I swear some people really need to find a better hobby than PS-bashing

True, although as much as I find planeshift to be disappointing to play, I find it much more encouraging that your community has managed to get as far as it has.

I can see DigiEvolve's side.  He wants to make art that anybody can use.  That doesn't fly here, so he was polite about it and went his own way.  The PS team didn't do him an injustice.  They just don't accept that type of art.  I don't blame them:  Games should be unique.  Aside from which, there is plenty of free art on the web for people who just want placeholders or generic stuff to try their hand at making a game with.  Then when they get to the point where they know what their doing, they can get better art.  There's no reason they have to use PS's art.

I'm not yet sold on the idea that a creative person would be unable or unwilling to use existing models, textures or sounds as tools, templates and starting points for creating new works which better fit the feeling of their own projects. I admit the art world doesn't have the same kind of well thought out license as the software world does, so perhaps there is a need for a game art license which prohibits use in the same style, genre; The idea that nothing can be shared and everyone is an enemy to the project does make me wonder what you think someone would do with your artworks that is so reprehensible. The lack of sharing says that the project lacks a degree of trust with it's users and the developer community as a whole; The idea that is takes the works from the original artists, gratis and without even the right to use their own artworks in other things is strong armed commissioning, this leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and it alarms me greatly that the community is able to allow (yet stand to be on the same webpage it is mentioned) such a way of organising copyrights of artists.

I'm both a programmer (mostly Linux) and an artist.  Art and code are not the same thing.  Similar in ways (both art forms, for example), but different.  Few artists would use another artist's work like programmers do, other than as some kind of extreme alteration to make an effect (turning the Mona Lisa into a cyborg, for example), and then only with permission if the artist is alive (unless it's an attack on the artist).  But I could never bring myself to say, use a Klyros in my own game.  I could do it as a place-holder, sure.  I did that with Pokemon sprites before too.  And scribbled smily faces.  But never for the finished product, nor even something intended to be seen by more than twelve people or so.

The style of an artwork is obviously important, but i think perhaps art ort to be thought of more like code, we will never stand for anyone claiming to have written a bit of code when they haven't; nor should we stand for it in the art world. I think perhaps a lot of people consider the use of art as using the entirity of an element without change, I don't believe any game or creative result would be at all noteworthy if the elements remained exactly the same. But at the moment we have no choice on the matter since even a radical derivative isn't permitted.

last time I checked, we don't live in a communist society

Oh you had to bring that up didn't you, Lovely society that all those capitalists have built. managed to completely miss the point of society and have run it into the ground with neglect. pity about the education for sharing and being co-operative instead of diversive. The idea that everyone isn't out to get you and that you don't have to think of a million ways to screw your friends over must be so novel. When your done with your selfish society experiment your welcome to join the real world.

hate to say it. but any kind of decent job irl is going to require it. and any freelance work is going to require even more of it.

I hate to be the embodiment of the exception, but I have the first and do the second with bloody common sense. Although perhaps my heart just isn't in it since I could write at least an A4 page of none [word removed] normally. It's just the more I read about the project the more angry I get, the more I just wish you didn't exist because nothing is better than license.txt

OK thanks for the explainations.

5 letter pages, 10 point times new roman. 1.5 inch left and right margin, 1 inch top and bottom margin.
basically write it up as you would if you said the say thing to your boss/prof

I see, I made sure when I was younger never to put myself in a position where such a thing would be required; not because of an inability but because I find the whole process to be rather dull and pointless in the modern age. I could write a lib to do it but I'm happy just knowing that I've given you the chance to read the ideas and ask any questions and thus propose a solution to a problem you will have before you get to that point.

Oh and idic I would gather is impossible even in the real world; finite diversity would limit the idea since things must be defined; although having a class might give you the graphics boost you need.

Hello everyone,

What I find most difficult to understand is why so many MMOs don't even take the example the english language provides in how to organise and conceptualise objects and materials for instance:

I was playing the new tutorial (good tutorial btw) and the Miner gave me 'a molten iron' I suspect this is because the game engine can only deal with solid objects in specifics when the language wants to deal with a mass noun (a material) and should read 'some molten iron'; but to make this distinction the engine must understand the difference between an object and a material for instance:

Objects are solid, pure or combinations which can always be handled and stored without aid and are counted as a basic number of how ever many you have.
Materials are not solid, they are either liquid (water), gases (hydrogen) or granular (sand), they almost always require some kind of suitable container which in turn is an object it's self and are measured in quantity or weight specifically grams / litres / etc and can often be mixed to produce either none reactive mixtures or reactive secondary materials or objects depending.

My wish is for Planeshift to incorporate a more logical objects and materials model in which the system knows the difference between an object and a material and also knows when an object can contain a material so that the tutorial in the future will go: "you were given [0.5kg] of [molten iron] in a [crucible]"

And then as a secondary wish I want to be able to combine the use of container objects with furniture objects and mixtures to provide a stable platform for all sorts of reactions and unexpected experimentation by users for different skills to be born out of the users experence as much as their characters.

I refute those that say it's not important, while it's not a part of the game play it hurts to realism of the world and makes it very hard for the mind to believe what it's seeing.

The movement systems you describe sound very limited, I thought some creatures could move faster/slower?

You should have 4 or more categories of animation, creep, swim, walk, run wach one atuned to the speed that creature at that category of movement.

ultimatly it's for the programmers to sort out and I'm sure they will. I just wish they'd do it forst.

 

For each upgrade to planeshift before it's final release there should be a binary diff made available to all those that still have the previous versions install, this would come with some MD5 hash checking to ensure everything goes well.

Unless perhaps the installed version should have updates a bit like WOW?