John Smedley Talks Massive Combat and F2P in PlanetSide 2

SOE boss John Smedley stopped for a chat with Venture Beat at this year’s E3 event in Los Angeles to off a little history lesson on the conception of PlanetSide 2 and what’s changed since the original. Funny enough, PlanetSide 2 began as a concept to create a free-to-play version of the original PlanetSide. The idea evolved with the new Forge Light into the new massive combat scale of PlanetSide 2.

New engine aside, Smedley also outlined plans to include companion app features that go beyond the norm by allowing players to use their app to voice chat with friends, interact with social networks, the ability to launch drone strike attacks in-game if your level is high enough and how he feels that SOE has nailed the free-to-play model balance perfectly.

And for those anxiously waiting for the PlanetSide 2 beta to get underway, the wait may not be too much longer.

We are weeks away from starting the beta. In terms of launch, that’s going to be determined by how the beta goes. We’ve got a ramp-up planned for the beta, we’re going to start small and ramp up very fast. And then we’ll just see how it goes. We’ve taken our time doing this right, and we want to make sure we do the beta right.

via PlanetSide Universe

Source: Venture Beat