DEV Q&A

[Samoth]

Inspired by Harwen\'s serious post about news.

Planeshift forum magazine presents ...
Questions for the devs about Crystal Blue.

First off we would like to thank you for stopping by to answer a couple of questions about the new release.

Probably the first question on most gamer?s mind is how will combat work?  Will there be big enough challenges for the adventure seeking player who wants to fight the the big bad local wild life?

We already know from the many posts that there will be no player classes.  That being said, how will Crystal Blue stand out as a significant new role play release?

Acraig mentioned a new renderer engine in a recent post.  Will the average player notice the improvement to the graphic engine?  Will the hardware requirements differ greatly from Molecular Blue?

Tell us about the new player interface.  What new capabilities will it allow?  Many players are interested in creating a community.  Does the new interfaces lend it self to this type of play?



please post your own questions

[zabeal]

ummm... all of your questions have already been answered atleast once by the devs. If you don\'t belive me you could find one of their posts and click on the search button in the corner of it, you\'ll see a list of all their recent posts.

That said, they have said repeatedly that they can\'t give concrete definaitons about what will be in CB, as that they might have to live up to impossible deadlines.

[Ghost of Link]

Devs, can you just go ahead and tell us every part of the new game so we don\'t have ANY suprise when it\'s out? Maybe I won\'t have to waste my time downloading it then. Seems like that\'s what everyone wants to know. It\'s like know all your birthday presents, do you REALLY want to know?

[Samoth]

Actually, and it?s just my opinion mind you, it might not be a bad thing to have the answers to a few of the more interesting questions in one place.  So one would not need to search the whole forum an piece together answers for the most common questions.

As far as surprises are concerned, I?m sure I?ll be surprised by many different things in the new version.  What I was looking for is some information about stuff I do not want to be surprised about.  If there is no decent combat, I want to know now.  If my system can not support the new graphics engine, why not let me know ahead of time.

I was hoping to inspire answers from the development team that I think will help create more fans as well as more expectation and excitement from even the most informed planeshifter.

[Ghost of Link]

Originally posted by Samoth
Actually, and it?s just my opinion mind you, it might not be a bad thing to have the answers to a few of the more interesting questions in one place.

It inspires people not to search.

[Samoth]

Now we are a little off topic - but why should they search.  Does a forum need  be only an academic exercise?  The fact that the same questions keep coming up over and over again, is sometimes an indication that the answers have not been properly communicated.  

If there is a frequently asked questions about CB area from the devs please let me know and I will check it for answers to my questions.

The most common questions or comments should come up more often, by definition.  I think that is a natural characteristic of a public forum.  And those questions or comments are usually replied to with equal vigor, with the more repetitious questions being flamed or ignored.  But eventually the general intent of the forum will come through.

By the way Ghost, the idea of repeating questions that inspire people not to search has all ready been discussed, look it up ? hehehe.

[Ghost of Link]

Most of the people comming around here aren\'t even going to read stickies or old posts. Since you don\'t support searching, YOU take the job of answering all their questions each time they are asked.

[Xandria]

Originally posted by Samoth
The fact that the same questions keep coming up over and over again, is sometimes an indication that the answers have not been properly communicated.  

No, it\'s because people are too lazy to seek the answers themselves.  Look at how many threads are in the forums with subject titles like \"H0w d0 1 |<1ll 5t|_|ff!??!!?\"  If people would spend a minute or two to search for the answers instead of spamming the same question over and over, there would be a lot more satisfaction for everyone.

In addition, it\'s rather ignorant to simply post questions and hope that some dev will take the time to answer them in a post when they\'ve already been discussed to death.  If you really want to have a Q&A thread, the following would be a good, well-rounded basis for such a thread:

1) Think of some good/popular questions
2) Try to find the answers using the search method of the forums
3) Get the remaining questions answered by politley asking on #planeshift
4) Post the results in your thread

I think that\'s a reasonable enough task if you feel such a thread is important.

[Parts]

Heres a question; will it compile without buck-loads of legacy libraries?

[acraig]

Originally posted by Parts
Heres a question; will it compile without buck-loads of legacy libraries?

Well, that is part of the problem when trying to work with several moving targets.  Hopefully we can keep good track of what is needed and make sure our build documentation is up to date.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Samoth
We already know from the many posts that there will be no player classes.  That being said, how will Crystal Blue stand out as a significant new role play release?

Well we feel that people will be free to play their character as they fit and not be typed into particular roles ( classes ).  Players can develop more freely into well rounded people in the areas that interest them.

Acraig mentioned a new renderer engine in a recent post.  Will the average player notice the improvement to the graphic engine?  Will the hardware requirements differ greatly from Molecular Blue?

The new renderer is still in development by the Crystal Space team.  We will do everything we can to make sure it is suitable for our project.  

Tell us about the new player interface.  What new capabilities will it allow?  Many players are interested in creating a community.  Does the new interfaces lend it self to this type of play?

Well, the new interface basically wraps a nice gui around many of the common /commad commands.  So there will be windows for buddy/ignore lists, windows to customize your guild, new trade,exchange,inventory,glyph,stats/skills, quests windows.  The chat window is now broken into different \'channels\' where different types of text ( ie system info, tells ) are displayed.  A new \'info\' window is available as well that gives things like your current position, time of day, health/mana levels etc.

[Elegrand]

Is PvP going to be included? And if so, which kinds?

[Kiva]

Yes - Dueling, guild wars and battle arenas.

Look in the PvP forum for crying out loud.

[Samoth]

Thanks acraig.

And thanks Xandria.

1) Think of some good/popular questions
2) Try to find the answers using the search method of the forums
3) Get the remaining questions answered by politley asking on #planeshift
4) Post the results in your thread
 

I guess I was really just looking for a little help to do 1.  I\'d be glad to do the rest.


So if anyone is interested in helping me create a Q&A tread and is sick of seeing the same questions over and over again, please post them once more here and I\'ll see if I can gather accurate and timely answers.

If you think it\'s a total waste of time please let me know as well and I\'ll go back to lurking  )

[Kiva]

*Cough*

May I redirect you to a thread of the exact same kind, already full of questions?

http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=4594&boardid=1

I\'m sure more questions can easily be stuffed into that one.