I tried Planetside 2 as a result of the shots posted here and I have no idea what's going on
I hear you, man. I'm completely lost in this game.
Unfortunately, I think this may be the biggest obstacle to massive adoption of PS2--it has a sharp initial learning curve. You can play as a lone wolf, but the game is best if you join a squad, even if it's full of randoms/people you don't know. A lot of squads will be titled "teamplay only" "mics and teamplay" "play the objective" etc, so it's easy to find a "good" one.
At the very least,
read the Planetside OT. There is a decent number of gaffers playing and they have several Outfits (basically, clans) that you can join to find other players in-game. There are pointers in the OT, and Sony has a series of beginner videos (~5 mins each in length) that you can watch.
This game is basically Battlefield's Wet dream.
My only gripe is that I never knew about the first one when I was playing 1942/BF2/BF2142.
Pretty much this. Honestly, didn't even really think this kind of game was possible. I am worried I'm jaded now--haven't played BF3 since getting hooked on PlanetSide. I realize they're two different kind of games, but the scale of PS2 takes a dump on BF3.