ANN News Update

Greetings Auraxians, and welcome to the Auraxis News Network News Update! I have traveled all across Auraxis to bring you everything that is happening. In this edition you will find the following topics covered:

• Command Center 10
• Q&A with Character Lead Mat Broome
• Developer Update
• Battle Report
• Fan Art
• Fan Fiction
• Fan Music
• Battlefield Training
• Event Spotlight

Command Center 10 aired this past Thursday, and includes an update on the new heavy pistol being developed by Nanite Systems. This new pistol offers high ranking officers in the war for Auraxis a high powered revolver to vanquish foes with, or a little protection for the citizens of Auraxis. You can watch a recording of the broadcast over on Twitch.

This weeks sneak peek Q&A that aired on Friday Night Ops was with Art Director Mat Broome, who is a character lead on Planetside 2. He answered questions on how to get into the field, as well showing off some new helmet designs, and the direction they are taking with new gear.

In this developer update we have progress on the new heavy pistol, empire specific rocket launchers, as well as a new vehicle in the works, and a new helmet for the TR and VS. Not to mention the AA missile turret that T-Ray posted up on twitter. Check them out below.

Skullface360 gives us a battle report from a recent player organized battle for Amerish on the Jaeger server:

The event was not fully well organized but starting times and exact rules were not really clear.
The basic gist was a 7CT starting time and that NC/TR were going to attack Esamir which Vanu basically held.
BJTC was in Esamir an hour early retaking territory a few TR were harassing us with.
We had the whole continent capped and most of my outfit left to spend the rest of the hour wait on Indar.
I stayed behind waiting to see what moved so I took my time taking out gun emplacements on the entrance towers of the TR warp gate for some certs.
Once in a while there would be a flash on the map of enemy activity and I would retake the territory from ghost capping.
Around 30-40 minutes before starting time I noticed major activity at one of the adjacent territories of the TR warp gate and when I flew there I notified my outfit BJTC that there was at least a squad of TR there and that they seemed to be TRAF members.
Second time I flew in there was a sunderer, a tank, and a couple of mosquitoes which meant something was definitely up and I told BJTC to hurry up and get their butts back to Esamir.
Third time I dropped in the numbers swelled and other part of the map were being hit and I told BJTC to relay in command com that the war was on.

TR hit Two Stone Beach first and it seemed TRAF kicked off the party first. NC were nowhere to be seen at least they started ON TIME.
TRAF were well contained at Two Stone Beach for 20-30 minutes at least, there was a sizable Vanu force keeping them at bay and many thought this was it but I warned that this was only the start. It almost felt like the TR were feeling out how strong our forces were before really laying down main attack. Things started to turn in TR’s favor when they built up a pretty big mosquito force floating above their warp gate and then they pushed east. Everret Supply fell quickly and then the following territories went down like dominoes.
They had finally broken out and manged to push east and straight up the middle of the map.

Vanu command asked BJTC to handle the now NC push out of their warp gate. Things were going fine until we realized when we left the TR on the west we quickly lost Jaeger’s Crossing and soon Andvari was under heavy assult. On the east NC were pushing Mani Bio Lab and we got word of a massive armor column rolling through North Point Station and at that moment we decided we no longer had the population to hold back two massive armies at the same time so we chose to defend Mani Bio Lab no matter what cost.

At first this paid off as we did try to defend the bottom teleport areas but quickly we were overrun. We simply fell back into the lab and held A, B, C, for what seemed like an eternity. Wave after wave of enemy poured through and managed to take a point or two, even blew up the generator protecting the SCU but we managed to keep it protected and it seemed the NC lost the will to continue to throw their forces in. Things changed though once the TR took Andvari and decided to move to Mani Bio where almost immediately things went from bad to worse. We hung on for as long as we could but TRAF moved with efficiency with flash bang grenades and smoke grenades. Our defense eventually caved in but it wasn’t without significant increases in our Certs count. My total from start to finish in KDR was 141 kills and 114 deaths to give you an idea of the carnage a couple of hours protecting Esamir produced.

In the end Vanu only had about 3 strong outfits defending while we had 40%+ on Amerish refusing to participate during this event. I would like to give a special thanks to 9volt and Derp for being there from the start. I didn’t see any BoG on which I had hoped to be there but then again our forces were split and I could not see who all was there in total.

GG TR and NC, TR won this fight, their numbers swelled to twice our count but we managed to give them hell for as long we can.

End of recap.

Sieve has four YouTube videos of event that be viewed here.

We have some fan art from J4k, which hopefully will be submitted and accepted once the Player Studio goes live.

Alpha Squad is a fan fiction series by Sonny, in which three parts have been written already. Below is a sample from Part 1:

ALPHA SQUAD

Dazed, Marius staggered into the generator room wall, barely holding up his MAX suit with his shaking arm. Alarms bleeped at him from all directions and warm hydraulic fluid spilled down the outside of his leg, staining the snow beneath his feet. His chest still heaved from the punches of the shotgun pellets, but luckily the last shot had only smashed his visor and no more; his body was just bruised and stinging under four inches of solid steel.
Nakano was there in seconds. A small, agile figure dodging in between the barriers and shrapnel, she tapped Marius’ helmet as she surveyed him with keen, professional eyes.

“Maz… You hear me?”

Marius could only nod, breathless and blind from the blood covering his eyes.

“Brace yourself, this may hurt…”

A burst of intense heat enveloped Marius from head to toe – a rush of energy that tore the air from his lungs like a popped balloon. His armour glowed and simmered red like molten lava as the cracks and fissures of the gunfire were fused together by the nano bots. Suddenly, the repair kit buzzed angrily.

“Sorry Maz, I’m all out. You’ll have to get a new helmet from stores.”

Marius gulped, and sighed in a weak voice “No worries mate. Thanks for the top up.”

Wordlessly, Nakano scurried back to the front.

For the rest of Part 1, head over to his forum posting on Planetside Universe. Be sure to read Part 2 and Part 3 as well.

Below we have a piece of work by Anam, spreading the Vanu’s message.

In this issue of Battlefield Training, we take a look at weapon choice and how to adjust for recoil provided by the official Planetside 2 training video below.

On March 16th, 2013 on the Mattherson server will be Gamepocalypse 2013, which is a benefit for the Wounded Warrior Project. This is a great cause and everyone should participate. Watch the video below to find out more info.

Thanks for tuning into this ANN News Update, we’ll see you next time, until then, cover your six!