First Impressions

[Brendan]

Hi,

This game looks promising, so I want to describe my first impressions constructively in the hope that my comments might help to improve the game....

To start, downloading the game, installing it, etc is all very simple - no problems there.

The character creater looks very professional, but to be honest it's a pain. It takes me around 10 minutes to think of a unique name (and I never really like whatever I think of). The hardest part is trying to find a name that sounds "medieval" - in reality last names are passed down from father to child, and don't change much through time (i.e. any modern last name is technically a perfectly suitable "medieval" name, at least for human races). The other problem is that I have no idea what sort of name is suitable for each race (and yes, "Qwerty" was taken). The next problem is all the strange questions - spending ages reading options trying to predict what effect they'd have rather than just allowing people to change attributes directly (you would've heard this before). Something that should take 5 minutes ends up taking half an hour, which is OK for the first character but would become tiresome quickly.

I got in the game, walked around clueless for a while, tried to jump over a fence and got stuck in the middle of it, found the help did an "/unstickme". I set my camera angle (so I could see where I was going rather than where I'd been), changed the keys to be more like other games (Q & E for strafe, A and D for turning) and tried to find the "always run" option (still wondering about that). Then I fell off a small ledge and died. Welcome to hell (literally).

To be honest here (after dying several times while stumbling around in the dark with my character that is meant to be able to see in the dark but can't), if it wasn't for finding a post on the forums mentioning the "-fullbright" option I would've given up then and there. Every game I've played has some leniency for new players, and even for very experienced players death usually only takes five minutes to recover from, but not here. I won't continue describing this - the forums are full of peoples comments about the "anti-user" death realm. After being led out by a kind player, watching every step I made knowing that any minor slip means starting again, I continued.

Eventually I found a sewer with some rats - finally something I could kill. Now according to the manual you're supposed to be able to click on a rat and select "attack". This in itself is rather disappointing - it makes it impossible to sneak up on a target and attack them before they know, or to hide around a corner and cast some spells to weaken it before the fight begins properly, or to shoot arrows from a safe distance - things I'd do in real life (in real life, would you walk up to your victim and say "Can I attack you please?" - not exactly a tactic that the US would teach it's marines).

I did everything I could imagine, left click, right click, jumped up and down on their heads, re-read the manual, check the forums, swear at some NPCs, the "/attack" command, etc. Regardless of what I did I couldn't actually attack a rat. Then another player came along (also confused) wondering why he couldn't attack anymore - it was lucky (it was the only way I knew it was the game rather than me). I gave up trying to kill things.

Then I decided the only thing left was quests, so I started trying to talk to various NPCs. I guess people here will know what I mean if I mention Gandalf sitting at the entrance to Mordor - say "friend" to enter, heh. Most games like this have a list of valid options so that the user can just click on one rather than trying to guess the magic words - trying to get the exact phrase and actually type it in correctly is very annoying and constantly getting a "Huh?" response isn't realistic at all (especially when you can't slit their throats). I hope the discussions with NPCs aren't logged - there'd be quite a few obcene suggestions in those logs now (I wasn't in my best mood by this stage).

Anyway, get some stuff? Ok, no money to buy them, no way to get money and no other way to get them (the NPC/seller wasn't interested in my other offers ). Get something fixed? That I could do, or at least I thought so...

On the way back I made the mistake of running down the stairs, and guess what? Yes, I died. No, I didn't fall. I didn't have a shoelace untied, didn't accidentally slip onto my sword and my character wasn't prone to heart attacks or strokes - the stairs where nice and straight, it seemed so easy.

Back in hell. Completely frustrated I tried a nice shortcut key - "Alt+F4". This almost had the desired effect, except the game crashed during exit, invoking both the game's "Oops" dialog box and Microsoft's "Oops" dialog box. I didn't try to send a bug report using either of these dialog boxes (clicking on the "go away" button is a habit learned from years of using other software).

I guess I decided that it was easier to delete the character and create a new one than it was to try to get my no-experience, no-money, no-items character out of the death realm again. Then I had second thoughts - if I start a new character (with the painful character creator) every time I die then there's no point trying to improve any character as they'd die sooner or later anyway. It occured to me that getting out of the death realm was going to be a regular occurance, and that I had no intention of doing it ever again. The only logical conclusion is the uninstaller.

I haven't uninstalled yet - I just don't like quitting, and the game is promising. I guess I can't really understand how the graphics became so good while the gameplay, um, didn't...


Thanks,

Brendan

[Karyuu]

Alpha testing :} Feedback like yours, although we do hear it a lot, is taken into consideration as we go about adding new features and fixing the old.

But we're not professionals - some of us are just kids, others, hobbyists. We would like to provide everything working awesomely (or at least more awesomely than now) from the start, but it's just as much a learning experience for us as it is for you - in fact, probably even more so.

About not being able to attack any NPCs right now - NPCclient that handles all NPC actions, is down at the moment. This prevents them from responding properly, but it's definitely not a permanent situation and will be fixed as soon as someone can get to it.

I'd like to say more to alleviate concerns and offer pats on the back for at least sticking around and exploring as much as you did... :} And the latter I can definitely do. But we are so aware of all these problems, that the most I can do is assure you that we don't plan to ignore any of them.

[zanzibar]

A name is pretty important and it's something you have to write for yourself in most RPGs if not almost all of them so I don't think it's fair to complain about that.  Opportunities for creativity are what make RPGs fun, and there's a random name generator that can do the work for you anyway.

Last names do change with time.  My last name used to be Rachmilevitch.  The ch is a back of the throat sound, like in Hebrew.  Now, many people who had the name Rachmilevitch are either "Rockmiller" or "Lewin".  Try to figure that one out.  I know how it happens, I just want you to try to figure it out.

When I first started playing, I actually recreated my character three times because I couldn't get out of the death realm and I couldn't stop dieing.  I think it's important for death to be a pain like that, and the devs are going to add unconciousness in the game so instead of dieing, you might just wake up at a temple or tavern.

Clicking:  You didn't list middle clicking, and you should have gone and customized your controls anyway.  And it's your own fault for trying to find a rat to kill first instead of talking to people.  Planeshift is a highly social game, that's part of the reason it's unique.

Saving error logs just saves them to your computer.  You have to upload them to the bug tracker yourself with a description.

There are characters who have been around for over a year who are very active in game, yet have no experience points, no money, and no items.

[Hadfael]

Nice to see someone not only interrested in "playing for free" but also ready to help improve things with constructive observations.
Alas it seems that, looking into the dark death realm that is here to remind players the value of a life, you missed the main purpose of PS that is not so badly implemented: Roleplaying.
You can set your character life inside the game world easely. The settings are complete and each race has a general orientation but no roleplay limitation. Unless you were particulary unlucky that day I am sure you met friendly and welcoming people, even in the depth of the death realm.
So, don't be discouraged by what's still under development and enjoy what's already free to use.

[zanzibar]

"Roleplaying" covers a lot of ground.  It's entirely within the realm of "roleplaying" to be a rat hunter who isn't very talkative.


(It just isn't very fun.)

[Brendan]

Hi,

Wow, no offensive replies - I'm impressed (had my flame-proof trousers on and everything)!  

A name is pretty important and it's something you have to write for yourself in most RPGs if not almost all of them so I don't think it's fair to complain about that.  Opportunities for creativity are what make RPGs fun, and there's a random name generator that can do the work for you anyway.

My mistake - I didn't see the random name generator (will try again when I finish replying).

When I first started playing, I actually recreated my character three times because I couldn't get out of the death realm and I couldn't stop dieing.  I think it's important for death to be a pain like that, and the devs are going to add unconciousness in the game so instead of dieing, you might just wake up at a temple or tavern.

Death should have consequences that people want to avoid, but it shouldn't needlessly irritate the user. For most games of this type you can be ressurected by other players (a spell or similar), your corpse can be dragged/carried to a healer or you can type in a command to be resurrected at the nearest church or something. In most cases the consequence is a temporary reduction in statistics (requiring a period of recovery), loss of material goods, loss of experience/skills, etc.

The idea I like best is that you become a ghost when you die, and as a ghost you need to find someone (an NPC or player) who can resurrect you. That way dying is like a mini-quest which can improve interaction between players and also allows the possibility of haunting your killer or roaming the lands as a spirit. When you are resurrected it'd cost you something - money, experience, etc which would be considered a fee for the resurrection.

I guess what I'm saying is that making software annoying is rarely wise under any circumstances, and that the death realm is needlessly annoying (even with "-fullbright"), especially for new players. It also doesn't make much logical sense to me - being able to die when you're already dead, and walking from dead to alive without some strange ancient ritual taking place. I'd rather see the death realm renamed, populated with vampires or something and used as a high level zone instead.

Clicking:  You didn't list middle clicking, and you should have gone and customized your controls anyway.  And it's your own fault for trying to find a rat to kill first instead of talking to people.  Planeshift is a highly social game, that's part of the reason it's unique.

Sorry - my mouse is a 2 button mouse (no scroll wheels, no middle button, etc). I do have a new cordless 5 button thing here somewhere but it doesn't work with my keyboard/mouse/video switch.

Saving error logs just saves them to your computer.  You have to upload them to the bug tracker yourself with a description.

People have actually done studies on these things - I can't remember the actual statistics, but it's something like the first 15 times a user sees a dialog box they read some of it, but after that they just click on the cancel/continue/exit button without thinking. One of the studies popped up a dialog box about 50 times and half way through started changing the text (for e.g. changing it to "Do you want to give me a million dollars? [yes] [no]" and things like that). After all 50 dialog boxes they asked the user if they noticed anything unusual and almost all users didn't.

Anyway, I didn't read any of the dialog boxes and assumed their content instead (it took me less than 1 second to get past both of them). I also assumed that someone else would've already sent a "crashes on exit when running on Windows XP" bug report. BTW I think the second dialog box is Microsoft's, where the bug report is sent to Microsoft in case the bug is with their "win32" API layer - I'll correct this post if I'm wrong...


Cheers,

Brendan

[zanzibar]

I agree that the death realm is "irritating" more than it's difficult.  The bugger is that new players are hurt way more than experienced players.

[Karyuu]

I guess what I'm saying is that making software annoying is rarely wise under any circumstances, and that the death realm is needlessly annoying (even with "-fullbright"), especially for new players.

Do you think the experience would improve if we could brighten the area without the player needing to use -fullbright from the start? The DR lighting is fine on my monitor, and it seems that some people just have to adjust their gamma settings. Do you have any suggestions you can make to take away the current irritation of the Death Realm without changing its concept and intentions?

I'd rather see the death realm renamed, populated with vampires or something and used as a high level zone instead.

Well, I'd like a pony too, myself :} The Death Realm is going to be a much bigger world in the future, and its own world - it will be populated by dark characters and lifeforms, filled with quests, and our goal is to make it a lot more fun - while making it harder to die by mistake.

[Astraea]

About the name thing... It's not too hard. Look for lesser known names that have roots based in ancient languages, and twist them around a bit. My main character name 'Astraea' is actually from a Greek legend. And it sounds Latinized enough to pass as medieval. The last name isn't necessary right now, but adds a bit of realism. Many peasants in the medieval ages only had one name, so it doesn't violate policy if you go with first name only for now.

On the other hand, you could ask other people (friends, family, online people in chat) to help you create a fantasy name.

[zanzibar]

My neighbours have horses.  I've got no complaints.

[Brendan]

Hi,

I guess what I'm saying is that making software annoying is rarely wise under any circumstances, and that the death realm is needlessly annoying (even with "-fullbright"), especially for new players.

Do you think the experience would improve if we could brighten the area without the player needing to use -fullbright from the start? The DR lighting is fine on my monitor, and it seems that some people just have to adjust their gamma settings. Do you have any suggestions you can make to take away the current irritation of the Death Realm without changing its concept and intentions?

Improving lighting (for e.g. filling in pits with glowing lava) would help new users to avoid "re-death". When I first arrived at DR I checked out the Golem(?) briefly, wandered across the bridge and blindly fell to my re-death at the first turn. On the second attempt I got to the same place and tried jumping straight across. On the third attempt I fell off the bridge on the way, and on the fourth attempt I tried jumping out to the right. Then I gave up, checked the forums and found "-fullbright", logged back in and saw another player turning where I'd previously been falling and followed the path to a large libarary where I asked and a kind player helped me out...

So yes, this would help with one aspect of it, but this doesn't really alleviate my main concerns...

My main concerns are that death immediately takes you to a "hard to navigate" place (with no chance of "in-situ" resurrection), new users are treated as harshly as players who've had a chance to figure out how to play, the death penalty is time and frustration rather money/equipment/experience/statistics, and parts of it don't seem logical.

I'm not too sure how much magic, religion, healers (spells, prayers, first-aid, etc) have been developed (or are intended), but I would assume that (sooner or later) it would be desirable for high level characters to be able to learn how to resurrect a player. An immediate relocation to a different zone rules this possibility out. It also takes the fun out of rescuing a guild members corpse from a horde of nasty foes, makes it impossible for evil characters to loot a corpse, prevents people from buying "life insurance", etc. There's a lot of options here that just don't work or don't work well due to the immediate relocation.

Every MMORPG I've ever played has had "less harsh" death penalties for new users - almost all of them have no penalty at all for players that are "level N" or lower. It just gives time for new players to become familiar with the game itself. If you populate DR with dark characters and lifeforms, then death will actually be harder for new players than it is for high level players (i.e. trying to avoid being killed by these dark characters when you've got no skills or equipment).

For the penalty itself, for most games it's lost XP, reduced skills, lost equipment, some sort of debt (or some combination). This means players can choose how they recover from their death, and don't have to repeat the same actions every time they die. The important point here isn't the form of penalty, but reducing the repetition.

Lastly, it doesn't make sense for dead people to die again, doesn't make sense for a dead person to still have their equipment/money, doesn't make sense to have a shopkeeper in the death realm, and there isn't any transition from "dead" to "alive" (no ancient ritual, no sudden jolt as the soul is rejoined with the body, no waking up in the graveyard, etc). It's like death doesn't involve any physical or spiritual change (other than your location) - I'd have thought death would be a little more profound.

I'd rather see the death realm renamed, populated with vampires or something and used as a high level zone instead.

Well, I'd like a pony too, myself :} The Death Realm is going to be a much bigger world in the future, and its own world - it will be populated by dark characters and lifeforms, filled with quests, and our goal is to make it a lot more fun - while making it harder to die by mistake.

So if a Priest, Monk or Nun dies, they're sent to a place of dark characters and lifeforms? I'm sure there'd be quite a few religous characters that would be surprised at the effectiveness of their faith.

If the Death Realm was much bigger and much more fun (quests, etc), will there be a way to get into DR without dying? For e.g. could a religous leader arrange a crusade against these dark characters, and would it begin with a large group of followers killing each other (with the last one standing doing some suicide)? Will these dark characters be evil and only attack players with good alignment?


Cheers,

Brendan

[zanzibar]

So if a Priest, Monk or Nun dies, they're sent to a place of dark characters and lifeforms? I'm sure there'd be quite a few religous characters that would be surprised at the effectiveness of their faith.

So what?

[Pestilence]

How to make the deathrealm less annoying? Well think falling to your death is a huge annoyance so editing it so that you can't fall to your death so easely would be an improvement.

Perhaps have people spawn closer to the exit the first few times they die and have them spawn further and further away as they die more often? This would reward people for not dieing to often aswell.

Make the deathrealm a place for new players. Don't make it an elite place that wiill only make it harder for the new players to get out. Make it a labyrinth where new players actually have several things to do that the "elite" players don't care for anymore. Like have a lot of trainers and ratlevel creatures.

Lighting the place up would definately improve.

Onething I heard here I think is a good suggestion would be to be spawned on something like a graveyard. Make death feel more like death with some effects

[TestLab]

Perhaps have people spawn closer to the exit the first few times they die and have them spawn further and further away as they die more often? This would reward people for not dieing to often aswell.

I'm Quite new here. Didn't think the dead realm was that bad and all but still a bit annoying. Just watched other people and followed.

I think it's too easy to die and too quick to come back to life. So in addition to the previous suggestion I think we could limit the system so the first 5- 10 deaths you respawn to the original point (not even go underground) and after that u go and visit the dark side ...

[Karyuu]

It also takes the fun out of rescuing a guild members corpse from a horde of nasty foes, makes it impossible for evil characters to loot a corpse, prevents people from buying "life insurance", etc. There's a lot of options here that just don't work or don't work well due to the immediate relocation.

Understood, and the "rescuing a guild member" idea sounds really fun. It does rule out some possibilities, but it doesn't shut a player into a dull box either - at least concept-wise.

Every MMORPG I've ever played has had "less harsh" death penalties for new users - almost all of them have no penalty at all for players that are "level N" or lower. It just gives time for new players to become familiar with the game itself.

Just a note - we have no levels in PlaneShift, but a skill-based system instead. I guess the overall problem can be summarized with:

• It's too easy to die
• It's too hard to come back to life

If you populate DR with dark characters and lifeforms, then death will actually be harder for new players than it is for high level players (i.e. trying to avoid being killed by these dark characters when you've got no skills or equipment).

The DR is not going to be an open PvP zone. Fights would still have to be agreed to by both parties, unless someone willingly enters a future free PvP area, that will be clearly marked. The dark characters I mentioned will be impervious NPCs for quests, merchants, DR "citizens," etc. People may need to sacrifice items in the future, or do a task for an NPC. It's not going to remain a "find-the-exit" exit.

For the penalty itself, for most games it's lost XP, reduced skills, lost equipment, some sort of debt (or some combination). This means players can choose how they recover from their death, and don't have to repeat the same actions every time they die. The important point here isn't the form of penalty, but reducing the repetition.

That's what we are ultimately aiming for, really.

Lastly, it doesn't make sense for dead people to die again,

Agreed,

doesn't make sense for a dead person to still have their equipment/money,

There will be separate inventories in the future,

doesn't make sense to have a shopkeeper in the death realm,

This point I don't understand. Why does this not make sense? It's a different world.

and there isn't any transition from "dead" to "alive" (no ancient ritual, no sudden jolt as the soul is rejoined with the body, no waking up in the graveyard, etc). It's like death doesn't involve any physical or spiritual change (other than your location) - I'd have thought death would be a little more profound.

The DR is still in infant stage, as is death itself. I don't really see why a relocation to another realm can't be enough in itself (no rituals needed) however. Right now everyone takes it very lightly, but work on the DR is far from complete.

So if a Priest, Monk or Nun dies, they're sent to a place of dark characters and lifeforms? I'm sure there'd be quite a few religous characters that would be surprised at the effectiveness of their faith.

Since everyone agrees to follow the Setting when they play PlaneShift, I'm sure there won't be as many surprises as you think. The DR is part of life on Yliakum, and all the religions not only are aware of it, but take it into account.

If the Death Realm was much bigger and much more fun (quests, etc), will there be a way to get into DR without dying?

I believe this is a yes.

Will these dark characters be evil and only attack players with good alignment?

We don't really have a way to measure alignment, and we like it that way - it gives more flexibility to players. But again, no open PvP unless someone willingly enters a free-for-all zone.