PlanetSide 2 Interview, Free-to-Play Business Plan Revealed
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UPDATE: SOE has contacted us to share some of Smedley's responses on the "poorly translated" interview:
1) There is some really bad translation going on here - while I have publicly mentioned the game will be some form of free to play before...the Blizzard style auction house isn't a part of that. I was asked what I thought of that move by Blizzard I said I thought it was a good idea and it would help with farmers. I also said we had done that years ago with Station Exchange. So no.... There is no RMT auction house (in fact we haven't ever even talked about an auction house for the game period). We aren't ready to announce specifics yet but expect something that will be very player friendly. I mentioned League of Legends as something I really liked.
2) I was asked about beta schedule and I said we were aiming for late this year or early next year but we don't know yet.
3) I did say that I believe SWTOR will be the last large scale MMO to use a sub model. The game looks great btw and I will be playing myself. BioWare is doing an awesome job.
The original published quote from MMOSite:
The most unique part in PlanetSide 2 is the massive battlefield that can contain over 2,000 soldiers at the same time, says Smedley, but the two new features in the sequel to PlanetSide, skill and territory control system are also something that the developers really want to offer to gamers. Skills directly affect a character's ability of increasing weapon damage, modifying vehicles, and crafting. Depending on the level of the skills, players will cost some time to learn those skills, and it's similar to EVE's skill learning, according to Smedley. Of course, your character will continue to learn even he/she is offline.
Territory control is about taking control of resources which offer the necessary materials for creating weapons and upgrading equipment. Smedley tells that they are considering implementing PVE world events to the game in the future, say, 3 factions work together to defend alien invasion.
When asked about the business mode and beta schedule, Smedley reveals that the game will be free-to-play, but it may not be the microtransaction type as he mentions the model of buy to play and Diablo 3's auction house. Smedley also thinks that EA's The Old Republic will be the last popular MMO with subscription fee. At last, the beta plan. According to Smedley, PlanetSide 2 will start large-scale test in US at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012.
