@onemanarmyy: This is the first really big one, but there's a $600 invitational tournament every week and some smaller open-for-all ones that are happening basically every day. But from the sounds of it they're going to do at least a couple of these big ones every year if it goes well.
Since they brought up Rocket League esports and how it "didn't do as well as they wanted it to", there's a $75,000 tournament that starts tomorrow and has over 6,000 teams playing in it. So it's doing pretty well for itself.
For me it's the original Planetside. Specifically the meta-gameplay loop. It would go like this: battle between your base and the enemy base with tanks and aircraft -> fight immediately around and inside the courtyard of the base with vehicles and infantry -> battle inside the base with just infantry -> capture the base (or defend the base from capture) -> repeat. Of course that loop could change at any moment, since the other faction or a spec ops team from the empire you're fighting could get behind you and try and take a base you weren't paying attention to.
No other game has ever given me the feeling of "this battle actually matters" as Planetside did. It was usually a slow, methodical push towards the enemy base, and you could actually see the front line shifting back and forth every time you respawned. Eventually you'd push them back to their base, and someone on your team would have to set up an AMS (mobile spawn point) while others took the tower and still others tried to take out the enemy's vehicle pad. Five to ten minutes later you'd push in to their courtyard and they wouldn't be able to get outside anymore, so you'd set up outside the main door or the backdoor and every few minutes a wave of teammates would bust though and try and make headway inside. Your empire would slowly inch their way towards the generator or the command point, but you still weren't done! Now you have to defend the base for 15 minutes while the army you just pushed out tries to stop you from capturing it. Then you do it all again until you've captured the entire landmass.
It was simply amazing, and something I feel like Planetside 2 never quite figured out. I almost never felt like we were moving the front line in PS2, it was more of a stroll from base to base with a few skirmishes here and there. Battles inside of bases felt more like a deathmatch instead of a defense you had to slowly crack through. It was all too hectic. Planetside 1 felt like a never ending war that crept across the planet, while PS2 felt like a series of disconnected battles over land I don't care about.
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