Greetings folks!
I have now played this wonderful game for several months. I have tested different characters and playing styles and must say i really enjoy this game. for being an alpha version it is superb, and for being completly free it is even better. I have almost no experience in online games like this from before, but i have more than 20 years experience with conventional tabletop roleplaying games, live action roleplay and i work as a professional actor and mucician. So it is easy to see why planeshift seemed verry attractive to me.
About the game world
Yliakum is a very exiting world to discover. Mystical caves, far off lands like the Bronze Doors, cities, taverns and so much more. Every time i have discovered new places my heart beats faster, and i still do find them after several months in the game. The lanscapes are sometimes a bit barren and feature less (but i guess that is because of lag problems and it will get better in time) but one thing i like very much is that every place has its own mood and atmosphere.
Both the history and settings background is something out of the ordinary, and that is very good. The settings team has done a wonderfull job in making a world we have never seen before, and this makes it easier to forget the real world we are trying to run from when entering such games. I have done a lot of quests, and found that it is a wonderful way of discovering the world. You get to hear lots of stories about both people, history and places and at the same time get you develop your character.
My favourite place is ojaveda, though it is a shame it is so desserted.. and i hope that this will change in the future. i will atleast try my best to get things happening there.
Game mech..
In the beginning the game mechanics are a bit hard to grasp. Things seems very complicated until you learn either from own experimentation or other players. This is good in one way because you get to meet people and even get a chance to join a guild just by asking "noob questions". On the other hand i have seen new players leave because they find it to hard or complicated. I can see that there are many things that is out of balance, the first thing that stikes me is how hard it is to be a crafter. You get virtually no progression points from crafting and that means you either have to quest a lot or you have to kill monsters to progress your crafting. I know that the Dev team is working with it and hope this will change in the future.
The community
I have regularly read the posts here at the forum, and tried to find different groups of people in game, with several different characters. And it easy to see how divided the planeshif community is. Firstly there is a divide between the development/gm-team and the palyers. Though am i realy happy to see that both sides are trying to make it better. This is a test-game wich means that we all are on the same team so to speak. But the other divide is more serious and a lot more disrupting and that is the divide between the roleplayers and the powerlevellers. Really i don't understand why.. I have been assocciating with both sides. What strikes me most is that this conflict is worse here in the forum than in the game it self. Mostly the rp'ers and pl'ers co exists peacfully, usally just ignoring eachother, sometimes even playing together. The main problem in game might be that some roleplayers do not use the game mechanics, and some powerlevellers don't stay in character. But the main problem out of the game is the attitude theese two groups have to each other at this forum. So many good ideas has been flamed to death, from one or the other side. This conflict is so obvious here that i have concidered to just skip reading the forum at all. Because all i see at a glance is flaming and agruing over small details, instead of fruitful discussions where we come to an agreement. This is also why i have not posted here, you can get flamed for doing just a small mistake or with a slight disagreement.
I my self do a lot of roleplay, but i use the mechanics that are available to further develop my character, so in this conflict i have one foot in each camp. I like the diversity, learning from both roleplayers and from poverlevellers. You are all good people, just with slighly different ideas on the game. Respect eachother and this game will develop even more.
conclusion
this is a wonderful game, with lot of potential! i have in short time become a real planeshift fan..
to all the flamers out there: just don't. this is just a short description on how i find this game. but if something is unclear, do not hesitate to ask for more viewpoints..
Zahii
