PlaneShift: General Introduction

I've spent over 100 hours playing PlaneShift, and now I'm ready to write a little something about it.

First of all, I like it - obviously. Spending 100 hours doing something one doesn't like is a fairly insane thing to do.

While the game is in alpha (or beta, depending on which spirits you channel), it is playable and fun and interesting. It's free to download. It's free to play. It can be annoying/frustrating at times because it is a work in progress - but the ingame advisors and game masters can help smooth over the rough spots if you actually find a rough spot. Having recently started being an advisor in game, I've gotten a feel for what a lot of people have problems with added to my own experiences.

What You Need To Know

It's a MMORPG. A massive multiplayer online roleplaying game - the stress, in PlaneShift, being placed on roleplaying. What does that mean? It means you're supposed to know your character and play it at all times - out of character (OOC) comments and conversations are supposed to be done in square brackets ([this is an example]).

Thus, after you download your PlaneShift client you should think about what your character will do and how it will interact with others. And to do that, you really need to get an idea of the world itself - a read of the setting, races, history, government and economy are worthwhile for this.

And when you name your character, don't do what I did or a GameMaster will help you change your name: 'PointKlick Rattle' is not something that works well in the setting. Try to be a little more medieval - my character got renamed to Zontick (whose name will appear as the author of future articles on PlaneShift here on Y2P).

When creating your character, you can choose the quick option or the more involved option. This all has to do with roleplay, mainly, so the quick option might be good if you just want to let your character 'find itself' in the expanse of the world of Yliakum. Either way, you get to the tutorial when you first log in.

Getting In Game

The first thing you'll log into is the Tutorial. And in the tutorial, you have to deal with Non Player Characters (NPCs) and gain some basic knowledge. Fortunately, they show up in the order you need them - though I did seem to miss the first one when I went through it (and had to go back...). Look out for the NPCs.

NPCs are a little rough around the edges still, but certain things consistently work. Telling them phrases such as 'Give me a quest' or 'can I help you' generally work, but sometimes you have to tell them that a previous NPC sent you ('Bob sent me'). They'll give you items, quests and more - when you go through the tutorial you'll get used to this and move forward. If you really get stuck, there's a 'help' tab on the chat window where advisors (volunteer players) and gamemasters (GMs) will be able to help you out of some things - but there are no spoilers to be had there.

A Few Tips and Tricks

The community is the key to most things in PlaneShift. Get comfortable talking to other players, stay in character, and by all means be creative. L33t sp34k is not trendy here. You can go to World of Warcraft if you want that... where you can pwn and be pwned...

Before you ask for help on ingame assistance on the help tab - ask someone near you.

This is the intro. More coming by Zontick.