officermeatbeef

7 dollar horn?! Man, that is definitely a real bummer. How much does the new Heavy Assault launcher cost? I expect 1000 certs like the rest, I suppose?

Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to seeing some of the other changes play out. A general drop in survivability and power for air and more effectiveness with ground AA is extremely welcome. I've been a bit under the weather and unable to really play beyond just some kinda mindless shootin' but will be back in soon, I didn't see it in the patch notes but hopefully the infantry draw-in improvements made it to this one as well.

The next patch (supposed to come out this coming week) apparently will be dealing with this. Hopefully it'll be enough.

Right now, I'd like to say it's not generally an issue, since supposedly if you can't see an enemy they can't see you either. But honestly in certain situations (Tech Plant assaults in particular) it really does pretty much completely break the game.

It's important to keep in mind that something like EVE and this aren't at all comparable, because the amount of geometry and accuracy of position that EVE has to render, considering it is in space, is magnitudes less than an FPS like PS2. Nonetheless, that doesn't excuse it; if you can't cover a friendly because you can't see the enemies they are approaching, the game is broken, simple as that.

Awesome: Double XP weekends. A cert per kill? Yes please!

Terrible: Friggin' cheaters zipping around instantly headshotting everyone all the time. Baaaaah.

Ha, thanks, you did alright as a subordinate yourself. Everyone was really great, even the new blood held their own just fine. I got no aspirations to be a leader, I just like everyone to know where the hell they're going and why.

Everyone with a mic should have a go at it; as long as you're active and communicating you can't really go wrong, and it's a great way to start thinking about the map and how to get around it. Plus having a group of squaddies following you around is pretty rad all by itself.

@Chtasm Damn straight. Ya know, the very end of my run and not quite ever taking Makala was a bummer, but earlier on our scrappy little squad of scamps managed to push out mostly on our lonesome and score some pretty large victories in grabbing a few other major facilities and structures. Sure, we might have got pushed back some in the end, but had we not been there earlier there's a real good chance TR would have taken the continent out from under us hours ago. That's all the NC can ask of a squad out on our own.

Also not our fault when the rest of the faction buggers off as soon as the going gets a bit tough, eh?

Hey this is a bit old but yeah I pretty much haven't bought stuff on XBLA precisely for this reason for the last few years. I literally only put money into points when I had friends over for Rock Bandin' and there were songs for DL they really wanted, because I was willing to accept the screwjob to make sure my friends had a good time. I'll happily buy acclaimed/interesting downloadables from Steam, PSN, whatever at full price, but I refuse to support MS's insistence on charging us in Canada those extra dollars.

Another thing not clear in the OP, and perhaps what really makes this so frustrating: it's not just that we get charged more for points, it's that in Canada you can't buy points in the same amounts as the US. For example, you can only buy 1400 point cards for Canadian accounts, while the equivalent US card is the 1600 pointer, or a 2800pt card in Canada for $40 vs. a 4000pt card in the US for $50. If you do the math, you'll realize that even if you buy only XBLA titles (or pretty much anything else you'd actually want to spend money on on Live) which happily divide into card amounts in the US, you'll still end up with those hated stupid odd leftover points with the amounts you can buy in Canada. Buying points online also only come in 500, 1000, 1500 etc. increments, whereas in the US that was sorted more than 2 years ago. I honestly don't think there's words for this beyond FUCK THAT.

I've voted with my dollars for a long time now, but unfortunately my vote doesn't really count. There might not be many others like me, but I really do wonder sometimes if MS ever considers that they might have been losing out on sales for years from dedicated players like me who would be gladly buying stuff on Live if they didn't feel like they were being shafted because their dollar was worth less 5 years ago.

@pyrodactyl: Actually it was fairly recently discovered (or MS quietly changed something) that US 4000 point cards (and ONLY 4000 point cards) work with pretty much any account.So if you can manage to track down a source for those, you're good, Unfortunately online sources for such things tend to be sketchy, at best.

@Razorlution said:

Why stop at Microsoft?? Our dollar is at par or above its American counterpart and yet we pay sometimes 30% more on the same product here at home.

There are many factors (costlier shipping & distribution, customs, tariffs, etc.) that contribute to this issue. Not saying several of them don't tend to be bullshit, but they're at least generally understandable. But for a purely digital, downloadable product, none of these factors are applicable (at least not for now). Also, even retail games (a few mysterious exceptions excluded) have cost exactly the same as their US counterparts upon release for several years now.

Oh hey people posted in this and I figured I'd get a notification, sorry! Of course @The_Laughing_Man you could be whatever class you'd like, I'd plan to do a quick run-through of each class to make sure everyone is clear on their abilities (most of them are pretty straightforward but something like the Infiltrator has a few things that aren't immediately intuitive) and after the tutorial we'd totally look for some action. Like @Jadeskye witnessed, you can definitely sort out the most basic stuff quick but there's a fair amount of nuance that you can learn a lot faster with a little guidance.

Re: Voice chat: The in-game voice is totally up to the task (when the servers are functioning right, at least). It even has proximity chat so folks can ask individual questions and I could tell who's saying it. But setting up a Teamspeak server or something to that effect for backup shouldn't be a problem.

Just to make sure it's clear: my plan is to run through stuff someplace safe, so we'll be "on-the-job" but there won't be action right away. I wanna cover all the stuff that's not intuitive or is frustrating when you don't know what the hell is happening. But trust me that taking whatever couple minutes it will require to run through the stuff (again I estimate no more than 30 at the MOST) will save you hours of frustration from dying over and over not knowing what the hell is going on.

But I want to stress: there's no need to be intimidated by this game! Trust me, it's not that complex, it's just busy and cluttered.

Had a real great time with everyone who squaded up with me tonight! Never planned to be squad/platoon leader, whoever was in charge dropped out a bit before any of you joined I think. I know we maybe didn't get to grab as many areas as some might like, especially in the later bit where the NC pop started to dry up, but I think you all did an exceptional job with taking and holding what we did against generally greatly superior numbers.

Hope everyone had an equally good time and got a decent amount of certs out of it.

(Note to Mods: I've put this in General because I thought it might catch attention from people who might have an interest but wouldn't actively check the specific game forum, and I'd like those opinions too. I'll leave it to your discretion whether it should be moved, thanks)

So if you've played Planetside 2 at all, or just heard people talk about it (perhaps via Quick Look) you at least know it seems cool, but bewildering thanks to the lack of any real tutorial/guidance. Let's face it, video tutorials just don't cut it, and I like this game enough that knowing good players who might give it a shot but quit or put it aside just because they are overwhelmed as to what the hell is going on (like Drew, maybe!) is disappointing to me. Well, I've been thinking of this for a bit, and considering the Quick Look just went up I figured I might as well throw it out there now when there just might be peak interest in the game.

So my question to you, the reader, is this: as someone who might have an interest in trying to play the fascinating large-scale free FPS that is Planetside 2, would you like the idea of joining up for an in-game "class" on how the hell it works? The most frustrating thing for me, as someone who took the long road of learning the game via more or less pure immersion and intuition, is knowing how NON-complicated its systems ultimately are for anyone who's played a Battlefield-style FPS before. I honestly think anyone with basic FPS knowledge could learn all the important mechanics in, like, 30 minutes with just simple in-game guidance.

That's my offer here. I have enough spare time at the moment that, should people be interested, I'll be happy to schedule some in-game "seminars" to teach the ropes. Skill level shouldn't matter; basic Battlefield-style FPS knowledge (or maybe even just basic FPS knowledge, not sure yet) should be enough, I reckon. The in-game voice chat capabilities should work just fine for this (assuming the servers aren't going wonky at the time). I can't promise I'll be super-entertaining or insightful or nothing, but I'll do my best to teach you what you need to know to have fun in the game.

My schedule is pretty much wide open at the moment, so I can do whatever is most convenient for the majority of people. As mentioned, I suspect the length of this "seminar" should be about 30 mins at most, but of course we'll have to see. If people are interested, I'll do a few smaller test groups to see how well it goes, then scale up as necessary. If not, so be it. What's in this for me? Simple: every extra soldier in this game who knows what the hell is going on makes the game that much more fun.

Please, let me know if you have an interest in learning this rad game in what is (hopefully) a quick and efficient way!

@Funkydupe: Yeah, I don't expect everyone to always be within hugging distance or something silly, I'm only talking the regular extremes of random squads where people are constantly scattered across different regions or ever different continents, either because they don't know any better or nobody's communicating and so nobody has any direction whatsoever.

Thanks for the info guys, I'm kinda sick of Mathersson anyway. it's nearly always full, there's usually too many NC, and I have a lot more trouble finding a good group in there for whatever reason. Painful I can't just transfer my Level 15 over but whatever.

Name on Waterson is OfMeatbeef, I'm on pretty much whenever in the evening/early morning. Look forward to playing with ya.

Hey folks, I've been playing a TON of PS2 recently (it's pretty much what I always hoped Battlefield would become back in the days of 2, before they started regressing on so many cool things) and I'm looking for a fun outfit to join. Unfortunately I've already got an NC and a TR character on other servers, and figured I'd save the last slot to try out VS. So if I'm going to commit that spot to another starter NC, I'm hoping someone could give me an idea of what level of communication/coordination/activity is going on with this outfit so far?

To be clear, I'm not looking for SERIOUS MILITARY BUSINESS or any nonsense like that, I'm just becoming increasingly frustrated with joining squads and outfits only to find every squad member is just scattered about, usually because the leaders aren't giving even the most basic of orders or are busy talking amongst themselves on their Teamspeak server while the vast majority of the rest of us are just left flying blind. I think this game is at its absolute best when you're in a platoon where the leadership is active and squads are supporting each other; even if you're totally getting your asses handed to you, it's still ridiculously fun and satisfying when everyone is working together and squad/platoon leaders are actively guiding them, regardless of whether the guidance works out or not.

I feel like there's just so much potential in this game for simple yet awesome stuff, like forming a small fireteam from your squad to go and knock out that enemy Sunderer that keeps pouring enemies into your base while the rest of the rabble just sits inside the wall getting slowly ground down, that requires only the bare minimum of organization that is knowing your buddies will stick together with you and help each other out. If you folks got/get that going, I'll burn that character slot in a second. Thanks!