Redeyes' Application

Dear Dragonwolves,

This is, in a sense, a re-application, as I did play Planetside 1 with the CDL years ago, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, after a long period away from gaming on the PC, my interest has been rekindled by the impending release of Planetside 2. I was initially made aware of the CDL by Asp, who has been my friend since the ninth grade, and thoroughly enjoyed my time playing along in Planetside 1. To me, the excitement evoked by a virtual experience increases enormously when a goal is collaboratively reached. There is something that makes the experience seem much more nearly real when, by coordinating with other real people, something is achieved within the game that those people could not do working independently. I value that experience so highly, in fact, that I almost always play games only with friends, and soon lose interest when playing alone.

I recall a conversation with Asp in the late 90’s where we imagined what would be the perfect online game, and we settled on what is more or less done in Planetside. At the time, of course, we were hoping that game would be Halo – but late is better than never. In almost every game since that time I have gravitated towards roles that integrate well with others. I cannot promise to be the ultimate twitch player - though with practice I am no slouch - but I am one of those players who enjoys support roles as much as frontline combat. One of my best memories of Planestside 1 is piloting a Galaxy for some CDL members. My task was to safely drop my troops over a Vanu base, and then get my Galaxy to a safe area and guard it. Through the whole mission I don’t think I fired a shot, but I got an enormous sense of accomplishment that I did my task well and got my people in and out of the zone without damage to my ship or leaving anyone behind. That, to me, is a fun online game.

I am already in the beta, and have enjoyed it so far, but I should put in one caveat. The machine I am playing on is really not suitable. In large combats I am getting less that 1 frame per second, and described the experience to Asp as akin to “getting killed by a slideshow”. I’ll be able to really jump in once I have fixed the problem with a trip to Fry’s or something similar.

Thanks for taking the time to look at this. I hope to hear from you soon,

Redeyes

 

Hey everybody! I recognize most of the names here, so I guess it hasn't been all that long after all!

Hope you're all having fun in PS2. The loaner PC I was using to play was averaging about 2 FPS, and I frequently saw the counter dip to ZERO FPS in a battle (really, something like 0.25, rounded down). So I'll have to get a worthy machine.

I'm sort of the victim of bad timing. Ya see, right before Asp told be about the beta, I decided to spring for LASIK. While I am very happy going from a guy who wears glasses all day to 20/15 vision, shall we say my credit card is still hot to the touch?

I'll be on there as soon as I can, though - even at atrocious frame rates, boy it looks fun.

Redeyes