Planetside: SOE's Forgotten MMO?

Back in 2003, SOE made one of the best MMOFPS games in the industry. These days, however, Planetside will only be remembered as the MMO that SOE forgot.

Ever since I reviewed my first FPS (First Person Shooter) MMORPG, I've held the fairly pessimistic view that it will be very tough, if not impossible, for someone to come out with a good MMOFPS. You see, I've always had the qualm that most MMOs that try to incorporate the FPS element end up creating Counter-Strike with persistent cosmetic items and persistent weaponry; I've always felt that this was a cheap way of stirring the genres without actually mixing them. In fact, it was this disgruntlement with MMOFPSs in general that finally led me to follow the many suggestions that pointed to one of the first (and only?) 'true' MMOFPSs in the market: Sony Online Entertainment's Planetside. Interestingly, while Planetside is probably one of the best FPSMMORPGs I've played to date, it's also very sad to see that it's one of the most abandoned MMOs I've seen in quite some time.


Planetside was published and released by SOE in May, 2003, which effectively makes it a little over six years old. What's surprising about its age, however, is the fact that most development for Planetside seems to have taken place within the first two years of its inception, and from then on, most updates have been in the form of community events rather than game expansions. I checked up on the official Planetside website, and under 'Future Plans,' they have a letter from the Producer, dated 2005. That 2005 date appears to be the latest date for anything, as they have nothing under game updates (they literally have no archive) and they have "Revamped Galactic Lattice" as the only concept 'in development,' but all of the forum links to discuss this concept lead to dead links. As I noticed all of these things while installing the via Sony's Station Launcher, you can imagine that these signs did not bode well for the health of the game.

Before I go any further on this, I'd really like to reiterate the fact that I enjoyed this game. Gameplay wise, Planetside is actually fun, despite being old. Combat in Planetside reminds me a lot of an older version of Battlefield 2142, with players given the opportunity to fight on foot with a ton of different weapons, or enter the battlefield on wings and wheels, as there are a massive number of vehicles in this game, each with a unique role to play in any fight.

The persistent aspect of Planetside comes from the fact that there are three factions constantly fighting over huge territories, and by getting kills and leading successful base invasions, players can level up in Battle Rank and Command Rank. Battle Rank allows you to get 'certifications' which is basically a fancy term for unlocking specific weapons and armour. Command Rank is different, as players who go up in Command Rank can eventually gain some awesome abilities that allow them to 'command' other troops by calling in Air Strikes, monitoring enemy troop movements and globally broadcasting to everyone in their faction. As well, because Planetside is entirely focused on Player versus Player conflict, the game has a great amount of depth behind the simple motive of "blow things up and take stuff over."

If I were to have any qualms about the game itself, it would probably have to be the fact that it's old and it's definitely showing it. There are games that seem to be getting much better with time (Final Fantasy XI is a great example), but Planetside feels, and plays, like an ancient FPS - even Counter-Strike feels much more responsive than this game! The chat system is also cumbersome and really gets in the way of playing, despite the fact that communication is important when it comes to coordinating defence and offence. On the plus side, however, kills were quite satisfying to get, and there is a great deal of accessibility when it comes to getting right to the action - although I'll admit that I died a great deal, so I was walking and respawning quite a bit.

As the old adage goes, however, all good things come to an end, and Planetside managed to exemplify this proverb perfectly when my 'good things' came to an end every 30 to 45 minutes or so. After these perfectly timed sessions were up, my game decided to crash to my desktop and crash every time I tried to log back in, unless I waited at least an hour before I logged back in. I actually feel quite bad when I criticize a game as old as this, but, in reality, there are parts of the game that I excuse for being old (the chat system feels really old), but then there are parts of the game that are downright inexcusable.

For example, it actually took me a full morning and late afternoon to play this game, as it is virtually incompatible with Windows Vista and SOE's all-in-one Launcher. Yes, you heard me, Planetside is still incompatible with an OS that has been released for two years and it doesn't work on SOE's official launcher that has been around for almost a year and a half. In order to get this game working for myself, I had to, literally, dig through five pages of Vista-related tech support problems, re-download the old standalone launcher for Planetside, and then tinker with the compatibility settings on the shortcuts. I did all of this just so I could start the game. To this day I still experience frequent crashes every half hour, and I have to hop off for an hour or so before it will let me play without crashing. From my cursory examination of the dates indicated from Vista-related tech support, it seems as though these problems have been around for at least half a year to a year without any official fixes.

All in all, Planetside had a lot of potential to be a great demonstration of what a real MMOFPS could have been capable of. I'm making very sure to say 'had' here instead of 'has,' because it is clear that this is a game that SOE has forgotten entirely. I find it troublesome that there continues to be a $13 USD subscription fee, yet even its very loyal fan base (and having such a fan base is a testament to the fun of this game) is the first to note that "while EQ's ten year gets a huge blow out celebration; PlanetSide's six years was all but ignored," and when talking about SOE's Fan Faire, "even Matrix Online (which is officially scheduled to be terminated July 31, 2009) has a scheduled item for Fan Faire.  But, Planetside does not." I think that it's time Planetside's fans got some attention from their absentee landlords - this game ought to go Free-To-Play, or perhaps give the option of purchasing a lifetime subscription for a small fee or, dare I say, maybe come under the development scope once more? Or maybe I'll just wait for Huxley Online, or SOE's latest MMOFPS, "The Agency," to see if anyone's learned from the abandoned game that is Planetside.

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
ZAM.com

Comments

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Could still be great
# Feb 26 2010 at 2:28 PM Rating: Decent
This is the only game I felt okay with the 15$ a month charge. Of course this is the game that has treated it players worse than any other I have been a part of and I have played most of them.
SOE and Planetside
# Jul 20 2009 at 6:11 PM Rating: Decent
I have played Planetside for a while and always tend to come back to it because it is one of the best MMOFPS games that I know of. While the currently in development game Global Agenda does look good and should be good for us that like MMOFPS games I do feel that SOE has screwed this game up as well. I started with SWG and that turned into a joke with their CU (Combat Upgrade) and NGE (New Game Enhancements).

When these happened to SWG, we all looked for faith that SOE was somehow doing the right thing by taking a chance at plentside. The game has it's finer points, BFR's, MAX suits, and a level system that helps you set your character into a specialized role with specialized weapons and vehicles to use. The Command system for the game is a bit harder then the level system but you gained a few special things from working hard at it. I used to play on the Markov server as a New Conglomerate (NC) soldier with the 666th Devil Dogs Regiment. The best part was getting the squad together and storming the basses and hearing enemies run from a whole squadron of NC coming after them. The Air combat along with the tactics needed to take a base made for great game play. I went to SOE fan fest 2008 as a SWG fan and heard nothing regarding planetside for it's 5th anniversary.

This game deserved more, it had the potential to be great if improvements were made other then merging the servers and eventually giving us a Galaxy Gunship & Phantom Cloaking ship for the Stealth fans. More worlds should of been introduced, harder objectives other then the caverns, more weapons, vehicles and roles we could play. This is the tragedy of a game being placed in SOE hands. Games fall by the wayside, too little improvements, too late. They milk the cash flow till the game is too expensive to maintain.

Give the game to Bioware, Cryptic, NCSoft it doesn't really matter who gets it. They can do a whole lot better with it then SOE is, and we may even a graphics upgrade or actual improvements to the game. The gamers deserve it after they way it's been handled and ignored.

Raysan Tulanar
ACTgamers / MMOAlliance
This game is the empitomy of persistent
# Jul 20 2009 at 9:18 AM Rating: Decent
There to date (haven't played Battlefield 2142) if this dated game can have seriously persistent three way epic battles going on? Why can't anyone do it like they did. The biggest difference is you can start a battle with a group of 10 or 20 or 30 coordinated effort.. run out of play time go to work do an eight hour shift come home and they are STILL trying to take the base over. That's persistent. No timed instance 16 vs 16 or 32 vs 32.. at worst when planets locked and you could not get it it was at least 40 vs 40 vs 40. rolling vehicles turrets. etc. I am seriously disappointing no ones done it better. So you can frag in halo, beast in team fortress, but can you hold a base for 15 (real!) minutes. The enemy and your friend and the special part of planetside was for real persistence the same feeling when you got up from your keyboard from any great mmo you wander what your buddies where getting into and had they won or lost. It made/makes your squirm to get back to your machine to ensure your faction is victorious... and the numerous deaths only make victory that much more sweet... when you win. the coordination of an armor column or wing of mosquitos, reavers, and what have you. best... feeling.. ever... so sad it has not been done in an updated engine. with even slightly update graphics with more responsiveness. Pwyff thanks for throwing this out there. SOE has let this gem sit stagnant. I too am anxious to see what the Agency or Huxley have in store. however, Huxley's website seems to talk or instances so we'll see how close they get to persistent. In other news.. if you know Chinese.. they have a planetside type game thingy.. http://welkin4591.com/.
The demise of PS lays at the feet of SOE
# Jul 18 2009 at 2:11 PM Rating: Good
Planetside was the spiritual and somewhat logical evolution of Starsiege: Tribes and at its peak was the single best FPS on the planet. There was no other place where you could have 200+ players involved in a 3 way faction battle that would last for hours. Then just like Star Wars Online SOE stepped in and completely pissed of the core player base with things ranging from a continuing lack of development and just plain stupid design choices (we really don't want to talk about what they did to each faction's heavies). The expansion was ill conceived and changes to the game such as the introduction of the Mech's to the game where just no well thought out.

It really sadden me to watch my thriving guild of over 200 players dwindle down to less then 20 active members. Most of the guild moved on to Eve Online or WoW. There rest really is history. Because of the experience of playing Planetside most other online FPS leave me cold. There just isn't the same visceral experience, just the lack of scale and scope of playing environment out there can't compare. Trying to go back to a 16 vs 16 or even 32 vs 32 just seems boring.

To this day nothing has replaced the sheer joy of flying deep into enemy held territory in a transport and dropping a group of elite airborne special ops troops for the sole purpose of driving the enemy nuts and forcing them to pull resources from the main battle to deal with them....

I hope that someone will come along and recreate and expand on what Plantside was. I hold out a slim hope that Huxley will be that game, but I will not be shocked if it falls short.

Edited, Jul 18th 2009 6:13pm by OLeatherneck

Edited, Jul 18th 2009 6:14pm by OLeatherneck
thoughts
# Jul 17 2009 at 7:15 PM Rating: Decent
I'm seriously -not- an FPS game junkie. I mean hell yeah I played Doom to death back in the day, but not tons else.

I considered playing Planetside after dropping EQ1 (and before WoW), but frankly, when the Planetside audience was largely abandoning the game, at the time, like rats from a sinking ship... it just simply didnt seem the right time to hop on board.

Everything about the design of the game still appeals to me though. SOE just sucks for follow up.
Is it jus me?
# Jul 17 2009 at 6:11 PM Rating: Decent
Or is SOE the pillar of crap when it comes to mmo's? I mean really the only game worth playing by them is EQ2... and maybe EQ1. The rest of there games are complete ****, have been abandoned by the developers, and well there is more probably. I dont think i'd play anything new by them Chris.. It'd be too much of a risk!
Is it jus me?
# Jul 17 2009 at 6:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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93 posts
I dunno, there's 4 million people playing Free Realms. I think it had one of the fastest player growths in MMO history, didn't it? Granted, most of them are not premium subscribers. But I dunno, I have friends who liked Star Wars Galaxies, even though that MMO is like a running joke.

I never tried out Planetside, but Pwyff's editorial actually makes me want to give it a try, now (just from the way he described it in the beginning).
Is it jus me?
# Jul 21 2009 at 4:25 PM Rating: Decent
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1,553 posts
I have tried to run Planetside, but I am on Vista, now, and cannt get it to run. it crashes just as the 3D engine initializes, every time. Maybe I will try again after I upgrade to Windows 7.
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Is it jus me?
# Jul 22 2009 at 1:47 AM Rating: Excellent
You're going to have excessive problems if you're trying to run the game with Vista. Took Tamat and I at least half a day to get it up and running, and then we crashed 15 minutes later.
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