Hey guys, saw the new update about PlaneShift on mpogd and decided I would jump back into the game to see how things are. First thing I noticed, the forum account I used with this game about a year ago had either been deleted, or I had never created one. No big deal, I thought, I'll just create a new forum account and start fresh, hopefully get a few questions answered before I jump back into a game that I remember relatively little about. This is where the true problems start.
Did this game's forums have a big problem with bots? It must have, because the anti-bot measures for registration are excessive. A captcha, then FOUR specific questions to "prove" that you aren't a bot. First off, the captcha was nigh unreadable, regardless of whether you are a bot or human.
I had to refresh several times to get one I could somewhat read, and even then I had to try several times to get the correct answer for the captcha.
After that ordeal came the questions. The first three were fairly tame (something like "are you a bot [type yes or no]" "type PlaneShift backwards" and "is Planeshift a 2d or 3d game"). Ok, fine, combined with the captcha that should be plenty to trip any bot up. But then I got to the 4th question: "What's the name of the underground stalactite?" This had me staring at the screen for a good few minutes.
At first I thought it was perhaps another trick question, along the lines of "how many bullets does a 6-shooter hold" or "who is buried in John Smith's tomb". I figured this was to fool the SkyNet bot that was attempting to register, get into the PlaneShift forums and inform us of discount shoe and handbag deals in China or something. So after typing "stalactite" and "stalagmite" adding an s to each, then capitalizing each, I was pretty well stumped. So I did what any relatively intelligent person would do; I went to Google.
As I typed in "what's the name of the underground stalactite" in google, it automatically suggested that I add "PlaneShift" to the end of my question, which lead me to believe that quite a few other people have had problems with this new captcha and question system. Anyway, after a quick search, there were a few results that directed me to planeshift.it pages. Unfortunately, several of the links I clicked were just "dead" or "broken". I tried to pull up a cached version of the first page (
http://www.planeshift.it/setting.html) and finally, success! The answer to the final question was buried deep in PlaneShift lore: the "underground stalactite" is a city/world/place (I'm still not sure to be honest) named Yliakum. Long story short, I entered Yliakum into the final answer box, and I was able to register.
OK, so I was able to register just fine (eventually); so, why am I posting this? To state that I believe this captcha/question system should be abolished (or at least re-tooled)IMMEDIATELY. I've been an avid MMO gamer for ~15 years now, starting in the dial-up days, and I've NEVER had as much trouble registering for forums as I had with PlaneShift. I've come close a few times (I'm looking at YOU, Darkfall) but this system of captchas and questions takes the cake. As I mentioned earlier, the captcha was nearly unreadable; I kept refreshing until I got a captcha where I could read 4 out of 6 of the characters, and then I had to guess the remaining two. If you feel that you absolutely need a captcha, fine, but at least make sure that the humans that want to register on your forums can read it.
And then the questions... they were excessive if their only purpose is to weed out bots (and I can't seriously think of any other reason to have them). I mean, sure, it's nice to have people who are ingrossed in PlaneShift's lore, who know that there is a place INSIDE a giant stalactite that houses 9 distinctly different races and is called Yliakum. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of MMO players, especially nowadays, aren't here to read pages of lore, they are more interested in getting some first hand knowledge and finding out if the game is for them. And, of course, you are going to invariably have those like me who want to register on the forums, ask questions of the veterans, and generally be a nuisance. Sorry in advance
To close, I'd just like to say I like what I've seen so far of this game and the forums. But I believe that having such a strange forum registration system could be driving away some new players before they even give this game a shot. Hopefully someone with the ability to change things will read this thread, and look into fixing the registration system, or at least providing an alternative. Thank you all for reading, and I hope to see you in game.
Regards,
Geezy
