Its being offered at Gamespot, you download the game, enter your credit card number, then start a 30 day trial. Link here:

http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/misc/dlx/planetside/index.html

The disclaimer:

(Important Note: You will be required to enter a valid credit card number and have Windows XP installed to play the free trial. After the 30-day trial period ends, and unless you cancel your trial subscription before the end of the 30-day trial period, Sony Online Entertainment® will begin to charge your credit card on a monthly basis.)

Dola

BTW, as you can image, its a HUGE download, 1.5GB. Looks like it will be about a 4 hour download with DSL

Okay deal if your interested... but the only game more empty then Planetside is SWG... which curiously is also made by SOE.


Nothing like playing all night to claim a territory only to have the place retaken an hour later.

Originally posted by Deattribution


Nothing like playing all night to claim a territory only to have the place retaken an hour later.

Sounds like DAOC as well.

Originally posted by The_herd
Sounds like DAOC as well.


Pretty much exactly... except DAOC does have a handful of other things to occupy yourself with.

[whispers] "They are all the same. Boring."

That's why I decided not to try Planetside. I went to their website and saw and hourly chart of territory occupation. It was all over the place...why bother spending so much time taking a place when the occupation of every sight is constantly changing.

Every game with PvP seems to be this way. In DAOC you would spend countless hours planning a relic raid, only to fail or have it taken back within a week. Keep takes are just a joke and used to kill boredom.

I think the thing that kills these games is when everyone hits lvl 50 (or whatever the max level might be). I played DAOC for several months right after it launched, at first it was great, exciting, I was having a blast. Keep takes were hard, relic takes were near impossible. However, I hit the 40's right as the first group of people starting hitting the 50's and the game started going downhill from there. I jumped back a on few months ago and played for a couple months, not even close to being as fun as it was at launch. Everyone you ran into in RvR was lvl 50, keep takes were simple and you only kept it for a couple hours. No point in that. I think the holes in these games become quite evident after a large portion of the players hit lvl 50 and the games fun dies shortly thereafter.

If a game doesn't have PvP, I have no interest in it at all. I find no fun in chatting with a group of people for hours occasionally pressing my attack button and downing Mountain Dew after Mountain Dew trying to stay awake to make it to the next level all while wondering, why the hell do I even bother with this?

I wonder if the solution to that is to have low maxed out levels. Like make it so, say, level 20 is the highest. And not have the characters become all uber.

But then again, most people wouldn't play then so you wouldn't make enough money...

what's your opinion as to the best MMORPG out there, where it does not become just an endless boring LONG quest to level up and catch up to the top players that I will never catch, but is more like a cool personal RPG and/or FPS intertwining with others

has anyone tried Final Fantasy Online? -- i heard someone saying it was supposed to be much more story oriented and personal quest oriented than others

i just canceld SWG, have tried in the past EQ, DAOC, and a couple of others i cant remember

im really tired right now and cant type or think right so dont mind the lack of punc...

Yeah, I've been playing FFXI. The quests are that same as EQ, boring and tedious. The missions, though, do move along a plot. However, you have to gain several levels between each mission (just so you can fight the monsters in the area of your goal), which basically means hours of just running and killing.

They try to add more story to it in FFXI, but it's still pretty much more of the same.

Of the games I've played so far, unfortunately, DAOC was the best. Shadowbane has the easiest of the level treadmill's, but the graphics are horrible and you pretty much have to align yourself with the "power" guilds or the game sucks. EQ just flat out blows.

I'm waiting to see how CoH and WoW goes before jumping into another one. The idea of creating a Superhero is kind of interesting, I've just been wondering how they will add powers to a player as they level without making them insanely powerful in the endgame. WoW is interesting because of the Warcraft name, it comes from solid develpers, so I figure it should be good. However, I swore that I wouldn't jump on another game that requires stupid amounts of gametime to actually accomplish anything in game.

I love when people keep asking about the "best" MMORPG, even after they've tried most of them and hated them. The point is that all of the MMORPG's are pretty much the same, in a general sense. If you hate six of them because they're all the same to you, you're going to hate the seventh one, too.

To me, it's almost like saying: "I've tried all these sports text sims, but they're all the same. Is there a game just like these but with 3D graphics and maybe the ability to control my players with a flight yoke, particularly one with at least 8 buttons on it?"

Edit: Spelling

For me, its not the genre that I hate though. Its the end-game. DAOC was a blast for me until I got up into the 40s, then it became the same game every time I logged on. EQ was fun at 1st because it was the 1st of its kind. Asheron's call was cool because of the ongoing storyline. In the end though, what they push and push as being the goal, reaching lvl 50, isn't all its cracked up to be and I've found getting there is actually a lot more fun, at times, than being there.

Each game has something to offer, but there has yet to be one that puts it all together and really captivates you over a long period of time.

I dunno, think they shouldnt have a limit to level. I have played on the discworld mud, and they have characters that are level 400+. Makes it fun, when some player can kill you with one blow. Of course you have to sign up to be a PK

Originally posted by Airhog
I dunno, think they shouldnt have a limit to level. I have played on the discworld mud, and they have characters that are level 400+. Makes it fun, when some player can kill you with one blow. Of course you have to sign up to be a PK

Yeah but then that limits the influx of new players... Nobody wants to play when someone is 399 levels higher then you. Especially if they're hard to get levels.


There are several 'good' qualities in almost all the MMORPGs, just no game has managed to put them all togehter into one package.


Or even put half of them togehter.

For me, what's important for the MMORPG is the believability. All MMORPG's that I have played have destroyed that immersion for me by having plots and quests and missions that all players do.

Like with EQ...how can Emporer Crush be killed over and over again? How can the land of the orcs and their castle be camped by level 10 players? Where are all of these orcs coming from? WHo the hell is resurrecting Crush every 20 minutes to the second? (Made up the time...just making a point).

I hate how every other player is doing the same thing as me. It takes away from the multiplayer aspect. It's basically just a single-player game with everyone playing through the same game with other people around.

I've been (re)looking at Eve Online. It's basically a space game that focuses on economics. There is fighting, as there are pirates. But that's the best thing. They are players, not NPC's. (There are some NPC pirates, but not a lot). Basically, it's a universe that drops people in and let them play. No plotlines that every single player has happen to them. It does have a "storyline", but it effects everyone as a group, not every individually.

I've heard it still has problems though. But that's what I want. A game where it's filled with other players, and we just play. No linear storyline that everyone does.