Planetside - EU Server - 14th of August 2003

Was looking through junk on my computer and found these screenshots, now just over 13 years old! Managed to get the timestamp via the file data, though it may not be correct. I used to have more, but years of changing computers and broken down HDDs have left me with just these two.

Over the years I’ve played many MMO games, but Planetside was the first, and it’s the one I have the most nostalgia for (I guess the bulk of people would express similar feelings about WoW).

Both of these screens were taken on the EU server (Werner? I think?) during one of the NC’s big pushes on Thursday evenings to get people online. Every Thursday we used to pile on to the servers, usually taking back Cyssor and Solsar continents, maybe getting as far as Searhus if we were lucky.

Pretty sure the first image is on Cyssor. There are around 30 tanks (I think) which is doubly impressive when you consider they’re all 2-person vehicles, along with the Galaxy transport adjacent which might be full. You’re probably talking 90 players onscreen there, maybe more. The second image is harder to place; it looks like Solsar.

Much of what made Planetside so interesting filtered into other FPS games as the years went by, and obviously now we have Planetside 2. Still, there’s something to be said for the immense scale Planetside 1 possessed; similar to 2 but in 2003. It was an incredible technical achievement (even if it did require a bleeding edge computer to get the best out of it).