Players
The players are split into three separate factions. The map is constantly under war and players fight together to certain points of interest.
It used to be that one or two factions would be dominant, leaving the third faction left out. Nowadays, it seems to be a pretty fair split across all factions. In some cases, one faction will be doing really well and only have a few percentage points of a lead when it comes to territory liberated.
The three factions are as follows:
- Vanu Sovereignty(Purple team)
- New Conglomerate(Blue team)
- Terran Replublic(Red team)
Game Stats and Player Stats
The game keeps track of all sorts of statistics.
Every player has their own personal stats. These statistics can be looked up through certain websites in order to keep track of you and your friends progress. For even better personal stats, you can login to the planetside website, and see realtime stats for all of your characters.
- Planetside 2 Official Website – Displays all your most recent unlocks and all of your character’s stats. There are 8 tabs that show you specific stats as well as one general stats tracker that is static on the webpage. The different tabs are Overview, Statistic, Weapons, Vehicles, Classes, Certifications, Directives, Killboard.
- ps2.fisu.pw – This website uses the API from the official website to find the same information for every player. The difference with this website is that you don’t need to log in to view your stats, or anybody else’s. This is a great way to check up on your friends to see how they stack up when comparing each other’s profiles.
Servers
Currently, there are 4 servers that you can join. There is 1 server for each global waypoint for the playerbase. It is recommended that you choose the server that is closest to where you live(or the one that has the lowest ping).
- Emerald – USEAST
- Connery – USWEST
- Miller – EU
- Briggs – AU
PC and PS4 Gameplay
Like all shooter games, there is a clear cut difference between having to use a controller and being able to use a mouse and keyboard. It was decided that the two platforms will remain separate to try to keep the gameplay fair.
Steam
You can download Planetside 2 through Steam’s game store. Creating a steam account is free and requires you to install their platform. Their platform allows your to browse thousands of games, download, buy, and install them. There is also a place for players to discuss the games that they are playing.
On Steam, Planetside 2 has received ratings from tens of thousands of players and it holds an average review rating of “Mostly Positive/Very Positive”. This is close to perfect ratings.
The download size for the game is 10.6GB. At a rate of 12MB/s, you can download the entire game in about 10 minutes.
Requirements
Operating System: This game will only run on PC(Windows 7 or newer) and has to be 64-bit.
Hard Disk Space: Installing the game required approximately 10GB, and needs another 10GB or so to install all the game files.
Memory(RAM): At least 6GB 64-bit RAM
CPU: Just to run the game you will need at least Core i5-760/ AMD Phenom II X4. Anything higher will of course improve your performance.
Video Card(GPU): You will need at least GeForce GTX 260 / Radeon HD 4850. The graphics are not very intense, and you will not need the strongest video card in order to play. Of course, like all graphics, the better your video card, the better performance.
Down for Maintenance?
When a game is under constant development, it is generally a good sign that the developers care about their game. The only downside to this gift, is that implementing any sort of change requires a lot of bug checking and bug fixing.
Anytime the developers introduce and update, patch, or a hotfix, they need to bring the servers down to allow the live servers to update. Even after the updates have been implemented, there comes a lot of bug fixing soon after. This is ultimately about improving user experience. You will just have to be patient, and know that you are going to receive a better final product in the end.
That being said, you can check if there are any announcements for server maintenance here.
Controls
There are several different ways to set up your controls in Planetside 2. Since there are so many vehicles and classes, it may be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the different categories.
- General – Focuses more on the user interface. Manage all the hotkeys for things such as volume, chat, map toggle, and general interaction.
- Infantry – All the keybindings that are used for controlling your character on foot. Using your weapon and traversing across the map can be configured here.
- Vehicle – All the settings for how you control vehicles that are used on land.
- Aircraft – All the settings for how you control vehicles that are used in the air.
Free to Play
Creating an account and installing the Planetside 2 is completely free. As with most free to play business models, there is always a special shop to increase your level of enjoyment. There is a special currency called Daybreak Cash that can be used in the in-game shop. Daybreak is adamant about keeping the playing field fair. All the items that you can buy in the shop do not provide any special advantage over other players.
Things you can buy in the shop:
- Character skins
- Character slots
- Additional save slots for builds
- Experience boosts
Multiplayer Experience
There are several ways to enjoy your online experience. There is a party system called squads. You can form your own squads or use the auto-join feature to be placed in a squad. The map for PlanetSide 2 is impressively large. This can make it difficult to join the action. Luckily, there is a feature that you can join the action with the click of a button. This will place you right into a conflict that happening live so you can contribute to your faction.
Register
You can register for an account on the PlanetSide website. Account creation is free you are only required to provide an email account. Since your stats are stored on their servers, it is required for both platforms(PC and PS4). It only takes a minute and you are free to get started on your journey.
Games like Planetside 2
DCUO(DC Universe Online)
Another free to play massively multiplayer game developed by DayBreak. It follows a similar play style to Planetside 2. Instead of 3 different factions, there are 2 alignments. Good and Evil. In this superhero themed game, you create your own super hero or super villain. Level up your character to unlock special abilities that allow you to craft your own unique set of super powers.
Choose from 3 different styles of mobility. Super speed, super jumping, or flying.
Everquest
This is possibly the most groundbreaking game in terms of online multiplayer RPGs. The style of play in Everquest caught so many people’s attention that it’s success spawned a sequel that grew even bigger than the original. This game takes you back to the roots of party play and working together to overcome tougher-than-usual encounters.
Everquest II
The successor to Everquest. This game brought millions of players into an online world of fantasy. Many will agree that this game brought a lot of ideas forward that were responsible for the creation of World of Warcraft, which has been the leading MMORPG ever since it was released. Playing Everquest II is definitely worth checking out if you ever liked progressive RPGs. The community is still fairly large and you shouldn’t have any trouble getting groups to complete encounters.