Seems there are a lot of you playing out there, so in result a new server has been added. See the post by SmokeJumperPS here that includes explanation for server lights as well.

We recognize that Emerald was overloaded. Therefore, we just spun up a second east coast server, Konried. Feel free to play there. Explanation of server lights: Teal lights = 0 - 3000 population (750 people per light) Yellow lights = 3001 - 4000 population (250 people per light) Red lights = Over 4000 people.

A new patch message is available:

1) Made Proximity map changes to make icons more visible:
   - radar blips pulse slightly
   - altered the red color to make enemies visible in TR facilities
   - gave the buildings 50% opacity on the prox map to make it easier to see the blips

2) Advanced Targeting Implant is functional again.

3) The "anti-aircraft" MAX units got some adjustments:
   -  NC Sparrow MAX had its refire rate and damage per shot slightly reduced...however its ammo clip size is now 12 instead of four so it's capable of delivering much more damage over time before reloading.
   - The VS Starfire MAX had its clip size increased from 6 to 8.
   - The TR Burster MAX is unchanged.

4) Further reduced the size of every network packet, thus making our netcode more efficient.

5) Building capture experience system has changed. Details below:
   a) Squads no longer share base capture experience for either BEP or CEP.
   b) Base capture experience is earned by the individual, not the squad and is based on time inside the contested SOI.
   c) Every base capture is divided into time "slices" starting 10 minutes before a hack starts and ending when the hack is successful (25-minute time period).
   d) You get credit for each time slice in which you are within the SOI of the facility. The more you are in the SOI during the 25-minute window, the more credit you get toward experience. (There are 300 time slices in that amount of time.)
   e) Each time slice is worth more or less depending on the NUMBER OF ENEMIES that are in that SOI during that time slice.

So...in a nutshell, the longer you are in an SOI, and the more enemies that are in that SOI while you're there, the more xp you receive if the capture is successful.

If the cap isn't successful, you get no capture xp.

Unique kills are no longer counted for any purpose.

Command experience is still modified by the size of your squad, so the bigger your squad is, the more CEP you will gain for base caps.

NOTE: You do not have to be present at the time of capture to gain experience for a base capture. You will get the award for each "time slice" that you were present for if the base is successfully captured.

Sure we've been posting news for a couple of days, but today we officially open up our doors for the Planetside Community. We have some nice features that we think will make the game a little easier and more fun for you, and we plan on continuing to keep you up to date on the latest news and stories about the game. Plus, we are still working on some more features to make the site even better. Just to point out a few nice features, I'd suggest you first check out the Certification Calculator. This is a handy tool that lets you see exactly which certifications you can get in combination depending upon your battle rank. You can then save the data to your character and track it and update it for easy reference by looking it back up in the Character Section. We also have lists of information available for Certifications, Implants, and Equipment, set up so that you can post comments on each to ask questions of other players of post what you have learned to help everyone out. In addition, for general Planetside discussions, head on over to our general discussion forum.

A new patch message is available:

1) Fixed a floating bridge segment, a slightly sunken tower, and a couple of interpenetrating objects on several maps.

2) Reduced the number of continental lattice links, as well as made them more geographically logical.

3) Bridges now show up on the Proximity Map.

4) Waypoint indicators now appear on the Proximity Map again.

5) You should no longer be able to get your MAX weapons to appear in your (*cough*) lower abdomen.

6) VoiceIP hosting options are now available to set the codec being used (to reduce bandwidth for voice, if desired) as well as to set the actual port and IP being used.

7) The incorrect (and often misleading) warpgate signs have been removed from the Sanctuary Villas.

8) Improved the Deliverer's handling at top speed so it can turn better.

9) Improved the agility of the Harasser as well.

10) After analyzing experience curves, we are reducing experience gained for soldier and vehicle kills. This is the first step in a multi-part experience overhaul and is the small part of the change.

11) The Basilisk certification has been reduced from 3 points to 2 points.

 

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A new patch message is available:

1) The Lasher projectile has been increased.

2) Pulsar projectile speed has been increased.

3) VS MAX jumpjet recharge delay has been decreased from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.

4) Several Striker issues (like the double ammo load, the reloading sounds, etc.) were fixed.

5) All temporarily removed FPS improvements have been reinstated now that the incoming crash logs have slowed to a fraction of their former selves. (Please keep sending the logs if you get a crash however. They are still useful. Thanks!)

6) Fixed a graphics lockup on the ATI 9700 card.

7) Fixed a physics crash that occurred because of a memory leak (both are resolved).

8) Network code was improved so that we send less information when very little is happening around you (adaptive culling).

9) You can now Leave an Outfit.

10) Weather audio was causing a crash on some systems. That's resolved now.

11) Population caps on continents have been upped by 50 more players for both total number of players and the individual empire caps.

12) If you're switching zones when a squad or outfit invitation is sent to you, you'll get it properly now.

13) If you quit and log in as another character, the outfit and squad invitations will not follow you between characters.

14) Outfit lists now properly clean up between characters also.

15) TR MAX Burster was incorrectly guiding its shots toward air targets. The design of the weapon is to do proximity bursts as the shells zip by the target (like traditional flak cannons) if a direct hit is not achieved. That gameplay is now functional.

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A new patch message is available:

The world state is being reset tonight. Characters are NOT being deleted, and your world position is not being reset...but the state of the world is being set back to Day One conditions. All facilities and towers will revert to original ownership.

Why?

We've changed the global lattice ("war web") and this dramatically changes ownership potential of the buildings.

Why did we change the lattice?

Because the old one was static and boring. The three "backyards" (the one-hop continents that were three-hops for all other Empires) were always continent locked and hardly ever fought over. The three "hot continents" (the one-hop continents shared between two Empires) were great to fight in...but they were always population locked.

What this resulted in was you getting boxed into your Sanctuary with only the locked "backyard" to trudge through or the drop pods as your only ways out.

We've changed the world grid so that now, each Sanctuary has three one-hop continents...and all other continents are two-hops from your Sanctuary. There are no longer any "three-hop" continents.

The objective of this is to spread out the fights across more continents, as well as to make all of the continents valid combat areas by making them less likely to population lock nor by making them incredibly easy to continent lock.

Other changes include:

1) You can no longer loot enemy knives.

2) The death penalties (time added to your respawn duration) have been reduced slightly. You incur the following penalties depending on how many times you have died during the last 10-minutes:
   0-1: No delay
   2-4: +5 sec
   5-7: +10 sec
   8-10: +15 sec
   11+: +20 sec

3) The additional delay in respawning to the Sanctuary, after either choosing it on your respawn interface, or after the 30-second timer expires when "Recall to Sanctuary" is used, has been removed. This was the equivalent of a design "appendix" and has been removed.

4) Additional CTD bugs were resolved. One when using terminals one was due to the way we map the terrain in the VR Driving Area, and a few others were fixed as well.

5) Greatly enhanced network optimizations for objects at rest.

6) The reticule accuracy has been improved significantly through a code fix. The center of your reticule is now accurately the center of your Cone of Fire.

7) Found an error in the xp system that was causing incorrectly assigned BEP and CEP whenever a promotion occurred in a squad (whether intentionally done or whether automatically done when the current leader quits out and someone else becomes leader). This is fixed now and experience should be correctly distributed now.

8) When you /quit out of the world, you will now go to the Server Select screen (instead of just disconnecting).

NOTE: The Shuttle bug from last night's patch (where people would get dropped when trying to use the shuttle) was fixed in a server rev earlier this morning. Just including that note here in case you weren't aware that it was fixed.

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We're adding a new feature. From now on, we will be running regular drawings for our premium members and giving away free stuff. Our first contest is for a free copy of Everquest Online Adventures, for the Playstation 2. We will be giving away one copy of EQOA to each of six winners. If you are interested in entering to win the EQOA game, and you are a premium member, you can click on this link. The contest will stay open until noon on May 30th and then we will randomly draw six winners from the entries.

A new patch message is available:

The Bug Hunt is on! You folks sent us a great number of crash logs last night. Not all were unique issues (obviously), but the data we gathered was fantastic. The programming team is digging into those now and you should see steady stability improvements over the next few days.

Changes in this patch include:

1) In the process of finding a hacking bug, we noticed that hacking "timers" were not operating correctly, thus allowing a hack to last indefinitely. This is now fixed and a hack of a door, equipment terminal, or other device has a time limit again. When that time expires, the hacked item will revert to its normal "friendly-only" access and will need to be hacked again in order for enemy troops to use it further. Hack times and durations are listed below:

Hacking certification
----------------------------------
Door terminals: 3 sec hack, duration 180 sec
Medical & Adv Medical Terminals: 3 sec hack, duration 60 sec
Certification/Implant/Order/Vehicle Terminals: 10 sec hack, duration 30 sec
Lockers: 10 sec hack, duration 30 sec

Advanced Hacking certification
--------------------------------------
Door Terminals: 1 sec hack, duration 300 sec
Medical & Adv Medical Terminals: 1 sec hack, duration 120 sec
Certification/Implant/Order/Vehicle Terminals: 5 sec hack, duration 60 sec
Lockers: 5 sec hack, duration 60 sec

2) Secure Trade has been removed (temporarily) from the game. We're going to redesign that feature and make it available after launch. It's a low priority item and not where we want it to be right now, either in interface or stability. Improvements are coming.

3) A CTD bug was eliminated that occured when you exited a turret as it was being destroyed.

4) A CTD bug was eliminated that occurred while you were moving around in the VR Driving area.

5) Several CTDs were eliminated that had to do with looting corpses.

6) A series of seemingly random CTDs were resolved based upon player-submitted stack traces.

7) We reintegrated one of the framerate optimizations that we had removed yesterday since it doesn't actually interfere with the crash logs.

8) Fixed the "can't connect" game-hanging issue with VoiceIP. Whenever the game couldn't connect because of a firewall or because the voice server was down, the game previously would hang for about 6-8 seconds. This is resolved and should not occur any longer.

9) Fixed a CTD issue that occured if you had the keymap manager up at the same time that you zoned. (Happened most often to passengers in vehicles that were altering their key settings.)

Items 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 were all solved because you folks sent those files when you crashed. Please keep it up!

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Malvision has put together some cool Planetside videos and set them to music. Besides being fun to watch, they give you a good idea what the game looks like. You can download them at this link.

If you have been itching to get into the Planetside beta, now is your chance. You can now download Planetside for free on fileplanet. Previously you had to have a paid subscription to do the download. Use this link to get to the download page.