8
« on: November 09, 2012, 08:05:02 pm »
Purpose
As a newcomer, I’d like to share some of the insights I gathered during my first week as a citizen of Yliakum, in the hope that some of them come as a fresh, pure perspective might be valuable to the community.
Background
Back in the Nineteen Nineties I used to play “Miracle Adeptia Guns Urrus Sorrate” (a role-playing game much like AD&D) as a kid. Around 2005 I played on a Lineage C2 private server for somewhat less than a year. So I’m no expert but I have some idea about MMORPGs and I have an idea what 2d6 is, unlike young people with alike intrests.
My plan
After 15 minutes of reading the official website, I decided to give PS a go to relive the fun of RP-ing. My plan was to come out with a plain old simple grunt and advance him towards being some sort of knight, an engineer or an architect. Krans fit the bill perfectly. My choice was supported by the fact, that it is usually easy to RP a character like that and on the combat field every party needs someone to take the hits.
Start off
Installing the Windows client was pretty straightforward although my VGA driver needed an update. Later on my client randomly exited quite frequently which finally became a permanent error as I strolled to into the Arena. (wasn’t sound related as I turned that off) I overcame by using the x86 binaries instead of the 64bit ones. (I didn’t file a bug report since I didn’t know where to find the relevant logs to attach or there is a “/debug=verbose” or similar argument to the binary)
Character generation was intuitive enough. I paved my way by choosing both parent as architects (This one seemed odd for asexual reproduction, but there might be details in setting I don’t know. Anyway I treated them as one.) to give the prodigal son some family inheritance to live up to. The training ground was very helpful and brief. I’d expect it to expand with the latest implementations, but either way it is fine.
My first thing was to get my char a proper gear. The second was to look for something to do relying on the “A letter from a friend”. This on, the possibilities rose exponentially. At first I ran into some technical difficulties and the unability to find the NPC in the Arena. Secondly on my 2nd quest I’ve been instructed to fetch lamp fuel from Ojaveda. As I had the in-game map, I knew where to leave the city. I spent 2 hours getting there . I didn’t know that monsters won’t attack until provoked and the sign posts were not definitive in some cases. So I did some turn-backs, but I was on the right track all along. I’m happy to have found the maps on planeshift.net after a while, but till than I spent hours searching for one in-game. (I don’t know whose responsibility it is since players may say, that it is not their job to maintain the signposts or the integrity of the world ie players have to find their way under the given circumstances, while devs could argue that players have everything to help each other out: by drawing maps or escorting newbies and so on. Now I think it is basically my fault for not asking either side for help.)
2nd step
After familiarizing myself with the game itself, I took time to revise and do further readings about the PlaneShift universe. That basically meant the official website, wiki and the most recent portion of the forum. Since I started everywhere with reading the rules, I ended up felling that I ended up in some sort of virtual dictatorship. Don’t get me wrong… I like rules. They prevent chaos from happening. But having myself reminded to them at all corners is somewhat disturbing. (I wonder… How do they know, that my intentions are to create a bot to rule their most beloved world and troll their forums? ) Anyhow wiki is a bit outdated and that makes me proud to be a participant in an ever-changing alpha testing.
Quests
Hot topic and opinions greatly differ. Since the ~4th day in game I feel like my char was an errand boy with a rodent exterminator’s skillset. Quests usually involve travelling over great distances. I understand that there is no prospect for teleports. I also understand that having players prove their determination is crucial for their progression. But… Having players run hours for quests can be temporary at best. I gave the problem some though and didn’t come up with any perfect solutions, although I believe, that we player-testers are responsible. Here is one mentioned from previous forum posts: Let’s have a simple game in game. Possibilities are infinite, but for example playing for education points could involve beating an NPC in a board game of choice (minding the 1n-nn target age of course) like chess. In Lineage this was implemented to fishing. It relied on reflexes and I hated it so much, that I cheated with using a bot. On the other hand I remember when my father had his first mobile (M-bat). It had a game called something like Bot wars. I spent hours of programming virtual robots with a (as far as I can remember) ReallyRISC instruction set like: turn->direction; move (forward); sensor->if enemy is in front of me do this else jump that; go to xy instruction; shoot (front); on a max 16 instructions (4bit) and a 2d board with 3 bots. (It also had a random element, but I think you get the point already) It would be a win-win to utilize the players to generate the AI or the MOBs (I know it is a long shot) like this. For example in PS I could imagine my char as an engineer who designs the logic of automatic harvesters with rock evasion and rodent extermination. The concerns of the artist community should be addressed in the same manner (I guess). You might think that logic like the previous is far from the world of PlaneShift. I did so too, until I encountered a quest of deciphering a text. Not knowing what the quest reward was I decided to utilize my OOC self and applied letter frequency probability. I regret this decision, because my char: Denes would not have had any way of knowing that at all and the reward item was a musical instrument of some kind. Before that I had another quest requiring me to answer a question. I kept giving my (entirely wrong) answer to the NPC and he kept saying that he doesn’t understand what my char has been talking about. I almost filed a complaint, before I realized my mistake. Still I believe the response could have been more elaborate.
I’m still clinging on the win-win idea. Since engineering relies on mathematics, I could imagine a quest to gather statistics for the dev crew. Say for example I could count the PCs leaving from Hydlaa to the Ojaveda Road from 7pm to 8pm GMT+1 for starters. I could upload the data to some sort of spreadsheet for further analysis. (Even if it’s no help at all I’d rather be doing that, than running back and forth all the time)
NPCs being able to move maybe more realistic, but further the tortures one has to endure to get by.
Furthermore I couldn’t find the way to tell if an NPC is giving a quest for a certain faction. That is annoying and unintentionally against my RP wills.
NPCs in general talk understandably and always have interesting background stories to tell. I had a minor glitch leaving an NPC before it could finish the story, but /help got me out of the trouble. Some quests seem to be outdated but I’m ever proud. (Getting broadsword crafted right after finding a pair of bracelets for the guards doesn’t seem fair and how am I supposed to produce carrot juice?)
Economy
As a pure warrior/barbarian I found my char lacking of money despite all the rat intestines he got. And this is all I’m saying about combat, because I know that it is far from being the first priority in game. I’ve been advised never-ever to sell glyphs by an experienced player. I took the advice, but now I know I was wrong. I know if I was a magician I’d be very-very thankful for being able to buy spells from merchants. So the smaller the community is, the more we have to give each other. Back to money problems: no kidding I needed a side-job. I can only guess but if it is intentional than it is genius. I have had to come up with a side-kick and involve Denes in RP even more. I chose mining as the basis for a lot of items to support my progression in training. Usually there is a seller’s market if I’m lucky to have the right characters online. Mining is sometimes referred to as a … Let me quote a response I got in reply to an auction message: “i offer a bag of boredom for the highest bidder”. That comment maybe true in some context, but I prefer to think of mining as a sacrifice on the altar of self-progression and common good. Another player told me, that there were better things to do on PS than mining wishing me all the best. Despite the previous there is a bigger problem than not recognizing the importance of gathering basic materials. So far I could only hear my own voice’s echo in the auction channel. There are two options I can think of: The freshly started cars are all expert RP-ers (and/or chars of players already involved with PS) and hang out by the tavern to make friends, or there aren’t any and I’m the only freshman here. /who usually describes a number of online players between 30-40. That is all kinds of “Less than expected” if I take the GMs, the experienced players, the distance of places and the variety of skills in account. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for all the possibilities, but it leaves me with no real chance to meet a master of a certain profession I might need. Bottom line: We need more players. (Am I bold or what to target the top of the food chain as a newborn?) As for the how, I can’t be of any real help, but I hope that some of the readers of this post can do more. Maybe a “wholesale” type of warehouse could hold the key to a workaround. Imagine a warehouse where you can place bids or offer items for sale in a permanent manner. You’d leave the money required to buy or the items you wish to sell, and on the next occasion you could check if you were successful in buying/selling. My personal target would be to feed crafters with minerals till they make mediocre to superior items publicly available / buyable.
Players
I’m happy to have learnt, that all players and GMs are very kind and helpful. This could be derived from the fact that PS is a magnet for such (I’m proud again), or maybe they realize: the more – the better (for now). I can’t think of any bad experiences (you know my IC name so I could expect consequences), but if I really-really had to say something than it would be the clear distinction of RP-ing and lvl-ing. Those aspects should be mixable (I too am tackling the idea…).
There also could be a coaching system to help the newcomers settling in and keeping the elderly busy. Whilst this previous might be a good idea I don’t see how it could be implemented.
Final words
So! Excuse my journal like post, but I needed to speak my mind. I can take all the constructive criticism. If there is any idea worth something we should elaborate and file a thread in the wish list.
If you think I’m a n00bAss and should leave to whineland back where I came from, please do tell and elaborate so I can learn from it.
Denes
PS:
Weather you think I’m a waist of space or a valuable contributor please remember:
I only wrote this to help.
I found all the topics satisfying which I didn’t cover. (Especially the Death Realm is perfect for its purpose)
I only wrote this because I care.
Show Posts
: