I consider both games to cater to very different audiences. I've played both and I enjoy both for very different reasons.

Planetside 2 caters to those who enjoy very large fights and heavy team-focused gameplay. "Lone Wolfing" in Planetside 2 is only a viable tactic if you intend to be a sniper that doesn't really contribute to the fight. However, as people have pointed out it does have drawbacks, but these are primarily in the meta game. What i mean by that is that it DOESN'T HAVE a meta game at the moment. The only reason to play is to get into the big fights and log off once you've had your fill. Places the game excel's (at least in my opinion) are character customization, weapon customization, and theater.

Beyond custom helmets and armor for your class, you can also get different patterns of camouflage, attachments for your wide selection of per-class weapons (including RDS, scopes, Holo sights, and even IRNV scopes, as well as under-barrel GL's, grips, and barrel attachments of all kinds). It also succeeds in getting players involved in the game with the ability for people to join public platoons to play with.

PS2 also does a great job of giving players a wide variety of locations to fight at, which they can choose at any time. Making it require a substantial amount of playtime before the players begin tiring of the landscape they're fighting in. However, the complete lack of a respectable meta game in PS2 demolishes its longevity.

Dust514 on the other hand involves much smaller engagements, where individual skills, as well as level of actual character skills, is FAR more important. There is still a focus on the advantages of teamplay, however there are currently no real mechanisms for the "pub" players to work together intuitively without a headset. Even though there is a way to mark objectives on the map, simply getting the map loaded, and then marking the objectives, takes far longer than it should, and usually ends in people marking themselves or a squad mate as a defense objective just for the bonus points and not to actually give direction.

Dust514, for the time being (as its going to be expanded eventually), has a SEVERE lack of customization options beyond your character skills. Limited armor choices, limited vehicle choices, and the requirement of ISK to get things beyond militia fits seems to turn a lot of non-EVE players off from the game. Not to mention the extreme lack of variety in current theaters.

Dust makes up for this, however, in the abundance of available meta gaming potential. Between the depth of character skills, item upgrades, and EVE politics there is a quite a bit for players to come back to beyond fighting prowess.

However, I have noticed both games seem to suffer from an extreme lack of guidance, CCP tends to suffer more at this however, as its also something I see pretty regularly with EVE online. SOE does a decent job as they brought on a good number of talent from Youtubes PC FPS crowd to do tutorials that help guide people in the game. CCP on the other hand, does not offer much in the way of guidance. Players I have met that do not have a pre-existing familiarity with EVE Online's skill system tend to have trouble figuring it out for themselves. Though they can figure out most of the large details, the finer things like specializing in particular fields, as well as upgrading skills that benefit their play style seem to evade them.

As an example, i've seen a few new players I voice frustrations about the range and accuracy of their weapons, compared to others using the same ones. What they don't realize is they do not have points in (for example) the Light Weapon Sharpshooter skill, but the other player does, which gives the enemy player a very large advantage over them in single combat with AR's. For a lot of new players, that information is not made apparent, they're occustomed to games that give them a path to follow with their character that fits their playstyle, but with DUST, there are no paths, so many people just stand at the beginning confused at which direction they should go (or in some cases attempt to go in two or three directions at once).


As for the idea of planetside 2 coming to the playstation I wouldn't worry. I