Planetside was one of the few FPSes I really got into, due to its massive scale battles and freeform combat systems of the time. I'm really worried about "classes". In the original planetside, you gained skill points when you leveled up and those points were used to decide any and all equipment you could use "at one time" For instance, a new soldier will be able to spend the points to get access to Heavy Infantry Weapons or Heavy Anti-Vehicle weapons "certified" - this means that at any equipment terminal while they have this spec, they can pull down these weapons and items. A maxed out Battle Rank soldier would be able to cert into those two, but also have points left over to say, cert into several vehicle piloting skills and wear a MAX combat suit (heavy armor with integrated weapon tailored to a certain action - AntiAir, Anti-Infantry etc..). Being maxed out in Battle Rank let you do "more" without "giving up" anything - if that new recruit wanted to pilot a mosquito fighter he may have to give up his Heavy Weapons skill for a time - you could respec once every couple of hours or once a day. However, the maxed out BR soldier's rifle wasn't any "better" than the newbies when they spent points to cert the same gun.
One of my favorite setups was my "Infiltrator"/Recon setup - I took Advanced Hacking (You needed basic hacking just to use enemy consoles and get into locked doors, but advanced was necessary to jack vehicles and boobytrap consoles etc..), Combat Engineering (repairs, setting up turrets, invisibility reveal beacons, mines and more), Infiltrator Suit (totally invisible when standing still, but zero armor and only the ability to wield one pistol-sized item at a time and a very small inventory), certed the ability to fly a Mosquito or Spectre (light aircraft the latter of which could cloak if crewed by someone in an inf suit and the former able to detect enemies on radar if flying slow) used my 3 "implant" slots for Melee (everyone carries a knife - in Inf suit a knife with/melee implant will basically allow you to backstab people - its one of the only weapons you can carry and doesn't take up inventory space that you'll need for your hacker device, grenades, and combat-engineering gadget), Silentwalk (counters an implant that lets people hear footsteps of those invisible) and Darklight Vision (to see other infiltrators cloaked) and went off world to combat! I'd drop behind enemy lines and hack my way into sentry towers, allowing our side (Vanu Soverignty - the Purple Guys) to have a spawn point, and even work into enemy bases to blow up their generators, which deactivated a lot of their powered defenses and even shut down benefits that connected bases had from them. It was some of the most suspenseful, best gaming I've ever enjoyed sneaking around a base with a small squad of enemies I try to keep oblivious to my presence until its too late, covering my retreat to the enemy flight deck and hacking myself a new aircraft and flying off to do it again. While I was doing this, the rest of my outfit was warping in in Mag-lev tanks columns and 3-man Liberator bomber aircraft, assaulting the forward line base with all they had! There just isn't anything like it to date.
Sony let the original Planetside die on the vine - a bloody travesty. They kept it at full price while refusing to continue development of new content, as is SOE's style. I don't want to see them make this mistake again. I'm also worried about "dumbing down" of content in Planetside 2 - I don't want to see Command Ranks abolished, or ANT runs (nano-tankers of sorts that will have to be carted from a base, to Warp Bubble to refill fuel to then be taken to top off a base), or stuff players into predefined archetypes - if I have the points I want to be Galaxy Dropship pilot without having to give up my Infiltrator Suit, Sniper Rifle, Advanced Hacking or Anti-Vehicle MAX. Also, I REALLY hope they introduce an "advanced" and "master" variety of Infiltrator suit. Its a pity that only in the "Black Ops" events were they seen, along with the upgraded "Katana" - I'd spend a ton of points to take my infiltrator preference to its pinnacle. (Black Ops were dynamic events when developers made certain players ultra-powerful, giving them a stealth suit that had armor and could wield large weapons, plus a beam katana). I don't want to see such an excellent game diluted or left to wither - I do wish that those in charge of it would leave SOE and form another company with new business plans.
Edit: PhysX? What the hell are they thinking! Annoying proprietary bullshit has no place in games today. If they intend a PS3 release, I didn't think this would even be possible as PhysX isn't Cell compliant. No, its better to simply use OpenCL - every platform can utilize it. AMD/ATI Stream/DirectCompute etc... Nvidia, PS3 etc... all platforms can make use of it without the necessity for a dedicated Nvidia card. It seems SOE decision making is in full swing, but if they go through this travesty lets hope its like many other PhysX games - those with a PhysX card get to see 1000 pieces of shattered glass and those without get to see 100.
