Despite the primitive, guttural barks that the FPS community seems to associate with the PS2 vs Dust 514 argument, I decided to actually give Planetside 2 a shot and see what the hell it's all about.
Now, don't get too excited because I attribute all games as being fun on some aspect or another and when I say that I enjoy playing the game I'm not saying that it's the holy grail of gaming, though I'd imagine half of you are pissing your pants with glee under the assumption that you were somehow right. It has it's niche, it does what it does well and there's no arguing that. However, it simply does not have the same level of potential.
When you compare the two, they both advertise as triple 'A' games. This is a mistake on CCP's part because they have neither the funding nor the developmental experience that Sony Online Entertainment does, having developed -MULTIPLE- MMO platforms and already having a treasure trove of experience with Planetside - that is to say, their first release, not the sequel.
So where does it stand as far as being good and bad when correlated to Dust 514? Well, first of all, there is absolutely NO RESTRICTIONS on new player experience. You're given a choice between a few infantry classes with absolutely no customization what-so-ever (you have to earn Cert Points to do so) and thrown to the fire to forge your own path through waddling in your own blood and tears as Battle Rank 100 players curb-stomp you into oblivion.
Okay, that was a little obtuse but allow me to expand on that. There is no escalation from being the rookie grunt to the unholy abomination to your peers. You're to make due with what you have, when you have it and what I mean by that is that you're forced into using vehicles with a time limit in between uses and there's a resource allocation period before you actually get to use them. If your particular faction is getting it's ass handed to it, chances are you're not going to be able to field vehicles very often.
What this means to the player is that there's no room to jump into the specialization right from the get go. Sure, Dust 514 has vehicles that are expense but the only limitation to running them constantly is how much skill points you've invested into them and how much ISK you feel like throwing at the problem. With Planetside 2, you're entirely reliant on your peers owning territory and if you lose the vehicle in some stupid way, there's no forgiveness - you're forced to wait until the game lets you use that vehicle again.
And while we're on the discussion of territory, let's compare the two. In PS2, you push to grab territory because you're basically forced to. It's the only way that your team is going to gather resources in order to use the various methods of war and for all that it's worth there's no strategy behind any of it despite what's presented on the battlefield. There is no overarching strategy because you can only capture territory as long as it's connected to yours which entirely eliminates the aspect of attacking from within. Imagine World War II if D-Day was entirely done by beach assault with no paratroopers and how that would have gone down.
Another aspect I did not like is that there was no reason to fear losing something. There's no investment, be it personal or a group effort. You change into your MAX suit you either wait for a revive or you respawn and go in with something different while you wait for that shoddy little timer to expire. In Dust 514 and Eve Online, when you lose something there's an impact not just on you but the world around you. That Tank you lost might have been funded by the corporation, who in turn gained that ISK by working together for a common goal.
To the extent of working together there's also no aspect of backstabbing - you're a bee among the swarm and your job is to do the bidding of the nest through some animalistic, instinctual drive to keep pushing forward for the sake of it. There's no inside threat apart from the occasional friendly fire and if someone is "griefing" they're reported and dealt with by a GM. This is something I find deeply invasive as it completely kills the reality of war in that sometimes the good guys lose for other reasons besides the enemy. The Battle of Thermopylae would have gone a lot different if God had intervened with Ephialtes' betrayl.
And in conclusion I would like to mention that beyond these notable differences that Dust 514 is connected with Eve Online and that alone is plenty of reason to be excited regardless of the pace at which it is being developed. Sure, it would look a lot different if it were open world (albeit a hell of a lot more empty as most of Eve is) but the simple fact of the matter is that you can't exactly have an open world environment with 60,000 planets waiting to be claimed at some point.
They each have their pros and cons, they each have their fan-bases. Despite PS2 being as fun as it is, this old gunner is sticking with Dust 514 because there's just no greater feeling than dropping rounds from space to dispatch a bunch of nere-do-wells.
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