PlanetSide 2 Interview

Strategy Informer has cranked out an interview they did with Sony Online Entertainment's Matthew Higby during GamesCom, which, as you might have guessed from the subject line, is entirely about their forthcoming PlanetSide sequel. Unfortunately, it sounds like the is going to be even more FPS-heavy and RPG-lite than its predecessor:
Strategy Informer: You mentioned barriers to success for the original Planetside - obviously things have come a long way in eight years, is there anything that you're doing now that you wanted to do in the original game, but couldn't?

Matthew Higby: Oh absolutely. Planetside 2 is much faster paced. We're moving a lot... we're basically making it more like a modern shooter. Planetside was a more slower game it took a lot of bullets to kill somebody. We have a mission system now, one of our big learning curves from the original was that new players jumping in for the first time will need guidance on what to do. Players that are experienced and have played the game a lot need a way to organise, so we created a mission system that serves both fronts.

If you are a new player and just want to join in, and just want to have that FPS experience and not mess around with all the coordination and leadership stuff, then we have missions that let you have that kick ass FPS experience. IF you are an experienced player, than you can create your own missions that depend on what rank you are, whether you're the leader of you 'outfit' or guild, and players who log in can see these missions and can really coordinate. The mission system was a key component mission from the original Planetside.

...

Strategy Informer: How are you going into the MMO side of things? Are we talking about crafting, marketplaces, etc...?

Matthew Higby: Well we're a first-person shooter first. No matter what else we focus on. We talked a bit about crafting, like buildings and stuff - I mentioned earlier that you could use resources to dynamically place things on the map, but that's something we'd consider doing post-launch. Player resources, player trading and marketplaces for trading are all things we've discussed but not something we're going to focus on.
When all else fails, you can always ride the Call of Duty coattails.