Tag: Planetside

2016 In Review: The Games We Lost


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2016, like any year, marked the sunsetting of multiple online games, some of which we’ve already forgotten about thanks to the release of big name titles and updates to those games that we are spending too much time playing. Sure, sure, that Shantae port on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 got cancelled, can someone tell me when Sombra will be playable on the live servers? The PC, not console, who wants to play this game on console?

Anyhow, let’s start off the 2016 reminiscing not by talking about the US primaries, but by looking at some of the games we lost this year.

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1. Everquest Next

I think that if there is any indication as to where Daybreak currently stands, assuming the layoffs aren’t enough of an indication, it is the company cancelling what should have been the flagship title of its flagship franchise. Its companion program, Landmark, has become a useless endeavor with the reason for its existence no longer on the table and the community has abandoned it for the most part. Presently, as of this writing, Landmark is averaging four concurrent users over the past month and carries one of the lowest ratings on Steam (14%).

But Everquest Next, for the fact that Daybreak decided to up and cancel it with the claim that it just wasn’t working out, seemed to have a lot of promise. Players tackling a Norrath where the world could be transformed, empires could be built, and you could dig your way underground to find dungeons. We were promised a world where players would be able to build their cities to greatness, take on all sorts of enemies, and prevent evil (or aid it) as it rises to destroy the world.

Whatever Everquest Next was, we will never know. Daybreak is hiring for something, so no doubt we will hear about this new title in 2017.

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2. Nosgoth

Nosgoth was fantastic, and the fact that the team let me play with them to check out the (then upcoming) new map The Nest is probably skewing my memory slightly. The worst offense that Nosgoth ever committed was that they tried to make it a Legacy of Kain game, and the franchise fans were not happy at that. There was no single player, there was no story mode, and it was a MOBA coming out at a time when titles were not only coming out in droves by also dying by the dozen.

The game didn’t catch on, and that made it impossible to play. I’d started, then cancelled, several attempts at recording gameplay sessions and writing about this title merely because I would sit in matchmaking for upwards of a half hour and never find a match. At a different time, in a different place, maybe it would have worked out better. Unfortunately it didn’t, and the worst part is that the hopes of a true Legacy of Kain sequel may have gone with it.

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3. Triad Wars

I had a lot of fear that Triad Wars was circling the drain around the time the developers implemented an update in beta that flat out removed every promotional weapon they had given out up to that point. At one point I believe I even apologized on Twitter for wasting everyone’s time by promoting these limited time events to obtain exclusive weapons that were just removed because the development team wasn’t sure how they wanted to handle weapon progression.

If Triad Wars was missing two crucial elements, it was multiplayer and a compelling cash shop. First, for a game that required you to connect to a server with the knowledge that your progress would be lost as soon as the developers decided to move on, Triad Wars could have provided us with some form of online multiplayer mode. Even cooperative would have been nice, perhaps some form of raid or a lobby-styled game of deathmatch, team deathmatch, etc. But no, Triad Wars was a single player game stuck in a multi-player world.

Elsewhere, Triad Wars severely lacked a compelling cash shop with things for people to spend money on, and as such didn’t bring in that much coveted whale demographic. Check out my early coverage.

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4.  The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot

Much like Triad Wars, this game likely would have performed better if instead of a free to play game with microtransactions, it had launched as a budget title with online features and maybe more content actually developed by the team. The premise of The Mighty Quest wasn’t actually a bad one, you create your own dungeon and raid the dungeons of other players to steal their loot. In practice, however, various restrictions in the name of balance meant that most of the dungeons looked virtually identical.

So instead of a game with engaging content or story like Diablo or Path of Exile, you ran through xXx_Tw1l1ghtSprklz_xXx’s dungeon to then run through 123420ErRdAy’s dungeon, and the rest in perpetuity. The biggest complaint that I saw from players was that there just wasn’t enough content, for either builders or dungeon runners, and ultimately the game failed to catch on with an audience.

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5. DUST 514

DUST 514 was released on the Playstation 3 in May 2013, six months before the launch of the Playstation 4, cementing it as one of the worst timed launches in gaming history. Couple that with poor graphics, subpar controls, and shoddy hit detection, and microtransactions, and you have a poor man’s Battlefield on a soon to be dead system. While the technology behind DUST was pretty impressive, allowing players in the console game to have an influence on corporation battles in Eve Online, there wasn’t a whole lot given to people in DUST.

The fact that DUST 514 was hardly a year old before CCP was already looking to replace it with a more functional PC version is evidence enough of how quickly the team lost faith in their console game. Unfortunately, Project Legion was also scrapped and in 2016 CCP announced that Project Nova would be its successor. Also a first person shooter, CCP hasn’t quite nailed down exactly how it will interact with the Eve Online universe.

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6. Planetside

It’s hard to shed a tear for Planetside, thirteen years is a pretty good run for an MMO, especially one that relies 100% on player vs player combat, and one where said player population dwindled considerably and many years earlier. Even though gamers today won’t be able to play the Planetside that you or I enjoyed from 2003, the memory of this title will forever linger in our memories as very likely the best persistent world first person shooter that has, or will, ever exist.

Above Planetside 2 and…

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7. Lego Minifigures Online

That last sentence wasn’t meant to transition into this one. Lego Minifigures Online was an alright game with a poor monetization scheme that got slightly better but not until the damage was done. Incidentally, I talked about this years ago when I interviewed Stephen Calender over why Lego Universe failed: Kids don’t have money, and parents are very frugal about what they are willing to spend in terms of online games for their kids. In that vein, you could probably argue that the title was doomed from the start.

Personally I see it as a matter of all things coming together. At its core, Lego Minifigures Online was little more than a basic ARPG, a Diablo with what should have been the unstoppable power of the Lego franchise behind it. Unfortunately the game was up against Lego’s ‘toys to life’ product Lego Dimensions while other Lego games continued to release that looked better, played on consoles, and arguably had more engaging gameplay.

Planetside Shutting Down July 1st


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April and May were really exciting months for us with the release of the new Construction System, base revamp of Indar, and new population caps to improve battle flow. It’s been exciting to watch all of you experiment with base design and shift battles in new directions. A big thanks to all of you who have jumped in to try it out and given us feedback.

While we hope you are as excited as we are about the recent changes, we do have to make a more solemn announcement. On July 1st, at 4:00 PM PT, we will be closing the PlanetSide 1 server. PlanetSide 1 has a very important history with Daybreak Games and a special place in the hearts of those who work on its successor. While we have run the game for free since 2014, due to evolving business needs and technical requirements it has become necessary to conclude this service.

We hope you will take this opportunity to enjoy the remaining time available with each other and please help us give PlanetSide 1 the sendoff it deserves.

Planetside was supported likely only by the grace of John Smedley and nostalgia, and since Smedley is no longer present and Daybreak has been axing projects left and right in an effort to reduce spending, it was only a matter of time before this ancient shooter got the axe.

(Source: Planetside 2)

SOE Releases Revised List


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Ask and you shall receive. Owing the massive amount of feedback regarding SOE’s recently announced changes, John Smedley has posted a revised list of coming changes to Sony All Access. In short, the “pick an item” system won’t be coming, however players will be forced to claim the stipend monthly.

  1. We’re lowering the price of All Access to $14.99
  2. We’re going to make it so every subscriber to all our PC games an all access member. Basically there will be one SOE membership for our PC games. Please note there are some minor restrictions around our kids titles (simply put – if you’re a 12 year old who signed up for FR you won’t have access to the adult games so we’ll likely leave the lower priced kids offerings as separate subscriptions for under 12 for the same low prices).
  3. We’re keeping the 500 SC included with the subscription instead of going to the “pick an item” system. We heard you. You didn’t like the change. The only change we are making is that we’re now going to make you claim it monthly. You can still hoard it though I realize this is a bit of a pain but honestly it’s the best compromise we could come up with that solves the problems I mentioned in the other thread.
  4. we are going to be giving our members a 10% discount in our marketplaces.
  5. European players – we have an idea on how to include you in this but we need to discuss with our partners.We have a pretty good idea on this though. give us a bit of time to suss this out.
  6. Nothing is changing with Player Studio items – you’ll still be able to buy them with your 500SC.
  7. Console titles – you’ll notice I only mentioned the PC titles. Our goal is to include the PS3 and PS4 games that we have, but I want to be up front and say that isn’t a done deal.

So you can still hoard station cash, but you will have to claim it manually rather than allow it to accumulate automatically. I have a feeling that something is coming to alleviate SOE of the station cash hoarded on accounts that haven’t been used in years. While a few things have been reversed and cleared up, the details surrounding Sony’s plans for all access are undoubtedly not over yet.

(Source: Reddit)

Taco Tuesday: How Will Planetside Manage Cheaters?


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Last year I asked John Smedley if Planetside would be shutting down with Planetside 2 releasing, since Planetside was already dead in the water in terms of population. The response I received was that Sony would rather seek options including transforming Planetside into the free to play model before they shut the servers down, and that there would be more details as to where things were going in 2013. Just a day or so ago, Sony Online Entertainment threw a block grant of six months of game time in Planetside for Planetside 2 players. John Smedley also noted on Twitter:

This also gives us more time to make it f2p. So enjoy starting tmw late morning. And yes I’m sure we will miss flag some people.

Even though I knew that Sony preferred free to play to shutting the game down outright, my reaction to the announcement is still a sound “why?” I understand why Sony would want to take that road, since by their own admission no one plays Planetside anymore and therefore anything is better than nothing. On the other hand, players like myself are fully aware of why Planetside doesn’t have a trial system: because hackers were abusing it and mass-creating accounts. So when Planetside goes free to play, it’s hardly unrealistic to assume that the hackers will simply return in droves to ruin the experience once again.

Will Planetside become a den of aimbots, exploits, and hackers? At first, most assuredly. Afterward, who can say? Part of me wants to say that Sony will address the problem of mass-hacking in Planetside because otherwise the investment required to take the game free to play wouldn’t be worth it. A game like Planetside that is fully player vs player will see its population turn right around and leave if the game is infested with hackers. The hope, of course, is that Planetside will generate enough revenue after the transition that Sony can afford to have some full time staffers on hand to update the systems to battle cheaters at a software level while simultaneously having staff in-game to track down and ban cheaters by hand.

And again, this all comes down to how prepared Sony is to deal with the cheaters who will no doubt show up once the doors open.

Planetside 2 Roadmap Outlines Six Months


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I know what you’re thinking. Given the MMO industry is addicted to launch delays like they are crack, what could possibly be interesting about yet another roadmap being released? Well, Planetside 2’s roadmap (assuming you can convince it to load) is a bit different than those you’ve seen in the past. Released just recently by Sony Online Entertainment, the roadmap reveals the next six months of Planetside 2’s development schedule. The list includes a new continent, adjustments to various skills, new weapons and features to be implemented, and more.

But you’ll also see that the roadmap isn’t just a list of things that are on their way. Rather, they are a list of suggestions by Sony Online Entertainment being proposed to the community. Players are able to vote various features up and down, and while that doesn’t guarantee that they will be included or excluded, it is a way to gauge interest in a feature before the development team goes through all the hard work of actually implementing it. Players are also able to leave comments and suggestions for the developers to read.

Planetside 2 isn’t perfect, but Sony Online Entertainment is dedicated to fixing it up as well as they can.

(Source: Roadmap)

Taco Tuesday: If I Could Turn Back TIme


It is Tuesday and that can only mean one thing. I am either neglecting my patients for the delicious meat-stuffed corn tortillas down in the cafeteria. One of the greatest, or perhaps the greatest, fifty two days of the year. Taco Tuesday is where we get together to reminisce, throw together new ideas, or even think about how we would improve on those we’ve already made. Now if you hadn’t already figured since I make a weekly column about it: I love tacos. Soft shell, hard shell, with the fixings, steak, chicken, fish, venison, vegetarian, really it doesn’t matter. What I don’t like is when the chef prepares a delicious sauce made of rat poison and then decides to apply it to my food after I have already bought it. No refunds.

So for this week, I’d like to talk about various “events” that should have been thrown out while still just a thought in someone’s brain.

5. Planetside: Core Combat

It isn’t often that an expansion can actually damage the game it is attached to, but Core Combat managed to pull it off anyway. Core Combat introduced the idea of caverns, underground areas that could only be accessed by constantly active/inactive portals, where players would battle it out over ancient technology. By capturing nodes in the field below, players were then able to bring those modules up to the surface and gain access to equipment that placed them above their standard, non-alien tech using foe.

The caverns in Core Combat were a pain to get to, a pain to navigate through (a series of small floating bases connected by zip lines), all for a reward that wasn’t really worth the effort. And as a result, the caverns below each planet were about as populated as before the expansion went public: Zero.

4. Allods Online And Its Cash Shop

I remember years ago calling Allods Online as the Free To Play World of Warcraft, and for what its worth I still think the game had a shot at winning that title. Playing in the beta all those years back, Allods Online offered for the subscriptionless crowd exactly what World of Warcraft offered for the subscription crowd back in 2004, and we loved it. Allods Online had depth, the content was polished and the game looked great to boot. And the content promised by gPotato had us foaming at the mouths.

And then the cash shop was introduced. One mistake after another, from inflating prices 10x between Russia and North America/Europe to the whole system of “pay us when you die,” mechanic, the combined powers of Astrum Nival and gPotato managed to not just make poor decisions for the game’s cash shop, but both developers ganged up on their PR departments and made a note of beating them to a bloody pulp. In the case of the Fear of Death mechanic, Astrum Nival portrayed an astounding ability to learn absolutely nothing from its community, and replace the temporary debuff with a permanent debuff. Needless to say, Astrum Nival learned its lesson, but not before Allods Online had relinquished its title as the next World of Warcraft, and set fire to that massive pile of money that the community was just waiting to hand over.

So where do we find ourselves in 2012? Allods Online is a great game, now that many of the cash shop problems have been ironed out. Unfortunately, the game has burned so many bridges that its once-loyal fans aren’t coming back.

3. Jagex And The Great Fansite Lawsuit

I’ve always said Jagex has had an interesting relationship with its community. In the eleven years since RuneScape’s inception, much of that time has been one arm over the shoulder, the other holding a gun to the customer’s back. Sure, the Jagex of old appreciated fans creating websites, but if you mentioned one you could be permanently muted. The old Jagex that held Q&A’s with its community to fight off the idea that they were closed, but the Q&A could predictably hold more than half of the answers being “I can’t answer that now,” with nothing of substance stated. While Jagex has improved its community relations exponentially under Mark Gerhard, there are still old wounds yet to be closed.

But Jagex’s lowest point in PR has to be in 2006 when Tip.It published an article titled Biased Banning Raises Brows. The article sharply criticized Jagex’s banning policy, from vague bans for apparent advertising and inappropriate conduct, to banning families/friends playing on separate computers from the same house (and thus the same IP address), accusing them of being one person multi-boxing. The article also discussed the banning of players with names that would make sense in other languages, but might sound inappropriate when directly spoken in English, and Jagex’s policy of allowing accounts to exist for months, if not years, before banning them without warning and without the ability to change their names. On Tip.It, the article generated quite a bit of discussion with players offering their own stories of over-the-top permanent bans for minor offenses, or misunderstandings on Jagex’s part (banning one player for impersonating a moderator, the person in question simply expressing a desire to one day become a moderator).

So how did Jagex respond to the thread? With grace. Founder Andrew Gower showed up on the Tip.It forums to deny the claims in person. Oh and he threatened to sue the author for libel.

We are considering legal action against the author of this article on the basis of libel. It would be within the author of this articles interest to remove it and contact us immediately.

Now RuneScape was too big by 2006 and this event was too isolated to cause any PR damage, but I like to think Andrew Gower might regret having flown off the handle and seriously considered launching a frivolous lawsuit for the purpose of shutting up some random guy on the internet.

2. Monte Crisco Asks For Subscription

Of course I’m talking about Cities XL, a game some of you may not remember. Cities XL was a city building MMO by Monte Crisco, allowing players to choose between playing online or playing offline, with various perks and setbacks for either play mode. Players online were able to trade resources between cities, work together to build monuments, and generally accomplish what Sim City had not yet attempted. Then Monte Crisco added a subscription.

In order to play online, Cities XL required a subscription fee. The service itself was nowhere near worth the $10 a month Monte Crisco expected players to fork up for the ability to trade between cities, and lose their cities should they stop paying. Cities XL released during that period where multiple different types of products were attempting to launch with subscriptions attached, and like many of its fellow experiments, when it died it left a bankrupt developer. Monte Crisco went bankrupt and the sequel, Cities XL 2012, was developed by Focus Home Interactive.

1. Announcing MMOs Too Early

I bet you thought #1 would be about Star Wars Galaxies didn’t you? Well Galaxies is dead and that issue has been beaten to death. I want to talk about vaporware, in the sense that some MMOs are announced way too early, and the developer either attempts to hype it up all the way to release, or they go silent for the following decade and everyone assumes that they’ve died at the computer screen from malnourishment. Take Darkfall for instance. Darkfall was originally announced in 2001 and released in 2009. Funcom originally announced Anarchy Online’s new engine upgrade in 2007, and Half Life 2: Episode 3 was supposed to be finished five years ago.

Point being: It is important to have a game in a realistic state before you begin talking about it.

ProSiebenSat.1 Deal Altered, More Titles Heading To Europe


You may remember back in February when Sony Online Entertainment announced that they would be opening up a multi-year partnership with European ProSiebenSat.1 Games Group. The list of games affected includes DC Universe, Everquest II, Free Realms, Everquest Next, and Planetside 2. Oddly enough, and without explanation, the list did not include Everquest, Vanguard, and the upcoming Wizardry Online, leading to speculation that ProSiebenSat simply wasn’t interested in the titles.

Well, bad news bears (those of you expecting that Sony would continue hosting said titles in Europe). Today Sony announced that the deal with ProSiebenSat.1 has been expanded. The set list is to include the aforementioned Everquest, Vanguard, Wizardry Online, and the recently released Bullet Run.

“ProSiebenSat.1 is the ideal partner for us to reach an even broader audience in Europe. We are confident that the combination of the media power provided by ProSiebenSat.1 and our expertise in developing high-quality online games will appeal to players in a new and captivating way, creating the perfect prerequisite for achieving great success with our games in Europe.”

The community is once again split over this decision.

(Source: Everquest Forums)

What Happened This Week: Macrotransaction Edition


I skipped This Week in Review last week because I only had three days worth of posts for the previous week. This week, I want to continue the Week in Review articles by starting out with a question, and it pertains to Star Wars Galaxies. It’s always a downer to hear that an MMO you play is shutting down. If you currently play the game. do you continue playing until the game shuts down, or do you consider any more invested money a waste? If you were an ex-player, do you rejoin to savor some memories or to see the game off, or do you stay away? If there is free time, do you take advantage of it?

But enough of that, what happened this week?

1. What Does Star Wars Say For Sony’s Other Titles?

This one is obvious: not much. It’s important to remember that Star Wars was canned because Sony and Lucas Arts decided it to be the best decision rather than renew the contract at the end of the year, likely partially because LA doesn’t want two full Star Wars MMOs on the market, even if they wouldn’t really compete (two completely different points in time).

Looking at Sony’s other lineup, it’s safe to say neither Everquest nor Everquest II are going anywhere, the two games just make too much money. Free Realms makes a lump of  cash, as does Pirates of the Burning Sea and Clone Wars Adventures. DC Universe is still trucking along with the server meld bringing the community closer together.

My only title of note is Vanguard. Although Sony has expressed interest in taking Vanguard free to play, doing so would require a good investment of capital, one that the company could deem not worth it ultimately. If I had to choose one game from the list, Vanguard would be high on the list, although likely not #1 as the game has barely any overhead left. Most likely, I would say Planetside, although I believe Sony will time Planetside shutting down with the release of Planetside Next.

2. Rift Shuts Down Servers…Subtly

Trion reminds me of Blake from Glengarry Glen Ross with his ability to tie “good news” and “you’re fired” in the same sentence. If you haven’t been paying attention, Trion recently announced that a few servers would be transferred over to “trial” status, where free trial players would be segregated off to. Of course players have the option, and you will be suggested to do so upon logging in, to transfer off of the server, free of charge.

Who says Trion doesn’t know innovation? This is probably one of the most subtle ways to merge servers I’ve seen in the history of MMO Fallout, nay, the history of the genre. Character creation has been disabled for non-trial users on those servers, and the restrictions for under level 15 characters are being removed in the near future so all of your currently made characters can leave the server. There are a lot of trial-tagged servers, too. Around twenty, from my understanding.

3. Eve Players Are Overloading Perpetuum

Perpetuum Online! That game I talked about that one time with the place and the thing. With all the talk of people leaving Eve (Over four thousand committed to unsubscribing so far, according to the Eve forums), their natural destination should be Perpetuum Online, right? The game is essentially Eve on the ground, and with mechs instead of space ships. If you said yes, you would be correct.

Over in the forums, Perpetuum has been hit with some good, healthy (for the wallet) overpopulation, resulting in queue lines to log in. I don’t normally laugh at MMO drama, but this is pretty funny. It’s like a picture of a concert, where the band is giving the middle finger to the audience who are, in turn, giving it back.

4. Maybe CCP Just Bit Off Too Much

Thinking back, perhaps CCP is in the same situation as Cryptic Studios. Sure, the game they run is raking in the cash, but that profit may be dwarfed by the development costs of their other games. CCP has DUST 514 in development for the PS3, and we all know how expensive PS3 development is, as well as World of Darkness. The cash shop may be a way to supplement their income and get the games out faster, but it’s a prescription that is not fitting well with the community.

But as many Eve players have noted, the price of the cash shop items barely factors in. Where the players are getting angry isn’t in CCP’s initial action, but in the response given to the controversy. You can read the events in the Eve Online category on this blog but for a quicker image, just go back to my concert analogy.

Down to brass tacks, if as many players are leaving as committed (over four thousand and growing) and stay gone, this could put a serious damper in CCP’s development of DUST 514 and World of Darkness.

5. Funny Fifth Thing.

Station Price Dropping To Little Over 1 Subscription: $19.99/Month


Sony Station access is an excellent deal, and it’s about to get even greater. Normally priced at $29.99, or the cost of about two Station subscriptions, Sony announced at E3 that the price will drop to $19.99, or 1 and 1/3rd the cost of a subscription to one of Sony’s MMOs. The announcement was made at E3 today, with no specific date other than “soon.”

For those unfamiliar with Station Access, the service grants players access to:

  1. Access to all of SOE’s titles:
  1. DC Universe
  2. Everquest
  3. Everquest II
  4. Everquest Online Adventures (Playstation 2)
  5. Pirates of the Burning Sea (membership perks)
  6. Planetside
  7. Star Wars Galaxies
  8. Vanguard
  9. Free Realms (membership perks)
  • Additional character slots for Vanguard, Everquest, and Everquest II
  • Bonus adventure packs.
  • More features added as new content is released.
    • It’s important to note: You MUST own the game in order to receive a subscription to it. You don’t have to buy Pirates of the Burning Sea or Free Realms, but you have to buy Everquest, DC Universe, etc in order to gain access. The pass covers the subscription, not the purchase of the client if one is required.
    Good news? Bad news? Sign of more downgrading to come? Hopefully not.

    No, Vanguard Isn’t Top Priority…Or Middle…Or Low…


    As if we didn’t know…

    “The monthly subscription fee means players can expect a lot of new content from us. And I say a lot — I really mean that. This is something that we feel obligated to the players, because they are paying a monthly sub fee.“

    Sure, John Smedley was referring to DC Universe online when he said Sony Online Entertainment felt an obligation to churn out regular updates for their subscription based games. Sure, Vanguard is a subscription based game operated by Sony Online Entertainment. The question that has been hitting the blogosphere is quite simple: Why is it that Sony continues to charge a subscription despite there being no Vanguard-devoted developers left at Sony, and despite the latest official update coming out in Spring 2010.

    A great pianist can only reach his full potential with a piano of equal quality, and Vanguard and Planetside are on the list of Sony Games that are not so much dumped in the trash as they are hooked up to life support machines until the population levels hit zero of their own accord. While the other games in SOE’s lineup receive regular updates, expansions (in the case of Everquest and Everquest II), and new content, assuredly players of Planetside and Vanguard would take issue with Smedley’s promise on their subscription based games.

    In an interview at last year’s SyndCon, John Smedley said:

    We’re thinking about specific next steps for Vangaurd, but we’re not shutting it down or anything like that. We want to add more stuff to it. Will we change the business model? That’s the question people keep asking me. Will it go free-to-play? I don’t know – we’ve discussed it. What we’ll decide? I’m not sure yet. We’re going to see where EverQuest II Extended goes. But certainly if we make a decision like that, it won’t be without deciding to add more content to the game.

    So depending on the success of Everquest II Extended, Vanguard could receive the free to play treatment priority over outright pulling the plug, however as John Smedley promises this will not happen without new content, which undoubtedly means pulling developers from other projects, and spending money for what Sony may determine too high of a risk.

    So there we are. Vanguard will likely choose free-life over death, and Planetside may or may not bite the bullet when Planetside Next launches (John Smedley has stated that Planetside Next is being specifically designed so computers scaled back six years can play at minimum settings, which means Planetside players should be able to run it fine).