Hi there!
And nice to see a (very) few familiar faces!
It's a good intention, and a few good points have already been made by other posters above.
The question of why people leave and whether we should try and get them back is a recurrent one. There have been squabbles, yes, but people also went to other games, moved on to other passions, saw the atmosphere change and decided it wasn't what they were looking for any more, and so on.
When I was first here, there was very little game mechanics (except collecting crystals, if that still rings a bell), and most of what we did was roleplaying. Then the whole game was revamped and looked completely different. It also went through a very unstable phase, which was the final push for many fans. I'm sure the next generations saw other changes and had their own reason to move on. What matters is that new generations keep coming and bring fresh air in the community.
Something I notice, whenever I happen to come back and peek at this website: it's almost abandoned. Most of the subforums haven't been touched in years. I know there's a Discord, but it can't replace a forum and will feel very different to old-timers. The forums, which were the primary point of contact, really give the impression the project has closed - that's what I first thought months ago when I went by and logged in, and it's only after looking deeper that I saw the activity had moved elsewhere. I'm not sure how many will take the time to look and register on a real-time chat platform like Discord.
The fact the login cookie expires after 1 hour only is also quite off-putting and unnecessary.
But who knows? If you throw a message in a bottle, chances are people who still have that email address will feel a pang of nostalgia and check in, just to see if other past friends do the same. I doubt they'll go as far as trying the game, though (I have no idea if it's stable and easy to set up).
FWIW, I corrected a few things in the "letter". Of course, some of it should be adapted to the timing if such an email were to be sent (for ex, it's not the beginning of a new year any more). I'm also a little confused about "
what started out as a migration project", because that's not at all what I remember PS being back then, in 2003 (granted, I'm not the oldest around). What migration?
I would definitely NOT try to get hold of people's email address, as it's against the law, at least in European countries. Just seeing that makes me want to quickly change and give a fake email. Please, just don't even think about it.
Cheers
----
Dear friend,
It has been a long time since you last ventured to Yliakum, and much has changed since. What started out as a migration project over the years finally became a new version with plenty of new content:
- Since April 2023, Planeshift is running on the Unreal Engine.
- New locations with new NPCs and new quests.
- A dungeon filled with traps and treasure.
- Crafting improvements.
- Everything simply looks a bit nicer - except that players still want the Legacy transport pterosaurs back - they simply looked more impressive!
- And so much more, check news for all details: https://www.planeshift.it/news
So what could be a better start of the new year than a new experience of PlaneShift?
Download it, meet old friends again, and make new ones - or enemies, for two things will never change: PlaneShift is Fully Free to Play, and RP-oriented.
See you soon!
The PlaneShift team
