WEDNESDAY NIGHT – PLATOON NIGHT
This fall, whether or not you want to shoot with us or at us, the Imperium will be playing some PlanetSide 2 on Wednesday nights from 9-11 Eastern Standard Time on the Emerald server (Vanu faction). I will start by leading the platoon myself, but others are welcome to step up and try it out. We will be trying to play the objectives as best we can. For this reason, the platoon will be open to the public, and will use the in-game comm system. DaBigRedBoat will stream the action live on Twitch.
CHANGES TO PLANETSIDE 2
In recent months, there has been a flurry of activity on the public test server involving orbital strikes and more additions to player-made bases. Since rolling out player-bases in the spring, Daybreak has done several iterations on them like adding infantry towers and ramps. Thankfully, orbital strikes will be a good way to delete these things once it goes live.
WHAT IS PLANETSIDE 2?
In short, it’s a massive FPS with lots of open terrain, vehicles, and stuff to shoot at – check thewebsite. PlanetSide 2 is an MMO-style FPS that locks three factions in an eternal struggle with one another over control of the planet Auraxis and its continents. Each continent pits hundreds of players against one another until one side eventually gets enough victory points. Gaining victory points general happens by pushing certain objectives on the map in king-of-the-hill style battles. Some objectives give benefits like the ability to regenerate resources faster or various vehicles. Whoever wins the fight for a continent gets a boost and an advantage in the fight for whatever continent unlocks next. Once someone else wins, the cycle repeats like a violent Groundhog’s Day.
GETTING STARTED
Thankfully PlanetSide 2 is free-to-play, so whether or not you want to shoot with us, or shoot at us you can download the game and begin right away. Some helpful tips for new players:
- Pick a class and “go with it.” medics and engineers are the easiest classes to start out with, especially in groups because there will be lots of ways to gain XP due to the large amounts of stuff to resurrect, repair, and heal.
- Put your first pile of certs into your medic or engineering device so you can heal or repair faster.
- Grenade bandoliers, revive grenades, and the anti-vehicle turrets are great items to put some early certs into. Again, pick a class and focus on it.
- You don’t always have to walk directly into bullets. Due to the terrain, going around is often a better option.
- Learn how to read the map. Hovering over each tile will tell you lots of information if you take the time to look at it.
- Don’t worry too much about driving or flying. Once you learn the map better you will learn more about what vehicles you can pull and where, but you’ll need to invest a lot of time and certs into gearing the vehicles up and making them more competitive.
- Sunderers are never bad vehicles to put certs in once you have at least one class that you are pretty comfortable with.
- Play the objective. A lot of people despise “the zerg” or just large clumps of players going from place to place but honestly, that’s a lot of where the massive feel and chaos of planetside comes from. This isn’t to say that solo playing isn’t an option, it totally is, but you’ll get more out of you time if you join a squad/platoon and go where they tell you to go, hopefully, it will be headfirst into some action.
This should be enough to get you started. Looking forward to seeing you there! Remember: fight harder!
