Planetside 2: Grindy McGrindy McSpaceyPants

I didn't do the Walmart card thing, but with $20 worth of spacebucks I was able to buy every single airfighter weapon. I'll also be able to kit out my bomber, powersuit, a tank, and maybe a couple of infantry classes. If they do this once a month, it pretty much replaces the subscription model perfectly. People "buy" these virtual items, paying exactly the same (or more!) than they would a normal subscription, and everyone walks away happy...

I subscribed after I finally upgraded my machine enough to be able to play. Considering just dropping it and picking up $15 worth of spacebucks every month instead; it seems it'd be a better investment. Certs haven't been difficult to come by yet, and this is playing as 80% Engineer and 20% HA.

On hacking: I was killed for the first surefire " this guy is hacking " time two days ago as NC on Waterson, a friend and I were spawning at a Sunderer with 20-30 other people right outside our Warpgate only to be instantly killed by a TR HA that nobody could see. After the 6th or so death by this fellow, I managed to catch a quick blink of him as he warped around the Sunderer headshotting everyone with an LMG. I'm positive it wasn't just someone with a lag switch ( there are plenty of those, too ) because he never failed to headshot.

Lag switch?

A type of tool used by cheaters to artificially increase the latency or packet loss in their connection. Apparently, in PS2 the client tells the server where the player is instead of the other way around, so doing that causes the server have difficulty tracking you and makes you blink in and out of existence on other players' clients, making you difficult to hit. Of course, the connection problems cause issues for the cheater too, but they can switch off the cheat at will whenever they feel like it's time to start shooting rather than running around invulnerable.

Ugh, isn't that like, multiplayer networking code model fail 101? Never trust the client!

well that certainly explains a few things

Yeah, playing PS2 with high latency is actually beneficial due to the client server relations. I have heard that there are servers where entire outfits of people from the EU and Asia will log on to US based servers and wreak havoc with their insane ping. There are a number of complaints about that on the official forums, as well as petitions to add an auto kick feature if ping is consistently above 200.

Anti-cheat measures are kind of a mess in this game right now, with the only real way anyone is being stopped, is by manual ban from a GM after which they can just switch their IP and make another free account to start again. I don't understand why SOE does not utilize V.A.C. since they are on Steam anyway. It's not much, but it would be better than the next to nothing they have now.

I took advantage of the triple spacebucks to buy rocket pods for my Mosquito. OH MAN. I killed MANY Vanguard tanks. It was GLORIOUS. Totally worth the $10 I spent, even not taking into account the other stuff I bought.

I bought Giraffe armor camo and anti-tank mines today, and blew up no less than four NC sunderers by just sprinting up to them and all the NC ignoring me. One of them was over a ridge that we had an entire platoon attacking with a tank column that they were successfully pushing back, when I just said fuck it and ran straight at them without shooting. I made it all the way there, planted both mines, blew it up and about 6 enemies, and got out without a scratch. My outfit was very confused but happy.

What I'm saying is Giraffe camo owns.

I picked up rockets for my Reaver as well. I am just so awful at flying I usually get shot down by the first enemy air unit I see. Seems like you need some form of enhanced chassis upgrade to be of any use in air vs air, everything can outmaneuver me.

I also picked up a new Rifle, with the underslung grenade launcher. It's been pretty great for cheap kills so far, but it's so buggy and unreliable.

Can I just say I love this game. I spent $15 on a 1 month subscription. Dropped $25 on the triple space bucks and wish I would have doubled it. I upgraded the Mosquito, Liberator, Light Assault, and MAX. Let me tell you upgrading slots on the Mosquito made a world of difference, also adding the AA guns to the MAX... now I know why those things are so devastating to air. I spent more time in this game than is wise over the weekend and will spend more time today after I get out of work. I've all but stopped playing my 3 favorite games because it just fills that want. What a phenomenal game

Zen experience running a dual-hacksaw MAX with extended magazines defending a teleporter exit in a biolab during an marathon defense session. Over the course of an hour I went about 120-5 thanks to engineer support. It was like Purple Rain, only with certs.

Can't wait to get home and play a bit.

I watched a video of a jet-packing shot-gunner, and I realized I need to knife more people. I knife so rarely that I always fumble the buttons, but it really would help conserve ammo, and with my shotgun I'm already in melee range. I usually don't kill enough people to run out of ammo, and that's kind of a good problem to have, but it would be nice to stretch it with knife attacks. There's no way I'm giving up adrenaline pump to carry more shells, if I did that I'd never need them.

Sometimes I feel like that when I'm shooting people as a Vanu.

I need to upgrade my guns. What is the best gun for a Vanu Engineer/LA in terms of accuraccy, damage and rate of fire (in that order). I'm not much of an FPS gamer, so I need something that is going to be accurate but also have some stopping power. I don't do a ton of up close fighting either (ala shotgun), so something with a good middle distance would be nice.

Honestly it seems like I did more damage with the stock engineer gun BEFORE I upgraded to 2.0 Reflex sights.

Probably the Eidolon; don't remember what else is available to engineers off the top of my head. I'll look further this evening if I actually remember to :)

The Eidolon is great for plinking at targets that are far away. I get a lot of assists in open-field battles, and when I'm driving my Lightning it's occasionally useful to drive off guys with rocket launchers who are hiding on top of things. It's also abysmal at short range, but that's to be expected.

Some people would probably suggest shotgun with slugs. You may have better luck with that, but I haven't tried it yet.

Since there doesn't seem to be a consistant BF presence on PS2 I've been playing in squads with an outfit called NNG (No Nonsense Gamers) the past week or so. NNG really seems to have it together, as they frequently form multiple squads into platoons during prime time. There is a lot of usage of the mic by squad leaders and the platoon usually works together as a cohesive group to assault or defend. Armor columns are formed often, and there is supposedly an air wing as well though I haven't seen it myself (I can't fly for shit in this game).

Anyway, they always preface their squads with "NNG", so if you see an open squad from these guys jump in and you'll likely enjoy yourself for a couple hours. They actually make playing Vanu on Matherson not as painful as usual. ;-)

There is a lot of talk about nerfing vehicles/aircraft, adding base timers and so on, all of which would constitute absolutely horrible change in my opinion. All of the complaining about "air = op" and "you can't defend against tank zerg" and "bases are indefensible" seems to be coming from people who have the developers' ears and want to mold the game how they see fit but don't want to play within the confines of how the game currently exists. They're suggesting things like altering resource cost based on how many certs you have into the unit you are pulling, adding countdown timers based on the size of the base or the battle, etc. They seem to be addressing phantom issues that don't really exist when the real issues seem to be that the game was just released, it still isn't optimized and, while there IS outfit organization, faction organization ("the metagame") still leaves a lot to be desired.

If the developers change this game based on a handful of favored players input (see: focus of infantry only) then I can easily see it becoming incredibly unfun for a lot of people. Ugh.

I don't understand what is meant by adding "countdown timers". Altering resource cost based on how many certs you have into the unit you are pulling (does that mean, the more certs in the more it costs to spawn one?)

Apparently the next major patch is going to be released on the 30th. The most important set of changes, gameplay-wise, is probably that they're cracking down on spawncamping in a major way. The spawn buildings will be redesigned to be more difficult to camp and easier to escape and defend, major facilities will be given access tunnels connected to the spawn room that allow players to move to other areas of the base via the underground, players will be invulnerable for a short duration after spawning, and the score gained for killing a player will now be based on the amount of kills the victim has scored since their last spawn, with the minimum score granted being much lower than the current value, meaning sitting around farming a spawn point will be far less profitable than it is now.

The other changes will include the addition of server transfers, submachineguns, and a score reward for damaging vehicles and forcing them to pull back, as well as a variety of optimizations, bugfixes, balance changes, and interface improvements. Should be a significant improvement. Unfortunately, it won't address a few of the more fundamental issues with the game (the metagame, render range problems) - though it probably isn't realistic to expect them to have been able to resolve those so soon after the release in any case.

EDIT: Another pretty significant change: The bonuses to experience & resources for underpopulated factions will change from being based on the global population to being continent-based, giving you a reason to fight on continents where other empires are dominating due to a significant advantage in player numbers - hopefully evening out the populations between continents and stopping the effect where one empire becoming dominant on a continent turns it into a ghost town.

For those behind a firewall, this site worked for me

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/planetside-2s-next-patch-squashes-bugs-and-boosts-firepower/

There was a largish event yesterday, organized around Total Biscuit. In short, ca. 30 TR outfits organized play on Miller for an evening, and streamed the event. Funny enough the NC and VS prepared a bit as well.

Recording of the stream on Youtube.

Why is this interesting ? Well... at 45 min or so you might see people from a VS outfit called 'RPS' appear - 'Rock, Purple, Shotgun', affectionately called 'Vanu Giraffes' for our preferred camo. Haven't seen the videos yet myself, but you might also see me in there somewhere.

Alternate links:

Stream 1
Stream 2

Between the two is a 15 min break after they figured out that NC and VS players can watch their streams as well.
From where I stand we bloodied their noses, but there was also some of the finest play in PS2 I have seen yet, on all sides. Fun evening.

Edit: Just one disclaimer - haven't seen the vids completely, of course. And I guess no one will.

Not that the don't need to make the changes, but this means we get to expect another one to two gig patch...

And?

Hey. For some of us that's a big patch, Mr Talisker Undoubtedly on a Superfast No-Cap Connection.

Would you like me to burn it onto a DVD and mail it to you?

Lol. It seriously would be quicker. But no, I have a system worked out involving notebooks and file transferring, but thanks for offering!

Is the server: Miller where all the action happens?

I'm getting really annoyed with the TR on my server : Jaeger

Miller is in the EU. And it has a really large TR population, which seems pretty organised. As far as I know a lot of Planetside 1 outfits from the EU are on Miller. But I'd recommend going Vanu - we are more fun, have more purple and more giraffes.

Aww I'm in the US :-(

There seems to be a sizeable number of US players on there as well. According to some other players in my outfit ping is fine. We have an Australian player in the outfit for whom the situation is acceptable, we also have at least one person from the US. Not sure how well organized everything is when you can be on, though. Perhaps go to one of the fan pages like Planetside Universe and ask where the PS1 outfits from the US went ?

Transatlantic play in the sense of at least EU->US East is definitely feasible.

I started out on Jaeger as TR, too. After about the 6th or 7th time being run over by a friendly guy, or being killed by friendly C4 while trying to cap a flag I gave up and went elsewhere. Moved to NC on Waterson. The people are generally much better, and I've only been purposely TK'd twice in the time I've been playing there.

There are regularly live broadcast events from the server as well, with TotalBiscuit, Angry Joe and several other youtube personalities playing on the server. They all play TR, though, so at times it can be 50% TR population. There's usually something to do regardless, on the NC side DVS organizes regular outfits to participate in fights with the TR horde, and I'm pretty sure the VS on Waterson also have an organized outfit that shapes them up.

Speaking for the VS on Miller, there is a 'meta-outfit' of former PS1 groups, plus a few new ones (like RPS) called something like 'The Vanu Accord' or similar. This means a few (6+) outfits coordinating there efforts any given time. Still, at least some (like us) still semi-organized, more focusing on fun than efficiency. At least the TR runs something similar, not sure about NC.

Any idea what they'll charge for server transfers? (I'm assuming that if they can charge a fee, they will)

Reported.

I don't know, I kind of like this rambling, not-really stream of consciousness spam. If we had a way to remove the links and archive it somewhere, as some kind of "Broken Spam" museum I would be happy.

Sony currently charges $25 (and/or 2500 tokens) for EverQuest and EverQuest 2, it's possible the fee could be similar for PS2. That's down from the $75 price tag the service had when it first went live over a decade ago for EQ.

I'm just annoyed that characters are tied to servers in the first place -- names are global anyway, you can chat across servers, why not let me log into whatever server I damned well feel like with my character?