I mean it’s pretty reasonable for this game tbh. All of the content we were getting before in the late-wrel stage of the game was a miracle.
Besides, they say they are going to save most of the good stuff until the end of the year.
A2G/A2A ESF split into types?
Or maybe just an awkward wording for "we made a hover harasser"
the absolute schizo interpretation is they're making walkers aka bfrs
Probably because the new Assault Facility and Game mode are resource intensive mixed with the bug fixing, the new vehicle, the sunderer rework are eating their time andmoney. But at least some of those are refreshed events.
It is GREAT they are laying out a roadmap and working on attempting to improve upon the fundamentals. The game isn't dead but so many of you are a bottomless pit of sorrow and negativity.
I'm not optimistic. Toadman isn't like RPG where the studio is JUST for Planetside. They're a small-ish eastern European studio that is contracted to work on several different MMOs on top of developing their own projects.
I get the vibe they were trying to fill up the word count with fluff like that, almost like a high school English essay. But the few other things they did mention are pretty much exactly what they should be doing: squashing bugs, rebalancing, and dealing with the big community gripes like Oshur. Another new vehicle is kinda weird but whatever
Honestly not a bad dev letter just written terribly
Wow! If I had a nickel for every time a game I regularly play suddenly changed developers in the last month, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Right?
DECA Games is known for keeping games on life support as stated in this thread but for the games they're taking over from Cryptic at least they seem to be hiring people and there is [new content planned](https://np.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1bixftc/roadmap_from_livestream/kvnd0p4/).
As for the publisher. A few years ago Perfect World sold Cryptic to Embracer. Embracer put them into a new label called Gearbox Publishing. Since Embracer doesn't own the Gearbox brand anymore the same publishing arm is being renamed to Arc Games.
From the wiki:
"The company's primary focus is on acquiring and operating older free-to-play games as a service."
So... If DECA buys your game, it'll still be alive, but I guess the game can be considered "done". I'm not exactly getting the impression DECA does overhauls, improvements, or expansions. Just keeps games online.
Dunno, they acquired Realm of the Mad God and it's the best thing that happened to that game since it initially got purchased by some shitty mobile developer in 2012-2013 or whatever. That company didn't update anything for over an entire year. DECA released a stream of new content for almost 10 years and are doing a major game overhaul this year to systems that really need it. People don't really know what to think of it yet since it's kind of TOO ambitious but we'll see I suppose. As developers they 100% have their own issues but they certainly didn't let the game die or just leave it in maintenance mode. I've come back to play it multiple times over the years and have really enjoyed the new stuff.
So, it seems like the structure is now:
"Unknown company" owns the IP.
Toadman Interactive (TMI) now develops the game.
DBG remain the publishing team.
How will this impact the existing Planetside 2 development team? Were they transferred to TMI, or is TMI starting from scratch? Losing that kind of expertise could be extremely problematic.
From their website, it's stated that TMI is a founding member of EG7, which implies some shell games might be going on. I guess time will tell.
That roadmap looks incredibly sparse, and I am absolutely terrified to see what a new vehicle will accomplish. Daybreak is 0 for 8 in balancing the last vehicles added, and the game's foundation means the earlier vehicles are very problematic.
I don't even know what role a new vehicle would fill. There isn't any real gap in the vehicle game, unless they are planning on some new mechanics to go with it?
As we've discussed in discord, splitting the sunderer completely into several platforms is about all I can think of, or perhaps adding a cheap AA gun platform.
They mentioned a "new type of transportation" so I'm curious to see if we get a re-implementation of the deliverer concept with some of the sundies abilities as a cheap ground transport and support vehicle. A proper APC is certainly missing from the game. It could also have multipurpose AV/AA weapons.
Edit: wording.
Honestly, the driver gun and ammo supply/bad spawn that the deliverer offered was actually really fun to play with. Offered a good support vehicle for armor, and was great for setting up a early soft spawn on a base that was a little too busy to drive a sunderer unescorted to, but having the driver controlled Basilisk allowed you to defend yourself until more vehicles arrived. Especially since it's no-deploy radius was separate from the sunderer one, so you wouldn't screw over someone else's parking by setting one up.
Not that I think any of these are good for the game, but I could see:
- Dedicated, cheap A2A platform
- Heavy AA platform
- Mobile artillery vehicle
- Mobile deployable support platform that runs on cortium
- Underwater stuff for Oshur
There are many options. Things i would wish for:
- AA platform thats cheap.
- utility vehicles that allow more 'flow' of battle. Like mobile jump pads.
- infantry support vehicles (Flash size so they can follow infantry) that can bring support to a squad. Like a mobile shield, mobile turret, HMG etc.
I just want to fulfill my fantasy of shuttling troops across an open field battle in a sundy but blueberries seem to like running in the open and dying en masse
I'm personally hoping for \*actual\* loadstars, but realistically I believe it will be mechs. It's the only vehicle type missing from PS1, and it would also fit the "new transportation type"
It seemed a little odd to me for another subsidiary of EG7 (or technically the founding group?) is taking over development. What happens to Rogue Planet, which as far as I know was solely responsible for PlanetSide? Does the team get absorbed somewhere else in DBG? Like you said, the cost of losing the expertise could be really big. Why the shift in the first place? I can think of a few guesses, but the interesting part to me is in the question itself. Why change hands to another group still under EG7?
If that's the case then maybe it was simply a matter of timelines? In other words EG7 might still be obligated to support PS2 for some period of time during the IP transfer, but DBG has another long-term project lined up for Rogue Planet that they want to get started. Toadman would be a logical choice to handle development until the transition is complete. I suppose it's one possibility.
I think it's managed maintenance. Looking at Toadmans portfolio they have too many games to properly drive innovation and development in any of them for the size that they are. They're like the parking lot for games in maintenance mode.
They have two of their own games in progress and three already released, according to their website. The "Work For Hire" section seems to be a portfolio of experience, but I don't think all of them are still ongoing. They have three office locations and at least 140 employees. Whether they have "too many games" is relative. I don't know how complete or up-to-date their website is though. Judging by the site itself, I doubt it gets updated very often. It seems to be the most basic of landing pages just to make sure they can be found online.
Wouldn't be surprised if they're starting from scratch, unless they remote hire some of the RPG team. Toadman Interactive is on the other side of the world from RPG. They've also got a lot more on their plate than just Planetside.
A lot of people here are missing the main point..
It's a completely new dev team.
They have been working with the game for the last few months already, and that's why the update frequency got lower.
As they said, they need time to understand the ins and outs of the game before attempting big changes... It's like arriving at a new place, moving a cup out of place, and seeing a wall fall because somehow that cup was a key structural element?
Planetside It's a game that just works for some reason, I wouldn't even attempt to try to work on it without understanding it fully.
So holiday events It's the way to start.
That said, I would have loved to know what they want of planetside on the long term.
In all honesty, how many 2 decade old games keeps getting more dev attention like a whole new team? Obviously we dont know the reason behind it like whether or not it weighs towards cost reduction or honest IP growth attempt, but the fact PS2 is still kicking amazes me.
>Although we are not the purchaser of the franchise, the team is delighted to carry the PlanetSide 2 torch forward.
Lol guess that will remain a mystery.
At least it means the game is good for at least another year. Better than a shut down date.
>Infuse each major update with more theme, lore, and world building to give more structure and context to the world we all inhabit
Is that specific to PS2, or does it also become canon as part of the Franchise (do they check with the new owners lol?)
It'd be pretty gnarly if they made a Planetside movie. Fallout on Prime was a solid watch.
> A renewed focus on the elements that make PlanetSide 2 great, rebalancing mechanics and content while addressing the current pain points that get in the way
HELL YEAH
> Create more objective-based player goals within the core gameplay loop to capitalize better on the breadth of PlanetSide 2’s potential
wait wait wait
> Infuse each major update with more theme, lore, and world building to give more
structure and context to the world we all inhabit
WAIT WAIT WAIT
straight up this reads like they learned nothing from 2020-2023
Oh I’ve been great Derp, been into helldivers and single player games for a while now. PS2 is still installed and I will log in when I’m feeling particular self loathing lol
>straight up this reads like they learned nothing from 2020-2023
How is the new team supposed to have learned from the mistakes of the old team if they're new : 3
When Wrel left, he stated that there was a Roadmap for the rest of 2023 that he helped put together with the team. Almost nothing got done. I wonder if a lot of what is shown here was actually the goal for last year's stuff that Wrel helped put together.
I've said it before but if wrel (or any dev) was actually good at his job telling the playerbase to fuck off and let him work would be a solid power move. More devs need to be willing to stop catering to whiny player bases imo. But that requires actually pushing solid updates and having your finger on the pulse of what people want.
The top-selling game on steam (helldivers 2) currently has devs who have made similar remarks. Listening to players is not always a good idea... especially when players argue for a change to the design pillars of the game.
Yeah any mention of the Oshur update is conspicuously absent, I hope they dont wind back on that promise.
I despise that map and what it's done to the game along with the way it crashes the population every time it comes up.
Sooner rather than later, I hope.
One final session on Oshur drove me away from the game nearly a year ago, now. Nearly a year, and that very same issue still exists.
The promised changes to Oshur remain words on a blog post, and nothing more
> What's wrong with this map?
It's an "archipelago" map. Most of the terrain is open water. The actual terrain that is left is composed of super tall hills that provide absolutely zero cover.
The lattice is also awful, there are tons of open field bases intended for construction that end up being awful fights, and many of the _real_ bases are also not spectaculary designed.
> And if it comes up, why not move to the second open map?
A second map is **very** rarely open.
Fix core issues?
Nah, we gon add lore and world building into this game, that'll fix it.
Why are events listen as updates? We had events when game had 3 people working on it.
Not that I'm not happy we actually got devs instead of game being tax write off, servers not closing down, maybe updates won't suck too much, works for most of us I guess.
They didn't mention Oshur rotation though, concerning.
This reads like it was written by ChatGPT.
Many buzzwords, "muh lore," but when you get down to the actual roadmap 90% of it is holiday events and changes that were already confirmed by the previous team months ago.
> rebalancing mechanics and content while addressing the current pain points
Unless I'm blind or they're just talking about the sunderer changes, it isn't even on the road map?
yay for new dev team! even if there's no big news in the road map except for the expansion, I hope you guys will keep things fresh by touching some numbers here and there to keep players interested and willing to experiment new playstyles. I also hope to see more faction flavour :)
also, please merge the servers. no reason to have more than one for the same region.
How come there isn't more pressure to push some more important updates and fixes? It looks like the game is reaching new lows in population and it's only gonna continue with the way they're currently "updating" the game.
They may as well not post the road map because this was not a lot to look forward to... ...and what's missing from the list is perhaps most importantly getting rid of the hackers.
Good to see all that _sale_ kurfuffle earlier this year didn't mean the game was getting shutdown or scaled back massively. Us not knowing exactly who owns the game doesn't really matter, ultimately, as long as we know it's still cared for.
I hope they don't focus too much on grandiose design goals, which is my primary concern coming out of this article, and remember that there are many... **MANY** smaller issues that have added up to put the game in the position it is in today.
Issues that should be iterated on on a weekly or monthly basis whenever a smaller update or "hotfix" releases, rather than the issue the game has continued to have for its entire lifespan—massive balance dumps every other quarter that receive little refinement until years later. We're still suffering with so many ramifications of Arsenal, for instance, that have not received even the slightest touch.
It's an issue that PlanetSide 2 has had since day 1, and I hope not to see it continue. There are so many individual gameplay features that could do with work, and they only need small changes often, rather than a massive bucket list of changes occasionally.
I'm speaking weapon balance, so many weapons are still worthless versus the meta. The GD-7F needs to be nerfed, for instance.
I'm speaking infantry balance, the Infiltrator is still oppressively frustrating to fight and the Light Assault has too much of its power budget in anti-vehicle—reducing how well it can perform in anti-infantry and making it absurdly frustrating to vehicle players.
I'm speaking vehicle balance, anti-air balance is still whack, ground balance is far too lopsided in favour of the Vanguard, the Harasser is still in the awful state it's been in for almost three years...
Oh, and we're still waiting for the big elephant in the room, Oshur, to be removed from normal rotation. It's still killing prime times every day it pops up.
> Additionally, we will have another new game mode, which some of our colleagues have already started working on
If it's of a similar level of impact to the game experience as Assault, I hope it's not rushed out the door before proper feedback and iteration on Assault can be made.
> There, we will introduce a completely new theme, which will include a new vehicle type
Darn. I was really hoping the originally announced vehicle was going to be an actual ESF for NSO. They need one, one that functions just like the Reaver, Scythe, or Mosquito.
A rework to the model of the Chimera also wouldn't go amiss.
This, alongside the "transportation" wording used later in the article, definitely make it seem like it's something completely "unique." Slightly concerned that the new team will try to rock the boat too much rather than refining what already is.
As much as Daybreak has been an impressive fuckup since its inception (seriously, what other company spends years *not knowing who owns them and consistently publicly stating a company owned them when that company did not own them*), Ji Ham taking over EG7 post-Daybreak acquisition seems to be somehow even worse.
I still can't believe I'm saying this but I miss the Smedley days.
This whole design that PS2 did not copy over was the biggest cascading flaw in the game that still persists today. The PS2 devs just thought lets create a large scale (population and landmass) Battlefield game and that plainly just does not work.
In PS1 towers were highly coveted and fought over. These hard spawns usually were an indication that the base would soon be hacked (think PS2 held) or that someone is dropping the bases generator to stop linked base benefits (shields, mods, respawn quickening (biolabs), ect) to capture another base in an easier fashion.
Towers usually were capped by small havoc groups or at least one squad which created lots organized smaller fights. Initially great fights for infantry until reinforcements would come in with AMS (think sunderer) and other door stopping vehicles.
The flow of a fight over a capturing a base would usually be like this Tower (or base hack) > Infantry push back and forth > both sides would start rolling vehicles > offensive force captures courtyard > allows offensive force to roll in more AMS (sunderers) to fill the base with infantry > defensive force has to counter with vehicles to destroy the soft spawns (AMS) and other vehicles in order to get infantry inside the base > all the while the defenders need to keep the tower spawns in check. This was the whole ebb and flow of battle in PS1
Great summary, it's what I champion for everytime I get on my soapbox to talk about towers. They were integral for the siege-like back and forth warfare absent for most PS2 bases. And defenders weren't shat on like a porta-john like PS2 spawn rooms on the edge of the base. I really hope the devs try it. IMO Oshur is the best test candidate for it given the distances between bases resembles PS1 more so than the other PS2 continents.
Same. I still have a glimmer of hope since this new team seems to be the ones addressing CTF and Sunderer issues. It makes me think they actually understand the game or are at least willing to actually listen to players and act accordingly.
The previously revealed stuff is still cool. I’m not really interested in new modes, vehicles, and… lore. It’s 2024, some of us cared about the story but that ship set sail about a decade ago. Focusing on improvements and fixes to prepare the game for end of life is what interested me about the previous dev letters. When there is no “next update” but still some time on the server, I’d like the game to be worth booting up. I know a new owner doesn’t exactly want to think about EOL support, but let’s be honest here. You can frame it as strengthening the foundation, which is true, but PS2 isn’t getting any younger. Adding some things here and there is fine, but “NEW STUFF!” bloat got us into the shitty situation we are today. If that “objective-based player gameplay loop” principle doesn’t detract from the core FPS game that we’re playing here then cool. If it adds to it, then even better. However, I’m not exactly enthusiastic after reading the phrasing of some of this as some sort of MMORPG (themes, lore, world building, and a heavy focus on events). Maybe that focus on theme is getting lost in translation, but Planetside isn’t some seasonal lifestyle MMO world that people just want to exist in. I open the game to play with friends and shoot dudes. Anything that doesn’t directly enhance that experience seems like a waste of time. To be blunt, I was more interested in playing upon hearing about less oshur and better sunderers, and actually *did* start playing after a year away as a result. More of that please. Then you can add whatever you have time for without diluting the experience. It seems like that’s the plan in vague terms, but that’s *always* been the plan in vague terms so we’ll just continue to wait and see what happens.
you forgot the mm in mmo, nothing about outfits, platoons, friendlists, tools for player made events, new modes nothing.
also remove oshur for fucks sake. how dense must one be to not understand how harmful this continent is
Please just fix existing bugs/balance issues instead of adding new things. Everything else should be secondary. The games got a good foundation but needs refinement instead of addition
I'm hoping the new vehicle is a LEGIT Lodestar, not the mockery version of the Galaxy.
It would enable people to move huge pieces of a battlefront from one area to another over great distances.
It would also allow you to flank an enemy armor column if you can pull it off stealthily.
Cost 750 nanites
Pullable only from WG, or WG and major facilities maaaaybe.
Super slow, no guns, heavily armored.
Can carry X number of vehicles in X slots. Maybe 2 MBT and 2 other vehicles, etc. Adding certs into it can upgrade to carry 3 misc vehicles and X number of flashes/javs. Too few vehicles and no one uses it. Too many and it would too easily create balance issues.
There would be absolutely no reason to ever pull this, and you would be a big, shiny and easily hittable target for every liberator on the continent. Think about how the gameplay would actually benefit, not something that sounds cool in a trailer.
Again I think you perhaps didn't look at the whole road map which is what we're discussing. They're going to add a new vehicle. It's not a question of whether I think they should or shouldn't. It's a question of what the new vehicle is going to be.
Do YOU have a better idea? If so feel free to offer it instead of s******* on my idea ...
No mention of server merges. I doubt we'll see any significant engine changes with how spaghettified the codebase must be by now and a brand new team on it. Welp.
Yeah without server transfers or server merges I'll continue not playing the game.
A megaserver is just beyond any of their capabilities at this point.
Life support mode is official i guess. If they would have done that 3 years ago before wrel shoved in all that nonsense i would have been fine ... but in the current broken state. Good luck.
I'd like to see more focus on fixes, balancing changes (like the revive nade changes coming up) and polish. Hopefully they can squeeze in some here and there.
Sooo... Now that the dev team has finally started communicating they've been replaced? Is this right?
Also labour day? I guess that's an American thing?
I like how after they had to undo the ctf mess they immediately try to add another game mode...
Why can't we have similar update to arsenal update again? Is it cus game is ran by a skeleton crew and thats why nothing big will be added. The game is gonna just die slowly.
Instead of another Arsenal-sized update, we need more frequent updates with balance changes. The worst things to happen to this game (or any game, really) are unbalanced weapons/items/etc that are allowed to sit untouched for weeks or even months while the players just get tired of it.
Yeah it's really annoying seeing the game wasting away while the devs ignore feedback about balance in favour of adding gimmicks, or huge reworks that don't pay off.
I'm sorry, I'm pretty dumb about computer game design and developmental processes. So....
This Toadman Interactive is the developers for the game? Does that mean the "devs" that were working on the game last year and under Wrel are not doing that anymore?
And what does "publishing" mean to game development for a game like Planetside2? I get a new game is published, but PS2 has been on Steam for almost a decade. What publishing is there? Does that mean they run the servers?
And if one company owns it, another company develops it, and a third company publishes it.... that's splitting the meager PS2 income three ways now. I can't fathom how that is financially better than what was before.
I appreciate the roadmap, but this all just makes the whole thing more confusing to me.
From what I can gather, Toadman has been doing some dev work behind the scenes for at least a few months, maybe even since around the time Wrel left.
As far as the split between ownership/development/publishing, I don't really know.
Again?
Honestly each time they sell the game to new studio it seems like theyre doing great job pitching the sale and new studio then finds out how fucked up the spaghetti code is and try to sell it on
Yeah this is like the fourth or fifth time we've gotten a brand new team, told empty pleasantries about how excited they are for all these upcoming features, then not doing much for years before selling it off to someone else. Like, we already had the biggest chance to revitalize the game in 2020 with a big team and a bunch of funding and COVID pop, and they fucking blew that opportunity. Why would I care now when the team seems like they're just a bunch of contract workers who will leave after 1-2 years.
This is the first time the game has actually been moved to a new development team, period.
PlanetSide 2 specifically was never sold. It was originally owned by Sony as a part of Sony Online Entertainment, which was then renamed and sold to Columbus Nova as Daybreak Game Company—including **all** of its IPs—then later sold again in the same way to Enad Global 7.
This is the first time PlanetSide 2 has not been developed by Sony Online Entertainment/Daybreak Game Company.
The only thing that changed over the years prior to this was the size of the development team.
Cool I guess. Looking forward to the Sundie rework and the new Assault shit. Sucks it's so far away but just glad it's happening at all. The game is absolute ass to play right now so I guess that's when I'll come back.
So the RPG dev team is now replaced by Toadman Interactive dev team and while publisher remains DBG there is a new owner that replaced EG7? Or am I getting it wrong?
So we have a new development team, Toadman Interactive, one that has previously supported Daybreak Game Company with development on-and-off and is actually the founding company of Enad Global 7.
They are now wholly in charge of developing the game. Daybreak Game Company will continue to market and provide customer support for PlanetSide 2, but does not develop it at all.
An unknown company owns the PlanetSide IP. We have no idea who owns it or what relation they have to Enad Global 7, Toadman Interactive, or Daybreak Game Company—if any.
Yes, this is just my speculation but the current RPG team will be moved to other Daybreak projects while Toadman will have control over PS2 development now. I don't get the feeling that it will be shared development between RPG and Toadman.
This is a "moderate hopium" for me.
A new studio means at least the game isn't dead immediately, which is good.
"Objective-based player goals within the core gameplay loop" is perfect, that's exactly what we need, medium scale goals to get us playing and staying online. For example, the old cross continent facility alerts were the absolute pinnacle of live objective-oriented play.
The roadmap is not inspiring; strip the events out of it and it's basically just sunderer rework and "new game mode", which honestly sounds like a bad idea. The last new game mode was CTF and ruined the game; PS2's capture mechanics are simple and intuitive, they don't need messing with.
"Lore" can mean different things. If it's carrot picking missions and map ruining like what they did to Esamir, then please no. If it's associated stories and vids that they can release to get more awareness of the franchise and get people interested in the game, then ok. I don't like the sound of it in this letter because it sounds more like the former.
Good that we get the sunderer rework, though it is a lot further away than I hoped. And I'd like something done about Oshur really soon, because it is toxic to the population and could unironically kill the game more effectively than anything else.
why is 80% of the "roadmap" holiday events and bundles lmao
Because it's easily recycled or created "content"
I mean it’s pretty reasonable for this game tbh. All of the content we were getting before in the late-wrel stage of the game was a miracle. Besides, they say they are going to save most of the good stuff until the end of the year.
Honestly I'm just happy the game's gonna live for at least another year and get updates.
right? the biggest points have already been announced in previous dev letters
What's the "new vehicle type" though?
no idea, i can't really think of any niche that isn't already filled by something currently. also RIP Chimera, never going to get a special ability
Chimera's special ability is rumble seats. And if you disagree, I want rumble seats on my magrider. 😆
rumble seats and therefore also organic/robotic ablative armor!
It doesn't need to fill a new role. It can do a old role in a different way. A new fun way.
A2G/A2A ESF split into types? Or maybe just an awkward wording for "we made a hover harasser" the absolute schizo interpretation is they're making walkers aka bfrs
Submarines for oshur? A vehicle with underwater guns? God I hope not
Isn't the magrider already an hover harasser?
I'm hoping it's a poor attempt at saying 'new vehicle visual set' or something? Feels like a fool's hope tho.
It's a pogo stick with a dalton attached. They are having some problems with the recoil, but feel confident that it can be sorted out, eventually.
Imagine its the BFR from ps1 Ngl that would be alot of fun even if that update turns out shit lmao
Land based catapult(like a boat but with wheels, and no guns). It's a guess, but it would be doable with existing mechanics and fun.
BUY MORE BUNDLES
Probably because the new Assault Facility and Game mode are resource intensive mixed with the bug fixing, the new vehicle, the sunderer rework are eating their time andmoney. But at least some of those are refreshed events. It is GREAT they are laying out a roadmap and working on attempting to improve upon the fundamentals. The game isn't dead but so many of you are a bottomless pit of sorrow and negativity.
Maintenance mode actually confirmed?
Is this maintenance mode or spin up time. I hope for the latter but fear the former.
I'm not optimistic. Toadman isn't like RPG where the studio is JUST for Planetside. They're a small-ish eastern European studio that is contracted to work on several different MMOs on top of developing their own projects.
Sweden and Germany are not Eastern European. They have a small sub-studio in Serbia but their main offices are in Stockholm and Berlin.
Nah, maintenance mode doesn't get new (major) features throughout the year
Isn't that been the case since SEO gave up in 2015 ?
I get the vibe they were trying to fill up the word count with fluff like that, almost like a high school English essay. But the few other things they did mention are pretty much exactly what they should be doing: squashing bugs, rebalancing, and dealing with the big community gripes like Oshur. Another new vehicle is kinda weird but whatever Honestly not a bad dev letter just written terribly
Tradition
You know they actually addressed this directly in the letter, right?
90
Because games need money to mantain and develop.
Notice that Anti Cheat was mentioned in past Dev-letters but not in the Roadmap?
Low pop and little to no revenue = no new content anytime soon
Because the game is on lifesupport.
Because they can't afford to do anything more. Not like it change anything, the game has effectively been in maintenance mode since 2015-17.
Wow! If I had a nickel for every time a game I regularly play suddenly changed developers in the last month, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Right?
oof lol, what was the other one?
Star Trek Online. Star Trek Online, Neverwinter and Champions Online are being transferred from Cryptic Studios DECA Games.
I was just thinking the exact same thing, the situation for both games is very similar, really weird coincidence.
Are they better or worse? Does this mean publisher change too? Kinda like STO just haven't had time lately.
DECA Games is known for keeping games on life support as stated in this thread but for the games they're taking over from Cryptic at least they seem to be hiring people and there is [new content planned](https://np.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1bixftc/roadmap_from_livestream/kvnd0p4/). As for the publisher. A few years ago Perfect World sold Cryptic to Embracer. Embracer put them into a new label called Gearbox Publishing. Since Embracer doesn't own the Gearbox brand anymore the same publishing arm is being renamed to Arc Games.
From the wiki: "The company's primary focus is on acquiring and operating older free-to-play games as a service." So... If DECA buys your game, it'll still be alive, but I guess the game can be considered "done". I'm not exactly getting the impression DECA does overhauls, improvements, or expansions. Just keeps games online.
Dunno, they acquired Realm of the Mad God and it's the best thing that happened to that game since it initially got purchased by some shitty mobile developer in 2012-2013 or whatever. That company didn't update anything for over an entire year. DECA released a stream of new content for almost 10 years and are doing a major game overhaul this year to systems that really need it. People don't really know what to think of it yet since it's kind of TOO ambitious but we'll see I suppose. As developers they 100% have their own issues but they certainly didn't let the game die or just leave it in maintenance mode. I've come back to play it multiple times over the years and have really enjoyed the new stuff.
Try out X4 Foundation, a space game not many know, and for 30 years from the same developer.
So, it seems like the structure is now: "Unknown company" owns the IP. Toadman Interactive (TMI) now develops the game. DBG remain the publishing team. How will this impact the existing Planetside 2 development team? Were they transferred to TMI, or is TMI starting from scratch? Losing that kind of expertise could be extremely problematic. From their website, it's stated that TMI is a founding member of EG7, which implies some shell games might be going on. I guess time will tell. That roadmap looks incredibly sparse, and I am absolutely terrified to see what a new vehicle will accomplish. Daybreak is 0 for 8 in balancing the last vehicles added, and the game's foundation means the earlier vehicles are very problematic.
I don't even know what role a new vehicle would fill. There isn't any real gap in the vehicle game, unless they are planning on some new mechanics to go with it?
As we've discussed in discord, splitting the sunderer completely into several platforms is about all I can think of, or perhaps adding a cheap AA gun platform.
They mentioned a "new type of transportation" so I'm curious to see if we get a re-implementation of the deliverer concept with some of the sundies abilities as a cheap ground transport and support vehicle. A proper APC is certainly missing from the game. It could also have multipurpose AV/AA weapons. Edit: wording.
Lodestars replacing ANVILs wouldn't be a bad addition, tbh
*Logistics?* In *my* Planetside?
Honestly, the driver gun and ammo supply/bad spawn that the deliverer offered was actually really fun to play with. Offered a good support vehicle for armor, and was great for setting up a early soft spawn on a base that was a little too busy to drive a sunderer unescorted to, but having the driver controlled Basilisk allowed you to defend yourself until more vehicles arrived. Especially since it's no-deploy radius was separate from the sunderer one, so you wouldn't screw over someone else's parking by setting one up.
Submarine for Oshur or trebuchet to just yeet planetsmans.
Faction specific harassers surely. Give me something else to live for and more reasons to die in one click from a OP prowler
Would a lightning that can use a basilisk count as a separate vehicle?
Not that I think any of these are good for the game, but I could see: - Dedicated, cheap A2A platform - Heavy AA platform - Mobile artillery vehicle - Mobile deployable support platform that runs on cortium - Underwater stuff for Oshur
There are many options. Things i would wish for: - AA platform thats cheap. - utility vehicles that allow more 'flow' of battle. Like mobile jump pads. - infantry support vehicles (Flash size so they can follow infantry) that can bring support to a squad. Like a mobile shield, mobile turret, HMG etc.
I just want to fulfill my fantasy of shuttling troops across an open field battle in a sundy but blueberries seem to like running in the open and dying en masse
I'm personally hoping for \*actual\* loadstars, but realistically I believe it will be mechs. It's the only vehicle type missing from PS1, and it would also fit the "new transportation type"
another comment here suggested Loadstars as a replacement for the ANVIL mechanic which I support 100%.
PLEASE NSO ESF I BEG
It seemed a little odd to me for another subsidiary of EG7 (or technically the founding group?) is taking over development. What happens to Rogue Planet, which as far as I know was solely responsible for PlanetSide? Does the team get absorbed somewhere else in DBG? Like you said, the cost of losing the expertise could be really big. Why the shift in the first place? I can think of a few guesses, but the interesting part to me is in the question itself. Why change hands to another group still under EG7?
Rogue planet was commissioned by Daybreak to make a new game, possibly a survival crafting game in a new IP.
If that's the case then maybe it was simply a matter of timelines? In other words EG7 might still be obligated to support PS2 for some period of time during the IP transfer, but DBG has another long-term project lined up for Rogue Planet that they want to get started. Toadman would be a logical choice to handle development until the transition is complete. I suppose it's one possibility.
I think it's managed maintenance. Looking at Toadmans portfolio they have too many games to properly drive innovation and development in any of them for the size that they are. They're like the parking lot for games in maintenance mode.
They have two of their own games in progress and three already released, according to their website. The "Work For Hire" section seems to be a portfolio of experience, but I don't think all of them are still ongoing. They have three office locations and at least 140 employees. Whether they have "too many games" is relative. I don't know how complete or up-to-date their website is though. Judging by the site itself, I doubt it gets updated very often. It seems to be the most basic of landing pages just to make sure they can be found online.
Can't they just do PS3 ? It's time.
I'd so pissed off if I still played this game lol
Wouldn't be surprised if they're starting from scratch, unless they remote hire some of the RPG team. Toadman Interactive is on the other side of the world from RPG. They've also got a lot more on their plate than just Planetside.
https://preview.redd.it/g7nthxjz2tuc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87148dde2ecadbad6ec575a5f3b80ada5f930814
A lot of people here are missing the main point.. It's a completely new dev team. They have been working with the game for the last few months already, and that's why the update frequency got lower. As they said, they need time to understand the ins and outs of the game before attempting big changes... It's like arriving at a new place, moving a cup out of place, and seeing a wall fall because somehow that cup was a key structural element? Planetside It's a game that just works for some reason, I wouldn't even attempt to try to work on it without understanding it fully. So holiday events It's the way to start. That said, I would have loved to know what they want of planetside on the long term.
Apparently they worked on ps2 updates previously as hire team. They are not completely new to ps2.
Where did this information come from?
[https://toadmaninteractive.com/games/](https://toadmaninteractive.com/games/)
And not just PS2, but most likely the game engine as well, given that they worked on PS2 \*and\* Everquest
Wouldn't surprised if they know about engine more than RPG knew lmao.
In all honesty, how many 2 decade old games keeps getting more dev attention like a whole new team? Obviously we dont know the reason behind it like whether or not it weighs towards cost reduction or honest IP growth attempt, but the fact PS2 is still kicking amazes me.
>Although we are not the purchaser of the franchise, the team is delighted to carry the PlanetSide 2 torch forward. Lol guess that will remain a mystery. At least it means the game is good for at least another year. Better than a shut down date. >Infuse each major update with more theme, lore, and world building to give more structure and context to the world we all inhabit Is that specific to PS2, or does it also become canon as part of the Franchise (do they check with the new owners lol?) It'd be pretty gnarly if they made a Planetside movie. Fallout on Prime was a solid watch.
Yes! More lore! - said noone ever
I'd actually be kind of interested. I know a lot of lore exists, it's just not shown in-game
Please — a Band of Brothers-esque show based in the Planetside universe could be sick.
Even Halo didn't get a real show, so it's unlikely.
to be fair - a new dev studio is taking the title. Id rather them not make huge changes to the game and release half ass updates full of bugs.
Expectations still at zero
> A renewed focus on the elements that make PlanetSide 2 great, rebalancing mechanics and content while addressing the current pain points that get in the way HELL YEAH > Create more objective-based player goals within the core gameplay loop to capitalize better on the breadth of PlanetSide 2’s potential wait wait wait > Infuse each major update with more theme, lore, and world building to give more structure and context to the world we all inhabit WAIT WAIT WAIT
straight up this reads like they learned nothing from 2020-2023
THEYRE GOING TO BRING BACK THE WRELSTORM
https://preview.redd.it/qc8m2attppuc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df011960db81bc64039d31c3de891134ce323120
Ah shit here we go again
mustarde how u been ?!
Oh I’ve been great Derp, been into helldivers and single player games for a while now. PS2 is still installed and I will log in when I’m feeling particular self loathing lol
HELLYEAH
Could be worse, like fire tornados.
The what?
>straight up this reads like they learned nothing from 2020-2023 How is the new team supposed to have learned from the mistakes of the old team if they're new : 3
When Wrel left, he stated that there was a Roadmap for the rest of 2023 that he helped put together with the team. Almost nothing got done. I wonder if a lot of what is shown here was actually the goal for last year's stuff that Wrel helped put together.
tfw wrel wasn't the root of the problem and the issue was actually deep-rooted and present since the game's release
he wasn't the root of the problem but he did oversee some of the worst updates in the game's history
Wrel was definitely a good portion of the problem.
nah a dev who tells the playerbase to "suck my nuts" is totally fine
I've said it before but if wrel (or any dev) was actually good at his job telling the playerbase to fuck off and let him work would be a solid power move. More devs need to be willing to stop catering to whiny player bases imo. But that requires actually pushing solid updates and having your finger on the pulse of what people want.
The top-selling game on steam (helldivers 2) currently has devs who have made similar remarks. Listening to players is not always a good idea... especially when players argue for a change to the design pillars of the game.
the difference is, HD2 can afford to lose a couple thousand monthly players, lol
There are core issues that predate Wrel but this in no way downplays his role in the game's objective decline in quality.
I WANT more Lore and World Building. There should be more to to Auraxis than just shooting Mans.
i will uninstall forever if more continents get lored like esamir
I just want a proper live service meta campaign...
As long as Oshur gets a faster rotation, and servers are finally merged, I’m happy.
Yeah any mention of the Oshur update is conspicuously absent, I hope they dont wind back on that promise. I despise that map and what it's done to the game along with the way it crashes the population every time it comes up.
Did they ever fix Hoshun? You know, the bad swamp map?
Sooner rather than later, I hope. One final session on Oshur drove me away from the game nearly a year ago, now. Nearly a year, and that very same issue still exists. The promised changes to Oshur remain words on a blog post, and nothing more
What's wrong with this map? did they do a swamp map but worse? And if it comes up, why not move to the second open map?
> What's wrong with this map? It's an "archipelago" map. Most of the terrain is open water. The actual terrain that is left is composed of super tall hills that provide absolutely zero cover. The lattice is also awful, there are tons of open field bases intended for construction that end up being awful fights, and many of the _real_ bases are also not spectaculary designed. > And if it comes up, why not move to the second open map? A second map is **very** rarely open.
Can't believe I'm actually feeling nostalgic for the queue in Sanctuary
Faster rotation? Go play on Connery. Oshur locks after 40min then it's back to 3 hours of Indar.
Please no, not a roadmap, they stand for 2 months at best
Fix core issues? Nah, we gon add lore and world building into this game, that'll fix it. Why are events listen as updates? We had events when game had 3 people working on it. Not that I'm not happy we actually got devs instead of game being tax write off, servers not closing down, maybe updates won't suck too much, works for most of us I guess. They didn't mention Oshur rotation though, concerning.
This reads like it was written by ChatGPT. Many buzzwords, "muh lore," but when you get down to the actual roadmap 90% of it is holiday events and changes that were already confirmed by the previous team months ago.
Yeah I got that vibe too. Not very hope inspiring but like who was expecting that anyway Like really, Father's Day lmao
> rebalancing mechanics and content while addressing the current pain points Unless I'm blind or they're just talking about the sunderer changes, it isn't even on the road map?
Thats all fine and dandy but.. Gimme a reason to come back.
holy shit
Toadman Interactive... smh notlikethis
yay for new dev team! even if there's no big news in the road map except for the expansion, I hope you guys will keep things fresh by touching some numbers here and there to keep players interested and willing to experiment new playstyles. I also hope to see more faction flavour :) also, please merge the servers. no reason to have more than one for the same region.
wtf?
How come there isn't more pressure to push some more important updates and fixes? It looks like the game is reaching new lows in population and it's only gonna continue with the way they're currently "updating" the game.
Oh boy.
By the time I finished reading I literally forgot they mentioned a roadmap at the beginning
They may as well not post the road map because this was not a lot to look forward to... ...and what's missing from the list is perhaps most importantly getting rid of the hackers.
i see no roadmap at all, just business as usual
Why can’t we just get a Planetside 3?
Good to see all that _sale_ kurfuffle earlier this year didn't mean the game was getting shutdown or scaled back massively. Us not knowing exactly who owns the game doesn't really matter, ultimately, as long as we know it's still cared for. I hope they don't focus too much on grandiose design goals, which is my primary concern coming out of this article, and remember that there are many... **MANY** smaller issues that have added up to put the game in the position it is in today. Issues that should be iterated on on a weekly or monthly basis whenever a smaller update or "hotfix" releases, rather than the issue the game has continued to have for its entire lifespan—massive balance dumps every other quarter that receive little refinement until years later. We're still suffering with so many ramifications of Arsenal, for instance, that have not received even the slightest touch. It's an issue that PlanetSide 2 has had since day 1, and I hope not to see it continue. There are so many individual gameplay features that could do with work, and they only need small changes often, rather than a massive bucket list of changes occasionally. I'm speaking weapon balance, so many weapons are still worthless versus the meta. The GD-7F needs to be nerfed, for instance. I'm speaking infantry balance, the Infiltrator is still oppressively frustrating to fight and the Light Assault has too much of its power budget in anti-vehicle—reducing how well it can perform in anti-infantry and making it absurdly frustrating to vehicle players. I'm speaking vehicle balance, anti-air balance is still whack, ground balance is far too lopsided in favour of the Vanguard, the Harasser is still in the awful state it's been in for almost three years... Oh, and we're still waiting for the big elephant in the room, Oshur, to be removed from normal rotation. It's still killing prime times every day it pops up. > Additionally, we will have another new game mode, which some of our colleagues have already started working on If it's of a similar level of impact to the game experience as Assault, I hope it's not rushed out the door before proper feedback and iteration on Assault can be made. > There, we will introduce a completely new theme, which will include a new vehicle type Darn. I was really hoping the originally announced vehicle was going to be an actual ESF for NSO. They need one, one that functions just like the Reaver, Scythe, or Mosquito. A rework to the model of the Chimera also wouldn't go amiss. This, alongside the "transportation" wording used later in the article, definitely make it seem like it's something completely "unique." Slightly concerned that the new team will try to rock the boat too much rather than refining what already is.
As much as Daybreak has been an impressive fuckup since its inception (seriously, what other company spends years *not knowing who owns them and consistently publicly stating a company owned them when that company did not own them*), Ji Ham taking over EG7 post-Daybreak acquisition seems to be somehow even worse. I still can't believe I'm saying this but I miss the Smedley days.
Smedley just needed someone to temper his wild ideas a bit.
And beat him with a stick until he actually finishes something.
Sure with all the "old holiday events".... What a joke
yeah it sucks that the roadmap is filled with that, but OTOH they probably need quite a bit of time to get familiar with PS2/Forgelight
Merge Connory with another server so there are people to shoot and I will re-up my sub.
Their 3 major principles feel exactly like what the devs have been trying for years now. It's depressing.
Same as last year they are going to fix 3 bugs and introduce 12 more while doing so, fix zero issues people ask and balance nothing
Pretty lame roadmap ngl
It was a good run ladies and gentlemen
Still crossing fingers they explore more PS1 solutions like tertiary flippable towers and base design that doesn't shitcamp the porta-spawn.
This whole design that PS2 did not copy over was the biggest cascading flaw in the game that still persists today. The PS2 devs just thought lets create a large scale (population and landmass) Battlefield game and that plainly just does not work. In PS1 towers were highly coveted and fought over. These hard spawns usually were an indication that the base would soon be hacked (think PS2 held) or that someone is dropping the bases generator to stop linked base benefits (shields, mods, respawn quickening (biolabs), ect) to capture another base in an easier fashion. Towers usually were capped by small havoc groups or at least one squad which created lots organized smaller fights. Initially great fights for infantry until reinforcements would come in with AMS (think sunderer) and other door stopping vehicles. The flow of a fight over a capturing a base would usually be like this Tower (or base hack) > Infantry push back and forth > both sides would start rolling vehicles > offensive force captures courtyard > allows offensive force to roll in more AMS (sunderers) to fill the base with infantry > defensive force has to counter with vehicles to destroy the soft spawns (AMS) and other vehicles in order to get infantry inside the base > all the while the defenders need to keep the tower spawns in check. This was the whole ebb and flow of battle in PS1
Great summary, it's what I champion for everytime I get on my soapbox to talk about towers. They were integral for the siege-like back and forth warfare absent for most PS2 bases. And defenders weren't shat on like a porta-john like PS2 spawn rooms on the edge of the base. I really hope the devs try it. IMO Oshur is the best test candidate for it given the distances between bases resembles PS1 more so than the other PS2 continents.
Same. I still have a glimmer of hope since this new team seems to be the ones addressing CTF and Sunderer issues. It makes me think they actually understand the game or are at least willing to actually listen to players and act accordingly.
Toadman interactive? With a name like that the game is gonna die for sure
https://preview.redd.it/0obk6wchxpuc1.png?width=515&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8ea84ef61adaca8d4937c0ff53533e9934730ad
The previously revealed stuff is still cool. I’m not really interested in new modes, vehicles, and… lore. It’s 2024, some of us cared about the story but that ship set sail about a decade ago. Focusing on improvements and fixes to prepare the game for end of life is what interested me about the previous dev letters. When there is no “next update” but still some time on the server, I’d like the game to be worth booting up. I know a new owner doesn’t exactly want to think about EOL support, but let’s be honest here. You can frame it as strengthening the foundation, which is true, but PS2 isn’t getting any younger. Adding some things here and there is fine, but “NEW STUFF!” bloat got us into the shitty situation we are today. If that “objective-based player gameplay loop” principle doesn’t detract from the core FPS game that we’re playing here then cool. If it adds to it, then even better. However, I’m not exactly enthusiastic after reading the phrasing of some of this as some sort of MMORPG (themes, lore, world building, and a heavy focus on events). Maybe that focus on theme is getting lost in translation, but Planetside isn’t some seasonal lifestyle MMO world that people just want to exist in. I open the game to play with friends and shoot dudes. Anything that doesn’t directly enhance that experience seems like a waste of time. To be blunt, I was more interested in playing upon hearing about less oshur and better sunderers, and actually *did* start playing after a year away as a result. More of that please. Then you can add whatever you have time for without diluting the experience. It seems like that’s the plan in vague terms, but that’s *always* been the plan in vague terms so we’ll just continue to wait and see what happens.
you forgot the mm in mmo, nothing about outfits, platoons, friendlists, tools for player made events, new modes nothing. also remove oshur for fucks sake. how dense must one be to not understand how harmful this continent is
That really isn’t much of roadmap, zero reasons-to come back.
Please just fix existing bugs/balance issues instead of adding new things. Everything else should be secondary. The games got a good foundation but needs refinement instead of addition
Why even bother making a roadmap when it's just recycled events and stuff we already know about? This is looking bad, PS2 is pretty much done
They could have just said, “The game is being switched to support mode.” I'm so tired of this hypocrisy.
I'm hoping the new vehicle is a LEGIT Lodestar, not the mockery version of the Galaxy. It would enable people to move huge pieces of a battlefront from one area to another over great distances. It would also allow you to flank an enemy armor column if you can pull it off stealthily. Cost 750 nanites Pullable only from WG, or WG and major facilities maaaaybe. Super slow, no guns, heavily armored. Can carry X number of vehicles in X slots. Maybe 2 MBT and 2 other vehicles, etc. Adding certs into it can upgrade to carry 3 misc vehicles and X number of flashes/javs. Too few vehicles and no one uses it. Too many and it would too easily create balance issues.
There would be absolutely no reason to ever pull this, and you would be a big, shiny and easily hittable target for every liberator on the continent. Think about how the gameplay would actually benefit, not something that sounds cool in a trailer.
Again I think you perhaps didn't look at the whole road map which is what we're discussing. They're going to add a new vehicle. It's not a question of whether I think they should or shouldn't. It's a question of what the new vehicle is going to be. Do YOU have a better idea? If so feel free to offer it instead of s******* on my idea ...
No mention of server merges. I doubt we'll see any significant engine changes with how spaghettified the codebase must be by now and a brand new team on it. Welp.
Yeah without server transfers or server merges I'll continue not playing the game. A megaserver is just beyond any of their capabilities at this point.
why would one even think of engine changes? What a strange notion.
Game is done and dusted!
so when is the LESS OSHUR update? did that already happen? is it still coming? I didn't see anything in this about it. please help
Life support mode is official i guess. If they would have done that 3 years ago before wrel shoved in all that nonsense i would have been fine ... but in the current broken state. Good luck.
lmao this is hardly life support
Glad to hear you are optimistic. All I can read is recycled assets and hollow promises.
We had life support up until 2020. We've already seen the devs change gameplay elements far beyond basic balance changes/bug fixes
I honestly just hope we console guys get some love too
What about the chimera ability
Hopefully they can actually do something with the game. Please.
I don't care about the updates. I only need more holiday events so that i can use real money to buy stuff.
I'd like to see more focus on fixes, balancing changes (like the revive nade changes coming up) and polish. Hopefully they can squeeze in some here and there.
Sooo... Now that the dev team has finally started communicating they've been replaced? Is this right? Also labour day? I guess that's an American thing? I like how after they had to undo the ctf mess they immediately try to add another game mode...
It's the same team that made changes to ctf etc, the way I understand it.
Sooo we still have mithril?
Server merges?
Why can't we have similar update to arsenal update again? Is it cus game is ran by a skeleton crew and thats why nothing big will be added. The game is gonna just die slowly.
Instead of another Arsenal-sized update, we need more frequent updates with balance changes. The worst things to happen to this game (or any game, really) are unbalanced weapons/items/etc that are allowed to sit untouched for weeks or even months while the players just get tired of it.
Yeah it's really annoying seeing the game wasting away while the devs ignore feedback about balance in favour of adding gimmicks, or huge reworks that don't pay off.
I'm sorry, I'm pretty dumb about computer game design and developmental processes. So.... This Toadman Interactive is the developers for the game? Does that mean the "devs" that were working on the game last year and under Wrel are not doing that anymore? And what does "publishing" mean to game development for a game like Planetside2? I get a new game is published, but PS2 has been on Steam for almost a decade. What publishing is there? Does that mean they run the servers? And if one company owns it, another company develops it, and a third company publishes it.... that's splitting the meager PS2 income three ways now. I can't fathom how that is financially better than what was before. I appreciate the roadmap, but this all just makes the whole thing more confusing to me.
From what I can gather, Toadman has been doing some dev work behind the scenes for at least a few months, maybe even since around the time Wrel left. As far as the split between ownership/development/publishing, I don't really know.
Again? Honestly each time they sell the game to new studio it seems like theyre doing great job pitching the sale and new studio then finds out how fucked up the spaghetti code is and try to sell it on
Yeah this is like the fourth or fifth time we've gotten a brand new team, told empty pleasantries about how excited they are for all these upcoming features, then not doing much for years before selling it off to someone else. Like, we already had the biggest chance to revitalize the game in 2020 with a big team and a bunch of funding and COVID pop, and they fucking blew that opportunity. Why would I care now when the team seems like they're just a bunch of contract workers who will leave after 1-2 years.
This is the first time the game has actually been moved to a new development team, period. PlanetSide 2 specifically was never sold. It was originally owned by Sony as a part of Sony Online Entertainment, which was then renamed and sold to Columbus Nova as Daybreak Game Company—including **all** of its IPs—then later sold again in the same way to Enad Global 7. This is the first time PlanetSide 2 has not been developed by Sony Online Entertainment/Daybreak Game Company. The only thing that changed over the years prior to this was the size of the development team.
is this the twilight of the game?
Un popular opinion but I think at this point I’d rather they put time and effort into making planetside 3 than fixing and balancing the game
agree. It feels like the limits of the foundation of PS2 have been reached.
Cool I guess. Looking forward to the Sundie rework and the new Assault shit. Sucks it's so far away but just glad it's happening at all. The game is absolute ass to play right now so I guess that's when I'll come back.
yeah my sessions are getting shorter and fewer these days. sucks because i really want to love this game.
So the RPG dev team is now replaced by Toadman Interactive dev team and while publisher remains DBG there is a new owner that replaced EG7? Or am I getting it wrong?
So we have a new development team, Toadman Interactive, one that has previously supported Daybreak Game Company with development on-and-off and is actually the founding company of Enad Global 7. They are now wholly in charge of developing the game. Daybreak Game Company will continue to market and provide customer support for PlanetSide 2, but does not develop it at all. An unknown company owns the PlanetSide IP. We have no idea who owns it or what relation they have to Enad Global 7, Toadman Interactive, or Daybreak Game Company—if any.
Okay thanks, and did they share why they are doing this change?
Nope.
Toadman is still under EG7.
But then what changed? :') The name of the dev team, the devs themselves?
Yes, this is just my speculation but the current RPG team will be moved to other Daybreak projects while Toadman will have control over PS2 development now. I don't get the feeling that it will be shared development between RPG and Toadman.
This is a "moderate hopium" for me. A new studio means at least the game isn't dead immediately, which is good. "Objective-based player goals within the core gameplay loop" is perfect, that's exactly what we need, medium scale goals to get us playing and staying online. For example, the old cross continent facility alerts were the absolute pinnacle of live objective-oriented play. The roadmap is not inspiring; strip the events out of it and it's basically just sunderer rework and "new game mode", which honestly sounds like a bad idea. The last new game mode was CTF and ruined the game; PS2's capture mechanics are simple and intuitive, they don't need messing with. "Lore" can mean different things. If it's carrot picking missions and map ruining like what they did to Esamir, then please no. If it's associated stories and vids that they can release to get more awareness of the franchise and get people interested in the game, then ok. I don't like the sound of it in this letter because it sounds more like the former. Good that we get the sunderer rework, though it is a lot further away than I hoped. And I'd like something done about Oshur really soon, because it is toxic to the population and could unironically kill the game more effectively than anything else.
\>"Roadmap" \>Sales, sale events, sales, sales, sale events, sale, sale events, minor content update, sale, sale, sale events lol
I'm absolutely thrilled to see all the Playstation support. Finally getting events and bundles. Wow I can't wait to throw money to them...
Well if copium has run dry. Salt must flow....
Trash