Be Excellent To Each Other

So Planetside 2. I'm terrible, but I'm enjoying myself. The unlock/certification system is a bit fucked, but apart from some ridiculous oversights, the default gear is decent enough.

And it's free.

I've installed this. I haven't played much so far, and am also terrible. Not one kill in forty minutes of play. Plus, it's a lot choppier than I expected, the frame rate isn't that good on my laptop, which I find a little baffling as it runs Bad Company 2 fine, and this is supposed to be designed to be more forgiving. I'll give it another go though, natch.

Do you use the same name ingame Pundabaya?

Yup, I'm New Conglomerate on Miller. We seem to be the whipping boys on that server.

Are they the ones closest to Browncoats? If so, that's me too.

New Conglomerate are the dashing heroes in blue and yellow.

I enjoyed the original (though at the time it was choppy as fuck, laggy, and the infantry weapons seemed to fire sponges) so when the beta was announced, I was very keen.

Except, I can't get into my old account, which would have let me into the beta early, I think. The request a new password page was broken. The email for help page was broken.

So I decided: fuck it.

What a shame. How is the free to play stuff organized? In the original I didn't like the infantry much at all so I focused on vehicles... mostly the jeep thing, the medium sized tank and then I specialized in air vehicles, specifically the Galaxy (troop carrier) and the Reaper (ground attack aircraft). I played as NC, on Wernher.

When you kill stuff, heal stuff, capture stuff etc, you earn XP and cert points. Upgrades have a cert point and a moon money cost. Moon money is only bought with cold hard cash.

Each class has various upgrades and a list of weapons that can be bought with both cert points and moon money. Upgrades are more health, more shield, various class specific improvements (eg: medic's medical applicator heals quicker) and also unlocks for extra abilities, like dropping ammo or health, or special grenade effects. Upgrades like these are reasonably cheap. Then you have weapons, which are just various different weapons. Most of these seem to be side-grades. Weapons seem to be reasonably expensive. Oh there are also weapon upgrades, usual scopes and stuff, again pretty cheap.

Everything you buy is character specific. The upgrades you get are class specific. Weapons are class specific. Weapon upgrades are weapon specific.

Therefore, it costs more to be a generalist than a specialist.

You can also upgrade vehicles. This works similarly to classes.

It's not onerous, really. You can get enough certs to buy small upgrades just by playing an hour or so. There are a few missteps, though. Dedicated anti-air is expensive. Lock on missile launcher, being able to field a full AA MAX and Skyguard turret for the Lightning are 1000 certs or $7 each. On the other hand, hellfire rockets for the interceptors and a decent belly weapon for the Libby are similarly expensive.

That sounds a little bit pay to win...

I have far too many games on the go at the moment anyway, I might peek later.