The Implications are as Concerning as they are Intriguing

I've tried to come up with something funny to say about the following image - but I think I'll let it stand on it's own. SOE began to send these out to the media outlets...

For those of us not fortunate enough to have received Planetside 2 Diapers, a change of pants may be in order.

Presumably they'll be required for what they have in store at E3.

So I've been absent over the last four days, getting ready for my big move on the 1st of June, and there's been a couple of things other than diapers that have been released. So lets get right down to business - first up we have Totalbiscuit's second and third videos.

So in this video, TB struggles with controlling his pimped out "Loverator" - but more importantly, he gives us all what we're craving, and that's more in game footage. When he's not crashing, he's able to give us a look at what we can expect when it comes to customizing our vehicles. From frilly to functional, it seems like the SOE team is going all out to let us personalize these vehicles both visually as well as functionally.



In this next video, TB takes the time to explain to his fan base just what Planetside 2 is. There's a lot of repetition in here for the foaming-at-the-mouth fan. What it does hold for us though, is a lot of beautiful gameplay footage, and a sneak peak about what to expect from the cash shop. Personally, there's a lot of nostalgia in this video for me, even though I didn't play the original Planetside, references to Neocron and the first iteration of WoW's Alterac Valley are both points of my gamer hipster pride. One really cool thing we haven't had the chance to see yet comes at time index 12:50, where TB drops down in a style that reminds me a lot of Section 8's spawning mechanic. Finally TB confirms that he does have some MAX footage ready to go, and is just waiting on another party who has exclusive rights to show it off to do so - my money is on it having something to do with SOE's E3 presentation. Either way, keep an eye on his You Tube channel!


Also breaking news, is SOE's latest teaser of PS2, titled Massive Air Combat. It's set to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries - so I think you know what to expect. I actually found out about this video thanks to an SOE rep that hopped into PSU's chat room to let us know about it. The reason I bring that up is because I don't think I have ever been so impressed by a development team as I have been with SOE's. I mean, they came to us, and linked the video. Mind blown. So if you want to watch some footage of Planetside 2's aircraft gameplay, that doesn't involved Totalbiscuit crashing into something, check out the video below.



Of course then we have Hamma's visit to SOE's studios out in San Diego, which yielded a whole bunch of pictures. Sadly blogger doesn't let me organize them in any way fancier than a column, so you have my apologies for that. Click to enlarge, of course.

"The signature warp gate"

"Hvar Tech Plant"

"Deployed Turret" 

"Scythe cockpit by request!" 

"Sunderer!"

"AMP Station Zurvan"

"TR Galaxy"

"Spawn Tube!"

Now Hamma also brought a video camera down with him, where he had the chance to sit and talk with Matt Higby and company, but that won't be released until next Tuesday. Keep an eye on Planetside-Universe.com for that.

We also had development team member Margaret Krohn gave an interview on the Vanu Sovereignty to MMORPG.com. You may remember Xander Clauss doing a very similar piece on the Terran Republic on them not too long ago. Money say's we've got a New Conglomerate on up on MMORPG.com before E3.

Now I'm rushing to finish this as I have to be on my way, and the constant stream of content releases today has slowed the making of this post considerably, so if I've missed anything, I'll update the page later tonight. But until then, take care!

Happy Birthday Planetside

The original Planetside turns 9 today, and I'd like to take this moment to make a prediction. I'm largely uneducated when it comes to the development cycles of a game - but from what I've seen, Planetside 2 is looking like it's less in the construction phase, and more into the polishing phase. That's why my prediction, is that a year from today, on Planetside's 10th birthday, we'll have the release of Planetside 2. Now all we have to do is wait 365 days to see if I'm right!

But my idle conjecture isn't news, where as these next couple of screens are. Take a look at our first view of the Galaxy's cockpit - and of course, with all the excitement over the night fighting visuals, this screen is coming to us in two parts, courtesy of Tramell Isaac.

"The hottest Gal on Auraxis"

Next up we have another one of Tramell's Tweets, showing off a wireframe rendering of... somewhere on Indar. He's apparently clocking in 60 frames per second with this view, and while I'd expect the Senior Art Designer's rig to be a little beefier than some of his co-workers, apparently, these guys aren't running state of the art set ups. Simply put, we shouldn't need to bend over backwards to get PS2 to look good.

"Yep, that's right...wireframe.60 fps. Forgelight baby."

Well aside from these screens, Planetside's 9th birthday sort of went off without much of a fuss. I was personally expecting something a bit more interesting - but we didn't even get a post on Planetside 2's official page. Perhaps they're saving the birthday bash for Hamma's (of Planetside Universe fame) visit which starts to tomorrow when he arive's in San Diego for his up close and personal with the game. Also keep an eye on Totalbiscuit's You Tube channel, since he's got enough footage for at least one more meaty video.

Alright folks, that's it from me today. I'll be back with you in the coming days as more information becomes available. Take care!

- Rob

"Night Ops" - the Latest Word

"night ops, anyone?"

The latest buzz - and there is a lot of buzzing going on - is all about "Night Ops". Yesterday's tweet from Matt Higby served as the briefest of preludes to Totalbiscuit's You Tube release today. As reported earlier, TB headed down to SOE's studio in San Diego for a day last week to check out Planetside 2, the sequel to a game he says is easily in his top five games of all time. The video, after barely being available for 12 hours, has received over fifty thousand views, and the developers are tweeting it out there on a regular basis trying to push that number even higher.

The amount of information one could derive from TB's video is going to keep the community busy for weeks, but for me personally, the highlights were easily his time spent flying the Mosquito, the amazing lighting effects, and a really nice view of Indar's map. But I think the days of the community sitting around and dissecting the low-rez camera phone pictures tweeted out by the developers are coming to a close. The video Totalbiscuit recently put out represents less than a third of the total footage he took, much of which he's teasing with releasing next week, and if that weren't enough, Hamma of Planetside Universe is following in his footsteps on a similar pilgrimage to San Diego, and who knows what he'll bring back. Then there's E3 in the coming month.

More to the point, it's the precedent that all of this sets. The media is being given very liberal access to the game while it's in development - this isn't a studio that shields their work from the prying eyes of the internet, their exhibitionists to the last - they like it when we watch. But as far as I'm concerned, it's win win. We're fed a very steady diet of hype, and they get real-time feedback from and ever growing community. That's all for me tonight folks, enjoy the video - I'm going to go watch it again!

- Rob

Monday Night Media!

It seems like the Dev's are in overdrive over at SoE. Tweets are coming out left right and center about long days and burnt midnight oil. It seems they're running regular play tests over there, but to what end, we've yet to find out. Easy targets for speculation include E3 demo's and/or a final blitz of internal testing before beta. Regardless, I'm sure we'll know soon.

We saw a large number of tweeted screens today from the usual suspects and I've gone ahead and broken them up into three sets. The first series comes to us care of Creative Director Matt Higby's twitter feed (@mhigby), and consists of four snap shots taken from the day, some of which, presumably, are from the play test.

"Amit trying to find out how well Light Assault competes with a Lightning. Not very well."

"Checkmate" - I'm sorry, but is that a Liberator up there?

"haha @twothreesix got magmowed"

"was it @XanderClauss what did the mowing?"

Next up we have a much more manageable set of pictures, this time tweeted by Tramell Isaac (@PS_TRay), Planetside 2's Senior Art Director. These ones are of the Liberator - originally tweeted side ways, I've gone ahead and corrected them for ease of viewing - the wonders of technology.

"Morning liberace run"

"Libbo about to b boarded" - Loving the VTOL approach to the aircraft of PS2.

And finally we have what is in my opinion the most interesting tweet of the day, this time not of a screen shot, but of some concept art. This one again comes to us from Tramell. Amerish, for those like me who are new to the Planetside franchise, was one of the continental sized maps of the first Planetside. It's terrain is described as being temperate, with woodlands, beaches and flatlands. Now Amerish wasn't just another continent on an established world, it was a moon that orbited around a gas giant that bordered on becoming a star. So although developers have openly discussed adding additional planets to the game, it's been a known fact for a while that Auraxis was going to be the only one available at launch. Which means that if this concept art of Amerish is going to have anything to do with the game, it's not going to be the Amerish PS veterans remember. Maybe it'll make it's way into the game as one of the other two as of yet, largely unseen continents on Auraxis, or maybe it's just a hint at what we can expect some of the other terrain to look and feel like. Or maybe it's just cool concept art, you know, whatever.

"Could this be Amerish?"

Alright guys, that pretty much makes up today's summary. I'll be back with you tomorrow with anything else that gets loosed across the net. Take care!

- Rob

PS: Nanite System's twitter account totally started following me - crazy.

Yesterday's Activity

Miss a day and you miss a lot, they say, and truer words couldn't be spoken about this past Friday. We saw a flurry of Planetside related activity, from a video interview with the developers to a trip down to San Diego by one of my favorite internet personalities. So lets get to this article before today becomes tomorrow and we're looking at two day old news and not day old news!

In the end, not so far off.

So first things first, lets talk about this interview FPS Guru had with Matt Higby and Tramell Isaac. The content of the interview were primarily questions that have been asked and answered hundreds of times, but before I get into why this is a problem, lets talk about the two interesting tidbits that came out of this. The first was a quick explanation of vehicle diversity by Higby, where he described the various functionalities of the Galaxy. In this explanation he mentioned a drop pod variant, a gunship variant, and how the ability to transport troops could somehow impede or conflict with the ability to be deployed as a forward base - none of which painted a clearer picture of how the galaxy or vehicles at large would function, but all of which was very interesting. The second bit of interesting information came from Tramell, where he explained that low polly, low res models of the original Planetside characters would be available to players. While I'm sure that comes as a lovely nostalgic gesture to long term fans, I sincerely hope it's not a practice that becomes widely adopted - remember people, at the end of the day, you don't have to look at yourself while in the first person - I do!

But that was it! An entire interview and only two mildly interesting pieces of information, and both were provided candidly by the guests and not provoked by the interviewer. The questions - when they weren't being interrupted by Twitch TV's inability to keep a secure connection - were the same rehashed questions that the developers have answered time and again, and you can see and hear their frustration. Interviewers, when you get to interview the creative director and senior art director of a Triple A title, would you please give the scenario the respect it deserves. Don't ask them when the beta is going to be - they're not going to tell you. Instead try asking them what their favorite vehicle is, or what their iconic Planetside 2 moment has been during their play testing, or what the greatest design challenge they've had to overcome has been. Matt Higby and Tramell Isaac are some of the most lively characters I have ever followed in game design (even more so when you get them together), and if you're not willing to engage them on their level, why bother? This bump on a log style of internet journalism isn't just a lost opportunity, it's an outright detriment to both the community, who becomes frustrated with having their time wasted, as well as the developers, who may less open to doing community based interviews like this in the future. [/endrant]

Hope yet remains though, because if there is one member of the media I trust to bring some life and some very serious attention to Planetside 2, it's Totalbiscuit. I've been a follower of Totalbiscuit's since his early WoW videos and have been routinely impressed with the effort he puts into his work. He has the rare ability to hold my respect and keep me entertained even when presenting me with an opinion that's polar opposite to my own. He's headed down to San Diego with the express purpose of giving Planetside 2 a test drive, and has apparently captured over 90 minutes of raw footage, and as a long time Planetside fan, I'm sure he'll have a lot to say about what SOE has been up to. Keep tabs on TB on Twitter, the Cynical Britt website, and his personal You Tube channel.

We had two other minor releases for Planetside 2 yesterday. The latest in the lore of Planetside, if you're into that sort of thing, has been released onto their official site. Ordinarily the story of a game is usually my primary motivation for playing, but with Planetside, it's more about the experience itself, the scope of the battles, the potential it has to immerse me via gameplay alone. In the end it's caused every attempt I've made to experience their story pretty much end due to lack of interest. But hey, to each is own!

Ninja Entourage

We also had an interview with Xander Clauss surface on MMORPG.com, a site that's easier to navigate on Google thand it is from it's own home page. It focuses on the Terran Republic faction, it's lore, and how it plays into their vehicles weapons, and just the overall feel they give off. Nothing new or exciting in this one, but I like to think of it as just another line in the water, potentially hooking fans that never would have known about Planetside 2 otherwise. 

But that's it for now folks. The site is starting to garner a little more traffic as the search engine crawlers start to identify the page. I'd like to invite any newcomers to leave a comment or two, if you like. I've been hesitant to plug my blog anywhere yet, figuring there just hasn't been enough time or content on it to bother with, but that might change soon - we'll see, shameless self promotion can be a volatile thing. I'll be back again soon! 

- Rob

A Day-Old and a Live Stream

So this picture got tweeted out by the Nanite Systems Twitter account (@NaniteSystems) yesterday. The ACE or Adaptive Construction Engine, from what I can tell, was a tool in the first Planetside used by players speccing into Engineering Certifications (classes not having existed in the first Planetside). I'm sure there was more to it than that, but as far as Planetside 1 goes, I'm on the outside looking in.

"When you need...ANYTHING, program one of these and have at it. Nanite System's ACE."

In news I do fully understand, it looks like Matt Higby and Tramell Isaac will be giving an interview via the internet this Friday, 3pm PST, or 6pm EST, if you're me. Though if you're me, you'll also be at work, so you can check their You Tube channel later for the upload. Lets just hope they get an interviewer who's not just dialing in his questions this time *cough* Michaeal Bitton *cough*.

Alright guys, I'll see you soon, I'm sure.

- Rob

New Pictures

Here are a couple of new pictures thanks to Tramell Isaac and his Twitter feed (@PS_TRay).

the Liberator

When the Dev's have spoken about the Liberator one of the real world comparisons they've been quick to draw on has been the AC130. People familiar with Call of Duty: Black Ops will remember that kill streak fondly - only in Planetside 2, the Liberator isn't a kill streak reward, it's a vehicle available to anyone with the certifications and desire to use it. More information on the Liberator can be found here.

Tramell calls this one the "Supermoon"

Not only capable of delivering stunning sunsets, Planetside 2's nightscapes will be equally breathtaking. Though this particular scene isn't lit up by weapons fire, anyone who's seen the GDC gameplay footage can tell you that the lighting effects thrown off by tracer fire really make this kind of setting come to life.

*****Edit*****

Can't a guy go to work and run a blog at the same time? Here I was thinking I had nabbed all the new screens for the day, turns out they were only half way there. Here's what I missed.

a Modular Tower

On the off chance we have any former or current WoW players reading, I'd just like to point out that this tower is located at the "Crossroads". And might I further point out just how Barren the terrain looks, if you get my drift. Hell, set up a couple of totem polls, break open a case of Chuck Norris jokes, and I wager we'll be singing Horde drinking songs by the end of the night! But seriously now, Modular Towers! Do you think they're modular from the players perspective, allowing us to build them up to a factions desired specifications? Or are they just modular from the dev's perspective, easy to combine into unique looking facilities?

the Vanu Sovereignty Air Superiority Fighter - the Scythe 

Each factions gets it's own unique Air Superiority Fighter, and this one, the Scythe, belongs to the VS. The VS specific vehicles are supposed to be the most maneuverable of the three, and the crescent design is a classic choice to show off those capabilities. I personally could do without the rear extensions, but I supposed without them, it might be a bit too classic of a choice, and become indistinguishable from the host of other crescent shaped craft from science fiction's past.

So... do you think it's safe to go to bed? Or are there more pictures on the way? Haha, good night!

- Rob