Okay, this is my very very very first post on this board, since starting to play the game about 2 months ago, and I have a LOT to say.
First off, I want to extend a congratulations to the programmers. For the large part, Planeshift is a well-developed. fun to play world. And the fact that it is open source and you don't have to pay for it is even better. Keep up the good work.
#2. Your graphics, artwort, and character development is top-notch. Lots of original creatures and some nice races. Again, excellent
#3. Rogues. I am seriously thrilled that you guys have removed the 5 pp and 15 pp rogues. This was an EXCELLENT decision. It made levelling way too easy, and any monster you have to stand in line to kill obviously needs some work. If people are standing in line to kill a monster it means one of three things: #1. The monster gives out WAY more XP than he should and is WAY too easy to kill. The rogues were examples of this. #2. The treasure the monster gives is not in proportion to his difficultly level. The rogues were an example of this as well.
or #3, and here is my major complaint: You have to stand in line for that creature because he is only of the only ones in the zone that drop any loot at all. I've gotten my character pretty far along. At low levels, Planeshift is fairly easy. The sewers are loaded with monsters. Almost all of them loot, and you have large numbers of monsters that all hit for about the same damage. The more powerful you get, the harder the game becomes.
Now, on a certain level, that makes sense. It should become more difficult to level--but the problem has to do with WHY. It is more difficult to level because, as you gain strenth, there are less and less monsters that provide you with any challenge, and the higher you go, the more you realise how many other players there are, because you start having to fight other PC's for kills. And this is just rediculious.
For one thing, the "woods" level is HUGE. It is ENORMOUS, and the population of that zone is rediculiously low. You could easily put four TIMES as many monsters in that zone and barely be able to tell the difference. Or even if you don't increase the monsters, at least make sure that all of them drop SOMETHING. I'm not selfish. I don't expect all the monsters to drop +/22 shortswords. I'd be happy if they just dropped bread, or heal potions, or a few trias. Give me SOME satisfaction from killing them. A low level, or even normal, run of the mill Dagger every 25 kills or so would be nice. And my reasons are not just money-grubbing either. PC's are naturally drawn to monsters that drop loot. I can't imagine why. So what happens is that every monster that drops treasure winds up being camped. Now that the 5pp and 15pp rogues are gone (again, YEA!) players are going out of their way to look for monsters that do 2 things, give pp, and drop loot. I've gone exploring several times just out of curiosity. I know where several mosters are that very few others know about. Many times I've gone and fought them despite the fact that they don't give me hardly any pp, and drop no loot at all, because all the decent monsters were taken.
And as far as that is concerned, the Mines have some hollow places as well. There is a decent amount of room to add monsters in the mines.
All in all, Planeshift is a great game, and I've been very happy with it. The old adage of "you get what you pay for" is definately not true in this case. I think you guys are doing a wonderful job, all things considered, however, you guys need to work on one specific thing. More monsters (preferably of average or relatively high power) need to be added to the "woods" zone, and you need to make sure that they all drop SOMETHING. Again, not picky. Bread or potions or a few trias. Something. This would go a long way towards fighting the crowds during some of the high-traffic times.
