14 DAY TRIAL // If you thought incessant pop-ups urging you to make microtransactions or upgrade to a premium version of the game are something you're only going to see on mobile titles and a handful of Asian MMOs, then think again.
Recently, PlanetSide 2 players have noticed a considerable increase in the number of pop-up notifications while playing the massively multiplayer online first-person shooter, offering them the purchase of its premium membership.
The notifications appear in the lower right portion of the screen, and players repeatedly complained that they were getting them upwards of several times per hour and that it was easy to accept them by mistake while playing, by pushing the right key at the wrong time, or the wrong key at the right time, whichever way you regard it.
The issue was tackled by Matthew Higby, PlanetSide 2's creative director, who explained on the game's official forums that players were getting far more of the notifications than planned because of two special offers that were running simultaneously and because of a server glitch that reset who received notifications already.
He made it clear that players would not get nearly as many notifications in the future and that Sony Online Entertainment disabled at the time the system in order to prevent further inconveniences while sorting things out, in order to "reduce impact and prevent distraction from gameplay as much as possible."
However, he pointed out that players would continue to receive these notifications – albeit less often – and that the move was intended to increase awareness of the membership and marketplace offerings, which are the best ways to support PlanetSide 2, and are preferred to other means of doing so.
"As a free-to-play game, our servers are kept running by the support of a relatively small percentage of the player-base, and initiatives like this are critical to us being able to grow the percentage of players who are helping support the game. The alternatives are to either cut back on the development resources, or add more and more items for our existing supporters to purchase to make up the difference," Higby said.
The new pop-up system was part of last week's game update, which also included the first phase of the mission system, some bug fixes and other general updates. The in-game nudge messaging system also debuted, and the team was quick to take into account the feedback received from players.