Remember when?

[Waterman]

novacadian hit the nail on the head. PS had a thriving community before the client was even released; it was thanks to their unique approach to the genre in a time when there really wasn't a unique approach, and the hope of something different. On top of which they seemed to value the input of the community.

Of course, the truth is that outside of its setting and open source approach, PS was never really unique as a game. Some people tried to get involved in the development, but from I hear that wasn't a very pleasant experience. Then more games with a similar approach appeared, that were better, and they eventually found a community elsewhere. And that's not my opinion, I've never really played any MMORPGs, including PS. It's just from what I've observed.

[Illysia]

Zalya: If only it were that simple. But one must admire the enthusiasm. I still vaguely remember having it.


I mostly agree with Nova. It really can be broken down to the disconnect between the advertised game, the expected game(from the player perspective), and the realized game (meaning the game as it is). However, I disagree on the using PS resources to make a new game... that is a pain in the rear. You might as well start from scratch if you are going to put that much effort into it. However, better documentation *cough*and documentation that can be better understood by people new to it all*cough* would probably help that avenue along. But that is an issue for another discussion.

Nice to know I wasn' the only one with that reaction to the smilies and that got a similar impressions.


Waterman: No, PS was in fact unique but it was more the (professed) ideology and the community that made it unique, not the game. Once more MMOs popped up, the parts of the game that were unique became generic, but the community has always been unique.

However, eventually, many people were willing to sacrifice the unique aspects for games that were more fun in their own right. I personally never RP outside of PS and I just go play games that have better mechanics and gameplay even though they have communities that I typically can't stand(if they are multiplayer). At least those games will run when I start them up. *shrug*

[Waterman]

No, PS was in fact unique but it was more the (professed) ideology and the community that made it unique, not the game.

That's...exactly what I said.

it was thanks to their unique approach to the genre in a time when there really wasn't a unique approach, and the hope of something different...PS was never really unique as a game

[Aiwendil]

Haha, still playing Illysia? Told you it's a bad idea. You will only get drawn into discussions like this again. The people that agree with you are mostly far too "tired" to do anything about it. And the people that disagree only get offended by someone with a different opinion. And the majority of current players probably don't even know that these forums exist.

As Nova said: It takes a lot time to even get to the point to understand what some people think is the reason why PS fails to keep long-term players at the moment. Also it took five years to go down from an average player count of 150 to 50 so even if this trend could be reversed I seriously doubt it would take much less time to go back to these numbers again. PS sacrificed it's unique approach in favor of a more mainstream approach in hope it will attract more people by it but lost the community driven gameplay to a "The-one-who-grinds-fastest-wins" gameplay in the process. Guess it just didn't turn out as expected.


@Nova: Ahm, I can only agree with Illysia and discourage people from building something on top of the PS codebase. It's a huge amount of code and still written with PS explicitly in mind in most parts.

So to stay on topic...remember when these forums were actually read by players?

[weltall]

welcome to the not-money-backed opensource world. I'll suggest to find decent documentation about the linux kernel, alsa, postgresql and a lot others. (it's a lost cause they are all bearing a really bad documentation and those are money backed...). sqlite3 instead has one of the best documentation and mysql a middle ground one even though the api is horrible. Even the official documentation of a language like python has a lot of dark areas in core components like strings and basic types like float and int.

and huge is wrong. it's a tiny part these days and it becomes less and less so. anyway patches are welcome and hardcoding is not welcome anymore.

[Illysia]

waterman, ok. I must have misread a bit.

Nah, Aiwendil. I finally gave up this time. I just lurk the forums again. To be honest, if I hadn't seen Zorbel's name in the thread, I would even have done more than look at the main forum page. What can I say, I'm a sucker for looking at the posts of people I mostly only heard about. 

Weltall: basically, the problem is people making a priority of documentation. Being able to bring new people up to speed as seamlessly as possible is important... however, I think that coders often forget that. *runs*


However, in keeping with the people trying to remember the topic...  remember when this forum had more threads about the community and interesting ideas. I used to only read the wishlist and the technical help forums. XD

[LigH]

Ah, now I know where Aiwendil learned to run away from own statements...

[weltall]

waterman, ok. I must have misread a bit.

Nah, Aiwendil. I finally gave up this time. I just lurk the forums again. To be honest, if I hadn't seen Zorbel's name in the thread, I would even have done more than look at the main forum page. What can I say, I'm a sucker for looking at the posts of people I mostly only heard about. 

Weltall: basically, the problem is people making a priority of documentation. Being able to bring new people up to speed as seamlessly as possible is important... however, I think that coders often forget that. *runs*


However, in keeping with the people trying to remember the topic...  remember when this forum had more threads about the community and interesting ideas. I used to only read the wishlist and the technical help forums. XD

Coders document the code other people do "user guides". And in an opensource scenario people don't like writing them at all. That's why in many opensource projects you see lines talking of being able to contribute even when not being able to code: by writing documentation or translating

[Zalya]

Nah, Aiwendil. I finally gave up this time.

I don't believe you. 

There is most definitely still a community around! Smaller, yes, but it doesn't mean its any less there. I try to log on every day for only roleplay. I try my best but no one can be online all the time (except maybe Elady ) There is still fun to be had! And just lurking on the forums won't help it get any bigger. I don't mean for anyone to log on for long, but just to pop your head in to say hi from time to time. At the very least you have me to find should rp be hard to find. That goes for all of the older players! There is life in Planeshift, and there is still potential! Don't give up on something that can still be great.

And these forums are still read by players sometimes they just get to negative for me to bare.

[Rigwyn]

There is life in Planeshift

     
 


 

[Illysia]

cument the code other people do "user guides". And in an opensource scenario people don't like writing them at all. That's why in many opensource projects you see lines talking of being able to contribute even when not being able to code: by writing documentation or translating

That's part of the problem right there. People who aren't coders are less likely to understand the code well enough to document it. I tried my hand at it and it is a pain since the coder usually doesn't want to go through explaining all of the code from the ground up.

There is most definitely still a community around! Smaller, yes, but it doesn't mean its any less there.
...
There is life in Planeshift, and there is still potential! Don't give up on something that can still be great.

And these forums are still read by players sometimes they just get to negative for me to bare.

Oh sure, there is still something there community wise. But your average MMO player doesn't have to patience to acclimate to it. Not exactly a bad thing for the quality of the PS player base but does nothing to flesh it out. Further, many older players either gave up hope long ago, lost the time, or they were tired out by being begged by me, long ago, to come back... *looks at Aiwe and several others*

I however have finally lost my steam as well. So I pass the cheerleading baton on you zalya and decide to go nicely this time.

[Rigwyn]

Out with the old,
in with the new,
Gooooooooooooooooooooooo PLANESHIFT!

[weltall]

cument the code other people do "user guides". And in an opensource scenario people don't like writing them at all. That's why in many opensource projects you see lines talking of being able to contribute even when not being able to code: by writing documentation or translating

That's part of the problem right there. People who aren't coders are less likely to understand the code well enough to document it. I tried my hand at it and it is a pain since the coder usually doesn't want to go through explaining all of the code from the ground up.

The code *is* documented. http://www.vaikene.net/planeshift/api/

[Illysia]

ok, I'll give you that one. I've never seen the site before but it must have been around since at least '07.

[Aiwendil]

Sorry weltall, I'm aware of the work that went into removing the hardcoding from the codebase the last two years. Not what I meant when I said the code is written with PS in mind. But no need to discuss this here...just posting to say that I didn't want to dismiss your work there.

Further, many older players either gave up hope long ago, lost the time, or they were tired out by being begged by me, long ago, to come back... *looks at Aiwe and several others*

Always the same old problem I have with women..I can't say no ;)
And you know exactly that it wasn't your "begging" (which I must have missed anyway otherwise I had posted logs of you "virtually" begging on your knees in IRC already some time ago ;)) which wore me out.