"Saigon, shit. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I've been here a week now. Waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room I get weaker. And every minute Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger. Each time I look around the walls move in a little tighter.
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. " - Cpt Willard, Apocalypse Now.
Yes, for my sins, I’ve resubscribed to Planetside – the SOE Access Pass in fact. Oddly enough, the one game SOE have that interests me enough to want to pay them money, turns out to be the hopelessly unpopular and harsh MMOFPS, although I expect daytrips to EQ2 and post NGE SWG will follow soon enough.
But no, it’s the horror of combat I miss, and boy did I get it. My first night back on duty saw me finish a mammoth session at 5am, 38/85 on the Kills/Deaths – over 2:1 against. Not terribly reaffirming, but it was my first go in a while, and it’s the sort of game you do need to stay sharp at. Mostly Sniper kills and Landmines, although a few good runs indoors with assault rifles too. I also got over 250 Assist kills – the ones you get for repairing other people who then go on to make kills, so no change to my basic gameplay style there then!
I also finished my Sniper Qualification, 200 kills with the Bolt Driver, only to discover that to get the medal, I need a streak of two, without dying in between. Trickier than it sounds, but I've had golden days as a sniper before; I'm in the right place, they're in the right place, coming over the hill like clay ducks on a shooting gallery, and I'm sure I've had streaks of 10 or more before the enevitable invisible ninja assassin knifed me in the back. I'l get there!
It did rather seem like the same 20 or so 'Names' killing me over and over though. Population is low, with only one continent now in use (400 players tops), but still dense enough to be satisfying. My own rustiness not withstanding, the general standard seems to be up from my last Tour of Duty – I guess people have either gotten bored and left, or gotten really good, since then, but the game itself seems largely unchanged – a few minor tweaks and balancing, but nothing majorly different or new. I don’t mind, and in fact welcome the knowability of it all, the essential chess-game of the different roles.
Still, all change ahead. Seems I’ve returned just in time to catch a big new PR drive:
Planetside Forums: Dev Notes 16/1/06 (Found by Aggro Me)
Fodder Program: The big news here – the one thing I always thought was wrong with Planetside was that there just weren’t enough players. Even near the start of it all, it would be rare to see more than four of the ten continents in use, and nowadays you have one choice of battlefield – a crying shame.
The deal looks good – BR8 is enough to put together a well-rounded set of equipment for one particular role – Heavy Infantry, Driver, Pilot, Sniper, Support Guy, Cloaker, etc. More certs than that just makes it easier to change play style in the same session, but even ‘Fodder’ can still swap certs at the rate of one per six hours. Saying that, I think I would miss the flexibility of my BR23, 25 Cert Point TR guy, although I am rarely using more than 12 Cert Points at once, which is how many the Fodder guy will end up with. Compared to most limited functionality free trails, this one offers a huge proportion of the game, and easily enough to experience the shock and awe of it all, and do well.
If it’s free, they will come, and don’t worry about the name, kid…on Auraxis, we’re ALL Fodder!
New Player Training: I’ve seen some of this, and to be honest, I doubt it’ll help. There are no mobs at all, so the jump from stationary VR training targets to actual two-year shotgun bunnyhopping commando players is still very harsh. It’ll help players get the hang of what all the buttons do, but new players are still going to get ZOMGPWNED sideways for a good few weeks until their actual shooting skills ramp up to speed. Not really any way around that, and something that just has to be endured. You do get better though, in time – I did, and I suck!
Blast Into Planetside: The usual ‘Come back! We Don’t Suck!’ offer. I missed out on this because I got an Access Pass instead. Damnit.
Art Projects: Planetside hasn’t seen any actual new units in a long time – since the big robots in fact, so this will be both good, in that variety is always interesting, and bad, in that nearly a year on, they’re still trying to balance the big robots.
What is interesting is the mention of ‘IdeaLab’ – a fanatically run player website which is nothing to do with SOE. That kind of recognition of your fans goes a long way to retainin their loyalty, I’d say, and it’s nice to see, especially from a SOE game – a company usually known for perusing internal ‘Vision’ regardless of what players want or like.
Some great ideas there, all of which have the capacity to totally unhinge the current balanced dynamic. (Well, fairly balanced anyway…I’m still being owned by way too many Mosquito aircraft.)
Tank Traps: Neat – a deployable Huge Block of Concrete. AV landmines already exist, but tend to be fragile, and only work once.
Cloaking Bubble: Neat – a portable invisibility dome. Great for regrouping, and probably quite a useful place to hide from aircraft, while sniping on hilltops. I approve!
Supply Depot: Interesting, particularly with the cloak bubble above, although with an AMS, you get both already, plus troop respawning. Not sure how often these will be used. All these look to be extensions of the Combat Engineering certs, something I never leave home without!
Galaxy Gunship: I’m dubious about this one. A huge lumbering airship may sound cool, but in my experience, speed = life in PS, and this thing will need an absolutely huge amount of armour if it’s to survive for long over a battlefield with the current Galaxy’s speed and manuverability. We’ll see.
Air to Air Mosquito: The Mosquito is supposed to be an air superiority fighter already, being faster and more maneverable than the Reaver gunship. It’s actually used for farming helpless grunts out in the open, or busy on wall tops trying to reapir the wall turrets. Grumble grumble. Or as a one-man paradrop capsule, prior to some Rambo type trible-barrelled shotgunning me in the head form ten feet up as they fall. Grumble. I approve if it means less infantry farming capability. Air to Air rockets will have to have some kind of locking ability to be at all useful.
One-Man Turrets: Bad idea, if they’re going to be anything like the existing wall turrets, which need at least two repair-guys working on them constantly for any chance of survival. Being stationary usually means being dead in PS. The TR MAX Power Armours function in a similar manner, and suffer for it.
Reconfigurable Wall Turrets: This on the other hand sounds very handy. The existing wall turrets are equipped with a heavy machinegun, better vs infantry, but not that good at anything really. Being able to change them to fire anti tank shells, or airburst flak will help enormously in base defence.
Radiation Sniper Slugs: Gimme! These sound like damage over time shots. Given that the sniper rifles already kills on two shots, I’d expect these to kill in one, if medical attention can’t be found in time. They do sound like they could end up being horribly over-powered though, and very annoying. Wait and see here.
EM Force Field: Most of the other thingeys are alterations or adaptations of already existing gameplay features – this one sounds totally new. It’s be interesting to see how this works.
Katana Special: Bizarrely enough, a surprising number of players enjoy melee combat in PS. The existing knife, when boosted with the right implant, is about as powerful as the sniper rifle. The trick is getting that close in the first place, tricky even as a cloaker.
More variants to existing gear promised too. It’s quite a staggering list to be honest, and although I’ll be taking it with a small pinch of salt, it’s still invigorating to see that there’s life in the old dog yet. Interesting time to resubscribe...
(Incidentally, if you do want to go and have a look for yourselfs, bear in mind that the Blue Team smell, and the Purple Team also smell, so pick the Red Team!)