#planetside 2 factions

[silentwisher-feed]

Intense Fighting Between Terran Republic & New Conglomerate Forces - Planetside 2

Intense Fighting Between Terran Republic & New Conglomerate Forces - Planetside 2 #planetside2

Intense Fighting Between Terran Republic & New Conglomerate Forces – Planetside 2 Planetside 2 gameplay of an intense fight between the Terran Republic and New Conglomerate in Planetside 2 over a base with an underground capture point. Footage from the point of view of a few different load-outs including a medic with thermal sights, an engineer with a grenade launcher, and a Cloaker/Infiltrator…

[mr-kench]

Online Cooperative Games form such weirdly natural friendships. I’m not even talking like people you’d hang out with or anything but you just interact and get talking as if you’ve known each other your whole life and then leave not even remembering them the next day.

The most memorable moment I had like this was in Elder Scrolls Online. I was in the PVP area and I came across a raiding party and joined up we got into a casual conversation with everyone, started talking about work and finances all while tearing down a fortresses walls and slaughtering everyone inside. It was such a tonal dissonance between what was happening and what we were doing.

Another game is a cult classic game that’s been going since the ps3 era of games called PlanetSide 2. If you need to know what it is imagine Helldivers except it’s on a single planet across 3 continents and it’s three player factions fighting each other. You actually travel across the continent taking bases and outposts with the goal to dominate each continent. Really fun, really simple and I’m shocked that sort of gameplay never caught on.

However during while fighting to take the mountain base called The Crown all three factions met one was fighting from the base while my faction and an opposing faction were storming the Beaches of Normandy to climb that mountain. Everyone was getting into it myself included and bonds were formed as rag tag group formed to help each other climb just a few inches further. I heard someone yell “we won’t let those fuckers take this land!” I was an Infiltrator (basically a spy armed with a Sniper Rifle, pistol, radar gun and cloaking tech) I remember saving a group that was surrounded by sniping a few soldiers and distracting them enough for the others to mow them down. I was a squishy class meant to move solo and… Infiltrate but in that moment I became a part of the crew. We legit started taking bullets for each other as I led them to an emergency exit tunnel I scouted out. It was poorly guarded and I like to think we helped turn the tide by sneaking in a squad into the center of the enemy base. Michael Bay wishes he could direct the story that unfolded during that battle.

[dereego]

Tumblr would LOVE PlanetSide 2! None of the factions have any perception of nuance in their ideologies!

[pentacass]

I agree that all Bioware games struggle with "the illusion of choice" to varying extents, but their single player games at least have self-contained stories to fall back on while SWTOR is forced to carry its writing baggage with it. I really think they painted themselves into a corner with the Commander thing. I once saw someone say that the Alliance would've worked better as a sort of elite strike team that gets called in to fix big messes instead of a huge organization, and how much better that would've worked for maintaining that illusion haunts me to this day. Like it would allow multiple characters to exist within the story without all of them being "The Commander TM," and allow the writers to do more with the class stories (i.e. the BH is added to the team for their Mandalorian connections, the smuggler for their underworld knowledge, the knight and warrior because of their experience with the Emperor, the inquisitor for their arcane Sith knowledge, etc.). It would also conceivably cover up for Edgelord characters that don’t want to play hero because: 1, in this scenario everyone would be an equal member instead of the player being the sole leader, so Lana, Theron, and other Alliance personnel making decisions in their absence makes sense, and 2., even if the player runs off and throws a hissy fit or is just generally an asshole, it can still be assumed that whatever they add to the team is valuable enough to allow for it and whatever they are getting in return is enough for them to surrender some degree of agency. All games ultimately involve railroading the player into certain decisions, but the successful ones are better at maintaining the illusion by explaining why a limitation exists within the narrative, and I think something like the above would work a lot better than "chosen one must save galaxy again even if they don't want to."

hrrnnggg this is the GOOD shit bruh

Agree, SWTOR is hobbled by the fact it's an mmo. at this point just make it an offline single-player game ohmygod

I need whoever came up with this strike team idea to take over the writing team PLEASE. To add onto this, they'll need to rework building up Arcann to be the Big Bad for the Chosen One to deal with. They can still let the Force classes take Arcann head on, but let us split up the big entity that is the Eternal Empire into chunks that are dealt with by each strike team. e.g. Smuggler infiltrates Zakuul's underworld and turns them against the military/Knights, Consular reaches out to Zakuul's elites and normal citizens alike to build alliances and spark a civil uprising, Trooper takes charge of planetside warfare, etc. [add: i just realised i might’ve misread what you said jkasdka; but here take what i have]

Also I love the implication that, in the strike team scenario, you get to keep your class companions the whole way through. And it makes for a more believable end to the Alliance - it disbands when each strike team goes back to whatever they were doing before Zakuul invaded. (the whole traitor arc is so contrived it makes me wanna chew on broken glass)

Last point about narrative limitation is also 👌👌

tbh at this point, I'd rather Bioware bring an end to the whole Alliance arc and let us start afresh on a clean slate with new characters and stories. I know some people like the Alliance as a third faction, but as it stands it's getting messy to handle on a storytelling front, and it's clearly going nowhere meaningful.

[phantasmeels]

Metroid Lore/Timeline: The Galactic Federation Military Structure and its History (Sources: The games, game manuals, metroid wikis, and instances of me just making it up as I go)

It all started with the Galactic Federation Police Corps (GFPC). As the Federation initially started as a form of trade regulation between planets, Federal laws would need enforcement, leading to a simple set of space fleets, officers and soldiers for that purpose. These troops and agents would ensure trade transactions and supply lines between planets were legal and secure, as well as lead galactic criminal investigations. As the new federal government grew and centralized into a galactic system of representatives, the use of the Police grew to ensure general order and security outside of the individual jurisdictions of worlds as well as continue to enforce federal laws.

What the new government didn't anticipate, however, was the onset of organized and strategic raids of piracy against trade ships, coming from a new faction that emerged. Dubbing this faction simply as "The Space Pirates", the Federation Bureau elected to expand its military, as the established police force was insufficient to combat the shockingly well-organized Pirates while also trying to lend its member civilizations aid in maintaining order on their own individual worlds where necessary. Thus a new division was established: the Galactic Federation Army Corps (GFAC). The Army forces were deployed on wider scale scenarios of mostly ground warfare on various planets, and had its hands full driving out conquering Pirate forces from member worlds and defending those worlds from future attacks. So full, in fact, that the Federation Bureau even started a new program, one that employed the use of skilled mercenaries and bounty hunters to supplement existing military forces, aid in special missions, and track down retreating Pirates into the further reaches of space. One of these independent contractors was of course the famous Samus Aran, who had gained much vital experience from serving in both the Police and Army Corps before striking out on her own.

Even after Samus took down the immediate Pirate threat on Zebes, however, it became apparent that those Zebesian Pirates were far from the only Pirate divisions. Over the next few years, seeing the need to stop relying so strongly on mercenaries and bounty hunters to keep the galaxy safe, the Federation created two new military factions. With the most advanced training and equipment, and often hiring Army and Police veterans who weren't ready to retire, the Galactic Federation Navy Corps (GFNC) and Marine Corps (GFMC) were established specifically to focus on countering the Space Pirates on a galactic scale and allow some levity for the Police and Army forces. We see the Navy and Marines specifically throughout the Prime games, as exclusively the only Federation military forces depicted in the space and planetside battles. The most advanced the technology used seems to get thus far is seen in the small mechs used by the special Marine squad in Federation Force. We don't yet know how the Prime series ends, but presumably the widespread warfare with the Pirates ends with most of them gone, only for them to make a small surprise return at Zebes in Super Metroid much later.

Once the widespread difficulty with the Pirates seems to be dealt with, the Federation seems to have allowed the Marine division to mostly retire, focusing on making continued use of the Police, Army and hunters/mercenaries for galactic peacekeeping. The Navy, meanwhile, is likely stationed at the edges of the Federation-controlled galactic regions, securing the borders against future pirate attacks, as well as other potential enemy factions such as the Kriken Empire.

In the background for Metroid 2, we learn that a special ops offshoot of the Police Corps, the Special Squad (GFSS), was sent to SR-388 to rescue those who were sent before them to find any sign of the Metroid life forms native to the planet, for the sake of wiping the creatures out. They aren't heard from again after landing planetside, and as we know Samus accepts a contract to investigate and finish the job concerning the metroids.

In Other M, we see that the Army also sends out specialized groups of soldiers for special ops, as Samus cooperates with the 07th Platoon on the story's overall mission.

The standard armor design used in the Federation Army. Optimized for planetside/ground warfare scenarios as well as special operations involving similarly armed and armored opponents. Likely designed with energy shielding and ammunition carrying capacity in mind.

The Federation Police Special Squad, clad in powered armor suits optimized for exploration and protection in hostile alien environments. The armor is likely designed to defend against hard physical attacks, falling damage, radiation, extreme temperatures, etc.

A Federation Navy fleet of flagships and space fighters as seen from Samus's ship in Prime 3.

The standard Marine armor as seen in Prime 2. As they were (according to the theory above) designed to be top of the line in the Prime era in order to combat the widespread, coordinated and intense Pirate attacks, these were likely the most capable and expensive Federation Military armor suits ever produced, as the Marine division was intended to lessen the Federation's dependence on independent contractors.

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: PlanetSide 2

Massive, exciting, chaotic, confusing, overwhelming, and almost Battlefield...I'm having fun.

Before I dig into Battlefield, I'm gonna go on a long tangent about what I was looking for with PlanetSide 2:

Simply, I wanted an action-packed war simulator not based on kills where I get to be a medic and support my team achieving objectives. Battlefield.

It took me a bit to get into online shooters. Running in circles trying to kill people didn't make me very happy. Warhawk for PS3 was the first time I really got into competitive play...well, World of Warcraft's battlegrounds. I didn't like them, but I played them. I liked the idea of trying to secure territories and earn points as that felt like real-war. That is, you secure resources to be the most successful faction. I still preferred PVE, but that's also the game that made me fall in love with healers. Moving onto Warhawk (cause I was a fan of the original PS1 game), I loved the paper-rock-scissors gameplay. It wasn't just who was fastest on the trigger or who got around behind you--but who had the best counter attack to your offensive. Tanks could obliterate infantry, but an infantry with a flamethrower could obliterate a tank. A Warhawk was a nimble aircraft, but a tank could kill it in a single shot. Plus you had homing rocket launchers and anti-aircraft. The main game mode was territories where you tried to dominate the map, and that played into the "realistic war" aspect I enjoyed. Since in the end, it wasn't about killing to win--killing was a means to an end, not the end itself.

The problem with Warhawk, there were no classes. You had to go find weapons and hope other players hadn't taken them yet. So maybe you're a great sniper, but you had to compete for the sniper rifle lying around. And there was a chance some noob grabbed and got lost in the jungle. I had great time with Warhawk, but it left something to be desired.

Anyway, Warhawk made me hungry for strategy-based online shooters that emphasized teamwork. I did not see that in Call of Duty, and still don't. My next game was MAG for PS3. It touted 128 players online, which was insane and I thought I'd love it. I did not. At first, it was really cool to see so many players fighting (I think the 128 was actually broken up into zones so you were never in a 64 vs 64 battle...but the overall conflict involved as many players. I think.) I wanted to be a medic (Warcraft ,right) but sadly anyone could give themselves a self-heal kit. So anytime ppl got hurt, they just healed themselves. While I dedicated lots of points to being a medic. A medic most people NEVER needed. So basically, no classes. On top of that, players could equip super armor. So it would take a clip and a half to kill anyone. Basically it was a bunch of terminators fighting each other. And when no one is really scared of dying, everyone is just sorta walking out in the open. It just didnt' feel "intense".

While complaining about this, a friend said: "I think what you're looking for is Battlefield." So I bought Bad Company 2 and they were fucking right! It was 12 v 12, but conquest mode felt like what I was looking for. Instead of focusing on kills, you tried to control territories. Also, there were classes, and I got to play a medic! I loved Bad Company 2 and got all of my friends interested. When Battlefield 3 came out, I loved it even more. The Assault (medic) class was unstoppable and I did really well. For the first time in an online competitive game, I routinely was in the top 3 of every round, very often in first place. I usually had the most kills, most objectives taken, and my heals boosted my points way up. I loved that the stats emphasized your point score over your actually kills, as it showed who was the most impactful.

I tried Battlefield 4, but life got in the way of really enjoying it. When I finally had time to get back into Battlefield 3 & 4, people had moved on. I also started to hate killing in video games. I switched to only healing and playing the objectives. I actually got first place, twice, in Battlefield 3 solely on heals, revives, and objectives: zero kills.

I've been looking for an experience ever since. I've tried Paladins and Overwatch 2. While I enjoy the healing classes, the rounds are really short and don't have that epic quality of battlefield. It's fun, but not as exciting.

PLANETSIDE 2

When PS4 was about to launch, they bragged that they were bringing PlanetSide 2 to it. I was shocked that this game was so old and I had never heard of it. It looked like Battlefield but the maps were huge and rounds ongoing. It was intimidating but exciting. I had thought to bring over all my Battlefield friends. But PlanetSide 2 wasn't available at launch. and while I was waiting on it, life went on.

Recently, I was sitting around thinking: I want to play a medic in battlefield. But I don't own a copy of the game that other folks are really playing. Overwatch 2 was no better than Paladins and I prefer the healer in Paladins. I asked around and folks recommended PlanetSide 2. So I decided to give it a real play through.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?!

I'm still figuring the game out. Learning how to spawn caused some issues. I think I get it. The medic class is actually pretty popular. I was almost annoyed by how I was having to compete for heals. That's because I'm trying not to kill anyone, just healing.

I don't love the heal gun. You lock-on and heal, much like Mercy in Overwatch 2. I prefer the medpacks of Battlefield. I think Grohk's healing totem very much achieves that. I'm able to heal with Grohk's staff two, so it's like a combo of the heal gun and the medpack. Still prefer the medpack, as you can place them in strategic places. The medgun just makes it...awkward.

(I forgot to mention I love being a healer in The Last of Us: Factions. Great online game!!!)

I'm still struggling to figure out how to be supportive as a healer, especially as I refuse to shoot anyone. The frontline neads healers, but teams rarely move in a sensible way. While people die as fast as Battlefield, they're not smart about their advancements. Running blindly into hot spots and not taking up shooting positions (sometimes).

I also ran into an issue with controls. Since it's a PC game, I have to use mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately, I'm not used to that so my brain was having to translate my intent into keyboard/mouse actions--kind of like having to translate all my thoughts into a foreign language before I spoke. It slowed me down. So I used my AntiMicro program to assign keyboard/mouse actions to my controller. There's a few limitations, but I'm able to more comfortably navigate and commit actions.

Anyway--the experience itself:

Graphically, it looks pretty good! It feels like Halo, to me. The aesthetic just feels similar. The tanks and flying vehicles seem to have the same design sensibilities. But like Battlefield, it's a really exciting war experience. And what's really interesting is because it's so "big", while you're trying to take a position or objective, you're also parallel to whole other battles. Maybe not full battles, but it was cool to be attacking building A, while tanks and aircraft battle over Build B, and then somethign happens at building C that changes the whole tide of battle. It's almost exactly what I'm looking for--but I wish they had medpacks.

While I love the idea that the battles just rage on for hours. I did run into an issue where my team defended a major base for roughly an hour. The whole time, we kept edging into enemy territory, very nearly securing more ground. But they always seemed to push us back to our base. In Battlefield, the time limit on battles would have ended the stalemate and we would have been whisked off to a new level with a redistribution of players. It just mixes it all up and keeps it fresh. But here, I just kept spawning in the same places, attacking the same places, dying in the same places. It just didn't end.

I don't know when I'll play again, but I had fun.

[fullymechanized-consoomer]

Most underrated game you’ve never heard of

Every so often I think back to MAG and shed a single tear

For those not in the know, it was one of the first multiplayer FPS titles to advertise itself based on its player count, which on certain maps could reach up to 256 players. It’s also the best.

What made it interesting from a gameplay perspective was that despite the average size of the games, the team who made it (Zipper Interactive of SOCOM fame) actually thought out how to organize such a clusterfuck into a cohesive battle without losing the sense of scale. 

At the start of the game players were asked to pick between 3 different factions:

Each of these factions played wildly differently and offered substantial differences in weapon loadouts, gear, etc. 

Raven, being based on NATO countries was all about high tech, sleek equipment. Their guns were accurate, low caliber, low recoil. Their gear was mainly focused on fucking up the enemy’s ability to communicate and fight

SVER - being based on all sorts of Commie-Block/Red China stereotypes was crude. Slow firing weapons that did tons of damage but lacked controllability and tended to have artificially poor accuracy. Their gear was almost completely focused on crude offense. 

Valor was the middle ground. Most of their weapons did ok damage and were alright in the accuracy department, but had the advantage of high-capacity magazines. Their gear was a mixture of pure offense and fuckery. 

Once you picked a side the uniqueness of the game began to show.

This was your standard conquest map, and what really separated the game from the likes of franchises like Planetside. Though big, the maps were tightly packed and carefully designed. Every game essentially worked like a big Rush game mode, with one side defending their base from an assault on all corners of the map by the attacking team. Each team was subdivided into platoons who were commanded by platoon leaders and given a general sector to accomplish objectives in, with further subdivision happening at the Squad level. The whole thing was overseen by a single commander on each team, who broadly coordinated the attack, set objectives, and gave out abilities. Notably, only they could see the full extent of the map and all of the objectives in real time. Platoon leaders were given the ability to call in airstrikes, EMPs, call in vehicles, etc, while squad leaders could call in smaller mortar strikes and set goals for the squad. Every ability was limited to cooldowns, so it was up to each teams Commander to actually decide whether or not those calls for abilities would be approved or ignored if they thought it was a waste. 

The on the ground gameplay was ingeniously designed. By giving each platoon a general sector to focus on players were encouraged to work together on a map and do something useful, while their squad leaders generally set the smaller objectives inside their sectors. When the situation called for it a platoon leader could call up a few squads and allow them to mark objectives in other sectors, meaning players weren’t locked down to a map. 

Playing objectives was also extremely important as they actually did things beyond progressing the round. Each sector had their own “main” objective and a bunch of optional side objectives that could drastically change the outcome of the battle on the map. Knock out the AA and suddenly the attacking team gets to call in more airstrikes. Knock out the radar and the enemy is blind. Send out and secure a vehicle spawn and suddenly the defenders have a new bunker, etc. All of this occurring real time on a single map.  Along the way players were given generous XP bonuses and status buffs for fighting near the objective their squad mates - something that was very important for the games’ downright decadent character customization and loadout-system, which allowed you to practically build your own guns from the ground up, customize your armor, apply different clothes, etc. 

MAG’s robust ping, leadership, and reward system meant that team play wasn’t reliant on direct coordination between individual players so much as a careful directing of group-think. Give the grunts a goal and the means of communicating simple ideas and you’d be surprised how spontaneously organization and problem solving occur among the mass of humanity. 

Unlike so many other multiplayer games which offered the feeling of participating in a big battle, MAG was the only one that seemed to accomplish it. 

Unfortunately the game was too ambitious for the hardware, and there were some cracks in the general game design. MAG launched on the PS3, and despite having some fun art direction looked like, well, a heavily optimized PS3 game:

. 

The devs made the conscious (and correct) decision to heavily downgrade the game’s textures and effects for the sake of ensuring good performance, and to their credit they pulled it off. The game ran remarkably well for a 256 player PS3 game, but its looks were not a selling point. Many took it to be some kind of cheap shovelware and wrote it off. 

Secondly, the game had a critical balance problem. For whatever reason the game had an obnoxiously long time to kill. It was not uncommon for a player with heavy body armor to tank an entire magazine’s worth of ammunition and still have 2/3rds of their health. This was further compounded by the fact that player characters were not limited to classes, meaning anyone could carry heavy body armor, an assault rifle, and a medic kit due to the absurdly generous weight limits. After a certain level you could even unlock perks in your skill tree that eliminated movement penalties due to over encumbrance, meaning everyone was a damage eating, machine gun toting, rocket launcher using medic. In short, it was hard to die. 

RAVEN disappeared almost overnight due to everyone figuring out their guns amounted to super accurate airsoft guns, and only those with deity-like tracking skills could manage to pull off enough headshots with their super-soakers to justify their accuracy-over-damage philosophy. Valor performed decently well, and their higher magazine capacities over all could roughly compensate for the TTK imbalance. However, only SVER had the offense oriented gear and high-damage guns to do meaningful damage. Yes, you had difficulty hitting stuff, but in a game like MAG where accuracy is compensated with via the sheer volume of fire from a maxed out server it didn’t matter. About 2 years into the game the vast majority of players migrated to SVER, and it became harder and harder to play the large games that made MAG so exceptional. 

Unfortunately a poor marketing campaign and its exclusivity on the infamously underappreciated PS3 had already capped the playerbase to a dedicated few thousand. There simply weren’t that many players to hemorrhage. Zipper Interactive went under in 2014, and with it MAGs’ long abandoned servers shut down.

So why am I and others who played it so obsessed with the failed title? Because it was perhaps the only game to live up to the promise of what a multiplayer shooter could deliver. Looking past the rather mundane balancing flaws, MAG’s comprehensive approach to organized chaos, detailed level design, objective play, free-form character customization, and simple communication tools are still second to none. In many ways the game was way ahead of its time, and so forward thinking with its solutions to certain problems faced in large multiplayer game that it feels like other devs are just now figuring out some of the tricks that Zipper already had. I constantly find myself playing other games and thinking “MAG did that better.” 

TLDR: now is the time for MAG 2

[tyranno-creative]

Character Bios: Skyhook

Skyhook

“When we uplift others, we can all reach the stars.”

Faction: Autobot Function: Deep-space Operations Sub-Group: Modulator Repurposed From: Galactic Odyssey Botropolis Rescue Mission 6-Pack Ironworks

Continuity: Generation 1; WFC toy-bio continuity

Bio: Hailing from the planet Gigantion, Skyhook immigrated to Cybertron before the outbreak of the war, where he specialized in the construction of structures such as orbital elevators, space stations, space bridges, and launching platforms. When the war broke out, he preferred to take a support role, and was placed under the command of Sky Lynx, where he also worked alongside Overair and the Astro Squad. When Sky Lynx went missing in deep space, he and his team were selected to seek him out. Together, they discovered the roaming city of Botropolis, where they set up operations to scan deep space for Sky Lynx’s location..

Personality: Skyhook is one of the few Autobots who is not just capable of working with the boisterous braggart Sky Lynx, but is also happy to. He himself is not only humble, but encouraging, making him unconcerned with tempering or challenging Sky Lynx’s over-inflated view of himself. This makes him the most successful of Sky Lynx’s team of getting their leader to do what they want, as he is able to speak the “same language”. At the same time, he works well with the rest of their squad, and tries to encourage them so they may reach the same heights as Sky Lynx does. That being said, he is not as confident when it comes to his own ventures, and while he has achieved a great deal, Skyhook is constantly underselling his own contributions and achievements.

Abilities: As a modulator, Skyhook is capable of assuming the form of multiple kinds of workstations and fortifications. One form consists of a combined elevator/battle platform, which he uses to both lift supplies into Sky Lynx’s cargo bay and perform maintenance on his battle station mode. He can also assume a repair station/crane mode, for the Astro Squad to utilize on their missions. Additionally, he can interlink with both Sky Lynx and Over-Air using the A.I.R.Lock system to form more complex structures for Micromasters and humans to use. Skyhook is also an expert on interstellar exploration, and possesses advanced scanning equipment. This allows any of his emplacement modes to be used for deep space reconnaissance.

Weaknesses: For all his expertise in deep-space operations, Skyhook’s status as a modulator leaves him helpless when it comes to evading enemy fire, as he must either remain in structure mode or transform to robot mode to flee, in which case he is not particularly fast. Furthermore, he is specialized for operations in low-atmosphere environments and low gravity, which means he often suffers undue stress on his joins and mechanisms while operating planetside.

Tech Specs: STR - 8 | INT - 7 | SPD - 2 | END - 7 | RNK - 6 | CRG - 6 | FPWR - 5 | SKL - 8

[savingcontent]

The NSO faction is now free-to-play within PlanetSide 2, as part of the _Integration update

The NSO faction is now free-to-play within PlanetSide 2, as part of the _Integration update

(more…)

[rainofaugustsith]

Rain Plays SWTOR: Fleet Avoidance

The Fleet - that's Carrick Station or Vaiken Spacedock, depending on the faction - is a central hub of activity for SWTOR. You'll find hundreds of players on the Fleet at any one time, lots of vendors, and interesting scenery.

You'll also unfortunately find a fair amount of drama. General chat on the Fleet is typically awful. Some players seem to go out of their way to be terrible for the fun of it. During rakghoul events, other players will literally explode on your toons and infect them (vaccinate! Vaccinate! Vaccinate!).

I think most players become familiar with the basics: turn off Gen Chat; ignore players who are being annoying; report harassment. However, here are some advanced techniques to get what you need without going there at all.

Things you can only do on the Fleet:

- Embark on/complete certain missions. These include much of the Shadow of Revan Prelude, part of Hearts & Minds and some of the flashpoints with storylines. The Fleet is also the only place you can pick up the starter missions for the rotating events, such as the Rakghoul Resurgence, Gree and Bounty Contract Week. There are also things like Uprisings which can only be picked up on the Fleet.

- Buy certain decorations, armor and gear. Among the things that can only be purchased on the Fleet: Level 75 mods and armor; items from the DS/LS vendors; items from the event vendors (when the events are not live); reasonably priced purple and blue companion gifts; things crafted by the Utility Vendor and the Marital Decorations Fabrication Droid.

- Pick up Treek, as well as creature and droid companions that are purchased via the GTN or Cartel Market.

Things you can do outside of the Fleet, and where to find them:

1. Pick up heroics. - Go to Odessen. I've taken toons as low as level 44 there. You do not need to have done KOTFE yet. Just click it on your galaxy map and go. You can pick up all the heroics at the terminals outside on the plaza. - With the exception of the four starter worlds (Korriban, Ord Mantell, Tython, Hutta), you can pick up heroics via the Activity panel. What will be available will depend on your level. To get there quickly and painlessly, and earn some extra credits/XP in the process, go through your Activities panel. That will port you right to the heroics pickup terminal on each world.

2. Pick up crew and crafting skills/train new crew schematics/buy crafting supplies.

There are crew skills trainers and crafting supply vendors on every single planet except for the four starter worlds and the daily area worlds (Yavin 4, Oricon, Dantooine, etc.). Some of the easiest ones to find : - Coruscant, in the subterranean marketplace right by the Senate. - Nar Shaddaa, on the Promenade. - Ilum, in the Orbital Station (you can go there before you hit the Ilum story missions!) - Ossus, right in the starting bases for Imperial and Republic players. - Belsavis, right in the starting base on both Republic and Imperial sides. - Voss, in Voss-Ka for both factions. - Tatooine, in Mos Ila and Anchorhead marketplaces. - Dromund Kaas, in the main marketplace. - Onderon, in the palace marketplaces for both factions. - Corellia, in both the Imperial and Republic spaceports.

If you buy the Advanced Repair Droid perk, the droid sells crafting materials in addition to repairing your gear and buying your junk.

3. Train new skills.

There are also class trainers on almost every planet and moon, except for the daily areas (with the exception of Yavin 4, which does have trainers). Some of the easiest to find:

- Korriban, in the Sith Academy. - Tython, in the Jedi Temple. - Coruscant, in the subterranean marketplace near the Senate. - Yavin 4, in each faction's small nook in the staging area. - Nar Shaddaa, on the Promenade. - Belsavis, right in the starting base on both Republic and Imperial sides. - Hutta, in the marketplace. - Ord Mantell, right by the speeder stop in Port Garrick. - Tython, in the upper level of the temple near the Jedi Council *and* at the first speeder station. - Onderon, in the palace marketplaces for both factions. - Corellia, in both the Imperial and Republic spaceports. - Taris, at the first base you encounter (Olaris for the Republic; Toxic Lake Garrison for the Empire).

For the past few Life Days, there has been a freebie Senya class trainer holo that you can acquire. There are no strings, you just go to the Vendor and pick it up. These holos are great - you can activate them and they will train any new skill your character can access.

They are bind-on-pickup so you can't stockpile them for every character in advance, but get them for all of your toons who are around in December. Even your level 75s - you never know when or if SWTOR will increase the level cap again! :) From @verbose-vespertine​ (thank you!):  “ Senya is legacy unlockable, so if you've got the cartel coins (or the next time they do a 50% of legacy unlock sale), unlock the holotrainer for your legacy so that you can give her to any of your toons for free! This way, any toon (on any server) can get a Senya trainer! She was not super expensive to legacy unlock either. “

4. Use your Legacy hold.

- If you have a stronghold, you can access your legacy hold there. You get this deco free if you do the initial stronghold mission. - You can also put the legacy hold on your ship by buying that Legacy perk. Once activated it's good for every character. - There's also a Legacy perk (per character only) for a mobile Legacy hold droid. - Legacy holds now exist on several worlds, including: - Odessen - Ossus

5. Use your cargo hold.

- If you have a stronghold, you can access your cargo hold there. The "wall safe" deco from the Security Key vendor is cheap and gives you access to your cargo hold. - Your cargo hold is automatically on your ship. - There's also a Legacy perk (per character only) for a mobile cargo hold droid. - You can find cargo hold access on almost every single moon and planet. They are usually located in either the planet's central marketplace or the first planetside base you reach.

6. Use an appearance modification station.

You can buy this deco from the Cartel Market or the Utility fabrication droid for your stronghold.

You can also access this service on the following worlds: - Odessen - near the cantina - Dromund Kaas- Central marketplace - Coruscant - the subterranean marketplace near the Senate

7. Use an item modification station. You can buy this deco from the Cartel Market or the Utility fabrication droid for your stronghold. - You can also put the station on your ship by buying that Legacy perk. Once activated it's good for every character.

Stations exist on the following planets: - Odessen (outside on the plaza) - Korriban (near the Sith Academy) - Hutta (in the marketplace next to Nem'ro's palace) - Tython (near the speeder station outside the Jedi Temple) - Ord Mantell (near the center of Fort Garrick - Coruscant (in the subterranean market near the Senate)

8. Surf the GTN. You can buy this deco from the Cartel Market or the Utility fabrication droid for your stronghold. - You can also put a GTN terminal on your ship by buying that Legacy perk. Once activated it's good for every character. Terminals can be found on the following planets:

- Odessen - near the cantina - Dromund Kaas- Central marketplace - Coruscant - the subterranean marketplace near the Senate - Nar Shaddaa - On the Promenade - Makeb - in the Orbital Station

9. Exchange Jawa Scrap.

- The three Jawa vendors in the Cartel Bazaar who will exchange all that scrap are available to procure as decos. You can either find them on the GTN or, if you're lucky enough to have Cartel Certificates, purchase them from the deco vendor on the Fleet (near the stronghold purchase boards). Where do you get Cartel Certificates? They turn up in the slot machines during Nar Shaddaa Nights!

10. Visit the Security Key Vendor.

The vendor can be found here, with the same stock:

- Ilum - Orbital station. - Coruscant - the subterranean marketplace near the Senate. - Dromund Kaas - A little out of the way, right by the Kaas City speeder stop.

 11. Buy mods, enhancements, etc.

- You can learn to craft these for your own characters fairly painlessly (Cybertech does mods and enhancements; Armstech does barrels and armoring, and Artifice does hilts) - Mod vendors exist on every world except for the four starter planets, Odessen, Ossus, Onderon and Mek-Sha. Whatever levels are listed for the planet, you'll find mod vendors for them in the central marketplaces on each planet. For levels 55-65, there are mod vendors on Oricon, CZ-198, the Ziost Orbital Station and Rishi.

12. Run a flashpoint.

Click on "Activities." Scroll down. You can immediately pick up every solo flashpoint available to your level, as well as the Star Fortress and Eternal Championships. As soon as you pick them up, you'll be transported to the start of the flashpoint.

The few flashpoints that do not have story/solo modes: Athiss, Hammer Station, Mandalorian Raiders, Kuat Drive Yards, Red Reaper, the two Czerka flashpoints and the Kaon Under Siege arc  unfortunately cannot be picked up via your activity panels.

13. Buy or visit a stronghold.

It's true that this is far more convenient on the Fleet since all the terminals for the strongholds are clustered together. However, you can also find kiosks to buy the strongholds on their respective planets:

Dromund Kaas: Main marketplace area. Coruscant: Subterranean market near the Senate. Manaan: Welcome center. Yavin 4: Staging area (where you arrive) Rishi: Near the cantina and Kai Zyken's warehouse. Alderaan: In the spaceport near the entrance. Tatooine: In the spaceport near the entrance. Nar Shaddaa: In the spaceport near the entrance. Umbara: On Odessen, in the area near the Copero/Umbara/Nathema flashpoint entrances.

14. Hang out/RP with other players in a cantina.

There are cantinas on almost every planet. Some are very small or contained in the spaceport, but many of them are actually more atmospheric, IMHO, than the Fleet. Some suggestions:

1. Odessen's cantina is unique, with several rooms. 2. Nar Shaddaa: Choices include the Slipper Slope (main quest cantina on the Promenade), but there are also numerous open rooms in the huge Star Cluster/Club Vertica casinos (where the Nar Shaddaa Nights event is held), as well as Club Ufora if you're Republic. 3. Tatooine: You will find a cantina in your starting city on Tatooine (Mos Ila for Imperials; Anchorhead for Republic) but there's also a large one in the first station out on both sides. 4. Dromund Kaas: Nexus in the city center. 5. Coruscant: There are at least three cantinas you can access on this planet.

[silentwisher-feed]

Air Combat Dogfight - Planetside 2

Air Combat Dogfight - Planetside 2 #ps2 #planetside2 #videogames

Air Combat Dogfight – Planetside 2

[battle-scarred-raven]

Full name: Dallas Sacramento Vargrove, T’las ‘Vadam (Sangheili name) Nickname/s: California, Cali, Huntingdon, Hunt, Dal, Dally (only to those she’s close with; try that last one when you barely know her, and she’ll probably riper your arm off) Gender: Female Height: 6′2″ (out of armour) Zodiac: Cancer Spoken languages: English, British Sign Language, American Sign Language, Sangheili

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Hair colour: Black with Red highlights Eye colour: Emerald Green (milky green in blind eye) Skintone: Light tan, tends to pale a little if she’s been in her armour a long time. Body type: Toned, heavy boned, kind of androgynous in appearance, even more so in armour. Dominant hand: Right for those rare writing situations, but trained ambidextrous. Posture: Depends on the situation, but mostly arms folded across her chest and casual, possibly leaning on a wall if the situation is really relaxed. Will fold her arms behind her back and stand up straighter in more formal situations. Rarely stands completely straight and to attention unless ordered. Regardless of the situation and her posture, however, she is always ready to leap into action; something that almost always takes others by surprise. Most noticeable feature: Height (for a woman), facial scars and tattoo, blind left eye.

CHILDHOOD.

First words: Ally (as in her brother, Alistar) Siblings: Alistar Harwell (deceased), technically most of the House of Vadam (honourary). She considers her AI, Dias Darrow (aka Digamma), somewhat a sibling too, but their relationship is a little complex. Parents: Evonne Harwell (nee Boardman; mother), Henry Harwell (father) - both deceased Parental involvement: Her mother was killed when she was two, so she was mostly brought up by her father (and brother, when he was older), who was very caring and protective of her, but was often busy trying to keep the family afloat. Unfortunately, her father was also killed in her early teens, meaning that her brother was the closest thing she had to a father while growing up. Even before their father passed, Cali was close to her brother and was devastated when he was killed. Even decades on, though she recalls her father’s wisdom, it is her brother she misses and recalls the most. She also regrets not being able to know her mother.

ADULT LIFE.

Occupation: Mercenary, occasionally plays ambassador between the UNSC and the Swords of Sanghelios, and between the Swords of Sanghelios and any rogue Covenant splinter factions. Current residence: No permanent place of residence as such, unless you count the Pelican dropship she flies in from place to place. She’ll moor up on larger ships for travelling longer distances or space stations if she needs a base to launch from, but she does not like to stay long in one place unless she has to. She only goes planetside if a contract demands it, or when visiting Sanghelios. Close friends: Her AI is probably the closest friend she has left that hasn’t betrayed or abandoned her at this point. She’s also reasonably close with Carolina and Wash. Her and Thel ‘Vadam are professionally close; they do have personal conversations sometimes and both respect each others’ skills, but their relationship is business most of the time. All other friends are verse dependent. Relationship status: Single for the most part, though it does depend on the verse. Driver’s license: No, but she can drive. Thing is, would you want her to? On a side note, she is a registered pilot, though she can’t fly without her AI helping her. Criminal record: Technically no, as she faked her own death. Otherwise she’d be wanted for her activities during Project Freelancer, as well as theft of PFL/UNSC property (her armour, weapons and AI). She’s was also in breach of the Cole Protocol when it was a thing while she was in possession of her Energy Sword/Great Key during her time as a Freelancer, though this matter wasn’t officially recorded.

SEX AND ROMANCE.

Sexual orientation: Pansexual Romantic orientation: Demiromantic Relationship tendencies: Tends not to allow herself to get too emotionally attached to others due to her past experiences of losing people she was close to. In the unlikely event of a relationship starting to blossom, Cali tends to be cautious, almost to the extreme, not because she doesn’t trust her partner but because she’s... been through a lot. She is selfless and had to rely on herself much of her life so having someone care about and want to support her goes against her very nature. She’s not really one to open up either; again, not out of trust issues but due to painful experiences. Patience is key with Cali here; if she opens up (not just romantically either here), consider it an honour, and if you value your life, don’t ever do anything to betray that trust.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Character theme song/s: Shotgun by Trocadero, Faraday from the Red vs Blue Season 13 OST, Warrior by Nina Sublatti Hobbies to pass the time: Cali doesn’t really do hobbies as such. Unless practicing her sword skills counts? Mental illness(es): C-PTSD and PTSD (not officially diagnosed but she definitely shows signs). She also shows signs of survior’s guilt. Previously had issues controlling her temper but that has mellowed out for the most part. Just don’t piss her off. She does her level best to conceal all of this however and you wouldn’t know she had anything wrong with her mentally unless you knew what to look for. Physical illness(es): Not an illness per se but she is blind in her left eye. Part of her right hand is also prosthetic.

tagged by: @bxttle-cry​ tagging: @shiip-master​, @southern-bluebell​

[severalowls]

Anyone remember Planetside 2 where the way they balanced the three factions vehicles was Slightly Higher Damage vs Slightly Higher Health vs Can Literally Drive Up Walls Like They Weren't There

[noescapevg]

“Politics? In MY Video Games? It’s more likely than you think.”

Welcome to No Escape, a video game writing blog by me, Trevor Hultner. I’m a 27-year-old human person on the internet who thinks writing about video games will somehow bring me joy still, in 2019. I should definitely know better, but here I am!

Earlier this week, video game media Twitter started buzzing about an op-ed by Russ Pitts, the Editor-in-Chief over at the “New” Escapist Magazine, which was relaunched late last year. In this op-ed, Pitts took the “branching paths” approach to essay-writing, going down many different avenues of conversation regarding “ethics in games journalism” toward an overall point of... and I quote: 

“To be honest, I don’t know [where this leaves us]. The last time we all tried to have this conversation it … didn’t go well. But the industry, the media, and you all deserve more, and the only way we’ll get there is if we can try again.”

Pitts has taken the old post down (a copy of which you better believe I’ve saved) and put an apology up in its place. He apologizes for potentially instigating remnants of GamerGate to go after their old targets yet again, but... 

I think I’m getting too far ahead of myself. There’s a time and place to critique Pitts’ post and his apology, and that time is coming soon, but why are we here to start with? 

Entertainment is not exempt from politics

There seems to be a widespread belief among people who are not outwardly far-right ideologues that the things we enjoy - music, movies, books, video games - are not inherently political. A book is just a book, a game is just a game, and so on. And these things we enjoy should be convergence points: places where people from everywhere on the socio-cultural-political spectrum can come together and share in the enjoyment. 

The thing is, games - as well as books, movies, music, etc. - are made by people, and people can’t help but be shaped by the world around them. Our influences are most of the time very expressly political, even if we’re not picking up on the messages right away. 

Here’s an example. Destiny and Destiny 2 are two highly popular post-Halo FPS games from Bungie. The franchise’s overarching story is exceedingly simple: You play a reborn and functionally immortal “Guardian” of the remnants of humanity. Your franchise-long mission, given to you by your Ghost, is to defend humanity and something called the Traveler, which is also the source of your new supernatural powers, from the forces of the Darkness. The easiest way to carry out your mission is to defeat hordes of enemies by shooting, punching and superpowering your way to victory. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy. No politics at all, right? 

Well.

As you play the games, and especially the campaign for Destiny 2, you catch glimpses of a heavily-stratified class society, with the essentially-divinely-chosen Guardians on top and mortal humanity below them. The Guardians have built a massive wall around the Last Safe City on Earth with the functional purpose of keeping humanity’s enemies at bay, but we hear from one character how the walls also serve to keep humanity in, essentially forming a prison state. 

Then there’s the moral quandary of your stated mission: kill everything that wants to kill the Light. While there are at least two very evil alien factions in the game (the Vex and the Hive/Taken), two more exist with more ambiguous motives, or at the very least, a much less well-defined alignment with the Darkness. The Fallen (whose actual species is called the Eliksni) and the Cabal are two alien armies the Guardians face off against where our acts of killing them seem more... genocidal than with the former, more markedly “evil” enemies. 

The Eliksni in particular sits in a tragic position: their mission is to simply reclaim the techno- and morphological blessings the Traveler bestowed upon them, and to rebuild their society after their own collapse (known in the lore as The Whirlwind). The Cabal don’t seem super interested in the Traveler, at least not at first, and their incursion on Earth doesn’t actually take place until Dominus Ghaul brings the Red Legion planetside. Why couldn’t we negotiate with them instead of fighting? It’s questionable. 

“Okay, fine, Destiny is political. But not every game has to be!” You might be muttering to yourself. And that’s true! Not every game has to be political. But that doesn’t stop many games from being expressly political, and that doesn’t stop developers from having political views that shape the way they do business, at the very least.

And for that matter, that doesn’t stop the game’s audience from being political, even if they think they’re not. Misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, racism, ableism and other bigotries have expressly political and ideological roots. And I hate to break it to you, but when people who share ideologies group together to collectively organize around those ideologies, a la GamerGate, that’s a definitively political act. When “gamers” decried the gleeful Nazi-punching in the latest Wolfenstein edition, that was a political act. 

There is No Escape

I always find myself at a disadvantage when I decide to start talking about politics, because of the deep ideological gap between myself and my interlocutors most of the time. I’m an anarchist with roots in punk rock music, which has deeply effected the lens in which I view the entire world. I’m used to the idea that everything is political. You might not be. That’s okay. Be open to new possibilities. Just realize that there is no escape. 

I’m starting this blog partly out of spite for folks like Pitts at the Escapist, but also because I think it actually is possible to spark conversations about the nature of ethics in video games as a whole, and that these conversations don’t need to be led by the same tired media voices. By embracing politics the way politics has embraced us, there might actually come a day where people don’t have to rehash the same six tired discussions over and over again.

The image at the top of this post is a screenshot from HBomberguy’s massive Donkey Kong 64 marathon livestream. He raised $340,000 out of spite for transphobic washed up comedy writers, and in the process, got Chelsea Manning and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the same chatroom for a little bit. He got John Romero to say “Trans Rights” on stream. That’s some wild stuff, and it was absolutely expressly political.

There is no other kind of situation where something like that could happen.

So what is there to do?

Well, that’s a broad question. This blog will examine video games through a political lens, that much is for sure. Ideally, like really “pie in the sky” stuff here, this blog would be a resource for people wanting to know more about issues in the video game industry as a whole and wanting something to “do” about those issues. But as for you? 

Get used to the idea of politics in your games, and get acclimated with the problems facing the people in the industry who aren’t collecting fat checks from their labor. Support efforts to unionize games workers, and support indie devs when you can. Hopefully, over time, we can all be organized for a better games future.

Thanks for reading!

[three--good--things]

Day 226

1: Papier-Mache

2: Early nights

3: The NSO faction in Planetside 2

[silentwisher-feed]

Finally! Oshur Island Battles & Indar! Planetside 2 🔴LIVE

Finally! Oshur Island Battles & Indar! Planetside 2 🔴LIVE Join the epic battle as we dive into the massive world of Planetside 2, where factions clash in relentless warfare! Tune in now to witness intense combat, strategic teamwork, and immersive gameplay.