Anyone playing Planetside Beta?

I’ve been playing for a few days now. I think it’s pretty good but I’m hearing a May 20th release date and I don’t think it’s even CLOSE to ready yet.

The graphics are horrible (though I hear they’ve been de-optimized for beta). They need new armours, more vehicles, and more weapons. They also need to add a lot more variety to the game.

So far it seems to consist of going to a base, standing around for 15 minutes waiting on a hack, and then leaving to go do it again somewhere else. You never really get the excitement of “storming” some else’s base because once they capture it there’s NO reason to stay there! Also, all the bases are pretty much the same, if not exactly the same.

I applaud SOE/Verant for trying to re-invent the FPS genre but I just don’t think they’ve done enough yet to justify a monthly payment when 100% of their competition offers free online gaming.

Despite all of this, I DO like the game, but I’m afraid that if they release it now the first few months will just be a pay-to-play beta.

Thoughts? Comments? Know something I don’t?

BTW, I’m Cisco on the Markov West server (New Conglomerate) if anyone wants to play :D.

I’m in. Well actually I got by beta key by downloading it through FilePlanet.

I actually love it. I think we’re missing out on a lot being in a relatively exclusive beta. Hopefully, when it goes live there will be action in more places. It’ll be less travelling across whole empty continents just to unhack stuff that was hacked ten minutes ago.

I like the selection of vehicles. Hell, I just love that there are vehicles. Plus they’re supposedly adding bombers.

I also like that it fosters cooperation. Unlike EQ, it’s hard to announce that you are looking for a squad and not get one. And even if you don’t find one, soloing is possible for anyone. Again, unlike EQ. (damn 40+ druids…)

Plus the advancement allows you to feel accomplishment and gives real added value to your character without turning you into somekind of ubah tool.

The voice communication is finally working. Was chatting it up with a squadmate from the UK last night. As much of a jaded net freak as I am, I never cease to get a kick out of that.

Also, support roles are really encouraged. Learn to fly a Galaxy or go for advanced hacking and the world will be your friend.

Finally, with thousands of people shooting in a million directions, it’s a sniper’s wet dream. I’ve never been the sniper type in any FPS but I’ll be damned if it ain’t a blast. I actually verbally taunt players. They can’t hear me of course…

I’m AlphaMale, a TR on Emerald East. I started out as an NC before the first wipe. Yeah I know, the TR are jackbooted tyrants but their weapons are so nifty!

Hey Alpha, you gonna be on anymore tonight? I was thinking of playing here in a few minutes and I wouldn’t mind checking out the TR empire. I think I can even use my Xbox communicator for voice chat :cool:.

Oh, BTW, have you been having problems with menus and the map? Both are pretty buggy for me. About 50% of the time the map zooms all the way in automatically and won’t let me zoom out.

I’m enjoying it. Warcabbit, Terran.

I’ve been having fun with the scope implant and the rocket launched grenade setting of the Punisher. And vehicles are fun. It’s really all about getting a good squad, though…

That 15 minute thing was only one night, they’re playing with the XP system. It’s not going to go live in time.

I’m on Emerald as a TR. I was a Purple before the wipe.

The game certainly has potential and I’ve had some great fights both defending and attacking a base. Perhaps defending will become more important as squads and outfits get more organized. If you want to lock an island, you need to hold what you get.

I just got added to the Star Wars beta. I won’t be able to play for a week though because I’m going out of town.

I’m in and loving it. I’m on Emerald (East) in the NC, though I’ve played all three sides. Current toon is a Reinforced/Sniper/Medium Assault guy, though I’m thinking about moving him into combat engineering. I’m Ryujin/NC/Emerald East

I love it, it’s what Tribes 2 should’ve been.

That said, I think they need to do something with the experience system. You gain five or six levels pretty quickly, then it becomes something of a grind. Though being able to change certs IS an upside.

The only problem is waiting 15 minutes for your squad to get together and get everyone in the Galaxy.

I’ll probably pay for it for a while, cause I just love it.

The best night I’ve ever had on PS was a night a handful of NCs and I spent defending a base against hordes of Vanu. It was my squad and maybe five other guys against this huge army of Vanu. Like Custer’s Last Stand. I was having way too much fun.

Oh, hey, I’m on Emerald too, Blackclaw… you got added to the Star Wars Beta? Lucky. /tell me when you get on, we’ll squad. I have some reasonably good guys.

My guy’s just BR7, Engineering, but currently, he’s got the Heavy Assault, which sucketh unless you’re point blank. I’ve been using the Punisher with a full load of rocket grenades. With my 12X implant, I hit pretty frequently. Never kill anything, though. Not a fast enough RoF.

Guys, report your in-game nicks. Hey, maybe we should form a meta-game Straight Dope clan. I’m sure there’s some Everquesties out there, and I sure want to try Galaxies. And Code of Hero.

Anyone think the game’ll be ready by the 15th of next month?

The game is pretty much set for me and has been since the last couple of patches, but I had to do some serious computer tweakage to get it working. I spent three days uninstalling, reinstalling, changing drivers, all kinds of stuff before moving a slider in my DX controls and a new patch cleared up ALL of my issues.

And did they push back the date? I was sure it was supposed to ship this month.

I’ll probably give Galaxies a whirl, but they’ve cut so much that I dunno if it’ll be worthwhile.

Odd, “It just worked” for me. Of course, I tweaked the system to perfection for Neverwinter Nights… then never played it. Course, I’ve changed the processor, motherboard, and several keyboards, and gone from dialup to DSL since then.
What’d they cut from Galaxies?

I’m going to have to decide which to go with when Planetside and Star Wars are finally released. I can’t afford to be involved with more than one pay to play game at a time. I like Planetside because if I have a lot more control over how well I do, not the stats of my character. There’s a place for both, but Everquest may have burnt me out on online RPGs for a bit. There’s no real roleplaying anyway, if I’m not going to get that benefit, I might as well not have stats that decide my fate in battle.

I’m Longbow on Emerald. He’s just a BR5 with anti-infantry MAX and Lightning tank certs. I’ll be gone till Memorial weekend, send me an email then. :slight_smile:

Heh, that’s you? Wow. I’m glad I wasn’t an asshole when you asked how the wall turrets work.

OMG!!! RTFM n00b!1!!

Hey, you’re Alphamale? Should have figured, someone on a game with class.

Took me a while to find the manual. I found a neat trick, too… no, not switching ammunition, though that’s nice. I can’t remember what it was.

It worked that way for a lot of people. And a lot more people had CTD errors from hell. And worst of all, it seemed to be random. I was lurking one of the forums, looking for solutions, and half the people were like “Hey! This crashes all the time and is unplayable!” and the other half were saying “What’re you talking about?”

Some of the cuts:
-Player Cities
-Player-Owned Vehicles
-Player-Generated Missions
-Dark Jedi

They’re actually planning a “Space Expansion” for some of these. Though I was leery of SWG because being around thousands of shrieking fanboys just does NOT appeal.

I got a press release a couple days ago saying Ubi and Warner Brothers were working on The Matrix Online. It’s intriguing.

Heh, I just remembered. I served in a squad with Alphamale once.