I really could not agree more. It was the massive battles and the open world that made it awesome. I don't like some of the direction that games are going were they try to make all of the numbers on each side fair, with the 32x32 battles. I liked planet side because you could roll into a much larger force and have an awesome intense fire fight and if you are smart and lucky maybe even win.

in response to Venekor:

-Planetside cost well over $40 million dollars to make.

in response to dainsmail-1:

- Most of the original developers that worked on Planetside worked on Core Combat. The content was finished before Dave G. was shit-canned. What ultimately killed the developer team was they moved the team from Lake St Louis, MO to San Diego, CA and the majority of the team was split between EQ2, a new FPS that eventually was canned, and the PS3 team.

In response to all:

The major thing that made Planetside less than what it could be was ultimately Dave Georgeson and Smed. Dave G has a special ability to destroy games with wild ideas. Smed has an amazing ability to push content out well before it is finished. Smed has had a change in philosophy as of late so hopefully he gives Planetside 2 a fighting chance. Dave Georgeson doesn't work for SOE currently so lets hope he keeps his hands off of it.

I dated a concept artist/modeler on Planetside and it was so sad to see how much the devs wanted this game to work and how easily the game could be destroyed by literally 2 people. There was so much Planetside content that was unreleased, and so many known issues that should have been fixed before release. Imagine Planetside releasing with the lag fixed. Internally we saw a thousand plus player battles. Could you imagine how much more hype would have been around Planetside if it was that amazing out the gate?

Here's to hoping Planetside 2 is given room to grow.

Although I've moved on from the game I think SOE did a great job with Free Realms and I am optimistic that they have the ability to release a good MMO again.

I am not sold on the Starship side of Star Trek Online and am anxious to see what SOE does with a Planetside sequel.

I agree with Pingles. Sure SoE has a history of severely screwing games up, but I think they have learned their lesson. As Pingles said, Free Realms was pretty well done.

They've rescued Vanguard from collapse, and are doing a fine job polishing it from a horrible release.

As a matter of fact, I really only have 2 gripes against SoE now that I think about it. They killed SWG, and they released expansions to fast on EQ and it was impossible to keep up.

^^ Exactly. I saw this rumor elsewhere yesterday and cringed to see all the Planetside fans yelling "Awesome! Hooray SOE".

O.M.G. :( How can you forget who KILLED Planetside? And why? The corporate machine of SOE shafted the game (and the original dev team) to put in their wunderkinds who failed to bugfix, rolled an expansion (Core Combat) that totally destroyed the balance of the game, then handed their crime to devs in less favor with the important people. Then SOE used the game as a training ground for interns, resulting in 0 development at all for YEARS. Literally. Years. Then they finally drove out the last caring developers to put in "experienced, talented developers" - who's MMO experience was in the theme-park RPGs Everquest II and - drum roll please - Star Wars Galaxies!
Their FPS experience? I asked this question, and the answer was - "We play Quake and other FPSs, so we think we've got a handle on it". *groan*

Their first actions were to roll all of the game-breaking concepts that were sitting on the shelf because hey, it'd break the game to put them in. Galaxy Gunships that could fly around and annihilate entire enemy forces - and I mean anything visible on the ground was freakin' dead, so instantly defenders were driven into the bases to await the inevitable. Nice balance there. And let's not forget the INVISIBLE hovering air transports that mounted a 12mm antipersonel gun and could take multiple tank hits and fly away. No, nobody's going to hover outside doorways in their invisible air tank to rack up BEPs for levels all day! Who would do that? /duh

So, after all of SOE's wise choices, where is our teamwork-based, combined force-centered, freewheeling worldwide war for domination today? In Battle Arenas where people can solo duel each other, in a nice little totally-controlled-and-easy-for-a-corporate-drone-to-understand venue. That's how much SOE understands the player base that made Planetside the greatest game I've ever played c. 2004.

Bottom line- SOE and their cubicle god attitude is what is wrong with the MMO industry. Let them stick to an audience that WANTS a nice, safe kiddy theme park with no way to grief anyone, like Free Realms. They are the worst possible company to try to develop a game like this. They WILL screw it up, because it is in their very nature to screw up anything that doesn't totally cattle-chute players into doing what cubicle drones think is fun.

Last time I checked I believe THQ has the rights for Warhammer 40K and I thought they where making an MMO out of it. Though those plans could have changed.

"I hope they don't do anything dumb like make it F2P."

If they are "dumb" enough to make it F2P then I'll try it. Otherwise there are just WAY too many MMOs out there to be subscribing and unsubscribing to all of them.

I liked one F2P enough to subscribe and then two more I never bothered.

I like the F2P model.

Thank you, Thank you Thank you!!! I cant wait for this game..6 in planetisde for one reason. its the only thing like it out there. I don understand why no one has stepped up to MMOs like these. Its reall simply game, give thousands on people an open worlds, with tanks, air ships , max armor and infantry support. Allow one empire to take the entire thing(seen happen twice). What makes planetside so awesome is its focus on all tools of war. Air, Armor and Infantry. Each has its own role and you rely on each to fulfill you goal. I cant tell you have fun it is to have a 120 people all n vehicles raiding a base. Or getting 100 reaver gunships to anihilate all base defenses and dropping 6(bout 100people) galaxy loads of solders 400m over a base. And its all possible with the massive numbers on the battel field. The only game that gives you the impression of a real world engadement. Sure this game has its flaws, but nothing else(minus eve online) comes close to this scope.

Planetside's player cap is 400ppl and I would prefer to see them bump it up just a little bit but I still would be happy with the same thing. I just hope they stay with the original way where you could pop lock a zone with just 1 empire. They decided that wasnt fair(and the player base dropped dramitically so there really wasnt but 1 big fight on each side and thus no other place to go). I still visit planetside 6 years later and this gives me hope as MAG was the only other game to look forward too