I'm a new player too (4-6 weeks?) and like the idea of providing some focused feedback. I'm a software developer in real life, and I know I have a hard time seeing my creations through the eyes of a new customer, so feedback from someone who is both new and an articulate observer is very valuable to me. I make this post in the hope that my observations will be helpful to you.
I also want to be clear that I'm probably not the ideal PlaneShift user, but think I rank fairly high on the list - not ideal because Role Play, while enjoyable and comfortable, is not my primary focus in playing a game. I favor games that include it, but combat, crafting, and exploration rank higher on my required features list.
But I am a long time role player - I've played and DMed RPGs for more than 20 years (current group playing semi weekly since 1996), and have even done a little amateur stage and film acting. I'm a professional software developer. I strongly believe in Open Source software, and one draw of PS was the hope that one day I might contribute. I have a strong imagination and have no problem working with something that isn't visually perfect or has glitches - my mind is perfectly able to fill in the details or shift to a different task.
So if you're still reading, I guess I'll do until the perfect players come along
- so here's my "new player" take on the game.
It's hard to get into, and has a lot of things that break immersion for me. Here are the big ones -
1) Lack of transparency - if I grew up in the world, I'd have an intuitive sense of "how things worked" - I'd know from stories and probably even experience roughly how much damage a club does, how race and profession affect average stats and skills, and what level of skill is required to accomplish a certain task. The fact that I have to rely on trial and error in this game, as opposed to looking up (or better yet, mouse over) is frustrating and disruptive. If I can get the information nearly effortlessly then my mind can ignore it and it was simply part of my character recalling something known but perhaps not familiar. If I have to go try to look it up, or set up experiments to test, then I am clearly interacting with a computer and not living in the world. This goes for all kinds of rules type information, from how character creation choices affect stats (you show the stats later, why force me to create and destroy a dozen lives to test how the alternatives affect them?) to skill ranks needed to perform certain tasks. And even combat - show (somewhere) what numbers make up the damage taken/done. Something like a combat log or information popup you can enable or disable that shows what my attack roll, strength, weapon type, skill, monster DR, etc. contributions are. I don't want them on all the time, just long enough to transfer the knowledge my character has to me.
2) No mental map - when I go to a new place, I immediately start building a mental map of where I am. Feedback from my senses combine to impress upon my memory paths, spacial relationship, and important features. Peripheral vision, ambient sound and smell, and signals from my inner ear are all blocked by the computer interface I experience Ylikum through, but are necessary for that map. I totally agree a map should not show areas I have not yet been, nor the position of moving enemies (or friends, though I wouldn't mind that for convenience, especially if they were in shouting distance), but it should show where I have been, and show notable features (buildings, NPCs, resources)
as they were when I last saw them. When I have to tab out of PS and look at screen shots I've taken, or search the web for a map, it really breaks role play. You can't give the full interface of sound, smell, inner ear, etc., but you could give a map that my imagination would use as a proxy for the mental map my character would certainly build.
3) NPC stonewalling - The world is full of NPCs ... who won't talk to me. That's just frustrating. I'm fine with not handing out quests until I have a chance of doing them, but the NPC should at least tell me what he requires as a prerequisite and what he will give me ("I can help you gain status among the smiths, but Harnquist must train you to work with metals first"). I currently have to run around and talk to all the NPCs, do a quest, and run around to all of them again to see what opened up. This is an acceptable algorithm for a small set of NPCs, but it doesn't scale.
4)Unreasonable delays - so my character concept calls for someone self sufficient enough to make basic repairs. No problem, I'll train a few ranks in repair weapons and repair armor. I save some Tria, buy some kits, and start to practice. 247 seconds?! For one attempt?! Guess what - I tabbed out and checked my email, and got caught up in a discussion about something totally modern. I don't expect to build a sword in one click and 1 second delay, but this was worth a single PP and I couldn't play the game for 4 minutes (and it didn't even work, Lol!). I know you can't grow a fig in a day, but you've made plenty of other compromises to "reality" for the sake of play-ability, this is a prime candidate.
5) Forced social interaction - Maybe you really do want only extroverts and would like to exclude shy people. After all, extroverts are more likely to initiate role play. But in case that is unintentional, you should be aware that forcing people to walk up to strangers and ask for help is a barrier. In fact, even publicly admitting that I find it hard is hard, and I'm defensively shifting it to the 3rd person. OK, I admit, this one is painful to me personally, and I've deleted and re-written this one repeatedly. I've bared my soul in the interest of honest feedback for a project I really hope works, please don't come back with the trite and obvious "but it's a social game, you really should just meet people". It would be an easy thing to have NPCs provide the information you need, and leave "ask other players" as an encouraged but optional choice, not a requirement (where is iron ore?)
6) Weapon/armor repair - Maybe other skills are grindy, but these two really stand out for me - you are forced to fight rats endlessly, first with clubs, then with daggers, and finally with what you want for your character concept because you have to use simple weapons and damage and repair them before you work on more complex weapons, but then you are not able to do any damage with the complex weapon because you haven't trained so you repeat the cycle, still on stupid rats, seemingly forever. And the kits are hugely expensive for a new character, and do almost nothing, or have a high rate of failure. If you let a low repair skill repair any weapon but repair only a little damage, and use a part of the kit proportional to the points repaired then new players could pick a weapon that suited their character concept and work on getting better with that and repairing that. Even if they progress slowly, they are advancing the character they want, not one they are forced into by the rules mechanic.
Thanks for listening and thanks for putting together a really interesting game. I realize what a tremendous amount of work this is, all for love not money. My comments here are given with the hope that they will help you expand your audience, not to belittle your accomplishment in any way.
Sincerely
Tlok
