PlanetSide Preview: Edited

MMORPG market has become increasingly popular in the last couple of years. More and more people are beginning to realize that the addiction that comes from playing in a persistent online world is easily comparable to our craving for coffee or some rich cheese in the wee hours of the morning (Unpasteurized Stilton....Mmmm. - Ed). SONY has realized this a long time ago. They've practically shaped the genre with the EverQuest series. EverQuest has been so incredibly popular (and still is to this day) that I'm literally scared of all the people that play it. I'm afraid that if I say something wrong, a 220lbs mechanic from Idaho might wait for me in some dark alley, jump me from behind, swing his homemade Elf staff at me and crack my skull. That is why I don't go anywhere without my protective Reebok headband. Scary.

I'm dreaming about my magical friends in the game.

In my dreams, I see myself as a ferocious warrior.

To be quite honest with you, I'm not really into EverQuest. In my hunble opinion, the game doesn't involve any skill. It's basically just a click-fest in which lonely people get to find their soul mates of the same sex who happen to look like gorgeous members of their opposite sex, and pass time by gathering RPG points, which can be neat, but only up to a point.

You can imagine then how thrilled I was to hear about PlanetSide. The first time I saw this game was back in '93, at the Amsterdam Transformers Games Conference (ATGC). I was simply amazed by the quality of the visuals, but more importantly, the idea of a first-person gunner set in a persistent MMO world struck me as truly revolutionary. I thought: "if SONY is able to pull it off, and we get to play a game like this in the next ten years or so, I will be the luckiest man alive!" Well, many years have gone by since. Over the last ten years two of my pet hamsters got electrocuted (I'm suspecting my German neighbor killed one of them), I got married, but then my house maid died of malaria and I went to live in a secluded monastery in Tibet. But in the midst of my Buddhist chanting, I kept a close eye on PlanetSide. My friend Barry (who is now dead too - a horrible accident involving 40 ounces of malt liquor and a street sweeper) used to send me letters every month detailing the progress of the game. I used to dream about it at night, when the wolves would start attacking our village. I remember the fires raging ... and as the orange flames flickered against the black sky, I dreamt of PlanetSide. I would gently touch my privates and weep in the dark as the wolves howled and devoured the flesh of my Grand Abbot. But I digress...

Fast forward ten years or so, and here I am, at my new office with my very own copy of the PlanetSide beta. Usually, I have to wait before everyone leaves the office so that I can take off my pants before I play. I like to play games naked, you know. It makes me feel more a part of that phenomenal virtual world. I like to get up from my chair every half an hour or so and roll in the ground, pretending I'm rolling in the grass of one of the battlefields, like an angry hound marking his territory before the fight. Damn, I'm digressing again...

The gameworld is different somehow; it is more vibrant in my dreams.

I had yogurt for breakfast this morning.

I am the fairy king of the magical PlanetSide!

When the coast was clear, I fired up the BETA and began to visualize my character. Before actually playing the game, I like to visualize what I want people to see when they see me in the game. It's very important to be mentally prepared before stepping in the game.

I also like to do my research, so I had to stalk a couple of the developers and learn if their lifestyles in any way hindered the PlanetSide development process. Incidentally, I discovered that one of the developers really liked junk food and that this unholy obsession with Twinkies, Big Mac burgers and Royal Crown Cola gave him stomach acid. I noticed that on Thursdays he would not do his job as effectively, as he liked to visit Ponderosa on those days and stuff his face with copious amounts of unhealthy foods. I had a real problem with that. One of the light vehicles in the game was made on a Thursday, and let me tell you, I think the physics model on that one is way off! And the buggy is too bright! Not only that, but it is also 1.2m/s slower than the heavy hovercraft light tank, which is really ridiculous since EVERYONE knows that the light hovercraft tank is 23.5Kg lighter than the heavy tank and the heavy tank is 0.3m/s slower than the light one, which effectively means that the light buggy is (get this) 1.5m/s SLOWER than the light tank! And all that because the bastard developer decided he had to go to Ponderosa that Thursday and stuff his fat face with grilled ribs.

Late at night, I would sit alone in front of my monitor and write letters to him in my mind. I would say: "Dear Mr. Fat Developer, How can you make the light buggy so slow? Are you insane? I have problems breathing at night because of your reckless neglect and you obviously don't even care. Fat Developer, I know where you live and I am resourceful individual with a digital camera. I have learned all your patterns and I will expose you to the world on my website if you don't stop eating fatty foods that give you stomach acid every Thursday."

The next aspect of the game that I had real problems with are the audio effects. Have any of you ever heard of the Doppler Effect? Back in the days when I was living in Tibet, the wolves would sometimes hunt the monks and eat them. I remember their screams as they were dieing. They were going: "AAAARRRGGHHHHH!!!" The sounds of someone being fragged in PlanetSide are an "Agh!" at best, which is really ridiculous. I cannot fully immerse myself in this legendary conflict unless I hear genuine sounds of torture, maiming and the soulful cry of terror that comes from one whose flesh is melting from the bone. I have carefully examined all the sound files and I have concluded that the design team needs my help. I will be willing to subject myself to various forms of torture in order for the team to capture the best possible sounds for the game. I know of a couple of things we might try, but I think that the old nutshocks will do just fine. I'll bring the rods, buckets of water and the batteries, and you bring the kitchen towels and the recording equipment. I think that it is in everyone's best interest to capture authentic screams for the game.

As for my actual experiences with PlanetSide, dear readers, I'm afraid I don't have any. You see, after rolling on the floor for about 5 minutes (marking my territory), and then visualizing my skilled attack strategies, I would faint every time the game would load. I would see a glimpse of the intro screen and then the whole world would go black. I'd wake up 30 minutes or so later and cry. But I'm getting better now. Now I'm crying less and I don't urinate on the floor any more. Much.

I'm happy to inform you that I'm in therapy and that I'm learning a new mantra, which is to translate ALL the names of the vehicles in the game to EVERY language in the world - dead or otherwise. I pray every night and hope to see you all out there... amongst the many planets of PlanetSide! We'll drive buggies together and I'll tell you stories about the wolves and the Mongolian wild men that used to send obscene messages on my cell phone! It will be great. I'm counting the hours before I faint in front of the loading screen again. I promise to think of all my PlanetSide comrades as I lie there and dream of the game... Ah, the life of the obsessed.