Clues about Planeshift?

[Kuiper7986]

This just my opinion of what I see throughout everything on Planeshift.

First one:
One of the Planeshift links read this message:
\"In the darkness...an underground world...awaits a hero.\" This has lead me to believe that there is a prophecy Planeshift in the world of Yliakum that will be fulfilled by one individual.

Second One:
The word Planeshift itself it two words. Plane is probably referred to a tool rather than an \"aeroplane.\"
And the word shift is to change.

Third One:
Laanx isn\'t dead and is in hiding. Which brings me to believe that she\'s been planning something.

Best hypothesis I can come up with-
There would be a prophecy that Laanx will creat an item that would bring drastic change to the world of Yliakum and the people of Yliakum are awaiting a hero that would stop Laanx.

Anyone have any beliefs about Planeshift based on what they see? If you do I would like to read about it.

[P.S]: This is all my opinion, it isn\'t necessarily true at all.

[Moogie]

Plane is not necessarily an item. Plane can also mean an alternate existance, place, or dimension. This would tie in with the story far better, because as you know, the species of Yliakum came through portals from other worlds.

I believe the reference to a Hero is merely talking about the player\'s character, as something to get the reader interested in the game, and think \"That could be me\".

As for Laanx, I have no doubt she exists somewhere in the caverns below Yliakum, but I don\'t really think PlaneShift is going to have a big storyline, as most MMORPG\'s really don\'t. If there is going to be plot driven events in the future... well, I\'d say they\'re WAY in the future from now.

[Caldazar]

There might be GM-supported events, which might \"twist\" the PS-world. However, it it highly unlikely that one person will change the world for all of the others, that one person will becomer wtfuberoverpowered

[dfryer]

You seem to believe that Laanx is the nemesis of the people of Yliakum, which I don\'t think is true.  When the Laanx temple was built, that was in some ways the end of the hiding.

From what I understand, the \"plane shifting\" aspect of Planeshift will be very de-emphasized until the vague and distant future.  Alternately, you could view the multiple levels of Yliakum as \"Planes\" if you want...

I would guess that the hero that everyone is awaiting is the player - you might not be central to saving Yliakum from death, destruction etc. but maybe you will be a hero to someone

[Icefalcon]

I would guess that the hero that everyone is awaiting is the player - you might not be central to saving Yliakum from death, destruction etc. but maybe you will be a hero to someone

Well said dfryer. I also think the Planes are the different levels in Yliakum. They may even be called \"planes\" eventually. e.g. Hydlaa is on the first plane, the Plane of Hydlaa or whatever you want to name it. Of course it could be something totally different, such as the Death Realm plane and the Real World plane.

[Syzerian]

Its just a name, does it really matter?
And I\'m pretty sure the name was thought up before any really hard work was put into the game.

[druke]

if you look at some of the further back articles you see hints that planeshift will indeed incluse alternate planes. I dont see why it isn\'t quite possible to go back to the land of the Klyros, i dont recall tell of their portal closing

[Golbez]

Originally posted by Mogura
As for Laanx, I have no doubt she exists somewhere in the caverns below Yliakum, but I don\'t really think PlaneShift is going to have a big storyline, as most MMORPG\'s really don\'t. If there is going to be plot driven events in the future... well, I\'d say they\'re WAY in the future from now.

Egads...The quoted paragraph struck me as rather discouraging coming from a moderator, no offense intended.

Should we not ask ourselves, \"How to make it different?\" rather than say \"I don\'t think this will happen, it has never been done before\"?

Have no central plot if you want PlaneShift to be \"just another MMORPG\" out there. But I think having one would distance it from the rest. Make it more unique. And I had always been under the impression that a storyline was going to be developed by the staff.

A big storyline, observed by the staff who keep pinching in their input every now and then, and players who can add to it with their unpredictable reactions can make the game world feel more alive. We as players may have that fuzzy feeling inside that says, \"Hey, something IS going on here!\"

And doubtlessly, it would attract many new players.

EDIT: But, let me make some points clear. It is not the absence of a plot what I find disappointing (Although, I would not be too happy with it), but moreso this sudden veil of uncertainty that clouded my vision as I tried to foresee what will be so unique about PlaneShift.

When a moderator, which I consider to be a part of the staff (Maybe some do not), basically implies that it will be just as any other MMORPG available to me right here and right now...it is daunting.

I may come across as a visionary. But PlaneShift has in my eyes the potential to twist the online gaming experience around a bit. And I know there were so many innovative ideas that would make the game stand out, become something truly new and different.

To see this attitude is not what I expected.

- Golbez

[FESFES]

Couldnt plainshift be about the layers in the land too?
Like each layer is a \"plane\" and you \"shift\" from one to another
*looks at dfryers post* oh lol sorry

I hope there are hidden things like the land of kylros portal. I think it would be cool and maybe people could develop a plot themselvs through what they find. It could be like a mystery......what has happend to the legendary people of hydlaa? have they gone through a portal to a new and better world? has laanx destroyed them? where is talad?

[zinder]

Originally posted by Golbez
Have no central plot if you want PlaneShift to be \"just another MMORPG\" out there. But I think having one would distance it from the rest. Make it more unique. And I had always been under the impression that a storyline was going to be developed by the staff.

A big storyline, observed by the staff who keep pinching in their input every now and then, and players who can add to it with their unpredictable reactions can make the game world feel more alive. We as players may have that fuzzy feeling inside that says, \"Hey, something IS going on here!\"

I think you misunderstood the \"way into future\" phrase. ATM PS is still in alpha phase, which means it lacks big parts of the world. And before you can even think about implementing a big storyline, you need the world for it. How do you want to put in real affecting events when most of what they concern still doesnt exists?
Second IMHO your idea of big storyline seems strange to me. How can you implementent a big storyline when you intervene only now and then and let the players do all the work? I mean they dont know your plot and play their own plots. In effect you dont have one big storyline but lots of smaller ones.
AFAIK the only way to really get a big storyline is to mainly ignore what the players are doing and go through with your plot.
In short what you describe seems to me more like a Pen and Paper with some hundreds groups in different relationships and you are the master trying to bring through your plot. And that just doesnt work.

EDIT: Oh and does a world, where everything follows one big plot, really look alive to you? To me not. For me its alive if there are lots and lots of plots, more or less loosely connected.

[Zorium]

AFAIK the only way to really get a big storyline is to mainly ignore what the players are doing and go through with your plot.
In short what you describe seems to me more like a Pen and Paper with some hundreds groups in different relationships and you are the master trying to bring through your plot. And that just doesnt work.

Not true, but creating a plot in such a situation is difficult to say the least.  What would need to be done is the creation of a truely massive plot by the devs (as well as tonnes of sub-plots) and then they need to carefully create plot points by the \'manipulation\' of npc\'s and their own characters.  The creation of such a plot will hopefully \'guide\' players into following the \'plot\'.

Of course this \'plot\' would never end and each sub-plot would require a myriad of different possible endings and then spawn a myriad of other sub-plots which would then in turn...  Oh I think you get the idea now.

But of course the devs would need to be impartially to what happens in the world otherwise one dev could drastically through the balence of the world in any direction they wished.  This is obviously not desirable because there needs to a level of control in the hands of the players.

-Zorium

[XpYtZ]

Golbez?! Holy crap! I haven\'t seen you in forever.

First things first.
There are around 25 seporate mentions of the word Plane in the dictionary (the Websters) and most of them do have to do with the process of smothing soomething. But I have to agree that in this particular instance the word is being used to denote an area, dimention or realm of existance. Judging from what I have read (without foot notes) I would also suggests that players will eventually be able to go from one \'plane\' to another. That time is not currently here but we all look forward to the day that it arrives.
Secondly, there are a number of MMOGs out there -some of them calling themselves ...RPGs- that suggest in their advertising that by joining their ranks of players you will somehow \'shape the destiny of the world.\'
Let us not mix good advertizing scheims up with the goals of the developers.
Thirdly, Lannx is in hiding? I was unaware of this. I had always read the lines differently. But I\'m open to suggestions to the contrary.
Now you could be correct in all your assumptions and the rest of us are acting as ingorant dopes. But we won\'t know that untill some undesclosed time after the next release.

[Rant]
As for the argument started about plot immersion. What? You can have a plot line without the use of the entire world. Hell just because some fantasy books -WoT/LotR/A Space Trillogy- decide to intoroduce you to the entire world while taking you through the Backbone plot, does not mean that you need the entire world to be envolved in your plot.
Take the life of the average South American. You could write a book about their life and not leave the country, or even the city that they are in. Does that rob from the stroy? No.
I have played my fair share of games that where still in development and have been on quests and envolved in world changing events without even leaving the province that my Avitar was born in.
For now, I doubt that the Devs have the Setting rescources to write a world changing event stratagem but I doubt that them being short on Zones has anyting to do with it.
In fact one fo the things that could be done to really set Planeshift apart from the rest of the so called RPGs out there is to make all the appicable updates have an event that caused the change.
Onward with my rant.
You do not need to force players to become part of your storyline to have a plotline occuring around them, nor do you need to manipulate them into it. Most people that realy like to RP will, by default, take some kind of stance; either for the better or the worse. Properly done, quests are the perfect example of an optional plotline occuring in the world. You do not need to participate in the quest, it will happen whither you are part of it or not.
I played a great game once that had an ever changing world in which quests actually had something to do with what the world became. There were no \'currier\' quests and no \'bring me\' quests. There were instead, a great number of beings that would come from lands \'across the sea\' and lay seige to the various towns of the land in which we -the players- resided. When the intruders came you could stand and fight (and sometimes die) trying to keep your town or run like a scared chicken, it was your choice. If the town fell to the envaders, they did not vanish or make a truce with you, they prepaired to take over another section of the land. We had to fight to keep our lands out of the raiders hands. In another game the land was ravaged by a scorcerer who\'s pet Dragon that would attack the town and eat people. It was not just happening to NPCs (though if it did they suffered a worse fate that the players *deleted*) but to PCs as well. Hell we lost three towns, the mages guild and two rather fine trading posts before someone got up a good enough team to take that *a@&$rd out. The world was forever changed, as a result new buildings had to be erected and you could see the remains of the destroyed place. Months later new players would ask about the ruins and we could relate the tale of a \'fierce Dragon and his master who ravaged the land for months before (insert name of brave hero and his \'party\' here) slew the dragon and the wizard.\' And the whole thing was part of the \'World Plot.\'
[/Rant]

[Bobkat]

very good points

on this same note (as the rant) it would be really interesting to see quests that are one time quests (i.e. there is only one Laanx beholden staff of pondering and the first one to finish the quest gets it) .  But this would require a way to generate quests from pieces that are randomized and have suffiecent amount of pieces to select from to where it wouldn\'t be noticeable as well as having a huge selection of rewards that are selected when the quest is generated.    As was mentioned everyone effects the world in little ways that add up to bigger ones.  One thing that has always bugged me about the plot lines in other games was that player chars and thier actions aren\'t recorded in any of the \"offical lore\".  What if when the new player came in and was wandering about the library looking for information to help complete a quest and they opened one of the books and read a small story about how slew the dragon and his master saving hundreds of lives that would have been taken.  

From a technical point of view it doesn\'t seem to be that difficult to implement, when a group or player completes a quest (kills a major baddie, saves someone in distress) it flags it and logs some basic details in a heros db table then those can be referenced by npc\'s or in game books (npc saying \"I remember when   single handedly took down the wiley sorcerer that had taken control of Laanx temple back many moons, that sorcerer had slayed an old friend of mine and took his staff, his staff wasn\'t recovered and I would like your help getting it back and would be willing to pay you for your help\"  the quest could be generated from pulling some random hero info, then pulling a random goal (save, retrieve, kill), then matching up with a random object (objects for retrieve, npc for kill, locked up npc for save) and finally a random reward, the two difficult parts i would think would be taking the random data and putting it to a quest form so the wording made sense and figuring out a grading system for the rewards so they are worth the time (it\'s to bad the fun of the quest in\'t enough for some people).  I believe something like this would allow the content to be constantly building without putting the stress on devs for people whining that theres not enough content, because for every quest thats accomplished you could generate 3 or four new ones off that content.  The other interesting benifit of logging player info into a db is that you could then build off that for the player (NPC says: ah your the one that retrieved the statue on talaad from the valtris raiders, well it\'s  a pleasure to meet an kran of your talents, maybe you would consider helping me out with something) ,  i guess the point i\'m trying to make with all that spewing is that if a MMORPG could remember it\'s players and thier accomplishments even when they were no longer part of the game (without requiring other players be the only bards) then the true story of the world and it\'s people (players) would build and flourish without the intervention of others just to add content all the time.

I know i would think it was really cool if I overheard an NPC telling a new player about one of my deeds or go to get a quest and the npc tells me about something one of my friends had done that I hadn\'t heard about.

[Moogie]

Originally posted by Golbez
Egads...The quoted paragraph struck me as rather discouraging coming from a moderator, no offense intended.

Calm down, I\'m just a fan like anyone else. I don\'t represent any official views, and my opinions are strictly my own.

The only thing worrying me here is, how many other people think I\'m some kind of PS spokesperson? I\'m just the janitor for crying out loud!

[Xordan]

Yeah, you shouldn\'t over react. I\'m the official PS spokesperson here.

As my first statement: PS is gonna rock

Anyway, the guilds can easily make the game original, and have a storyline, with the devs only having to \'take us to the next chapter\'. We\'ve just got to work together behind the scenes to make the game good, instead of expecting the devs to produce everything for us.