Development Speed and Player Counts

[Eatuck]

Hello,
I have noticed the slow death of the player count for some time now and I am worried that this game is right on the edge of losing all its player base. I would like to recommend to use all donation funds received to hire temporary developers to complete the unreal engine transition as well as add additional features to the game (if additional funds are available). I feel that if this is not done as soon as possible, the game will not increase the player count and have no chance of recovery.

If increasing development speed is not possible, I recommend completely open sourcing all closed source assets and turning the game over to the community. I always understood that the game had a slow development when I started playing back in 2008, but it has gotten to the point where I only see 3-4 players online at a time. I wish I could help with development but I do not have the skill or time to do so. Please let me know your thoughts.

[CheatCat]

I would like to recommend to use all donation funds received to hire temporary developers to complete the unreal engine transition as well as add additional features to the game (if additional funds are available).

Won't happen.

I recommend completely open sourcing all closed source assets and turning the game over to the community.

Won't happen.

I would like if they was handing over everything to the community, but I am very sceptic to that it would solve anything sadly.

What we can do however, is to be involved in the Unreal project. We should create some more intressting discussions about it.

[gonger]

As a small reminder:
There are many different ways to help the game without being a programmer. Help with story-telling. RP properly instead of being incommunicado while crafting. Welcome newbies. Present ideas. Plan events. Be creative! Be active!
In some way or another, everybody can help. Just try and find your way.
Greetings,
Gonger

[Dilihin]

If increasing development speed is not possible, I recommend completely open sourcing all closed source assets and turning the game over to the community..

That certainly won't increase developement speed. All projects should always have a project manager/product owner, and for a reason. What i understand by "turning the game over to a community", everything would be voted on. That would only increase the bureaucracy and slow the speed in the management side. Games and other software projects aren't ran like goverments; projects are born from a vision of group of persons, who should work as the product owners/project managers. If you ment something else by your statement, well then i dont know >.<

[Aeghiss]

As Gonger said, players can do much more to help a game like PS than what one can think at first glance.

Though I regret that the development team hasn't been reaching out to the players much, this game isn't over yet. I can't pretend to be active these days (I have like... waaaaaaaaaaay too few free time these days ), but rest assured that I'm still interested in it and that I won't let it go like that. To both the dev team and the players : hold on! We're gonna revive PS somehow.

Still I keep thinking that if we want PS to go far, then the players can't settle for passively playing like what happens for pro-developed games, but that devs & players have to work hand in hand. Of course that doesn't mean trying to work in a total anarchy, we still need project managers and some organisation to get things to be efficient, but such a small, hobbyist dev team can only stagnate if it works alone and doesn't depend on volunteers who get working without need to be officially be part of the team.
That's the way a free software makes progress, and the fact PS has a proprietary lore content doesn't change the fact it's a free software. As for making the game fully free, I can come up with both pros and cons and I'm still neutral about this, but anyway it can only be Talad's decision.

[CheatCat]

That might be the biggest issue. Currently there are no way to help development. Sure we could ask Talad for git access but it sounds like a full time commitment is needed, something certianly not everyone have. I am still unsure why the Unreal project had to start over.

[Eatuck]

Thank you all for your comments. I replied to some of them below. I gave a few ideas in my original post but I feel whatever it takes to get the Unreal Engine up and running needs to happen as soon as possible. Since it is a popular engine, I feel that it would bring in more developers and, as a result, speed up development and attract more players to the game.

I would like to recommend to use all donation funds received to hire temporary developers to complete the unreal engine transition as well as add additional features to the game (if additional funds are available).

Won't happen.

I feel this type of comment is not productive. If there are donations, they should be used to improve the game. I may be wrong, but I heard there are funds to hire developers if need be. 

That certainly won't increase development speed. All projects should always have a project manager/product owner, and for a reason. What i understand by "turning the game over to a community", everything would be voted on. That would only increase the bureaucracy and slow the speed in the management side. Games and other software projects aren't ran like goverments; projects are born from a vision of group of persons, who should work as the product owners/project managers. If you ment something else by your statement, well then i don't know >.<

Overall, I feel whatever will start getting things done would be beneficial. If it requires someone else to take it on or a group, I am all for it.


Any comment regarding roleplay or getting involved in game:

Roleplay only works when there are players in the game to roleplay with. 3-5 players on the server (3 total in game while I write this, including me) does not make a new roleplayer want to stay. If I tried this game for the first time today, I would delete my account probably within the first 10 minutes. In the short time I have in game these days, I usually just chat with guild mates and work on a skill. If I had additional free time, I would try to help out new players but unfortunately I do not have the time.

[CheatCat]

What I mean with "Won't happen" is that the project leaders will not do it. It is very unlikely they will hire developers to do their work. I do not know how much money they got but hiring an fulltime dev wont be cheap. It would be nice if they could hire an developer, or maybe even better; an project coordinator that could actively involve people in open source development. Even if they had that kind of money it would be burned up pretty quickly.

[Geoni]

I think that's just the difficulty that comes with it being a volunteer based game rather than having paid developers. Especially if the developers get busy irl with their real job and/or lose enthusiasm for the project. Indeed, seeing a paid developer would change the concept of PS being a volunteer led open source project but has that really helped it a ton in this decade?

As for player counts and RPing, I think it depends on there being player led events that involve people's characters in a way that makes them want to stick around and other roleplayers being able to reach out to newer players who aren't used to RPing. GM assisted player events, ones that spawn custom NPCs, would be a cool idea if it can be figured out in a way that makes NPC creation faster. Also, make guild housing easier to obtain and more up and coming guilds may feel more enthusiasm.

In general a lot of things keeping people from staying and the player count from being what it used to be is the outdated graphics, a very difficult world to traverse and play non-combat roles due to how buffed all the NPCs are and how awful it is to train to decent levels and stats, and burnout from player DMs who actually do run player events and storylines.

None of this is a new problem or a new set of reasons why though.

[Rigwyn]

Ehm... the players left a long time ago.  What you've seen for the last 5 years or so is the few folks who have inexhaustible hope or perhaps nothing better to do.

[gonger]

Ehm... the players left a long time ago.  What you've seen for the last 5 years or so is the few folks who have inexhaustible hope or perhaps nothing better to do.

Or those who are still working on improving the game and its standings.

[Geoni]

Ehm... the players left a long time ago.  What you've seen for the last 5 years or so is the few folks who have inexhaustible hope or perhaps nothing better to do.

I hope it's the latter. D;

[Talad]

Hi,
at the moment in our bank we have about 4000$ which came from donations and sponsorships through the years. We are using the money mainly to pay for websites, hardware, accountants and taxes.

With 4000$ you cannot make an MMO Usually the investment needed is above 10 million dollars, see: https://www.openhub.net/p/planeshift and https://www.openhub.net/p/planeshift/estimated_cost for a total of about 16 millions.

We are honored to still see people playing PlaneShift, when the game is quite obsolete for graphics and limited in gameplay compared to new games. We love you for still be playing !

Unreal Engine is the only solution, we know it, I know it. Will it happen? Possible.

If any of you out there has excessive amount of money and wants to donate to speed up development or to hire me to work full time on PlaneShift, go ahead! Until then we will continue to do what we can, carrying on also our life duties in the meantime. Getting older your duties become more demanding, and I'm no more 20 years old!

In any case don't lose faith.

[Bonifarzia]

Unreal Engine is the only solution, we know it, I know it. Will it happen? Possible.

I feel that if this is not done as soon as possible, the game will [...] have no chance of recovery.

I guess once the transition to UE4 is done, a bunch of folks will return for nostalgia and curiosity. Even if that engine is outdated by then 

The decline of the player base does not seem like something to be urgently resolved, rather, it has somewhat already happened. So, thumbs up for the volunteers who have been and still are working hard to make that engine transition possible.

[Geoni]

Hi,
at the moment in our bank we have about 4000$ which came from donations and sponsorships through the years. We are using the money mainly to pay for websites, hardware, accountants and taxes.

With 4000$ you cannot make an MMO Usually the investment needed is above 10 million dollars, see: https://www.openhub.net/p/planeshift and https://www.openhub.net/p/planeshift/estimated_cost for a total of about 16 millions.

We are honored to still see people playing PlaneShift, when the game is quite obsolete for graphics and limited in gameplay compared to new games. We love you for still be playing !

Unreal Engine is the only solution, we know it, I know it. Will it happen? Possible.

If any of you out there has excessive amount of money and wants to donate to speed up development or to hire me to work full time on PlaneShift, go ahead! Until then we will continue to do what we can, carrying on also our life duties in the meantime. Getting older your duties become more demanding, and I'm no more 20 years old!

In any case don't lose faith.

Talad you considered pulling together a gofundme type of thing? I feel like that might help.