Quickguide
Revision as of 17:37, 18 October 2018 by Nightflyer0ne (talk | contribs)
This Quickguide is aimed at getting you into the game promptly and is useful for new players wanting a quick preview or for players returning to a newer game version after a hiatus. Please refer to the Player Guide for a more thorough introduction to the world of PlaneShift.
Verify this checklist to play PlaneShift
- You need a Windows, Linux or Macintosh computer (laptop or desktop).
- You need at least 1Gb of free space on your Hard Disk.
- You need a good video card, at least around a GeForce 4 or ATI Radeon 8500. Usually the video card is more important than the CPU.
- You need 2Gb of RAM or more (4Gb ideal).
- You will be connected to the internet while playing, so you need a permanent and stable connection, like ADSL.
- To download the game you need a good internet connection or it will take long time.
- You should disable firewalls or routers blocking port 7777. Usually it's not possible to play when behind a corporate firewall (from work for example!)
Installing and registration
You need 3 things to play PlaneShift:
- The base installation file (around 1Gb in size), that you can get in the Download page with direct download or with bittorrent.
- Update PlaneShift by using the built-in updater in PSlaunch, located in Windows under Start->Programs->PlaneShift->PSlaunch.exe Once you run the program it will automatically detect any necessary updates and you can chose to download and install them. On windows Vista/7/8 you may need to open the PSlaunch.exe program with 'Run as Administrator' by right clicking on the file.
- An account. This is totally free, but we require an email verification. Go to this page, insert your data and wait a verification email. The email will require you to click on a link and choose a password to activate the account.
First login and char creation
- When the game starts you have to enter your email as login, and the same password you chose on the registration page.
- If you see numbers to the right of server name, this means the server is up and running, if you read "Fail", it means that the server is down or you cannot reach it due to firewall issues, or that you need to run an update from within the PSlaunch program. To see if the server is up go the main web page of the server, HERE and check on the left columns the "Total Online" players connected; if this number is greater than 0 then the server is up.
- You will be requested to create a new character. You can go for "Quick" creation where most options are chosen for you, or the "Advanced" option. For now select the Quick, and come back later with another character. You can have up to 4 characters. You can delete them at any time.
Enter the PlaneShift 3D world
When your first character is uploaded, you will enter the PlaneShift 3D world, in the Welcome Area of Hydlaa, the main city. You are greatly encouraged to complete this tutorial in game, as it will introduce you to key aspects of the game and game world. We hope to provide many different possibilities to players, but at the moment the game is not as developed as we would like, so your options are limited, but always expanding. The next steps explain how to gain money, items and complete quests to gain experience and improve your character.
- You can move with the arrow keys and explore the world. Press 'm' to change the camera setting. Clicking on the Options icon (in the toolbar) you can access the keyboard configuration, and check there all keys used in the game to control your character.
- Every race will start in Hydlaa, the main city. After completing the tutorial, explore the surroundings of Hydlaa a bit, and locate the blacksmith by the plaza - his name is Harnquist. You can get some quests from him. You can also walk between the houses to find the entrance to the sewers where you will find some rats to kill.
Roleplay
- PlaneShift is a roleplaying game and players are encouraged to always roleplay their character while in game. Please read this brief introduction to roleplay.
- Roleplaying puts you into your character's shoes. You ARE the character, it is a medieval world, so try and pretend that you lived back then.
- Words such as 'lol', or 'rofl', take away from the roleplaying experience. Please spell out your words and use correct grammar.
Combat
- Your character is pretty young and inexperienced, with little or no knowledge on fighting and magic. Killing some rats to practice combat is probably the best way to start making some experience and money.
- Be careful about which rats you choose, right click on them and check their description, avoid the "robust" ones, attack the normal ones. You can attack them with bare hands.
- To attack just right click on the monster and click the sword icon. Look at the top right of the screen and you will see your and its life going down. Be sure not to die! If you are in trouble run away and return later.
Magic
- If you want to start with magic you need some glyphs. Glyphs are the base of creating and casting any spell. If you have some money you should visit Levrus in the Magic Shop just outside Hydlaa in the direction of the Bronze Doors.
- When you have at least one glyph you can open your spellbook and first of all you should drag your glyph to the purify icon. After some time the glyph will be purified and ready for use. Then move the glyph to the Assemble slots and research spells. Your found spells will be listed in the Spell Book window. You can cast by selecting the spell and clicking Cast or typing /cast [spell-name] or by moving the spell icon to your quickspell bar (/show quickspell) and clicking the icon.
Training
- As soon as you gain experience and some money (Tria), you can go to a trainer and advance a "rank" in a certain skill. For example you can visit Harnquist the blacksmith in Hydlaa to learn mining skill, or Percival the guard outside the Winch doors for swordskill. Remember that a trainer gives theoretical knowledge. To advance to the next rank and qualify for another theoretical lesson, you will need to practice that skill and earn the necessary experience and money.
- Just right click on the trainer and select the train icon. The skills window will open, you have to select one skill and click the train button.
Quests
- As you become more experienced in the game, you should attempt some quests. These are given by computer-controlled entities or Non-Player Characters — NPCs like Harnquist and Trasok. A quest might require you to run errands for NPCs, solve riddles or puzzles, or practise your skill in combat or magic to acquire items. Questing earns you the trust of various NPCs in the game, being able to gain more powerful items, access hidden places and gain fame.
- To get a quest you have to speak to an NPC: right-click on them and select the Talk/Lips icon. Available quest options will appear onscreen. To chose a quest option, click on the text or 'bubble'. The NPC will then answer you. PlaneShift also uses a native language parsing system that allows you to speak to NPCs in plain English if you want to try talking in the free text box. Remember to try to keep your phrases short and precise to give the NPC the best chance of answering you correctly.
Proceeding further in the game
- There are a number of options you have in addition to the ones described, like joining a guild, creating a guild, crafting items, participating in live events.
- You will discover those options step by step thanks to the community of players and other released material like the Player Guide.
- Check the toolbar to the top left and explore all menus and options.
Troubleshooting
- Before asking, please review the Help present in game, in the Toolbar to the top left of the screen. There you can find most commands and their detailed explanation
- If you have problems in game you can ask for help on our forums, or directly in game in the "Help" channel. In the chat window, select the last tab called "Help" and type your questions there, an advisor (expert player or GM) will answer you as soon as possible. Remember that they cannot give hints or cheats, like telling you how to complete a quest.
File locations and planeshift-settings
Here is the location for some important files and folders that can help you, either when you need to manually change a setting that is not accessible from the planeshift-gui or if you want to look at a chat you had some time before:
File locations
There is a special Planeshift-folder (not to be confused with the Planeshift-gamefolder!) which contains user-specific preferences and "chat log files". The location of it depends on the Operating System you use. Here is a table with the known locations:
| Windows XP | %appdata%\PlaneShift |
| Windows 7 | C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\PlaneShift |
| Mac OS X | ~/Library/Application Support/PlaneShift |
| the "~"-sign is the path to "/Users/UserName" | |
| Linux | ~/.PlaneShift |
| the "~"-sign is the path to "/home/UserName" |
User-specific-prefs
What follows is a list of some of the files and/or folders that might be of interest
- folders
- books: This folder contains books you have saved from planeshift. It is also used to store texts you have created outside of planeshift and want to load into a book
- descriptions: This folder contains different descriptions for your character which you can load with the /loaddesc command from in game.
- logs: This folder contains your chatlogs. The format for the filename is 'YourCharactersFirstName_YourCharactersLastName.txt'.
- musicalsheets: If you make and save pieces of music they will be saved in this folder.
- options: The files within there contain the options you can set from within planeshift itself.
- screenshots: The screenshots you take from within planeshift via the command "/screenshot" are saved in here.
- files
- options.cfg: This file contains some camera-settings
- planeshift.cfg: This file contains additional settings, like the email seen on the games' login-screen and options which can be set via the "pssetup"-application.
- questnotes_YourCharactersFirstName_YourCharactersLastName.xml: This file contains a list of all the quests you have taken in planeshift, together with all the notes you made on them.
Updating PlaneShift
Auto-Update
Just doubleclick the "PSlaunch"-application and if there is an update it should download and install the changes. If you encounter problems with the update you can try to 'repair' the install.
- Windows: A dos-box should open showing status-messages about the progress and behaviour of the update.
- Linux / Mac OS X: On these systems, the update output is written into a file. So, after updating, you can open a file named "updater.log" which is located in the Planeshift-gamefolder.
Check the integrity of (and repair) your Planeshift-installation
PSUpdater can also be started via a console/terminal/dosbox/whatever commandline-tool there is on your system, in conjunction with the "repair"-parameter. It checks your installation and, if any of the files are changed, asks you to replace them with the official version. Beware: This will also check and therefore overwrite files like "psclient.cfg" within the Planeshift-gamefolder. So any changes you made to them will be lost. This does not change any of the options you have set from within the options-window within the game itself.
The way to use PSUpdater from the commandline is slightly more complicated and will be explained below (again, OS-specific):
| Windows |
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| Mac OS X |
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| Linux |
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