This Week In MMO 130: Planetside 2 eSport

Written by: QuintLyn (Twitter @QuintLyn - Google+) | February 2, 2013 12:01 pm

61 Comments

This week on TWIMMO, we get a little more info on how the PS2 esport thing is supposed to work.

We’re all still a little confused about how this PlanetSide 2 esport stuff is supposed to work but John Smedley doesn’t seem to be too worried. According to an interview with Joystiq he’s confident that working with MLG is a good place to start.

At the moment, it sounds like they’re planning on creating smaller environments, which may sound a bit un-PlanetSide 2-like.

Smedley also states that there are plans for a bracketed tournament for different sized groups. Instanced maps will be used for the tournament, but it looks like anyone can qualify for the tournament by simply playing PS2 normally.

The Elder Scrolls Online will use normal MMO camera angles.

That’s right. You can zoom in on your character, but you will not be able to see your hands or weapons. There are a couple of reasons they could have decided to do this. Time and effort seem like good reasons. Or perhaps it’s a technical thing in regards to how MMOs are played.

In other TESO news, the main story is completely instanced and you will not be able to share the experience with other players. Good news for Elder Scrolls fans and bad news for the general MMORPG populace?

Neverwinter‘s beta and founder packs.

Want to get into the Neverwinter beta? Well, it’s going to cost you. For assured entrance you will have to drop $60. This will guarantee you entrance into the three beta weekends occurring in February and March. And, if you want some codes for your friends… Well. That’s going to cost you $200. According to the Neverwinter team, these are both great values, but it should be kept in mind that all of these prices are for digital editions.

All that and more…

These are just a few things on this episode of TWIMMO. We also have talk about Wizardry Online, Age of Wushu and, of course, your viewer questions.

And, if you missed last week’s episode, you can find it here.

This Week In MMO 130: Planetside 2 eSport

50:06

Star Wars The Old Republic

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

This week on the Republic, SWTOR patch 2.2 is here and Damion Schubert has things to say about next gen consoles.Read more »

3 comments
39:42

WildStar

Unicorn Duck Shadow Puppet Ep4:
WildStar For The Holidays?

The gang talk about their hands-on time at E3 and Reddit has a few things on their wish list.Read more »

9 comments
0:36

World of Warcraft

How To Play:
Affliction Warlock

In this episode of How To Play, Mike demonstrates the proper technique for playing an Affliction Warlock.Read more »

13 comments

http://www.facebook.com/people/Filip-Buhov/1379207683 Filip Buhov

there are alot of 10 – 25 man competitive wow guilds for pvp and pve. rly possible for a 20/40 vs 20/40 esports
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  It will be interesting to see the direction SOE takes. Blizzard created the API, so third party Web sites can track guild/raid progression.
- valkilmer
  
  the only problem with having 20/40 vs 20/40 would be the price to shell out for plane tickets and making the prize money worth it.
- InvaderMig
  
  Would never happen. Bringing that many people to events and paying them all for winning makes no sense.
Michael Hayman

I would imagine, that SOE would probably run offline qualifiers, which would make it feasible to have like a good mix of teams competing, and i would imagine that maybe they would only play the quarter finals upwards at an actual online LAN tournament.
http://twitter.com/Zedris Zedris

wrong concept completely for raiding in the early days of wow. if one person died u had to wipe u needed 40 people who knew their class and how to play. given that it was hardcore server first guilds but yet it still existed. but it wont be an esport. too much money to pay 40 people and fly them in and out for events. stupid concept for an esport. possible easily but stupid and an economic travesty. lets share $20000 with 40 people. here take 200 bucks…wha?
http://www.facebook.com/djlanders020 Dave Landers

TESO “Storyline will be 100% solo and instanced…”
RED FLAG RED FLAG!!
- Deacon1979
  
  Why is that a red flag? It’s a personal story.
  
  The only game ive played that had a personal story that wasn’t 100% solo was lotro and it was one of THE biggest complaints about the game, especially a few weeks after launch because it blocked progression, but even that was instanced
  - http://www.facebook.com/djlanders020 Dave Landers
    
    I’m not looking for something that’s like the other games, though.
    
    Plus, even in these other games where the story could be completed solo, isn’t there the option to invite others into your instance? It sounded to me like that won’t even be an option in TESO (unless I misunderstood?).
    
    Even in GW2, which I thoroughly enjoy, my least favorite part of the game is the solo story (which is made slightly better by the ability to have friends join your instance). In my opinion, an MMORPG should encourage, rather than discourage, grouping in almost every system in the game. That is, however, just my opinion…
    - Deacon1979
      
      Nah I read PA thing, it never said you dont have the choice to invite others
    - Supercoven
      
      agreed
http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins

As far as the TESO ability to become the emperor goes, a key thing to remember is that they aren’t having servers. They’re going with their “mega server” that does have instancing, but I’d be surprised if it completely cut certain people out from seeing each other all the time, especially if they plan on having huge open world PvP. So essentially you’ll be ruling over everyone in game, which sounds like it could be really awesome. I’ve seen this in smaller mmo’s where you could become king and regulate merchant taxes or what dungeons were open to who.

It would be hilarious if the emperor had to have their guild body guards following them around all the time though. Because I’m sure if they don’t like you, other players(probably from your own faction even) will be plotting to take you out. Should be interesting to see to say the least.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  If you only can have one emperor, it will be interesting MMO gameplay. Once you only have one emperor, how much do you have to play to stay emperor. Can you stay logged off and remain emperor? Can you lose your emperor status when offline?
Rich E.

Gary is absolutely correct about Elder Scrolls Online… not having true first person will severely ruin the Elder Scrolls feel. In a SEA of fantasy MMOs.. with a billion sword and sorcery, orcs and elves MMOs.. this could have distinguished ESO. Already faction zones are locked – so no true freedom to explore. Now theres no first person… meh this is just not gonna feel like Elder Scrolls experience. Why even have any first person then. Why add it if its half assed and functionless.

And EQNext e-sport? w t f. I seriously think Smedley is outta his mind. So he claims EQNext gonna be the biggest sandbox ever.. and now its an e-sport… mmmmk. Sand-sport?

the two games i’m most interested in are starting to suck. /cry
- InvaderMig
  
  There’s no reason you can’t create some sort of structured arena type system in a sandbox MMO. Adding something doesn’t mean that you have taken away the ability to do whatever they want.
  
  Now as far as an esport thing, Devs need to understand that they don’t get to choose whether or not their game becomes an esport, the community does. They can provide the structure, but ultimately if casters can’t easily convey whats on screen and more importantly make it sound interesting, it has no chance.
Rich E.

meh
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Grimm/1290540679 David Grimm

Yay! My guild got mentioned. RUIN 4 LIFE!
http://www.facebook.com/djlanders020 Dave Landers

The only thing about the $200 pack for Neverwinter that bothers me is that, if I spend standard price ($60 or so) on a game, I would expect to be able to play EVERY race. It kinda bothers me that Drow cost an extra $140 or so. Besides, all my EQ toons were Dark Elf and I read all the Drizzt books, so I would HAVE to play Drow.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_37KO2WEG76QC3ZXFU7Y4DDB3LQ Pay Perveiw

Can we please have more pocket in the other shows? Pretty please?
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_37KO2WEG76QC3ZXFU7Y4DDB3LQ Pay Perveiw
  
  and mikeB…I miss mikeB
- InvaderMig
  
  I’ll see your Pokket, and raise you a MikeB.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  If she can stay healthy, but then… we are coming up on the allergies season.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1339406775 Matthew Riddle

Small numbers of people can’t keep an MMO afloat, especially a F2P game.
http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

TESO is sounding more and more like SWTOR…. I will hopefully get into the beta, but I thought SWTOR sucked as far as an MMO, and if it is like a single player game mixed with an MMO, I will be passing on buying it.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/KMMYFK5MJ2APHGWIL2MEKPH3AM the_founder
  
  Exactly. I got “excellent” for my chances to get into the beta. But every time they release info on game designs, I lose interest.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Gerrettie-Jr/1287578323 Bill Gerrettie Jr

An exclusive armor set, or even three sets for $200, would be fine by me, but locking people out of a playable race if they don’t pony up $200 seems pretty bad to me. I guess this is the norm for Cryptic since being bought by imPerfect World.
http://twitter.com/JerryWheatfield Jerry Wheatfield

I have no doubt that Gary Gnu is horrible at Wizardry Online and can’t survive the tutorial dungeon.
http://www.facebook.com/spankthismonkey Thomas Vu

I didn’t die in the sewers either. You are fail, Gary. Epic fail. Granted. I used almost all of my damn camps and spent 200g on the fountains.
http://twitter.com/Cpt_Badger Cpt.Badger

Everytime Gary uses the words “good engine” and “Planetside 2″ in the same sentence, god kills a kitten.

I mean seriously. It runs like crap, and looks like crap.
- Supercoven
  
  fail logic… so a AAA title with a huge development team and one of the biggest backers in the industry cant take the time to model separate animations for 1st person?? they would do so for the single player Elder Scrolls games Oblivion and Skyrim and they did it for fucking EVERQUEST 1… but they cant for ESO?
  
  and show me another MMO game engine that supports 100s of players on your screen at once in a huge battle.. what PS2′s engine achieves is pretty damn amazing. compare it to GW2′s WvW problem with culling that occurs when you get like 30+ players in the area. ditch your clock radio PC and stfu moron
  - Revanhavoc
    
    Man you need to get over yourself and realize this isn’t Youtube comments, OK? Seriously calm the swearing calm the insults. People are actually mature on this site and we understand those who express their opinions do so with bravery.
    
    Don’t try and overcompensate for real life by trying to act like a bully online, it’s not right. And it’s completely transparent.
    
    On topic: As far as I know TESO doesn’t have 1st Person View. I am sad about this but I’m not going to take it out on the person who correctly pointed out 1st person mode couldn’t compete with 3rd person mode in PvP. That is a commonly accepted trade-off.
    
    I am frustrated with the performance issues in PS2, but I think their technical accomplishments are impressive.
    
    Please try and relay your opinions in a more mature manner so that we can have more pleasant discussions in the future.
- InvaderMig
  
  You know nothing about how an engine works at all. PS2 while not fully optimized is a good engine and looks amazing. PS2 can handle maybe people battling on screen even on crap computers. I’ve played planet side 2 in pretty intense battles on a Core 2 duo @ 2.33ghz HD 4670 512mb GPU and 4 gigs of ram. This is a low end PC and can still play the game albeit on low settings with less than ideal framerate, but it’s playable.
  
  Swtor can’t even handle more than 30 people on screen at the same time without dropping frames into the single digits and becoming a slide show. That is a horrible engine my friend. There is a vast difference, and what Planetside 2 has done is better than what anyone else has done, save maybe Eve.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  When WoW is played on a tournament realm, there is not gear progression, leveling or unlocks. It’s not like you take your PVP/PVE realm characters into a Blizzard invitational. When WoW arenas are presented as an esport, they are given new characters, gear and time to setup their characters.
  
  One of the challenges Blizzard has with WoW Arena as a eport is the matches are all about team composition, managing CDs and setting up for the massive burst damage. Which are all difficult to display as an esport.
- Revanhavoc
  
  I have to agree with your sentiment of the PS2 engine. I was having problems even before TotalBiscuit pretty much broke his keyboard when his absolutely maxed out rig was told “No, sorry, I don’t like you.” by the PS2 engine.
  
  We can give it Kudos for the technical accomplishments, but if people are having problems with performance I don’t think it’s fair to just brush that off.
  
  Especially becase the First Person shooter is the most frames per second dependant gameplay type in the industry.
Poordevil

As a pretty big Dark Souls fan I agree with Gary that there very well could be a MMO market for challenging gameplay that requires total commitment in order to advance. But it is a fine line between challenge and frustration. The game has to have enough to offer other than brutally difficult combat to make it all worth while. Dark Souls was a polished product, a knock out as far as presentation. Outstanding environment, top notch graphics, smooth animations, excellent controls, haunting musical score, well designed enemies and bosses. The game was a work of art in many ways, and because of those high production standards the game was worth the trouble. If a game was a shoddy or even just average product, there is no way I would endure that much brutality.
http://profile.yahoo.com/KMMYFK5MJ2APHGWIL2MEKPH3AM the_founder

Elder Scrolls Online is sounding lamer and lamer: Faction territories are locked so
youll see 2 other races for 90% of the time unless youre spending all
your time pvp’ing. single player storyline… no first person….

yep, rename this Elder SWOTR Online. fail
http://profile.yahoo.com/HREHIUNQCE643NYVPKOJTDBEBE Hart

Gary I really agree that players are searching for more challenge in their MMOs and I do think that a challenging game done right would secure a healthy playerbase. And I would add EVE to that list of Dark and Demon Souls. A punishing challenging game that demands strategy and planning and cautious play and deep knowledge of your avatar really does create more “FUCK YES!!! WOOOOOHOOOO” moments.

Even GW2 is starting to realize that their easymode gameplay is boring people. You cant have a strong connection to your character unless there is a sense of progression. The fantasy buzz feeling never occurs if you dont feel connected to your character… now i understand that many players arent even aware or interested in getting that buzz or sense of achievement. But many many are. Definitely enough to support a very healthy playerbase.

Warcraft is still the best example for excellence and the sense of progression and achievement. Make no mistake about it… most of Warcraft is very easy. Thats the hook – its very easy to get into and get within sight of the best content… but then it demands alot of teammwork and deep knowledge in your class to excel at the top – in both PVE and PVP. that is the magic of Warcraft’s design. I havent played since Cataclysm and i hate the direction the game is going in with dailies and solo play, etc. but I must admit to what theyve done well.
http://profile.yahoo.com/HREHIUNQCE643NYVPKOJTDBEBE Hart

and Jason is completely right.. SOE will shit on those 20k EQ players in a heartbeat… look how theyve been milking those poor sucker cash cows in EQ2. its shameful what they do to such a loyal fanbase.
trials

Pokket is right about the team sizes for PS2. I would even go as far as to say that they cant really make it work well with more than 6on6. This is coming from a guy who was playing team fortress classic in a top clan in europe for years. We usually played 8on8 but at those team sizes it could be problematic to field a full team even at top level with a bunch of dedicated people.
DosTacos

Uhhhggg, SOE, stop with your identity crisis! You’re a MASSIVE Scale Warfare Shooter! Not a 12v12 CoD, BF3, CSGO type ESport. I don’t know anyone in my PS2 Outfit of 200+ members that has said; Man! what this game needs is smaller arena style warfare! In fact, quite the opposite, we want your game to support LARGER battles without bugging out with Lag and Screen/Game Freezes and Render issues.

Put your time and efforts into polishing/finishing your Massive Scale and drop this mis-guided delusion that wasting time with Esports is in ANY way going to help make PS2 more exciting to play. SOE, you have an AWESOME core game that’s just needs some more love and attention to become Epic. So… Cut out your ADD, and quit wandering off into ESports and get your minds back on making PS2 what it should/could be!
Eric Davenport

I honestly played Skyrim in 3rd person over 1st person as a melee character. It allowed you to see enemies all around you, especially when you use a two-handed weapon with sweeping attacks,
As far as the “Emperor” deal with TESO, the feature was explained a while back in a GameInformer Issue. So the open world pvp will be in a single zone(Cyrodil for those Oblivion fans out there). and will be fought over by all 3 of the factions. In the center of the zone is the Imperial City which will be locked for everyone until one of the three factions controls over 50% of the territories within Cyrodil.
Once a faction has accomplished this great feat, that faction may then try and take over the Imperial City. And when a faction finally takes over the Imperial City (not sure if its pve or a raid or whatever) they will declare 1 person from that faction as the Emperor
The person who contributed the most within the faction that claimed the city, since the last time the city was claimed, will become the Emperor. The Emperor will be a title that everyone, regardless of faction, will be able to see, and will be entirely cosmetic (ultimate bragging rights I suppose).
Jason Newington

Founders packs = blatant cash grabs, period. Companies are exploiting that sense of not wanting to miss out on something. We’ve come a long way from playable demos
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000372530123 Scott Bamforth

I love how no one in the livestream chat at the time of the show or now has mentioned that PS1 actually had a smaller style maps for a more CQ battle gameplay for tournaments
Joseph Legemah

Wizardry is horrible.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=536703107 Jared Ryan

Whoever the girl is I’m wondering if she is a herp derp…

WoW Arena’s were apart of MLG but got dropped during Season 9 due to class imbalance and the fact that it’s a joke now.
Michael Pino

Paying for beta access or demos is something that really needs to stop. It’s dirty and comes across greedy, plain and simple It’s something that has been a problem in console games for years now, and now and more and more these days, is rearing its ugly head in the mmo genre.

Companies will try to mask it by calling it a “beta”, but lets face it, it’s an early-access demo. They only thing you’re actually testing is server load.

It brings me back to something Jim Sterling said last week about the insane amounts of greed in the industry, “How do we charge players more money while literally offering them nothing in return?”

Also, can’t don’t know anything about gaming.
Bo MacIsaac

The original Planetside actually had something called Battle Islands or something like that. It’s not something they haven’t done before.
lamsai

nothing about archeage?
lamsai

opps double post
InvaderMig

ShackTactical is another group of gamers that could easily take part in this. They are a hardcore group of Arma 2 players, but have also played Planetside 2, and the level of coordination these guys show is pretty much the best you’ll find. It’s straight up military structure. They were deploying squads on key points and just smashing entire armored groups by focusing armor and one shooting with homing rockets in coordinated bursts. It’s a thing of beauty. The thing I wonder about is the number of players. There’s no way they are going to bring 48vs48 for platoon battles, so things like this will have to be played online, and I’m not sure how that’s gonna work.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

Of course Wizardry is old school – it’s based off of the granddaddy that gave us the RPG games we know and love today!! I only had an hour or so of open Beta time, but it does seem like the Spiritual Successor to the Sir-Tech games of old – including the text.
InvaderMig

Pokket is right, people thinking this game is going to be Skyrim Online are fooling themselves. This is a MMO based in TES universe, that is all. Any notion of this playing anything like Skyrim is just a pipe dream, that is exactly why FP view is not being supported. Being in first person in the same space where people are also allowed to be in third person, puts all the FP players at a MASSIVE disadvantage. In PvP without that 360 view you are going to get completely decimated by those in 3rd person. Same as with PvE. You can’t look up at a Dragon flying around in the air and see what’s around you without your cam zoomed out.

What’s going to end up happening is all the Skyrim players are going to rage at all the 3rd person MMO douches raping them in PvP and yelling at them for having no awareness in PvE. The MMO players are gong to rage at the Skyrim noobs for trying to play an MMO in a first person view, which in their mind will be interpreted as purposefully gimping themselves. Skyrim players will demand FP view servers only, (won’t get them) the community will fracture and the game will fall on it’s face.

Look, it’s obvious the devs are designing this game with 3rd person in mind. Rather than be a 1st person enabler (A new term I coined) by giving them the impression that FP is a viable way to play the game, they are indirectly informing the community that it in fact is not. The hope is that the, art direction, lore, familiar races, and social aspect will be enough to persuade TES players to accept the new style of gameplay. And there it is.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  I agree – I see a lot of potential issues coming down the pike. The problem we have here is akin to something Jason mentioned about everyone jumping on the e-sports bandwagon like they did (and still are doing) with the MMO bandwagon.
  
  Let’s face facts – there are franchises that probably shouldn’t be made into an MMO. The TESO devs all but stated (and I think they actually did outright state) that they are pinning a lot of the potential success of this game on the brand, just the same as EA and BW did with SWTOR, and the NeverWinter devs are doing with that game. I enjoy SWTOR, but BW might have been better served just making the game KOTOR 3 with the 8 different storylines. Just because a franchise is popular and steeped in lore doesn’t mean it needs to have an MMO under its belt.
  
  Personally, I would rather see some other IPs made into MMOs that could really do something interesting in the genre – TRON and Logan’s Run come to mind. I would much rather see that than a TES or NW MMO.
  - InvaderMig
    
    I honestly could care less about TESO, but Swtor was a hard pill to swallow, especially considering the writing was on the way even in beta. BW focused on story and all but abandoned the MMO part in the release product. I think Teso is kinda going in the opposite direction, though it may be too early to tell. I’m not an ES fan, and even if I was I have no interest whatsoever in another high fantasy MMO. It’s why GW2 never got my money. I swear had Swtor been more like GW2 as far as gameplay was concerned it may have worked out. Hell if they simply gave beta players access to high lvl content and had freaking test servers their game wouldn’t have released a buggy mess. Not to mention the quality of life features. I could go on about swtor all day, but I’ll just get sad, so I’ll just leave it at that.
http://twitter.com/LusitanGaming Lusitan Gaming

in relation to Wizardy Online, i like the dificulty of the game like perma-death and lack of HP reg, but the fecking combat is really bad, i mean really really bad.

the game is only that really hard because the combat gameplay is awful
BobBlast

In ESO Emperor = Archlord…. this has been done.
Luxin

PvP enthusiasts are mostly childish *icks. If the “worst”(=best) of them is Emperor, Im not sure I want to play…
http://twitter.com/MiZTiiX MiZTiiX

can you do some twimmos with mike b and s too?
http://twitter.com/Vazzaroth Josh Hagood

I can’t believe how far off Gary is with a Wizardry – Grimrock comparison. One is a high quality throwback to old PC gaming with a new polished feel… the other is a PoS, dated looking game that controls like it came out 10 years ago with a hardcore twist. If people wanted the 2nd, they’d just play Ultima Online again.
StepnSteph

Wizardry has some very good ideas, but it has too many problems. Eg; last night my character got stuck on geometry and consequently died from a fire trap. At other times, my character’s back-jump dodged an attack, but still got hit (from several feet away) and was sucked back into the mob. Maybe that was lag, but the rest of the game didn’t feel lagged at all.

“Clunky” is one way to describe it. These sort of things would be annoying under normal circumstances, but it’s facedesking in a game that has perma death.

I really like the idea of perma death and a difficult game. Basically I agree with what Hilary & some of the chat was saying. I want a “world” and I dig the challenge, but I don’t think that Wizardry Online is going to be that game.

The NPC dialogue is super annoying. There is some that you can skip through, and some that you’re still forced to watch it slowly type out… and oh god it just drags on.
DoctorOverlord

Good episode.

Who else remembers the original Sir-tech Wizardry game? That was a while ago.

I have to go with Gary and give kudos to a company that is trying something different. The MMO community always has old-school players complaining about the casual trend of the genre but games like this could fill that desire to see old-school mechanics. Perhaps the genre can finally stop focusing on making the next WoW and expand to bringing games that appeal to a truly broad range of players.

Also Wizardry sounds like a potential Klaus and Squirrel episode to me!

This Week In MMO 130: Planetside 2 eSport

This week on TWIMMO, we get a little more info on how the PS2 esport thing is supposed to work.

The Elder Scrolls Online will use normal MMO camera angles.

Neverwinter‘s beta and founder packs.

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

Unicorn Duck Shadow Puppet Ep4:
WildStar For The Holidays?

How To Play:
Affliction Warlock

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