I'm glad to see I'm not banned from the forum. Some were asking about me over a year ago--why I disappeared from the Discord server. Well, I didn't drop out intentionally. I logged into my PS Discord account one day, saw I had some worried direct messages, noticed I wasn't in the server, thought maybe I left by accident so tried to rejoin, but, alas, I had been banned. I was shown what transpired around the time I might have been banned, but I wasn't notified of any transgression, nor was anyone else. Looking back, I probably should've notified someone.
I recall the Dryken Plane being a controversial topic in the server. Players disliked it as a "tutorial" or "introduction" to the game. I watched other players go through it, not myself, but I thought it could've served better as a mini-game separate from the tutorial. There were also lore issues with its existence. Gonger has amply conveyed what the general consensus came to be.
The sequence of
char creation -> history of races -> Dryken Plane -> Stone Labyrinths -> outpost -> main city
is not something I'm very willing to change, as it's exactly how I want it to be.
But this is the result:
The Dryken Plane remains a critical element of PlaneShift, especially for newbies who often complain about it, saying it is like something more from a jump 'n' run game than from a RPG, and too hard in general. There have also been some established players who on the Discord channel said things like, "If that had been my first impression of PlaneShift [after character creation], I would have quit right away."
Remember that nobody gets a second chance for a good first impression.
The character should feel he is coming from another planet and travelling, then finding himself in the labyrinths and trying to find an exit, and then the outpost to understand the city is sealed to outsiders. All this should bring a very intriguing start.
If the above is Talad's reasoning for the Dryken Plane being non-negotiable, we should ask, why is this an integral part of PlaneShift? It's a timed jumping puzzle? If the consequences of including it are so severe, what are you going for? Could the "intriguing start" be brought about with something other than a timed jumping puzzle? Something more geared toward roleplayers?
I'm not buying into "all other games start with a tutorial", or "the start should be easy". It's nice to make something different.
Unfortunately, it is undeniably not beneficial to the game where it currently is as an introduction to the game. Gonger probably has the most interaction with noobs of anyone, so I trust him when he says this:
I like the Dryken Plane, but as a first impression of PlaneShift, it is a disaster.
If we think of the Dryken Plane as a dream or vision, I think Gonger's concept here would work fantastically:
Why not make it more like a feature, starting with a more simple version of the Dryken Plane? Then in later parts of the PlaneShift story there could be other instances of increasing difficulty.
Some things Damola said in response were:
About the "not all players are not coming from the portals" or "this is timewise incorrect", I can say that while you can roleplay a character born in Yliakum, I expect the majority of the characters to be coming from portals, exactly as the story explains, the Dryken Entity (the guy with 3 eyes) says explicitely the time and space are warped in the Dryken Plane, and so you may end up in a different time in Yliakum, compared to when you travelled from your home planet. This is exactly to explain RP-wise how a "new character" exists in-game, something that no other game can do. Maybe this part can be explained more within the plane.
[...]
I may certainly have missed it... but I have never ever heard of a Dryken Plane before you introduced it in PSUnreal. It is not explained in settings https://www.planeshift.it/Settings for example. It may have been in a book in the library or some other places where you can find in game books, but I read quite a bit in those and I never came across a Dryken Plane. For me, Talad, the Dryken Plane feels like something that has been bolted into lore after the fact. Of course, if Planeshift always had a Dryken Plane and I just missed it, then so be it.
I am very aware of the dying worlds thing, a portal, a labyrinth... from what I gathered the Dryken Plane is supposed to be the portal. However I never read about a time warp thing anywhere in the lore. I read that large groups of people from each race traveled the portal together. Some even settled in the labyrinths temporarily. Someone going through the portal and then especially through the labyrinths alone does not even make the slightest sense to me ICly. How often did we play out or assume or read in lore that the labyrinths are full of wild beasts or crazy criminals and huge and difficult to find a way out and what not. But a char wanders through the labyrinth alone... without having to put up with any kind of fight. The char does not even have any food with them or more important something to drink at least as far as I can recall. Basically the char is completely unprepared for anything and traveling alone through dangerous labyrinth. Totally does not make sense to me. The part of the labyrinth the char sees after Dryken Plane is basically empty. No beast no nothing.
I see she had more thoughts on this, but I'm stuck on the concept of the Dryken Plane being part of the transportation to Yliakum from other worlds, which implies it is a portal or connects portals. If the portals on other planets or planes are still open, timewarp isn't necessary. (It could be fun, so I'm not saying it should be binned.)
Damola's correct in her assessment of the danger, according to settings, of the labyrinths. That is also making me question a lot. The concept of a new player "awakening" inside the labyrinths is cool, though I imagine it as being suddenly thrust into a dark, labyrinthine cave system which one must fight his or her way out of. That would be exciting and could serve as a tutorial. It could easily be matched with combat tutorials for players who choose to spawn already living in Yliakum.
This is exactly to explain RP-wise how a "new character" exists in-game, something that no other game can do.
Being born in Yliakum or not, you
will need to have a background for your character no matter his, her, or kras origin. My PS characters have backgrounds--even the meme ones--and the old character creation was incredibly fun back in the day. It's fine for a single player game, but for an aspiring MMO? Very cool. Roleplay was one of the things that set this game apart from others.
Besides, people seem to pop out of the aether in real life. It's very easy to explain why your character wasn't seen around before. Lived elsewhere, lived under a rock, used an alias, was a child, etc.
Additionally, according to the settings, there were already large migrations from other planets/planes. To say that the majority of players would have characters from outside Yliakum wouldn't statistically work because players are operating on real time, whereas the past migrations could be any number of individuals, presumably enough to gain a foothold in Yliakum and be equals to native inhabitants of Yliakum's planet. They've had hundreds of years to procreate, build cities, and wage wars.
Basically, my thinking was that spawning in the Labyrinths was hard mode.
And, back to the Dryken Plane... This may sound silly, but it could be like a dream sequence when you sleep in a bed. It could be a magician's test. There are so many options for it. If it's absolutely necessary to go through it as your first PlaneShift experience, I think Gonger's right that it should be shorter since it's not roleplay-oriented.
4) Allowing new players to be born in Yliakum by adding a new option in character creation (like born in Yliakum or the home planet) may not be an easy choice for the new player and confusing. What does that choice imply? They will not be able to judge when just starting the game, unless that results in "skip tutorial" kind of choice, but I find it bad that if they decide to "skip" they lose quite some content.
A quick paragraph for each:
"You were born in Yliakum, the only world you know firsthand. You have heard legends of the dangers outside the Octarchy's protection, especially those of the Labyrinths. These legends include heroic tales of soldiers guarding the Bronze Doors, your ancestors who may have arrived through the Labyrinths, and scary stories you heard in childhood to keep you from wandering too far."
"You were born in [not Yliakum], but fled with others of your kind. Your world was nice until it wasn't. To reach Yliakum, you must survive the trials and dangers of the Labyrinths."
So, it's a statement of where you were born, followed by your perspective of the Labyrinths.
I probably missed something I'll think of later. Oh well.
