you need to be able to read and have common sense to play this game.
To join the fight, you'll need either to take a shuttle to a drop point, or use the warp gates that connect various continents together.
Since he never discovered an important feature of the spawn system, I shall politely correct him and point out that he should have played the game a little more before impressing upon millions of gamers that the game needlessly sucks. The game has an awesome feature that allows you to jump into any spawn tube. You then pull up a map and can pick adjoining tubes that you can almost instantly spawn into. You can jump continents with this feature as long as you control enough bases in the control web (more on this later). Thus, if you don't have a vehicle and somehow can't hitch a ride, jump into a spawntube (located in any structure in the game) and seconds later spawn near the location you want. It's an important part of your mobility in the game and this proffesional reviewer and gamer never discovered it.
PlanetSide also has a few other niggles that make things tough on the newbie.
Main Entry: 1nig·gle
Pronunciation: 'ni-g&l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): nig·gled; nig·gling /-g(&-)li[ng]/
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: circa 1616
intransitive senses
1 a : TRIFLE b : to spend too much effort on minor details
2 : to find fault constantly in a petty way : CARP
3 : GNAW
transitive senses : to give stingily or in tiny portions
I'll assume he means def no. 1
Once you get used to it, the interface offers a lot of options, but learning where everything is takes time.
I agree that the original keymapping was stupid. It seems to be a trend in the MMO games that I've played - have the most complex and difficult key setup possible instead of going with and obvious universal FPS setup. However, you can easily go through and set it up exactly how you want, which I'm certain everyone does so you can't really complain that it's hard because you have to reconfigure more keys.
For an action game, PlanetSide contains a lot of moments of inaction.
Once again, this is a new genre of game. If may look and feel like other FPS, but its an MMO. Besides, 30 seconds of downtime isnt so bad once you know how to play, you can still hear over the text and voice chat and, if you don't start respawning in the firstplace, you can actually get revived by a medic. I found that almost no one used revival medics, though and prefered to respawn (since they could change equipment and get more ammo).
I also found the pain of having to spend 30 seconds dead and usually another minute getting back to battle as an excellent incentive not to die.
...can produce coordinated assaults on a scale so jaw-droppingly epic that the first time you see it, you'll probably want to just sit back and watch.
It's totally true. It's like being a unit in a game of Total Annhiliation, and very entertaining to watch.
The actual in-game combat, on the other hand, leaves a bit to be desired. It's especially tough on newer players, who start out with some fairly useless weaponry, and don't get much feedback on when they've hit an enemy or how bad they're hurting. You can eventually acquire an implant that displays an enemy's health status, but the earliest you can do that is at rank six -- and it takes several hours of gameplay to get there. I also wasn't entirely happy with the mouse control, which felt a little sluggish, and not as responsive as "twitchier" games.
Personally, I hate games that aren't 1-shot-fatal. Overcoming this was pretty hard, but there are certain tactics you learn that pretty much guarantee easy kills such as melee killing people when they are using terminals, chasing down infantry with assault vehicles, ect.
As for the newbies, they start out with shit gear, but as long as you have a cert, you get your gear for FREE. This includes vehicles (which have a 5 minute restock time for individuals so you can't spam people with suicide planes or something). And newbies also start out with 2 certs which is enough for a vehicle, heavy weapon or MAX armour which is insanely strong armour with built in gun. This makes them just as powerful as anyone up to level 6, just not as versatile. After level 6 people get implants which can make a huge difference in some situations.
As for leveling time: by doing the in-game VR training and using all the terminals you need to use anyways, you can get enough exp to get to rank 3. This is before you ever even see an enemy and takes probably 30-60 minutes as a newbie, and a lot less if a vet is playing a new character. If you find a group, you get exp for that and get a LOT more experience for each kill and for things such as hacking a base. If you were in a group of ten and assaulted a fairly well defended base and won, you would probably get another 3 levels just for that. Once you get to level 9-ish, it really slows down since you are now above the average level of player and get less exp for killing lowbies.
Oh, and you can configure the sensitivity of your mouse several ways for each specific type of mousing you'd be doing. So it can be set to be fast moving in menus, slow moving as infantry and ultraslow in vehicles if you wanted. I don't know why he decided to complain about the mouse.
The vehicles aren't as fast or over the top as, say, Battlefield: 1942, but PlanetSide's pace is clearly slower and more strategic, and this is reflected in the vehicles.
Yes, the vehicles are a little more 'realistic' than BF1942, as in they aren't quite as arcade physics based. They are actually faster, though. Perhaps the fact that the gameworld in Planetside is so much bigger than a typical BF1942 map is what confused him.
We've seen many reports of lag, but haven't experienced much of it ourselves, so it's hard to tell how rampant an issue it is.
Yeah, there was constant bitching about lag in the beta, although the only time it lagged for me was when the server was about to drop, which wasn't very often. I have a feeling that people are just using the Lag Monster as an excuse for sucking since we can't see other player's pings to know for sure. Also, despite running this game on a P2 400 with 312 RAM and a 64MB GF2, I had faster loading times then a LOT of people. This leads me to beleive that people are playing this game on their laptops with telephone modems. in which case, yes, you'll be getting a lot of lag and chop.
I never really felt I had an impact on the world, and there wasn't a minute that I was waiting for a shuttle or jogging from a drop point to a nearby base that I didn't wish I were playing Enemy Territory or Battlefield: 1942 instead.
I think it's clear that you still have no idea what you're doing in-game and probably should have an experienced player come over and tell you what you're doing wrong. Maybe go over and watch Fargo play and see what you're missing. I always felt like I was making a difference in any given conflict. I was a stealth hacker/light aircraft pilot/engineer. I had ultimate mobility, allowing me to fly into undefended bases and towers and to solo hack them. In ground conflicts I was literally invisible and could flank enemy infantry, killing them off as the crouched aiming at my allies. I can't even begin to communicate to you how many people I killed by walking right up to them and putting a pistol clip into their brain while they stood still and their allies were not 3 pixels away. In a support role I used my Mosq aircraft to chase down weaker units, destroy mines and turrets and even as a delivery vessle (I would fly over a tower or base and bail out, landing on the roof for easy and undefended access). I could repair and hack terminals so my allies would have access to enemy vehicles, weapons, and ammo and I could repair equipment for them and myself allowing me to stay active for hours without having to respawn.
; I've yet to see any of the llamas that dominate many public servers in other games in PlanetSide, a major accomplishment indeed!
The two reasons for this is 1) because its pay to play and lamers typically aren't old enough to afford it/to have a credit card and 2) because the game is still new. Lamers often stick to a game as long as they can because they already know all the exploits and best ways to lame and have all the hacks installed. It's only when enough real players ditch that old game for a new one that the lamers are forced to move on to find people to annoy. Since it's a MMO and very hard to hack/get an illegal account, it should be the most lamer free FPS for a very long time.
So, if you're looking for a teamplay game more sophisticated than the current crop of online shooters, and are willing to pay your dues -- and the monthly fee -- PlanetSide offers a good deal of fun.
If I had a job and income enough to afford a slightly faster computer (my system does chop a fair bit in the truely large and fun battles) and the monthly fee, I would very much be playing this game right now (assuming I wasn't at work :P ). I find it extremely fun, lots of options for both team and semi-solo play, the vehicles are very well done and easy to pilot, and the action is never ending.
One final comment on the review: He doesn't talk at all about the Command structure of the game. Escencially, if you are the Squad leader (you are the guy who formed the group or the next highest ranking soldier in the squad when the current commander leaves), you get Command experience points in addition to normal exp. Having a few ranks in Command allows you to use the global Command chat to talk with other commanders around the world and organize assaults. Once again, this shows that the reviewer really didn't play the game enough to get past the initial newbie stage. He did give a fairly impartial review despite his obvious frustration from the game, but I find it frustrating myself that games with good features and gameplay get shot down because some guy who is paid to review the software didn't take the time to get into the game.
He states: "I'm going back to Enemy Territory." as if that's what he was playing instead of reviewing Planetside.
The first thing that people need to realize is that this isn't an FPS. It's a MMOFPS. There's a lot of things different about it and a common FPS that apparently really throw people, but shouldn't at all. You have equipment, you point and shoot, you die and respawn.
The 'tricky' part isn't at all since its all explained with little popup windows that range from telling you what your selected weapon does to telling you the environmental conditions of a continent. I assume that these reviewers didn't have these turned on, didn't do the tutorial, didn't do the VR training, didn't look at the control setup (which shows binds for pretty obvious functions), and didn't have the shout channel on where people constantly ask how to do stuff. The fact that Fargo didn't know about the ejection-hot drop and he was so 'experienced' in the game amazed me...I think BoxMonkey and I figured that out in the first couple hours of play. I love Fargo and all, but he seems like such a moron in that text. Ofcourse, that was just his personal opinion and not his proffesional opinion. Sluggo, the actual reviewer of the game, was even more clueless.
Here is the actual official review from Gamespy.
Creating a character is simple enough, although new players may feel overwhelmed trying to decide which of the many options they should spend their initial 2 certification points on.
Yes, that's true. Ofcourse, if you had read any documentation about the game and what each certification does, I think you would probably know to go with your strengths from other First Person Shooters. Good at Stealth? Go hacker. Good at tanks in BF1942? Get a tank. If you don't read anything about the 70$ game you just bought and will be paying 20$ a month for, then sure, you will be overwhelmed.
Sadly, because they're accessed from a small button on the start menu and not available in-game, many players may not even realize the tutorials exist.
Once again, if you are illiterate, you will find playing a game with text to be hard.
Maybe the biggest challenge of PlanetSide is finding -- and surviving -- your first few battles.
Okay, follow me here: hit escape to bring up the game menu. Hit "i" for [I]nstant Action. It will count down for 10 seconds, 20 if you are in hostile territory. Then you will be dropped to a random location where a battle is taking place. If you can't find something to do at this point, you should format your HD, give me your computer and drown yourself in your bathtub.
"Hotspots," which in theory tell you where the action is, all look the same, so it's impossible to tell if a fight involves 10 or 100 people
By the way, those giant explosion graphics on the world map show where combat is taking place. All you need to do is look and find where a bunch of those are clustered and make your way there. When I played, I found combat 100% of the time. If there is 1 hotspot out in the middle of the terrain away from a base, you can probably guess that it was two guys who were running somewhere and ran into each other. If there's a giant cluster of them around a tower, it probably means there's a big battle.
So far we have determined that you need to be able to read and have common sense to play this game.
To join the fight, you'll need either to take a shuttle to a drop point, or use the warp gates that connect various continents together.
Since he never discovered an important feature of the spawn system, I shall politely correct him and point out that he should have played the game a little more before impressing upon millions of gamers that the game needlessly sucks. The game has an awesome feature that allows you to jump into any spawn tube. You then pull up a map and can pick adjoining tubes that you can almost instantly spawn into. You can jump continents with this feature as long as you control enough bases in the control web (more on this later). Thus, if you don't have a vehicle and somehow can't hitch a ride, jump into a spawntube (located in any structure in the game) and seconds later spawn near the location you want. It's an important part of your mobility in the game and this proffesional reviewer and gamer never discovered it.
PlanetSide also has a few other niggles that make things tough on the newbie.
Main Entry: 1nig·gle
Pronunciation: 'ni-g&l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): nig·gled; nig·gling /-g(&-)li[ng]/
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: circa 1616
intransitive senses
1 a : TRIFLE b : to spend too much effort on minor details
2 : to find fault constantly in a petty way : CARP
3 : GNAW
transitive senses : to give stingily or in tiny portions
I'll assume he means def no. 1
Once you get used to it, the interface offers a lot of options, but learning where everything is takes time.
I agree that the original keymapping was stupid. It seems to be a trend in the MMO games that I've played - have the most complex and difficult key setup possible instead of going with and obvious universal FPS setup. However, you can easily go through and set it up exactly how you want, which I'm certain everyone does so you can't really complain that it's hard because you have to reconfigure more keys.
For an action game, PlanetSide contains a lot of moments of inaction.
Once again, this is a new genre of game. If may look and feel like other FPS, but its an MMO. Besides, 30 seconds of downtime isnt so bad once you know how to play, you can still hear over the text and voice chat and, if you don't start respawning in the firstplace, you can actually get revived by a medic. I found that almost no one used revival medics, though and prefered to respawn (since they could change equipment and get more ammo).
I also found the pain of having to spend 30 seconds dead and usually another minute getting back to battle as an excellent incentive not to die.
...can produce coordinated assaults on a scale so jaw-droppingly epic that the first time you see it, you'll probably want to just sit back and watch.
It's totally true. It's like being a unit in a game of Total Annhiliation, and very entertaining to watch.
The actual in-game combat, on the other hand, leaves a bit to be desired. It's especially tough on newer players, who start out with some fairly useless weaponry, and don't get much feedback on when they've hit an enemy or how bad they're hurting. You can eventually acquire an implant that displays an enemy's health status, but the earliest you can do that is at rank six -- and it takes several hours of gameplay to get there. I also wasn't entirely happy with the mouse control, which felt a little sluggish, and not as responsive as "twitchier" games.
Personally, I hate games that aren't 1-shot-fatal. Overcoming this was pretty hard, but there are certain tactics you learn that pretty much guarantee easy kills such as melee killing people when they are using terminals, chasing down infantry with assault vehicles, ect.
As for the newbies, they start out with shit gear, but as long as you have a cert, you get your gear for FREE. This includes vehicles (which have a 5 minute restock time for individuals so you can't spam people with suicide planes or something). And newbies also start out with 2 certs which is enough for a vehicle, heavy weapon or MAX armour which is insanely strong armour with built in gun. This makes them just as powerful as anyone up to level 6, just not as versatile. After level 6 people get implants which can make a huge difference in some situations.
As for leveling time: by doing the in-game VR training and using all the terminals you need to use anyways, you can get enough exp to get to rank 3. This is before you ever even see an enemy and takes probably 30-60 minutes as a newbie, and a lot less if a vet is playing a new character. If you find a group, you get exp for that and get a LOT more experience for each kill and for things such as hacking a base. If you were in a group of ten and assaulted a fairly well defended base and won, you would probably get another 3 levels just for that. Once you get to level 9-ish, it really slows down since you are now above the average level of player and get less exp for killing lowbies.
Oh, and you can configure the sensitivity of your mouse several ways for each specific type of mousing you'd be doing. So it can be set to be fast moving in menus, slow moving as infantry and ultraslow in vehicles if you wanted. I don't know why he decided to complain about the mouse.
The vehicles aren't as fast or over the top as, say, Battlefield: 1942, but PlanetSide's pace is clearly slower and more strategic, and this is reflected in the vehicles.
Yes, the vehicles are a little more 'realistic' than BF1942, as in they aren't quite as arcade physics based. They are actually faster, though. Perhaps the fact that the gameworld in Planetside is so much bigger than a typical BF1942 map is what confused him.
We've seen many reports of lag, but haven't experienced much of it ourselves, so it's hard to tell how rampant an issue it is.
Yeah, there was constant bitching about lag in the beta, although the only time it lagged for me was when the server was about to drop, which wasn't very often. I have a feeling that people are just using the Lag Monster as an excuse for sucking since we can't see other player's pings to know for sure. Also, despite running this game on a P2 400 with 312 RAM and a 64MB GF2, I had faster loading times then a LOT of people. This leads me to beleive that people are playing this game on their laptops with telephone modems. in which case, yes, you'll be getting a lot of lag and chop.
I never really felt I had an impact on the world, and there wasn't a minute that I was waiting for a shuttle or jogging from a drop point to a nearby base that I didn't wish I were playing Enemy Territory or Battlefield: 1942 instead.
I think it's clear that you still have no idea what you're doing in-game and probably should have an experienced player come over and tell you what you're doing wrong. Maybe go over and watch Fargo play and see what you're missing. I always felt like I was making a difference in any given conflict. I was a stealth hacker/light aircraft pilot/engineer. I had ultimate mobility, allowing me to fly into undefended bases and towers and to solo hack them. In ground conflicts I was literally invisible and could flank enemy infantry, killing them off as the crouched aiming at my allies. I can't even begin to communicate to you how many people I killed by walking right up to them and putting a pistol clip into their brain while they stood still and their allies were not 3 pixels away. In a support role I used my Mosq aircraft to chase down weaker units, destroy mines and turrets and even as a delivery vessle (I would fly over a tower or base and bail out, landing on the roof for easy and undefended access). I could repair and hack terminals so my allies would have access to enemy vehicles, weapons, and ammo and I could repair equipment for them and myself allowing me to stay active for hours without having to respawn.
; I've yet to see any of the llamas that dominate many public servers in other games in PlanetSide, a major accomplishment indeed!
The two reasons for this is 1) because its pay to play and lamers typically aren't old enough to afford it/to have a credit card and 2) because the game is still new. Lamers often stick to a game as long as they can because they already know all the exploits and best ways to lame and have all the hacks installed. It's only when enough real players ditch that old game for a new one that the lamers are forced to move on to find people to annoy. Since it's a MMO and very hard to hack/get an illegal account, it should be the most lamer free FPS for a very long time.
So, if you're looking for a teamplay game more sophisticated than the current crop of online shooters, and are willing to pay your dues -- and the monthly fee -- PlanetSide offers a good deal of fun.
If I had a job and income enough to afford a slightly faster computer (my system does chop a fair bit in the truely large and fun battles) and the monthly fee, I would very much be playing this game right now (assuming I wasn't at work :P ). I find it extremely fun, lots of options for both team and semi-solo play, the vehicles are very well done and easy to pilot, and the action is never ending.
One final comment on the review: He doesn't talk at all about the Command structure of the game. Escencially, if you are the Squad leader (you are the guy who formed the group or the next highest ranking soldier in the squad when the current commander leaves), you get Command experience points in addition to normal exp. Having a few ranks in Command allows you to use the global Command chat to talk with other commanders around the world and organize assaults. Once again, this shows that the reviewer really didn't play the game enough to get past the initial newbie stage. He did give a fairly impartial review despite his obvious frustration from the game, but I find it frustrating myself that games with good features and gameplay get shot down because some guy who is paid to review the software didn't take the time to get into the game.
He states: "I'm going back to Enemy Territory." as if that's what he was playing instead of reviewing Planetside.
