Back in early 2022, the Planetside 2 development team brought to life the Isles of Oshur, a largely-neutral land “reminiscent of a time before the Auraxian war.” However, it didn’t quite work as planned, and in a new post with its patch notes and development updates, Rogue Planet Games announced it’ll be bringing it into an infrequent rotation soon.
While it was meant to be more of a sandbox of opportunities, players decried its poor systems design and problematic maps. The team has since recognized the criticism and will be implementing it on a rotating schedule.
The post explains that it contemplated its two possible options: do a full-on rework, or wipe it entirely from the game. In short, both removing it and reworking it would require substantial amounts of effort, whether by recompensing all players and moving Oshur’s systems elsewhere, or because a rework is basically a full-on redesign, and “Oshur did not make the cut when it came to the effort / impact calculation.”
“Oshur will be put on an infrequent rotation schedule and a special alert will be created that will more tightly control how long the continent remains active when it does come up,” the team explains of the solution. “The ability to do this does not currently exist in the rotation scheduling system, and thus we have to design and add it before this change can be made. This is actively being worked on.” A new system from a new solution, neat.
The post was primarily for its short patch notes, which does bring mostly bug fixes, and longer development updates. It shared updates on its Sunderer vehicle rework, which will likely be on the PTR soon, as well as friends list fixes.
The Planetside team marches forth 11 years later despite turbulence in the industry and genre. Last month, the MMORPG.com team was tipped off to a possible sale of the IP to a firm, though that has yet to be fully officially confirmed.
