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General Discussion / Re: Death
« on: June 16, 2017, 01:09:16 am »
Well, just to add a reply to your suggestions (which are fair enough).
1) We are actually working on porting the game to a new engine (which is part of why there has not been any change to the current game engine wise since we changed a few things related to crafting months ago). That being said, we are indeed understaffed, but recruiting devs is not as easy as it sounds, especially on games with player base that is not that large in numbers.
point 3 is indeed already covered, we have great players, but we can indeed use more of them, which leads to point 4. This is a bit of a trick, since most players would be looking for a game that has a larger team behind it, meaning more frequent content changes. So this seems like a bit of a catch-22 with point 1, still, all the devs we have are actively working on bringing you more content, be it through quests, items or new engine developments.
TLDR: Your points (I've skipped #2 as you may have noticed) are certainly valid and being worked on, but fixing them is unfortunately not as easy or fast as identifying them.
1) I know about the unreal engine port, though I don't know how's progress is going with that because there is no devblog or anything (Would be great if you do one, I would follow at least), and last I heard you are having (A meet the devs few months (Maybe a year now) back) difficulties with that, mostly due to lack of devs. Thing is that it is indeed hard to recruit new devs, so I'm not judging here, I just meant to say that to get the game back to life, more devs are needed in my opinion.
2) Regarding point 2, it was only my opinion and personal feeling, but I haven't felt that there is a very active leadership, or at least involved leadership, mostly because of the lack of important events that progress the lore, or the player's characters, which makes the world feel static (Dead) and not evolving.
3) Non issue.
4) You are right, I think that solving the other issues will indeed bring more players, another problem is probably figuring out how to market the game. The best marketing usally includes visuals and eye candies, but because of the old engine/design, prospective players who are not RP die hards, will get put off. A UE planeshift will indeed be much more marketable.
Personal note:
I don't think that the great aspects of PS lay in the mechanics/quests, but mostly in the community (Fun to talk to people in OOC, friendly) and in the good RP. But, aging mechanics/engine are hindering the game's growth, because as I said, it's hard to market a 10 year old game to new players. And if I will see improvements in activity I'm defintly coming back, but right now, PS dosen't feel viable to me, in the long term (Or short term for that matter). It's really depressing seeing a community die, and much more to actually be in a dying community.
Has Talad tried contacting local universities and asking their computer science departments would like to collaborate on the game development? It is experience and this is a live game. Talad has had other people donate to the game, maybe he could charm a local school into helping.
It should be much easier if you put them on the Unreal transition instead of the crystal space version.
It might be a good idea actually! I hope that you guys (The team) try it, maybe it will bring new life to the development.
Also there are other venues like gamedev.net or gamedev reddit/IRC, maybe some shameless advartising can do wonders?
) like the great guys here in planeshift, but serious (RP rules are strictly enforced) nonetheless) and "settled down" in there.
). The body was duly identified, smuggled out of the city in plain sight, consecrated in a very moving ceremony and lowered by winch into the recesses of the Howling Well. Several characters have now pieced together what really happened, and the consequences may change many lives ...
) hole of knowledge.
Awww, now you ruinied our surprise... 
