Hello,

I stand by my original post and I appreciate all the compliments and support from MMORPG.com community thus far.

Most of what has been posted are quotes from other articles and sources, so final conclusions are left up to the readers. My personal character in this matter is completely irrelevant. However, I'm not at all surprised by unprofessional remarks from "planeshift leader". He is only insulting himself in the end.

Recently, the ex-PlaneShift developer's blog mentioned in my original post has mysteriously disappeared off the web, which may or may not be temporary. It's not a specific page that's missing but rather the whole domain and everything on it is suddenly compromised. In order to maintain the validity of the sources, the original post has been edited with additional web archive backup links that still hold the original articles and relevant content.

This is a web archive backup link to the aforementioned blog that describes legal issues with "planeshift leaders":

web archive backup link for -> http://rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/planeshift.html

After making the same original post on the official PlaneShift forum some time ago, it was almost immediately locked after a few spiteful remarks, which failed to refute any specific points in my post. That, in turn, prompted several people to question it in their own threads, which were being deleted almost as soon as they were created. This is a quote from one of the posts that hasn't been removed yet, as of July 2007:

from the official planeshift forum

I asked the question, ' Why does the Planeshift Team have a hard time keeping developers? ' and I must of struck a cord because my post was deleted instantly.

Furthermore, I asked the question, ' Why was a certain other persons post locked and not replied to in the interests of Freedom of Speech? ' and that post was also deleted. He was not offensive, he was not attacking anybody personally, he was merely supplying facts of the project. If they where all false, then there would have been nothing to be afraid of and it would of been easy to supply the truth. I can only suggest there was some truth in his allegations...

I think there's a clear message here folks.

The way this project is managed deters quite a lot of developers (hence reason why nobody has joined in so many years), is purely managed in gestapo style...

If you state anything to this effect or ask questions which get too close to seeing the real problems, you'll be silenced.

This project does not have a community mindset, is not open and doesn't really desire the support and contributions from the public. This project is far from being openly developed. In fact, I find how its managed and the way it treats its contributors to be quite immoral and unethical to say the least. It advertises a totally different message on its web site than what is relayed from the actual structure of the team. A disgrace to the open source community. Its lies lies and damned lies...

The unethical management of this project and failure for it to acquire developers is most likely going to stunt its growth. It will come back to bite in the end.

...

Since PlaneShift has been given its own space on MMORPG.com in 2004, not once has the "planeshift leader" been concerned about his project enough to post any updates or to answer any questions. All of a sudden, he registers in 2007, just after my initial post, to try and convince everyone that it isn't a threat to him, and to suddenly post "updates", all the while complaining that I "only" have 2 posts. Quality over quantity. Keep in mind that there have been two "don't play this game" threads here for a very significant amount of time prior to this.

Meanwhile, people on the official forum have been asking why the regular monthly questions about the game haven't been answered and are long overdue.

As far as "free traffic" from this site that "planeshift leader" desires so much, it's an acceptable "risk". Traffic isn't made up of mindless drones. MMORPGs are huge time-sinks, so people are much more careful nowadays about their choices and research.

Thanks.

Nothing that "planeshift leader" has posted so far is convincing enough to refute the facts provided by the OP. He can spin it and claim that he has a passion for the game or that he's doing "good" for the community, except none of it changes the facts posted by the OP, and sounds more like an advertisement than an explanation.

There is absolutely nothing to be envious about in this failure of a game. If one is going to be envious, there are a lot better and way more successful and popular projects that people actually get paid for. In fact, looking at the Crystal Space presentation, it's clear that the "project leader" is envious of other games like WoW, DAoC and EQ.

If you remove everything that the OP personally added to the post and just keep the quotes from the articles and the video, then you only have facts, which still put PlaneShift and its leaders into a very unattractive light. Let's not forget that "planeshift leader" first resorted to insults and unprofessional remarks, as well as claiming that everything that's been posted is "untrue" or "absurd".

Which parts are "untrue" or "absurd" exactly?

**********

That fact that PlaneShift was hoping to make money but ended up as a commercial failure? - verifiable

The fact that PC Gamer UK called it "not at all innovative"? - verifiable

The fact that an ex-PlaneShift developer's copyright was infringed upon and his rights not respected? - verifiable

The fact that "planeshift leader" did not respect third-party licenses until he was told to stop? - verifiable

The fact that PlaneShift account page, in fact, still does not allow users to delete their accounts? - verifiable

The fact that several developers, contributors and community figures have left the game, often in disgust? - verifiable

The fact that Luca Pancallo calls the game a "Beta" in the video, while many fanbois swear that it's "only a Pre-Alpha"? - verifiable

The fact that his project is closer to an amateur/hobbyist open-source rather than a true and professional open-source? - verifiable

**********

Let's see what the "project leader" himself states in his video presentation here:

crystalspace3d.org/downloads/conference_2006/movies/ps_big_xvid.avi

I'm going to use direct quotes and time indexes from the video, so everyone can confirm it on their own.

Video Time Index 2:07 in a media player and 11:08:29 on the screen clock

---

...but then the project had some issues because we were also a commercial project started with the idea to make money out of it, and some of the contracts that we were waiting for didn't arrive in the end, so we decided to stop the project and do other things.

---

 
This proves that the project wasn't started as some kind of a "hobby" or "out of goodness of one's heart", as they claim on the official forum for an overall PlaneShift intention. It was clearly trying to make money at first. Having failed commercially, the team has left feeling dejected. The "project leader" claims that it was because they were at "that age of their lives" but do you honestly believe that it would've been an issue, if they've gotten a contract and funding? Is it therefore not reasonable to conclude that lack of commercial support and funding have killed the game at that point? The OP was completely right about this.

Video Time Index 4:24 in a media player and 11:10:46 on the screen clock

it was created to meet the commercial standards...

Is this what they call "commercial standards" after over 7 years of development (over 15 to be technically correct)? The game is supposed to have 12 races, 8 levels of Yliakum, a huge cave with a city called Kadaikos, Death Realm, possibly the surface of the world and possibly original realms of all the races.

5 races still don't have their own character models at all (for years) and 3 races are missing models for an opposite gender (also for years). Many of the existing models are wooden and buggy, the animations suck, held items/weapons don't align etc. There are numerous texture and world geometry problems, collision detection problems, crashes, disproportionate dimensions of buildings in relation to characters.

NPCs are dumb as a stump, quests have horrific dialogs that have not been proof read for atrocious spelling. Magic system is half-broken, majority of weapons and armors are not implemented. The GUI is incredibly clunky (for years) and things in it still don't align properly. The calligraphy fonts are a mess, especially when they're used for a lot of small text. Many skills are not yet implemented and haven't been for years. And it goes on and on and on...

Video Time Index 4:39 in a media player and 11:11:02 on the screen clock

...be competitive on what we can, obviously, but be competitive with commercial games.

This is a direct opposite to what they constantly stress on the official forums. You will always get an "official" response that the game is not meant to compete with commercial games at all, as an excuse for everything. That they are not a commercial company and therefore their game cannot compete with commercial standards. That it's "just a hobby in spare time" and that they "sacrifice" their free time to work on it, and therefore no one should question the results, no matter how bad they are. Is this a result of massive miscommunication within the team or did the "project leader" lie to the audience at Crystal Space conference in an attempt to give himself more credibility?

Video Time Index 4:47 in a media player and 11:11:10 on the screen clock

...we want to be the "linux" of online games

There is no way you will ever be the "linux" of online games with such an unprofessional direction, lies and horrible treatment of developers and contributors. Not to mention a completely classless behavior on the forums.

Video Time Index 5:48 in a media player and 11:12:10 on the screen clock

...we have to compare ourselves with the new products, so we play new games and we try to get ideas from the different games, like Everquest, World of Warcraft or uh, Dark...

(he forgets the full name of "Dark Age of Camelot", and only utters "Dark..." while peering into a presentation page.)

The .PDF file that this presentation was based on can be found here:

www.crystalspace3d.org/downloads/conference_2006/planeshift_conf.pdf

And on page 7, it also states that "feature-wise", the game is modeled after WoW, DAoC and EQ. However, this is once again a direct opposite of what goes on the official forums where they constantly rip on how bad WoW and other commercial games are, and that PlaneShift is "nothing like them". If you ever bring up any positives from those games, they'll ask you to leave and play those games instead of admitting that they have a problem.

They also claim on the same page that "no commercial MMORPGs are satisfying to 'pen and paper' players yet". That commercial MMORPGs lack "realism, flexibility and immersion", and that monthly payments "pressure" people to "get their money's worth instead of enjoying the world".

Funny, I have never felt "pressured" to get my money's worth because those commercial MMORPGs that I play are so rich in content, completeness and imagination that I don't even think about money. It's just too exciting to see what happens next because the developers have bothered to actually implement interesting and professional content.

On page 16 of the .PDF, they also claim under "Results Achieved" that the game has "Duels" and "Wars". In an interview on mmosite.com, the "planeshift leader" claims that there will even be major wars between the "Death Realm" and the "Living Realm". However, on the official forum, he and others make completely different statements that "PlaneShift isn't about wars", that all races co-exist peacefully, that "this game won't have much PVP". Some nuts actually asked to remove PVP completely and to make PlaneShift a "utopia". But for all their complaining, they still won't remove PVP. Why? Because they know that even more people would dump this game, which means less inflated account number figures in the future. Pure hypocrisy.

Video Time Index 16:23 in a media player and 11:22:45 on the screen clock

...some people register just to see how the game looks, so they just download it and doesn't play much, so don't expect to see so many people online... at the moment we have from 100 to 150 people always online.

That's quite an understatement but also proves that the OP was right once again about the inflated account numbers and server population.

Video Time Index 16:41 in a media player and 11:23:03 on the screen clock

we are still in Beta but the game is playable...

What's this? A proof that "project leader", indeed, called the game a "Beta"? What do you know! The OP was right about that one too!

The best part happens at Video Time Index 1:05:24 in a media player and 12:12:29 on the screen, when Crystal Space conference staffer tells "planeshift leader" that he's taking too long and should wrap it up soon. That statement could also be applied to the whole game.

In regards to the proprietary license, the video also makes claims that it's for "protection" (mafia often uses the word "protection" to sound more convincing) and that they don't want other games using their art, and that they want to do "whatever they want" with PS art. Isn't the idea of open-source to be OPEN? This sounds too much like free-loading on others' work for your own personal benefits only but without paying a dime for it.

How about a little more evidence that the developers were not treated well, had numerous internal problems, power struggles, and often just left the team in the end? Here are some forum post links from regular community members and their quotes:

http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=26545.msg308102#msg308102

I can't say whom because it would be a breach of confidence so you'll have to either take my word or don't. I personally know 3 different developers who have left because of politics because I maintained contact with them for quite a while after they left. I was fairly good friends with 2 of them and one of them was someone who helped me with a ton of different things when I first arrived here. Some had personal problems with others in the dev team, others felt that their concerns were being ignored - I know they were trying to help, and I agreed with some of what they tried to do. Too bad some of them left.

I don't know about any others but I do remember all kinds of accusations of social engineering by Moogie to hurt some devs and vice versa personal problems, etc... Politics play a role, there is no doubt.

Let's just say, i've heard of enough cases of powerstruggle going on, with the team against itself.

People have left the team because of the ongoing powerstruggle in the Centralized controlled Planeshift team.

That and some bickering between the team and it's members.

We all agree on this point.

From my personal experience, this game has a large number of so called "RP gestapo", "PVP noobs" and some people who enjoy both are stuck in between. In other words, just like any other MMORPG out there. There is absolutely nothing unique in PlaneShift's "focus" on RP. One difference, however, is that their main forum is usually populated with "regulars" who constantly complain about people who enjoy some PVP competition. It gets to the point of ridiculous.

Another problem they have is they seem to be largely preoccupied with "punishment for dying". They want to discourage people from it as much as possible. They have something called a "Death Realm" where "people go when they die". It's nothing more than a stupid maze but with the passages you can fall from into a chasm and die again. That is considering how laggy the single server they have now in Singapore is. In the recent .019 release they have now added mobs along those narrow maze "bridges" and platforms that attack you, as you pass them. If you run, you can also easily get stuck inside geometry due to poor collision detection. Discourage people from trying new things, perhaps?

To top it all off, the "Death Realm" is meant to be a place where "evil aligned players" reside. Who the heck enjoys this kind of crap (as in "mazes")? To take a page from numerous puzzle/quest design articles that work for both, Adventure games and MMORPGs, you avoid mazes and jumping puzzles as much as possible because it's a cop-out, it's a poor excuse to prolong the in-game experience because you lack creativity for something actually enjoyable. Save the "jumping puzzles" for platformers.

After all, games are supposed to be fun, not feel like a job or a chore.

Let's talk about their single unstable server in Singapore a little more. It's specs aren't very good. In fact, they are now having to juggle between reducing the number of mobs and other content. And the existing mobs still continuously fall through the floor/ground. That is considering that they don't even have a single level compete yet (out of 8 planned levels). Who is going to pay for the additional servers or better server specs in the future? Do you think sponsors are just going to shower you with offers on the latest and greatest servers to support a potentially large content (if it's ever completed, which is unlikely)? These are the things you have not thought through at all.

I also fully agree with the comment that the "planeshift leader" is a pompous fool / a**. This may or may not mean anything but he uses the name "Talad", which is a male "god" in PlaneShift history. Out of three "gods" available, "Talad" is supposed to be a "good god" (as in "good" alignment), which many are supposed to "praise" in game. In fact, "Talad" isn't a very bright being that did not listen to the advice of "older gods" and "accidentally" disfigured a female "god" named "Laanx", who because of that disfigurement turned into a male "god". Utter lunacy! He clearly has some kind of an ego problem. Too bad "Vodul" (another PS "god") told him to go away at Crystal Space conference.

As for the number of posts ( 8 vs 2), notice that "planeshift leader" registered only AFTER the OP, and that most of his posts are spam on this forum that could only be called "post building". Can you seriously trust a person who would even use a post number argument against someone? Totally classless!

To conclude this post, I'd like to point out that had the commercial PlaneShift project not failed, there would never be a "free" PlaneShift. However, they are always trying to present it as if the project was born to be "free" and a "linux of MMORPGs", that it's "goodness of heart" that prompted such a decision, when, in fact, it's clear that it's only because the commercial version failed.

How fitting that they've changed the PlaneShift graphic at the top to a picture of the "Death Realm" because this game is essentially dead. However, everyone is free to make their own decisions, so if anyone wants to try the "game", by all means. Perhaps then more people will realize what it is all about and start speaking out. Nothing like experiencing it first-hand and then realizing what you've gotten yourself into.

<OP Edit: Fixed this forum's clunky formatting.>

[I deleted my previous answer..] This thread is made to discredit PlaneShift out of falsity, they don't deserve any answer. This thread contains false/misleading/offensive information. They have no respect for our work, no respect for open source and no respect for small projects.

/agreed zorvan twinchaos

Whole project should be open sourced art and all.

Originally posted by Talad

Maybe you downloaded the game like 2 years ago? We have combat, we have spells, we have quests, we have crafting now.

It's still just a demo, not a complete game, but saying it's a chat room means you didn't try it recently, and your review is not fair.

I have played Planeshift for a long time (about a year and a half), and have watched the game's lack of progress. Let me comment on Talad's remark.

Combat: Yes, Planeshift "has combat," but it is not well implemented. For those interested in PvP, combat has gotten significantly worse. In older versions, you could time your attacks, making it somewhat challenging to get good at combat. But months ago, this was changed so attacks are very difficult to time. Basically flip a coin and hope you hit first.

Combat is terribly boring because of lack of variety. You will see people use one of only two weapons, since the game lacks any sense of balance, and one dagger and one sword are vastly superior to any other weapon.

There are no bows, spears, slings or any other missile weapons in the game.

 In these duels, you will generally only see one spell used (Energy Arrow), again because of lack of balance. There are only around 15 spells in the game that can be cast, however most of them are broken, do nothing useful, or are vastly underpowered. I would say there are only 4 or 5 spells that have any use at all. Compare that to other free MMORPG games (Regnum, Rappelz, etc) which have hundreds of working, useful spells, making combat interesting and unpredictable.

Fighting monster is laughable. First of all, around 50% of the time, the "NPC server" is down, meaning that you cannot attack monsters. Recently the NPC server was down for 13 out of 14 days straight. Planeshift people talk about how important RP is... that's because with the monsters not working, there's not much else to do except stand around and talk (AKA "RP").

When the monsters are "awake," combat is dull. Monster AI is circa 1995, where they walk slowly toward you. None of them shoot at you.

Skills: What skills? There are no functioning skills that you might see in other games. No thieving, lockpicking, cooking, etc. Crafting swords and daggers is it.

Training: If you want to train weapons, you have to fight. If you want to train magic, you have to fight. Want to train mining? Gotta fight. Training your crafting skills? You have to fight. The only way to earn significant experience is... you guessed it... combat.

Stability: Since the most recent update (3.019) the server has been crashing about every 10 minutes.

Crafting: I have not personally crafted, because I have heard so many complaints about how boring it is, how frustrating it is, etc. Nobody has been  crafting in the last few weeks, since crashing every 10 minutes means you can never finish crafting a weapon worth more than junk.

Models are seriously lacking. In six of the classes, there is no female model, so they all have to use one model. Male models are in a similar situation. In the year and a half that I had been playing, I saw only one character model added.

Skins: Once your character is created, you cannot change his or her appearance except to put on armor. There are only two sets of armor so far (leather and chain). There are no capes or robes or other clothing.

Monsters: In the time I have been playing, no monster models have been added. They have however added a slightly-modified skin to a monster, and given it a new name, but it's still the same behavior, same size, etc. Also two monsters might have the same name, model, skin, give the same reward and experience, yet one is wimpy while the other is quite deadly.

Experience: The experience you earn while fighting monsters seems to make little sense. One trepor (an insect-like monster), for example, might give you 400 experience, while another identical trepor gives you 2000. You can imagine that this causes a lot of crowding around the ones that give good experience, while people ignore to onces with low reward.

Mounts: There aren't any.

Pets: You can acquire a "pet" from a quest, if you wish. This pet is basically a statue the does not do anything. It is supposed to be able to follow you, but 3/4 of the time, it doesn't work. It doesn't move, or fight, or do anything at all. To top it off, it vanishes about 5 minutes after you summon it, and you then cannot summon it again for 24 hours. They are completely pointless in Planeshift.

Bugs: Oh man, the list goes on. I reported a bug back in December, a bug where people could quite easily and quickly duplicate any items, including the most precious of weapons or expensive magical glyphs. I told the GM I showed it to that this must be fixed soon, or others will discover it and destroy the economy. Know what happened? Nothing! Over the next several weeks, I watched as 1/3 of all the players suddenly all became instant millionaires. This was not fixed until some people forced the issue, spreading billions in cash and thousands of duplicated priceless weapons around. Within 24 hours, the bug was finally fixed. The person who made them fix this bug was banned for a year.

Environment: As you walk around the land, you will find huge, empty areas. You can run for 30 minutes and not see a single monster, NPC or player. Most of the monsters in the game are packed densely in one building called the "arena." Oh, be careful as you walk around, as you are quite likely to get stuck on a surface and be unable to move. There is an "unstick" command that is supposed to get you unstuck, but half the time it doesn't work, and you must kill yourself to get out.

Watch where you walk, as there are many places where you will suddenly fall off the world and die. These holes have not been fixed in the months that they have existed.

It is my opinion that the Planeshift team is completely disorganized. I believe that their developers work only on what they consider fun and interesting at the moment. If a huge, glaring bug isn't fun to fix, it won't get fixed. If some useless new feature or quest sounds interesting to create, it will get added.

It amazes me that 15 years of development has produced this half-finished pre-alpha "tech demo." Maybe Duke Nukem Forever will finally lose its perpetual place at the top of the vaporware list.

I have recently moved on to other games that are actually fun to play. They are also free MMORPGs, I might add.

-Roahn

Hi, your review is pretty good, and I want to start another thread on it, just because I think it's a different topic from this one.

This is a new update to my original post.

The original link to the article of an ex-PlaneShift developer's blog is back up with a July 2007 update:

rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/planeshift.html

Update July 2007: Since I wrote this 3 long years ago the Planeshift project has continued to steam along. Shortly after these events the non-profit organization Atomic Blue was formed. Planeshift contributors are required to sign a copyright assignment document and no contribution from those who haven't signed the document is accepted. This makes it absolutely clear to all contributors that they do not maintain ownership of their work. For making this clear, this is a good practice. Talad, the still leader of the project, has compared Atomic Blue to the Free Software Foundation. I want to stress that, once again, Talad is not only wrong but deliberately trying to mislead. The stated goal of the Free Software Foundation is the promotion of Free Software and the associated ideals. The stated goal of Atomic Blue is to "make good games". Assigning your copyright to the FSF is a good way to protect the freedom of the users of that software. Assigning your copyright to Atomic Blue is not. Of course, if you have no interest in Free Software or the ideals it stands for, this isn't a problem.

It looks like "QuantumG" has become aware of the recent traffic increase to his PlaneShift article or perhaps someone has notified him by email. Either way, he makes his point clear and stands by his original statements, as well as adding a new one.

Hopefully this encourages more people to speak out and challenge the blatant lies that the "project leader" is deliberately spreading to the public to hide the game's unethical development.

I also stand by the statement that the "project leader" is bitter and envious of the commercial successes that other projects have experienced. He keeps stressing that his commercially failed project was "better" than any other similar project at the time. However, the results show the complete opposite.

If anyone has any doubts about this, feel free to do your own research.

Interesting update.

Deliberately trying to mislead people seems to be the main theme of the "project leader" in his public statements. Obviously, he has no respect for the Free Software Foundation and their ideas but tries to use their name in comparison in an attempt to give himself more credibility.

Assigning your copyright to "Atomic Blue" sounds like a trap for developers out there. It is clearly not the same deal as with the FSF.

makes sense why they won't fully open source the game. Still under false believe that it will one day become commercial. WIth out doing the right thing and moving the project to a full open source model I don't think this game will ever move into a profitable realm.

[I deleted my previous answer..] This thread is made to discredit PlaneShift out of falsity, they don't deserve any answer. This thread contains false/misleading/offensive information. They have no respect for our work, no respect for open source and no respect for small projects.

Originally posted by Talad

What are you saying? My comparison to FSF was to say that we are a non profit organization like they are. And that's completely true. Stop saying bad things on me without a clue of what you are saying. Go to whine is another place. Your continued insinuation and falsity is just silly and pointless. Developers have the same security about their work, because the code is GPLed.

 

Heres a question I have. If one wants to setup a full planeshift server "without the art of course", is that possible from the code you have "open sourced"

I will open a new thread on this point, because it's meaningful, and has nothing to do with this silly thread.

I deleted all my previous answers in this thread. While I originally tried to answer and to give explanations, I realized that this thread is made to discredit PlaneShift out of falsity, and they don't deserve any answer. This thread contains false/misleading/offensive information. They have no respect for our work, no respect for open source and no respect for small projects.

If you want real information, look at the informative material on our site and our forums, join the game, speak with our devs and fans.

The question that everyone should be asking is this - "Is this project/game open-source?"

The "Atomic Blue" website makes a deliberately misleading statement that it is. Go to www.atomicblue.org and click on the "Atomic Blue" menu link. This is what you'll see:

web archive backup link for www.atomicblue.org

Atomic.Blue is a Non Profit Corporation, built by a group of game development enthusiasts, to protect and promote the free and Open Source game, PlaneShift.

In reality, only the engine code is open-source, which is a license requirement of the free Crystal Space 3D engine that they've been using for PlaneShift development. The rest (art, music etc) falls under a proprietary PlaneShift license, which is NOT open-source. The proprietary PlaneShift license can be viewed here:

www.planeshift.it/license.html

Code is under GPL license, this means you can get all our source code, study it and reuse it as soon as you keep it open and give back to us your changes.

All artwork, musics, dialogues, stories, names, 3d models, etc... are under a proprietary license. This means you cannot reuse those in any way. If you plan to create another game based on our source code, remember you will have to redo all art,music,models,stories,etc...

You cannot host another server where PlaneShift Clients connects to, because our license on assets forbits it.

As for the "Bad English" claims that the apologists make for the "project leader", note that the statements he makes in the video presentation are confirmed by the .PDF file he uses for it (the link to it has been posted earlier in this thread), which he had plenty of time to prepare (same goes for his forum posts).

Also, note that "Atomic Blue" board of directors includes three people. They are "Andrew Craig", "Keith Fulton" and "Luca Pancallo". In other words, two native English speakers. This can be confirmed at www.atomicblue.org website by clicking on the "Members" menu link. Additionally, "commercial standards" translates to "commerciale standard" in Italian, so you'd have to try really hard to mess that one up. Last but not least, the "project leader" also chose to be the PR manager, which can be confirmed on this web site:

www.planeshift.it/team.html

Their "Public Relation Department" member requirements can be found here:

www.planeshift.it/recruitment.html

Will talk to press giving information about PlaneShift. Will create new opportunities for PlaneShift to be present on the major sites.
Will provide interviews with devs, on-line events, and others to increase the popularity of PlaneShift.

Skills:

    * Must be heavily present on-line in terms of hours/day.
    * Knowlegde of Net sites related to RPG, multiplayer, communities.
    * ICQ, IRC channels, Newsgroups.

Insert your application here.

Please insert this information:
- Previous experiences on public relations (press, magazines, ...).
- Previous experiences on RPGs. Which tabletop games you played. If you have been DM and for how much time. Which RPG computer games you played.
- Include info on 3 sites you know where we can promote PlaneShift. 3 sites where we can find new developers for any of the departments.

It's rather amusing that the "project leaders" are so interested in promoting PlaneShift on 3 major sites (apparently, this site is now one of them) but do not want you to participate on those sites' forums or believe anything that is posted there, as was stated by the "project leader" in his replies on this forum. Luckily, most people here have been able to call the "project leader" on his blatant PR spin and lack of professionalism.

If at any point the posted links stop working, you can always check their archives at waybackmachine.org. It is also a good reference for comparison, in case the content of those links ever changes.

Hey, are you joking or what? Planeshift looks like one of the most interesting free games out there.

Your comments are just stupid and show your ignorance of the gaming scene. Your discussion on licenses is emblematic, did you check crystal space license? it's LGPL, not GPL. And this means PlaneShift could have choosen any other license option.

I've read the "findings" and "accuses", but all look very weak, being a series of bad mouthing made by ex-developers which have personal reasons to post such things, but this has zero impacts on the players and on the game itself.

What are you trying to accomplish with this silly and useless thread? If you are trying to demonstrate your wit, you failed. If you tried to demonstrate the project is bad, I think none is interested in your rants, I just checked the game and looks nice.

About yours comments on the project leader, I think you just try put his words in a bad light, and the result is very pathetic. Your "burn the heretic" approach is pointless with the evidences you show. Comparing words and concepts taken our of context is very silly.

If you think this game is so bad, go and make one yourself, and be sure to keep me posted on the progresses, so then we will compare Planeshift with your products.

Stop making this forum a trash, and post meaningful reviews.

To Planeshift developers: Go on, you are doing a wonderful job!!!!!!

Wow, your dissing a free game? I dont understand? I didnt even know planeshift was still around. Your post was nothing more than a bunch of insults threaded neatly with good wording, but still it comes down to that simple point....you're going on about how crap this game is or whatever when its free? And the people that make it are making it for free with their own time, the same time that u spend in the toilet looking at womans lingerie magazines.

You are pathetic, seriously..so what about whatever the past of it is, its free now, you cant insult it and expect all these things to be perfect when no one is getting money for it. Jeez this is why the world is so f***ed, idiots like you swarming around. ITS A FREE GAME DUDE, A F***ING FREE GAME.

EDIT - oh yea, and we are talking about programming a game here as open source, not arts/music/texture files u idiot, what has that got to do with open source? Of course only the damn engine is open source i dont understand what you expected? What are you trying to get across here?????

Also the developers are exactly that, DEVELOPERS, they are not PR executives or somthing, damn are you stupid or what? Most companies hire pr people, but since this game is FREE, obviously the PR isnt going to be close to the ELITENESS of what you expect. Now go pour gasoline on yourself and light up a match dude.

Talad promotes uncivil behavior.

Here is some additional information about more misleading statements and blatant lies made by PlaneShift's "project leader" Luca "Talad" Pancallo on BlenderNation. He is apparently trying to solicit 3D art and animation help from the Blender community. This is an excerpt from his statement:

www.blendernation.com/2007/04/05/planeshift-project-recruiting-blender-artists/

[…]PlaneShift is a Free Open Source 3D MMORPG in Development, created by a talented and dedicated team, which has a high level of professionalism within its ranks. Our target goal is to be the biggest free MMORPG available, with a growing community of developers that can expand the virtual world into experimental directions where no commercial product can dare.

[...]A separate license for art ensures all graphical assets can be used only in PlaneShift.

And why exactly would the artists, who aren't going to be paid for this work and may be looking for true open-source projects to contribute to, want to "ensure" such a restriction in the first place? This is a blatant PR spin in an attempt to make this sound good, as if it is for your own benefit, when clearly it is not.

He also clearly calls the whole project as "open source" just like on Atomic Blue website, when clearly it is not. It is mostly a proprietary license with only the engine code being open. The open-source engine code does not make the whole game "open-source". The engine code is open-source because they are using a free Crystal Space 3D engine, which has a license requirement for its code to be kept open, so Atomic Blue and PlaneShift development team doesn't have a choice in the matter.

Many comments below the announcement show that Blender artists aren't fools and see Luca's statement exactly for what it is - a blatant PR lie. Here are some examples:

Any other work (such as 2D graphics, 3D models, music and sounds, character descriptions or fantasy world histories) will be the property of Atomic Blue once you submit it, but you will continue to have the right to display the work as part of a personal portfolio. You are not allowed to display or use the work in another game or application and you are not allowed to use derivative works owned by Atomic Blue.

When will people learn that we need a free database of objects, under free licenses, such as the GPL such that game projects can pick and choose from a variety and still contribute back.

Does each game need to create every **** object, even a phonebooth 20 times over?.

Free software games would start popping up if we had a good library to select from and contribute to, now that we got a free game engine, such as Crystal Space.

"…but you will continue to have the right to display the work as part of a personal portfolio…"

Oh, many thanks, guys, I was afraid my contribute could be erased from my mind, like in Pay Check!

I think that such a restrictive licence is the main reason for planeshift still being at an early developement state. When wanting others to work on a common project, you're looking for contributors, when wanting others to work on something that will be yours and yours only, then you're looking for slaves!

No matter what are the reasons, that's what one perceives by reading their conditions… Artists are not encouraged to partecipate.

Esben makes a good point in that freely available 3D resources shorten the amount of volunteers needed to reach each milestone and they help all of us as a community. Granted it may not look exactly the way you want the phone booth to be but it's easier to change 5% of a model then start from scratch. Plus reuse can test ideas before spending lots of time refining models, textures, animation, etc.

By the way Planetshift managers do not return emails.

I have to agree with everyone, I'd jump on board if it wasn't for that darn license. :/

Only reason I would contribute to a free project like this is so everyone can have access and freedom to use what I produced, but with this I would have to worry about using it myself.

I was about to complain about the license for all the art, but it seems like everyone else did that already. No way I'm going to just give away all the rights for my work. But if there was some kind of Open Source license for the art too…

Overwhelming majority...

It looks like the "project leader" eventually responded there with more disgusting PR spam, capitalizing the the word "FREE" and not even mentioning the words "OPEN SOURCE". Luckily, no one has bought that lie. Not everything "free" equals good. As has been stated before - you wouldn't eat a rotten sandwich, if it was free, would you? Didn't think so. Additionally, Luca never bothered to respond to someone's repeated questions on needing more feedback about rigging and animating models in PlaneShift.

Would anyone like to count how many people from Blender community spoke against PlaneShift's license just on that site alone? According to the "project leader" and his fanbois, they must all be "just trying to hurt the project" or "dissing" it.

I've only provided verifiable information. Draw your own conclusions.

3hundred, just three comments:

1) You never met me, you never spoke to me, you never participated to PS development, you have no clue apart from what you read from the web.

2) If PlaneShift was my real life job, I would have already filed a lawsuit against you and all the insults and falsities you are saying.

3) When you will produce something free for the others to use, please let me know. Until that time, any argument on your side is just pathetic. We are producing a nice free game, you are just producing negative moods. We are giving our time for others to enjoy, you are just fighting windmills and trying to spit on our work.

Do as you prefer, but your actions are disgusting and pointless, I hope you will find something better in your life than going against a free service.

Talad promotes uncivil behavior.