Your top Ten

[zanzibar]

Storylines is in the list twice - does that mean it is added together at the end? hehhe

People could have voted for both entries though.  So it should probably be averaged...


The number of people who think PlaneShift should be easier is more than twice the number of people who think PlaneShift should be harder.  Interesting.

I also find it interesting that the two most popular entries have nothing to do with combat or leveling.  One is Exploration.  The other is "Ability to Impact the World".

[Lanarel]

Wow, I exactly picked the top ten! Next time forget the poll and just ask me . And if you ask me, snorks are missing.

[Under the moon]

I picked:
Customization Options
Casual Content
PvP Content
Social Tools
Grouping
Alternative leveling options
Ability to impact the World
High level content
Greater difficulty
Exploration

Going into each briefly.

Customization Options- Everyone likes to have their own look. This will draw more players to the game and keep them here longer while they try to get the perfect look. Other things can be left or right handed, limps, height, weight, clothing, colors, etc.

Casual Content- Customization would be part of this. Just log in and mess with how your character looks for a bit. Many other things would be small games, easy crafts, fishing, farming, hunting for treasure, etc. Just stuff to do when you are bored of the rest of the game.

PvP Content- make combat more fun, and more players will come. Mechanics dealing with laws (legal and illegal commands) would be a plus.

Social Tools- Leave notes ingame, a public library, voice level tools (from whisper to yell or speech), improved buddy list (rather a buddy tree) for listing friends and enemies (or custom categories), emotes. This will draw more players to the game, as well as keep them.

Grouping- group tasks, group spells, dancing (also social tool), battles, etc.

Alternative leveling options- player to player leveling, book learning, straw dummies instead of rats. Make rat catching an actual job.

Ability to impact the World

High level content- Something important for those high level characters to do, that gives them a reason to get to high levels. A constant skirmish area would do well, with RTS rules.

Greater difficulty- this is worded wrong, but close. I would have stated it as more of a challenge. Making the run to the BD ten times longer would make it more difficult, but no more challenging, and much less fun. Making it half as long as it is, but having to avoid tons of nasties on the way would make it much more fun and challenging.

Exploration- Climbing, everyone love climbing. Real forests. And get rid of the freaking invisible walls.

[Dihenis]

I'm curious, has anyone checked both greater difficulty and less difficulty?

[zanzibar]

Exploration- Climbing, everyone love climbing. Real forests. And get rid of the freaking invisible walls.

May, 2005
October, 2005
July, 2006

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

The performance drop that would go with removing invisible walls would not be a viable trade-off.

[zanzibar]

The performance drop that would go with removing invisible walls would not be a viable trade-off.

Hmm.

I am certain that you could avoid almost all invisible walls in heightfield maps, by correctly using the heightfield features.

I know from posts Xordan made in the distant past, he's strongly opposed to invisible barriers... I don't understand LigH's post but it seems like there are solutions?  Maybe the artists or coders should weigh in...

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

I talk to the artists and coders every day,

Xordan was speaking of horizontal movement as in there being no invisible wall that blocked you from an area you could see, preferring to place natural barriers, this is not possible unless the map is built from the beginning to do exactly that. Vertical invisible walls, while not much different, is not what he meant.

When the players raised the initial hue and cry about not being able to climb I took it to the devs and spoke about how important the players seemed to find it. I was told at the time that cost/benefit did not work out in favor of preserving climbing. Our maps "exist" already so there is a loss of freedom of movement that is regrettable at this time.

Perhaps as more optimizations are found we can one day allow for climbing again and actually implement the skill while we're at it.

There are posts in the dev blog about some of our burgeoning tech options which may well provide forests in due time.

[zanzibar]

Hmm... did you find the posts by Xordan that I was thinking of?  They were from years ago.  I'm not sure if you were even around at the time... he was talking about invisible walls hurting the "suspension of belief" because they feel artificial and intrusive.  That can apply to walls of the z axis variety...

Maybe for climbing, only certain surfaces can be climbed up?  That way, you won't have to worry about invisible walls.  Instead of invisible walls, you'll have invisible ladders.  In a way.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

I just spoke with him.

[Homik]

Number 2: The code supports it. It's "simply" a matter of adding necessary art. (If there's an artist out there who feels compelled, do help!)

Ahem. >.>

*me points in his general direction*

[hitancrias]

Number 2: The code supports it. It's "simply" a matter of adding necessary art. (If there's an artist out there who feels compelled, do help!)

Ahem. >.>

*me points in his general direction*

If you think you can help, you can apply here.
Good luck!

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Homik's being a dork, he already works for us.

[Homik]

Homik's being a dork, he already works for us.

Or do I?

Dum dum dum!!

Ahem...'nough of that >.>

[pseudoprometheus]

Just voted for my top ten, and I wanted to put an extra emphasis on one particular one:  the ability to influence the game world.  I don't think this idea can be stressed enough.

Of course, players do already have some ways to influence the game world, such as crafting weapons that have their characters' names on them.  However, as it stands now, a player could be very active in PS and gain a bit of renown among other players, but then leave for some real-life reason and never be heard of by newer players that come later.  If we could change this a little bit by allowing players to make direct (i.e. without going through GMs), tangible, lasting impressions on the game world, we can definitely add a lot of unique flavour to PS and make it that much more of a draw to new players and an anchor to older ones.

These game world impressions could include making graffiti on a wall (which could be reported by players if offensive or OOC) that lasts for months or drawings in the dirt that last for days, having a public library of player-contributed literature and maps as mentioned before (also with player-reporting of offensive or OOC content), and maybe even smaller, incremental impressions like footpaths being worn into the terrain when enough players traverse a certain patch of map in a week.  Basically, little things that make it easier for players to leave [and randomly stumble upon] signs that other characters inhabit the game world too.

Of course, there are no doubt many technical hurdles to overcome before any of these ideas could possibly be implemented, but I think any movement in this general direction would be a Good Thing.