Planetside 2 is an upcoming
free-to-play MMOFPS. You will fight on many different continents and landscapes on foot, in armored vehicles, and whilst soaring through the air like a rocket bird.
The primary thing to get excited about is the customization available in the game. You will be able to build your character to have many interesting capabilities, and you'll be able to unlock options for all of the weapons and vehicles in the game. The designers are big on "sidegrades," that is, rather than unlocking a straight-up upgrade to your weapon, you'll be unlocking something that might tailor it to your playstyle. For instance, you might take a hit to your gun's fire-rate in order to increase your range and damage, or you might change a tank's engine so that it accelerates quickly but is worse at climbing hills (real examples from developers).
No intro post would be complete without a list of things, so the announced classes are as follows:
Light Assault - A man with a jetpack and a dream. This highly mobile infantry is the bread-and-butter of any decent squad. For fans of Tribes and the part in Mario 64 where you get that wing cap, that was awesome.
Heavy Assault - A man who has traded his natural ability to fly for a larger gun and more armor. This is likely to be the most attractive class for people who shoot others on a daily basis, such as gamers and psychopaths.
Combat Medic - This redundantly-named class (isn't everybody going to be involved in combat?) heals others, and in direct defiance of God's will, may return the dead to life. Otherwise I believe they're going to fight somewhat like a Light Assault that can't fly. This class is for atheists and heathens.
Engineer - This will be the most vehicle-oriented class, due to its ability to glue broken things back together. If the old game is any indication, it will probably also deploy turrets and mines and all sorts of helpful bullshit.
MAX - A massive powered armor suit with huge weapons on it. MAXes, like everything else, will be customizable to your preferences, but they will not be a flexible unit. They will kill the thing they're designed to kill, and otherwise will require squad support.
Infiltrator - A spy-sniper hybrid. Able to turn nearly or entirely invisible (depending on loadout) the Infiltrator will go around doing bad things to good people and tearing the world asunder. They can function as part of a mixed squad or go out on their own, sowing chaos like the true bastards that they are.
There will also be many vehicles available in the game. Tanks will be ubiquitous, but there will also be ATVs, fighters, bombers, troop transports, flying troop transports, and troop transports that fire troop transports at other troop transports.
Each continent will have three uncapturable strongholds from which the empires can launch their attacks. The rate at which you can capture a particular territory is based on how many adjacent territories you own, but it will be possible to capture territory that is not adjacent to any of your existing territory, allowing for sneaky motherfuckers to run around being fucking sneaky.
Finally, outfits (the clans of Planetside) will be customizable as well, with logos and stuff, but also they're supposed to have outfit-only upgrades, like, so all of your outfit's tanks will have an armor buff or something, and when people see the 1st Armored "Blood Marmots" rolling in they'll be like "holy fuck, those tanks look outrageously rude" and then
they are.I was always a TR diehard, but there was a lot of talk in the channel last night about people preferring the look of the NC and the VS, so I might have to swallow my pride and fight for another faction, if we decide to put an outfit together and fight fights on the internet.