Slashdot Mirror
PlanetSide Community Takes Action to Market Game
Enilk Libb VII writes "Frustrated by Sony Online's lack of dedication to their game, the Planetside community has taken the initiative and started a 'Guerilla Marketing' campaign designed to attract new players to the game. Players know that Planetside is good - perhaps even a genre defining title - but that it often goes unnoticed in the gaming market, saturated as it is with FPS games. Forums dedicated to the discussion of computer games, it was decided, are the perfect places to advertise. A template was designed with links to a spectacular video of Planetside (made by a regular Planetside player), a 7-day free trial of the game itself, and a downloadable installer. A thread was started on the Planetside Forums and the players got to work. The effect of the campaign has been noticeable. Populations are growing noticeably. Due to the influx of new players, many veterans of the game have volunteered to be part of a team whose job will be to contact new players and 'buckle them in'." Now if they'd only lower the pricetag...
... maybe no one wants to play it because it isn't that good.
I played the game for awhile, and it doesn't take long to figure out having the achievements you made Monady Night wiped out while your at work make redoing the same thing on Tuesday Night not much fun.
Less Talk, More Beer.
In a market with no competition (save the Conquest mode in MechAssault 2 on the Xbox), why would they lower the price tag? They are the only MMOFPS afaik (Neocron and other shit notwithstanding). A 7 day trial is more than enough to decide whether you like it or not. Don't be a cheapskate.
Uninformed editorial comments hurt everyone, particularly the game in question.
schild
editor, f13.net
Supposing that this were some struggling large game by some large manufacturer, would we be yelling "astroturfing" instead of "innovative marketing"?
Just a thought...since "astroturfing" was the first thing that came to mind when I was reading the summary.
Planetside is, in it's heart, a good idea.
... and then there were the times I would spawn as a wall). SOE's customer service is probably the worst on the planet. (post all your log files, do all our work for you, wait days for any kind of response - I never got help from any at SOE except for getting a refund).
SOE sucked so badly at delivering it that it's just not a good game. It was horrifically buggy when it launched (my game would crash about 5 times in an hour before I would just stop at times
Then, when they start to stabilize it - they start to change the gameplay.
Basically, they had a decent idea, made a beta of it and boxed it. Now that players have fled the scenes in droves, SOE isn't willing to stick up a fight.
My suggestion - don't give SOE any more money on this drek. They don't deserve it. Yes, an MMOFPS could work. Go play some Battlefield until someone figures out how to make one.
I mean, just the concept of it seemed awesome: a futurisic, skill-based MMO with real-time wars!
In reality, the game falls flat. This is mainly because while the game is designed as a war sim, many (if not most) of the players play it like a MMO Quake deathmatch. People are absolutely obsessed with kill stats; rewards are based on kills, your status is based on kills. So while your side needs some (very limited, admittedly) logistics to win (such as driving AMSes, dropship pilots, medics, engineers, anti-aicraft), 9 out of 10 people are running around as infantry with the Heavy Assault weapons, reinforced exoskeletons, and personal shields, because it's the best setup for fragging (indoors; outdoors, most of them fly Reavers and spend all their time rocket-spamming infantry that can't really fight back).
Everything about the game just feels like it failed. There's no cooperation, no coordination, the devs don't even try to balance weapons (i.e. there's this weapon called the Maelstrom - a heavy assault weapon that fires a chain-lash grenade that can lash through doors - the end result is one weapon that renders all the special assault weapons obsolete, and allows one person to clear entire rooms and hallways of other people by firing through walls), there's no war being faught... it's just a giant frag-fast with a terrible engine and some of the worst, most frustrating net code I've ever seen.
So, thumbs up for Planetside's concept, but the devs took what could've been a truly unique and rewarding game, and stripped out all the unique and rewarding features so that they could compete with the likes of Quake. The game has the most arrogant, immature, and elitist community I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing, too.
Sure, there are outfits that are the exception: Glastonbury Brigade, Sturmgrenadier, and Warrior Nation (all outfits I've been a part of), but it's still hard for one outfit to make much headway in the face of a giant, swarming zerg of killwhores.
The best way I can convery the concept to anyone who hasn't played it is this:
Imagine you're playing a game of Tribes CTF. You've got 16 people on your team. 3 guys are genuinely trying to cooperate and get the other team's flag. 8 guys are completely ignoring the flag and are just trying to frag the other team, 1 idiot's running around TKing your guys and killing your own turrets, 2 more guys are arguing over a strategy to get the other flag, even though they're both, obviously barely-literate, mongoloid cock jockeys, the only guy with a vehicle is flying a bomber with no bombadier/gunner, and the last guy's AFK.
That's what Planetside feels like: a public CTF server. Except in Planetside, you have to pay a monthly fee.
Maybe some day they'll turn it around, but for the foreseeable future, I wouldn't recommend that game to anyone.
It's always nice to see someone stick up for the little guy!
Young aspiring companies like SOE need all the help they can get!
This game sucks not because of the lack of players, it sucks because the developers/community wanted an eq-fps. It does not appeal to the hard core fpser. If sony would have not taken such a noobie friendly stance and tweeked the major problems of the game early on they would be in a much better situation than they are in now. For example, have actual objectives instead of "capture the base, run away, recapture the base, run to next base, capture another base, recapture first base...". Instead they focused on the leveling aspect of the game instead of the actual gameplay.
Many fps vets, including myself, were turned off before the end of beta. The lack of a good aiming system and the lack of area damage was inexcusable. This plus the lack of any true obtanaible objective was the death warrant for this game. Planetside had its chance, and it believed that by just being a mmofps would be enough to intice all the gamers to play and stay. Sadly, that is not enough to take the vets away from their free multiplayer UT/Quake/HL and pay for musical base death match.
Is that video linked in the article supposed to make me want to play?
Sure, these points just reflect my tastes but:
1) Total lack of artistry in the game's artwork (the artwork looks like something a CAD student made, technical precision with no heart)
2) 100% PvP (sorry, no interest, I want the option of not doing PvP)
3) Oooh "shiny" disease seen everywhere
4) Everything looks so sterilised, yet another reason I despise futuristic games
Yes, flame me all you want. But, I think the above are glaring reasons why World of Warcraft has succeeded where others have failed.
So they start posting propaganda filled articles/stories on all the game sites they know, and register up on said places to do even more astroturfing.
Like others have said, it might not be that people don't know about PS, it just might be that they don't care about it at all. From the sounds of it Sony doesn't care about it, hasn't done much with it, and who wants to try it or invest their time in it if it seems like it is going to be caned? Plus from the reviews I have seen(i.e. noting from a fanboy or a fanboy game related homepage) most of them said it was ok, but noting that great or worth MY interest.
Plus I can't trust astrotufing fanboys trying to go out of their way to convince people that their game is as good as they say it is. Often they will not tell the truth, sprouting fanboyish praises or claims that could come from a PR release, and just ignore issues such as bugs and/or game play issues.
It maybe a great game, and the campaign seem to not to be a PR move backed by Sony(you can claim such, but companies doing astroturfing campaigns will just claimed not to be behind them), but I really don't care for the bullshit and PR fluff coming from the fans who have their own agenda(i.e. using us to make up for what Planetside lacks).
So I can't interest any of you in the free trial then? :)
+25,000 hits to my movie (the one in the link) over 10 days means people have been interested.
Player increases mean people didn't know about the 7 day trial as it's actually an EU offer from UbiSoft and a UK PCgames mag not a worldwide one.
Sorry if it put some of your nose's out of joint!
MarcoPolo.
Not an SOE employee.
Not even related to one.
Just somone who likes a game so much he want's to share the fun with others.
Some of you have valid criticisms for not liking the game itself.
- You would like to see your progress mean something
- You don't like the weapons or the art
But a lot of you really have only *heard* about the game, or played it early on and in limited amounts.
The primary reason *we* the players feel this game deserves attention now is that it is in a very good state of balance and is overall a great experience if you are looking for what PS has to offer. We all like big battles and many of them so we are all for getting new players to come join us.
The game itself is well done and provides battles that no other game can offer. The players who play it love it to death and I have personally trained 5 new players that will be subscribing this week.
The comments I read about the public CTF server are right on the money but they DO NOT describe a PS server. These people are serious about playing and working together to win territory and bases, even if it gets captured when they log out. The fun is in the process.
I'm happy this got slashdotted or whatever, I just hope people can see past the uninformed negativity of most of the comments.
If you had a negative experience early in PS, consider it once again for free and come kill me on Markov, I play TR as WuChild.
I really don't care if SOE backs our efforts or not, it's my $13 a month and I want more people to shoot.
I don't get those who are blindly loyal to SOE's crap. SWG, EQ/EQ2, and Planetside all suck. Yet there are these people that think they can fix it by sticking around and giving them time. I say cancel your acct. and you'll probably see it get fixed a lot faster. They're just milking you and going about their day to day.
Reality check: The more money you give them, the less they'll want to put into fixing it. If you're sticking around, why bother?
No sig for you!!
MEMO
TO: SOE
FROM: ME
I bought SWG.
I will not even bother giving this a go. Don't trust you, not willing to fund your enterprise.
Bite me, you wont chump me twice.
Bitter...moi??? Never.
PS: Glad to see EQ2 is doing so well.
I'm interested in what MMORTS you are playing. I didn't know there was one - and I should know. The only one that comes to mind is in development and it's Ballerium. Recently resuming it's development at years end. So what is this already released game you're paying $10 a month for?
schild
editor, f13.net
if they would work with transgaming to get planetside running on linux..
Yes, I know this is probably the most repetitive comment, especially in the games section, but I played planetside when I was using you know what, and it was a fun game, but I can't play it now so sony isn't getting my money.
You'd expect a company with a product that isn't doing so well to try something new and innovative, but of course they won't.
A lot of the posts here are critical of the graphics, weapons or art style. These are valid criticisms. The game is almost 2 years old, a monolithic age for a first-person shooter and the community is already putting together "wish lists" for a sequel on the forums.
But if you're an FPS fan, you should still try Planetside if you've never played it. Because there is a secret ingredient that makes Planetside very, very special - the scale. It's huge! No other non-mmo first person shooter - including Tribes - comes close. A great number of huge military bases (that are easy to get lost in), set out across a huge continent - with forests, lakes, ravines, bridges, mountain ranges and fields in between. Then have huge battles with 700 players fighting against each other. Nothing else can come close. There's a genuine rush when you're advancing on a base with columns of tanks, wings of aircraft flying overhead and squads of grunts rushing through the forest.
In a game like Tribes, when the enemy takes your base the game is over. In Planetside, the enemy may have won that battle - but the war continues. You can choose to retreat to a nearby friendly base and regroup, plan a counter-attack, try and infiltrate to resecure - or any of a hundred different options. Unlike a typical FPS where all-out to-the-death charges are often the most effective, strategic play (where to respawn, where to regroup, where and when to attack, and even how to harass the enemy [with snipers, bombers, etc]) is also extremely important.
An analogy: Regular FPS games are like playing chess where the first piece taken determines the winner (then you reset the board and start again). In Planetside, you get to play through the entire game. In fact, the only time you're forced off a map (sort of an "endgame" condition) is when the enemy has occupied all of your respawn points and "locked" the continent (which disables moving to that continent from orbit or the "instant action" button). But then you either move to another battle, or regroup and come in on the ground from an adjacent continent to take back a foothold and launch a new offensive (or even stealthily sneak about and try to recapture bases behind their backs if they leave them undefended).
After Planetside, I'm even having a hard time getting into Half-Life 2 - the linearity feels claustrophobic and I don't have much interest in fighting against computer controlled AI fodder.
A template was designed with links ... a 7-day free trial offered ... A thread was started on the Planetside Forums ...
And a slashdot story was submitted.
Don't all MMOGs die slowly a year or so after their release except for very rare games that are insanely popular? Only the speed at which it dies can be affected, perhaps, while increases in players just statistical noise, temporary deferrals of the inevitable. The only question is if the publisher knows that and adjusts expenditures accordingly to make a profit while not abandoning the game while there's still money to be made and repeat customers to piss off.
It also failed to be a first person shooter. The game play is a hybrid of third person and first person. Imagine Counterstrike where you can switch to third person and see around one or even two corners without moving and you'll get the idea.
And I'm a 33 yr old IT veteran gamer (been playing comp. games since I had a Sinclair ZX81).
If you've played this game a year or more ago and given up, get a trial key and give it a try. It has evolved and changed.
If you've not playing it at all, give it a try - its 7 days for free. And squad up with players - this game absolutely sucks big time if you play solo, but is much much better with a group. I'm in an outfit (Starwolf on werner server), and I have to say without them I'd have quit a year ago.
All that said, there is still room for improvement, and someone other than SOE could come in and steal 90% of the playerbase if they do it right. Having 3 producers over a 12 month period didn't help. I think "The Next Planetside" needs a definite "win" scenario , something that can be achieved by one side and resets the whole game.
I'd point out that most of the naysayers in this thread are those who post on the Planetside forums with bitterness and scorn. In a few cases, they are misleading summaries from people who want a game changed so their own playstyle becomes more potent.
Planetside is an experience that no MMOG or FPS fan can do without.
Rather then being a game about fancy graphics or reactive environments, Planetside is a FPS with tactics and teamplay that you can still easily play solo. The gameplay _itself_ is amazing, even if it looks slightly dated.
Rather then focusing on it's pros, I'll point out its 'cons'.
1) Planetside is pure PvP. To many people, this is a problem. But unlike most MMOGs, PvP is basically zero-loss. Equipment is easily replaced, respawn times are low, and you aren't penalized. Griefers are handled by an ingame mechanics, and fairly uncommon. PvP combat also has a _lot_ more to do with skill and planning then experience. All the PvP means is that every enemy is smart, every battle is a real contest, and defeat isn't shameful.
2) The game requires careful balancing. This is a big complaint. But when you see the varied content of the game (40ish infantry weapons/equipment, ATVs, light vehicles, strike aircraft, ground and air transport, tanks, mechs), you'll understand the obsession a little better.
3) Wins don't last forever. But would you want to play a game where every victory or defeat would be remembered forever? Sounds a little stressful.
If you have never tried the game, I _strongly_ advise you to give it a shot. I've been playing for over a year now, and I can't see quitting anytime soon.
MMOG does not go with FPS shooters. One word:
LAG
Sorry for the long winded post, but I'm having a slow day at work.
I played (I still have an active account and character "HellBat", but haven't logged it for over a month.) Planetside for one of the top outfits (Hostile Takeover) on the Markov server and the reasons all of the top players have left the game are related to the constant nerfing and dumbing down the game has received since they added the core combat expansion.
The first thing they did to cause a mass player exodus was to nerf the surge implant. The surge implant would basically double the players movement rate while using stamina at an increased rate. This allowed players who enjoy fast paced (doomish footspeeds) fps fragging action to really get in the kind of gameplay they like.
They still have the surge implant, but your weapon auto-holsters when you activate it and has a cool off time in which you are essentially helpless/weaponless for somewhere around 2.5 seconds after you deactivate it. The reason for the nerf was twofold.
First all the inexperienced FPS players who came over from the MMORPG world would get worked by uber FPS'ers with ungodly aim, resource (stamina, medkit, medtool, repair tool) management, and situation management skills. (ie Dreamer) These players would then hjop onto the message boards and complain loudly that the people killing them had an unfair advantage.
Second and most importantly of all, due to the games horrific prediction netcode, players who move at high speed in a vertical direction would warp around on other players screens. Since the hit detection is client side in Planetside it leads to the obvious exploit of people intentionally warping up/down stairways, maintaining their ability to hit/aim, while making it very difficult for people to hit them. Obviously something needed to be done about it, but basically instead of repairing the netcode (obviously a very difficult proposition) SOE took the nerf bat out and essentially killed the implants usefulness as a combat implement and turned it into a way to just cover territory. This caused all the people who enjoyed the speed fps games to lose their enjoyment of the game and therefore cancel their subscriptions.
The second thing and what seems like the final nail in Planetside's coffin is the addition of BFR's into the game. BFR stands for BattleFrame Robotics aka Mechs. They took a game mechanic that was about infantry capturing and holding bases and introduced an uber weapon into it that made infantry useless in the field. In the past in Planetside infantry caught in the field against a vehicle was likely to get pasted if the pilot of said vehicle had half a clue, but a good squad working together could hold off a few vehicles for a while. They introduce the BFR and suddenly the field is filled with these gigantic uber weapons that were essentially invincible against infantry and most vehicles. The community cried out and SOE took the nerf bat out about 4 times in the first month trying to balance the BFR but the mindset was already in place. Giant robots standing around in enemy base courtyards waiting for any infantry stupid enough to come outside to pad their killcounts. Nobody will get out of their BFR's to cap a base (the objective of the game) because there is a lengthy timer (45 minutes I believe) to get another one and basically while you're in one it's free kill mode. I hear that in the time I've been gone that they planned on further nerfing them to make the one man variants less powerful but basically SOE crapped the bed so hard in adding them that the global population on their markov server in primetime dropped to probably 20% or less of the pre-bfr days.
Also, performance is a problem with this game. When on a continent with small scale battles of 30-60 players performance is generally good with framerates never really dropping below 75 for me. (AthlonXP 3200, Nforce2, 1G ram, GF6800GT, 1024x768 res, cable modem) Anytime the battles would ramp up to 100-200 players the framerates would drop down to the 20-30 ra
Just because I rock, doesn't mean I'm made of stone...
massively multiplayer online Fps is a tough market, Thats probably some of the real trouble for planetside. You have to have a gimmick to get the people to shell out money monthly, otherwise there is no reaon when you could just pay five dollars for a copy of Half life, and download DoD and counterstrike.
Planetside has some of the problems brought up above. But I still love to play it and go back to it over all other games after playing most of them for a little while when they are new. Teamspeak coordinated outfit manuevers and the big scope (up to 498, 166 per side, on any one continent at a time) are just so much fun for me that I don't find smaller FPS titles satisfy me for nearly as long. It has outcompeted my other gaming interests (miniatures, boardgames, RPGS, and and assorted computer games) for a year and a half now. Sure, I'm looking forward to the next big thing that blows it away in this niche, but until then, it's where I'll be more evenings than my wife would like. If you do decide to buy it after tyring it, Fry's is selling Planetside for $5 or $10 and final clearancing the Core Combat expansion for $.90. That gives you the same full game as buying the new $20 Aftershock combo box. So you'll have a monthly fee, but the upfront cost is trivial, assuming your computer can handle it's resource hogging ways. If you are already playing EQ or EQII, even the subscription is is cheap, since you can get it as part of the combination sub price that will save you a good chunk from what you would pay separately for both. If you do go for it, find a good outfit that matches your playstyle, whatever style that is, and use the voice comms program your outfit uses. It makes the experience immensely better. WNxArgg, Warrior Nation, Markov VS
There's nothing new in gamers "marketing" their current favourite multiplayer games, all the MP games I've played intensively I've seen players constantly try to nudge other people into the game via websites, forums, IRC. Admittedly few are that organised at spamming, but the result is liable to be at least as much exposure on at least as many forums, etc. (yes, including /. newsposts, most newsposts on current games are probably posted by their existing fans, right?)
Movies are hardly new either, though for the games I play they tend to be more of the nature of making a video really for the experience of making one, often under the guise of pimping their clan. This trailer (for some clan "R3") was released yesterday and the quality of the edit and artistry is so far above that PS one (though at 7x the filesize).
Scoring a new 7day trial is an impressive acheivement, though the game video'd above is Enemy Territory which doesnt have a subscription. Or a retail price - it's totally free to download.
For anyone that doesn't want to deal with MS WMV files, I converted the vid to an open format (XviD/Vorbis/Matroska).
Get it here.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
This is so late a post no one will read it but - I'm bored so ...
Pretty much everyone posting here on both sides of the argument is right.
SOE has provided terrible support for this game.
The DuhEV's have ruined it.
The Pure FPS guys hated the end to Surge - the rest of us loved it.
PS was an attempt to make an FPS/RPG which is bound to make both groups unsatisfied.
It's Graphics are not those of a D&D game - which some of us like.
It is showing it's age.
It is an MMO game that has a truly great scale to it. I think the count now, is 400-500 players in and Arena (Continent/Planet). With 10 Arena's per each of the three servers.
I've quit about 4 times now but haven't really found another game I'm all that interested in. I've looked at WWII Online but it's about 3 years old and showing it's age.
They finally eliminated the Standard BFR's but the Gunner and Flight models are still there.
I'm not all that optimistic about the games long term survival but it has picked up some new people recently. I credit that to Christmas presents and the Guerilla Ad campaign that started this thread.
It's funny to hear the FPS guys complaining about the DuhEV's catering to the RPG people (which there really aren't any of ...). Most of the changes I've seen (except finally giving up on Surge with Weapons) have been aimed at the FPS people. There has never been and (despite promises a year ago to the contrary) will never be anything for support people.
We'll see how this works out but it's in a really bad situation now. SOE hasn't put any money into it since Core Combat failed.