A reply I posted on the tracker, regarding how much easier this would make PS in my opinion:

I don't think it would be turning it into a brainless game. Imo it just helps those who can't remember who to visit, and makes questing easier in many situations. One would still need to read the dialogues and understand the quests I believe, and will always follow the dialogues to know who to go to. The symbols would just help guiding players in case they get lost, and wouldn't be able to tell them who to visit over a distance. They can also be smaller and more discrete than my icons though, and should only show up from up close (optimally just a bit further than the floating names I think).

I find this useful for the situation I'm currently in (which I'm sure is pretty common). I have many quests on my list, and can't complete most because I don't know who to visit any more. If these symbols existed, I'd see the NPC's I need to visit while roaming around the towns, helping me finish many forgotten quests I can't otherwise (keeping me from getting any new quests to not crowd my list even further). I think it's better than being unable to continue at all imo. Not everyone has the memory for all NPC names and locations, which is why I find it very hard without this.

symbols on top of NPCs heads, I wouldn't mind if it shows there only after seeing someone, as that could be the indicator of showing you where someone is, that the last NPC told you. E.g. Harquist tells you to go see Trasok, Trasok has a symbol on his head because Harnquist told you information of where and what Trasok would look like.

That would make sense. Although a NPC that gives you a quest almost always tells you the name of who you need to see. Since you can see the floating names above all NPCs, I think this does apply and you'd know who to visit.

Anyway, I photoshopped two icons today to be used for this purpose, and posted a feature request on the tracker here: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=4798 Here is another mockup using the icons I made (I included the source so anyone can modify and make them better if they wish): http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7513/npcquestinformationicon.jpg

One thing I often had trouble with was figuring if a monster is the right level for me or not. In order to do that, I had to let them hit me once, and in case I survived log off so they'll stop chasing me. I know about examining monsters ("you judge X is more / less strong than you"), but I find that very inaccurate and untrue much of the time. And PlaneShift has the difference of not having universal levels (eg. "Mircea LV 7", leveling up as you fight) since each job has its own skill, so it can't be done like in most mmos either. Still, I would like a way to see how strong I am compared to a monster in numbers. I had two possible solutions for this in mind:

First one is a general combat level, that would display the average value of all your combat skills. So if you have melee level 1, sword level 2, and armor level 3, your general combat level would be 2. For monsters however, it would display the average value between how much damage they deal and how resistant they are to damage. This could also allow seeing the number above monsters without having to click them. Like "One-Eyed-Rat (+2)", meaning rats have a general combat skill greater with 2 than yours. This would make it easy to compare yourself to monsters while just passing by and looking at them. And for players, it can be calculated based on the items they have. So for example, the light armor skill is only calculated if you have light armor on you, and the sword skill if you are holding a sword. Imo this would be the best way to go.

The second idea, as an alternative to the first, was making the attack and defense skills of monsters public. So instead of getting an estimation when examining them, you would see their exact defense level and attack level, and compare them to your own. Not sure if this would work for players, since that would require making all of their skills public (in order to judge an opponent for PvP matches).

What do you think? If any of these ideas (or a similar one anyone can think of) would be agreed on, it would make trying monsters less hard and risky imo. A good idea for newbies especially... so they won't risk dying every time they try a new monster.

My first post on the forum, so hello to everyone I found about PlaneShift this spring and played it for a while. Tried 0.5.4 today and love the new changes I seen so far... great work

Anyway, I have a request for a feature that I'd like to see most at the moment... regarding quests. In my opinion, this could turn completing quests from a nightmare to something much more pleasant for some people. Can NPC's have symbols above their heads when they have a quest available for you and / or you need to see them in order to complete or continue a quest?

I'm thinking about the way I seen this done in WoW. NPC's who have a quest available have a yellow ! above their heads, while those who you need to see as part of a quest have a yellow ? instead. Not saying "do it here cuz that's how it's done in WoW". I just wish for this because the biggest pain for me was finding NPC for quests. You need to know all of them by name and location in a big world, and where to go to for each mission. I have a lot of quests on my list that I have no idea who to visit to complete (and without guidance from some nice players when I was a newbie, I would have never gotten Winch access ).

A symbol above NPCs would make this a much smaller pain imo. Every time you're roaming around you'd see a marked NPC and say "oh I can stop here to complete a quest on the way". Or see who has a quest for you without having to click, for the other half of this feature. The only downside is that this can make quests less challenging. But in my opinion, having to find and click NPC's by their names in such a large world is more than challenging enough. I am aware of the walk-throughs on the web too... but I'm not sure how fun it is to complete a quest if you have to read its solution on a web site instead of just playing.

So yeah. If this feature is ever considered, I'd highly support it and would be grateful for it