Dev Meeting 2015-02-22
Talad says: welcome everyone
Aearthas says: thank you
Talad says: we can start the meeting
Talad says: today on stage we have Mordaan from the setting team
Aearthas says: was not there long
Talad says: Erendin from the engine team
Talad says: Tuathanach from the rules team
Talad says: Iridia from the Game Masters team
Talad says: myself as project leader, doing a bit of everything as needed
Talad says: we also have an invisible eonwind from the rules team
Talad says: he is here 🙂
Bodier says: ( feels like chop liver
Menille laughs
Talad says: crashed
Talad says: seems he cannot connect atm
Talad says: anyway this meeting is for you!
Yukibo says: Evening!
Aearthas says: hello Bodier
Talad says: to ask questions, give comments and such on the game
Bodier waves
Menille pats Bodier on the head
Talad says: if you have a question please walk to the stand in front of us
Talad says: if not, we will give you some updates
Aearthas says: hello
Talad says: hi Aearthas
Aearthas says: is there any chance of getting a few in game “costumes” or outfits
Mordaan says: Not without artists to create them.
Aearthas says: like hunters outfits and maybe some dresses for the ladies
Talad says: there are already quite a number
Talad says: you mean new ones?
Talad says: or ones you don’t own?
Aearthas says: non armor
Alysha says: They need 3d artists to make the assets for it.
Talad says: casual clothing?
Talad says: or else?
Aearthas says: ah ok well, just a thought would be nice to hit the town armorless
Talad says: if you have some ideas let us know
Aearthas says: yes caual clothing
Mordaan says: And in game models can take a looooong time to perfect.
Aearthas says: it helps alot with RP and none battle events
Talad says: leather armor is usually not that “armored” and can be used as alternative cloth
Talad says: also you can mix pieces of different armors to make a unique look
Aearthas says: yes it can, but jsut a thought to enhance things
Damola says “You can use a way´s robe as well”
Aearthas says: if ther are other pressing issues, than there are
Damola nods “Would be nice to have more variety indeed.”
Aearthas says: my way robe is not so appealing
Aearthas says: lol
Aearthas says: thank you for listening
Damola grins “The nolthrirs one is nicer.”
Talad says: one idea could be to colorize the existing ones
Talad says: to provide color variations at least
Gonger says: Greetings to all! In the forums there were some discussions about banned players. Someone argued that players can get into trouble when they are disconnected, because to the game system it still seems they are crafting / fighting / whatever all the time. At the same time, they cannot react to whispers, for example, just because they got disconnected.
Talad says: this is not too hard to do
Gonger says: Is it true that something along these lines can happen? I do hate cheaters, and it is important to do something against them, but I fell very uncomfortable about the possibility that players got banned without real reason.
Talad says: Iridia ?
Aearthas says: nice idea Talad
Aearthas says: could we dye armor too?
Iridia says: Most commands can not be executed on players that are in what we GM’s call ‘ghost’ state
Talad says: players stay in that state shortly
Mordaan says: One thought about different colored robes. One of the reasons it hasn’t already been done is ideally we’d like to have a single mesh in which the color is applied at render, as opposed to a different mesh for every color.
Talad says: so I think it’s unlikely to be confused with botting
Talad says: also GMs are collecting multiple events before banning
Talad says: the sequence we use is warn->kick->ban
Talad says: so you have to do it 3 times
Gonger says: Is the exact procedure for a ban somewhere on the website?
Gonger says: Ah, I see.
Iridia says: Yes
Iridia says: under game rules and policies on the forum
Gonger says: Gova, that was unclear. I asked that question, but the player has left the discussion. Talcon is the name.
Gonger says: Would it make a difference when his game freezes, say, for 10 minutes?
Talad says: also players can contact us on forums or chat if they think its a mistake
Yukibo says: Does that mean that Talcon was under suspicion 3 times before he got his ban?
Talad says: the server will disconnect you before
Bodier says: actuallly more in this instance
Eonwindd says: Talcon was contacted by the GM and already had a talk with them
Talad says: can’t stay 10 minutes
Iridia says: Multiple times
Yukibo nods in understanding
Gonger says: Ok, thank you for these detailed answers. It is very important that nobody gets banned by mistake or accident.
Eonwindd says: we agree, but it didn’t seem to be the case 🙂
Iridia says: We take these matters very serious
Gonger says: Aye, these ARE serious matters.
Talad says: hi Eonwindd
Gonger says: Will the skill system stay as it is, i.e. that you do not need to see a trainer? This makes cheating much easier, of course.
Talad says: seems you stabilized the PC
Eonwindd says: hi Talad, yes I did at last XD
Talad says: I will let Eonwindd answer first
Talad says: 🙂
Eonwindd says: Gonger, yes we decided it will stay, we feel it’s better
Eonwindd says: the gameplay seems less ‘clumsy’ and more natural
Talad says: I think cheating in PlaneShift is pointless
Eonwindd says: we think it’s an overall improvement
Talad says: as you may cheat to gain more skills or gold faster
Kiaerulf says: gold?
Talad says: but if you are caught, you lose all your progress
Talad says: gold = tria 🙂
Eonwindd says: yes, like Talad said, other than useless it’s also damaging your mates
Kiaerulf says: ehm … its been a while since that was the best source of income 😉
Talad says: as we can ban the char and you have to restart from scratch
Eonwindd says: as is somewhat “abusing” a free product
Talad says: still the GM team is checking regularly
Talad says: and cheaters will be found!
Talad says: I don’t feel we have many anyway
Talad says: just some random botters here and there
Talad says: which get caught
Eonwindd nods
Eonwindd says: I would also remind that if you have a problem you can contact the team using irc #planeshift-gmtalk
Eonwindd says: not need to be afraid 🙂
Talad says: Mordaan can you give some updates on what setting is working on?
Mordaan says: Sure
Gonger says: I have a question on the System tab: Could the information there be split up further, like for the logs, into something like combat, crafting, soul commands, so you can have more control what is shown in Main tab?
Gonger says: Ups, sorry, Mordaan…
Mordaan says: Ah, maybe an Eredin question.
Eonwindd says: soul commands? 🙂
Mordaan says: No problem. We can address that question first.
Eredin says: soul commands?
Iridia says: emotes I assume?
Mordaan says: or sole? 🙂
Bodier says: that last one might be a probleem?
Gonger says: Emotes, and commands, like /greet
Eredin says: uuuuhhhmmm….thinking…
Gonger says: I call these things soul commands from my old MUD times! 🙂
Mordaan says: ah
Eonwindd says: not sure it’s very easy XD
Gonger says: Well, it does work for logs…
Eonwindd says: lol
Eredin says: I don’t see why they couldn’t be split without too much difficulty – the challenging part would actually be in revising the config UI.
Bilbous says: the problem is /emotes are system messages not chat messages
Eredin says: true…
Eonwindd says: are you sure Eredin? we use to send quite some messages from scripting and it would be really challenging to adress all of them 🙂
Eonwindd says: *from the scripts
Eredin says: I’m not sure at all, actually.
Eonwindd nods for emote messages
Iridia says: I think even just separating combat msg would make a big difference
Bilbous says: they show up >in green on the system tab
Eredin says: Gonger, can you open a feature request and email me and I’ll investigate it and assign a difficulty to it.
Gonger says: I will do that, Eredin. Thank you.
Bilbous says: I am pretty sure I made a report at one time aboutthem
Talad says: I have a question for you
Talad says: you = audience
Alysha says: Shoot
Talad says: what you think it’s the most weak area of PlaneShift?
Gonger says: The lack of players.
Alysha says: The grind.
Mordaan says: Yeah, it’s popularity (or lack thereof).
Yukibo says: Maybe more devs who know what they are doing.
Sindengo says: From what I’ve seen the tutorial.
Arcorian says: I’d say both of those… we lose lots of players because it’s so hard to get good at anything from scratch. It’s always been that way but it’s gotten worse as time went on… significantly better recently though
Demagul says: Talad I’d have to say it’s publicity.
Alysha says: The low player count is only a symptom. When you can theoretically leave your character at a dummy, go make a sandwich, and come back levelled up, the gameplay is not engaging enough.
Iridia says: afk training is not permitted
Bodier says: that can be considered as botting
Arcorian says: There’s little point to the grinding anymore. PVP used to be a major draw but it’s so unbalanced now…
Eonwindd says: Yukibo you’re welcome to spend your time to improve the game you if you think you know what you’re doing 😛
Mordaan says: We have a PR dept. but have had no members in it for years.
Alysha says: What I’m saying is, that botting is only encouraged by how unengaging the gameplay is.
Yukibo laughs
Eonwindd says: we accept prospects
Talad says: do you feel the grind is more on crafting or combat?
Iridia says: that is why the GM’s are trying hard to have activities IG
Gonger says: I would like to help with PR once I finished my RL quest – “Get a new job”
Yukibo says: I i would not consider myself qualified.
Eredin says: I think yukibo was not criticisng, just saying we have more stuff to do than time for it.
Damola nods “Grinding has a lot of repetitive clicking that does not serve any purpose other than spending the time and probably chatting around a bit in between”
Alysha says: Combat. Crafting is at least a little interesting.
Bilbous says: I’d say the weakest part of PS is managing expectations. People come in expecting too much and lose interest
Talad says: is it combat because monsters are too dumb?
Yukibo nods to Eredin
Damola says: I heard about balancing issues since some time.
Dinilaud seconds Bilbous’ statement.
Alysha says: It’s because you just hit a button and then stand there. The tribe system and roaming mobs are a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough.
Damola says: In our guild some members are complaining about balancing issues since the last update, but I do not know the details.
Talad says: are bosses helping by adding more variety?
Enarel says: crafting would be less grindy if there were small opportunties to get special/rare items…same with harvesting/digging/fishing.
Kiaerulf says: Talad, back in the days we had many duelling contests which drow a lot of people online. This isn’t really possible anymore
Kiaerulf says: PvP duelling
Eonwindd says: why?
Iridia says: currently: the combat range issue
Kiaerulf says: lag, lag and lag
Iridia says: any other time, lag indeed
Iridia says: especially when players want to use magic too
Alysha says: Yes, Talad, the bosses are a good step. I know we strive to be unique from other games, but those games are more popular because the formula works. At the very least combat should involve hitting more than one button to win.
Kabitar says: A merchand NPC for looted and crafted items would be nice.
Demagul says: I think another weak point is the outdated information on the website. I remember when I first started playing I had studied all of that information, and then I realized that almost everything I learned about IG economics was outdated.
Eonwindd says: ok the combat range issue is being fixed, we’re sorry the problem was a variable thet in fact was a constant 🙂
Iridia says: 😀
Talad says: Demagul : economy is the only part which is outdated there.
Talad says: like cost of items
Eonwindd says: a value used for distance was in fact evaluating only the distance at the start of the combat session
Talad says: this is becuase it’s continuously getting balanced as new items or crafting come in
Arcorian says: Another issue is lack of guides/spoilers. They were omnipresent when I was new and relied upon by everyone. Now they’re extremely rare and mainly out of date. Without a sufficient playerbase to ask questions to, people quit not knowing what to do or where to go :/
Mordaan says: and we’ve had a lot of new crafting in the last few updates and more to come in the next.
Arcorian says: While the recent changes to spell researching help,there are far too many combinations of glyphs to go through
Eonwindd says: Demagul: true that part is a bit outdated, but we try to keep the online players guid as up to date as possible
Iridia says: Arcorian the team would not give spoilers at any time. Those websites where you may have found them are from (former) players
Talad says: ok, overall good feedback on the weak points.
Damola likes the increased GM activity for events, although the last she took part in didn´t went well for her
Talad says: the new combat moves will improve the fights
Arcorian says: Oh I know, I’m saying that they were relied upon though because the game almost required it, short of spending years of doing it all yourself :/
Alysha says: Perhaps scrolls with hints to glyph combinations could be rare drops from humanoid mobs?
Arcorian says: An idea like that is great, some in-game way to learn things like glyph combinations
Kiaerulf says: Another thing i believe is an issue these days is when new people join the game they experience a small player base that … uhm, missing the english expression, … knows each other very well. The community may seem somewhat closed around that playerbase. That may make it hard for new players to feel they are a part of the game.
Eredin says: After seeing all the fervor at the gugrontid market for ‘inscribing’ I was guessing character customization was one of the biggest issues. Comments?
Demagul nods in agreement with Eredin.
Bilbous says: inscriptions are good for role play but not much else.
Arcorian says: What exactly are these “inscriptions”? I missed that event
Iridia says: I think it does add a nice touch to rp
Damola nods “I think there should be more variety to adapt the looks of a char like size that a certain little cub already uses, but also clothes and such.”
Demagul says: Inscribing adds a more personal element to PS, where the players can add a touch of their own to items.
Iridia says: We simply rename items; in an engraver event
Iridia says: we do this from time to time
Eredin says: So size and weight, and clothing ?
Bilbous says: they areengraving upon items that personalise them
Alysha says: Character customization is nice and all, but I think making the gameplay engaging is more important, myself…
Arcorian says: Oh those, yeah that event is always very popular. Being able to create items named whatever you want is extremely powerful for RP.
Damola thinkgs the two hairdresser sisters could come to Hydlaa again
Bilbous says: so instead of generic platinum steel sword it becomes awesomesauce pig sticker
Iridia says: noted Damola
Eonwindd says: Talad, if you don’t mind I have a question to ask
Arcorian says: Honestly both should be considered important. RP is probably the core of PS, with the mechanics around it for things to do
Demagul says: What if there was an engraving event on a more regular basis, like every other week or something.
Damola wiggles with her pony tail “Then I could try something different” and smiles
Iridia says: as much as I would like to do so Demagul
Eredin says: Then the GMs would never get ANY sleep! 😉
Arane says: You know, there was something bothering me since the last event.
Iridia says: We simply dont have time for that
Iridia says: indeed Eredin
Eonwindd says: ehehe Eredin is right, our beloved GM need some rest 🙂
Alysha says: Yeah, you’d need more GMs across time zones to keep that fair anyway….
Eonwindd says: I have a question for you
Eonwindd says: you may have recently see we completed the Howling Well dungeon ‘remake’ project
Eonwindd says: we tried to make this area more interesting, challenging
Arane says: With a puzzle, I bet.
Eonwindd says: including fitting quest and all
Eonwindd says: what do you think about it
Eonwindd says: ?
Mordaan says: Ah, that’s my next quest for my main char. I may need some help on that one or so I hear. 🙂
Eonwindd says: did you like it? yes, no? why?
Alysha says: My characters aren’t strong enough for it. Someone who grinds more will have to field this one 😛
Yukibo was not there yet.
Bilbous says: is the temple passage one-way or did I just use the wrong exit. I cannot see that quest.
Mordaan says: I think the biggest problem was the baddie being too close to the entrance so you die as soon as you enter.
Iridia says: yeah… been there Mordaan
Arane says: Overpowered Stuff to make more exciting?
Bilbous says: I had no clue as to how to solve that puzzle
Demagul says: Only recently did I even learn that there was an inside, but I really like what I see inside of it.
Firke says: I liked it. It added more detail to the game and more things to do. Lots of stuff and secrets in that cave.
Eonwindd says: (bugs will be looked at)
Eonwindd says: because it’s the first of many projects
Eonwindd says: some already going on other to come
Alysha says: Is there a mechanic for boss characters to return to their spawn point while not in combat? Could help if someone kites them around.
Eonwindd says: Alysha I can take a look
Demagul says: On the forum I posted something about using an actual, craftable salve for the quest “Salves for Sore Hands” and it seems that idea could work. Is there any word on when this can be implimented?
Iridia says: the gm’s could do some extra checks to see nefas is where he is supposed to be
Yukibo waves goodbye.
Firke says: The boss is an easy kill if you know what to do.
Mordaan says: Demagul: yeah, we can look at it.
Kiaerulf says: Also CAPSLOCK, Firke?
Iridia says: nefas even takes out gm’s
Mordaan says: Maybe expanding that quest a bit. It was written pre-alchemy afterall.
Firke says: He is pretty easy too, if I am ready.
Eonwindd says: whoever calls CAPsomethig Xalpalock will get instantly killed when entering ITS lair 😛
Kiaerulf says: Then you have to teach me, ’cause I have no idea how. I barely make a dent in it
Demagul waves goodbye
Talad says: we are at the end of the meeting
Talad says: thanks for your participation
Talad says: and have fun in game