Testing

[Lord C]

After a few hours of testing, I must say I am very impressed with the game.

Since the last time I played, it has transformed from a Project, into a Game!

A few features I love, and some features I would like to see changed/added;

The GUI scaling is nice, I spotted a small red square on the left, wondered what it was, and it was a great resizing tool Nice.

Transprency is handled well, in all the GUIs.
Although the player names are a little blocky around the edges (in Linux, at least).

Easy key changing, and clear Controls / Options Meny in general.

IRC Commands, always nice to spice up the chatting, there are a _lot_ of commands, which im pleased about.
I hope to see emotes added too (i.e. Greet) once the player models are finished.

Changing Views. Using the \'m\' key.
The default view isnt to my desire, but the other views are obsolutly great!
I hope that mouse-movement/sensitivity is fixed, so we can move around (turn left/right) with our mouse (i.e. in FPS mode).

Buddy list is a good function. I like how the colour changes when buddies sign on.
It would be nice to be alerted in System chat everytime a buddy signs on though.

Alt Tabbing / task switching seems very buggy at the moment.

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Character creation is far too complex.
It asks a lot of, what seems to be, pointless questions. Everything but my shoe size.

Clipping is a large problem.
Bumping into the doorways while entering shops, and catching on the end of a bookshelf in a store can get highly annoying.

First names restricted?
Why can first names only be used once?
Whole names shouldnt be able to be duplicated, but not individual names. Its a little too limited.

Key changing, in the Options Menu, needs to check for Duplicates, and alert the user that duplicated keys are unnacceptable.

Replace Q with ESC by default.
People don\'t want to slip off WASD and hit Q, asking them to quit the game.

Spawining in town, from the Death Realm, needs to be randomized.
Everyone is spawning on top of each other, both is Plaza and the Death Realm.

Player-through-player. A highly debatable feature.
Do you think players should be stopped from walking through each other?
I feel Planeshift needs to learn from other games experiences, if they do take up this feature.
For e.g. Neocron had this bumping worked out perfectly, whereas Face Of Mankind was awkward, and resulted in a momentary lapse of movement.

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I hope when the game is more complete, a tutorial/walkthrough level will be added, I think every MMORPG should have one

A development kit (SDK) would also be cool, when the project is more complete.

[Moogie]

Character Creation
This is to make the game more focused on RP. These questions are not, infact, pointless- they determine your starting stats and skills.

Clipping
I agree this needs work.

First Names Restricted
This is to save confusion when using the /tell command. People do not want to have to type someone\'s full name just to distinguish \"Bob Billy\" from \"Bob Bobby\". It also makes many other commands shorter since only a firstname is needed. Last names cannot be the same as another lastname when the character is first created, however they can be changed later so people can get married, or be from the same family.

Key Changes
If this does not currently happen, then I agree a check needs to be made. I\'ll check the bugtracker and add it in if it\'s not previously reported.

Q for Quit
This keybinding can be changed, it\'s simply the default.

Spawning
We\'ve always spawned there. In the future, the Death Realm will have many exits, each leading to a different town. But I don\'t know about those points being randomised.

Player Collision
It has been decided that allowing collision detection between players would be too troublesome and allow griefers to do stupid things such as stand in doorways. Sure, a GM or player could slide them out of the way, but we see no reason to have that instead of \'ghost mode\'.

Tutorial Level
A well discussed topic already, we will have one eventually. Be prepared to wait a long time though.

Development Kit
Development programs will eventually be developed. We\'re currently planning to have at least an effects editor (for spells) and an animations editor.

[provisionist1]

Character Creation: I love the in-depthness of this, making every character pretty much unique, and it\'s great for roleplaying. Well done devs!

First Names Restricted: I understand the confusion aspect, but it seems to me that if this was incorporated later on, it would add an aspect of realism to the game. i.e. (in real life) if you are in a plaza and shout out \"Hi Billy!\" everyone who\'s named Billy will turn their head, but only the one who recognises you will care to respond. Adds a realistic aspect I think.
 
Spawning: I like the idea of different spawn points in the game from the death realm, but if there was a once-in-a-while randomisation, perhaps dependant on the level of the character\'s will, it would add some extra depth to the game. Think about it, you think you are entering the gateway to (enter some level 6 town here) and instead end up in the middle of the lake, or somewhere in the sky, or in the middle of the ruins and rampaging ulbernauts. Pretty unexpected...
 
Player Collision: No, i don\'t see how it\'ll work, I agree with Moogie. Some mean power-leveler could just decide he hates the world and decides to block an important doorway, newbies could try to knock him down, but would have no chance. No, I don\'t see it.
 
Tutorial Level and Development Kit: sweet, but not for a while I\'m thinking...

Well, just my thoughts, obviously there are more pressing issues to consider, so none of these will happen any time soon, if ever.

Xirius

[TomT]

Thanks for the comments Lord C.   Moogie pretty much addressed all of your wish list items I think, but I was a little confused by your questions about an SDK.   This project is open source.   Most SDK are designed to interface to closed projects.

So other then the animation and effects applications that Moogie mentions and other applications that allow content to be created I doubt there will be any other SDKs.

Instead if you are interested in writing some code, follow the \"help us\" links on the main planeshift page or contact one of the dev team on IRQ.

[Lord C]

When I mention SDK i mean a specific tool, say model editor, which enables a newbie to easily open a model and edit it.
Or a level creator. I\'m not sure what software you guys use to make your models and levels.

Being Open Source of course more advanced users may just use the sourcecode.

Regarding the player collision, it wouldn\'t have to be \'a player is like a rock\' and can block doorways etc.
Many, many RPGs have player collision, just look to them for example:
Neocron has play collision, you bump into him if you run into him - but if you want to get past you can gently push him to the side a little.
Ghosting just feels wrong.

But saying that, I would rather have Ghosting than a stiff Player Collision.

[Kaseijin]

even the loose player collision would open opportunities for abuse. A player could stand on ledge and \'slightly\' push off everyone he doesn\'t like. Let\'s say death realm would be a perfect place for that. I think ghosting is just fine.