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If they could fix the silly Vista issues PlanetSide ( http://www.planetside.com/ )would be a great game to go on Steam. UT3 just lacks something for me, UT2004 I still play.

one could even design an MMO where characters increase in versatility, rather than power level, after hitting the level cap, thus making the game become more complex and interesting over time, but still balanced for relative noobs.

The game you're looking for is called Planetside. A newbie with the basic assault rifle can, with care, kill a level 20 character. Leveling past level 6 or so is just a way to add more versatility to your character, but with just doing the tutorial and hitting level 4 you can wear medium armor and have an assault rifle, or wear MAX armor and stomp around the battlefield.

Theres a cool MMOFPS out there (albeit 5 years old now) called Planetside, developed I believe originally by Verant who were then bought by Sony Online Entertainment. You have three empires (teams) and the main objective is to attack, and capture, bases. Each base's "state" can be seen by every player logged onto the server as the same (however, to see if there is a fight there or not, you need to look for "hotspots" which only show up if you are on the continent that said base is on). The world itself is persistent, as are the bases, and towers. Every player created object is not however; if you leave deployables alone for an hour they will deconstruct; if you get a vehicle, and leave it, say to get into another vehicle or leave the continent, it deconstructs after 15 minutes. It does this to save on lag; each team can have 133 players, and, if desired, all three teams can fight over one base (happens fairly frequently). You get massive-ass battles, and even though the graphics are a bit outdated, the sheer number of objects that can be present in one of these massive battles brings even the most modern gaming systems to its knees, even with a five year old game. That said, plenty of people play it just fine; you just need primarily to ensure that you have lots of RAM and a fast processor (graphics cards hardly make a dent in the framerate). If players leave a base alone, it will remain in its state until the end of time. One of the servers, "Werner", is so barren that some bases on there have been as they are for weeks. The main server though, no continent can go more than a few days before being untouched (sounds bad, but once you play it you understand why; under the fastest conditions, a continent can take an hour or so to take; if there is any resistance, it could take all day, or several days). I recommened anyone with an interest in fps games or MMOs to at least give it a try; I believe there is a 10 day trial going if you download the launchpad for it. No, I don't work for them, I'm just an avid fan who would like to see the game have much more population. http://www.planetside.com/

Gotcher twicthy MMOFPS right here ..... http://www.planetside.com/.....

You've just described Planetside.

What I almost like better is the Zelda model. If I hit something with my sword, it gets hurt a predictable amount - the same, every time. If I hit it with a different weapon, it gets hurt a different amount. Different critters respond differently to different weapons... There is no "chance" associated with that - no numbers. The problem is, that devolves to a "twitch" style game - very, very hard to pull off in an MMO. =(

I would like to point out a game called Planetside which effectively does what you describe. It is a twitch style game, it's an MMO, and there is no chance involved at all. The rules are all pre-determined. You aim counts.

If you would like to try it for free for a few days, you can use their 7 day trial, and in February they are going to start a program where you can play for one year for free up to a certain rank. Lower rank doesn't make you less lethal though.

PlanetSide anyone?

Look, there are some real gems of games out there, but you have to look past the top 20 shelf in the game store.

Here's one I've been hooked on for about 6 months now, with no sign of getting bored with it: Planetside. Someone on Planetside Stratics claims it's "all games". I don't know why Sony doesn't advertise the heck out of it, because it would advertise very well, and it's terribly addictive, and fun the whole time. If you start doing something that's not fun, it's very easy to completely redesign your character, so you're not stuck.

There are other games out there that are innovative, but I don't think you're going to see those at the front of the store. I remember playing a game a few years ago called Battle Cruiser 3000. That was VERY innovative. It does happen.

I played the SWG:JTL (Jump To Lightspeed) 10 day demo, and frankly, didn't even make 10 day's. I tried the JTL bit, and it was amusing for an evening. I tried the walk around the planet bit, and couldn't believe what I saw.

SWG is nothing more than 3D bolt-on to the old text muds, with some StarWars make-up on. You go off to fight the mob's and it's a simple turn based combat thing where you just select what move you want to do. Why couldn't they make it more like an FPS ? Walk out and shoot the Gorgs, or the Womprats or the whatevers like any FPS .

The combat in Planetside http://www.planetside.com/Has exactly this type of combat. Yes, it has it's faults but's I'd really like to see this kind of game married to an economy and roleplaying experience like the starwars universe.

If no-one else does it, one day I'll get fed up with waiting and do it myself.

Theres Planetside(more FPS than RPG) and Neocron(More RPG than FPS) that I've seen.

And Twilight War is on the horizon.

Sony's Planetside massively multiplayer online first-person shooter gets giant robots (aka: BFRs - Battle Frame Robotics) on Monday the 18th!

The content has already been pushed down to users (you can try them out in the VR "training" area), we're just waiting for them to flip the switch on Monday - and they go live.

Not a SOE employee, just a fan of the game..

I frequently play PlanetSide, a MMOFPS (Massively Multiplayer On-line First Person Shooter), quite possibly still the only of its kind.

When the game loads, there's an nVidia commercial.

While in transit between continents, there's a small blurb saying "Runs great on Pentium 4".

This is already here, folks. And you know what? As long as it doesn't interfere with the game itself, I'm all for it. (OTOH, if it comes to the point of TV-style interrupting commercials, then somebody deserves a big fat punch in the face.)

Since I am no longer a student, I've found that shorter games like Max Payne 2 have been ideal for me because I can actually finish them, then get on with other things like PlanetSide.

I have a massive stack of games that I've never got round to finishing due to either getting a bit bored half way through or something else coming along, e.g.

• Half-Life
• Deus Ex
• Baldur's Gate 2
• Planescape: Torment

All of the above are great games, and I want to finish them, but I have a feeling I may never get round to it for some of them... :(

games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles

I just came out of PlanetSide. This baby gives me about 60fps on my 19-inch monitor, with full keyboard controls, a force-feedback joystick, 5.1 surround sound of thunderous explosions, and frantic squad radio chatter in my headset.

When I look at my phone, I don't think I'll be holding my breath for it to catch up with that experience.

It's bascially capture the flag but also has player classes (Support, Engineer, Sniper, Heavy Weapons, etc) to encorage co-operative team play. The player classes were the most significant element IMO. There were also other level varients with things like multiple points to hold, as in BF1942 or BFVietnam.

More info on TFC

It was somewhat 'superceeded' (not exactly, but in the eyes of many players) by the likes of Tribes (to which many TFC players jumped). I mention this as in many ways, the closest thing to a modern version of TFC these days is SOE's PlanetSide, whos lead developer worked on Tribes 2, and indeed a lot of ex TFC players play PS.

Planetside is the massively multiplayer 1st person shooter from Sony. I've stopped playing it now, but I played for about 6 months when it first came out. There are a number of people who play with their significant others - and it's ideal to do so because of the cooperative team based nature of the game.

There are many 2+ person vehicles - bombers and tanks in particular always benefit from having a pair that works closely together. Covering each other's backs on the battlefield is also really fun, and if you progress through the ranks together that should make for a great gaming experience since you don't have to worry about relying on other players.

It works with TeamSpeak, etc, but also has a built in voice comms (create a squad and you can talk to each other). The drawbacks are steep hardware requirements, a monthly fee - that it's a complex game to get into - and that the server population will probably implode when Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 come out.

Not true.

It was billed as a huge multiplayer battle zone, with seemless boundries of rolling terrain, with ground and air vehicles. The world even had natural wildlife in it, and even 4 years ago you could see the great vehicle handling and game physics in action. This bold focus was the attraction.

All that was canned and the game redesigned to fit the X-Box and focused to a single player game.

In a word, the game they were going to deliver was PlanetSide, which is what I do with a lot of my spare time.

(We've actually had discussions about this in #planetside on Quakenet. )

I personally have found PlanetSide to be quite enjoyable. Mixes FPS w/ RPG. Only downside is that its a Windows only game (for now). Anyone had any luck getting it to run under WINE?

The first online game I played was Doom (with a hack called, I think, Doomgate). It was amazing to us at the time. Can you imagine - playing online with people in other countries!

It was a special experience, and those that played treated it with respect. Some of the first custom maps people made for Doom online play had built-in "typing rooms". If you wanted to talk to your opponents, you popped in there. The walls had a custom texture that said something like "TYPING ROOM - NO KILL ZONE", and it was considered cheating if you hurt anyone in there.

I picture the first propeller-driven biplane aircraft pilots waving at each other in a gentlemanly fashion - when they only dropped bombs on enemy troops, before they strapped a machinegun on the front and started shooting at each other.

For me, online play has gone horribly wrong since then. The floodgates opened, the masses want a jet-fighter with guided nuclear missiles to smash into the bleeding skulls of their enemies. Death-In-A-Box, internet play assumed. Sign Up And Kill Shit. If you're not typing to taunt, go play on IRC. I hate it. I can't play Quake3, Unreal Tournament or Battlefield 1942 online anymore.

Planetside is the closest yet in getting back to that early sensation of getting to know the people I was playing with. Unfortunately it's also a complete failure due to the masses of bugs, faction inbalance (should have 2 sides, not 3), broken rewards system (there's no incentive to defend). There's also a tremendous difficulty in finding other players due to Star Wars Galaxies sucking out the population (and I'm not following them because I prefer my games to not be turn-based, thanks).

Here's hoping that someone at id Software has played Planetside, finds inspiration, can see the problems - and decides they want to blow them out of the water.

Planetside has this built in, and its rather good. Its only for the squad youre in, and everyone around cant hear you, but it works very well.

Im in an Outfit (think Guild, but with guns) which has our own TeamSpeak server, and the ability to call for backup or repair, or call down some Death From Above(TM) is great.

If you, like me have been waiting for SWG for a very long time and have been dissapointed by their release status, I suggest you come take a look at Planetside

I'll play SWG next summer when they've had a chance to fix things.

just because you don't like FPS games doesn't mean the rest of us don't too. Quake 2, Half-Life, Doom, Wolf3d, MOHAA (altho I didn't play much because I don't enjoy singleplayer games in general) are all excelent FPS games.

it's not about running around and shooting things: it's about creating an enviroment of the unexpected.

I just can't wait for planetside to come out - a fps mmorpg that requires skill, will be very exciting.