Planeshift............

[Zante]

What\'s going on?

The support is terrible for a newcomer...

Download the game, try to update, doesn\'t work so I load up the game make a char, try to upload doesn\'t work, browse the forums, get ddl for updater to work, update, load up game, make char, try to upload, can\'t upload, wrong server, go back to forums, find correct server, server is down or doesn\'t work.

No wonder this game is unpopular. Terrible support and the community is uninformed.

What should I do in order to play this game?

[acraig]

I\'m sorry you feel that way.  We are doing our best here to try to provide the community with as much help as we can.  Often times we simply just don\'t know what the problems are.  This is even the description of this forum

\"Setup Problems, Connection Problems, Gameplay Bugs, other tech support. We may have answers... we probably don\'t. :-)\"

We could uses some more info though.  Just saying \"it doesn\'t work\" is not very helpful to us.

And besides, you get what you pay for.....

-----------
Andrew

[jagator55]

First of all, this game is free. The devs do all there work in there spare   time, which some weeks is none. Second, the game is in developement. I praise them for releasing it this early; all you can do in the game is collect crystals. Finaly, If you have a question and it hasn\'t already been answered, post all the inffo you can on the problem:

Time of test:
OS:
Processor:
RAM:
Video Card:
Video Card Memory:
PS Client Version:
OpenGL or Safe Mode:
Description of the bug:

Example:

Time of test: 3 May, 12:00 AM EST
OS: Windows 98, First Edition
Processor: AMD Athlon 800 Mhz
RAM: 384 Mb
Video Card: Voodoo 3 3000
Video Card Memory: 16 Mb
PS Client Version: 0.1.003
OpenGL or Safe Mode: OpenGL
Description of the bug: Title screen and menu screen are experiencing graphical glitches. As soon as I move the mouse on a button is flickers.

Also, try running the game from the command line aand post the errors you get. I hope   you stick aroud to see an awsome (Free) game.

-Robbie

[Zante]

First off, I don\'t want to hear the \"it\'s free, they don\'t owe you anything argument\".

If I criticise something then take it as feedback, don\'t complain to me about complaining. If it turns into a strong complaint then that should give the devs a feel for the gravity of the situation.

I want to play this game, it looks fantastic for a unfunded endeavour but you won\'t ever catch me saying anything is perfect. To do so would be detrimental to the development of this title. Take my criticism as feedback and not as an offense, which some of you will do.

I request that someone tell me the following:

Is the server up now?

What is the name of the server?

Tell me step by step what I do after I download the client program. Currently I have patched (after getting the updater to work via the dll I found on the forums but never mind that). Tell me from step one what I must do.

System specs are as follows...


1ghz
Geforce 4 ti4600 (128mb)
1.5gb ram
loads of drive space
Windows XP Pro

This game needs to be advertised, serious to god. I didn\'t even know it existed until by utter fluke it caught my eye on source forge.

I look forward to a reply in regards to what I must do in order to the enter world and have a go at this MMOG.
 

[Kundalf]

Hey,

first of all, I suppose you can start the game and see the main menu.

Now I want to give you a step by step instruction, what to do. It worked that way for many others.

First of all take a look at the Documentation:

the Player Guide

The most important chapters are the Character Creation

and the First Connection

chapter.

All available servers (there is only one so far) can be found at the Official Server Page . If the server is running you can see at the Server Info Page .

Shouldn\'t for some reason the correct server be preset, you can enter the correct one after you clicked the connect button in the main menu.
Since you use Windows it may take a while until you are able to connect. Depending on your configuration it may take several minutes.

Now a personal note: I\'ve seen many newcomers in the last few weeks and noone complained about terrible support.
I can\'t complain about the support either. The project is very well documented even better than many commercial games. Totally aside from NO commercial game beeing published in such an early state. So if you just open your eyes 8o you cand find all the things you need, discribed either on the homepage or in the forums. At least one of those two locations should work, but there are several other locations, where the ppl are willing to help.

[Zante]

Kundalf

Are you trying to tell me that the current standardization regarding the administration of free games requires that a newcomer scavenge through all the rubbish that tends to exist on forums nowadays in an endeavour to get a game to work?

I think not.

I downloaded the game which was, in turn, missing essential software in order for the updater to work after which an incorrect dns address is displayed in one of the connection fields. I\'m sure it will be corrected but do I need to tell everyone here it\'s not good practice in regards to making a game user friendly...

The only server that exists turns out to be down according to that page.

If you\'ve had no complaints it\'s because people don\'t leave feedback. There\'s mine. Good day.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Zante
If I criticise something then take it as feedback, don\'t complain to me about complaining. If it turns into a strong complaint then that should give the devs a feel for the gravity of the situation.

Of coures, with feedback it is the only way we can work out the bugs. However, programming is an exact science so we really need detailed info in order to try and fix things.  We get many people saying stuff like \"It does not work\" which is 0 help to us.  

One of the better ways to get help is to come on irc and ask to talk to one of us.  If we are available then we will try to help out the best we can.

Is the server up now?

What is the name of the server?

Server is planeshift.fragnetics.com and you can get the status at http://planeshift.fragnetics.com/.  It was down for some reason ( not sure why ). So that may have been part of the problem that you we having.  It should be ok now.  ( and I see now that you have been able to connect. )

This game needs to be advertised, serious to god. I didn\'t even know it existed until by utter fluke it caught my eye on source forge.

At the moment we are not a \'full\' game yet so advertising is a double edged sword.  We want to attract a good fan base as well as potential developers.  As long as people understand ( and I think most do ) that this is a work in progress then that\'s ok.  


--------
Andrew

[Zante]

I\'m sure you can understand that if I didn\'t care about this game I\'d have left a while ago =)

The only complaint I\'m making is in regards to the support and the way the client software is presented. I\'ve managed to connect to the server now, as you said it has just come up. I\'m in game and I can honestly say I\'m impressed. The architecture is thought out as is the real time lighting. It is most definitely not sub par and can most probably give some of the more prominent titles out there a run for their money in the future. I look forward to seeing it develop.

In regards to competition, you\'re dealing with the current emulation of the Everquest servers on http://www.eqemu.com .

The advantage that PS holds is that you have a scalable product that you can add to. EqEmu can only go so far via their emulation of everquest and are reliant on the software that SOE implement.  

Only problems I\'ve encountered thus far, after playing for 3 minutes, are some nasty memory leaks that I\'m sure are being dealt with.

I look forward to making my contribution to this gaming community.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Zante
Only problems I\'ve encountered thus far, after playing for 3 minutes, are some nasty memory leaks that I\'m sure are being dealt with.

I think that has to do with improper names on meshes ( specifically the crystals ) So each time you move into range it reloads in the mesh again.  I\'m pretty sure we\'ve fixed this for the next release ( which should be soon, I really hope! ).

On a different issue.  About how long did it take for you to load?  The current version has widely different values for people and would like to know if a lot  ( 1.5Gb! ) of ram helped.

We\'ve hit the load time issue hard, though, and it should be much quicker (up to *5 times) when 008 is released.  

------------
Andrew

[Zante]

On a different issue. About how long did it take for you to load? The current version has widely different values for people and would like to know if a lot ( 1.5Gb! ) of ram helped.

It took a while, longer than expected, but that\'s understandable if it was decompressing the relevant geometry and textures, around 4 minutes. Might be worth mentioning this motherboard is old and uses PC133 RAM.
I\'ve yet to install my Biostar M7NCG mobo that supports DDR ram. Ordered 2 512MB DDR333 chips from ebay, hopefully that\'ll make a big difference.

Compared to games like Shadowbane this was relatively fast though it\'s not an excuse as that was a persistent state world

[Kundalf]

First of all I don\'t want to start a privat war, so please don\'t misunderstand me, I\'m telling my personal opinion here truly and honestly...

Originally posted by Zante

Are you trying to tell me that the current standardization regarding the administration of free games requires that a newcomer scavenge through all the rubbish that tends to exist on forums nowadays in an endeavour to get a game to work?

I think not.

I do...
One should first read the available documentation, like faqs, readmes, and forums even if the latter contain rubbish they usually do have a search function.
If these don\'t give you an answer you can ask in the forums. If you don\'t get an answer there or if people are rude repellent there you can complain about bad support. But if you don\'t read any documentation and your first post to the forum is a complaint, for me thats no sign of good behaviour.
It\'s easy if everything is served on a silver tray so why don\'t you go ahead and write a good documentation or build a package containing all necessary files ?
In other forums posts like yours would be answered with \"shut up and read the docu\" or not at all.

I hope I\'ve pointed out my opinion clear enough now, and I hope we can meet in the game sometime...

[Zante]

Kundalf

Deep down I\'m probably aware of that as well

But it\'s not good practice you have to admit =)

I\'m aware of how a post like mine may have been treated elsewhere. It\'s good to see that the community here isn\'t like some of the others that exhibit the tolerance of a 3 year old badger.

As for compiling my own documentation, I think it\'s being taken care of already, I hope so.

And for my behaviour...  

I read a few posts and the news messages but the site runs rather slowly for me. I use broadband and am in the UK.

[Kundalf]

yea, the forums have a long down time once and a while and the speed sometimes really sucks, but I hope it\'ll improve with the game...