09-16-2004, 02:56 PM
aka, Why All Other MMORPG's Continue to Suck
Planetside is an MMOFPS, but that's not important. The format of the combat isn't the big issue for me.
The important part is that I can log in, join my team and take actions, either solo or in a group, that will directly impact my team.
I can do something that I know is going to help potentially hundreds of my teammates or harm hundreds of enemies.
For example, last night I logged in and checked out the action. My team (all players are divided into 3 teams) owned a continent called "Hossin". It was under massive attack by an enemy team. Or rather, it was being grabbed for free because it had absolutely 0 defenders on it. No doubt there were multiple hundreds of my teammates online, but they were all busy elsewhere.
So I go there. 1 member of the Terran Republic team vs about, oh, 150 members of the Vanu team.
But it's not just mindless PvP. "Here's a big field, go fight". No, Planetside did it right. There's options. There's stuff I can do that will ultimately be better than a head-on charge with a machine gun into 150 enemies.
So I land on the continent near a bridge I know the enemy will have to cross at some point as their attack progresses across the continent. I drop mines all over it. Because the Vanu know there's only 1 Terran on the planet, they're all running around care-free. So sure enough, a bit later I start getting kills and check the map. Hey look, some of my mines are gone. Most likely, I just set the enemy back by 2 or 3 minutes because I blew up an AMS: a vehicle that's critical to progressing the frontlines. That guy is going to have to go get another one and probably will drive slower across that bridge next time!
I run back to a friendly base and jump in my plane. I don't go to the front lines, where all the enemies are. I can't hope to stop them, but I might be able to slow them down some more... So I start touring the back roads.
Sure enough, I catch the odd Vanu soldier here and there. Forward scouts who were hoping to get a head start on the backline bases. Unchecked, they could have captured towers and ran inside the base and blew up generators and equipment stations and make it that much easier for their team to roll through. But by my presense, I was able to catch these people with their pants down and kick them away.
I went to our most backline Tech Plant. This is a critical type of base necessary to the production of tanks and serious combat aircraft. Some Vanu guys had set up camp there, parked a portable respawning station there and were destroying equipment. So I go in there and blow up their portable station and start blasting anyone I can see.
Be delaying the enemy just a little bit here and there and struggling against the forward scouts to just keep a Terran Republic pulse on the continent, I think I helped save the place. Eventually the rest of my team noticed what was happening and flooded in to fight, and thanks to me, rather than showing up to an utter wreck, they still had a toehold.
My tales of Planetside are full of things like this. Things where I felt I was able to make my little push and really impact things. Sometimes a base gets saved and I can say, "This base would have been lost if not for this thing I did".
That's why I keep coming back to this game.
SWG has teams, Empire and Rebels, but there's nothing I can do there to impact my team or the enemy team in any meaningful way. I can shoot rebels from here to eternity and blow up all the rebel faction bases in the universe and it still doesn't help the Empire. I can make General as a faction rank and build my own faction base and complete 50,000 imperial missions from mission terminals and it still doesn't help the Empire.
In Planetside, I can see John Doe Terran running around in his tank and think, "He has that tank because I showed up just in time to defend our Tech Plant from being taken over." He's not in my group, he's not in my guild, he's just some random guy I've never seen before who happens to be on my team and actions I have recently taken have helped him. MMORPG's just totally lack that.
And there's no excuse for it. They spend so much time on character development and leveling and grinding that they forget to include a game world.
I want a game world, not just a Character Builder with graphics.
Planetside is an MMOFPS, but that's not important. The format of the combat isn't the big issue for me.
The important part is that I can log in, join my team and take actions, either solo or in a group, that will directly impact my team.
I can do something that I know is going to help potentially hundreds of my teammates or harm hundreds of enemies.
For example, last night I logged in and checked out the action. My team (all players are divided into 3 teams) owned a continent called "Hossin". It was under massive attack by an enemy team. Or rather, it was being grabbed for free because it had absolutely 0 defenders on it. No doubt there were multiple hundreds of my teammates online, but they were all busy elsewhere.
So I go there. 1 member of the Terran Republic team vs about, oh, 150 members of the Vanu team.
But it's not just mindless PvP. "Here's a big field, go fight". No, Planetside did it right. There's options. There's stuff I can do that will ultimately be better than a head-on charge with a machine gun into 150 enemies.
So I land on the continent near a bridge I know the enemy will have to cross at some point as their attack progresses across the continent. I drop mines all over it. Because the Vanu know there's only 1 Terran on the planet, they're all running around care-free. So sure enough, a bit later I start getting kills and check the map. Hey look, some of my mines are gone. Most likely, I just set the enemy back by 2 or 3 minutes because I blew up an AMS: a vehicle that's critical to progressing the frontlines. That guy is going to have to go get another one and probably will drive slower across that bridge next time!
I run back to a friendly base and jump in my plane. I don't go to the front lines, where all the enemies are. I can't hope to stop them, but I might be able to slow them down some more... So I start touring the back roads.
Sure enough, I catch the odd Vanu soldier here and there. Forward scouts who were hoping to get a head start on the backline bases. Unchecked, they could have captured towers and ran inside the base and blew up generators and equipment stations and make it that much easier for their team to roll through. But by my presense, I was able to catch these people with their pants down and kick them away.
I went to our most backline Tech Plant. This is a critical type of base necessary to the production of tanks and serious combat aircraft. Some Vanu guys had set up camp there, parked a portable respawning station there and were destroying equipment. So I go in there and blow up their portable station and start blasting anyone I can see.
Be delaying the enemy just a little bit here and there and struggling against the forward scouts to just keep a Terran Republic pulse on the continent, I think I helped save the place. Eventually the rest of my team noticed what was happening and flooded in to fight, and thanks to me, rather than showing up to an utter wreck, they still had a toehold.
My tales of Planetside are full of things like this. Things where I felt I was able to make my little push and really impact things. Sometimes a base gets saved and I can say, "This base would have been lost if not for this thing I did".
That's why I keep coming back to this game.
SWG has teams, Empire and Rebels, but there's nothing I can do there to impact my team or the enemy team in any meaningful way. I can shoot rebels from here to eternity and blow up all the rebel faction bases in the universe and it still doesn't help the Empire. I can make General as a faction rank and build my own faction base and complete 50,000 imperial missions from mission terminals and it still doesn't help the Empire.
In Planetside, I can see John Doe Terran running around in his tank and think, "He has that tank because I showed up just in time to defend our Tech Plant from being taken over." He's not in my group, he's not in my guild, he's just some random guy I've never seen before who happens to be on my team and actions I have recently taken have helped him. MMORPG's just totally lack that.
And there's no excuse for it. They spend so much time on character development and leveling and grinding that they forget to include a game world.
I want a game world, not just a Character Builder with graphics.
