Planetsides 2.

[Vy'drach]

I'm sure many of you have heard of Planetside, it's the first MMOFPS game out there, and was unchallenged for what it offers. Complete and total planetary battles. Planetside 1 had a unit cap of 999 per continent, 333 per faction. The three main factions are:

The Terran Republic (TR), a conservative, authoritarian, collectivist nation who strive to regain contact with the homeworld and reunite the warring factions. Their leadership is a public oligarchy known as the Overwatch, composed of various representative officials and their associated Ministries, who regulate allotted portions of society in accordance with their own expertise and the collective will towards favourable outcomes. They believe that authority is the bastion that protects humanity and that in a truly free society, with no big brother to guide and watch over citizens, misery and suffering would quickly be visited to all. Furthermore, they regard the Vanu technology as dangerous and disruptive, a chaotic force threatening the stability of their righteous order, and only begrudgingly do they utilise it in warfare. Their vision of the future is one of peace restored through their benevolent rule, and humanity reunited by the reopening of the wormhole. They stand by the view that the Vanu went extinct by meddling with power on the orders of magnitude which was to be found in their artifacts and technologies, and they fear groups such as the Sovereignty will drive humanity to a similar fate, causing as much damage to reality as possible along the way. Their ordinance is characterised by its high rate of fire and correspondingly great ammunition consumption.

The New Conglomerate (NC), a separatist faction determined to remain free of the controlling and domineering Republic, as well as to liberate the rest of humanity from the Republic, whether or not they share the Conglomerate's theories. Unlike the authoritarian and technocratic TR and VS governments, the NC are fighting for democracy, freedom, and human rights. As a rebel group, their leadership lies with the Revolutionary Command, a visible co-operative of military experts and leaders who direct the liberation efforts as a whole. They feel that any form of control is oppression and that a miserable free man is better off than a contented slave. Consequently, they view the Vanu technology as a potential tool of control, and the Vanu Sovereignty as technocratic tyrants, would-be dictators like the Republic, only under the banner of science and probably much worse. Their view of the future is one of freedom and self-government, where every man elects his own path and flourishes in what ways he sees fit. They rely on ponderous vehicles and slow-firing heavy weaponry, foregoing mobility and tactical flexibility for heavy armour and superior firepower. As their name suggests, the New Conglomerate is a diverse collection of forces that have banded-together (but have little trust of one another): ordinary citizens drawn into the conflict, various rebel groups that were previously autonomous, expatriate Terran and Vanu soldiers, and the Expeditionary Force (“XForceâ€) of the Royal House of Auraxis (the rightful heirs to the Vanu throne, forced into exile, the sole possessors of a working wormhole). The NC's democratic philosophy is often their achilles heel militarily, as they lack the iron-fisted leadership structure of the TR and VS. From the New Conglomerate's point of view, however, theirs is the only moral and just cause.

The Vanu Sovereignty (VS), a loose transhumanist cult of academics, intellectuals, and technology worshippers who believe that human destiny lies in the further development and exploitation of the alien technology. Their leadership is the clandestine Sovereignty Council, the composition of which is unknown without itself and the existence of which is obscured to those outside the Sovereignty. They see the Republic as pedantic and outmoded, a used-up idea and restriction on the continuing ascendancy of the species through the synthesis of man and machine. They also see the New Conglomerate as a savage, ochlocratic band of thugs who have repackaged old mistakes in new dressings and are desperately afraid of new concepts which they cannot grasp, and the future these promise to the far-sighted. Their view of the future is one of scientific perfection and purity: they believe that the Vanu used the power of their advanced technologies to transcend their physical limitations and the mundane world, ascending to a superior state of being, and ultimately, a higher plane of existence. Scientists and intellectuals through-and-through, they see this path as an enlightened ascension and hold the Ancients up as a shining example for mankind to follow. Hopefully and eagerly they envision humanity imitating this metamorphosis, firstly through the enhancement of the human condition via "hypertech" (foreseeable technological breakthroughs which have not yet quite arrived), and eventually, by the replacement of human beings altogether; from there, not even they can imagine yet. They are most reliant on alien science and technology, and often more than compensate for their shortcomings through the superiority of their engineering, utilising mind-bending physics, high-energy arrays, and other exotic weaponry to defend themselves.

Each faction had mostly exclusive weapons (though you could loot the enemy, take their weapons and ammo, and store them for later use in lockers. I was a Vanu with six New Conglomerate miniguns in the locker). For overall ease of use, the Vanu were the best due to their weapons being able to switch from anti-personnel to anti-armour without actually using a different ammo type, just a different firing mode. Plus their Lasher rifle was insanely overpowered at room clearing. Can't remember anything good about the Terran Republic, but the New Conglomerate had that insane minigun that was also a room clearer.

You could select different armours that had different inventory capacities and features. The lightest was the stealth suit that could only carry the knife and a pistol (or hack tool), but rendered you almost invisible, and you could even slip past sensors provided you stayed low and slow. On the other side, was a heavy assault suit that was larger than the others, but allowed for two primaries, plenty of ammo, I believe two secondaries (maybe just one), and the knife. Believe it had the most health but was a slow, cumbersome suit.

Anyway, Planetside 2 is more of a polish of Planetside 1, with some addition features and tweaks, like some bug fixes that went unaddressed in PS1, bases will be more important to take, and they're upping the unit cap to 999 per faction. Also, the game is being developed to be run on systems seven or so years old, so if you don't have a $3,000 gaming rig, don't worry about it.

Oh, and it will be entirely free-to-play, with paid parts working like League of Legends. I reckon that means impatient people can just buy things from the store, while you can play the game and earn currency in-game to buy the same item, but with a longer wait.

For those interested, beta sign-ups going right now.

http://www.planetside2.com/

[sniper]

Dude thanks for posting this. I saw this a while back, but forgot about it. Now that you've reminded me, I am definitely going to try it! it looks like a really solid game.

[Fureox]

Signed up, now just have to wait and see if i get in.

[Ala1n-J]

Woot! I've heard of the first Planetside but never played it. I'm more than eager to play it, though I'll wait a little after its launch waiting for comments and critiques.

I think I would be a Conglomerate or a Vanu, depending on what the gameplay will offer for these.

[Vy'drach]

The April issue of PCGamer will have a beta key for Planetside 2.

Plus here's a good bit of info on how the game will go:

http://www.pcgamer.c...de-2-war-story/