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

If you’ve been patiently waiting for SOE’s DayZ killer, John Smedley has some really good news for you today.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) today announced that the much anticipated post-apocalyptic zombie survival MMO, H1Z1, will be available via Steam Early Access on January 15, 2015 for $19.99 (USD). Additional details on Early Access can be found in SOE President John Smedley’s community post: http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/2op00t/h1z1_early_access_release_date_january_15th_2015/.

Players can tune into the H1Z1 Twitch channel, http://www.twitch.tv/h1z1, for special AMA livestream today at 3:30 p.m. PST to learn more about Early Access.

H1Z1 is currently in development and scheduled for a Steam Early Access release on January 15th, 2015. Learn more about the game at H1Z1.com.

We’ve got the full schedule for the keynotes that are set to begin this evening and stretch throughout Friday afternoon. If you’re not attending the show you can still watch the keynotes live at http://www.twitch.tv/soe

*All times in PDT*

Thursday, August 14

7:00 – 9:00 PM: SOE Live Welcome Reception and Keynote featuring President John Smedley

Friday, August 15

9:00 – 10:00 AM: Landmark Keynote

10:00 – 11:00 AM: EverQuest Next Keynote

12:00 – 1:00 PM: EverQuest II Keynote

1:00 – 2:00 PM: EverQuest Keynote

2:00 – 3:00 PM: DC Universe Online Keynote

3:00 – 4:00 PM: H1Z1 Keynote

4:00 – 5:00 PM: PlanetSide 2 Keynote

With all of the titles SOE has in development currently, this SOE Live keynote should be particularly interesting. To keep up to date on the latest details on SOE Live, follow the SOE team on Facebook and Twitter. Learn more about the event at http://www.soe.com/soelive

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