PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: Zontick on December 13, 2013, 04:38:17 am
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This is an opinion based on what I've experienced after a 5-6 year absence. It's meant to cause a re-evaluation, it's not a condemnation. Planeshift has evolved quite nicely and I would hope that what is written below would be taken on board for future evolutions.
I've been gone for some time and, as such, have been able to see some of the great changes that have been made to the quest system as well as other things. Overall, the game has come a very long way in the last 5-6 years while my character was dormant.
Because the character has been dormant, I've had to redo quests as if I were almost, if not completely, new. This, I think, has been a good thing because I've had to redo things as someone who is new. And there's really two aspects that are annoying for new players, though I have been recently reminded that the weight of plate mail is also prohibitive to those who wish to use it when they first start.
The NPCs wandering around, as they do, has been apparently widely accepted by players experienced with the game. It is, however, a problem when a new player comes in and cannot find an NPC related to a quest - because they don't know if they're in the right spot, they don't know if they have the background bug that they need to contend with, and because there's little want for spoilers in game, other players aren't likely to help. It's annoying, especially when you factor in that despite the ingame clock being shorter than the real world clock, people from different timezones who may play 2 hours a day will almost never encounter an NPC that they want/need to encounter.
Trainers make it even more interesting.
Now it's not a bad idea, this wandering around - but as I made mention to Venalan with respect to Todas, it's uncertain when something is bug to be reported or not. Maybe the NPC is supposed to be gone, maybe not. Should I file a bug report when they are absent? No, that's by design. Will I fill out a bug report when they are there when they aren't supposed to be (at the top of the stairs in the case of Todas)? Unlikely; the potential 'bug' is more useful to the player than the feature.
I've yet to see a NPC camping issue, and maybe it's because the NPCs are wandering around, perhaps flushing toilets or making little characters. But for approximately 40% of the quests, I've encountered this issue because it combines with the travel issue.
Yes, travel. By the time you get a mount, you've already run to Bronze Doors at least twice - and for a new player, it's not that interesting to stay on a path and keep running (back in 2007-2008, there were more NPCs that made the run much more interesting. The whole Ulbernaut invasion).
Some quests take the running thing too far.
The Pterosaurs are awesome, the rides make a fine addition. Why isn't there one to Bronze Doors?
In all, great additions.
The disappearing NPC issue is charming if you don't need to see the character. I've sat in game for an hour waiting for an NPC to pop into the game. It's a good thing I know where they are supposed to be. A new player wouldn't.
That's my 2 pence. I don't enjoy forums. It's an opinion of someone who plays the game and, while it may not be popular amongst the veteran players... it's not the veteran players that need be worried with this. If we expect new players, perhaps we should make things more workable for them.
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I agree, not so much with the NPC movement as much as the disappearing. You can spend hours looking for NPCs, thinking they might have moved, when in reality they're off the map somewhere. And there's no way for you to know this without spoilers.
I get that NPC day night cycles make the game "more realistic," but I would argue that it's not really the case. Currently only a few of the NPCs go to sleep. Many stand in the same spot, all day, every day. The fact that some NPCs go to sleep actually emphasizes the unrealistic-ness of the ones that don't.
We could have every NPC go to sleep for the sake of realism, but this would make the game as lot more frustrating unless replacements come out for the "night shift." And that seems like more effort than it's worth.
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Welcome back. Let me assure you that you are in good company as far as your observations go. Even veteran players get exasperated at these issues occasionally. Fortunately there is the whole other aspect of role play that you can embrace to enjoy the fertile imaginations of the
grinding challenged creatively gifted. Many a grinder has been force fed gently nudged into their gaping maw welcoming arms. Some find it liberating.
I would recommend that you broaden your skills base so that when one npc is unavailable you have other things you can attend to.
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I would recommend that you broaden your skills base so that when one npc is unavailable you have other things you can attend to.
Some characters only do one or two skills for IC reasons. Ideally, there would be enough people online such that if you run into a roadblock with some NPC you can roleplay instead, but that's not always the case. Especially if you play at obscure times.
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God forbid that anyone would have a hobby or try to be a renaissance man type of character. Another alternative is the box full of marionettes, 4 characters per account, more accounts than you can shake a stick at. :)
Personally I find I can't sustain much interest in any game for more than a month or so these days. I'm getting too old I guess. I keep coming back here out of habit though I'm out of the habit of loading up the game. I can't remember the last time I finished a game, must have been Xcom, not that you can finish this one.
I should shut up now, might be a tad overdue.
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There's immersion and then there's just making the game a huge pain in the rear end. My thought process when the NPC is gone is not, "Oh, the NPC went away for the 'night', how immersive! What a ground-breaking MMO this is! I will happily go do something else and let this character get their beauty sleep" - it's, "Ugh. Of COURSE as soon as I decide to actually train and quest the NPCs go home. Maybe I should just quit the game again. But then I'd miss the roleplayers."
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I agree as well, it can be very frustrating when you cannot find an NPC, even though you've been all over town in all the places you've seen them before. Have they gone for the night? When will they return?
A feature I would love to see and that I think would help somewhat to alleviate the frustration is if NPCs that know eachother could tell you that their friend has gone to bed and if an NPC has seen another recently and what way they went (could be based on where an NPC is supposed to be at a certain time).
This way you could know if you should run around searching for them or not and it would be entirely IC.
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Perhaps one solution would be to have a /whonpc command that would show the NPCs presently online. Then one could see if they, at least, are on the map and worth searching for. As it is totally ooc to know the PCs online it does not seem a great stretch to have the NPCs identified in the same manner.
- Nova
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NPCs falling off the map is much more rare these days. The last several times players have asked about an NPC being off the map the NPC was on the map and either available in a place the player hadn't looked or at home at their regular time. I believe that the falling off the map issue is very rare these days
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Having multiple trainers and merchants sell and train the same skills would alleviate the problem a little.
For quests where a specific NPC is needed, they probably should not go offline for long periods of time. Could they just toughen up a little and settle for a 10 minute power nap using a sleep spell? Can't there be a glyph or spell for reducing the need to take a leak? :p
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I do understand that a major effort was taken to develop the nav-meshes for NPC movement and to set up the rules for all those day-night cycles. Yet, I have the impression that this gain of "realism" does harm the spirit of "fun to play". Some players like lazy me have pretty much stopped doing quests since day-night cycles were introduced.
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NPCs falling off the map is much more rare these days. The last several times players have asked about an NPC being off the map the NPC was on the map and either available in a place the player hadn't looked or at home at their regular time. I believe that the falling off the map issue is very rare these days
/me starts digging holes all over Hydlaa
But seriously, it only happens in Hydlaa and Ojaveda. Are Kran too lazy to move, or Amdeneirites /Amdeneirians too busy working to go back home to sleep?