Hello,
much has been done since last time I (quickly/roughly) looked into planeshift - which was maybe 2 years ago? Dunno.
Here\'s some feedback and suggestions - some thing already has been said but maybe i can add a personal flavor to it. Also if you think: that can be easily be done with a macro - or something like that - then kepin in mind the \'newcomer\'\'s perspective.
Stairs:
A good trick to improve movement on stairs is to use additionally invisble planes on them. This way the walk/run movement up-/downwards is smooth - no popping. Collision detection is not accurate anyways and in many situations this looks better.
Fallen from edges or walking on edges:
I think you should add some invisble walls to prevent falling down or to go onto things like small walls and so. People - especially newbies - will easily fall down i.e. by walking on the edges of bridges and so. Usually they don\'t know the controls very well and don\'t know how much they are allowed to fall down without dying. Maybe you add a \'Security\' check for very very low level characters.
The death underworld:
When having died one spawns in the underworld which is not only very dark but also full of possibilities to die through falling again. I did die 10 times or so until I found the way because:
- no gamma correction, very dark and I didn\'t saw anything until i pushed the brighness of my monitor up - but users shouldn\'t be forced to do so.
- sudden end of way: very soon the way ends suddenly and you fall down if you don\'t know it because it\'s hard to see when the camera is behind the character
- small way and inaccurate collision detection: when tring to go up the small way of the tower, usually collision detection does pushe one heavily to the edge provoking to fall down again. It\'s very hard to go up because of the inaccurate collision detection.
To resume: this is really a frustration point. You shouldn\'t do that for newbies if you want them to continue playing the game/alpha/beta. Either change the collision system to \'mesh/triangle\' in certain areas or adopt level design to it.
In the character creation process the font is small and hard to read on the background. I think this should be improved.
GUI Sliders do not always work correctly. In addition to that chat-text sometimes overlap the input field: usually it\'s hard to get the normal layout back.
I had cases where the textures of particle systems weren\'t loaded/used: i.e. in the temple.
\' char not displayed correctly in chat/info text.
I am not sure if the position of the duelling query and it\'s buttons is good - I had once clicked on \'yes\' because I wanted to click on a rat and it then popped up. I don\'t need to say that I was killed quickly, not?
When buying items: optional or redesign of info box, as newbies will check info for each item - thus the need to click each time on \'info\'. Not so good. Better would be to use a permanent info box or an info-ballon on mouse over.
The inaccurate collision detection (box or capsule detection?) is a problem inside houses. Often it\'s very hard to pass through open (i.e. the library) doors or to go down or up the stairs inside houses. I had a case where I was able to go upstairs but not downstairs - was blocked.
The conversation with NPCs is very frustrating:
- accept more phrases: do you have work for me? do you have a job for me? Can I help you? (especially in context with previous text).
- don\'t insult the player because the NPC has no routine for the givin sentence. It\'s no good design to demotivate the player when he is trying to figure out what the NPC is able to understand - especially when the phrases need to be very specifque. Better use polite generic sentences, maybe like \"I have nothing to say about this\", \"I don\'t know\", \"I don\'t comment on this\" ... you surely can come up with much better phrases easily but you get the idea, yes?
- if I come back later and say \'hello\', the NPC are angry because I said this earlier. Makes not much sense.
- please add buttons for very specifque phrases like \"who are you\", \"I would like a quest\" and so on - if they have to be the same anyways makes no sense to force me to type them in every minute I talk to a new NPC. Adding buttons for main phrases wouldn\'t hurt.
- NPC should be able to tell me locations or point me to directions. I tried \"Where are the sewers?\" and other approaches without succes.
- Don\'t use the answer \'No\' for NPC on questions like \"Can I help you?\", \"Do you have a quest for me?\", \"I need a job\" -> \"No.\" ??!! Better would be \"I have nothing for you.\" or \"You seem to be too weak to be able to help me\", \"Everything is fine, I don\'t need any help. Thank you\". Or something like that would be more fun.
Add \'training\' to the context menu - don\'t make much sense to have \'trade\' \'look\' \'gives\' there, but not training. And add a \'tell\'-button, too.
You should add a NPC on the place near the spawn point to kick-off newbies. You are talking about \'Exploring\' all the time, but NPC do not communicate well. Don\'t frustrate newbies. Give them easy access to the game rules, mechanics with some indication where to go/look first. Let the \'Explorer\' mentality start after the pure basics - for advaced beginners or later level. Easy access for newcomers - challenge later.
I.e. you could give experience points for discovering areas where the character has not beend before - to motivate exploration.
Transpenrency in textures seems not work correctly (GeFo 6800 LE).
Add a buttons for predefined phrases: \"Tell me about (...)\" And especially add a button for \"/tell\" ouside the buddylist/grouplist - that works on the selected char.
- slight darkening circle textures under characters as simple shadow will improve the look but is an easy solution - decals?
-add images to the guide about skills: what is yellow, what is blue, what is green, when does the number increase etc.
- being a magician seems to be hard at startup .... 2000 trias to get a spell (if i am right) ... so looks like first you need to be a little warrior or mining man in order to finance the path of knowledge ... so having a char background in the area of mysteries seems a wast. Intended?
-if some NPCs would wander around, the world would get more alive.
well and the famous rats/other-monster-nearly-dont-have-something aspect. Right now as there is not much more to do than collecting items/money/skills and to explore the maps - more spawn points would make sense. Now 2 or more people camp a rat spawn point and \'share\' the rats. It\'s demotivating - I know you want RPG but these mechanisms aren\'t in place yet.
Well, to finish - i know that this represents already a lot of work. Especially to be still there after several years - hats off!
So don\'t get me wrong - I am trying to give constructive fedback - no rants, no whining ...
Just remember the point of view of newcomers in the dev/design process and allow them a smooth tansition into the game. Find something to reward Role-Playing and Exploration.
Greetings and best whishes.
p.s. the board loads not well under my firefox 1.0. Better under IE - but i don\'t use IE.
