We’re a few weeks in to the Planetside: Reserves thing now, and it does look to have been something of a success. Both anecdotally, and from my own experience, numbers seem to be significantly up, with two continent locks a frequent sight now, and substantial fighting on a third – something not seen since shortly after initial release over two years ago. However, it is worth noting that originally Planetside had five servers, instead of today’s three, and that the number of players required to lock a continent used to be somewhere around 500, rather than today’s 400. Still, the game generally feels altogether healthier than it has in as long as I can remember.
Not only are there more people, but the average level of skill has fallen, by way of the large intake of new people, such that the game is now a great deal more accessible. Prior to the Reserves deal, any lone new player joining the game would be faced with a huge wall of sheer bloody-minded perseverance in order to get to the point where any kills at all would be realistic. Two years in, everyone had either quit, or become really, really good, making for a very brutal environment for the prospective new guy trying it out.
SOE seem to have got the idea of it though with this offer – the only way significant numbers of new players will be able to stay and compete, is if the enemy teams have a large number of players of a comparable skill level. They’ll still get farmed by the two-year veterans, but at least they have the encouragement of being able to take out opposing new folk.
Success is a nebulous term though. At a rough guess, the intake of new folks makes up around 40% of all players in there now, none of whom are actually paying SOE anything. I’ve seen a few folks mention that having hit the BR6 cap, they want more and are signing up properly, but not many, and most seem to have the opinion that Planetside is a fun romp, but not something they’d consider paying for.M
So yes, it has succeeded in revitalising the game, but does little to address the main problem with its design, in that the longer time passes, the less likely a new player is likely to be able to compete, and stay. The current batch of Reservists are likely to go one of two ways – they’ll either learn the lessons well, and join the ranks of the elite, or decide that it isn’t the game for them, and drift off, and the whole thing will be back where it was before the Reserves deal. But at the very least the number of new people staying will be enough to counter the normal and expected rate of long-term gamer fatigue and churn, and almost certainly keep Planetside going for quite some time to come.
One interesting thing is seeing all of the more marginal weapons and vehicles coming back out to play again, mostly in the hands of new folks who don’t know any better. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a Flail in use, and I’m sure I even saw a Sunderer last night at one point. Galaxy Drops are more common now, and people seem to be experiementing with traditionally sub-optimal gear and loadouts. AV maxes are even being used…bless! The irony of it is that most of these less-favoured items are often only effective in large numbers, and it’s only because most veterans eventually gravitate toward the perfect solo kill-whore combo, that you see so few of them, and therefore, they don’t perform well.
It was one of those ‘bad nights’ for me, largely because I was forcing myself to use Air-Cav, which I’ve never been good at. We also ended up stuck in the volcano on Searhus, which is usually only a matter of time in any case. The Volcano crater is a bugger to break out of, and provides all sorts of farming opportunities for troops who can get up on the crater rim. Heigh ho. More indoor fighting than I like, too. I should stick to Sniping and Support – much more rewarding.
But then that is the nature of the beast – there will be good days and bad ones, and often your own success will depend heavily on the greater progress of your army on that continent. If the Incentives window is showing 50%, 10%, 40%, it sucks to be on the 10% team no matter how good you personally are, and really, the smart move, and the least harrowing one, is for the 10% to recall to Sanctuary and find out where the rest of your guys are!
So anyway, if you were wavering about giving Planetside a go, now is definitely the time to do so, as three months down the line, the game is unlikely to be anywhere nearly as forgiving as it is presently…