Planetside 1 did not have a class system. You instead earned certification points as you gained more battle rank to be spent on certifications such as assault rifles, heavy weapons, rocket launchers, snipers, and various vehicles. If you wanted, you could certify in a stealth suit and a small, one manned light vehicle and use it to sneak into enemy territory and disrupt defenses before the main force got there. Or you could cert into medium armor and aircraft, or medium armor, aircraft, tanks, and other vehicles. It just depended on how many certification points you had. There was no concept of classes or anything, just certs, and it all depended on what "trees" you certified in. It was not linear progression to the point where you needed to cert into a specific class to unlock the next few things. Of course, in order to get the high-powered, anti material sniper rifle you first needed to certify with the smaller rifle, but that was different.
As for vehicles, all main battle tanks required at LEAST two people to operate. You had a driver and a gunner. This took a lot of communication and willingness to work as a team to be able to operate the vehicle. You couldn't just Battlefield 2 into a tank, drive up, kill some stuff by yourself and get points. You had to wait to get yourself a gunner before you set out- and most of the time, you had to join an armor column to have a chance of surviving air attack or ambush.
And killcams have no place being in a game like this. With killcams, you won't be able to sit still or use stealth or the element of surprise. The moment you kill somebody they'll know where you are and what direction you are headed in. This forces an ultra-fast paced call of duty gameplay that has no business being in a video game like Planetside, where REAL strategy and REAL squad tactics are required to take down an installation or capture a continent.
Some evidence to support my claims:
This is a statement by Brewko on the official forums in response to a thread expressing the same concern that I have on solo MBTs. Yes, you can still have a gunner who will operate the anti-aircraft gun mounted on top. Is it necessary? Not one bit. The problem with this is that it ALLOWS people to solo in tanks, which is a huge detriment to the spirit of the game, which is teamwork. Either learn to work as a team or go home, because nobody can fight a war solo. Source is here if you want to put it into context: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=88000028342
This pretty much sums up how the driver and gunner will need to work together to balance out the tank. Now that the driver controls the main gun he's going to need to also have a gunner if he expects to survive for more than just one attack.
In PS2 the gunner role will be more of a defensive role than anything else; and having a dedicated gunner whose primary role is to fend off attackers is going to be critical in PS2. The vehicle owner will also be able to select which type of weapon he wants to give his gunner; so if there are a lot of aircrafts in the skies he could select a flak cannon, or select a rocket launcher to find off enemy tanks in the area. In PS2 if the driver see's an enemy he can immediately go in pursuit of his target without having to constantly tell somebody else where to drive so that he can line up his shot.
We realize that some players are accustom to having the passenger control the main gun which is great for a game like PlanetSide 1, but in PlanetSide 2 there's a skill system in place where you may need to unlock that gunner slot, or even unlock additional weapons for your tank. At this point my suggestion would be wait until beta launches and then give the tanks a try and see how you like them. At that point we'll have the PS2 forums up so you can always give us feedback based on actual experiences you've had from using the tanks.
The GDC videos are located here: http://www.giantbomb.com/planetside-2/61-29025/planetside-2-gdc-demo/35-538435/#8
Video three shows the tanks in the game. You can clearly see that he's both gunning and driving when he makes the comment about almost falling off the cliff. To further solidify my concerns, he makes this ridiculous, obvious comparison to Battlefield 3. He says "Also battlefield 3 has tanks", like he's obviously trying to draw connections between the two games to attract certain ADHD gaming crowds.
This is proof of the class system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t3c-XQgc1QE
It's about 40 seconds in, you can see he's got all the classes there with the items. They haven't shown whether or not there's custom classes or anything yet, so like I said, I'm still holding out hope for that. But as it stands, this game is heading toward more adrenaline based, ADHD COD combat and away from the highly tactical, strategic game that was Planetside 1. Things rarely change in games from initial alpha/beta footage to release, that's what's got me so worried. Speculation is rarely wrong when it comes to games like these, at least in my own first hand experience. Obviously this main battle tank bullshit is here to stay, and that's got me upset to begin with. Believe it or not that kind of vehicle interaction and coop was very essential to what Planetside 1 was. Getting your friend on voice and two-manning a Vanu battle tank, trying to maneuver away from tank shots and missile barrages while your friend keeps up the fire on an enemy vehicle nearby, you both are yelling into the mic orders for each other to carry out and there's plenty of fun and cooperation to be had.
It's just unnecessary for them to change some of these things. Completely unnecessary. They're fixing things that weren't broken. A lot of people were angry about the battlemechs they added in Planetside 1 because of the solo-minded COD player mentality the battlemechs had, and here they go, completely eliminating any REAL need to work as a team. Sure, the option is there, but the option to work by yourself should never be present in a video game like this. It defeats the purpose.
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