Rock, Paper, Shotgun has one of the friendliest and most active games communities online, but it’s possible that you’ve never peeled back the mask of the frontpage to discover the forums, guilds and game groups that lie beyond.
If you’re intrigued and you’d like to join the forum, find people to play with, or chat with other RPS readers, read on for a guide to what’s happening and instructions on how to get involved.
Hi folks!
I’m Scott and I help moderate the RPS community forum. There’s some great discussions going on over there but what I’m really interested in is what the members of the community do together – whether that’s in games or out of them. Every month I’m going to provide a summary of what RPSers have been up to and how you can get involved. This month: Cities: Skylines [official site] succession games; our Guild Wars 2 [official site] guild get more involved in PvP; the PlanetSide 2 [official site] outfits do battle in a server smash; and how to join the capers of our Grand Theft Auto 5 [official site] crew.
A name change to the awkward-sounding’Daybreak Game Company’ isn’t the only consequence Sony’s recent shock sale of its MMOy division SOE to management firm Columbus Nova. Barely more than a week after the acquisition, Daybreak is making lay-offs, reportedly including the long-time lead and public face of the Everquest games. “The operation of current games” won’t be affected apparently, so while this is sad news at least we needn’t panic that someone’s going to take Planetside 2 or H1Z1 away from us. … [visit site to read more]
Every Sunday, we reach deep into Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s 142-year history to pull out one of the best moments from the archive. This week, Quintin’s tale of Planetside heroism, originally published September 2008.>
Planetside, then. Do I have any veterans in the audience? At ease, gentlemen.
It might not have dredged up the subscribers Sony were hoping for, and you personally might have found it a disappointment, a bully, a bastard, or most unforgivably, a bore. The developers were perhaps overambitious, and in any case they managed to screw up both on paper and in practice. But their game has achieved one beautiful thing, and that’s the creation of the same invisible veterans’ club that results from a real life war. If you played Planetside you might have already encountered this phenomenon: the mutual respect that instantly exists once you find out someone’s an ex-Planetside player. Since I can’t think of a name for this whole process, I’m going to dub it “I WAS THERE, MAN” syndrome.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will now be known as Daybreak Game Company after being acquired from Sony by investment management firm, Columbus Nova.
SOE is the studio responsible for games including EverQuest, PlanetSide 2, and the early access zombie survival game, H1Z1. The company notes that the acquisition will not disrupt any of its current games, but will allow them to pursue multi-platform projects.
I’m being flown westwards in a Galaxy dropship transport along with the 11 other players in bravo squad. A couple of dozen friendly fighter planes pass below us, heading north east, moving to support another battle elsewhere. Red tracers begin to fill my screen as we take fire from enemy flak positions supporting a battle in the north. Veering left, our pilot moves to approach our destination from the south.
I ask for a sitrep: delta squad have arrived in advance, and are watching enemy positions for activity. Alpha and charlie squad leaders report that they now have ground support vehicles en route. Seconds later I arrive with bravo and we drop onto our objective; a small building in the east of this base. Alpha and charlie squad begin finding placements for Sunderers (mobile infantry spawn vehicles) and I see another platoon drive up with support vehicles, take up positions and begin assaulting the western side of the same base.
Over half an hour ago we broke the world record for the largest number of players in an FPS battle, but there’s still an hour of laser war left in Planetside 2.
“Dedication’s what you need if you wanna be a record breaker,” goes an old song. But ugh> dedication is such an effort! Trying is a real hassle! No thank you. No, what you need is to find someone dedicated to organisation, then ride their coattails to a world record by joining in a ‘most people…’ attempt simply by turning up in a place at a time. Far easier.
And why, here’s just such an opportunity! PlanetSide 2 players are aiming to break the Guinness World Record for Most Players Online in an FPS Battle, and you could be one of them. The current record is 999 players, held by a game created solely to beat the first PlanetSide’s playercounts.
Planetside 2 is two years old today and still going strong. It’s a Planniversary, if you will.
Ahem. I’ve written a bunch about my time with the game, including this. Yes, I like it a lot. One person who has been at the forefront of that long campaign of making me like something for two whole years, and who was also implicated in the complex saga of development beforehand, is Matt Higby. He’s headed up the SOE team throughout the twenty-four months of the game being live, and still seems to have plenty of energy for the future of this peerless F2P shooter. With those two years in mind, I had a chat with him.
Read on below for a myriad of thoughts on the game that does a war of red, blue, and purple like no other.
There have been so many beautiful and clever games appear in the past two years that I find myself surprised to be saying this: Planetside 2 is my favourite game of the past two years. Sure, I’ve practically lived off Teleglitch at times, and actually been made to like an adventure game via KRZ, but Planetside’s bright and sparkly sequel has truly colonised my PC. Can a sci-fi shooter sequel really> have been the game that held my attention for the longest? There have been prettier games, there have been smarter games, games which were more innovative, moving, or simply better designed. But SOE’s giant red-blue-purple MMOFPS has been the one for me. It’ll be two years old> in a couple of months, and I like it more now than I did when it launched.
What’s going on?
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