Get off the Roleplay Server

[novacadian]

However the people that chose to do these quests will end up helping a dude 10000 times with his poem, etc. It's incoherent, hence why I mentioned it couldn't be included in your roleplay.

Do you mean to say that one can do a quest more than once?!?

That should be as easy as pie to fix considering characters carry a record of the quests they have already done!

- Nova

Venorel boggles at the concept

[Suno_Regin]

However the people that chose to do these quests will end up helping a dude 10000 times with his poem, etc. It's incoherent, hence why I mentioned it couldn't be included in your roleplay.

Do you mean to say that one can do a quest more than once?!?

That should be as easy as pie to fix considering characters carry a record of the quests they have already done!

- Nova

Venorel boggles at the concept

He's saying that if you rescue a damsel in distress and kill the person who kidnapped her, then 10,000 other people have also helped that same person and killed that same person, therefore, you can't roleplay it because while in the quest context you did it yourself, other people are going to say they did it, and it would be a bit silly to say that 30-some people have all done this before.

[neko kyouran]

Get off the Roleplay Server

Darn kids.

* neko kyouran shakes fist

[LigH]

And yes - most quests are repeatable, after a more or less long time. You may need to discard the quest after completing it to repeat it. If you can't discard it, it was one of the few you can't repeat, because they were so extremely important key decisions, like e.g. Winch quarter or Blackflame temple access etc.

[sashia_mennar]

I tried to complete some quests "in character" and found the results and responses were exactly backward from what made sense

That too, and thanks for support, Sluuph!
But my ultimate problem with quests, so far, is as follows: you need a book, but the quest that yields such a book is either OOC for your char or contains another idiotic riddle which can be only solved by asking someone who happens to know the right answer. Putting it straight, either you have to switch to OOC, or cheat, or both. Or if you are too honest or too proud for that, say goodbye to whatever you needed that book for (cooking, crafting and such), be happy watching others who don't give heck about RP and have no such problems.

A quick example: my Neeli char needs a Sleep glyph. Right now it's very hard to buy one, and I only can get it from questing if I 1)godmod her into OOC for days, 2)do a long sequence of quests which is a ultimate bore because I already did it all before and am a tad disinterested, 3)I suppose one of the quests is still bugged like hell.

Another problem - and I still have no slightest idea why the Devs want it that way - is that to keep your char consistent, you need it to engage in certain activities, be it craft, or combat, or magic, or something else. But: you cannot mech-perform the operations without having certain items. But: you cannot get some of the items unless through questing. But: questlines don't care heck about your char and its alignments. And: even if all them 'buts' (pun intended) are somehow worked out, you still have no slightest idea which quest gives what, and info like that simply can not be gained IC'ly.

Frankly, to me, it still looks like the biggest flaw of Planeshift ever. It doesn't even look like beta issue, more like a severe mental disorder of the whole world. And it affects my game experience greatly.

Just because mounts are available in the winch does not mean that the character has to have one; unless it is achieved through RP terms.

Ven, absolutely. That's why my Sashia char has no mounts, nor do I plan to ever get her one. She's not about animals and empathy, and the only animal she'd like to have very much, is a goujah, to carry ore. But with your attitude - I started with a similar one - you will discover very soon that in Planeshift it just doesn't work. Either you switch in the storytelling mode, or you will have to forfeit your character's IC consistency in order to stay on par with others and engage in certain mech-related activities which at times are required to advance your IC story.

That DOX character you've seen 'racking' in the sewer was, probably, not that happy with it herself. But we need PP, don't we? And one gets none by healing, or growing plants, or raising rivnaks, or praying, or whatever is good for them scary DOX thingies 

Honest, I still can't understand why one cannot just get some items (like books and glyphs) from an NPC for a huge sum of tria. Just by patience and hard work. I know quests need more testing, but do the Devs really think PS quests are such a bore that no one would do them if not pressed hard into it? Makes me wonder.

[Sangwa]

Currently the only thing you can decide, as far as doing quests and training is concerned, is whether your character wants to have skill X, Y or both.

At least for now you can't expect that every quest you do is possible to be roleplayed, because let's face it: most aren't. Use quests to get acquainted with Yliakum and try to feel that's enough. If you're acquainted enough, just suck it some more. Or do like I do: get a character that doesn't rely on those things.

The developers are aware of these things for years now. Maybe they'll change it, maybe they won't. For now we should just make do.

[LigH]

The reason why I seem to be unable to understand many complaints must be that I prefer to play a game the way I enjoy it. And if it turns out to become "serious work", it is not a game anymore, not fun anymore.

Esanor is a mute dwarf. If I would play the OOC quests just as serious as all my IC roleplays, I would not be able to do any quests, because NPCs would not be able to understand sign language or charade. Therefore I split my activities: I try to be rather consistent in my IC behaviour in main -- but I still do quests to obtain rewards, and I don't play mute in the (mainly OOC) Guild chat either.

You all are hopefully able to tell apart your character from your person. Just do that once again between IC main chat on one hand, and OOC quests and buddy talk on the other.

Do not only preach tolerance and comprimises to others. Live it for yourself too.

[Sangwa]

Yup, that's what people should do.

You make it sound as if you are required to have game inconsistency in order to make it not serious though.
I think coherency only helps. But perfection is not a requirement, it's just a distinctive trait.

[LigH]

That was surely not my intention. But never forget: This game developed over so many years already; many things were useful when the game was much younger, but now that the game grows up, several details in it become less useful and appear as if they should have been made completely different from the beginning ... not remembering the beginning circumstances, though.

That's what makes many smart-asses appear annoying - who discover a long grown project late and "know everything better" how it should have been started instead. Of course, looking from the end, the beginning often looks wrong. But who could have seen the end from the beginning already and avoided mistakes before they were made, when so many details can only be discovered as mistakes after they have been tried, at least?

Murphy's laws about project management are recursive (trying to predict mistakes creates more mistakes).

[Draklar]

But who could have seen the end from the beginning already and avoided mistakes before they were made, when so many details can only be discovered as mistakes after they have been tried, at least?

Game Design team. Or in other words the guys who design game in pre-production stage and make sure it all goes according to the plan (which typically happens to be a huge document) during the production stage.

Also, Murphy's laws are good for folks who believe in "why bother trying to do something right if it'll go wrong anyway"

[verden]

Software isn't that simple. A system like PS is created from many smaller systems, all which have their own dependencies and caveats, particularities and failings. An overall plan of Game Design sounds nice, but it never works out like that.

There will be too many things changing between conception and implementation. Sometimes the programmers don't want to play nice with the designers or the executives. Or vice-versa. Sometimes the executives want to push their myths about how production is done, without ever really knowing anything about how that production is accomplished. Many times people design things without understanding the systems that they are including in their design.

Many times people simply assume that things work a certain way during the design of the production flow, only to have someone else later figure out that they were completely and totally wrong, and not only did they pay someone a lot of money for those assumptions, but that will now impact the budget for development on another area of the project.

I know it will probably horrify a lot of people to hear it, but PlaneShift as a project is very close in politics, management, and implementation to many live commercial projects that you would recognize. Things are just much slower over here, the rest of it is pretty damn similar.

[Draklar]

"These days we plan a lot more because it costs a lot more. So if I start out going, "oh we want a character that's a giant pterodactyl," then later I say, "no, let's make it a T-Rex." Then thousands of dollars have just gone out the window. You have to be careful when you change direction in this day and age. Doing more planning is the most significant difference in design methodology between being young, and now having a larger team and more experience."
-- Cliff Bleszinski

"Good writing skills. When not actually arguing and throwing feces at each other through our cage bars, a large portion of a game designer's job is design documentation or writing 5,000 e-mails. That means you need good technical writing skills and an ability to organize your thoughts. You need to be able to pass a document off to audio, QA, marketing, the programming staff, and an artist, and they should be able to find out whatever information they need just by looking at the document."
-- Chris Avellone

It seems all successfull game designers feel it is exceptionally important to be able to plan ahead and communicate with other developers. If the game designers fail at these tasks, the game is very likely to lose its investors or fail to attract players. Not everyone is able to create a document and make sure the development follows it as closely as possible. But that's what makes the difference. Some designers make their names, others don't.

[verden]

Do more planning if you like, but if the subsystems change due to discovered caveats, the entire planning document can go out the window in an instance. Things are simple when being treated hypothetically. They change in the real world, suddenly and often without any warning due to constraints on a project that often have nothing to do with design requirements. And projects flop and burn because of it.

[kaerli2]

"These days we plan a lot more because it costs a lot more. So if I start out going, "oh we want a character that's a giant pterodactyl," then later I say, "no, let's make it a T-Rex." Then thousands of dollars have just gone out the window. You have to be careful when you change direction in this day and age. Doing more planning is the most significant difference in design methodology between being young, and now having a larger team and more experience."
-- Cliff Bleszinski

"Good writing skills. When not actually arguing and throwing feces at each other through our cage bars, a large portion of a game designer's job is design documentation or writing 5,000 e-mails. That means you need good technical writing skills and an ability to organize your thoughts. You need to be able to pass a document off to audio, QA, marketing, the programming staff, and an artist, and they should be able to find out whatever information they need just by looking at the document."
-- Chris Avellone

It seems all successfull game designers feel it is exceptionally important to be able to plan ahead and communicate with other developers. If the game designers fail at these tasks, the game is very likely to lose its investors or fail to attract players. Not everyone is able to create a document and make sure the development follows it as closely as possible. But that's what makes the difference. Some designers make their names, others don't.

Go read the Agile Manifesto Draklar.  Waterfall development techniques, as your quotes refer to, have been rendered practically obsolete in this fast-changing day and age.  The main problem is that PS is still organized as if it were a waterfall-based system...which makes little sense for a project of this scope with an all-volunteer staff.

[bloodedIrishman]

Agile Manifesto

Hippie Hooey.

Regimented micromanagement for the win!