It would be nice if VoiceIP was reliable, however. It's been in the beta for about a week now but it tends to crash the game for those using it as often as not. Issues with firewalls, ports, etc. as well, as you might expect. When it does work it's pretty nice to have, if your squad is worth a crap ;0

The problem with Voice over IP is that it's very bandwith demanding, meaning that if too many people start yapping, usually the pipe from the server just crumbles and dies. Not to mention that the server itself gets a much larger overhead trying to route all those signals, and since I doubt that Sony has spent any kind of money on hardware / bandwith upgrades since that Voice over IP went in, it's not too hard to see where their problems are coming from.

Quite frankly, unless you have a big fat connection, I doubt you're going to have a very appealing gameplay session if you try to run something as data intensive as a MMOFPS AND try to combine it with voice over ip...

Ahhh the future, how bright you look.

Creston

The Voice over IP chews up like next to nothing of my really crappy DSL bandwith- my Planetside connection is still smooth as silk when using it. Problems with it should go away when they get it all handled server side, which they stated is one of their goals.

P.S. I'm not a Planetside fanboy or anything, before anyone accuses me of that. I like the game alright, but in it's current incarnation it isn't worth my money.

"I like the game alright, but in it's current incarnation it isn't worth my money."

Well said.

I still just can't get over the fact that there is no 'goal' to achieve while playing it. I would think that it would be fun for... lets say a month?? Just my opinion, but I thought the jist of 'games' was to win or lose ultimately... what do you call a 'game' with no goal?

Game is fun. A little repetitive though. They need to get the lag issues and random disconnects worked out though. I echo what the previous guy said, not worth 15 bucks a month.

sim city had no goal, well unless you played the scenerios...

Mr. Tolerance,

By itself, Voice over IP isn't going to kill your bandwith no. Then again, how many people are you listening to at any one time? 2,3? 5 Maybe?

Notice that I said that "if too many people start yapping" it kills bandwith SERVER side.

Because while your connection may only need to handle 1-5 VoIP streams, the server's bandwith has to handle all of them.

Still, I have to admit that Planetside does absolutely nothing for me, and I just also realised that this is the third MMO game Sony is currently working on. I DO hope that they aren't running all those servers on one single server / bandwith farm

Creston

Honestly my problem with the way they have it set up is that if you talk, it get's heard. IF it was like HL and other VON games where you had to hit a key to talk this would work a lot better. Right now it even picks up speaker sounds on some peoples mics.

Why pay 15$ a month and deal with bad FPS and no point in winning when You have Tribes Vengeance on The Horizon. No 15$ a month, proven netcode (we hope), voice over IP, text chat,key voice commands (A tribes innovation)

Dont get me wrong, I like some of The ideas in Planetside, but screw Sony and any of these games where they make you pay to play. So how much money have your burned playing Everquest? What I want to know, can you buy the game, and run your own server, so you can play on your own LAN with freinds?

This comment was edited on May 5, 05:48.

You have to push a key to be heard.

I'd write a comment but I'm too busy playing Planetside, the game is too god damn fun

-DSR <---obviously a massive fanboy

I agree Im too damn busy playing. I think you other guys are trying to scrounge up excuses not to pay a monthly fee. I think your dislike is more for the monthly fee rather than of the game itself. Theres still allot of people turned off by the idea, I dont have any problem with it. Im going to move on from ww2ol and just pay for PS now.

Naw, I have no problem with P2P, I've been through UO, EQ, DoAC, WWII Online. I just don't 'get' the concept of PS. I didn't say the game sucked or anything. I would be much more interested 'if' each civ (or whatever you call it) got some reward for 'winning'. I am a HUGE fan of Tribes 1/2 and this game seems simuliar, but there is no goal... or so it seems, correct me if I'm wrong pls :). I just don't see the point of a non-winnable or non-loseable 'game'. Just doesn't make sense to me, thats all.

Sorry Creston.. I assumed you might be talking from current play experience, and currently the Planetside servers have nothing to do with voice over IP. My bad. Hopefully when they do make it all server side, their servers will be beefy enough. Note that X-Box live games don't seem to have any problems with all the voice chatter going on.

Frost- that was slightly insulting, implying I'm a cheapskate and all. Spending the monthly fee on the game wouldn't bother me a bit.. it's just, I think I'd rather spend my money on other things. As it is, I've played the game for a bout a month now and am starting to lose my drive to play it. If you enjoy it enough to pay for it, I'm glad.

I just don't see the point of a non-winnable or non-loseable 'game'.

Last I checked, UO, EQ, and DoAC were non-winnable/non-losable, but you played those anyways

-DSR

Hmm, good point DSR. I guess games like UO, EQ or DAoC have goals to reach a certain 'level'. So an accomplishment is felt when you reach Level 50/60 or when you become a Grand Master 'insert trade here'. This same achievement may be attainable in PS.. is it? Maybe they will have a server in the future where total victory is attainable, I'd be into that win or lose. Again, not putting down the game, just wondering about the 'goal' of it all :).

Im sorry Mr. T. but I dont think I was directing my comments at any of your posts, but more towards Beaners and the others like it. But its not a specific attack, theres a general dislike with many FPS gamers about paying a monthly fee. I dont know if its based on principle or if its financial. I dont see any problem with supporting the game past release and the upkeep of the servers and network. I can understand other peoples concerns about play goals though as Im not sure about them myself, other than to lock continents. The thing about that is, the dev team can always make changes about that later on down the road.

Well, its a minor reward, when you reach BR (Battle Rank) 7/14/15/20 you get new kinds of armor, the BR14 is spiffy looking, solid gold as well as of course new certs and implants. Once you hit 20 tho, thats it, and I'm at 16 now after about 3 weeks :). There are also command ranks with similar benefits for leading successful raids, etc.

You *can* lock down continents by capping all the bases, which makes it so the only way the nme can get in is thru the warpgates with the new lattice structure, and if you cap the bases on the other end of the warpgates, its impossible to unlock the continent until those bases are resecured. Theoretically you can take over the entire world, but its VERY unlikely.

The true fun that comes from this game is how amazingly natural teamwork occurs. You hardly ever see lonewolfers, everyones in a squad or outfit of some sort making coordinated attacks. It's also nice to have epic scale fights over continents: locking down a continent when you started with only 1 or 2 bases is far more gratifying battle than having more points than the other guy at the end of a half hour (ala BF1942)

Once they get more communication features into PS, it'll be great. Right now its very hard organizing an attack outside of 3 or 4 squads without external programs, but not impossible.

NOTE: not knocking BF1942, fucking love that game, just using that gametype as a point of reference.

-DSR <---Only has time to type because PS beta servers are down for a patch

EDIT: by new kinds of armor I mean a new look to your current armor, NOT altogether new kinds of armor. Signifies to everyone else how much of a badass you are

COMPLEMENT EDIT: By the way, thanks for saying "good point" as opposed to the "fuck you" "I knew that dipshit" or "1 0wN j00!" responses I usually get, nice to have other decent posters around

This comment was edited on May 5, 12:30.

DSR must play NC I wonder what the other faction uniform changes are? Oh and if your already in a squad/clan of some sort, its allot more fun than gathering a group of indies at sanctuary.