The game development didn't start 20 years ago. The concept of a 2d MUD started in 1992, but that was a different project in the same world setting. The current project started in autumn 2000 with the first tests for a 3d MMORPG. The progression has been slow at the beginning, but it's becoming better and better. A mmorpg is not done in few years, and definitely not if the team is made by volunteers. We need more help, so join in, spread the word, and tell your developers friends to join. That way you will see a better PlaneShift faster!
About progress, this is just the progress in the last 8 months, so judge yourself:
0.5.6 release (2011.02.22):GUI:
* A huge amount of fixes and improvements to the windowing system (paws) and mouselook management
* Improvements to weather support and fixed the option to disable weather in pslaunch.
* Fixed some issues in the char selection/creation screens which could lead to bad graphics or crashes
* Several fixes/optimizations/improvements to shaders and lights management.
* First version (BETA!) of the HotBar/quickspell bar (you can open it by typing /show quickspell and remove it with /show quickspell off ) which allows you to drag and drop spells or items in the quickbar, then click on the icons to cast the spell or use the item
* fixed a display issue which could show skills to be completely practically trained even if it wasn't so.
* added a simple animation to pterosaur transportation load screens
Optimizations:
* major rewrite of several parts of the background loader, which now should be more stable and faster.
* several optimizations, leak fixes and crash fixes
Quests and Factions:
* Major rework of the quests! In the past the quests were most likely one off and with little purpose. We decided to radically change the concept by creating chained series of quests with a purpose and where possible a story. So we looked at the quests we have in game and started to tie them together.
* After char creation a friend's letter is now guiding you to the major NPCs, which will explain the associations and factions present in Hydlaa. Players can start to follow those trails and learn more about the associations/factions. This is the foundation of a complex social system based on jobs and affiliations that we continue to develop to create a more immersive roleplay experience.
* Many new quests were added, and many reworked, reaching a grand total of 320 quests!! In particular a whole new set of Magic quests is present, allowing access to bracers, robes and wands items in the different Ways of magic! (for graphics associated to those items, see the art section)
Art:
* New Amdeneir tavern! Thanks Nikodemus and zweitholou for building it!
* Added new female ynnwn wizard robe!
* Made available all bracers through Way quests
* Fixed many sounds for game areas, including gugrontid and the road to bronze doors
* several improvements to sound management (including a startup crash when the sound system failed to init)
* Improved sounds and graphical effects of many spells, including: crystal aura, invigoration, life infusion, relaxing sleep, flaming weapon, flame spire, and many more. Work is still under going to progressively improve/fix all of them.
* Improved hydlaa grass, sky and trees
For GMs/Devs:
* expanded the scripting system in several ways for example quests can now use scripts also to give specific items, factions and money depending on variables passed to them allowing faster balancement changes in them. Additionally in mathscripts it's now possible to output messages.
* Additional scripts used in crafting, which were before hardcoded in the sources, where now converted to math scripts. Making it easier for rules developers to change them.
* complete rewrite of the adminmanager allowing a more generic targeting system and sane interface to gm and developers, also awarding anything to players uses a single functionality shared also in the manager of the events. expanded also killnpc to allow loading of new npc and runscript to allow more scripts to be run through it.
* several expansions and expansions to npcclient to allow npc to do things not possible before like sitting, do emotes, teleport...
Others:
* pets will now follow automatically
* added support to define what type of chats should be logged, in which file and with what prepended brackets (check chat - logs)
* added support for a spell checker within the chat input using hunspell. It's disabled by default and it requires to be enabled by hand for now, and the dictionaries added in a dict folder inside your ps data folder. This feature is considered experimental and unstable (and could be not available on all platforms yet)
* removed forceful removal in operating systems different than windows of the code which allowed the hardware mouse to be used
0.5.5 release (2010-12-14): New features:
* Characters turn transparent while sneaking to simulate the fact they are hidden. We are testing this new option, and we plan to use it also for spells or other situations
* Added "pterosaur services" for travelling between cities. There is one beastmaster in each major town which rents pterosaurs for travel
* Made shields functional. They are now part of the combat calculation, and allow real blocking of hits
* Improved the way NPCs chase an opponent by using generated paths (navmeshes) for navigation. This is a major improvement to combat and allows them to walk around obstacles
* Weather has been known to be cause of crashes on certain hardware, mainly intel chips and to slow down gameplay. It's now possible to disable weather effects from pslaunch! Be sure to enable it and test if it works for you before giving up on it!
* Added improved snow effect. Snow now shows on ground! Start humming a Christmas song
* Added the new Klyros city Amdeneir! It's actually one quarter of the city, which is located to the "left" of hydlaa, for now reacheable only by pterosaur travel
* Added animations for attacking with bows on all characters
* Added a new progress bar for crafting
Fixes and updates:
* Changed item dropping and allowed arbitary rotations in all directions. This will allow better customization of guildhouses and events! To rotate, you have to hold the right mouse button and drag the mouse, or do the same by pressing shift
* Removed the gossip channel from the Main tab in the chat window. The Main tab is supposed to be In Character and the gossip channel was polluting too much the text. Be sure to clear your old settings, or the gossip will stay there
* Fixed rain
* The view window of an armor now shows its stats
* The view window of containers now shows the weight
* Ability to disable active magic window notification
* Removed need to specify a resource for dig/harvest/fish
* There is a new auto-refusal option for marriage proposals in options
* Failing to cast a spell may have a negative effect now
* Support for automatic execution of commands upon logging in
* Configurable tab completion. You can now speficy a set of additional words to be used in the autocompletion in the chat window
* Improved the way the server handles randomized and creative items (saving memory)
* Alliance channel may be added to main now as well
* Sort item categories by name in merchant/storage windows
* Added few new idle animations to stonebreaker female and ynnwn female
0.5.4 release (2010.06.12): Art
* An very nice expansion of Ojaveda has been added: Dsar Kore. Many thanks to Xoel for building this new area!! With this addition the enkidukai will finally have enough place to live and prosper. There also be new space for guildhouses.
* Completely new user interface for the character creation, much more readable and usable! A new login screen as well on the same theme.
* First implementation of wizard robes! For now it's only available to NPCs, see Levrus, but soon will be available to players as well.
* Introduction in game of bracers! They are not only new items, but they are also visible when you char wears them. We are adding now quests which will provide the bracers to you.
* The male and female enkidukai heads have been improved by adding more polygons.
* The hairs of all characters have been changed to avoid having a plastic look
* Water reflections! Added in few places as test, allows the water surfaces to reflect the environment. Still need some improvement to look more realistic.
Engine
* Ability to support maps with image backgrounds. To be used as maps of major cities, given to new players.
* New soundmanager, which allows us to have monsters emit sounds! Thanks to Agy for the hard work on this.
* Implementation of ranged weapons. They are fully functional now!
* Expansion of the tribes system! The NPCs are getting smarter, and are now aware of being part of a larger tribe. They can call for help if attacked, and they can expand. This feature is still under testing, but will be largely used in the future to make our world more interactive.
Music
* More sounds and more music added to the game
