You guys are seriously looking at a single oak tree and assuming the entire forest will be oak trees. We don't have the whole picture, and when the product is completed it sounds like you'll be getting the EXACT game you're looking for. But god forbit this ONE tree you're looking at be an oak...

Take us a year back it would be so ... now its not even the same damn game anymore we are getting.

Seamless, Open World, whatever the term for it, we are still getting a damn matchmaker arenagame. Faction leaders and all that are meaningless. I cant wait the epicness of our faction leader giving his motivational speech about "Click the Arxis oil-refinery for the glory of the emperor and win 4000 matches on it for it to be ours !!!"

The unity ! The Glory ! The Immersion ! For the emperor !

So, Planetside 2, as I can move freely through its virtual world and am given considerable freedom not only with which faction I fight for but which base or outpost I want to attack and how(when or how to approach objectives), restricted in the game environment by in-game limitations(such as bases/outposts being locked) imposed by the game's linearity(the need to capture certain bases/outposts and establish a supply line to another before you can attack it).

There are no invisible walls with loading screens only upon initial start up or when redeploying or respawning(sometimes). I'm able to develop my character and its behavior in the direction of my choosing, such as giving my Engineer C4 so I can heal and kill tanks or altering what weapon I'm using as well as modding that/my other weapons with no concrete goal or end to the game as it's just a constantly waging war across 3 continents on a planet. Even when a faction manages to take over a continent they receive a bonus and the fighting continues on.

We're starting the road to the open world with a matchmaker arena game, and people are seeing where we are starting without all the facts and using that to blast the final vision of the product.

Besides, a year ago we were promised walking around a room and MAYBE a firing range... Looking at the last few Into the Warps, I'll take the current direction and wait patiently for the State of the Crusade letter that's delayed at GW HQ before continuing to lose my shit.

That might be a way to simply explain it, yes.

You do realize the irony of quoting the definition of a genre I helped build and define, with EVE Online, then adapting your translation of that definition to your liking, right?

I think the problem here is that many players (myself included) really value the seamless part above all else in the concept of open world. I think many of us would just like a big world to run around in even if it's a bit boring. Meanwhile the team's vision is more to piece together the whole open world in a way that makes all of it feel like a coherent living world and development in that direction is being held off until this vision can be manifested.
And so we are forever stuck arguing with Nathan about what open world means to us and how to achieve it, remaining on completely different wavelengths throughout the whole argument.
I think we need to start yelling "GIB SEAMLESS WORLD PLS!!!" instead of "GIB OPEN WORLD!!" to be on the same page. Then Nathan can yell "NO!!" back and we can continue the shitstorm.

But us Planetside 2 players do. We just like a big world to travel around without confines, even if the spaces between bases are so neglected that Esamir still has stalagmites that are hollow on one side and let you fall through the world. The idea of being able to travel the world if you want to and go from one fight to another without restrictions is inherently appealing.

This plus the fact that open world allows you to assault a base with how many players you want from as many sides you want. Less tactical options in an enclosed instance.

Instanced battles? Small scale, "quest like" objectives?

What will EC offer that another objective based pvp game will not? Besides a 40k license obviously.

I guess my greatest concern is that Oveur's vision for the game will leave the famously over the top 40 universe feeling small. The idea that a larger strategic map will add a feeling of scale is, IMHO, nonsense. All the other parts of the map are locked away in other instances that the player cannot affect. It just remains an abstract set of lines on a map.