PlanetSide 1 Emulator + PlanetSide 1 Live Revival

[PSForever]

PSForever.net -- PlanetSide 1 Emulator Project

PlanetSide 1 Live Event April 8-10th

Some of you guys may remember Verant/SOE's other MMO, PlanetSide (1) -- the MMOFPS. I just wanted to share a bit what was going on with that game, the emulator project, and to try to find some old veterans that may be lurking around in the Project 1999 community. Also, forgive the new account, I used to play p99 a bit but didn't use the forums much.

F2P and the "Death" of PlanetSide
PS1 went F2P in 2014, a couple years after the release of PS2. The problem with this was that hacking became rampant, and SOE/DBG GMs abandoned the server. Some hackers just came to ruin the game and make it completely unplayable. The hacks in PS1 are so advanced, they can just simply kill you from anywhere on the map.

PlanetSide 1 Emulator
Fearing the game would be shut down forever, a team was formed to create an open source PlanetSide 1 emulator server. Significant progress has been made by only one developer, and with old and new developers joining the team this month, the emulator seems to be a reality in the near future. So far, a packet collector, launcher, and groundwork for the loginserver has been made. Current estimates are character creation being done within a couple months.

Third Party Anti-Hack
This team has also been working on modifying/hacking the game client itself. Doing so, new private hacks were created that simulate freezing a defined player's screen. This private hack is only available to a few members of the community to combat hackers from ruining the game.

Rising Populations
Since these private, third-party moderation tools have been created (very recently), and the absence of hackers, the populations have been rising quite a bit for a game that was once dead. When I say dead, I mean completely dead. No one logged into the game at all. Now we see 20-30 on weekdays, and 50-60+ on the weekends. Still a small number for what the game is capable of, but just enough to have some pretty sweet base fights.

PlanetSide 1 Live Weekends
With the game given a new lease on life and the hacker's threat mitigated, the community decided to run PlanetSide Event Weekends, where we spread the word and gather as many old veterans as well as newcomers to the game as possible. The next such event is this weekend, April 8-10th. If you've never played the game, there will be training for beginners by veterans. More info can be found here.

Several more event weekends are being planned as well, including for PlanetSide 1's 13th birthday on May 20.