PlaneShift: Questing The Winch

One of the more intriguing aspects of PlaneShift are quests. Quests can get one items, experience and trias (the local currency) - as well as opening up the opportunity for new quests. But it's still a beta, so dealing with the NPCs can be painful. They can be literal or not literal - and the inconsistency can drive one mad. Key phrases to say to NPCs to get quests are:

Can I help you?
Give me a quest


Once you get the quest, you will likely have to deal with other NPCs - a sometimes frustrating aspect of the game, though long time players do say that it has improved. Even so, you can be stuck with phrases that start with 'about' or 'xyz sent me', where 'xyz' is the person who sent you. Riddles abound - and those riddles are typically not found in a search engine. Thus, people have to actually think or get help. Unfortunately, I've seen the latter more than the former. Some people don't even seem to try. They immediately ask for the answer and typically ignore any hints you might drop. 'But what is the answer?', they ask. And someone with good intentions gives the spoiler away so that the person can run off to get the next quest solved for them. With non-English speakers, this can be understandable - particularly with riddles.

One of the better aspects of PlaneShift is that the developers frown heavily upon spoilers. Guilds, however, put their spoilers behind closed doors.

And then there's the method of transportation. Running. There's room for Nike to help sponsor this open source project - most of the time spent doing quests, it seems, is spent running from one point to another. I recall one particular quest that took me all the way out to the Bronze Doors - an area well out of the way for just about everything, so far (developers have hinted more will be added). So I go ask a dwarf something, and he wants a mug of red liquor to get it. And the red liquor is a 15-20 minute run back where you came from. So you spend, let's say, about half an hour in transit just to get another piece of a puzzle of a quest.

To me, that is sheer sadism. To others who enjoy logging into a virtual world and training for a virtual marathon, I can imagine the excitement.

To make things more interesting, there's a place called 'The Winch' which is a restricted area. And to advance one's character through 'mid level' in some skills and abilities, one needs to get into the Winch. And to get into the Winch, there are allegedly 3 ways - a good way, a bad way, and a commercial way. To get into the Winch without the assistance of Guild spoilers is, I found, an exercise in frustration with more running than a sane marathon runner would consider. I eventually got in by doing something I wouldn't normally do, but I got in by doing- literally - every quest available at least once. The trouble here is that by completing some quests one may actually ruin one's chances of getting in along one of the three or more paths.

But you do get to run. A lot.

At this point, I've gotten into the Winch - on my own. And I'm so tired of running around that I'm not doing quests, at least for a while. But there are quests available in the Winch, and eventually I'll get to them.

Tips for questing the Winch are:

(1) Being chaotic doesn't seem to help. Lawful, whatever the alignment, seems to be the way of the paths available.
(2) If you're really stuck, it seems joining a Guild is the way to access the spoilers.
(3) If you actually want to figure your own way through, expect to watch yourself run a lot.

What makes the questing system a little less than desirable are the twinks that run around acting out - they're pretty easy to spot, usually, and are typical of any MMORPG. But in PlaneShift they can be a constant reminder that actually working things out on your own is not a reward except to itself - you can have your character stunted through a lack of access to the Winch while watching people who do not solve things themselves advance and become a pain to other players.

In all, the Quest system of PlaneShift is a work in progress and criticism has to account for that. However, constructive criticism doesn't seem to have as much voice as it should - with negative criticism being blamed.

So what could be improved?

Well, for one, senseless running needs to be eliminated. There's too much of that. Making running a skill which can be trained (a la Asheron's Call) makes sense; the more you train it the faster you can run - but right now, everyone runs at the same plodding speed. The next thing is that there needs to be more flexibility in the quest system - through code or writing - that allows more options or more forgiving options to get into the Winch, if only to keep the honest players honest. Quest items you might need later for quests should not be able to be sold to NPCs.

And did I mention the senseless running?

Of course, PlaneShift is looking for some more people to help with things. They are recruiting. Some might find that worth looking into to help improve things in a MMORPG that is free to download and play.