Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) has set a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for Most players online in a single FPS battle in PlanetSide®2, the critically-acclaimed, free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS). As the authority of record-breaking achievement, this GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® honor has further cemented PlanetSide 2 in history as a revolutionary massive scale FPS, while bringing to the forefront the game’s player community as among the most dedicated in the world of gaming.

“PlanetSide held the original record for this achievement and we’re thrilled to have officially taken it back with PlanetSide 2,” said David Carey, Producer, PlanetSide 2. “It’s truly the players that define the game and we’d like to extend a BIG congratulations to our players for reaching such an accomplishment nearly every night, as well as thank them for making PlanetSide 2 exactly the type of experience it was meant to be.”

The record was set on Jan. 24, 2015. SOE partnered with popular player-driven community PlanetSideBattles for an in-game battle on Hossin between all three PlanetSide 2 Empires (Terran Republic, Vanu Sovereignty and New Conglomerate) resulting in 1,158 players simultaneously in one instance via the game’s Jaeger competitive server. SOE unseated the previous record holder, Man vs. Machine, who had 999 players take action in game back in 2012.

“This amazing achievement shows not only how truly massive the PlanetSide 2 universe is, but also how inclusive its online community is,” said Annie Nguyen, Video Games Records Manager at Guinness World Records. “This title truly embodies the international, record-breaking spirit of Guinness World Records.”

1,158 is quite the feat indeed. It should be interesting to see how long it will take for another game to top SOE’s world record.

PlanetSide 2 is currently available for free on PC, with a PS4 version currently in closed Beta.

Learn more about the game at www.planetside2.com

Bring out the PS2 soldier in you this Halloween by following this easy make-up guide.

Learn more about SOE’s growing collection of games at www.soe.com

 Whether a new player or a veteran, Auraxian soldiers can now easily pursue multi-tiered goals and rewards to elevate (and show off!) their in-game expertise…

New Directives will be added frequently. More details and specifics on the system can be found on the Roadmap

The  PlanetSide 2 Directives system includes:

• Showcase Your Honors – Build up your Directive Score and show off your prowess with others!
• Ramp Up Stats – Earn points with each Directive Tier completion (5 per Directive Tree)
• Build Your Arsenal – Obtain exclusive Auraxium prestige weapons and appearance items upon each Directive Tree completion
• Choose Your Direction – Directives reinforce all roles available in game; from aircraft to tanks to grunts to generals, there are options for every soldier!

Learn more and play for free at http://www.planetside2.com/

For nearly 20 years, Sony Online Entertainment has been a driving force in the PC gaming landscape. With their industry changing EverQuest series, not to mention their innovative marketing strategies, SOE has been a company many gamers (myself included) grew up with. While some of their games have been less than perfect at launch, there may be no company more dedicated to the long-term support of their products than SOE. For example, development of the original EverQuest has been continuous since 1999 and includes the releases of 20 expansions up to this point.

Although SOE has clearly been a part of the overall Sony family, they’ve also been mostly segregated from Sony’s main gaming strategy as their platform of focus has been PC. Well my friends, by all indications, that might be changing very soon. It’s no secret that SOE is working on a trio of very promising games. EverQuest Next, EverQuest Next Landmark, and H1Z1 are all titles that have PC gamers pretty excited about the near future. Rumors have swirled for years of SOE porting their popular PC games to PlayStation consoles. You may remember SOE even created EverQuest Online Adventures exclusively for the PS2. While SOE does currently have a few titles currently or previously on console, fans have been begging and pleading for years for games like EverQuest and PlanetSide to be ported.

It is our prediction that as part of Sony’s strategy for PS4 we will see an official announcement that all of SOE’s upcoming games will also be released on PS4 as F2P titles. It makes perfect sense that along with the growing collection of free games that come with Playstation Plus, gamers have an additional set of options to choose from that doesn’t change month to month. With 4 major titles all being pushed with a F2P pricing structure, Sony’s PS4 could have an interesting way to diversify itself from the competition.

H1Z1 – A zombie survival horror game that could be set to become a DayZ killer. The size of the playable area is massive in scale, much larger than Chernarus+ in DayZ

EverQuest Next Landmark – With the creation of EverQuest Next going at full speed now, SOE has created a second game based on the land destruction and creation mechanics found in the upcoming MMO. EverQuest Next Landmark offers an intriguing alternative to the massively popular Minecraft. PlayStation 4 could win big with a free and full featured alternative to Minecraft.

EverQuest Next – There’s no denying the fact that EverQuest basically created an entire industry. Without EverQuest we likely would never have seen World of Warcraft (or that excellent South Park episode based on the game). While EverQuest 2 didn’t manage to capture as wide an audience, many former players of the longstanding series are quite excited for the new take on the  MMO that SOE has planned for their reboot of the series.

PlanetSide 2 – The PlanetSide 2 engine has worked as a framework for all 3 of SOE’s upcoming titles. PlanetSide 2 features futuristic battles on a massive scale. Considered by some to be a Battlefield killer, PlanetSide 2 has had a significant post-launch development cycle that has allowed SOE to optimize the engine and game.

With all of the additional services and accessories that go alongside buying a new console, investing in a new console can be pretty expensive. Imagine a world where gamers can buy a PS4 and immediately have free access to games that rival WoW, DayZ, Minecraft, and Battlefield. Alongside Riot, SOE has pioneered and revolutionized the F2P game industry. While many companies live and die by how they market “free”, SOE has thrived on their take on the business model. With millions of gamers on PC already playing their games, Sony has a leg up on the competition because they have a team that knows what works (and what doesn’t). SOE could become a developer known best for their PS4 titles overnight, and Sony themselves could have a major boost in the public relations department by offering even more games with their instant library strategy.

For E3 2014, we’ll hopefully see some interesting things coming from SOE. At the very least PC players have a whole lot to look forward to.

To learn more about all of SOE’s current and upcoming games, visit http://www.soe.com/home

For more information about PlanetSide 2, check out the website http://www.planetside2.com/?cid=1063863

On the front lines of the firefight with soldiers from each Empire, War Correspondent Robert Stoneman gives you a behind the battle lines look at what it takes to survive the fight, and win the war. With the prospect of peace a long way off, do they have what it takes? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Click the headline to check out the video.

The first phase of the new Missions System in PlanetSide 2 is now live! Getting players into the action faster, the Missions System acts as a player guide for finding offensive or defensive objectives, and enables greater coordination between squads and platoons. Now, players will always have a mission to complete. With the next phases of the Missions System, players can expect to see player created missions, additional rewards, expansion of available mission types and more.

Additionally, today’s game update brings new membership benefits, including a Members-only double XP extended weekend. Also, this weekend is the Spring Splurge sales event. Starting today, players will have access to massive discounts in the marketplace on guns, camos, helmets, vehicle gear and more. Info on the extended sales weekend can be found here:  http://www.planetside2.com/news/member-double-xp-spring-sale

This game just keeps getting better and better. If you’re tired of BF4 do yourself a favor and check out PlanetSide 2.

During GDC, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) released an all-new Player Studio video that highlights the program’s popularity in the award-winning MMOFPS, PlanetSide 2. One of SOE’s most successful community driven programs to date, PlanetSide 2 players have submitted more than 2,000 item creations since the launch of Player Studio eight months ago, and nearly 470 have made it to the Marketplace.

Watch the video to hear how some of the program’s most successful creators are doing, how much money they’ve earned and learn more about the success of Player Studio.

In the wake of the big two shooters of 2013 running into some major controversy it seems that there’s suddenly room in the PC FPS landscape for a new challenger. PlanetSide 2′s groundbreaking design and focus seems to be winning over the heart of players worldwide.

Have a look at the latest trailer for SOE’s PlanetSide 2 for a little teaser as to what 2014 might bring to the ever growing game.

The guys pulled an all-nighter last night getting this update from Test to Live. This is the biggest update we’ve done since Launch, and we couldn’t be more excited to have you in it.

There is a list of patch notes large enough to, if printed, decimate a small forest. But the main focus for this update is performance.

We focused our efforts on the machines that more than 80% of our player base had, which is quad-core or above, AMD and Intel, 4G or more RAM, Windows 64-bit, AMD and nVidia GPUs.

We focused almost entirely on CPU optimizations, because it’s a great deal easier to lower GPU settings when you want higher FPS.

We also focused on optimizations that would yield maximum benefit in worst cases, such as 100+ man skirmishes. We had many 250+ man battles on Test where players were adamant that there were no performance issues!

Since getting OMFG1 to PTS we have gathered data from some MASSIVE fights and found that those around 100-man battles gained well over 30% frame rate over Live. Less than 2% had their frame rate go down from Live to Test, and a majority of THOSE were due to people actually raising their graphics settings on Test!

We also took our time with this update. We focused on the reports that players were giving us every day, and worked feverishly to get as many of those issues taken care of as possible. Crashes are down, hitches are down, loading times are down, player experience is up!
Now, I want to make sure I mention that even though OMFG Phase 1 is out, we are NOT done polishing up the game. As we continue to gather data from Live, we will be moving some people back onto gameplay fixes and tuning, while others will remain on performance as long as a majority of players still need it.

Over the next few weeks, we will likely release a hotfix build or two. We will also be giving you more information about our long-term plans and where our efforts will be focused going forwards.

OMFG2 will come to Test soon, so stay tuned for announcements on that front as well!

Lastly, thank you to the tens of thousands who jumped onto the Public Test Server to help us make this. The help is appreciated.

Ryan “codeForge” Elam
Technical Director, Planetside 2