Oldie but Newbie - Changes since Crystal Blue (c. 2005)?

[provisionist1]

Greetings fellow citizens of Yliakum,

I used to play PlaneShift quite a lot back in the days of the Crystal Blue release (0.3.x) in 2005 and 2006, but stopped for whatever various reasons (too much academic work really). I even had a (small) guild, but it never really took off.

I've been a bit nostalgic, and just wondering if any kind person (who's been playing for a long time) could fill me in on the changes since then- community, gameplay etc. I've had a look at the news feed and it appears a lot of great progress has been made. I'm going to try to find time to play again.

Cheers,

Xirius

[LigH]

Welcome back, Xirius.

I fear there are too many to count them all. Let's try the opposite ... Hydlaa still exists (including the East quarter, the sewers, the arena, and Kada-El's of course). Ojaveda-Akkaio as well.

But there is now a lot more. More towns and quarters (Gugrontid, Amdeneir, Ojaveda-Kore). More country in between. More models of playable races and more NPC controlled races of animals. More graphical effects (reflecting water on lakes and rivers, bumpy cobblestones in Amdeneir). More items, more skills, more spells.

Unfortunately, also a lot more powerful hardware is required to play it: a dual-core CPU, 2 GB RAM and an OpenGL 2.0 capable graphic card (preferably Nvidia GeForce generation 6+) are very recommendable.

And there are "less" too ... often less players at the same time. Certainly less people you may remember from those days. Nevertheless, always a good number of good friends.

Most of us will welcome you back wholeheartedly, I am quite certain.

[provisionist1]

Thanks very much Gag Harmond of the Royal House of Purrty.

Sounds like a considerable amount of progress has been made. I should have no problems running it (provided the mac distro is currently working). Sad to hear there aren't as many people on at one time though, or perhaps it seems like fewer because of the increased world space.

Cheers!

Xirius

[Elvicat]

Unfortunately, also a lot more powerful hardware is required to play it: a dual-core CPU

that's not true, ps will work on a strong single core too better than expected actually, i myself have a pentium 4 3.2GHz hyperthread cpu clocked currently at 3.36Ghz sp saying a dual core is a must it just pure clacker poo 

[verden]

perhaps it seems like fewer because of the increased world space.

Nope.

[LigH]

I did not say a dual-core CPU is required. I said it is very recommendable. Read the complete sentence before complaining.

For threaded applications like PC games (with a tendency to consuming as much CPU time as possible for as smooth gameplay as possible), distinct cores have some advantage regarding smooth execution of other applications parallel to the game. Even virtual cores of the Hyperthreading may support that. A really single-core CPU could be "jammed", though, when the game is extremely busy, so that hardly anything besides the game still works.

I have seen USB and network devices getting disabled because IRQs were not handled anymore during a stress phase.

[provisionist1]

Well the game played beautifully on my iMac, but it's a quad core. I must say there has been a lot of progress, well done to all the designers and programmers  . Hydlaa did seem rather empty though, and the entire time, no one said anything to anybody. Quite odd... Only problem is that PlaneShift is not really conducive to my PhD getting done.

Anyways, great job!

[Vakachehk]

Welcome back Xirius.

The number of players has actually dropped. When I first started playing in Steel Blue (0.4.3) about two years ago, there were about 200-300 players online during peak times. Now there's about 50-80. Many players say it's because of the up in requirements and the amount of players that were unable to play during the unstable stage of 0.5 made a lot move to other games such as WoW.

In 0.5 the devs decided to change all of the mobs making them harder (for no apparent reason really), and changed the PP system making it all unbalanced (Tt was a good system, just unbalanced), this also made people leave, especially when they told their frustration to the devs they were constantly told balancing is a hard task, no, not right now. Now the game is slowly rising in player numbers since the balancing of monsters (however the PP system is still very unbalanced).


So that's my opinion on why there's less players around.

[provisionist1]

Thanks Vakachehk!

I must say, if there are any imbalances, I haven't really noticed them yet, especially compared to how the game was at the end of Crystal Blue. So far I've tried fighting various monsters (rats, clackers, arangmas, a few others of which I cannot remember their names, and I got killed in a single slash from a 'Jade Dagger' rogue in the dungeon), many of the quests, mining, crafting, and repairing. It all seems great so far, and fairly balanced. I've rapidly become quite addicted once again...

Edit: Actually, the one thing that is really confusing me is that monsters don't attack on sight anymore? It used to be that nearly everything (except rogue NPCs, and even they would sometimes) would attack you if you came too close. I wandered up to an Tefusang the other day, and it just looked at me. Docile is not something they used to be...

[LigH]

I thought they are the "Onyx Dagger" gang?

[provisionist1]

Oh, it very well could have been an Onyx Dagger... I was using him for magic target practice and then thought, he's down to 1/5 health, but I'm out of mana... I'll just have a go at him with my swords. Nope, one hit from him at like 800 points, and I was gone... Sigh...

And in response to my own confusion about the monsters not attacking on site, thats apparently just been turned off at the moment for balancing- fair enough! Can't wait though for the hoards of Ulbernauts to be chasing people around the wilderness again. 

Xirius

[Mordaan]

I think it's because they are working on NPC movement at the moment.  The mobs have been "docile" for quite awhile now.  If aggression is turned on, they tend to get lost off the map.  At least that was the case last I heard.