Fan Faire 2011 Q&A

After the community address PlanetSide Universe took part in a small question panel with several of the PlanetSide 2 developers including John Smedley (CEO of SOE), Matt Higby (Creative Director) and Tramell Isaac (Art Director).

Below is Part 2 with some overview questions, scroll down further for Community Questions Part 2 and Part 3.

On the Class System

The skill tree and classes go hand in hand, you can switch between roles as often as you want depending what is needed at the time. Things like weapon attachments will be based on the skill tree. Also you will be able to queue up 24 hours of skills to train so you can train your characters offline. However there will still be battle rank involved which will prevent you from training all skills unless you advance in battle rank. Skill training will also occur quicker when you are online. On Resource Collection

On a continent you will have multiple regions that can be captured that have specific resources tied to them. Some areas may be more rich in rare resources some in common materials. Auraxium will be one of the rare resources that can be obtained. You will be able to unlock secondary weapons such as mortar cannons and AA guns on tanks. You will do this based on resources collected by your empire or outfit. Resources will make gameplay more strategic, for example denying resources to empires to gain an advantage. On Outfit Customization

Outfits will have skill trees also that will be customizable. Outfits can spec specifically to increase certain aspects such as focusing on being an air cavalry outfit, or infiltry and max outfits. On long term plans.

There will be a three year plan for PlanetSide 2 for all of the players to review and and provide feedback. Based on feedback the plan could be changed or moved around. On Game Focus

It's about giving back to the players, SOE wants to make PlanetSide 2 for the players who have stuck to the game for years, and the hardcore players who participate day in and day out. On the scale of gameplay

There will be multiple continents in the game just as with the original PlanetSide. Down the road there will even be multiple worlds. On gameplay systems

There will be an extensive mission system in PlanetSide 2 to assist in coordinating PlanetSide 2 combat on a much larger scale than seen in PlanetSide 1. On the Territorial Control Systems

Due to the structure of the systems there will be a large variety of heavily contested areas such as large forests. Large and open areas could be conquered entirely with vehicles, this goes for air and ground vehicles. Much of the territorial control system will be based similarly on bases where if you capture a base or structure you own the territory. There will be bonuses to capturing territories that are connected. It will also add more vertical gameplay to the game. On the pace of Gameplay

Moment to moment pacing for PlanetSide 2 is much faster than PlanetSIde 1. On external access to data

Most data will be accessible from outside so webapps can b built on top of the game. Services such as signature generators and statistic pages could be built around the data feeds. On urban combat.

There will be "Urban Like" combat in PlanetSide 2. On the Flight Model

They want skill based vehicle driving to play a much larger role in PlanetSide 2. There will be much more advanced flight mechanics with barrel roles and flips. Real skill will be required to fly vehicles so quality pilots will be in demand.

Community Q&A

Below are some of your questions direct from the Ask the Dev's question submission! Questions below were answered by Matt Higby, Creative Director for PlanetSide 2.

Part 2 When is beta?

Beta will ready when we feel the game is ready for people to play and test in. There is no solid date at this time. What are you most excited about in Planetside 2?

I am most excited about the world system and the territorial control system, for example being able to capture a ridge or a river bend. Also the engine is capable of things volumetric clouds where vehicles could fly in and hide in the clouds. Can you tell us if 3rd person will play a role in PlanetSide 2?

There will only be a 3rd person view for certain air vehicles, infantry will not have a third person view at all. There may be things like cameras that an infiltrator can throw on a wall to monitor who is coming up the stairs or around a corner. Can we expect more varied base layouts?

Currently we are coming up with a way on how interiors are going to work, we are working on predictability vs randomness and we are leaning towards more standard base layouts rather than random. But this time around combat will be less centralized on bases. There will not be specific purpose built facilities such as drop ship etc (ie you won't require a dropship center to build dropships) Are there any plans for a larger variety in towers?

Right now there are two types of towers and we hope to have more variety in towers. Are there any plans for more in-depth character creation, like what was done from EQ to EQ2?

There will not be a large variety of character creation due to the large scale of the game. Game Appearance - How will weapon-customization be implemented into the game?

There will be weapon customization in the game. The customization will be very sensitive to player gaining to much power. An upgrade may allow you to unlock different variants that are less accurate but do more damage. There will be a 15% to 20% maximum difference between players who are new compared to experienced. Will base names remain similar in PlanetSide 2?

Hope to use similar base names as well as continents, there was a new continent featured in the teaser trailer and we are currently working on Searhus. Will wreckage remain on the battlefield?

Wreckage will stay around on the battlefield for a period of time, hopefully minutes but it is still up for balance. Are you currently planning to make an expansion pack or periodically add content?

There will be large scale content releases rather than expansion packs in PlanetSide 2. What are your plans for the storyline? Will it be expanded upon?

The PlanetSide 2 story is the re-imaging of PlanetSide, you are still in Auraxis and allot of the story from PlanetSide will be re-examined in PlanetSide 2 Part 3 Will there be more of a detailed hitbox in PlanetSide 2? For example will we see Headshots this time around?

There will be headshots in the game as well as locational damage on Vehicles. Can the terrain be altered (destructable terrain)?

At this stage of development this is still up in the air. Do we still have a sanctuary? Or is it replaced with something else?

The sanctuaries and shuttle system do not exist in PlanetSide 2 since they slow down the gameplay. You will be able to spawn directly on squad mates based on skills, squad spawning can only happen outside since squad spawning actually drops a capsule from the sky. Additionally you will be able to spawn in Galaxies. What changes will we see in the command system in Planetside 2?

There will be squad level command systems that allow tagging of targets as well as outfit based command. There will also be orbital strikes in the game, all of these abilities will be based on the skill system in the game. What kind of new features can we expect for Outfits?

Later on down the road (likley not at release) we hope to provide a skin system to allow outfits to customize their armors so the will be more recognizable on the battlefield. This type of system would be approved by the PlanetSide Team to cut down on inappropriate submissions. Will there be a merit system?

Yes we hope to have a merit system in PlanetSide 2

We still have more! Stay tuned to PlanetSide Universe over the coming days for an interview with John Smedley! Head on over to the Forums to discuss this article as well as ask questions that may have not been answered here.