PlanetSide 2 will be free to play

PlanetSide 2 will be free to play, SOE's John Smedley confirmed.

29

PlanetSide 2 will be free to play, SOE's John Smedley confirmed. This shouldn't be too surprising, given Sony Online Entertainment's admission that PlanetSide 2 was originally planned as a free-to-play update to the original game, before turning into a "full-fledged sequel."

"The game will be F2P. What form will it be? We're still working that out," Smedley said.

The outspoken CEO went to PlanetSide forums (via Gamasutra) to clarify details on a loosely translated interview that originated from a Chinese gaming website. While confirming the game will be F2P, he also added a clue: "we like League of Legends a lot." So, will PlanetSide 2 offer a rotating selection of weapons in some way? Tribes: Ascend is also experimenting with the LoL-inspired F2P model.

So when will fans be ready to play the game? "When it's ready and we are proud of it," Smedley said. "I did in fact say we are aiming for late this year or early next year. No further comment about that."

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 12, 2011 11:30 AM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, PlanetSide 2 will be free to play.

    PlanetSide 2 will be free to play, SOE's John Smedley confirmed.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 11:32 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 11:56 AM

        I think they can (and will) do more than cosmetic upgrades. For instance your default might be an allowance of 3 custom load-out slots where you can get the option to have more if you pay for them. You won't necessarily be unbalanced but you'll have more variety as far as gameplay goes. IMO cosmetic upgrades will only appeal to a few people and it won't be enough to pay for the development and ongoing profit.

        I hope it works out because it really sucked when the player population started dwindling after Core Combat in PS1

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 12:01 PM

          Higby mentioned an idea revolving around the skill training system. I think he said that, since your skill training is accelerated while you're playing, they could make an option for people with less time to play that they give a "paying" option where your skills train at full speed all the time, not just when not playing.

          There's a bunch of things they could do, customization included.

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 12:03 PM

            Actually, I should clarify, I don't think they've figured out if your skills train faster while online or slower while offline. Everything after the first sentence is speculation on mine and Higby's part.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:04 PM

        It will most likely be the way a lot of F2P games work these days: You can unlock stuff by playing long enough, or you can pay to speed up the process.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 11:40 AM

      Hah hah, finally these MMO guys realize that it'll be F2P in a year anyway, just do it out of the gate.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:09 PM

        Yeah no shit, now they just need to learn how to make a great game.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:41 PM

        Why would they, when they can milk their excited fanbase for $60 + $15 for the first year?

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 12:44 PM

          because those people don't make up for how many more people will try the game at a price of free and you don't need that many whales to make that much money.

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 12:51 PM

            They'll capture those free players when the make it f2p in a year though.

            • reply
              September 12, 2011 2:51 PM

              Maybe not because people might have moved onto something else by then.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:58 PM

        Generally I agree, but the original PS is still $15/mo.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 11:41 AM

      I'm eager to see what Higby and Smedley come up with! This means PS2 will have a ton of players guaranteed, and no other game needs that as badly as Planetside games do.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 11:46 AM

        Yeah, the 3 way stalemate fights got old fast once the population went away.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 2:52 PM

        Yeah, I wasn't going to play the game if there was a monthly fee but I'll give it a shot now.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 12:21 PM

      Oh all the F2P models to be inspired by, why LoL...

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:36 PM

        You make it sound as if there weren't F2P games before LoL...

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 2:49 PM

        Sofar the only F2P models I've been exposed to are convenience based or pay to win, and with LoL being a successful convenience based system would you rather a pay to win model for Planetside?

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 12:37 PM

      I would rather pay $50 for a game then have it riddled with advertisements, transaction pitfalls, microtransactions, and having the overall scope of the game further hindered by trying to skim another buck off the surface.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:39 PM

        and then you want to pay $15/mo right?

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 5:35 PM

          That depends on if it has constant content updates and not one every 9 months or so... TF2 had more content updates then most MMOs before they went f2p.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 12:47 PM

      MERCFOX1's REDDIT AMA INFO "DUMP OF DOOM" ITT:

      A bunch of this information has been out for a while, but some extra details were posted from Higby, Creative Director on PS2.

      - Spawn on squadmember will not work indoors and is not intented to be the primary way to spawn. (HOLLLLLY SHIIITTTTT \m/!!!!)
      - Higby is a huge fan of the original certification process, so they're staying as true to that as possible.
      - Day and night cycles are IN
      - Locational damage is IN
      - Weather system (with gameplay affecting details) is IN
      - Many vehicles from PS1 made the port over
      - BR20 is "current max, not final max"
      - Cross-empire chat is not currently restricted (awesome, I can't wait for the hate tells YESSSSSS)
      - Customizable MAXes
      - Not a current plan for recertification (I spent a minute thinking about this, and if you train up certs over time, this may not be an issue) (Later comments confirm that this won't be an issue)
      - "no bfrs"
      - "suck it, barney"
      - Higby really likes boats and sea combat (SUCK IT, BF3) (Probably won't be launch though)
      - Classes will be recognizable (shoot for the medic!)
      - You may be able to heal yourself without a discrete medic (through medkits), but they're still working on it
      - SIMULATED BALLISTICS!!!!!
      - XP system is largely the same, with an Assist system to alleviate KS issues
      - You do NOT need leadership skills to head an outfit (lol Outfit leader quits, everything crashes)
      - NO PLANS FOR PRONE!!!!! (PS1 didn't have prone so no big deal here)

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:56 PM

        AMA request: MercFox1 (xpost from /chatty) self.chatty

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 9:49 PM

          what a karma whore, seriously

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 10:04 PM

            omg you haven't been eaten by the indigenous lifeforms!

            • reply
              September 13, 2011 6:15 AM

              no, although a newborn baby does take up a surprising amount of one's time

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 12:59 PM

        This is awesome, thanks

        Free 2 play means more cannon fodder to be vaporized with an orbital strike, imo

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 1:02 PM

        I don't understand that comment about the original cert process.

        Isn't this one a tree-based skill system similar to other RPG's, and uses an offline clock to determine how and when you can advance like EvE online? Doesn't sound similar to the original cert process at all.

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 1:12 PM

          I think I just read something where, based on your Battle Rank, you can pick from a number of the "trained certs" to slot which will affect you. Higher BR means you can slot more certs, but if you can't slot certs you haven't trained.

          Higby quote: Battlerank is character based, unless you never actually participate in combat you'll be BR 20 (our current max, not necessarily our final max) long, long before you max out a skill tree. Once you're BR 20 the entire skill tree will be open to you.

          Not sure what this entirely means, since the last two sentences seem like they're diametrically opposed, but my description is my understanding, so far.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 3:01 PM

        I dont like the sound of locational damage. With 2k people on a map half of them will be snipers.

        That and I doubt the netcode will allow the headshot hit detection to be terribly accurate. Look at how dodgy it can be in CS or TF2 with much smaller numbers of players.

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 3:04 PM

          Locational damage was in Planetside 1 and they never had that problem...

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 5:07 PM

            Granted I haven't played the game in a long time, and maybe it was only added for some of the post-launch additions, but I'm pretty sure that things in Planetside had only one hitbox.

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 6:00 PM

            Your mistaken. The only locational damage they had was for the BFRs shield generator. Headshots on soldiers did nothing extra.

            • reply
              September 12, 2011 9:43 PM

              I'm like 99% sure there were different damage values for headshots at some point, but I may be mistaken or remembering something from Beta (jesus christ was that really 8 years ago?)

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 6:08 PM

            I don't believe original PS had any locational damage.

          • reply
            September 12, 2011 6:11 PM

            What? No it wasn't unless they added it in the last year or so.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 5:19 PM

        No recerting? Goddamnit.

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 10:00 PM

          Ahhhhh, I'm not too worried about that one. If they end up implementing the "slotting" mechanic, it just sounds like you pick certs from a tree of researched skills. If you haven't research a specific skill, you can't certify it.

          It sounds interesting, and Higby pretty much knows what he's doing.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 6:15 PM

        Can someone translate this list for us who never played the first one?

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 6:27 PM

        btw, the weather system in the current PS is actually pretty badass for how old it is.

        Besides the kickass snow storms in the beta, I was playing about 2 months ago, and there was a thunderstorm on Cyssor near the tech plant Faro we were fighting over - and a huge lighting strike bolted across the sky which made my whole screen flash white and go blind for a split second.

        I was actually pretty surprised and taken back by it, because they must have put it in after I stopped playing originally. I'll be excited to see what they do with the new engine.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 9:34 PM

        This sounds AWESOME! valcan_s horns approved! \m/

        I really hope they go all out on the environmental aspects to really make you feel like you're on an alien world. I'm really happy to hear about the day and night cycles, weather effects, etc. Those things make me so happy, since it was the little touches that really made PS1 so immersive for its time. They need to differentiate themselves from BF3 and MW3 as much as possible, and that's an excellent area to begin.

        Not so hot on no recertification, although I assume it will be a Pay-for feature...

      • reply
        September 13, 2011 4:18 AM

        Are there head shots?

        • reply
          September 13, 2011 5:25 AM

          Yes, headshots are in. From what I read, they are using different damage multipliers based on weapon and class.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 12:50 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 4:29 PM

        Haha. Think how that would affect gameplay.

        • reply
          September 12, 2011 10:13 PM

          Achievement Unlocked: Desperately chuck your empty pistol at the onrushing enemy.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 2:40 PM

      MY PURPLE RIFLE IS THE MOST ACCURATE BUT HAS THE HIGHEST DAMAGER FALLOFF AT RANGE!!! fuck planetside. Sure hope the sequel is better.

      • reply
        September 12, 2011 6:12 PM

        I always loved how all of this super advanced weaponry couldn't even shoot as far as a medieval longbow.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 4:26 PM

      I think the anger from some MMO players about F2P is sometimes pretty overblown. Asia has been doing it for years without any major problems. As long as the micro-transactions don't amount to more than what one would pay for a traditional MMO over the course of their time with the game (and doesn't unbalance it) it shouldn't be a problem for most. Actually, it seems you can get the ability to tailor some of the content to your likes/dislikes if anything.

      does that make sense or am I delusional?

      • reply
        September 13, 2011 2:37 AM

        How many f2p games from asia do you know about and are played regularly here in the US?

        Free doesn't make it better.

    • reply
      September 12, 2011 6:20 PM

      I'm totally okay with this model.

    • reply
      September 13, 2011 4:50 AM

      F2P usually means "spend money to win". No thanks.

      • reply
        September 13, 2011 5:33 AM

        Not the LoL style of F2P.

        • reply
          September 13, 2011 10:34 AM

          Only F2P game I enjoyed so far. Any game with a battlefield heroes model will make me stay as far away as possible.

      • reply
        September 13, 2011 6:43 AM

        Quakelive just makes you suffer through ads. I think they said that it wasn't really working buisness wise though.

Hello, Meet Lola