Quickguide

Verify this checklist to play PlaneShift

• You need a Windows, Linux or Macintosh computer (laptop or desktop)
• You need at least 500Mb of free space on your Hard Disk
• You need a good video card. The minimum is around a GeForce2 MX or ATI Radeon 8500. Usually the video card is more important than the CPU
• You need 512Mb of RAM or more. (Reported to work with 256MB as well but Swap file up to 1GB is highly recommended)
• You will be connected to the internet while playing, so you need a permanent and stable connection, like ADSL (someone reported to play well also on a 56k modem).
• 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 330Mb in size), that you can get in the download page with direct download or with bittorrent.
• Check the forum before running the updater program, located in Windows under Start->Programs->PlaneShift->Psupdater .
• An account. This is totally free, but we require an email verification. Go to this page, click on Create New Account, insert your data and wait a verification email. The email will require you to click on a link an 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 choose on the registration page.
• We have just one server for now, so you have no other options. If you see numbers to the left of laanx.fragnetics.com name, means the server is up and running, if you read "Fail", means that the server is down or you cannot reach it due to firewall issues. To see if the server is up go 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 the "Quick" creation where most options are chosen for you, or the "Custom" option. For now select the Quick, and come back later with another char. You can have up to 4 characters. You can delete them at any time.

Enter the PlaneShift 3D world

When a character is created, you will enter the PlaneShift 3D world. We hope to provide many different possibilities to players, but at the moment the game is not so wide as we would like, so your options are limited. The next steps explain how to gain money, items and complete quests to gain experience and improve your character.

• Move with the arrow keys and explore the world, press 'm' to change the camera setting. Clicking on Option icon (to the top left) you can access the keyboard configuration, and check there all keys used in the game to control your character.
• If you have chosen the cat race you will start in their home city, called Ojaveda. Explore a bit the surrounding, and locate the tavern of Brado. Here you can speak with him to get some quests, or look downstairs to find a few rats you can kill.
• If you have chosen any other race you will start in Hydlaa the main city. Explore a bit the surrounding, and locate the blacksmith house, 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 characters 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. For this reason you can just afford to kill some rats to practice combat. This 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, that resides between Hydlaa and the Bronze Doors, quite close to Hydlaa.
• When you got at least one glyph you can open your spellbook and first of all you should drag your glyph on the purify icon. After some time the glyph will be purified and ready for usage. Then move the glyph to the slots at the bottom of the spell screen and save the spell. You can now launch the new spell.

Training

• As soon as you gain experience and some money, 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 how to better handle an axe, or Trasok in Ojaveda for sword.
• 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 try making some quests. These are given by characters like Harnquist and Trasok. A quest requires you to use your brain to solve it, involving riddles, puzzles, combat or magic. Doing quests you will advance in the trust of various persons 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 a computer controlled entity (called NPC for short, Non Player Character). So go to Harnquist or Trasok, right click on them and select the speak icon. Now type "Hi" in the chat window. The NPC will answer to you. To get a quest from him you can ask: "Can I help you?" or "Do you have a job for me?" or any similar phrases. PlaneShift uses a native language parsing system that allows you to speak to NPCs in plain English language. Try to keep your phrases short and precise.
• Simple quests usually requires you to bring some item to the requester or to discover some information.

Proceeding further in the game

• There are a number of options you have in addition to the ones described, like creating a guild, crafting items, participating to 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 confuse with the Planeshift-gamefolder!) which contains user-specific prefs and logfiles. The location of it depends on the Operating System you use. Here is a table with the known locations

Windows XP	%appdata%\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
  • logs: This folder contains your chatlogs. The format for the filename is 'YourCharactersFirstName_YourCharactersLastName.txt'.
  • 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.

Using the updater

Auto-Update

Just doubleclick the "PSUpdater"-application to start it. However, the Updater isn't complete yet. At the moment, if you start it, you won't get many hints that it is actually doing something. This is what happens and what you can do do to see if it worked properly:

• Windows: A dos-box should open and the updater should output status-messages about its behaviour there.
• Linux / Mac OS X: On these systems, the updater writes its output into a file. So, after running the updater, you can open a file named "updater.log" which resides in the Planeshift-gamefolder.

Check the integrity of 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	Click on the Start-Button in your taskbar, then choose "Run" In the upcoming dialog box, type in the following command: "C:\thePathToWherePlaneshiftIsInstalled\Planeshift\psupdater.exe" repair
Mac OS X	Go to the folder "/Applications/Utilities" and open the application named "Terminal" or "Terminal.app" cd into your planeshift-directory with this command (you can copy/paste it): cd /Applications/PlaneShift Attention: This path is only valid if you installed the game into the folder suggested by the installer ("Applications") Run this command (again, you can copy/paste it): ./psupdater.app/Contents/MacOS/psupdater_static --repair Attention: As with the last step, this path is only valid if you installed the game into the "Applications"-folder
Linux	start your commandline-utiliy (Console, Terminal, whatever you have) cd into your planeshift-directory with this command (you can copy/paste it): cd /opt/PlaneShift Attention: This path is only valid if you installed the game into the folder suggested by the installer ("opt") Run this command (again, you can copy/paste it): ./psupdater repair Attention: As with the last step, this path is only valid if you installed the game into the "opt"-folder