The Fourth Pint

[Sektor]

How many of you know what the title means? Even most of the old players here probably don't know... It's the name of the Kada-El's Tavern before it was named after Kada-El. I may not have played the game due to its missing character models but I read the forums.

This brings up the question: what happened to a "few years" (or less) for this game's full release that many people were claiming since 2002/2003? What happened to the promises of "soon"? Take a look at these Kada-El's posts (threads for which have been deleted):

February 01, 2002

I agree with Dwinney, after the demo it will probably be at least  a couple of years until the final game.

March 11, 2002

Release of full game? - Give it a few years (a demo is out at the end of this month - just a little walk and talk to give us a taster, which, in time,  will be followed by other demos and tests)

May 13, 2003

Progress has been fantastic lately, but woah there Venge, Skizzik is right, there's a heck of a way to go.

People will hold you to that estimate Venge you mad man. Change it to 2 years or something, then if it's nearly there in 1 year people will think you work miracles

Note: "Venge" is referring to an ex-developer "Vengeance", who left the team.

Moreover, Kada-El liked "Runescape", which some people here often use as an example of a bad MMORPG:

September 20, 2003

For the record RS was pretty cool a few years ago, when it started with a lovely community, well I enjoyed it anyway...

Of course, Kada-El left in January of 2005, a few years later when the game was still stuck in a broken state.

I've also found old posts by the project leader, some developers and staff members saying things like "lol, we always have doomsayers here" and falsely advertising "soon", when the players warned that if the developers don't listen, the game will fail. Some of those people are gone too now. Who's lol'ing now? With the average server population being around 30 (including GMs and other staff members), this being 2011+, how can anyone still call this a game? How can anyone still claim that it's in "early stages"? 2002-2011 is way past that by now.

Were many people drinking Kool-Aid? You should have listened.

[Elkarway]

I never knew it was called the Fourth Pint.  That's pretty cool.

Kind of curious as to why you use Kada-el's posts.  I'm pretty sure she was never a developer.  I got here in 2003... or 04, I forget, and the "soon"tm joke was already around then.  I do agree that the development of the game has been inexcusably slow and at this point, I don't think many of us expect 1.0 to ever happen.  But we have fun with this demo of ours.

And the RuneScape thing was funny.  People always seem to have a strong opinion on it, I never really understood why.  I actually didn't know Kada ever liked it, interesting that she did, but I know many others who did as well.  It's just a game and the hate it has received throughout the years from the PS community is silly.

Most of the players are gone, and the game may die out in the next couple years, yes.  It's not got as strong a following as it had even a year ago.  But, I wouldn't fault all of the devs, they did what they could and they still do.

Interesting post, wonder if it'll survive

[Sarva]

The average number of players online seems to be higher than 30 if you look at the stats page at http://62.173.168.9/index.php?page=stats looking at the monthly players online chart shows some slow growth in player number online since Nov. Still a long way from the glory days but not dead yet.

[Nikodemus]

which server is that? RP or the other powerleveling one?

[Sarva]

Zeroping is the RP server. EZ the non-Rp server normally has around 10 or fewer players on it at any time.

[weltall]

s/10/15/

[Vakachehk]

Nicely put Sektor. I've told the devs myself it's failing, and yep got that same reply "Just another doomsayer" or "Just another troll".

However. I do think that the game is not dead (I say dead because seriously 30 players is nothing!) because of the developers, but because of the developers decisions on the minimum requirements for the game. Which like Sarva said the player count is slowly increasing obviously because people are eventually upgrading their computers and are able to run PlaneShift.

[Nikodemus]

it used to be 200 players at peaks 2 years ago or so.
Eighter its that most of theme (me included) had that bad computers or it is the design, too much about what people don't comprehend, maybe because introduction isnt proper. Wolfshare of introduction is usually done by player base. I'm unable to say what is its condition. 

[Sangwa]

One of the most important reasons we have so few members is because PS has started requesting a great computer for a weak game. The RP enforcement might have scared a few off as well, but that's just normal selection.

As far as "Soon" TM is concerned, this has been cried over before. In fact, it gets cried over in cycles as new players realize what "Soon" TM means.

[novacadian]

Its not surprising that a player's perspective may judge success of PS development from the size of the player base. That has to be a bit more biased to players that are here seeking more socializing than role playing. A good RP does not need hundreds of characters. OOC channels, however, are more lively with more players online.

After 8 months or so of loosing myself in immersive role playing; that addiction was brought under control enough to get the latest PS server code compiled and set up on my home machine. What that revealed was a Game Engine development that goes beyond PS, the game.

The first thing that stunned me was how little of the PS game world is hard coded into the server; and that which is hard coded is on the TODO list for being removed. Things like combat, spells and magic's code is housed in the MySQL database where it is retrieved during compilation. So if you wanted a different combat system or different spells you simply code for them and replace those records in the respective MySQL table(s).

This means that one could develop a completely different game world; say space travel; without forking a new version of the PS server but simply loading in those changes to the MySQL database; while using the latest release of the svn code from the PS repository.

Add to this the fact that the head developer of Crystal Space is now a board member of Atomic Blue, one may surmise that the developers of PS/Crystal Space have a much different meter of success that the average test player. A meter of success, which in my opinion, seems to be working very well. Perhaps instead of watching the ebb and flow of test players in PS, the game, it would be better marked by how many games are running under the PS server. The PS server is at the cusp of that success in my opinion.

- Nova

[Elkarway]

Regardless of how well the PS "engine" is doing, you can't use that to say that the game is going well when there are less than half as many players as there were 2 years ago, probably even less.

[Sarva]

The thing that keeps knocking back the player numbers is when a new release comes out. The 0.5.0 knocked down numbers a bunch due to the higher requirements to run the game. I started player a bit over two years ago and never remember seeing 200 online. Numbers were more in the 120 to 130 range when I started playing. Since I've been a GM, a bit over a year, the highest number of players I've seen on the RP server is 134. Then shortly after that we had a new update and the numbers got knocked back down again until the issues created by the new release got figures out and the numbers started to climb again.

[novacadian]

Regardless of how well the PS "engine" is doing, you can't use that to say that the game is going well when there are less than half as many players as there were 2 years ago, probably even less.

My point was that from the developers' perspective the PS project is moving ahead very well; regardless of how many test players are currently logged on. The standard of development seems to be bleeding edge; not how many players they can lure from low end browser based games. Those with negative feelings towards the PS project's success because of low player base numbers are gazing down the wrong end of the looking glass in my opinion.

- Nova

[Elkarway]

Regardless of how well the PS "engine" is doing, you can't use that to say that the game is going well when there are less than half as many players as there were 2 years ago, probably even less.

My point was that from the developers' perspective the PS project is moving ahead very well; regardless of how many test players are currently logged on. The standard of development seems to be bleeding edge; not how many players they can lure from low end browser based games. Those with negative feelings towards the PS project's success because of low player base numbers are gazing down the wrong end of the looking glass in my opinion.

- Nova

That's all good and wonderful.  The point is that developers told players that this was a game that was going to be release 5 or 6 years ago and so many decided to stick around and see it.  You're saying that the objective of the game has changed without the devs ever telling the players?  That seems a bit odd.  Granted, playing a free game and all, but if you make a promise you should at least tell those you promised that you've changed your mind.

We're not measuring the success of PlaneShift as a project.  But how well the developers (I suppose Talad because everybody else from then has left) have delivered on their promise.  And the answer to that, regardless of how you look at it, is poorly.  Very poorly.

[novacadian]

@Elkarway : It is not my intention to put words in the dev team's mouths. My opinions are observations only. The promise is to provide free gaming. On that they have delivered. The rest were estimates and nothing more. Again, that is only my opinion; so let us agree to disagree.

- Nova